"Wonderful ship. It's a shame I never got to travel in it until now." Tyrik grins, examining it.
"It is isn't it?" I reply, astounded that I've been given command over a ship as amazing as this. It's one of the biggest in the fleet, with four floors. The bottom floor is the engineering deck, the next one up is the crew quarters where the bedrooms, the sick bay, and the kitchens are, the next one up contains the piloting cabin and the war room, and the top floor is the luxury bedrooms reserved for the Captains of the ship.
Except, I haven't been formally given the title of Captain of the ship yet, despite being in charge of this mission, so I'm stuck in the crews quarters.
"I've got it!"
We both turn to see Loyus rapidly pacing towards us, with an electronic tablet in her hands.
"Look at this." She says, beginning to scroll through it, "Darth Whatever-his-name-is's lair supposedly uses an IFF, er- that stands for Identify Friend Foe."
"And what does that mean?"
"It means that before any ship can even get close to his lair – this is supposing we even find it – he identifies whether it's a friend or a foe by a special chip inserted into the ships systems." She is obviously pleased with herself, and I'm not surprised, she may have just found the way we're going to take down Darth Asinis.
"So how do we get one?" I ask, curious as to what ingenious plan she's got for us now.
"Well, one of the Rattataki ships passed a ship from his fleet. It's completely suspended in space. Abandoned. Derelict. If we get on board we can search around, confirm what I already think I know and hopefully find one of those chips.
"You go inform Tarth of the change in direction. I'll get the rest of the crew." I say, and she nods, rushing off towards the piloting cabin.
"We're doing what now?" Adriav hisses, folding her arms.
"We're docking on a derelict ship that belonged to Darth Asinis's fleet, and we're going to find the chip that will allow us to pass through the IFF surrounding his lair; if we ever find it that is." I reply sternly.
"Are you sure that's the best idea? What if they return for their ship?" Bardo points out, and both Adriav and Marduk nod. This time, Tyrik gives him an answer.
"We'll be speedy. And if they do come back, we'll give them a fight. We've got a member of the Jedi High council, two extremely strong Jedi, two incredible markswomen and a former Zabrak nightbrother. I think we'll be able to give them a fight, whoever they are. Not to mention how many guns this ship has..."
"Okay, we get it." Adriav snarls, storming out of the room.
"This is so unnerving." I whisper, looking around the derelict ship, "It's as if they just left everything just like that, exactly the way it was."
"I'm guessing that's exactly what they did. The question is why." Loyus adds, cautiously stepping forward.
"Plan of action?" Marduk asks, tightening his grip on his nightbrother weapon.
"Loyus and Marduk, you go with Bardo and search that section of the ship," I say, pointing to a passageway that opens out to our left, "Adriav and Tyrik come with me, we'll go straight forward."
"The scans I ran of the ship say the chip should be located in a central computer. You shouldn't miss it, hopefully." Tarth says through the earpiece.
"Thanks Tarth, let us know if anybody starts to approach the ship."
"Will do."
I initiate my lightsaber, and Bardo does the same. Adriav checks her dual blaster pistols are both in working order and Loyus pulls her blaster pistol from underneath her long, white cloak. Marduk once again tightens his grip on his spade-shaped nightbrother weapon and Tyrik swings his double-sided green lightsaber around, performing some impressive tricks.
"You all ready?" I ask, looking around at them.
"Readier than ever." Adriav grins, turning and strutting away.
"This place is huge!" I gasp, after endlessly searching for twenty minutes. It's almost like an entire city encompassed inside one ship. If this is just one ship in Darth Asinis's fleet then I don't even want to think about how we'll take one of them on, never mind all of them.
"Where exactly would this central computer be?" Tyrik says through the earpierce to Tarth. There is the sound of rustling before Tarth gives us a reply.
"Erm, let me do a quick scan of the ship." He replies, and the sound of him hitting some buttons is heard.
"And you didn't do this before we go on board why exactly?" Adriav growls. Unsurprisingly he doesn't reply to her.
"It should be in the central chamber which is across the bridge that is...directly in front of you! Oh! That was easier than I thought it would be."
I look to Adriav and Tyrik for approval and then cautiously begin to cross the bridge, as they follow. It's a rope bridge, and I have no idea why they chose to put that in when they could have just as easily put in something much safer, but we gotta' deal with what we've got.
