"Sad to say I cannot." I replied "I was striped of the force 25 years ago during a fight with a dark jedi, I now can no longer use the force or be felt through it. But this is ancient history."

I had just settled back in my seat in the attempt to relax, when the board in front of me yanked me back to attention with suddenly insistent clamors for attention.

"What now?" I wondered aloud as I reached out to receive the incoming message. I listened to it twice, committing the frequency of 789.231 to memory before storing it safely in the ship's computer. Then I flipped to "send":

"Harrier this is Eagle II. I copy that frequency of 789.231; will commence search planet-wide for locator signal concurrent to search for human and Ryn life sigs. Tell the Big Guy not to worry; if that's the planet he's hunting for, and the stuff he's talking about is there, I'll find it.

"I've had a little bit of experience in this kind of thing, you know.

"Eagle II, out."

I flopped back in my seat and shook my discouragingly empty cup.

"I don't suppose there's a pot of caf anywhere aboardship, is there?" I asked Terrin before lifting the cup to my lips to lick out every last remaining drop that might still be lurking within.

[ 05-26-2008 12:37 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Galen ]

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Pausing then, Terrin got to his feet, and reached out to take the empty cuppa caf from Galen's hand, cocking a brow then, "How long of a trip are we in for anyway?" he asked then.

[ 03-07-2008 11:01 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Terrin Danner ]

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"Lemme yank up the galactic map--" I began, then stopped short with a frown.

"Hey, this is weird," I said as I turned round in my seat. All I saw was Terrin's back as he departed in search of caf; huffing a little snort, I returned to the map and tapped it again.

"Wild Space is clear to hell and gone out by Mon Calamari," I said more loudly. "That's in the complete opposite end of the galaxy from Khar Delba.

"But... the coordinates Shayla sent me are close to the Sith worlds; what the-?"

I turned round again, chewing my cheek in thought.

"Does Wild Space extend farther around than I thought? I mean, yeah, I've gadded about here and there, but I'll admit I don't have all four quadrants entirely memorized. But then--"

I chewed my cheek some more.

"I wonder if Shayla read her star systems correctly? Or--"

I stopped in mid-track as another thought widened my eyes.

"Is there something other at play here?"

[ 03-07-2008 10:59 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Galen ]

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He trailed, disturbed by the strangeness of it all. "I hate to say that I've got a bad feeling about this," he then continued, "But could we be stepping in to something set up by Ole' Googly again? Or what if there is some sort of...

...space/time rift there or something, that links wild space with that point in the Sith worlds."

Quieting for a moment then, he frowned. "What about the other two sets of coordinates Shayla gave us, for Belkadan and Dantooine? Anything peculiar about them?"

Chewing his lip then, another ugly thought came to Terrin's mind, one that he couldn't ignore or keep quiet about. "What if this link between the Sith and the Vong that we keep hearing about has something to do with this? Vector Prime ultimately lead to Belkadan, which was the first planet invaded by the Vong back in the day...

...what if the Vong are somehow able to manipulate space and their entry point into our galaxy, via Vector Prime, to open up into Sith space?"

He furrowed his brows thoughtfully. "Is there any way we can examine the pull of gravity and so forth at those coordinates before we get there...

...and end up some place that we dont' want to be either?"

--------------------

Now it was my turn to furrow my brow as I turned my thoughts back to the early teachings I gleaned at Daddy's astronomer's knee.

"Well.." I began slowly. "I suppose I could drop us out of hyperspace before we're on top of the system, but close enough to do a spectral scan on it. Then I could upload earlier specs of it and compare the two for gravitational lensing."

Terrin only blinked at me in what had to be utter loss. I smiled a little and went on.

"I can check to see if the star's position has altered in relationship to background stars. Massive bodies will bend light; this will make a star seem to have moved a little bit. If something is gravitationally fishy with this unknown planet's star, that's the only way we're going to be able to get a clue about it.

"But if this is real, how it came to be is, well--"

I trailed, and let a shrug finish the statement for me.

--------------------

Chewing his lip a bit then, Terrin's blue eyes turned a bit distant as he slipped off into a whole line of how and what ifs. With a sudden start, he realized that, at the moment, all the speculation wasn't going to do alot of good.

"I guess the only thing we can really deal with is the here and now," he then commented, his blue eyes snapping alert once more and focusing on Galen. "And I'm not sure that there is really anything else we can do for now except plan to drop out of hyperdrive and check the star's postionn like you've just mentioned."

Pausing again then, Terrin sat back a bit, noting for the first time since they had departed the Hornett that he and Galen were on their own, for the first time in a long time, if ever. After all, the guys were usually along with them...

