Hello, everyone! I'm finally back again after a bit of a break. For anyone who didn't figure out my poorly made, obvious riddle last chapter, the answer is DEATH TROOPERS. Some of my favorite types of troopers, along with Scout Troopers, Sith Troopers, and that one hilarious idiot in The Mandalorian who tried to stop a rolling boulder by repeatedly shooting at it.

Please Review and Fav! Thank you and happy reading!

"So what happened yesterday with you out of breath and all that?" Hobbes asked as they were walking into the cafeteria for some breakfast after a good night's sleep. "I think you said something about a Trandoshan."

"Oh, yeah!" Calvin remembered. "This Trandoshan guy was chasing me across the entire ship!"

"Why?" Hobbes asked as he grabbed a tray.

"I don't know!" Calvin exclaimed, irritated, and pulled out a knife from his belt to display it. "All I did was borrow a vibroblade!"

Hobbes looked at the vibroblade, then at Calvin, and raised an eyebrow. "So, what actually happened?" he asked.

Calvin averted his eyes, scratching the back of his head. After a few more seconds, he sighed.

"I, uh… kinda snuck into the armory and snatched one while nobody was looking."

"What?" Hobbes whispered angrily, then groaned. "You could have gotten into serious trouble if-"

"But I didn't," Calvin reminded him, sticking his vibroblade back into his belt and grabbing a tray as well.

"Well, if the Trandoshan saw you, he'll give a description of you to the guards!" Hobbes argued. "Or he might deal with you on his own if he sees you again!"

Calvin shuddered, and then looked around nervously. "Yeah," he said. "I wouldn't put it past that lizard freak to devour me as soon as-"

"Hey, don't insult the Trandoshans," Hobbes warned. "They're pretty cool once you get to befriend them."

Calvin gawked at him. "And you made friends with one of 'em?"

"Yep," Hobbes said with a smirk. "Back at the victory celebration, this Trandoshian named Talzuk came up to me and asked if I wanted to join him and his friends in one of their annual gathering hunts."

"Annual-What now?" Calvin asked as a lunch lady let a scoop of Jogan-Fruit Mash fall on his tray.

"Annual gathering," Hobbes said, and elaborated. "Apparently, every year, Talzuk's clan comes together on this specific planet to eat, talk, and hunt rare, dangerous, captured creatures from across the galaxy."

Calvin hmm-ed. "That does sound kinda cool…" he admitted. "But why did he invite you in the first place?"

"Well, Talzuk is part of Red Squadron, and as we realized yesterday, those guys kind of love us for suddenly deciding to help them out."

"I suppose we did save a few lives by destroying all that imperial stuff…" Calvin admitted.

"Oh, and I kind of bragged to a lot of people about how my species is a natural born hunter."

"Ah! That'll do it," he chuckled. "Sounds like something you'd do, though!"

"Well, only because Panthera Tigris is the greatest of the big cats!"

"What about Lions?" Calvin asked. "Aren't they like the Kings of the Animal World?"

"An unwarranted reputation," Hobbes sniffed. "They are merely the rulers of the Savannah! Not the jungle. Jaguars and Tigers are the real killers!"

"Yeah, Tigers are infinitely better," Calvin stated. "And, uh… no offense, but why the Trandoshans, exactly? It's just that, whenever one of 'em looks at me, they have this face of, 'Ooh! A runty little piece of prey for me to kill!'"

"Well you gotta admit, you look pretty small and puny-"

"Hey!"

"But I really like the Trandoshans because they have a strong instinct to hunt, like me," Hobbes explained. "It's in my feline nature to hunt stuff smaller than me…" After a few seconds he added, "Like you!"

"Yeah, yeah…" Calvin grumbled. "That's why you greet me so unceremoniously at the door every school day."

"Exactly!" Hobbes said, and smiled as he sat down at a table. Calvin followed suit.

After a few minutes of eating in silence, he said, "Okay."

"Hokcay hwat?" Hobbes asked, his mouth full.

"If you really wanna do this annual hunting family gathering thing, then sure," Calvin explained. "I guess it wouldn't hurt to take a look-see."

"Great!" Hobbes chirped. "But, ah… if you really don't want to go, you can stay with the fleet while I take the Y-wing."

"Not a chance in heck!" Calvin exclaimed. "Wherever you go, I go."

