A Left Turn at Albuquerque

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters (well most of them) and universes that I am about to mangle around for my own amusement – sadly all Robotech and Star Wars characters and concepts remain the property of Harmony Gold, Disney and Lucasfilm Ltd respectively – I am merely borrowing them and make absolutely no profit from their use. As a result, please keep the legal attack dogs – also known as lawyers – firmly muzzled and on a leash as I have no money to give to anyone.

Author Note: Sorry it's taken so long to get this chapter done, the muse stopped cooperating for some reason so naturally I went off and gave my other works some much needed attention though it is now cooperating so here we are. Finally, a reminder that speech in bold represents Chewie speaking in his native language. Okay now that, that bits out of the way let's crack on with the chapter.

Chapter Seventeen

Standing behind the pilot and co-pilots seats of the Millennium Falcon Captain Johannes Somerville watched as Han and Chewie carefully guided the freighter up into orbit. He was the only member of his crew in the cockpit with them, the other thirty-four survivors of the Windermere remaining back either in the common room or one of the freighters currently empty cargo bays. It wasn't the most comfortable arrangement for any of them – especially as the Falcon's life support system wasn't really meant to support so many additional lifeforms though thankfully there was enough leeway in the systems to cover them – but thankfully it was only a temporary one. Soon the Sumatra and her escorts would arrive, they would be able to dock aboard her and begin the sequence of space folds that would take them back to the rest of Admiral Hunter's battlegroup.

But not before we take care of the wreck of my ship, he thought sadly. He wished they had time to salvage the Windermere – to shore up the weakened amidships sections, the damage there being caused by the hangar pod exploding as stored fuel and munitions detonated after the collision with those space whale things and get the ship back into space so they could repair her – but he knew that they did not. The Empire had already attacked them once, no doubt seeking to capture them and the wreckage of their ship so the autocratic regime could learn more about them and how to beat them, and there was no doubt in his mind that more Imperials would be coming. Thus, to preserve the secrets of protoculture and robotechnology in general – knowledge that they definitely didn't want a regime as aggressive and downright xenophobic as the Empire to get their grubby little hands on – and with them the safety of their fleet they would have no choice but to destroy the wreck.

And if I know Zendril he'll do it with a reflex missile, he thought. Given how damaged the crashed ship was it would be a bit of overkill to be honest – a handful of conventional antiship plasma missiles configured for planetary bombardment would do the same job – but he knew Zendril wouldn't see it that way. Like all Zentraedi, micronized or otherwise, the concept of overkill was an alien one to him. At least the crash site is a long way from anywhere, he thought having seen no sign of life as they'd taken off. There was nothing around the crash site beyond a vast saltpan – which definitely had once long ago been a lake – and a sea of sand dunes and rocky outcrops – shaped by the endless grinding action of wind-blown sand into all sorts of weird and wonderful shapes – for as far as they eye could see. Thus, there would be little to no danger of any innocents getting hurt when the reflex missile inevitably hit the wreck.

He decided to distract himself from thinking about what the final fate of the Windermere would be. "Captain Solo can you answer me a question," he asked.

"If I can," Han replied as the dusty atmosphere of Tatooine visible through the viewports gave way to the star studied darkness of space.

"Can you tell me what those space whale things we hit were," he asked, "where we come from space dwelling organisms are almost unheard of. Certainly, I've never heard of anything that big being able to live in space."

"You're lucky," Han answered with a smile, imagining what it would be like to live somewhere where you didn't have to worry about having an unpleasant encounter with a space dwelling lifeform. Out here in the Outer Rim they were quite common, and you always had to keep an eye out for the blasted things, especially mynocks which liked to latch onto ships and feed off both their energy and the alloys in the hull. "The creatures you hit are called purgill. They're a big menace that wander the galaxy, trespassing into hyperspace lanes crashing into ships, feeding off deposits of fuel gasses like cluzon-38 and making a pain in the ass of themselves. Though I have heard a few strange rumours about purgill."

"Oh?"

"There's an old legend among spacers that says that purgill are actually capable of travelling through hyperspace. People say that it was seeing the purgill enter and exit hyperspace that gave the first spacefaring civilisations the idea for faster than light travel."

