abstract
| - “Incoming!” Explosions rocked the rebel CR90 corvette. It’s deflector shields were just barely holding together from the fire of the surrounding Imperial I Star Destroyers which were firing directly at the rebel convoy. They had been on patrol, and had run into an Imperial task force heading in the opposite direction. The captain Jak Tarkof, had just joined the rebellion months ago, and was steering wildly to avoid the main fire coming from the Star Destroyers. The crew of the craft, named the Gallofree, wasn’t happy about his steering, but at this point were willing to do anything to survive. “Rwooaaarr!” cried Rashtah, a wookiee gunner. “What now?” yelled Jak. “He says that he can’t hit anything with you making all those loops.” said Carda Touforon, the human navigator and Jak's girlfriend. “How can he miss? We’re surrounded,” replied Jak. “He should hit something no matter where he shoots.” “Look out for those turbolaser blasts! I don’t want to become a piece of space dust.” yelled Chall Bastan, a human gunner. CC-1027, nicknamed Static, was a veteran of the Clone Wars, the communications officer of the ship. “Hey, Static,” shouted Jak. “Do we still have contact with command?” “We’ve lost it, sir. I can’t get any signal. I’ll work on it, but it’ll take some power from the engines.” “No, don’t. I don’t want to be traveling back home and get stuck at some Imperial base because of no engine power.” said Jak. “Where’s that Guardian-class that kicked our butts a couple of minutes ago?” “No sign of it sir,” said a lieutenant “Could you be more specific?” “The one with the big insignia.” “It’s not on our sensors, sir.” “Don’t talk to me about sensors. Remember what happened in the Nebula?” Right then, an explosion rocked the ship right behind the bridge. A piece of debris hit Jak square in the face. “Damage report, Damage report!” he yelled at the top of his lungs, hoping that somebody would be able to hear him over the blaring alarms. Carda replied. “We have our missile launcher damaged, two of our engines destroyed, our communications system broken, a malfunctioning laser cannon, our aft shield generator, main navigation system, and fourteen——“ Static interrupted her. “Jak! Jak! We have been able to carve a path through the fleet of Destroyers. We can escape now!” Jak wasted no time. “Carda!” “Working on it, captain.” Static sent out a signal. “This is C9-4223-R0. All ships, Scout Task Force ONT-55, Code Brown, retreat to point AS.4 for retreat to base one. Repeat, all ships, Code Brown, Code Brown. Retreat to Base One, Retreat to Base One!” “Colonel Varmus! Colonel Varmus! The rebel ships have retreated to their base. Half of their force was destroyed.” “Good, Commander,” said Colonel Xamuel Varmus on the bridge of the Guardian-class light freighter. “Are all surviving rebel ships accounted for?” “Yes, sir. Should we continue attacking them from behind? Their only rearguard is a small R90 corvette. Shouln't be too much trouble.” “Yes, commander. I give you authorization to begin chase.” On the bridge of the Guardian-class transport Obedience, Xamuel Varmus towered over the Imperial commander he was speaking to. “Colonel, the IPV-1 transport has locked onto a different course” said a lieutenant named Dartas. He was a kind lieutenant, and was often mistreated by his superiors. “Chase it. Get the other ships to stay on the path of the convoy. I want every ship destroyed.” “But sir, it would be a waste of time. It’s only one ship. There are billions of them. We could get seperated from our entire force, and when we’d get to the nearest Imperial planet, they’d arrest us for not doing our duty and…” “...and what?” said Xamuel. “Do I have to remind you, lieutenant, whose command is this?” “But…” “Mine! I have told you a thousand times, I am your commander, and I give out your orders no matter what you think!” “Forgive me, Varmus” "Colonel Varmus to you! Now do it!” "As you wish sir." he sighed. He manipulated some controls, and the cruiser swung around and followed the transport into space. "Oh man, that was close." said Jak as he relaxed in his seat. The ship had just jumped into hyperspace, and now they were safe. "Hey, Chall," said Jak. "What coordinates did you set in the computer?" "Uh, I really don't know." "What?" said Jak and Static at the same time. Carda, whose biggest fear was getting stranded in space, turned pale. "I mean, since we had to get out of there fast, I just set in a random number of codes, and locked them in. My best guess is we're heading somewhere near Wild Space or the Unknown Regions." Carda fainted. "See, you made her faint." said Jak. "Well, you were the one who asked me where we were going, and I