"Slowly does it." I mutter, ushering myself along slowly.
"Er, Beka, we got a problem..."
I'm stopped in my tracks by Tarth's voice coming through the earpiece, and Adriav walks straight in to me. She growls and wipes her wfront as if to get rid of some sort of germs I may have given her.
"What?" I sigh, holding on to the sides of the bridge to make sure I don't fall.
"Well you know when you said to watch out for any of Darth Asinis's fleet coming to salvage this ship?"
My eyes widen at the revelation. I look back at Adriav and Tyrik as red lightsaber wielding sith begin to flood into the opening we're in.
"What do we do?!" I shout. There's no way out.
Adriav looks at me and back to Tyrik, then aims her guns at the ropes on the bridge.
"Hold on tight." She winks, shooting. The bridge instantly collapses and we begin to fall, so fast that I don't even have a chance to grab on to the rope.
I prepare myself to hit the ground.
I prepare to die.
But the ground never comes, I open my clenched eyes to see Tyrik, Adriav and I are all suspended in the air. Looking down I see...
Bardo.
Of course, who else?
He slowly pulls us down to the ground as Loyus and Adriav begin to shoot at the Sith that are after us.
"The IFF chip?" I ask, and they shake their head.
"It's straight through there, come on!" I say to Bardo, and Marduk and Tyrik follow.
"We'll stay here, try and hold some of them off!" Loyus shouts to us, and Adriav nods. We run through the passageway, dodging several blasts from enemy shooters until we're completely out of their reach. The only sound we continue to hear is blasters being shot and enemy lightsabers blocking Loyus's and Adriav's blast. We'll have to be quick if they're to have any chance of surviving.
"It's there!" I shout, continuing to run and pointing at the central computer. Tarth was right. It is impossible to miss. This section of the ship is made up of individual plates, each fifty feet across, acting as the floor, although each one is at a different height to those surrounding it. And of course, there is a space separating them all. In the centre, in the highest of the plates, lies a huge computer, supposedly containing all of the main systems for the ship. As soon as we take the chip, the computer shuts down, the ship begins to fall. And we have very little time to get out.
"Tarth, any word from Loyus and Adriav?" I say through the earpiece, and give him a few second to reply.
"Yeah, they're slowly fighting their way through to get back to the ship. Let me know when you've got the chip and I'll come do a pick-up." He says.
"Got it."
"Beka..." Bardo mutters, grabbing my shoulder.
"Quiet! I'm trying to figure out how we're going to get to that chip." I hiss, shoving his hand off of me. I hear Marduk shout behind me and I turn to see Sith attackers flooding in to the opening we're in. I curse under my breath and draw my lightsaber, preparing to fight.
"No!" Bardo shouts, pushing me away, "You get that damned chip, we'll fight these off!" And with that, he draws his own lightsabers and Tyrik does the same. I nod and turn, putting my lightsaber back on my belt and beginning to run towards the central computer. I prepare to take the first leap from the plate I'm on to the next.
I take a deep breath.
I let out a shout as I push hard on my legs and allow the force to pull me upwards to the plate. I land comfortably, and turn around to check my brother and the others are okay with the fighting. As I would have expected, they're fine.
I twist on my heels and begin to run again, the next plate is lower so I don't need to use the force, and I perform an impressive leap and roll upon landing to break the fall. I don't slow down though, I keep running and leap again on to a plate only very slightly higher than the one I'm on.
"Beka, hurry!" I faintly hear a shout from the other side of the opening and instinctively look over to see hundreds of attackers flood into the room.
"Tarth, where are Loyus and Adriav at?!" I shout angrily, infuriated that they would abandon us lik that.
"Don't worry, we haven't fucking left you! Loyus and Tarth are both on a pod gun either side of the ship trying to fight off the other ships, get your ass back here as soon as you can!" Adriav replies. I sigh, but I know that's the right place for them to be.
"Right."
I keep running, occasionally relying on the force to pull me up to the next plate. And then I'm below it.
"How am I going to do this..." I mutter to myself.
I could use the force to lift myself up, but that would completely drain me and I'd be in no shape to run back to my allies as soon as the ship starts to collapse. I quickly scan around. I notice a plate to my right that is slightly higher up than the one I'm on so I jump to it, and then notice a bar above my head. I could use the force to lift me to that and then use my belt to swing on to the plate. It would still drain me, but nowhere near as much as lifting myself all the way to the plate.
