By: Anthony Hummerston.

STARRING

'Mama',   Rojic,   Jimmi,   Karnov,   Niall,   Kory,  
And introducing:
Joe-90 Hen3ry and 'Lucky.' and 'Blinkie.'
as the droids.

AND
Storm Cutter
their ship.

Rojic is thinking. He asks Niall, “You did remember to lock Storm Cutter didn’t you?”

“Of course,” Niall tells him, “I used my blipper.” He holds it up and presses the button.

“The blipper is just for show.” Rojic admits, “It impresses bystanders, but actually the deadlocks are keyed into the proximity sensors for the sentry guns.”

“So all this blipper does.... Is go ‘blip?’”

“Essentially yes.”

Jimmi says that there is no need for concern.

Karnov agrees. “It’s not like we have much to steal anyway. A couple of beaten-up old speeders wouldn’t interest a passing thief. Not even a Weequay would stop for a sniff.”

“It’s not that,” Jimmi reminds them, “We’ve got Kory looking after the ship, with Joe-90. It’d take an army to get past those two.”

Rojic beams at them. “If I know Kory, she’ll have Joe-90 sneak into the other pirate’s ships, and start unloading theirs into ours.”

“What if the pirates suspect something?”

“I think Kory can handle that.

“You know, between Kory’s lipstick, her lips and her assets, it's a wonder the whole station doesn't know we're here and beating a path to her door.”

“-Talking of doors, there appears to be a fight going on behind this one. Is anyone volunteering to take a peek?”

They open the door to the bar. Inside a standoff is in progress. A Nelvaanian is standing astride a Trandoshan, glaring at several Duros and a rag-tag collection of thugs. Behind the impressive Nelvaanian is much larger gang of assorted scum and villainy.

Helpfully Niall says “We must be careful…No wait Karnov, No! Always thinking with your…. Er…. With your…..Whatever passes for brains in that rubbery head of yours!”

Unheeding, Karnov strides to the leader of the gang. He looks him in the eye. It takes quite a lot of head elevation to look up to the impressive gang leader. The Nelvaanian towers over Karnov. Despite his reservations, Karnov is not taking this lightly. He conquers his fear, and confronts the troublemaker.

Rojic makes straight for the bar. Not for a drink you understand, though the thought of free liquor does cross his mind. “I think this is the best place if there’s a fight.” He says to himself. “Yes. Now, I wonder of this pottery will stop a bullet?” Through some trick of the force, Niall overhears this. “A bullet? How retro!”

But there are more important matters at hand. The Trandoshan is lying on the floor in a pool of icky blood. The Nelvaanian is still towering over him and Karnov. There is a blooded spear in the gang leader’s hand. The spear rather matches the puncture- and exit- wound in the Trandoshan’s chest. The Trandoshan has dropped his sword, which lies on the floor beside the body.

“I think he’s dead.” Niall whispers to Jimmi. “Based on sound medical experience and knowledge of Trandoshan physiology.”

“You have neither of those skills, Niall.”

“That’s probably why they kicked me out of the triage team then!”

The Nelvaanian warns Karnov. “This is a local dispute, so keep out!” His intimidating manner and size make Karnov feel nervous, but he stands his ground.

“He’s mad!” Rojic observes, still hiding behind the bar. “Quite mad!”

Niall says. “He could flash the lightsabre.”

Ignoring the obvious comment, Rojic doesn’t agree. “That’d just make him stupid and mad!”

“Who’s this then?” Niall gives the impression that this little one isn’t worth bothering with. Karnov is hoping that the bully will back down. Fennisk turns and returns to a table and his cronies. Karnov isn’t sure that it’s a win. Niall pulls him gently away. The tension drains from the situation, and a semblance of normality descends once more. The Trandoshan’s friends drag him to their end of the bar. It pains them that nothing can be done at this point, but realise that their five versus Fennisk’s thirty isn’t going to be much of a fair fight, even with Karnov and Niall pitching in.

“This is about a debt, I’m guessing….” Niall asks.

“Debt is paid in full.” Fennisk replies.

Niall tries to assess the condition of the fallen Trandoshan. It hovers somewhere between ‘he’s dead, Jim’ and ‘It’s merely a flesh wound.’ Niall cannot decide, and leaves the Trandoshan’s friends to make a better assessment.

Jimmi offers to put some Harold Budd on the jukebox. Rojic isn’t so sure.

“A great suggestion, Jimmi, with two minor drawbacks.”