"Um, alright," Hobbes said. "It's just that I don't want the Trandoshans to be insulted in any way."

"And how could I ever insult them?" Calvin asked haughtily, his temper rising. "I mean, I don't go around insulting people willy-nilly, you delusional flea-brain!"

Hobbes facepalmed.

"What!" Calvin demanded.

"Just…Just try to think before you start blurting regrettable stuff out to everyone."

"Don't you worry!" Calvin assured him. "I promise that I'll… what's that proverb?"

"Hope for the best, prepare for the worst?" Hobbes sarcastically remarked.

"Nope…" Calvin murmured. "Look before you leap!"

He and Hobbes both resumed eating, and had soon cleared their trays. Placing them in the disposal stack, the two then made their way out of the cafeteria, heading for their Y-wing. As they did so, Calvin explained just how he had stolen the vibroblade.

"Wait- the vents?" Hobbes asked in surprise at hearing how Calvin had gotten past 3po and into the armory. "I thought they would have had grates on 'em, or… something.

"They did," Calvin revealed. "But the ship's carpenters probably didn't think that anyone would actually infiltrate the vents, so they took that as an excuse to cut some corners. All I had to do to get in was pull 'em off!"

"Slackers," Hobbes grumbled. "I say Quality over Quantity."

"And I say vice versa!" Calvin exclaimed, suddenly beginning a rant as one of his subconscious triggers was activated. "Mass market commercial art is the new way to go! Picasso's masterpieces are unimportant in modern society, and few artists today realize that people want what they already know they like, so-"

"You've already told me this," Hobbes reminded the boy, smirking slightly. "Then your mom praised my original and non-marketable clay tiger sculpture for its beauty and detail."

"Well, she's stuck in the past," Calvin grumbled. "Most artists don't get that the reason for making art these days is to earn money!"

"And who did get art right?" Hobbes asked, stopping and crossing his arms.

"Me."

Hobbes shook his head, sighing. "So, returning to your retelling of how you stole the vibroblade…"

"Oh, yeah!" Calvin remembered. He had nearly forgotten.

So," he continued. "After I got the grate off, I used my small, puny size to my advantage-" he shot Hobbes a glare, who averted his gaze, "-I got into the vent system and wriggled into the armory."

"Wow," Hobbes mumbled. "That actually sounds kind of ingenious."

With a slight swagger now in his steps, Calvin went on to explain how he had found the vibroblade, escaped, and then how he had to escape again from the Trandoshian.

"Interesting story," Hobbes commented as they entered the docking bay. "But do you really think that you're not gonna have any repercussions for taking the vibroblade?"

"Well," Calvin started to say, "even if they figure out that it was me, what can they do? We'll be on some far-off planet and by the time we get back, it'll all have blown over."

"Are you sure? I don't want you to get in trouble."

"Hobbes, do you really think that with everything else going on, Miss princess and Admiral Squidhead are gonna worry about some kid stealing an insignificant knife?"

Hobbes blinked. "Good observation," he finally said. "But nevertheless, the sooner we get outta here, the better!"

"Alright!" Calvin said. "Let's get to it!"

A few hours later, Calvin and Hobbes were in the process of storing the last bit of luggage, using the Y-wing's storage compartment to its fullest.

"Rations?" Hobbes asked.

"Check!" Calvin replied.

"Medical Kit?"

"Check."

"Scouting equipment?"

"Check!"

"Sleeping Bags?"

"Check!"

"Your borrowed hammock?"

"Check!"

"Weapons?"

"And, Check!" Calvin affirmed, patting his sidearm. "We got everything!"

"Alright," Hobbes said. "Let's get in the Y-wing."

Once in their seats, Hobbes did a routine safety check consisting of checking the fuel gauges, confirming that the ship was airtight, strapping in with a sort of seat belt, and making sure that the thrusters, the ship's navigational computer, and the hyperspace mechanism were ready and online. Once he was sure that everything was in working order, he gave the green light.

"Tiger One to Docking Control," Hobbes asked, flipping on his helmet's audio, "requesting permission to take off."

"Tiger One, this is Docking Control. You are cleared for takeoff!

May the force be with you."

Pushing the activation button, Hobbes felt the ship shudder as it began to leave the floor.

