Author's Note: The next chapter in the crossover portion of this fanfiction story is now up… finally.


Chapter 10

Hearing Things

As the Naboo royal ship sped directly towards the unknown planet that was just up ahead, Hes continued to stare in stunned disbelief at the sight before him.

'How the hell did we end up getting all the way out here?' he thought to himself.

The pilot, Olié, turned around to glance behind him at Starrgazer. "So, then… what planet is that? You said that you've been there before," he asserted.

Hes glanced at him, still with a partially dumbfounded expression on his face. "It's the world that I initially came from. The one which I was born on," the boy replied.

Qui-Gon nodded with arrant understanding, knowing full well of the planet's name since Hes had personally disclosed said information to him regarding the boy's history and origins soon after they had first met each other years prior.

"Earth."

Panaka and Olié both looked at each other in great surprise upon hearing this astounding revelation.

As the planet grew larger and larger in the viewport as a result of the ship moving ever closer towards it, the vessel's sensors immediately detected something strange in front of it. Olié pressed a couple buttons on his control-panel, and a display reading indicated the presence of a number of large tracking devices that were orbiting around the planet.

"We're picking up a small amount of tracking instruments directly in front of us," he stated.

"Probably satellites. Earth's technologies are quite primitive in comparison, but still effective to an extent," Hes responded.

Captain Panaka glanced at the pilot. "Have they spotted us?" he promptly asked.

After thoroughly scanning his instrument panels, Olié shook his head. "It doesn't look like it. But I don't think that we should take any chances," he stated firmly.

Panaka nodded in agreement. Hes then stepped forward as an idea popped into his head. "We could use the Force to cloak the ship from detection," he suggested.

"That's possible, I suppose. Although, it may be difficult," said Qui-Gon, looking down at the boy.

Hes turned around to look at the Jedi Master. "Well, why not give it a shot. Besides, there's really nowhere else to go," he pointed out.

Qui-Gon looked at Obi-Wan who in turn glanced at his mentor and they both nodded in unison, opting to try and use the Force to cloak the ship from being noticed. The three Jedi then stood in a tightly enclosed circle, each grasping hold of the other's hands. As the trio closed their eyes and concentrated on making the Queen's ship completely invisible to the slowly approaching tracking instruments, Hes mentally instructed the pilot to make for the dark section of the planet, where it was well past dusk and there would be far less of a chance of getting seen by the populous.

As the ship flew past the satellites one after the other, Hes used his powers to scan each of the orbital devices, checking to see if any single one of them was picking up the Queen's ship on their computer systems. So far, their plan was working flawlessly. And after passing by the last few satellites, the ship then rocketed towards the western hemisphere of the planet. Passing through the atmosphere, they almost immediately came into direct contact with some very nasty-looking storm clouds. Lightning began to flash all around as the Naboo ship headed for a thickly wooded area with a somewhat large pond in the middle where it's cover could be maintained behind a layer of trees.

Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and Hes then all went back down the lift to the main cargo hold to examine the hyperdrive further after the ship touched down very near the pond, where there was a large enough of a clearing for the vessel to land.

While Obi-Wan was busy looking over the hyperdrive, Hes began to hear strange noises and sounds coming to him through the Force from all directions. Closing his eyes, the Padawan focused in on a certain location that was nearby, listening intensely to the frantic voices that were emanating from that immediate region.

"Molly, dear, get inside! They're coming! Hurry!"

"There are too many of them, Arthur! We need to gather up the children and go!"

Opening his eyes again, Hes looked over at Obi-Wan. "How long will it take to fix the problem with the hyperdrive?" he asked a bit hastily.

"Don't know yet. I'd say… ruffly two maybe three hours at most, once I find out the cause of the hyperdrive's malfunctioning," answered Obi-Wan quite frankly.

Little Anakin motioned forward with great enthusiasm. "Can I help?" he asked, while wildly bouncing up and down on his heels. "Please, please, please, please, please?"

Shmi laughed at her son's feisty eagerness to want to help the young Jedi, and Qui-Gon smiled proudly at the child.

Obi-Wan sighed quietly to himself and looked to the little boy's mother for her approval, who in turn gave it. "All right. But just be careful," he strongly advised.

