A/N: Guess who's back! (Hopefully for a while this time!)
Yep, it's me again, and this time I'm here with a sequel to two of my favorite episodes of Star Wars: Visions, The Twins, and the Ninth Jedi. Obviously all properties are owned by Lucasfilm and all that, yadda yadda yadda, so let's get into the meat and potatoes already!
In short, this fic series, Legends of the Force, combines, as you probably guessed, the Twins and the Ninth Jedi. I chose these two, aside from them being my favorites, because they seemed to fit really well together, and I hope you enjoy the return of my two recurring original fanfiction characters as much as I did! Anyway, I'll stop rambling, because this story gets really, REALLY interesting, and quite fast too.
(P.S: Yes, my Pokemon Reborn Fanfiction is also still being worked on, I just got a bit burnt out of it after a while. Don't worry though, if you're looking forward to it, I've got a fair number of chapters lined up for proofreading, so it (in theory...) shouldn't be too much longer. Also, I finally got the motivation to start the second installment of my Sword Art Online fanfiction, The Untold Legends! I know it's by far my least read series, but after reading this chapter, I hope you'll go through and give it a read if you haven't already. I recently starting going back through and tidying up a bunch of the chapters, by fixing grammar mistakes, correcting continuity issues (such as one that my friend still reminds me about, being Grace starting out with a katana on Floor one, when that wasn't possible to get until floor 10.), rewriting some parts of boss fights, and including certain other characters such as Mito from Sword Art Online: Progressive! To this day, I'm still really proud of it, since it was my first ever published fanfiction, and after reviewing it and starting to work on the next part, that's still true, if not more so, and I hope you all will come to love it as much as I do, especially once we get into the Fairy Dance, Phantom bullet, and other, completely original story arcs!)
Chapter One
Wild Space
953 ABY
Margrave Juro stood behind the wall of glass at the front of his ship's bridge. The Starwalker, as he called it, was a Corellian multipurpose cruiser that he had requisitioned from the grasp of an old Hutt Crime lord, the son of the ancient Jabba the Hutt, Rotta. Under Rotta's command, the ship had been a pleasure barge, which frequented the space of underworld and lowlife planets such as Nal Hutta and Nar Shaddaa. Now, it served a much different purpose.
His short, gray hair rippled as he reached out into the Force. Elsewhere in the ship, his three Jedi companions busied themselves with their various hobbies and pastimes. Lah Kara, the daughter of the sabersmith Lah Zhima, hammered away on a kyber crystal in her chamber, studiously reading texts written in secret by her father about the art of forging lightsabers. With Lah Zhima missing, taken captive by the Jedi Hunters, the task of forging lightsabers for their future allies now fell on her young shoulders. Her little droid companion, Four-Nines, watched on from a nearby desk, playing recordings and retrieving various materials they'd scavenged from Juro's temple above Hy Izlan.
Ethan, a young boy not much older than Kara, blocked a strike from a training droid with a practice saber. His form lacked finesse, but they had only been training in earnest for a month now. Such skills would come in time, as would their connection to the Force. In the meantime, he more than made up for it with his determination and drive to see their mission through to the end, and bring about a close to the war which now devastated the entire Galaxy.
It didn't have a name. The war had erupted so quickly that naming it the way previous wars, such as a Clone Wars between the Old Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems, more commonly remembered as the Separatists, or the Galactic Civil War, fought by the Rebel Alliance and the Galactic Empire, hadn't even been a concern. All anyone knew it as now was just the war.
Homen, the third and final of Juro's companions, watched as his old master meditated on the Force. It had become something of a familiar sight recently. Juro would spend entire days adrift in the Force, trying to seek out their next ally in the fight against the agents of the Dark Side, and as he did so, Homen would watch over his body. At the same time, Juro's steward droid, M8-G42, piloted the ship, numerous cables extending from his body to allow the droid to literally become one with the ship. For a group of Force users who would one day become one with the Force themselves, it seemed an apt metaphor.