Jimmi is somewhat offended at an otherwise superb suggestion. “Such as?”

“Such as, they’ve never heard of Harold Budd way out here in the wilds of scum-land.”

“And?”

“And if you put it on, both gangs will rip your eyes out in an instant.”

“But I haven’t….” Jimmi starts to say.

Rojic interrupts. “It’ll be like the Romulans and the Capulets all over again.”

“Er….I think there’s something slightly wrong with the names of those two warring factions.”

“Sorry. I should have said ‘Rodians’ and ‘Caplets.’”

“A ‘caplet’ is a small type of pill.” Jimmi points out.

“Don’t talk to me about pills….” Rojic says, darkly.

“Should have taken the red one then....” Jimmi offers, “Or was it blue? -All the same to me. anyway!”

Niall is still defusing the situation with Karnov and Fennisk “This little one isn’t worth bothering with.”

“Good! Let’s gut him like a fish and be done with all this posturing!”

“Actually, I didn't mean to say…. Er, actually I did mean to say um....” Niall backtracks and plants a suggestion into the mind of Fennisk. The Nelvaanian backs down, and sits down. Niall shoots Karnov a look. Karnov thinks he’s won the battle of wills.

Niall offers to buy the antagonists a drink, but he is rejected. “I’ll drink it myself!” He says to no-one in particular. He helps himself to nuts from a ramekin, and wipes his greasy fingers on a small paper towel.

“Civilisation at last.” He turns to the others, holding up the square of soft paper. “Look, napkins!”

Jimmi gives him the Miralukan equivalent of a hard stare. “Nice. But don’t you ever call me ‘napkins’ again in public!”

Niall then turns back to Jimmi and the girl. He rolls his eyes at them both. Jimmi doesn’t pick up the subtle signal, the Rodian girl is staring into space. Her body is stiff like a mannequin. Jimmi runs hands over her body in a doctor-checking-patient way, and is puzzled.

“What’s up?”

“Not sure. She’s stiff like a board, but can still stand upright and articulate every limb.”

“I’m sure Kory had a boyfriend like that once!”

“Maybe so, but that was probably a shop dummy.”

“Why would she want to go out with a shop? -And don’t call me ‘dummy.’ -Stupid!”

Niall looks over at the prostrate body of the Trandoshan. “Sword versus spear. A fair fight.” He observes. Karnov has wandered back to the others. Rojic is looking a little concerned.

“What’s up, my little blue friend?” Niall asks.

“There’s something wrong here.”

Jimmi lifts Jenetta’s arm. It flops back slowly. “I’ll say.”

“Not that.” Rojic flutters nearer the ceiling. “The eavesdropping bugs….They’ve gone….”

“So?”

“So they were here a few minutes ago.”

Niall is staring at the crowd assembled in the bar.

“Something else is very wrong here too.”

“What?”

“Well, I could have sworn that there were more people here when I was facing Fennisk. Now I’ve taken a few steps toward the bar, and turned around, several of them are missing.”

Rojic agrees. “Now you come to mention it. I think you might be right.”

Niall feels a shiver run down his spine. “Did you see any of them leave?”

“Well, there’s a Talz standing right by the door. If a half dozen patrons left they’d have to be the width of a death-stick paper, and faster then a speeding pill.”

Jimmi asks casually “Is there a pill you can take for speeding?”

“I’ll let you know once we do the Kessel run in less than four parsecs.”

Rojic blurts out, “Surely a parsec is a measurement of….”

Everyone in the bar puts fingers to lips. “Shhhh!”

“Oh, Sorry!”

They turn their attention back to the girl. Something is troubling Niall. He carefully considers something, while the others examine Jenetta.

“She’s not moving. Her eyes are wide and staring it fells like…”

“Like we’re being watched!”

“Well most of the bar is looking our way, but….” Rojic flaps his hands in front of the girl’s large eyes. There is no reaction. “You’re right. No reaction!”

Jimmi tries to sense a motive, but there is nothing to sense. It is as if the girl has disappeared from the force. “No presence, no nothing!”

Niall tries too. “It’s like a void in the force…..How strange.”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you kid, she’s completely blown away…..”

Niall almost leaps into the air. The thought that has been bothering him for a few minutes now has suddenly exploded in his brain. He winces at the enormity of it all. He can hardly articulate the though for a second, and all that comes from his mouth are little ‘glub….Glub….Glub’ noises. He grasps Jimmi and Karnov.

“The Bothan is gone!”

The others feel uneasy about this statement, but are still a few moments behind Niall’s train of thought.