"Do you believe such legends," Johannes asked curious about these purgill. If they could travel in hyperspace, then they would have to have a great deal of tolerance for the exotic radiations that you could encounter in hyperspace not to mention exotic particles some of which existed in a naturally phased state.

"There is always some truth in legends," Chewie replied before Han could, relaying something that the Jedi had been quite fond of saying and in his lifetime, he had encountered quite a few of them. To this day he wondered what had happened to that Togruta padawan who had helped him escape some Trandoshan hunters during the Clone Wars had she survived Order 66? Or had she, like so many others, died that terrible day nineteen standard years ago? They were questions that he knew he could never answer, though he liked to believe that she was still out there somewhere as hadn't he heard that she had left the Jedi Order about nine months before the end of the war? Something to do with a bombing of the Jedi Temple that had been all over the holonet at the time.

"Come on Chewie nobody has ever proved that purgill can travel in hyperspace," Han said. "It's just a silly superstition like many others you find in any spacer bar in the galaxy."

Chewie rolled his eyes not at all surprised by his partner's scepticism. Han was known to be like that, and he had long ago given up trying to convince him that there was far more to life and the universe than what he had seen and experienced in his short human lifespan. It was also why he never mentioned the Force to him or told him that the Jedi had been very, very real as had their powers and that they were not simply a group of monks who used simple technological tricks and illusions to appear powerful.

"He isn't wrong Captain Solo," Johannes said, "when you look deeply enough into a myth or a legend then you will often find that there is a grain of truth to it."

"Ugh maybe," Han admitted before his console bleeped a warning. "Ugh oh."

"What is it," Johannes asked.

"It's that Imperial Gozanti that dropped those AT-DP's that you so easily killed," Han replied, flicking a switch that turned on the deflector shields. "It's followed us into orbit and is closing fast. We'll be in their weapons range in about forty seconds."

"What kind of weapons has it got," Johannes questioned.

"Two dual heavy cannon turrets one dorsal, one ventral," Chewie replied, "nothing our deflector shields can't manage."

"It's also nothing we cannot shoot down," Han added a moment before a dull boom filled the ship accompanied by a soft jolt shook the Falcon. "We're being fired on. They're targeting out engines. Captain Somerville can any of your crew operate guns?"

"You mean manually aim and fire cannons?" Johannes asked. Han nodded back. "Yes, we can it's a required skill for starship crews though most guns these days are operated remotely from a gunnery control room all the turrets on our ships – from defensive pulsed laser arrays to anti-ship particle beam cannons – have the option to be aimed and fired manually. It's not ideal though given the combat ranges possible when using robotech weaponry."

"You'll have to tell me more about that later," Han replied as more blasts from the pursuing Gozanti splatted against the Falcon's aft deflector shield putting the force field under increasing strain, "right now you need to come with me. Chewie, take over here."

"That might not be necessary, Han," Chewie answered, knowing that Han had been about to head to the dorsal gun turret to begin firing back at the Imperials. Something that, if he were right, would not be necessary now. "Sensors are detecting a gravitational disturbance forming nearby. The disturbance is identical to the one created when the Windermere arrived but is far more intense."

"Where is it," Han asked.

"Bearing one six three by one, one, zero. Distance seventy thousand kilometres. This is strange I am now picking up additional emissions they look like some kind of phase shift."

"That's because they are," Johannes said, the neural translator implant in his skull instantly translating the growls, yips, and barks of Chewie's language into Terran standard. "What you're picking up are alpha wave phase shifts in the normal/hyperspace boundary. Combined with the gravitational disturbance it means a fold sphere or two is about to erupt into normal space. The rescue party Admiral Hunter dispatched is about to arrive."

"Readings are spiking," Chewie added a moment before a brilliant flash of eldritch light filled the cockpit, causing the transparisteel panels to automatically polarize to protect their vision. Han blinked away the after image on his vision and glanced out the cockpit window to see three spheres of glowing energy, identical to those that had surrounded the Windermere when she arrived, had appeared. Within each sphere a shadowy shape was forming, skeletal and indistinct at first, but rapidly solidifying as the normal space integration completed. With a gyroscopic flash of blue radiation, the spheres vanished leaving three ships hanging there in space, two of which were obviously from the same class as the Windermere and were in flanking positions alongside another much larger and more angular vessel that bristled with gun turrets – clearly these people's version of a cruiser.

