Part VI -- Introductions
It took several minutes to calm everyone down to the point where intelligent conversation was possible. Another hour went by as they finished cleaning up the party and broke out some odd-looking chairs for an impromptu meeting. Two Boba Fett impostors cleared off the refreshment table and disappeared for a few minutes to put the food away.
Luke considered, not for the first time, making his escape while Vader and Fett were occupied with the puzzles this world presented. And not for the first time he dismissed the idea. Even if he escaped recapture -- which was fairly unlikely -- he had no way to get back to the rendezvous. Besides, if he left now, he'd never find out how the natives of Earth knew so much about the Empire. So instead of contemplating an escape route he made himself useful by helping set up chairs, though it took awhile for him to figure the contraptions out. These metal chairs were built to be collapsible, a trick that made them much easier to store but harder to set up.
"Don't feel too bad about it," a stormtrooper told him as Luke caught himself trying to open a chair the wrong way. "I practically grew up sitting on a folding chair, and I still get tangled up setting them out."
He was taking this rather well, Luke noted. Most of the others he caught gawking at him or Fett or Vader whenever he looked up. Some were murmuring among themselves.
"Dude, if anyone else finds out about this, it's gonna cause mass riots," noted a sandtrooper.
"Only on Skywalker Ranch," quipped a Tusken in a joke Luke didn't get.
"No one's gonna find about it," a female snowtrooper ordered, "because WE are going to keep quiet about this."
"Um, what about all those people who saw..." began the sandtrooper.
"Who's gonna believe them?" the Tusken pointed out. "Mulder and Scully? Especially this time of year."
The stormtrooper laughed. "This is really going to take some getting used to." He extended a hand toward Luke. "My name's Brigham."
"Pleasure to meet you, Brigham," Luke replied, shaking his hand. "You already know my name."
Brigham chuckled, then set down the chair he was holding and walked over to a TIE pilot who was staring into space, clutching a still-folded chair and looking rather lost.
"Mike, you okay?" Brigham asked him.
"I can't remember if I'm putting them up or taking them down," Mike replied vaguely.
Brigham sighed wearily. "Here Mike, give me the chair and sit down."
Mike complied, but he missed the chair and ended up on his back. Everyone shared a chuckle as he scrambled to his feet.
At last the Elite completed the cleanup and seated themselves in a circle. There were eighteen of them, all dressed as either Imperials, bounty hunters, or other sinister-looking beings. Luke wondered at that, as he had almost since regaining consciousness back at the landing site. He hoped these people would be able to answer their many questions.
"This meeting of Vader's Elite will now come to order," Austin Powers announced, standing. "First of all, I would like to introduce our visitors..."
"How can you pay attention to formalities at a time like this?!" demanded a veiled woman in violet-brown leather.
"Shut up, Liz," snapped a female scouttrooper.
"Our visitors Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Boba Fett, and Artoo-Detoo," Austin went on, ignoring the two women. "Welcome to the group."
"Can I get your autographs?" a young boy in Darth Vader armor asked, kicking his feet excitedly.
"Later, Trapper," Austin ordered. "As guests to our fan club and planet, we would like to know if you have any questions."
Luke most definitely had questions, but before he could voice any Vader spoke.
"First order of business," he intoned. "I believe introductions are in order. You are Austin Powers, and your son is Trapper. We know that much."
"Yes, introductions would be good," Austin agreed. He gestured to his left. "We'll start with Sparky, then go clockwise from there."
"But that makes me last!" complained Mike.
"That gives you more time to plan your intro," replied the man on Austin's left, a gentle-looking middle-aged man sitting in a wheeled chair and dressed as an Imperial officer. "My name's Ryan O'Brian, but you can call me Sparky. I'm second-in-command."
"That's an... interesting nickname," Luke noted.
"Thank you," Sparky replied, waggling his eyebrows. He turned to the dark-robed young man beside him. "Your turn."
While traveling with the Rebellion, Luke had been able to research subjects his uncle never allowed him to so much as glimpse back on the homestead. One of these was the Clone Wars, which made sense seeing as his father had been involved in them. He'd seen holos of the separist leader Count Dooku during his personal study of the Wars, and this man almost exactly resembled the ex-Jedi, from the neatly trimmed hair and beard
which had been dyed silver-white to the elegant black and red robes. Even the distinctive "crooked" lightsaber was accurate to the most minuscule detail.
