The arrival at Mobius was bittersweet. Jim enjoyed being back at the Earth-like planet, although it, like all others in the quadrant, was being evacuated to the Inner SOL system. As soon as the Millennium Falcon had landed, the Royal Guard had arrived, led by Geoffrey St. John, royal defense force leader.
"Commander George, the sudden evacuation command has King Acorn concerned. I for one am glad you are here."
Mobians were a unique species, having human DNA but evolving from earth Animal life. St. John was a skunk, while most of the royal guard were squirrels. As silly as they look, they are a formidable race. Jim had a great respect for them.
"Well, there isn't much I can do. While everyone is evacuated, Brenner here is to aid you in guarding the King. We think the Empire may try to take the Chaos Emeralds. Hopefully you still have them under control..."
"The Guardian still has them, yes... He isn't planning on evacuating."
"Knuckles is a stubborn fool. I need to speak to Maximillian as soon as possible."
"Absolutely, follow me."
Their party marched away from the Falcon and moved toward the palace, located in Knothole city. They were an odd group, six Humans, a Wookie, a droid, a skunk, and several squirrels. As they entered the palace throne room, King Max rose to greet them.
"Commander George!" he smiled, "So good to see you, especially in these trying times. I have word that we too, are supposed to evacuate."
"Yes, you highness," Jim bowed, "But we need to secure the Chaos Emeralds first, to avoid the Empire from gaining their intense power."
"Yes, I have sent word to the Guardian already, he is awaiting your arrival on Angel Island . I will send a squad with you, if you wish."
"That will not be necessary, I think Han here can take us in and out with relative ease."
"You bet, you highness," Han nodded, "Like we were never here."
"No, We are going with you."
Jim turned to his left to see the Princess, Sally Acorn, and Miles Prower ("Tails") following her. "We need to speak with the Alliance council anyhow. We will get to them faster with you than on an escape craft."
"Its no problem really," Han said as Jim objected. "We can fit them in.
He turned to the Princess and Tails. "Hope nobody here has objections to bunking with a Wookie."
"None at all," Sally said, although Tails looked somewhat weary of Chewbacca.
"Then it is setteled. The Princess and young Miles here will travel with you to Earth, along with the Emeralds. Good luck to you."
"Thank you," Jim said bowing, "Get out safely, head for Delta Serpentice, where the Rebellia will stand by for you, then lead you into the core. You must hurry though, they can only wait there for a few days. They need to evac too..."
"I understand. I'll have Antoine take care of everything."
"Your majesty," St. John Interrupted, "The Empire is here! We must leave now!"
"Call the fighters to their ships!" Max ordered, "Prepare to defend the escaping. Commander George you must go now, get the Emeralds, and get the hell out of here."
All but Brenner turned to leave. "I am here to protect you, King," He said, pulling his pair of modified 1911-Colt Pistols.
"Right," St. John said, "Follow me."
The Pennsylvania arrived at Ross-128 amist a large rubble field.
"This system has been abandoned since the old GTA was in formation, almost two hundred years ago," Max explained. "The Galactic Terran Alliance fought hard against the Vasudan Imperium, and right at the climax of their 'Great War' a new species appeared here at Ross-128. They were called the Shivans, and they were extremely advanced. They tore through both the Terran and Vasudan ranks, eliminating the surfaces of the planets they overtook. Vasuda Prime was hit too, which ended the war, and causing the birth of the Galactic Terran-Vasudan Alliance."
The bridge of the Pennsylvania became quieter as Max continued the story. "The Shivans, they discovered, were byproducts of subspace. They are pure energy, spawned from a phenomenon inside the void. The GTVA was able to use their technology againt them, however, pushing them back to Epsilon Pegasi, where the Shivans destroyed the sun. The gravity collapse caused by them sealed them in the system, assumingly forever, for normal hyperspace routes are now gone. The question is if there were anymore Shivans anywhere else. Ross-128 has been named the 'Guardian Ghost Planet' ever since."
Their ship moved toward the remains of an old Orion class capital ship. "Havnt seen one of these in years," Matheews said. "We used an older one, called the Galetea II, as our bunk when I trained at Waldorn. Huge ship, although very very old."
"This one is two hundred years old, John," Ben said, "And we can still get a signiture from inside it's engine core. Incredible."
"Sir," a deck officer announced. "Master Ignatious is aboard."
"Exellent, lets get moving."
"That could be a problem, Captain. Our core has been leaking since Mobius, we need replacement core material."
"What about the ship that Rayne came on?" Brenton suggested, "Can't they help us?"
"They left already sir, and are out of communication range."
"Then we have to go inside the Galetea II," Max said, arming a pistol.
"Whoa, hold on now, we can't go in there, its not safe." Ben said, defensively.
"Thats why I'm here."
Rayne Ignatious entered the bridge, obviously ready to fight.
"Master Jedi," Ben protested, "Surely we can limber to a nearby system..."
"That would take too long, we are going aboard that ship."
The two Jedi and Max left the bridge. "Why are they taking weapons?" John asked, dumbfounded. "There is nothing there. It should be a very simple extraction."