They never seemed to have any real destination. Juro's only orders regarding their travels were just that wherever they traveled was somewhere they were not currently nearby, and that they followed no particular pattern. In this way, they would stay one step ahead of the Sith, the Jedi Hunters, and anyone else who was trying to track them.
The Force rippled through space and time to Juro, just as his master before him had told him it did, an energy wave that reached across the cosmos infinitely, touching and surrounding every living thing, from the tiniest of saplings to the most massive of creatures. All of it was connected to the Force, and the Force was connected to them.
Suddenly, he could see something forming in his closed eyes. His body lifted off the ground in a meditative trance. There was a flash of light, followed by one lightsaber of many shifting colors, all surrounded by darkness. No, made from darkness. Then, a sand covered planet was illuminated by the light of two suns. "Tatooine…" he mumbled, and Homen looked up.
Another image floated into his mind. A strange ship careened through space like it was on the run, escaping from nobody and everybody at once. No, it wasn't running from somebody… it was running from something… a void as black as night, something that even light fell prey to. The ship crashed on a jungle planet, like the Wookiee homeworld of Kashyyyk, but also strangely different.
A third image appeared in his head. A young boy threw a rope down a cliff, calling to someone as he pulled it back up. The scene then shifted suddenly, and he was back at a large, mountainous village with two others: A young girl who looked vaguely out of place, and a soldier with armor he had only heard stories of. Stories of a galaxy wide jedi purge, almost a thousand years ago.
The name of the planet came to him at last, the planet where they would find this mysterious trio.
"Tlarr…" Juro said, floating back down and standing on his feet again. He gazed out the windowscreen, lost in thought.
"Did you have a vision, Master?" Homen asked from behind him.
Juro nodded. "I did. The Force showed me two places where we may find allies. One is on Tatooine, but I sense great darkness within him…" he said, pausing to find the right words to explain. "It is like a shadow, something he's trying to escape. At the same time, it is something that is fundamentally a part of him, and so it will hound him until he confronts it."
"And the other place?"
"The planet Tlarr, isolated on the edge of the Unknown Regions," Juro replied. The Unknown regions, a space in the Galaxy that was still uncharted, was home to all manner of creatures born from the Dark Side. Sithspawn, the ancient Sithari, and the spirits of long dead Force Wielders too stubbornly stuck in their power to accept even death. It was an area largely forgotten by the wider Galaxy, and for the most part, intentionally so.
"Tlarr? Why would they possibly be hiding there? If they are indeed Jedi, then would it not make sense to go to someplace like Ossus? Or Tython? Someplace strong in the light side of the Force?"
Juro shook his head. "I do not know. But our enemies would think such a thing as well, which would make a dark side nexus like Tlarr a good place to lie low."
"Do you have a plan?"
Juro nodded. "I believe it would be best if we split up and divided our forces. Take Ethan and go to Tatooine. Kara and I will make for Tlarr."
Homen nodded and bowed to his master. "I understand, Master Juro. Ethan and I will leave at once," he said. "May the Force be with you."
"And with you as well, old friend."
Anxiety, and pure terror. Those were what coursed through Emily Sanorr's mind as the ship's hyperdrive powered up. Even with the unbelievably strong gravitational pull exerted on the ship by the black hole behind them, she knew they'd make it out. At least, that was what she'd hoped.
"Come on, come on! Just a little bit faster! Ardee, can you redirect anything else to the engines or the hyperdrive? Anything at all?" she asked her droid, who was plugged in at the back of the ship. The little astromech beeped and whistled, and suddenly, the ship lurched as it pulled itself further from the cold mass of darkness. A red light flashed. The life support systems had lost power.
"Commander! The ship can't take much more of this! The black hole is still pulling us back in!" a voice said from behind her. Red lights blinked rapidly as panels were ripped off of the ETA class shuttle's hull and hurtled back towards the void behind her, a mass impossible to illuminate only visible by the sphere of black contrasting against the blue tunnel of hyperspace, flickering in and out of existence. Starships were designed not to be able to enter hyperspace while under the effect of a strong gravitational pull, and this was exactly why.
