Project Boussh: The Girl Who Named A Thousand Ships...Well, One Anyway
by Majick

Mike sat with Vickie, discussing the various Boussh developments, comparing
notes, quibbling over the finer points of lightsabre design, a topic both
were very
eager to know more about.
It was early morning, and, by and large, the Boussh team had yet to awaken.
Vickie had only recently woken from her Jedi meditation, while Mike had
recently been decanted from his second bacta dunk of recent times.
He was quite proud of himself for setting the current standard.
Currently, they were discussing the departure of Team Majick from
Washington. Mike poked at the fire aimlessly as Vickie asked about the Super
Mark VI that had transported them away.
"You think they might let us keep it?" she asked.
"Now, why do you ask that? Could it be you're that eager to get behind the
controls of another ship?" Mike asked with a grin.
"Maybe," Vickie allowed, with a laugh. "How is it we have it, anyway?"
"It was the best Cubber could manage at such short notice," Mike explained.
"It's good compared to our other ships, if only because we can transport
fighters aboard it."
"Maybe they'll want to take it back with them, then. For the return trip, I
mean."
"Not the way Cubber was talking about it," Mike commented, pointing towards
the Corellian's resting frame, sprawled across the cabin floor between Wes
and Myn.
"Have they named it? The ship, I mean. Not Cubber."
"Nothing repeatable," Mike said. "I got the impression that it had quite a
few names, if you know what I mean," he added with an arched eyebrow.
"I see. Like using fake tags on a car."
"Yep. If you want to give it a name, I guess you should talk to Cubber, or
maybe Sci."
"Perhaps there's more to that ship than meet they eye," Vickie commented,
letting her eyes gaze somewhere else. Mike cottoned on to what she was
saying reasonably quickly.
"You want to go have a look?"
"Well, this bunch of layabouts haven't gotten up yet."
"True, although, to be fair, you haven't actually gone to bed yet. I don't
know if unconscious-in-bacta counts as sleep, either."
"Details," Vickie commented, as she grabbed her coat, and headed for the
door.

They started off in the cockpit, flicking non-essential switches, playing
with the cloak's opacity, targeting the guns on the cabin and going "ZAP!!"
as loud as they could.
It was good to let off steam.

They wandered back through the ship, Vickie's lightsaber shining brightly in
the darkened corridors. The speederbike throttle assembly fit well with the
rest of the GFFA technology surrounding the two Terran's.
They found the captain's quarters, and Vickie sank into the chair with a
satisfied sigh. She activated the console,and scrolled through the ships
databanks.
"Look, a cargo manifest from before the ship was bought by Cubber. Looks
like electronic components... Funny thing... they sound familiar."
Mike moved over to look at the list. Dimetris circuitry, recharger ports and
components, parabolic apertures, power cells. Indeed, it all sounded very
familiar.

They wandered into the cargo bay, looking for any crates that happened to
say 'lightsabre parts'. Various pieces of junk were scattered around, and
Vickie walked from piece to piece, collecting random parts, discarding
others. Eventually, she returned to Mike, who was admiring Ooryl's X-Wing.
She held out a double handfull of junk towards him.
"You're saying what I think you're saying?"
"There's enough here for two lightsabres. Want one?"
"Wait a second, what about Corran's belief that a lightsabre should be more
than a tool? Hasn't he passed that onto you?" Mike had to admit, though, the
idea was appealing.
"Mike, we're about to assault a whole island. I think we need every trick we
can bring together. If that includes putting a lightsabre in the hands of a
non-Jedi, probably, I say go with it. You handled Corran's okay in DC" -she
watched Mike grimace at the memory- "and I think I'd rather you have
one than, say, Josh."
"Well, perhaps," Mike replied, not too reluctantly. "What do we do about the
jewels? We don't have any, do we?"
"You really haven't been paying attention to the updates, have you?" Vickie
asked, a touch incredulously.
"I have enough trouble keeping my own life in order, especially with those
three I got lumbered with."
"You don't like Bror, Shalla and Elassar?"
"It's not that. It was just hard keeping up wt them. Shalla has a very
analytical mind, I let her handle data analysis."
"And Bror and Elassar? What did they handle?" Vickie asked, a shade too far
on the casual side. Mike looked at her, inquisitively.
"Bickering, mainly. I just let the three of them do what they were good at.
For sure they didn't need me bouncing around them, asking what they wee
doing the whole time."
"You remind me of someone... Ah, I have it!"
"No, let me guess..." his voice dropped into a fair imitation of Wedge's.
"'Wes, they're doing it to me again.'"
"Him, and Face in that first mission he planned..."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah... I know, you're a Jedi, Brad's got the whole armed
force's background, or wherever he learned to talk the talk, and walk the
walk. Josh and Nick have each other, Alison had about fifteen fruitcakes
with her... I was the one who ended up in over his head."
"I think we all did. It's just you caught a fair amount of backlash over it.
I'm not coming down on you, Mike. We all handled our ends differently. Look
at Morwen, or Emily, or Piggy, they let themselves get stuck with the data
gathering,
while the rest of us got to have all the adventures."
"I know," Mike replied, leaning against the wall of the cargo bay. "I
just... I don't know... I'm sure someone else would have done better."
"Maybe, but you did as well as anyone could have asked," Vickie said. "You
didn't give anything away under interrogation, which even Corran didn't
manage to resist. If nothing else, you have a real tough mind there."
"Yeah, I know. So, is that why you bought me out here, to give me a
lightsabre, for being a good little resister?"
"No, you were in need of a chat, I guessed, and boys do like their toys, I
figured a look around the ship would help you."
Mike smiled a lopsided grin at Vickie. "It did, thanks. I can get back to
being the sort of person Wes finds obnoxious, now."
Vickie stared at him, open mouthed. "Oh no, I've created a monster..."
Mike grinned even wider.