The illusion was shattered when he began picking his nose. He was trying to make it look like he was just scratching it, but it was quite evident what he was really doing.
"I'm Zack Brown. I'm the record keeper." He lifted an item that resembled a tiny datapad so the others could see it.
The veiled woman pulled back her veil momentarily. "Liz Djedovich. Club treasurer." She replaced the cloth and immediately tuned her surroundings out.
"Look at her," Zack teased. "Coolest thing ever to happen at the cons and she's checked out."
"I heard that!" she snapped.
"Liz, for now, turn off the headphones," Austin ordered. "This is important."
She rolled her eyes, then placed a hand on a disc-shaped appliance attached to her belt and switched it off.
"What's that?" demanded Fett.
"CD player," Liz replied. "Plays music."
"I hear no music," Vader pointed out.
"I wear headphones so only I hear the music," she explained.
"Ahem," Austin coughed, indicating it was time to move on.
The woman to Liz's left wore armor very similar to Vader's, but it had been altered and given a distinctly feminine flavor. Rather than make her look broad and larger than life, it accentuated her natural curves, and for artistic reasons the chest panel and belt controls had been removed. Her gloves and boots retained their militarian look but had been streamlined to fit her hands and feet and give her a warrior-queen elegance. To further distinguish herself from Vader, her cloak had been embroidered, though her back was to the wall and Luke couldn't see what pattern had been stitched into the fabric. He wondered how well her choice of apparel was going over with the real Vader.
"My name's Liberty King," she said, nodding politely. "I handle contest entries for art, fiction, films, costumes, and the like."
"I'm Jason Osmond," the Boba Fett impostor offered. He clapped a hand on his neighbor's shoulder, a man whose armor was almost identical to Jason's, only less beat-up and silver and blue rather than green and red. "This is my brother Patrick. We're the activities directors."
Patrick nodded and raised a hand in greeting.
"Meaning Jason comes up with the ideas and Patrick has to do all the grunt work to carry them out," quipped Liberty.
"Drop dead," Jason retorted. "That's not true."
"Who did ninety percent of the work getting the party set up?" inquired a Sandperson.
"Shut up!"
"Quiet, please," Austin requested. "Steve?"
The horned being by Patrick grinned, his toothy smile splitting a face that was a filigree of red and black. His eyes glowed an acidic orange, and a lightsaber with a blade emitter shroud at either end gleamed against his black clothing. Despite his fearsome appearance, Luke detected no malevolence in his bearing.
"My name's Steve Durrant. I'm the gadget guy -- or technical expert, if you want to get picky about it."
The next three members wore the garb of Sandpeople -- a male, a female, and a small child who clutched a Wookie doll in her arms and kicked her feet impatiently.
"I'm Conrad Church," the man introduced. "This is my lovely wife Diana." He took her hand and lifted it to his face, pretending to kiss it through his facial wrappings. "And this is our daughter Rachel. Our family coordinates the activity schedule."
Rachel stared, transfixed, at Vader as if he were some new toy in a window display. "You're really Darth Vader?"
Vader was a long while in replying, but he eventually allowed her a nod.
"You got the Force, don't you?"
A second nod.
"How do you go to the bathroom in that suit?"
"Rachel!" chided Diana.
"Sorry about that," apologized Conrad. "Sometimes kids say the damndest things."
"Conrad, watch your mouth!" Diana's scolding fell on her husband now. "There are innocent ears present."
"Honey, our daughter's grown up watching sci-fi war movies," Conrad replied. "She's not that innocent."
"Next!" declared Sparky.
"I'm Brigham Pratt," the stormtrooper said, waving. "I lead the Troopers. We're a sub-group of the Elite."
"I'm Emily Snow," the snowtrooper added. "I'm his second."
"I'm Amethyst Andrews, club rep and publicist," the scouttrooper put in.
"That's not her real name," the sandtrooper piped up. "Her real name's..."
"Amethyst Andrews!" Amethyst insisted, punching him in the arm.
