Chapter 4: Chapter 4 : Talks + Tatooine!
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Change of POV: 3rd POV [For a Change!]
Alex nodded towards Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan before making her way towards the other passengers, it didn't take long since it only took several steps before the metal doors leading to 'troops that would have been stationed there' opened by pulling itself towards above.
But known only to Alex...
[DING!] The usual sound of System was heard through her head. For the current priority of the situation she ignored it as if nothing happened, and she continued walking forwards, the boots of her SPI-Armor clanking upon the metal of the ship.
[Mission Successful!]
[1# Hero Summoning-Ticket has been rewarded!]
[ Host needs to claim it in the Mission-Tab later to summon one random Hero!]
For now, Alex ignored it. Later in three days once they arrive, then she shall summon the hero.
She hopes to get Master Chief, but considering Alex's own luck in Gacha Games, the chances are lesser than 0,00000000001 in reality.
But, she hopes for a Spartan, just any will do.
After all, she'll need help to steal a ship Tatooine and escape eventually. There ain't no way that Hyperspace Drive will work on Condor anyway.
And as she took first step into the transport-deck for troops, all eyes turned towards her.
From every single person on the ship.
Her eyes glanced toward the Queen.
First thing first, now everyone is pretty much circling the 'Fake' Queen as she is sitting on one of numerous seats right now.
A queen.
Her eyes moved towards the people circling her.
Three handmaidens.
And three normal Guards and last Captain Panaka.
Eight Humans from Naboo in conclusion.
And soon enough, all eyes turned towards Alex.
Silence.
And then..
'Queen' Amidala stood up from her seat, her right hand moved towards her heart, as her gaze stared towards Alex's helmet.
"From the bottom of my heart, not just mine, but of my people, from people of Naboo.." 'Queen' spoke. " I commend you for your actions, and we will compensate for a new ship for you, and of course gift you a Medal of Bravery of Naboo for your actions. And your selflessness in helping Naboo." And she let a single, yet simple smile cross her face for a moment as she sat down on the seat.
Still continuing to keep that impassive face and expression, all coated in layers upon layers of make-up.
Alex only nodded, she was prepared to a long-ass speech anyway.
The thing about 'Naboo' Royalty specifically is that they elect 'Royalty' like how you elect a president, by voting rights.
Thus, even though they are called 'Royalty' they are treated as Presidents, there is no need for kneeling or bowing towards them.
But in Alex case, it is literal kneeling and bowing.
Alex took several steps forward before sitting down on one of numerous seats planted for troops to be on, on the flight. "That was quite exciting, wouldn't you agree, Jedi?"
Qui-Gon Jinn, soon followed by Obi-Wan walked into the room. " I have to, It's not an everyday mission even for us Jedi." He replied, he stood in front of the doors as Obi-Wan Kenobi pushed him slightly aside so Obi-Wan also decides to sit on one of the seats too and sigh almost dramatically.
Alex forgot how this 'young' Obi-Wan is such a sarcastic and amusing character.
Alex shock her head before turning towards Naboo escort. " I believe the Captain already explained our situation and where we are going to?" Few nods. " Then I should address food issue, we got enough rations to separate perhaps by two meals a day, and it would last us only one day."
Her eyes moved across them,she noticed how Jedi didn't even blink, they might be accustomed to fasting perhaps.
Guards on other hand only nodded, they can stand it.
Meanwhile, Queen still remained with her expressionless face, but the Handmaidens behind her flinched lightly.
Specifically two of them.
And then Alex was answered by nods of confirmation from them all.
Nods.
"So, to not be out of energy completely and to survive, one ration per day, and it would last us 2 day." Alex moved her hands slowly to her helmet, she saw handmaidens twitching slightly.
One bottle of water and one ration per person, for next two days.
But third day without food, and fourth day might be same, depending if Qui-Gon decides to use his mind-trick on Tatooine far more times than in canon, this time for food.
And a smirk appeared under her helmet for that one.
Qui-Gon Jinn still continued stroking his beard with an expression filled with amusement at top of his face, 'Queen' still retained that expressionless face, Obi-Wan Kenobi looked intrigued.
'Face-Reveal?'
Guards didn't care.
And with a soft 'click' of the helmet, Alex pulled it from her head.
Not to brag, but those minutes working on avatar customizations paid off certainly.
She saw how 'two' Handmaiden's eyes bulged suddenly.
Well, Alex face is certainly 'pretty' right now.
It's actually far above than just 'pretty'.
It was a hard work paid off at the end of the day.
Though, it seems that no one was too 'attentive' right now to comment about her appearance.
Thought, that would have been case for everyone but Obi-Wan Kenobi.
"What a shocker to see such face behind that ugly helmet, considering your face could you perhaps be a royalty of one world?" Obi-Wan Kenobi nailed it!
Alex visibly froze at his comment, something that didn't go unnoticed by other occupants of the room, before proceeding to smile nervously and reply. "We'll take your compliment for it, but no, I'm not a royalty..."
Her reply came of a bit uncertain, but...
But, lying to Force-Wielder is not really possible.
As the moment she spoke, both Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn taped into force with 'Truth-Sense' and felt the answer from the force.
She, indeed is lying.
She indeed is a royalty, as force tells them truth of force part of her sentence and a lie of latter part of sentence.
This only caused them each to frown even further.
Their frown didn't go unnoticed by Captain's Panaka's subtle gaze.
But Alex was fast to shift the attention to more 'important' matters than identity crisis right now. "After getting to Tatooine we'll need to buy enough food for us to at least 7 days for an entire trip to boot towards Coruscant."
