Project Boussh: Epilogue: The Last Goodbye? by Majick The shape slinked and slithered through the massed crowds. Noticed by none, ignored by all, it saw the creature it was searching for. Investigating its surroundings, he leapt, and his claws gained purchase in the rim of one of the engines. Breathing silently, the hunter began his upward assent. Mike laughed, and adopted another heroic pose, his hand shielding his eyes as he looked up to the stars. He stood astride Shalla's R5 unit -Dojo- with his feet on the X-Wing's upper engines. Smiling down at Shalla as she recorded he pose with a holo-cam, he winked at her. "I will write, you know," he said. "And the chief over there," he nodded at Sci, "is bound to let me take the odd break. Besides, with you guys leaving the Red Home here, and that note from Elassar saying it's mine... Well, I don't think it'll be a problem me sneaking off occasionally." "It had better not be," she said, her face hidden behind the camera. But Mike could hear the grin in her voice, and the infectiousness of it carried up to him. He grinned, goofily, again. "Will you relax? This isn't goodbye!" The last word came out in a yelp as Mike was struck in the back by a solid mass. He staggered forward, his feet slipping on the engines, before landing hard on the transparisteel canopy of the cockpit. He swore as his unprotected left arm was squashed beneath his chest, and he remembered he was still due the second -and hopefully final- bacta treatment to fully repair the still damaged bones in his arm. Thankfully, the GFFA pills he’d popped liberally in the last twelve hours didn’t interfere with his drinking. Pushing himself up on his working right arm, he turned warily to face his attacker. Belatedly, he'd realised the farewell gathering had quietened, doubtless a result of his loud curse. Shaking his head ruefully, he completed the tricky about-face, and whuffed as an orange blur leapt from the top of Dojo into his lap. "I should have known," Mike said with a grin. "Where have you been Cavver?" he added, using his functioning arm to scratch the miracle feline behind its ears. The cat mewwed loudly, and conversation resumed below with a few laughs. Mike could detect Becki's laugh distinctly among them. At least Thayer liked cats... Earlier that day, Mike had excused himself from the Bantam Squadron table to carry out some errands he had to run before things got busy. He vaguely remembered talking to the twin Vickies for a time the night before, and hoped that Kelly hadn't locked her bedroom door. But she hadn't, to Mike's relief. He let himself in, and looked around, briefly wondering how so much mess had been created in her single night there. Casting his eyes around, he recognised a top that had certainly belonged to Vickie. Evidently Kelly's taste in clothes matched her elder siblings, or whatever Vickie was to her. Though sad to see her go -Kelly had promised to be an interesting addition to the joke brigade, especially with Elassar going- Mike was as glad to avoid the linguistic tangles that having a clone around would cause. In the corner sat a shapeless bag, exactly the right size to fit in an X-Wing cargo hold. Smiling to himself, he unzipped it, and pulled from his pocket the little surprise he'd arranged for the outbound Jedi. There were other errands, too. Thayer's quarters had been surprisingly easy to break into, and he was fairly sure the copy of Starfighters of Adumar would help him understand a lot of the jokes that were being slung back and forth over the poor guys head. And after Bror's exhibition the previous evening... Kristy and Morwen's room had been even easier to break into. Mike grinned as he realised the two hadn't been able to remove the furniture from the ceiling yet. Instead, camp beds had been set up in the room. Silently, he crossed the room, and left a copy of Charades on the bedside table. "As they can read one another's minds..." he muttered, taking his leave. Sci's door had been locked. Someone, at least, had learnt from their mistakes. Undeterred, Mike unshipped his lightsabre and cut the bolt from the door. Easing the door open, he slung a copy of Henry V onto the bunk. "Good leader, that one..." Vickie had been surprisingly tricky to find a gift for. But, eventually, using all the tricks and charm at his disposal, he'd found the perfect gift in the possession of one of the Finches. Slipping into Vickie's room, he'd left the formal challenge to a duel on her pillow. He suspected she rather wanted a rematch