ten_fwd_meme | TEST DRIVE #16 - Turbolifts and Ten Forward

Entry tags:

test drives

TEST DRIVE #16 - Turbolifts and Ten Forward

Option 001. Trapped in a Turbolift: This space travel thing is new to you, and you're starting to think the ship is purposely out to get you. A turbolift is just a grandiose name for an elevator, which should be the safest way to travel after all! But someone out there is out to get you, you're sure of it. Because the next thing you know, the lights flicker and the lift grinds to a stop. You're trapped, with whomever was unlucky enough to be in the lift with you.

It could be hours before you're rescued. These turbolifts span the entire massive ship, and don't just travel straight up and down. No, they can travel horizontally, vertically, sometimes even diagonally. You could be stuck between any deck now. There is a small access panel on one of the smooth walls, but how good are you with getting these things to work? Let's not forget that sudden stop tossed everyone around a little, and people could be hurt. Time to put your emergency thinking cap on, and make friends with the people beside you fast. You could be the only way back to freedom.

Conversely, you could slide that pack of cards out of your pocket and start a rousing game of gin rummy. Really it's up to you.

Option 002. Ten Forward: You have no idea what just happened. One minute you were home, minding your own business, and now you're on a spaceship in the middle of a crowded room! It looks like a bar. There are people eating and drinking, some in uniform, others not. Some are clearly aliens, and some of the food is looking rather strange too.

You've managed to land in Ten Forward. A long bar with barstools and a bartender span one side of the room, with a bank of strange computers on that same wall. It looks like people are ordering food and drinks from them. Tables are sprinkled throughout, and the far wall is nothing but floor to ceiling windows with a view out to space. It looks like a nice lounge, low conversation making the room hum.

Better ask some questions and find out where you are, or just tap the closest person on the shoulder and try to make friends. The bar is open.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"So far beyond that they don't even know what that means." She glanced back towards the view ports that offered a glance at the sky. "The stars here are stars I've never seen before... The constellations that they have are unknown."

"Then we have a new sky to learn?" he asked. He had that every time he visited a new planet on assignment, but he knew she traveled to new places far less often. He smiled at her. For once, he would be the one who could show her new things. He liked that. "We could get a speeder, spend an afternoon on whatever habitable planet happens to be nearest."

"I don't think they have speeders aboard, and I don't think you can just borrow the shuttles that they do have." Although Padmé also hadn't asked. She had no need for one, and the ship usually was moving. She made do with classes on topics she found interesting, and reading up on the history of the various planets of this galaxy. Needless to say, she had started with the bigger ones, such as Earth, and would move on from there.

"They can't mean to keep us trapped here. There has to be something. Perhaps nothing was offered because you aren't known to them as a capable pilot. Tell me who to speak to, and I'll see to it we have our freedom."

"I believe they continue to search for a way to rectify the situation that Q has done, but until then, we are passengers aboard the ship." Were they kept here? Yes. Yet Padmé could understand their stance. This entity called Q continued to bring people from across time and space, landing them right on their ship. What else were they to do? Gently, softly, "Freedom to do what, Anakin? I don't even know how far we are from our galaxy. No food, no money. This space is different from our own. Their technology, from what I can understands, works differently."

"Freedom to explore. How can we learn their technology if they limit what of it we can use? Freedom to find a space just our own for a short time. Are they the ones who told us about this Q? Perhaps they are lying, how can we tell, penned in like cattle?"

"You can read up about it, Anakin. They don't hide that knowledge." But she shook her head. "At first, it was others who had been taken. Some had heard it second hand, but others have met him. He apparently does show his face from time to time aboard the ship."

"Then we will find him, and we will make him take us home. Together. But reading about technology and handling it are very different." He needed to fly. Telling him he couldn't fly was like telling him he wasn't allowed to stand. Or speak.

"I- I'm not certain if I can return home again, Anakin." It was a heavy statement, and likely one that would need explaining. It wasn't the lack of desire that held her back, but more the physical improbability of it.

"Of course you can," he said softly, anger melting away to calm her. He took her hands and squeezed them. "I'll make sure he sends us together, we'll go together and be a family. You wont go ahead of me and have to wait for my return." He lifted her hand and kissed the back of it lightly.

There was that quick shake of her head as dropped her gaze downward. Even as his lips brushed against her skin, her eyes remained focused on the table. Sucking her lower lip in, she worked at how to tell him, knowing that it wouldn't be easy. "Do you remember the dream you had, Anakin? Or have you had it yet?"

Their hands touching, there was no way she could miss the reaction the words had on him, the way he stiffened and stilled. "No..." he whispered, more afraid of what she's about to say than of anything he had ever been afraid of before. This was the fear that Yoda sensed, this was the potential he had, this was what made him so dangerous. Because whatever she was about to say? He would do anything to keep it from being true. Anything.

