Chapter 5: I Blame You For This!

"Wait!"

I grunted as I pushed back another one of these.... beasts? Unloading another few shots into the torso to finally make it drop, their form crumpled next to a few of his brethren.

"What do you mean, this is my fault?"

I was just able to take my concentration away from the incoming horde of deranged aliens to shoot Dae a look. Thankfully I did, as I just caught the sight of her eye roll before she dismembered another one, sword flying.

"You heard me! I blame you for this!"

And there goes another head. I quickly unclipped a thermal as I palmed the trigger. God these were expensive, so expensive in fact it physically hurt that I would have to use one... but...

"Yaargh!"

...The horde of incoming.... things.... really made it worthwhile.

"Fire in the hole!"

Not even bothering to look back I sprinted away Dae on my tail as the thermal exploded, taking out this new batch of insane Schutta damned aliens.

I quickly checked how heated my blasters were, couldn't have them overheating right now as I scanned the area. I was gulping for air as I finally relaxed. Falling to the sandy beach beneath me I let out a quiet groan as Dae stood to the side, not winded at all.

How the Sith spit is that fair?

I think Dae realized how tired I was, or just knew at this point I would snark back if she said anything else, so she only left a few words before quickly moving back towards the ship.

"I'll go grab some more of the equipment, incase more of those... things come back."

I gave her retreating back a single look as I almost flopped to the ground.

"Make sure to bring out all the explosives!"

I didn't know what the heck those things were, but if we were going to be stuck here for a while, I wouldn't be taking my chances. They had swarmed us a few minutes after we left the ship whatever they were.

Thankfully I never leave my ship without my trusty blasters and a thermal it seems.

With a little time to think to myself I couldn't help but frown.

This wasn't how it was supposed to go.

It was supposed to be a simple:

Follow the treasure map.

Find the Treasure.

Maybe some trouble in the middle.

Profit.

Yes... Simple.

Of course the treasure wasn't really gold, it was one of those holocron things those weird space wizards loved. Coming across information on one of them from a random trade with a Wookie, with space maps that just so happened to point to the exact planet we had to go to.

Well, it was suspicious as hell. But if you learned anything from the spark after so many years, sometimes shit like that was just what happened especially with Dae around.

Lucky Pajak.

It was like the spark wanted her to grab the kriffing thing.

So, with that idea it should have been easy, but I wasn't completely stupid. I also had to go to that bastard of an info trader to get some facts straight... also better co-ordinates. The ooriginalmaps may have been a little incomplete. We could have spent weeks searching for the right planet if I hadn't cross-referenced the right celestial bodies.

Maybe the spark was trying to spite me for not believing in it....

Well screw you too!!

Getting to the system was fine, though the sensors were going off the frits, showing massive sensor glitches of some huge structure around the sun. I was about to turn the ship to check with my actual eyes, to see what the hell was going on, when the bloody ship systems started to go crazy.

There was something wrong with the gravity well of the planet we were aiming for. It pulled us in so fast, I was lucky to have been able to land with minimal scratches, Dae wanted to take the controls when she figured out what was happening, but if I was going down, I was going down handling my baby!

And after the successful landing/crash! Ha! I was still the best pilot on board!

Though Dae was giving me the stink eye as we assessed the damage.

The fact was, we weren't going to get off the planet with the gravity well.

Luckily that seemed to be caused by something down here, so all we had to do was destroy it and we were good.

Bad news, the hyper drive was shot, and we didn't have the parts to fix it.

It would take years to get back to the outer rim if we didn't have that. We had enough supplies but....

God, you fucked up this time Jack.

….

*Clack*

A bag full of explosives fell next to me as I turned to look at Dae.

Yeap she wasn't happy.

The scowl gave it away.

"Ok Jack, What the Kriff is going on?"

I gave her a look.

"Well Princess..."

The death glare she gave me at that nickname made me shut up pretty quick. Joking around wasn't going to cut it this time.

"DON'T Jack, just.... don't..."

I gave her a small look in the quiet that settled between us. She was pissed, frustrated, angry... I can't blame her for that. We were now years away from civilization and it was all my fault.

I let her sort her thoughts out which only took a minute or two.

"I can feel the spark pulling me somewhere on the planet, which ISN'T a coincidence. So I want to know RIGHT NOW, WHAT THE KRIFF ARE WE LOOKING FOR JACK!"

I gave a small sigh as she glared down at me.

