Chapter 3: Imperial Collision

The galactic consular ship, the Tantive IV was flying wildly towards the atmosphere of Tatooine, a planet in the Outer Rim, which lit up the polished surface of its superstructures with a flash of light. The immense shadow of an Imperial I-class Star Destroyer of the Galactic Empire, the Devastator, soon covered the ship with its massive silhouette raised like a cactus of countless heavy weapons. The light stopped to shoot from these deadly darts as the destroyer seemed to stop over his wounded enemy. The enormous mouth of a vast bay like an spaceport town opened on the belly of the Devastator who swallowed his prey still shaken by intermittent explosions. Lightning flashes swept through the part of the small vessel that had received a fatal blow. Without a shield and power in its engines, the Tantive IV was like a drifting wreck.

On board the consular ship, rebel soldiers were speeding up a white-lined walkway without paying attention to the two droids advancing in the opposite direction. It was C-3PO, a gold humanoid protocol droid, and his teammate R2-D2, a cylindrical Astromech droid with a blue dome head.

When the ship was taken by a new shock, C-3PO collapsed with his partner:

"Did you hear that? They shut down the main reactor. We'll be destroyed for sure. This is madness."

R2 answered with a series of beeps without slowing down. Other rebel troops rushed into the main corridor. The two droids took refuge in an alcove so as not to be trampled. The soldiers took up position and pointed their weapons at a closed hatch at the end of the corridor.

"We're doomed!" moaned C-3PO. "There'll be no escape for the princess this time."

At one end of the corridor, Samya had just regained consciousness. She felt like she had fallen a long way and had landed abruptly. A fall that would have lasted hours. A fall that should have killed her. Yet she still felt alive. Convinced that she was alive, Samya stood up and looked around her. She was in a hallway with white people. She had no idea where she was. She remembered that she was in a park, under a terrible storm with her sister Tara… Tara? Was her sister there too? Samya stared down the long corridor but saw no trace of her younger sister.

"Tara? Tara?"

Dazed and confused, Samya looked around the corridor. She could hear strange noises from outside. Even the place seemed to be shaken by a near explosion. The breath made her bounce against the walls of the narrow color. What was going on? Where could these explosions come from?

"What's happening? Where am I?"

While wondering with stupor where she was, she saw a small group of armed men appear suddenly, the gun pointed. They were all dressed in strange uniforms, and brandishing guns that Samya had never seen. The soldiers rushed into the corridor without paying attention to the young woman who was only watching them with confusion. Is this a NASA exercise to get her into the federal agency?

Not knowing what to do, Samya eventually followed them and approached one who was running in front of her.

"Uh… Excuse me! Where am I? What's going on? Is this a test? A NASA test? What are these guns you're holding? I've never seen one like this."

The soldier stared at her with amazement.

"Where did you come from? What are you doing here, miss? This is not an exercise! We are under attack!"

"By who? Who is attacking us?" Samya was even more stunned.

"The Empire's Star Destroyer has tracked us down! They shut down our reactor! There's nowhere to escape to!" the soldier ran before him to join his comrades.

"Star?" asked Samya stunned and shocked. "We… we're in space? You're with NASA?"

But the soldier paid no attention to the young woman's words and brandished his rifle right in front of him.

"Go quickly to an escape pod while you still can! The Stormtroopers are coming!"

"What? The Stormtroopers? What are you talking about…?"

But before Samya could ask for anything else, metallic noises suddenly resounded, signs of movement on the outer shell.

The Devastator used magnetic tongs to lure the consular vessel into its main hangar.

In the corridor, the rebel troops were watching what seemed to be a locked airlock door for Samya. Suddenly, sparks burst forth and the panel exploded. Samya covered herself on the floor of the corridor. The airlock was completely shattered. Before the smoke had cleared, projectiles were fired in all directions. Samya saw one of the soldiers fall to the ground. It was laser fire. Laser weapons. Samya slowly rose to see the ship's assailants. Some twenty individuals wearing white armor with helmets entered the smoke-filled corridor. Samya could see that they were white soldiers with good, precise gestures and their white armor looked like armored. She assumed they were the Stormtroopers described by the soldier she had landed earlier. Within seconds, the corridor was filled with interlaced smoke and energy rays creating huge explosions. The cries of the wounded and dying strangely perceived the thunder of inorganic noises. Samya could see many soldiers falling into the incessant fire of Stormtroopers. These white warriors were obviously used to shooting anything that moved without blinking.

