Rather than stick around and risk being tracked down by Cad Bane or one of the other bounty hunters in Jabba the Hutt's court, the gang quickly recovered the Queen Moon's Revenge from Beggar's canyon and vacated Tatooine. Since Janna's fueling job and the others' grocery shopping had been interrupted, they decided that, rather than head straight for Mewni, they'd make one last stop for fuel and supplies. They coupled the ships together via docking clamps and Tom and PY-HD, who had flown the Revenge from Tatooine, rejoined the rest of the crew aboard the Raventalon.
"So we're making one more stop?" Tom asked. "Where?"
"That's what we're trying to figure out," Star answered. "What systems are near here?"
PY-HD projected a star chart, and everyone gathered around it. "Geonosis is the closest," said Janna, pointing it out. "But the Geonosians aren't exactly receptive to visitors."
"How about Rodia?" suggested Tom. "It's not far, and Rodians are usually pretty hospitable."
Rosado shook his head. "Not a good idea. Rodia is under Imperial control. Same goes for Ryloth," he added, pointing to the last planet in the sector. "We'll have to go somewhere else outside of the Arkanis sector."
"Well, you're the Imperial here, Hovis," said Janna. "What's the nearest friendly system?"
"Hmmm…" Rosado scanned the star map. "Here. Stobar. There's not much there, but there is a spaceport. It's basically a waypoint for deep space pilots and very few beings actually live there permanently, so the Empire doesn't bother devoting any resources there. I hear there's a really good diner there, though."
"Sounds perfect!" said Star, always immediately interested at the prospect of a tasty meal.
"And hopefully their fuel isn't a total ripoff like it is on Tatooine," Janna added. "Let's get going."
By the time they reached Stobar, the crew was starving, having not had anything to eat since breakfast, nearly a half-standard day ago. Still afraid to let anyone see the stealth ship, Janna instructed Tom to land it in the empty wasteland a few klicks beyond the spaceport, then picked him up and flew the Raventalon to civilization.
A steady rain had begun to fall as Janna set the ship down, and they all became rather damp as they searched for the diner of which Rosado had spoken. Fortunately, the spaceport was not large, and it wasn't long before they were seated at a booth, awaiting a waitress droid to take their order.
The diner was fairly large, reasonably clean, and brightly lit. It was busy, but most of the patrons conversed in hushed tones when not speaking to the waitstaff droids, so the volume was quiet.
A waitress droid brought four cups of caf and distributed them. "Back in a minute to take your order," the droid said cheerfully, and zipped away.
"Pass the sugar please," Star requested, and proceeded to dump in far more than the caf could ever possibly dissolve. Janna, seated beside her, could hear Star's teeth crunching sugar granules as she drank.
"You doing okay, Star?" Rosado asked.
"You don't have to worry about me," she replied, fully aware of where Rosado was going with that question. "Whatever happens next, I'm ready."
And that was that. The waitress droid arrived to take their orders, and then zoomed away again.
"Hey, Star?" Tom began quietly. "You and Ludo know each other better than either of you let on, don't you?"
"…What gave it away?"
"I had a feeling he was hiding something back at Jabba's palace, but when you stopped to talk to him as we were, you know, fleeing for our lives, then I knew for sure."
Star nodded. "Yeah, you're right. I don't know him that well, but we have met before."
"When?" Janna asked before touching her cup to her lips.
"At Butterfly Castle. One time when I went home, my parents invited the other Mewni Royal families, including Ludo and his family."
Janna nearly chocked on her caf. She and Tom were so shocked that they struggled to make their mouths form words. At last, Janna managed to squeak out, "Ludo is royalty?"
"He's a prince. Prince Avarius."
Rosado was confused. "But I thought your family was the ruling power of Mewni."
"The Butterfly's are…were…the rulers of the biggest population, the 'native' Mewmans-" Star made air quotes around the word "native." "-which was also the most powerful. But yeah, there's others."
"Why 'native'?" Rosado asked, mimicking the air quotes.
"It's a long story," Janna said.