as well... Josh's room had become Nick's room when the Crispy Fried Aussie had become otherwise occupied the previous night. Nonetheless, he knew his gift of the new DustBuster ("Especially good on pet hairs!") would be appreciated by whichever Aussie held the room. Brad got a copy of the Batman movie. If he would insist on modelling himself after Jack Nicholson characters, Mike wanted to be the first to weigh in with a suggestion. "And Tom Cruise sucked in that movie..." Josh Cochran was easy to do. A pool cue. What else? Sharon got a copy of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. As well as giving valuable hints on foreign relations -"Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!"- it would help her relax after a hard day at the diplomacy office. Which left two. Mike paused at the door to Emily's room, uncomfortably aware that the night before, it had been the room of two people. Swallowing the lump in his throat, he eased the door open, and spotted his target. Grabbing the sword from her bed, he legged it to the hangar bay where Cubber, by arrangement, was waiting with the Home's thermic lance. "Shoddy work," he muttered under his breath. "Could take a while," he added. "You must really want to apologise, son," he finished, pulling his visor down. Mike ignored the implicit query in the words, and stared out the hangar at the Pacific beyond. Somewhere out there, he knew, the remains of the oil slick -Flyboy's Folly- smouldered gently. Somewhere out there, fragments of the Admonitor were still coming to rest in the ocean. Somewhere out there, the remains of an Imperial Grand Admiral were causing him to think deeply, for the first time, about the insanity of the last few days. He hadn't even stopped to think since beginning the assault on the castle, only, what, two or three days before? At some point he'd ask exactly how long he'd been in bacta. For the injuries he'd received, it didn't seem that long. Various twinges and aches now asserting themselves suggested it hadn't been anywhere long enough.... "Done," Cubber announced. He held the sword up to the light, and Mike grinned. His previous, deliberately sloppy handwork had been replaced. At the base of the blade there was now a shining letter 'E'. It caught the light most satisfyingly indeed. Grinning, he swung around, slashing the blade through the air. The faint whumm as it parted air molecules reminded him of Death’s scythe. Briefly he wondered whether Sci had given Corran any Pratchett to read. “Are you done, kid?” Cubber asked, a touch of exasperation in his voice. Mike turned to face him, the sword between the two men. He grinned, and poked at the mechanic playfully. “Stop that,” Cubber said, his voice neutral. Mike edged forward, forcing the older man to back away slightly. “Stop it,” Cubber said, more forcefully, bringing his arm up and around. Too late, Mike caught the glint of the hydrospanner in the mechanic’s hand. He felt his arm jerk upwards, parrying the blow. He was able to duck in time to avoid the head of the spanner as it flew at his face, but it cost him his balance, and he crashed unceremoniously to the hangar floor. Cubber stood over him, his hand out to help the Terran up. Mike took the help gratefully, and hauled himself upright. The two shared a glance at the sword, lying immobile on the floor. “Was that you?” Cubber asked. “No.” “Was it the sword?” “I don’t know,” Mike replied, picking it up gingerly. “Alien tech,” Cubber said. “Probably based on some ancient repulsorlift technology.” He took a cloth from his workbench, and wiped his hands. “But this thing goes toward anything that penetrates the field, rather than away.” “You think?” Mike asked, still staring at the sword. “Who knows?” Cubber replied. “And you owe me for a hydrospanner.” Mike closed the door to Emily's room silently, and eased the latch shut. There was one room left, now. And while he wasn't trying to ingratiate himself with his future queen -if the rumours were true, he'd need to find Brittany Spears to do that- he wanted his wingmate to like what he was going to give her. Especially as they were the one wing pair with no real experience of working together. Mike suspected gloomily that they'd be the ones watching Sci's tail in a real dogfight. So, what to get the woman who, if rumour had it correct, would soon have everything? Gift vouchers were probably out.... And he needed something in reserve for the wedding, anyway. He sighed. Where was Becki's room, anyway? He looked at the map