Samya didn't know what to do. She had no weapons on her to fight back or help the valiant soldiers who were fighting or falling against the Stormtroopers, having no idea of their intentions and she didn't intend to stay here to find out. Without waiting, she went in the opposite direction, away from the energy shots. She ran down the corridor, unaware of her destination. She hoped to find a cockpit, or someone to help her understand the strangeness of the situation. What the hell was she doing here? Obviously, she wasn't in a dream. She was actually in a spaceship approached by psychotic white soldiers. Without stopping, she saw what seemed to be -according to her- a maintenance corridor. She entered and went to take refuge behind a metal partition.

While she remained hidden, she glanced at the corridor from which she had just come out. She heard multiple explosions, and then nothing. The smoke was beginning to clear. Distant fighting noises still resonated through the hull. Here the battle had ceased. It continued, fading out in waves of echoes, down there in one of the dozens and dozens of corridors and cabins. But from where Samya was, there was a silence of death. But it did not last long. For a very strange sound fills the air. A sound like Samya had never heard in her life. A cavernous sound, almost metallic. It was like breathing. Someone breathing through a metal breathing helmet. But it was a sound that made your blood cold. Seconds later, she finally sees a tall figure draped in a dark cape running down the long corridor. Her outfit, all black, gave her the appearance of a threatening shadow in the middle of the corridor. One might have thought that it was the Death himself. Two meters tall. Bipedal. The black floating robes enveloped the figure, the face was forever masked by a functional screen, bizarre, dark and ferocious metal, with two visual sensors above a triangular respirator. A strange and terrifying dark helmet like Samya had never seen before, and was quickly intimidated by the presence of this black individual with metallic breath. Behind him, the stormtroopers followed with their weapons raised. Samya assumed that the dark individual must be their superior. When the handful of white soldiers had passed, Samya dared to come out of hiding and followed them discreetly. With horror, she saw a trail of dead bodies of the rebel soldiers. With a sad look, she leaned over one of the corpses and came to pick up one of their guns. Not knowing what she was getting into, she would rather have a weapon to defend herself against the invaders of the ship where she was.

R2-D2 was standing in a poorly lit maintenance corridor leading to the escape pods. He lost sight of C-3PO in the confusion after escaping from the main corridor. The astromech had joined Princess Leia Organa to make a holographic recording of distress.

The young woman was light-skinned, dark-haired, and wore a loose white robe.

Not far from there, C-3PO called his partner.

"R2-D2, where are you?"

As Leia leaned against the wall to hide, the astromech extended his retractable central foot and headed for his friend.

"At last!" exclaimed the protocol droid as he approached him. "Where have you been? They're heading in this direction. What are we going to do? We'll be sent to the spice mines of Kessel, smashed into who knows what!"

From the place where she was hiding, the Princess took a sneak peek and saw the droids moving away. She prayed that the astromech could deliver her message to her recipient. Otherwise, her entire fight would be lost.

Samya followed, leaning against the white wall of the corridor, the white soldiers who were capturing the rebels who had not been killed. Some were wounded, others dying. Several officers were separated from the soldiers and formed a small group. They were looking at the cordon of silent soldiers who kept them away. As if by order, all the men present – imperial soldiers and rebels – fell silent at the moment when a massive figure wrapped in a large black cape appeared at the last turn of the corridor. Two rebellious officers, determined and stubborn a moment before, looked down, speaking the Dark Lord. Stopping in front of one of the two men, the dark giant silhouette reached out without saying a word. The huge hand closed around the man's neck and lifted him from the ground with a gloved hand. The eyes of the Rebel turned back, but he remained silent.

From a distance, Samya noticed with astonishment the strength of the dark individual in lifting the rebel man as if he weighed nothing. His strength seemed superhuman. She always heard the sound of breathing that made her blood cold. And she saw two new Stormtroopers join the dark individual.

