"Does everyone understand what the mission is?"
"Yes Master Skywalker we do"
"Okay Sentinel Portland will explain how you're going to get there and also the code of conduct you'll have to follow for everyone's safety"
"Thank you Master Skywalker, in a few moments I will be contacting my ship and they will use what's known as a transporter beam to take us up to the ship, no matter what you feel don't move it's perfectly normal and ends in only a few moments, once on the ship don't touch anything so that you don't accidentally cause any problems and yes I will be teaching you how to use what's known as a replicator, now then we don't know what we're going to encounter when we reach Naboo so I would suggest spending the journey preparing for any situation possible, we'll try and resolve the problem peacefully but the ship is prepared to fight if necessary if you feel any shaking that generally means that there's trouble as do loud sirens and blinking red lights. If there is trouble stay in your quarters or go to your quarters unless told to evacuate the ship that will be the safest place for you in the chaos of a battle on an unfamiliar ship. Now then Sentinel Portland to the Texas lock onto my signal and beam up the five people closest to me on my signal...and energize"
With those words the group was at the temple on second and another they were in a transporter room with the Commander waiting for them
"Commander I thought the Captain would be here as well?"
"He was but problems arose that only he could take care of as the Captain, come on I'll escort you to your quarters and Sentinel I know you're technically off duty right now but I could really use you at the helm"
"What happened to Lt. Lockland?"
"He was helping out in Cargo Hold B when some crates fell on him, nothing too serious but he's still unconscious with a concussion and Lt. Commander Dawson is covering Tactical right now due to Lt. Commander Collins...situation that happened when we arrived here, Ensign Pellson is doing fine now but he's on his second shift in a row and needs a break"
"Understood Commander I'll head to the bridge right away, in the meantime my fellow Jedi will indeed follow you to their quarters and will most likely stay there so as to avoid getting lost, they and I will also most likely read the mission specs again just to make sure we have full knowledge of the current situation and what our jobs are most likely going to be"
They go their separate ways and to different turbo lifts. While the Commander took the three Knights and two Padawans to their quarters Portland went to the bridge to cover the helm
"Ensign Pellson I've got the helm"
"Roger Sentinel Portland you have the helm"
For the rest of the shift Portland was at the Conn and things were actually pretty quiet all things considered though at the end of the shift it was mentioned that they should be nearing the planet withing the next hour
"Captain could you make sure we know when we're at the planet?"
"No problem Portland, actually shields up, go to yellow alert I don't want any surprises to catch us off guard, Portland if we go under attack instead of the bridge I'll need you in Engineering and you know why Sentinel"
"Understood Captain, I'll tell the others that it might be best to stay in their quarters, good thing the mission debrief should be quick reading for me"
Fifty minutes later the Jedi were all in Portland's quarters when her commbadge went off
"Captain Anderson to Sentinel Portland are you with your fellow Jedi?"
"This is Portland Captain everyone's in my quarters what's up?"
"Just letting you know we'll be dropping out of warp in five minutes are you guys ready for whatever happens once we arrive?"
"Don't worry Captain we're ready for anything how about up on the bridge?"
"We're ready as well En...Sentinel remember my orders before you left the bridge"
"Copy that Captain I'll be ready to follow orders and Captain if what we suspect is the truth things will start happening real quick so get ready to lower the shields temporarily to get us Jedi down there"
"Got it Sentinel transporter room will be on standby Captain Anderson out"
Communications are cut and then Portland speaks up real quick
"Guys if things start getting crazy get yourself to the nearest transporter room as quickly as possible, I'll join you as soon as I can but I will be needed in Engineering first to take care of some potential problems that they won't be able to handle on their own"
They soon went out of warp and quickly went into Red Alert and the ship was shaking and so she quickly went to a turbo lift and spoke one word that meant everything to her
"Engineering"
She quickly starts to push a few buttons that needed to be pushed because she knew that if the shields were going down temporarily then other areas needed a boost and she could do that easily. Fifteen minutes later the Captain called down to Engineering
"Portland we're not going to be getting past this blockade any time soon and it appears your fellow Jedi are in need of some assistance as well, so get yourself to the transporter room now and get down to the planet"
"Are we even close enough for transport Captain?"
"Yes we are, but we won't be able to get you to your people's last coordinates for all we know you might end up in the swamps"
"Fine by me, in fact I would welcome ending up there because that ways I will be able to get to some allies much easier than if I was in the city"
"What kind of allies?"
