Jacob felt his currentgift surging through him and into the knife in off hand. He holstered his pistol and switched his grip. He pulled back the knife and threw it. He felt all of the power in him leave his body as an arc of electricity followed the path of the knife. Ryan attempted to block the knife with his saber, but the massive power behind the throw cut straight through the blade. The knife hurled into Ryan's shoulder, an arc of energy jolted from Jacob into Ryan, and he was thrown back into the wall, smacking his head against the cold metal with a sickening clang. Jacob reached down and picked up the saber, and noticed a small collection of them on his back. There were three other sabers besides his own. Jacob grabbed each of them and motioned for Calen and Akos to keep going. They caught up with the others at the hangar where their ship was docked, and Cyra was waiting just outside the hangar.

"I don't know who you are, or why you even came here, but you need to go," she said sternly, "You've caused enough trouble as it is." Jacob nodded as he and Calen continued to their ship in the hangar. The four sabers wrapped in one arm, Jacob stepped up the ramp to their ship. Calen closed it behind them and called up to Mal to take off. They were flying through the great black moments later, and moments after that they were shooting through hyperspace. Cat was undoubtedly co-piloting in his place for now. He sat in his quarters for the next hour thinking about what Ryan had said. The words rang through his head as he sat on his small bed.

"Trust me, we're more alike than you know. There is a darkness inside you too, and you can't deny it."

He had to admit to the truth of the words. There was darkness inside of him, just like there was in every person, but did that really make him as bad as Ryan? Ryan had betrayed their trust, broken promises, and tried to kill them several times. He had even nearly succeeded at the Black Gate too. He was just thinking of the events near the end of their very first adventure when his thoughts were rattled by a knocking at the door to his quarters. He rolled off his cot in surprise, hitting the ground hard. He stood, brushing himself off, then opened the door to find Cat standing there.

He was a little flustered at first, but quickly regained his composure. He was glad Cat didn't have her currentgift anymore, or she would have noticed how nervous she was making him. Then again, she might have noticed anyway. "Hey, what's up?" he said, still a little rattled from having his thoughts disturbed.

"I just heard what you did from Calen," she started. Jacob tensed thinking of what she thought of him now. "Are you okay?" He relaxed a little, knowing that she wasn't disgusted by him knowing that he just needed to finish off Ryan once and for all.

"I'm doing alright, I guess. I was just thinking about every time we've dealt with him. Do you remember back at the edge of the Shire, way back in our first little adventure?" He asked her.

"Yeah, we were so different then. Everything's changed, hasn't it?" She agreed. Jacob realized that they were still standing in the doorway to his quarters, and he glanced behind him at the condition of his room, which was a mess. He stepped out of the room and asked her if she would go for a little stroll around the ship with him.

"When I helped Ryan get the warg off of him, I made him a promise. I told him..." Jacob trailed off, collected himself, and started again. "I told him that if he hurt any of my friends, that I wouldn't be so kind again. Was it wrong to do that?" Jacob finished. Cat nodded a little, thinking about it.

"Yeah, I think it was a little far to go. Maybe if you had just helped him things would be different for us now, but what's done is done. It's in the past, Jacob, and now we have to live with the consequences, as long as we learn from them." Jacob smiled and thanked her.

"You know, speaking of promises..." he trailed off once again. Cat gave him a confused look, but waited for him to find the words he was looking for. "At the Black Gate, I told you I would tell you something if we made it out of that. We made it out of that mess, and many more besides it, so I need to tell you, since I am fulfilling promises today. What I was going to say is..." he stopped for a moment, took a deep breath, and finished. "I like you, Cat. I like you a lot, and I have for a long time."

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Cat didn't know what to say for a few seconds, but she stayed calm. "That's really flattering," she started, choosing her words carefully. The truth was, she considered Jacob her friend, but not much more. She thought back on the last year they had been traveling, thinking of everything that he had done. She should have seen it as soon as he was willing to carry her for several miles so she wouldn't be dragged across the fields. He had fought armies, and nearly died. She remembered the small magic globe he had gotten her for their christmas at Hogwarts. She even remembered the simple moments in Gatlon City. When he had just sat with her while she was injured. She had thought that he was just a dedicated friend, but it had turned out to be something else.

"I think of you as my friend, but only as a friend. I'm just not really wanting to get in a relationship," she told him, keeping focus.

"I get that. Things are kind of crazy right now," Jacob answered quickly. He must have been expecting that answer.

"I mean at this age, Jacob. I don't really want to be in a high school relationship."

"Oh," He commented, his shoulders falling ever so slightly, "Yeah, you're right. I get that, too. Honestly, I'd even agree with it. Just logically I mean. I guess that isn't really why I wanted to tell you."

"Then why are you telling me?" She asked, a little confused by his motives in telling her about his feelings, if not to attempt to start a relationship. "Is there something you want me to change?"

"No, No. Definitely not anything to change," Jacob jumped.

"Then what is the reason?" Cat asked him. He stood for a moment fidgeting with his hands. He stumbled over his words as he tried to speak, then he laughed half-heartedly.

"To think, me, the guy whose specialty is in words, at a loss for them." He smiled and continued, "I don't know, I just... I can't find the words."

"That's alright, Jacob," she told him, reassuring him. It was clear to her how nervous he was. He had told her once that he considered himself a knight, even given himself a title and everything. He called himself Sir Jacob the Defender, so doing this, letting his guard down by telling her, must have made him quite anxious. She didn't want to hurt him, and she knew that he would understand.

"I guess I just thought it was something that you should know," he told her.

