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Title: Flameout: Any Landing You Can Walk Away From…
Author: Kayla Tetavor
Rating: M
On the bridge the ship’s owner/operator, Captain Jasmine Onasi, worked on the life support system’s programming in an attempt to get the environmental controls to regulate the cabin temperature, pressure and humidity a little more proficiently. The music that blared through the ships broadcast system was of the kind typically found in dance clubs with a heavy driving bass and rhythms and lyrics that tended to lure listeners in and onto the dance floor. At first Jasmine was slightly annoyed at the musical selection, but soon found herself almost dancing with herself at the control panel as she continued to work, though the music really wasn’t making the dismal discovery of her systematic probing of the system any more favorable. She was quickly finding that the problem wasn’t fully in the programming but was also due in large part to the poor computer systems quality and heavily decayed and corroded droid brain controllers that were installed during the ship’s overhaul and ‘upgrade’ nearly two years ago. Jasmine was starting to wonder if that upgrade wasn’t just all smoke and mirrors, another con successfully played against her to part her from her hard earned credits.
At the other end of the ship in the engineering area, next to the humming and throbbing engines that propelled the vessel through hyperspace, was the ship’s mechanic Alexander Vettamere. He was ever so gently poking around at the Starry Delight’s gravity generators, the gravity control sensors and the inertial compensators that kept had him so worried about all of their safety ever since leaving Nar Shaddaa. When the music first started he was forced to turn the volume way down to keep it from distracting him in his delicate explorations, though he hadn’t turned it completely off. He was hoping to find some loose connections or even simple parts that could be replace from what extra supplies they currently had on board, but these hopes were quickly disintegrating as he gently dug deeper into the problem. All the while he was growing ever more worried that, at any minute, any one of these heavily corroded wires that kept the system working could fall apart and leave them without any gravity at all.
In the galley portion of the recreation area was a certain former twi’lek slave girl, Ambrosia Lynn, who happily sang along with the upbeat music that was turned up quite high in this part of the ship. She was working on the food and drink replicators, and was already starting to feel the same levels of engineering frustration as the other two crewmembers on the ship. The problem with the food replicator wasn’t quite as simple as ‘power fluctuations’ as Alexander had initially diagnosed, though he was fully correct in his theory that the program was completely fragged in the drink replicator and Ambrosia was surprised that the machine was dispensing anything that was even remotely drinkable in the first place.
Alexander walked into the recreation area from the direction of engineering and found that he practically had to yell to hear himself over the driving music that was playing, “Don’t you think it’s a little loud in here?”
Ambrosia grabbed his hand and danced him around the room quick before releasing him. “Well, it looks like Alexander has some moves,” she teased. She headed back over to the replicator unit and just before she disappeared behind it said, “Besides, haven’t you ever heard the phrase ‘if it’s too loud then you’re too old?’ It sounds just right to me.”
“I am not old… in fact I’m only a couple years older than you are, missy,” he said with a frown.
The twi’lek’s head popped up from behind the machine quick and she looked at him and teased even more, “Oh… it must be the clothes then. Oh, hey… hand me that nano-scanner from over there.”
Moving to retrieve the requested electrical unit, he said, “I really hope you are having more luck with your project than I was on mine, I don’t think I can stomach another Onion Fried Bantha Burger… not today.”
She accepted the scanner from him and ducked back down behind the replicator console. Alexander barely heard the twi’lek voice from around the machine as she answered him, “Oh, I guarantee you… this thing won’t be serving any O.F.B.B.s today.”
Cheering up a great deal he said, “Well that is great news…” Then it suddenly hit him what she just might have meant, “What? I hope you meant what I think you meant! That is great news... isn’t it? Don’t tell me that is broken completely now.”
She called back with a touch of laughter in her voice, “Don’t worry, Alexander, I won’t let you go hungry.”
“Well, it good news then, for a moment I though you meant that the machine wasn’t going to…” Alexander was cut off as a great charge of electricity suddenly surged from beneath the replicator console.
Ambrosia was caught totally by surprise at the sudden discharge and screamed loudly as electrical arcs, sparks and billows of smoke emanated from beneath and behind the machine. She screamed again as she very quickly scrambled out from behind the machine even as the room was cast into total darkness and complete silence as the lights and the music died suddenly.
A small emergency light came on a moment later and Alexander looked to see that Ambrosia was unhurt, though she was obviously a little shaken at the sudden electrical display. Alexander saw that Ambrosia was now covered in a thick coating of greenish-brown goop, obviously the machine had, besides putting on a dazzling light show, also over-pressurized the nutrient lines that the processors used to replicate whatever food and drinks were ordered from it. Alexander smiled and said, “I hope this is all mood lighting in preparation for a nice leisurely supper, but most importantly… I hope you made enough for everyone.”
Ambrosia was still holding a nano-manipulator in her hands and slowly turned to glare at him, she raised the tool menacingly and was about to inform him of just what exactly he could do with his supper, when the lights suddenly flickered back to life.
From a breaker box just inside the room from the cockpit cabin Jasmine angrily asked, “What the hell is going on back here? And why is my replicator unit smoking like that, that thing is still new! I thought I told you two to go easy on the electrical systems while you repair things.”
“That unit may look new… but its inner workings, its circuits, control boards and matter manipulators are older than even the units I worked on back at the Flaming Mynock, and believe me the Galavin wouldn’t spring for anything that was even remotely new. And besides, I was still in the middle of my diagnostic… I hadn’t yet dove into trying to make any repairs yet.” Ambrosia said defensively.
Alexander agreed, “I’m afraid she might be right, captain, I’ve found much of the same in the circuitry back in engineering. Apparently new looking units packed with wiring and control circuits that appear as if they might have been pulled out of a ship that had been in mothballs for ages.”
Jasmine looked like she was about to blow a fuse of her own now, “Jay Foley you two-timing, swindling, cheat! I swear I’ll collect that bounty myself… if we survive this!” Jasmine was about to throw the glow-lamp that she was still carrying across the room in a rage, but Alexander quickly and carefully took it away from her.
In a smooth and calm voice Alexander tried to settle her down, “No fair breaking more things right now… we have enough to worry about already… such as who exactly this Jay Foley person is? Let me guess… he is the current guest of some far away backwater planet’s Neanderthal natives with a certain twi’leki personal secretary?”
“That guess would be correct. My former husband was a notorious conman… a confidence man… his specialty was to marry eligible young ladies, drain their accounts and disappear again. I was number seven in his collection, but I thought that I had caught onto his game before he did too much damage to me or my family, it seems I was wrong. It appears that your accounts of the matter are closer than you think, these failing electrical systems were from a ship pulled out of mothballs… and this is the ship. For the amount of money I spent refurbishing this vessel I could’ve bought a new one, but now it appears that all I paid for was a quick polish job and he embezzled the rest of the money… him or his twi’lek mistress Dann’ilia… either way they took the money and I’m left with a ship that is disintegrating out from under me.”