"The Death Star plans are not in the main computer." one of the two white soldiers informed him.

Death Star? What the hell is this? Where am I? I'm sure that I am not close to the Earth! Would I be in a distant galaxy? What's going on? And where is Tara? Samya wondered in dismay.

The Dark Lord turned his helmet towards the man whom he held by the neck, whose feet no longer touched the ground.

"Where are those transmissions you intercepted? What have you done with those plans?"

"We intercepted no transmissions." the poor man mumbled while suffocating. "This is a consular ship… We're on a diplomatic mission."

The dark individual accentuated the pressure of his fingers while continuing to speak with a voice camouflaged by metal:

"If this is a consular ship, where is the ambassador?"

Faced with the silence of the rebel man, the Dark Lord interrupted the interrogation. He broke the captain's neck in a horrible crack and threw his lifeless body against the bulkhead. With her eyes wide open in fear, Samya repressed a scream of horror at the sight of the Dark Lord killing this poor man.

The massive silhouette suddenly turned around and the imperial officers trembled under the totally black eyes of the globule-like sensors.

"Commander, tear this ship apart until you've found those plans, and bring me the passengers!" he ordered noisily. "I want them alive!"

The officers and men hurried each other in their haste to go away, to obey Vader's orders, but above all to flee from his evil presence.

Even the Stormtroopers fear this Dark Lord, ' Samya thought as she saw the soldiers trying to escape their black superior.

The Dark Lord had moved away. When the soldiers left, Samya rushed to the dead body of the poor man who had been strangled. She was searching for his pulse, but could only see with horror that he was indeed dead.

"Oh God, he's dead! This isn't happening!"

It was then that the Dark Lord had returned on his steps, a few feet from Samya who was frozen in stupor.

"Who are you?" the dark individual growled.

Without thinking, the young woman took out the gun she had taken from a rebel and fired an energy discharge, but with extraordinary speed, the Dark Lord waved his gloved hand and stopped the discharge. No scratches, just a few sparks. Samya fired multiple more shots, all as useless as the first. It was as if the sinister individual was able to stop her shots.

The next moment, the gun was suddenly torn from Samya's hands, as if an invisible force had taken it away from her, to go into the Dark Lord's hands.

"H-H-Ho-Ho-Ho-how did you do that?" babbled the young woman frightened and stunned. "Witchcraft? What the…?"

"Do you not know who I am?" asked the Dark Lord. "What's a girl like you doing in this ship? You bear no coat of arms of Alderaan. And you don't look like a royal or a rebel soldier. Who are you?"

At his words, he waved his other hand, gloved black in the air, and Samya felt a pressure on her neck, as if she was being strangled by an invisible hand. Instinctively, she put her hands to her throat, but nothing was done. She felt a strong pressure to twist her neck and couldn't do anything to fight. Apparently, the Dark Lord had supernatural powers, according to the young woman.

"Answer me! Who are you?" the Dark Lord again growled. "Where are the plans that the Rebels stole? Where are they?"

"I… I… I don't… I don't know what… you're talking about!" Samya stammered in a barely audible voice, struggling to breathe despite this invisible force that strangled her. "I swear… It's true! I don't know what I'm doing here."

While struggling to breathe, Samya couldn't speak. All that came out of her mouth was incomprehensible gargling. She felt that she was going to die strangled in a few seconds.

Then, a new invisible force threw her to the ground, away from the evil grip of the Dark Lord. Samya could breathe again, to her great relief. She took advantage of it to take great breaths of air.

"What?" said the Dark Lord, and although she could not see his face, she guessed that he seemed confused by what had just happened.

And the mysterious female voice resounded again in the mind of the young woman.

Samya! Run! Get out of there! Go away! Run!

Still in shock of her attack, Samya managed to get up and started running again, wanting to be away from the Dark Lord who began to throw orders to his soldiers.

"Get her! And I want her alive!"

Samya returned to the long corridor running at full speed, hoping to find a way out of her attackers. The next moment, she reached the end of the corridor.

Go to the left! It is a maintenance corridor that will lead you to the escape pods! Go on, quick!