...and back in the day when he should have gone off to assist Galen in looking for JhinDarra from K'eel Doba, he hadn't. The barest hints of guilt momentarily clouded Terrin's eyes.

"You know, it'll be kinda quiet here without our resident drinker," he commented. "So are we going to continue to man the navboard, or put'er in auto and check out our supplies and the new ship."

Check out the ship, a mental demon then popped up and snorted. How funny...

--------------------

"There," I said in a self-satisfied tone of voice which completely belied the turmoil which raged within me. I couldn't help it; I had piloted Daddy's ship since I could first reach the console, it seemed, and had been in charge of one ship or another ever since. And a few of those ships were, well... to use the term uncanny would be to highly underestimate what I really felt about those miraculous Sith fighters I had grown to love.

In a nutshell, I was a pilot. I could fly. Had done so forever it seemed, and probably would continue on until the rontos came home or I dropped dead, whichever came first. And so to find such a glaring navigational discrepency such as I had not only didn't set well with me, I just couldn't shake the impossibility of it. Secretly, I highly doubted the Vong had managed to achieve the capability of creating what essentially amounted to a gigantic wormhole, not with their culture's strict aversion to technology. And if that was the case, then--?

I tried to hide my racing thoughts by widening my grin.

"You're right. There's time enough to go over this in greater detail after a little break," I said as I rose to my feet and reached out a hand to Terrin.

Khaandon only knows that all work and no play make for a dull mind, and even duller reflexes.

"So, you gonna give me the Grand Tour or what, Flyboy?" I grinned genuinely with that, and for that brief instant finally managed to completely banish my trepidation and worry about what was out there, what was not...

And what was more than likely incoming, no matter how I might try to disbelieve it.

[ 03-14-2008 12:27 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Galen ]

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Not that any of this is going to help you get to Yaoksi if there is something peculiar about those coordinates, as Galen suspects, snorted the returning shoulder demon. Furthermore, if there is something really strange as far as spacetime going on there...

Terrin turned to Galen, stating his thoughts out loud, knowing that he was by admission doing the very thing he had just a few minutes before said wouldn't help them much: speculating. "Of course, if we pop out of hyperspace and find something strange upon scanning, we could leave a buoy at that spot and head on to the coordinates Stargazer gave us. Then we could follow on to the coordinates with at least something to lock on to on our return trip if needed...

...and hopefully find Yaoksi in the process. Wouldn't be a bad thing if we found that Sith ship that Panthar said they saw when they asked where Yaoksi was in the Octahedron, that is if it is even functional. I wonder how it got there, anyway..."

He paused then, frowning a bit, "And what happened to its pilot?"

[ 03-16-2008 10:18 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Terrin Danner ]

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"I dunno," I replied honestly, remembering back to the secreted little horde of Sith fighters Dad had uncovered on his last, fateful dig. "Those ships are pretty weird; Jester simply had to be thousands of years old, considering where it was uncovered, but it looked brand spanking fresh off the shipyards.

"Whose to say if the one by Yaoksi is ancient, or a new one someone has just recently flown to whatever in Hell's Seven Circles the planet is where he's lost.."

I trailed a moment then to consider Terrin's other suggestion.

"And as for the buoy, well... under normal circumstances I'd go with that. But if someone is monkeying around with space and time, whose to say whether or not that buoy will truly stay where I place it?"

I shook my head.

"We can speculate until the rontos come home, but we're not going to come up with anything useful. Let's just let Eagle II get us to the coordinates, and see what it is we will find there."

--------------------

He frowned a bit at this. "Still, we used to manage without them," he reminded himself aloud, "No matter how difficult times were, we made it through one way or another. Of course, we knew exactly who and what we were fighting."

Falling siletnt for a few moments then, Terrin's eyes turned a bit distant. At length however, they grew alert, and he took Galen's hand once more. "We were better at stopping and smelling the roses then too," he said then. "Maybe we ought to finish our Grand Tour now?" he queried, the first hints of michief in a long time beginning to creep into his eyes. "How long to reversion do we have?"

[ 03-20-2008 10:15 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Terrin Danner ]

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"There is something wrong with this place, at first it was a suspicion but now I can't shake it off," I said. Clutching my lightsaber even tighter to my body I gazed around at the land scape and returned my view to the others.

"It is as if this place is tainted some how by the force, but not in a way I have ever seen or heard of, usually when a places is tainted by the darkside of the force there is still life to speak of, though usually dark and twisted but never an utter lack of it. We need to get away from this mountain soon."

I got up and approached the spot where Yaoksi was laid out upon the rock and offered him my armored had to help him up.