Ambrosia was at a counter trying to clean the protein goop off of herself, and asked “Um, just how old are we talking about? There are circuits under this thing that haven’t been used in a great many centuries, and from what I found already it could’ve poisoned us fatally at any time.” She indicated the replicator that stood by still dark and silent, though it had quit smoking now. “If another system on this ship didn’t beat it to the punch, that is. I’m afraid this ship is quickly turning out to be a flying deathtrap.” Even before she finished saying this last part, however, she knew it was the wrong thing to say, but the damage had already been done.
Jasmine narrowed her eyes at the twi’lek girl, “What in the blackest nova is that supposed to mean? You know, you weren’t actually invited along on this little voyage in the first place… and I’m still not convinced that your stowing away on my ship wasn’t all that coincidental. Could it be that you are actually still working for your Hutt master? Saving us from the customs cruiser only to fatten us up for something more?”
A flash of anger crossed Ambrosia eyes and her expression went suddenly rigid and Alexander quickly jumped in, “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Time out, ladies. I’m sure that Ambrosia didn’t mean anything by that, and only said out loud what we all have been thinking all day, we need to get some critical systems fixed soon or there won’t be a ship left to do any repair work on. And I have to admit, captain, that I did invite her along on this voyage… in a manner of speaking that is.” This little tidbit got both of their attention, and while Jasmine was looking even more angry at his comment, Ambrosia was looking just as confused. “I told her, while I was still back in the cantina, exactly where our ship was docked and when we were leaving… I just left it up to her as to whether she wanted to come with us or not.”
Ambrosia was looking skeptically at him, but it was true, she did find out that information at the cantina, but he had said it to his drinking partner that he was doing business with. But after he caught her when she tumbled off the bartop and while she really didn’t remember seeing his friend after that she did remember a lot of patrons fleeing the place expecting a whole lot of violence to follow a stranger actually handling one of the Galavin the Hutt’s personal slaves.
Jasmine however was more upset than before at this admission, “And of course you did all of this without checking with me first! Of course you did, and that’s why you made our departure from Nar Shaddaa so late also… you were still waiting to see if your ‘nonpaying passenger’ would just come trotting up the loading ramp with her packed bags in hand… it never dawned on you that she might’ve gotten onboard through a different access point?”
Looking a little abashed now Alexander scratched the back of his head, “No… I guess I didn’t… I’d never actually freed a slave before. I guess I’ll know better next time…” he winched at the hardened glare from Jasmine suddenly, “… not that I’m going to be making a habit of it, captain.”
Jasmine glared hard at Alexander and looked as if she were about to explode, but instead she just turned to leave the recreation area, and started heading back toward the cockpit. “Why do I always get the crewman with the worst habits?” she murmured to herself.
Alexander turned back to look at Ambrosia once again and was about to say something more when she walked past and handed him a bowl full of the nutrient paste, “Your dinner… bon apatite.”
After watching Ambrosia leave as well, heading toward the crew quarters presumably to get cleaned up, Alexander gave a great sigh. “Well at least they aren’t fighting with each other.” He then looked down at the bowl full of greenish-brown goop she had handed him, dipped a finger in and licked it off. “Not too terrible bad. It needs a little flavoring though, and I know just what to add.”
Alexander moved toward one of the cabinets and peered inside, “Oh no… we dumped all the lum overboard!” He moved over to the small table and sat down with his bowl, then after dipping his finger into the paste he watched the protein goop ooze back off and fall back into the bowl in globs. Very forlornly and dejectedly he said, “This is going to be a long flight.”
“I hope those guys kept the receipt on that one… what a bunch of backwater bums!”
Jasmine went to her command chair and plopped herself down while running her fingers through her hair. Spinning the chair around, she reached out and flipped a switch on the control panel in front of her and a view of the recreation area’s galley appeared on a screen before her, and in the middle of that screen was Alexander sitting at the table dipping his finger in a bowl of paste and licking it back off his fingers. She knew immediately just what it was in the bowl, protein paste, but that wasn’t really what caught her attention, rather it was his posture as he sat there at the table alone. Typically Alexander had very good posture, either standing or sitting, whether there was anyone else in the room or not. But now he sat slouched down in the seat, staring off into nowhere, his fingers moving from the bowl to his mouth as if they had a mind of their own.
She had seen this look on people’s faces before, resignation, though she had never seen it on Alexander’s face before, or anything even close to it. Jasmine knew that was the look of someone that had all but given up. She knew this wasn’t a good thing either, they still had a long ways to go and a lot of work to be done before they got to their destination, and giving up on the repairs now was only going to make their coming out of hyperspace and the ship’s next reentry that much more difficult.
“Those two had better not waste too much time…” it was only now that Jasmine realized that Ambrosia wasn’t on screen anywhere, and after changing the camera angle determined that the twi’lek girl wasn’t even in the recreation room anymore. “Now where the firestorm did that twi’lek wander off to!”
Jasmine checked the security cameras in engineering, quickly fearing the worst, but it was empty other than for the tools that Alexander had left behind from his earlier visit. She checked environmental control, medical and even the cargo bays… all of them proved to be empty however. She finally hit the controls to activate the cameras in Ambrosia’s quarters and the video came alive just in time to see the amethyst skinned girl leave her quarters, the door closing automatically behind her.
Before hitting the controls to follow Ambrosia’s progress through the ship Jasmine noticed that Ambrosia’s room was neat, spotless and organized, far from the horrendous disaster that she remembered leaving Dann’ilia’s room in just before she had sealed it after ditching the scheming twi’lek with that traitorous letch, Jay Foley. “When did she find the time to clean her room like that? Well, if nothing else, she is at least neat, organized and orderly… but then most trained assassins are.” Jasmine thought about what she had just said to herself for a moment, shook her head slightly as if trying to chastise herself for letting her paranoia get the better of her and reached out to the camera controls once more.
Through the Starry Delight’s onboard security camera system Jasmine was able to follow Ambrosia’s progress through the ship. It appeared as if Ambrosia had not only changed her clothing but had probably even gotten a quick shower to wash off all the splattered protein paste from the overloaded replicator. Jasmine was thinking how, should the ship and crew not have been in such dire straights right now, the sight of Ambrosia coming out from behind that machine covered in all of that goop might have actually been quite humorous… but as it was the best she could hope for was that they would just survive long enough to be able to look back on this situation later and maybe find some humor in it then.
Jasmine watched the monitors as Ambrosia stopped at one of the ship’s supply lockers and started rummaging through it, pulling out all sorts of stuff, wiring harnesses, electrical components and even an old control panel from the old sensor system that Alexander had removed before installing the new sensors a month or so ago. This supply closet seemed to be a catch all junk-room now, any circuitry, machinery and wiring that was still somewhat functional and potentially useful wound up in there, ready to be scavenged for whatever project was currently at hand. But like most junk closets the room was a total mess, and after having the customs inspectors rummage their way through it as well left it in worse shape than ever.
