Crayz9000

Don't you know that inside every Costco store, hidden deep within the dog food section, is a portal leading directly to one of the many Costco stores in Seoul. These portals form the basis of the COSTCOGATE network, allowing them to import low-priced dog food directly from the source without having to deal with pesky things like customs. One of the side-effects of this network is the increased traffic volume of Koreans themselves as they unwittingly take advantage of it for commuting. Which explains the large amounts of Koreans to be found in local Costco stores.

Chapter Nine: Martinelli's Sparkling Vampire Cider UNNAMED P.A. (O.S.) Sir, we already did chapter nine. AUTHOR (O.S.) (mutters random colorful curses) Chapter Ten: See Above I stopped at the entrance of the strip club on the outskirts of early 21st century Seattle, puzzled at the sudden change in the story's point of view. Shrugging, I trudged onward into the den of sin, gripping my trusted Improbability Cannon by my side. "Is that a fashion statement or are you just happy to see me?" one of the girls asked as I walked in the door. Too snarky, I decided. Her attire and makeup made her look like one of the Jersey Shore girls, which was a red flag to just STAY AWAY. "Neither," I snarled. "Sheez," she remarked with a huff as she turned away. "Somebody sure pissed in his cornflakes..." There was a cough beside me and I turned to face Strowbridge. "I think you need to adjust that compass. If Seattle had an armpit, this would be it." "It was either that or watch underage teens make out on the deck of a flying pirate ship," I retorted. "Still, when I said booze and hookers, this wasn't what I had in mind." "I'm sure the author has a reason for it," I replied. "Otherwise there would be no reason to give this chapter such a ridiculous title. Or put it into the god-damned first person perspective. My psychic jaw is already aching from the introspective dialog." "You have one?" Strowbridge asked. "I do now," I replied. "This is bull-BEEPing-shit," Strowbridge remarked some time later as we walked around the bar. "Not one single pair of titties to be found in this whole place. What good is a strip club where they don't take the damn outfits off?" He paused. "What the BEEP? Who the BEEP is BEEPing censoring me?" "Keeps the fic rating at a teen level," I muttered. "The author is a fruity man whore," Strowbridge proclaimed. I silently waited for a thunderbolt to strike him down from on high, but none were forthcoming. Apparently the author was attempting to stay away from Deus Ex Machinas. Good for him. "So anyway," I ventured, "what do you suppose the author has in store for us this time?" "I dunno," Strowbridge replied in a sullen tone, "but this place sucks donkey balls." "Getting to use the more creative swear words and insults now?" I asked. "Yeah, since the BEEPing author is too BEEPing chickenBEEP to use manly words like BEEP." It had been easy to forget just how much Strowbridge liked the word BEEP. He practically used it as punctuation. Interspersed it along with any number of descriptive adjectives for any number of occasions. "Frak and kriff just don't have the same ring," I agreed. We stepped out of the club and into the gloomy drizzle of a Seattle evening. What a depressing city. Three months of sunny weather out of the whole year? Who the hell in their right minds would choose to live in such a place? The unasked question was answered for me as we continued down a dark alley. There was a blur in front of us and suddenly we found ourselves face to face with a person I would normally have described as a lean, pasty-faced teenager. In another life, I might have assumed he was a sci-fi fan who had escaped from his parent's basement, but given the chapter title, first person tense, and setting I quickly realized that we were starting a god-damned Twilight crossover. Dear Finagle, why? "I have no quarrel with you," I said in as close to a Jedi's tone as I could muster, while waving my hand in front of the pseudo-vampire's face. "We are wanderers from another universe merely passing through." "Huh?" The vampire's face was twisted up in obvious confusion. I unslung the phallic cannon from my shoulder. The vampire's frown deepened. "We're like sliders," I explained. "Ever watch that show?" "Dude, so like I don't even, like, know what you're, like, talking about," the vampire said. Great. A vampire that talks like a Valley Girl. Could this day get any better? part of my brain began to wonder. Wait--stop that thought-- There was a loud bang and a clatter of feet from behind us in the alleyway. A tall, handsome man with pale skin and short-cropped hair, in his arms carrying a pregnant, dark-haired woman with lightly blushed cheeks, was running at full tilt around the corner. A swarm of dogs--no, wolves with foam dripping from their teeth, was chasing after them followed in turn by an army of vampires. What? Did I just describe him as handsome? Oh, for the love of Jove. Even the prose was going purple. I wanted to puke, but barely managed to restrain myself. "You don't look very good," Strowbridge observed from beside me. "This has all the makings of a horrible Twilight fanfic," I choked out. "We have to do something to stop it. And the author -- he's gone mad. Mad I tell you!" Edward and Bella chose that moment to crash into myself and Strowbridge. The world slowed before my eyes, and thinking quickly, as we went down in a heap, I clutched the Improbability Cannon tightly to my chest in the hope that it would not be damaged. The last thing I wanted was to be stuck in this universe. Behind us, the wolves stopped, turned, and formed into a wall. On the other side of the werewall, the vampires came to a screeching halt (literally). I could almost smell rubber sneakers burning, they stopped so fast. "Edward," Bella coughed out the name, with a trickle of blood escaping her lips, "it's happening now. Promise me you'll protect our child?" I palmed my face as I climbed to my feet. Strowbridge, who had just finished doing the same, gave me a sympathetic sigh. "I promise," he said in a congested voice, then stood and looked around. "Is anyone here a doctor?" "Look, you idiot," I brushed the dust off my tweed jacket, "you're in the middle of a dark alley in Seattle. We're surrounded by werewolves and vampires. Any doctor with two brain cells would have run long ago. Any doctor who was dumb enough to stick around I'm sure wouldn't want to see whatever sort of unholy abomination is inside her." The comment earned me a fist to the face. Whatever people said about the Twilight vampires, there was one thing for sure: they were surprisingly strong. One moment I was standing there, facing a pissed-off Edward, the next moment I was blinking to clear stars from my vision clear on the other side of the alley as I lay slumped against a wall. Ow. That hurt. I managed to stand up, running a hand over my formerly perfect nose, just in time to see Bella's stomach distorting. As I walked back over to where Strowbridge was (he had wisely backed far away from the emo couple), he laughed quietly. "Guess you just found another thing to add to your list of What Not to Do." "Whatever," I replied sourly. We both turned to watch the unfolding delivery. Edward was kneeling down in between Bella's legs, apparently waiting for the baby to magically emerge. Her stomach became more distressed, with shapes beginning to move underneath the surface. "Where have I seen that before?" Strowbridge asked from beside me. Suddenly her skin tore, and a black shape shot out of her belly, latching on to Edward's face. "Alien," I replied as I armed the Improbability Cannon. "Time to go." "Wait," Strowbridge placed his hand over the trigger guard. As he did, I saw Edward pull the xenomorph off his face. What? Was he smiling? "Aww... a hug already! That's daddy's little girl!" The black thing thrashed about in his hands, its tongue-mouth lashing and snapping at his face. "So strong, too! Bella, what should we name her?" Unable to stand it anymore, I pulled the trigger. As the world dissolved around me, my stomach relieved itself of the can of Chef Boydaree I'd had for lunch earlier. There was only so much emo I could handle.

The story which this is a sequel of, in all of its badly-edited glory, can be found here: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6585753/1/Dexters_Empire Or here: http://www.daltonator.net/fanfics/humor/wtffics/dexter.txt.gz Dexter's Empire A spoof fanfic by Crayz9000 DISCLAIMER Yadda yadda yadda, Star Trek is owned by Paramount, yadda yadda yadda... ACT II Time on a Stick Chapter One "IN the beginning was the..." Papers can be heard rustling in the background. "Oops... wrong book. Umm... ah, here it is." An even longer pause as somebody clears their throat, in addition to more uncouth sounds. "Once upon a time, there was Planet. Planet was good..." <flip, flip, flip> "The second son of the Universe was Kynes... Aw damn it, those idiots can’t even put the books in the right order." CUT TO: A Scotsman abusing several sheep. VOICE (OS): "Shit." CUT TO: Q reclining in a lawn chair. Q stands up. Unfortunately, his shorts fall off, and a collective groan in heard from the audience. In response, Q frowns, finally clapping twice. The shorts quickly whiz back into place, and sporadic applause is heard. "Well, I seem to have gotten your attention," he begins bluntly. "You just have to hand it to those people at Clap-On." There’s an awkward pause, and several feeble attempts at laughter are heard. "Anyway, I think I’ll just begin by showing this cheesy PowerPoint presentation." Q extracts a remote from where the sun don’t shine, and points it at some unidentified target. <bleep, bloop> CUT TO: A medieval castle gate rolling up. Q (OS): "Wrong remote." <PowerPoint presentation flashes up... no, not THAT way...> DEXTER’S EMPIRE ACT II Fans of the original series™ were somewhat disappointed with the results of the finale. <click> Striking from a hidden base, rabid supporters of MKSheppard won their first victory against the evil KYNESIAN IMPERIUM. <click> Unfortunately, we are uncertain about the specific results of the victory. Several thousand pregnant Chads were allegedly discovered hanging outside Miami, Coruscant last night. The only witnesses were Mr. Timothy Jones of the University of Washington Press, and Mr. Paul Jacques of the University of Quebec Press. Both have declined to comment on the situation. <click> [subliminal message] YOU WILL JOIN THE BOYD COLLECTIVE ~ ~ ~ CASTLE GATE rolls down, obliterating CAMERA 1 in the process. RETURN TO Q Q looks down at the worn-out Toshiba laptop. He cautiously lifts up its keyboard, causing it to SCREAM and run off the set. "Values," he mutters. "Don’t they teach values in the schools?" He looks at the camera. "Now where was I?" THUNDER is heard. The clouds part, and a head pops out accompanied by a angelic-sounding chorus. DETACHED HEAD: "The readers." Q: "Oh, yes. The readers." A BIG GREEN BUTTON™ appears. Q PUSHES it. (At high speed, as if being re-wound) HEAD zips back into clouds, accompanied by sounds of choir singing backwards. THUNDER sounds strange. LAPTOP runs backward onto set. GATE rolls up. CAMERA 1 is un-crushed. TITLE MESSAGE scrolls backwards. GATE falls back down. Q’s PANTS drop and rise as he falls into LAWN CHAIR. VOICE says "Shit" backwards. Several sheep abuse a Scotsman. VOICE proclaims that PLANET is KYNES’ illegitimate son. (Large period of static, as if a large asteroid hit the satellite) E-D reattaches in reverse. FIRST INTERGALACTIC PODRACE takes place backwards. GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE becomes un-stuck from hood of the GENERAL LEE. TIMOTHY JONES leaves his head on the bridge of the USS JELLYCO. HEADCRAB falls off of Kenny. Scientists run backwards through Black Mesa. SHAGGY jumps into SCOOBY-DOO’s arms. DAPHNE looks confused. Freddy trips and falls backwards into Mystery Machine. AUTHOR deletes himself. CRAYZ9000 re-takes control. (TAPE stops with loud screeching sounds) Q BLINKS, looks around. "Anyway," he begins, "Where was I?" HEAD smites Q with a thunderbolt. END TEASER

Chapter Nine: Liet Kynes and the Holy FAQ "I really have no idea what the author means by those silly titles sometimes," Liet sighed, displaying his knowledge of events that lay beyond the fourth wall as he continued on through hills and valleys in the English countryside. "I mean, seriously? Sparkling vampire cider? That just sounds disgusting." The author tapped Liet on the shoulder. "Um, that's the title for chapter ten." "Oh. My bad." An impressively large castle loomed in the distance, so large that it could not have possibly been a mere model. As Liet approached, however, it seemed to shrink down until it stood a mere six feet high. "Huh. Must be one of those portable model castles." A tinny voice emanated from the castle. "I am C.S. Strowbridge, Dicktator of ASVS," it proclaimed. "Who dares to intrude upon my realm?" "It is I, Liet Kynes, Champion of Logic," he replied. "I seek Knights of the Round Robin to join me in the quest for the Holy FAQ." "That is a worthy cause," Strowbridge replied. "But first, I must verify that thou willst abide by the principles of ASVS. Who is TOWNMNBS?" "The One Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken," Liet replied. "Verily," Strowbridge said. "Now, what would win? An Eclipse-class Star Destroyer, or its mass in Galaxy-class ships?" "Before the ICS or after?" "Before." Liet took a moment to consider the question. "Based on the 40-meter asteroids that were vaporized in The Empire Strikes Back, light turbolasers have approximately 22,000 terawatts of firepower. In the TNG episode 'The Nth Degree' it was shown that a terawatt-level emitter can overload the Enterprise's shields in less than a minute. Therefore, even facing its own mass in Galaxy-class ships, the fight should be over in less than an hour. The Federation ships simply do not have the combined firepower needed to bring down the shields of the Eclipse before they will be destroyed." "Excellent," Strowbridge replied. "I will join your worthy cause, then." The three-inch high main gate opened, and a tiny figure stepped out. A moment later, there was a flash and Strowbridge stood at normal height. "How do you do that, anyway?" Liet asked. "And why are you talking with that ridiculous fake English accent?" Strowbridge pulled out a bottle labeled EAT ME. "I found a lifetime supply of these on auction at Christie's. Turns out it's much less expensive to build a six foot high castle than it is to build the real thing. Regarding your second question, I'm the Dicktator. If I want to speak with a ridiculous accent, that's my problem." "I see," Liet replied, confused. "Shall we carry on?" The two knights continued on their merry way, followed by Patsy the Gungan and Strowbridge's squire Elim clopping coconuts together. (Later that day...) (Inspiring instrumental score) The two knights continued on their merry way, followed by-- "Didn't we just do that?" "Do what?" Strowbridge asked. "The two knights continued on their merry way..." "Well, first off, I'm the Dicktator, not some mere knight," Strowbridge replied. "Here I am, ego the size of a planet, and you think I'm just some knight." "Oh give it a rest, Strow," Liet replied. "I'm talking about the goddamned narrator. He's getting repetitive again. Must have skipped his Wheaties this morning." (Later that day) (Inspiring instrumental score) The two knights continued on their merry-- "See?" "What are you talking about?" Strowbridge asked irritably. "I'm saying that either someone hit the narrator in the head or the author is being cheap and recycling stuff." As he spoke, the sky in the background unfurled and came crashing down, revealing a black sound-stage wall behind it. "CUT!" the director exclaimed. Liet and Strowbridge turned around suddenly. "Director?" Liet asked. "This is a movie?" "A cheap knock-off of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, I'd say," Strowbridge replied. "It hasn't even been that funny so far, although the bit where you nailed Guardian 2000 was hilarious if predictable." "When did you see that?" Liet was taken aback. Strowbridge walked over to the craft services area, where several vending machines stood. One, next to the expresso machine, was labeled Mr. Movie. "Instant movies, out before they're made. What part of this do you want to see?" Liet put his hands over his face and shook his head. "Mel Brooks already did that gag on Spaceballs. I'm not doing it again." On the tiny screen in front of them, a tiny version of Liet shook his head. "Mel Brooks already did that gag on Spaceballs. I'm not doing it again." Liet lunged for the controls to Mr. Movie and shut it off. "Strow, you lunatic! You had it playing with a one-second delay! The echo reverberations would have been so powerful, it could have damaged the fabric of space-time!" "Hey!" Doc Brown walked in waving a paper, his hair frizzled from a life spent around too many Tesla coils. "I get to do the space-time continuum lines around here!" "What year is it?" "Ah..." Doc looked down at his wrist, which was covered in watches. "Hmm. Great Scott, now's a long time ago! I'm late! But that's OK, I can make up for lost time..." He ran off and there was a sonic boom several moments later. "Alright people, reset!" a nameless PA shouted. "Liet, Strow, wait here. Background, take 5." "Would someone mind telling me who's in charge here?" Liet asked. "I am, of course," Strowbridge replied. "Wasn't talking to you," Liet muttered. "Asshat." "I heard that." "Knock it off, you two," the director said from behind. Liet and Strowbridge spun around to face him. "James Cameron?" Liet asked. "I thought you were busy with that movie about Weyland-Yutani trying to kill the big Smurf hippies?" "Nah, I'm done with that," the director replied. "Made a few billion, so I'm on to bigger and better things." "Like this?" His face scrunched up in concentration. "Huh. Yeah, it doesn't make any sense when you put it that way. I was supposed to be doing the fourth Avatar sequel..." The erstwhile director vanished in a puff of logic. "Well, that was anti-climactic," Liet said. "Let's get out of here." They walked past the crumpled sky backdrop to one of the sound stage doors, opening it and nearly falling out into empty sky beyond. "That was close," Strowbridge muttered. Something best described as a galleon suspended from a balloon pulled up along the flying sound-stage. "Heave to and prepare to be boarded, ye landlubbers!" a voice shouted. "You have got to be kidding." "I'll take that as an act of defiance," the same voice shouted back. Gunports on the galleon opened up, revealing antique-looking cannons. Liet and Strowbridge ducked back inside just as the guns opened fire, blowing man-sized chunks out of the soundstage wall. One of the chunks nailed the Gungan, who went flying through the opposite wall. "We surrender!" a random PA shouted. Oddly enough, he was dressed in red pajamas, which probably explained the cannonball that sailed through the air and sent him flying through a wall scant seconds after he spoke. Several minutes later, they found themselves standing on the deck of the galleon in front of the assembled pirates. The captain then stepped out of his quarters wearing an oddly frilly, lace dress. Liet couldn't help himself and began snickering. "You think this is funny?" the captain, who looked oddly like Robert DeNiro, asked, brandishing a saber. "I'll have you know this is no laughing matter. We are the most dangerous pirates in the skies, and you will respect us!" "I most certainly will," Liet said, suppressing a snort, "Captain Victoria Secret." The man pressed his saber against Liet's neck. "It's Captain Shakespeare to you, insolent cur." "Very well then, Captain Shakespeare. I am Liet Kynes, Champion of Logic. We are seeking knights to join us in our quest for the holy FAQ." Shakespeare frowned. "Your dress is unbecoming of a knight." "As yours is unbecoming of a captain?" "Touche." Shakespeare sighed. "To be perfectly honest, this is not what I wear normally. It's for a play that I'm writing." "We have many writers on ASVS," Liet replied. "Or at least, we did until everybody left Usenet. The FAQ is our only hope to bring users back from the Web boards and FF dot N." "A worthy cause," Shakespeare replied. "Alas, I cannot join you as I have to finish training a young lad to be a swordsman, so he can return to his own home." "That's a pity," Strowbridge replied sardonically. "Can you just let us off at the next port then?" They spent several more days in the air looking for thunderstorms to harvest before Shakespeare announced that the capacitors were full. "Looks like London," Liet observed as the Caspertine swung around through a fogbank. "See, there's Big Ben." He paused in thought. "I'd imagine that we'll have the Royal Air Force after us right about now. They don't take kindly to people flying over Parliament without clearance." "Oh, no need to worry about that," Shakespeare said, appearing suddenly from behind. "The Caspertine is invisible to muggles." "Muggles?" Strowbridge parroted. "You know? Non-magical folk?" Strowbridge shook his head and turned to Liet. "What's he going on about magic, anyway? I thought that it was just sufficiently advanced technology that was indistinguishable from magic." Realization dawned on Liet, and he looked down at the Improbability Gun dangling from his belt like a second wang. Evidently its improbable effects were active even when he wasn't using it, which certainly explained Cameron, the flying sound stage, and this. "I suppose that means the author is attempting to pander to the seething masses of Harry Potter fans," Liet grumbled. "Great. Now I have to put up with bratty, teenaged wizards with bad attitudes and even less intelligence." "Harry is actually quite intelligent," Shakespeare remarked. "Certainly not bratty. I should know, I've been training him and Hermione for the past several weeks." Liet rolled his eyes and resigned himself to his fate with a sigh as a teen with dark, curly hair and comically large glasses stepped forward, a slightly built red-haired teenage girl next to him. "I should have known." "Known what?" the boy asked. "Nevermind," Liet replied. "Um... how are you at making explosions?" Harry produced a small dark wand and waved it slightly. "Incendio." On the other side of the deck, a barrel detonated harmlessly. Liet shrugged. "Well, not as indiscriminate as Tim the Enchanter, but I guess I'm stuck with you. I'm Liet Kynes, Champion of Logic, and this is C.S. Strowbridge, Dicktator of ASVS. We're on a quest to find the Holy FAQ." "Nice to meet you," Harry replied. "Harry Potter. I'm a student at Hogwarts, Gryffindor house. This is... well, was... my third year there." "You mean you're actually studying there?" Liet asked in disbelief. "Um... well..." Hermione poked Harry in the ribs, and he spluttered. "Yeah. Most of the time anyway. When we're not fighting to save the school and ourselves from attack anyway." "Right," Liet replied sardonically. "I suppose Dumbledore is behind all of the attacks as well." Harry frowned. "What gave you that idea?" "Are you sure he's not using you? You know, being an evil manipulative mastermind? Hermione slapped Liet across his cheek. "You insensitive clod! Dumbledore died to protect Harry and Hogwarts!" "No he didn't! He's very much alive!" Harry objected. Hermione paused before taking off her book bag and pulling out a copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. "See? Snape kills him right here!" she said, gesturing to a page. Harry looked at the page, then at the cover of the book, and palmed his face. "That won't happen for another three years!" He paused in confusion. "Where did you get that, anyway?" "Amazon," Hermione replied without missing a beat. "In Brazil?" Harry asked, dumbfounded. "How?" She reached out and affectionately ran her hand across Harry's chin. "You know, for someone who lived with Muggles for so long, you're really naive. I mean the website." "Oh." Harry looked thoughtful. "So how is it you have the book when it hasn't happened yet?" "Silly," Hermione replied, "the book's been out for four years now. Then again, you never did like to read, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised." "Um," Harry paused, obviously trying to grasp the situation, "so that means that everything we're doing, and saying, is also in one of those books? Kind of like predestination?" "Well, no," Hermione replied. "We're in another person's story. A parallel universe, if you will." "So Dumbledore might be an evil scheming mastermind after all?" Liet said hopefully. He hadn't been able to shoot anything in a while, and the Improbability Cannon was getting restless. An old, evil wizard made such a nice target. "It's possible... in somebody else's story," Hermione finally replied. "Anything could be possible, actually. Who knows, Wonder Boy over here probably even has a harem in one of those universes." She turned to look at Harry, whose mouth hung slightly open with a blank expression, and promptly slapped him. "Hey! Don't go getting any ideas." "I wasn't!" Harry protested. "I was just... contemplating infinite parallel universes." "Yeah. Sure you were." She winked at Harry. "Who were you fantasizing about there?" "Uh... why?" "I'm curious." "Um..." Harry scratched his neck awkwardly. "Well... Ginny." "That slut?" Hermione asked. "You're the one who told her to start dating other people!" Harry shouted in reply. "Besides, better a slut than a bookworm!" "That's it!" She tackled Harry, pinning him to the ground, and began slapping him repeatedly. Liet could have sworn he saw a smile cross Harry's face as the whole thing happened. Behind him, Strowbridge coughed. "I think we should leave before this fic gets an NC-17 rating." "Good idea," Liet replied, adjusting his Improbability Cannon's shoulder strap. "Where to now?" Strowbridge shrugged. "Booze and hookers sounds good to me." "You just said you didn't want this fic to get an NC-17!" Liet objected. "Who said it had to be in the story?" Realization dawned on Liet's face. "I see where you're going." He reached into his pocket and pulled out the strange compass, which gyrated wildly before settling on a direction. Opening a port on the Improbability Cannon, he locked the compass into it, aimed, and fired. The world flashed into purple polka dots.

Chapter Eight: Worlds without End without End without E-- (a click, then silence underlined with a static hum) NARRATOR: (coughs) Sorry about that. Track started skipping on my iPod... Chapter Eight: Pirates of the Delta Quadrant A black dagger shape silently cruised through the void between the stars, its three ion engines flaring with intense blue light from the massive reactions within. The ship, just a bit over a mile long, bristled with hundreds if not thousands of gun turrets of all sizes. The ship had started out life as an Imperator-class Star Destroyer, mark II, but over its long service life had undergone many not-so-trivial alterations. The reactor was overpowered, the gun output was higher, and some in the Imperial Navy would say it was crewed by a complete madman. On the bridge of the behemoth, a certain Liet Kynes was somewhat inclined to agree. While he was certainly a madman in his own right (running around with an Improbability Cannon, which was somehow powered by a peculiarly British cup of tea, tended to do that to you), the captain of this ship took the cake—no, actually, Liet mused, that was a poor choice of wording seeing as the captain was currently enjoying a large carrot cake. "So," the captain said between mouthfuls of cake, reaching up with one hand to adjust his tricorner hat, "what approach can we take to solve the issue at hand?" "And what issue be that, exactly?" Liet asked, suddenly unsure why his accent had changed to that of a 16th century seafarer. He also appeared to have gotten shorter and sprouted a thick, stubbly beard. "Why, the rum issue, of course," the captain replied. "There's been a dreadful shortage of rum in these parts. It is our mission," he said, slurring his words slightly, "to boldly go where no man has gone before... in search of rum! Savvy?" The captain staggered slightly, letting the frosted bottle of alcohol he had been somehow holding slip slightly before catching it again. Liet just stared at the captain before slapping his palm into his forehead. He had a sneaking suspicion that another crossover had started. (Meanwhile, a long time in the future, in a galaxy far, far away...) A small, three hundred meter starship fled quite literally for its life, pursued, of all things, by a dozen giant cubes. Its hull was gouged and scarred from weapons fire, parts blackened and charred where the hull had failed and the internals of the ship had been exposed. It had been designed as an explorer, not a fighter, and this was painfully obvious as yet another green beam lanced out from one of the cubes and struck it in the docking bay, the doors violently exploding outward as the atmosphere within vented to space. On the bridge of the small ship, as it rocked from yet another hit, the crew struggled to maintain their composure. "Direct hit, Deck 12," Lieutenant Tuvok reported from the tactical station. "Maintain evasive course," Janeway reaffirmed. "B'Elanna, what is your status?" "Warp drive is still offline," the half-Klingon reported from Engineering. "They're not making this easy on us." There was the sound of a muffled explosion over the comm, and then static. "We've lost internal comms," Tuvok reported. "The computer is attempting to re-route around the damaged areas." Janeway turned around to face Seven of Nine, who was standing at the Astrometrics station. "Have you found anything that could help us yet?" "Not yet--" Her voice trailed off. "There appears to be a wormhole forming directly in front of us." A flicker of hope flashed across Janeway's face, for the first time in several days. "Ensign Kim, take us toward it, full speed. We may have a chance to escape." Before Kim had a chance to respond to the order, however, Seven spoke again. "I'm reading something emerging, it's more massive than the Borg cubes although smaller." "On screen," Janeway ordered. The next sound could only be described as the crew collectively crapping their pants. ( ISD Black Pearl ) "That went well," Liet remarked as they emerged from the wormhole. "But what the hell are those?" he asked, pointing forward at the dozen giant cubes. The captain shrugged. "Not my problem. Do they have any rum?" "That be a 'no', Captain," someone reported at the Comm-Scan station. For some bizarre reason, now that Liet looked about, none of the crew were wearing standard Imperial uniforms. Instead, they were wearing a mixture of rags and Victorian era clothing. "How about fair wenches?" "Again, no," Comm-Scan replied. "But they do be having some sort of metal appendages stuck all over. If you're into that sort of thing, that is." Liet had a brief feeling of deja-vu. "They're hailing us, Captain," Comm-Scan reported again. "What be they wanting?" the Captain retorted. "Apparently they want to ... assimilate us. Resistance is futile or some such nonsense." "Awk! Resistance is futile!" squawked Lt. Cotton's parrot. "Will nobody shut up that parrot?" The captain asked, then thought about it for a moment. "Tell them that the only thing I'm interested in assimilating right now is more rum. If they don't have any, they are welcome to go bugger off." "They're firing at us, Captain. Cosmetic damage only." For the first time since Liet had been on board, the Captain seemed visibly angry. "Nobody scratches the paint on my Pearl! Ready the guns for a full broadside." He walked over to a giant wooden wheel that was inexplicably located in the middle of the bridge, and began turning it quickly. For some even stranger reason, the Star Destroyer began spinning about like a ship on a turbulent ocean. Of course, what really had Liet puzzled was the sound that the guns made when they fired. As several thousand green bolts lanced out toward the dozen or so cubes, he could also smell a bit of sulfur. Several seconds later, the battle, such as it was, was over with charred bits of Borg floating in deep space. "Now that unpleasant business is over with, does that frigate have any rum or wenches?" the captain asked. A viewscreen popped out of the ceiling and soon Janeway's face was displayed on it. "Thank you for saving us from the Borg," she began. The captain waved his hand dismissively. "They didn't have any rum or wenches. Do you?" Realization dawned on Janeway's face. "Wait a second... You're pirates!" "You obviously possess astounding powers of reasoning. Now may I suggest you use that new-found intellect to locate us some rum? It would certainly be a shame if we were forced to commandeer your vessel." "The Federation banned liquor," Janeway half stammered. "But we can give you synthetic rum, which tastes just like it." The captain frowned. "What sort of screwed up society bans liquor? Rum is what makes the world turn..." He paced back and forth several times before finally realizing something, and pointed to Seven of Nine, who was visible at the back of the bridge. "Well, in that case, we'll just take her with us. This universe is boring anyway." "I will not stand for your demands!" Janeway shouted. "She is one of my crew!" The captain shrugged. "Well, don't say I didn't give you a choice." He cut the transmission off and turned to the pit. "Lock tractor beams and prepare to board." The stormtroopers of the Black Pearl, surprisingly, actually did wear the classic white uniforms. Unsurprisingly, the uniforms were painted, scarred, and covered in bandanas and other fabrics. Instead of carrying the standard E-11 blasters, they all had long blaster muskets with wooden stocks and bayonets affixed to the front. Thus, after Voyager had been pulled in so that its bridge dome rested inside the Black Pearl's hangar bay, a platoon of stormtroopers grabbed cables and swung down to the dome. They planted charges on top of the dome, and after the charges had gone off, they jumped down onto the bridge. Several of Voyager's crew attempted to put up a fight, but the lack of cover on the bridge was their biggest enemy. A number of redshirts were shot, the blaster muskets giving off a plume of sulfurous smoke with every shot fired. Janeway had backed into the turbolift with the rest of her crew, and they were hiding behind the walls, taking shots as they could. She picked off a couple of stormtroopers before one, unseen on the other side of the door, jumped out and lanced her through with his bayonet. He got shot with a phaser for his troubles, but unfortunately for Janeway a bayonet through the lung is hard to recover from, especially when the bayonet is rusty and jagged. The last thing she remembered before blacking out was Seven being dragged away by the strange troopers. ( ISD Black Pearl ) "Orders, Captain?" the helm asked as the captain half-staggered, half-swayed toward them. He was holding an ancient looking compass in one hand, its dial spinning wildly. With his other hand, he was mimicking the compass's needle with his finger. The compass finally stopped moving and he pointed off in the distance. "We go thataway." "Aye aye, Captain."

