Hey, everyone! We've reached over 30,000 words! AWESOME! *Does air guitar.*
So the way this is gonna work is, I'll do only the three original movies (Episodes IV, V, and VI), and in-between each one I'll have an original story that isn't really Canon. Like the one I'm starting to write now.
I'll give you a code to crack as a teaser for the new story. Do both Endor and Alderaan have To Hate The Rageful Empire On reasons of planet Obliteration? Is there Proof that Endor Resents those Salty imperials because of that reason?
Three days after the destruction of the Death Star, as the sun peeked its head over Yavin four's horizon, the empire arrived. It was the last day of packing up for the rebels, and almost everything had already gotten off world. Only a few things such as some anti-aircraft guns, which were set up in and around the ancient temples to shoot falling debris from the battlestation's wreckage threatening to smash into the base, were still on the ground.
Some final storage was also being packed, and a distance away from the main temple, Calvin and Hobbes had volunteered to help load it. They were now working fervently, not wanting to stick around when the empire arrived to blast the base to shreds. Before it's destruction, the Death Star had almost certainly transmitted a message to the rest of the empire, warning them of the rebel base's location.
"Aww, man!" Calvin groaned as he loaded yet another crate of thermal detonators onto a landspeeder. "These boxes are so heavy!"
"Well, just be careful when you carry them," Hobbes warned, a nervous tone in his voice. "The squad leader said that these thermal detonator things contain high level explosives!"
He put his container in, and stopped to look around, marveling at the speed of the evacuation.
"I can't believe that we got everything packed in a couple of days," he commented as he watched the final troop transport ship take off from inside the main temple. Somewhere near there was his and Calvin's own ship, a Y-wing fighter/bomber that they had recieved as a gift just a few days ago. "What do you think, Calvin?" he asked.
"I think you should give me a hand here," Calvin muttered.
"Oh, right." Hobbes sheepishly remembered, and walked back to help Calvin load the crate of explosives onto the landspeeder. As he walked back over to the few remaining packages, he frowned as his thoughts turned back to an often thought about problem.
There was no cardboard in this galaxy, as Calvin and Hobbes has found out. And cardboard was essential for getting back to their own world, since it was the main material that Calvin used to build his wacky machines. Without cardboard, it would be a lot harder to make a dimension traveler, and to enter the imagination realm, which was basically the realm that stretched into any time period of any location of any world of any universe, and which was the fabric that held all of that together.
Calvin used the imagination realm to travel between time periods and locations. He used it to enter other worlds, and in this case, he and Hobbes had accidentally entered another universe.
With no cardboard, Calvin had to resort to metal, which could still work but needed unimaginable amounts of power and energy to activate. And getting that required power would take time. And despite himself, Hobbes was already a bit impatient. He wanted to get back home soon despite what he told Calvin; that he didn't mind staying for a while longer. He-
Hobbes stopped, his ears swiveling around to better detect the faint whine that sounded in the distance. His ears twitched once. Twice. A bad feeling swiftly rose in his gut.
"Hey, Calvin?" he asked.
"What's up?" the boy said, turning.
"Do you… hear something?"
Calvin focused on his ears, and tried to pick something up. "No," he said. "I don't hear anything."
"Are you sure?" Hobbes asked, but the sound was gone.
"Sure I'm sure!" Calvin said. "It's probably just a trick of the mind. Maybe you…"
His eyes widened, and Hobbes could hear the sound again, as it became more distinct. A distant whine…
"Hobbes, GET DOWN!" Calvin shouted, and dove for cover.
Hobbes turned to see several imperial TIE fighters speeding toward him, their ominous silhouettes clearly visible against the rising sun. One of them started firing, and Hobbes leaped away as far as he could, flattening himself on the mossy floor as a green energy bolt connected with the landspeeder!
"BOOM!"
The resounding blast resulted in a giant cloud of flame and smoke as the shockwave sent Hobbes skidding away a good seventeen feet. His ears ringed, and he felt a sudden pounding pain in his head as bits of debris struck him, sure to give him some nasty bruises later on.
After a few dozen seconds, the pain and the ringing subsided, and Hobbes stood back up to see a full fledged dogfight between the imperial and the remaining rebel fighters. He turned back, and spotted Calvin crawling back on his own feet.
"C'mon!" Hobbes yelled to the boy. "We've gotta get into the trees!" Calvin nodded, and the two ran as laser blasts sounded behind them, cutting into any rebels that were too late to make it to the safe canopy of the swampy forest. At the last second, a second blast sent another shockwave that slammed into Calvin and Hobbes, and sent them tumbling to the ground once more.
