Winston Sebastian Henley IV. Not the third, nor the fifth; but the fourth. The number four is important... because, well, any other number would be different, wouldn't it? Shoes. Black shoes, always. Who wears brown shoes? Certainly no one under the command of Winston Sebastian Henley the Fourth; except perhaps his secretary... or his other secretary... Yes, indeed, the young women around him often got away with far more than the rest of the bumbling tools he was burdened to affiliate with. Alas, the hardships of chivalry.

He also loved his hat, almost as much as he loved tea. You see; the beauty and the elegance of tea have nothing to do with the tea itself. Tea is merely an object, an assortment of particles diluted into hot water: a solution more primitive than even carbonated soda. But you see, the regality of the whole thing rests in the way it's all done. The way one holds the glass, the order in which the emblems are set, the time of day, the mood of the environment, the color of the umbrella, and all of the other procedural effects that compile into an experience unique to every instance. Yet, most of all, the true delight of teatime is experiencing someone you fancy doing it all for you. Yes, that is truly one of life's exquisite delights.

"General Sir?" A young woman asked as she approached a well decorated man walking beside a pink R2 unit.

"Yes? What may I do for you?" Winston replied in a tone both hopeful and blank.

"Uh, well..." The young female secretary hesitated, unsure from where the General's mind was returning from.

"Yes? Come now, out with it!" Winston said, taking his hat from the small R2 unit that was patiently holding it.

"You've shaved your mustache, sir." The girl replied while trying to hide from him the pleasure she took from his cleanly-shaven air.

"Well, nothing's getting past you today, now is it?" Winston spoke with a smile that was exceedingly difficult to hate. "What do you have there?" He asked the young lady secretary, balancing both business and pleasure in his tone.

"It's him, sir; the pilot with the Mobius ribbon. He's ready to speak with you." She was all but mystified how a man, who seemingly fell from the sky, could manage to turn their world upside down; regardless of how small that world actually was.

"Ah! Very good" Winston replied. "Would you like some tea?"


The sun arched smoothly through the afternoon hours, washing the desert world in vivid tones of sierra and amber. Hidden somewhere along the endless horizon where the sky and sand met was a tiny trinket of civilization: a tiny rectangle of grey and black marked the area taken by an alliance outpost. Yellow and white lines segregated the foundation into its proper sections. Landing and takeoff runways ran the length of the rectangular area, each defined by strips of pulsing indicator lights. A single control tower and an accompanying hangar bay were all that stood taller than the rectangular surface. Occupied more by droids than by actual people, there were few luxuries to be savored.

A line of seven R2 units drove down a particular beat towards the hangar bay, each of them towing a silver container of typical load. With exception, though, it was the pink R2 unit that towed a collapsed yellow umbrella and tea set.

"We've been listening to Imperial traffic communications long enough to decipher over thirteen encryption languages." Winston said to the dark-haired, nameless pilot that walked beside him.

The general continued, hat in hand, as the two slowly followed a line of R2 units. "We've done a brilliant job of it; the empire seems to have run out of ways to code their intelligence. Yes, indeed…. The past tour has been quite the bore; we've run out of things to do here."

"Then my people's timing is perfect." The pilot responded, as the two finally stepped into the shade of the sole hanger bay.

"Yes, yes, quite so-" Winston caught site of an idling droid, and at once rolled into a taller posture. "You, there! Can you at least pretend to be busy? Look alive, there!"

The droid popped up in attention, nervously backed into the cargo container it was supposed to be carrying, and knocked it over. After a few more moments of fumbling, the container was soon on its way to the main landing zone. For today, this mind-numbing dust-collector of an outpost would become the stage of a spectacular show. Computer cores to vending machines, the contents of the base were being neatly packed away into cargo containers that were slowly stacking up in the main landing zone outside the hangar.

"So. This is the big, big man: the reason why we're turning our place upside down. Just who are you?" A pack of three alliance pilots, fully puffed in swagger, approached the lone pilot. The largest of the three stood in the middle, all of whom were garbed in their orange flight suits. Prominently visible were their command insignias which indicated their rank as commanders of the three squadrons stationed at the outpost.

"Are you deaf, hot shot? I just asked you a question. I want to know who you are…. And why we should do anything for you-"

The lone pilot, shortest of all four, raised his eyes to the tallest of the three orange-covered men. His flight suit was unlike theirs; different cut, different material, different tech, different color . . . . alien. His flight suit was jet black, and its cryptic insignias matched nothing of what any alliance or imperial database knew of. On the side of his shoulder was a symbol that matched the one emblazoned on his spacecraft's tail; a blue ribbon curled into a lone Mobius strip.

"Nobody cared who I was until climbed into a cockpit" he said with little color. "As for knowing the reason for your orders, ask your commander general." The rest of his response to the three alliance pilots consisted only of a cold stare.

Before the tall man could prosecute his objections any further, everyone's attention snapped to the sonic booms that came from the sky. Three glowing white objects descended from the heavens on approach to the base; their silhouettes slowly becoming more discernable.

"Imperials!" One of the three orange pilots erupted.