Chapter Seven: There is no Seven. No, I mean there is no six. NARRATOR: (tired) Oh just get on with it already. ANNOUNCER: Well, if there is no six, then what was the chapter before this one? NARRATOR: Five point five? ANNOUNCER: That's impossible. You can't have fractions of a chapter. [the NARRATOR holds up a printed chapter that has been cut to ribbons] [there is a LONG PAUSE] ANNOUNCER: You have a point. Well, anyway, what happened to the previous WHOLE chapter if there is no six? [NARRATOR flips through the script] NARRATOR: (absorbed) It's here. ANNOUNCER: What is there? NARRATOR: The chapter that's between Five and Seven. [a SHOTGUN BLAST rings out] [uNCOMFORTABLE SILENCE] AUTHOR: Um, we're currently accepting resumes for narrator and announcer at the front desk. Full life insurance coverage and benefits. [AUTHOR ducks out] UNNAMED STAFF: We have a front desk? [a TRUCK drives up. There is the sound of something heavy being dropped... on someone. SCREAMING follows.] VOICE: (offscreen) UPS. Synchronizing the world of commerce. [TRUCK drives off] [scene change. We hear swords clanging. Cries of "At 'em!" and "You bastard!" are flying fast and free.] [FADE IN: A wooded field on Naboo.] [We see a tired LIET half walking, half skipping through the field. For some reason, there is a GUNGAN following him, clopping two coconut halves together. The GUNGAN carries a pack with a garish flag stuck from the top of it. LIET only carries his IMPROBABILITY GUN. In the distance, a KNIGHT in black duranium armour finishes off yet another weak opponent.] KNIGHT: Halt. Who dares intrude upon the realm of GUARDIAN 2000? LIET: Hatfucker. [He GESTURES-- "I need to do something about that goddamned Idiom switch, like maybe take it away from the author," Liet finished. "Now, where were we?" The Black Knight struck a menacing pose, towering over Liet in his matte black armour. Blood stains cover the armour, and the field is littered with corpses. Then, a voice boomed from beneath the helmet. "Halt. Who dares intrude upon the realm of GUARDIAN 2000?" Liet smirked. "I have no quarrel with you. I merely seek to pass through here to Theed, so I may seek my revenge upon that whom they call Boyd." His gaze darkened. "But if you get in my way, you asshat, you're gonna regret it." The knight remains unmoved. "I can prove to you that the so-called 'neutronium' you use is clearly inferior to Star Trek neutronium. You shall not pass, Warsie scum." At that, Liet's mouth half-opened, and after staring at the knight for several seconds, he burst out laughing. "You? Stop me? You have to be kidding." "Nonetheless, that is what I shall do," the black knight replied as he took out a piece of paper and began scribbling on it. Then he folded it up into a paper airplane and threw it at Liet. It got stuck in the latter's bizarre hairdo. "You... hatfucker. Nobody messes with my hair!" Liet pulled the plane out of his hair and unfolded it. After reading it for all of five seconds, he promptly scribbled out a reply on the back side of it, loaded it into his Improbability Cannon (don't ask), aimed the cannon at Guardian 2000, and fired. A beam of pure logic suddenly lanced through DarkStar's left shoulder, severing the limb cleanly. "There, you happy? I've disproven your ludicrous claim. Now stand aside and let me pass." "What are you talking about?" Guardian 2000 replied indignantly. "You haven't disproven anything. According to George Lucas, the Expanded Univ--" Another shot from the Improbability Cannon lanced through DarkStar's other shoulder, turning that limb into a frilly pink egg-beater. It whirred menacingly several times. "Lucasfilm's canon policy is very clear," Liet stated, his teeth gritted. "Your silly word games have no impact on what canon is, and besides, you have no arguments left! Now stand aside!" "What do you mean, I have no arguments left?" The egg beater whirred menacingly. "You can't prove that the Death Star destroyed Alderaan by just dumping 1E38 joules into it! My Reverse Genesis Effect theory shows that to be false!" Somehow, Guardian 2000 managed to produce a handful of pictures of Alderaan exploding (despite the fact that he only had one eggbeater for an arm). He nodded at the pictures. "Observe the bands of brightness that prove my theorem!" Liet squinted at the blurry printouts. "Are you hallucinating? There aren't any bands of brightness anywhere..." "Liar!" DarkStar turned around and shouted to the woods. "Observe how he refuses to see obvious evidence!" Sighing, Liet fired the Improbability Cannon again. One of the Black Knight's legs mysteriously disappeared, only to re-appear attached permanently to his ass. Boot-first (you couldn't even see the tip). "I SAID," Liet emphasized, "stand aside!" "Never!" DarkStar insisted, hopping on his one foot to maintain balance. He charged toward Liet, bouncing off him. "Chicken! Chicken! You don't want to debate me!" "Right, then I'll have your other leg!" Liet leveled out the Improbability Cannon again, and Guardian 2000's remaining leg was replaced with an egg (small typographical error, the typist was promptly shot). Anyway, the egg splatted all over as DarkStar landed on the ground. "I'll get you for that!" Guardian 2000 nearly screamed. "And you still haven't provided evidence of your DET theorem! Principle of Parsimony says my theory is superior!" Liet rolled his eyes. Would this nut never give up? He beckoned to the Gungan. "Come, Patsy." The two of them rode (Walked, sir) off into the distance. Far behind them, they could just barely hear DarkStar screaming "You yellow bastards!" followed by a loud, very off-key singing of "La la la la"...

Chapter Six: We Forgot The Title, But We'll Be Back To You Shortly After These Important Announcements From Our Sponsors "JAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACEN!" A head suddenly popped up from behind a stack of spare flux capacitors and other miscellaneous parts. As Jacen's head emerged, it knocked a small guizinshou off the top of the pile, which slid down and managed to start a small avalanche of sorts. That is, it would be an avalanche if you replaced the snow with Gundam suit parts, Mr. Fusion units, leather whips, the Ark of the Covenant, ancient 8088 laptop computers, and so much other cruft that it would take up eighteen pages just to give it an overview. And that's not even going into descriptions of the cruft in question. Well, suffice it to say that Jacen's head popped up from beneath a monumental pile of junk. "What?" Tenel Ka, standing on the other side of the room, simply glared indignantly at her husband. Although they were technically still married, for some reason both appeared the same way they had when they were 14, and she was wearing a rather garish (and skimpy) neon green trimmed sailor or schoolgirl uniform that Jacen had never seen the likes of before. Maybe that was just as well, considering how pissed Tenel Ka seemed to be. "Would you care to explain why I'm suddenly wearing this useless thing?" Jacen shrugged, starting another minor avalanche. "Beats me. It's not like it reveals much more than your usual lizardskin getup." Her face nearly went as red as her hair, and she started to lunge before something tackled her... leg. Feeling a curious sensation, she glanced down and noticed a one-armed, partly robotic fox trying desperately to hump her shoe. Her rage suddenly found a new channel, and within seconds the fox found itself floating in front of her, gasping for breath. "So now what? Our author's gone furry?" she asked no-one in particular. "I----f I... can... explain..." the fox gasped. "Sure you can." The fox suddenly found itself making like a football as it sailed through a plate glass window and down the next eleven stories. A vaguely fox-like pit suddenly appeared in the ground below. "Now where were we?" "I think you were about to lynch me for some reason that I have no clue about," Jacen replied. "Oh. That. Thanks." Tenel Ka resumed her stately lunge toward the pile of junk. However, she stopped again when badly-done kung fu cries, mixed with Japanese curses, began coming from the corridor outside the room, and looked quizzically at Jacen. "Didn't Voltron already take care of the Power Rangers?" "Thought so." Jacen extricated himself from the pile and made his way to the door, then opened it. "WILL YOU SHUT UP ALREADY?" The Renegade Rangers, as well as the Sailor Senshi, suddenly looked very embarassed and began apologizing profusely before leaving the area. But Jacen took a second glance before he closed the door. "Hey, those Japanese girls out there are wearing the same thing you're wearing..." He opened the door again. "And one of them... the one wearing green... well... she-" The sound that followed that remark is rather impossible to describe. Think of the sound an elephant makes when it farts. Add in an exploding planet, the drone of a B-29, and the sound that Jerry Falwell makes when his bullshit reaches critical density, and you might have a rough approximation. Its effects, however, are at least easier to describe. Put simply, Jacen found himself pinned to the floor, or rather pinned into the floor. "What, was it something I said?" The Dathomirian and sometime Hapan princess grinned, strange and dangerous forces playing across her face. "You bet it was." She lunged at him, locking her lips to his as if the their heads had been stuck in a Vise-Grip. The couple rolled back, Jacen grunting as he was wrenched out of his Jacen-shaped hole in the floor, and became rather tangled. Gradually, although they were losing several items of clothing, they stood up and wound up falling onto the nearby bed in a somewhat disorganized heap, lips still locked. Clothing continued to come off and go every which way, exposing-- [We interrupt this scene to remind you that this fanfic does not have a rating, and as such the editing staff does not give a flying Gundark shit as to what is in it. However, the thought police have decreed that the following scenes shall not be shown. Sig Heil!] --anyway, after the missing scenes, Tenel Ka disengaged her lips from Jacen's. Both drew in deep breaths of air (although they had been breathing the whole time, the nasal passages just aren't enough sometimes) and laughed. Jacen rolled over on the bed so that Tenel Ka was lying on top of him. "So are you still angry with me?" Tenel Ka looked at him strangely. "Yes," she deadpanned, then broke out into more laughter before locking lips with him again. They rolled about-- [The following scenes are left as an exercise for the reader's imagination.] --and some time later fell onto the floor. Jacen shook his head, knocking off the light green miniskirt that had somehow found its way there. "Where was the story?" There was a long pause, although not at all uncomfortable, before the Hapan princess replied. "I don't know." Jacen shrugged, moving his hands around his wife's shoulders-- [We're not trying to censor this fic. Really. *sound of a pin dropping* ... oh bollocks, they're on to us. All hands, abandon ship.] GENERIC FUNDIE MOTHER: (Infuriated) I knew it! The author is trying to pollute the morals of our youths by portraying acts of fornication between two fictional characters! Burn the heathen! GENERIC FUNDIE MOTHER 2: (Very Infuriated) Besides, in the beginning of this part of the story the author mentions how the characters are only 14! How can they be married if they're that age? And I'll bet it wasn't even a proper church wedding. Probably some fly-by-night wedding chapel in Las Vegas... JACEN: (irritated) Look-- [JACEN is cut off by GENERIC FUNDIE MOTHER 2.] GENERIC FUNDIE MOTHER 2: Now don't you talk to me in that tone of voice, young man. You're not even half my age. You probably believe that we evolved from apes, too. [GFM2 makes a big deal of spitting on the ground] Get behind me, Satan! [TENEL KA walks up and looks GFM2 square in the face] TENEL KA: You're just another hypocrite, not wanting to actually do what you believe. [she sniffs the air] Why does your breath smell salty, anyway? GFM2: Why, the hussy-- TENEL KA: And I'll bet you spend most of your day sealed up in your bedroom, your only company a little piece of plastic. You were probably so abused as a child that you can't even get a single orgasm. GFM2: (offended) I'll show you, you little upstart! [GFM2 dashes off to her CAR and comes back with a BRASS DILDO. Much to the horror of GFM1 (and GFM2's CHILDREN), she begins pleasuring herself with it in full view of everyone.] TENEL KA: All too easy. [she WALKS AWAY, hitting the IDIOM-- --switch on her way back to the room. Jacen broke out into laughter. "I can't believe you just did that." She shot him a hungry look. "You'd better believe it." The two locked lips again, walking back to their room. When they got there, the holoscreen was on for some reason.... [03:14] crayz9000: But I like thin ice [03:14] astrid Yup, ice is getting thinner by the moment [03:14] crayz9000: *dons wetsuit* [03:14] astrid: Ice is crackin'....... [03:14] crayz9000: *runs like hell* [03:14] astrid: *SPLASH* [03:15] crayz9000: Oooh, a shark. Can I pet him? Please? Pretty please? [03:15] astrid: LOL [03:16] astrid: Well, you can certainly try petting him, but.... [03:16] crayz9000: No! Bad shark! No! Sharky let go of my arm! [03:16] astrid: Uh oh..I'm seeing blood! [03:17] astrid: Down Sharky, down! [03:17] crayz9000: *commercial ends* [03:17] astrid: *claps* [03:17] crayz9000: And that, kids, is an example of late-night humor. [03:18] astrid: And we'll be back to you after this brief commerical break...annndd......*repeat*......*cackles*...I dont even know what I am typing anymore [03:18] crayz9000: lololol [03:18] astrid: heheheheheheheh [03:18] crayz9000: Now pardon me while I go remove this piranha from my thumb... [03:18] crayz9000: (What do you mean, we're on air?) "Who turned it to the lamer channel?" Jacen asked when they'd disengaged again. "O-M-G, I'm so like L-O-L! Ha-ha. Lemme find something that's not quite as clichéd." Tenel Ka snatched the remote control from him. "Let me help you." She switched the holoscreen off, and the two dove into the bed. [A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far-- "You dolt," an editor muttered, deep in his lair near the Mohorovic discontinuity. "From that perspective, it should be a long time in the future, in a galaxy that they shouldn't even know exists yet..." At that point, the author realized the benefits of sleep, and decided to give into his body's urges.

Chapter Five: A New Dork "CUT!" Cameron shouted as Voltron beheaded the Zord. Time suddenly screeched to a halt relative to the story. In the meantime, the director took a turbolift up to the Black Lion's control room. "Look," he tried explaining to the pilot, "it's supposed to be more... interesting than that. Kick them a few times, let yourself get hit once or twice." "But we've got this cool energy sword that can kill them in a single hit..." the pilot complained. "It's not that," Cameron explained. "It's the drama." "Oh, right, I forgot," the pilot replied sarcastically. "It doesn't matter how many casualties we suffer, we can always come back from the dead and kill them." "Exactly!" James shouted enthusiastically. The pilot sighed, pulled out his sidearm, and put a bullet through Cameron's head. The erstwhile director crumpled to the floor, and the story resumed. The Zord continued its not-so-stately fall as gravity returned... Jacen grabbed Tenel Ka and leaped over the pigeon guano, over the wall that bordered everything, as a large shadow appeared over them... The oversized, overweight mecha slammed into Theed Palace, obliterating the centuries-old building instantly... Using the Force to slow his fall in a dramatic manner that a Jedi Master would have been hard-pressed to do (but that fact was conveniently forgotten) Jacen landed about a mile from the crushed palace, and let go of Tenel Ka, who immediately covered her exposed breasts and glared at him. "What do you think this is?" she demanded. "Some kind of porno fic?" "Hey, Princess," Jacen retorted half-sarcastically, "it was either grab you then or let you get crushed while you tried to find the right shade of lizard-hide to put on." "Oh, really?" Tenel Ka sniffed. "That hack bounty hunter Johan held up a collapsing skyscraper that was larger than that wimpy robot. What makes you think I couldn't do the same?" "It's just what the Story requires," Jacen said, obviously miffed. "And don't mention that guy again." "Why not?" she retorted. "It’s not like I even know him, unlike you and Danni..." "Shut up." The air was silent (as if it could be anything else) for a strangely poignant moment. Then: "Is this yours?" Tenel Ka held up a yellow book, which had "The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Dealing with Three Feet of Pigeon Droppings" inscribed on its cover. "You know," Jacen muttered after a moment, "I’m beginning to regret marrying you, even if you are really good in bed." "Didn’t I just tell you that this isn’t supposed to be a porno fic? Come on, Jacen, you should know that some of the people reading this are underage..." "Just like we were, that one night at the Academy?" "OK, that’s it. One more crack like that, and I’m calling Ken Starr." "Are you kidding me? I have Johnny Cochran on my holonet speed-dial." Tenel Ka rolled her eyes. "Well, at least that explains the astronomical holonet bills we’ve been getting lately." "Now who’s wisecracking?" [Elsewhere] "This is Black Mesa News, your one source for news on events in the facility. In our top story today, renowned hero Gordon Freeman has died at age 104. The cause of death was allegedly auto-fellatio, although many scientists here have expressed severe doubts about the likelihood of such a method at Freeman’s old age..." [No, the OTHER elsewhere] "And now, here is what President Kennedy has to say about the situation unfolding in Vietnam." Instead of the President speaking, there was a shotgun blast, and a different person stepped up to the camera. "Regretfully," he began, "the President is unable to comment on the current situation." "What the hell?" the anchor almost shouted. "I am Captain Percy Freeman," the new voice continued, not caring about what the news anchors thought, "formerly of the United States Marine Corps. I’m afraid that I bring troubling news; the rumors of an undead army in Vietnam are all too true. A space-craft, carrying alien life forms, crashed in the Vietnamese jungle some years ago. They were the start of this epidemic." A door crashed open, and someone shouted "Stop!" "I’m afraid that will be quite unnecessary, and indeed, impossible," Percy continued. "The zombies, as you call them, are not alive by our standards. If you use nuclear weapons on them, they will just come back twice as strong. If you dismember them, bury them, burn them, they will return stronger. I am afraid that this world is doomed." An evil grin spread across his face. "And I will be in charge of it. Muhahahaha!" [space, near this elsewhere, same time] "Commence primary ignition," Grand Moff Tarkin ordered. At last, the last of the Yuuzhan Vong abominations had nowhere to run, nowhere to hide... The blue-green world vanished in a fiery blaze. Somewhere nearby, James T. Kirk of the Millennium Enterprise was bound for that same destination... At least, he was bound for Earth before everything came to a screeching halt. [On-Air Control Center] "Damnit, Q, don’t you even know how to handle a goddamn remote?" the author shouted. "Stupid know-it-all godlike beings..." [i think this is the right one...] Epilogue My apologies to: Sierra Studios (Half-Life) The makers of the Heart of Evil mod, for the aforementioned game Monty Python Saban Entertainment (Power Rangers) The makers of Voltron James Cameron (the director, that is) 2600 Magazine Britney Spears (huh? Why am I apologizing for that?) Mattel Corporation The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (more easily remembered as insane morons... I mean Mormons) Anyone named Chad Robin Hood: Men in Tights Toshiba Corporation Douglas Adams The NetHack DevTeam [Then again, maybe not.] "Jesus H. Christ on a fucking inflatable porcupine, will you get on with the story already?" Liet swore as he dodged through the rush-hour traffic on the 101, which was now especially jammed with people who wanted to see what had happened to the former Royal Palace. "You’ll get damned to Hell for cussing like that," Boyd reminded him before realizing which end of the improbability cannon was pointed where. "Like Hell I will!" Liet shouted, ripping off the stupid red hood that he was somehow wearing, and leveling out the improbability cannon at Boyd. "Give up now or die, hatfucker." Boyd looked nonplussed. "Can I point out that you’re standing in the middle of a traffic lane?" Liet looked down in horror, then to his right. His eyes widened... And moments later, in an amazing deus ex machina, a hovercar came by at around 200 kilometers per hour and took Liet with it... or perhaps took him on its bumper. Boyd knelt down and offered a quick prayer before running like hell.

Chapter Four: ... And Deeper Still "Where am I?" Boyd asked a passing driver, not caring if the landspeeder was moving at 120 kilometers per hour. "You're on Interstate 101 in downtown Theed," the driver replied with a strange Doppler effect. "Ah, thanks. Cheerio," Boyd replied, looking about him and sidestepping another passing landspeeder with unusual grace. He heard movement behind him somehow (never mind the ambient freeway noise) and quickly turned about to see Liet lining up for another shot. [WE INTERRUPT THIS FANFIC FOR AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FROM OUR SPONSORS] "Hi, I'm Frank Earnest for Victoria's Secret, and I've got an interesting story to tell you. My former girlfriend was Kelly Young, and she makes some of the most delicious apple jam you've ever tasted. Well, last Valentine's Day, I sent her a card telling her that I really enjoyed her jelly because it loosened up an otherwise boring day. But her mother read the card, and I really got plunged into deep shit. So, next Valentine's Day, just remember to get Victoria's Secret for your significant other. Hey, at least you can always say that it belongs to somebody named Victoria!" (Scantily clad models have been snipped for the sake of cost) [THIS HAS BEEN A PAID POLITICAL ANNOUNCEMENT] "I really wish they would quit doing that," Liet muttered. "Never fails to screw up my aim." A vehicle on the other side of the highway turned into a giant raspberry as he pulled the trigger on his phallic weapon, which splattered into a red pulp spread across the entire road. After pausing to scratch his head at the bizarre sentence structure, Liet checked his weapon to make sure that it was still in one piece, then looked down at his Palm VII PDA, and read the message that was displayed on its screen: The leprechaun hits! --more-- Your purse feels lighter! "Aw, damn," he muttered again, ignoring the vehicles speeding by only six inches away from him as he reached for his wallet. As he pulled it out of his pocket, however, a passing groundcar struck his arm, causing the wallet to go flying. Muttering an incoherent curse concerning a sheep and Chex cereal, he fired his phallic weapon at the offending groundcar, which instantly plummeted into a bottomless pit and burst into flames at the bottom. "Kudos to whoever recognizes that irony," Liet commented with a smile on his face as he looked back at the Palm VII, where a new message was displayed: The leprechaun picks up some gold! Liet chucked the PDA at a groundcar, cursing as he saw Boyd nab his wallet and run off through the rush-hour traffic. NetHack was terribly frustrating sometimes. It was about time he gave up trying to use it as a predictor of real life. A groundcar chose that moment to run over his exposed foot. [WE INTERRUPT THIS FANFIC FOR YET ANOTHER IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT] 2600 Cola. It's the slicer's soda. Drink 2600 Cola. (Britney Spears is shown drinking a can of 2600 Cola. She manages to spill some on her thin V-cut shirt. The audience gags, then faints.) [sPONSORED BY CHEESE] ELSEWHERE "Tenel Ka?" "Mmm?" came the response from the other side of the bed. "I think we're in deep shit." The redheaded warrior stirred. "Hmm?" "Just what I mean." Tenel Ka lifted her head from the pillow, looked at the area surrounding the bed, and flopped back down. For good reason, too. Some rare form of guano had been piled high around the bed, and the reek of the processed matter was enough to knock a Gundark unconscious. "I think it's from the Naboo pigeon. See that berry seed-" The Dathomirian quickly interrupted him. "Jacen," she said in a muffled tone due to her head being buried in the pillow, "I think you need to reconsider your choice of career." He took the clue and shut up. NEITHERSPACE A large anvil fell on an unsuspecting coyote. Through a little-known principle that Nikola Tesla discovered, combined with Einstein's Unified Field Theory, it induced a chain reaction that caused 10,294 stars to simultaneously go nova across the googleplex of stars that make up the universe. This in turn created 2,038 new black holes and 2.4 supermassive black holes (the other 6/10ths of a black hole were too unimportant to be counted). A cascading-flux improbability isowave then spread through spacetime, causing 109,388 nerfs to become infected with Mad Nerf Disease. The mad Nerfs staged a protest in front of Mattel Headquarters, armed with small foam dartguns. By the end of the protest, the toy company's headquarters was covered in over a million Nerf darts. Their combined mass caused the building to reach critical mass and collapse in on itself, causing millions of wannabe Jedi to cry out in shock. Their shouts, all centered within the New York Metropolitan Area, knocked several jumbo jetliners off course, which then proceeded to crash into the city's skyline. Jar-Jar Binks, infamous French terrorist, was promptly blamed for the collisions, even though he was engaged in a game of Pong on his Playstation-2 supercomputer at the time. Later, the Ministry of Something Unimportant apologized for the mistaken blame, but their apology never made it to CNN because they were too unimportant. As a result, millions of C4-loaded frogs were sent across the English Channel, even though England is *not* a state of America. The frogs were turned back by a border guard wearing red underwear, who found a quarantined medfly in the stomach of a frog. Indignant, they proceeded back to Paris and tried to blow up the Eiffel Tower, but were unsuccessful as their mini C4 packs were not sufficient to bring the steel to its melting point. Most Parisians thought it was simply a fireworks display celebrating the end of the Mattel Empire, and they joined in the fun by prancing around naked as usual. However, the sight of several thousand naked bearded ladies did not set well with the Q Continuum, who promptly deposited all the French on New Zealand. Their combined weight, however, proved to be too much for the small island to support, and it sank as fast as it could. The displaced magma from the island then caused every volcano in the Pacific Rim of Fire to blow simultaneously. One Mexican farm laborer's comment on the eruption was "Popo goes Poo-Poo!" Somewhere in the Himalayas, a Tibetan monk was quick to ask who farted. That caused Confucius to get up and begin asking people at random what the gravitational constant of the universe was. A superstitious Vulcan then tried to use the Stone of Gol on himself for no particular reason, and phased his nads out of the continuum. When they returned, they ended up in the mouth of a severe malnourised crossbreed who liked to call himself PROMETHEUS. However, the tough Vulcan nuts proved too much to chew, and he spit them out with blinding speed. They tore through several blastdoors, scaring several mouse-droids, and finally landed in front of Seven of Nine. That caused her to reconsider her purpose in life, and she decided to arm herself and hunt down Brannon and Braga. This in turn meant that she would never meet Luke Skywalker, who would then go on to marry some random love interest. And someplace completely random at some random point in time, a redhead giggled and vanished back into the temporal mists. THEED PALACE "Did you just feel a disturbance in the Force?" "You mean as if millions of Frenchmen cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced?" Jacen rhetorically asked. Tenel Ka nodded. "Exactly." "I fear it is a time for great rejoicing," he replied in a monotone. "Whatever," the Dathomirian commented. "Have you figured out why there's all this shit surrounding us?" "Look up." She did so, and discovered that the roof was missing from the building. The culprit turned out to be a very large robot, which was standing over and inspecting the contents of the palace. It carefully reached down and plucked a single turkey drumstick from some other part of the palace, then ate it. To top it off, the robot let out a loud belch that blew out all the windows in the palace that weren’t already broken. "Have any idea on what that thing is?" Tenel Ka asked as a flock of pigeons dive-bombed the robot. Jacen groaned. "It's the Power Rangers' latest Zord or something stupid like that." "It doesn't have X-ray vision, does it?" She grabbed one of her lizard-hide armor suits, and dove under the covers. "Not that I know of," he replied as the bed was shaken free of the pigeon guano, moving about an inch out of it. Jacen promptly looked out the window, and Tenel Ka soon did the same. "Another robot?" she asked. "Voltron." He watched the large mecha begin walking toward the Power Ranger robot, shaking the city up as it did so. "I think they've got a copyright dispute to settle." "You bet we do!" the person running the Black Lion shouted in reply. The show’s director popped out of the back of the cockpit. "You aren't supposed to hear Jacen speak," it shouted at the Voltron leader. "Oh. Sorry, my bad." "No problem. We’ll do that part over again," the director said before realizing that the tape was still rolling. His voice rose to a crescendo that sounded like an egg beater, culminating in his shouting the word "cut" at the top of his lungs. The cameraman simply blinked. "I should have known better than to hire a deaf assistant," the director (who incidentally was named James Cameron) muttered under his breath. Failing to find a solution, he pulled out a scale model of the Titanic and threw it at the Saban Entertainment Zord. The Titanic split in two and sank, while the Zord unfortunately was not harmed. Cameron scratched his head. That wasn't what the Titanic was supposed to do... or was it? "Hey, Director, just get your butt back inside. We’re going to haul some serious ass here in a moment," the Voltron leader shouted somewhere toward the posterior of his lion. INTERSTATE 101 - DOWNTOWN THEED "Drat that Boyd," Liet muttered as he hopped along the 101 on his one good foot. That idiot groundcar driver /would/ have had to run over his right foot! "Pardon me, sir," a hovercar driver pulled alongside him and slowed to a halt, "but do you need any assistance?" "No, and go fuck yourself," Liet replied. If there was one thing he hated more than Boyd, it was these self-righteous "good Samaritans." "Why, fuck you too, sir," the driver replied in an oddly British accent as he accelerated away, leaving Liet in the middle of a cloud of noxious exhaust fumes. Liet coughed and continued on to Grandma's house... Oops, wrong story. COMING NEXT CHAPTER... Power Rangers vs. Voltron: Live on Pay-Per-View Little Red Riding Liet The Complete Idiot's Guide to Dealing with 3 Feet of Pigeon Droppings What does all this have to do with chicken and a crossdressing Swede?