Only slightly dazed this time, Hobbes was back on his feet in a few seconds, Calvin quickly following. The two made their way to a nearby structure where dozens of rebels were congregating. Above them, laser fire sounded as scores of TIE's attacked the X-wings, and one unfortunate imperial fighter was sent crashing through the trees, smashing into a swampy area a few dozen yards away. The explosion made Hobbes wince. Finally, the two friends made it into the safety of the building, and ran up to a sergeant in charge. Him and several other Rebels were trying to get in contact with command.
"Hey, Sergeant!" Calvin called out. "What's the plan?"
Before the man could reply, the radio operator interrupted.
"Sir, we have a connection with command!" she reported. The sergeant snapped his head around.
"What are our orders?" He asked.
The operator relayed the question, and answered a few seconds later.
"They're saying that there are Lambda class shuttles on the way. They want us to defend the anti-air emplacements and create cover for the final ships and transports exiting the planet."
"Dank Ferrik!" the sergeant swore. Lambda shuttles could each carry up to twenty stormtroopers. He turned to the ragtag band of rebels behind him.
"Alright, everyone," he began to say. "I want you all to split into three teams! Each team will defend one of the guns around the main temple! Move it!"
The rebels quickly formed up, and Calvin and Hobbes found themselves with seven others, heading for the nearest AA gun to the south.
This gun was situated right by another, larger crumbling structure that the rebels quickly used to their advantage. As several imperial troop transport shuttles touched down not far off from the gun, everyone set up positions inside or close to the structure.
Hobbes ran to a nearby E-web heavy blaster cannon, partially concealed by some bushes, and
aimed it at the path that the stormtroopers would have to take. Calvin took cover behind a wall of sandbags close to the Anti-aircraft emplacement, and readied his blaster. More rebels took a position out in front of the gun, creating a considerable defense.
After a minute, the first white armored stormtrooper appeared in Hobbes' sights, but nobody fired. They were waiting for the perfect, opportune moment.
More started to arrive. Five. Seven. Ten.
As an officer walked into view, a demolitions crew beside him and ready to blow up the gun, Calvin stood up.
"FIRE!" he yelled, and shot at the officer. Apparently everyone else had the same idea because in the next few seconds, scores of blaster bolts impacted the man, making him jerk and stumble back until a headshot caused him to fall. The stormtroopers, taken by surprise at having their commanding officer be killed so quickly, were slow to react.
Rising from concealment, Hobbes powered up the E-Web and pulled the triggers. Red laser blasts exited the rotation barrel, flying everywhere and slicing into the troopers like butter. The imperials scrambled for cover.
Calvin was a natural shooter. His blaster spat ionized tabanna bolts mercilessly, felling several arriving troopers. With the other unrelenting fire from the rebels and Hobbes, dozens of troopers were cut down. Their lifeless corpses started to litter the ground.
"Take THAT, you alien scum!" he whooped with glee. "Spaceman spiff cannot be defeated!"
But even as the rebels fired, the imperials regrouped, and started firing back in earnest. Blaster bolts flew through the air from both sides, and suddenly the lead stormtrooper- Hobbes could tell from the orange shoulder pauldron -lobbed a grenade similar to the ones that he had been loading just a while earlier.
The thermal detonator flew cleanly and precisely into the building, and Hobbes heard shouts of alarm. Several rebels frantically exited from the building, and the grenade exploded in a blast of rock and dust. A couple of piercing screams reached his ears, and he winced.
Only seven rebels were still firing now, including Calvin and Hobbes. Still, they held their ground and soon enough, several more arriving rebels took up positions in the structure, firing away with their A280 blaster rifles.
Then, the same darn stormtrooper had the wonderful idea of throwing a thermal grenade again, this time towards the pesky six-year old who was causing so much disarray. Calvin spotted the grenade as it arced towards him, and turned to run. He had not gone six feet when his sneaker snagged on a root, and he tripped.
He fell, and had just enough time to mumble, "Oh, F-"
"Boom!"
The grenade exploded, and Calvin was sent flying. The next second, several blaster bolts struck the attacking stormtrooper in the chest.
"Calvin!" Hobbes yelled, aghast, and turned to the nearest trooper.
"Take over!" he ordered, and leaped down to the forest floor. Using his superb agility, he dodged blaster shots and made it to Calvin, using the sandbags and the crater as cover. The six-year-old was unconscious, with a small bump on his head and a hideous gash running down from his shoulder to his elbow.