"Oh, at least a couple hours," I said breezily as I took Terrin's proffered hand. Then I grew a bit more serious.

"Y'know, you're right," I said then. "I mean, about getting too used to powers. Hell's Seven Circles, not only did we used to get by just dandy without them, as you said, but there was a time when Sorben and I did just that, and in fights against peeps who had some at their disposal."

I paused a moment as memories of our struggles against Darth Wicked and Desolist and that heebee-jeebie instigator Gravin Dark popped into my head. With a little shudder and a bit more effort, I managed to place those images out of mind.

"And y'know, maybe that is why all this happened. I mean, yeah, evidence is circumstantial, but it's still fairly strong. Ol' Google-Eyes makes an appearance, and boom --! Everyone with anything in the way of preternatural abilities is left helpless as a baby womprat.

"Maybe somebody somewhere is trying to tell us something... but it's not something I want to hear. Not if the Vong really are in-coming, and you know how anti-technology, anti-magick they are."

I paused a moment to rub a weary hand down my face.

"If this all really is some kind of galactic game, as I'm beginning to think it is, I'd say there's more than one player in it... and one of them is cheating. If it's a game at all, that is."

--------------------

We were having the most marvelous time...

"Ugh," I grunted as the Jedi's soft words interrupted my fugue state, and brought harsher reality back into focus. "Dark--"

I sat up with a groan of protest, and blinked at my surroundings. No pretty little park, but rock and dirt and patches of snow against a slate-gray sky assailed my vision; I sighed and rubbed my face as the last vestiges of my dream utterly vanished. The Jedi's words finally sank in then, and I turned a worried look his way.

"What do you mean, tainted? Like in evil dark stuff, or what?"

Oh what I wouldn't give to have my dear ship at hand once again. Then this guy would see that I could be useful, instead of the bag of yesterday's laundry I was beginning to feel like. I clambered to my feet and stretched, wishing I could offer at least a modicum of help. The most I could do was keep a stiff upper lip, and make certain the little Ryn stayed safe.

"I'm all about getting off this rock," I said then as, reaching a hand out to Link, I indicated my readiness to continue on.

Onward and downward...

[ 03-22-2008 01:01 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Yaoksi Joao ]

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He paused then, chewing his lip a bit. "Funny that whatever-it-is that is playing what seems to be a game keeps knocking out not only everyone's powers, but any device we might have to play against he, she, or it with. Remember the Claw was destroyed?"

He trailed again, his frown growing into more of a scowl. "And now this possible loss of Sith technology to add to the fray...

...sorta makes me long for the days when we at least thought we could find one device or another to even our playing field with the nasties, like back when we were looking for the Nar Khelba. I mean, seems at the moment that 'Ole Googly, or whoever or whatever is behind him, is more than happy to make us give up our powers without giving up its own."

Quieting for moment, he chewed his lip again. "But then, what if it's own supernatural powers are its weakness as well?" He shook his head. "There just has to be something."

--------------------

"It's almost as if we'd been given a warning, isn't it?" I asked, turning to shoot a questioning look into Terrin's baby blues. "I mean, first ol' Googly pops up from nowhere, slaps us on our collective wrists, and takes off with that little toy of Sissy's. But did anyone pay any attention?

"No."

I paused again, thinking.

"Everyone kept right on popping into this dimension, and scuttling through that portal; I mean, what the hell do we know about how all that kind of thing works? Maybe each time something like that happened, it weakened the fabric of spacetime or something; hell, I dunno."

I paused a moment, chewing on my lip as I let my thoughts march on to their seemingly preordained conclusion.

"But I don't think that the powers whatever the hell It possesses are in any way, shape or form to be considered a weakness. It's obvious that when it depleted everyone else of theirs, as we suspect, it sure didn't bother to take away it's own."

I stopped with that and yawned, bending backwards with both hands on the small of my back to try and ease out a crick that had suddenly developed there. The sudden release of muscular tension did not lessen the growing emotional strain that was building up inside me, however, but only seemed to make it more prominent.

I sighed again.

"I wish I knew what would make that damned thing happy," I finally muttered. "I mean, we did what It asked regarding Koris'sian, and as far as I know no one has..."

I ground to a halt.

"You don't suppose someone has tried to get into the Elseness and mess around on that planet, do you? And that's what's gotten It all in a wad, to where It came popping from nowhere to whammy us again?"

Like a kid lashing out in anger, or a parent reprimanding a kid...

And to tell the truth, I didn't know which of the two scenarios annoyed me the most.