"I know, Ace, but we've got to try! We're too close now!" Emily replied, narrowing her eyes as she desperately searched for a way to boost the power enough. She'd thought that entering hyperspace would be enough to let them escape from the black hole, but it was clear she was wrong. Even traveling faster than light wasn't working.
With no other recourse, she closed her eyes and focused on the Force like her master had taught her. RD-20 whistled frantically, and Ace gasped as another klaxon siren sounded. "Commander! The black hole is pulling the engines apart! We're going to explode!" he shouted, rare fear entering his voice. "Commander!"
"Now!" Emily exclaimed, and she pressed both palms to the cockpit's hyperdrive controller, and she pushed it all the way to the floor. In response, the Force itself seemed to give the ship that little extra push it needed, and they shot away from the ravenous hole in spacetime. Blue light flared in the viewscreen as the ship soared into hyperspace.
RD-20 whistled again, and then suddenly they felt a massive lurch followed by the blast of an explosion. "Ardee says the Hyperdrive rings are cracking! We've got to set her down, now!" Ace called out. Emily nodded, and she pulled back on the hyperdrive.
But the ship didn't come back into realspace, and the blue tunnel of hyperspace didn't vanish.
"Commander?" Ace asked, and Emily gasped in shock as she realized what was happening.
"Oh no… Ace, we're stuck in hyperspace!" she told him, frantically pulling back on the throttle. There had to be something they could do.
Another explosion rocked the shuttle. "Ardee? What was that?!" Emily asked, and suddenly the steering joist veered sharply off to the left. Straining against it, Emily tried to center it as she mentally focused on using the Force to keep the ship together.
"The hyperdrive is breaking apart!" Ace shouted.
Emily frantically tapped into an open frequency. "Mayday! Mayday! We're going down! Can anyone read me?!" she said, her eyes wide with terror. Suddenly, the three of them heard an explosion coming from the back of the ship, and then everything went black.
William Garsic woke up with a start, his mind still catching up with reality from his dream. He'd seen a three winged ship flying through hyperspace with an unfathomable amount of damage all over it. The cockpit had been hastily sealed with spare parts, and after an explosion from the engines rocked the ship, it emerged from the bright blue tunnel of hyperspace just in time to crashland onto a planet that looked eerily familiar to his homeworld.
"What was that?" he wondered out loud as he peered outside of his window. "That dream… it felt so real…"
Tlarr, a small moon covered half in dense, humid jungles, and half by a blisteringly hot desert that seemed to stretch on for kilometers in all directions. His city was located in the middle of the Tlarran jungle, and right now, they were caught up in one of the longest continuous thunderstorms they had ever experienced.
"There's no way that was just a dream…" he mused in his mind, pulling the curtains to one side to get a better view. Lightning flashed, and as he'd grown to be used to, a massive bolt of lightning crashed down and sent up a cloud of dirt, stone, and debris into the air. The storms on Tlarr were always extremely violent. This one was no exception.
As Will watched, another bolt of lightning lit up the sky. "But if that wasn't a dream… then what was it?" he thought to himself as more bolts rained down on the city. This far removed from the rest of the Galaxy, Tlarr rarely received any visitors. Even the war hadn't reached the planet yet, but somehow, Will just knew it'd find its way to his home soon enough.
A bright flash of light from his peripheral caught his attention. Will turned his head to look, and was taken aback when he saw something falling from the sky, far too slowly for it to be just another lightning bolt. It was far enough away that he couldn't tell what it was, but he could see enough to know that it was out of place. Suddenly, something washed over him like a wave, making him take a step back in surprise.
"Mayday! Mayday! We're going down! Can anyone read me?!"
Will gasped as he heard a voice. Quickly looking around his bedroom, nearly void of anything but the most basic essentials, he confirmed that there was no one there except himself. His electrostaff, messenger bag, and trekking equipment all hung on the wall near the door, and the flickering candlelight cast long shadows from the metal bars surrounding the flame.
He walked over to his bedside table and picked up his comlink. Pressing the button on the top of the device, it powered on. "So if that noise didn't come from my comlink… where did it come from?" he wondered. "Surely… surely it didn't come from whatever that thing falling from the sky was… could it?"