"The Kappas actually were driven off of Mewni by Queen Solaria just like the Septarians, just without the war part. And, remember I told you guys Queen Skywynne brought back some of the Septarians to Mewni?"
Tom and Janna chorused "Yeah," and Rosado said "No."
"She also brought back the Kappas. All of 'em. They were actually really excited to come back, way more so than the Septarians. The entire clan lives on a continent on the far side of Mewni from where Butterfly Castle is, so the two populations don't interact much."
"So how did Ludo end up running a drug cartel?" Janna asked.
Star opened her mouth to speak, but their food had arrived. The droid passed out plates of streaming hot food and zoomed away once again. Empty stomachs prevailed over the conversation, and they ate in silence. The food was delicious, far better than anything any of them were capable of making in the galley aboard the Raventalon, especially since Marco had been the only one among them with any real talent for food preparation.
The waitress droid cleared their empty plates away, and Star finally answered Janna's earlier question. "I wasn't around when it happened, but I remember Aunt Eclipsa saying something about it. I think he made a deal with some very bad people and accidentally caused a security breach or something? I honestly can't remember. But his parents, King and Queen Avarius, were really, really mad at him, so mad at him that they kicked him out of Castle Avarius. After that, he left Mewni. How he ended up running a drug operation, I have no idea."
The waitress droid returned with their bill. Story time was over. They had work to do.
Having flown back to where they'd left Queen Moon's Revenge, Janna set up a transfer pump to empty the Raventalon's fuel tank into the stealth ship, leaving just enough to fly the freighter back to the spaceport on fumes. The rain had picked up, so Star and Tom elected to stay behind on the Revenge.
Janna connected the fuel hose and strolled over to where Rosado had taken shelter from the rain beneath the ship's hull. He was staring at the ship on the next landing pad over.
"Whatcha looking at?"
"That array thing on top of the superstructure of that ship." Rosado pointed to a large, concave dish with a trio of centrally fixed antennas protruding from its center.
"Huh. I've never seen an array like that before."
"Neither have I. I'm just wondering what it does."
Janna's gaze trailed down and spotted a silhouette milling about beneath the ship with a flashlight, inspecting the hull. "Well, that guy is the only one over there, so it must be his ship. We're gonna be waiting on the fuel awhile, why don't we go ask him?"
"Well…alright."
So Rosado jogged out into the rain and over to the next landing pad, with Janna right behind him. They ducked underneath the other ship to escape the rain again. The being inspecting the ship was a light-skinned adult human male, several years younger than Rosado. He sported a mustache and wore a billed cap atop his head. "Excuse me."
The young man turned to them. "Yes? Can I help you?"
"Is this ship yours?"
"Sure is!"
Rosado gestured upward. "We were just wondering about that weird array thingy you've got up there."
"Yeah, neither of us have ever seen anything like it," added Janna. "We're just curious what it's for."
The man smiled excitedly. "Oh, you like it? It's my own invention!"
"Really? What's it do?" asked Rosado.
"It's a long-range low-impedance scanner."
Rosado glanced at Janna, expecting her to know what that meant, but she just shrugged. "Let's pretend we don't know know what that means…"
The man chuckled. "I built it to intercept Imperial communications from halfway across the galaxy without the need for a huge dish. Its also nearly untraceable."
"Nearly?"
"It's very difficult to detect, but even if they could figure out how to detect it, they wouldn't be able to trace it back to me. The return signal is parsecs wide. They wouldn't even know where to start looking. Really comes in handy when your destination is an Imperial-controlled sector and you wanna know what you're flying into before you…well, fly into it."
"So if it can pick up transmissions halfway across the galaxy," Rosado said slowly, "then it should be able to reach the mid-rim?"
"Easily!"
Rosado looked at Janna again. By the expression she shot back, he could see she was having the same idea. "Think we could borrow it for a couple minutes? Listen in on the Imps where we're heading next?"
"Sure! Come aboard and we'll fire it up!" He gestured for them to follow him and they headed for his ship's boarding ramp. "My name's Steve, by the way. Steve Marcis. Friends call me 'Banjo.'"
"Banjo?" Janna scoffed. "What kind of ridiculous name is that?"