Hobbes wasted no time, and motioned for the rest of the rebels to cover him. He then picked Calvin and his blaster up, and clutched him tightly to his chest as he ran back to the safety of the building.
Inside, he worked fast, pulling out a roll of bandaging and a jar of bacta salve, which worked to disinfect and speed up the healing process of any wound. In a matter of seconds, Hobbes had the wound patched up.
He scooped up a nearby blaster rifle, prying it from a dead rebel's hands, and peeked around the wall. What he saw chilled his blood.
A gigantic, bipedal walker strode into view. It was nearly ten yards tall, with two mechanical legs and a box-shaped body. It had two blaster cannons in the front, grenade launchers one one side of the chassis and rockets blazing on the other. Two viewports that looked eerily like eyes were situated in the front as well.
Wide eyed, Hobbes leveled his blaster rifle and fired rapidly, but the armor simply stopped the bolts. He heard yells of "AT-ST!" and, "Fall Back!" It seemed that his comrades were just as scared as he was.
The 'AT-ST' opened fire, its blaster cannons spitting red bursts of death and utterly annihilating the Rebel positions. A blast impacted the E-Web Cannon's ammunition box, creating a large explosion and making Hobbes cover his head in panic. Now the imperials had the greater advantage.
Looking back up, Hobbes saw the AT-ST start to turn its attention to the Anti-Aircraft cannon. Stormtroopers flanked its sides, making sure to stay well away from the legs of the walker. Only a few Rebels were left to defend the gun.
Suddenly, seeing several pillars off to the side of the AT-ST, Hobbes formed a plan. He readied himself, took a deep breath, and jumped out of cover. The stormtroopers were quick to react, and snapped up their blaster rifles. Hobbes used his speed to weave and dodge, and as the walker turned to annihilate the jungle cat, he reached the pillars and archways and leaped up with all of his strength.
He managed to catch the top of the first arch, and pulled himself up. Not stopping, he began to bound from one archway and pillar to the next, leaping over the gaps with ease. The walker opened fire with its rocket, and Hobbes barely got off of the fifth archway before the missile streaked into it, sending chunks of stone flying through the air.
Then, when he was right by the AT-ST, he turned and made one last, spectacular spring straight towards it. With a cry, he flew across the gap between him and the machine, and landed on top of it.
Not five seconds later, a clang resounded, and the hatch was opened by an imperial pilot brandishing a gun. Hobbes took the man by surprise, grabbing his arm and wrenching it away as the gun fired. With his other paw, he yanked the pilot out of the hatch and tossed him overboard as if he were a simple bag of rice. He then jumped into the cockpit, and grabbed the other driver by the back of his head, and slammed his face into the control console in rage.
Alright, he muttered. "How does this thing work?
He took the controls, and quickly figured out that using a joystick, he could turn the whole compartment around. He did so, and now facing the stormtroopers, he immediately reached over to press the firing buttons.
Instantly, several blasts of red smacked into the stormtroopers. Hobbes laughed in a devilish delight, and destroyed them using all of the weapons at his disposal to rain down fire. They ducked and ran for cover, firing back from concealment. Undaunted, Hobbes found the grenade launcher controls, and sent a barrage of explosives into the building, which started to collapse. Hobbes kept firing, his slaughter lasting for what seemed like an eternity, but couldn't have been more than sixty seconds.
Then, as Hobbes turned the compartment around, looking for imperials, he glimpsed something. Rising out of the hatch to get a better look, he was astonished to see two figures rise out of the trees, trails of exhaust following behind them.
Jetpack Stormtroopers! his mind screamed.
They rose across the pillars and streaked toward him. And as they got closer, he saw that jetpacks weren't the only thing they were fielding. Hobbes realized that they must have known about his hijacking of the walker, because they were carrying rocket launchers!
Hobbes panicked, and frantically climbed out just as the rocket troopers stopped in the air and aimed their tubes of destruction. He leaped off of the walker and felt scorching heat on his back as the projectiles struck the AT-ST. He landed on his feet, and scrambled for the part of the building that wasn't collapsed. He reached it, blaster fire raining down, and peeked around the corner.
The remaining stormtroopers were now advancing again, darting from cover to cover as they slowly moved towards him. Behind them lay the disintegrated, charred remains of the scout walker. A third rocket, and then a fourth struck the AA gun, finally demolishing it.