'"Didn't used to be."
"I know, but I legally changed it once I was of legal age. It's now Amethyst, and that's all these guys need to know..."
"Used to be Julie!" the sandtrooper said enthusiastically before Amethyst/Julie could deck him again.
"What's wrong with a name like Julie?" asked Luke.
"Nothing," Steve replied, "except Julie Andrews also happens to be the name of a famous actress and singer on this planet."
The sandtrooper flung his head back and belted out what vaguely resembled a song -- he was so off-key it was hard to tell what the original tune was.
"The hiiiiiiiiiiills are aliiiiiiiive with the sound of muuuuuusiiiiiiiiiic! The soooooongs they have suuuuuung for a thousand yeeeeaaars!"
Amethyst grabbed him by the neck and began shaking him furiously, chanting "Shut up" in time with her thrashings. The action served only to further distort the man's caterwauling.
"Knock it off, lovebirds," Brigham told them. "You can pound him later, Amethyst."
She released her victim but continued to glare at him.
"I'm Cody Suk," the sandtrooper introduced. "And... and..." He sobbed. "I'm an alcoholic, man!"
"Oh geez," grumbled Jason.
"Hey, that's a good one, Cody," Conrad told him. "I shoulda used that for my intro."
Cody laughed. "No, really, I'm the EU expert."
"Define EU," Vader requested.
"We'll do that later," Emily answered.
"I'm Darcy Akers, and I'm the transportation director," said the clonetrooper. "That means I'm in charge of getting everyone where we're supposed to go, like chartering buses for Dragon*Con or making sure people have rides, but you probably knew that."
"Um, Darcy?" Sparky cut in.
"Listen, Lord Vader, I am, like, really, really sorry about what I did to you earlier," Darcy went on. "I, like, totally forgot my boyfriend wasn't going to show up, and he dresses like you, so I just saw you and thought 'Oh, a Darth Vader, that must be Kevin.' But I hope you'll forgive..."
"Darcy!" Brigham said sternly.
"You'll have to excuse her," Amethyst told Vader. "She tends to ramble."
"I don't ramble, I just like to talk. I mean, everyone has stuff they like to do and I find I particularly enjoy talking, even when it's about nothing..."
"Especially when it's about nothing," murmured Cody.
"Enough!" Liz snapped.
"I propose that from now on, caffienated drinks are banned from all our functions," Jason suggested.
"Do that and I'll drop out," Steve replied with a teasing smile.
"That's enough," Austin ordered. "Michael?"
"Huh?" He had zoned out. "What?"
"Do you want to introduce yourself?"
"Sure, I..." he began, but he lost his balance as his chair, which he had been tipping back on its hind legs, tilted past its center of balance. Man and chair toppled backward, limbs flailing, and hit the ferrocrete floor with a metallic clatter and a dull thud.
"You all right?" Darcy inquired anxiously.
Austin stooped to help his comrade to his feet. "I keep telling you not to tip these chairs, Mike."
Mike grunted, rubbing his backside. "Mike Hall, website designer and editor."
"Now that that's over with, can we get autographs now?" asked Trapper.
"Yeah, can we?" Zack repeated, grinning widely.
"You two really have single-track minds, don't you?" Emily replied, shaking her head.
"I have a second question," Vader stated.
"Ask away," Sparky invited.
He paused, as if judging how best to put this into words, then proceeded to speak what had been burning in all three of their minds for the past few hours:
"How, in the name of the Force, do the natives of a planet entirely cut off from our galaxy, whom we have never visited or told of our ways, know so much about our ways, our people, our leaders and heroes and rogues, and worse, consider such knowledge entirely natural?"
A long moment of uncomfortable silence.
"You want an honest answer?" replied Liberty finally.
"Please," Fett replied.
"We don't know," she answered with a rueful shrug.
"We've always assumed it was fictional," Conrad added. "Though maybe, in the back of our minds, we sometimes wished you and your galaxy far, far away existed."
"We're not that far away," Fett defended.
"Obviously, or you wouldn't be here," Emily replied.
"What do you mean, you assumed we were fictional?" Vader demanded.
"Some guy named George Lucas made movies about you," Trapper replied eagerly. "And they're really cool!"
