Tale 1: "Democracy Sucks!"
10:30 A.M. Five years before the Battle of Corpagia
"We're approaching it from Mark 889. It's about one hundred million kilometers in diameter, mass about 3.5 million kilotons."
Justin paused for a response. "Should we investigate it a little further."
Another pause. "Anything dangerous in it?"
Justin's eyes casually scanned the large nebula off to his right, his fingers dancing across the LCD pad. "No dangers that I can see," he commented. "Hold on." The LCD results told him nothing serious. "Scopes aren't picking anything volatile. I'm pretty sure its all right, control. Pat?"
"No, I'm not seeing anything dangerous either," Patricia O'Sheen responded for her Y-Wing.
"Okay, then. Proceed, but be cautious. Remember the rumors we've heard about this area. Get out of there at the first sign of trouble; no hero stuff, got it?"
"–Yes, sir–"
"–got it, yes, sir." Justin had already altered his course. "Switch to extensive scanning, Radio." The R-2 unit behind him "tweedled," and the lighting in the cockpit dimmed somewhat, giving more power to the sensors. Outside the cockpit canopy, Justin caught a glimpse of Pat's engines going dark as they disappeared into the nebula. He sighed to himself. "Here we go." The nebula was right in front of him now, and then suddenly was engulfed in it, so fast it almost made him jump in surprise. Heart beat calming as the tiny thick spot of the nebula passed by him, Justin checked the sensor reports. At the same time that happened, Pat's light voice rang over the comlink.
"Looks like this thing's hollow on the inside here. I'm picking up a discontinuation of nebula particles in the next few kilometers here. Only space dust comin' up."
"That's odd. You mean just empty space?" At that precise moment, the thin cloud of nebula dissipated completely, and Justin's view was once again filled with the vastness and dullness of space. "Okay, so you did mean empty space."
"Well what other kind is there?" Pat asked sarcastically.
Justin grinned. "Umm...well...fill-filled space, maybe, I dunno."
Pat chuckled. "Filled space..." She repeated.
"Well I had a hard time believing that there was any empty space inside a nebula. When have you ever heard of that?" He glanced around the apparent "hole" as Pat said something he didn't hear. "So do we classify this as like a...'hole' or something?"
"I dunno," Pat responded. "I guess so–wait, are we still in touch with control, because my com is telling me 'no.'"
Casually, Justin checked his own com unit. The light wasn't on. "No, we got disconnected somehow. Must be the nebula."
"No," Pat answered immediately. "They're aren't anything–isn't anything in here that would jam com signals."
Justin checked his LCD readouts. "You sure?"
"Yeah."
He frowned at the readouts. "Yeah, you're right. Nothing. Hmmm. Let me try opening the channel again." He flipped the switch and his light came on, green, again. However, instead a nice, clear channel, Justin's ears were bombarded with an endless burst of static. He jumped in his seat. "Whoa!" Instinctively, he grabbed the volume dial and twisted it left quickly. Relief. Justin turned it up to medium volume and listened to the static for a moment before speaking. "Control, are you there? This is Robin One." A pause. Nothing. "Repeat, control, this is Robin One, can you hear me?"
The static now began to hit bumps and was jumping from rhythm to rhythm. Mixed in with the jumps was a tone that was shifting pitches, like a voice. Justin finally concluded that it was control trying to break through the apparent communications block.
Disappointed, Justin re-opened the channel to Patricia. "Pat, I can't get 'em back; all I'm getting is static." As soon as he finished saying that, he heard static on this channel, too. "Aw, what the hell..." He raised his voice. "Pat, can you hear me?" High-pitched static was the answer. Pat heard him.
High-pitched static, high-pitched static, "–ly." High-pitched static, "I kno–"...high-pitched static, high-pitched static "–ear that?"
Justin spoke slowly in his response. "No. Repeat. No. I. Did. Not. Hear. You. Repeat what you said, Pat."
High-pitched static "–llo–"...high-pitched static "–e."
Pat's Y-Wing suddenly veered off its current course and flew overhead, passing over Justin's canopy. Assuming that Pat had said "Follow me," he also changed course, tailing the other ship.
Justin was a little confused. "Hey, Radio, you know where he's goin?" The droid gave a sharp bass tone. Justin looked out at the "hole" in the direction Pat was going. "Are the sensors picking up anything–any object or anomaly or something?" A pause before another sharp bass tone. "Pat, where are we going?" Justin tried again. Still nothing but static. Justin moaned in irritation. He liked to be informed.
This time, however, Pat's return signal was a little legible. "The links ar..." high-pitche– "-y a magnet..." high-pitched sta– "-nd. I don't kno..." high-p– "-t follow me. Hang–" high-pitched static, static, static, static...
Justin groaned again. Swallowing, he pushed his accelerator to maximum. The Y-Wing shot forward on its newfound power, carving a path behind Pat, still not knowing exactly where he was going. Ahead of him, Pat's Y-Wing started curving around a peninsula-shaped puff of pink-and-blue nebula.
From the comlink came the robotic tones and beeps of Radio. The astromech droid drew a map of the "hole" on the LCD, then added lines symbolizing what the display said was the communication channels. The incoming ones were dyed green, the outward ones dyed red. According to the map, those lines were all being dragged away from their original destinations, pulled like rope to a general area of the "hole"–the area Justin and Pat were coming around too now.