Calvin had regained consciousness and had managed to rise as Hobbes rushed back toward him.
"Calvin, how do you feel?" he asked.
"I'm- I'm kinda drowsy," Calvin groggily mumbled.
"Can you run?" Hobbes queried, anxiously casting glances back at the destroyed AA gun.
"Maybe."
"Well, we gotta go, or we're toast!" Hobbes exclaimed, and helped the boy to rise. With him supporting Calvin, they started to run back to the nearby landing pad of the main temple, where Hobbes really, sincerely hoped their Y-wing hadn't been blown up.
They ran for minutes, ducking into cover and avoiding fighters as best as he could. Finally helped Calvin reach the landing platform. But as Hobbes hastened across it, something caught his eye.
In the moon's sky, a star destroyer moved into position, and he realized what the empire's true plan was. The star destroyer opened fire, sending gigantic bolts of ionized energy hurtling towards the rebel base. The ground attack was merely a sideshow, setting the stage for a massive, sub-orbital bombardment.
"They're bombing the base!" Hobbes shouted.
"Well, let's get out of here," Calvin dryly stated as they reached the (thankfully not destroyed) Y-wing. Calvin, with the help of Hobbes, clambered into his seat. Hobbes was about to do the same, when he noticed the bombardment change, coming closer to the landing pad.
"Go, Go, Go!" Calvin yelled in all seriousness, and Hobbes remembered himself. He climbed into the pilot's seat and agitatedly lit the (now repaired) engines.
The ship lifted off just as the bombardment reached them. It struck the top of the temple at first, obliterating it. And as the Y-wing gained speed, the second strike smashed into the exact spot where it had been parked, and Hobbes had to evade resounding explosions and debris. He turned and slammed the accelerator, sending the two rocketing into the stratosphere in a heartbeat.
On the way into outer space, Calvin contacted the rebel command, since Hobbes had his hands full with evading the AA guns on the star destroyer.
"Command, Command? This is Tiger One! Orders?" He asked, using the name that Hobbes had picked out for their ship.
Static.
Suddenly, a crackle sounded, and a voice responded. "Good to see you, Tiger one! Head towards the rendezvous point immediately. Transmitting coordinates now!"
Hobbes suddenly received the location as it popped up on his screen, just as he got out of range from the star destroyer. The Y-wing climbed steadily higher.
"Calvin," Hobbes asked. "Do you see any TIE fighters following us?"
"Nope," Calvin replied. "But you might wanna watch out for that light cruiser."
"What?" Hobbes asked, turning back. He spotted the cruiser, which looked like a mini star destroyer.
"Darn it!" he exclaimed, and jerked the controls to the right. The Y-wing started to evade, but a warning popped up on his screen.
"Calvin, they're launching torpedoes," he warned. "Get ready to shoot them down."
"Got it!" Calvin said, and prepared his cannon.
"I'll deploy some jammers," Hobbes said. "Maybe we can confuse one or two of them."
The next second, four bright blue torpedoes zoomed towards the Y-wing, and Hobbes pressed down on the accelerator. The Y-wing sped up, and he activated the jammers. After a few seconds, one of the torpedoes abruptly changed direction, but the other three stayed where they were.
"I'm firing!" Calvin shouted, and sent bursts of red laser blasts at the remaining torpedoes. One was hit, and exploded.
"Ha HA!" he exclaimed, and continued firing. But looking back, Hobbes realized that the torpedoes were gaining too rapidly. His mind raced furiously as he maneuvered around the place.
Suddenly, an idea sprang to mind.
"Get ready Calvin!" Hobbes warned, and wrenched the controls to the side.
"Get ready for what-aaaaaargh!" Calvin screamed as the ship spun wildly in circles. The two torpedoes spun with it, edging closer and closer to each other until, just as they were about to impact with the Y-wing, they connected with each other and exploded. The blast was so close that it brought the shields all the way down to six percent. The ship rocked, and suddenly stabilized once more as Hobbes brought it under control.
"Woo-hoo, hoo!" Calvin laughed. "That was awesome!"
"Gotta remember that one," Hobbes said, smiling.
After taking a few minutes to recover, Calvin spoke up.
"So Hobbes," he started, "since we're now in the clear, what say we regroup with the others and get a nice, warm meal and a bed?"
Hobbes grinned at the notion, and licked his lips. "Sure, Calvin," he agreed. "I can already taste the fish."
And so, the two sped off into hyperspace, towards a new adventure.
:D