HIYA, DECIDED TO DO A CROSSOVER BETWEEN STAR WARS AND MY SCI-FI WORLD, THE GOD'S ABODE. I WAS BORED, I HAVEN'T WRITTEN A PLOT LIKE THIE BEFORE SO IT'S BOUND TO BE SOMEWHAT RUBBISH.
IF YOU WANT A RUNDOWN OF MY WORLD, CHECK OUT MY OTHER STORIES ON ROYAL ROAD, I GO BY THE NAME THE COSMIC SHED.
OKAY, ENOUGH STUPID ADVERTISING, ENJOY.
It was a blur. An endless dance of blue and green to the music of cries across the temple halls. The beat of her heart and the speed of her breathing upped to the point it was all she was able to comprehend.
Over the floors, the bodies of her classmates had been scattered with the burning injuries of blaster fire dotted all over them. The ones in white armour were all that remained standing. And it seemed they all had their eyes on her.
Something grabbed her arm, she jerked her head to the left. It was Lann, for some reason everything behind him became a starlit sky. Eyrin looked back ahead. Nothing was there. Just the vast desert expanse of Sentris.
"Get up," Lann said, "They're here, you can sleep inside."
A boxy, wheeled vehicle drove in up ahead, its front lights were now glaring onto them. It soon stopped, and a figure came out from the side, and she sensed a handgun in their hand.
The two picked up the bags off the ground. The figure gestured for them to stay where they were. Lann and the figure each said something to each other. Eyrin didn't understand what they were saying, either it was a different language or she was simply half-asleep.
The figure said something else. Lann then replied, "Sorry, I don't understand."
A sigh came from them. They stepped a bit into the light. It was a man, pale, bearded, aged from a life of constant conflict. He hit his ear a bit, constantly muttering the same thing over and over again.
Eventually, the man managed to speak Basic. "Do you understand me now?"
"Oh, yes. Translator problems?" Lann asked.
"It's been acting up quite a bit these past few days. They have translator fields in the cities, you shouldn't have to worry about sticking one in your head." He leaned on the vehicle. "Have you done what was required?"
"Everything."
"Your ship?"
"Destroyed."
The man raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure?"
"No evidence."
"The Empire has been quite thorough recently."
"I'm not going to walk back five clicks just to check."
"Okay, fair enough. You've followed cargo requirements?"
"I placed our weapons in a special cont—"
He interrupted Lann. "Yeah, no."
"It should pass the scanner."
"That scanner has been updated twelve different times in the past few months. You can't exactly fool it. The second it picks up the energy signature from those things, we're screwed. I suggest you ditch them."
Eyrin suddenly spoke up, "We're not doing that."
"Eyrin," Lann said, "Take the box out."
"We can't!"
"Listen to him," the man said, "You want safety, don't you?"
"Lann…"
"Take the box out," Lann told her again.
There was a pause. And the youngling finally gave up. She took the box out of the bag, opening it, taking one last good look at her lightsabre, before hiding the box behind some rocks.
"Okay," the man said, "Let's head off then. Any of you suffer from motion sickness?"
"I don't think so," Lann said.
"Let me know when you find out. Apparently they just got this car cleaned. You can call me Porter, by the way."
They all got inside. And after figuring out how to put their seatbelts on, the vehicle had went off. Eyrin grabbed one of the pillows from the bag, and rested her head on the side door, slowly beginning to doze off.
"You've been given the details on everything, haven't you?" Porter asked.
"I'm afraid not. We were offered a safe space by a friend. They gave us the instructions, but nothing else," Lann explained, just about getting comfortable in his seat.
"You were offered a safe space and went in without asking any further questions?"
"We had nowhere else to go."
"Could've been slavers, us. Or maybe be tricking you into getting dissected, figure out what makes you tick. Hell, I just disarmed you two, wouldn't that make it a bit more suspicious?"
The Padawan stared at him. But there was something about him that made him somewhat trustworthy.
"You are heading for New Caledonia - a colony of the British Federation," Porter continued. "City you're heading to is Kingham. It's ages past the border, still should be able to see it soon. Not exactly the nicest of places, got gangs here and there."
"So it isn't really a safe zone," Lann stated.
"You're victims of a genocide. Compare that to simply being mugged on the street, I'm calling that an upgrade. Besides, there are worse places we could've sent you to, one of the American colonies here are just guns galore."
"I understand you use slugs?"
"Slugs?" He asked.
"Kinetic ammo."
