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Post by RedEagle on Aug 26, 2007 19:12:59 GMT -4
"I miss the tattoo," Zekk commented wryly. "Why don't you think about getting a permanite one?" He grinned to let her know he was joking. He had taken off his disguise, too, and was dress in a casual Corellian outfit. A woman in a skintight dress smiled at him as she walked by. He felt a stab of irritation emit from Jaina.
"What was that I felt?" he asked teasingly.
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Post by Force_Flow on Aug 29, 2007 17:45:14 GMT -4
Jaina clamped down on the barriers that was her mind. "Nothing," she said, turning her head to look in the opposite direction as a slight redness crawled across her cheeks. "Stick to the mission."
A few years ago, Zekk and Jaina had gone beyond the usual Force Bond into the hive mind of the Killick. After being deprogrammed by Cighal, she and Zekk still shared the abnormally strong bond. It was comforting at times, but now it was just a fistraction. She had given up on Zekk long ago, he could date all the snobbish Corellian hoars he wanted.
Behind her was Robert and and Faleen Thann Mithrac. Robert, youngest member of the team, still a Padawan, wore indistinguishable civvilian cloths. Thann looked the most Jedi of all of them, but with his hood up over his topknot and maintaining a skin color of a light orange, he looked virtually indistinguishable from a human.
"Anything?" Jaina asked.
--
Jaden was squinting towards Sal-Solo’s mansion, using the Force to enhance her vision. A deep pressure in the back of her throat threatened to choke her. She accepted it, knowing it was her own danger sense going off. Others told her that their danger senses were different, like a ringing in their ears or a sudden numbness of a certain limb. Jaden’s delicately carved face held a trace of remoteness as she struggled to define the danger that made her throat seize up on itself.
Swallowing to wash away the danger sense, she looked down at her beeping comlink. Taking it out, she brought it to her lips. “Team Tauntaun, standing by,” she said. “Change of plans, guys?”
”No,” Jaing’s voice answered her. ”We’re in Centerpoint, on one of the manufacturing lines. Ben’s getting cranky… Yes, I’m talking about you... Keep your voice down or CSF will be on us like that… Jaden, you still there?”
“I’m here,” she answered. “We’re ready to charge in. Rylee’s doing another scan of the area before we move in. Something’s in there… A few dozen somethings.”
”Be careful,” Jaing warned. ”A quick in and out, alright?”
“I don’t need your concern,” she said in a remotely neutral voice. They both paused. “Be careful, vode.”
“And you.”
Jaing cut the link.
Jaden put the comm. back on her belt, opposite of her lightsaber, and took out a small rubber ponytail-holder. Finger-combing her beach blond hair into a small bun, she wrapped the rubber holder around it. Tapping the hilt of her lightsaber out of habit, she glanced at Rylee. Jacen had a hand on her shoulder, eyes closed. He was probably scanning the area with the Force. Jaden had a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach.
It wasn’t the first time she had this feeling. It was stronger than anything, some sort of certainty that she couldn’t comprehend. It made her stomach drop and her footsteps lag as if this was a physical things going on inside her. But nothing was wrong with her body as far as she knew. The Force was telling her something. Every time she looked at Jaing or even spoke with him, she got uneasy. Something was going to erupt soon. She had a feeling it would be revolving around Jaing.
Shaking off these thoughts that passed through her mind with the speed of an eyeblink, she crossed over towards the two scoping out the grounds. “Have you got anything?” she asked.
“Infra-red sensors,” Rylee confirmed. “Picks up anything as small as a rodent. We’ll have to keep our body temperature down when we get within range.”
“What’s the range?”
“Imagine a huge protective bubble,” Rylee said. “It’s covering all of his property. I counted at least twenty security cameras.”
“We’ve been expected,” Jaden muttered. She closed her eyes, allowing the anger to exist, then pass through her. “Dammit. Alright, Rylee, what do we do?”
Rylee had slipped into the leadership role just as easily as Jaden was accustomed to doing. She was focused on one thing and one thing only: The completion of the mission. “We’ll need to do a neat little trick from this building to that one,” she said. “While keeping the body heat at minimal. Unless Jedi can somehow levitate, we jump.”
Jaden nodded and turned her head to look at Jacen, then leaned foreword to peck him on the cheek. “For luck,” she said. “Rylee, tell me when you’re ready.”
“I’ll go first,” she said. “If alarms start going off, I’ll keep going and you guys find another way in.”
Jaden nodded curtly, though a bit unsettled by the way she was putting herself in the front lines. Because that’s what I do, Jaden thought. Because that’s what Luke and Selena do. She’s grown up.
And, for one moment, Jaden wondered how much influence she had had on Rylee.
--
Jaing put away his Comlink, wishing his sister luck. He was riding in a cargo cart, under pieces of cloth and preserved food: Centerpoint was huge, after all. So huge, in fact, those who worked inside the station lived in the station in small apartments. They were heading towards a routine checking line, where other guards would be checking the supplies sent to them for hidden weapons or bombs. Ben was several cars behind him, maintaining secrecy. Calvin even further back.
“You’ll trail me at a distance of not less than fifty meters,” Jaing had told Ben before they had gone. “Do not contact me unless your life is in danger. If I’m otherwise engaged or dead, finish the mission yourself with Calvin.” Ben had understood. Jaing could only hope he could pull through.