As Jasmine watched, the twi’lek girl was digging around pulling out all sorts of stuff, seemingly working at a frantic pace. Jasmine knew that she had some certain goal in mind, but couldn’t exactly figure out just what that goal was. As she sat in her command chair watching the monitor she saw a large piece of metal teetering on a shelf high above Ambrosia’s position. It was an old spare piece of the engine cowling from what she could tell by from the camera, and just as the twi’lek girl gave a tug on a wiring harness that she was trying to liberate from the clutter the cowling broke loose from its perch and fell.
“Look out!” Jasmine yelled at the monitor, but there was no way that Ambrosia could’ve heard the warning and the metal housing struck her on the head knocking the twi’lek girl heavily to the floor. Before the engine cowling had even finished clattering around on the floor, however, Jasmine was out of her chair and rushing out of the cockpit. The ship’s captain raced as quickly as she could to the supply closet where the accident she had just witnessed had taken place.
As she passed through the recreation/galley area she saw that Alexander was no longer there, and grabbed the comlink off of her belt, Jasmine keyed it, “Alexander! Ambrosia’s injured at the storage locker outside of cargo bay number one… get the medical first-aid kit and get it over there! Now!”
Ambrosia was still trying to push herself up off the floor when a pair of hands eased her back down to the floor. A voice was speaking to her, but the wounded twi’lek girl couldn’t focus on a single word that was said. What she could focus on, however, was the puddle of red that was quickly forming on the floor beneath her and she knew immediately what it was… blood… her own blood… lots of it.
The hands that were helping her were also gently urging her to roll over and lie back. After she accomplished this task Ambrosia could then see who it was helping her. Seeing the look of concern and compassion upon her rescuer’s face eased Ambrosia’s fears a little and she laid back and her head came to rest on a padding that was placed down for her. Ambrosia could hear Jasmine’s voice but couldn’t seem to focus on what was being said, and slowly reached up to touch Jasmine’s long dark hair that had spilled down over her skin tight black tank-top, which she usually wore underneath her jacket. For a moment Ambrosia wondered where Jasmine’s leather jacket was, she had never seen the captain without it, and only then realized that the jacket must be what she was now resting her head upon.
When Ambrosia realized she was probably bleeding all over the leather she tried again to sit up, only to be gently pushed back down by Jasmine. “You just lay there… and that’s an order, crewman! Alexander will be here with the first-aid medical kit real soon.”
Weakly Ambrosia tried to argue, “But your jacket is going to be ruined.”
“Well it’s better than getting blood all over my floors, besides, if you are going to worry about it that much then you can always promise to buy me another one later.” Jasmine was trying to keep a light mood, but her bedside manner left much to be considered, and she knew it. Coupled with her own anxieties of the situation, seeing the amount of blood that was flowing from the gash in Ambrosia’s skull and the fact that there was going to be no professional medical help for the girl for at least another two and a half days, she was beginning to panic herself. Jasmine turned and screamed down the corridor, “Alexander! Hurry up with that first-aid kit!” just as he was already coming around the corner in a sprint.
Alexander slid to a stop and kneeled down quickly and cracked open the medical kit and set to work as one might expect from a trained paramedic. He asked, “What happened down here anyway?”
Ambrosia tried to answer but all that came out of her mouth was garbled mumblings. Jasmine spoke up, her nervous, half panicked, tension clearly apparent in her voice. “That old engine cowling fell off of an upper shelf and struck her while she was working down below… over there I think.” Jasmine pointed shakily to the corner of the storage closet where Ambrosia was working. “How in the blazes did that thing get up there in the first place? Nothing that large and heavy should ever have been put way up there!”
Alexander looked up to Jasmine and could see her trembling, “It’s the inertial dampeners and the effect it has on the gravity generator… I’m guessing that it just floated up there on its own during one of those hyperspace transition points when the grav-gens were at their weakest.” Alexander was working vigorously with items from the medical kit, but the flow of blood was quickly soaking through the few pieces of gauze that was included in the kit. “I’m going to need more than this kit provides… get me some towels… a dozen or so… and get a couple of them wet in warm water. I’ll see what I can do to stop this flow of blood.” He watched as Jasmine nodded quickly and got unsteadily to her feet, looking as if she might topple over herself. “Jasmine? Don’t worry, she’s going to be alright. Just take a deep breath… you’ll both be fine… but I really need those towels… quickly!”
Jasmine nodded again, “I’ll be fine… sorry… towels… two wetted in warm water… I’ll be right back,” and started rushing down the hall toward the refresher.
As soon as Jasmine left to get the towels Alexander started speaking to his twi’lek patient. “Ambrosia? Now I need you to take a deep breath yourself young lady, but keep your eyes open… no sleeping… do you hear me? You need to stay awake! I am going to need you to help me with this. I’ll guide you… but I am going to need your inner strength if we are going to get through this… we can get through this… we will get through this… together. I know how strong you are… now you need to discover that strength for yourself.”
Alexander knew it had been a long time since his Force Healing training, and hadn’t really ever had a chance to use them before, not that they were ever all that strong in the first place. For some force wielders the art of Force Healing seemed to come as naturally as breathing, but not for him. For Alexander it was more difficult, he’d always found it very easy to manipulate the emotions and desires in others, but found that any actual physical healing effect upon those same people to be a very tedious and tiresome exercise with effects that were barely noticeable, if he even succeeded at all.
The meditation trance that Alexander had placed Ambrosia under the morning after finding her stowed away aboard the ship had proven to him that the girl had an exceptional talent and gift for the Force. While he didn’t have his midi-chlorian tissue sampler with him, another of the great myriad of items that he wished that he brought with him from the Jedi Temple, he was all but positive that she would’ve scored at least as high, if not higher, than he did himself on the scales.
Now he just hoped that she caught on to the Force Healing skills as easily and quickly as she did the Force Meditation techniques.
“I know this is going to be difficult for you, but you need to listen to my voice. Concentrate on what I’m describing and I’ll do everything I can to minimize the pain. You think you can do that?” he asked as he looked down to her.
“I’ll try… I’m scared… cold… and weak…” she barely managed to say in a whisper.
“There is nothing to be afraid of, I’ll be right here with you. And that coldness you feel is from the floor, it’s only about 50 degrees in here again,” he said with a slight smile. “Now this is what I want you to do… I want you to focus upon my voice… ignore the words… just listen to the tones… and open yourself to the wonders of the Force…”
“Oh, that’s great, now I’m threatening a water faucet… but it seems to have worked… nice hot water!” Jasmine quickly immersed two of the towels in the water, made sure that they were soaked through, and then squeezed them back out so as not to leave too much water dripping across the floors, and set back out down the corridor once more.
Jasmine had just started around the corner and into the corridor that led to the storage room where Ambrosia and Alexander waited, and the stopped abruptly at what she saw before her. Alexander was knelt down next to the still prone twi’lek, but instead of tending to the wound on her head he was holding both of his hands flat tight upon her chest. Jasmine’s first though was that the plum-haired crewman had lost his senses and was taking advantage of the situation to feel the unconscious girl up and was about to yell at him, but just as she opened her mouth a white glow started to fill the corridor where the two of them were located at. The white glow seemed to be coming from the location where Alexander’s hands were held against Ambrosia’s body and the light quickly spread to cover the girl’s entire form even as the light greatly increased in intensity. The light soon became a brilliant and piercing white so intense that Jasmine was forced to look away, shield her face with her arms and clench her eyes shut to avoid the searing brightness.
