Author's Notes: Wow, lookit me. An actual reasonably quick update! Ain't you proud of me? Favorite or leave a review if you like. :)
Jessie and Buzz made their way through the wreckage. Most people had cleared out by now, other than those who had stuck around to help the wounded. After contacting Star Command for emergency medical assistance and backup, Buzz led the way to a decimated burning building. All the bombs had been placed on the street and on the ship except for this one.
"Is this the office Nebula was talking about?" Jessie asked quietly, as they approached the building.
"It's likely. The people trying to abduct Bo probably wanted to cover up their tracks," Buzz replied. "The structure doesn't look safe. It's coming down any minute now."
"Woody made it out, right?" Jessie asked letting the fear settled in her stomach creep up into her voice.
Buzz didn't respond. He peered into the fiery hallway inside, and then back to Jessie's forlorn face. He clicked down his helmet and started to step over the rubble and debris littered in the doorway, which was buckling under the sudden uneven distribution of weight.
Jessie followed him. Buzz thought about protesting, but if Woody really was still inside, there was no time to argue.
"Careful," the space ranger warned as he helped the cowgirl over a fallen burning beam.
They stayed close together as they carefully traversed the dangerous terrain, passing through hallways until finally reaching a doorway that had collapsed.
"How do we get to the other side?" Jessie asked.
"We can't exactly blast our way through. I could probably cut a way through the walls in one of the other rooms," Buzz replied, walking to a nearby doorway into what had been an examination room.
He fired up his lazer and started to melt his way through the thick wall. Once he finished, the other side revealed to still on fire, with parts of the ceiling and walls creaking loudly.
"Can these suits go through fire?" the cowgirl cried over the surprisingly large amount of noise.
"They're designed to perform through many different temperatures, but that doesn't mean we can stay here long." Buzz grabbed Jessie's hand as they made their way through the wreckage together.
And then they heard the faintest cough.
Jessie almost leaped to the source with Buzz close behind, finding none other than her brother, sprawled out and half buried by debris. His face had been miraculously mostly protected, but Buzz assessed that when he must have held up his arm to cover his face, the force of the blast was powerful enough to tear through the suit and make a substantial gash in his arm.
"Woody! You ok?!" Jessie cried, unsure of how to help him up.
The cowboy seemed extremely disoriented, and wasn't completely conscious. Buzz attempted to activate his helmet, but the suit was damaged enough from the blast that it was impossible. Buzz unburied him and carefully slung him over his shoulder. They turned to leave the way they came, but flaming debris piled up onto their improvved doorway.
"Plan B," Buzz stated while changing the settings on his lazer and blasting a hole through the roof. Jessie supported Woody's wounded arm as they flew upward, dodging bits of metal and drywall.
The trio broke through, seeing portions of the building collapse in itself from the sky. They landed on the street, where Star Command paramedics were already treating the wounded from the other blasts. Woody was already starting to regain consciousness when they were strapping him to a hovering gurney.
The cowboy panicked at first, jolting upwards and fighting the physicians, but the sight of Buzz and Jessie calmed him a bit.
"They took her. They took Bo," he told them between fits of coughing, right before an oxygen mask was placed on his face.
"We're gonna get her back Woody," was the only thing Buzz had the chance to say before the cowboy was whisked away.
The following day was hellish.
Everyone at Star Command knew about the situation on Capital Planet, and although most were sympathetic towards Buzz and his crew, there were some who believed they could have handled the situation better. Overhearing Rocket Crocket boast about his brilliant plan that would have saved everyone and prevented Bo from being captured while eating in the cafeteria was enough to put Buzz over the edge. He wasn't even hungry anyway; Jessie had forced him to take a break from the investigation to eat.
Crocket nor any of the rest knew the severity of Bo's kidnapping. For one, they didn't know her personally. But more importantly, they didn't know the lengths that Stoneheart had gone to get to her. Buzz wondered what pandemonium might have ensued if everyone knew the previous war revolved entirely around the simple shepherdess from Earth.
And then the news that a bystander had died due to the explosions spread like wildfire throughout the entire station. News stations raved about the terrorist attack. They weren't doing much to help the situation, as they only blamed Star Command for having only a small team on Capital Planet at the time.