His father, one of the spiritual leaders of his city, had once told him about an ancient order of guardians that had safeguarded the galaxy. The Jedi Knights, as he had called them, were wielders of a mystical power known only as "the Force", and they had used this power to bring peace to conflicts time and time again. But over time, they seemed to mysteriously dwindle in numbers, with their history and weapons becoming more and more obscure and rare.
The voice he'd heard echoed in his head again, as if it was beckoning to him, pleading him to come find the source. As he looked out the window of his dimly lit room again, he could faintly see a smoke trail rising up from just beyond the treeline, where the rainforests gave way to the vast, empty desert.
"Someone could need some help… and if they came here on a ship, they may not know how dangerous these storms can get…" he thought to himself. "Better to be safe than sorry."
Will grabbed his staff, comlink, and trekking equipment, and after flipping up the hood of his overcoat, he opened the door and ran outside into the pouring rain.
On most planets, the rain would merely feel like small drops of water hitting your body thousands of times a second. Tlarr was not most planets. Without an overcoat, like the one he was wearing, people without hardened skin like his could experience bruises and even concussions from how hard the rain fell. And even the hardened skin that his people had developed over hundreds of centuries of exposure to the torrential downpours wouldn't keep them safe for long. And that was to say nothing of the lightning that frequently followed.
His boots splashed in the puddles on the path as he made his way down the mountainside road to the center of town, looking up to see if he could still see the smoke trail. Sure enough, it was still there. "If I'm not dreaming, then my dad is going to give me an earful for going out in a storm like this," he thought to himself, before shaking his head. "Or maybe he won't… what if this is the Rite of Becoming, and I'll get back to find I've been assigned a seat on the Council of Seventeen?"
The Rite of Becoming, as he had been told of it, was a sacred trial that every child in his city took every year. Those who failed went back to their lives as normal, but those who succeeded would be placed on a council with sixteen other children who passed, and they would interpret the signs granted to them through the Makhsh, the ancient creator of their world thousands of years prior. Each year, the Council would change, for it had been written in the history of their civilization that the Makhsh had commanded that no group of interpreters remain in power for more than a year. Therefore, each year the Council of Seventeen was reborn with seventeen new members.
The catch in it all was that nobody knew when their trial would take place, or what it would entail. Each trial was different, and the only thing anyone knew was that it would test them. Children were strictly forbidden from speaking of their trials to anyone, especially those younger than them who would take the trial in the coming years.
As Will entered the treacherous and humid rainforest, he could feel the piercing gaze of numerous predators, and he activated his electrostaff, using it both as a ward to dissuade the hungry carnivores, and a light to see by. The clouds had all but completely obscured the sun, moon, and stars of his planet, so it was all but impossible to see anything except by a personal light, or a flash of lightning.
The voice echoed in his head, louder this time, and somehow, Will just knew he was getting closer. "Whoever you are… wherever you're from… help is on the way. Just hang in there," he thought to himself. The trees slowly began to part, and he came to the cliff face that separated the dense forests of the upper hemisphere, and the scorching desert of the lower.
"Hello? Is anyone out there?!" he called out, suddenly coming to the realization that the smoke trail had vanished. The rain must have doused the flames creating it. And yet, over the cacophony of rumbling thunder, and the unrelenting patter of rain, he faintly heard a voice in reply.
"Down here!"
Looking down the cliff face, his heart jumped as he saw a ship partially embedded in the cliff. Two wings had fallen down the sheer drop below, and he gasped as he realized it wasn't any ship. It was the same ship he'd seen in his dream. Standing on top of the ship with anything they could use to cover their heads was a young girl and what appeared to be a droid in heavy, white plated armor, a glowing blue T-shaped visor on it's faceplate. Another droid waited beside them, some kind of wheeled, dome topped droid he hadn't seen before.
"Hang on! I'm gonna lower a rope!" he shouted, running back to a tree. Fumbling with the clasp on his bag, he pulled out a long and durable rope, before tying it in a number of knots around his electrostaff and using it as a security lock, preventing the rope from sliding around the thick, but rain slicked tree trunks. Satisfied, he ran back over to the cliff, only for his heart to drop as he heard a terrifying noise.
