#padawanquigon

[wesensnightmare-blog]

*facetouch*

Qui-Gon.

[wesensnightmare-blog]

Hello, Jacob. *He smiles tentatively*

Qui-Gon. Long time no see, kid. How are you?

[babifresys-blog]

Hey! Hey wait! You with the tie! What are you doing in here? ((HI! It's Elise :3 ))

Bowtie! Its a bowtie! Ties aren't cool. Bowties are... oh uhm... Just... you know... wandering... aimlessly... the normal...

[wesensnightmare-blog]

Jacob...

Qui-Gon. Come here, my sweet boy.

[thejanussentinel-blog]

Jailhouse Rock

Janus allowed himself to be led to the cavern where the fights were held, his hard drive imprinting the turns and lengths of the passageways in case they could prove useful.  They'd stripped him of his normal clothes and replaced them with ill-fitting rags, but his professional manner was still there.  His face was serene, almost meditative as he reviewed the plan in his mind.  

Get Qui-Gon's collar off, alert Max with the alarm.  She would clear the escape routes out while Janus fended off the ring guards and released the other captives.  

Easy.

The main cavern rang with the shouts and jeers of the onlookers, and the smell of sweat and blood filled the hazy air.  A quick scan determined that the audience was a motley crew of racial and species diversity.  He didn't need a scan to tell him that they were all out for blood.

 He was pushed unceremoniously out into the ring, faked a convulsion as the guard triggered the shock on his collar.  Had it been turned on, it would have disoriented and scrambled the android's systems.  Thank goodness he could deactivate and control the thing simply through physical contact.

Then they brought out his opponent, and Janus nearly cringed at the sight.

Qui-Gon was a mess.  Unkempt, unshaven, caked with dirt and dried blood and peppered with bruises and wounds.  His posture was slumped, heavy.  But his eyes were the worst.  They looked sunken and flat and dead.  He searched the other man's face for any signs of recognition, hoping that Qui-Gon was still aware enough to understand that Janus was there to rescue him.

"I'm here, Qui-Gon..." he muttered under his breath.  "Please tell me you are, too."

[thejanussentinel-blog]

Infiltration

The metal collar around Janus' neck was dead weight against his cool skin, annoying but really harmless.  He'd had no trouble in overriding it the second it had been clamped onto him, but he let the small LED blink away as if nothing was amiss.  The guards seemed satisfied enough.

He'd been tossed into a cell with a couple of what he could only assume were other combatants.  Max was likely in a similar situation elsewhere.  When one of the guards brought them food, he allowed his cellmates to devour his share while he edged close to the wall, finding a few wires free in one corner.  He doubted he could slip into the VR matrix with such little contact, but he could at least get a decent blueprint of the system.  

His hand brushed against the wires discreetly and he closed his eyes, leaning back against the cell wall as if asleep.  The door lock mechanism.  Simple enough.  Beyond that, more doors.  He counted at least thirty doors, all wired to--ah, there it was.  The cell block control hub.  An antiquated system, most likely the remains of some sort of prison equipment.

Data, data, data.  All of it streaming through him a mile a minute, downloading at impossible speeds.  At this distance he couldn't alter much, though...but there was something he could do.  

It took only the briefest of seconds for him to rearrange the combat match-ups in their favour.  

[thejanussentinel-blog]

Sunrise

Janus processed all the information Max had given him, and now his shipwide mind was plotting the course and readying for takeoff.  He'd picked up the demigod in a small fighter and brought her back to the impressive warship, and now she was standing on command deck with him, keeping an eye on some monitors.

"Kuat," He said softly as the planet's image came up on the monitor.  His holographic image sparked into being and took over the brief.  "Fourth world in the Kuat System.  Terraformed.  Population is 80% humanoid."  The android spoke again.  "It doesn't look too dangerous...but then, looks aren't everything." 

He nodded to Max and started up the ship with a mere thought, subconsciously preparing and arming everything he had just in case.  Underneath his taut skin, his motors and servos were humming with anticipation, perhaps even a synthesized form of adrenaline.  

"Optimal distance from planet reached," Janus' own voice stated flatly from the monitor.   "Entering slip," the android responded.  The ship crossed the line into faster-than-light travel, stars drawing thin lines in the blackness around it.  "Estimated time to Kuat:  35 standard minutes."  

Every minute was a lifetime.