"Captain Solo, Chewbacca allow me to introduce you to the UES Sumatra – she's the big one in the middle – along with the UES Geneva and UES Baikal," Johannes said a moment before the sensors chimed a warning.

"They're powering weapons," Han exclaimed.

"Relax captain they won't target us," Johannes replied having already realized what was going on. In accordance with standard REF protocol the Sumatra would have scanned all ships in the immediate vicinity of her fold in point. Which would have certainly meant she would have detected them on the Falcon, through the protoculture emissions of their Cyclones if nothing else, and instantly twigged why the ship behind them was firing at them and who it had to belong to.

"How can you be certain?" Han asked.

"Trust me captain. If Zendril wanted us dead we already would be," Johannes told him, a second before a trio of blue charged particle beams erupted from one of the dorsal heavy turrets of the Sumatra. The beams shot past them, the backwash of their passage making the Falcon's shields flare and making the deck shiver but nothing else.

"Kriffing hell," Han exclaimed as he saw his sensor readings of the beams, the amount of energy behind them was phenomenal. Had those things hit them they would have ripped right through the Falcon's deflector shields as they weren't there and torn the entire ship apart. As it was his sensors showed that the beams had been aimed to pass between them and the pursuing Gozanti, a clear and unequivocal warning to their pursuers to back off or else. The Imperial's seemed to get the message as the Gozanti immediately veered off and began retreating towards the planet.

"Well, that's one way to get the Imperials to back off," Chewie commented, "though I am surprised it worked."

"It's no surprise the Empire has already attacked us once. It did not go very well for them, we tried to disable them, but we overestimated the strength of their shields and hull," Johannes replied, "we ended up destroying all but three of the attacking ships. We let the others go when it was obvious that they were attempting to retreat."

"When was this," Han asked.

"About a week ago. A fleet of Imperial warships including three of their big capital ships attacked. We destroyed or drove them away in about five minutes and that's only because we held back hoping they'd get the message and back off. Had we really wanted to kill them all we would have done so."

"Probably would have been better if you had they'll be after you now," Han replied, a little stunned at the knowledge that they had defeated an entire squadron of Imperial warships – including three Imperial-class star destroyers – in about five minutes of combat. Having once been a member of the Imperial Navy he knew full well how powerful and dangerous even one ISD could be let alone three of them. For them to be defeated so quickly – and he didn't doubt Captain Somerville one bit as there was something in the way he spoke, the calm confidence and matter of fact tone, which said he was indeed being truthful – was unheard of and they'd only survived that long because whoever these people were they'd been holding back? He almost didn't want to know what they could do when they decided not to pull their punches.

Johannes shrugged. "If they attack us again, they'll simply be destroyed," he answered not at all concerned as he knew from the briefings he'd read, using information taken straight from the minds of captured Imperial survivors, that the Imperials were at their heart just a bunch of bullies. And like all bullies they would back off if you simply turned around and punched them on the nose. "Though they would have to find us first in any case. But that's not important right now. Captain Solo would you mind hailing the Sumatra for me?"

"Sure," Han replied reaching over to the station to his left and flicking a few switches, opening a communications link with the Sumatra. For a moment he thought nothing was going to happen then a green light came on showing that their communication request had been accepted. "You're on."

"UES Sumatra this is Captain Johannes Somerville please respond," Johannes said formally. The response was immediate as the overhead speakers crackled to life and emitted a faint humming from the amount of power that was behind the now fully open channel.

"Captain Somerville this is Captain Zendril of the Sumatra. Are you all right," the familiar voice of the micronized Zentraedi commanding the cruiser responded immediately, "I see you have made a new friend!"

"You could say that Zendril," Johannes replied, "Captain Solo and his first mate Chewbacca rescued me and the survivors of my crew after the crash."

"How many survivors?" Zendril asked.