A few moments later, after the light had died down, Jasmine was able to look back in that direction again but the corridor was dark, or rather it seemed dark. The pupils of her eyes had dialed themselves down so far that the meager lighting that was the norm for the corridors of the Starry Delight seemed to be more like theater walkway lighting in the midst of a holo-flick.
Jasmine called out, “What the hutt-spawn was that!... Alexander! Answer me… What the blazes are you doing down there?” After not getting an answer she started slowly walking that direction as her eyes started to readjust to the normal lighting conditions. As she got closer, however, Jasmine noticed that now not only was Ambrosia still laying upon the floor near where she had fallen, but Alexander seemed to have collapsed as well, and was even then laying across the twi’lek girl’s equally unconscious form.
“Oh, this day just keeps getting better and better!” she exclaimed sarcastically.
He sat up anyway, and while he did manage to eek out a worried question, “How is Ambrosia? Did she…?” he immediately fell backwards onto the bed once again with a pained moan of agony.
“Serves you right, Alexander! I told you to lay still.” Jasmine came closer so that he could see the look of amused mock concern. “But to answer your question, yes, the girl’s fine… sleeping now… but fine. Now, I’m only going to ask this once, and you are going to tell me what exactly what went on in that corridor. See I’m guessing that you’ve got one killer of a headache right now… couple that with the fact that my ex-husband had one of the most elaborate and expensive sound systems installed in this room, and tie that in with the driving and pounding bass of some of Ambrosia’s most favored music… and I’m thinking the last thing you want right now is for me to turn that music on in here for a while. So spill it! What in Rigel’s Nebula was all of that about back there in that corridor?”
Well, Alexander had to admit that she wasn’t wrong about the headache. In fact, his head felt like it was used as a ball through the entire 12 innings of a professional galactic-league game of demise-ball. “You know, besides being illegal in the Galactic Republic, torture really isn’t the most efficient way of extracting information from someone.”
“Efficient? No, you’re probably right that. But entertaining? In some forms, oh yes. And I hate to break it to you but we left the sphere of Galactic Republic influence as soon as we leapt into hyperspace.” Jasmine inched ever closer to the intercom control panel next to the door and started to reach out toward it slowly.
“Ok, ok, you win… I’ll talk… about what though? I don’t even know what I’m being interrogated about.” Alexander tried to laugh but the throbbing in his head put an end to that almost as quickly as it started.
Still not moving her hand from the intercom control panel, Jasmine demanded, “I want to know what happened in that corridor! And what in the blazes was with all of that light? And why is my ‘head engineer’ now added to my ship’s disabled list?”
“I’m your only engineer, captain. But you say you saw a light, did you?” Alexander asked a little sheepishly.
Incredulously Jasmine exclaimed a little more loudly, “Saw a light?! Astronomers are even now trying to figure out why there was an unexplained supernova coming from the sector of space we just passed through… yea… I saw a light… in fact I’m still seeing spots in my vision from that light! Now do you care to explain to me just what the blazes all that was? And what caused it?”
Alexander was quiet for a few moments, his eyes closed, lying still and motionless on the bed. Jasmine was about to yell at him to wake up but just as she took a deep breath to do so he opened his eyes once again and sat up swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and stood up. Out of an instinctive reflex at Alexander’s sudden movements, Jasmine’s hand dropped from the wall near the control panel to her side, to the blaster that she was only rarely without.
After standing to his feet Alexander stood tall and looked at Jasmine, his eyes darting down to her hand which was inching even closer to her blaster. “That won’t be necessary, captain, I’m no danger to you or to your ship, though to be honest I’m not quite the person you thought me to be.”
Jasmine watched him for a moment, thinking at first that his pained expression from earlier was all an act, then noticed tension set into his jaw and the look of intense concentration in the depths of his eyes. She decided that it wasn’t an act at all and that he was even now in even more pain than before, but figured that he was determined to fight his through it, being too stubborn to submit to his obvious pain. What kind of training makes a man do that to himself? She was about to ask him about that when the connecting door to Ambrosia’s cabin suddenly opened and the amethyst skinned twi’lek girl stepped into the room as well. Ambrosia appeared to be cleaned up, showered and changed, and from what Alexander could tell was none-the-worse for what happened earlier.
Ambrosia sheepishly spoke, “I’d like to know more about who you are as well. One moment I am lying on the floor bleeding to death and the next I wake up in my own bed without a scratch to show for it? How does someone do that? How do you do that?”
Jasmine sighed deeply while rolling her eyes at Ambrosia, but she had to admit that the girl was correct in the fact that there wasn’t even the trace of a scar where the engine cowling had split her head open. She looked back to Alexander to see what he had to say and saw that he had once again closed his eyes as he stood beside his bed. “Oh, for crying out loud, Alexander! Sit back down before you topple over, I had a hard enough time getting you into your bed the first time… next time I’m just going to leave you on the floor.” She watched as Alexander sat back down upon the bed and added, “But don’t think that this interrogation is over with! Now if you aren’t Alexander… then just who are you?”
Opening his eyes once again he said, “Oh, I’m still Alexander… Alexander Vettamere… I’m just not the transient spacer, part time starship mechanic, that you expected me to be.”
Sarcastically Jasmine said, “Oh really? I figured that out only a couple days after you came aboard. So if you’re not a transient then who… what… are you? I’ve all but ruled out the idea that you are some star-dandy fulfilling some unexplained wanderlust to simply see the galaxy, so then I was figuring that you were a mercenary, but they always demand to be paid more than they are worth… not the opposite as was your case. So now I’m leaning toward thinking that you are some sort of military type. Whatever you are though, you are either seeking something or running from something… possibly even both. I’m leaning toward ‘love’ as being the reason you are out here in the black in the first place… probably your first love. Am I anywhere close?”
“Interestingly close. I didn’t realize I was such an interesting subject to study.”
“Well you know how boring it gets during these long hyperspace flights… well not this particular flight...” she added as she looked over to Ambrosia, who just shrugged meekly. “… but I do like to know who I’m flying with.”
“You could’ve asked if you were really that interested.”
Jasmine scoffed, “Then what would I do on watch? It’s sort of like a game I play, trying to figure out the little secrets of someone without having to ask. But now, you know how it is… its all fun and games until…”
“… someone almost looses their head?” Ambrosia finished for her, her eyes still watching Alexander.
Jasmine smiled and nodded, “Exactly. The accident was unfortunate indeed… but what I saw after that I’ve decided that my little game is over.”
Alexander nodded, “Thoroughly understandable, captain. But before I say anything more I’d like to see if Ambrosia wishes to make an extrapolation as to my…”
“… you’re a Jedi, aren’t you?” the twi’lek said almost as more of a statement of fact than phrased as a question.
