“Yes. You saw that.”

Jenna pressed the 'Rewind' button and watched it again. As she watched, a small asteroid was heading toward the ship and was about to hit it when, it vanished. Jenna watched it one more time and zoomed in as close as she could. The rock approached the ship and, with full magnification, the rock was pulled in another direction and disappeared. As if it fell in a hole.

“Balto, what do you think happened?”

“Well, I'm no expert, but it looked as if the ship created a gravitational anomaly and crushed the asteroid.”

“In Basic please?”

“The ship created an artificial black hole and destroyed the rock. It's like a shield for the ship.”

“Okay. 'Rock' and 'destroyed' are words I understand.”

Jenna was silent for a moment. “Do you think it's even possible to create something like that?”

“Oh definitely. I just saw it.”

“Seriously.”

“I don't know.”

At around 7:00 that night, Balto managed to convince the commander of both the New Republic and the Imperial Remnant to hold a conference regarding the discovery he had just made. All of the scientists met on board the Star Cruiser 'Discovery'.

The commander of the New Republic side was Admiral Morana Gile, a Mon Calamari. She stood up in front of the speaker stand that they had put up in the conference room. “Ladies and Gentleman. May I have your attention. The reason you were called here today is in regard to a discovery that Lieutenant Balto here made about the vessel that we are currently following. Mr. Balto, you have our attention.”

Balto stood up at the podium and said “You are going to have to excuse me. I'm not good at public talking. Anyway, down to business. I am not a scientist but I know that what you are about to see should not really be possible. The video please?”

He stood back as the lights dimmed and an image of the vessel appeared. He grabbed a little microphone and said “What you see here is obviously the ship we have been following. I was watching it one day and noticed this.”

He zoomed in on the certain section he had shown Jenna earlier that day. He froze the image for a second as the asteroid came into view. “I would ask you to focus your attention on this asteroid here.” He used a laser pointer to highlight the rock. He continued the video while following the rock with the pointer. He smiled when he heard a little gasp of surprise when the rock vanished.

“This is what I wish to bring to your attention.”

A scientist in the audience raised it's hand and said “That's it? A disappearing rock?”

Balto turned to the person and said “Ah, but it is more than a disappearing rock. Look at this.” He magnified the image as far as it would go. “Now again, watch very closely.” The asteroid was moving toward the ship when suddenly, it was pulled sharply to the left. He froze the image again just before the rock disappeared.

“Like I said before, I am not a scientist. But I know that ships are generally not able to generate black holes and use them as a shield generator.”

He smiled to himself as he heard the quiet whispering as they talked among themselves. “Thank you for your time” he said. “This is all I wished to say.” As he was walking toward the door, an announcement came in over the speakers. “This is the Captain speaking. I just thought that everyone would like to know that we are now the first ones to enter a new galaxy.” A large cheer went up thru the ship.

Everyone was excited the next day. The whole day was one big party. There were drinks and food thru the whole fleet. Balto wasn't interested in that though. He continued to stare at the alien ship. Another thing that he had noticed about it was that the black stripes on the ship had been getting larger. He had magnified on these areas and noticed that this black stuff would ooze up onto the surface of the ship and would then harden. He guessed it was a sort of armor for the ship like metal plating was for Empire or the New Republic.

The question was, why did the ship think it needed more protection?

“Would you care for a drink sir?”

Balto turned to look at the droid who was holding the drink. “No thank you.”

As the droid rolled away he turned back to look at the ship. He didn't think this thing was going to be nice.

Four days later, they discovered their first planet. And it was deader than a Bantha in a krayt dragons belly. Just looking at it from space made one go into a depression. It was literally, a black, burned planet. They had sent down several probes and had found some very disturbing things. The planet had been inhabited. And it appeared that the people who had populated it had destroyed it.

“Hey Balto, did you hear the news?”

“And what news would that be Boris?”

“The New Republic ships want to break off momentarily from the Imperial ones.”

“Why?”

“Oh, something to do with who gets credit for which discovery. So, the Republic gets one side of the planet, and the Empire gets the other side.”