“But….” Says Rojic, unaware of what he is saying exactly. “There’s always a Both…Oh!”

“Both-an.” Jimmi is quick to correct him.

“I do believe your little blue friend has got it right!”

“Maybe so, but I don’t get it, and he’s so not my friend.”

Niall’s mind is racing. He turns to Karnov, who merely shrugs. He hasn’t got past the napkin joke yet.

Niall gasps again. “Bothans. Where do we see Bothans?”

“They’re everywhere. Here, there, all over the place.”

“Precisely. There’s something suspicious when there is one standing in the bar, and an instant later he’s gone.”

“Still not quite with you, Niall.”

“It’s the old ‘bad wolf’ or ‘crack in the universe’ scenario!”

“I’m still not with you.”

Niall’s head clears. “Everywhere we go, there are Bothans. They come and they go, but every stop there they are. It started way back outside Master Anix’s office, and ever since, they’ve never been far from sight. No-one notices because they’re as common as muck! Now one disappears from plain sight and pow! It suddenly opens my eyes to the possibility.”

“Possibility of what?”

“That one or more Bothans have been shadowing our every move!”

They pause to take in the enormity of this. As they realise the truth of Niall’s words, they can start to remember all the times that they’ve been places, and they are never far from a loitering Bothan, or a familiar looking passer-by.

They think seriously about this for a few moments. Karnov shuffles from one foot to another. He finally catches up. A whole world of previously unseen Bothans comes to him. He looks at his feet. There is something wrong. Looking closer, he sees little tendrils emerging from the floor. The tendrils become longer and larger, and soon the floor is covered with the things. He telegraphs this silently to Jimmi, using the force. Jimmi immediately picks up Jenetta and starts making for the back room. Rojic is back behind the bar, looking for stuff to liberate. Niall follows Jimmi and Karnov covers their exit. Jimmi looks into the force. It would appear that reality is on the blink. This is disturbing in many ways.

“It’s like a million voices crying out in pain….”

Niall looks at Jimmi quizzically. “Did you start singing again?”

Karnov looks into the force. To him, it looks more like layer cake turning into marble cake. Forces and concepts are swirling in a force storm. It gives him a bad feeling.

“I have a bad feeling about this.”

“Oh right! There you go, jinxing it again! I suppose some ‘ol load of weird and deadly stuff is going to happen now. Thanks!”

Karnov, Niall and Jimmi have made the back room. They call back to Rojic to join them. Rojic has been distracted though. In front of his eyes, credits are appearing. In front of his saucer sized peepers are riches beyond the aspirations of Toydarian avarice! Rojic scoops the credits into his hands from the counter-top. More credits appear. Rojic sweeps them into his limited pockets and pouches. Even more appear. Rojic starts filling bottles and jars and even the drip trays of the liquor pumps.

Niall is dismissive. “Aspiration? Very deadly. You go first!”

Rojic obliges. Niall thinks at that second that it can’t be real, and might very well be a trap.

“No Rojic, wait….No! –Great! Always thinking with your wallet!”

Rojic is undeterred. “Talking of which, anyone got a bag? A sack? A wheelbarrow? A megafreighter?”

Jimmi is still concerned about Jenetta. Finally, having tried all other avenues, there is only one thing for it. “I’m going to kiss her!”

“She could use a good kiss!”

“You could use a good kiss!” Karnov says to Jimmi. “–Though not from me. I’m just saying…. Well, you know… Erm….I’m just going to go over here…..Out of kissing range!”

Jimmi puckers up. Jenetta puckers up. Actually Jenetta does no such thing; it’s just the way that Rodian anatomy is. Jimmi closes.

After a few minutes, the others separate the two of them. Niall looks at them both. Karnov asks, “What’s up?”

“We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.” Niall says, proudly.

“You could have put that another way.” Karnov prompts.

“Nah, it took all afternoon practicing saying it this way!”

Karnov looks at Jimmi. He extends a friendly hand. “She’s dead Jimmi.”

Jimmi looks up. “You know, I’ve been waiting over twenty five episodes for you to say that!”

Karnov makes a decision. “We’re leaving.”

The others follow him out into an alley behind the bar. Rojic is left behind.

“I heard a cry.”

“That was Rojic.”

“I heard a cry….Actually I heard him crying.”

“Is he alright?”

“I think that he’s got all the riches in the world, and nothing to put them in.”

Niall is philosophical. “See? Money can’t buy you happiness.”