"Okay, I understand. So, let's just be friends, alright?" she confirmed. He nodded, and then the ship shook, dropping out of hyperspace. "Now let's go check out what that was."

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The others stumbled onto the bridge, as it was the only area of the ship with windows, shortly after Mal had dropped out of hyperspace. She had thought she was returning to the general idea of the Star Wars galaxy, but something was off. Before her was a red dustball with ice caps at either pole, and it was one she recognized.

"Is that... Mars?" Calen so helpfully asked, though she was certain every one of them was asking the exact same question in their head. She wasn't exactly certain why they were back in their own solar system, or how they had managed to travel to another galaxy in such a short time. It had hardly been an hour since they had made their jump into hyperspace. It was just as she was thinking about the possibility of traveling between worlds via hyperspace that a large spherical object drifted past them, heading for the planet. Jacob, of course, recognized it as a spacecraft.

"Follow that ship down. We are still in a story, It's just a different story." It was odd that she was still able to fly the ship, considering she thought they were no longer in the world of Star Wars. Jacob explained as she raced past the sphere towards the planet, planning to land long before it, that the object was actually a spacecraft from the science fiction trilogy C.S. Lewis wrote. She wasn't familiar with the books as none of them ever were, except for Jacob it seemed. He was definitely the biggest nerd of any of them. Granted, she had been the one to introduce him to Renegades, so she could take some credit for him knowing about that world.

He explained that this sort of craft was used in the first book, "Out of the Silent Planet" by a selfish scientist named Dr. Weston who kidnapped the main character of the book, Ransom, along with his partner in crime, Devine. Ransom eventually escapes them once they reach Mars, or as it is called by the native life, Malacandra. He lives with the intelligent native life, primarily the creatures that call themselves Hrossa, though he also meets Sorns and Pfifltriggi. He eventually found his way back to Earth, leading to the future two books.

As he explained, Mal took the ship down to the surface, Cat calculated an estimated landing zone of the sphere using the readings she had, Richard left the others to their work, and Calen tried to do any heavy lifting he could, though there wasn't much. Mal touched down in a deeper canyon in the martian landscape, near where Cat predicted the ship should land. All of their readings looked normal, so Mal tapped a button on her dashboard, and the ramp lowered.

______________________

Calen had expected to be sucked out into space when Mal opened the ramp, but the Malacandran air seemed to be capable of supporting life, despite the weaker gravity. He knew Mars had less mass than Earth, so he wasn't surprised when everything seemed taller and thinner. He stepped out into the strange grass that seemed to fill the surface of Malacandra, and noted the presence in the sky. The other ship was entering the atmosphere, steadily slowing to a halt. Jacob walked across the foreign terrain easily, jumping fairly high whenever he leapt. Calen noted the river that flowed next to them, smoothly and lazily. The grass pricked at his ankles as he ran behind the others, Richard behind him.

They soon reached the ship, just as a panel in the side swung open and a small ramp protruded from the side and dropped to the ground unceremoniously. Out stumbled three figures. One of them was a pale and thin man with weary eyes, another was a slightly larger man with a serious look in his eyes, and the last was smaller man with a devious look in his eyes. This must have been the three people Jacob mentioned. Ransom, Weston, and Devine were their names, if he recalled correctly.

The larger man, Weston Calen guessed, mumbled something about a miscalibrated landing before he noticed them. Ransom was the first to actually see them, but he only looked perplexed.

"Are those Sorns?" Ransom asked his evident captors. He gestured to their group with a jerk of his head. "They just look like humans."

Weston and Devine spun to see what Ransom was speaking about, and their confusion was evident on their faces. Weston reached into the coat he was currently wearing for something, and Calen wasn't sure what he could be reaching for, but the others were prepared. Weston pulled a gun from inside his coat, but Jacob was faster. He already had his blaster out and fired a shot. Weston yelped in pain as his hand burned from the bolt's heat when it hit the weapon in his hand. An inch off and Weston would have been dead. Weston held his wrist as he inspected his hand. Ransom looked between his captors and the travelers, unsure of what to do. Calen could see he was contemplating escape at the moment.

___________________

Richard watched as Ransom pulled a knife from inside his clothes. He glanced from one of the two men to the other. They were both so focused on the travelers that neither of them noticed him. He seemed ready to defend himself, but there was no need. He silently slipped away into the taller grass of the Malacandrian canyons. Jacob turned and looked at Richard, glancing in the way Ransom had just gone. Richard understood what he was asking. He turned and took off in the direction Ransom had run to retrieve him. He would let the others deal with the two greedy bullies.

He could hear Ransom as he made his way down the canyon. He must have discovered the stream and stopped for a drink. Richard leaped from the grass as he reached the stream, soaring through the air. He was aided both by the lighter gravity than Earth and the fact that he felt the force flowing through him, pushing him through the air. He landed on the far bank of the stream with a crunch of the ground beneath him. Ransom startled and got up to run again, but Richard stopped him.

"Wait, I don't want to hurt you! My friends and I are here to help," he said as he raised his hands with hs fingers spread in an attempt to calm Ransom. Ransom looked at him mistrusting, but didn't run this time.

"How did you make a leap like that? Even here, the gravity isn't that weak," Ransom responded. Richard had caught the scientist's attention with his show of ability.

"I have my means. If I explained them to you, you wouldn't believe me. I can tell you are a man of science," Richard told him.

"I am a man of what I see and know. You just did what I would have thought to be impossible, so tell me, how'd you execute such a leap?" Ransom told him. Richard felt he wasn't the best to explain it to Ransom, but he could do it with the help of the others.

"I don't know how to explain the current situation, but my friends can help clarify your questions. They must have dealt with your captors by now."