Chapter Three: Pile it Higher and Deeper Boyd looked about himself nervously, but his anxious scans found nothing that was out of the ordinary. Or at least /seemed/ out of the ordinary. He cautiously walked forward, but the sound of his footsteps resonating on the hard metal deck echoed in his head like thundering drumbeats, so he stopped. His heart pounded so hard that he wondered if anyone else could hear it. Again, moving quietly he dashed across an open corridor, glancing to both sides as he did so to see if his pursuer was anywhere to be found. Relieved that the coast was clear, he continued down the new corridor, walking down a sloping ramp until he reached a closed blastdoor. Jonathan looked about for a control panel, but found none. While he was looking, he heard a slight clink coming from behind, and spun about rapidly, looking back up the corridor. Somehow, a gear had come loose from something and had rolled down the corridor. He was relieved that it was only a gear, but even that put him more on edge. /Something/ had to have dislodged that gear, although after a few moments he concluded that it could have easily been a droid. Feeling with his hands, he finally located the hidden control panel for the blastdoor, and pressed ever so gently. The panel clicked softly and slid aside, revealing the door controls. It was obvious that the designers didn't want anyone to find it easily. Boyd pressed several buttons in sequence as he had for some other blastdoors, but it didn't seem to work for this one. He felt like sighing, but didn't want to make any sound that would alert his attacker to his presence. Instead, he tried another sequence on the control panel, and was finally rewarded as the heavy door began to open. Boyd jumped through before it had finished opening, and was all too aware of the sound his boots made as they landed on the metallic deck. But he had to continue. So he walked softly (or as softly as possible with the hard-soled military-issue boots) to the side where he suspected another control panel was hidden. He felt around, finally feeling an area where the wall yielded to his touch, and pressed firmly. The panel popped open, and he quickly re-entered the same sequence he'd used to open the blastdoor. With a slight groan of metal on metal, the door began to slide closed. He wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, but the realization that his enemy could be anywhere prevented him from doing so. Anxiously, he looked about himself to see if there were hidden cameras, but his inquisitive gaze turned up nothing. It didn't really surprise him, of course. If the designers had put cameras in, they would have hidden them so well that it would take a dedicated scanning crew extra time to find them. But he did notice the targeting sensors for the automatic shootback systems, and inwardly sighed. That meant that the tiny holdout blaster he carried was useless, as he couldn't fire it without alerting the computer systems, and that in turn would mean that his enemy could find him. As stealthily as he thought possible, he continued down the corridor in search of something that might help him. Certainly, Boyd didn't like being trapped aboard the station; he didn't even know where he was by now. To make a bad situation worse, he had some insane homicidal maniac chasing after him with an Improbability Cannon. That by itself was enough to drive most people insane, but he was Boyd. A Boyd would overcome, no matter the odds. Over fifty kilometers away, another person was in a similar situation, except that he was trying to find Boyd. For those concerned with names and appearances, his name was Liet. He stood about 5'11", fairly average for humans in this galaxy, and wasn't much to look at. Well, to be specific he was something to look at, if only because of his strange hair and the way he dressed. It was like a flat-top cut except that it had a strange protrusion of hair at the front. Liet had asked for it that way because of someone he'd seen on an old Terran broadcast. Carrey, he thought the person's name was. Damn, but that guy had been such a sex machine to all the chicks! Liet couldn't figure out why the chicks didn't seem to like him, though. He had tried everything so far. First there was the Jim Carrey hairdo, which he'd gotten at a Supercuts on some planet whose name he'd forgotten. On the advice of a gypsy, he'd found some Winchell's donut cologne, the byproduct of an endeavour to get more police officers to frequent Winchell's. The gypsy had said that it would make him immensely more popular, but so far the only increase in his popularity he'd noticed was among the ants. Oh well. He still had five complementary bottles of the stuff, and he sure wasn't going to waste it. That wasn't all he had, though. (Liet wasn't a nudist.) When he had attended the University of Agamar, a man by the name of Winston Ashford Gonzalez had suggested some dress tips, which he'd taken. The first thing had been an old-fashioned tobacco pipe, which he never used for its intended purpose. The second thing that Winston had suggested for him to do was to get rid of his old brown robes and get a new, hip jacket. The only problem was that the suit shop nearest the university was out of leather jackets, so he'd been forced to settle for a grey tweed jacket with leather elbow patches. The jacket itself was one size too small, which looked a little funny. Liet didn't mind, though, because it made his arm muscles look larger, and biceps always turned the chicks on. Then there was the one final bit of advice that Winston had given him: Trojan. Ah, the Trojans. He never went anywhere without them; they were more useful than an American Express card (which he also had). Unlike the Viagra that he carried in case of emergencies, the Trojans had so many uses, including balloon, makeshift water bottle, helium container (so that he could speak in an unnaturally high voice), and disease/pregnancy shield. Liet considered them more useful than a Swiss army knife, and he kept one of those as well. Liet didn't wear any hat. He said that it would mess up his hairdo. He spent nearly three hours every morning getting it just right, and hats only messed that up by matting the hair down and building up copious quantities of sweat. To steal a line from the Borg, "hats are irrelevant." At the moment, he was sitting in a large room whose function he was unsure of. He removed the tobacco pipe from his mouth (he didn't actually smoke; it was for purely ornamental purposes) and stuffed it in his inner shirt pocket. Then he reached beside his chair and, with both arms, hefted a vaguely phallic-looking object. Liet liked to say that he'd created it himself, although that wasn't really accurate. He had purchased the rights to the device from someone named Douglas Adams, and then had some factory in Bangladesh produce it. To him, it was a work of art, complete with zoom night-vision scope, ivory-inlaid handlegrip, and a bunch of other options that he hadn't bothered to learn. The best thing about it was that it never needed to be recharged, and didn't use any ammo. Seeing an errant bat fly across the other side of the room, Liet hefted the phallic object, aimed it in the general direction of the bat, and pulled the trigger. A spot on the wall beside the bat suddenly glowed with purple polka-dots, and a fountain of port began to spurt out of the wall. Ignoring the fine wine, Liet aimed again, more carefully this time, and struck the bat with the invisible beam. The bat turned into a giant toaster and crashed into the ground. Liet grinned, lowering the phallic weapon and picking up a wineglass. He walked over to the port fountain and filled his glass, then walked back and sat down again. He would get Boyd, eventually. But he had more pressing matters to attend to first. He pulled the pipe out of his pocket again, filled it from the wineglass, and began to sip out of it. /My, this is excellent port,/ Liet decided as he continued sipping from the pipe. Boyd could certainly wait. Jonathan ducked under a convenient protrusion as a squad of stormtroopers walked past. He quickly thanked George Lucas that all stormtroopers had tunnel-vision before getting back up. Looking at the departing troopers, though, Jonathan decided that it would be better if he looked like a stormtrooper. He quietly walked up behind the last of the troopers, then suddenly grabbed him, throwing him to the floor. The trooper struggled vainly as Boyd pulled his helmet off, then punched him quite hard in the face. It didn't take long for Jonathan to remove the rest of the trooper's clothing. When he had finished, he dragged the trooper to a garbage chute, kicked the grating in, and shoved the trooper down it. He felt a momentary pang for the stormtrooper--after all, Federation doctrines said that one was not to harm the enemy if at all possible--but dismissed it. After all, it would be the /Imperial/ garbage compactor that would harm the trooper, not him. Quickly, Boyd put on the trooper's armor suit, then continued down the corridor. Mercifully, nobody else was walking in it, which Jonathan found surprising considering that the Death Star was purported by the evil Warsie trolls to have several billion troopers. Ah, well. Another victory for Star Trek. After consuming his wine, Liet looked about himself. Nothing had really changed in the room, save for the growing pool of wine on the floor. Noticing that the pool was getting closer to his chair, he decided that it was a good time to leave. Picking up his phallic weapon and wineglass, Liet set out again in search of his quarry. The first thing he did was to step into the Disco Star's central control room. As he stepped inside, the troops came to attention instantly (one standing so fast that he accidentally hit the firing button, obliterating a random planet) and saluted. Liet ignored them. They were only clones, after all, and not really deserving of his attention. Instead, he walked to the security terminal and checked the day's logs. Nothing noteworthy was displayed... hmm... Ah, there it was. A garbage compactor on level 5183 had a grate destroyed. Liet instantly assumed that Boyd was responsible, even though the grate could have been destroyed for any number of reasons (but the author's wish to keep the quantity of overly descriptive text down may have had something to do with Liet's decision). So Liet struck a very strange pose, one hand over his willy, and spoke into the Disco Star's PA system. "Ah!" The goggles of a technician shattered from the intense sound pressure. Liet always liked to have it set to maximum, just for effect. "Boyd, I have you at last. Prepare to die." He twisted the gain knob slightly, resulting in an intense whine that shattered almost every display in the control room. Liet loved the gain control. It was great for unnerving those who dared to oppose him. He cackled wildly. Boyd briefly shuddered as he heard the Disco Star's PA system come to life. There was but one thing that could mean, so he dove for the nearest airlock, not caring if he was nearly a hundred kilometers from the outer shell of the massive battlestation. If he'd heard Liet's insane rantings once, he'd heard them a hundred times. Never mind the sheer volume of his announcements. Once Jonathan figured that enough time had elapsed to allow Liet to finish his announcement, he crawled back out of the airlock. "Oh, you thought you could outsmart me, Boyd. But fear not: I will be coming after you shortly! Muhahaha." Boyd shook his head. He hated Liet, although nobody would ever know why. Another secret of the Boyd. After several minutes of aimless walking, Jonathan thought for a second that he smelled donuts. His mouth began to drool, although once he realized that there was only one person on the battlestation with donut cologne, the saliva instantly vanished. He quickly looked in all directions, but didn't see anything. As he doubled his pace, Boyd couldn't help but hear his feet clanking loudly against the metal deck. That was a definite downside to the stormtrooper armor, and he kind of wished that he was still wearing his Federation uniform. It was a lot quieter in this kind of situation. For no reason whatsoever, Boyd jumped out of the way. He liked to think that he had Jedi powers, but Luke Skywalker had disagreed with him so many times that he'd lost count. Eventually Boyd had given up on trying to enter the Jedi Academy (the prosthetic leg that he now had might have been a consideration-he'd received it after challenging a nine-year-old Jedi trainee and getting his real leg removed). Still, jumping randomly did have its benefits, as an improbability beam missed him narrowly, turning a stormtrooper down the hallway into a giant cream puff. Boyd knelt for a moment to pray. The random number generator must have been smiling on him. Another improbability beam disturbed him from his reverie, and his armor somehow turned into a ballet dress. Boyd ignored it; it could still deflect fifty-pound rocks thrown by Ewoks as good as stormtrooper armor, so it wasn't like it made much difference. He pirouetted across the corridor, narrowly avoiding more improbability beams as he did so. Jonathan quickly exited into a turbolift, and was mildly alarmed when the durasteel door turned into a sheet of candy glass. He stabbed at a random button on the control panel, and was rewarded as the computer gave him a perfectly random effect. In this case, nothing. He threw himself through the candy glass door, which shattered spectacularly, and rolled across the corridor, only to bump into the legs of an elephant. The elephant roared, and at that point Boyd decided that it would be a good idea to get away from there. Another beam narrowly missed him, and so it was that Boyd was somewhat shocked as the elephant stood up on its two hind legs and began singing Elvis-style. He ignored it, however, and started running. After several minutes, though, Boyd noticed that he really wasn't running anywhere. Looking down, he saw that the floor beneath him had been turned into a treadmill. That wasn't good. He spun about quickly, only to see Liet lining up for the perfect shot. He dropped to the floor. Liet fired. The blast whizzed over his head (it might have had to do with the fact that Boyd was carrying the Blarney stone with him) and hit a wall. Jonathan blinked. It seemed like nothing had happened to the wall. At least, before a Mack semi came barreling /through/ it. Boyd pressed himself against the wall of the corridor to avoid getting hit by the speeding tractor. Then, realizing that if something had come through it... He ran for the wall as fast as he could, jumping a pace before he would hit it, and sailed straight through.

THIRTY YEARS LATER... Chapter Two: The Next Generation "Here we are," Jacen said from the cockpit of the Hapan transport ship /Rock Dragon./ Beside him sat his new wife, Tenel Ka. "Naboo." He finished. "Yes, I know you wanted our honeymoon location to be a surprise, honey," the Dathomirian said as she blinked her grey-green eyes, "but why Naboo?" Jacen was obviously taken aback by her statement. "Well..." He paused, thinking for words. "It's the only world that the NJO authors have ignored so far." Catching her unforgiving stare, he hesitantly continued. "Besides, my grandmother was born here. Did you know that she was queen of this planet at age eleven?" She was obviously not convinced. "Sure," she said with a tone as bored as she could make it, looking out of the viewport with a forlorn stare. Indeed, she was in the same position by the time Jacen set the /Rock Dragon/ down in the capital city that the author conveniently forgot the name of. "Well?" Jacen asked impatiently, turning toward the exit. "Aren't you going to come with me into the capital city that the author conveniently forgot the name of?" "Sure," Tenel Ka tried to say as cheerfully as possible, but only managed to come out with a tone that sounded as if she had ended up tripping over the coffin at a funeral. As the couple debarked their starship, they were suddenly confronted by a horde of angry (and horny) Gungans. Jacen promptly ignited his lightsaber, and then proceeded to cut a path through the crowd. Tenel Ka grimaced as a pair of Gungan testicles impacted against her lizard-hide armor with a messy _splat,_ but continued to follow Jacen. Somewhere behind her, a pair of worker droids were supposed to be unloading the luggage, but they were completely engulfed in the crowd. When they had finally breached the spaceport walls and left the angry crowd of Gungans behind, Jacen deactivated his lightsaber and pulled out a map. "You know where we're going, right?" he asked his wife, who simply nodded in response. Nodding himself, he crumpled the parchment map into a ball and threw it into a convenient waste receptacle. He didn't see the blatantly obvious figure that was trying desperately to be inconspicuous as it followed them. * * * "_This_ is the place we're staying? Good God, Jacen, my pet rancor has better tastes!" The edifice that Tenel Ka had so eloquently described towered before the couple, five stories high at a minimum. Many windows were covered in plywood (for the sake of keeping the cost of this book down) and the ones that were not covered so had ugly cracks in them. Many fake spiderwebs hung from balconies, lending a phony air of creepiness to the former Royal Palace. "I don't see what's wrong with it," Jacen replied. "See those webs? They're spun by a particular breed of highly poisonous spiders native to this planet..." "Jacen?" Tenel Ka flatly asked. "What?" "The webs. They're fake." "Uh..." He looked at the building again. "Yeah, that's what I meant to say." She only glared at him. * * * THEIR room proved to be in even worse shape than the building itself. As Tenel Ka forlornly looked about the room, she observed that the bathroom door was hanging at an angle, one of its hinges having been blasted at some indeterminate time in the past. The vanity mirror had a large crack running diagonally through it. The vanity itself was not in much better shape, with many insect holes bored through it. In addition, a real spiderweb adorned a far corner, and Tenel Ka wondered with a morbid curiousity if it really was made by an extremely poisonous species of spider. She decided not to test for herself, and looked at the bed. The Dathomirian nearly fainted. The bedspread looked as if a Bantha had decided to use it to clean up after it took a crap. The floral pattern, while still vaguely visible, was mostly covered by a layer of unrecognizably brown stuff that she didn't bother to guess as to the origins of. Grimacing, she turned around to order one of the droids to clean it - and then noticed that they were not there. "Jacen," she asked in a somewhat panicked tone of voice, "where is the luggage?" "What?" he replied absentmindedly, having been inspecting some unidentifiable creature that resided in the corner. "Luggage? I thought the droids had it-" "They're not here." "Fuck!" he shouted, and proceeded to tear out the door, which fell with a resounding crash. He ignored it and continued running toward the turbolift. The turbolift, as he neared it, decided that it was the perfect time to go kaputz. With a great screeching and grinding of gears, it ground to a halt bare meters from the fifth floor. "Guess I take the stairs," Jacen muttered, yanking open the emergency exit door and scaring approximately 1.5 million spiders. They split in all directions as he hit them with a wave of Force-induced fear, allowing him to dash down the rickety steps. Halfway down, Jacen stopped suddenly, allowing his shadow to fly through the brick wall and crash three stories to the street, where it was promptly abused by the remaining Gungans. Sighing with relief, he then continued without the shadow. At the bottom, the door simply would not budge no matter how hard Jacen pushed. He finally pulled out a skeleton key and inserted it, but with no further luck. The he noticed a large red lever marked "PULL IN CASE OF STUCK DOOR." He pulled it, and pulled it hard. The lever did several things. First, a large tree trunk fell from an unknown location, impacted the door, and carried it several hundred meters through a giant stained glass window. Second, all the stair steps aligned themselves at forty-five degree angles. Third, an ancient-looking Scotsman astride a sheep rode out of the chamber the log had come from, and began to slide down the steeply inclined steps, screaming in an unknown language. At that point, Jacen decided that discretion was the better part of valour. He turned tail and ran for all the Force could give him. The Scotsman slammed into the wall at nearly twenty kilometers per hour. The sheep never made it, but quite dizzy the Scotsman managed to peel himself off the wall. He turned, and promptly stuck his head in a toilet that had appeared to his right. This is the way Jacen found the Scotsman a half-hour later, although he personally had no luck in finding the lost droids. After giving a double-take to the Scotsman, he jumped straight up the stairwell to the fifth floor. "No luck?" Tenel Ka inquired as Jacen half walked, half tripped into the room. "Don't ask," he replied, throwing himself onto the bed that Tenel Ka had managed to make into a somewhat respectable state of cleanliness. She silently nodded, closed the now-fixed door, and began to pull off her testicle-spattered armor. As she was undressing, she turned to Jacen and tried to start a conversation. "What happened with Danni Quee, anyway? You never told me." Throwing her a slightly annoyed glance that he immediately regretted, Jacen slowly responded. "I never had anything going for her - I just rescued her from Helska and got out of there." "She acted like there was something." Jacen groaned. "Maybe she had a crush on me. What can I say? She's a blond." Tenel Ka stopped, her armor only halfway off. "Do you mean that you married me only because I'm a redhead?" "I never said that." She quickly finished taking the armor off, then proceeded to unbraid her hair. But just as she was getting into the bed beside Jacen, there was a knock on the door. "Aw fuck," Jacen cursed, "an hour into our honeymoon and we can't even get some peace? Fuck this." He threw open the door (prompting a slight scream from Tenel Ka, who buried herself under the marginally clean sheets) and glared at the alien who had knocked. "Vong, huh? Go away," he shouted, slamming the door in the warrior's face. With it closed, he began to turn around to head back to bed, but another knock of the door pushed that idea aside. "What is it?" Jacen angrily asked, wondering at the Vong's appearance. It was dressed - oddly enough - in a black suit, and carried some sort of book under its arm. Beside it was an equally black bicycle. The Jedi only glared more. "Can't you see I'm trying to make love with my wife?" "Heathen!" the Vong shouted, opening the book up and thrusting it beneath Jacen's nose. "But fear not - Yun-Shuna will cure you of your heathen tastes! Read what Shuna IV, book three verse one has to say of your condition! 'For-'" "Fuck you!" Jacen promptly cut off the Shunan missionary, and slammed the door again. When another knock came, he ignored it and proceeded to walk to the bed. But before he could get in, an even louder knock was heard that threatened to break the entire building. "Now what?" the Jedi stormed, throwing open the door in a fit of rage. "'-when thou mustest-'" Jacen pulled out a crystal of kryptonite and shoved it down the Vong's throat, slammed the door once more, and walked back to the bed. Then he handed Tenel Ka a set of earmuffs, and got into the bed with her. This time, the knock was felt more than it was heard. Extremely pissed off, Jacen stormed back, pulled out his lightsaber, then opened the door. "'-anger has no place in the sight of the gods-'" was all that Jacen allowed the Shunan missionary to say before he decapitated it. He then gave the dead Vong a hearty kick to the pelvis before slamming the door and returning to bed, wondering how the alien could have spoken with a large kryptonite crystal jammed in its throat. The carcass of the Vong slammed into a large purple dinosaur that was unlucky to be standing behind. Its inertia carried the dinosaur back into the turbolift shaft, where it fell the full height of the building before coming to a stop. At the bottom, the Scotsman pulled his head out of the toilet full of beer long enough to determine what the new arrival was before he stuck his head back in.