"Thirty-two," Johannes answered knowing that he had lost three of his people when the Imperials attacked, and that one Imperial destroid – what had Han called it an AT-DP – sprayed their positions with plasma bolts. "The others were killed either in the collision, the crash or when a posse of Imperials attempted to capture the crash site."

"I take it they were the ones chasing you?"

"They were."

"I figured as much. I'm sending you landing instructions, once your aboard we'll move into orbit and prepare to destroy the crash site."

Mentally Johannes grimaced at that. While he knew it was necessary to preserve their secrets, and the technological and strategic advantages that they gave them, hearing that the wreck of the Windermere would soon be destroyed wasn't an easy thing for him as the ships former master to hear. Especially as it had been said so bluntly though he knew that the Zentraedi did not do tact. Brutal honesty, even if it hurt, was there preferred policy. He glanced over at Han who nodded back to indicate that he had indeed received the docking instructions from the Sumatra.

"Understood we have the instructions and will proceed to dock immediately," he replied, "however Zendril I have a favour to ask."

"Go on."

"Don't destroy the crash site until I get to the bridge. I was the master of the Windermere; I should be the one to fire the missile that will obliterate her remains."

"I understand and it will be as you wish," the Zentraedi officer replied, a note of genuine understanding and compassion for a fellow captain who had lost his ship in his voice. "Zendril out."

The connection closed down with a soft bleep. "Captain, would you mind taking us into dock," Johannes said looking at Han. "Once all this is over and the Windermere is gone, I promise I will see about arranging a reward for all your help." Unsaid was the fact that it would give him something to do other than sit down and mope about the fate of his ship and worry about the souls of all those who had died when she crashed into the planet.

"No problem," Han replied, giving the other man a reassuring nod communicating without words that he wouldn't mind waiting for a reward if he wasn't up to it after this. Like any spacer his greatest fear was losing his ship, the Millennium Falcon was more than his livelihood she was his home, so he could only imagine the heartache the other man would be feeling right now. Imagine and hope that he never had to experience that pain himself.

He looked over at Chewie who nodded back. Then the two of them set about the task of landing the Millennium Falcon in the primary hangar bay of the Sumatra.

Dune Sea

Tatooine Surface

A Short Time Later

Obi-Wan Kenobi would, if asked, admit to being very concerned as he guided his battered old speeder – which rarely saw use only really when he had to go somewhere like Anchorhead or Mos Espa for supplies – across the seemingly endless expanse of the Dune Sea towards the Lars homestead. He had been meditating in his modest desert home, attempting to commune once again with Qui-Gon though meeting with no success as the Force was still in too much turmoil for either of them to breach the veil between life and death, when he had received a frantic call on the comm from Beru Lars.

When Beru had told him just what had prompted her to call him, and even gotten Owen to agree to calling him, he had promised that he would be there at once. Hence why he was taking the speeder as opposed to the Eopie that he normally road on his regular sojourns through the desert. While the faithful steed would have gotten him to the Lars homestead eventually there had been no time to travel that way. What Luke had reflexively done to save himself from the falling debris will have now opened his mind to the Force, there was no way to supress it again – to try would only hurt Luke – so he had to be there when the young man woke up. There so he could shield his Force signature from detection – the very last thing he wanted was for an Inquisitor or Force forbid Vader himself to show up to investigate the new presence in the Force – by those who would wish him harm.

Shield him until he could teach Luke how to do it himself.

Abruptly a sensation in the Force caught his attention. He slowed his speeder to a halt as the Force began bombarding him with a profound sense of foreboding. Closing his eyes, he allowed himself to slip into a very light meditation, opening his connection to the Force just that little bit wider, as he endeavoured to find out what was causing the sudden feeling of unease…

…and images burst into his awareness.

