Chapter 1

Unplanned Travel

Through the black, speckled void of space cruised an angular, starkly white dagger of a ship. This craft, over a kilometer and a half in length, was in the Unknown Regions as part of Grand Admiral Thrawn's task force. The Black Dawn had, seconds before, reverted to realspace in the system simply designated "T5830" with orders to pacify the inhabitants. On the Black Dawn's bridge, Captain Drake Barsce sipped a cup of caf as he observed the nondescript lump of rock and mud before the Imperial-II Star Destroyer. He knew that the firepower contained in his ship could wipe out anything that might oppose it, and his TIE fighters had been replenished just days before.

Captain Barsce began giving orders, "I want our TIEs deployed around the ship, one wing of them. Turbolasers need to be ready for any possible capital ships, and the 835th should be ready to hit the surface as soon as possible."

As the bridge crew began relaying his orders, Captain Barsce sat down and wondered if the inhabitants of T5830 would put up any resistance to Imperial pacification. Of course they will. Whether it will be significant is the question I should be asking. He looked to his comms officers: "Hail the planet. Inform them that they are now part of the Empire."

"Aye, Captain." Lieutenant Jones responded immediately. "Broadcast that message." As the crew under Jones complied, a screen was activated, displaying a furry, tentacled horror with eyes bulging from the base of each one. As unintelligible gibbering assailed the bridge crew, the translator program began to function, and added subtitles to the inhabitants.

"No Empire! You go, or we eat your flesh!" Captain Barsce sighed as primitive chemical-rocket propelled craft moved slowly towards Black Dawn. He raised a hand.

"Stand ready to open fire on those on my mark." Seconds passed, "Mark." Streams of brilliant, verdant energy blasted at T5830 from the sixty twin heavy turbolaser turrets mounted on the Imperial-II class as ion cannons struck towards the ships, if they could be called such. Three squadrons of TIE fighters bolted through the vacuum, proving impossible to hit with the kinetic projectiles from their opponents. Retaliation was swift, twin laser cannons ripping apart engines and turrets before the ubiquitous craft flew screaming off once more. Fifteen secondsinto this one-sided massacre, Captain Barsce saw the screen activate again.

"Halt your assault! We will lay arms to floor!" Captain Barsce nodded at this.

"Break off, all forces. The enemy is no longer fighting and I don't want to waste resources." His words silenced the cannons and sent the thirty-six TIEs into the large ventral hangar bay. "Now, let us negotiate terms for your inclusion into the Empire. If you would come aboard while we send pacification forces down?" Captain Barsce spoke as Sentinel landing craft prepared to launch. Before they could, however, something truly bizarre occured. Just ten kilometers away, space distorted violently, and it began dragging asteroids, debris… and the Black Dawn into it. Barsce's eyes widened in surprise and horror. "What is going on? Seal hangars, do not launch!" Forty-five thousand Imperial crew and stormtroopers, lost by freak chance with an entire Imperial-II. What a horrible end… Despite thrusters firing at full burn, the Black Dawn was inexorably drawn closer to the impossible maw. As the humbled Star Destroyer reached a one-kilometer distance from it, crew began to fall unconscious as if by magic. Captain Barsce felt a sudden, forceful pressure before succumbing to the same situation. His grey hat flew off his falling head and into a crew pit.

A mere minute later, the Black Dawn reached the Rift, and began to fade away as it passed further through. Quickly, the Star Destroyer became a mere spectre, and then it was nothing. Seventy-two minutes later, the Rift closed as suddenly and as mysteriously as it had appeared. News would eventually reach Grand Admiral Thrawn once the Black Dawn failed to report, but even then not one being knew what happened, save one, for outside the galaxy, in a pocket dimension all its own, an entity existed. And this entity was bored, for when one can manipulate reality to its desires, entertainment doesn't last long. So the entity briefly considered methods of staving off boredom, and it hit upon using some craft from one galaxy and bringing it through time and space to another, different period. This single, white triangle could not possibly be missed, so the entity brought it millenia into the future, to a galaxy far, far away where the effects from the ancient humans still lingered. Residual effects from the fleeing of their home when, in this timeline, they failed to stop their great challenge and fled, like the invaders from beyond, into the cold, empty extragalactic space, headed for new galaxies. In this one, humans would become the progenitors for many races. They called themselves "human", "Cardassian", "Romulan", "Klingon", "Vulcan", and so many more. The humans of old chose to die out, eventually. They were content with their creations, the races they had spawned across the galaxy. They went extinct, leaving only hints of their existence for their descendants to find. As for other races that existed in the Original Galaxy, they banded together with their own and sailed across the void to other distant clusters of stars.