"What's a movie?" asked Luke.
Austin put his hands together with a clap. "Ladies and gentlemen, I believe it's time we introduced our friends to one of our little pre-Con rituals."
"Movie marathon!" cried Cody and Zack simultaneously.
"I call a short recess," Austin continued, "while we adjourn to the Osmond's living room. You guys are going to love this."
***
"I still don't understand what's going on," Luke complained to Austin as they settled down on the couch. "What exactly are we doing?"
"Viewing the motion pictures that taught us all about you," he replied cryptically. "Think of this as a holodrama in 2-D."
Patrick was tinkering with a large vidscreen while members of the Elite made themselves as comfortable as they were able in the crowded living room of Patrick and Jason's home. Austin, Fett, Vader, and Luke had been granted seats on the room's sofa and two chairs; the rest of the club had to sit or lay on the floor, but no one objected. Except for Liz, who evidently complained about everything, and Rachel, who for some mysterious reason had attached herself to Vader and insisted on sitting in his lap. Time and again the Dark Lord would remove her with a stern rebuke, and time and again she would climb back up. Finally he gave up, allowing her to remain on his knee.
Luke smiled. Another sign that his father wasn't entirely evil -- or at least not evil enough to harm a child. That was a step above the total blackness he'd once thought him to be part of.
"You're gonna love this movie," Rachel babbled as she squeezed her Wookie to her chest. "You're in it. Luke's in another one, and so's Boba Fett. Artoo's in all of them. I think they're cool, but Mommy always covers my eyes at the interesting parts."
"Just be off me by the time this is over," Vader growled.
"I'll probably be asleep," she replied. "When we watch all of them at once I always fall asleep during the second one." She held up her Wookie. "This is my Chewbacca doll. Daddy gave him to me for my first Christmas. I changed his name to Moriancumer. Brigham gave me that name. I call him Mori for short."
Vader held a finger over his mask's air intake vent. "It's starting."
"Introducing the Fifth Annual Vader's Elite Star Wars Movie Marathon!" shouted Jason, and the entire room burst into applause as blue letters appeared on the vidscreen.
"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...."
It took several minutes to calm everyone down to the point where intelligent conversation was possible. Another hour went by as they finished cleaning up the party and broke out some odd-looking chairs for an impromptu meeting. Two Boba Fett impostors cleared off the refreshment table and disappeared for a few minutes to put the food away.
Luke considered, not for the first time, making his escape while Vader and Fett were occupied with the puzzles this world presented. And not for the first time he dismissed the idea. Even if he escaped recapture -- which was fairly unlikely -- he had no way to get back to the rendezvous. Besides, if he left now, he'd never find out how the natives of Earth knew so much about the Empire. So instead of contemplating an escape route he made himself useful by helping set up chairs, though it took awhile for him to figure the contraptions out. These metal chairs were built to be collapsible, a trick that made them much easier to store but harder to set up.
"Don't feel too bad about it," a stormtrooper told him as Luke caught himself trying to open a chair the wrong way. "I practically grew up sitting on a folding chair, and I still get tangled up setting them out."
He was taking this rather well, Luke noted. Most of the others he caught gawking at him or Fett or Vader whenever he looked up. Some were murmuring among themselves.
"Dude, if anyone else finds out about this, it's gonna cause mass riots," noted a sandtrooper.
"Only on Skywalker Ranch," quipped a Tusken in a joke Luke didn't get.
"No one's gonna find about it," a female snowtrooper ordered, "because WE are going to keep quiet about this."
"Um, what about all those people who saw..." began the sandtrooper.
"Who's gonna believe them?" the Tusken pointed out. "Mulder and Scully? Especially this time of year."
The stormtrooper laughed. "This is really going to take some getting used to." He extended a hand toward Luke. "My name's Brigham."
"Pleasure to meet you, Brigham," Luke replied, shaking his hand. "You already know my name."
Brigham chuckled, then set down the chair he was holding and walked over to a TIE pilot who was staring into space, clutching a still-folded chair and looking rather lost.
"Mike, you okay?" Brigham asked him.
"I can't remember if I'm putting them up or taking them down," Mike replied vaguely.