The ground split beneath him, and all three figures on the ship below got down as low as they could. "Here it comes! Grab on! Now!" he shouted, throwing the rope over the edge. As both figures grabbed onto the rope, the ship slid out of the large opening it had created in the wall, and it fell with the small droid still on it.
"Ardee!" the girl shouted, reaching out towards the droid. As Will watched the droid plummet towards the ground, it suddenly stopped, and merely floated in the air, chirping frantically as the girl slowly circled with her arm. The droid floated upward and landed on the cliff next to Will, where it quickly moved away from the edge. Will shuddered as he heard the ship crash into the ground below them with a massive thud, throwing up a cloud of hot, liquid sand.
"Are you both still okay?!" he shouted down the rope, and in response, the strange, white droid tugged on the rope twice. "Okay, I'm going to try and pull you up! Try and climb while I'm at it, if we stay out in this rain much longer, it'll get bad, and fast!"
Turning around to face the jungle, Will pulled the rope over his shoulder, feeling every fiber in the rope tense and stretch. The longest seconds of Will's life seemed to pass as he struggled to keep the rope in hand, his leather gloves beginning to lose their grip, until the droid on the rope grabbed onto the cliff and pulled itself up and over, before turning around.
"Commander! Grab my hand!" it shouted in a man's voice, slightly warbled by the faceplate's modulator. The girl he had addressed as his commander grabbed him by the hand, and he let out a groan as he pulled her up and over after him. Suddenly, he turned around raised a blaster rifle at Will, who put up his hands. "So what do you want, Separatist spy? Why'd you help us out?"
"Separatist spy? What are you talking about? Who are the Separatists?" Will exclaimed, and the girl quickly pushed the droid's gun down. After seeing her up close, Will noticed she wore the same styled gauntlets and shoulder armor that the humanoid droid did.
"Ace, we don't have time for this. We can ask questions later. Besides, I can take care of myself too," she reassured the droid, before looking at Will. "Do you have somewhere we can rest and take care of our wounds? My droid's thrusters got damaged in the crash, and Ace and I have some injuries to tend to."
Slowly, Will nodded, not entirely sure if he could trust them. But the girl's strange power that she had used to save her other droid had intrigued him. Besides, it wasn't as if he was defenseless. He'd trained with his electrostaff for almost every day of his life since he could hold it. "All right, please take us there," she asked.
As Will slowly walked over to collect his electrostaff and the rope, the droid stared at him. Even with his blaster down, it was still unnerving. "What did he mean by 'Separatist spy'? Is that some kind of military terminology?" Will wondered as he untied his rope and coiled it back up, before storing it away in a watertight pouch inside his bag.
"And stay in front of us. No sudden moves," the droid said from behind after the girl helped the smaller droid right itself, and Will nodded.
"All right, I'm in front. But I need to have my staff on, otherwise not only will we all probably trip over at least a dozen roots without the light, but we'll be putting fat targets on our backs for the hungry predators in this part of the rainforest," he pointed out, and the girl nodded, which seemed to be enough to get the droid to relax, even slightly. It was strange how an unarmed and seemingly defenseless child who didn't look much older than him seemed to command so much respect from the an armored droid, and one that wielded a blaster rifle at that. "I guess she must be that droid's creator," he mused.
As they cautiously trekked through the dark, rainy forest, a thick fog began to roll in. Will groaned. "Wonderful…" he muttered, before turning around to the girl and her two droid companions. "Look, Mr. Droid Protector? If you really want to keep your friend safe, you'd be better off pointing that thing into the treeline," he suggested, and the droid looked over at him.
"Droid? I'm not some lousy clanker, kiddo, so don't go getting any funny ideas. And for the record, this is a Separatist planet, so I'm not sure I trust you anyway," he replied, pointing his blaster back at him for emphasis.
