Dawn came, golden sunlight spilling across the barren desert, illuminating the world. It shimmered across the cloaking device of the Red Home, momentarily hinting at the presence of something other-worldly before the cloak adjusted and all was well with the world again.
Not that all was actually well with the world. But the cloak gave the illusion, for a time.
The solitary speeder bike rider approaching the Red Home knew that all was not well, despite his very best efforts. The tracking device on the bike had the Red Home targeted. Mike had the throttle all the way open.
Becki and Thayer sat on the ramp of the Red Home, enjoying the shimmering effect as they looked at the cloak. It wasn't set to full opacity, for that would have drained power unnecessarily, and enough light got through that the Red Home existed in an almost perpetual dusk. The young lovers found it thoroughly romantic, and while Sci went through the motions with their multitude of guests, they took the time to further rekindle their relationship.
Thayer paused, a flicker of movement catching his eye. He squinted at the shield, and then raised his comlink to his mouth.
"Cheriss, are you still in the cockpit?"
"I am."
"Can you drop the cloak in the aft quarter? Just for a few seconds. I think something may be coming. It might be Mike and Vickie."
"For a few seconds, then," came the Adumari woman's reply.
The cloak dropped, and Thayer narrowed his eyes as the full force of the Israeli dawn sun hit them. He focussed in the direction of the movement, and his expression changed.
"Incoming."
One word over the comlink brought reinforcements. Kristy and Cheriss appeared as if by magic, each toting blaster rifles. Becki unshipped her pistol, while Thayer moved quickly and efficiently to take a heavy blaster from the weapons locker in one corner of the hold. Sufficiently armed, they formed a line in front of the hold door, ready for the oncoming assault.
Mike's lips curled into a feral snarl. He had no comms. The ambush had all but trashed the bikes, and he was lucky that this cobbled together heap had lasted as long as it had.
Reluctantly, but not without a guilty feeling of relief at the chance to let off steam, he drew the blaster pistol from it's saddle holster and started firing. He set it to stun, and aimed to miss, but it was important that people get out of the way.
The bike, after all, didn't have any brakes.
Cheriss started firing as soon as the bike rider did. Becki paused for a second to train a set of macrobinoculars on the rider.
"Stop, it's-"
Her voice was drowned out by a shot from Cheriss' rifle hitting the bike and apparently catching a fuel line. Trailing flame as it sped forward, it didn't slow down. The rider instead hauled it in line with the Red Home's open bay door.
"Everyone down! It's about to blow!" Thayer yelled.
And blow it did.
Mike pitched himself from the back of the bike at the last second, watching almost in slow motion as it hit the ramp and exploded, the fire ball erupting almost fifty feet into the air before collapsing in on itself.
Then Mike hit the ground, and for a second didn't see anything.
But he got up, and started running forward, his bare chest glistening in the early morning sun.
He hit the ramp with his right foot, and one stride took him level with the opening. He pushed off, and cleared the smoking debris that had been thrown into the hold.
He almost cleared the prone bodies, too, but at the last split second a hand snapped up and caught his ankle, sending him toppling forwards mid-jump.
He rolled, and came upright, his foot snapping out and cracking into the wrist of his assailant.
Thayer, Cherriss and Kristy rose to their feet, and pointed their guns at the bloodied, soot-blackened, almost bald figure before them. They hesitated. Becki, prone and stunned on the floor, could have told them that this was one of their team-mates, but the speed and shock of his entrance had momentarily over ridden their ability to accept the change in his appearance.
Besides, their moment of hesitation allowed him the chance to attack, which he did, Vickie's purple lightsabre erupting in his right hand.
Snap, slice, kick, club, duck, sidestep, slice, uppercut, duck, slice, pivot, kick, drop-pivot-sweep-stab.
Mike left the hangar bay at a run, leaving three stunned and surprised colleagues for the recovering Becki to deal with.