--------------------

He trailed, frowhing even more. "How the hell did they all wind up there? I mean, I don't remember anyone saying how, and I didn't think Stargazer had those sorts of abilities. At any rate, if someone was there mucking around with Vong villips, then I'd say you might be on the right track. But then..."

He trailed once more, suddenly feeling very, very, suspicious, "...that leads us back to the question of just who or what this Googly really is. Of course we might not ever know, but it's worth considering that someone, at some point in time, left a Vong villip there, one which conveniently responded to a Shayla, despite the Elseness."

He shook his head. "I wonder if the planet was truly moved to Elseness to protect it from being misused...

...or to hide it for someone or something's own personal use?"

He chewed his lip a bit, feeling more and more at a loss as to what to do. "Unfortunately there seem to be more questions here than answers."

--------------------

"Not quite dark but similar," I started. "When a powerful force user dies or a powerful event echos throughout the force it can sometimes leave an impression. It can be felt by force users, but in some rare cases the force presence left behind can actually affect the physical plane. Plants growing gnarled and twisted, animals becoming bigger and more aggressive. I've never seen it, but my master did once."

"I've been without the ability to sense the force for so long that I have come to rely on other means of seeing it, like how animals, people interact to unseen events or sights. Whatever happened here must have been so strong that even now the impression left here by the force make all life want to avoid it. As far as i can tell this area of land is as fertile as any other so as to why I can't think of any other reason then my theory."

"Umm... you mean just this area, right?" I finally ventured, even as I cast an uneasy glance around. I don't know if it was just a response to the gloomy words Kyan spoke or what, but suddenly I felt like unseen eyes were ominously upon us.

"There's got to be life somewhere on this rock, right? I mean, how in all the known universe are we going to survive if there's no life?"

The thought of no food, nothing much in the way of trees with which to make a fire, and who knew if we'd even find water... well, it was enough to make my heart sink in my chest. I drew in a deep breath and puffed it back out again.

"I remember something I learned back in science class, something called Occam's Razor. Basically, the simplest answer is often the correct answer. Now, I might not be anything but a lowly pilot, but it seems to me that the odds of a world having no life at all would be incredibly complex. Wouldn't they? I mean--"

I hastened up to jog along at the jedi's side.

"Don't you think so too? For this to be planetwide, I mean?"

Oh please tell me you think my convoluted attempt at logic is probably correct, for if it wasn't and something happened here dire enough to sterilize an entire world, then how was I going to adhere to my self-imposed promise to keep Link safe?

Not to mention finding a means of departing the premises.

I sighed again, and hastened along, feeling like I was dragging Link along with me as I went.

[ 03-26-2008 11:38 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Yaoksi Joao ]

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I took off my helmet and handed it to Yaoksi.

"Back on the mountain I saw off in the distance some sort of plant off in the distance that grows here and there across much of the surface." I started. "At first it looked like some sort of grass or tree-like brush, but as we get closer it looks like 3 or four flexible vines that come out of a mound or rock. My helmet has macro-binoculars built-in so take a look for yourself. Also you might notice that they seem to be swinging in the wind, but there is no wind meaning it must move under its own power."

I didn't wait for Yaoksi to use the helmet to see for himself what was ahead, for now I was almost certain of what I saw.

"Amphistaff--?" I replied, blinking in surprise. I looked down at Link, but found no answer in her dark and limpid eyes.

"What is that... and why does something tell me that I'm not really going to like the answer?"

I put the helmet over my head and peered off in the direction Kyan indicated, but the view there did nothing much toward explaining this little mystery to me. Indeed, all I saw was what looked like a bed of thick vines, writhing before a gusty wind. Only... true to what the jedi said, there didn't appear to be any wind in the vicinity; at least there wasn't any here, and if those things were close enough to view, even with macrobinocs, then all I could assume was that there was no wind there either.

I gave my head a little shake before removing the helmet and handing it back to Kyan.

"Ok, so they're wiggly vines," I said as he took it from me.

"But they're stuck in the ground, right? So even if they are dangerous, all we have to do is avoid them, and go around them or off in another direction, right? I mean, one way is as good as another; hey Link, have you picked up anything yet out there that might indicate something that might remotely resemble civilization as we know it?"

I stopped a moment and put a hand to my eyes, squinting off toward the now greatly diminished patch of whatever-it-was.

[ 03-27-2008 01:34 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Yaoksi Joao ]

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Not that I wasn't grateful, after all, but...

"Y'know," I mused further as I headed aft toward Eagle II's tiny galley, the thought of hot caff in mind. "Maybe this Googly-whatsis just doesn't like whatever power it is that Sissypoops and Lord Aelvedaar have; what was it they call it? The All?"

