Teen Titans / Star Wars Crossover: Chapter 21: Strange Bedfellows

...

I know I haven't posted in a while, but health issues got in the way. To those of you still following, I hope you enjoy.

Needless to say, I own neither franchise.

...

He was floating in darkness. No, not darkness, but a kind of light he'd never experienced before. Well, actually, he'd sort of expected that.

He tried to use his senses to determine his surroundings. Nothing. Or, rather, a formless something that he couldn't make sense of.

"Greetings," said a voice in his mind.

He would have jumped if he'd still had legs to jump with. (How did he know he no legs? What did he have in place of them?) He tried to reply, but nothing came out.

"Take your time," said the voice. "It will come with time and acclimation." And he could sense that the voice was not really a voice, but a wordless communication he couldn't put a name to. Telepathy? He guessed it was as good a term as any. But why couldn't he do it?

"It takes time. Time and willpower. You will learn."

"Who*" It was the best he could do.

"We are those like you. You are new to this condition of being; we sensed that."

"Wh-what am, am I?" It was a terrible effort just to articulate this simple concept.

"You are like us. Now."

Hoth: "Luke, I, I really don't think I could eat-"

"C'mon, Raven. You don't want this to go to waste, now do you? These 'waffles'? They smell pretty yummy."

"Then you eat them. I cou—*" But while her mouth was open, with perfect timing born of the Force, he spooned a bite into her mouth. Her eyes half-closed in ecstasy; it had been so long since she'd tasted her favorite food. Then she chewed and swallowed. "Okay, that was a dirty trick."

"We Sith specialize in dirty tricks. Didn't you know? Now here: second bite's the easiest." She yielded to the superior force and before long, had cleaned her plate. "Here. I'll order you another."

"No, really, that was…enough. For now." She tried to smile a brave smile. "The block's broken. I'll…eat now. You don't have to resort to your Force powers."

"I actually wasn't. Er, maybe a little. But okay. Now. Tell me what happened."

Her smile vanished. "Don't you know?"

"I heard from the others. But I need to hear from you. Or, rather, you need to tell me."

Tears started down her face, and he moved over to her side of the table. He pulled her down onto his shoulder. "C'mon, Raven. I know what happened. But I need to hear how it affected you. Tell me."

"I, I can't…my powers…"

"If they're not too major, I can counter them. C'mon, Raven. You're hurting. Didn't you do the same for me, back on Tatooine?"

Crying, she told him. And he exercised the greatest power humans have: he listened.

….

The Emperor's Throne room: Well, thought the occupant, this was a bit of a setback. He'd just had his Red Guard dispose of the remains of the commander of the ill-fated expedition to the Hoth system. Holovids of his agony had been transmitted to all Captains and commanding officers. Perhaps that would "persuade" them not to engage in any unauthorized exploits. He'd been made aware of the threat emanating from the Epsilon quadran—and just what that threat might be. Very unfortunate. He'd set his top scientists to working on a countermeasure, but so far, they'd come up with nothing. Perhaps they needed a little "persuading," themselves. Maybe make an example of one or two…well, no, not yet, anyway. From what he'd gathered, the threat was not immediate. There'd be time.

But now, his Foresight was informing him of another threat, two, actually, but one a good deal more dangerous. He put through a holocommunication to his apprentice. "Lord Vader?"

Deep inside the Victory Star, inside the communication chamber reserved for such things, the one known now as "Darth Vader" knelt respectfully. "My Master."

"I have taken note of your great victory in the Yavin system. This pleases me. However, it has not been without cost."

Darth Vader nodded beneath his helmet. "The rebels will now scatter."

"As the four winds. We knew they would, but this will still complicate things somewhat. Not that this will reflect on you, but the debacle in the Hoth system has only made matters worse."

"Indeed. Now they will scatter further—*"

"It is not only that. I sense a danger emanating from that system, a danger, a trap that had best been left unsprung. But there is no help for it now. But for the moment, you are to avoid the Hoth system. Let the rebels go; as of now they are of secondary importance."

Had anyone been able to see beneath his mask, they would have seen a look of surprise on Vader's ravaged face. "More important than the rebellion, My Master?" His unspoken question: what could be more important than destroying our enemies?

"That I have yet to fully see, my apprentice. But it is imperative that the Empire be at full strength, ready to strike at any…disturbance. Your vessel is now our premier weapon for doing so. I commend you for your recent victory, and the renaming of your vessel, which I have made to be your permanent post—such is gratifying. However, the loss of your two prisoners is…a bit disheartening." Here the Emperor hunched forward. "Did you learn anything about the alien girl, the nonhuman one?"

"Nothing beyond the powers and abilities she displayed, My Master. That, and, as we learned to our sorrow, she was resistant to the force-shackles."