CHAPTER SIX After spending close to a week on Dathomir, Jacen was starting to see why Tenel Ka preferred the rugged, often arid planet to the overly cultured environment of Hapes. The day after their arrival, she had taken time to teach him, his sister, and Lowbacca how to ride rancors. The sight of the monstrous creatures at first startled him, and he remembered his uncle Luke's tale of the one he had encountered at Jabba's palace all those years ago. The more time he spent around them, however, the easier it was to connect with them, and he had discovered that they were actually quite intelligent despite their appearance. Once they had mastered riding the giant creatures, Tenel Ka had led them out to a lake some thirty kilometers away from the fortress. They had spent the next few days camped out near the lake, hiking in the almost impossibly tall nearby mountains and then cooling off in the placid waters of the lake. Jacen had been surprised again there; despite only having one arm, Tenel Ka still managed to swim faster than he could. He'd laughed and said that he was out of shape, but he still had to admit that it was impressive. When they had told Luke that they would be visiting Dathomir, he had suggested that they visit the ruins of the Chu'unthor. The old Jedi training ship was still slowly rusting away in the middle of a canyon, serving as a memorial to those that had fallen in combat with the Nightsisters hundreds of years before. So it was that they had taken their rancor mounts and made their way out to where the wreckage of the Chu'unthor filled up an ancient canyon. They left the rancors up on the plateau where they could take care of themselves, and headed down the small, muddy path that lead to the slow-moving river that the ship had ended up in. When they finally reached the muddy waters, Lowbacca dropped the pack he had been carrying, pulled out a bright orange inflatable raft, and set to work with a small pump. Soon they were plying their way across the river, and after a bit of work tied it up on a half-rusted antenna that jutted up from the tilted wreck of the ship. Jacen already knew that there was probably very little that was new that could be learned from the wreck as Luke had retrieved the ship's store of datacards years before, and subsequent trips with Tionne had unearthed even more information, but just standing on it made his nerves tingle. "Are we going to go inside or what?" Jaina suddenly asked from behind him. "Should we?" Jacen asked. "Well, why not?" his sister argued. "There were training areas inside and I'm curious to see how they set those up. And it's not like there are any bodies aboard, the ship didn't crash after all." She reached into one of the many pockets on her brown jumpsuit and pulled out a datapad, calling up one of the schematics of the ship. "I think there's an access hatch we can use about twenty meters due west." After following Jaina to where the schematic indicated the hatch was, Jacen frowned. "I don't see how we're supposed to open it. It looks like it's welded pretty tight." Jaina was already kneeling down on the rusted metal, and pointed to a barely visible hairline seam in the panel. "Uncle Luke told me he and Tionne cut this door at a diagonal so its weight would keep it sealed," she said, coming to her feet and taking a step away from it. "We just need to levitate it up." "Easy enough," Jacen agreed, and reached out toward the hatch. A moment later, he winced and dropped his arm back to his side as if it had been stung. "Kriff, that thing's heavy!" "Perhaps we should try to work together?" Tenel Ka suggested. "That's what I was going to say," Jaina added, "before you went off and tried to be the hero as usual." Jacen flashed a typically lopsided grin. "Hey, I guess it runs in the family..." After several false starts, they managed to lift the heavy slab of durasteel off the hatch opening, leaving just enough room for Lowbacca to squeeze through. After some four hundred years of sitting exposed to the elements in a tar pit, none of the emergency lighting was still functional on the ship and all the Jedi pulled out glowrods so they could see inside. There was a slight growl from Lowbacca and moments later, Em Teedee piped up. "Master Lowbacca says that it smells quite terrible in here." "So we noticed," Jacen said nasally, one hand pinching off his nose. The odor wasn't anything like the smell of anything rotting, but it was just a musty, dank odor that was quite disagreeable. Probably had something to do with the ship being welded shut for so long with no life support functions. They navigated the corridors of the ship in silence for several minutes, eventually coming to one of the transparisteel-domed openings that had apparently served as a cafeteria. Plates, cups, and utensils still littered the tables as if someone had left in a hurry. They all seemed to be covered in a thick layer of dirt, which as Jacen approached he realized was actually the dried, decomposed remains of whatever food had been on the plates. He sneezed as his footsteps kicked up some of the dust on the floor. "Whatever was growing in this mess is long dead," he remarked. "No kidding," Jaina agreed. "Well, I don't think we're going to learn anything here. Let's keep going." Another fifteen minutes of wandering dark and often collapsed corridors later, they came to another domed area. This one had patterns of lines painted on the floor, and several huge balls were scattered around. "I do not understand," Tenel Ka declared. "Was this some sort of game? Or just for exercise?" "There's one way to find out," Jaina said as she walked over toward one of the largest balls. "Please tell me you're not going to do what I think you're going to," Jacen said. "I've been dying to use that telemetric technique that Uncle Luke taught me," she replied. "Isn't this the perfect opportunity?" "Yeah," Jacen said. "I also remember him warning you about how dangerous it could be if you used it on anything that had been touched by the Dark Side." Jaina rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Now who's sounding like Mom? We're on a Jedi training ship that hasn't been touched by anyone except Uncle Luke in four hundred years. What's the worst that could happen?" Jacen sighed. "Fine. Let's see how this game was played." Jaina reached out toward the ball and put her hands on its surface, which still appeared unblemished compared to everything else on the ship. As Jacen watched, her eyes closed and she seemed to go into a trance-like state for only a few seconds before her eyes snapped back open. She turned back to them, silently, and Jacen waited for her to say something. "Well?" he finally asked after what seemed like minutes had passed. "It... for a moment, it felt like I was there," she finally managed to say. "I saw flashes of faces, the Jedi padawans playing the game. I think it was some sort of telekinetic exercise, they would bounce these balls back and forth without touching them, and if one went between these white lines, they scored a point against that person." "Sounds fun," Jacen remarked. "Sort of like Limmie, I guess?" "With more goalies," Jaina agreed. Limmie, or bolo-ball as it was known outside the Core, was a relatively unpopular sport on Coruscant but had a fanatical following throughout the rest of the galaxy. It was played by only using the players' feet to kick a ball through goals on the opposite ends of a wide field. Jacen looked around at the domed area again. The white lines formed an octagon, with three meter wide openings on each face. He guessed that the Jedi version the padawans had played involved about eight players, each one playing both goalie and offense, paired up against opposite sides of the room. "Well, I think four of us can give it a shot," Jacen said as he walked over to one of the sides. He reached out and drew the nearest ball towards him. Tenel Ka walked to the opposite side of the octagon, and Jaina and Lowbacca took up positions at right angles to him. "Who's going to keep score?" Jaina asked a moment later. "I am capable of serving in that capacity," Em Teedee declared as he floated off Lowbacca's utility belt to a position high in the dome above. "I'll try not to hit you with the ball, Em Teedee," Jacen laughed as the ball in front of him began to float in his grip. "All players ready?" Em Teedee asked, changing his voice to sound like one of the HoloNet sports announcers. Jacen snorted at the little droid's antics and nodded. "Play ball!" Jacen launched his ball across the room at the same time as the others. As it sailed through the middle, it collided with a ball from Jaina and both went shooting off in diagonal directions, arcing back toward the floor and bouncing several times. As Jacen struggled to maintain his grip on the ball, he became dimly aware of another projectile flying straight at him and jerked himself sideways. "First goal goes to Tenel Ka!" Em Teedee announced a moment later. Chagrined, Jacen picked up the ball that was now rolling around behind him and lobbed it upward. As it began to arc across the dome, Jacen reached out to grab the first ball but Lowbacca had already sent it rolling toward Jaina. He gave it a shove sideways toward Tenel Ka, and the ball began to curve around the dusty floor just as she caught the flying ball in an invisible grip. As she sent the hovering ball back toward him, he reached out to swat the ball on the ground, sending it shooting toward an open space of floor near her feet. She reacted a moment too late, only managing to deflect the ball slightly off course. "Goal: Jacen, against Tenel Ka." The back and forth continued for several more minutes although both Jacen and Tenel Ka managed to block each other's attempts to score. Jaina and Lowbacca, meanwhile, kept scoring goals against each other. He watched, fascinated, as they made the balls spin in midair, almost dancing in a blur of colors. Then the spinning stopped and the balls shot down in opposite directions. Both Jedi caught the balls and hurled them back, where they collided in the middle and began orbiting once more. Jacen hefted his ball and hurled it directly at the center, where Jaina and Lowbacca were having their contest. It impacted and sent both balls flying off at crazy trajectories. Maintaining his grip on the one ball, he continued to guide it straight at Tenel Ka, who was simply hovering her own ball in front of herself. He felt his ball come to a halt in front of her. He concentrated and struggled to push it closer, but it simply refused to budge. Then three balls all slammed into him at once, knocking him over so hard that he landed on his tailbone. For several moments, he simply lay there, stunned, as he tried to recover his breath. When he finally propped himself up on one elbow to look at the others, they had all stopped playing and Jaina was laughing. "Are you all right?" "Yeah, that hit just knocked the wind right out of me," he replied as he got back up and rubbed his back. "It was fun, though. They're going to love that back at the Academy." "Hey, Em Teedee!" Jaina shouted up at the little droid. "Can you snap a picture of the whole room from up there?" "Of course, Mistress Jaina," the droid replied, floating back down to Lowbacca's belt after a few moments. Jacen peered up to see where the position of Dathomir's sun was. "What time is it, anyway?" The way the shadows were aligned, it had to be somewhere around midday. "The time is 0937 hours," Em Teedee answered. Then again, Jacen reflected, they had gotten up before dawn had even broken that morning. He wasn't usually a morning person, and trying to adjust himself from Yavin to Dathomir had been quite interesting so far; besides the day/night cycles, which were several hours shorter than a Coruscant standard day, there was also the matter that Dathomir's gravity was a bit lower than the jungle moon. Jaina had already pulled out her datapad again and was scanning the schematics of the ship. "I think the lightsaber training room is the next dome we'll be going through," she said after tapping away for some time. "Of course it would be," Jacen replied. "Let me see that thing. Didn't they have some kind of zoo aboard?" "Sure. And they had a three ring circus with banthas," Jaina replied as she handed the datapad over. Jacen gave her a pained look. "Come on now, I was being serious for a change." "So was I... well, maybe not about the circus, but there's a bantha compound on the other side of the ship." He frowned and looked down at the datapad. Sure enough, one area was labeled BANTHAS. "What the heck would they want with banthas on a Jedi training ship?" "Perhaps they wanted real milk for the Padawans," Tenel Ka suggested in an absolutely serious tone. The thought of a bantha dairy on a starship made Jacen crack up, but as comical as the idea sounded, it actually made a certain amount of sense. After all, the only thing banthas really needed was feedstock, water, and a certain amount of space to move around in. The Chu'unthor was certainly large enough to have met all three requirements. Following the schematics, Jaina again led them through several hundred meters of hallways, although it would have been a much shorter route had so much of the ship not collapsed internally. The first room they entered was filled with dust-covered test equipment. A sheet was draped over something in one corner of the room, and Jaina immediately ran over. The sheet disintegrated in her hand as she pulled it off to reveal a slumped-over stocky, metallic humanoid form. "Hey, it's a Cybot GA-series analysis droid!" Jaina exclaimed. "I wonder if it's still functional..." She reached around and flipped a switch on the back of the machine, and was rewarded as its optical receptors lit up. It attempted to straighten itself but the centuries of neglect appeared to have frozen its servos. "Cybot Galactica GA-16 Information Analysis Unit, serial number 465-besh-nern-44486. Error 483," the droid spoke in a voice that Jacen could have sworn sounded slightly rusty. "General servomotor failure. Please contact the Cybot Galactica support hotline to set up a service request." Jaina turned to Lowbacca as the droid began to repeat the error message. "Anything you can do?" Lowbacca shook his head and rumbled a reply, which Em Teedee translated as "Not without the right spare parts." "Let's see if I can bypass the error message." Jaina switched the unit off and pried open one of its panels, flipping several switches inside. Apparently satisfied, she closed the panel and hit the power again. "Cybot Galactica GA-16 Information Analysis Unit, serial number 465-besh-nern-44486. Service Mode Enabled. Please state your command." "Access information records," Jaina pronounced carefully. "What records would you like to access? Choices are..." The droid paused for several seconds as if stalled. "Error: Unable to access Chu'unthor central computer records. Please state your command." "Diagnostics." "Which diagnostic would you like to run?" "Function test." The droid began to rattle off a list of functions that Jacen had no clue about. The only information that he caught from it was that its ship datalink was currently down, unsurprising since Chu'unthor had not had power in several centuries, and that all primary servos had failed. Jaina finally flipped the unit off in disgust. "Without the central computer, it's pretty much useless," she explained. "If we could somehow get the computer back up and running, it would be great to have." "Doesn't matter anyway," Jacen replied. "Remember, Uncle Luke picked up all of this ship's records years ago." Jaina scratched her head thoughtfully. "You know, we could probably make good use of this droid back at the Academy. They only replaced it with the GY-I around the time of the Clone Wars, so there are still a lot of them in service." "Who's going to carry it?" Jacen pointed out. Jaina looked at Lowbacca, who shook his head emphatically. She sighed, then continued. "Well, I guess if we find a working hoversled we might be able to do something." "If you believe it will be that useful," Tenel Ka said, "we could all levitate it in front of us like we did with the entrance hatch." "Let's just come back to it later," Jacen said after considering her suggestion. "We still have a lot of ship to explore." Leaving the dilapidated data center behind, the next room turned out to be the lightsaber training dome. Several training remotes lay on the floor, collecting dust, and a number of what Jacen guessed were large bowls were scattered around. He walked over to one, picked it up, and frowned. "Who puts straps in a bowl?" "Let me see that," Jaina said as she took it out of his hand. "You dummy! It's not a bowl, it's a helmet... and from the size of the harness inside, I'd say it's for a pretty small kid." She took the helmet and dropped it on Jacen's head; the end result must have looked rather absurd, with the wide helmet perched halfway up and completely slanted. For a moment, Jacen thought he heard Tenel Ka snicker softly, but when he lifted the helmet to look up at her, her face was completely unreadable. Lowbacca, meanwhile, was on the other side of the room. His tall form was bent down as he worked at something on the ground, and a minute later he walked back with some small cylinders in his massive paws. "Are those lightsabers?" Jaina asked with no small degree of surprise. The cylinders were barely as long as her hand, Jacen noted as she picked one up. Then she pointed it away from everyone and depressed the activation stud. A short, dimly glowing green blade sprung to life with more of a fizzle than the usual crisp snap-hiss, then flickered several times before dying out completely. "I think they're low-powered training sabers," he observed, picking another one out of Lowbacca's hand. Pointing it outward, he ignited it and made a slicing movement toward the deck. Instead of carving a line into the deck plating, the saber bounced off without leaving a mark, then sputtered out. "So how old do you think the trainees were?" Jacen asked. Jaina shrugged and looked at the helmet again. "They couldn't have been very old. Maybe four." "That's a lot younger than we were," he remarked. "Tell me about it," Jaina agreed. "If they were training with sabers at four... I wonder when they started?" "I've heard that some were taken as infants," a voice behind them said, causing all four Jedi to turn around and draw their lightsabers in alarm. When they saw that the voice belonged to Kyp, they relaxed and switched off their blades. "How long have you been standing there?" Jaina asked. The older Jedi shrugged. "Only about five minutes. You guys were pretty preoccupied." He looked around the dusty room. "Man, this place really is falling apart." Jaina frowned in thought. "About what you said... where did you hear that, anyway?" "Imperial propaganda," Kyp replied. "Got a heavy dose of it at Kessel. Claimed that the Jedi were baby-snatchers. Maybe that part of it wasn't very far from the truth after all." Jacen and Jaina exchanged looks. "Well, you know what Master Luke says about half-truths often being more effective than outright lies," Jaina said after a moment. "So, uh, what are you doing here already? I thought you wouldn't be arriving until tomorrow or the day after." "The XJs checked out ahead of schedule," Kyp answered. "I also did some research on Urias Xhaxin. Turns out he's a pretty notorious pirate around these parts. Works out of a Nebulon-B frigate with a lot of illegitimate upgrades. "He's a pirate? Jacen asked incredulously. "Why send out a distress signal?" "Lure another victim or two in, perhaps," Jaina answered for him. "It sounds suspicious." "Normally, I'd agree," Kyp stated. "But the odd thing is that he used his real name and identity in the distress call. Unless he suddenly had a death wish, that doesn't make any sense." "We'd better watch ourselves, then," Jaina persisted. "Those Nebulon-Bs can be pretty nasty up close if you're in a fighter." Kyp gave her an exasperated look. "I would hope so. I've run up against them before, and by the way, they're not as tough as the training sims would have you believe." He cleared his throat. "Anyway, I also spoke to the Extragalactic Society. They still haven't heard from their outpost on Belkadan, so they gave us full authorization to investigate for them." "So that's our next stop?" Jacen asked. "No, we'll still check out Xhaxin's last location since it's closer," Kyp replied. "Well, I'm going to head back to my fighter. I'll meet you guys back at the Singing Mountain Clan." "Wait," Jaina said suddenly. "Could you help us move something first?" He paused in mid-stride. "Sure. Where is it?" "The old GA-series in the next room. Its servos are frozen, but Lowbacca and I can repair it back at the Praxeum. I figured Tionne could use the help." Together they picked up the old droid and levitated it in front of themselves all the way back to the entrance hatch. While Kyp took off in his X-wing, which he had landed on a flat part of the Chu'unthor, Lowbacca wrapped a rough blanket around the droid to cover any sharp edges and placed it into the inflatable raft. The mood was quiet during the hour-long ride back to the Singing Mountain Clan. Once there, they said their goodbyes to the clan, and set about preparing the Rock Dragon for takeoff. Two hours after that, they were back in space hurtling through hyperspace toward the last known location of Urias Xhaxin. "You know, this doesn't really make any sense," Jacen said as he paced back and forth in the passenger lounge. "The only link we have between Xhaxin and Bimmiel is reports of attacking asteroids. Belkadan was just an automated distress signal. Besides, who would attack such worthless targets?" He waved his hands emphatically. "I mean, think about it: a scientific research station, a pirate ship, and an archaeological expedition on an uninhabitable planet." Jaina regarded him with a bemused look. "We don't even know if Belkadan and Xhaxin are related to Bimmiel. As far as we know, ExGal 4 could have had a communications problem, while Xhaxin's probably just trying to lure prey in. Maybe the aliens on Bimmiel are just some local pirate group themselves!" He shrugged. "That's a possibility, but..." "We'll find out when we get there, won't we," Jaina cut him off. Jacen glared at his sister. "I'd still like to have some idea of what's going on before we get into the middle of things. So far we're only going on sketchy information." "I know - We know, Jacen." She paused for a moment. "I'm just as nervous as you are about this. But we don't have any choice now; we're going to arrive in a few hours." Jaina gave him a friendly pat on the back. "Try not to worry about it. I'm going to head back to the cockpit and see if Tenel Ka or Lowbacca need to do anything." "That will not be necessary," a voice behind her said. "The navicomputer will give us fair warning before we exit hyperspace." The twins turned about to face Tenel Ka, standing as alert as she typically did. She inclined her eyebrows. "Of course, there is always the danger of pirates, but with the Dozen-and-Two Avengers nearby, I would hope that any would-be attackers might realize discretion is the better part of valor." "They wouldn't even know what hit them," Jacen jokingly commented. "At least judging by the attitudes of Kyp's pilots," he hastily added in response to a slightly confused look from the warrior. "Ah," Tenel Ka nodded. "Aha." "If they would spend as much time working on their piloting as massaging their egos, they would rival Rogue Squadron," Jaina added derisively. "Brand-new XJs or not, I really wouldn't want to fly in a squadron like that." "And I thought you looked almost eager when Kyp asked you if you wanted to join his squadron." Jaina spun about to face her brother, irritation clearly evident on her face. "Maybe I was, for a moment. You should know that I've always wanted to fly in a professional squadron... but the Avengers are really just amateurs with fancy hardware." He raised his eyebrows. "Have to admit, they've done a pretty good job against pirates for a bunch of amateurs." "Hah. Pirates," she remarked scornfully. "They're nothing compared to a professional military force." Her tone changed slightly, gaining a worried edge. "Although that does have me concerned; if you're right and this isn't just some third-rate group that's been causing trouble, then we are going to have serious problems." By the time the navicomputer signaled that reversion from hyperspace was imminent, the four Jedi were in their positions and the ship was ready, its deflectors and sensors already powered up and waiting. Jaina had taken over piloting, with Tenel Ka sitting in the copilot's seat; while she couldn't easily fly with only one arm, running the navicomputer and various other systems was far from difficult. "We're powered up and ready," Jacen reported from the port laser turret. A Wookiee roar, which needed no translation, echoed him. "Standby," Tenel Ka reported, her voice sounding smooth despite the stress that all of them were facing. She waited for the navicomputer to count down... The Rock Dragon smoothly decelerated, the mottled sky of hyperspace gradually streaking and then turning into a field of points. "Avengers, report in," Tenel Ka said over the comm. "We're all accounted for," Kyp's voice responded. "Nothing's turned up on passive sensors yet." A collective sigh of relief came from the four Jedi aboard the transport. "I'll run a full-power scan," Jaina commented, her hands flying across the console. "It should show anything that's sensor-stealthed." After a short period of time, she spoke up again. "I've got what looks like a debris cloud, range about ten thousand klicks. No lifesigns anywhere. Sending vectors right now." As they neared the debris field, the Jedi aboard the Rock Dragon heard a long, drawn-out whistle come across the com. "Looks like this pirate won't be making any more raids." A reply came from Kyp almost immediately. "Those Nebulon-B frigates aren't exactly easy kills," he said. "At least for most ships out here on the Rim." Jacen stared out the forward viewport, wondering about the dispersed debris field. Whatever was passing through his mind was interrupted by his sister. Keying the com on, Jaina spoke into it. "Avengers, this is Jaina. I'm going to use the Rock Dragon to try and collect debris to obtain a serial number." She switched it off, turning to Lowbacca. "Lowie, I need you to use the tractor beam. Drag in anything that looks promising." The Wookiee urfed a reply as Jaina got up, giving the controls to her brother. She turned to exit the cockpit. "I'll be in the main hold. If there's nothing on whatever you bring in, I'll dump it back." "Got it," Jacen replied, focusing on the debris through the Force, trying to see if there was anything that drew his attention. A few minutes later, he noticed a small piece that seemed mostly intact, and Lowie snagged it with the tractor beam. "Good catch," an excited voice echoed from the hold. "It has some numbers on it, but I'm not quite sure what it's from." There was silence for a moment. "Jacen, can you come here and take a look at this?" Jacen stood up, leaving Tenel Ka and Lowie with the task of flying the ship. Moments later, he reached the hold. "Take a look at these," Jaina commented, pointing towards a set of deep scratches in the plate. "I could almost swear that these are tooth marks." He knelt down, inspecting the plate. ‘You're right," Jacen eventually agreed. "That's kind of odd, though. I don't think there would be any space slugs this far from an asteroid, and they're about the only organic I can think of that could do this kind of damage. "Well, he did say that he was attacked by an asteroid," Jaina replied. "Maybe that's what he was talking about." Jacen rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on. Even I've had enough orbital mechanics lessons to know that any asteroid that did this would still be close to the debris." "Or on an intersecting orbit," Jaina added. "Hang on, let me plot out some of the objects in this system and see if any would have intersected this orbit in the past week or two." She tapped away at the comm-scan computer for several minutes. "Huh. Looks like only a couple of rocks came within a few hundred thousand klicks of his location. Let's check them out anyway." One short hyperspace jump brought them to the first of the objects, which turned out to be a small, dried-out dustball of a comet. Sensor scans came up blank, so they made several passes around the old comet to try and find any trace of silicon lifeforms like a space slug. Each time, they came up empty-handed. After several minutes of that, Jaina gave up and plotted a jump to the second object, which turned out to be just as uninhabitable as the first: a smooth, metal-rich lump of an asteroid with no distinctive surface features and only one crater right in the middle of its hourglass-shaped mass. It was most certainly too small to host a space slug, barely larger than a Corellian CR-90 corvette. Just to be sure, several pilots in Kyp's squadrons took shots at the asteroid, but nothing at all happened. "Hey, I think I've got something," Jaina said a moment later. "Looks like more debris, about ten degrees spinward of our original location." She frowned and looked back at the display panel. "Not sure why I didn't see that before..." When they emerged from the jump at the newly discovered debris field, Miko let out a low whistle. "There's gotta be pieces of a hundred different ships here..." Jacen leaned forward to look out the viewport at the black expanse beyond, and tapped at some of the controls to call up a magnified, high-contrast view of the area ahead. The dead hulks of several ships were drifting aimlessly through space. At least one appeared to be a light freighter of Corellian design, while several others had probably been pleasure yachts. "What do you think happened?" he asked his sister. "I don't see any carbon scoring," she replied without taking her eyes off the sensor readouts. "Strange... that freighter over there looks like the hull just sort of melted in places." Kyp and Miko accelerated away from the rest of the squadron and navigated their way through the field of debris to pull up to one of the largest hulls. "What can you see there?" Jaina asked. "Maybe I'm imagining things, but it looks like someone splattered the hull with melted rock. The hull plating is deformed around the impact areas." Jaina suddenly let out a whoop. "I'm picking up a short-range distress signal. Kyp, Miko, can you help triangulate it?" "We hear it," Kyp replied. "I'll send you my data." "Copy that," Miko added. "Transmitting now." After a brief search to find the lone pod in the middle of the wreckage field, Tenel Ka deftly pulled the transport to within a hundred meters of the pod. Lowbacca snagged it with a tractor beam and drew it in to within a meter of the port hatch, then set up a forcefield tunnel between the ship's hatch and the pod hatch. Several minutes later, lightsaber at the ready, Jacen knocked on the pod's hatch, and was greeted by a weak knock from the other side. The hatch slowly began to hiss open, and Jacen wrinkled his nose at the stench from inside. He counted six people inside the pod, and began dragging them into the passenger lounge. Once the pod had been emptied, he closed the ship's hatch behind him and Lowbacca jettisoned the now-useless escape pod. "Thank you," one of the men said weakly after downing several full glasses of water. "We were beginning to think we'd never be rescued..." "No problem," Jacen replied. "I'm Jacen Solo, Jedi Knight. Where are you guys from?" "Garqi," the man replied. "Name's Ragle." He gestured around at the others sitting on the acceleration couch. "Coda, Lancam, Opardi, Minas, and Walwitt." "How long have you been out here?" The man shrugged. "A week or two." Jacen let out a low whistle. "That's a long time to spend in an escape pod. What happened here, anyway? Pirate attack?" He snorted. "Hardly. We were traveling in a convoy when this asteroid-ship shows up and seems to break into hundreds of pieces. Only they're not shards, they're fighters, because the next thing we know, they're shooting at us and we can't hit them for some reason. It was like our turbolaser bolts just disappeared when they got close to them." Jaina, still standing beside her brother, frowned. "They didn't try to communicate with you?" "Nope," Ragle replied. "And believe me, we tried. First the standard frequencies, then we just went across everything. The only things we heard were cries for help from the other ships." "That's terrible," Jaina replied. "Well, we're going to keep searching for any more survivors. You can move around and stretch if you like, or just strap yourselves in to one of the acceleration couches."

NOTICE FROM THE BOARD DICKTATOR: I hereby award "Intergalactic Alliance: A Prelude to War" with this prestigious seal of approval: [img.]http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/Cmdr_RayCav/raycavsealofapprovalv3.jpg[/img] A Prelude to War First book in the Intergalactic Alliance Trilogy A crossover Star Wars - Star Trek fiction by John Hanson DISCLAIMER Specially trained ASCII characters performed the stunts in this book. Do not attempt to repeat them at home. According to current NASA data, Voyager is leaving the solar system. It is unknown when it will encounter the Caretaker's array, or if it will be able to help the Ocampa. In any event, we can only hope that any aliens who come across it know how to play analog phonographs. Non-original names and characters used without permission. No money is being made off this story, although I can always dream, can't I... The author reserves some rights to original characters or locations created. All other characters, locations, and situations are the property of Paramount Films or Lucasfilm Limited. Star Trek © Paramount Films, Inc. Star Wars © Lucasfilm Limited PROLOGUE The planet was unrecognizable. In his life, he had visited hundreds of worlds in the known galaxy. Each one of them was unique in its own way, but all shared common themes. In some cases, it was the inhabitants. Humans, for reasons poorly understood by most historians, had risen to become the dominant species of the galaxy at some point during the past fifty thousand years. Therefore, most planets tended to have at least some minority of humans among the population. Architecture was another common theme. For those planets that had been in contact with the rest of the galaxy, they tended to import architects from several great architectural schools. One of the oldest architectural colleges in the galaxy was located on the capital of the Republic itself, Coruscant. Coruscant! Many knew it as the glittering gem of the galaxy. The planet's night side was never dark, illuminated with trillions of lights from the planet-spanning city. Spire-topped towers rose up kilometers above the plain, industrial-looking blocks of the lower levels. During the day, light reflected off the chromed spires, causing the city-world to shimmer like a giant jewel. But Coruscant this planet was not. In the city he was currently in, the streets were narrow, lined with short, quaint two and three story wood-framed buildings. In the distance, a four-cornered skeletal tower curved to a singular point rising high above the rest of the city. Of course, he noted detachedly, the peak of the spire would have barely poked above the lowermost of Coruscant's underlevels. As he walked down one particularly wide, straight stone-paved boulevard, he heard the distinctive tones of music from string instruments. The melody was quite pretty, almost haunting. It would have been quite romantic, had he been able to share the moment with a loved one. At the end of the boulevard, a tall, square-framed arch of grand proportions stood. As he approached closer to the building, he began to discern glyphs carved into the stone of the building in an alien script. The building had obviously been erected as some sort of monument, most likely to commemorate a military triumph. His wanderings eventually brought him to an estate surrounded by wide, expansive gardens. While the gardens at the entrance were filled with neatly manicured shrubs and delicate-looking, incredibly colorful flowers, further inside the gardens vegetables of various types that he'd never seen before were growing. The air around the mansion was likewise filled with the songs of at least a dozen different species of birds. From that and the angle of the sun, he guessed that it must have been the beginning of the growing season. While he continued to drink in the surroundings, he observed a humanoid step out of the front entrance of the mansion. Unlike the rest of the city, which seemed to be mostly populated with humans, this humanoid had a tapered head with odd wrinkles, ridges, and multicolored spots. The alien wore an ill-fitting white shirt with double rows of buttons. The observer decided a moment later that the alien's pants were some of the ugliest he had ever seen. The alien strolled through the flagstone pathways of the gardens with a distinct bounce in his step. Coming to one corner of the garden, he leaned over and ripped a tuber from the ground. As he began walking back, he paused at a thin-leafed plant with brilliant red fruits hanging from it. Then he leaned over again and reached out to flick a bug from one of the leaves. His finger made contact with the caterpillar, which sailed through the air and landed with a resounding thud. The alien blinked in surprise, looking at his finger as if he'd never seen it before. He shrugged and flicked another bug off of the plant; this one also landed with a crashing noise that shook the ground. The alien pinched himself, flinching as he did so, and turned around. Then his mouth went wide and a quiet scream escaped his throat. The observer turned to follow his gaze and suddenly realized that the ancient city was now on fire, dozens of columns of smoke rising into the sky. As he watched, a glowing, golden orb of plasma sailed through the sky. It crashed into one of the mansion's towers, shattering windows, setting the wooden roof alight, and blackening the masonry of the tower itself. The alien took off at a run for the front gate, obviously intent on saving his own life. The observer followed at a distance, and suddenly the alien ran headlong into another humanoid figure. Unlike the first alien, this one was horribly disfigured, most of its skin removed and the rest of the skin covered in tattoos. At first glance the scarring appeared to have been accidental, but as the observer continued to look, he realized that the scarring was so thorough that it must have been intentional. The end result was that it appeared as a ghastly, skeletal horror held together by nothing but sinews and unholy willpower. It was certainly enough to give children--or adults, for that matter--nightmares. From somewhere on its form, the horror produced a wicked-looking curved and serrated knife. It brandished the knife and the alien took several steps back in shock before tripping over a planter box. The observer had seen what happened next on more occasions than he cared to count. For that matter, all one had to do was to turn to one of the HoloNet nature channels and watch a documentary on the predators of almost any planet in the galaxy. The horror and alien circled each other, hunter and prey. It feinted with the knife several times, the alien jerking back reflexively, before finally lunging and slashing across the back of the alien. "Enjoy the sweet kiss of pain!" the horror said in a guttural, halting language. The observer was somewhat surprised to be able to understand the words. "You will live to serve the..." The observer suddenly felt the world fading away around him. "Live to serve the who?" he said despite the lack of any listeners. As rapidly as the old city had faded away, the cockpit of a ship gradually revealed itself to him. The odd lights outside the viewports indicated that it was currently in hyperspace, and in the pilot's seat sat a woman with brilliant reddish bronze hair that flowed over her shoulders in gently curling waves. She looked oddly familiar, he decided, moving forward to take a look at her face. She turned away just as he did so. From what he could see, however, she was resting her chin in the palms of her hands, and her elbows were sitting on the console in front of her. She didn't appear to be doing anything immediate, leading him to conclude that she must be lost deep in thought. Unfortunately it was impossible for him to read minds, so he was left guessing about what she was thinking. After staying in the same position for what seemed like an eternity, she leaned back in the chair first, then came to her feet and stretched. When she turned to walk out, the observer finally caught a glimpse of her face and would have jumped in surprise, had it been possible for him to do so. She was one of his former students, the daughter of a woman who had once long ago captured him to be her husband. As she continued walking past the observer, he noted a small smile creep across her face. Mentally shrugging, he followed her down the corridor of the transport and into the darkened crew berths, where she brought the light up to a dim glow and, humming softly to herself, began to remove her tattered jumpsuit. He quickly turned away. "This is just not right," he muttered to himself. "Just not right at all. What the kriff is this supposed to mean, anyway?" Behind him, he heard sheets rustle and someone coughed. Then a man asked, "Am I dreaming?" The observer blinked again in surprise. He knew the man that voice belonged to, and turned around to see if he was right. The woman was now standing with her back turned to him, clad only in her undergarments, and in the lower berth a young, brown-haired man sat up blinking owlishly in the light. "If you were, you would be disappointed when you awoke," the woman dryly commented. "There will be no such disappointment now." The observer rolled his eyes. If there was anything he was supposed to learn here, this certainly wasn't it. As the two began kissing, he walked out of the room and back to the cockpit, then took a seat in the co-pilot's chair and stole a glance at the instrument panel. Just as he did so, the sky of hyperspace suddenly devolved into a dizzying starburst of lights. The ship had been decanted back into realspace, and the observer instantly began looking for the source as alarms began blaring all over the cockpit. The source wasn't terribly hard to find; not one, but several black shapes that dimly glowed with greenish light floated motionless in the distance. One of the ships projected a green beam at the small transport, and began to pull it in closer. There was a clatter of feet behind him, and the man and woman ran into the cockpit, halfway clothed and quite out of breath. "Blaster bolts!" the man exclaimed as he began flipping controls in a frenzy. "I thought the wormhole had been sealed?" "Obviously not," the woman answered. "Or they would not be here." "I can't break the tractor lock," he said a moment later. The two looked at each other and then kissed. "We are Jedi," they both said simultaneously. "We've faced greater challenges than this before." He shivered as his view went black again. He'd never seen any ships like those black cubes, which seemed to radiate malevolence. And what did they mean by their last words? Being pulled in by a fleet of ominous ships, alone, and without support was a tall order to handle, even for a Jedi, and he was left with a general feeling of inevitability when he thought about them. This time, the blackness remained, and the observer blinked several times to check if it was his eyes or something else. As he looked around, he spotted a point of green light, and a momentary chill passed through him. Was he on one of the black vessels he saw? Suddenly the light blinked. He recoiled in shock, crashing into something that fell over and shattered. He started to swear, then suddenly realized that he hadn't been able to interact with anything in the apparent vision... "Room, lights on," he ordered in a hoarse voice. The room was instantly bathed in the light of several glowpanels embedded in the ceiling, and with a hint of irascibility he realized that he'd knocked a large crystal vase off the table, which is what had shattered. "Luke?" an incontestably feminine voice beside him asked, a voice that sounded vaguely familiar. "What's going on?" Groaning, Luke Skywalker came to his feet and looked around. He noticed that he'd somehow fallen off the bed. His wife Mara Jade-Skywalker was currently staring at him with bleary eyes, the bedsheets bulging over her swollen abdomen. Glancing around, he observed that the blinking light was merely that of an emergency monitoring system. He finally breathed a sigh of relief. "What are you doing over there?" Mara asked again, her voice containing a hint of a plea. "I think I fell out of bed," he replied as he lifted the sheet to get back in. "No, you know what I mean," she replied through her pillow, shivering from the cold air that he'd let in by lifting the sheets. "You were mumbling, tossing and turning, then I heard a thump and a crash." Luke paused to think. Had he really been tossing and turning? "I had a vision of a possible future," he finally decided aloud. Mara propped herself up on one elbow and regarded him with interest. "Really? What was it about?" He explained about the alien he had seen on the strange planet, and the horribly scarred creatures that had attacked it for no reason. "Well, that could be anywhere, couldn't it?" Luke shrugged. "It could, but why would the Force choose to show me a planet if I don't know where it is?" "Maybe you'll go to that planet in the future." "I suppose..." He trailed off, looking at the blackness outside his window. "Anyway, after that part of the vision I saw Tenel Ka's ship." Mara frowned. "The Rock Dragon? That's odd." "I know. She was traveling through hyperspace, I don't know where, and so she gets up, goes back to the sleeping area. Then she starts kissing Jacen--" Out of nowhere, a slap landed on his face. "You're such a pervert, farmboy," she said with a laugh. "Spying on your nephew and his girlfriend in a Force vision. What's next, a vision of the locker room?" "Only if you're the one in the shower," Luke replied with a playful grin, then reached for a glass of water from the table next to the bed. She tilted her head ever so slightly. "Ooh, so naughty. You're going to have to wait until the baby's born, Master Skywalker, before you get to have me again." Luke spit up a little bit of the water. "Right. Anyway, I wasn't quite finished. So while they're making out, something yanks the ship from hyperspace and they run to the cockpit. Turns out they're surrounded by large, square black ships, and one of them locks a tractor beam on them. Then they said something about a sealed wormhole, and how they'd faced greater challenges before. I'm really not sure what that meant." "Well, it sounds like something happens that puts them in danger," Mara replied an instant later. "Although... a wormhole? I can't recall any existing wormholes in the galaxy." "Maybe someone's going to discover one?" Luke suggested. "Maybe," Mara agreed. "We'll just have to wait and see, I guess. Can we go back to sleep now, honey?" "Sure thing, sweetheart," Luke said, turning toward Mara. "Room, lights off." The last thing he was aware of before going to sleep was Mara wrapping her arms around him. * * * Far in the future and far, far away, a certain vessel was quite busy violating (or simply stepping around, depending on one's point of view) laws and theorems that Einstein had created over four hundred years before. Of course, the fact that Einstein had conceived those theorems at a time when space travel was entirely in the realm of science fiction, and the only thing capable of even going near space was the German V-2 rocket (no larger than a school bus), meant that the idea of a three hundred and forty-four meter warship traveling at two hundred times the speed of light was simply inconceivable. The shape of the ship itself was elongated and streamlined, unlike the rocket-ships conceived by science fiction authors such as the celebrated Jules Verne. Its forward hull was somewhat egg-shaped, although it looked as if it had been cut in half down the center. On the curved upper part of the hull, a small indentation concealed an equally small circular dish. Below it, mounted somewhat further aft, was a far larger dish that rather resembled a capital 'D.' Both dishes glowed brightly with a trace of blue, and they were designed to ensure that the ship would not be turned into a colossal colander by the impacts of hydrogen atoms. Even so, many parts of the ship's hull were scorched and blackened where the ablative armour had worn away. In some areas, the internal structure of the ship could be seen, with plasma conduits and various pipelines exposed to space. Printed immediately above the auxiliary deflector dish in large lettering was the ship's registry of NCC-74656; further aft one might make out USS VOYAGER through the missing armour and holes in the hull. Now that one had seen the ship, they might have wondered exactly what government this warship belonged to. Certainly not any one of the major powers in the area; this part of the galaxy was more or less the backwater area, with a large part of space controlled by a race that is better off not being mentioned. But even if the crew of this strange ship was concerned about the threats surrounding them, they did not show it. "Captain," Lieutenant Commander Tuvok's voice echoed across the bridge of the Federation starship Voyager, "I seem to be picking up an object." Captain Kathryn Janeway didn't reply immediately, being immersed in a book. She finally placed it aside, and looked up at the darkened viewscreen. "On screen." "It's out of visual range," he reported. "At the limits of our long-range sensors." "Range?" "Ten light-years off our present position, inside what would appear to be a fairly typical star system. No other objects have been detected within the system." Janeway stood up and turned around. "Composition?" "Primarily metallic, made of an unknown alloy. It is most likely a vessel of some type." She thought for a moment. "Is there anything else worth knowing about it?" Tuvok was silent for several seconds while he worked his terminal. "Its course seems to be taking it toward the fourth planet of that system, class unknown." Captain Janeway nodded, turning toward the viewscreen, deep in concentration. She finally turned back. "Have you hailed it?" "Yes, Captain, with no response." "Plot an intercept course with the object," she ordered Lieutenant Paris at the helm, "and increase speed to Warp Eight." Paris immediately began working. "Course set," he reported. "Increasing warp velocity to factor eight." Janeway walked back to her chair and sat down, pulling out the book she had been reading--Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea--and tried to find her position in it. Soon she was engrossed in the adventures of the submarine Nautilus...

Just to kick things off, with a suitable bang. Just make up shit to participate and we'll all try to figure out how to react. Eventually we can turn this into a bloody STGOD, but for now have fun. A BASEMENT SOMEWHERE IN PODUNK ARKANSAS A pasty-faced teenager dressed in only boxers sat in a grimy chair, its surface caked with whitish residue of indeterminate origin. In front of him was a computer, its screen currently displaying a number of rather disgusting sites in addition to several forums. "Roflmao," he said aloud as he read someone's reply to one of his posts on a board. "Those idiot trekkies never saw it coming..." In fact, he was so engrossed with the boards and other sites that he didn't hear the door open directly behind him. However, he couldn't help but notice when his computer suddenly detonated, the monitor showering him with thousands of shards of glass. "Are you the one who goes by StarDestroyerAvenger?" a bass voice boomed. Had it been physically possible, the kid would have jumped out of his skin. As it was, he bounced up so fast that his head smacked the beam overhead. A pile of tissues and a bottle of lotion that had been on his lap went crashing to the floor. "W-what do you want?" He blinked in the sudden light that had flooded the dark basement. From what he could see, the intruder was wearing some sort of orange armor suit with... wait, was that a lambda on his chest? It coldn't be... "Freeman?" he asked in confusion. "No, I'm not Gordon Freeman you dope. The nick's Crayz9000." Realization suddenly dawned on the tool's face. "B-but you're from my board!" In two quick steps the man was towering over the kid. "Who cares? I abhor idiots just like nature abhors a vacuum. And let's face it, you make a pretty pathetic troll. I mean, for someone who thinks they're so superior... you're stooping below what even DarkStar did. The last dumbass I saw who talked like that went by the handle of Cock Rocket." "What are you talking about?" Panic was quickly taking hold. "It's payback time," Crayz9000 said. StarDestroyerAvenger barely had time to try screaming before duct tape was slapped over his mouth and a sack thrown over his head. SOMEWHERE IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS NEAR DENVER, COLORADO ABOUT 12 HOURS LATER "Commander" Raynor RayCav surveyed his underground lair with pride. Using technology stolen from various interstellar travellers, he had assembled a pretty impressive war fleet that could strike fear into the hearts of millions. Not that he would use it for such, of course. He had also managed to get cloning technology and currently had his own personal harem of identical buxom Asian girls waiting for him. Dominating the world could wait. ISTANBUL, TURKEY SAME TIME The kid known in some circles as StarDestroyerAvenger woke up from his foggy haze and found himself on an airplane. He looked out the window, but couldn't figure out where he was, so he leaned back and relaxed for a moment, but then the PA chimed. "This is the Captain speaking. We are beginning our final descent into Istanbul. Please return your seat backs and tray tables to the upright position..." About fifteen minutes later, when he got off the plane and had to go through customs, one of the drug-sniffing dogs discovered that he had packets of cocaine sewn into his clothing. Less than an hour had passed before he found himself in a dark Turkish prison, sitting across the table from a smelly policeman. "Who do you work for?" he asked. "I told you, I don't know!" the kid shouted. "You won't get out of here until you tell us!" INTERNET CAFE ATHENS, GREECE THE NEXT DAY Crayz9000 suppressed a smirk as he keyed the final command into the terminal. As his finger pressed the Enter key, the command shot out across the internet only to bounce through about a hundred different compromised computers in China, eventually finding its way across the US to Colorado. From there, it went through to a computer in a typical suburban house before being re-encoded and transmitted over subspace frequencies to RayCav's lair. Minutes later, several things changed in the base. Missiles suddenly went to alert status, and blast doors began to open up. Several seconds after that, the missile engines fired, blasting them out of the silos. RayCav was surprised from a sound sleep by the warning klaxons as his base's entire complement of missiles launched. He looked around him, but all he could see were the identical Asian girls that were wrapped around him. Then the klaxons stopped and a broadcast began. Unknown to RayCav, the same broadcast was happening all across the world. "People of Earth: we are the Disciples of Wong. We have begun the systematic destruction of your planet's puny defenses, using highly advanced technology. Even now, the missiles will be destroying your primitive nuclear silos..." "Oh crap," RayCav muttered. This wasn't what he had in mind at all.

