Book I
Part I: A New Hope
Chapter I
Rachel surveyed the large rockets and props all around her, completely bored out of her mind. She hated museums. She hated being a tourist even more. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear as she leaned over the railing that looked out onto the foyer of the Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian. Everyone here was a tourist. Cameras strapped around their necks and white tennis shoes paired with khaki cutoffs confirmed it.
"Dude, take my picture!" she heard Joey call from behind her. A museum worker had dressed up as a moon lander, spacesuit and all.
Rachel rolled her eyes, pulling out her phone and snapping the pic, Joey's dopy grin shining on the screen. He thanked the spacesuit and walked over beside her. "Nice."
"Remind me why we're here again," she said, shutting off her phone and putting it back in her purse.
"Cause you've never been to DC and I thought we'd have fun."
"We could have gone to Disney World. Or the beach. Just throwing it out there."
"But you can't meet spacemen at the beach."
"You can at Disney World."
He huffed. "You could at least try to have fun. You love space stuff and science fiction. We both do. It's why I thought this would be fun."
"Sorry if a museum isn't my idea of fun, Joseph. It would have been just as easy to meet at Virginia Beach or—"
But she was cut off by a sudden gust of wind, whipping her long black hair into her face. Joey lost his balance, grabbing hold of the railing. "What the hell is that?" he yelled over the wind.
The wind did its best to knock them over but they clutched the railing as tight as they could. It whipped so hard that it forced their eyes shut. Rachel held onto the railing for dear life. Joey locked his knees and forced his body to comply with the force of the gust. And then, as quickly as it started…it stopped.
Joey opened his eyes and forced his body to relax. Finger by finger, he released his hands from the railing. Rachel had fallen to the ground and had wrapped her legs around one of the vertical rail supports. Her knuckles were white, her eyes were still shut, and she wasn't letting go.
"Rachel, it's alright. It stopped."
"What if it happens again?"
Joey rolled his eyes and looked around for the first time to see if anyone was hurt. But there was no one. They weren't even in the museum anymore. No, they had been taken to some kind of hallway. Everything seemed to be made of titanium and painted white, save the floor, which was a basic silver metal. There were some kind of doors at each end of the hallway, both were closed. The railing was now attached to the wall of the corridor.
"Uh, Rach?"
"What?"
"I don't think we're in DC anymore."
That was enough to make her at least open her eyes. She looked around with wide eyes, her knuckles somehow tightening on the railing. "Joey…what the hell?"
"I don't know. I mean, it had to have been the wind, but—"
He didn't finish. The door to his left shot upwards in a quick motion, seemingly sucked into the ceiling. Men in identical uniforms of blue shirts and white pants ran through, surrounding them. And before either of them could even think to react, each of the men had strange, black guns pointed right at their heads.
Joey's hands shot up into the air in surrender. Rachel copied him, releasing her hands for the first time.
"Who are you and how did you get in this ship?" the man at the front of the group asked sternly, yet with a sense of calmness.
"Uh, I'm Joey. Joey Jay." He waited for Rachel to say something and when she didn't, he cleared his throat. "That's my friend Rachel Compton."
"And how did you get in this ship, Joey Jay?"
"Look," he said, doing his best to act as confident as he could with ten guns pointed at him. "We just showed up here, alright? I don't even know where we are."
"Were you with the fleet? Did they transfer you onto this ship?"
"Ship? I told you, sir. We don't even know where we are. We're not looking for any trouble. I'm telling you, we're just as confused as you are."
The leader of the group narrowed his eyes and for a short moment, Joey thought he and Rachel were goners. But in an instant, the man's eyes softened. "Lower your weapons. They are not with the Empire. We'd be dead if that were the case."
The guns were lowered and Joey let out a sigh of relief, lowering his hands for the first time. The leader of the gunman offered a hand to Rachel, who hesitantly accepted help to her feet.
"Sorry about that, kids," he said, holstering the strange weapon. "Can't be too careful of suspicious folk just showing up on your ship. And don't think we're not going to have a talk about that. The Princess will want to speak with you too."
"Princess? Ship?" Rachel asked. "Someone needs to tell me where we are."
"Forgive me miss," the man said, with a small bow of his head. "You're aboard the Tantive VI, bound for Alderaan. My name is Captain Raymus Antilles."
"Wait," Joey said, recognizing about every single one of those words. "You don't mean…"
Rachel fell back to the ground. "Dude, we ended up in Star Wars."