Three unknown alien ships in orbit of Tatooine. Ships that were definitely warships given there very visible weapons arrays…ships that he somehow couldn't quite make out all the details of as they were blurred and indistinct as though he was looking at them through a plane of running water. Abruptly a missile launched from the largest of the three ships and began heading towards the surface of Tatooine…

…Himself in his speeder looking up in surprise as the alien missile shot past overhead leaving a trail of ion exhaust to partially disappear over the horizon…

…An alien vessel that looked identical to two of the three lay crashed on the floor of a vast salt pan that eons ago had been a lake. The missile from orbit stuck the wreck…

…There was a brilliant flash then a massive shockwave came barrelling over the desert bringing with it the biggest, nastiest sandstorm he had ever seen that instantly enveloped him…

…Imperial stormtroopers finding his speeder lying on its side half buried in sand his bleached bones – the flesh eaten away by the brutal force of the wind-blown sand – lying next to it…

…the ships again but now they seemed to be moving towards orbit not already in it.

Obi-Wan's eyes flew open as the onslaught of images faded. He did not normally experience visions, though like all Jedi he had been known to have the occasional one, certainly he'd never experienced anything like that rapid fire burst of visions before now. Which to his mind meant he was running out of time to save himself from the missile attack on the crashed vessel – which was presumably so that the Empire or some other undesirable group should learn something from it – and the aftermath.

He started his speeder engine again and began making his way towards a deep nearby canyon. It descended nearly a hundred feet below the surface of the desert though it was quite narrow, only about a hundred and fifty meters in diameter the legacy of a fast moving, long since vanished river that had eroded away a narrow seam of weaker rock that had been sandwiched between two planes of granite. He could sense that the canyon would provide him with just enough protection from what was coming.

It took only a few moments for the speeder to reach the rim of the canyon. Reducing his speed down – he wasn't reckless enough to fly at anywhere near full speed in such a relatively confined space unlike his former padawan would have been and which his son unfortunately seemed to do – he carefully negotiated his way down into the canyon.

Once he reached the floor of the canyon he moved along its length until the Force told him to stop. Bringing the speeder to a halt next to a shallow cave in the rock before climbing out and moving into the shade of the cave before kneeling down to wait until the Force told him it was safe to resume his journey to the Lars homestead.

Bridge

UES Sumatra

Tatooine Orbit

Still wearing his CVR armour Johannes stepped onto the bridge escorted by one of the marines who had met the Millennium Falcon when they set down in the main hangar bay. Han and Chewie had remained with their ship, though they would have been welcome aboard as nobody would have batted an eye at their presence, supervising the unloading of the more wounded survivors of the Windermere. At the sound of the bridge doors opening Captain Zendril turned to look at him.

"Welcome to the bridge Captain Somerville," the Zentraedi officer said in greeting. "We have entered orbit of Tatooine and are now directly over the Windermere crash site."

"Thank you, Captain Zendril," Johannes replied, "have you locked onto the crash site?"

"We have," Zendril confirmed, "one reflex missile is loaded and ready to fire. Are you sure you want to be the one to pull the trigger?"

"Want to no, have to yes," Johannes answered, "as I said before the Windermere was my ship, I have to be the one to fire the missile that will immolate her remains."

Zendril nodded in understanding and calmly escorted him to the weapons station, the officer there standing up – nodding in a respectful fashion to Johannes – before stepping aside to allow the other man to slip into his seat. Johannes took a moment to familiarize himself with the console's layout – it had been quite a few years after all since he'd run a weapons station – before accessing the firing controls noting that as Zendril had said a reflex missile was loaded into one of the silos and had been armed ready to fire. Targeting systems confirmed a weapons lock on the crashed ship.

"Goodbye old friend," he said softly to himself, before removing the final safety interlock and pressing the button to fire.

The moment that Johannes finger tapped the firing button the command flashed at near light speed through thousands of kilometres worth of hyperconductive cabling to one of the eight heavy anti-ship missile launchers carried aboard an Ikazuchi-class cruiser. Nearly instantly the launchers computer processed and authenticated the launch command from the bridge. A microsecond later two powerful electromagnetic launch rails – no different to what you would find inside a railgun – discharged expelling the missile loaded in the firing silo through the launch port at hypersonic velocities.

Barely a second after launch the missiles own ion fusion engine ignited and its guidance systems engaged, whipping it around from its initial launch trajectory towards Tatooine and its target. Onboard guidance processors scanned ahead, confirming the target, and checking for any potential obstacles – from defensive missiles, to fighters, to anti-missile lasers – that it would have to navigate in order to reach its objective. There were none so the guidance computer increased engine output to attack speed heading for the planet and the wreck of the Windermere sitting on the surface like a beached whale.