"Here we go!" Calvin cheered, as Hobbes nudged the accelerator forward. The ship sped out of the hangar, passing through the blue barrier that separated the ship from the cold, dark vacuum of space. Speeding up even more, it flew further and further away until the fleet was all but gone from view.

"Time for step two, Calvin," Hobbes warned. "I'm gonna begin the jump to hyperspace."

"Got it!" Calvin said, and readied himself as the navicomputer did its work, completing 2.9 quadrillion calculations of the quantum field per second. Even so, the process took more than a few moments.

A cheery beep and a green flash signaled that the hyperspace jump was completely calculated, and Hobbes took a deep breath as he wrapped a paw around the handle right by him.

"Three. Two. One!" He smoothly pushed the handle forward. As he did so, the stars elongated into bright, white lines. The view in front of him turned brighter and brighter, and suddenly he was jolted into his seat, a wave of dizziness rushing through his mind.

Still need to get used to that.

Once the dizziness had died down, Hobbes let out a breath as seeing the serene, blue hyperspace tunnel in front of him, and turned on his helmet.

"It's gonna take several hours to get to the planet, so settle in," he informed the boy, who groaned.

"Aww man!" Calvin whined. "I'm cramping up already!"

Hours later, the ship finally exited in the Eribolus system, an uninhabited coalition of planets and moons, heading for the second planet in distance from the star: Tanca. Hobbes carefully guided the Y-wing through the atmosphere to the forested and waterfall filled landscape, where he landed it in a thick and bramble-y grove of tall shrubs and pines.

"Finally!" Calvin exclaimed as Hobbes helped him climb out of the gunner's seat. "That took for-EVER!"

After taking a few minutes to stretch, both of them looked around, noting the near-perfect hiding place that Hobbes had found for the Y-wing.

"Well," Calvin remarked. "I'd say that our ship is well hidden from any white armored wimps! Nice job, Hobbes."

"Thanks, pal," Hobbes said, smiling widely. "Well, let's set up a camp somewhere before we do any scouting."

So the two friends walked outside of the grove and set up camp a couple hundred feet away under the shade of a stand of large, healthy pine trees.

"With a creek!" Calvin excitedly pointed out. "This adventure just keeps getting better!"

Hobbes climbed to the top of a dark pine and looked around, taking a deep breath and feeling the crystal air rush through his lungs. He could see a few black moose-like creatures feeding by a sparkling lake in the distance, several forested hills and plateaus making a miniature valley about a dozen miles away, and rushing rivers everywhere that led to rumbling waterfalls, some quite close.

The soil was black and rich, with a sweet, musky scent. All of the big rocks and boulders that dotted the carpeted ground looked like obsidian, their surfaces sharp and shiny in some places. But, swiveling his head around again, he could detect no sign of civilization or imperial rule anywhere.

He climbed back down.

"So? What didja see?" Calvin queried as soon as Hobbes dropped from the tree.

"Good news, no civilization in sight!" he reported, then added, "Bad news, also no civilization in sight."

"Wait… Why?" Calvin asked, perplexed.

"There's nothing that stops us from making a base here so far, but now we have to use scouting equipment instead of just being able to say, 'this planet doesn't work.'" Hobbes explained.

"Whatever! We are on an adventure here, Hobbes! Let's enjoy the forests and the waterfalls for a day!" Calvin argued. "It's like camping, but without Dad!"

"But what about the mission?" Hobbes asked, frowning. "We need a new base as soon as-"

"Yeah, yeah," Calvin interrupted. "As soon as possible. But answer me this, Hobbes: Is twenty-four hours really gonna make that much of a difference in the big picture?"

Hobbes' expression transformed from staunch to dubious. His face softened.

Seeing that he had an opening, Calvin took it. "Plus, how long has it been since we've seen a place like this? A landscape untouched by human hands, with clear air, lovely lakes, and marvelous-"

"Alright, fine!" Hobbes exclaimed. "You got me hooked. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to spend a day having some fun-"

"Yes!" Calvin hissed, victorious.

"-But! Only as long as we do our task of checking the planet out when we're done," he said, holding up a finger.

"Don't worry!" Calvin grinned. "We can still scan the planet! Just enjoy yourself a little."