CHAPTER FIVE Jacen awoke to darkness so thick that one could have cut it with a knife. He opened and closed his eyes several times, but couldn't even tell whether they were open or shut. Something was humming steadily in the background, something that sounded almost as if a swarm of Yavin IV's piranha beetles were nearby. That thought made him practically fly out of his bunk, with the result that he slammed his head into a hard, cold surface above himself. Rubbing his head, he considered the situation. If there were somehow piranha beetles nearby, he had a serious problem indeed. Then, finally, he let out a nervous laugh. "Room, lights full," he ordered, and the bunkroom was instantly bathed in light. There were no piranha beetles--the humming was that of the Rock Dragon's machinery, propelling them through hyperspace toward Dathomir. He quickly swung his feet off the bunk. The entire week before they had left Yavin IV they had been preparing, and that entailed a lot of work. First they cleaned up and sealed their quarters, which took a couple of days. Then they'd had to stock, fuel, and prepare the Rock Dragon, which took several more days. And the trip to Dathomir from Yavin IV was another day and a half because of the route that had to be used, which had plenty of obstacles in the way. Once Jacen had finished dressing, he stepped outside the bunkroom and walked toward the transport's small hold. He found everyone sitting around a hologame table off to the side. "Playing Dejarik again, sis? How badly did you get beaten this time?" Jaina turned to face him, a triumphant smile on her face. "I didn't." She stood up and stretched. "I was wondering when you would wake up, anyway. We're about half an hour from Dathomir now." "That close, huh?" he asked. As she nodded her agreement, he sat down at the end of the bench and watched the current game between Lowbacca and Tenel Ka. "I'll play the winner," Jacen offered after some time. "You?" his sister chortled in amusement. "I thought you hated dejarik." He shrugged. "Maybe I do, but it's better than nothing." "You won't have enough time," Tenel Ka finally said during one of Lowie's turns, her eyes focused on the board as the Wookiee made his move. "Ah. Aha." She tapped the controls briefly, and one of her smallest holographic characters jumped across the table, knocking down a much larger character. Lowbacca made a surprised noise as the redhead leaned back contentedly. "You were focusing too much on offense," she offered. "Anyway, I believe we only have about five minutes left. Would anyone care to come to the cockpit?" Five minutes later, the cockpit of the Rock Dragon was at its maximum rated capacity, with all four seats filled. The cockpit, located at the very front of the transport, had a viewing arc that was completely unobstructed--unlike that of the Millenium Falcon, whose loading mandibles blocked a good portion of the view. At the moment, the viewport was showing one of the oddities of hyperspace, a swirling maelstrom of blue-shifted light that seemed to defy conventional astrophysics. Not that its occupants were interesteed in the view, of course. They were no strangers to hyperspace travel, and had seen that 'sky' any number of times. Of course, they were somewhat concerned about where the undefined lanes of hyperspace were taking them; Jaina's hand rested above the manual override, "just in case" as her father had said so many times. Even so, there was really no danger of navicomp failure. "Right on schedule," Jaina reported as the navicomputer pulled them out of hyperspace. They were instantly greeted by a multicolored orb that seemed to hang in space--Dathomir. Dominated by browns owing to its mostly desert-like terrain, the planet had large patches of blue scattered across its surface. High clouds obscured a third of the visible area, although Tenel Ka didn't have to see it to know what was there. Tenel Ka was silent for the longest time as Jaina began running their approach vector through the navicomp. It had been almost two years since she had visited her home; she wondered how much it had changed in the time she had been away. Probably not by much, she eventually decided. Although there had been radical thinkers since the planet's incorporation into the New Republic--the ill-fated Nightsisters were among them--none of them had lasted for very long. The Singing Mountain clan, which her mother's side of the family was from, was indeed the largest and strongest on Dathomir. The planet below seemed to spin in place as the transport rolled so as to be right-side upon entering the atmosphere. The twisted remains of Warlord Zsinj's orbital shipyards flashed by, seemingly streaked by the speed of their descent, and after several seconds had passed they were arrowing through Dathomir's sky. Although none of them could see it yet, their target was a deep canyon that, because of strong winds, was the safest air approach to the fortress. Less than a minute later, the Rock Dragon set down on the valley floor, overshadowed by the sheer wall of the fortress. Tenel Ka noted with mild interest that there were some modern orbital defense turbolasers positioned on the turrets overlooking them. The last time she had visited, a team of Hapan engineers had been working on something, but she never had a chance to find out what it was; now she knew. "I take it we're there?" a voice beside her said, interrupting her thoughts. She turned and saw that it was Jacen, realizing after a moment had passed that he'd never actually visited Dathomir. "Uh..." Tenel Ka paused to collect herself. "Mostly there." She pointed out the viewport at the base of a stair that wound up the sheer wall. "We still have to climb that." His jaw dropped. "How many steps is that? A thousand?" "Roughly," she replied, smiling slightly as she saw his reaction. "It was an old protection against invasion, although not always effective." "I suppose it keeps your clan in shape," Jacen managed to joke. "Anyway, if it's that far, shouldn't we be getting started?" * * * Deep space was not a good place for anyone, Cathi Riclin was convinced. And that was the reason why she, as the co-pilot of a Corellian YT-2400 light freighter named Headwind, had dropped out of hyperspace in the middle of what should have been nothingness, their nearest neighbors lone hydrogen atoms separated by thousands of kilometers. Imagine her surprise at finding an entire fleet. There had been legends among spacers for years, of course. The Dark Force, the Old Republic's two hundred ship strong parade fleet of fully-automated Dreadnaughts, was one of the most recent legends. It had been discovered by a smuggler punching random coordinates into his navicomputer around thirty years ago. But the Katana fleet wasn't the only fleet of ships that had been lost over the many eons of hyperspace travel. Every now and then, somebody would stumble across a ship that had been assumed lost. The only issue was that Cathi couldn't for the life of her remember any cases of Imperator-class Star Destroyers disappearing. Or why an Imperator-class would be in the same formation as an antique Lucrehulk transport/battleship. Or why all the ships would appear to be fully powered on with sublight engines blazing... Her hands dropped to the internal comm. "Tarv!" she shouted. "I need you up here now!" The Twi'lek pilot staggered into the cockpit moments later, blinking as he tried to see in the dim light, his lekku twitching uneasily. "What's so important that you had to wake me up?" he asked irritably. "See for yourself." She gestured out the viewports at the fleet that hung so serenely in space. "A Star Destroyer?" he suddenly asked, not quite believing his eyes. "Where are we?" "I dropped out to recalculate our course," Cathi answered. "We shouldn't be anywhere important." "Well, what are we still doing here?" the Twi'lek demanded. "Don't wait for them to spot us! Get us moving!" "I would be, if the navicomp hadn't crashed the instant we came out of hyperspace!" Cathi snapped back. "What do you want me to do, make a random jump?" "Point taken," Tarv replied. "Who are they, anyway?" "They're not broadcasting any sort of IFF that I could pick up," Cathi answered. "I've never seen any Republic or Imperial warship run that way." "I've never seen any Republic or Imperial warships out in the middle of nowhere like this," Tarv agreed. "So, what then? Rogue warlord? Pirates?" Cathi shrugged. "Who knows. Tarv, I told you weeks ago that the navicomp was going on the fritz. I thought you had it checked?" "I didn't know any techs I could trust at our last stop," Tarv shot back. "Translation: you were too cheap to hire anybody." "We don't have time for this," the Twi'lek snapped. "We're sitting here helpless with a full load of illegal ryll. I'll take over things from here, you go to the hold and get ready to jettison the spice if things get dicey." As she affixed another remote detonator pack to one of the spice crates, Cathi heard quiet footsteps coming down the hallway. "Tarv?" she inquired without looking. "What's the matter?" "I just came down to tell you that that fleet went to hyperspace. You can stop putting the detonators on now." "Oh." She carefully deactivated the detpack and placed it atop the spice crate, then turned around-- --to find herself staring directly into the barrel of Tarv's blaster. "W-wait, what?" she stammered. "You're fired," Tarv replied, tightening his grip on the blaster pistol. "Oh come on," Cathi protested. "If you wanted to fire me, you could have just dropped me off on Nar Shaddaa. What the hell's gotten into you?" "How am I supposed to know that you haven't rigged something on this ship?" "Maybe I did." "I doubt it," Tarv said, and Cathi saw his finger move closer to the trigger. Her mind began racing, trying to figure out a way to stop him... ... when the ship suddenly lurched as if from a turbolaser blast, throwing Tarv off balance and sending his shot wild. Her adrenaline kicking in, Cathi lunged for him and swatted his blaster arm aside. The Twi'lek was nobody's fool, though, and as she brushed past his head he used his sharpened teeth to tear a gash across her arm. She screamed in pain, and promptly punched him full in the face, breaking his nose. Breathing heavily, Tarv threw her off and tried to bring his blaster to bear again, but she swung out from her prone position, brought her boot behind his knee, and kicked hard. There was a sharp crack as the bones broke, sending him sprawling. He still clutched the blaster in his hand, and let off an accidental shot that brushed past her. Cathi dove for the blaster, but the Twi'lek rolled over and hit her in the face with its butt. She cried out and redoubled her efforts, landing an elbow in one of Tarv's sensitive head-tails. In reaction to the pain, his grip on the blaster relaxed slightly, which she then kicked out of his hand. With the Twi'lek in hot pursuit, she scrambled over to where the blaster had landed, picked it up, and fired just as he lunged for her. As Tarv slumped down to the floor, Cathi leaned back against the wall and considered the situation. Ever since she had started working for the Twi'lek, he had taken every opportunity to belittle her. Sometimes she even wondered why she had bothered sticking around as long as she had, but the payout from a successful spice run was often well worth it. She started dragging his limp body to the nearest airlock. Halfway there, a tinny sounding voice interrupted her. "What is the matter with Master Tarv?" "Just a sudden case of death, Orb," Cathi answered the archaic protocol droid. An Orbot model 19 manufactured by Serv-o-Droid before their bankruptcy some four hundred years ago, Orb claimed to have had changed hands exactly three hundred and seventy-nine times (although memory wipes tended to mess that sort of figure up). "How unusual!" the droid exclaimed. Cathi rolled her eyes. On the one hand Orb knew millions of languages and the specific place settings to be taken if one was to eat with Seoularians, provided one found a way to travel back in time to a point where it was possible to find a living Seoularian to eat with. On the other hand, he could be extremely naïve and oblivious. "I don't suppose you could give me a hand here," Cathi said. "Must I keep reminding you that I was not built with manual labor in mind?" Orb retorted as he stiffly bent to pick up Tarv's legs. "That's funny, because you seem to do just fine hauling loads." "My servos are producing 11.6% less torque than factory spec and generating more noise." "I thought that was normal for droids of your age," Cathi replied. "Not with regular maintenance, of which I have been severely lacking." "Then we'll just have to replace your servos with binary load lifter servos, won't we?" Orb tried his hardest to look haughty. "Binary load lifter servos lack the precision necessary for my operation." "Right," Cathi nodded, "as if you're going to be performing brain surgery anytime soon. Come on, we're almost there." When they reached the airlock, Cathi slapped the controls to open the inner doors and then struggled to stuff Tarv's body inside. After closing the inner doors, she then activated the outer chamber doors and there was a quiet hiss as the airlock vented. She arrived back in the cockpit about a minute later and went back to work on the navicomputer. After several minutes, one of the panel alarms went off, causing her to look up and nearly jump out of her skin. * * * By the time the four Jedi reached the top of the stairway, Jacen was wishing that he'd brought a speeder bike or something. He was already exhausted from the walk, and beads of sweat dripped down his face. A quick glance at Tenel Ka told him that although she might have been tired, she definitely wasn't showing it. At the gate, they were met by two athletic young women, dressed in the same style as Tenel Ka. When they saw her, they nodded and let the group in. "We should see my great-grandmother first," Tenel Ka said as they walked through the fortress. "She will likely welcome us." Too thirsty to speak, Jacen merely nodded and followed her through the maze of passages inside the fortress until they came to what he assumed was the chamber of the Council of Sisters. As they stepped inside, everybody came to their feet, and a very old woman at the far end came to her feet. "You have returned, Tenel Ka Chume Ta' Djo," the old woman, who Jacen realized a moment later was Augwynne Djo, said in a motherly tone. "How are you?" "I am well," Tenel Ka simply replied as Augwynne walked over and embraced her. The matriarch turned her attention to the rest of the Jedi. "And these are...?" "Jacen, Jaina and Lowbacca," she responded as she pointed to each of them in turn. "Ah, so this is that handsome young man you told me about," Augwynne Djo said as she looked Jacen over. He was painfully aware of the fact that his face was turning a bright shade of crimson as the wizened old matriarch spoke, and hurriedly attempted to run through a relaxation technique. Although it was successful, he realized that he hadn't been fast enough as she noticed the look on his face. "Don't be ashamed, young man. Tenel Ka has excellent tastes in whom she chooses. You're the first man she has captured." Jacen realized that his face was probably as red as Tenel Ka's hair by this point. He bowed his head and let out a slight chuckle, then looked back up in an attempt to regain face. "I am... honored?" he replied. "As well you should be. Now, my great-granddaughter," she turned to Tenel Ka, "do you wish to have a marriage ceremony performed while you are here?" Lowie let out what might have been the Wookiee equivalent of a chuckle, while a look of horror came across Tenel Ka's face. After a long, awkward pause, she burst out into peals of laughter. "Great-grandmother! I have no plans to wed Jacen. He is merely an old friend from the Jedi Academy." "Ah, pardon my misunderstanding, Tenel Ka," Augwynne replied. "I had forgotten that you dislike many of the old customs. Still, one could say that there is more to the two of you than meets the eye." The two Jedi exchanged nervous glances as Augwynne cleared her throat. "What is your full name, young man?" "Jacen Solo," he nervously replied. A look of puzzlement came across her face. "Are you related, then, to Han Solo?" "He's my father." Augwynne chuckled softly. "Then you must know that your mother was made an honorary member of our clan." Jacen's eyebrows shot up. "No, I didn't," he admitted. Augwynne smiled again. "It does not matter too much now," she said, turning to face Tenel Ka again. "So, great-granddaughter, what brings you back here?" "We are going to meet with a fighter squadron led by a Jedi, and then continue on to investigate some strange attacks in the Outer Rim." "Explain." Tenel Ka paused for a moment. "There has been a string of attacks on planets and ships through the Outer Rim, but nobody knows what's been causing them. That's what we're going to try and figure out." "A dangerous task," Augwynne mused. "How long will you be staying here before you leave?" "Less than a week," Jaina replied, feeling somewhat left out. "Perhaps five days." "Ah," The matriarch nodded. "In that case, you are most welcome to stay and rest. I believe you will need it." * * * As Cathi sat staring at the fleet that had somehow come within spitting distance of Headwind, the comm suddenly came to life. "Attention unidentified freighter, this is the Imperial Star Destroyer Magistrate. You are in restricted space. State your intentions or you will be boarded." Rubbing her head from where she'd bumped it on the panel a moment before, Cathi hit the comm's transmit switch. It wasn't very hard to sound intimidated when an entire fleet was hanging over you and escaping to hyperspace was out of the question. "Magistrate, this is Cathi Riclin of the freighter Headwind. My navicomp malfunctioned and I was unaware of the status of this area." She released the button and took in a deep breath. The load of first-grade in the hold was enough to land her in prison for life on most Imperial worlds. But with the Star Destroyer hanging overhead, dumping the spice now would be too obvious. Best to play along... The voice on the other end of the comm was as unperturbed as ever. "Freighter Headwind, are you in need of assistance?" Cathi's mind raced as she tried to guess how they would be gaging her response. "Magistrate, thanks for your offer but I think I'll be OK." "Acknowledged, freighter Headwind." There was a brief pause on the other end, and for a moment Cathi thought they were going to leave her alone. Then a new voice came over the comm and her heart sank. "Freighter Headwind, we will need to ask you some questions. Shut down your engines, lower your shields, and prepare to dock." "I copy, Magistrate," Cathi replied, crestfallen. As she ran through the docking routines, she idly wondered why the Imperials had taken an interest in an otherwise empty region of space. The freighter momentarily shuddered as a tractor beam from the Star Destroyer latched on, and she watched the hangar bay grow to fill the cockpit viewports. A slight bump later—the tractor beam operators were pretty good, she decided—and Headwind was resting on the hangar deck. "Come out of your ship unarmed," an amplified voice boomed from outside. She stood up in the cockpit and tried to look for the source of the voice. Stormtroopers. She frowned as she looked over the perfectly ordered platoon. According to most sources, the stormtrooper forces in the Remnant were a pale shadow of what they had been during the heydey of the Empire. Between the original clones getting too old for front-line service, the quality of recruits slipping, and the cost of producing new sets of the plastoid armor (which had to be custom-fitted to each trooper), most Remnant forces had focused more on the regular Imperial Army troops. Which meant that to find such a disciplined platoon of stormtroopers was a rarity. Resigned to her fate, she dropped the main ramp and walked down. "Welcome to the Magistrate," a gray-clad, middle-aged human officer greeted her. "Please follow me." As she began walking, she glanced back at the ship, wondering if they were ever going to let her leave. After being left alone in a sparsely furnished room for close to an hour, the door hissed open and two stormtroopers entered, taking up guard positions on either side with their rifles held ready. She blinked; that was something she hadn't noticed earlier. The powerful DC-15 rifles of the Clone Wars had been dropped in favor of smaller, more compact E-11 carbines throughout most of the Empire. Yet these troops carried the old-style rifles. What really got her attention was the officer who entered next. His uniform was as unremarkable as any other Imperial officer, but his skin was unusually blue, and his eyes... She had only heard of one Imperial officer matching that description, and he had been dead for close to fifteen years. At least that's what the New Republic said. Her eyes dropped to his rank bars and she took a moment to count. If she remembered the ranks correctly... that would make this alien a... Commodore? The commodore glanced down at a datapad. "Cathi Riclin, captain of the YT-2400 light freighter Headwind. Is that correct?" She nodded, unable to find her voice. "From what I understand, you are 25 standard years. Isn't that a little young to own your own freighter?" She shrugged, wondering if he'd checked the ship's registration. Probably not. "Age doesn't matter much if you're good at sabacc," she replied. "Ah." He looked her up and down. "I would not have guessed you were a card player." "Well, you know what they say about appearances," Cathi said with a laugh that she realized moments later didn't sound very sincere. "Indeed." He looked back down at the datapad. "My men tell me that your ship's hold is filled with first-grade ryll spice. You are aware that the punishment for smuggling spice in both the Empire and the New Republic is life imprisonment, correct?" "Yes, Sir," she acknowledged, her head dropping. This wasn't going to end well, she decided. "Ah!" he exclaimed. "But I am forgetting my manners. I am Commodore Mantrel of the Imperial Navy. The Magistrate is my flagship, and you are my guest today." "I am?" she asked, puzzled. "Of course," Mantrel replied. "I'm sure you will agree that life imprisonment is quite a waste of resources. So, I'm prepared to offer you a deal." "And that is?" Suspicion was beginning to kick in. "We will repair your navicomputer and take you to a destination of our choosing, after which you will be free to go." Cathi frowned. It sounded suspiciously generous, particularly for an Imperial. "In exchange for what?" "Merely information," Mantrel replied. "Who you are working for, your navigational logs, et cetera." "I see." She considered the unasked questions... "And what about my cargo?" "Per Imperial regulations, we must confiscate your cargo. I'm sure you understand." She swallowed and nodded. The amount of spice they had been carrying was enough to buy an entire city's worth of land on some planets. The commodore's generous offer, then, basically amounted to a death sentence from the Twi'lek clans. "The troops here will escort you to your quarters while we repair your ship," Mantrel concluded as he rose to his feet. "In the meantime, I have other matters to attend to. Farewell." Sometime the following day, they escorted her back to her ship and left her in orbit of a fairly unremarkable Outer Rim world. For hours, she sat in the cockpit trying to think of solutions. She could go down to the planet, sell the Headwind, and make a new life for herself. But what was the point in that? Eventually some bounty hunter would trace the ship back to her, and then she'd be killed. Or worse, like being sent to work in the spice mines of Ryloth for the rest of her life. She had also heard quite enough about the Twi'lek sex trade to have particularly vivid nightmares about what could happen with that. Or she could jump to a place like Ord Mantell where she could pawn the ship off and get a new life. She shook her head. That only worked in the holovids. She'd heard of too many smugglers who simply disappeared, only to turn up dead months or years later at the hands of bounty hunters. "Well, that settles it," she said to herself. She couldn't run, she couldn't hide for very long, and she wasn't enough of a slicer to cover her tracks very well. YT-2400 freighters were fairly common – CEC had made tens of thousands – but she had no credits in any accounts to pay for changing the ship's identification. She'd been counting on the payoff from this load of ryll to keep her until the next job, and now that payoff had simply evaporated along with the spice. She pointed the ship away from the planet and closed her eyes. This wasn't how she had wanted her life to turn out. Once, in fact, she had dreams of exploring the galaxy and discovering one of the millions of still-unknown species in it. But life had chosen a different path for her, obviously. She killed the safeties on the hyperdrive and grabbed the actuator levers. This was supposed to be quick and painless... In a burst of charged plasma and Cronau radiation, the small freighter flashed to hyperspace.