Impact was less than two minutes away.

Bridge

UES Sumatra

"Sensors confirm missile is on course and holding steady. Time to impact ninety seconds."

Standing together next to the command chair Captain's Somerville and Zendril nodded at the report from the weapons officer, who had now retaken his station. Neither man responded, they did not need to do so, instead they watched the tactical screens floating in their projector fields as they tracked the reflex missile heading for the surface. Neither man looked away instead they watched as the missile crossed the distance between the ship and the exosphere – or the outermost of the five bands that made up the atmosphere of every habitable world known to exist – of Tatooine.

Abruptly proximity warnings went off around the bridge drawing both their attention.

"Report," Zendril demanded.

"Captain fifteen Imperial warships have just dropped out of hyperspace," sensors reported, "we read three Imperial-class star destroyers, six Arquitens-class light cruisers, two Interdictors and four smaller vessels presumably corvettes or frigates screening the two Interdictors."

"Have they detected us," Zendril asked.

"Negative our shadow systems appear to be nullifying their scans. They have however detected our missile. We're reading fighters launching from the star destroyers, looks like they're going to try and intercept the missile."

Zendril raised an eyebrow at that. While he had to applaud the Imperials for the attempt there was no chance of their fighters catching up to the reflex missile – which a glance at the screens told him had now reached the thermosphere – in time to shoot it down. If anything, they would only get close enough to the missile to be killed when the warhead detonated, and he couldn't allow that. While the Imperials had been aggressive towards the REF in their last few meetings with them, they were not officially at war with them, thus he couldn't in good conscience let their pilots die if he could help it. The question was how to stop them as he doubted the Imperials would listen to any audio warning from them.

Suddenly he realized what he could do.

"Weapons launch a salvo of interceptors," he ordered "set them to detonate between the Imperial fighters and the atmosphere. That should force them to break off for a few crucial seconds, enough to spare their lives."

"Aye sir."

On the hull of the Sumatra a hatch opened and one of the cruisers pop-up defensive missile launchers – which back in their own galaxy all the REF's enemies, even the Invid, had learned to rightly fear – snapped up into firing position. Instantly the pepperbox-style launchers ten electromagnetic launch tubes cycled each sending a single Mark-III defensive missile flying into space – the engines igniting even as they left the tubes, creating the fox-tail effect ion exhaust plume that had earned the missiles the nickname Foxfire, propelling the missiles towards their target.

The squadron of Imperial TIE Interceptors heading for Tatooine's atmosphere, intent of destroying the missile immediately detected the missiles as, unlike the warship that had fired them, they showed up clear as day on their sensor screens. Being fired from such a relatively close range the Imperials had little chance to respond to the threat, though several TIE's adjusted course and prepared to intercept and shoot down the incoming alien weapons.

Focus and defensive intent turned to confusion as, instead of attacking them, the missiles shot past the squadron and spread out slightly before detonating in a series of brilliant yellow-white flashes. A wall of blazing hot plasma bloomed in space completely blocking their interception path. Knowing that none of them would survive passing through the superheated maelstrom the TIE Interceptors veered off rather than fly into certain death.

Unaware and uncaring that its pursuers had been foiled in their attempt the reflex missile continued its descent, crossing into the troposphere – or lowest level – of Tatooine's atmosphere. With impact now only seconds away the guidance processor commenced the detonation sequence of the unique warhead used in both reflex missiles and their smaller torpedo cousins. Unlike more conventional ordinance – such as the standard plasma missile or even a Corusca galaxy proton torpedo – a reflex warhead was not strictly speaking an explosive at all. Instead, the warhead consisted of a massively scaled down version of the reflex furnaces that provided the lions share or power to modern robotech warships. However, unlike its bigger cousin, it only had one reaction chamber instead of two.

Five seconds from impact protoculture was pumped from a storage tank behind the warhead into the reaction chamber. At four seconds from impact a series of short but extremely intense microwave pulses – themselves little different to those used on the ships – agitating the protoculture mass and beginning to raise its temperature.