Jasmine just stood watching him with a look of disbelief upon her face as Alexander nodded to Ambrosia. “I thought that you’d figured it out as soon as you returned my robes to me. The way you handed them back with an almost reverent respect… thank you. So what tipped you off… did I leave something in one of the pockets?”
Ambrosia remembered how he knew she had had gone through all the myriad of pockets in his robes, “No, your pockets were nice and neat… and very empty,” she added with a slightly guilty smirk. “Actually it was your lightsaber that…”
“Lightsaber?” Jasmine said as she finally found her voice again. Jasmine left the position by the wall mounted control panel and went to the cabin’s desk, pulled the chair out and sat down. “Why can’t I ever get a good, decent, normal deckhand… what am I cursed? I have a jedi-in-hiding and an escaped twi’lek slave girl for my crew… never mind that all of that… so… you have a lightsaber? Let me guess… it’s a nice pretty red one isn’t it.”
Alexander reached over and pulled a metallic cylinder from beneath is pillow, but smiled weakly at her implied accusation. “No, captain, you can rest well in knowing that it is, in fact, not menacingly red at all, but rather a nice peaceful blue.” Alexander winced as the throbbing pain came back with a vengeance into his head from the movement and he once again closed his eyes, but as he did so he still held out the lightsaber for Jasmine’s inspection.
Jasmine sat in the chair and looked at the offered metallic cylinder as if it were a poisonous creature that was ready to strike. While a part of her was tempted to accept it from him to satisfy her own curiosity another part of her resisted knowing that she would have plenty of time to look at it later. The more skeptical side of her won out in the end, it still wanted more of her questions answered. “I’ll take your word for it, Alexander, thank you anyway.” She watched as he set the cylinder upon the bed next to him and asked, “So you sleep with that thing under your pillow? Isn’t that kind of dangerous?”
“No more dangerous than sleeping with a blaster under your pillow.” This earned him another long hard glare from Jasmine as she was reminded once again of the security camera in her own berthing room, but he continued on with, “Besides I’ve tried putting it under the blankets with me… but it’s too cold.” He tried to laugh at his own feeble joke but all he really managed was a choking moan. Ambrosia came over to him to offer any support or aid, but he simply took another deep breath and closed his eyes again, soon afterward his face became calmer once again.
Jasmine asked, “I don’t really know all that much about the Jedi, or of your monastic ways, so forgive me if I ask the wrong questions.” She noticed Alexander’s hand movements indicating that the questions were fine, so she continued. “So that light I saw, I’ve heard about healing lights before but I’ve never seen one before, well other than on the holo-net or in holo-vids, but those were all from industry special affects. What I saw in the corridor, that was the real thing though, wasn’t it? That was a real healing light?”
Alexander nodded slightly and spoke even though he still kept his eyes closed in his self concentration, “So let me get this right, everything you know about jedi you’ve learned from the holo-vids?” Jasmine just rolled her eyes and he continued, “I believe what you’ve described was actually a healing light, I can’t be for certain though, I’ve never actually seen one myself either, and I doubt very many in the galaxy have either, at least none with the intensity that you’ve described. While most jedi are gifted with the ability to heal through the Force, only an exceptionally rare few can be considered to be true jedi-healers. They are considered by some to be some of the most valuable, important and special sentient beings in the entire galaxy. Through their healing trances they can perform amazing acts that have left the medical community dumbfounded in their wake.”
Ambrosia reached out to gently touch Alexander’s face, even as she looked at him with worry filled eyes. “So is that a healing trance that you are trying to concentrate on even now? A trance to mend yourself?”
Opening his eyes he looked up at Ambrosia, “No, it’s just a regular meditation trance, my skull feels like it was used to host an all-night kegger party for a clan of gamorreans… and that a couple of them have yet to be on their merry way.” He looked up to her face and smiled lightly, “I am just trying to control my pain and conserve my energy.”
Ambrosia caressed his face a little more and brushed her fingers through his hair. “I am so sorry. Why don’t you use your gift to heal yourself… or are you not allowed to?”
Alexander reached up to grasp Ambrosia’s hand in his own, “I see that Jasmine isn’t the only one addicted to mid-afternoon holo-dramas. No that isn’t it at all, in fact most jedi find that it is actually easier to heal themselves than it is to heal someone else. Knowing your own body and exactly where the pain is coming from and such, I guess.”
Jasmine leaned forward in her chair now, “You guess? You talk like you really don’t know that much about your own healing ability.”
“I don’t really… while there are those very rare few true healer types of Jedi in the galaxy, there are also a rare few that have no healing ability at all… and that other group would include me. I couldn’t cure myself of something even as simple as a hangover.” He saw the looks of confusion on both Jasmine and Ambrosia’s faces and answered their next question before they even got around to asking. “No, it wasn’t me that healed you, Ambrosia, it was you… you did that… all of it… all I did was guide you through the process. But I have to say the results are far more than what I had even hoped to expect. You don’t feel anything from the wound? Not even a headache?”
“I’m a little tired,” Ambrosia said as she reached up to rub her head where she got hit and then shrugged “but my head feels just fine, its not even tender, well no more than usual. Maybe I wasn’t hurt as bad as you thought I was,” she suggested.
Alexander was shaking his head negatively when Jasmine stated, “You shouldn’t even be standing right now, possibly no longer even breathing, that’s how bad it was.” Jasmine addressed Alexander now, “So are you suggesting that Ambrosia is a jedi too… but only that somehow she didn’t know it?”
“Well not a jedi, that’s just an organization… but she…” he looked to the twi’lek girl standing before him, “… you… definitely have the ability, and apparently the raw talent as well. I guess ‘untrained force sensitive’ would be the more common term to describe one such as you around the Jedi Temple of Coruscant.”
Ambrosia asked, “Are you sure about all of this? I mean I’ve never done anything even remotely similar to this in my entire life.”
“Oh, but you have. Maybe not to this level, but you have accessed your abilities before I assure you. In fact you do so every day of your life, you just don’t notice when you do it,” Alexander told her. “You were tapped into that power the very first time we met… do you not remember telling, or rather, warning your twi’lek friend about me ‘That one is not going to be an easy one, he is a predator… not prey.’ back in the Flaming Mynock Cantina while you were dancing on the bar?”
“That was a private conversation!” Ambrosia exclaimed in mock fury.
“Then you shouldn’t have been ‘shouting’ it across the cantina taproom,” Alexander replied as he glanced to her lekku brain tails. “Your intuitions told you that I was more than I appeared to be… the Force helped you reach that conclusion.”
Ambrosia then asked the same question that so many others do at this point, “What is this Force? I’ve never heard of it before.”
Alexander gave the ‘official’ answer first, “The Force is an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, it penetrates us, it binds the galaxy together. Through the assistance of this energy field those that are sufficiently sensitive and properly trained can manipulate its energy to do their bidding.” Then he have her the not so official answer after he saw she was looking a little confused, “How many worlds throughout the galaxy do you know of that believe in some strange mystical or magical power supposedly possessed by one group or another be they known as shamans, clerics, wizards, warlocks, sorcerers, witches or whatever else they might call themselves? Just about every last one them, save for a miniscule few, and in almost every one of these cases the ‘magic’ that they wield is the same energy field that is also known to the jedi as the Force.”
