Chapter 1 (yeah, the last one was a prologue-ish-thing. It wasn't quite serious enough to count as a chapter. This one, obviously, will be utterly serious. With death-defying action and heartrending romance and philosophical dissertations on the meaning of life and character analysis startling in its profundity and polysyndeton startling in its ramblingness and made-up words ridiculous in their made-up-ed-ness. Actually, no, it's mostly just made of weird puns and pathetic allusions to random things. But still, marginally more serious than the last. I think.)

426 continued the story of the Earth investigation. "So, we went down to the planet, and we happened to crash in the middle of these people wearing stormtrooper armor."

"Who would wear stormtrooper armor?" 422 asked.

"But...but...but...WHY?" howled 424, just like someone who just read Shatterpoint, Shadows of Mindor, and Traitor in a six-hour reading jag.

426 replied, "Oh, I still haven't figured that out."

425 asked, "Why has some random person named 426 taken my place?"

"Because people don't pay attention to stormtroopers whose names are only numbers," 427 replied. "Look at me!"

"You're Sandra Dee?" asked 423, hopefully.

"WHAT OTHER PATHETIC POP CULTURE REFERENCES DID YOU LEARN ON EARTH?" screamed all the other stormtroopers at him. "FORGET THEM INSTANTLY! WE BEG OF YOU!"

423 asked, "You mean, forget...THIS?" and whipped out a lovely iPhone 827 smartphone (Yes, Star Wars is "a long time ago," but, eh, it's so futuristic...and...it's kind of the future...and...well...timey-wimey...stuff...and...I'm running out of steam...and...ellipses are fun. Anyway, by the time of Star Wars, Earth could very well have a 827 smartphone. And yes, the 501st will still be around by then. Clearly. Timey wimey! Stuff! Things! Anyway, BACK! TO THE PLOT!)

"And the future?" Shut up, 423.

and whipped out a lovely iPhone 827 smartphone. "Look at this app! Roughly translated to Basic, it's called 'Stellar Battles: Irate Avians.'"

"Irate Avians?" "Yeah, see, they're little, but they're furious! About...something! Nobody really knows what. And if you pull your finger back on the screen, you can make them fly across and hit things!"

422 eagerly tried to launch the small avian, but catastrophically failed.

"Why won't this register?" "Oh! It must be because you're wearing your stormtrooper glove! Take it off and you can play the game!"

So, they commenced to playing this mysterious pastime with much joy. "_" (Insert happy interjection of choice here. By the pirates of Kessel, I'm too good to have to stoop to the level of making up Star Wars interjections!)

All of a sudden, they clicked on a small video and saw a red avian, which would swing around a lightsaber if they tapped the screen.

"What's this that the avian is using?"

"Well," a mysterious Jedi who had just walked in the room sagely explained. "This is a lightsaber. The weapon of a Jedi Knight. It's not as clumsy or random as a blaster."

After the stormtroopers had played with the red winged creature for a while, they saw the truth of the mysterious Jedi's statement.

"Wow," yelled 424, "This is much better than a blaster. See how it deflects those bolts? Hey, maybe we should ask our superiors if they could issue some of these."

The Jedi smiled sadly. "Lightsabers must be created individually, to reflect their user's personality. Mass-produced ones would be no good. You'd have to rely on synthetic crystals."

"Well," 425 considered, "Synthetic crystals aren't so bad. After all, you could make so much more of them, and you could vary the colors!"

The Jedi shook his head. "Actually, with synthetic crystals, you can't vary the colors. All you get is red, and this blood-stained crimson symbolizes-"

"Oh." 423 lost interest. "Red isn't my color."

"Oh, and white is? You look like a hard-boiled egg!"

"Shut up, or I'll slice your head off."

"You don't even have a lightsaber yet."

"All the more reason for me to get one."

"Hey, look," the stormtrooper of whose number and personality I have utterly lost track cried, who was momentarily distracted like his author, "I leveled up!"

"Look at this big black avian," the other stormtrooper, creeping over his shoulder at the game, exclaimed. "It can push things out of its way and..." His breath caught in his throat as the menacing figure of Darth Vader strode past him.

"There is a disturbance in the Force," he proclaimed darkly. "I feel a presence I've not felt since..." he trailed off as he saw the smartphone. "You!" he barked at the other stormtrooper, the one holding the phone. "Identification and rank."

"Um, the author's forgotten, sir. Which means that I've forgotten, which means that I can't tell you, which means you'll never know."

"Whaat?" Darth Vader yelled and began a Force Choke directed ataosjasjdfsjdklfsjdll vlsvmksraiowq5[3wrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Woo. I'm back. Apparently I'm not the only one who can break the fourth wall. Vader can use the Force to break durasteel, the fourth wall, and, I think, one of my cervical vertebrae. Give me an update, guys.

423 said, "How dare you forget my name?"

I'm sorry. Just tell me what happened. I've got a plot thread going on here...somewhere.

"Well, he walked in and yelled about there being a disturbance in the Force."

Yes, yes, I've got that.

"And then he yelled at 422 for taking his glove off and smacked him with it. Unfortunately since the gloves have armor plating, 422 broke his face. And he started screaming some more about 421's ghost haunting Vader's soul from now on, so, uh, Vader wasn't exactly thrilled, and, um, to make a long story short, 422's dead. But the other 3 or 4 or maybe 5 of us are still here."

