Retreat From Pain

[Argos Ewan]

I looked at Avalon with a raised eyebrow as she walked by me. “Indeed you do.” As she walked away I lightly laughed. “Nice to see you again Avalon.”

I walked over to Jace and looked at him. “What in the world was with that?”

[Jace Keller]

I sniffed and rubbed my forehead. "Ummm, well you could say we're making amends, my dear brother. Something we should have done a long time ago. I knew I loved her, but because I loved her I broke it off with her." I could tell by the look he was giving me, it made no sense, but it had then.

[Argos Ewan]

I scratched my chin as I looked in the direction Avalon had went. "Well I think you would be crazy to give someone like her up." I looked back at Jace, "but it is your life. Just don't do anything stupid and don't hurt her. Her and I are very close friends. I have come to rely on her whenever she has been around. She's a hard woman to come by, very rare indeed."

[Jace Keller]

I sighed deeply. "Trust me, I know. I've battled loving her for over a year and still everytime I see her...I'm right back where I started. I didn't want her hurt because of me and even though I didn't want to hurt her, I did in fact."

I looked down at my lap. "I'm not going to fight it anymore." I told him, then looked at him. "If something were ever to happen to me...take care of her, will you?"

[Argos Ewan]

I sat down next to my brother and shook my head. "Jace, your my brother, and I have tried to love you like no brother ever could. Personally, maybe your right and maybe your wrong about not fighting your love for her anymore. It's really not my call on this, but think about this. Are you ready to do anything that is needed to hold and keep her next to you? Over the years you have placed yourself into many, uhhh, how should I say it? Precarious situations I think is the phrase."

I sighed as I continued. "It is all up to you and I will ALWAYS stand behind you no matter what your situation or decisions are. Those which are within sanity that is," I said as I smiled at him. "To answer your question though; yes, I will take care of her should something happen to you. However, my agreement to this comes with a price and you will pay this price or I can be of no help to you at all. The price will be you telling her everything. Everything you have going against you right now." I looked at him scoldingly. "I mean all of it Jace. No candy coating, no lies. You give it all to her or you don't do this at all. I think you owe her that much. After all, if she is to accept you then it will also be her neck on the line too."

I stood up as I looked down at him. "If your going to do this, do it now. We are launching in one hour. You'll have two days to let her know. The ship is now repaired and we'll be ready to start our mission on the third day. Since the ship has been repaired and the Lynx has moved closer to us to the shipyards. So it won't take us long to get there as it did for us to get here."

I turned to walk out of the Medical Lab but stopped to look back at Jace as I held two fingers up for him on one hand. “You have two days to do this Jace. Use them wisely."

I turned away quickly as to not give him the chance to argue with me about this. I headed toward the bridge to do our preflight. Once completed, I would call Nawn and Aramis to the bridge for the launch.

While walking toward the bridge I keyed my wrist band for the crew. The crew would now know that all leaves were canceled and that they should immediately report to the Eclipse.

[Jace Keller]

I knew what my brother said was true and I didn't argue with him. Avalon was a fine woman, fine indeed and that's what got us into this mess in the first place. She was a doctor and I was a pirate, a year ago that just didn't seem right. I felt as if I were holding her back, always on the move and it didn't seem fair for her to have to deal with something so freelanced, she couldn't do her own thing. That was why I had given her up, not any other reason had donned so important to me. But, if I wanted her I would tell her the truth and if she stayed with me, that would be great. If she didn't...I didn't even want to consider that.

[Avalon Aquilo]

As went into Celeste’s office I was so embarrassed as to how Argos had caught Jace and I together. I busied myself with putting things away that I had brought with me for the mission. I only hoped none of it would be needed.

As I remained busy I could hear Argos talking to Jace but I wasn’t close enough to understand what they we saying to each other. By the voices it sounded as though Argos was doing most of the talking. I don’t know how Aros began so smart but he always seemed to be right about a great many things. I only hoped he wasn’t being to harsh on Jace though. After all it was a moment of passion that drove us where we were when he walked in.

As I thought about this I leaned against the wall and held the bottles I was putting away close to my chest. I know I love Jace and always will no matter what he may think about me. It seems that he doesn’t want me to be a part of his life but yet we’re drawn to each other like magnets when we’re around each other. I know it is more than just passion, but why won’t he let me in?

As I breathed in deeply, I then sighed as I exhaled as I lowered and shook my head as if to clear it. Suddenly I hear the door to the Medical Bay close and Argos’s voice was gone. I sat the bottles down on a nearby table and opened the office doors and peeked out the door and looked at Jace. “Is he gone?”

[Argos Ewan]

With my preflight check now done I sat back in the Captain’s chair I looked out the bridge windows and looked around the docking bay. At this point I am so ready to get on with getting my mate back. As I took one last deep breath and placed my headset-mic on and began to proceed. I flipped the com switch and made my announcement. “Lieutenant Rakai, Commander Erdon, to the bridge please.” I hesitated for a moment and repeated the order once more. “Lieutenant Rakai, Commander Erdon, to the bridge please.”