Silence.
And then, the second main star of all this fiasco spoke.
"Indeed, we do indeed have no other choice." 'Queen' Closed her eyes and spoke.
"My apologies, but it wasn't in my plan to host and entire group of people to begin with. " Alex paused, she needs to make herself seems 'selfish' and normal. " After all this fiasco I hope a small compensation beside the promised ones."
Captain Panaka stepped forward. " Do not fear, as we promised we shall grant you a valid compensation due to helping our freedom efforts. "He put the hand on his chest and explained. " Naboo always return it's debts."
Patriot, much? Alex noted.
Alex only nodded before standing up for a moment, and took several steps towards the cockpit as doors opened and stepped inside, before turning around abruptly towards a small button on the right side of the ship.
"Here is a Toilet if someone needs it." She motioned towards the small blue button before pressing it with her right hand, upon doing so, effect was immediate.
A 'secret doors' opened, as they opened a sight of 'futuristic' toilet is shown, with paper rolls at the back, it's just barely wide enough for one person to enter.
Upon taking their 'relief' and closing the doors and closing the toilet itself by pressing a button, , the back of the toilet will instantly open and release the waste to space and be automatically cleaned off and prepared for next use.
A convenient, is it not?
Similarly, all Big ships have similar function like this one, while only special Dropships like the one Condor-Class that Alex owns are equipped with it.
After all, not every Dropship has Slipspace, and not every Dropship is supposed for very long travels.
"And.." She turned around till she is facing the left wall, with another small button, this time a red one. Upon pressing it, a small 'cabinet' revealed itself.
A small cabinet with 21 bottles of water, each one is one litter large.
And besides them are bags filled with nutrition bars from left and right, with different flavors.
And there are even few cans of some fruits and salad to boot.
In short, everything is military grade, just enough to survive, not exactly to enjoy in the pleasure of fine food.
Survival over taste, storage over grand.
"You have here everything you need, but control yourselves." Alex said before stepping forward into Cockpit once more, and doors of the Cockpit closed.
"Hmm?" She walked towards the pilot seat, she crouched down as she put the helmet a meter away from her, seemingly searching for something, and she found it!
A small button along with a metal like stick, her hands moved towards them as her left hand pressed the button and right hand twisted the stick.
Effect was immediate.
~Clock~
The seat slumped down, and acts as a bed.
Alex smiled to herself before she proceeded to sat on the seat now turned bed, lay and reached for her helmet before putting it beneath her head.
To act as as pillow, a sturdy one though.
Enjoying the life, heh.
She closed her eyes and rested, as numerous thoughts crossed her mind already.
It has been essentially 10 long years since 'Auto-Pilot' was 'reincarnated'.
And in that time, UNSC and ONI made giant jumps in technologies and improvements.
Now without Covenant looming over their heads, they are free to innovate completely new things from dirt to stars.
From zero to taken ideas from Covenant, to data chips from Forerunners they had stored in data base.
And in that, one of the best improvements are Slipspace-Drives, now almost twice as fast as before.
Before, at the end of Covenant-Human War, Slipspace Allowed bigger ships to travel less than 3,000 Light years per day, but now...
Now a little bit over 5,000 Light years per day is possible per newest Slipspace models implemented.
How does that work? It's a complicated stuff, so Alex couldn't explain the mechanics.
But she can say several exploits, the bigger mass, bigger engine, better fuel, bigger calculations, more correct calculations.
And far more points are equaling to a Slipspace of today.
The catch is, the current Slipspace is nowhere near the one Forerunners or Ancient Humanity had researched.
But right now? It's the best of the best.
But just because 'new' model has been released, it doesn't mean that every single ship is equipped with it.
In fact, only several dozen 'Fleet' ships are equipped with it, and only one Dropship. Alex's own Dropship to be exact.
And probably few secret ONI infiltration ships too. Who knows?
In short, it was 'plot-event' that allows Slipspace now to travel as fast as Hyperspace in Star Wars, best Hyperspace-Drives are around that same calculation.
Now, combine the fact that ONI will eventually get their hands on those Drives..
The Star Wars's Hyperspace-Drives..
It's safe to assume that there will be more ship-improvements if given enough time.
With some of the brightest minds that Humanity can offer, to boot.
But that's not the main problem right now, in fact it's the thing that Republic Credits won't work on Tatooine.
Meaning there would be a need for good old robbery for Hutt's currency.
And there is the issue of ship.
There is zero chance that Hyperspace-Drive will work on Condor, with limited time Alex and the gang have..
So, there will be another good old robbery? But this time it's about a Starship.
Alex tilted her head upwards.
If she remembers it correctly, Darth Maul had a good space-ship stranded somewhere near Anakin's town, between three towns or something.
Certainly Darth Maul wouldn't win against a Jedi Master, Jedi Padawan and a Spartan?
And yes, there is one last issue regarding all this.
The issue of Hero Summoning, Alex could use the excuse of 'meeting an old friend' or something when time comes for it, but the catch is..
It's 'Hero' summoning, so it doesn't have to be necessarily a Spartan, it can be an Admiral Hood? It can be Sergeant Forge too probably, that guy despite being a normal marine still kicked an ass of an Arbiter Elite.
It can be AI like Cortana?
The thing is it can be anything that had 'story' and was known for some feats.
It could be Noble 6.
It could be Master Chief?
It could be Jerome?
But nah, Jerome probably wouldn't be shipped as 'Hero' he would be in 'Heroic-Team' probably is what Alex though.
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Chapter-Word Count: 2,161