Jasmine sniffed a bit in skepticism, “Next you are going to tell us that this Force is used by more groups than we know already. I’ve heard sale pitches like this before in various starports from Coruscant to Tattooine and everywhere in between, it’s all nothing more than…”
“… ‘hokey religions?’ I know I’ve heard it all myself, but don’t forget about my ‘ancient weapon’ bit either… it’s sort of like a set.”
Jasmine scoffed outright now, but definitely had a smile creasing her face, “I’ll remember that the next time I’m accosted by religious fanatics after passing through customs.” She looked over to Ambrosia, “So why don’t you show her how to patch you up this time, then we can all get back to work,” she said this with a bit of sarcasm still not totally believing what was going on.
Ambrosia started to get a little excited, anxious and nervous all at once at the thought of actually using this ability her first time and looked to Alexander for instructions on what to do next. But he just sat there smiling at her, “I don’t need to show her how, she’s already done it.”
Ambrosia’s excitement turned to confusion in a flash, “But I didn’t do anything…”
Jasmine stood up and came over to the both of them, “What? I didn’t see any blinding light that time… and I’m fairly certain I didn’t fall asleep.”
Alexander stood up and stretched a little, “Like I said, I’m not an expert on the matter of Jedi Healing techniques, but I think all she did was rejuvenate my energy levels… maybe with the lighting in here the healing light wasn’t quite as noticeable. Maybe the light that you saw earlier was far more intense because the wound that was to be healed was far more complicated and critical.” He saw that Jasmine was looking skeptically confused at him again so added, “It’s like this, say you want to move your ship from one docking bay to the next. Would you fire up your ion engines for the journey?”
“Of course not, besides being extremely illegal and dangerous, it would just be wasteful especially when the repulsor engines are far more efficient for small distances like that.” She finally caught what he was saying, “So you are saying she replusored you instead of ion driving you?”
Ambrosia was starting to look embarrassed and Alexander laughed, “Yea she did… I guess you could say that.
“Wonderful, you keep your ‘hokey religion and ancient weapons’ and I’ll keep a trusty blaster by my side.” Jasmine started toward the exit and called back over her shoulder before she left, “And as soon as you two are feeling up to it we have lots of work to do before we come out of hyperspace in about sixteen hours.”
Jasmine looked back quick before the door closed and saw that Alexander and Ambrosia were already heavy into a discussion about the Jedi and the Force, she just shook her head and headed back to the cockpit.
Everyone worked hard until the alarms sounded that their hyperspace plotted route ending was quickly approaching, then the crew of the aging space freighter all went forward to the cockpit and secured themselves firmly in their seats. Jasmine, naturally, was in the captain’s seat piloting the vessel, while Alexander was in the co-pilots seat watching various readouts and diagnostics screens, leaving Ambrosia in the navigation/communication/systems control seat that was located behind them.
Ambrosia squealed in frightened terror once again as the Starry Delight dropped out of hyperspace, because as with those times before the ship’s inertial dampeners were pitifully slow to fully engage, leaving a combination of weightlessness and the deceleration gravitational forces that threatened to throw everything on the ship forward and out of place. They all felt the heavy deceleration of the ship as it slowed from its hyper-light-speed velocity and then felt the weightless sensation from the vacuum of space for a moment before the dampeners and artificial gravity finally kicked in again to their full effect.
From behind them Jasmine and Alexander could hear Ambrosia moaning and squirming in her seat, “You had better not be planning on getting sick on my consoles back there? Are you, crewman?” Jasmine addressed Ambrosia without turning around, a hint of annoyed worry in her voice.
“No, Jasmine, I’m good. I just never realized how unsettling zero-gravity can be.” Ambrosia answered, a little embarrassed by her terror-filled outburst yet again. The twi’lek girl could feel her heart beating hard and fast even as her mind went back to the horribly terrifying experience she had in the cargo bay only a very short week ago. “If I get a vote, I say those inertial compensators and the gravity systems move to the top of the ship’s repair list.”
Alexander piped up, “I second that. Those lapses are getting worse, both in strength and duration… I almost lost my lunch that time.”
Jasmine laughed slightly, “It sounds to me like I have a couple crew members that could use some serious time in zero-gravity exercise training. You two should just be glad I am looking forward to some quality cantina time down planet-side, else we would’ve been floating around out here just a little bit longer.” Jasmine was flipping a few switches on her console and banked the ship hard to port and started traveling deeper into the system where they had just arrived.
Alexander laughed, “In that case, remind me to buy the first round, captain. I’ve had some zero-G training in the past and never really got the hang of it... or rather my stomach never really got used to it. I guess I’m grateful we dumped every bottle of liquor out the cargo bag hatch after all, else we might have been floating around out here for the next week training in zero-G.” Alexander too was flipping switches and punching keys on the computer console, trying to get a sensor scan of the area to see if there were any other ships nearby they should have to worry about.
“First round is on you? Don’t worry I won’t forget about that. But why did you throw in my good bottle of Corellian Lum with all the rest of the counterfeit stuff? That one was a legal bottle! And it was very expensive!” Jasmine complained as she maneuvered the ship around a little more bringing a planet into view through the forward view screens.
Ambrosia spoke up this time, “Oh… um… that one was my fault, sorry. I just thought it would be best to get rid of everything. Those customs officers might have used your good bottle of lum as an excuse to hold us longer, not caring that whether it had a ‘good’ set of seals or not.” Then Ambrosia looked up from her console and saw the planet that they were heading toward through the forward windows, and remarked, “Oh, that’s a beautiful planet, all blue and green and swirly. Oh, and look at the lights flashing over the blue area over there! It’s so pretty… at least from up here… please tell me it’s just as pretty down below on the surface too.”
Alexander laughed, “Swirly? That’s it, from now on you are the official cartographer in case we get lost in hyperspace and run across any new planetary systems, I’d like to see the Galactic Archivists file that description away. ‘The planet we found was sorta blue and green and swirly with pretty flashes of light.’ ” He winked at Ambrosia, though she continued to glare at him and even stuck her tongue out at him, but had to fight her own smile back to do so. “You are correct though, Ambrosia, it is an attractive planet, colors, swirls, flashes and all, but I really have no idea where we are. After nearly a week in hyperspace we could be anywhere in the galaxy… captain?”