"It's my ridiculous name," Banjo said with a chuckle as they reached the top of the ramp.
"I think it's an awesome name!" Rosado interjected.
"Well, thank you. What are your ridiculous names?"
"I'm Captain Janna Ordonia."
"Captain? You sure don't look old enough to be a ship captain. What're you, like…fifteen? Sixteen? Or are you a clone with decelerated aging and actually much older than you look?
"I'm old enough," Janna replied simply.
"Fair answer. No judgement if you are as young as you look, just makes being a ship captain that much more impressive." He turned his attention to Rosado. "And you are?"
"Hovis." The former Imperial Officer decided there was no need to flaunt his own ranking. "Nice to meet you."
"Pleasure is all mine."
They had reached the cockpit, but instead of taking a seat in the pilot's chair, Banjo flopped down into a swivel chair which had clearly been bolted to the floor long after the ship's construction. The chair sat before an equally non-original looking console screen and control panel.
"Okay, let's fire this baby up." The control screen flickered to life as he switched on the power. "What system would you like to listen in on?"
"Mewni," Janna told him.
"Mewni? The Empire has that place blockaded! From what I've heard, they'll shoot down any ship that even enters the system."
"Well, that is where we're going," said Janna, "and why we want to know exactly what we're flying into."
"Makes sense." Banjo began twisting knobs, adjusting the array atop the ship to tune in on the Mewni System. "Still seems ill-advised."
Janna and Rosado exchanged a glance. "Let's just say it's worth the risk," Janna said.
"If you say so." Banjo grabbed a headset and strapped it over his ears. He fiddled with the tuning knobs for about two full minutes before removing the headset and offering it to Janna and Rosado. "Okay, its tuned in to the Imperial comms channel, focused on Mewni. Go ahead and have a listen. I'll be outside if you need me."
So Janna took the headset and sat down to listen. After half an hour or so, she needed to check on the state of the Raventalon's fueling, and relinquished monitoring duty to Rosado. The former Imperial listened for twenty minutes more until Janna returned and informed her that fueling was complete.
Rosado thanked Banjo for allowing them to use his scanner.
"Don't mention it! Happy to help." He shook hands with both of them. "I still don't think it's advisable to go to Mewni, but if you must, then I wish you safe travels. May the Force be with you."
Rosado gave a half-chuckle. "Thanks. I have a feeling we're gonna need the Force with us on this one."
Janna set the Raventalon down beside Queen Moon's Revenge and Star and Tom came aboard.
"So what's our plan?" Tom asked as the crew relaxed in the galley.
"We'll talk about that in a second," Janna said. "First, Rosado and I have news." She explained about Banjo and his scratch-built scanner. "We listened in for a while while we waited for the Raventalon to fuel up and Rosado heard something rather interesting."
Rosado nodded. "And it's a real good news/bad news."
"Well, tell us already!" exclaimed Star. "Don't keep us in suspense!"
"The bad news is the Imperial commander on Mewni has requested reinforcements, so unfortunately we're gonna have a much bigger enemy force to deal with."
Star slumped forward with dejection. "Aw, great. I can't imagine what good news could possibly follow that."
"Well, the good news is the reason why they called for reinforcements."
"Why?"
"Because they need more soldiers to fend off a band of rebels that have been attacking Imperial installations."
Star's eyes widened. "Rebels? On Mewni?"
"Evidently, not the entire population has been enslaved," said Janna. "Some of them are actually fighting back."
"So we won't be totally alone when we get back!" Star sprang from her chair. "What are we waiting for?! Let's go!"
The crew did not, in fact, leave for Mewni immediately, despite Star's newfound enthusiasm. It had been almost an entire standard day since they had all last slept, and they were exhausted, not to mention they still needed to plan out what they would do once they reached Mewni.
They slept for almost twelve hours. When they awoke, they returned to the spaceport for breakfast at the diner, then reconvened in the Raventalon's galley to plan the next leg of their journey.
"We can't cloak while in hyperspace," said Janna. "And the Empire will be able to pick us up on their scanners before we even drop out. Hovis, do you have any idea what their scanner range is like?"