"Yes, unfortunate, that. But she also is not our primary concern. Not at this point. The dark girl, the one who, by all accounts bested you, is. Her capture, or acquisition, to put it more accurately, is now on a par with that of the son of Skywalker. He has flourished into a full Sith Lord now, and this also pleases me greatly. It is certainly a huge time saver. He will be all the more amenable to seeing things our way now. Once he is brought over, his training can continue, under my own personal tutelage, just as yours did. And, as I am pleased with you, I've no doubt but that I would be pleased with him, as well.

"Matters are coming together in a most satisfying way.

"I want you to take the Victory Star to the Bespin system, surreptitiously, of course, and there await my orders."

"My Master?"

"My foresight has told me it will be a convergence point for…certain…individuals important to us. It will take the rebels some time to re-cluster at some strategic point. And I am sending a contingent to Tatooine to…confer…with one Jabba the Hutt. I sense he knows more than we do about certain strategic things. That knowledge he will share with us…one way or another.

"In particular, I want you to gather any and all information regarding the use of nanonics.

"Sometimes, with the application of the proper knowledge, one can turn an enemy into an ally.

….

Tatooine: Boba Fett was wondering just what god he'd offended, that he had to live such a cursed life. The god of misfortune? The god of bad breaks? The god of nose-tweaking, maybe? Was there even such a god? And if there was, how to placate such an entity?

Jabba had given him no orders, but had "retained his services," which meant he was getting paid a healthy stipend for…doing nothing. That just wasn't his way. He was accustomed to actually working for a living, even if some people looked down on his line of work. He didn't really care if they did, but hanging around Mos Eisley brought him into contact with those insufferable Imperials—he had a hard time calling them "warriors"—and had determined that, just like everyone suspected, these were the scrapings of the bottom of the barrel, placed here mostly to get them out of the way. Any fuck-ups they made wouldn't get into the galactic info web too quickly.

The downside of that was, they knew this, and so tended to act in ways the higher ups in the Empire would've disapproved of. Case in point: A group of three white-suited soldiers had apparently taken it upon themselves to instruct a native—a "greenie," they called them—in proper etiquette when encountering Imperial soldiers. "Having fun, boys? And I do mean boys."

"Yeah," snarled the leader, turning to Fett, "wanna join in? Clearly you want some, too."

"I've heard an ancient proverb that says it's better to give than to receive." And he unlimbered his electro-whips. "An' you three are just begging for it."

W-Crack!—one snap of his right whip cut one trooper's head from his body, the head itself falling out of the helmet, the expression of surprise still on it.

"Now you've done it!" shouted the second, unlimbering his rifle. Both rifle and upper torso were next, as Fett's whip cut through both.

"W-wait!" said the third, backing up and holding up his hands. "I, I wasn't a part of that!"

"Oh, I see, There's been a mistake" replied Fett evenly. The trooper relaxed slightly. Maybe he'd live to repor-*

Ker-ack! That trooper's head joined the other. "You've obviously mistaken me for someone who cares."

As he trudged back to the quarters assigned to him and his "guests," the ex-slave girls he'd "bought" from that scumbag of a Prince Xizor (actually, required as tribute for his passage to Tatooine, but it amounted to the same thing), he reflected on what lay ahead. Answer: he didn't have a clue.

He was fairly certain Jabba would have words about his, er, disposal, of the three Imperials, and, at one time, he would have cared. But his extended confinement here (as he saw it) had wrought a change in his soul.

He didn't care if Jabba fired him. In fact, he hoped the Hutt would. He'd find work on his own.

Boba Fett, unlike a lot of the white-suited Imperial soldiers, did not think of those whose biology was foreign to basic humanity as less than human. He'd had dealings with too many species to think otherwise. People came in many different forms and colors, and that didn't bother him.

It was the ones that weren't people that did. And, in his long life of experience, he'd encountered a few of those. Some of those…even he shuddered at the remembrance.

Back at his (and the two former slave girls) allotted quarters, he checked his messages. Oh, good; there was one from Jabba himself. No doubt it had something to do with his waste disposal earlier, but—wait, no, this message had come in before that had gone down. His heart leaped; maybe he actually had something to do. For a change.

Robin was mightily puzzled.

It hadn't taken him as long as he'd been afraid it would, to learn the new (to him) computer system here in this crazy universe. It wasn't nearly as bad as Windows, but then, he sometimes wondered if anything was. "Leia?" He spoke out of the side of his mouth at the Princess (and now General), who'd just passed him by.

"Can't it wait, Dick?" Still preparing for evac, she had her hands full.

"Just a quick question." What that young Sith Lord had said to him hadn't left his mind. "Where did you say the Rebellion got all its funds?"

Was that all. She waved her hand, dismissively. She didn't have time for this. "Various powerful and influential senators and others. There are some groups, but it's mostly individuals who have it to spare. Why is that important?"

He turned around in his chair, half-turning towards her. "But Alderaan's destroyed, and the Senate on Coruscant has gone into hiding. That was the seat of the Senate, wasn't it?"