Two seconds from impact the protoculture temperature reached a critical point. Unlike most liquids protoculture didn't boil when heated, instead it soaked up the heat and energy until it reached a point where it instantly sublimated into gas. In the process the massive amount of vacuum energy stored in the mass separated, converting the gas around it into a hyper charged plasma, it was here however that the first stage of the mechanism that separated a reflex warhead from a furnace took place. In a reflex furnace once the sublimation occurred the initial flash of vacuum energy was instantly syphoned out of the primary reaction chamber by hyperconductive elements lining the core – instantly converting it into electrical energy which was then either fed into the ships power grid or stored for later use – while the remaining quite diffuse plasma mass – rich as it was in matter-antimatter pairs created during the release – was drawn into the secondary reaction chamber where magnetic fields compressed the plasma into a tight mass forcing the matter-antimatter pairs to come into contact with and annihilate one another generating yet more power.

In a reflex warhead however the initial energy extraction didn't happen. Instead, the mass of energy remained, trapped inside a mass of plasma hotter than the surface of any star in existence. At one second from impact electromagnetic fields sprang into existence in the chamber and began compressing the mass to and past critical density.

Impact.

Barely four meters above the wreck of the Windermere a third sun burst into existence instantly disintegrating the missile that had birthed it. In a fraction of a second it expanded into a sphere of rampaging energy nearly four kilometres in diameter, completely enveloping not just the Windermere but the handful of Imperial gunships that had reached the crash site and which had just sent probe droids into the wreck to examine it.

The Imperial craft flashed to vapour instantly – their crews not even realizing what was happening until there minds and souls became one with the Force – the Windermere however lasted longer. In a testament to the sheer strength and durability of the alloys created through robotechnology the ship remained intact for nearly a second before the metal melted then itself vapourised.

And still the destruction went on as the fireball proceeded to excavate an enormous crater in the surface of the desert, rock, sand, and salt instantly turning to vapour in the quantum firestorm. Superheated winds radiated outwards from the fireball, whipping the desert sands into a sandstorm of biblical proportions. Simultaneously the ground around rippled like ocean waves as the shockwave of the blast travelled through it.

The fireball winked out as the last of the mass was annihilated creating an enormous vacuum in the air. The winds that had previously been blasting outwards suddenly changed direction, collapsing into the great chasm ripped in the air by the force of the explosion as nature brought the atmosphere back into equilibrium.

It did nothing for the ground-based shockwave however as the whole region – indeed most of the continent – was rattled for several minutes by an earthquake that on Earth would have measured a nine point seven on the Richter scale. Hutt installed seismic stabilizers went into overdrive sending out counterwaves to dampen down the surface waves though they could do nothing for the much deeper travelling waves that were making the whole planet ring like a bell.

It was these deeper shockwaves that delivered the final legacy of the reflex blast.

What most modern people on Tatooine did not know or realize was that the planet had not always been the sunblasted desert world that it currently was. Many thousands of years ago Tatooine had been a world of grasslands, lush forests, rivers and oceans not all that different in appearance to such worlds as Alderaan or Naboo. That was until the native Kumumgar species – the common ancestor to Tatooine's modern indigenous sentient species the Jawa and the Tusken – rebelled against the Rakatan Infinite Empire which had ruled the planet at the time. In retribution the declining, but still utterly ruthless, Rakata bombarded Tatooine from orbit. The once beautiful world was over a period of a few days transformed into a scorched ruin by a relentless barrage of plasma. While some of the planets once plentiful waters were boiled off into space during the bombardment the vast majority of it trapped beneath a dense layer of glass and cooled lava.

The deep seismic shockwaves slammed into this layer with devastating force. For a few moments nothing happened then slowly but surely the layer – which had for so long contained the planets waters – began to crack and shatter.

Bridge

UES Sumatra

That Same Time

"Captain Zendril, we have a successful reflex missile detonation," sensors reported, "scanners confirm that the wreck of the Windermere has been completely obliterated."

"Excellent," Zendril replied from besides the command station where he now stood alone. Captain Somerville having left the bridge to both get out of his armour and get checked over by the ship's medical personnel for any crash related injuries. "Where are the Imperial ships and fighters now?"