Okay.

"And then he was talking about a presence he hadn't felt for a while, about someone called Obi-Wan being here and the Force being with him."

Yeah, I know this, I have watched a few Star Wars movies before, 423.

(Readers everywhere gasp in shock and awe. Yes, readers, this is deliberately crazy, not just ignorant. Take note.)

"And we all thought he was going for that Jedi."

Well, obviously. That was Obi-Wan Kenobi. Didn't you know that? I was alluding to it like crazy!

"No. I don't have the Star Wars books or the Star Wars movies on tape! I can't even afford Varn: World of Water, with my pay!"

Eh, fair point. And...you probably don't want to afford Varn: World of Water. Just...just trust me on this one. One of the advantages of having the Star Wars books.

(To my characters, I seem wonderfully omniscient! This is amazing! To tell the truth, readers, I'm really rather dull.)

TK-423 rolled his eyes. "We can hear you even though you're using parentheses."

(Oh. But what happened with the man who was so obviously Obi-Wan?)

"Oh, Vader walked right past him! Took the phone and started screaming at the little black bird for using the Force and spreading Rebel propaganda."

So the real Obi-Wan's safe?

"Yes, he's still standing there."

Good.

"Next level?"

GO FOR IT, MAN.

422 eagerly threw avians about the screen in disarray. (Yes, he's alive again. Bringing back dead characters is a time-honored tradition of Star Wars writers. Maybe he's a clone. Maybe he lost his legs but replaced them with some robotic thingie. Maybe Palpatine killed him in weird ways about ten time and brought him back via some arcane Dark Side technique. Since he's probably going to die about six more times, this is probably the most likely answer.)

"So, what are you fighting? These little Gamorreans?" 424 asked.

422 fist-pumped. (Come on, wouldn't you like to see a stormtrooper fist pump?) "Kill the Gamorreans!" he yelled. "They are inferior subhuman species and they deserve to..."

But we didn't hear the rest of his words since he was attacked by a squad of angry Ewoks. And Noghri. Because they're actually more convincing fighters, which is why Zahn used them. Although come on, wouldn't you rather have had Thrawn have been killed by an Ewok bodyguard?

Annoyed at their slight by Zahn, the Ewoks started poking the Noghri in annoyance, but they eventually made it up and decided to be friends. And then the Noghri killed all the Ewoks because why not? Once the fun-size bloodshed had abated, 422 came back to life. (Thanks, Palpatine! We owe you one!)

"Actually," 423 informed 422, "We're fighting Imperial pigs."

"Imperial Pigs?"

"Yes, that's just what they're called."

On a particularly difficult level, 422 started screaming, "Die, Imperial pigs! DIE!"

Darth Vader loomed over him again. "Number and rank."

"TK-422, sir. Imperial Stormtrooper."

(Phew! The author massages her throat in relief.)

"Imperial, you say?"

"Yes, sir, that's why I'm here."

"Then why were you screaming 'Die, Imperial pigs'?"

"Uh...well, there's this game, Dark Lord of the Sith, Master, sir. It's really fascinating."

"Uh-huh." If ever a Sith Lord with a booming voice and a hissing respirator could sound apathetic and condescending, this was the time. "Is this why you haven't done any work for..." Vader considered a second, "about 7 days?"

"It's been that long?" He gasped.

"Uh huh."

"Oh Star Wars expletive!"

"Yeah."

"Well, I mean, I have a good reason! It's the most addictive game ever! It has these little Gamorreans, and you have to try to kill them with these miniature avians. And it's so addictive! You can't not finish a level! It's amazing! And the avians are irate for some reason."

"Irate?"

"Yes, they're very, very angry."

"Ah," Vader hissed. "Good. For anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering. That is the Sith way."

Stormtroopers 422-427 all nodded eagerly, like a bunch of well-modulated bobbleheads.

"Perhaps, I could train these irate avians, and teach them to learn the ways of the Force...perhaps one of them could become my next Sith apprentice, and help me take down Palpatine. Perhaps, one of these avians, if it harnessed its anger, could join me. It and I could rule the galaxy, as master and apprentice. The power...the possibilities..." Vader pondered. "For the good of the Empire, I will need to confiscate this iPhone."

Crying silently beneath their polished helmets, 422-427 relinquished the phone to Vader's tender grip. Vader went off to his meditation chamber, considering the many possibilities of Angry-Birds-ness that lay before him. Just before exiting the room, he turned. "Oh, and one more thing, Stormtroopers." "What's that?" The stormtroopers choked and dieddddddddddddddddddddddaos dijwioejfoijsdkflsjdlknbnnck sndkxcvnm.

Fin.

(Clearly, that was a random combination of letters created by my hands spazzing on the keyboard as I was choked by the force. Clearly.)

FINIS (because Latin is classy.)

Until next time:

Episode V: The Birds Strike Back! Documenting that little red bird's rise to power and Sith Lord status under the tutelage of Darth Vader! Don't miss it! (Because you can't miss what I'll never write.)

Finis Vero (The End, for real.)