Having no choice but to trust the voice that spoke to her, Samya took a new direction. She ran without stopping until she reached a tunnel leading to the escape pods. She saw two living forms a few meters away. Two machines that seemed to be robots moving. One looked like a man whose body was bulged with gold and the second was cylindrical with a blue dome-shaped head.

Go to the two droids! The blue droid is an astromech. Ask him to open the access of a pod! This is your only chance to escape! Go!

Although she was eager to leave the besieged spaceship, Samya wanted to hear from her sister. Was she there too? Was she all right?

As if she had read her thoughts, the voice repeated:

Tara's fine. You can trust me! Your sister isn't here. She's safe from now. But you are in great danger aboard this ship! You must leave now! The Stormtroopers are coming! Get out of there, right now!

After some hesitation, Samya finally runs to the droids, according to the mysterious voice.

C-3PO and R2-D2 went up the tunnel to the escape pods. The astromech stopped, rotated and unlocked the access of one of them.

"Hey! You're not permitted in there. It's restricted. You'll be deactivated for sure." protested the gold droid.

Before R2 could enter the capsule, a young woman accosted them.

"Please, somebody help me! Can you get me into one of these pods?" she asked, frightened.

C-3PO stared at her with a wave of his arms.

"Who are you, miss? You're not on the trip."

"My name's Samya, and I want to leave this ship." she continued before turning to R2. "Please, can you open one of these pods? I'm not with these white guys! I've nothing to do with this Empire! All I want is to get out of here! Please, little one, let me in one of these things. Please."

R2 answered him with repeated whistles. Then the gold droid firmly addressed him:

"You heard her, R2. Help her!"

After a few plaintive beeps, R2 finally pulls a clamp from his body and breaks the seal of a rescue pod door.

"Thank you!" thanked Samya by bending down to go through the opening of the flying space engine.

Then, R2 got into another pod that he had already unlocked.

"What are you doing?" C-3PO was indignant. "You know we're not allowed to be here."

R2 repeated his incessant beeps, which upset his golden friend.

"Don't you call me a mindless philosopher, you overweight glob of grease! Now come out before somebody sees you."

"You'd better go with your friend, if you don't want to end up in pieces." advised Samya. "Soon the Stormtroopers will be coming this way and they'll disintegrate you as soon as they see you."

Another explosion shook the ship and made C-3PO wobble. Without further hesitation, the gold droid stumbled through the door and entered the pod.

"I'm going to regret this." he moaned.

The two hatches closed. Samya waited, not knowing what to do. And in a deaf noise, the pod's fasteners retracted, then the pod trembled, indicating that it was leaving the ship. Her rescue pod was moving away from the stellar destroyer. Samya could see the outside through the single circular window. She was shocked.

"Oh my God! I'm really in space! And I have just been ejected from a ship that is trapped in a gigantic spaceship!" She murmured in amazement as she gazed at the contours of the imperial destroyer.

Then she looked inside the pod.

"What's next? How to fly this staff?" she growled looking at the controls that were completely foreign to her. "Unless it is not designed to travel in space. Just to be ejected from a ship and take me to the nearest planet. I hope I'm right."

Very quickly, the destroyer was just a small spot in the galactic landscape of space. And Samya's pod continued to drift towards the arid surface of the planet below.

She noticed the other rescue pod that must have contained the two droids in another direction. Then, her gaze was on the planet that grew larger as the pod approached it.

"And I was dreaming of going to space. This isn't how I had imagined my space adventure. This is madness! Where is Tara? Wherever you are, little sister, I hope you're all right."

Half groggy, Tara slowly awoke. She opened her eyes, to be blinded by a bright light, as if she was surrounded by multiple suns accompanied by a very strong heat. What had happened? The last thing she remembered was being in the park with her sister Sam. Then a strange voice came from nowhere, mumbling incomprehensible words, only to be struck by lightning. Tara came to examine her own body. She didn't see anything. No injuries. No sign of a lightning strike. Which was curious, because she was sure that she had been struck by lightning. What had happened?

As she rose, she found herself on a sandy ground. Sand? Like on a beach? Which could explain the heat. But it wasn't summer. With stupor, she looked around her. All she saw was a rugged mesa desert that met a sea of sand dunes. Tara had awakened in the middle of the desert! Where the hell was she?