"Sir the Imperial ships are holding station just outside their weapons range. The fighters have also pulled back to their capital ships."

Zendril smiled and nodded pleased that the Imperials were giving them space as at there current distance, they would be able to see his ships as silhouettes against the tan surface of Tatooine with the good old-fashioned mark one eyeball even if their sensors couldn't see them due to the shadow stealth device. It would seem that the Imperials had learned from the last time their ships had confronted one another and thus knew that while they had him outnumbered it would be no guarantee of victory should they come to blows.

Not that he had any intention of fighting today. They had done what they had come here to do, now it was time to return to the fleet. What happened to Captain Solo and how they rewarded him for helping the survivors of the Windermere crew would be something for Admiral Hunter to decide.

"Navigation, take us out of orbit to fold clearance. Once we're clear all ships are to begin executing sequential folds back to the fleet."

"Aye sir."

Imperial Star Destroyer Domination

That Same Time

"Captain the alien ships are leaving orbit of Tatooine."

Standing before the Domination's bridge viewports Captain ReneJaq Seimar nodded at the report from sensors. He could see it himself, the three alien warships were turning and moving into open space away from Tatooine having finished disposing of the wreck of their crashed ship. He knew that he should attempt to stop them, after all he had them outnumbered five ships to one, but he knew – from the hundred and third task forces destruction – that superior numbers were no guarantee of victory against this race whoever they were. Plus, there were standing orders – from Lord Vader himself – not to engage them unless they were found engaged in hostile actions against the Empire or found consorting with the rebellion.

They had done neither here, just done what the Empire would have done in their place had it been one of their ships that had gone down. They hadn't even destroyed the interceptors he'd sent to destroy their missile before it could immolate the wreck, they had merely created a barrier with some kind of plasma missiles to stop them when they could just as easily have destroyed the squadron. Which to his mind pointed to someone who didn't necessarily mean harm to the Empire and would only fight them if they attacked them first.

"Sir should we not attempt to stop them," his XO asked from behind him.

"No let them go," Renejaq ordered.

"But sir it's only three ships we outnumber them surely…"

"… we have standing orders not to engage them unless they're found consorting with the rebels," he interrupted, "these orders come direct from Lord Vader himself. I am not about to disobey them. You have surely heard what happens to officers who disobey him."

The silence from the other officer was all the answer he needed. It was after all a well-known fact that officers who disobeyed the Dark Lord of the Sith tended to have difficulty breathing afterwards. Unless you had the backing and support of Emperor Palpatine himself then disobeying Vader was tantamount to committing suicide.

With the other officer cowed for now he continued watching the alien ships moving away from Tatooine, amazed that the alien ships were completely invisible to their sensors. Imperial warships had some of the best sensors available anywhere in the galaxy, yet they could not see or target this races ships. Unless of course the aliens allowed them to as they had allowed the 103rd to do – not that it had done much good in the ensuing battle which saw the whole fleet defeated and destroyed in just five minutes.

As he watched the alien ships came to a dead halt in space. For a few moments more nothing happened then with a breath-taking suddenness all three were surrounded by a whirl of blue gyroscopic energy that turned into spheres of energy around the ship that gave each the appearance of an ornament surrounded by a whirling ball of frosted glass. As he watched the spheres collapsed down to a tiny size – taking the ships with them – before shooting off into hyperspace – on a vector that was completely off any known hyperspace lane.

They were gone.

"Sir comm scan is detecting multiple disturbances on the surface of Tatooine," sensors reported. "Multiple eruptions in the vicinity of the Dune Sea and heading towards Beggars Canyon."

"What kind of eruptions?" Renejaq asked, "volcanic? Gas explosions?"

"Neither sir. The eruptions are spewing a liquid onto the surface of the planet along with steam but what's coming up is not magma."

"Then what exactly is it lieutenant?"

"Sir it's water."

Authors Note: Well, another chapter bites the dust. I hope you all enjoyed the climax of the Windermere saga, though this is not the last of Tatooine that we will see. There is still the whole Obi-Wan and Luke situations to resolve after all. Though next time we'll be returning to the mystery of the hidden CIS base. Until next time.