The girl shook her head. "Ace, I sense he didn't know that. And for that matter, I sense a lot of things that I can't understand. It's better that we all just work together for right now, until we can get to shelter," she pointed out, reaching into her cloak and pulling out a small, cylindrical object made of metal. "Let's just focus on staying alive. Ace and I can cover the rear as long as you can lead us to safety."
Will nodded, making a mental note to not call the armored being a droid again. Suddenly, there was a flash of light that he, for the briefest of moments, thought was just another bolt of lightning. That was, until he realized it wasn't the color of the violet lightning which permeated the storm clouds above. This light was a soft teal color, and it wasn't coming from above him, but behind him, and so was a strange humming noise. As he turned around to see what it was, he jumped in surprise and nearly tripped on a root in the process.
The girl's metal device had suddenly projected a bright beam of light. It rippled with each drop of water that hit it, sending up tiny trails of mist as it evaporated the water instantaneously. "What… what is that?" he asked in a shocked tone of voice. The girl looked over at him, confused.
"It's my lightsaber. Have you never seen one before?" she asked, and he shook his head, alarms going off in his mind that he must be dreaming. But a discrete pinch of his arm threw that idea out the window. So what was the meaning of this? Lightsabers hadn't been seen anywhere in the Galaxy since the disappearance of the Jedi.
The Jedi. Suddenly, Will had one answer and a million more questions than he had before. How did a Jedi suddenly appear out of nowhere on his planet, when for as long as he'd been alive, all he'd heard were people saying they were just an old smuggler's myth that probably just never existed? Even his father, who had first told him about the existence of the Jedi Order, wasn't sure they were actually real. Nobody in his village had seen them for centuries at least, that was for sure.
Will shook himself out of his thoughts. They needed shelter from the rain first and foremost. Questions could come later. Taking off his overcoat, he tossed it to the girl. "We need to keep moving. Put that on, it'll protect you from the impact of the rain. Mr. Armored person, or whatever you are, is that plating enough to keep you safe from the impact of the rain giving you a concussion? Because if we stay out here much longer without shelter, it will."
Looking back at him, the armored figure nodded. "Seems to be. Let's just get moving already before we get ambushed by Separatists…" he replied, before flicking his gun around as he heard a growl come from the treeline. "Or worse…"
The microscopic scales on Will's skin rippled with each droplet of rain that slammed into his body, but he ignored the pain. It had to have been worse for the unprotected girl behind him, Jedi or not.
As they rushed out of the rainforest, Will led them over to a pulley elevator. "Get that dome droid on here. This'll be quicker to get to my place than the stairs," he explained, and the strange girl nodded, motioning her droid onto the platform. Pulling the lever, they were lifted upward in to the air.
"So what's the big deal? According to my maps, we're on a Separatist planet, but I'm obviously a clone, and my commander is a Jedi. So why are you helping us?" the armored person asked, his questions only making Will more confused.
"I don't know what map you're looking at, but Jedi haven't been seen in the Galaxy for centuries. At least, that's what I've heard. We sure haven't had any come visit before. Well, not as long as I've been alive anyway. As for you being a clone, that armor has got to be really new, because the closest to that I've ever read about is storm trooper armor, and even that looks no where near as protective," Will replied as the elevator reached the top level, still unsure of how they didn't know that. Even if Tlarr was far enough isolated from the rest of the Galaxy, the information they regularly received between storms wasn't ever more than a week out of date, but these two strangers were years behind the curve. "This way, my house is just over there."
Leading his strange companions inside, they took a deep breath and sighed. Will flicked the holo-switch and turned on the overhead light in his room. It wasn't a large house by any means, but the one room building served its purpose well enough. The girl tossed his overcoat back to him and he nodded his thanks, before leaning his electrostaff against his bed and hanging the cloak on the wall to dry.
"So, I think we've all got questions for each other," he said, sitting down on his bed. The alleged Jedi sat down in the chair at his desk with the little droid rolling over beside her, while the armored man that had called himself a clone looked out the window. "You're the guests, so you go first."