"Fine. We're here for one of those holo whatsemecallsits. The Sparks been pointing me in its direction ever since that smuggling job. You know, the usual suspiciously convenient information, maps and all around everything working in our favor to bring us here!"

I could only throw my hands up in the air at the stupid thing, it was all good, maybe a nudge here and there when I was by myself, but ever since I picked up Dae it seemed hell bent on giving us some good contracts and even better hauls of goods.

Her eyebrow raised in confusion for a few seconds, the scowl still present.

"A Holocorn?"

I gave an exasperated nod.

"The super rare space wizard boxes that they hoard?"

"Yeap."

I popped the P, something that only made her angrier.

"Why the Sith spit would we need one of them? How do we know its still even here!"

I grimaced for a second at the shout before answering.

"Well, we are in the uknown regions, if there was ever going to be one of those things around it would be out here, especially if no one knew it was here and they would have to spend years getting to it. And...."

I could tell she was getting more pissed, really there was only one real reason why I decided to grab this damn thing, it wasn't worth the trouble for any other reason.

Though holocron's were rare I wouldn't be caught dead with one, easy way to get a blaster bolt in the back.

The cargo was a little too hot.

Bounty hunters, Space wizards, you name it, if you had one, they would come knocking on your hull.

If word got out you had one, you'd be getting a meeting with one party or the other and they would have it no matter what. Trying to sell it was unlikely as whoever you sold it too would probably kill you when you came for pick up.

It just wasn't worth it.

That was why I didn't want to tell Dae what it was we were here for. I knew this, she knew this and... she would just get really angry if she knew.

"And?"

Yeap, I was right, the death glare she was giving me had turned down right ferocious; at that moment I think I would have rather been starring down a Rancor... maybe.

I let loose another sigh as I finally looked her in the eye.

"And... It's for you damnit!"

She pulled back in surprise for a second, not understanding the words coming out of my mouth. I rolled my eyes as I looked away and down at the pack of explosives, trying to keep my mind occupied with other things while I explained.

"Look Dae-sha... you.... You're gifted. Your spark is just on a completely different level to mine, heck I think it's probably better than most of those damn space wizards even..."

I trailed off as I thought over the years since I picked her up.

"You pick up engineering scarily fast, even though I don't want to admit it, you're already better than me. You can pilot the ship almost as good as me..."

She gave a small snort as I smiled still thinking back.

"... You're already a better fighter with the blade and a crack shot with a blaster. Your spark is just that bright, unlike myself your just better, faster stronger...."

This would probably be the first time I had ever spoken so frankly with her. You couldn't really show a chink in the armour when your taking care of a kid. You had to be invincible whenever they were around, assured, confident.

Of course, this all came natural to me, but it was hard sometimes.

Maybe I hadn't done the best of impressing that to her over the years, what with all the fire fights and close calls, but I hadn't said anything like this before.

I could tell she had already started to calm down, the glare boring holes into my back had cooled down. I let out another sigh as I turned to look at her once more. Her eyes had softened just a smidge as I caught them.

I searched them for a second to make sure there wasn't any type of pity or sadness behind them before continuing. I didn't want any of that crap. There are some things in the universe that people must come to terms with, the fact that Dae was more talented than me with the spark was one of them.

I wasn't going to bitch about it... maybe complain every now and then though.

"I've taught you everything I could over the last 6 years princess, that's why you're so damn good at everything..."

This time she didn't glare at the nickname as I put on an assured smirk.

"But I got nothing left to teach ya kid. Sooooo...."

I finally stopped resting and got back to my feet, gripping the bag of explosives in my off hand.

"Happy Kriffing Birthday, we're going to grab that stupid holocron thing, find a way to fix the hyper drive and you'll use that gift of yours to become an even better badass. Alright?"

Her face was once more stoic as she looked at me and I looked back. the stand-off between our gazes finally broke as she gave me a small, sweet smile.

Crisis averted.

"Alright."

With that she reached down for her favourite vibro-sword and pulled it out of its sheath. Making sure the backpack was strapped on properly we started our trudge along the beach towards the small outcrop of rocks and trees.

Dae stopped for a second her back still facing me, her voice small.

"Thanks, Jack."

I pretended not to hear her as I unclipped my blaster from its holster and moved forward.

Who knew if there were more of those insane aliens around.

I mean it wasn't that bad, who didn't like a little adventure.