Brigham sighed wearily. "Here Mike, give me the chair and sit down."
Mike complied, but he missed the chair and ended up on his back. Everyone shared a chuckle as he scrambled to his feet.
At last the Elite completed the cleanup and seated themselves in a circle. There were eighteen of them, all dressed as either Imperials, bounty hunters, or other sinister-looking beings. Luke wondered at that, as he had almost since regaining consciousness back at the landing site. He hoped these people would be able to answer their many questions.
"This meeting of Vader's Elite will now come to order," Austin Powers announced, standing. "First of all, I would like to introduce our visitors..."
"How can you pay attention to formalities at a time like this?!" demanded a veiled woman in violet-brown leather.
"Shut up, Liz," snapped a female scouttrooper.
"Our visitors Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Boba Fett, and Artoo-Detoo," Austin went on, ignoring the two women. "Welcome to the group."
"Can I get your autographs?" a young boy in Darth Vader armor asked, kicking his feet excitedly.
"Later, Trapper," Austin ordered. "As guests to our fan club and planet, we would like to know if you have any questions."
Luke most definitely had questions, but before he could voice any Vader spoke.
"First order of business," he intoned. "I believe introductions are in order. You are Austin Powers, and your son is Trapper. We know that much."
"Yes, introductions would be good," Austin agreed. He gestured to his left. "We'll start with Sparky, then go clockwise from there."
"But that makes me last!" complained Mike.
"That gives you more time to plan your intro," replied the man on Austin's left, a gentle-looking middle-aged man sitting in a wheeled chair and dressed as an Imperial officer. "My name's Ryan O'Brian, but you can call me Sparky. I'm second-in-command."
"That's an... interesting nickname," Luke noted.
"Thank you," Sparky replied, waggling his eyebrows. He turned to the dark-robed young man beside him. "Your turn."
While traveling with the Rebellion, Luke had been able to research subjects his uncle never allowed him to so much as glimpse back on the homestead. One of these was the Clone Wars, which made sense seeing as his father had been involved in them. He'd seen holos of the separist leader Count Dooku during his personal study of the Wars, and this man almost exactly resembled the ex-Jedi, from the neatly trimmed hair and beard
which had been dyed silver-white to the elegant black and red robes. Even the distinctive "crooked" lightsaber was accurate to the most minuscule detail.
The illusion was shattered when he began picking his nose. He was trying to make it look like he was just scratching it, but it was quite evident what he was really doing.
"I'm Zack Brown. I'm the record keeper." He lifted an item that resembled a tiny datapad so the others could see it.
The veiled woman pulled back her veil momentarily. "Liz Djedovich. Club treasurer." She replaced the cloth and immediately tuned her surroundings out.
"Look at her," Zack teased. "Coolest thing ever to happen at the cons and she's checked out."
"I heard that!" she snapped.
"Liz, for now, turn off the headphones," Austin ordered. "This is important."
She rolled her eyes, then placed a hand on a disc-shaped appliance attached to her belt and switched it off.
"What's that?" demanded Fett.
"CD player," Liz replied. "Plays music."
"I hear no music," Vader pointed out.
"I wear headphones so only I hear the music," she explained.
"Ahem," Austin coughed, indicating it was time to move on.
The woman to Liz's left wore armor very similar to Vader's, but it had been altered and given a distinctly feminine flavor. Rather than make her look broad and larger than life, it accentuated her natural curves, and for artistic reasons the chest panel and belt controls had been removed. Her gloves and boots retained their militarian look but had been streamlined to fit her hands and feet and give her a warrior-queen elegance. To further distinguish herself from Vader, her cloak had been embroidered, though her back was to the wall and Luke couldn't see what pattern had been stitched into the fabric. He wondered how well her choice of apparel was going over with the real Vader.
"My name's Liberty King," she said, nodding politely. "I handle contest entries for art, fiction, films, costumes, and the like."
"I'm Jason Osmond," the Boba Fett impostor offered. He clapped a hand on his neighbor's shoulder, a man whose armor was almost identical to Jason's, only less beat-up and silver and blue rather than green and red. "This is my brother Patrick. We're the activities directors."
Patrick nodded and raised a hand in greeting.