I've got no other option.
I pull my belt off, unattaching my lightsaber from it, and propel myself into the air. The force begins to lift me and I prepare to wrap my belt around the bar. I quickly shoot a look in Bardo's direction. If I don't get back to them soon they're history.
The belt wraps around the bar firmly and I swing, and fly...
And...
Just manage to grab on to the side of the plate. I slowly pull myself up, then use the remainders of my force power to pull the belt to me. I give myself a few second to try and recover, and then crawl over to the computer.
I'm drained. If this is what doing that has done to me, what the hell would I be like if I'd lifted myself the entire way. I pull myself up, put my belt back on and re-attach my lightsaber to it.
"Adriav, any idea how I get the chip out?" I gasp through the earpiece. Even talking is too much effort for me.
"Well..." She starts, beginning to laugh, "You smash it up."
Obviously.
I turn my lightsaber on and drive it into the central screen of the computer, and instantly regret it because I may have just destroyed the chip.
I peer into the hole I made and feel around.
Got it.
I pull the chip out and examine it quickly. Sure enough, it has IFF written on it. And then, suddenly, every system in the ship shuts down.
"The ships going down!" I say through the earpiece, dragging up every last drop of energy within me and running back to my allies.
"Adriav, pick-up now!" I yell, running towards the ship as it appears at the pick-up spot and leaping into the open cargo hold. Marduk follows, then Bardo, and finally Tyrik.
"What do we do now?!" I shout through the earpiece to Adriav.
"Get to a fighter jet! They've got tons of fighter jets on us, Loyus and Tarth can't hold all of them off!" She replies, I look over at the others and they all begin running towards the jets.
"You all sure you can fly these things?"
Tyrik gives me a look as if to say are you kidding? Of course he can. He's a member of the High council.
"I may not be good with big ships but I perfected my training in these." Bardo grins, hopping into one. Marduk shrugs and nods, and I decide I may as well let him get on with it.
"Me-mank-Bek-oh!"
I twist around and see Mak hurriedly hobbling over towards the fighter I'm in.
He wants to come along too.
"Get in." I grin at him, and he pulls himself up and sits on the passenger seat. I can't exactly say no to that face.
"Didn't wanna be on your own with Adriav?" I whisper to him, and I receive a grin back.
"I heard that." Adriav mumbles through the earpiece, and both Mak and I burst into laughter.
"Sorry." I reply, insincerely. I receive a grunt back as I began to fire up the fighter jet.
"You ready?" I say, looking at Mak as he puts his headset on. He grins and nods excitedly. We both put our seatbelts on, and then I put my headset on.
"This is Beka. You boys ready? Over." I say through the headset.
"Tyrik, ready, over."
"Bardo, ready, over!"
"Marduk, readier than ever, over."
"Lets roll."
And with that, I pull the fighter jet upwards and out of the open cargo hold, receiving several ooh's, aah's, and whoa's from Mak. Bardo's jet zooms infront of me and he instantly begins to fire at enemy fighters.
"Beka, bogey on your right!" Marduk's voice comes through the headset and I twist the jet around to face the enemy fighter. I speed up and prepare to head straight for it, but pull up at the last second and do a full circle, ending up directly above it facing downwards towards it. I start firing the guns and after only a few blasts the ship has blown up. Mak cheers and holds his hand out for a high-five, which I give to him instantly.
"Who's next?!" I shout, excitedly. Mak claps at the sudden excitement of battle and we fly towards another fighter. I turn and look at our ship, and see Loyus and Tarth in the pod guns either side of the ship. I imagine Loyus would have training with that, being as well trained as the generals in her armies, although I have no clue where Tarth learned that. I make a mental note to ask.
"Bardo, three behind you, I'll take one of them out!" I shout through the earpiece, heating the acceleration and flying towards one of the three impending ships that are chasing Bardo's. I fire at it but it instantly dodges and does a barrel roll to avoid my other shots.
"Damn." I grin, "Looks like we've got a fight on our hands, Makkie."
I pick up a chase on the lone fighter, and mimic the various twists, turns and barrel rolls it performs. I guess it didn't expect that.
The fighter twists to directly face me and begins to fire, and I quickly twist upwards to dodge.