"Ten klicks at most. But physical objects can block the scanners past five klicks or so."
Star made a face. "Physical objects? Like a moon?"
Rosado nodded. "Sure. Especially if it's a moon with a high gravitational pull or strong magnetic field."
"Mewni's got two moons," said Star.
Janna thoughtfully rubbed her chin. "Hopefully that'll be enough to block out their sensors. Pony can adjust our hyperspace route so we drop out right behind one of the moons. Then we can cloak and make our way down to the surface."
"Where are we gonna land?" Tom asked. "The Revenge isn't huge, but it's landing footprint is a lot bigger than the Raventalon."
"I might know a place," said Star. "Pony, did you do a planetary scan of the surface when we were on Mewni?" The droid twittered that of course it had, and projected the holographic map over the table. "Zoom in on Butterfly Castle and the area around it?" The projection changed, showing Butterfly Castle, Skywynne Airbase, and the village. "Zoom out just a little bit?" The map shrank, showing more of the surrounding landscape. A few kilometers south of Butterfly Castle was another village. "There. That's Monstertown. We can land right in the middle of Main Street."
Janna raised an eyebrow "Um…don't you think the Empire is going to have any and all settlements totally locked down and crawling with troops?"
Star shook her head. "Not that one. It was erased from all maps after it was deserted."
"Deserted?" the others chorused.
"Deserted, abandoned, turned into a ghost town, whatever you want to call it."
"And it was erased from the maps because…?" Rosado mentioned for further explanation.
"For the same reason it was abandoned."
"…Which was…?"
"Why do you think it's called Monstertown? The townsfolk were run out by a giant, multi-headed, fire-breathing monster that decided that was where it wanted to build its nest. It, uh, wasn't actually called 'Monstertown' until after it was abandoned. Point is, no one in their right mind would even go near that place. That creature is extremely territorial and kills any living thing that comes near. That town is a death trap."
The others exchanged nervous glances. "So if we land there…?" Tom started.
"How do we get away without getting killed?"
"Oh, don't worry. The one thing that creature is actually afraid of is spacecraft. I think something about the magnetic fields they create really mess with it. It'll run and hide as soon as we land."
Tom and Rosado didn't look convinced, but said nothing. Janna, on the other hand, stood up from the table. "That's good enough for me. Let's get a move on."
They flew the pair of ships to Stobar's upper atmosphere where the Raventalon was attached to Queen Moon's Revenge via magnetic docking clamp. Then Tom and PY-HD disembarked from the freighter and rejoined the rest of the crew aboard the stealth ship.
The cockpit only really had enough space to seat the two pilots, Janna and Tom, comfortably, so Star, PY-HD, and Rosado made themselves at home in the cargo area just below.
"Alright, all systems are green," Tom reported.
Janna turned and looked at Star at the bottom of ramp behind her. "Ready to go home, Star?"
Star was holding Marco's lightsaber. She couldn't actually remember it making its way into her hand. She squeezed it, the cool durasteel reassuring in her grip. "Let's do this."
Janna flashed a determined grin. She pulled back the hyperdrive lever, and the stars stretched into streaks beyond the viewscreen as they jumped to lightspeed.
A/N: Steve Marcis was my self-insert OC from my earliest days of fanfiction writing, and nearly all traces of him have been erased from this site. I always told myself I would never self-insert into a fanfic ever again because *I* don't like reading self-insert fanfics, and I don't think anybody else does either. Fans read fanfiction because they want to read more stories about their favorite characters, not because they want to read stories about other fans stealing the spotlight.
BUT...I've given four years of my life to writing this story, I decided I deserved one little cameo. Obviously, my character had to interact with Hovis, the character based on my good friend and coworker, and I had to include the real-life nickname he gave me, "Banjo." (I was actually considering changing my penname on this site to something like "The Storytelling Banjo" but I've been EDD17SP for over ten years now, it didn't seem right to just change it.) I doubt Steve Marcis will ever appear in anything I write ever again. I feel like this was a good way to give the character a nice send off.