"Mostly." He pulled a handgun out. "More expensive for the ammunition but they get the job done. Did us wonders against the stormtroopers, like they were made out of fucking cardboard."
Lann then asked, "How come you can take that across the border but we had to leave our lightsabres?"
"I have a license for this one."
Sand covers the windscreen as an Imperial Fighter darted past. Fluid is squirted over the glass and then wiped off. The two Jedi glare as it disappears over a hill.
"We're going to be seeing a lot more of the Empire around," Porter said. "They won't stop us, should already know we're heading for the border."
"Why haven't the Empire taken the whole planet?" Lann questioned.
"Oh, they tried. Before they were around, we had a decent trade going on with the Republic. And when they got replaced, they tried to invade us. Didn't work as planned, they had too many losses. Now, we just coexist. The UN has its own other set of problems in this part of the galaxy, and the Empire's not going to waste resources over somewhere you can barely access with a hyperdrive."
"You haven't seen how stubborn they can be."
An Imperial Convoy moves past. Likely on patrol. The hum of their engines wakes Eyrin back up. A few more come by, and the thought of them blowing the vehicle off the ground popped into her head.
"Training drill, probably," Porter assumed. "Most of those stationed here are often rejects. People that are better off sitting in the corner whilst the adults do the work. You shouldn't have to worry about them."
Soon enough, the stars quickly faded out from the sky, and the shining towers of Kingham City came into view. Had the sun been up, one could have easily mistaken it for a mirage, an illusion one wouldn't be able to reach. Bright colours had been painted on the holograms, with the shining dots of ships coming in and out routinely.
It reminded Lann of the top levels of Coruscant. Just a bit. Obviously, this was much more flashy and much much smaller. From afar, it could have easily passed as a haven for opportunists. Maybe they were safe, but they had next to no experience outside Jedi life.
The border was coming up. It was nothing more than a long, bulky fence. On their side, Imperial troopers roamed up and down, backed by the bipedal AT-ST walkers. On the other side, security was much more armoured. Drones roamed above, with defensive structures already built up should another conflict have emerged.
Only common landspeeders and transporters had been in the queue ahead of them. Those that came out from New Caledonia seemed to have travelled in either armoured or lavish vehicles, few of them wheeled.
Eyrin couldn't sleep now. Her guard had been ripped upright, unable to rest until they were free. Her instincts had her reach for her lightsabre, before her half-awake brain remembered she buried them.
"When we get there," Porter said, "Stay quiet. I'll do any required talking."
It was finally their turn for the scanner. A mix of Imperial and New Caledonian guards had been positioned each on their own side of the border. The process was quick, and Porter sent off their travel documents.
An Imperial officer came over. "Please step out of the vehicle," she said.
Porter said to the others, "I'll deal with this. Stay in the car."
He got out, and followed the officer out of the Jedi's sight. A few guards, even some stormtroopers, had crowded slightly closer to the vehicle.
"Lann," Eyrin whispered.
"We're fine," he said to her. "We'll get out of this, we always do."
"We don't even have our lightsabres!"
"Just stay calm."
Every moment felt like an eternity for Eyrin. Nearly a decade they had been on the run. And now their only chance for some sort of peace had them stay closer to the edge than ever before.
One of the stormtroopers peered through Eyrin's window. She just stared at those black eyes on its helmet. They turned to a colleague and said something, it was too muffled for either of them to hear. She suddenly eyed Porter through a window on the other side of the room, and he didn't seem happy.
"Can you see them?" Lann asked.
"Yeah. It's just the two of them in there. They're… arguing?"
Lann leaned in, matching the youngling's gaze. "It seems like they know each other."
She looked back at him. "What?!"
"Officers don't act like that. Not around people like him."
"So she's a spy?"
"Likely."
"What do we do?"
"Stay patient." Lann continued staring. Porter concluded the conversation with the officer, and made his way back to the vehicle. He was cursing to himself as he sat back in the driver's seat. "What happened?" Lann said.
Porter stayed quiet for the moment. The vehicle started, and the gate opened. His foot was placed on the accelerator, and within seconds, they were out of the Empire's clutches for good.
Eyrin looked back, seeing as the grand army of the Empire shrank out of focus. She looked back ahead, then behind again. "I— that's it?"
"That's it," Porter said, still unhappy.
"What happened back there?" Lann asked.
"You never mentioned to us that you were on Imperial records."
"We— I didn't know about that. We had kept a low profile for a long time. I thought the Empire didn't know about us."
Porter glared at him. "You belong to a people who are being hunted faster than a chicken in a butcher's. Of course they're gonna keep an eye out for those who got away. Do you have any idea how much of my boss' money I needed to bribe her? I had to go miles over my budget!"
