Chapter One: Messing With the Empire
The Doctor and Jennara Oswin docked their small freighter on the surface of Corulag, a world in the Core housing the famous Corulag Academy, which was used to train the Empire's finest. The freighter they were flying now, the seventh ship they had acquired during their travels, touched down and was almost immediately greeted by a squad of stormtroopers, the Empire's own perverted version of the Old Republic's clone soldiers, and an Imperial officer. The Doctor could see the officer looking condescendingly at the freighter, which was not in the best of conditions, to say the least. The Doctor looked to his Padawan.
"Ready?" he asked.
"Ready," replied Jennara.
"Remember," urged the Doctor. "Keep your lightsaber hidden. They'll shoot you without a second thought if they see it anywhere on your body."
"Yes, Doctor." With that, they put on their fake uniforms and released the ramp of their freighter, opening themselves up to Corulag.
The Doctor and Jennara had technician uniforms on instead of their Jedi robes. The Doctor had feared that two people in almost identical robes would attract too much attention, so he and Jennara had stolen their current ensemble from a little shop on Kuat. The Imperials hadn't been too happy about that, but that had been months ago. Surely they weren't still looking for them.
The Imperials definitely weren't looking on Corulag, for when they stepped off the ramp, they weren't immediately greeted by a blaster pointed to their heads. Instead, the officer strolled up to them and looked them up and down.
"State your business," he said with a condescending tone.
"Health and Safety," the Doctor said quickly.
"You look more like mechanics than doctors," observed the officer.
"We're here for the health and safety of your machines, not you," snapped Jennara.
"You watch your tone, miss," the officer snapped right back. "You are addressing a senior officer of the Galactic Empire. You'd better behave, or something might...happen to you." He punctuated his statement with a suggestive leer in Jennara's direction. The Doctor noticed Jennara's throat strain almost imperceptibly as she fought to keep down sickened vomit.
"I don't think that'll be necessary," said the Doctor. "We're here to check up on your computer consoles. See if they're functioning properly. I'm John Smith. This is my companion, Grace Holloway."
"I don't remember ever requesting a mechanic," said the officer, his hand moving ever so slightly towards the blaster pistol holstered on his hip.
"You weren't notified?" asked the Doctor. "Odd. It's not like a regional governor to keep a distinguished officer like yourself in the dark."
"A regional governor sent you here?" asked the flabbergasted officer. The Doctor could see he was going a bit pink in the face because of his comment about distinguishment. Clearly, the officer had a high opinion of himself.
"Oh, yes," said the Doctor.
"And he didn't notify me in advance?"
"Must have been a mistake on his part," said Jennara.
"Indeed," sneered the officer. "Well, if Governor Jerjerrod wills it, then it shall be so. Come. This way."
The officer led the Doctor and Jennara to a speeder. They climbed aboard, and the officer told the pilot to take them to Corulag Academy. The Doctor and Jennara both quickly guessed that that was where they were going to be working.
Gonna be tough to get out, don't you think? asked Jennara in the Doctor's head.
Probably, answered the Doctor. But we'll find a way. There's always a way.
The speeder continued on in silence. Not a word came out of the two Jedi, the officer, or the pilot. The Doctor could sense Jennara's hand inching ever closer to a pocket on the leg of her baggy uniform pants, where her lightsaber was being kept. The Doctor's own lightsabers were kept in the same pocket on his pants as well.
Don't be afraid, Jennara, he thought to her. He doesn't suspect anything.
Are you sure? asked Jennara.
Reach out to his feelings. What do you sense?
Calm, calculating, and...Oh, by the Force...Jennara's throat tightened ever so slightly again as she fought down another bout of vomit.
What is it? asked the Doctor.
You don't even want to know what he's thinking about doing to me right now, answered Jennara. The Doctor took this as a warning not to look into the officer's thoughts anymore.
The speeder finally arrived at Corulag Academy, and the officer, the Doctor, and Jennara all disembarked from it. The officer led them inside, whereupon the Doctor reached into his pocket and brought out the machine that Jennara had built for him nineteen years ago.
"What is that?" asked the officer snidely.
"This," said the Doctor, holding up the machine, "is my spacey-wacey detector. It goes ding when there's stuff."
"What kind of stuff?" asked the officer.