"Meaning Jason comes up with the ideas and Patrick has to do all the grunt work to carry them out," quipped Liberty.
"Drop dead," Jason retorted. "That's not true."
"Who did ninety percent of the work getting the party set up?" inquired a Sandperson.
"Shut up!"
"Quiet, please," Austin requested. "Steve?"
The horned being by Patrick grinned, his toothy smile splitting a face that was a filigree of red and black. His eyes glowed an acidic orange, and a lightsaber with a blade emitter shroud at either end gleamed against his black clothing. Despite his fearsome appearance, Luke detected no malevolence in his bearing.
"My name's Steve Durrant. I'm the gadget guy -- or technical expert, if you want to get picky about it."
The next three members wore the garb of Sandpeople -- a male, a female, and a small child who clutched a Wookie doll in her arms and kicked her feet impatiently.
"I'm Conrad Church," the man introduced. "This is my lovely wife Diana." He took her hand and lifted it to his face, pretending to kiss it through his facial wrappings. "And this is our daughter Rachel. Our family coordinates the activity schedule."
Rachel stared, transfixed, at Vader as if he were some new toy in a window display. "You're really Darth Vader?"
Vader was a long while in replying, but he eventually allowed her a nod.
"You got the Force, don't you?"
A second nod.
"How do you go to the bathroom in that suit?"
"Rachel!" chided Diana.
"Sorry about that," apologized Conrad. "Sometimes kids say the damndest things."
"Conrad, watch your mouth!" Diana's scolding fell on her husband now. "There are innocent ears present."
"Honey, our daughter's grown up watching sci-fi war movies," Conrad replied. "She's not that innocent."
"Next!" declared Sparky.
"I'm Brigham Pratt," the stormtrooper said, waving. "I lead the Troopers. We're a sub-group of the Elite."
"I'm Emily Snow," the snowtrooper added. "I'm his second."
"I'm Amethyst Andrews, club rep and publicist," the scouttrooper put in.
"That's not her real name," the sandtrooper piped up. "Her real name's..."
"Amethyst Andrews!" Amethyst insisted, punching him in the arm.
'"Didn't used to be."
"I know, but I legally changed it once I was of legal age. It's now Amethyst, and that's all these guys need to know..."
"Used to be Julie!" the sandtrooper said enthusiastically before Amethyst/Julie could deck him again.
"What's wrong with a name like Julie?" asked Luke.
"Nothing," Steve replied, "except Julie Andrews also happens to be the name of a famous actress and singer on this planet."
The sandtrooper flung his head back and belted out what vaguely resembled a song -- he was so off-key it was hard to tell what the original tune was.
"The hiiiiiiiiiiills are aliiiiiiiive with the sound of muuuuuusiiiiiiiiiic! The soooooongs they have suuuuuung for a thousand yeeeeaaars!"
Amethyst grabbed him by the neck and began shaking him furiously, chanting "Shut up" in time with her thrashings. The action served only to further distort the man's caterwauling.
"Knock it off, lovebirds," Brigham told them. "You can pound him later, Amethyst."
She released her victim but continued to glare at him.
"I'm Cody Suk," the sandtrooper introduced. "And... and..." He sobbed. "I'm an alcoholic, man!"
"Oh geez," grumbled Jason.
"Hey, that's a good one, Cody," Conrad told him. "I shoulda used that for my intro."
Cody laughed. "No, really, I'm the EU expert."
"Define EU," Vader requested.
"We'll do that later," Emily answered.
"I'm Darcy Akers, and I'm the transportation director," said the clonetrooper. "That means I'm in charge of getting everyone where we're supposed to go, like chartering buses for Dragon*Con or making sure people have rides, but you probably knew that."
"Um, Darcy?" Sparky cut in.
"Listen, Lord Vader, I am, like, really, really sorry about what I did to you earlier," Darcy went on. "I, like, totally forgot my boyfriend wasn't going to show up, and he dresses like you, so I just saw you and thought 'Oh, a Darth Vader, that must be Kevin.' But I hope you'll forgive..."
"Darcy!" Brigham said sternly.
"You'll have to excuse her," Amethyst told Vader. "She tends to ramble."
