Operation Arrakis: Moon Shot

by "Prophet" Kristy

Kristy let her breath out in wonderment at the sight before her. Wonderment? Is that a word? Bah, who cares? The breathtaking view of Terra, a beautiful blue marble, growing rapidly in front of her was enough to even help her forget the slight creepiness of seeing it through the familiar outline of a TIE windshield.

"Helix, you let me forget my camera."

The droid blatted at her briefly--his version of a shrug. She chuckled in response, her eyes not moving from the awesome sight. Kristy didn't think she'd ever get tired of seeing her home planet from space Plus, Terra-Luna transit in fifteen minutes. Take that, Apollo program!

Behind her, Helix started making more insistent chirps and beeps. His tone wasn't revealing what he was trying to communicate, so she reluctantly tore her eyes away from her home planet in order to see the translation.

"Oh, sith, you're right, Helix." The droid was not-so-politely reminding her to pay attention before they burned up in the rapidly approaching atmosphere. Dialing up the proper re-entry vector on the heads-up display, Kristy grabbed the pilot's yoke and prepared to become a meteor. "Make yourself useful and look up some genotyping procedures for us to run, wouldja?"

Huh, Mike's not around to insult my flying. Must be my lucky day, thought Kristy as she followed her blue and white R5 out of the Sentinel-class TIE transport that Terra Group used for getting to and from its moon base. "Besides, I'm not so bad as long as you're not expecting me to also shoot at things while I'm flying."

Helix just tweetled, though there was an edge to his tone that reminded her of the shriek he had let out when they'd splashed into the Pacific just east of the island that was Mendellia. "I told you, we have to go underwater to get into the Batcave! It was fun, and you know it."

Helix's reply this time was awfully close to a grumble, but Kristy just chuckled and hitched her duffel bag a little higher on her shoulder. Gravity. Yipes. Gonna have to get used to that again... Luna Base mostly had artificial gravity, thanks to their friends from the GFFA, but there was just something different about it. Besides being a fairly small space, even for one human and one droid.

"And where is everybody? Anybody?" she said to the echoing underground hangar that they'd christened the Batcave. The Red Home hulked in its berth, but Brad's B-wing was nowhere to be found, and neither were any life forms, for that matter--Terra Group or Mendellian. The control room holding most of their GFFA computer equipment was dark, too.

"Helix, go ahead and recharge or hook into the Net or whatever you need to do. I've gotta go find someone to tell me what we know or don't know." Because what I've heard so far is damned confusing, Kristy finished mentally as Helix chirruped an "okay" and rolled away.

She set off to find one or more members of the Paris team, chanting her personal mantra for scientific proposal-writing under her breath: "What do we know? What do we not know? What would make sense? How would I show that?"

Kristy needed a briefing. Despite being the surveillance officer for the mission in Paris, the captain really had very little idea of what had actually happened in the city of love. Considering that she did know considerably more than most of her teammates about Nick's rescue of JoshN, an information exchange, at the very least, was in order.

This was especially true in light of the confusing revelations Becki had made from the Red Home. Mike injured, a piece of the shield found, an accomplice of Cheriss picked up. As well as a baby!

Well, really, it's just par for the team. Still . . . meep! What in all the heavens was going on?

Even more confusing was the reaction she'd gotten to her comment when Becki had displayed the newborn daughter of their still-absent NRI agent-cum-quarry. "TAWG, Becki, you're not married yet!" She'd meant to be silly, but Becki had gotten a very uncomfortable look, and that look was echoed by JoshC and Vickie in the background. Something very interesting was going on, and Kristy was determined to be let in on the secret.

She wasn't quite sure she wanted to know what the Coruscant group was up to, on top of all this, though. . . .

Kristy had searched most of the area of the Palace that Terra Group tended to frequent with no sign of the Paris team. The medical area she was leaving till later--she already knew Mike was in bacta and out for the time being, and she did want to touch base with Josh, to make sure he was doing okay and fill him in on what he'd missed.

Which meant she'd need to know what he missed.

Discounting the medbays and executive kitchen, then, the team was nowhere to be found. She hadn't even seen Thayer or any of his entourage. It was time to hit Rich's kingdom. He should know where his wife was, at any rate.

This was apparently the right move, finally, because as she pushed open the back door to the mess hall TG used, she found Vickie on the other side reaching for the handle. The green-eyed woman had a most un-Jedi-like scowl drawing her brows together, and looked like she was about to go out and strangle someone by looking at them. Accordingly, Kristy stopped dead in her tracks.

Vickie also stopped short, though probably more to avoid getting smacked in the face by the door swinging towards her. She quickly made a visible effort to calm herself. "Hey, Peek. Welcome back to Earth."

"Thanks!" Kristy grinned back. "Do you have a minute to get me up to speed?"

Vickie hesitated before answering, but didn't frown like Kristy was half-expecting. "Sure. What did you need?"

"I suppose 'what the heck happened?!' is too open of a question?" Kristy replied wryly as they sat at the nearest table.

Vickie did chuckle a bit at that. "I think my voice would give out--or you'd get tired of listening to me talk."

Kristy tucked her legs underneath her, Indian-style. "Well, I'll take the condensed version, since you looked like you had someplace to be."

A shadow crossed Vickie's face, but she didn't say anything about that. "Yeah. Well, let's see. We found Cheriss' apartment and it blew up--you knew that."

"Next time, save me some stress and put a leash on Crispy, will ya?"

"Save you some stress?" Her eyebrows raised. "Anyway, Mike carried me back to our apartment, Josh and Becki, uh, got back their own way."