"The kind of stuff that only my companion and I need to be worried about," said the Doctor.
"Very well," sighed the officer as he led them into a room full of computer consoles. "You'll find all our consoles here. Inspect them, then leave."
"Right away," said the Doctor. When the officer didn't leave, he added, "A bit of privacy, please."
The officer glared at the Doctor, but said nothing and left the room. Jennara looked at the Doctor and fake-gagged. The Doctor laughed at her expense, and Jennara playfully punched him in the shoulder as they got to work hacking into the Academy systems.
"Spacey-wacey?" she asked a few moments into their work.
"First thing I thought of," said the Doctor. "I could have also said timey-wimey, wibbly-wobbly, or explodey-wodey, but I think spacey-wacey worked best."
"Yeah, explodey-wodey definitely would have tipped them off that we're not actually here to fix their consoles," joked Jennara cheekily.
"I would think so," said the Doctor as he moved to another console and got to work there.
The Doctor and Jennara moved quickly through the Corulag Academy's systems, hacking away at their security grid. As they moved through the room, the Doctor thought his work to be quite fun, and he may have gotten a bit carried away. He only realized his carelessness when the officer came back into the room with a squad of white-armored stormtroopers, blasters at the ready. He and Jennara held their hands up, and they were quickly surrounded by the stormtroopers and the officer.
"Some of our systems have gone out," said the officer threateningly. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"
"Nothing at all," the Doctor lied quickly.
"You don't honestly think I'm that stupid, do you?" asked the officer.
The Doctor looked to Jennara and said, "Well, stranger things have happened." Jennara giggled at that, to which the officer shouted at her to shut up.
"I think I'm going to kill you first, girl," said the officer.
"Oh, please don't kill me," Jennara fake-pleaded with the officer. "I'm just an innocent little girl."
"Hardly," said the officer. "Prepare to fire!"
As the Imperials moved in closer, the Doctor and Jennara moved as well so that they were back-to-back. Just as the officer was about to give the order to fire, the Doctor and Jennara outstretched their hands, calling upon the Force. The Imperials were hurled into the walls, and some of them were knocked out completely.
"What in the blazes?" groaned the officer as Jennara and the Doctor reached into their pockets and produced their collective three lightsabers. Three blades, a green and yellow blade along with a short blue blade, slid from their respective lightsabers, and the two Jedi poised to attack.
"Jedi!" shouted the officer. "Kill them!"
Instantly, the remaining stormtroopers were on their feet and firing. The Doctor and Jennara formed an impenetrable defensive shield, reflecting any bolts that came after them. The Doctor's signature Ataru-Shien mix flowed perfectly with Jennara's Ataru-Shii-Cho mix, and the two Jedi were unscathed. The stormtroopers were unscathed as well, but only because Jennara and the Doctor were not focusing their energy on redirecting the bolts into their gleaming white armor. Instead, they focused on getting out of the Corulag Academy. They had been there long enough.
"Any second now, that alarm is going to go off!" called Jennara over the blasterfire.
Even as she spoke the words, the Doctor could see the officer moving towards the alarm system in the console room.
"We've got to go!" shouted the Doctor. "Run!"
The Doctor pushed the officer away from the console for a moment while he and Jennara made their escape. They ran down a hallway of the Academy as alarms blared out all around them. Their lightsabers flashed brilliantly as the two Jedi deflected and redirected their way through the Academy. The Doctor had a goal in mind. He wanted to hijack a speeder, then make way back to the freighter, which would most likely be held by the stormtroopers who had accompanied the officer when the Jedi first arrived on Corulag. It would be tough, he knew, but he and Jennara were both capable Jedi. They knew exactly what they needed to do.
They met with very little resistance on their way to the speeder lot, aside from the troopers who were already chasing them, a number which had grown significantly larger when the alarm had finally been triggered. The Imperials were running at them and firing with all they had. The Doctor and Jennara covered each other when bolts whizzed too close to them, and they tried their best to lose the Imperial aggressors.
At last, the Doctor and Jennara made it to a speeder lot at the south entrance of the academy. Deactivating his lightsabers, the Doctor climbed in the driver's seat of one of the speeder cars, and Jennara took the passenger's seat. The Doctor lifted off and sped towards the landing bay they had come in on.
It wasn't long before Imperial speeders were hot on their tail. The Doctor counted no less than five troopers, each on their own bike, trying to fire on their position. He briefly put the speeder car on autopilot and turned to Jennara.
"Can you fly this speeder?" he asked.
"Of course I can," said Jennara. "Why?"
"I'm about to do something either very brave or very stupid, depending on the outcome," explained the Doctor. "If what I'm about to do turns out to be very stupid, can I trust you to continue on without me?"
Jennara hesitated for a second. In that second, her eyes flashed with fear. Fear of losing the Doctor altogether. The Doctor didn't want to go, either, but he knew he had to get these speeders off of them. Otherwise, they would never make it off Corulag. He feared leaving, but his fear of Jennara's death drove him to action.
In an instant, the fear left Jennara's eyes, and she said, "Yes. I think so."
"Good," said the Doctor. He opened up his window and jumped out of the speeder car, holding onto the speeder's top so that he would flip onto the top side of the car. The Doctor reactivated his lightsabers and prepared to meet the Imperials head-on.
"Shoot the speeder!" shouted the lead biker. "We'll take them both down!"
The Doctor saw a few of the bikers pull out pistols. He used the Force to wrench the pistols from the grips of the bikers, then throw them off of their bikes and to their doom. They were well over fifty meters in the air. The fall would definitely severely injure the bikers, if it didn't kill them outright. The Doctor didn't like to kill, but it was his only feasible option here. He had to save Jennara and himself at any cost.
The lead biker, who had soon become the only adversary left standing, tried shooting at the engines of the speeder car himself, but the Doctor was there to intervene. His lightsabers whirled in the air as he deflected the blasts from the speeder bike, and for a moment, he was back on Saleucami.
He saw it all. The lush forestry, the tiny streams, and the speeder bikes. In his mind, he could see Commander Neyo shooting at him and the speeder, not a random stormtrooper. He looked back at his own speeder and saw not the car that he and Jennara had stolen, but the speeder Stass Allie had driven when she was killed by her own clone troops. The Tholothian Jedi looked to him, purple eyes piercing him with anger and resentment in them.
"You failed the Order, Doctor!" she cried out. "You couldn't save them! You couldn't save me! Why couldn't you save us, Doctor? WHY!?"
"I tried, but there was nothing I could do!" shouted the Doctor. "I'm sorry!"
"Not good enough, Doctor," said Stass, turning her head away from him. "I'm still dead, and your guilt over my passing and the passing of the Jedi Order will haunt you."
"Yes," the Doctor admitted as the moment passed. To him, he had been on Saleucami for a few minutes, but it had only in reality been a second at most. The stormtrooper was still firing at him and Jennara, and they were still in very real danger. He snapped out of his hallucination and quickly threw his lightsabers at the biker. They lightsabers cut through his body, the main at the torso, the shoto at his neck. The Doctor recalled his lightsabers, deactivated them, and watched as the lead biker's body split into three separate pieces and fell along with the speeder bike back down to the surface of Corulag.
The Doctor jumped into the passenger seat of the speeder car. Jennara's knuckles were white on the steering handle, and she was breathing a bit heavily.
"Stressed?" asked the Doctor cheekily, pretending as though he wasn't bothered by his hallucination of Stass.
"Just a little bit," said Jennara, looking at him with a small smile on her face that betrayed the fear she really felt. The Doctor smiled back, and the Padawan piloted the speeder back to the landing pad. They reached the pad, and there sat the freighter.
The Doctor thanked the Force, for there were no stormtroopers around to obstruct their way to their freighter. The Master and Padawan duo clambered aboard and took off for the dark embrace of the starry space. They sat back in their seats and gazed out into the blackness, Jennara breathing heavily from stress.
"That was close," she said.
"Agreed," said the Doctor.
Silence followed for a brief moment.
"Let's do it again!" cried Jennara excitedly, at which the Doctor had no choice but to laugh. Jennara joined in, and they were soon laughing their heads off in an almost childish way. They had just been in mortal peril, but they made it out and were laughing at their own expense.
"That was so much fun!" said Jennara in between fits of laughter.
"I know!" guffawed the Doctor. "We should mess with the Empire more often!"
"I don't know why we didn't start doing it earlier," said Jennara, calming herself down. "I always get a rush."