So, Calvin and Hobbes set up a camp, marked their coordinates, and set up a life scanner that would search the surrounding area for any sign of civilization while they were gone. They had chosen this location on the planet because the onboard computer had deemed it as the most likely place on the planet for advanced civilization to flourish (Much of the rest of Tanka's surface was ocean or inhospitable desert).

But as the two began to explore, they became more and more convinced that there was no kind of settlement or base at all. There was plenty of wildlife, though, and Calvin and Hobbes witnessed the native creatures go on about their daily business. And the more they traversed the unspoiled terrain, the more Hobbes opened up.

In all truth, he loved the wilderness like no one else could. He loved the untainted water, the natural forest, and especially all of the fish. He had never seen so many just casually swimming around! Staying for an extra day was just what he needed.

The two swam in lakes, clambered up hills and rocks, chased each other around, and gawked at the bizarre creatures that inhabited the planet. They laughed and enjoyed themselves like never before. Hobbes even discovered a half-submerged, bioluminescent cave teeming with strange, glowing fish. It was secretly situated behind the bottom of a huge waterfall!

Near the end of the day, Calvin and Hobbes made their way back to the camp, where Calvin got a cooking fire going for the large, three-foot long needle-toothed ichthyoid that Hobbes had caught earlier in the day. Meanwhile, the tiger checked the life scanner.

"What does it say?" Calvin hollered from the other side of the crackling fire as he set up a frying pan for the fish.

Studying the scanning results for another few seconds, Hobbes stood up and turned around, a smile on his face.

"Nothing in an eight-hundred mile radius!" he revealed.

"Whoa! That thing sure has range!" Calvin remarked, grinning. "So, now that we know that there's nothing on this part of the planet, what do we do next?"

"I say, we go to the other side of the planet and do one more scan," Hobbes said. "If we find nothing, then the Rebellion is free to use this place!"

"In the morning?" Calvin asked.

"In the morning," Hobes verified, and the two nodded in agreement.

A few hours later, the roaring fire had died down to a few small, flickering flames and a handful of glowing coals. A couple dozen feet away lay the fish carcass, almost entirely stripped of meat and its skeleton clearly visible. High up, in two nearby pine trees lay Calvin, sound asleep in his hammock. One could barely even see it.

Hobbes however, was still awake, resting on a smooth, black boulder a few yards away from the campfire. Too many thoughts were running through his head for him to rest properly.

At the top of the list was how to get back home. Thinking about it for a few seconds, he realized that he had not thought about that subject for the entire day, even though it usually took up much of his time thinking. The day had just been so fun! Romping around with Calvin on Tanka felt just like home, where they would explore the giant forest behind their house all day to their hearts' content.

Of course, he still missed being there. And he knew that Calvin would come around after a while and get homesick, too. Darn that stupid box! he thought. The TASGAB just had to bring them to a world where cardboard was unheard of.

He sighed; a long, frustrated exhale of breath.

Of course, it could have been worse.

It could have been that the only way to get back home was via cardboard. So, Hobbes decided that in a way, he and Calvin were lucky. They still had a shot at returning to their own universe.

Obviously, they still faced the task of building the machine and, even more importantly, finding the power required to make it run. Calvin had explained that it took simply enormous measures of energy for the theoretical mechanism to create a rift in the Imagination Realm, which Hobbes was starting to think was just another name for the multiverse, or space-time.

They did have a theoretical concept that might work: The Force. Both of them had wondered if that strange, powerful, well… force that Obi-Wan, Vader and Luke used was in some way connected to the imagination realm that Calvin used to cross into different times and locations.

If they could get Luke to try out some experiments using his interesting ability to use the force, maybe they could speed up the process of-

*Snap!*

Hobbes' attention was turned to the sound of a twig breaking somewhere on the outskirts just beyond the reach of the fire's illumination. He probed the dark undergrowth for any sign of unnatural movement. Any semblance of a strange shape.

Yet his eyes, with their exceptional ability to see six times better in the dark than any regular human being… sighted nothing. Had he imagined it?

No. There was something out there. He was sure of it.

Then again…

*Crack!*

His head whipped around, immediately following the sound's origin, and then he saw them. He saw the ghostly, alabaster-armored stormtroopers detach from their hiding places, and his amygdala responded.

It switched into fight mode.