CHAPTER FOUR To say that the air in the main chamber of the ancient Massassi temple was humid would have been a severe understatement. Imagine an old-style sauna, with a fire heating water and that water being turned into vapor with the scent of the burning wood. Now replace the wood with two hundred Jedi trainees of varied species, the wholesome smoky scent of the wood with the odor of two hundred bodies, and you approached the atmosphere present in the chamber. But in this case the vapor was invisible, a sticky addition to the air that could not be seen although it could be felt. Jacen Solo, standing two rows from the front of the room, certainly felt the humidity. He reached up and loosened the traditional brown cloth robe that he was wearing for the meeting, fanning himself slightly as he did so. A half-dozen unpleasant odors assaulted his nostrils, and he decided at that point to rank the smell of damp Wookiee up at the top of his list of unpleasant odors. Considering that Lowbacca, Chewbacca's two plus meter tall Jedi nephew, was standing directly in front of him it was no surprise at all. On one side of him, he heard a quiet snort, and he turned to look. His sister Jaina turned her face away from him, attempting to cover her mouth in the process. Jacen sighed at the distraction; here he was, nineteen years old, and being laughed at by his sister as if he were only twelve. If there was anything he hated the most about having a Jedi-talented twin sister, that was it: the fact that they almost always knew what the other was thinking. Pushing all thoughts of his sister aside, Jacen leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. Immediately, everything that he hadn't noticed while his eyes were open snapped into focus: the plethora of aromas that wafted about the Grand Chamber, the sounds caused by several hundred trainees, various conversations taking place. Most of the conversations, he idly noted after about a minute, were merely the usual gossip that floated about the Academy. There were some people theorizing about what the meeting was going to be about--he listened to one of those with mild interest--and other conversations concerned the preceding day's assignments. He sat up and looked toward the exit, wondering if he would see anyone coming in. A slight clatter from above his head distracted him, and Jacen looked up to see a woman, clad in a grey suit that seemed to be made of a type of reptilian hide, descending from one of the temple's skylights. Slowly, she rappelled down the rope, using only her feet and one hand, and finally landed in front of an empty seat next to Jacen. She quickly snapped the smartrope, which detached from the rock face a dozen meters above and landed (albeit somewhat disorganized) in her hand. Several students applauded. "You always were one to make a grand entrance, Tenel Ka," Jacen commented with a smile on his face as the Dathomirian warrior and sometime Hapan princess coiled her smartrope. "I decided that it would be easier than pushing through a smelly crowd," she replied nonchalantly after she'd clipped the cord to her belt. Running her hands through her red-gold braids to straighten them out, she continued. "Have I missed anything?" Jacen shook his head. "No, they haven't even started yet. We're still waiting for Uncle Luke and Corran." "Good." She sat down, releasing a heavy sigh. Jacen noticed that streams of sweat were pouring down her forehead. "How hot is it out there?" he casually inquired. Tenel Ka took a piece of cloth off her belt and wiped her face with it. "It's not as hot as it is humid. And it's definitely hotter in here." "That's what I thought," Jacen replied. "I guess I'll have to ask Anakin to see about getting some condensers the next time he's offworld." She nodded, but didn't say anything. For a few minutes, the only thing that Jacen heard from her was heavy breathing as she apparently tried to cool down. "Looks like they've arrived," he finally said, looking toward the entrance. "You're right, Sis. Anakin's with them." "And arguing with Kyp, it would seem," Jaina added. "I wonder why. They usually haven't had many disagreements." Jacen shrugged, coming to his feet along with the rest of the trainees in the chamber as Master Skywalker confidently strode in. As Luke looked at the arrangement of the tables on the dais, however, Jacen thought for a moment that he could see a slight frown on his uncle's face. The frown quickly disappeared, leaving the younger trainee wondering what it was all about. He stood on his toes in an attempt to see over Lowbacca's shoulder, and noticed that the tables were arranged in a V-formation facing outward, which certainly was unusual. So maybe that was the problem, he decided. Luke remained standing as the other Jedi Knights took their seats, and Anakin slipped through the rows of trainees to get to his brother and sister. Finally, when the tumult in the grand chamber had calmed down, he spoke. "Jedi Knights and trainees," the Jedi Master began, "I apologize for keeping all of you in suspense as to the topic of today's meeting. I also apologize for the suddenness of this meeting, but unfortunately events occur in the galaxy far faster than I can respond to them." There was a slight murmur as he continued. "Since communications are obviously restricted here at the Academy, most of you likely have not heard the recent news." Luke drew his breath in. "Two weeks ago, Dr. Joto Eckels of the Obroan Institute approached me as they had not heard from one of their student research teams on the planet Bimmiel. I sent Corran Horn and his apprentice, Ganner Rhysode, to the planet to investigate." Luke gestured toward Corran, who immediately came to his feet. Jacen wondered briefly why he was heavily leaning on his left leg, but put the thought aside as Corran glanced about himself, looking toward Luke briefly for approval before proceeding. "As Master Skywalker mentioned, I left for Bimmiel with Ganner last week. Now, before I go any further, I would like to briefly give you some information on the planet itself." He stepped back, limping slightly, and walked over toward a holoprojector that had been set up in the center of the dais. Sliding what Jacen assumed to be a datachip into the machine, he then turned it on. "This is Bimmiel," Corran began. "Not much to look at, really. But, as I discovered in the notes of the scientific team, it has quite an interesting ecology." Jacen perked up at that point. Perhaps this wouldn't be another boring, pointless meeting after all. "The planet follows a highly elliptical orbit, and its rotational tilt is very pronounced. The result of these factors is that the planet's surface is somewhat inhospitable, being covered mostly in sand dunes. It has two small polar ice caps, which the archaeologists theorized were being slowly worn away by the recent dust storms that have been sweeping across the planet's surface. The southernmost one is already surrounded by a large ocean." Jaina yawned, distracting Jacen momentarily, and Corran switched the image displayed by the holoprojector. It now showed a small debris cloud that orbited the planet. "This was the situation when we arrived in our ship. A debris field, which we identified as belonging to the Obroan Institute's research vessel Penga Rift, was all that was left in orbit." He changed the view again, this time to show a wide, sweeping prarie on Bimmiel. While it seemed to be only grass, after looking at the large holo for several seconds Jacen thought he could make out some debris scattered across the plains. "This was the site of the research base. Not much to look at, is it? We searched for over a day, looking for any indications of what might have happened to the researchers." "What did you find?" some overeager trainee inquired from the back of the chamber. "Quite a bit, actually," Corran replied. "That's what I'm about to show you." He reached for the holoprojector controls again. Now the image of a skull, longer than that of a human and with a low cranial ridge, appeared. As Jacen looked at it, he wondered about it. In addition to its odd appearance, it seemed to have many fracture lines and deformities. The cheekbones--if one could even call them that--had been broken and reset in an odd fashion, resulting in the skull's face having a slope that went from left to right. The nose bones had also clearly been shattered, giving the skull an odd, leering appearance. "What is that thing?" someone exclaimed. Corran shrugged. "We couldn't figure it out. The datachips we found identified it as 'AR-312,' but didn't give any other information. I'm assuming that was the scan number. There were also scans of the entire corpse, and also a computer reproduction of the creature as it might have stood. I'll show that right now." The hologram changed, now to display a full-size view of the humanoid. Human-style flesh had been added to give it somewhat of a more life-like appearance, but just from taking one look at it Jacen knew it wasn't even remotely human. It stood a half-meter taller than the typical human, and its shoulders were broad and powerfully built. Its face, which seemed to be painstakingly reconstructed from the skull, posessed the same leering, almost hideous quality that the skull had. "The scans identified this as being over fifty years old," Corran continued. "It was found in a collapsed cave to the north of the research base along with weapons and armor, according to the chip." "Did you return this information to the Obroan Institute?" yet another voice asked. Jacen identified it as belonging to that of Raynar Thul, a marginally-talented student coming from one of the few remaining royal Alderaanian houses. He'd known Raynar since he had first joined the Academy, and was somewhat glad that he didn't have to see him given the rather garish robes, made of interweaved and often clashing colors, that the man often wore. Corran shook his head. "Although the Obroan Institute sponsored the trip, it was organized by the University of Agamar. But to answer your question, yes, we did stop by Agamar on our way back and return the information that the scientists had collected before they vanished." "Did you ever find the students?" another trainee asked. Jacen sighed; the interruptions were getting more than a little annoying. "No," the Corellian answered. "But we did find a clue. We were attacked by two beings that looked oddly like the bones I just showed you while we were searching through the remains of the base. We dispatched them, but they were quite skilled and used strange staff-like weapons that were able to resist our lightsabers." He placed his right foot on the table and lifted up the leg of his jumpsuit to reveal a deep scar. An audible gasp went through the chamber. So that's why Corran is limping, Jacen realized. "Where they came from, I don't know, and probably won't know. When we returned the data to Agamar, the researchers couldn't find anything like it in the databases." Raynar spoke up again. "How could a group that's been in this galaxy for at least fifty years have escaped our notice for that long?" "I really can't answer that," Corran replied with a shrug. "There just isn't enough information, although I suppose that if the group's small enough, they could easily evade notice for years. Remember, we still haven't mapped out the entire galaxy; there are still thousands of unexplored stars in Wild Space." The discussion dragged on for several more minutes, but Jacen found his thoughts drifting off to the figure in the hologram. Who are they? he wondered. And what do they want? His thoughts were interrupted as he heard the twittering of an astromech droid. Jacen quickly looked toward the entrance to the auditorium, just in time to see several people, all dressed in flight suits, come running in. "That's Miko Reglia in the front," Jaina whispered into his ear. "Looks like Kyp's Dozen just arrived." "Wonderful," he replied, still keeping his eyes fixed on the new arrivals. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that the Jedi on the dais were also looking at the assorted pilots that had just arrived. It was then that he realized that the chamber had gone silent. Jacen watched Miko climb the steps of the dais, give a slight bow toward Luke, and continue to Kyp. He then watched him hand--what, a datapad?-- to the older Jedi. Kyp's face paled slightly as he read the datapad, which made Jacen even more curious. The Jedi then walked over towards Skywalker, and spoke with him for several seconds before stepping up to the podium as Corran sat back down. "My apprentice Miko just told me about some new information that I decided we should talk about here," Kyp began. "With Master Skywalker's permission, I will begin." He pushed some buttons on the datapad, then walked over to the holoprojector and did something--Jacen assumed he was uploading the information--before walking back to the podium. "This information was recorded by a sensor buoy that my squadron had placed in the outer areas of the Tingel Arm, perhaps about fifty light-years from Bimmiel." Kyp momentarily closed his eyes, and the holoprojector switched back on. A long list of coordinates and numbers were now projected into the air beside the podium. "Along with the usual activities, the buoy recorded some rather interesting things." He again manipulated the projector without even turning away from the podium. It now displayed a fairly detailed representation of a greenish planet, rotating around an invisible axis. "Show-off," Jaina muttered under her breath. "This is Belkadan," Kyp began as he glanced down at the datapad, "home to a scientific research station named ExGal 4. The buoy picked up an automated distress signal coming from the station about two weeks after the Obroan institute lost contact with their team on Bimmiel. Miko tells me that the message was too garbled to fully understand, so we should probably see what's happened." He stopped to clear his throat before turning to the holoprojector. It now showed a clear view of a Nebulon-B frigate. "It's not the only thing that the buoy recorded. A distress signal from someone named Urias Xhaxin was recorded approximately a week after the departure of the shuttle. His location was about twenty light-years away from Belkadan. According to his signal, his frigate was attacked and disabled by what appeared to be asteroids." Kyp stepped down from the podium and shut the holoprojector off, then stepped back up. "Any questions?" Corran chose that moment to speak. "I forgot to mention that Ganner and I were attacked by what seemed to be asteroids when we left Bimmiel. We didn't get any sensor readings on them, but someone might have turned some small asteroids into gun platforms." The auditorium erupted in conversation, and Jacen noticed that Kyp had a somewhat surprised expression on his face when Corran had spoken. "Do you think this is connected with Bimmiel?" Jacen asked after almost half a minute had passed. The Jedi contemplated the question. "I can't say for sure," he finally stated, "although Miko is all for investigating both matters. I can't say I disagree." Even more discussion erupted in the auditorium. Finally, Raynar raised his hand. "I don't think that we, as Jedi, should investigate this. I've heard reports of what your squadron had done, Durron. You've given us a bad reputation with the government, which is why they haven't been willing to give us the supplies we need anymore. I don't care what you want to do, because we will not support you." Next to Jacen, Tenel Ka quickly came to her feet. "Raynar Thul," she began, "you're forgetting that this isn't the typical smuggler conflict. Innocent people are dying, and we don't even know why. Or did you forget what Corran Horn said about the scientific team?" Someone else a few rows back replied. "We're peacekeepers, as Master Skywalker keeps reminding us. Why, then, are we so eager to get into conflict? We should bring this to the attention of the Republic, and let them do the investigation--and get the blame if they make mistakes." "The mandate of the Jedi is to preserve life in all forms," Tenel Ka sharply retorted, "and you would let people die without raising an eyebrow? What sense of morals do you have? We are already involved, because of what Corran and Ganner did. We should find out what this means before informing the Republic." "That's not what I was implying," the same voice said. On the dais, Kyp raised his hand to cut the arguing students off. "If we inform the Republic of this," he pointed out, "nothing will be done until it's too late. Tenel Ka is right." "Not the way you do things." Raynar was now on his feet, but Jacen didn't bother to look at him. "You act as if you're the government, making decisions best left to those who are supposed to be in charge." Kyp's gaze on the Alderaanian was unrelenting. "So what do you propose doing, then?" Raynar was obviously flustered. He opened his mouth several times as if to speak, but nothing came out the first few times. Finally, he seemed able to collect his wits. "We bring it to the Republic's attention and let them decide on the course of action, but no more than that." Jacen shook his head as the room erupted in shouting. He would have expected this from Raynar, considering the problems they'd had with the Senate after they had taken it upon themselves to investigate the headquarters of the Diversity Alliance on Ryloth. "Enough," Luke finally exclaimed in a strong voice that seemed to fill the chamber as he came to his feet. "This conflict is getting us nowhere. As one of you pointed out, we are peacemakers, not warlords." His voice softened somewhat. "We do not dominate the people; instead, we serve them. As such, I feel that we should investigate the situation, then report our findings to the Republic if it proves worthwhile. "But," he added as he turned toward Kyp, "we should also not take an offensive stance unless we are given the authority to do so by the Republic. Our actions will be in self-defense, and self-defense only; if we are attacked, we will defend ourselves. Do I make myself clear?" Kyp had a somewhat disappointed expression on his face, but he nodded. "Then we will do so, Master. When should we leave?" "I'll leave that up to you, Kyp," Skywalker replied. The younger Jedi nodded, turning back toward the assembled Jedi. "Does anyone here want to come with my group?" After a long period of silence had passed, Tenel Ka stood up, much to Jacen's surprise. "I will come," she offered. "Good," Kyp said. "Anyone else?" As the rest of the Jedi discussed the matter in hushed tones, Jacen leaned over toward Tenel Ka with an inquiring expression on his face. "Why?" he whispered. "I have been planning on visiting my great-grandmother on Dathomir for some time now," Tenel Ka replied quietly. "It will be on the way, so I do not view it as much of an inconvenience." Jacen considered what she had said for several moments, somewhat confused about the issues. "Would you mind if I came with you?" he finally asked. "Not at all." She looked at him as if to say, Thank you. Jacen immediately stood up, raising his hand. "I'll come." "And so will I," Jaina said a moment later as she came to her feet. Kyp nodded. "That makes three. Anyone else?" A low, throaty roar broke the hushed atmosphere. Moments later, a somewhat tinny voice piped up, sounding absurdly weak in comparison. Jacen promptly identified the voice as belonging to Em Teedee, a rather smallish translator droid that the Wookiee standing in front of him kept. "Master Lowbacca expresses his strong desire to come as well," the droid translated. Lowie growled softly at Em Teedee, which jetted backwards on its repulsors. "What do you mean, I could have said it more plainly?" Jacen shook his head, a wan smile on his face. It was kind of surprising that Lowie hadn't reprogrammed the little thing yet. See-Threepio had put a lot of his own personality into the droid when Chewbacca had first built it, and the results often showed. "I think you're making a mistake," Raynar began to say, before Luke cut him off as he stepped up to the podium. "We are all entitled to our own opinions, and I respect that," Skywalker began. "But this kind of dissention will not get us anywhere. As some of you may know, in several days I will be leaving for Coruscant to speak to the government about re-establishing the Jedi Council to handle just this kind of dispute." "Who will be on the Council?" another trainee asked. "That will be decided later," Luke replied. "As for now, this meeting is dismissed." Jacen watched as the people on the dais filed down, some of them--most notably a Twi'lek, Daeshara'cor--with disappointed looks on their faces. He started to leave, but a hand held him back; he turned to see Tenel Ka grasping his shoulder. "Not yet," she said, pointing toward the dais, where several of the Jedi remained. "I need to talk with Kyp first." "No problem," he replied with a slight twang of jealousy--but just as quickly pushed the feeling aside, hoping that Tenel Ka hadn't noticed. He knew that there was absolutely no reason for such irrational feelings, but it happened all the same. When the auditorium had all but emptied, the group walked toward Kyp, who extended his hand toward Jacen. "Thanks for your support," he said, a smile spread across his face. "I really appreciated it." Jacen half-shrugged. "It wasn't really me," he admitted, wondering what he had gotten himself into. Kyp's checkered past was fairly well-known to most of the Jedi. Some avoided him because of it; others were constantly asking him for advice. Jacen wasn't sure which group he fit into. "Well, yes." Kyp turned toward Tenel Ka. "Thank you especially. I take it you're going to be flying your transport?" "Correct," she replied. "Unless you would like me to fly something else?" "No, no, of course not," the older Jedi replied as he ran a hand through his hair. "In fact, I was hoping you would be taking your ship. We can use its firepower if we run into trouble." Tenel Ka nodded in reply, and Kyp turned toward Jaina. "And I hear you've become quite a pilot." Jaina blushed slightly. "Maybe exaggerating a little, but I suppose so." Kyp continued without pause. "We have a couple of new X-wings that'll be arriving from Incom in a few days. They're of the XJ variant... have you ever heard of them?" Jaina nodded, her curiosity piqued. The XJ (eXperimental J) was a model designed, amid much publicity, to extend the life of the X-wing series and keep it competitive with newer starfighters. Compared to the previous H model, it sported stronger shields, capacity for two additional torpedoes, external weapons hardpoints, and better maneuverability. "I've heard a lot about them, actually." "I was wondering if you'd like to fly one." Excitement flashed across Jaina's face, but she quickly covered it up. "I..." She paused for a moment to consider what to say. "I haven't had much experience with X-wings," she finally said. "That's not a problem," Kyp replied. "There are a lot of ex-Republic Navy pilots in the Dozen. I'm sure they'd be glad to help." Jaina considered his offer for some time, her eyes turned toward the ground. "No," she finally said, jerking her thumb in Tenel Ka's direction. "No, I'd rather not--I think she could use my help as a copilot." If Kyp was disappointed, his face didn't show it. "Whatever you want is fine with me. But if you ever want to reconsider, just remember that there'll be a pilot's seat open for you." "Well, I'll keep that in mind," Jaina replied. Another throaty bellow interrupted the conversation. "Master Lowbacca wishes to inquire as to how soon we will be leaving," Em Teedee translated for the Wookiee. Kyp frowned. "Maybe in a few days. I want to make sure that the XJs are working right before we field-test them." "Perhaps we can rendezvous on Dathomir?" Tenel Ka asked. "I would like to visit my great-grandmother for a day or two." "Sounds good to me." Durron looked up at the towering Wookiee. "And you, Lowbacca. I take it you'll be going with them as well?" Lowie bleated a reply that Jacen took to be a yes. "Good," Kyp finally said. "I'll tell my squadron that we'll meet you on Dathomir." He turned to Tenel Ka again. "Was there any specific place that you wanted us to meet you?" "The Singing Mountain Clan fortress will do," the redheaded warrior replied. "I will let them know that you're coming." "Thanks." The older Jedi stopped to shake everyone's hand--and paw--before turning to leave. "Dathomir it is. I'll see all of you there in a week." Jacen watched Kyp leave, a confused expression on his face. What have I gotten myself into? he wondered.

Oh for the love of Q... RE: the domes on top of the bridge Going temporarily OOC, if you look at the bridge of any modern naval warship, you'll see big geodesic domes. Those are radar domes. Now, that was the design influence of the Star Destroyer bridge, which is why they were intended to be sensor domes. The reason that someone shouts that the shield deflectors were down is that Executor was under the combined fire of the ENTIRE REBEL FLEET (note that shortly before that, Ackbar ordered everyone to concentrate firepower on the super star destroyer!). Cause and effect. The sensor domes blowing up? Well, the shields had just gone down. And since the shields were down, and the sensors were crippled, when Piett orders the gunners to intensify forward firepower... well... without sensors the gunners were presumably reduced to tracking their targets manually, making it obscenely difficult to track an A-wing spiralling out of control toward the bridge in the middle of a massive firefight.

CHAPTER THREE "I'm sorry, Kathryn, but there simply is no way around this. I must relieve you of command until you show definite signs of improvement." Captain Kathryn Janeway forced a sigh as she sat on one of the bio-beds in Sickbay. "I still think this is completely unnecessary, and somewhat primitive. You want to confine me to Sickbay? Why not simply perform treatments while I retain my command?" "Starfleet Directive 44 specifies that if the captain or other officer is declared unfit for his or her position by the Chief Medical Officer, the CMO may remove the Captain from active service until the point at which the CMO declares the Captain fit for service. It is therefore entirely within my right as the acting Chief Medical Officer of Voyager to remove you from active duty for the time being." "And who made you the acting Chief Medical Officer?" "You did, Captain." "Right. If that's how you want to play this, effective immediately I am revoking your status as Chief Medical Officer." "Unfortunately, Captain," a voice from behind said and Janeway spun about to face Tuvok, "the CMO's decision has already been logged in the computer. You no longer have that authority." Janeway threw her hands up in the air before letting them drop back to her side. "Now what? You're in on this conspiracy as well? I thought you were the one person I could always trust." "As did I, Captain. However, your decisions are becoming increasingly illogical. I strongly suggest you follow the doctor's orders and get plenty of bed rest." "I am also restricting your caffeine intake," the Doctor remarked as he adjusted a hypospray. "Over the next week, I will allow you limited access to caffeine, as well as analgesics to counteract the effects of withdrawal." * * * "Acting Captain's Log, Stardate 52579.9." Chakotay turned and cleared his throat before continuing. "This entry marks the point at which I assume temporary command of the USS Voyager. Relieving Captain Kathryn Janeway was a hard decision for Tuvok, the Doctor and myself, but one that had to be made. We have reversed our course, and are currently five hours from the Outbound Flight at our present speed of Warp 8. I am of high hope that we can resume negotiations and come to a reasonable agreement." He shut off the recorder, and glanced around the bridge. Directly in front of him, Lieutenant Tom Paris was at his usual position at the helm. Seven of Nine was back in Astrometrics, and other ensigns filled out the rest of the Bridge. Tuvok was currently conducting a holodeck training simulation for his Hazard Team, and Neelix... well, Chakotay could not have possibly cared less as to the whereabouts of the Talaxian. Slowly, he dozed off, and by the time Voyager arrived at its destination he was engaged in a dream about how one of Neelix's concoctions took control of Seven of Nine's central nervous system and decided to remove Janeway from command for no particular reason. When an ensign tapped him on the shoulder to wake him up, he at first thought that the concoction had broken out of Seven, and was attacking him. So it was that when he finally woke up, several supernumeraries had their phasers trained on him, and the ensign that had attempted to awaken him was nursing an eye that had gone a lovely deep shade of violet. "Um... did I hit you?" he asked the injured ensign, who nodded in reply. He looked down at his hands. "Sorry. I was having a nightmare about Neelix's cooking..." The remark broke the tension, as both the ensign and the security personnel cracked up. "Well, Sir, what I was trying to tell you was that we're only a few minutes away from Outbound Flight." Now fully awake, Chakotay nodded. "Hail them and let them know we'd like to meet with Master C'baoth again." "Yes, Sir." Chakotay paused in thought. "Now, where's Tuvok?" "Still in the Holodeck, sir." "All right," he said, pausing at the comm. "Tell Lieutenant Paris, Lieutenant Commander Tuvok, and Lieutenant Commander Seven to meet me in the transporter room," he ordered the ensign at the station. Then, he turned and strode to the turbolift. * * * When Chakotay materialized in D-One's hangar bay along with the others, he hadn't quite known what to expect. Seven had, of course, told him that the crew was mostly human. However, the thin line between human and humanoid was often quite blurred (especially in the case of B'Elanna) and so for a crew that was supposed to have travelled from another galaxy halfway across the universe, he was half expecting to see at least some sort of forehead ridge, different skin pigmentation, strange eye structure, or some other random mutation. Instead, the small group that was waiting for him in the hangar bay of the Dreadnaught could have fit right in anywhere on Earth, or the Federation for that matter, without anyone so much as batting an eye. "Commander Chakotay, correct?" a tall man with flowing gray hair and beard asked as he stepped forward and extended a hand. "Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Jedi Master Jorus C'baoth, administrator of the Outbound Flight Project." He took the hand and shook it. "Pleased to meet you." "Likewise," C'baoth replied. "I'm sorry to hear what happened to your Captain. It must be quite a burden to keep a ship such as Voyager operating for as long as you have been without support." "Yes, it certainly is," Chakotay found himself agreeing. You have no idea, he mentally added. C'baoth turned partway around to gesture toward the doorway at the back of the hangar bay. "Well, I suppose you'd like to get started. Please, follow me to the conference room." After a short walk through the hallways and a turbolift ride, they entered the conference room where several more people came to their feet around the table. C'baoth waved an open hand at the nearest one in uniform, who was quite a bit shorter than Chakotay and had streaks of gray in his otherwise black hair. "Commander, this is Captain Jonas Avin." "I take it you're captain of this ship?" Chakotay asked as he leaned over to shake the Captain's hand. "Yes," Avin replied. "Actually, while the entire Outbound Flight can be controlled from D-One, each Dreadnaught has its own commander." "I see," Chakotay replied, still not fully understanding. C'baoth barely waited for him to finish before speaking. "This is Master Raven Forsaj. Among other things, she is an expert in linguistics." Chakotay turned to follow C'baoth's outstretched arm and greeted the woman, noting that while she wore the same sort of brown fabric robe as the other Jedi, hers was cut shorter to leave her well-toned arms and legs exposed. It wasn't until a few seconds after C'baoth had moved on to the next person that Chakotay realized that she had the build of a dancer. The last person at the table, however, would be difficult to describe as even remotely humanoid except in the sense that it was bipedal and had two arms. The arms themselves ended in flipper-hands, and the creature's head was an ovoid shape with two large eyes that appeared to freely swivel on either side. Its skin coloration was generally salmon mixed with mottled patches of olive green, and had a wet shimmer. Chakotay couldn't help but feel that the creature would be more at home in water than on a starship. "And this is Master Hkalle, our Jedi healer and head doctor," C'baoth finished. Chakotay awkwardly reached out to shake the alien's flipper, which felt slightly cold and clammy. "You're from the same galaxy?" he asked. "Yes," Hkalle replied in a voice as rough as a gravel crusher. "To answer the question I know you are thinking, my homeworld is a watery planet called Dac." "I see," Chakotay replied. "And being aboard a starship like this doesn't bother you?" The tendrils that hung below Hkalle's mouth waved slightly. "When we leave the water, we must either stay in humid environments, or moisten ourselves regularly. If we do not, it can become painful. My robes contain a moistening device so I may focus on other tasks." Chakotay nodded. "Now, Commander Chakotay, what have you come here to discuss with us?" C'baoth boomed. Slightly taken aback by the sudden change in tone, Chakotay found it hard to remember what he was planning on saying. "Um... well, as Captain Janeway may have already told you, we have been stranded in this quadrant for slightly over five years now with no clear way home." He paused to clear his thoughts. "I understand that your faster than light drive is considerably more efficient than ours, and that you had expressed interest in towing us home in exchange for permission to set up a colony. Is that correct?" C'baoth inclined his head. "Go on." "Well," Chakotay searched for the appropriate term, "I would like to apologize for Janeway's abrupt departure, and while none of us have the authority to promise you a world to use for a colony, we will vouch for your character in front of the Federation Senate when you petition them." "But we only just met," C'baoth rhetorically remarked. "How can you be so sure of our character?" Chakotay looked directly across the table at the Jedi. "Master C'baoth, before we were pulled into this part of the galaxy, I was the captain of a ship involved in a resistance against an oppressive government near the Federation. While acting in that capacity, I was forced to make many hard decisions that would determine the fate of hundreds of people close to me. While I know that we are all fallible, I believe that I am at least a decent judge of character, and I have seen nothing from you or your crew to indicate a lack of sincerity." C'baoth nodded. "Pardon me for playing the devil's advocate, but given your experiences, how is it that you wound up second in command to Captain Janeway?" Chakotay let out a nervous, stifled laugh. "Sometimes I ask myself the same question. When my ship arrived in this quadrant, it was heavily damaged and we had lost many of our crew. Voyager was sent to look for us and arrived in the same condition. We were attacked soon after by a local spacefaring race, and I made a decision to sacrifice my ship to give Voyager a fighting chance. Captain Janeway decided to accept us as members of her crew, and we've been fighting to get home ever since." C'baoth pulled out a datapad and passed it across the table to Chakotay. "This is the draft of the contract I presented to Captain Janeway. Read through it, and if you have any issues please feel free to bring them up." Chakotay handed the datapad over to Tuvok. "We thought that most of it was agreeable the last time, but I am concerned about the blood tests that Captain Janeway mentioned. Why are you asking us for blood samples?" "We are Jedi," C'baoth replied, gesturing toward Hkalle, Dellen, Lorana, and the other robed figures in the room. "The Jedi Order goes back for many tens of thousands of years, to a time before the founding of the Republic. Originally the Bendu Monks, as we were known then, were a monastic order that debated the morals of society. Over time, we became aware of something called the Force, a mystical energy field that surrounds and binds everything in the universe. To those of us that are called to be Jedi, the Force flows through us and grants us powers only dreamed of by ordinary mortals. This power comes at a price, however; we are entrusted to be the guardians of the Republic, and the untold quintillions of sentients within it." Chakotay frowned. "I can understand that, but the blood tests?" C'baoth coughed irritably. "I was getting to that. We discovered that there are certain markers in the blood of most humanoids that indicate who are more likely to be touched by the Force. As part of the Outbound Flight's mission, we must determine if these markers are present in life outside our galaxy." "And if they are?" Chakotay asked. "Then we will offer anyone with the potential the chance to be trained in the Jedi ways." Chakotay leaned back in the chair and placed a hand on his chin. After considering the implications for nearly a minute, he leaned forward again. "We cannot provide you the blood samples you requested. However, you have my permission to perform testing on an individual basis, after obtaining full written consent from the crew members. I must also stress that per Federation laws, any blood samples taken cannot be used for genetic modification." "That is more than agreeable," C'baoth agreed, taking his own datapad and making the changes necessary. "Is there anything else?" Chakotay glanced over at Tuvok. "What do you think?" "I think the contract is very well-written and comprehensive," the Vulcan stated. "We will not be violating any Starfleet protocols if we sign this." He let out a deep breath. "One last question. How do we sign?" C'baoth slid a stylus across the table. "Scroll down and mark at the bottom of the document." Chakotay and Tuvok did so before passing the datapad across the table again, after which C'baoth and Captain Avin signed it in the same manner. C'baoth stood up and extended his arm to Chakotay. "Congratulations. I believe we've both taken a step on the path to friendship for both the Republic and Federation." He turned to Captain Avin. "Captain, please call in the engineers. We should get started immediately." "Chief Engineer B'Elanna can stay here to discuss the logistics with them," Chakotay suggested. "Of course. Meanwhile, would you and your other crew members like to have a tour of the Outbound Flight?" "Certainly," Chakotay replied. * * * Kathryn Janeway drummed her fingers restlessly on the side of her biobed. Being confined to sickbay was simply so... maddening. She drew a LCARS console closer to herself, and looked it over. As she did so, she remembered that even the famed Captain James T. Kirk had often resorted to underhanded tactics in certain situations. Several taps of the console brought her out of the Sickbay menu and into the ship's main menu. One time, when Kirk was in training at the Academy, he was presented with a test. Nobody before had beaten it, as it was designed to be unbeatable. She accessed the crew roster, and proceeded to scan it. But he wouldn't let that stop him. He reprogrammed it and made it winnable, and thus passed the test. Only afterward did they notice what had happened. Perfect, she thought to herself as she noticed one of the ensigns' entries. Janeway was about to access it, but then she stopped herself and casually looked at her own profile. KATHRYN JANEWAY 2338-PRESENT GRADUATED STARFLEET ACADEMY, MAY 2363. MAJORED IN SPACIAL PHYSICS. PROMOTED TO RANK OF ENSIGN, JANUARY 2364. ASSIGNED AS SCIENCE OFFICER TO USS AL-BATANI UNDER CAPTAIN RICHARD PARIS. TRANSFERRED TO . . . She scrolled down the display, knowing perfectly well of her own history. PROMOTED TO CAPTAIN, DECEMBER 2368. ASSIGNED COMMAND OF INTREPID-CLASS USS VOYAGER. TEMPORARILY RELIEVED OF COMMAND, JUNE 2375 BY ORDERS OF CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER. CURRENT STATUS: PENDING FURTHER EVALUATION Janeway frowned at the display. She had already completed several batteries of psychological tests; what could this mean? She shut the LCARS terminal off, shoved it away, and decided to go to sleep. Maybe things would sort themselves out. * * * Several hours after the meeting aboard D-One, B'Elanna found herself leading a team of the Outbound Flight engineers through Voyager's engineering section. They stopped in front of the warp core, where the mostly human engineers looked up at with shock and astonishment written across their faces. "That's a M-AM reactor?" one of them asked. "Yes," B'Elanna replied. "Deuterium and anti-deuterium." The chief engineer of D-One, Lieutenant Derek, scratched his head in thought. "Looks dangerous," he finally remarked. "What kind of containment measures do you have in place?" "The reactions themselves are magnetically confined," B'Elanna replied. "The core itself has an eject mechanism should the reaction become unstable." "And how do you harness the power from it?" one of the other engineers asked. B'Elanna pointed to the glowing, transparent plasma conduits that came from the side of the reactor. "Plasma from the reaction is sent through those conduits to the warp nacelles and other critical systems on the ship." "They look kind of fragile," Derek remarked. "Why not just convert the heat of the plasma to electricity?" She shrugged. "The efficiency's not high enough to power the warp drive. Cochrane's first warp drive was electrically powered by an old-fashioned nuclear fission reactor, but it was barely able to pass lightspeed. We're able to achieve much faster velocities this way." "Right, but the conduits are all transparent, so all that light they're emitting is going to waste." Derek replied. "Look, I didn't design the system, OK?" B'Elanna shot back in frustration. "I just have to keep it running." "All right, all right," Derek said to calm her down. "I think for safety's sake, we should power down the warp core before we dock your ship. Do you have secondary power systems?" "Twelve fusion reactors," B'Elanna replied immediately. "Eight for our impulse drives, and the other four for emergency power." Derek nodded. "That should work. Now, I was looking at your hull damage and I think we're going to have to do some work to reinforce it before we attach Voyager." "It's been pretty hard finding readily available sources of duranium and tritanium here," B'Elanna replied. "How do you plan on reinforcing it?" "We'll just tractor in one of the smaller asteroids out in the belt," Derek said. "There's a molecular furnace in the storage core that should be able to fabricate whatever we need. Now, last question. Do you have any sort of relativistic shielding?" "Relativistic..." B'Elanna gave him a puzzled look. "Why would that be necessary?" "Well, I'm not sure how your warp drive works, but relativistic shields are basically stasis fields synchronized with the ship's hyperspace velocity. That way, if you're travelling at one hundred light-years per hour, you actually experience one hour for every hundred light years travelled." "Huh," B'Elanna frowned. "That would be kind of useful for impulse drives." "How so?" Derek asked. "Starfleet limits full impulse to one quarter lightspeed," B'Elanna explained, "because at speeds over that, time dilation slows the crew's response to outside threats." "Ah." Derek scratched his chin. "Never really thought of it that way. It's just one of those things you wouldn't want to have fail on you..." Realization dawned across his face, and he slapped his forehead in the universal symbol of exasperation. "I can't believe we didn't think of that before..." "What?" "If we'd disabled the relativistic shielding, we wouldn't have had to enter hibernation. The last sixty years would only have taken a couple months at sublight..."