answered you. End of story." Before Jak could respond, a light on the dashboard on the ship began blinking. "There is some king of space disturbance up ahead. Shall we continue?" asked MS-48,the assistant navigation droid. "No. Let's take her out of hyperspace." As the Gallofree exited hyperspace, alarms everywhere began blaring on. "What's happening?" yelled Jak. "We're too close, get us away!" "I can't. She's to heavy!" "What's happening?" repeated Jak. "We're getting sucked in!" "Divert all power to auxilary engines." "WHAT'S HAPPENING!?" yelled Jak at the top of his lungs. "We're getting sucked into some kind of hole sir." replied Static "Black or Worm?" asked Jak. "We don't know yet, sir." Suddenly, a Guardian-class transport came out of hyperspace. "Oh, great," Jak groaned. "Now we have company." The ship tilted because of fire from the Imperial ship. A crewman tripped over a crate and landed on the trctor beam station. "No, don't!" Jak cried. Too late. They had just beamed the other ship and were now falling into the hole. "Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!!" Suddenly, it all stopped. The Imperials were nowhere to be seen. "Where are we?" asked Jak. "I don't know," said Static. "But there's a system over there, and... It looks like there's a planet with life on it. This computer looks like it's about to die, but I think this is right, boss." "Okay, Static. Send a transmission." said Jak Jak didn't finish his sentence before Static began. "IPV-1 rebel transport Gallofree hailing planet. We are fleeing from Imperial forces and have injured on board. We desperately need clearance for landing. Do you copy? Over." They repeated two times before they gave up. "Maybe they don't hear us. With the shape our ship is in, I bet even the people in the next room wouldn't be able to hear us if we tried." "Let's go in closer." said Jak. As they speed toward the planet, an alarm turned on. "What now?" asked Jak "We've lost our Ion engines!" cried Static. As they're speed quickened, they approached a planet, and from all the turns and twists, Jak lost his footing and hit a wall, causing him to lose consciousness. SETI Astronomers Robert Chaffee and Micheal Crane were sitting next to a Radio Operator at the Arecibo Observatory space telescope. It was 5:00 in the afternoon, and, so far, it had been a slow day. "I'm bored." said Crane. . "Aren't we all," said Chaffee. "We never get any radio signals nowadays, so we're expected to sit around here watching rock movement on asteroids billions of miles away." Suddenly the radio operator jumped up out of his chair, spilling his coffee in the process. "There's an object coming out of the asteroid field! And it's coming straight toward us!" "What's the speed?" asked Crane, while a crowd gathered around the operator. He showed him the speed. "That's coming on fast." whistled Chaffee. "We're all going to DIE!" cried a voice. "But wait, it's slowing down!" exclaimed Chaffee, baffled by its speed. "Hold on. I'm getting a radio signal here!" said the operator "What does it say?" said Crane "Wait, Wait," There was a moment of silence. "It translates into English!" "What does it say!?" yelled Crane "It says: 'CR90 rebel transport Gallofree hailing planet. We are fleeing from Imperial forces and have injured on board. We desperately need clearance for landing. Do you copy? Over.'" he said. They received the signal two more times. "This is like something out of a Star Trek movie." said Crane. "More like Star Wars," said Chaffee. "I mean, what do you think all those terms mean? CR90 corvette? Gallofree? Imperial forces? They sound like their out of a Star Wars movie. What do you think they're doing here?" The operator interrupted. "They're coming down on Iowa and— Oh-no, There's another one!" "I don't know, but I think we're about to find out." Cedar Falls Police Captain Mike Hayes was sitting on the hood of his police car, munching on a donut. It was past 2:00 AM, and his car had broken down, so he had nothing to do but wait until a towtruck arrived. He had decided to listen to some radio music. Right now some soft jazz music was playing. “Aaahh,” he said as he relaxed on the winshield. Suddenly, the radio erupted into static "Oh, come on. Can't I even have the radio still intact?" he muttered angrily. Suddenly, there was a screeching sound, and a massive fireball hurtled overhead, lighting up the night sky. Then there was a violent thud as it impacted somewhere on the horizon, with birds sleeping on nearby trees taking flight in shock. Getting back into the car, he turned on his police radio. "Uh, control?" he said. "We have a situation..."
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