Justin frowned at the readout. "Where's it going, Radio?"
COORDINATES 345-90:432-78 MARK 567, Radio said on the screen. THE PLANET.
"What planet?–oh." Justin looked out the canopy just in time to see the puff of nebula fall out of view to the ship's right. Hiding behind it was a large, rather sunken looking planet, unmoving inside a pocket of the "hole." The surface was covered in a dark green shade, practically blending it in with space. It was a rogue planet, attached to no sun or any other mass of gravity. It looked dead almost. "What planet is that?"
UNKNOWN. NO FILE ON RECORD.
Justin sighed passively. "Well of course, Radio, but I meant what type of planet is it?"
A moment. CLASS-D: SURFACE MASS NINETY PERCENT SWAMP; TWO PERCENT PLAINS; FIVE PERCENT ROCK; ONE PERCENT OCEAN; ONE PERCENT FOREST.
"Well where'd it come from? There definitely aren't any suns around here."
UNKNOWN.
Justin stared out mystically at the mysterious planet. "This is weird, Radio." Realizing he was starting to zone out, he snapped to his senses. They were done now. "All right, we're done here, right? Scanner's aren't picking up anything unusual are they?–I mean, besides the obvious?"
YES. THE JAMMING CIRCUIT.
"What jamming–oh yeah, the communication lines. Are they back–?"
A portion of the nebula suddenly exploded, an expanding ball of flame that fizzled out in under a second. Chunks and particles of the nebula were shot in all directions, and a large, flat brown disc-shaped object scoured with black battle marks came flipping out in the explosion's wake, end-over-end. The object was a ship, that was floating away from the depth of the nebula, away from the planet. Debris from its many parts was traveling much faster, sprinting across the "hole." Justin watched the ship as it drifted towards his Y-Wing, clearly a dead mass. Parts of it seemed to be on fire, and several holes had been into the hull. It had no aft section, and a good portion of the right-hand part of the disc had been blown away, either by the explosion or...
Or the ship that charged out of the nebula after it; the bigger, arrowhead-shaped one. It wasn't drifting, it was attacking, front end pointing at the dead ship. All around it, more ships, much smaller, one-man-looking craft like the Y-Wing, also appeared. They're were two types of them, one disc-shaped, and another arrowhead-like, and they were both taking pot shots at the opposite type. From what Justin could tell, the disc ones were losing–judging by their numbers: Six versus twelve arrowheads.
The big cruiser fired a round of energy bursts from its guns. Half of them hit the dead ship, blowing it apart for good, and sending the large debris hurtling through the "hole." The other half forced Justin to take evasive actions as they swept over the top of his Y-Wing. The shots eventually made it to the other side of the "hole," causing another huge explosion upon hitting the nebula.
But Justin ignored all that. He grabbed the joystick and veered in the opposite direction of the battle, back towards where he and Pat had entered the nebula from. "Okay, we're getting out of here now!" He opened the comlink, not caring whether or not the lines were still jammed. "Let's get outta here, Pat!"
Pressing the throttle to full, Justin blasted away from the scene, the mysterious swamp planet now in his rear window. Looking out to his right, he saw Pat in line with him, neck-and-neck.
Radio started screeching madly, then "tweedled" and garbled a long chain of sounds. WE ARE BEING FOLLOWED.
Justin saw the contact on his LCD, then looked back to see it for himself. Sure enough, a brown, somewhat undamaged fighter craft was quickly gaining on the slow Y-Wings. It was one of the disc ones.
"Damn it!" he hissed. "Evasive Pat!" But he saw that she already began moving. She broke to starboard; Justin going to port. He immediately activated the shields, then pitched the Y-Wing into a tail spin, hooking it back to starboard. Suddenly, a warning klaxon sounded in the cockpit.
INCOMING! Radio reported.
Justin saw the projectile even before Radio reported it, and he put the Y-Wing into a straight-down dive, still tailspinning. The shot missed him by a mile, passing on his port side. Relieved, he pulled the ship out of its tailspin, and pulled up towards his original heading. Checking the LCD for Pat's signal, he saw it behind the disc ship, giving chase and he hoped that–
LIEUTENANT BERISLO! Radio screeched. At the same time, the warning klaxon sounded again.
Justin looked out in shock at the same projectile that had just missed him. It had now turned around and was shooting right back at his Y-Wing. That damn thing had tracking!
"Shit!" Justin shouted. He yanked on the control stick to move his craft out of the way, but failed. The projectile hit the Y-Wing on its belly and exploded. The force and energy completely annihilated the shields, and Justin's world was suddenly turned upside down.
His head hurt from it hitting the side of the cockpit, and his vision was slightly blurry. All around him, the cockpit sparked and cracked, systems fried or burning. The LCD was blown out, and the transparisteel canopy was cracked on all its surfaces. Justin could feel the burns on his face. The cockpit shook all around him, and he couldn't hear Radio anymore through his helmet headset.
Suddenly, a giant spark sprang out of the hyperdrive system next to his left knee. It hit him directly in his face, jolting his entire body and frying his nervous system like all of the Y-Wing's systems. How'd it do that so fast? was the first and last question that went through Justin's mind before he was unconscious.