Hes suddenly began to hear the noises and sounds through the Force once again. He immediately looked over at Qui-Gon, who noticed the boy's urgent expression. "I'm going out to have a look around for a bit, guys. I hopefully won't be gone long," he announced.

"What is it, Hes," asked the Jedi Master curiously.

"I'm starting to suspect we didn't just come here due to a problem with the hyperdrive. I do strongly believe however that the Force led us here specifically for a reason," stated the Padawan.

Qui-Gon closed his eyes and meditated on the Force for a brief moment, before opening them again. He looked straight at the boy and nodded in agreement, and Hes nodded back with a hint of determination written on his face.

As Obi-Wan continued to examine the hyperdrive, with little Anakin closely observing for the moment, both Qui-Gon and Hes went to the boarding ramp and lowered it. After shifting both his clothes and hair to something much more pertinent that was relative to the planet's inhabitants, Hes took something out of his pocket and showed it to Qui-Gon.

"What is that?" the Jedi Master asked, looking at the strange device.

"It's just my comlink," answered Hes. "But I disguised it to resemble a communications device that's used here on Earth. It's what they call a 'cellular phone'."

Qui-Gon nodded, only partially understanding. "So… what will happen with that when I signal for you to return?"

"Well, here let me show you," Hes responded, pressing a few buttons on the device's illuminated keypad. A moment later, the device began to emanate a slightly awkward sound, and Qui-Gon looked at the boy rather confused.

Hes sighed under his breath as his smiled. "I know. It makes that weird noise whenever there's an incoming transmission from it. They call it a 'ring tone', but it's really not a ringing sound at all."

Qui-Gon nodded once more and Hes exited the vessel, now sporting a grey t-shirt with long dark blue jeans, brown hiking boots and a black full-length leather raincoat with a hood, which were all just a tad snug due to the boy's muscular physique. As he casually strode along through the woods, the young Padawan all of a sudden started hearing the noises and sounds for a third time. Only now, they were slowly becoming much more intense and loud, this time followed by the anguished shouting, screaming, and crying of small children.

Hes bolted through the woods with such unimaginable speed that the line of trees which he was zigzagging through left and right toppled over due to the colossally powerful air blast that trailed along behind the boy as he ran. And as he felt a strong pull in the Force, promptly warning him of imminent danger, Hes leapt into the air and flew through the sky, momentarily gliding directly into the storm clouds as the lightning discharged all around him, briefly coursing throughout his entire body as he manipulated the atmospheric energy with little effort.

As the boy glided back down towards the Earth, he could see an odd-shaped house in the middle of a field, where it looked like a large group of black-robed individuals were terrorizing a local family directly below him. Hes angled his whole body forwards so that he was in a front-facing position as he pulled his legs and feet tightly together with his hands and arms firmly to his sides, dive-bombing face-first towards a wide-open clearing in the field.

Meanwhile, the group down below in the field was firing colored bolts of energy at two of the family members with small sticks as the man and woman, who were trying desperately to defend both each other as well as their children, were warding off their attackers using exactly the same method. Then suddenly, one of the attackers fired a blue bolt of energy at the man and he went flying backwards, landing hard as a female in the group cackled manically at what had just occurred.

"Arthur!" the woman screamed frantically to her husband.

The female assailant stepped closer towards the woman and spoke. "Now, trollop! Where is he?"

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about, you bloody blighter!" the woman cried angrily.

Upon hearing this insult, the attacker lunged forward and flicked her wrist with the stick which she held firmly in her grasp. A moment later, something very small flew out of the house right past the woman's head and she stared in complete horror as the tiny thing glided into the assailant's arms. The petite bundle was a baby that immediately began to squeal ever so loudly in both fear and confusion as the female attacker pointed her stick at it.

"RONALD! NO! NOT MY BABY, PLEASE!" the woman screamed.

The attacker gave her a monstrously wicked sneer. "Tell me where the little Potter brat is right this instant, or this one dies!" she bellowed threateningly.

Suddenly, the wind blew tremendously and the atmosphere crackled with intense amounts of electricity as the swath of storm clouds rolled overhead. An instant later, a huge bolt of lightning stretched down from the sky and impacted with the ground just yards away from the lot.

Hes rose to his feet from his three-point landing position, with both of his irides softly illuminated by a reddish-orange glow, looking mightily pissed-off as he quite vocally and aggressively exploded.

"LEAVE HIM!"