Reaching the galley, I headed straight for the pot Terrin had put on, bless his heart. I poured myself a cup, then sat down at the even tinier table the galley afforded.

"Maybe that's it. Maybe it just doesn't like anyone having that power. Maybe that's the power that It has..."

I ground to a halt then, my eyes widening as another thought struck me.

"Hey, if that's the case, maybe It didn't think anyone would be able to really utilize it. But seems like Lord Aelvedaar sure as hell did, contacting Sissypoops from centuries in the past, using it to somehow make the stuff on Koris'sian so you could be brought back to me--"

I shot out a quick smile, then sobered.

"And even Sissy was getting pretty damned good at using it. Hell's Seven Circles, even I used it, and I didn't even know what the hell I was doing either! So, what I'm trying to get at is this: if this is the power that ol Google-Face uses, and It used it to prevent us from using it further... well...

"Maybe there's a way to get around this somehow. Aelvedaar and Sissy know what it's all about; maybe knowing is half the battle, and they'll be able to figure out a way to get in contact with it again? Only--"

I ground to a stop as another thought struck.

"This wouldn't explain why the jedi all lost their powers, too. Unless there's some kind of general blanketing effect in play that was meant to knock out the powerhouses and did likewise to the lesser strength of the Force just as an after-effect?"

I stopped then for a drink of caff, wrinkling my nose to find it had suddenly grown tepid.

--------------------

"Well, Shayla is a Force-user, who has also used this All-stuff, so maybe there is some sort of link between the two powers, like you said."

He shrugged then, frowning, still trying to put his finger on the something that was eating at him. And then it finally registered. "You know, when we were hiding on K'eel Doba, and trying to find Graysith after the Vong got her, Aelvedaar got angry with Shayla and somehow took her powers from her, or blocked her from using them or something."

He paused, his blue eyes growing a bit distant as he tried to put together exactly what he was thinking. "Not that I'm trying to say that Aelvedaar is behind this, but it sorta supports your suggestion...

...and it makes it possible for Googly to be more than meets the eye. I mean, it seems peoplewe've seen that those who have better control of the All can dominate those who have less control of it, and even lesser abilities. Aelvedaar is incredibly powerful, then there's the Master...

...and remember that Rean guy and his ability to shield the ZZ'Shzq?"

He shook his head. "It's funny we never encountered Googly until we went to Kor'isan, and I was...

...brought back." He frowned again. "Strange things had been happening well before then, after all. The whole bringing of the Sith to the future, Lord Recinis's appearance, the whole Phalomir thing...

...so why did Googly's reaction to the broken Game take so long? It's almost like our actions on Kori'san were close enough to something's home base that we finally were in range to get his, her, orits attention. The 'Place of Places,' after all."

His blue eyes darkened a shade, concern clouding them. "What if my reanimation was the event that somehow awakened Googly? We certainly never saw it before then as far as I know."

[ 03-29-2008 08:50 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Terrin Danner ]

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“You’re not going to like the answer,” I began. “And its much worse those amphistaffs are just the start of our problems. Every Mandolorian child is taught about a large variety of weapons incase we ever had to fight someone who carries one of them. An amphistaff is an eel like creature at is the primary weapon of the Vong. This must be their equivalent of a weapons factory.”

The force must have a very good reason to send me here, but what reason did it have to send these other two as well.

"I wasn't suggesting that Aelvedaar was behind all this," I replied, a bit slowly. "Nor was I suggesting there was any connection between whatever power it is that he uses, and that which Ol' Googly does."

I paused and stared him straight in the eye, assessing the subtle body language radiating from him to determine if I had been clear enough this time.

"What I was toying with was the idea that, if Ol' Googly is the Big Nek as far as powers go, maybe he just doesn't like anyone else having any that would come close to his... or her... or it's abilities. As you just said, Aelvey blocked Shayla from using what she had learned; one can only surmise that if indeed it is this power that Ol' Googly has, there are levels of it, or it's use, like you said. He who has the highest power can whammy the others; sheesh, you'd think the Sith would have whammied each other to death years ago with it, wouldn't ya?"

I paused again, my eyes widening further.

"Hey, maybe that's what it's about. Google doesn't want to lose his game players before they're meant to be lost; maybe that's why all powers have been blocked and why It was so ticked when you were brought back to life. Both might not have gone according to whatever little gameplan it's got. If it all is some kind of big cosmic game.

"And if so, back to square one: who is the other gameplayer involved?"

I shook my head.

"We can speculate until the dewbacks plod home; I think we should keep our focus on the here and now, at least until we find Captain Joao. Then we can get back with the others and tell them all this other stuff we've come up with."

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