The Jedi nodded. "Thank you. But first, can you tell us your name?" she asked, and Will was taken aback. This Jedi and her companions had just barely survived a life or death experience, and her biggest concern was his name? It was strange, but then so was the appearance of a Jedi in the first place.
After gathering his thoughts, Will nodded. "My name is William Garsic. But just call me Will. Who are you, Jedi?" he replied.
"I'm a Jedi Padawan, Emily Sanorr. This is Ace, a clone commando of the 394th clone special ops battalion in the Grand Army of the Republic," she said. "And this is my droid companion, Ardee Twenty."
Will tilted his head to the side. "Grand Army of the Republic? The Republic is still trying to pull itself back together after the war started over a century ago. Unless there's a secret one that I don't know about, there's no Republic in the Galaxy that has the money or resources to back even a small battalion, let alone an entire army."
Ace turned around at that. "What are you talking about? The first battle of Geonosis was only a year and a half ago. I would know, I was there," he pointed out, confusing Will.
"Geonosis? Is that a planet?" the Tlarran replied. Lightning illuminated the window again as Emily narrowed her eyes in surprise.
"Geonosis is the desert planet where the Clone Wars started. Hang on, do you have a holomap? I can show you where it is," she asked, and Will nodded, pressing a button on his comlink. A large circle appeared in the room, displaying the entirety of the known Galaxy. After staring at it for a while, Emily shook her head. "Well… It should be right there," she said, and Ace, having come over to look for himself, nodded. He grabbed the sides of the face plate and lifted it off of his head, revealing a human face underneath.
"Yeah, it should… Hey, kid. This thing up to date?" he asked, and Will nodded.
"Yeah, in fact I just updated it before this storm hit. Why do you ask?"
Ace sat down on the ground and leaned against the wall. "Well, it looks like the Galaxy all right, but it's missing a lot of planets that are on my map. Geonosis, Alderaan, Kamino, and many more," he explained, and Emily rested her chin on her hand in thought.
"I've got an idea. Will, do you have a computer terminal in your room that Ardee can plug into?" she asked, and Will nodded.
"Right over there. Go right ahead, I'm just as confused as you are," he replied, gesturing to a deactivated computer next to the window. "So, what's this about me be a Separatist spy? Tlarr hasn't been involved with the war yet, because we're so far removed from the rest of the Galaxy."
"Tlarr?" Ace scoffed. "You must be crazy. There's no planet named Tlarr. According to the map in my helmet's heads up display, this is just a mining colony designated Gravon Thirteen. It looks way different from the databanks though."
Will shook his head. "Never heard of a Gravon Thirteen, or anyone calling themselves Separatists. As for this planet being Tlarr, well, I can assure you it is. I've lived here my entire life," he replied, and Ace grunted, looking back out the window.
"Well, thats just wonderful. We're cut off from command, our ship is in pieces at the bottom of a cliff, and we're on a planet that doesn't exist in my database," Ace muttered as another bolt of lightning flashed in the distance. Suddenly, RD-20 began beeping and chirping frantically.
"What is it, Ardee?" Emily asked, only to receive a lightning fast series of beeps and whistles. "Hold on, hold on. I can't understand you, you're talking too fast. Slow down, and say all of that again."
The droid repeated itself, and Emily took a step back, her face pale. "What's wrong?" Will asked, narrowing his eyes slightly.
"Will… how sure are you that the information in your computer's systems is up to date?" she asked shakily.
"Absolutely positive," he replied. He and Ace both walked over to Emily.
"Commander? What did Ardee find?" Ace asked, and Emily sat down against the wall, her face full of shock.
"According to what Ardee found… we're… I- I don't even know how to begin…" Emily stammered.
Will nodded, and helped her to her feet over to the bed where she'd be more comfortable. Taking a seat in the chair at his desk, he said "Just tell us one thing at a time. It can be anything."
Emily took a deep breath and sighed as her droid rolled over to her. "According to what Ardee just told me… Tlarr and Gravon Thirteen are indeed different planets… but Ace… when we made the jump to hyperspace, we were in the Alderaan system… but Ardee is saying we're deep in the Unknown Regions now. We'd have had to go straight through the middle of the Galaxy to get here," she explained. Ace and Will both narrowed their eyes. "And that's not all… Ardee said the only reference he can find to Alderaan is a massive cluster of asteroids called… the Graveyard."