They walked along the darkened corridors, and Vickie stopped to look around
them.
"You know," she commented. "If we had some model X-Wing's, we could recreate
Red Squadron at the Death Star in here..."
"Yeah, I guess," said Mike, looking around them. He looked at Vickie, who,
again, was looking into the middle distance.
"Did you do that before you became a Jedi?" he asked her.
"What?" she asked, snapping out of her trance.
"Zone out, stare at nothing, ignore whatever you're supposed to be doing.
Like getting back to the fire. It's brass monkeys in here."
"Um, no, not really... I think I have a name for the ship, though."
"Yeah? Go on, then."
"Red Home. We'll be transporting all the X-Wings, and Pash's A-Wing" she
said with a faint blush at the thought of the redhead. "We can't call it
Rogue Home, but Red Home..."
"I like it," Mike said. "I think we should have a small ceremony, to give
the ship it's new name."
"Later, though. I think right now we should go see Corran about what we need
to  do to make us a lightsabre each."

As Corran explained, the construction of a lightsabre wasn't something that
should be undertaken in haste. Ideally, the Jedi-elect would spend a month
in meditation, bonding the materials together. Even in extreme
circumstances, it would take at least two days. Vickie, ready equipped as
she was with Corran's spare, was prepared to wait for the chance to spend a
month in meditation. Then she thought of Rich, and amended it to the two day
emergency method.
Mike bit his tongue while Corran had been talking. He looked at the datapad
Corran had given him, talking about flowing into a Jedi trance and allowing
the Force to guide him.
Heavy stuff.
And yet, heavy was kind of familiaar to him. He spent as much of his life as
possible goofing off, only getting down to work when deadlines neared.
He suspected that wasn't something a Jedi would get away with too often.
That was the crux, alright. Jedi. Mike just knew, suddenly, that the Force
was
with him. Although he hadn't shared it with anyone, the recent operation had
seemed to augment the occasional happening's he'd laughingly dubbed his
'psychic abilities'.
With the sheer bloody mindedness he'd inherited from both sides of his
family,
he suspected the barriers that theoretically existed would vanish like a
Bothan
at a charity event.

As he sat alone in the bathroom, he knew that he'd faced worse. The
situation was an emergency, and the jewels he'd obtained from Bror's
personal cache looked very capable. A bright yellow stone the size of his
thumbnail would serve as the focus gem, while a deep purple would be the
final focus, dictating blade length, as well as the outer colour.
Slowly, trying to remember as much of the meditational teachings he'd
received over the years, Mike cleared his mind of clutter, and began to slow
his breathing. The last thing he saw before he slipped into the trance was
the collection of parts arrayed in front of him.