There was a hint of that uncomfortable look she'd seen on the 'phone. Was that a Mike-Vickie thing, or a Josh-Vickie thing, or . . . ? "Yeah, they got lost, had to call me for directions."

"Really?" Vickie giggled. "They didn't tell me that."

Vickie continued to give Kristy a brief outline of the Paris team's further adventures in shootouts, finding leads, losing them, and generally just-missing-things. Kristy figured Sci was just going to love hearing about all the pyrotechnics set off by the teammates he'd left behind. And predicting Brad's mood following the loss of his precious B-wing wasn't going to take much guesswork.

The Jedi-captain wasn't saying much about something, though. Kristy wasn't quite sure what it was that was making Vickie so uncomfortable, but it was making her very suspicious. Before she could press the issue, though, Vickie pled an appointment with the Queen (*Dowager* Queen, Kristy corrected mentally) and fled the mess hall.

She watched the doors swing shut thoughtfully. So now she more about how the Paris mission had gone, but she still felt like she was missing a large part of the picture. She wished she could find Becki and get a second opinion.

No help for that, though. She unfolded herself from her seat and set out to visit the Crispy Fried Aussie.

The medical bay had been a fairly depressing place, with Noreh lurking around Mike's bacta tank. For her sake, Kristy suppressed her grin at the uncomfortableness Mike would probably be feeling about being almost-naked, floating in bacta, with not only teammates but also potential girlfriends checking up on him. Interesting to see how the Terra Groupers who now lived in Mendellia were making friends, and more than friends.

There'd been another girl there, too, sitting up in a bed with her wrapped ankle propped up on a pillow, adjusting her elaborate hairstyle critically in a handheld mirror. Kristy hadn't recognized her, which made her a mite suspicious about her presence in what was supposed to be medical facilities restricted to Terra Group. Her opinion did not improve by her first impression of the girl's appearance--too much makeup, carefully done nails, the air of a girl who thinks she's better than most others. The sort of girl Kristy had taken great pains to avoid back in high school, who seemed to make up the majority of the sorority population on campus in college. The popular chicks, vapid and girly.

Anyway, she wasn't there to be exclusive, but to determine Crispy's whereabouts; so she didn't pursue the matter. She conferred briefly with the tech manning the room and assured herself that Mike's status was far from serious and that Josh had made a full medical recovery. The latter had been released a few days ago, so Kristy set out for the other end of Terra Group's wing of the Palace.

As she approached the quarters assigned to Josh when he was in Mendellia, her stomach turned increasingly tight flip-flops. It was her fault, after all, that he'd been kidnapped in the first place. Would he even want to see her, after what he'd been through on account of her mistakes? Okay, so he hadn't died--like she'd originally feared--but what was the difference? And how could he--or the rest of the team for that matter--ever trust her again? What if next time someone DID die, because of her?

Outside, the sun was dropping into the sea west of the island, setting the water and the few wispy clouds in the sky ablaze. Fiery rays streamed in sideways through a west-facing window that punctuated the corridor, washing everything in orange-red light. Ordinarily Kristy would have paused to soak in this example of the paradisaical beauty of Mendellia, but she didn't even see it. One hand darted into a pocket of her jeans and brought out her Saint Michael medallion. Closing it tightly in a fist, she sank to the nearby window seat, eyes closed tightly against the threatening tears.

God, how can I face him?

Help me, Holy Saint Michael. I need your strength and courage, though I dare not ask for forgiveness. I need....

Coherent thoughts ran together into a jumble of regret and guilt and fear. She rested her elbows on her thighs, bowing her head until her forehead rested on balled fists. She fought to get herself under control, sought the courage she needed.

"Kristy? What's wrong?"

For a moment she shrank in on herself in terror. The voice was male, and unmistakeably Australian, and there was no way she could talk to Josh right now. Then her brain caught up with her reflexes and she realized it was Nick's voice. She looked up, blinking the unshed tears away.

His blue-grey eyes had the same concerned look that had faced her through the vidcomm--was it only a few days ago? This time, though, he smiled gently. "How's it going, Moon Child?"

"Okay, I guess," Kristy lied, appreciating his attempt at levity with the lame codenames she'd thought up. At least her voice was in somewhat working order. "Whatcha doing out of Oz, Wizard?"

"Thought I'd report in briefly. I did see some action a few days ago." Nick slid into the seat facing her, the sunset lighting his unruly hair and glinting off the frames of his glasses.

Kristy's memory helpfully provided her with flashes of that action, and some of the raw terror she'd felt helplessly watching Nick's rescue operation from orbit. That, of course, brought her right back into how the whole predicament had gotten started--the anguish of Josh's death, the revelation that he had been "merely" kidnapped . . . and the agonizing guilt she felt over her part in it.

Yep, here it came, and she wasn't going to keep it back this time. Star Destroyers were probably easier to stop.

"Whoa . . . Kristy--he's okay. Josh is fine, he's good as new."

"No thanks to me," she replied in a choked voice, tears running down her face and into the corners of her mouth.

"Kristy, this was not your fault," said Nick emphatically.

She let out a half-sob. "It sure feels like it was. If I'd paid better attention . . . if I'd been more prepared . . ."

"That's not true." He reached a hand out to touch her arm. With that slight encouragement, she let her head dip until she was weeping miserably on his knees, her long hair hanging down and tangled about her face. His hands rested on her shoulders, rubbing gently.

"Nick, next time someone could actually get killed."

Nick stood, pulling her with him, so he could hug her comfortingly. "Come on; let's go somewhere we can talk," he said quietly. Sniffling and wiping away tears, huddled with one of his arms bracing her shoulders, Kristy followed him down the hall to his room.