Star Wars: War of the West

Chapter One: Endings and Beginnings

This story starts not with a beginning, but with an end. The end of a long and bloody war that had decimated nations and torn apart families. The end of an ongoing nightmare for many of what remained of the world's youth as they watched their fathers, mothers, and friends cut down all around them. It ends... with a death of a hero, one who had never wanted that title.

On the crater pockmarked runway of 7L-25R at Los Angeles International Airport, lay a body, the ugly wound that killed it still putting off smoke through its tactical vest. Four people where clustered around, one of them was on their knees sobbing, not believing that their friend was dead after having survived so much before. Gunfire still cracked around them, but it was clear that the battle had been won... except for them. They had lost.

Every now and then a soldier would pass them, but stop just long enough to take in the scene and shake his or her head then move on. There had been too much death already for them to stop and mourn anymore. Yet, the four friends did mourn. For them the war ended the second their friend had fallen.

This story started not with a beginning, but with an end. But all ends have a beginning, and this one started 12 months earlier off of the coast of Florida in a small fishing boat...

12 MONTHS EARLIER...

Captain Karl Scott kept his eyes closed as he leaned back in the captain's chair behind the helm of his 50 year old fishing vessel, the stars of the night sky providing the only illumination apart from his running lights. While he had worked tirelessly to keep the 60 foot long boat that had been his father's before him in good shape, half a century of plying the ocean waves was starting to tell. Her paint was faded and chipped, and the bilge pump never quite turned off anymore, but her engine was still powerful and the electronics were the best money could buy.

Right now, those electronics where flickering and giving off strange readings. Karl didn't notice a thing until his radio squawked to life, letting out a long series of beeps and whistles. Opening one eye with irritation, he glared at the offending radio till he noticed the other electronic devices in the cabin.

"What the..." he muttered softly as he swung out of the chair and hurried over. "What the hell is going on here?" Every single electronic gauge and sensor was going hay wire while the lights flickered rapidly. Beneath his feet, the deck rumbled as the engine growled to life on its own.

Foolishly, his first irrational thought was that he had somehow drifted into the area off of Florida known as the Bermuda Triangle before he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting his old Army training kick in. Keeping his eyes closed, he tried to remember everything that might cause everything electronic to go berserk. A pit of unease lodged itself in his stomach, and Karl pulled out his cell phone to look at the screen. He grimaced when he saw that numbers were rapidly being dialed and the touch screen didn't respond to him.

"So it's not just the boat..." he muttered softly to himself. He jumped and dropped his cell phone when it suddenly sparked wildly and died. Several other systems also sparked and died, while others, like the engine, radio, and radar, continued their erratic behavior. But for Karl, this told him everything.

"An EMP..." he breathed. All the devices that had failed were vulnerable to EMPs, while those that kept working were surplus military grade hardened electronics. Flipping a switch on the console, he let out a relieved sigh when the boat's fire alarm blared to life as it should, jerking awake the three men sleeping below deck. Grabbing his binoculars, Karl ducked outside and climbed the ladder to the roof of the bridge.

"What the devil is going on?!" bellowed his first mate as he climbed into the deck.

"We just got hit by an EMP!" Karl called back, scouring the dark horizon for the glow of a nuclear explosion, the only thing he could think of that would affect them this far out. However, the horizon was devoid of any glowing ominous mushroom cloud.

"What could have done that?" asked another crew member.

"I don't know... " Karl muttered. He than glanced up to see if he could see anything in the sky, but he couldn't see anything.

Wait a second...

He couldn't see anything. No clouds, no stars, nothing. Just a black void. That was impossible. Wait... no... Karl narrowed his eyes and took a second look. There was stars visible, off on the horizon, before suddenly disappearing in an almost strait line. His first mate also noticed the strange sight and followed the line.

"Jesus..." he breathed. "Its in the shape of a wedge..."

"If you even say the word UFO I will throw you over the side." Karl told him sternly.

"I don't need to." his mate said. "You said it for me."

"Stow it!"

As they stood there on the swaying roof, they could tell that it was moving by the stars that would suddenly vanish in the front and the appearance of stars at the back. Karl was willing to put the length of the object at least over a kilometer in length.

"What do you think it is?" his mate asked him. Karl bit his lip, not wanting to say what the first thought that came through his head. His mate turned his head to look at him and Karl sighed heavily.

"If I didn't know any better," he said slowly. "I would say that was an Imperial Star Destroyer straight from Star Wars."

Suddenly there was a low rumble from above then, and three giant blue glowing circles appeared on the end of the wedge were it was the narrowest. The rumble grew louder and the dark wedge started to grow smaller.

"She's pulling up!" one of Karl's sailor's said.

"Yep," Karl replied. "Going back to space." Minutes later, the object was no longer in view. His first mate turned to him.

"You know no one is going to believe us right?"

Karl's first mate would be right. As soon as they were able to make port, they all spread the story of what they saw, but no one would listen, even though two other fishing vessels who had been in the area that night never came back to port.

In the end, the world would severely pay for ignoring them.