“No, but it can buy you a bag to put your cash in!”

They are about to discuss the finer points of instantaneous riches, when they notice several strange things going on outside. The rain has stopped raining, and is now rising. –That is to say that the rain on the ground is now rising like rain, and disappearing back into the storm clouds above their heads.

“Weird!”

“Not as weird as this.” Karnov has taken out his lightsabre. He slashes idly at the walls.

“What kind of ‘this?’”

“This blood. That’s running down the walls.”

“Eew!”

Jimmi asks what kind of blood.

“The regular red kind. The kind you get from bleeding walls.”

“What about a taste?”

“After you, Jimmi.”

“Actually, I think I’ll pass.”

Niall says, matter-of-factly, “Now reality really is on the blink.”

“I think we’d better get back to the ship!”

“I think you’re right.”

Niall offers to call them. There is no response.

“What, no ship?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you kid. It’s completely not on the blower!”

“Then we’ll leg-it back. It’s only a few hundred yards after all.”

“If only we had a speeder…..”

Curiously enough this is what Rojic is also thinking. “If only I had a speeder! What is the point of riches if you can’t transport them away to the planet of the Twi’lek girls?” He sobs quietly to himself. A red glow starts up in the bar. It grows steadily brighter and flickers. For a second, Rojic looks up, and through tear-soaked eyes he sees a glow like a lightsabre. Soon this becomes a double glow, and then quadrouple. By the time that there are a dozen lightsabre-like beams radiating from a central hub, and spinning in the bar, it has Rojic’s undivided attention. The other aliens in the bar are transfixed, much like Jenetta was earlier. The blades begin to revolve, they move steadily in Rojic’s direction: Spinning, cutting (in a non-sharp way) slicing, amputating, slicing, destroying…… This is Rojic’s cue to leave. He gathers up an armful of credits, and fills his mouth. At speed R17 and above he flies through the open half of a half-open window, over the heads of the other crew members, and into a power ascent. All the while, credit chips rain down, in the opposite direction to the rain, and blown by the non-existent wind. His scream of “Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!” Goes through a proper Doppler-shift as he passes. Rojic ascends and ascends and ascends. Into the clouds and as far as his rapidly-beating wings can take him. He looks up. He hopes to see more clouds or even the sunshine above the clouds. There is a big black hole waiting for him, engulfing him. He slows his ascent, and opens his eyes wider….. There above him the whole resolves itself into an eye looking back. –Not just an eye in the sky, but a massive eye looking unblinking down at Rojic. He stops and hovers in the thin atmosphere, catching his breath. The eye blinks. Then Rojic pans back and he can see a massive head belonging to the eye. It’s getting closer. –“Closer!” This is Rojic’s cue to start on the descent. At this point, the head starts rushing toward him under gravity. Rojic storms into a power dive, the head behind him is streaked with blood and descends in a death-dive to the ground. Rojic’s sanity is all but gone. It doesn’t look too pleasant from the ground either.

“Run!” Niall warns. As they do so, hustling along the street, they hear a cry.

“I hear a cry….”

“That was….Actually that was from the alley over there!”

Perpendicular to their street is a dark alley. They can hear a woman crying for help. “This may be the woman we came to rescue!” Niall says, hopefully.

“More likely a Heffalump trap for Poohs. With emphasis on the TRAP!”

Jimmi has a way around peering into the gloom of the alley. Using the force, Jimmi’s senses make out a woman in distress. There is nothing else to report, other than gothic-looking architecture and a sense of foreboding mixed with excitement.

“She’s here!”

“Don’t start all that again… ‘The princess is here!’ and ‘I’ve found her!’ Load of old malarkey!”

This spurs Niall on, and between them, they manage to jog along the alley. Karnov glances backward, making sure the walls are not closing in. They are not. But, they are being followed though. The waters of the lake are rising, and come racing in a raging torrent along the alley. “The water is rising!”

“Or the island is sinking!”

“Whatever you’re gonna do, make it fast!”

The water swirls along the alley, they all take a drenching. They struggle to keep their feet and their sense of direction. Half-swimming half-wading and half-drowning they make it to the place where she is.

“I’m going to kiss her!” Jimmi says, matter-of-factly.

“What with Rojic’s screaming and Jimmi’s kissing everything in sight, it’s a wonder the whole island hasn’t come out to meet us!”

Jimmi corrects Karnov. “I’m going to kiss her, and see how she reacts….”

Jimmi does so. “I’m feeling weak at the knees….”