Jasmine answered, “Don’t worry, it is just as pretty on the surface as it is from up here, and possibly even more so, well, with the possible exception of where those flashes are. Those flashes are powerful electrical storms that build and grow over the seas, very dangerous, very deadly, but luckily they rarely ever blow inland. We have just arrived in the Niedra System, and before us is Niedra VII, one of the most elegant resort worlds known outside of the Core and the Inner Rim Worlds. It is a world of beauty that has seemingly reverted back to the ancient days of luxurious fashions and impeccable manners, a time when men were gentlemen of high regard and women acted as, and were treated, like proper ladies. Buggies, coaches and carriages are the main modes of transportation on Niedra VII, pulled by powerful beasts of burden. The only place where you’ll see anything in the air more complicated than a possible hot-air balloon would be at or around the starport. It is a wonderfully beautiful place, but they do have some strict laws here, laws concerning specific dress codes and even tighter laws restricting the display or use of ‘high technology.’ They seem to discourage ‘tourists’ from walking around armed as well, it would be best if you two left your blasters on the ship for this visit. But don’t you worry though, this is a very safe system as well, and as long as you don’t go looking for any trouble, then trouble shouldn’t find you either.”
Alexander nodded and added, “Oh yes, Niedra VII, their security forces are top notch. I’ve been here before, though it was quite a while ago now. I wonder if they would still remember me still after all this time?”
Both Ambrosia and Jasmine turned and looked at each other first, and then looked back at their purple haired crewmate. They were both looking at him accusingly with raised eyebrows.
Looking as innocent as a boy with his hand in a cookie-jar, Alexander said, “I was working with the Niedrian Security Service, not against them… if that’s what you are thinking.” He laughed slightly as he punched a few keys on the council before him. “Looks like Niedra Space Control just transmitted out approach vector, captain… to a shipyard? Do they know something we don’t?”
“I requested permission to land at the repair yards, I’m afraid that the Starry Delight needs more attention than we can provide for her ourselves. I don’t mean to diminish your skills, but I have some friends down there that may be able to get us patched up, at least to the point where we don’t have to pray every time we launch.”
“I’m not disappointed, captain, if that’s what you were worried about. As I told you when I signed on, I’m really not much of a mechanic, I just do what I can. Besides, Ambrosia here seems to have the real talent for electronics, she even got our food and drink replicators working once again.”
Ambrosia just shrugged slightly as she finally took her eyes off of the planet that loomed before them, “Well I had to fix it… a person can only eat so many Onion Fried Bantha Burgers before they go crazy. I figured it was either fix it, or starve to death. So what I did was, starting with the food processor, I pulled the wiring harness out of the wall and spliced in one of those X-213 power relay panels, and a couple hyper-capacitors with a positive flow coupler… you know, to stabilize the power feed… oh, and by the way, if you look at the unit next time you’re down there you’ll see that I’ve marked some of the toggles with warning stickers… believe me… you don’t want to hit those. Ok? Ok. Next I wired in a…”
Ambrosia was still in the middle a play by play description of her repair job when the Starry Delight entered the planet’s outermost atmosphere. The ship shuddered severely, lurched hard enough that everyone would’ve been thrown to the floor had they all not still been wearing their retaining belts, though the sounds of other items that weren’t so securely restrained in other parts of the ship could be heard crashing to the floor. Then a loud piercing alarm started to resound throughout the cockpit.
Alexander was furiously punching buttons on the control console before him and announced, “Captain, we just lost our inertial dampeners altogether this time, they flamed out completely… and I think ‘flame’ is the key word here, captain. I believe there is now a fire in the engine room. I’ll activate the fire suppression system on your command.”
“Not yet, if that foam hits the electrical control circuits back there, and shuts the engines down too soon, we’ll make a crater large enough to swim in after the next rainfall… and we won’t even be around to enjoy it.” Jasmine too was busy punching controls before her with one hand while trying to control the ship’s joystick with the other, and soon several more alarms were soon sounding as well, indicating that a cascade failure of various systems was assailing the ship.
Ambrosia hit the communications transmitter and announced to Niedra VII’s flight control, “Mayday! Mayday! This is the Starry Delight and we have just suffered a catastrophic systems failure and have lost…” Ambrosia glanced over her own readout panels, “…65 of our control surfaces and maneuvering nozzles. We are caught in the planets gravity well and are coming in hard and fast. Inform Tarreth Repair Yards to clear a landing site immediately, we are still heading straight for them.”
Over the com they all heard a reply from the orbital control station, “Starry Delight, this is Orbital Control Officer 1637, message received and acknowledged. Repair yards have been notified and they will illuminate an area in their landing fields to direct you down… good luck Starry Delight.”
Alexander announced loud enough the captain could hear him over the all cacophony of alarms and other noise on the bridge, “Engine output power down to sixty-percent and dropping, captain.”
The planets gravity had already grabbed a hold onto the Starry Delight, and with a quick few words between Alexander and Jasmine they decided it would be best to try to at least guide the ship into the atmosphere instead of trying to climb up into a stable orbit, where they might suffocate or get pulled out of control into the planet’s atmosphere should the engines die completely trying to climb to a higher altitude. Either way it would’ve spelled a certain painful demise. They decided to try their luck on sticking a landing on their first attempt… because they both knew they weren’t going to get a second.
So Captain Jasmine started guiding the ship down toward the surface, hoping for at least a semblance of a controlled landing. The ride down through Niedra VII’s atmosphere was a rough and frightening experience. Reentry plasma flames were already beginning to lick their way up and around the ship’s hull, hot enough to scorch the cockpits outer window screens.
Jasmine heard Ambrosia’s slight squeaks of terror from behind her and called out, “Don’t worry about the flames, in the old days ships used to come through a planets atmosphere just like this, the Starry Delight just happens to have been built in those older days. She can take the heat.”
Alexander’s voice belted out, “Engines just went off-line captain. Zero-percent output power.”
Jasmine started sounding worried herself now, “No reverse thrusters at all? She wasn’t built for the kind of heat we are about to receive though. Ambrosia, fire the fire-suppressant foam into the engine room then seal the cockpit airlock completely and flood the rest of the ship with the halon-fire control system. It will help keep any radiant heat from igniting everything else back there, and hopefully even stop the fires that have already started in the engine rooms… hopefully they haven’t spread too much yet.”
Alexander was still punching away at various controls at his panels and got an idea, “Captain, permission to route power from the quad-laser cannon capacitors to the shield generator matrix. It will eventually burn the shield emitters right off the hull, but it should give us thirty seconds to a minute of shielded protection. Hopefully long enough for the planet’s atmosphere to slow us down to a point the heat buildup on the hull is more resistible.”
“Do it! Reroute power from life-support and anywhere else you can grab it… even the reserve emergency batteries… just leave enough for the repulsor engines… hopefully they are still on line… we are going to need some juice left to power those things to slow us down some before we hit the ground,” Jasmine ordered, but Alexander was already in the midst of carrying out the idea already, time was of the essence and the ship was already starting to get noticeably warmer inside.
The freighters shields came to life just moments before the hottest part of the descent occurred and flames rolled around the protective bubble formed outside the vessel. To anyone that may have observed the Starry Delight’s descent they may have mistaken them for a meteor plummeting out of control, and they wouldn’t have been far off the mark for the Starry Delight was definitely falling without any means of manipulating their speed or direction.