"I don't ramble, I just like to talk. I mean, everyone has stuff they like to do and I find I particularly enjoy talking, even when it's about nothing..."
"Especially when it's about nothing," murmured Cody.
"Enough!" Liz snapped.
"I propose that from now on, caffienated drinks are banned from all our functions," Jason suggested.
"Do that and I'll drop out," Steve replied with a teasing smile.
"That's enough," Austin ordered. "Michael?"
"Huh?" He had zoned out. "What?"
"Do you want to introduce yourself?"
"Sure, I..." he began, but he lost his balance as his chair, which he had been tipping back on its hind legs, tilted past its center of balance. Man and chair toppled backward, limbs flailing, and hit the ferrocrete floor with a metallic clatter and a dull thud.
"You all right?" Darcy inquired anxiously.
Austin stooped to help his comrade to his feet. "I keep telling you not to tip these chairs, Mike."
Mike grunted, rubbing his backside. "Mike Hall, website designer and editor."
"Now that that's over with, can we get autographs now?" asked Trapper.
"Yeah, can we?" Zack repeated, grinning widely.
"You two really have single-track minds, don't you?" Emily replied, shaking her head.
"I have a second question," Vader stated.
"Ask away," Sparky invited.
He paused, as if judging how best to put this into words, then proceeded to speak what had been burning in all three of their minds for the past few hours:
"How, in the name of the Force, do the natives of a planet entirely cut off from our galaxy, whom we have never visited or told of our ways, know so much about our ways, our people, our leaders and heroes and rogues, and worse, consider such knowledge entirely natural?"
A long moment of uncomfortable silence.
"You want an honest answer?" replied Liberty finally.
"Please," Fett replied.
"We don't know," she answered with a rueful shrug.
"We've always assumed it was fictional," Conrad added. "Though maybe, in the back of our minds, we sometimes wished you and your galaxy far, far away existed."
"We're not that far away," Fett defended.
"Obviously, or you wouldn't be here," Emily replied.
"What do you mean, you assumed we were fictional?" Vader demanded.
"Some guy named George Lucas made movies about you," Trapper replied eagerly. "And they're really cool!"
"What's a movie?" asked Luke.
Austin put his hands together with a clap. "Ladies and gentlemen, I believe it's time we introduced our friends to one of our little pre-Con rituals."
"Movie marathon!" cried Cody and Zack simultaneously.
"I call a short recess," Austin continued, "while we adjourn to the Osmond's living room. You guys are going to love this."
***
"I still don't understand what's going on," Luke complained to Austin as they settled down on the couch. "What exactly are we doing?"
"Viewing the motion pictures that taught us all about you," he replied cryptically. "Think of this as a holodrama in 2-D."
Patrick was tinkering with a large vidscreen while members of the Elite made themselves as comfortable as they were able in the crowded living room of Patrick and Jason's home. Austin, Fett, Vader, and Luke had been granted seats on the room's sofa and two chairs; the rest of the club had to sit or lay on the floor, but no one objected. Except for Liz, who evidently complained about everything, and Rachel, who for some mysterious reason had attached herself to Vader and insisted on sitting in his lap. Time and again the Dark Lord would remove her with a stern rebuke, and time and again she would climb back up. Finally he gave up, allowing her to remain on his knee.
Luke smiled. Another sign that his father wasn't entirely evil -- or at least not evil enough to harm a child. That was a step above the total blackness he'd once thought him to be part of.
"You're gonna love this movie," Rachel babbled as she squeezed her Wookie to her chest. "You're in it. Luke's in another one, and so's Boba Fett. Artoo's in all of them. I think they're cool, but Mommy always covers my eyes at the interesting parts."
"Just be off me by the time this is over," Vader growled.
"I'll probably be asleep," she replied. "When we watch all of them at once I always fall asleep during the second one." She held up her Wookie. "This is my Chewbacca doll. Daddy gave him to me for my first Christmas. I changed his name to Moriancumer. Brigham gave me that name. I call him Mori for short."
Vader held a finger over his mask's air intake vent. "It's starting."
"Introducing the Fifth Annual Vader's Elite Star Wars Movie Marathon!" shouted Jason, and the entire room burst into applause as blue letters appeared on the vidscreen.
"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...."