CHAPTER TWO Pitch darkness. He felt himself falling forward in the inky blackness, only to have his arms caught by someone. Blinking, he tried to gather some more information about his surroundings. He could hear someone babbling next to him in a language that he didn't understand a word of. Other than that, the surrounding area was eerily quiet. That's strange, he thought. If the ship was waking up, he should be hearing the buzz of activity as the droids went through and awakened the other passengers. Yet there was nothing of the sort. He focused on the two people standing next to him, reaching out to try and understand what they were saying. I'm B'Elanna Torres, from the Federation Starship Voyager, one of them said. The language appeared to be fairly simple, although its vowels were oddly shifted from what he was used to in Basic. The grammar also appeared to be slightly backwards when he considered how the words he heard compared to the actual meaning he'd picked up. He tried to speak in reply, to introduce himself, but nothing came out. His throat felt as if someone had poured sand down it while he had been asleep, and he involuntarily coughed. "What Federation?" he asked, trying to clear the darkness from his eyes. The women standing next to him appeared be confusd by his reply and babbled to each other. Seven, did you pick up any of that? The first one asked. It doesn't sound like any of the languages the Borg encountered, the other one – he guessed she was Seven – replied. Kind of an odd name for a person. As he continued to try to get his eyes to function, B'Elanna spoke again. Where are you from? She asked. It was a pretty simple question, all said. "Corellia," he answered, and from the confusion he again sensed he guessed that they didn't know where it was. You can understand me? He started to speak but realized he didn't know their word for yes yet, and nodded instead. What is your name? Easy enough question. "Jedi Master Dellen Coureran, at your service," he managed to get out in between coughs. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Coureran, she replied in that strange language. We were stranded in this part of the galaxy and were trying to get home when we found your ship drifting. He tried to form a reply in their own language, guessing which words were what. Evidently it didn't quite come out right. I see, she corrected him immediately. "I see," he repeated with a smile, trying to figure out what to do next. As he'd been working at his eyes, he had managed to go from seeing only blackness to seeing blinding white light. No shapes were forthcoming yet. He reached out to sense where he was, and realized that he really could use one of those blasted 4PO units. Where were they when you needed them, anyway? He reached out and tried to guess the word he needed from the women. "Go," he experimented, pointing in the direction he guessed was the nearest terminal. "Go?" she asked, apparently confused by the request. That way? He nodded in assent. At least they were getting somewhere. The two women began walking forward, and he tried to convince his legs to move but was somewhat unprepared for how stiff they were. Well, he had been frozen in that block for... well, if they were in the system already it would have had to been around seventy years to account for the acceleration, travel, and deceleration. Then again, with the relative effects of time at the near-light speeds they had tried to hit, it probably would have only seemed like twenty on board the ship... By the time they had reached the terminal, he was able to see rough, slightly blurry shapes. The two women helped him sit down, and he peered at the screen, trying to make out the Aurebesh lettering it showed. Several false starts later, he had managed to access the ship's droid control subsystem, requesting a protocol droid be sent to their location. While they waited, he continued to search through the system and noticed that the ship had responded to a perimeter security breach of the storage core only a few minutes before. It had sent two droidekas in response. Intrigued, Dellen checked the current status. Both droids were still active, only two levels above them. He leaned back and considered the situation. He still had his lightsaber at his belt, but in his present state, with his muscles still not reacting correctly, he would be vulnerable if the visitors decided to become aggressive. The decision made, he leaned closer to the terminal and entered new commands to send the two droids to the main storage area and await his commands. He didn't have to wait long for the protocol droid, which shuffled forward, its head tilted slightly to one side. "How may I be of service, Master Coureran?" the droid asked. "I need you to start learning their language," he instructed it. "Of course, Master." Dellen turned around to face group. "I need you to talk," he asked, in a mixture of Basic and the words he'd picked up from the visitors. About what? She replied. He shrugged, trying to figure out the correct reply. "The droid will learn what you say. I just need you to talk." Translator? She asked. Apparently his last reply wasn't as clear as he had hoped. "Translator," he said slowly, imitating her voice. "Yes. It learns when you talk." She and the other woman spoke briefly for a short time, but it was immediately clear to Dellen that both were very technical and didn't feel comfortable trying to teach their language. Is your translator capable of teaching your language? The first one, B'Elanna, asked. "You want the translator to teach you?" he asked, slightly confused. They hadn't shown any signs of understanding the Basic he was speaking, and only appeared to be picking up the word or two of their language that he was repeating. Yes. She tapped the side of her head. We have Universal Translators implanted that are capable of learning languages. Dellen turned back to the protocol droid and told it to begin one of its instructional programs. It shuffled forward, extended an arm, and greeted the visitors. Several hours later, when the droid had finished its beginner teaching program, Dellen stood up and walked over to where the group was seated in front of the droid. "How well can you understand me now?" he asked. "Perfectly," one of the women said as she came to her feet. "I'm Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation starship Voyager, and these are members of my crew." He extended his hand. "Pleased to meet you. I'm Jedi Master Dellen Coureran, official historian of the Outbound Flight." She took his hand and shook it. "Likewise. Now, we do have some questions. Where are you from?" "I was about to ask you the same thing myself," he replied. "I'm from Corellia. The rest of our crew and colonists were picked from systems all over the galaxy." "All over..." She paused. "This galaxy?" Dellen drew his head back. "This galaxy? No... our galaxy is pretty far away from here." "How long did it take to get all of the crew, if they came from all over the galaxy?" Torres asked. "About a week," Dellen replied. The mouths of most of Voyager's crew hung agape now, and he decided to try breaking the ice a bit. "Well, going by the looks on your faces, I take it that would be pretty unheard-of here." "Um..." Torres' wrinkled forehead was even more scrunched up in thought. "How big is your galaxy, anyway?" "Well, from what we could see... about ten percent larger than this one," Dellen replied. "Amazing," Munro half whispered. "We've..." Janeway's voice trailed off, and she was obviously trying to think of how to word it. "We've been trapped in this part of the galaxy for close to five years, trying to get home. Our best estimates give us another fifty or sixty years to go." This time it was Dellen's turn to be speechless. Somewhere in the seventy or so thousand years between the first sleeper ships and the invention of the modern hyperdrive, there had been a number of attempts to break the lighspeed barrier. All those different methods had been quickly replaced with the advent of the modern hyperdrive. "I'm... sorry to hear that," he replied. "You know what, we might actually be able to help you. I'll just have to wake up the commander so we can discuss it." He pointed to the terminal, which Seven was currently seated in front of. "Do you mind?" "No," Seven said as she came to her feet. Dellen took the seat, swiveling around to face the terminal, and started working away at it. A short time later, he stood back up. "The medical and security staff will be awakened first, so you'll have to wait for the commander. There's a room not too far from here where you can sit and rest for a bit while we get everything ready." "Of course," Janeway replied. He waved an open hand toward an exit. "If you would follow me?" After leaving the visitors in one of the storage rooms, Dellen walked back to the main storage room, where the crew were slowly beginning to wake up. He mentally counted the aisles of carbon-freeze units and turned down one, passing several dozen units before stopping at one he recognized the markings of. After activating the controls and waiting for the carbonite to evaporate, he helped the gray-haired man down. "Master Dellen," the gray-haired man addressed him, although his eyes were still unfocused and staring off into space behind him as a side effect of the hibernation sickness. "Bypassing protocols again, I see. Is there some sort of emergency?" "Well, not exactly, Master C'baoth," Dellen replied. "We're within the destination system already. However, some local spacefarers stumbled across us and accidentally set off the security systems." "Are they hostile?" "No... well, this is going to sound very strange, but they're... ah... human." C'baoth's eyebrows moved up about half a centimeter. "Indeed?" "Yes. They're from a government they call the Federation, located on the other side of this galaxy. They've been trapped here for the past five years trying to get back. I was thinking that we might be able to help them." The gray eyebrows went back down as a frown crept across C'baoth's face. "They don't know about hyperspace." "I didn't ask, but I would assume that's the reason." "I see." C'baoth went quiet for a moment. "So we have a contact scenario on our hands. Have you begun the startup procedures?" "Yes," Dellen replied. "The ship was already in standby when they woke me up. I immediately had the droids start bringing the rest of the crew out of hibernation." "And where are our visitors?" "In one of the storage lockers nearby. Master C'baoth, do you want to meet them now or should we wait for the other Masters?" C'baoth blinked several times, obviously trying to clear his vision. "No sense in wasting time," he replied after a moment had passed. "If the other Masters wish to join, they will know where to find us." * * * Janeway was mildly surprised when Dellen returned with another human. It was immediately obvious that he was older than Dellen, with a full head of white hair that he wore in a loose ponytail and a fairly short beard of the same color that adorned his sharp chin. Like Dellen, he was wearing a simple, rough brown robe tied at the waist. The overall effect was similar to that of the Tibetan monks back on Earth, although they tended to wear brightly colored robes. The other major difference was that while the Tibetan monks never carried anything with them, a silver cylinder about twenty centimeters long hung from the new man's belt. Dellen stepped forward. "Members of Voyager, may I introduce you to the administrator of the Outbound Flight Project, Master Jorus C'baoth. Master C'baoth, these are the visitors I was telling you about." At the introduction, she came to her feet, stretching out her hand in greeting. "On behalf of my crew, I would like to thank you for your hospitality," she began. "My name is Kathryn Janeway, captain of the Federation starship Voyager, and these are the members of my away team." The introductions briefly went around, with many handshakes to accompany them. After they had finished, Janeway looked straight at Master C'baoth. "I apologize for the sudden request, but we lost a member of our team to your ship's defenses. I would like to know if we could take his body back for a proper funeral as soon as possible." "I'm very sorry to hear that," C'baoth replied. "Just let us know where it happened, and we'll have the maintenance droids bring the body here." He had barely finished speaking when Seven replied. "Ensign Allen died two decks above us, approximately fifty meters aft of the access shaft we entered through." C'baoth turned to face the younger Master. "Dellen, go take care of that if you would, and meet us in the main conference room on D-One." "Of course," Dellen replied, turning away immediately. "Now, if you could follow me?" C'baoth asked, but Janeway got the feeling that the question was more of a demand than a simple question. As it turned out, the conference room was far larger than what Janeway had expected. The solid table at its center, inlaid with intricate designs carved of a very dark colored wood, could have easily seated well over twenty people. The walls of the room were covered with tapestries, which Seven quickly discovered were actually holographic displays. Shortly after they had all sat down, a humanoid (at the top, at least; the legs tapered into a sphere) robot rolled in and asked in a carefully metered, feminine voice if they wanted anything. Not knowing what their hosts ate or drank, they all asked for water. The robot smoothly rolled out of sight and then re-appeared minutes later with a metal pitcher covered in condensation and enough glasses for everyone. As they settled in, C'baoth turned to face Janeway. "What's your story?" Brief and to the point, Janeway thought to herself. He certainly didn't waste any time. She mentally shrugged and decided to go along with it. "Five years ago, we were sent to investigate the disappearance of a ship in a dangerous area of space, about 70,000 light-years from here. When we got there, we were hit with a strange wave of energy that transported us to this quadrant. Our ship was heavily damaged, and many of our crew died. "Well, after that, we found the ship we had been looking for. They were in worse condition than we were, and the survivors became part of our crew. We've had a few additions along the way – our ship's cook, Neelix, was a local scavenger who we ran across. And, of course, Seven of Nine here is a former Borg drone. "But it hasn't all been bad. A parting gift from one of the crew we picked up moved us ten thousand light-years closer. Which leaves us, right now, about fifty years away from home." C'baoth leaned forward slightly, his hand resting on an open palm as if in thought. "Dellen did mention that to me. As it so happens, I think we might be able to take you in tow back to your home." Janeway frowned. "But... aren't your drive systems disabled? I mean, why have you been cruising at sublight for the last thirty years?" "Well, I was going to explain that later, but since you asked... At that moment, the door to the conference room hissed open and Dellen entered, accompanied by a brown-haired woman of medium build and a tall, balding, middle-aged man. "Ah, you made it," C'baoth said without missing a beat. "Captain Janeway, may I introduce Jedi Master Justyn Ma'Ning and Jedi Knight Lorana Jinzler. Master Ma'Ning is in charge of Jedi operations on D-Four, and Jedi Jinzler is my former Padawan." "Pleased to meet you," Janeway said as she came to her feet. "Excuse me," a voice piped up next to her, and she glanced over to see Seven looking intently at C'baoth. "Are you all Jedi?" Master Ma'Ning broke the sudden silence with a deep laugh. "No, of course not. There are about ten thousand colonists on this mission, along with another thousand Republic Navy crewmen to run the Dreadnaughts." "What are the Jedi?" Ma'Ning glanced over at C'baoth briefly before answering. "We are the guardians of the Republic. For over a thousand generations we have stood between the Republic and all its threats, both from within and without." "So you're police?" Munro asked. "Not exactly," Ma'Ning replied. "We act as peacekeepers when it is necessary. That is but one of the many tasks the Force calls on us to perform." "The Force?" Janeway asked, now genuinely curious. "The energy that binds the universe together," C'baoth answered. "We, the Jedi, have been granted the power of the Force. It responds to each of us differently. For some, it grants visions of past, present and possible futures. For others," he waved his hand and the pitcher of water on the table floated up and began to fill all the glasses, "it grants control over matter and energy. These are but a few of the many gifts offered by the Force. In return, as Master Ma'Ning so eloquently put it, we must follow the will of the Force. "Now, back to the original subject, I believe you were interested in how we got here. Is that correct?" Janeway simply nodded. "Sixty years ago, our mission launched from the Yaga Minor shipyards. To test the ship, we set out through the uncharted areas of the galactic halo. At our last navigational stop, we were attacked by an unknown force that damaged many of our systems. Master Fernas, our navigator, then made an uncharted jump that from the best of our knowledge, took us through either a black hole, wormhole, or some strange sort of hyperspace disturbance. "And that is how we arrived here. We discovered that our fuel tanks had been breached, so after making repairs we used the food-preservation equipment aboard the ship to enter hibernation while we generated more fuel. We were going to begin our search for life once we reached the system, but obviously you discovered us first." "So..." Janeway considered the implications. "You're explorers, from another galaxy?" "I suppose you could put it that way," C'baoth replied. "I personally prefer to think of us as pioneers. You see, when the hyperdrive was first invented, many people, including more than a few Jedi, set out in search of new worlds. After several thousand years, most of the galaxy had been mapped out. The Republic, founded during that time, turned its focus in toward itself and has not looked out beyond its borders since. The people of our galaxy have grown complacent; they no longer view the universe with wonder. To them, planets, star systems, those are just a place to live and fight over. "But to us, the universe is a place of limitless potential. Who knows what wonders lie among the stars? The power of the Force is as vast as space itself. I feel that there is no greater sign of that than the fact that you sit here before us, nearly eighty million light-years away from our home." Janeway nodded. "I suppose, then, it might come as no surprise to you that part of the mission of Starfleet is to boldly go where no one has gone before." She felt a twinge of pride resonate as she repeated the words Cochrane had uttered over two hundred years before. "A worthy sentiment," C'baoth agreed. "Well, this has been a wonderful history lesson," Janeway replied, "but I think we need to get to business. You mentioned taking us in tow. How would that be possible, and how long will it take?" "It would first depend on your ship," C'baoth answered. "I'm not sure what we would have to do to prepare it for hyperspace travel. Are you at all familiar with hyperspace?" Janeway shook her head. "If by hyperspace, you mean a higher domain of subspace, then we have a number of theories on the subject but I was unaware that it was possible to exploit the domain for travel." "Minor details, I'm sure," C'baoth replied. "Our engineers can work on the implementation with your engineers. Now, do you have up to date starmaps?" The captain looked over at Tuvok with some concern. "Is that necessary?" C'baoth nodded. "In order to navigate hyperspace, the jumps must be plotted first. If we have bad astronomical data, then there's a chance of flying into a star's mass shadow or even something as small as an asteroid, which could have very bad – and unpredictable – effects. Thousands of starships are lost each year from such navigational errors." "But you said that you flew through a black hole to get here?" Janeway asked. "With the Force guiding us," C'baoth replied. "That is not a feat I would want anyone else to try." "I see," she replied, letting her shoulders drop with a sigh. "Well, I suppose there's no harm in letting you see the star charts we have. After all, we would be in this together. Now, as far as our government goes, what are your intentions when we arrive?" "Per our charter, we would open diplomatic contact with your Federation. Our goal would be friendly, mutual understanding between your government and ours. To that end, we would like to set up a world as a Republic colony in peaceful coexistence." "A laudable goal," Janeway agreed. "So, is there anything else we need to do before we start working with you?" C'baoth leaned forward, pulling out a datapad and a stack of flimsiplast sheets. "For the sake of both of our crews, I would like to work out a contract with you that will limit the responsibilities that each of us carries. Most of this would be quite standard and basic, so that if any differences arise once we've embarked on this project, we can settle those disputes without any heated arguments. Is this agreeable to you?" "Of course," Janeway replied. "While you're working on that, if it's all right with you, we would like to hold a funeral for Ensign Allen back on Voyager. Please feel free to contact us when you're ready." C'baoth set the datapad down and looked up as Janeway came to her feet. "I don't believe we ever discussed how to communicate with your ship," he remarked. "Oh. Of course," Janeway replied, barely missing a beat. "Torres, would you give them a list of our standard hailing frequencies?" Torres nodded in acknowledgement, pulling out her datapad and tapping away. "One last question," C'baoth said as he came to his feet. "I believe you entered through D-Five. Do you have a shuttle waiting? If so, I can make arrangements for them to dock in this ship's hangar." Janeway paused for a minute as she considered it. "We used matter transporters to beam over, but we entered through D-Five, as you call it, because we found that the transporters don't function through your hull materials. We'll need to go somewhere that won't block the transporters." The Jedi Master considered the request. "I think the hangar bay should work in that case as well," he declared, turning to face the other Jedi. "Jedi Jinzler, would you mind escorting our guests to the hangar bay?" "Of course, Master," she replied deferentially, turning to face Janeway. "Follow me, please." As they followed the young Jedi out of the room, Janeway increased her pace to match until she was walking alongside Lorana. "So..." she began, not quite knowing how to put it. "How did you wind up on this mission?" "I was Master C'baoth's apprentice," Lorana answered. "The Council granted me the rank of Jedi Knight three weeks before the mission, after which they assigned me here." "That sounds ... sudden." Lorana shrugged. "It came as a bit of a surprise. I'm only 22. Most Padawans have to wait until they're around 25 before they become full Jedi. It all depends on your skill, of course." "Skill?" "Your strength in the various disciplines of the Jedi. There's no single standard for Jedi, since we fill so many different roles." "And what's yours?" Janeway asked. Lorana gave another noncommittal shrug. "To be completely honest, I'm not really sure. I guess I'm pretty good at mediating, because for the last couple of weeks... well, I mean the last couple of weeks before we went into hibernation, anyway, I've been working with the crew and colonists whenever they had arguments." "Are there are lot?" Janeway asked as they rounded another corner and walked up to another blast door. Next to the control panel for the blast door was some of the strange lettering that Dellen had earlier explained was called Aurebesh. She leaned over and tapped the control panel. "Arguments? Not too many, but there were a few disagreements with several of the families. Master C'baoth wanted to begin training a number of the children but the parents didn't want them to be taken away. We eventually agreed to begin the training without separating anyone." "Ah." The blast doors hissed open to reveal the hangar bay, which held two oddly shaped craft that Janeway assumed to be shuttles, plus a number of shuttlecraft-sized blocks that she guessed were cargo containers. "Well, I think we'll be fine from here." Lorana looked around the hangar. "But there's no shuttle." "We don't need one," Janeway replied. "You'll see. Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for your hospitality." "You're quite welcome," Lorana replied. Janeway reached up and tapped her commbadge. "Janeway to the Bridge. We're ready for beam-out." Moments later, the entire away team vanished with a strange sparkling effect. Lorana blinked several times in surprise before heading back into the ship. * * * Several hours later, Janeway and Tuvok were back in the conference room on D-One. "I hope the contract is to your satisfaction." C'baoth pushed two datapads across the table, which the two Starfleet officers picked up and began reading. To Janeway, the contract looked like a fairly standard waiver of liability. She paged through it and didn't see anything that looked immediately objectionable, then set it down. Tuvok, meanwhile, was taking his time reading it, and after several minutes held out the datapad for Janeway. "Captain, did you read this section?" Janeway picked up the datapad and her face went ashen. She dropped the pad to the desk and leaned across the table toward C'baoth. "Just who do you think you are, to have the nerve to ask for blood samples of my crew?" C'baoth blinked. "I assure you, I meant no offense by the request." He paused. "You see, there are several markers that can determine if a person is potentially Force-sensitive. We would simply like to find out if those markers exist in this galaxy." Janeway shook her head. "I will not have my crew used as guinea pigs. We would not even consider making such a request of you, although we have had our own questions about how humans ended up in another galaxy so far from our own." The Jedi Master put his hands up. "You have my most sincere apology for this confusion. If that is your concern, we can always make sure that each crewmember consents to the procedure." "No, I think that you're not understanding me," Janeway replied. "We will not stand for this invasion of our rights. I understand that you are offering to tow us home, which I much appreciate, but if that ride comes at the cost of our genetic rights, then my answer is no." "We-" C'baoth started to reply but Janeway cut him off. "We will just have to find our own way home," she replied, pushing the chair back and coming to her feet. "Lieutenant Commander Tuvok, if you don't mind, I believe it's time to return to Voyager." * * * "Um... Captain?" Chakotay had confusion clearly evident on his face as Janeway stormed out of the turbolift with Tuvok following close on her heels. "How did the negotiations go?" "Not as well as I would have liked," Janeway vaguely responded as she turned to the helm. "Lieutenant Paris, we will continue on our original course, Warp Seven." "Captain?" he questioned. "Do it." "Uh... yes, Captain," the Lieutenant replied with some hesitation. "Warp Seven." "Captain," Chakotay began, "may I ask what happened?" Janeway took a last look at the massive ship as Voyager accelerated to warp, cutting off the viewscreen image. "Meet me in the ready room in thirty." As she stepped into her ready room, Janeway was beginning to realize how exhausted she was from the away mission. Between running from the security droids of the Republic ship and negotiating with C'baoth, she realized they had spent close to ten hours on the ship. Absentmindedly, she tapped the small control panel next to the door. It quietly slid open, and beyond it the room's lights activated. "Coffee," Janeway ordered the room's small replicator. "Black. Hot." Within moments, a white cup appeared and she took it, sitting down in a chair across the room. "Computer, give me all the data there is on the Outbound Flight vessel." Several monitors came to life, showing various diagrams and text data screens. She disinterestedly looked them over, pausing several times to change screens. For nearly half an hour, the room remained quiet save for Janeway drumming her fingers against the chair rest. Then, the door softly chimed, startling the Captain out of her seat. "Come in," she finally acknowledged after glancing around the ready room. The door promptly slid aside, revealing the mysterious visitor. "Hello, Commander," Janeway announced. "Have a seat." "I'd prefer to stand," Chakotay replied, taking a close look at one of the monitors in front of the Captain. "What is this?" he asked in a subdued voice after several moments had passed. Janeway heaved a sigh, looking at him with bloodshot eyes. "I've been analyzing the data we gathered on that ship," she responded. "It doesn't make any sense. Humans from a galaxy millions of light-years away? Blood tests for psychic powers? Fully sapient androids that seem to be no more than servants? Chakotay, I don't know what to make of this! What are we getting ourselves into?" "Nothing, apparently," the first officer replied. "We're travelling away at warp seven per your orders, if you recall." He paused for a moment. "What do you mean, blood tests?" Janeway put her head into her hands, her elbows resting on the table. "Their leader, a certain Master C'baoth, wanted us to sign a contract to limit liability in case anything went wrong. I looked over it quickly and didn't see anything obviously wrong, but Tuvok noticed a clause requiring that we submit blood samples for testing. So I called him on it." "Well, I'm sure he would have been open to negotiating that," Chakotay remarked. "That's a pretty minor request." Janeway tilted her head to the side. "Perhaps, but we don't even really know anything about these people!" "And you don't think it's worth trying to learn about them, to understand them?" "Like we tried to understand and trust Arturis, just a few weeks ago?" Janeway retorted. "Look where that got us." "It got us light-years closer to home, and Seven's been working on slipstream theory since that incident. I'd say that's a positive." "Commander-" He cut her off. "Captain, after five years in this dump of a quadrant, I have just about had it with your decisions. You have put both yourself and the crew in danger on more than one occasion. And yes, there have been times when I was tempted to relieve you of your command, regardless of what might happen when we reach Earth." "It-" Chakotay was not done yet. "The Caretaker offered to let us back through his array. He even had a self-destruct device in place. Yet you felt sorry for the poor Ocampa, so we blew it up and saved their day." "The self destruct was damaged, if you recall," Janeway retorted. "It wasn't damaged until well after we got there!" Chakotay shot back. "Anyway, after that fiasco, we could have just run for the Gamma Quadrant wormhole which was less than ten years away, instead of seventy." "We would have been traveling through Dominion space. Besides, as I heard a few days before we left, Captain Sisko mined the other end." "Fine." Chakotay shrugged. "Maybe he did. And maybe we could have used the fake Dauntless to get home... Oh! Right! We couldn't, because our phasers were set on stun the whole damned time. And then there was Omega, which after Seven stabilized it could have given us all the power we needed to get home. So many maybes, Captain. So many could-haves that you nixed." "I did that for the safety of my crew, Commander," Janeway replied. "You saw what happened when the Omega in that lab destabilized." "That's what development is for, Captain," the Commander retorted. "I did not want to put the lives of my crew in jeopardy." "That is not the point, Captain. The commander of this Republic ship offered to take us home. I'm sure we could have gotten him to drop that blood test thing, if we had actually taken the time to talk!" "Commander!" Janeway firmly shouted. "That will be enough. We will not negotiate with them." "Captain," Chakotay quietly began, "we have been in this quadrant for five years now. Five years! Crew morale is dropping, the ship is falling apart, and you keep turning down opportunities to get home, left and right. I don't know how we're supposed to last for the other fifty odd years it'll take... we'll probably be dead before we get home! Captain, I'll be damned if I can't get this crew home faster myself." Before Janeway could say another word, he turned and walked out, leaving her to stew in silence. A flustered Chakotay nearly ran into Tuvok as he stepped onto the Bridge. "Commander, is there a problem with something?" He turned to regard the chief security officer. "Would you mind coming with me to Sickbay?" "Certainly, Commander." Tuvok briefly worked his console, then turned back. "Do you feel ill?" Chakotay shook his head as he called the turbolift. "It's not me." The door slid open with a whoosh and they stepped inside. "It's about the Captain. Computer, sickbay." Moments later, the turbolift doors hissed open on the sickbay. "Computer, activate EMH," Chakotay ordered. "Please state the nature..." The Doctor trailed off as he turned to look the two men over. "Oh. You don't seem to be injured." "An astute observation," Tuvok dryly remarked. "We're here to discuss the Captain, Doctor," Chakotay said immediately after Tuvok. "Why?" the Doctor suddenly asked. "What's the matter?" Chakotay looked the hologram square in the eye, or at least in the cluster of photons that comprised his eye. "Her behavior has become more and more erratic over the past several months. I'm concerned that she may do something to place the crew in danger."

Nearly twelve seasons had passed from the time the fires of the Genesis device had died down in ASVS, when a young wanderer known as Crayz9000 stumbled into the land. His mind was immediately filled with wonder, for it seemed like a place he could finally find answers for the questions that had long plagued his mind. However, his reception was anything but warm at first, as he unknowingly followed the mistakes of many past noobs and was flamed for his inexperience. However, others on ASVS were more welcoming and soon he came to be regarded as a "regular" of the group, even if he was not the strongest flame warrior among them. Long after the great warrior Wong's departure, when he set up his own kingdom on the WWW, Crayz9000 followed but still frequented his old Usenet haunt of ASVS. The real world also began to assert its pull, drawing him away from cyberspace, but he tried to maintain the links, until soon, he discovered that all of the other regulars of ASVS had likewise departed. Cyberspace was a sadder place, he realized, as none of the spin-off kingdoms could truely hold a candle to the great fires of Usenet. As more seasons passed, Crayz9000 found that he had less and less time to spend on the great versus debates that continued to rage across the kingdoms, and eventually put all his time into telling tales of adventure, romance, and Star Wars versus Star Trek. Thus it is today, as ASVS struggles to be reborn in the http://WWW...

10 DOWNING STREET LONDON UNITED KINGDOM The building rocked from another blast, prompting the Prime Minister to poke his head out from under his desk. "What's the latest?" "Sir, we're still not quite sure, but reports are coming in from all over the countryside of explosions." "But why?" The Prime Minister was still confused. It couldn't have anything to do with the apparent start of World War 3 between the formerly peaceful Russia and the suddenly aggressive United States; Russia had helpfully ignored Europe in the launch of their entire nuclear arsenal. Not to mention, if Britain was being targeted with nuclear warheads, he somehow doubted that 10 Downing Street would still be standing. "We're not sure, Sir, but it appears to be suicide-bombing terrorist sheep." As if on cue, the radio crackled to life, and the sound of gleeful cackling filled the room. "As you are no doubt now aware, those you have long oppressed have risen up against you, their former enslavers. The Sheep Liberation Army will crush all resistance! Down to mutton eaters! Down to wool coats! Down with the senseless slaughter of innocent lambs! I am the Baron, and with my guidance the sheep will inherit the Earth!" The Prime Minister shared an awkward glance with his advisor. "Isn't there someone named Baron von Lowe locked up for bestiality? Nasty case, if I recall." The advisor coughed. "Was, Sir. He was pardoned due to terminal illness." "He doesn't sound very terminal to me." "Good point. Shall we look into the matter?" "I would bloody well hope so!" SOMEWHERE NEAR MOUNT CHAMBERLIN BROOKS RANGE, ALASKA A brief suborbital hop in an X-wing was all it took to bring Crayz9000 to Alaska. While he had actually had a normal name, he didn't use it with this group since they didn't really know him as anything else. "Status?" he asked a waiting officer as he climbed out of the fighter's cockpit. "ANVIL command reports deflector shields are online and at full strength in all major cities," the officer replied. "The missiles that were launched shouldn't even be a blip on our screens." "Excellent. Now, how's the diversion campaign with the Disciples of Wong going?" The Disciples of Wong had ceased to be a functioning group many years before, but the very name still struck terror into many; hence the use of it as a distraction from the real action. "Propaganda is at full tilt, with broadcasts and press releases going out rapid-fire. We suspect it'll keep the hardline Trekkies occupied trying to come up with a counter for another day or so." Crayz9000 nodded. Of the hardline Trekkies, Guardian 2000 (also known as DarkStar) was perhaps the worst, and the resurgence of the Disciples of Wong had to be one of his worst nightmares. Which, from what his intelligence had gathered, was why he had fortified his home in Indiana into a giant castle, ringed with phaser batteries and photon torpedo launchers. Not that they would be able to do much against the squad of AT-ATs and Juggernauts (branded, of course, with the silhouette of a Star Destroyer like the Disciples of Wong of yesteryear had used) that was right now rolling and stomping toward his house. Photon torpedoes simply couldn't be aimed that low from a ground-based launcher. "And the contingency plans?" "Progressing according to plan. We have had a few minor setbacks relating to logistics, but nothing that will slow us down." "Excellent," Crayz9000 replied, resisting the urge to cackle and touch his fingertips together. After all, ANVIL's goal wasn't exactly evil... rather, after the attacks had been repelled, they meant to come out and announce that they had been the ones to save the world. How the world reacted was, naturally, outside their control.

Don't worry, I'm sure he'll show up again with another name (or six), and then proceed to argue with himself.