"Later Captain right now I'm headed to the nearest transporter room"
She heads back to the turbo lift and then heads to the nearest deck with transporters and tells the transporter person that she was going down to the planet
"Just pick coordinates that make sense and get me down there, the shields can't be down too much longer, once I'm down let the Captain know so that he can get the shields back up"
She's transported to the safest coordinates and they are actually indeed the swamps
"Okay time to try and get to the Gungans and get some help for Naboo"
She quickly went to the underwater city and was quickly taken to the boss of the Gungans"
"What are you doing here?"
"I am a Jedi Knight and am requesting the aid of the Gungans due to the fact that Naboo is under attack by what we believe is the Trade Federation again, the ship we arrived in is most likely still under attack and the city is under siege"
"Wesa tried to help da Naboo but have lost people, besides you no look like a Jedi"
"There are reasons behind that that you most likely haven't heard yet due to...communication issues that have happened recently"
"Wesa try again but not directly"
"Very well, for now I will be on the surface finding out whatever I can to help free the city, basically a scouting mission"
"It's too dangerous to be on the surface"
"Sorry but I need to make sure that we have the proper information to free the city, plus more people wearing what I am might try and help as well and they need to know I am here and safe"
Portland goes back to the surface and is quickly involved in a battle and also quickly finds out that phasers were useless against the machines which meant Ashland needed her lightsaber to be able to fight the enemy. Three hours later she's headed to what she hoped was a secure location where she could set up base when she saw shadows moving towards her, fortunately she quickly recognizes the uniforms and doesn't use either weapon on them
"Commander, what are you doing here?"
"Helping out, seeing as how we have no means of communication to the ship the Captain decided to send me and a team down here to do what we can to fight"
"Okay I understand, first thing you should know is that your phasers are useless against the enemy, I found that out the hard way by the way and am very glad I have my lightsaber on me again. The second thing is that we do indeed have allies here that aren't in the city, they are called Gungans and they live underwater in the swamps, they will have more soldiers to try and help the Naboo like they've been trying on occasion from what I can understand from them, oh and they talk a little weird so don't say anything to offend them"
"Very well Sentinel anything else we should know?"
"Well from what I can tell everyone is in camps which will actually make things easier in a way since the camps are isolated places there aren't as many guards"
"Do you have any idea of weapons for us?"
"Not at the moment, the Gungans might but I'm not sure"
Hours later at the temporary base camp the Starfleet officers made the Gungans arrived to talk about what to do to free the Naboo
"Who are these people?"
"My comrades, they can fight however their weapons are useless against the enemy"
"They can use our weapons for now, do you know if there are any other Gungans in the city?"
"Not from what I can tell but then my scouting mission was compromised and I couldn't look for more than one camp"
"We could Sentinel, considering we ran through at least half the city trying to evade those guys and there were definitely more of your people in the camps"
"Well that answers that question, and you said we have no communication with the ship Commander?"
"Correct Sentinel"
(Sighs) "I didn't think about communication jammers, let's hope the Captain decided to head back to Coruscant and get reinforcements because that blockade will keep everything contained to the planet unless there's no longer a blockade but even one starship can't do much against them and we have powerful weapons at our disposal"
"Commander maybe we can undo the communications jam"
"How Lt. we don't even know this technology plus lets face it, even if we could stop the jamming it would only be temporary and then we'd get ourselves captured or killed"
The Gungan leader speaks up then
"We can prove a distraction and possibly free the camps"
"No sir, I'm sorry but that's not a good idea, your people and the Naboo need each other to help recover after this, if you try to free the camps you might be captured or killed as well, do you think my crew can handle your weapons?"
"Yes"
"Good then, let's do it and fast because quite frankly I really don't like this location as a base of operations, I was only going to stay here a few days until I found a better location"
"What for Sentinel this is the perfect location"
"No it's not Commander, it's too close to the city and thus way to easy to be discovered"
"Fine let's just hope we can find a better location still relatively close to the city then because otherwise we won't be very effective"
"Don't worry, when I was scouting the city I found the good location we need to be effective yet hidden, we'll also need to think about the possibility of breaking through the blockade ourselves"
"But if the Texas couldn't break through..."