Inside the ship the ride was even rougher than before. As the ship dropped deeper into the upper atmosphere it began to encounter heavier air pockets that would jostle the ship back and forth, and all the crew could do was to hang onto their seat’s armrests with white-knuckle grips. Jasmine kept her eyes locked upon the various data readouts indicating their speed and altitude as best she could, while Alexander watched the reserve battery power supply levels.
Ambrosia, however, wasn’t faring near as well, she was a sobbing, shaking wreck. Ambrosia had thought that the ride in the cargo bay leaving Nar Shaddaa would’ve been the most terrifying experience she would ever have in her entire life… she has since changed her mind… being up here in the control center during this emergency wasn’t helping her in any way. Just sitting there listening to the alarms shriek out their warnings and knowing first hand that their doom is only a matter of minutes or even seconds away may just be worse than just riding out these last few moments oblivious to the dangers in the dark. Then as the ship suddenly hit an upper air-stream, rocked and shook violently as if it had just struck an asteroid, and Ambrosia’s panic got the better of her and she screamed out in terror.
Alexander called out to her, attempting to calm the twi’lek’s rising panic, “Ambrosia, listen to me! Take a deep breath… deep… closer your eyes… and listen to my voice. We are through the worst of it, air pockets are good, that means we are beginning to slow down. It’s just turbulence, it’s a little rough but nothing we can’t handle. Just keep focused on my voice…” Even as Alexander was speaking to Ambrosia, as the twi’lek girl slowly calmed from her near panicked state, he motioned to Jasmine indicating that the shields were completely gone and that the reserve batteries had fifteen-percent capacity still. But he was correct, the ship was slowing more and more as the air got thicker the deeper into the atmosphere they got. As they descended even further, slowly the flames that had licked their way around the ship died away.
Jasmine fought with the ship’s controls and slowly brought the nose up a few more degrees, while the vessel wasn’t in any way designed for atmospheric travel, she could still get it to ‘skip’ across air pockets slowing their descent even more. Then, when she felt the altitude was right, activated the ships repulsor lift engines and applied full power to them even as she still fought to keep the ship’s nose level with the ground. She knew that activating the repulsor engines too soon would burn them up, they worked best only in fairly close proximity to a gravity mass… like a planet… but activating them too late would not give them time to work.
For all of those spectators and emergency personnel that waited on the surface it appeared as if the Starry Delight was going to hit the landing area and crash at full speed. Those on the ground they could hear the ship’s repulsor lift engines whine and cry out as they tried to slow the ship’s descent, and as the ship descended the repulsor whine turned to a piercing mechanical whining-scream as the ship’s rate of descent suddenly ceased considerably, the landing gear deployed and the ship landed. It was hard slamming landing that broke off two of the landing amateurs, but it was a landing nonetheless.
Inside the ship, Alexander was still speaking to Ambrosia, trying to keep her calm, when the ship landed with a sudden crushing jerk that shuddered the hull hard enough to short out the lighting system and sending sparks from the control panels. It was enough to bring Ambrosia out of her trance with a jolt and she let out another scream of terror. But already Alexander was already unbuckled from his seat and was rushing back to comfort her.
“It’s all right, Ambrosia, its all over now… we are on the ground.” He unbuckled her quickly and pulled the half-panicked twi’lek girl into his arms in a reassuring and caressing embrace. Ambrosia calmed from her near panicked state after a moment, then broke down into tears and she sobbed against Alexander chest as he rubbed her back.
“Oh, I see how things are around here now… I do the flying and she gets the reward.” Jasmine said with a light hearted voice after she unbuckled herself and steped back toward them, only to be grabbed by Alexander’s long reach and pulled into his embrace as well.
Jasmine started to say something about going out to check on her ship, but Alexander reminded her, “You can’t leave the cockpit right now, the halon-systems have been activated throughout the ship, there’s no oxygen back there right now. So you are going to receive our thanks right now.” Alexander pulled the captain into an even tighter embrace next to Ambrosia.
Jasmine only then felt the adrenaline that had rushed into her system begin to fade, all the fear and terror that she had felt herself, but had managed to quell inside, all suddenly took affect upon her and she started shaking with tear filled eyes herself. And Alexander too, felt the same rush of emotions flood back his consciousness and this time he just let it flow through him as he held his crewmates. All three crewmembers of the Starry Delight stood in the back of the cockpit holding each other in, as relief of their successful landing washed over them, washing away the fear, terror and uncertainty of the near uncontrolled landing they had just experienced.
“That was some amazing piloting, captain. You are definitely one of the greats.” Alexander complimented even as he squeezed Jasmine in an even tighter embrace.
“I couldn’t have done it without you, both of you. Besides, I could let anything happen to my crew, now could I? I’ve flown these star-lanes alone before and believe me the loneliness isn’t worth it. If this would’ve been one of those solo-flights, I wouldn’t be standing here now. That idea you had to use the shield generators as a heat buffer was genius, but I happen to know that trick has been tried before on other ships… with disastrous results… how did you keep the resonating feedback from wiping out every other operational system on the ship as soon as it was activated?”
“If you knew that it had been tried before, unsuccessfully I might add, then why did you let me try it this time?” Alexander asked.
“We were out of options at that point, we had nothing to lose and that was the only idea tossed out. Besides, there is always a first time for everything. So what made you think of doing it that way?”
Alexander nodded to the twi’lek he still held in his other arm, “Actually it was Ambrosia’s idea, the hyper-capacitor and positive flow coupler combination from the replicator repairs earlier, I just borrowed that idea and used the quad-laser capacitors to control the feedback and let the firestorm outside act as positive flow device… it worked better than I thought it would really, the positive flow of energy from the plasma surrounding the ship kept a flow of energy rushing back into the ship, but instead of allowing that resonating energy to run loose though the ship and incinerating us instantly it was instead routed through the hyper-capacitors and charged them back up… thus letting the shields last much longer than I had planned.”
Ambrosia looked up to him confused, “But I still didn’t do anything to help… besides panic.”
Jasmine now reached over to embrace the twi’lek girl as well, “But that isn’t true. You were scared, believe me… we all were… but you kept that fear in check and did your job. You alerted flight control of our problem and even activated the halon-fire suppression systems… how exactly you did that I have no idea… that entire system has been off-line for several months now. I asked you to activate them because I thought it would keep your mind occupied for a while, I never dreamed that you would actually get them working… and from that control panel no less. Because of your actions, you kept the fire from spreading… and at the rate it was going then… that fire would have destroyed the repulsor control systems. You were as instrumental in making this a successful landing as any of us, and your panic didn’t start until after we touched the ground.”
Ambrosia sniffled a little and tried to dry her eyes on Alexander’s shirt even as she nodded, “It was Alexander, his voice was… is… so soothing and calm, he led me through it.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Ambrosia, all I did was talk… you did the rest yourself. You controlled your emotions, you held your fear and indecision in check, you are far stronger than you believe and have the capacity to be so much more. But we really should discuss that at greater length later… right now… let’s all just head outside.” Alexander said as he nodded to the cockpit doors as they were opened by three rescue personnel.