"Mak, use the guided weapon!" I say, pointing to the co-pilot weapon. He jumps forwards and rapidly scampers his hands around trying to find the correct button.
"The red one, damn it!" I shout, and he slams his paw into it.
"The joystick!"
He wraps both of his hands around the joystick and looks at the missile through the screen. He guides the missile to a perfect hit, and the jet explodes in an array of red and yellow light. I look down to the other two that Bardo still had chasing him and see my brother performing an impressive trick that causes the two of them to crash into each other.
"Good one, bro!" I say through the headset.
"Thanks sis!"
"How many left?" I say to Adriav through my headset.
"About seven!"
"Make that six." Loyus adds, as her gunner pod causes a ship to explode.
"Five!" Marduk adds, as another explodes in a fiery wave.
"Four." Tarth points out, as he too blows up another.
"Is this a countdown or what?!" I laugh, accelerating towards another ship. I do a barrel roll to avoid several blasts from it and then shoot, blowing it up.
"Three now!"
Mak beggins to violently jump up and down in his seat, giggling. It seems to me he loves nothing more than being in a fighter jet.
"You wanna take that one out?" I ask him, as he nods and jumps forward to the guided missile weapon. It takes him only seconds to get the missile to impact with it. He has an impeccable shot, even for a baby Ewok.
"You guys get back to the ship, I'll get this last one." I say into the headset, and the three of them head back to the ship. I notice Loyus and Tarth dismount their gunner pods as well, as I begin to pick up a chase on the fighter jet.
"Come on." I hiss, leaning forward and flying towards it. It seemingly isn't moving at all.
"What the hells it playing at?" I whisper, preparing to fire.
And then suddenly, it shoots upwards, taking me by surprise and making me jump, so much so I twist the jet upside down.
"Shit." I mutter, as Mak clings on to his seatbelt to avoid slamming into the glass wall encompassing us.
"Sorry, buddy." I chuckle, twisting the ship the correct way again and beginning to fly after the ship. Except, it's gone. Nowhere to be seen.
And then it happens.
I hear a smash and the jet's alarms begin to go off, and I feel myself unable to breathe. I look up and see a blast has impacted with the glass, sucking all of the oxygen out of the jet. I reach for my mask and pull it over my face, strapping it over my eyes, then do the same for Mak who appears too scared to even move.
"Bastard'll pay for that." I curse, pulling the ship upwards.
Focus, Beka. Focus.
I quickly twist to avoid another blast, and another, and then perform a barrel roll and zoom straight past the ship, not close enough to impact but close enough to shock the pilot. I twist the jet around and begin to fly straight for it, pulling on the guns.
"Fire!" I scream to myself, grinning as blasts begin to leave the jet and impact with the enemy ship.
It explodes.
"Thank god." I whisper, leaning forward to catch my breath.
"Good job Beka, you can come back now." Tarth's voice says through the headset.
"Were they Asinis's men?" I ask, putting Mak on the floor who scurries over to his favourite window to peer out of it.
"Beka, it was a trap." Loyus says, shame filling her voice, "Asinis and his men never abandoned that ship. They planned for some pirates to loot it. They never expected you but... we're on to something much bigger than we had originally imagined."
"Pirates? What? Why pirates?"
"I've done some more research and... there have been twenty-so other cases of Asinis's fleet supposedly abandoning a ship. Sometimes a group of pirates go to loot it, sometimes a group of Jedi go to investigate. None of them return." Loyus sighs.
"What do you think it is?" I ask, baffled at what she's on to.
"Do you remember the Jedi master that went missing – I think his name was Annukis Vatt?" She replies.
I nod, of course, it was a huge galactic matter. One of the most well trained Jedi masters completely vanishing off of the map.
"Well the last mission he was sent on was to investigate a mysterious Sith lord's abandoned ship. A ship that was identical to the one we were on." She adds, now handing me her information tablet.
"I took that picture just before I blew his ship up, just a few minutes ago."
I gasp.
"That's him..."
She nods.
"I believe Darth Asinis has been luring people to his ships to brainwash them... Turn them to the dark side, and then recruit them. He doesn't just want any old Sith fighters, he wants individuals with incredibly unique talents. Beka, he's forming an army."
All of this information is too much to take in at once. I sit down in a seat and hold my head down.
"So all of those we just killed-"
"Were bad. You did the right thing. They'd been completely brainwashed." Loyus reassures me.