“That’ll be the onrushing water, Jimmi.

“Oh…..Damn!”

Strangely enough, the lady in white is unaffected by the powerfully swirling water. – Or Jimmi’s embrace.There is not much time for introductions, so they grab her hand and drag her back. Fighting the rising and swelling water, they cough and sputter a swift retreat.

At the end of the passage they are reunited with Rojic, who is sobbing. “I had it all in my hands! Lots and lots of lovely m….M…..M….. I can’t even bring myself to say the word.”

“Rojic, have you been crying?”

“Er…..No….I just….er….Got something in my eye….That’s all.”

“Was it a whole bunch of credit chips?”

Rojic collapses with a howl. He beats the ground with his fists, and huge sobs come from his little body.

“Poor thing…..” Jimmi is sympathetic. “He needs to come to tems with his grief. Leave him alone for a while.”

“I’ll never forget that moment.... Oh woe is me!” Rojic wails.

Jimmi doesn’t want to wait. “I lost a credit chip once….” A sniff echoes in the alley.

“I don’t want to know!” Rojic cries, racked with guilt over his loss.

“I think it slipped down the back of the sofa on the loading ramp….” Jimmi adds, casually.

In an instant Rojic is sober, alert and ready to fly. “What are we waiting for?”

He zooms off. Jimmi looks at his companions. “See? That’s the old Rojic back. The old Rojic we know and love.”

“Well ‘know’ maybe…. I wouldn’t go so far as to say love!”

They make it to Storm Cutter after a minute or two. They are so relived to see the ship still standing there in the ascending rain.

“Ship, sweet ship!”

They all press their blippers and the ramp slowly descends. They manhandle the lady-in-white up the ramp.

“Odds are she won’t fly!”

“Never tell me the odds!”

They scramble up the ramp, unimpeded by the sofa, and into a cargo bay lined with neat crates, cargo pods and barrels. “Home, sweet ship!”

Rojic flies straight over the rail, and into the medical bay. He does a quick spin around all the space, and opens a medicine chest. It is usually bare, but at this moment, a load of Jimmi’s makeup pours out. “I need a pill. In a regular way!” Rojic screams through the door. His voice echoes around the med bay. He doesn’t yet realise why.

Niall runs for the bridge. He stops at the door of the captain’s cabin. At first glance it is reassuringly full of his possessions. Then he takes half a step in.

“Something’s wrong here!”

“What kind of something?”

“It’s as though someone laid out my cabin with all my stuff. But generic stuff. Plain toothbrush, plain mirror, plain picture of my wife and kids…..My non existent wife and kids….In…. Mama’s cabin.”

“So that’s what’s wrong with the décor and the fittings and the ships systems too?”

“The way that things work now when they didn’t before. That broken things are fixed and fixed things are broken. That the walls are the wrong colour, that the Bacta tank is missing, as are the speeders in the hold. – And Kory and Joe-90 are missing!”

“That sums it up somewhat!”

“You know, I’ve got a theory.”

“What?”

“That this is all an illusion!”

“The noises coming from Jimmi’s cabin suggest the woman is real enough.”

They listen and watch. The woman in white leads Jimmi on with those deep ‘come to the cabin’ eyes, and ‘mess-hall’ lips.

“I’m so glad you rescued me. I can be so grateful, so…. Compliant…..So horizontal and naked….!”

Jimmi complies. They stumble into a cabin, ripping at one another’s clothes, kick the door shut and start that whole kissing thing again. The others watch, dumbstruck.

“Since when does Jimmi make love to a beautiful woman on the bed in the cabin on Storm Cutter?”

“Um…..”

“Never! Jimmi nailed the mattress to the ceiling!”

“Yeah, somehow that wasn’t the bit that was disturbing me the most!”

Niall concentrates. “It’s not real. I deny this illusion!”

Karnov joins in. “I can see the matrix!”

“No you can’t! That’s just the lime-green and black wallpaper running with water!”

“Oh! So it is!”

After a moment Karnov says, “Well, this is better than life!”

Nothing happens. It’s not better than life. In fact, it stinks!

Rojic comes out of the medical bay. “I’ve been drugged!”

“Well, probably not. Your delusions are actually real!”

“Not in this reality! -Back home in my own reality. Where I’m king of the planet of the Twi’lek girls!”

Karnov and Niall concentrate. In the background several crates levitate. Niall can hear Kory shouting something incomprehensible.

“What is she saying?”

“I don’t know. That’s what ‘incomprehensible’ means!”

“Oh!”