She did notice that, and her fingers moved to squeeze on his own. She didn't blame him. She didn't blame Obi-Wan. If anyone were to blame, it would be Palpatine. Yet if that had been her time, then it had been her time. Nothing lasted forever, which was something she accepted more easily than Anakin. It didn't mean that she waited for death, but that she knew one day it would be there.

"It was an accident, Ani."

"No... no. You're here. You can't have.. you're here, I had to have saved you... I will save you. You have to be alive. You have to be," he whispered.

"My love..." Her voice was soft, calm, soothing, yet full of such yearning. She had has time to become use to the fact of her own demise. A series of unfortunate events was what it was in the end. Like a puzzle, one piece after the other had fallen in to place, until the picture had been completed. By that time, it had been too late.

And she was there, rising, wrapping her arms around him. "Ani. It's okay. It's okay."

He closed his arms around her, returning the hug, clinging. As though his embrace alone could keep her safe. He had to keep her safe. Had to. "No... if it was an accident then... then..." he stopped, stilled. "It hasn't happened for me yet! If you tell me what happened, and I get sent back, I can stop it. I can save you. Maybe that's why the Force brought us here. So I can save you." That had to be it. Had to. He would find out what had happened, and he would stop it from happening. He would save her. No matter what he had to do. He would save her.

It had been an accident. She did truly believe that. Her Anakin would never had done it, but he hadn't been himself. She didn't know what would happen if he returned, if he would remember any of it. She didn't recall Obi-Wan being missing, and yet here he was. Still... It was Anakin, and here was her love. Perhaps she shouldn't say, but she couldn't lie to him or keep him in the dark. "The Sith Lord everyone was looking for... It was the Chancellor. It was Palpatine, Anakin."

Edited 2016-02-08 01:58 (UTC)

He sat back, stunned and struck. "Palpatine... but... he's our friend?" He trusted her, it wasn't that he thought she was lying, he never would think that, he trusted her more than anyone but.... But.... how could it be Palpatine? Why.... "He's... been trying to help us...." He seemed so lost and confused, in a way he hadn't been even as a child.

She knew it would be hard for him. She knew that Palpatine had reached out to Anakin many years ago. No doubt it had all been a part of his plan. Padmé had had time to think things through since she had arrived, and it was the conclusion that she had come to. "I know, Anakin. He was a man I greatly admired, but that man was only a mask that hid his true persona."

He put his hands over his face and closed his eyes as he tried to absorb that. "He was one of my first friends," he said softly. "When you had things to attend and the Masters had to meet with the Council, he was the one who spent time talking to me... Why.... why would he do that if he was a Sith? Why would he be helping me to...." To try and keep her alive.

.........

By telling him stories about Darth Plageus, and giving him hope that....

"He wanted me to believe the dark side had the power to save you?" he whispered, it was a question. It was a hope he dared not have. It was his heart tearing in half.

"Ani..." So soft it was almost a whisper, and yet that one word, his nickname, could convey so many feelings. She could see what the truth was doing to him, but also knew that she couldn't lie to him. While their relationship might have had some bumps along the road due to their duties, Padmé had never lied to him. She wasn't going to start now.

"How do I save you without giving into that?" he whispered. "Do... do I have to kill Palpatine to spare you?" He would do it. If the man was truly a Sith Lord, Anikin would do it. He would in some part hate himself forever for it, but he would do it. To save her, to prove himself to the Jedi Council, and to end the threat to all the planets they protect. But it still felt a little like he was discussing to stab in the back someone who loved and trusted him. That Palpatine had betrayed him first did nothing to sooth that pain, and he didn't think it ever would. But he would take that pain, to protect her, he would take on any burden.

He was trembling now.

There was a shake of her head, although more that she didn't know how to answer that. She had never been one to take killing lightly, and had only used her skills in defence of herself or her people, her friends. "It's not me I'm worried about, Anakin. It's you."

"Me?" he asked startled, and a small dark laugh escaped him. He shook his head. "You are the one in danger, Padmè. Not me. You are the one who.... who I won't let die." Yes, yes he did just change his sentence because he couldn't bring himself to say that she died, past tense, like it was a fact. Like it was unchangeable. She might see it as set in stone, but a lightsaber could cut through stone. Easily. He would save her. He would.

Yes. Him. He was the one who was going to go down a path that she couldn't follow, down a route where he would be alone. The information that Obi-Wan had told her, and what she had seen with her own two eyes... Of course it was him that she was worried about. "I just don't want you to lose yourself, Anakin."

muhahaha

Oh dear gods, if he was in game he would totally try and steal a shuttle craft >.>

no, ani, no

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject