Chapter Three: Lost in Transit
Four Years Later
Nine months pregnant – check. Barefoot on intensely hot sand – check. Sweating profusely – check. Figured out how you ended up in a desert wasteland with two suns – still pending.
Her blistered bare feet kicking up sand and one hand on her protruded, bouncing belly, Christina Thomas did not have that much time to determine how she wound up in the mess she had currently found herself in. Not too far behind her was a pack of Tusken Raiders, otherwise known as "Sand People." How she was able to identify these grotesque-looking creatures was thanks to having a husband who insisted on watching Star Wars almost every movie night.
They held their spears high in their pursuit of the young pregnant woman.
Christina's mind raced over the multiple possibilities of her predicament. Only mere minutes earlier, she was in the Muppet Theater, worrying over the whereabouts of her husband and questioning the story shared with her by Victoria and Genevieve – two women who proved they could no longer be trusted in her eyes.
Wait! That's it!
Upon having her realization, she tripped on her legs and tumbled down a large sand dune. The Sand People followed her tumbling body down to the base of the dune. As soon as it stopped, they momentarily had as well and began slowly advancing on her. Christina saw them closing in and attempted to get back on her feet, yet she struggled with the extra weight she carried and the exhaustion that overtook her. She could get no further than turning from her side to her back.
It was no use. She and her baby were going to die at the hands of a group of aliens she never in her life imagined she would face.
"Sorry, kiddo," she whispered to her unborn child, one hand rested on her bump.
Just when the Sand People were a few feet from her, something rocketed down from the sky and hit the dune. It literally exploded from the impact, a massive sand cloud gathering around Christina and the Tusken Raiders and blinding them.
Clearing her eyes from bits of sand, Christina attempted to see what was happening, only managing to catch the Sand People being attacked themselves by a muscular figure who punched down three.
Another figure, one donned in a hood and cloak, entered the skirmish with an orange lightsaber – its glow lost in the sand cloud that its color meshed with. The remaining Tusken Raiders were slashed down with ease from the lightsaber-wielding, hooded figure.
Once the two combatants had successfully defeated their opponents, the hooded figure turned in Christina's direction. Showing a display of lightning-fast quickness and incredible strength, the hooded stranger picked Christina up from the ground, carrying her out of the sand cloud and into fresher air.
Able to see much clearer, Christina gazed at her rescuer. First thing she noticed was how her body – exposed from beneath the opened cloak – had the shape of a toned, slender woman. In addition to the beige cloak, the mysterious female was donned in a blue silk sweater that hung off her slimmed frame and exposed her pale shoulders, a maroon miniskirt with skinny jeans worn underneath, a gun belt with two holsters carrying blasters and lightsaber hilts, and knee-high, high-heeled brown boots that were riddled with sand at their rubber soles. Her face was obscured by round pilot's goggles and a reddish-orange scarf, although Christina could manage to make out hints of brown hair poking from underneath the hood.
"How far along are you?" The woman suddenly asked while carefully setting Christina back down. She followed up with various pregnancy-related questions that Christina tried to answer but could not, due to the rapid way in which they were given.
She could only manage to yell out, "I'm not giving birth this minute!"
The mysterious woman appeared to calm down and ceased in her inquiries.
Within a matter of seconds, they were joined by Christina's other rescuer. This one she was amazed to have recognized and see up close in the flesh there on the alien Star Wars planet.
"Hercules?"
Sure enough, it was him – the one of Disney fame. His tall, muscular body glistened beneath the two suns, only not from sweat (there was not an ounce seeping from him) but something more godlike.
"Are you O.K., ma'am?" He asked Christina.
Christina, nearly speechless at the sight of Hercules, confirmed to the Greek legend, "I…I am." She could not stop staring at him with such starry eyes. His appearance was practically entrancing. The world around her seemed to have slowed down in the few seconds she stared.
"Stop that!" The hooded woman told her in a seemingly jealous tone of voice. "Herc, help me get her back to the hut for her protection."
"Back to the…? Wait a sec!" Christina demanded. "Where am I?"
"You've seen Star Wars, right?" The hooded woman inquired, to which Christina gave a nod in reply. "Then welcome to it."
She gestured to the twin suns, which just then reminded Christina of the ones on Luke Skywalker's home planet Tatooine.
Christina and her two rescuers arrived in a hut at the southwestern edge of the desert a few short moments later. Entering the dwelling, she noticed how it looked as if it had not been in use for years.
"Did the fella just give up on hiring a housekeeper?" She jested, and Hercules supplied only a slight chuckle in response.
"The man who once lived here has been dead for quite some time." The hooded woman clarified in a rather somber voice that instantly killed the mood Christina livened up with her innocent joke.
After maintaining a hidden identity for close to two hours since their encounter, Christina watched as the woman finally removed her hood, exposing long, flowing locks of brown hair. She also removed her googles, revealing a pair of piercing pale blue eyes.
Noticing the woman's face for the first time, Christina saw how strikingly beautiful she was with defined cheekbones and eyebrows that complimented her amazing features. Although pale in skin tone, there was enough color to bring out her peach-blossomed lips.
"I never caught your name, Miss…?"
"My name's Adrienne. But you knew me by another once."
Christina was visibly confused by her claim. "Uh…no. I've never met you once in my entire life. Though you do look familiar – like 'been on film and television' familiar."
"We have met before, Chris."
Christina froze in shock. "Only my husband ever calls me 'Chris.'"
Adrienne smirked. "First day we met, I was going through the most horrible breakup ever – made me think I would never fall in love ever again. I had been working at the theater that night when you came in, asking for an interview with Kermit the Frog. He wasn't there that night – no one was but me – then you…"
"Wait." Christina held up a shaky hand in protest after the strongly accurate recollection of the night she first met her husband. She moved in closely to Adrienne, examining her face from the defined cheekbones to the pale blue eyes that she stopped upon. Her lips quivering, she muttered, "Sean?"
Adrienne warmly smiled. She gazed down at Christina's baby bump and placed a hand over it, feeling the living miracle squirming inside. "My little girl's almost ready," she whispered. Her demeanor shifted to that somber mood again, her smile fading immediately. "How did you get here, Christina?" She made her inquiry without a single hint of emotion, not missing a beat.
Still in shock of discovering who she was addressing, Christina answered, "T-The details are vague, but I remember being in the theater and talking to Genevieve about what had happened to Sean…I mean, you."
Adrienne frowned on the name of Genevieve. "She's the one who brought you here?"
"She may or may not have. Like I said, I'm not solid on the details. All I know is that I want to go home right now. I'm not having our baby in some galaxy far, far away!"
Adrienne looked away from her, clearly distraught. "I'm not even sure there will be a home anymore… not after what the Empire plans to do with the Sphere."
The perplexed Christina blinked in rapid motion. "I'm sorry. The what?"
Adrienne took a few slow breaths, prepping herself to give a long, winded explanation: "It's an invention created by Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker that's brought on several incidents that started with my mother being biologically influenced in some way by the machine and gifted with powers in unlimited sorcery – powers that she unknowingly passed down to me."
Although it sounded totally unreal, Christina managed to make sense of it from what she discovered about Adrienne. "And one of these powers includes changing your whole physical appearance?"
"Thirteen times…so far." Adrienne confirmed.
Christina's eyes enlarged with surprise. "Thirteen? So far? How did this happen to you, Sean?" She reached forward and touched Adrienne's face, which felt nearly ice-cold – strange, considering how long she was out in the sweltering heat. "Is this still even your skin?"
"Yes." She established, making Christina's hand retreat from the ice-cold skin, her face registering disgust. "The cells in my old body atomized – turned into white dust – and transferred across dimensions of time and space until it finally sculpted a new body out for me…that of a young Englishwoman you happen to know."
"Victoria?" Christina uttered the name in both anger and shock. "You mean she's you, too?"
"My first-ever reincarnated form." Adrienne said. "Genevieve is also – she's my final form."
The casual tone in which Adrienne explained all of this only mortified Christina even more.
"But that's all beside the main point, which is the Sphere that the Empire has." Adrienne stated. "It's traveled from realm to realm as a way of ridding it from a world with inhabitants that intend to use its power for foolhardiness. And now it seems that the Galactic Empire has tapped into and tearing this galaxy apart."
"But how did I get here?" Christina questioned before gesturing to Hercules, who had been sitting at a table near them and gulping down cup after cup of blue milk. "And why is he here, too?"
Adrienne's hands rested on her hips as she figured things out. "Well, to answer your first question, it had to be a transit spell that Genevieve or someone else with our power placed on you. As far as Herc goes, his presence here is a prime example of the Empire's tampering with the Sphere. The damned fools have no clue what they're doing with that thing, and it's affecting the fabric of space and time as we know it – worlds are starting to merge and, soon enough, every single one will break apart…all the ones that the Sphere has come in contact with."
Christina chuckled with amusement. "This whole thing is sounding more like something out of Star Trek than Star Wars."
"If we don't do something about it, this place could very well become Star Trek." The strictness in her address expressed how more serious she saw the situation than Christina.
Suddenly, Adrienne's hands went to her head, clutching it in pain. She doubled over, attracting the concerns of Christina and Hercules.
"What's wrong?" The Greek god asked her.
"The time stream is catching up with me." Adrienne hoarsely informed. "I knew better than to jump ahead of the timeline to a point where I'm not supposed to exist in. By this period, I've died – reincarnated into my next form – and my body is reminding me of that right now, telling me to get my sorry butt back to my own time."
"Is there anything we can do to help you?" Hercules asked, visibly shaken by the state of his companion.
Adrienne shook her head. "You can't do anything for the version of me here and now, but you can do something for the one that still exists before all the insanity has plagued the galaxy. You both have to go to my past and help me stop the Empire from making the single greatest mistake of their lives."
"And how do you expect a pregnant woman and a Greek god to help stop an entire evil empire?" Christina mockingly queried.
A weak smile emerged from Adrienne's heavily trembling face. "I've always had faith in you, hon. There's never been one second in the times we once shared together that I stopped believing in you."
Fighting through the pain, she stood straight up and delivered a gentle kiss on the forehead of Christina. It was a gesture that had been accompanied by a bright flash of light filling the entire hut.
Once the light dispersed, all three of the hut's inhabitants had vanished.