WPRT CH. XVI (Updated 2021)

How Do You Get A One-Armed Man out of a Tree?

Jo:

As the ship or whatever we were in climbed higher into the sky, I began to feel a little dizzy. I reached up for a grip.

I missed just as we hit an air pocket. The ship jumped and I lost my balance, landing hard on my rear.

A hand reached out to me and I took it. I looked up directly into the face of one of the helmets.

"Are you alright, ma'am?"

"Yes, thank you, sir."

Aaron yanked my hand up to one of the straps. I grabbed it so tight my knuckles were white.

Thankfully, our journey was short, and we landed not super far outside of the arena.

I quickly disembarked but tapped the goblin on the shoulder.

"Boba Fett is hiding back there in the arena. I have to go get him."

"No."

I looked at Aaron, then Jango, Bossk, and then the goblin.

"You don't understand. I told him to hide. We need to go get him. He's just a kid."

Three troopers approached and handed Aaron, Bossk, Jango, and I all canteens. I opened mine right away and took several swallows. It was nice and cool compared to the surrounding desert.

"Josuke, is this… water?" Aaron whispered, more for my benefit than anything else. Maybe a weird attempt to calm me down.

"Aaron, no."

"I have never seen water. All I drink is coke."

"That's...pretty much true."

"Water," he whispered.

"Okay, Aaron. That's enough."

I turned to the goblin again, trying to stay calm.

"Please, let us go back for the kid."

"Go back for him, we will. Press ahead first, we must."

"I assure you that I'm not an expert on this planet's length of a day, but what if it gets dark? And the place is still surrounded by the winged freaks. How are we going to get him back?" I asked.

The goblin looked me over.

"Full of fear you are."

"Not so much for me as for him. I know he has had some training, but I don't know if it will be enough."

"Put trust in him, you must."

I looked at Jango who nodded.

"If he trusts his son to survive, then I will too."

The goblin nodded and turned toward some soldiers that were standing at some consoles. The readouts looked quite complex compared to anything available back home.

The goblin made us stay near him and to not try any funny business.

We all looked intently at the consoles for several minutes. Just as some new ships that we had never seen before began taking off, Aaron drifted into a trance.

"Aaron, are you alright?" I asked.

The goblin turned around and studied Aaron's face.

"Aim above the fuel cells," he mumbled to himself.

We all looked at him as if he had three heads.

Suddenly, my brain snapped to a different scene and I could see what he was talking about.

I couldn't hear anything, but I could see Obi-Wan and the other man and lady standing in one of the air ships that we had just escaped in, and the other man, Anakin (as Aaron called him) pointing at a spot on the fleeing ships. The soldier fired his guns and the ship exploded into a lovely fireball.

When I snapped back to, ships in front of the Spire were beginning to take off.

"Aim above the fuel cells," I shouted at the soldiers over by the weapons panels. "The fuel cells on the Spire ships!"

"We don't take orders from-."

"Do what she says, you must," the goblin interrupted.

Just as the ships in my vision, these also exploded into fireballs.

The goblin eyed me suspiciously and then turned his gaze toward Aaron. Both of us blushed with embarrassment.

"Master Yoda, my name is."

"My name is Aaron, and this is my sister, Jo."

He continued to study us, up and down.

It's like he is reading my soul, and I don't like it.

A voice came in over the console that they were in pursuit of Dooku, and that the senator had fallen from the ship and was believed to be unconscious.

Master Yoda seemed to consider this carefully before ordering a craft of his own.

"Coming with me, you four are. Staying in the ship, you will be."

Master Yoda, the two bounty hunters, Aaron, a squad of soldiers, and I all loaded up onto this airship, and were soon hovering. This time, the doors of the ship remained open, and I held that strap like there was no tomorrow.

As we followed the first ship via the vehicle's radars, we were able to view the devastation of the battle thus far. Pockets of "jedi" and soldiers fought bugs and droids. There were what must have been tanks on both sides as well.

Droid parts littered the sand as well as bug and soldier bodies (or clones, I later found out. I always hated referring to them as clones instead of troops. Clones always sounded so...inhuman). There were scorch marks on the sand and on rocks as well as burning tanks and fallen ships. Turrets were set up on the enemy lines, firing green pulses at ships, men, and tanks alike.

The remains of the Spire ships and other escape vehicles were belching black smoke, and some droids dragged themselves by their arms along the sand.

At least they can't feel pain. I hope.

We climbed higher into the sky, and my stomach dropped. We could see the senator being helped up from the sand dune where she had fallen, and point while talking to a clone. I followed her finger to a hole up in the mesa ahead.

"IS THAT WHERE WE ARE GOING?" I shouted at Yoda over the engines.

He nodded.

My stomach turned and I knew that no good was going to come from what was up ahead.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The ship approached a lip and it looked like it was just a hanger, but we wouldn't be there if it were just a hanger.

Yoda held up a hand to tell us to wait.

"

He approached the opening alone, where it looked like lights were lining the halls.

"What do you think the Jedi will do to us?" Jango asked out loud.

"I don't know. It's not like we did anything wrong- er...I mean, I know you have some stuff to answer for, but Jo and I are in the wrong place."

"A likely story," a clone from the pilot's seat said.

"It's true. We weren't even here three days ago. We were on Earth. Camping. We don't know what happened. Jango gave us a ride from Tatooine, and here we are."

The clone just scoffed and the rest of the crew of the ship ignored us.

"It could be worse," Aaron said.

"We could be dead," I replied.

"Well, that too. I was just thinking more along the lines of we could be on the wrong side of all of this mess. There's a good feeling about these new people. Better than the one I had about Dooku anyway. I think these guys really do want what's right for the galaxy. After all, we did just reveal our names to him."

I had to admit that I was more at ease among these jedi than I was in the presence of Dooku and his entourage.

Thankfully, we weren't waiting long before a nagging feeling made me drawn to the hallway.

"Aaron, I think we should go there."

"I do too."

"You Four are to stay put."

"Something is wrong. I can feel it. Let us go! Please!" I begged the clones.

They were quiet and went and whispered among themselves for a few moments.

"Go, but no funny business."

We stepped off the ship just as a second one came in for a landing, led by the senator.

We all ran into the hallway together and saw the scene.

Obi-Wan laid on the ground writhing in pain from his wounded arm and leg.

Anakin lay there as well, with his head on Obi-Wan's hip. He was missing an arm.

I don't know if it was the stress of the past three days, my sick sense of humor, nerves, or a combination of the three, but I looked Anakin dead in the eye and said with a straight face, "How do you get a one armed man out of a tree?"

END CH. 16

[Disclaimer: The Josuke Water thing is from the video "Josuke and Okuyasu Go Get Italian Food" on the channel Nemauporc. This clip is from JoJo's Bizarre Adventures, but the clip itself is a spoof].