"Exactly," said the Doctor, calming himself as well.
"But seriously, we've got to work on those names, Doctor. I mean, John Smith? What kind of name is that?"
"It sounded like a name that didn't spark any sort of suspicion," defended the Doctor. "People have all sorts of funky names in the galaxy. I really could have just gone with anything."
"True," acknowledged Jennara. "Hey, what happened back there?"
"When?" asked the Doctor, sensing where his Padawan was going.
"On the speeder, you sort of...blacked out for a moment," said Jennara hesitantly. "I was wondering what it was about."
The Doctor fell silent. He didn't want to talk about what he saw. He didn't want to put that on Jennara. It was nobody's pain but his own.
"Forgive me, Doctor," said Jennara finally. "If you don't want to talk about it, I understand."
The Doctor smiled sadly at his Padawan, acknowledging her restraint and respect of his implicit wishes to leave the subject alone.
The Doctor had been having strange hallucinations every so often for a few years now. They usually popped up once a year, sometimes twice, and they all contained the same four Jedi: Ki-Adi-Mundi, Saesee Tiin, Plo Koon, and Stass Allie. They had been among the Doctor's closest friends who had been killed nineteen years ago by their own troops. Their deaths had been witnessed by the Doctor, and he would never forget the images of his friends being killed right in front of him. Never. To him, their deaths were his fault. He had failed to see what Darth Sidious had been planning from the beginning, and it had cost them their lives. It had cost almost the entire Order their lives. Yet he had survived. He always survived. From the death of his Order to the death of his own species, the Gallifreyans, the Doctor always lived on, carrying the weight of their deaths on his shoulders. It was, at times, too much, but the Doctor kept trucking along, adhering to his own sort of exile that he had taken up with Jennara.
Doctor.
A voice brought the Doctor out of his thoughts. He recognized it almost immediately, though he never failed to notice that it had aged quite a bit over nineteen years. He had taught the owner of the voice how to communicate with his dead Master and learn the secret to immortality. He had known that voice since its owner was a small boy.
Hello, Obi-Wan, the Doctor thought to his old friend. Has something happened?
Yes, Doctor, said Obi-Wan Kenobi. I suggest you come to Tatooine quickly.
What is it?
There's a message for us, Doctor, from Senator Organa. He's calling us back.
Hello, all! Welcome to Star Wars (Starring the Doctor) Episode IV: A New Hope! We've now entered the original trilogy, and it's going to be quite epic, if I do say so myself.
Couple of things I should probably talk about regarding this particular volume. Specifically, two things, introduced in the prologue and this chapter. I'll start with the thing in this chapter: the hallucinations. The Doctor has been having these weird hallucinations lately, as evidenced at the end of the chapter. They haven't happened very often for him as of right now, but he'll be getting a lot more of them as the story goes on. Stass, Ki-Adi-Mundi, Plo Koon, and Saesee Tiin will all be featured in the story as hallucinations at least once at fairly intermittent times.
And now, the thing in the prologue. This is the volume in which the Tenth Doctor will regenerate into the Eleventh Doctor. Can't say when. That's just too many spoilers for one author's note. Just know that it's going to happen, and that you can probably guess when it's going to happen, regardless of whether or not I tell you.
So, yeah, those are the big things regarding this volume. Regarding the story as a whole, I'm almost ready to begin the Tenth Doctor's chapter of "Adventures of the Doctor," so my deadline of 11:59 pm on December 31, 2014 should be met early, if I can just churn out that chapter and the epilogue, which shouldn't be too terribly long, in the next couple of days. It's kind of interesting. Literally almost all the free time of my entire 2014 has been devoted to this story. Now that I'm getting ready to add the finishing touches to the add-on stories, it's a bit solemn. But look at me getting emotional. I must stop this immediately! On to Doctor Who news!
In other news, the Doctor Who Christmas Special is coming up soon, and I cannot wait to get me some new Doctor Who shtuff. To be honest, I'm just excited for Santa Claus to be in Doctor Who. That, to me, is just awesome. I'm ready for it! Bring it on, Moffat! Make me feel feels on Christmas! I dare you! *ahem* Sorry about that.
Anyway, that's it for this author's note. Until the next chapter, my friends!