I waited for a second and put out my next order. “To the crew of the Eclipse. To stations keeping. This is not a drill. I Repeat, to stations keeping. Prepare for launch and maintain intruder alert. I repeat, maintain intruder alert.” After giving my orders I could see lights upon the console beginning to show that areas of the ship were beginning to be locked down as I ordered.

I turned my seat to position it so I could reach my controls to allow me to make Cloud City Control contact. I flipped a couple of switches and began my request. “CCC, this is Corvette ship Eclipse requesting departure clearance from level 122 docking bay 734C.”

After a moment I heard the reply from CCC. “Corvette ship Eclipse, state your destination please.”

“Farfield II,” I replied. This was a planet far, far away from our planned destination.

“What is your purpose there Eclipse,” CCC asked.

[Jace Keller]

I smiled as I saw her peek her head out. "Yes, he's gone." I answered kindly. I leaned against the pillows as she stepped on out. "So, tell me when am I going to be over this...whatever I have?"

[Avalon Aquilo]

I walked over to his bed and sat down next to him. I took my hand and slowly moved my finger across his chest. "Should take at least a day or two yet. Besides what is your big hurry. Your not going anywhere. Especially since we're about to launch." I bit my bottom lip as I massaged his chest. "Besides what more could you want right now?"

[Jace Keller]

I was stepping out of my comfort zone as I gently touched her hand. "To have the strength to make love to you." I told her and took her hand to my lips and kissed it.

"There's so much to say..."

[Avalon Aquilo]

I smiled at him as I lightly rubbed his chest. "Well we'll have plenty of time for that when you are better." I took my hands off of him and crossed my legs in front of myself as I pulled at my legs at the ankles. "What's on your mind." After crossing my legs I put my right elbow on my right knee and my fist under my chin. "You know you have my attention. What is on your mind?"

[Argos Ewan]

As I got the message from CCC Aramis and Nawn entered the bridge as ordered. I motioned for them to take their positions. Nawn to the navigation console and Aramis next to me at the co-pilots chair.

I was expecting the response from CCC that I got which confirmed my thoughts that the corrupted Imperialist troops here would do anything to get acknowledged by the Empire. So I already had a destination that I planned to give them to put the Imperial Patrols on a wild Bantha chase. “We’ll be savaging parts from the destroyed ship Etnom to finish our repairs. Repairs we couldn’t do here due to the lack of parts.”

After another moment the CCC replied, “Sorry about your repairs not getting done Eciplse. Your destination is so logged Eclipse. Please proceed when ready.”

“Very well, Eclipse out,” I replied.

I reached over and switched off the com-system and then looked at Nawn and Aramis. Get ready gentlemen. We’re now cleared to leave.” I looked out he bridge windows and saw the docking bay doors open and the blast doors close. “Nawn, plot our coarse for Farfield II and plot us out to 6 sectors out. Once there, replot our coarse change for Abhean.

I looked at Aramis, “we’ll jump to the Farfield II destination he is plotting and when we come out of hyperspace we’ll turn to Abhean and jump again. They will look for us at Farfield II but we won‘t be showing up there. Once they have discovered that we‘re not going to show up we‘ll have already completed our mission at Abhean.” I thought the plan was pretty clever and I smiled at Aramis. “That’ll give those Bastich Imperialist something to think about.”

[Nawn Erdon]

After the Captain pointed where he wanted me to work I listened to his information he gave CCC and began my computation on the navigational console. By the time he completed his information to CCC I had the compulation completed. I turned and looked at him. "Captain, I have the coarse plotted as you asked."

I turned back to my console and keyed in several commands into it. "Transferring the coordinates to your console right now."

[Argos Ewan]

I looked down and saw the information come into my console and reached down and transferred it to Aramis's console and smiled at him as I looked at him. I knew with confidence, this would be a point he would enjoy. He had never been given the chance to do this before. “Take us out Lieutenant.”

Thinking this might be something that may make him nervous, I spoke to him to assure him. “You can do it Son. Just remain calm, stay focused. Just don‘t do anything that will attract attention. Just keep it smooth and follow the coordinates on your console.”

[Aramis Rakai]

I smiled and took ahold of the controls. I'd flown many ships in my time, but never the Eclipse, so it was an honor.

I eased the ship out of the dock and into a slow skyway that was headed towards the outer city. Once past the outer boundaries of the city, I pushed the throttle and we rose towards the heavens, in a gallant wave. Moments later, we blasted through the atmosphere and into the vastness of stars that we called home.

"Ready to jump, Captain." I stated.

[Argos Ewan]

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"Creative/roleplaying/ Star Wars Roleplaying / Quay's Rescue")