"What the hell is going on?"

She took a few steps in the sand. She noticed that her clothes were already soaked in it. She looked at the blue sky and noticed a powerful light, as if the sun had doubled in size. What was going on?

"Sam? Sam? Sam? Are you there?"

She turned her head in all directions, hoping to see her sister or someone in the desert to explain to her the strangeness of the situation in which she found herself.

"Hello? Is there anyone here? Hello?"

But no answer came to her in this great sinister desert.

Not knowing what to do, Tara randomly chooses a direction and starts walking in the hope of finding people or a village. She did not know how long she could stand in this desert with such heat.

"Gosh, where am I?" she murmured in anguish. "I hope there's a village nearby. This desert seems endless! What the hell?"

After being neutralized by a paralyzing beam, Leia regained consciousness, before being handcuffed by the Stormtroopers and escorted through the Tantive IV to their superior. The horrible and dark Lord.

"Darth Vader!" exclaimed Leia. "Only you could be so bold. The Imperial Senate will not sit still for this. When they hear you've attacked a diplomatic…"

Not impressed by the Princess, Vader interrupted her firmly:

"Don't act so surprised, Your Highness. You weren't on any mercy mission this time. Several transmissions were beamed to this ship by rebel spies. I want to know what happened to the plans they sent you."

"I don't know what you're talking about." replied Leia, looking innocent. "I'm a member of the Imperial Senate on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan…"

"You are part of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor." (To his soldiers.) "Take her away!"

Quickly, the Princess was escorted by the Stormtroopers who took her out of the consular ship. Vader turned around and crossed the ship, accompanied by Commander Daine Jir, his Imperial Officer aboard the Devastator. As they both walked, the latter spoke.

"Holding her is dangerous. If word of this gets out, it could generate sympathy for the Rebellion in the Senate."

"I've traced the Rebel spies to her." replied Vader. "Now she is my only link to finding their secret base."

The commander made a muzzle, shook his head slightly and said:

"She'll die before she'll tell you anything."

"Leave that to me." replied the Dark Lord in a firm voice. "Send a distress signal, and then inform the senate that all aboard were killed."

A group of weary soldiers advanced toward the commander and Lord Vader. Imperial Commodore Praji appeared before him:

"Lord Vader, the battle station plans are not aboard this ship, and no transmissions were made. Two escape pods were jettisoned during the fighting. One had a life-form on board, and the other didn't."

Vader seemed to boil with rage as he remembered the strange girl who had managed to escape him in some way that he didn't know.

"The plans must be in one of these escape pods. And this girl must have escaped in one of the two. Either she has the plans, or she must have hidden them in the other pod." (Turning to Praji.) "Send a detachment down to retrieve them. See to it personally, Commander. There'll be no one to stop us this time!"

"Yes, sir." declared the imperial commander as he set to work.

She didn't know how long she had been walking in the desert. Three. Or maybe four hours. Tara was exhausted from walking in this endless sand. She could barely stand. Her eyes were almost closed. Her lips chapped and dry mouth. She was dehydrated. If she didn't rejuvenate, she would soon collapse in the desert. She could walk, but she had no idea what path she was taking or whether she was going in the right direction. She walked completely blind. And the high heat didn't help her to move fast. After several hours of walking, Tara stumbled and fell down a slope to end in a rocky canyon. She got up only badly, but began to feel dizzy.

"Water… Water… please… please… So thirsty…"

Exhausted and thirsty, Tara collapsed on the sand, unable to move any more. She tried to keep her eyes open, but eventually lost consciousness.

The girl's body remained inert for hours. Curious creatures beheld her before deciding to feed on her body. But a long howl resounded through the canyon, driving away the cannibalistic creatures from the desert. The next moment, a humanoid wearing a long brown tunic walked slowly. A hood concealed his face. The figure stopped at Tara's level, still unconscious. The humanoid stooped down and took his pulse. The girl was alive, but dehydrated. The stranger took Tara's body with him.

Thank you for reading me and I hope that these first chapters have pleased you. Samya and Tara are now in the Star Wars universe and will soon be reunited. I'll let you guess who took Tara.

RIP James Earl Jones. The great voice of Darth Vader.