Will's eyes widened. "Wait a minute… wait a damn minute, how could you have possibly been at Alderaan? You barely look any older than me, but Alderaan was destroyed almost ten centuries ago by the first Galactic Empire," he asked, taking a step away from them. "What you're saying… it's just…"
"It's just what?" Ace asked, turning around to face the terrified boy.
"Well, it's just impossible! Unless both of you are way older than you look," he said, before gasping. "Unless…"
Will quickly ran over to the computer and began hastily typing in commands. After a moment, he paused in shock. "I- I don't believe it…" he muttered, before turning around to face his guests. "Well… I think I know why your information and mine just don't mesh. But you're not going to like it. Hell, you might not even want to know at all."
Emily and Ace looked at each other, nervous. Eventually, they both looked back at Will and nodded. "Tell us. Please."
Taking a deep breath, Will swiped a hand across the light of the terminal, projecting the holographic screens into the air. "I think both of us are right. When you made the jump to hyperspace, Alderaan was indeed intact, but when you emerged from hyperspace right before crashing on Tlarr, it wasn't. The only way that could've happened is if while you were in hyperspace, something disrupted the transit, and you got sent into the future, or my present time. But the only thing that could've done that…" he said, as another bolt of lightning illuminated the room. "The only thing strong enough in the entire Galaxy, or hell, maybe even beyond the Galaxy, is a black hole…"
Emily and Ace both paled at that. "A… a black hole?" Emily breathed, before her eyes suddenly shot wide. "Oh no… I think it's coming back to me… I remember… we made the jump to hyperspace, but then there was an alarm… we pulled out of hyperspace in the middle of that asteroid belt, but when we tried to radio for help, nothing came back. We only managed to escape by overloading the hyperdrive on board our ship, but then the next thing I remember is waking up with the ship half embedded into that cliff… With all of that in mind… do you think…"
Ace shook his head. "But we were only on that asteroid belt for at most a few galactic standard days. If our ship wasn't destroyed, we could go check to confirm that," he replied, and Emily nodded.
"For us, yes. But that couldn't have been a normal asteroid belt, otherwise the navi-computer would've autocorrected for it. But it couldn't have corrected our course for something that it didn't know about, like a cluster of asteroids inside of a black hole… that must be why we couldn't see any stars except in that tiny circle in the sky when we went outside to try and get our bearings. All the light had fallen through with us…" Emily trailed off, and Will sat down next to her. "Thank the Force our hyperdrive was fixable, otherwise we'd have never gotten out of there."
"I'm… I'm sorry… I know there's not much I can say to help, but…" he trailed off, knowing he was more right than he could possibly comprehend. What could anyone say after seeing someone realize they'd been trapped in a black hole for a few days, only to miraculously escape and find out that close to a thousand years had passed? Was there anything in the entire Galaxy that could be said?
A/N: And now you see what I mean by this story getting really interesting! So we've got a character from a VERY backwater world, and a Jedi and her clone escort from all the way back in the Clone Wars era getting sucked into a black hole of all things for close to a thousand years, which for them was just a couple of days. And before any of you scientists throw at me your "Um, actually that's not how a black hole works," we haven't been inside a black hole and come out, so whatever happens in there is up for artistic license, haha.
Anyway, I've got part of chapter two written for this as well, and the excitement is getting dialed up to eleven REAL QUICK in that chapter. Hold on to your helmets, cuz things are gonna get intense!
Anyway, don't feel obligated to leave a review. I've decided that outright asking for those isn't such a good idea after all, even if I'm welcoming both the "WOW THIS IS AMAZING" and the "Wow you suck, stop writing fanfiction and do something you're better at" reviews. Still, that's not to say that I don't want reviews. If you have something to say, feel free to say it if you wish! I'll gladly read each and every one of them! (If you're not aware, they create a little thing called endorphins that make me really happy :), hehe!)
See you all next time!