Hobbes slammed into the first trooper, sending them both flying into the shadowy vegetation and causing the trooper to slam headfirst into a rock. Never slowing, he turned and pounced again, hurtling back through the undergrowth and catching a trooper by surprise. An audible crack sounded as the second trooper hit the ground, and Hobbes smelled blood. He turned, and was met by several other troopers firing stun pulses at him, which he just barely missed.

They were trying to take him alive!

Hobbes wouldn't let that happen. He dashed behind a rock, and coiled his muscles. Then, with a terrifying growl, he sprang into the air and came crashing down. Another trooper was out of a fight as Hobbes sent him slamming into the rough ground. The remaining troopers circled around him, unclipping and activating electric batons, and closed in from all sides.

Tiring, he jumped on a fourth trooper, who screamed as claws mangled his throat. But the others swung their batons, landing scorching, painful hits on Hobbes before he could choose another target. Panicked, he tried to make an escape by dashing between two pines.

He never had the chance to evade what happened next.

A black, armored hand shot out lightning fast, catching Hobbes by his neck and checking his bound. Choking but not done yet, the six-hundred pound jungle cat swiveled and used his weight to bring the new, jet-black stormtrooper down with him. Then, another baton struck him, and he turned to see another jet-black armored stormtrooper attacking him. He tried to pounce, but inconceivably fast, the trooper struck again and Hobbes felt pain crackle through him.

He fell to the ground, saw the troopers closing in on him, white and black, blasters and batons raised, and gave one, tremendous roar as scores of blue stun rings slammed into him. The next moment, his vision faded, and he lost consciousness.

Calvin was in such a deep sleep from the day of fun, that he never woke up until Hobbes' last roar.

Suddenly jolted from his long rest, the first thing he did was turn to look down at their camp. The sight made his blood run cold.

An unconscious Hobbes was surrounded by a dozen troopers, most of them white, but another, smaller group of them donned in sable-black armor. With their slender forms, strange helmets, and voice scramblers, they seemed almost inhuman. The kind of inhumanness that you feel from looking at a humanoid robot, or a CGI'ed from the uncanny valley.

As soon as Calvin saw Hobbes knocked out, surrounded by those eerie black stormtroopers, he almost called out his name.

Idiot! He mentally chided himself. Surprise is my only advantage!

It was obvious that he couldn't take down all of the troopers with one blaster and a vibroblade, and the black ones seemed even more deadly.

Calvin watched as Hobbes was picked up and cuffs were put on his arms. Others did a final sweep, collecting several items from his and Hobbes' packs. But none of them noticed his hammock in the trees, hidden by branches and not illuminated by the fire, which had run out of fuel. Then the entire force left.

Taking a few minutes to breathe, Calvin gathered his thoughts together and considered his options.

He couldn't attack them, as he knew that he was no match for the highly trained squadron that had just incapacitated an apex predator of planet earth, with claws, fangs, and an intelligence and ferocity unmatched by any other creature he had ever heard of.

He could use the Y-wing to attack them, but the thick canopy of the forest along with the possibility of there being an even larger imperial force around here somewhere discouraged him from rushing to the Y-wing. Plus, his piloting skills weren't all that great.

Calvin saw one option: He would follow them, staying far enough behind so that they would never see him, and wait for a chance to get Hobbes back.

"Okay!" Calvin whispered to himself, and started to climb out of the hammock. "Time to do this!"

Dropping down from a low branch, Calvin rushed over to the packs and quickly gathered some supplies from Hobbes' pack, putting them in his. He checked his blaster, properly secured his vibroblade (which he had left by the fire), and was about to head off when he noticed something.

Rushing back, he scooped up one of the dead stormtroopers' blaster rifles, and clipped it to his belt. Then, barely making a sound, he cautiously began to trail the stormtroopers.

The imperials carried Hobbes for several kilometers, stopping only to check the surrounding terrain (they never spotted him) and to make a call to someone on their comms.

"Okay. So these guys aren't the only ones on this rock," Calvin concluded, and began following the stormtroopers again as they resumed their march, several of them carrying Hobbes due to the sheer weight of the tiger.

Looking at his best friend, helpless in the clutches of the imperials, Calvin vowed that he would make those idiots pay for abducting Hobbes. And he would get him back, no matter what the cost would be.

For all you non-sciencey types, itchyoid means fish, or fish-like, or fishy, or something.

:D