Skimming across Mobius's Atlania Ocean , the Millennium Falcon headed toward Angel Island , home of Knuckles the Echidna and the legendary seven Chaos Emeralds. Jim was flying low to avoid the higher flying Imperial assault squadrons. The low flying didn't keep the TIEs off him though, and he was doing everything he could to keep from getting hit by a stray blaster bolt.
"Too fast, Jim..." Han started to say as he blasted a TIE in the Falcon's quad laser turret.
"Jim?"
Jim ignored him as the ship closed in on Angel Island , floating peacefully just above the water.
"Jim, slow my bird down!"
Jim, still ignoring Han, banked the Falcon up and saw a TIE fly right under him. He armed a concussion missile, and fired toward the TIE. After being hit and blasted apart, the remains dipped down into the water, causing Jim to have to bank again, only this time veering left.
"Great shot Jim!" Tails said from the copilot seat. Being an accomplished pilot and engineer, Tails volunteered to fly copilot while the remainder of the crew decided to do tech support. Chewbacca and Han flew the turrets, while Lando and Sally, flew tech in the cockpit. Jacen and Jaina stood by in the secondary tech station, while Threepio hid in the galley.
"Thanks, Tails." Jim responded with satisfaction. Every time he downed an Imperial he grew more energetic, which used to scare Brenton when they would fly together.
"Jim, we got an emergency transmission from The Chaotix," Jaina said. "The Imperials have already landed, but they havnt found the Emeralds yet."
The Chaotix was the team of Mobians that assisted Knuckled in guarding the Emeralds.
"I copy that," Jim responded, "Get ready to land, this is going to be rough."
"We have your back, Millennium Falcon."
The Mobian royal defense force flew overtop them, pulling up and leaving a wind streak through the water below them. They continued to climb until they broke their formation and began to engage the TIE fighters.
"The caverns of Angel Island are dense," Sally explained as they rose over the floating island's horizon, "They Chaotix are most likely working their way to the Hidden Palace Zone, located inside the volcano. If you can get the Falcon into its core, you may be able to extract them there."
"The volcano?" Han said, almost panicked. He then put on his roguish smile. "I'll fly it in. Move over flyboy."
Jim moved over to let Han fly the ship, When they had dipped below the rising ash, he ejected his lightsaber into his hand, and prepared to leave the Falcon.
Stormtroopers had infiltrated the Hidden Palace zone, so Jim was immediately deflecting laser blasts back toward them as they fired on him. Royal defense ground forces followed the Falcon into the volcano, and began to engage the stormtroopers from a higher altitude. As Jim began to work his way toward the temple, he noticed a large platform above him loaded with an Imperial turret supply. Jim, seeing the danger to the Royal defense troops and the Falcon, began to take action.
A blue Aura surrounded Jim as he began to fight his way back across the surface of the cavern. Moving faster with each step, he began to deflect blasts toward the turret.
The rest of the Falcon's crew emerged, Jacen and Jaina with their lightsabers blazing, but stopped when they saw Jim fighting so ferociously. Jim had at this point abandoned holding his lightaber in his left hand, instead using it to pick up stormtroopers and fling them into eachother.
His energy level is rising, thought Jacen as he cut down a stormtrooper. He is losing control of his emotions again.
He moved closer to Jim as he fought, crying out for him to stop fighting. Jim had built up so much energy that he had begun to rise of the ground. The energy has lifted him off the ground.
Using the force to bring down another stormtrooper, Jacen flung his lightsaber toward the turret, causing it to spark and explode, crashing the rocky balcony to fall into a molten pit. Seeing that this was accomplished, Jim landed by the falcon, and seemed to power down.
"What the hell were you doing?" Han asked him as he fired another blaster shot at a trooper. Jim powered up again and moved toward the temple as an explosion rang out.
Knuckles arrived, and had to jump from an opening in the wall above the temple entrance.
"Take them, hurry!" he yelled as he fell, dropping one emerald.
Jim had taken six of the emeralds from Knuckles, who, after passing off the emeralds, turned to punch a hole through the armor of a stormtrooper with his spiked knuckles. The zeo crystal around Jim's his neck suddenly began to glow, and rose off his chest and floated in front of his face, still attached to its chain. Jim stopped as it shone a bright blue-green, and began to sparkle in the air around it.
Lando and Tails, however, was in pursuit of the seventh emerald, which had begun to slide down toward the magma. He caught up with it, but was overwhelmed by stormtroopers in hand to hand combat, and tossed it toward Jim as Tails used his Vulcan Gun to hold off the troopers.
Jim caught it, and suddenly felt an immense amount of energy flow through him. The Seven Chaos Emeralds flew out of his hands, and began to circle him, all of them losing their specific color and glowed with a white shine. The Zeo crystal broke off the chain and hovered above his head, emitting a beam of light toward every emerald as they circled Jim. The blue aura surrounding him suddenly began to grow, changing to a white gleam. He rose off the gound again, screaming in what sounded like pain.
Then thousand light years away, Luke Skywalker awoke from a dreamless sleep, breathing heavily, sweating, and in fear.