The cart took a sudden sharp turn down a dark tunnel, lit only back neon green glowrods attached to the walls. Someone had marked the metal extrusions coming out from the walls with numbers. Dr. Seyah had explained their meaning: they led to different hatches or accessways above and below them. At the box extrusion marked 103, Jaing swung aside the cloth concealing him, took a careful look around to make sure there were no observers present, and leapt free of his car. He landed beside 103 and moved towards the nearest wall hatch, an access route helpfully pained a bright orange.
Jaing tugged at the bar across the hatch that indicated it was dogged closed. Only the handle portion of the bar was accessible. The bar didn’t budge. The door was locked. He gave the control panel a look. He knew the combination required to open the door—Dr. Seyah had given it to him. Using it would complicate matters for Seyah if the number was different for every individual. If CorSec was smart enough, they’d track him down and call him a traitor. Not going to happen.
Igniting his dark blue lightsaber, he plunged it into the doorframe. It took a while to cut through the remotely heat-resistant plating, and once he was finished, he pulled it out gently with the Force.
Beyond was a metal shaft, featureless, lit by green globes. Entering it, with no thought of the danger to himself, he pressed the Lift button. Forty meters later, the ride came to an end. A side tunnel led away from the shaft. Walking down the tunnel—which also served as a large ramp—Jaing found a ramp that led to another hatch remotely like the one he had forced open.
But this one wasn’t locked. Frowning, he took his lightsaber in his hand and pushed the door open. As he slowly stepped into the low, circular room, the door locked behind him.
As Jaden would say: Not a good sign.
Jaing cleared his throat, raising his voice so it would carry. “I feel a nice sentimental moment coming on. Feeling up to talk?”
Far overhead, banks of white lights came on, dazzling bright. Jaing winced, but wouldn’t take his hand off of his lightsaber, even to shade his eyes.
He didn’t need to shade them, really, he realized. No matter where he went, he wouldn’t have to be blind to pick out Thracken Sal-Solo. His first hought was of shock, then anger. What about his sister? She, Jacen, and Rylee had been sent to apprehend Thracken! But this thought, too, was wiped from his mind as he scowled at Han Solo’s cousin.
--
Moving from shadow to shadow noiselessly, Ben and Calvin made it to the hatch Jaing had entered through just in time to hear it thunk behind him. Ben stared at it in momentary confusion. Why would Jaing lock him out?
Then he heard voices approaching from the tunnel’s other end. Oh no. He glanced at Calvin, asking the silent question;
What do we do? --
Burying her head into the crook of his neck and shoulder and keeping one arms around his back, Mara closed her eyes for a moment. If she listened hard, she could just barely hear the servomoters within his chest. Sometimes she dreamed of the day John’s body had given up on him, and he had ‘died.’ She remembered feeling the last link of life, and shielding it within her own mind with the two little girls watching them in horror.
“Sometimes I wonder what the galaxy is coming to, these days,” she murmured in his ear.
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Post by tallboydave on Sept 1, 2007 15:32:28 GMT -4
John
I nodded grimly as we stood there, the lights out, our shadows blending together on the wall. "When this is over, we should leave. and let others shoulder the burden we've carried for so long..." I murrmurred.
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Post by Force_Flow on Sept 1, 2007 15:37:36 GMT -4
Mara nodded against his shoulder. "The Galactic Alliance is looking more and more like the Empire now," she said. For the first two decades in her life, she had served the Empire. She knew exactly what it looked like. "Just because Corellia's finally trying to push their independence doesn't mean the GA should punish them for it."
She sighed, running the knuckles on her fist up and down John's side in a slow, peaceful manner. "I'm worried about all of this," she said. "If I still had any type of grip over Tahiri, I would pull her out of the Jedi Order and bring her to live with us just to spare her all the madness."
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Post by tallboydave on Sept 1, 2007 15:42:39 GMT -4
John
I nodded sadly. "Still, all children have to leave the nest sometime, no matter how much we wish it were otherwise. All we can do is wish her good luck, Godspeed, and that the Force be with her."
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Post by Force_Flow on Sept 1, 2007 15:46:47 GMT -4
Mara stayed silent for a long time. It was unlike her to worry, but like all mothers, she was fiercely protective of Tahiri. If she had any power at all to bring her back, she would. She wished she did. She hoped for it. But Tahiri had become increasingly hardheaded. Mara chuckled slightly, remembering on of Tahiri's best friends.
"Do you remember Numu? He left us a surprise the third day he stayed with us."
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Post by tallboydave on Sept 1, 2007 16:02:46 GMT -4
John
I snorted. 'Yes indeed he did. We never did find out where Tahiri got him from, did we?"
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Post by Force_Flow on Sept 1, 2007 16:07:41 GMT -4
Mara Caplin
Mara shook her head. "No," she said. "I'll add that on the list of questions I'll ask next time i see her. It's been too long." Making a decision, she took out her comlink and dialed in Tahiri's number. Getting the same voice message Mara had become increasingly familiar with over the years, she hooked the comlink back on her belt. "Next time I see him, Skywalker and I are going to have a long talk about he definition of 'paid vacation.'"
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Post by tallboydave on Sept 1, 2007 16:17:37 GMT -4
John
"Want me to bring a mop and a bucket?" I quipped flippantly, before shutting up as Mara gave me a look.
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Post by Force_Flow on Sept 1, 2007 16:25:18 GMT -4
Mara
Glancing at him, she sighed. "Skywalker better not bring her into this," she said. The arm around his neck bent backwards to give her hand room to massage his upper back. "I love you," she said, moving her hand to caress his cheek. "But the next crack about a mop and a bucket, you'll find out what water can do to unprotected servomotors."
She giggled and let the full weight of her head rest on his shoulder, thinking of their adoptive daughter.
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