Rojic chimes in. “I order you to cease any and all supernatural activity and return forthwith to your place of origin or to the nearest convenient parallel dimension.”

“Yeah, great Rojic, that ought to do it!”

“Or let us return to…. Blah, blah, blah!”

They concentrate some more, trying to tear down the veil between realities. Jimmi is tearing down the veil between Jimmi and the girl. Karnov and Niall try again, Rojic is desperately tyring to make sense of it all, and watching fearfully as a neighbouring ship starts turning its guns on Storm Cutter. Rojic dives for the shield controls, only to find that they are no longer where he expected. The guns roar, and superheated plasma slams into the hull. “We’re not going to take much more of this pounding!”

A pounding comes from Jimmi’s cabin. “She’s being really rough with him!”

“Maybe he shouldn’t have kissed her on their first date!”

“It’s not the kissing, it’s the undressing.”

“Well Jimmi has a way of undressing girls, using those eyes of....Of Jimmi's”

“Shut up and concentrate!”

Meanwhile, Kory is peering in on them. She has found Rojic, Niall and Karnov in a kind of trance. She urgently calls for Joe-90. “Joe! Something is very wrong with the boys. And Jimmi is slobbering all over the fruit-bowl…..Eeew!”

They try to communicate, but nothing is getting through. Joe-90 tries to get their attention another way. –Still no luck. Kory yells at him. “Communicate at a higher frequency! Hurry! –Oh curse my well-proportioned and voluptuous body, we’re too late!”

Joe-90 tries again. “Even higher frequency!” Kory screams at him.

“But miss, I’m beating them with the stick at over a hundred hertz already!”

Kory looks at Niall. She considers giving his stupid face a kiss, when he wrinkles his nose at her. She turns to Karnov. Not knowing where to kiss him, she turns to Rojic. “Eww! No! –Not again!” She looks around for Jimmi. “Kissy! Kissy! Kissy!” Rojic’s body spasms, his arms and wings flail around. Storm Cutter starts to ascend with the rain, and runs for the inky blackness of space. More shots come streaming in, slamming into the hull. A torpedo has a lock, but to be frank, it won’t be needed. Kory screams in desperation……

In an instant everything happens at once. Jimmi’s date starts to lose cohesion, a ghostly and rather scary looking wraith takes the pace of the lady. Jimmi tries to clear a confused mind, and extricate an abused body from the limbs of the lady. Niall and Karnov punch through the veil of reality, and tear down the walls of the illusion. Rojic cowers in a corner as finally the destructive shots of the enemy ship pierce the superstructure, and Storm Cutter crushes like an egg and explodes in a fiery orange fireball.... Rojic's final scream is cut off mid "Ahhhh.........(deep breath) Aaaahhh..........."

CODA:

The best thing about heaven…. Thinks Rojic….. Is that it isn’t that different from the real world. There is sky and warming sunshine and the most exquisite angels. Here comes one now…..

Karnov looks blankly ahead of him. Parts of his vision slowly swirl and then coalesce into trees and leaves and sweet fresh air.

Jimmi lies on the floor, sensing the slow ebb and flow of the force. No wishing to disturb it, Jimmi decides just to relax and enjoy the afterlife.

Niall holds his head. “Is this the afterlife.”

A metallic voice intones “Afterlife sir, no sir. Welcome back. Would you like some treatment?”

“I’m having no treatment!” Niall struggles to his feet. His vision makes him giddy. “Instead of a light place I see a great big green place….”

“That’s the result of the sickness. Your blindness is temporary….”

After a few moments more, all the crew are reunited. They are still sitting around the table on Kashyyyk. Tisha Luce is still in her meditation. They would go for a group hug, but no-one wants to hug Jimmi who is still mouthing kisses at an unseen lady friend.

“What happened?”

“We shared a group dream. A nightmare. A distorted fabrication of reality.”

Rojic yells, “It’s all her fault! She drugged us!” He points to the Jedi Mistress still sitting trance-like at the table. He winds up to full fury mode and draws a blaster. An instant later several force powers fire off and the blaster is wrenched from Rojic’s hand. He is held back using the force, despite beating his wings with all his might. He resorts to the last line of attack, and a string of expletives burst from his mouth.

“Why you little……..”

The others hold him back until his rage starts to subside and his strength to ebb. Niall feels in his pocket for something. “What’s up?” Karnov asks.

“The carbuncle! -It’s gone!”

NEXT EPISODE: 'A new director....'

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Footnotes:

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