“Geez. What a bunch of glory hungry idiots.”

It was agreed. The fleet would split up. The Empire would take the left side and the Republic would take the right. They had wanted to follow the alien vessel and it happened to be going to the right side. They would meet up tomorrow.

“Okay. NOW this trip is getting exciting!”

Balto just sighed and looked at Jenna. “You call this exciting?”

“Yeah! We're exploring a new world! Oh I just wish I could have a bigger part in it.”

Balto thought of an idea. “What about if we took the 'Anchorage' ahead of the fleet? You know, just kind of scouting ahead?”

Jenna's eyes lit up. “Yeah! Let's do that!”

“We ready?”

“Yep” said Jenna. “Engines all warmed up.”

“Then lets go.”

They rocketed ahead of the fleet and, after having gone several kilometers ahead, slowed down a little bit.

“Anything on sensors?”

“No. Not yet” said Jenna, disappointed.

“Hey, it's okay” said Balto “We'll find something. Ah, right here. Oh, wait a minute it's just another asteroid.”

Admiral Morana Gile was standing on the bridge when one of the officers spoke up and said “Admiral. We just had an asteroid impact.”

Morana looked up in surprise. “Anything serious?”

“Oh no. Just a little scratch to the paint you could say.”

“Why weren't our shields up?”

“Now that you mention it, that is odd. I'll put them up immediately.”

The 'Anchorage' had flown out of sight of the fleet when Balto asked Jenna to stop the ship for a second.

She killed the engines and asked “What is it?”

Balto pointed out the cockpit window. “Right there. Do you see that?”

“Um, no.”

“We are going to have to get your eyes checked. You can't see anything.”

“I can see that! Hold on!”

Jenna quickly kicked the engines back online and sent the ship in a spin. Balto looked out and saw what appeared to be a flaming hunk of rock fly by.

“What was that!?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

Balto looked outside again. And his fur lost some color.

“Jenna, get us back to the fleet. Now. We have company and I don't think they're friendly.” He pointed.

Jenna saw a nightmare come true. A huge fleet of ships had dropped out of hyperspace. Jenna noticed that they were the same type of ships as the one they had found earlier. “Yeah. We are in deep crap.”

As one, the fleet opened fire.

Admiral Morana Gile was walking back to her quarters when a security guard stumbled into her. “Soldier, watch where you are...” She then noticed he was bleeding. And missing most of one arm. “Run” he whispered.

Morana looked up when a loud crash came from where the guard had just come from. She started to turn to go the other way when a strong hand grabbed her. She turned around and found herself face to face with the most hideous and terrifying face she could imagine.

It spoke in a loud voice “Your galaxy will fall before us! For we are the Yuuzhan Vong!”

Morana managed to muster enough courage to say “Think again mister. You don't know anything about our galaxy.”

“You foolish Mon Calamarian. We know more about your galaxy than you could ever hope to.”

That was the last thing she ever heard.

Balto was panicked. 'Let's see things to be panicked about. One, a huge, mean fleet of E.T's show up and start shooting. Check. Our fleet is under attack by several alien warships. And losing. Check.'

“How do you think they knew we were going to be here!?”

Balto was wondering about that himself. Then it dawned on him. “The ship! The one we were following! It LED us here! It was a trap! Crap!”

“What should we do?”

“The Empire! Quick, let's get to them before these things do!”

Jenna turned the ship around and blasted off in the direction of the Imperials.

Captain Jerrod Insk stood on the bridge of the Imperial Star Destroyer 'Revenge' waiting for the probe droids sent to the surface to send back their data. “Captain. Our sensors have picked up a vessel moving towards us.”

“Raise shields and establish a communication link.”

“Ready sir.”

“Unknown vessel. This is Captain Insk of the Imperial Star Destroyer 'Revenge'. Respond.”

There was a bit of static in the reply but he heard it anyway. “This is Lieutenant Balto of the New Republic vessel 'Nome'!”

“What are you doing so far from your side of the fleet Lieutenant?”

“Our side of the fleet is under attack! We came to warn you! There is

Previous Page

1 2 3 4

Next page