"?"

"There's been no hiatus in funds, has there?"

"Dick, I don't have time for—*"

"Has there?"

She sighed. He wouldn't let go until he had an answer. "No. But not every rich person in the galaxy was on Alderaan, you know. And clearly, some brave souls on Coruscant have continued to contribute. For which we can be thankful."

"But so many donors, contributors, were on Alderaan. And I'm sure Coruscant has been under an Imperial microscope ever since Yavin. I doubt anyone could—or would—take the risk of 'business as usual.' I mean, that was the whole purpose of Alderaan's destruction, wasn't it?" He turned back to his terminal. "You'd think there'd have at least been a burp in the credit flow." He frowned at the screen. "And yet there hasn't been."

"What's the expression you Earthers have? 'Don't look a gift horse in the mouth'? Though what a 'horse' is, or why you'd want to look one in the mouth is beyond me."

"Mm, yes." He continued to frown at the terminal, and Leia could tell he'd already forgotten about her. So she continued on with trying to coordinate the evac.

Which was a pity. Had she loitered in his vicinity, she might've heard him mutter a comment or two which would have made more sense to her than to him. "Hm. Senators, wealthy people…scarily wealthy people…not on Alderaan. Coruscant based? Fantastically wealthy people right under the nose of the Empire, and not afraid of it, either. Who does that leave?"

"Who's left, in the Empire, with that kind of disposable income? Not to mention access to infrastructure. All these ships didn't build themselves."

….

Coruscant: The Emperor Palpatine heaved a sigh of frustration. This was about the millionth time (or so it seemed to him) he'd tried to come up with some scheme to bring the dark girl, the one called Raven, over to his side. But none of them seemed really workable.

Perhaps he should have offered her that fool of a commander, to do with as she would. That might, at least, have ameliorated her hostility to the Empire—to him, at least. But he'd been hasty to make an example of what happened to insubordinate officers, and besides, it probably wouldn't have worked. She was too much like him.

But now he was left with basically nothing to offer her. Hm. He stroked his chin. There was another who was much like her, and close to her own age…the Lord Darth Asmodeus himself. But no, he sensed the girl was an empath, and would have sensed any false showing of affection. Such things seldom worked, anyway. Not in the long run, and the Emperor intended to run a very long time indeed.

Wait a minute. What about the son of Skywalker, now presumptuously calling himself Darth Malevon? He'd been one of the first people she'd ever met, that she'd had a positive relationship with, anyway. Even though Skywalker was not one of them, and, all things considered, his conversion would somewhat difficult, given the circumstances, still, if he could convince Skywalker of the rightness of his cause, there'd at least be one person in his hierarchy with whom she had positive feelings for. That wouldn't automatically bring her over, but nonetheless it was the closest thing to a start he could think of.

One thing he knew was a bad idea was to antagonize her further. One thing he could sense about her was she had access to a Power that could smash his entire Empire with one single fell blow. Therefore that would not happen. So that left subterfuge. And while he wasn't accustomed to treating his enemies with such gentility, he was a survivor. He—and his great work, his Empire—would survive.

Somehow.

On board the Yuuzhan Vong flagship, whose name would best be translated as "Seeker," the officer who served the purpose of "Admiral" summoned her elite fighting force. In truth, while there was no one in the entire Yuuzhan Vong race who was not a warrior, there were those who were better than others, who'd proved themselves over and over. Those now stood before her. "I've a mission for you." They said not a word; she knew they were willing, able, and even eager to engage in any conflict she ordered. No salutes were necessary. Their mere presence was enough. "We are approaching a galactic confederation of some sort. It controls most of the more habitable worlds available. That part is of scarce importance; we will simply fight them for dominion, and the gods will determine the most worthy.

"What is of importance is that the Adversary, the anti-god, has apparently followed us here. Or one like it was already here, whichever is the case. That, we cannot fight. It will be your task to infiltrate this 'Empire' and any associated political entities and determine" She paused a moment. What she was about to ask them to do stretched even the bounds of Yuuzhan Vong loyalty. "You are to determine the boundaries of the entity, provide us with a chart of its movement."

Now there was uneasy shifting among the warriors. Well they knew one or more—or all—could fall in the upcoming mission. And while they did not fear death or pain, they each feared nothingness. They feared being uncreated. There was no possibility of any afterlife with such a fate, no chance of being reunited with loved ones, or of fighting great battles. They would simply cease to exist.

Yes, that was to be feared.

The Admiral continued, somewhat reluctantly, it seemed. "If necessary—but only if necessary—you are to ally yourselves—discreetly, it should go without saying—with certain select indigents, those of honor and fortitude. Do not make yourselves widely known, nor give any indication as to our ultimate intentions or strength. But this is a matter that potentially affects us all, both us and them.

"And we may well need all, just to survive."

To be continued…