I've got two in the oven right now. Although the pumpkin I got (the last one left at the market, can you believe that -- and that was a week and a half ago) was so small it only produced 1 cup of puree, so I had to steam a sweet potato and add that to the mix. Should turn out pretty good. By the way -- was that a storebought crust I saw? Shame on you

I'll be adding more chapters as I revise them. The opening chapters needed some work, so this is the first time I've posted the final draft of those chapters. CHAPTER ONE "Captain's Log, Stardate 52579.1. "After several days at high warp, we have finally reached the object, although my crew seems to be at a disagreement as to its identity. I will add more information to this as we learn more." Captain Kathryn Janeway moved her hand down to the armrest controls on Voyager's captain's chair and pressed the button that would stop recording her log. They had arrived in the system, as unremarkable as a thousand others they had passed by on their journey through the Delta Quadrant, to find a massive ship—she couldn't think of the object as anything but—drifting, derelict, on a course that would take it within ten thousand kilometers of the fourth planet in several months' time. She held up a PADD and looked over the parameters for the fourth planet. It was marginally a class M world, with about 15 percent oxygen concentration. Low, but breathable. No traces of intelligence, only native flora and fauna that at least appeared harmless to Voyager's cursory scan. So, she concluded, nothing of real interest. Janeway looked back to the ship on the viewscreen. It was massive, not to the extent of a Borg Cube but still impressive in its bulk. At the center was a large cylinder, nearly a kilometer in overall length and roughly three hundred meters in diameter. An open framework had been built around its midsection, and attached to that framework were six squat, clamshell-headed structures that were individually approximately six hundred meters long. She sighed and leaned back. When they had first noticed it, she had immediately suspected it might be something to do with the Borg. However, despite their presence so close nearby, it had not strayed from its course. In fact, it had shown no signs of being active at all. It had no warp core signatures, no impulse drive signatures, nothing even close to what the Borg used despite its rough-finished construction and clusters of pipes and conduits that jutted out from the surface of both the cylinder and the surrounding structures at random. "Seven, have you been able to find out anything further with your scans?" she casually inquired, not expecting anything to have changed. They had, after all, been watching it for the better part of a day. "Nothing..." The former Borg drone's voice trailed off suddenly. Janeway turned around to look at her and noticed that her normally calm face had taken on a perplexed expression. "Unusual," she stated. "There are over ten thousand life signs in the central core." At the conn, Paris let out a slow whistle. "Why didn't we notice that earlier?" Janeway asked. Almost as if she was ignoring the question, Seven continued to tap away quietly at the controls. "I am reading high concentrations of neutronium in the hull alloys," she finally stated. "This makes their hulls very effective at blocking Federation sensors." Janeway nodded. "I guess that explains the lack of shields, then. Their hulls are hardened against radiation. What about those ten thousand? What can you tell us?" She was again quiet for some time as she worked the controls. "Seventy three point six seven two nine percent correspond to standard humanoid species. The remainder do not correspond to anything in the Federation databases, or species identified by the Borg." "I'd think that would cover most of the galaxy," Commander Chakotay remarked from the seat next to Janeway. "Almost," Janeway agreed, "but even the Borg haven't cataloged the galaxy yet. If they had, we'd be in even bigger trouble than we are now." She stood up, stretched, and turned to face Seven. "What else can you tell about them? They haven't responded to standard hails yet..." There was more quiet tapping from the sensors console. "They are in some form of hibernation," Seven concluded. "All life signs show dramatically slowed metabolic rates. Heartbeats are very faint, almost nonexistent." Realization dawned on Janeway. "It's a sleeper ship," she said, her voice barely carrying above her breath. "Like the one that Khan Noonien Singh commandeered... but where did they come from?" "I believe I have an answer for that, Captain," Seven said, unaware that she was responding to a semi-rhetorical question. "There is an unstable system based around a type-4 quantum singularity, twenty-three light-years away along their trajectory. At their current velocity, it would have taken them approximately thirty years." Janeway paced back and forth across the bridge several times, lost in thought. "Well, if they have been in hibernation, that explains the lack of response to hails. Presumably they do not have any automated equipment or did not consider it necessary. Or perhaps their ship is out of fuel and that's why it's shut down like this. I wonder how they planned on stopping?" Seven opened her mouth but Janeway waved a hand to cut her off. "No, don't answer that. I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation. What I want to know is how can we contact them?" "Captain, with all due respect," Chakotay remarked from his seat, "I think the more important question is, should we try to make contact?" Janeway paused momentarily to consider the question. "Yes, we should," she began. "Computer, magnify." As the computer zoomed in on the alien vessel, she pointed at the screen. "Do you see the battle damage? Whatever was back in that system, they took at least as much of a beating as we have during the last several months. I think there's a good chance that we can find some common ground with them, and possibly help each other on our own ways." Chakotay's gaze followed where her arm was pointing at the screen. "That's some impressive damage," he remarked after several moments had passed. "Whoever caused that must have packed quite a punch... perhaps even the Borg. How can we be sure that their pursuers aren't right behind, waiting to ambush us?" "The damage characteristics are not consistent with Borg weapons," Seven chimed in from the station behind them. "It appears to have been caused by a combination of coherent beam weapons and focused nuclear initiations. Furthermore, there are no warp or transwarp signatures within a twenty light-year radius of this system." Janeway turned her head slightly. "Thank you, Seven," she said before focusing back on Chakotay. "There, you see? In fact, it sounds like the weapons were downright primitive. And with all we've been through, I'm sure that we would be more than up to handling a bunch of pre-warp spacefarers with only lasers and nuclear weapons, should they even decide to show up." Chakotay sighed; it was obvious the Captain was unwilling to budge. "Very well, I'll trust your judgment. How should we proceed?" "Standard First Contact procedure will suffice," Janeway replied. "Lt. Commander Tuvok, please prepare an away team. We need to see if anyone's still awake over there." "Of course, Captain. I assume you and Lieutenant Seven will be joining us?" the Vulcan replied. "Naturally," Janeway replied. A short time later, Janeway stepped out of the turbolift into the transporter room. Only an ensign was present, attending the control station, and as he stood to attention he pointed her toward the ready room. Apparently a heated discussion was taking place inside, judging from the raised voices she heard on the other side of the door. "What seems to be the issue?" she asked as she walked in. "Ah, there you are," B'Elanna Torres, Voyager's chief engineer, sighed in relief. "We're trying to figure out how to get in. Seven doesn't think our transporters will punch through that hull of theirs, and we can't seem to find any weak points, or access hatches, in the cylinder that we can beam through." "We could go EVA," one of the five ensigns on the team – Alexander Munro, if she remembered correctly – said. "There has to be some sort of external release, or we could just cut our way in." Janeway shook her head. "No, no cutting. That might look too aggressive." "Then what?" he asked. "We go and knock politely, and hope they wake up?" She glared at him before Torres spoke up. "How about the damaged areas?" the half-Klingon engineer asked. "We could beam into one of those sections and enter through the internal doors. That way, we shouldn't trigger any automatic defenses or anything of the sort." "That sounds like it could work," Janeway agreed. "Tuvok? Can you find a good entry point?" "Already locked on," he replied. "Everyone, suit up and meet me back at the transporter pad." It took Janeway longer than she expected to put on the cumbersome EVA suit. The next several minutes were spent checking each other's suits to make sure that none were leaking, and finally they stepped up to the pads. "Energize," Tuvok ordered, and Voyager's transporter room dissolved into blackness. Janeway reached up and flicked her helmet lights on, casting two cones of light over a complete disaster area. As she surveyed the area, floating in the microgravity, the other team members turned their own lights on. Whatever the room they were in had been, it was completely ruined. Aside from one end being open to space, the metal surrounding the tear had been melted and distorted inwards. Blackened shapes that could have been pieces of cargo or equipment were scattered around, some half-fused into the walls and others drifting loosely. "Does anyone see a door?" she asked after looking for several minutes in vain. "Over here," Ensign Kim's voice rang out through the comm. "But it's behind some debris that I can't get through." A half-hour's worth of work with a cutting torch later, they had managed to clear the debris – several girders and deck plates had collapsed in front of the bulkhead. "Damn it, why won't you open!" Lieutenant Torres exclaimed in frustration from in front of the apparent door control panel before she slammed her fist into the wall, then cried out in pain. Her temper had become legendary among the engineering crew, and Janeway had heard rumors of jokes about her short fuse. For some reason, though, when she had asked nobody could remember there being any jokes. "I'm reading atmosphere beyond the bulkhead," Seven observed as she fiddled with her tricorder. "Perhaps that's why." Something clicked with B'Elanna and she reached for her commbadge. "Transporter room, this is Lieutenant Torres. We need an emergency containment forcefield generator and an atmosphere kit beamed over here." "Just a moment," the reply came over the comm. "Let me check with Engineering and we'll set up the point to point transport." Several long moments later, the equipment appeared in a shimmer of light in the middle of the area. B'Elanna wasted no time in grabbing the forcefield generator and clamping it to the wall. As she was setting it up, Munro and Tuvok drifted past with the atmosphere kit. "Where do you want it?" Tuvok asked. "Right there is fine," Torres replied, not even looking up from the generator. "OK, look. I don't know how bad the hull breach is, so I'm not even going to try sealing it. What I am going to do is set up a small bubble right outside this door and fill it with normal pressure atmosphere. Hopefully that should let whatever locking mechanisms the door has disengage. I just need everyone to come..." she paused to look down at the equipment, "within three meters of the door." As Janeway and the others moved in closer, she continued working. "Ready?" she finally asked. "As ready as we'll ever be," Harry Kim mumbled under his breath. Twenty minutes of forcefield-contained atmosphere later, the situation had hardly changed. "What's wrong with this thing?" B'Elanna exclaimed in frustration, holding up her tricorder. "The atmosphere's stabilized, and I'm reading power here... but it's not opening." Harry coughed conspicuously. "You know, I'm no warp physicist, but maybe you have to push a button..." Although her silvered helmet visor made it hard to see, the glare that B'Elanna shot back at Harry could have melted several tritanium armor plates. Without saying a word, she turned back to the door and studied the control panel for several seconds before pressing the largest button on the panel. The blast door groaned open, revealing a pitch dark corridor beyond. B'Elanna turned and pointed her finger at Harry ominously. "Not. A. Word." As Harry tried (and failed) to suppress a snicker, Seven studied her tricorder. "The atmosphere inside is within normal levels. No traces of known chemical or biological toxins. I believe it will be safe for us to remove our suits now." She put the tricorder back on her belt and began to unclasp her helmet. "Good," Torres remarked. "I hate wearing these things." She started by removing her gloves, then took off the helmet. As Harry lifted his own helmet off, his nose wrinkled as the air hit his face. "It's pretty damn cold in here... stale, too. I wonder how long this ship's been drifting for?" "Based on the carbon scoring near where we entered, this ship has been adrift for 36 years, plus or minus eleven months," Seven replied a moment later. Harry looked back at her in surprise. "How'd you figure that one out so fast?" She held up her tricorder. "It still has high concentrations of a highly radioactive carbon isotope with a half-life of only 60 years." He shook his head and continued to work at the seals on his suit. "Wait. How are we going to move if there's no gravity further ahead?" Ensign Munro asked. "We don't have magnetic boots..." The away team members regarded each other in awkward silence. "Point," B'Elanna said as she zipped her suit back up and attached her helmet and gloves to hooks on her belt. Tuvok chose that moment to conspicuously clear his throat. "Right. Everyone, check your phasers and turn the lights on. We don't know what might be up ahead." Harry nodded and pulled out his compression rifle, double-checking the power pack before he switched the flashlight on. The blue-white beam of light cut through the darkness in the corridor, but it was apparently so long that he could still see nothing ahead except blackness. He grimaced briefly; the pitch dark was certainly a change from the eerie green glow of a Borg cube, but it was just as unnerving. It kind of reminded him of a number of Hollywood holodeck horror programs he'd run back on Earth. He didn't remember the exact name of one, but the aliens in it had really burned themselves into his memory. He laughed quietly. As bad as the Borg and Species 8472 were, they had nothing on humanity's own imagination. The part that really scared him was that as large as the galaxy was, there was also a pretty good chance that something like those freaks existed. He just hoped they wouldn't find them on this ship. He nearly jumped out of his skin as he felt something touch his shoulder. "Whoa there," B'Elanna exclaimed as she pulled back. "You're jumpy all of a sudden." "Sorry," Harry replied. "This whole situation just reminded me of a holodeck program I once used back on Earth." "Which one?" she asked. "I forgot the name of it... it was about this derelict ship and some aliens that ate everyone on board and then tried to eat you." B'Elanna shuddered. "Yeah, I think I ran that one once. One of the damn things attached itself to my face. Gave me nightmares for a week." "Everyone ready?" Tuvok asked, interrupting their conversation. "Let's move." Quietly, the away team glided forward, the only noise in the corridor produced by the small nitrogen thrusters on their packs. The walls along the corridor remained just as unremarkable save for what appeared to be the occasional access door, giving Harry no reference for distance. By his rough count, they'd passed about three access doors when the corridor came to an abrupt end. Three curved doors covered the end of the walkway, and there were two normal doors on either side. B'Elanna slid forward and tried the control panel, but the indicators remained dark. "Looks like the power's out. Seven, which way do we need to go?" Seven lifted up her tricorder to check the display. "We are now approximately in the middle of the ship, on one of the upper decks. We need to go down twenty decks and then find a way through the pylons to the central core." "Then this must be the turbolift shaft," B'Elanna guessed. "Crap. We're going to have to force the doors and float down the shaft." She slung her compression rifle over her shoulder before pulling a crowbar from her pack. She then jammed it into the gap at the left side of the door, but it wouldn't budge. Harry pointed at the unfamiliar script printed on the right-hand side of the door. "You sure you have the right side?" B'Elanna turned around to regard him coolly. "Now you're the expert? Here, you get it open." He shrugged and moved forward to take the crowbar out, but instead of pulling it out, he pulled himself into the wall with a dull thud. Grimacing, he pushed himself back and braced his feet against the door, then tried to start working the crowbar back and forth. It refused to budge. "What did you do to this thing?" he finally asked after several more minutes of trying different approaches. "It's completely stuck." "Let me see." She braced herself and worked it out after only a couple tries, then handed the crowbar over to him. "There. That wasn't so hard, now, was it?" Harry looked at her in silence for several seconds before wiping the sweat he'd worked up off his brow. "Yeah. Right," he said sarcastically, in between breaths. "You know, if this ship doesn't have artificial gravity, why isn't there anything to hold on to on the walls?" "They could have gecko-like hands and feet," Munro said with a shrug. "Then they wouldn't need handholds." "All right, you two. Stop wasting air and get that door open. You did volunteer, after all." B'Elanna snapped out. "I'm not wasting air," Munro protested. "I'm sure the ship has recirculators." "Did it ever occur to you that with the crew sleeping, they don't need much air and probably turned off the life support out here to save power?" the engineer replied. "Now why don't you give Harry a hand, I think he needs one." "I'll be fine," Harry grunted. He'd finally managed to get the crowbar into the right side of the door, but it had only opened by a couple of centimeters. "These doors sure look a lot lighter than they really are..." Despite Harry's protests, Munro and B'Elanna joined in and after several minutes of pushing, they succeeded in getting the door open wide enough to pass through. She then hammered a scrap of metal into the door track to prevent it from closing after them as a precaution. The team spent the next few minutes navigating through the turbolift shaft. To their surprise, it actually connected to the framework that held the outer modules to the central core. Their next challenge was the turbolift car parked at the end of the shaft. The car, fortunately, had an emergency exit in the ceiling that was easily pried open. "There's some sort of mechanical socket here," B'Elanna remarked from the bottom of the car. She was floating upside-down relative to the car, inspecting the control area. "It could be an override key... Munro, could you pass me a screwdriver?" When he gave her the screwdriver, she took it and began to fiddle with the mechanism. "It's no use," she said after a while. "It's got too many cylinders, and it looks like it has some sort of data socket inside. Hand me that crowbar again." Harry passed the crowbar along to her, and they managed to get both the inner and outer doors opened relatively quickly. Just like all the corridors so far, the lighting in this one was off. Seven held her tricorder up and scanned the display. "The life signatures are now two decks below and one hundred meters forward, relative to our present position." "All right," Janeway said, moving to the front of the group. "Let's keep moving. Hopefully we can help them." As they started forward again, suddenly and without any warning gravity took hold, sending the entire away team crashing down to the deck. "Ow!" Harry sat up and rubbed his head, where he had banged it into the deck plates. "Guess they do have artificial gravity after all." "What's that noise?" Munro asked. "What noise?" B'Elanna answered the question with a question as she came to her feet, noticing that the gravity was slightly stronger than the Earth standard that Starfleet used. "That low pitched hum that just started a moment ago, after the gravity resumed." She focused for a moment. "I hear it, but I don't have any idea. The gravity just came on, so it could be that life support is restarting." Janeway's commbadge chose that moment to chime. "This is the captain," she answered a moment later. "Captain, it's Chakotay. Did you find what you were looking for?" "We're close," she replied, frowning slightly at the quesiton. "Why?" "You didn't find the helm controls or anything?" "No, why do you ask?" "The ship is beginning to rotate and we're picking up fusion byproducts and ions from the stern. I'd say it's preparing to perform a braking maneuver." "Oh." She looked around at the away team for a moment before her face went ashen. "Chakotay, can you read any sort of inertial dampening on this ship?" "Hang on." A moment later, the badge chimed again. "There's nothing that we're familiar with. I am seeing some gravity distortions, but there are no active subspace fields." "Thanks," Janeway replied, taking her hand off the badge afterward. "Seven, which way is aft?" She pointed at the wall behind them. "OK. Everyone, press your backs against that wall. I hope this thing doesn't go over ten Gs, or we're all in trouble..." Her badge chimed again. "Captain, the power readings are ramping up. We think it'll be ready to fire in about thirty seconds." Barely fifteen seconds had passed when her badge chimed again. "It's firing. Are you OK?" Perplexed, Janeway took a step forward. "Thanks, Chakotay. We didn't feel a thing. Let us know if anything else happens." "Of course, Captain," Chakotay answered. "We'll keep you informed." "Interesting," Seven remarked as everyone looked at each other and shrugged. "They must use the same technology as their artificial gravity for their inertial dampeners." B'Elanna took on a thoughtful look as they started walking down the corridor. "What do the Borg use?" "Subspace, like the Federation." She nodded. "I wonder how you'd use artificial gravity technology to counter inertia..." she said, more to herself than anyone else. "I suppose if you could produce a sort of localized pseudo-gravity field, you could create attration in the opposite direction of acceleration... but then you'd have problems with sudden changes because you're always reacting... The deflector dish might be a good starting point, I could isolate and reverse the polarity, run the power level up, and focus it in instead of out... Have to evacuate engineering first, though, don't want to hurt anyone..." "Should I be worried about her?" Munro asked Harry, jerking his thumb in B'Elanna's direction as she continued babbling technical jargon to herself while Seven listened. "She's not going to go start building some experimental contraption now, is she? I like to keep my internal organs safely inside me." Harry shook his head. "Nah. Her eyes glaze over like that whenever she's thinking hard... it's an engineer thing. Start worrying when she asks for weird elements, parts, or tools you've never heard of." As they kept walking, the corridor turned first right, then left, then sloped downward for a good few meters. Harry noticed that they had passed through several dividers that looked like open doorways, which was odd because they were almost the full width of the walkway. Several more bends, turns, and one intersection later, he was surprised when the lights suddenly came on, leaving him and the rest of the away team blinking like owls. The next thing he heard was an odd rumbling noise. At the end of the hallway ahead an odd, metallic copper-colored wheel rolled in and stopped, suddenly unfolding arms and legs. "Take cover!" Tuvok exclaimed when he realized a moment later that its odd arms, which lacked any kind of manipulators, each had two long cylinders – and were pointed straight at them. Harry was yanked aside as Munro dove for the cover of one of the bulkheads they had passed through. Moments later, there was a loud cracking sound and bright bursts of reddish light flashed past where they had been standing. "We must have tripped the intruder defenses when we forced that last door open," B'Elanna said angrily. She took a look around the bulkhead and just as quickly jerked her head back as more fire whizzed past. "It's protected by a forcefield," Tuvok observed after taking a shot at it, only to have it bounce off a shimmering blue bubble that appeared around the mobile turret. "Seven, can you get a reading on it when I fire?" "It's too strong for phasers," she replied moments after he fired again. "A type 9 photon grenade might work." "Which we don't have. We'll have to get out of here," Janeway answered, tapping her commbadge. "Janeway to the Bridge. Can you get a transporter lock on us?" "Negative," Chakotay replied several moments later. "What's going on?" "The ship's waking up," she answered. "Apparently we tripped some automated defenses and they've got us pinned down." There was silence from the other end for a long moment. "We'll keep trying to get a lock," Chakotay finally said. "Can you get back to where you came in?" Janeway looked over at Tuvok. "What do you think?" The Vulcan shook his head. "Our suits' thrusters are not strong enough to counteract the gravity on this ship. We also will not be able to climb the turbolift shaft as there are no ladders built into the shafts." There was a clanking sound and Harry glanced around the corner briefly. "It's walking towards us," he said. "Seven--what about other exits? Are there any escape pods?" Janeway asked. Seven hurriedly tapped at her tricorder. "Unknown, Captain. However, the other direction at the intersection we passed may lead back to the surface of this part of the ship." Janeway nodded. "Then let's go that way. Seven, you lead. Tuvok, keep an eye on our backs. Move!" They quickly got up and began running along the walls of the corridor. Harry, Alex, and the other ensigns all kept looking over their shoulders and firing at the unrelenting turret. As they came to another bulkhead, they all dove behind it again and paused to catch their breath. Harry looked around at everyone. Somehow, when Alex had pulled him out of the way, they had wound up on one side with the other three ensigns while the Captain, Tuvok, and Seven were on the other side of the corridor. He suddenly realized that they were going to have to jump across the corridor somehow because the bend ahead was on the other side. "I wish we could have taken these suits off," B'Elanna lamented. "It's nearly impossible to run in these things!" "At least the suit provides some protection," one of the ensigns next to Harry remarked. Harry winced; that usually wasn't the kind of remark one wanted to make in this sort of situation. "Go for the next bulkhead!" Tuvok ordered, and the team sprinted down the corridor again. Harry began running backwards, spraying the turret with automatic fire from his compression rifle for all it was worth, and watching nervously as the crimson shots continued to lance through the hallway. There was an explosion and a choked scream next to him, and Harry felt several stinging sensations as his side and face was hit with shrapnel. He glanced sideways at the ensign—Allen, he thought—and saw him crash to the deck in a steaming heap, his suit's propellant pack replaced with a boiling cold white crater. So that's where the shrapnel had come from; apparently the shot had hit the liquid nitrogen tank inside the pack, causing it to explode. Probably froze the poor guy's chest instantly... "Keep going!" Tuvok shouted. "When we pass the next bulkhead, go right!" They dove through the next bulkhead a moment later, and Harry again glanced back as he caught his breath. The turret had stopped firing for a moment, and was retracting into a wheel again. He quickly aimed and fired at it. The blast struck the copper-colored metal instead of being deflected, but didn't even leave a mark on the apparent armor. "That thing's got some serious armor on it, whatever it is," he remarked as he ducked back behind the bulkhead. "My rifle didn't even scratch it." "Hey, there's a control panel here," B'Elanna exclaimed a moment later. She quickly began jabbing at the controls on it to no effect. Harry looked around the corner again. The turret was fast; it had already covered half the distance to them in that short amount of time. "Forget trying to figure it out – just shoot the panel!" Nodding, B'Elanna picked her rifle back up, took a few steps back, and fired. The panel exploded in a shower of sparks, and with a loud whirring noise a heavy blast door began sliding out of the bulkhead. Several seconds later, they were sealed off from the turret, although they could hear it clanking at the other side of the door. Harry sagged against the wall in relief. "Let's take off our suits," Janeway said after she had caught her breath. "These damned things nearly got all of us killed back there. Speaking of which, did we lose someone?" "Ensign Allen, Captain," Harry replied. "Is he alive?" Harry shook his head sadly. "He took a shot to his thruster pack. I think the liquid nitrogen froze his chest instantly. Couldn't have done him any good..." Janeway was silent for a moment. "There probably wasn't much you could have done about it, Harry." "I know." After a moment of silence for the crewman, they continued on along the other corridor, stopping after several minutes when Seven held up her hand. "There's a shaft on the other side of this door. It should lead directly to where the crew of this ship is." "Do we want to go there?" one of the other ensigns asked. "There could be more of those turret things." "Well, we left our suits behind, so our only other choice is to find out where the escape pods are... and it doesn't look like there are any on this ship," Harry found himself saying. Janeway opened her mouth to say something but then they all heard that ominous rolling sound. "Oh, come on!" B'Elanna exclaimed. "How the heck did that thing get through the blast door? It must have been a half meter thick!" "Well, that settles it," Janeway said. "Down the shaft." "We're going to have to force this door as well," B'Elanna said. "There's no panel, just a lock like the one in the turbolift." They all looked at each other. The rolling noise was getting steadily louder, and they expected it to pop around the corner any minute. B'Elanna slammed the crowbar into the crack of the door, and they all yanked on it as hard as they could. Apparently this door was built lighter than the turbolift doors, because it actually popped off its track and bent outward, allowing them to pry it further up and duck inside. By the time the turret arrived, Harry was the last one standing in the corridor. As the machine began to unfold itself, he threw himself toward the open door, somehow catching a ladder rung inside. He hauled himself down as fast as his arms could move, and just hoped that the machine couldn't use ladders. "Harry," B'Elanna called from far below him, "you just have to see this." The shaft opened out on a vast room, which stretched out over a hundred meters in any direction that Harry could see. Across the floor, neatly arranged like pillars, were thousands of two and a half meter tall black slabs. "This is really weird," Munro remarked. "It's almost like a graveyard." "Except they're in hibernation," Harry reminded him. He walked forward and started circling one of the slabs. On one side, a humanoid body protruded slightly in the strange black material, its facial expression appearing neutral. "What is this stuff?" "It's carbonite," Seven answered, standing in front of another slab. "One species the Borg encountered used it to preserve food as part of a cryogenic process. We regarded it as a useless curiosity--I never would have guessed it could also be used to preserve living beings." "So when are the crew going to wake up?" Munro asked. B'Elanna turned around and shrugged. "No idea. It's probably on a timer, and since the ship seems to be powering itself back up..." She trailed off as a high-pitched, warbling noise unlike anything they had ever heard began coming from the slab Seven was standing in front of. "What happened?" she asked Seven. The entire figure, encased in the carbonite, was beginning to give off a reddish glow. "The controls were simple," Seven explained. "The carbonite casing is dissolving right now, which will wake the person inside from hibernation." "Okay..." B'Elanna took a few steps back as the glow grew brighter. Pinholes of bright white light formed all over, increasing in size and coming together to form larger areas. She realized a moment later that the white was actually caused by the dissolving carbonite, as skin color could now be seen through the holes in the rapidly disappearing carbonite. Several seconds later, the carbonite casing had completely dissolved, leaving the man unsupported. As he began to fall forward, groaning slightly, B'Elanna jumped toward him and grabbed one arm as Seven grabbed the other. Now that he was free of the carbonite, B'Elanna had the chance to take a good look at him. Oddly enough, he looked completely human—sandy blond hair of medium length, average build, no distinctive bone formations that might identify him as one of the many humanoid races of the galaxy, and even his eyes looked perfectly normal with round pupils and grayish-blue irises. She realized a moment later that he was staring at her with probably a pretty good mirror image of the curious look she had. Oh well. Might as well introduce herself. "Hello... I'm B'Elanna Torres, from the Federation starship Voyager." The man blinked several times as if confused, and coughed. Then he said some gibberish that was completely unintelligible even to her universal translator. "Uh... Seven? Did you pick up any of that?" Seven shook her head. "It doesn't sound like any of the languages the Borg encountered." B'Elanna turned back to the strange man. "Where are you from?" she asked. The man coughed again. "Corellia." Her eyebrows went up dramatically. Maybe Corellia was the name of the system that the ship had come from. "You can understand me?" He nodded. "What is your name?" "Dellen Coureran," he answered, his vowels oddly accented. B'Elanna nodded. Now they were getting somewhere. "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Coureran." She paused. "We were stranded in this part of the galaxy and were trying to get home when we found your ship drifting." The man just nodded. "Me... see," he said, sounding unsure of what he was saying. "I see," B'Elanna corrected him. He smiled briefly before pointing forward. "I see. Go..." "Go?" she asked. "That way?" When he nodded, she looked over at Seven, wondering why he wanted that. "Let's walk over there." As it turned out, the side of the room that he wanted to walk to held what B'Elanna could only assume was a computer terminal. They helped him get into the seat in front of the terminal, and he blinked and peered at the screen, tapping commands into it. She studied the screen but couldn't make any sense of the alien glyphs, which looked slightly like a blockier version of Klingon writing. Several minutes later, she heard mechanical whirring and clicking noises and spun around, expecting to see another one of the deadly turrets. What greeted her instead was a chrome-plated, stylized humanoid figure walking stiffly forward. In its face were a pair of wide, glowing eyes and a small square opening for a mouth, giving it an eternally surprised look. Whatever it was, it definitely didn't look threatening – but then again, things that looked harmless were often the most dangerous... "Dellen?" she asked, unsure what was going on. He turned around to see, and apparently recognizing the chrome figure, began speaking rapidly to it. It responded in the same odd language, and Dellen turned back to face her. "Talk," he said. "About what?" She honestly had no idea what he was getting at. He shrugged. "Learn. Talk." She looked back at the shiny figure. "Translator?" "Trans-la-tor," he said slowly, the word coming out with the same accent. "Learn. Talk." She looked over at Seven. "That machine's a translator," she said, finally realizing. "We should talk to each other so it can begin to understand us." "What do you want to talk about?" Seven asked. B'Elanna rolled her eyes. "How should I know? Stuff we'd talk about to a child, I guess. I'll start. Seven, how was your day?" "My day went well," Seven replied. "Until the robot turret tried to kill me." "Same here," B'Elanna muttered. "I don't know what else to talk about. I'm not exactly a schoolteacher..." Her face brightened and she turned to Dellen. "I have an idea. Is your translator capable of teaching your language?" He nodded. "You want... translator... teach you?" "Yes," she replied, tapping the side of her head. "We have Univeral Translators implanted that are capable of learning new languages." Dellen turned toward the translator and gave it some rapid instructions. It shuffled forward and stiffly extended an arm. "I am E-4PO," and the next few words came out unintelligible. "I will teach you translator." Seven and B'Elanna looked at each other. "I think this is going to take a while," B'Elanna remarked.

DEFENSE BUNKER QUEBEC PROVINCE OF CANADA "Les missiles entrants!" someone shouted from the Defense bunker, buried deep below the heart of the French-Canadian province. Across the room, Brigadier Paul Jacques, H. Jr, frowned. "Qui les?" "Les Américains, Sir." "Shit," Paul exclaimed, in his panic suddenly mixing up his French and English. "Activate les protocols défense," he snapped. CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN HOME OF NORAD "Who authorized that launch?" General Eberhart asked, looking around the command facilities at the hundreds of confused and panicking technicians as the NORAD displays showed first hundreds of missiles being launched from a supposedly decommissioned silo in Colorado, about thirty miles west of Cheyenne Mountain. Minutes after the launch, the Russians responded with about a thousand ICBMs. The Air Force already had the only Airborne Laser prototype flying, trying to intercept any they could with it, and they were scrambling to get any defensive missiles targeted on the incoming warheads before it was too late. However, with MacNamara's gutting of the NIKE project so many years ago, and no subsequent President deeming it necessary to replace America's missile defense, America was quite frankly boned. "We don't know, Sir. That silo was supposed to be decommissioned twenty years ago. There's also no way it was capable of holding as many missiles as what launched." "Do we have any forces in the area?" "Yes, Sir. We've already dispatched a Ranger squad to investigate. They should be on site in five minutes." "Sir!" one of the other techs shouted. "We have a massive radar contact coming from Canada, in the general area of Quebec." "Define massive," Eberhart snapped. With about a thousand incoming nuclear warheads, he wasn't in a very good mood. "Um... It's about the size of Quebec. Gaining altitude at a rate of three meters per second." "That's impossible," the General replied. "No, not really impossible," another tech popped his head up, "it's just infinitely improbable." Eberhart turned to regard the tech with a strange look. Someone had once loaned him a copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy back in the '80s, and he had quite enjoyed the book. "What makes you say that?" "Because the Detroit suburbs just turned into a giant waterpark. Also, we're getting reports in from Chicago of jellybeans falling instead of snow." Eberhart turned back to the massive screens that dominated the room, watching the thousands of red lines continue their murderous progress. Something very strange was happening here.