Heroes of Dreamland, Book 7: Kirby and the Battle for Dreamland (OLD)

"You Can Run...

Sakura's POV:

The Lor Starcutter is normally one of my absolute favorite places in the little, ever-progressing chunk of time that I think of as home. It's almost always full of laughter, thanks to the antics of the captain, mostly, and it's also almost always got an epic view out of the portholes and viewscreens. This ship is also an awesome place to explore the Galaxy from, not to mention a really helpful transportation device in pretty much any situation you can think of.

While the transportation bit is still true today, the rest isn't so much. Even Mags is quite a bit more serious than usual, and since those of us who have chanced dozing off since we left Nintendo City in the 'rear-view mirror,' to borrow a Human phrase, have found themselves plunged into vivid nightmares, we're also all pretty exhausted too.

Unfortunately, I'm among the ones of us who've fallen asleep at some point in the past few hours, and let me tell you, it wasn't fun. Even without Solar the Second popping into my head and monologueing my ear off, it definitely wasn't any better. In fact, I might go ahead and say it was worse.

With a nervous shudder, I start unwillingly pacing back and forth through the control room yet again. "Mags, give me the ETA again. We've gotta be getting close to Star World by now..." Just as I assumed the second he announced Fancy Free was the next stop, Kirby wasn't too happy to find out we had to take one more detour first, but at the same time, he didn't resist too much, mostly because we're all dreading getting there. We have no idea what's going to be waiting for us there, only that there's no way it could ever be good. What's more, we don't even know if once we go in, if any of us are ever gonna make it back out.

Interrupting my near-panicky thoughts, Magolor answers my by-now-obnoxiously-repeated demand with a heavy sigh. "While I appreciate your not dropping to the level of asking 'are we there yet,' Princess, asking me for the ETA every five minutes isn't gonna get us there any faster. It's still the better part of an hour."

"It's already been four," I groan and go to lean against the viewscreen's sill and hide my face in my gloves. "Gah, I feel like we're all just sitting ducks out here in hyperspace. Why can't we just use the dimensional core?"

With another heavy sigh, Mags reminds me in what's almost a drone, "I told you; we can't use the core because opening a dimensional portal leaves a great big nebulous disturbance on everyone's radar like a great big beacon screaming 'heyo everybody, we're right here!' And it'll even be able to tell them where we're going, so whoever it was would probably be waiting for us on the other side." When I sigh wearily in reply, he glances up at me from where he's anxiously spinning around and around in his pilot's chair, only able to actually look right me about half of time. "Seriously though, hyperspace is much safer, and it's almost impossible to catch a ship in mid-hyper-travel. Trust me, Princess, I know it's taking forever, but we're not sitting ducks right now. We'll be okay, okay?"

Picking my face back up, I manage to give him a weak smile and agree, "Okay. Sorry."

"S'okay," he shrugs as he finally stops his chair. How he's not so dizzy he can hardly float, I have no idea. "I'm scared to death too. At least you and Meta-Not are going surface for a bit and have more of your own kind to hide among. Us up here are just gonna have to hope that the stealth system works well enough to keep us in orbit and out of everybody's notice."

Groaning, I start pacing again. "I wish I could take all of you guys to the surface with us, because I don't trust the stealth system all that much either, at least, not when Solar's involved. But if we're all down there and we get caught, none of the rest of us'll have any chance to get away." Crossing my gloves as I pace, I sigh, "I know Meta Knight's right with this plan, and I know we can trust him as a soldier and strategist not only 'cause he's our friend, but also because of his track record as a member of the SWA, but I'm still worried sick over the whole thing."