"Sorry—"
"Is not gonna cut it. Not for my lot anyway." He sighed. "We got lucky at the border. I'll drop you off at the bus stop, from there, you make it to the flat on your own. It's still hours away, I understand you in the back need a lie down."
"Mhm," Eyrin said, already beginning to doze off again. For the first time in a long while, she was calm. Any imperial trooper likely would've been a click away, at this point. No convoys of fighters, no bounty hunters, no more reason to keep one eye open at night.
A couple hours passed. Eventually, Lann and a half-asleep Eyrin were back on the sand. Lann had most of the bags with Eyrin leaning on him as they walked. A two-layered bus had just parked up, ready to drive into Kingham City. Two devices, which Porter referred to as mobiles, had been given to them. Meant to sort finances, communications, even something similar to the holonet was installed on them.
Eyrin had her hood up as the lights inside the bus beamed onto her. They picked a place to sit down, just by a screen showing the news. She leaned on Lann, again getting some shuteye.
"—stocks have dropped in value," The reporter said. "It is believed twenty-thousand staff have been laid off by Joseon, with a sizeable portion included in their main headquarters in Pangyo. Coming over to the UK now, Her Majesty, the Queen, has recently been diagnosed with a rare fungal infection. One found only in the Mamborough forests on Horizon. Information on her health has not been released to the public, as of now. New Caledonia's First Minister alongside many others across the British Federation have already announced their best wishes for her health."
Lann switched his mobile on. It didn't take long for him to get accustomed to it. They were similar to datapads, only much more utilised. He opened the holonet equivalent, a large text saying 'Mirror' showed up on the screen, with something underneath requiring something to be typed in.
He typed in something random, 'Food'. And what he was met with was a white screen for a few seconds, and then the words:
MIRROR CANNOT CONNECT TO THE SERVER. PLEASE CHECK YOUR INTERNET CONNECTION.
Afterwards, he decided to leave the thing alone for the time being. Outside the bus, it had mainly been power stations and industrial complexes. The main city was probably barely an hour away. Still, the colours of Kingham reigned even in the dullest of places. Holographic advertisements had been displayed, food, drinks, entertainment, there was even one demonising the empire. 'FIRST ANUBIS, NOW NEW CALEDONIA," had been written on. 'THE LIB-DEMS BENT THE KNEE THEN, WILL YOU DO THE SAME NOW? CONSERVATIVES 2329'.
Similar advertisements were inside the bus above him, but they were mainly health and safety messages. Some of it offering recruitment into the bus company's driving team. Lann definitely needed employment, but he didn't see himself doing something like this.
The stations phased into homes, the homes into small shops. Eventually, the blocks of apartment complexes became the main sight. Their stop finally came, High Grove, Lann gently woke up Eyrin, and pressed the stop button.
Stepping off, Porter had not lied about the state of the place. Buildings run down, waste all over the floor. It didn't give off anything to be wary of.
They took a lift, going up to the third floor. Down the corridor, they opened the door to their flat. In short, it was cramped. Absolutely cramped. One bedroom, a tiny kitchen-lounge, a bathroom in dire need of cleaning.
Placing her bag down, Eyrin collapsed onto the sofa. Lann searched through the cabinets, looking for something to eat. He found a packet of something, Haribo's, they were called. They tasted okay, but he needed a nice, hot meal.
A small device was on the counter, with a note saying 'hold your phone close to me' taped to the side. Lann held his mobile up to it, accepting a download. Opening the new file, it was a recorded message.
"Mr Lann Palan. If you are listening to this, congratulations, everything worked as planned and you are starting over a new life. I understand this area is quite… shit. But our operation is expensive enough as it is, as I hope you understand. We have provided funds for your account. Your new identities are available on your phones. Alongside this, the main essentials are present in your flat, it should cover the week. Should you wish for any food, there is an ASDA a walk down the road. I understand you have a girl with you. Do not worry for social services getting involved, they shamefully do not bother with areas such as these. Employment, I'm afraid, is difficult to come by for illegal immigrants. You may find something useful given your abilities. For now, I suggest you settle in, make yourself at home, accustom yourself to the ins and outs of our society. Farewell, I advise against trying to contact us again."
The message ended. Eyrin managed to switch a screen on in front of the sofa. Lann soon joined her. This was it. Freedom. Not how they hoped it to be, and they certainly didn't think of what was to come after it. But they made due in worse situations. How hard could this be?