"They'll have more people then and more weapons, which means if we free the camps the fleet can focus on that blockade and not have to worry about the consequences to the civilians"
"The Naboo can hide in our city, we have means to get them there easily and they'll be safe due to the fact that these guys won't know about the location of the city which gives us the edge"
"Okay and maybe you should teach my fellow officers how to safely use the weapons before you let them have the weapons unsupervised, in the meantime once we reach our new location I am going to be doing some heavy meditation because quite frankly I need it"
"Sentinel you spend way to many hours meditating in my mind"
"Commander you have no idea how long I spend in meditation, you may see me meditating but I don't spend nearly as much time as you think I do unless I am in medical or under severe emotional distress"
"Which we won't even fully recognize for at least a few more months now that we know about your special abilities"
"Don't worry you have already started the process three months ago"
"We have?"
"Yes Commander, the one mission where I was the only person to leave the planet alive, we all thought I was okay after being checked out physically but not hours later you guys noticed I was having trouble keeping my emotions in check when we called the planet authorities to inquire about what had happened to me and my team"
"You're right, but we'll need to figure out several more triggers and cues now that we know about your ability and how various factors affect you"
"I agree Commander, but don't worry you'll adapt like Starfleet always does"
Meanwhile the Texas was limping back to Coruscant at warp one which was the best the ship could do at the moment due to the damage they had taken and they quickly contacted Coruscant once they were in range
"Texas to Coruscant come in please"
"This is Coruscant go ahead Texas"
"Guys, we need more than just this ship to deal with the Naboo blockade and the Texas also needs to have repairs made they managed to do some serious damage when our shields were down and then they actually managed to make us lose our shields once they were back up"
"Understood Texas we'll be waiting in the Senate building for a full report"
The Command crew were the ones to give the Senate all the information they had and what they felt needed to be done to break the blockade
"But what about the Naboo? I would think that you would think about the civilians safety before planning something this aggressive"
"It's easily explained Chancellor, this isn't my entire Command crew here, my First Officer and a security team are also on Naboo, though that ultimately cost us the fight in the end my officers will do everything they can to free and protect the people of Naboo. Seeing as how it will take time to get the ship back into shape and time for the Senate to mass the firepower needed to fight through the blockade I believe that my people will have freed most if not all of the Naboo by the time we're ready"
"Except it won't take longer than two weeks for us to get the firepower we need to break through the blockade, how long will it take for you to get your ship repaired?"
"About a month, we came very close to a hull breach and that takes time to repair, plus our engines are a little finicky when they aren't properly repaired and then tested, and that's for every ship in the Fleet"
"Why is that?"
"Because you may think you've made the proper repairs but it's best to test out the engines so that any kinks in the repairs can be discovered before we really push things to the edge"
The Senate agrees to the month long wait and also agrees to send mechanics to help with the hull breach repairs and the engine repairs, though the mechanics were specifically instructed that they were to obey the orders of the Starfleet officers at all times for everyone's safety. That's what happens too, the Senate and Starfleet work together so that the Texas was fully repaired and actually decided to wait an extra month so that the rest of the fleet could train with the Texas so that they are a flawless team, not to mention that the Texas got a weapons upgrade just so that they could be more effective against the Trade Federation than they had been the last time. While all of that was happening the Jedi Council and the crew of the Texas kept hoping that their fellow Jedi and Officers were okay and safe, not to mention freeing the captured Naboo and doing their best to make contact with them. Everyday at noon Coruscant time they would meet in the Council chamber and tried to contact the missing people and also did their best to see if their comrades had managed to leave messages either with the Council or the crew of the Texas
"Looks like they aren't able to contact us again today"
"It's been too long, for all we know they're dead by now"
"Do you really want to do that Captain?"
(Sighs) "I don't but my own bosses have been pushing me towards declaring them on the official Missing In Action list which is the first step towards legally declaring them dead"
"Then how are they listed now?"
"Long term planet side assignment, but even those assignments have communication on a regular basis with those higher up in the chain of command"
"How much longer can you delay having them declared missing in action?"
"About another week then we'll have no other choice, what about the Jedi teams?"
"We've also declared that they've been sent on a long term assignment, they don't know we haven't had contact since they've gone down to the planet due to the fact that they report directly to the Council but their friends are starting to get a bit concerned at the lack of communication"
"Well seeing as how we leave on the freedom mission in three days hopefully we won't have to declare them as missing"
While all of that was happening just like the Captain thought the Starfleet Officers allied with the Gungans to help free the Naboo, they even freed the Jedi teams because they had been captured in the city soon after they beamed down. Though they freed the Jedi it wasn't without problems because Portland was captured while the Jedi were freed and her captors put a Force inhibitor collar on her