Tarth looks at me sympathetically and Bardo appears just as shocked as I am. Adriav stands from her co-pilot seat and comes over to join me.
"Beka, you just saved our fucking lives. How could that possibly be bad in any way?" She smirks, kneeling down and putting her hand on my shoulder. Mak also comes over and hops up on to my lap, snuggling in to me.
"What about the IFF? Was that planted?" I ask, stroking Mak's fur.
"As I said, they weren't expecting us. That IFF is one-hundred percent genuine. It'll give us access to Asinis's lair and we'll destroy it. Just as soon as we find out where it is." Loyus grins, taking her tablet back.
"And you're absolutely sure that this is what he's doing? Brainwashing them? You're sure Annukis didn't just turn to the dark side on his own accord?" I ask, hoping maybe that this is slightly less complicated than Loyus is informing it to be.
"I'm sure. There are hundreds of cases... Puja Innerton the Pirate looter, Jeranji Ho the Jedi Master and her padawan Addi Farqua. One of my fleets even disappeared... He doesn't care who they are, as long as they can fight he's taking them. That's why they appeared almost as soon as we boarded the ship. It was completely set up." Loyus confirms my worst fears. We've uncovered something much bigger than we thought.
"So what do we do now?" I whisper, hoping Loyus's incredible war plan formulating skills can somehow come up with something to make this much easier.
"I've notified the rest of the Jedi council of the circumstance. In light of the events they've sent me several dossiers as to who we could recruit to build a perfect team. They've secured deals with all of these people to join us, all we've gotta do now is find them." He says, handing me his information tablet. I begin to scroll through the list.
"Or'osson the Chiss Bounty Hunter, Zon Synn the Kiffar Master Thief, Asca Dudo the Jedi with many years of experience... A school for young Jedi prodigies has even offered to give us one of their best students. A geonosian called René. There are hundreds on this list." I gasp, scrolling through it.
"All you have to do is pick the best ones." Tyrik adds.
"Pick the ones you know will kick ass." Marduk grins, snatching the tablet from me.
"She looks like she could give a good fight." He laughs, "If you know what I mean."
Adriav groans with disgust and returns to the co-pilot seat.
"You guys should probably get some rest. We've got a lot of work to do." Tarth says, and we all head for the elevator to go to the crew's quarters. Mak jumps into the seat Adriav was in, and turns to wave at me.
"Night Makkie." I grin.
"Na-Mu-Be-Kah!"
So you're tired but you're alive,
So open up your eyes,
And you can get your sleep when you are dead,
Kill the clock inside your head,
Bring your normalcy to the edge,
And watch it drown in new horizons,
New horizons...
You said I'd only have to wait until I died,
And that's no time,
How did we come to thinking this was funny,
Cheering and laughing at the dying,
While we're riding the light in you!
Wait!
You said I'd only have to wait until I die,
New horizons,
There is no such thing as time,
Inside this moment no sun rising,
Wait until I fly,
New horizons,
Wait until I fly,
New horizons!
This chapter is named after New Horizons by Flyleaf.
Nobody got recruited in this chapter, sorry! But I needed to focus on story development rather than recruitment, however I will go back to recruiting in the next chapter.
What did you think of the space battle? It was the first of possibly many space battles in this story!
For last chapters question I asked you which fighting form Luminara Unduli specialised in, once again the first person to get this right was KingOfStories01 so he will get to decide the next plot twist, I just haven't got round to asking him what it shall be yet... I'll make a note to go do that.
In last chapters just for fun question, I asked you If Beka were to recruit you, what weapon would you use in battle?
KingOfStories01: I figure I'd be using twin lightsabers, both yellow. I love to double wield, and who doesn't love lightsabers?
Shadowmaster77: If I got recruited I'd have a WESTAR M-5 Blaster Rifle.
Alice the B-Rabbit: Id go all badass and have a lightsaber in one hand and a blaster in the other
Thanks for reviewing! Keep reviewing, cause every time you review means theres less chance of your character dying in the final battle in Darth Asinis's lair ;)
Now for the question; What planet are the Nautolan race from?
And the just for fun question: Who's your favourite character so far other than your own character?
Thanks for reading, reviewing, and enjoying(hopefully) and PM me for anything!
Until next time, goodbyeeeeee!