Whatever state he was in, he knew what he had to do. He felt the stream of
the Force, something akin to what Vickie had described, but individual, as
well. He thought of the intuitive flashes that had been a hallmark of his
among friends, of the accelerated healing which had impressed doctors, of
the long jump record he'd set without even thinking of it.
Could there be more than one Jedi in the group?
As the instructions for lightsabre construction flew across his mind, so did
the images of Mara Jade and Kam Solusar, Force sensitives who'd been used by
the Emperor. They'd been allowed to live only because their Force ability ad
not been strong enough to be a threat to him.
He thought of Corran's negligible telekinesis, and Vickie's lack of healing
ability.
He thought of the battle in the hotel room, how he'd known where and how to
strike.
He thought of his trips to the comic shop to pick up Spider Man and X-Men
comics, and how with great power came great responsibility.
He thought of Exar Kun, the masterless Jedi who'd gone to the Dark Side.
And all the while, his hands methodically clipped the pieces into place. The
shell
he'd chosen reflected him as much as the speederbike handlebar reflected
Corran's piloting skills, and Luke's first lightsabre reflected his
heritage.
He used the geiger counter he'd had with him to investigate Thrawn's
landing, and the explosives found in DC.

Vickie and Corran stood outside the bathroom. They each fingered he
lightsabres they held, remembering how they'd come by them. Corran held his
grandfather's, while Vickie held Corran's own. One marked a past that was
locked to Corran, but which guided him in all that he did. The other was
Vickie's future, forever to be lived as a Jedi, serving life, prolonging the
Force.

Mike's sheer bloody mindedness held out, and he slipped from his trance less
than ten hours after entering it. He focussed on the two people he knew were
out side waiting for him, and gently called out to them through the Force.
When that failed to yield results, He repeated the call, stronger, then
again, almost shouting to them.
He gave up, and padded over to the door, opening it.
"Bloody ten hours! You bloody swine!" one of the Australians -Mike was
bleary eyed, and couldn't tell exactly who- pushed past him, and into the
bath room, before slamming the door.
Mike looked around, and saw Vickie and Corran meditating. He walked over,
and knelt next to them. He tried to reach out through the Force, but
couldn't feel much of anything. He grimaced.
'Mike,' he felt, in his head. 'It's Vickie. If you can hear me, then you may
just have a chance of becoming a Jedi, after all.'
'Mike,' he felt, in his head. 'It's Corran. You can hear this, I know. You
have a noticeably bright presence in the Force, slightly stronger than that
of a normal person, but a long way from being as strong as Vickie, say, or
Tyria. You may have some Jedi ability, but it may never be as developed as
our comrades.'
'Yet that don't matter,' Mike thought, desperately. 'I need to do all I can
to help, and if I can use the Force, no matter how small a difference I can
make, I must try.'
Vickie, Mike noticed, was frowning in concentration, as though trying to
make out the words he was sending. Corran seemed to understand, however.
'I think the mindlink I established with you may have unlocked some latent
Force talent in you. Perhaps your ability to construct the lightsabre is an
aspect of this ability.'
'Some other time, I will discuss this with you, Corran,' Mike thought. 'Now,
perhaps, we should join the others, as they have lunch?'
'A good point, Mike. A Jedi cannot survive on meditation alone.'
'And I am a long way from being a Jedi.'
'True.'

Over lunch, Mike and Vickie brought up the topic of the transport. The
unnamed ship was ideal for transporting them to Mendellia, and so deserved a
name. When the name 'Red Home' was mentioned, there were nods of approval,
especially from Wedge, Tycho, Wes and Hobbie.
After lunch, the group moved out to the ship, and Bror and Elassar fixed a
bottle of mineral water to the bow. sitting on Piggy's shoulders, Vickie
took the bottle in hand, and announced:
"I name this ship the Red Home. Good luck to all who sail in her... and may
the Force be with us all"
With that, she swung the bottle hard against the hull of the Red Home,
spraying water over the ship amid a tumult of applause and Ewok cheers.

Mike and Vickie lingered as the other's moved back into the warmth of the
cabin. The two newest Jedi apprentices stood looking at the Red Home.
"There's no going back," Vickie said. "You -and I- are already on the path."
"Yep, but I reckon it's a road worth travelling."
"Yeah, besides, Jedi Knight has a certain ring to it."
"Or Jedi initiate," Mike said, with a less-than-serious grimace.
"How'd your lightsabre turn out, anyway?"
Mike thumbed the activation switch. A yellow inner blade, with a purple
edging lanced out more than four foot towards the Red Home.
"My lucky colours," he commented idly
"'There is no luck, only the Force'," Vickie quoted, mildly.
"Then may the Force be with us, Vickie, and may all our battles be as
successful as the one to name the Red Home."
Mike deactivated the blade on his lightsabre, and the two turned, and walked
back towards the cabin.