Sci had given him, all those hours before. Oh yes, there. Some way from Thayer's, as was only proper. He grinned, and wondered about giving Becki a book of mother-in-law jokes. That'd go down a bomb at the wedding... But no, there had to be something less controversial. He tried to remember what he'd done to Becki with the jokes, but his memory failed him. As he neared the door, he was still at a loss. What do you get the girl who has everything? Becki entered her room, to freshen up for what she was sure would be a long, drawn out goodbye with the GFFA forces. She sighed as she thought of the Hermitage and the good times she'd had with Kell, Syria and Runt. And to have missed out on the cabin, as well! But by missing the cabin, she'd found Thayer, and if that wasn't a fair trade, it was certain that there was nothing that was. She moved toward the bathroom, before noticing something on her pillow. A book, in fact, and that was hardly unusual, except all her books were at home. She hadn't exactly planned her trip to Mendellia, and Indiana was a long way to go for Thayer to fetch her some bedtime reading, if it were he who'd put it there. And who else? Then she saw the book's title, and realised it probably hadn't been Thayer who'd supplied her with food for thought. After all, would he even own a copy of Planning A Successful Hen Night? But that time was passed now, and Mike stood once more on the top of Shalla's X-Wing. His arm was curled up near his face, with Macavity perched on top of it, and more than just Shalla were recording the pose for prosperity. On the floor below, members of Terra Group were meeting up and comparing gifts, and suspicious eyes were being cast upwards. But it wasn't Mike's style to play Santa, was it? Epilogue The goodbyes hadn't been too bad. She'd never liked them, anyway. And she kept on catching herself thinking I terms like 'never' when she was really on only a few days old. Kelly sighed, knowing that accepting the dualities of life as a clone would be difficult, to say the least. She relaxed, reaching out through the Force. Corran and Mirax had been kind enough to invite her to stay until she got on her feet, and even now they were thanking Nawara and Rhysati for looking after little Valin for them. She sighed, knowing she should go out and say hello. But it had been a long trip, even aboard the Lusankya, and all this was overwhelming. And it had been tough, saying goodbye to all her friends, even though she'd tried to avoid drawing it out. She'd been in the background when Wedge had made his speech -not the Antilles 4-step, she'd noted at the time- and that had been enough. And now she was tired, and wanted to sleep But first, she knew, she would have to unpack. Sighing, she climbed to her feet, and picked up her shapeless flight bag. Unzipping it, she began transferring clothes to the dresser, until she was done. She went to sit back down on the bed, but her mind steered her back to the bag. Curious, she reached inside, and this time her hands encountered cool plasteel. She recognised it as an official NR datapad, with the message alert light flashing. Activating it, she called up the message, a video file, and recognised the background as somewhere in the Palace. She grinned as Mike stepped into view, the screen showing an extreme closeup as he leant in to fiddle with the pad. "Okay, here we go... You say you're leaving, Kelly, and I guess that's cool. You get to be with Pash, and Vickie gets to stay here and be hero girl. "But we'll miss you, all of us. You know the saying: One of you is too much, two isn't enough... "And I'll miss you. You're my friend, and you'd better believe it. Now, I reckon you'll have sloped off without making much of a deal about going, but I didn't want to not say goodbye. "Not that this *is* goodbye, though. I'll be visiting, occasionally, to visit Shalla, sure, but you'd better believe you're on my list too. And the Red Home is a big ship, unless Sci lends me the Gaia or an X-Wing, so I might have a few other visitors with me. "Basically, I just waned to say that you're one of us. Terra Nine, Jedi, Kelly Antilles, whatever... You're a friend, and we look after them. You’re always welcome back here, if things don’t work out. Which I’m sure they will. But... Maybe I’ll just shut up now. "I'll see you soon." Kelly shut off the pad as the message faded out. She blinked away a tear, and laid back on the bed, the datapad clutched in her hands. Before long she was asleep, dreaming of her two homes.