Captain Barsce's eyes snapped open. As his eyes darted about the bridge of his Destroyer, he became keenly aware of a splitting migraine, and groaned as he attempted to stand and assert some of his authority as the commander of Black Dawn. He met with little success,and his hands groped carefully for something to brace against. My chair! That will do. The captain lifted his hands to the arm of his seat and hauled himself up. Once off the floor, his experienced blue eyes surveyed the bridge. Unconscious bridge crew, consoles offline, a sensor screen beeping, and what happened to my hat? He briefly considered the best way to bring his crew back into the world of the living, before gathering air in his lungs and letting out the dreaded bellow of a Caridan drill sergeant, "GET OFF THIS FLOOR AND TO YOUR STATIONS, BEFORE I SEW MYSELF A NEW SCARF WITH YOUR INTESTINES! LET'S GO, GET UP YOU LAZY MAGGOTS! THIS IS THE BRIDGE OF AN IMPERIAL STAR DESTROYER, NOT THE NAP ROOM!" He breathed heavily, his headache far worse than it was, but as expected, officers and enlisted alike were trying valiantly to get off the floor. Barsce tapped his comlink, "Medical team to the bridge," although he held no doubt that they, like his bridge crew, were out of commission. They could do little but wait and try to work out what just happened to them.

"Sensors, where the hell are we?" He listened for a response, but when it came, his officer's voice was weighted with uncertainty.

"Captain… we don't know," reported Lieutenant Sonnil, "Star charts of the nearby area, such that we have out here, simply do not match up with where we are. None of them do, sir."

Barsce considered this.

"We must be in the Unknown Regions still, certainly. But what was that which brought us here? That break in space?" This time, the response came from every station on the bridge.

"WE HAVE NO FRAKKING CLUE, CAP'N!" Suddenly, the intra-ship comms began buzzing with calls.

"Approximate time since arrival?" Barsce asked into the crew pits. An enlisted called up,

"Seventy-two minutes, sir!" Another voice called from the intra-ship comms,

"Captain, we're being swamped by reports from all over the ship. Orders, sir?" He turned to the dispatchers behind him.

"Get medical and security teams out across the ship. Treat injuries, secure supplies, take inventory and a head count, and get this ship fighting fit. I'm going to make an announcement." Barsce turned and quickly stepped to his office. Once inside, he turned on the intra-ship broadcast, "Attention all crew members, this is Captain Barsce speaking. The event that brought us to wherever we are has vanished, and left us in an unknown sector of space. Do not panic, for we are an Imperial crew aboard an Imperial Star Destroyer. We are the fist of the Galactic Empire and need not fear uncharted stars. Moreover, all of us serve in the Unknown Regions, mapping and conquering unknown systems under Grand Admiral Thrawn. If any Imperial crew were to be in this situation, they would likely be far worse off. We need only work ourselves into the united, fighting crew we should be. This is Captain Barsce, signing off." He sighed and stepped back out, only to be greeted by Sonnil's voice.

"Captain, we have contacts!"

A/N: I have never appreciated how hard it is to write entertaining stories until now. So, here it is. An Imperial Star Destroyer Mark II in the 24th-Century Milky Way. I can only hope that I can keep writing. I have a general plot to follow that I sketched up prior to starting this, and I hope to lengthen chapters as I go (This one is 1452 words, minus the A/N and title).

Like it? Hate it? Please let me know!