He nearly pinned Noreh to the wall when she stepped out of a room in front of him, but pulled back just in time. She gasped on seeing him, then did a double-take as she saw past the radical change in appearance since she'd last seen him.
"Mike?"
"Where's Sci?"
"He's debriefing a prisoner Becki and Thayer brought in."
"Where?"
"The dining area."
Mike was already on his way, the lightsabre still glowing in his hand.
Sci was perturbed by the little Rouddim was prepared to tell him. Everything seemed to be pointing in one direction, and Sci was beginning to wonder if Terra Group hadn't bitten off more than they could chew.
Then the door slammed open, and Sci shunted worries about interrogations and the information they were revealing into a holding pattern in his already congested mind.
"Sci, they got Vickie!"
"Who did?" Sci asked calmly, one eye on Rouddim in case the man tried anything. A closer look showed that the Israeli was looking at the intruder with shock and not a little fear on his face.
"Sahhar, a Dark Jedi. Hierce, his apprentice. And about thirty men. We couldn't take all of them."
"Slow down. Start from the beginning."
Mike scowled, but knew that there was no use in arguing with Sci on this. He recounted how he'd tracked Vickie to an underground complex, how the two of them had fought Sahhar and Hierce to a standstill, and thought that the Sith pair had escaped. Instead they'd been tracking the Terra Group agents and ambushed them on their way back to the Home.
"Hierce took me to the cleaners," Mike growled. "He's got my 'sabre, and I didn't have anything. He hacked off my hair, cut me open, and Sahhar and his men just overwhelmed Vickie. They left me for dead, and when I woke up, all I could find was Vickie's 'sabre and enough bike parts to put together most of a speeder. We have to go after them!"
"Mike, stop," Sci said. "How did you track Vickie?"
"Homing device, and our Force link," Mike said, pacing back and forth, with the lightsabre still glowing in his hand.
"I think we can assume the homing devices are gone," Sci said. "Can you feel Vickie?"
Mike stopped pacing, and took a deep breath. He let it out in small puffs. Sci recognised it as a Jedi meditation technique, but whatever calm Mike might have reached was lost as he scowled and swore loudly.
"Nothing."
"Mike, we can't go after her," Sci said, his voice inexpressibly weary. "Even if you could track her, we have other priorities," he said.
"Other priorities?" Mike repeated, his tone one of absolute disbelief.
"The mission, remember?" Sci said, watching Mike closely.
"To hell with the mission! Vickie's in danger!"
"If someone gets this shield when they shouldn't do, the whole world could be in danger."
"Sahhar said he wanted Vickie as his apprentice, what happens if he turns her?"
"I have to think that Vickie won't give in," Sci said. "Besides, you said he has an apprentice."
"So he'll have two. And won't that be fun!" Mike slammed the lightsabre down on one of the tables, slicing it cleanly in two.
"That's not how the Sith work. One of them will have to go. Besides, Vickie can look after herself."
Mike spun around, lashing out with the lightsabre at the furniture. The door slammed open again, and Thayer and the others piled into the room, weapons trained on the rampaging figure.
"Don't shoot!" Sci yelled.
The group watched Mike clatter and slash his way around the room. When he came in range of his armed colleagues, a single swing cleaved the barrels of their weapons from the stocks.
After several minutes, he slowed, and the lightsabre clattered to the floor, deactivating as it did so. Mike sunk to his haunches, his chest heaving as he sucked great breaths into his lungs. He looked up at Sci.
"I'm walking after this mission, you get me?"
Sci nodded. Mike stood up, grabbing the lightsabre as he did so. He stalked out of the wrecked room, Thayer and the others moving hurriedly out of his way as he did so.
"Make sure he's okay," Sci said to Becki. "We'll be leaving soon, I think."
They trooped out, and Sci turned back to Rouddim, who still sat behind a -miraculously undamaged- table. He looked as though he hadn't moved a muscle since Mike's entrance.
"Now," Sci said calmly, taking his seat again. "You were saying?"
Rouddim was suddenly much more eager to share information.