But as bad as Buzz felt, it was nothing compared to what Woody was feeling. It'd been almost cruel to place him in the same room that Bo had been in at the hospital wing, and the skinny yellow nurse certainly hadn't been kindly to him, which he didn't entirely blame her for. If there was anyone he directed his hatred at for Bo's abduction, it was himself.
He wasn't fast enough. It seemed he never was.
Woody spent most of the day alone. Jessie had offered to stay with him, but he encouraged her to find more clues about Bo's captors, so after lunch she went back down to Capital Planet with a forensics team. He'd heard almost nothing from Buzz since the day before when his friend had guaranteed they would get Bo back.
The cowboy speculated Buzz felt part of the blame as well, and was doing everything he could to find her. He only wished he could have been out there with his friends helping. The doctors had assured him that by the end of the day they would be able to properly bandage his arm, and he'd be able to check out. He vaguely remembered them pulling out the shrapnel shortly after he arrived at Star Command. Time seemed to have slowed down exponentially since then.
Jessie didn't feel any better about the situation. Both Buzz and Woody felt like it was all their fault that Bo was taken, and nothing she could say to either would convince them otherwise. After touching back down on Capital Planet, she was astonished at how quickly damage was being repaired. Golden ribbons had been tied all over to honor the woman that had died due to the attack.
The cowgirl went to investigate again the building they had saved Woody from, which had come down to ground completely and few red embers were what remained of the fire. She stomped around in the rubble for a few hours, not finding anything particularly useful. The forensics on sight did deduce that the explosive couldn't have gone off on a timer, and that a certain action was required for it to go off. The only thing that Jessie could make of it was that it had been intricately planned.
The trio all met up again near the end of the day, just as the receptionist was finishing Woody's paperwork.
"Did you guys find anything out?," Woody questioned as they walked out of the medical wing.
"The forensics guys on Captial Planet are still at it. The only things they could tell me I figured I'd be able to hear directly from you anyway," Jessie sighed.
"Not much from me either. Just a whole lot of stupidity from the media. I figured after you were up we could meet back up with Mra and the they have some information," Buzz grumbled.
They walked mostly in silence as Buzz led them to where XR was being repaired again. When they reached the Science Bay Booster greeted them in the doorway. He looked solemn as Buzz had ever seen him. Mira was sitting down with her head in her hands, and XR looked equally glum as an LGM finished putting back on his arm.
It finally occurred to Buzz that everyone was waiting for him to speak. He swallowed hard.
"Listen everyone, I'm really sorry… Yesterday was a disaster, and I knew I should have had more rangers stationed. If I hadn't been so overconfident, we wouldn't be having this conversation."
"Buzz, it's not your fault. If anything, it was mine," Mira piped in. "I didn't know what I was doing, I couldn't figure it out. If you'd been in my situation, you would have thought of something."
Woody looked like he was about to interject as well, but Jessie stepped up instead. "Look, all of us feel responsible for what happened yesterday, but that's not fair. The most important thing now is find Bo and get her back home."
"I was able to perform a scan of the ship before it blew me up!" XR exclaimed.
"Ok, well that's a good place to start," Buzz stated, feeling a little better. "Booster and XR, follow up with that and file a bolo with the specs you got off that thing." The two saluted and left.
"I could go talk to that Porkus senator that was acting really suspicious at the meeting. I have a feeling he knows more than he let on," Mira said also standing up and turning to leave.
"Good. Tomorrow morning we'll meet back up," Buzz told her before she left. He then turned to the other two remaining. "In the meantime, we need to figure out why our guy wanted Bo in the first place."
"There's gotta be something we're missing here… You two remember that- that day…" Jessie didn't have to expound. The day they were trapped in the incinerator would haunt them forever. "We know Alan wanted her blood, but we didn't know why. But something he said... about a fortune teller and being destined to do bad things?"
"Ok, say that Bo's blood was somehow special. How could it be used as a weapon?" Woody asked, pacing.
"The Black Star," a small voice said. The LGM repairing XR had still been in the room.
"What?" Buzz asked promptly.
"The Black Star," the LGM repeated. "The power to destroy everything that ever was, is, and will be."