"No—be calm" the pilot with the Mobius ribbon spoke quickly, before slowly walking into the open space beyond the hanger to meet the approaching vehicles. The flying craft echoed a unique hum as they slowed down to hover in a triangular formation.

Imperial shuttles... or, at least, they used to be. They were white, black, covered in lights, and intimidating: but for a wholly different set of reasons. They moved differently. They held a static formation with extreme precision, not even the wind could press against them enough to move them out of formation by an inch. A piercing type of magnetism pervaded the entire base with their presence, drawing the attention of all; mercenary to maintenance crew. Their fuselages were somewhat larger – and thicker – and appeared as though they had been rebuilt with an alternate material. Ribbons of glowing light ran along the main design contours of the crafts, while additional glowing points pulsed along the crafts' ventral sides. Their disruptor cannons were gone: replaced by... something else.

After a few moments, an encoded pulse was emitted by all three craft: code that nothing of the listening post ever encountered. The signal continued only for several seconds, to be replaced by a single sound from the lead craft.

"Starships are prepared to receive." A loud, tin voice echoed from the lead Neo-Imperial Shuttle.

"Thank you. We will indicate your next objective shortly." The pilot in black spoke to the shuttle hovering before him as though it were a living person. Much to the surreal bewilderment of the alliance personal, though, the shuttle no only seemed to hear his words, but fully understood them, and responded with a set of mechanical tones. By now, Winston had jogged over to the pilot in black, carrying with him both excitement and a measure of awe.

"I do say, brilliant! Yes, quite so, my good man. Ha!" With a proper laugh, he turned to those under his command. To the general's back were the hovering craft, while the pilot in black paced into the background to inspect the second and third shuttles. Before the general were the base's personnel - men, women, and droid – to which he proudly spoke.

"Everyone: jolly good day! Today we will be taking on a new assignment, one that will guarantee exciting new positions and opportunity." He looked proudly at the various faces before him; "You'll all receive a detailed briefing once we relocate to our new command station. Until then..." he paused to admire a black tile-like object he pulled form his pocket; "finish packing this place up, would you?"


One of the three shuttles hovered to the large stack of rectangular containers assembled before the hanger; within them the sum total of everything worth salvaging from the outpost. Once the last few droids set the final container at the top of the stack, the shuttle hovered into a position such that its main viewing screen could inspect the entire stack in a single prospect. Then, a wave of blue light emitted from the shuttle's nose: it panted over the containers like an artist's brush on a clean canvas.

After a few such actions, the blue light stopped projecting from the shuttle's nose. With a moment's pause, a bath of blue twilit energy surrounded the containers. Just as quickly as the twilit bath of sparkling blue grew brighter, it began to fade; and with it all of the containers. The pilot in black checked his mobile computing device, and nodded to himself to verify that the transport was completed. It was the alliance pilot in orange, though, who pushed his eyebrows together in mistrust. Turning to one of his friends:

"The empire possesses no such technology; let alone a version of it that can be mounted on a simple shuttle..." The adjacent alliance pilots only nodded, for the cargo that has disappeared took up a space nearly ten times the full wingspan of the shuttle.

The second and third shuttles calmly landed, rotating their lower wings upward to stand parallel to their third. The base's R2 units and other droids loaded into one of the shuttles, while the base's secretary personal filed into the second. The lead shuttle slowly hovered into the hangar bay, searching out what remained inside. All of the auxiliary equipment had been stripped from the hangar, leaving only the vehicles it was meant to house.

One by one, the shuttle scanned each vehicle as it did the containers. One by one; three X-wing fighters, three Y-wing fighters, and three A-wing fighters; each disappeared in a blue twilit spectacle of light just like the block of containers. There were additional fighters in the bay; however they were not destined to leave this outpost: they were three B-wing fighters, and three snow speeders. The shuttle raised its lower wings to land, and did so; it opened its aft doors to permit the alliance pilots to enter.

Nine alliance pilots entered, followed by General Henley. The lone pilot in black stood at the ramp of the shuttle:

"Is that everything?" The pilot in black asked Winston.

"Everything and everyone" the general responded.

The pilot in black, and with the Mobius ribbon insignia on his shoulder, nodded, and replied simply: "Then that's it. My people will clean the rest of this."

The general only nodded in acknowledgement; and replied "We'll follow you up, lead the way."

As the Mobius pilot ran to his Star Fighter, the general activated the shuttle's door to close and walked past his men towards the empty cockpit.

"Sir?" One of the orange-clad pilots asked, "Sir, there's nobody on this shuttle: pilot or droid."

"Yeah, so?" Winston replied, taking the shuttle's controls and lifting it from the ground and out of the hangar.

"Then where did the voice come from... and what was piloting this thing?" The pilot asked, referring to when the shuttle spoke when it first arrived.

"That's a good set of questions, lad." Winston said in an annoyingly coy way. As the shuttle pulled around, the other two shuttles could be seen already lifting off, all of them lead by the star fighter with the Mobius ribbon on its tail.

The four craft took off from the stripped outpost; their contrails and sonic booms filled the sky as they launched into orbit towards the two waiting starships. Behind them, far below on the surface, their abandoned outpost disappeared into a giant mushroom cloud: all traces of its existence, as well as any reason for heading back, erased from the surface.