Dead or Alive

by Rust

Chapters

[Chapter 1] - Scum and Villainy
[Chapter 3] - No Disintegrations
[Chapter 4] - Bounty Hunter
[Chapter 5] - Into A Wretched Hive
[Chapter 6] - Nopony Cares If You Upset A Droid
[Chapter 7] - Someone Move This Walking Carpet
[Chapter 8] - The Force Is Strong With This One
[Chapter 9] - Knightfall
[Chapter 2] - Beyond the Outer Rim

[Chapter 1] - Scum and Villainy

D E A D ~ or ~ A L I V E

An MLP:FIM fanfiction by:R U S T

~~with editing and proofing by his pet cat~~

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

STAR WARS

DEAD OR ALIVE

The Galactic Empire is ascendant. The Jedi have been all but destroyed by Order 66, the merciless hunt led by Emperor Palpatine and his dark apprentice, Darth Vader. And yet, the Sith Lords still sense a great power in the Force, sequestered away far beyond the charted space lanes. Beyond the beyond, something lurks.

Imperial probes sent to this blackest of deserts made a startling new discovery -- an entire world, attuned to the ebbs and flows of the Force. The Emperor has decided that this new planet, and all its inhabitants, would submit under the banner of the Empire or face utter annihilation.

To this end, he has summoned the galaxy's greatest bounty hunter, the mysterious Boba Fett, to kidnap the leader of Equus and deliver her to the Empire to be used as a bargaining chip for the fate of her planet...

Chapter 1: Scum and Villainy
by: Rust

Liliat Sector, Komra System, Aboard the Trading Station Ba-2456, in orbit over the planet Tyto...

Heavy boots thudded against the floor in an ominous rhythm, echoing through the stillness of the dark, powerless hallway, lit only from the light of the nearby star shining through the observation windows. Through the shafts of silver light that cut through the blackness, an armored figure slipped in and out of view as it steadily made its way to the reinforced blast doors at the far end of the hallway.

It paused before the door, rubbing the barrel of its blaster carbine as if in thought. About two meters tall, the figure struck a grim image. It wore a ancient, battle-scarred suit of beskar, Mandalorian armor, faded green with yellow pauldrons. A frayed, shortened cape hung behind it and a string of Wookie scalps dangled from one shoulder.

A gloved hand reached out and politely knocked on the heavy door; one, two, three times.

After a moment's pause, the entryway rolled to the side with a mechanical hum and the screech of metal on metal.

An ugly face poked out of the threshold, followed by the rest of the creature. A Toydarian, with a bulbous midsection and constantly flapping insecticidal wings. He spread his arms wide. "Ey, my friend! It is good to see you again, yes? What brings you to Battro's post?" Battro waved the figure inside. "Come, come, we talk more."

The Toydarian ambled through the room, which was cluttered with piles upon piles of parts and pieces from every possible origin. Droid, starship, or simple machine, most everything found itself passing through Battro's wares room at one point or another along the journey from the factory to the scrapyard. Battro chattered as he wove his way through the debirs.

"It's been a while since I last see you! Battro remembers these things, you know. What was it you buy again? Ah! Trip mines. Duraplast shrapnel. Proximity trigger, I am thinking." The figure behind him remained silent, picking its way carefully, lest it upset one of the many leaning towers of junk.

In a hidden pocket of the room was a small booth, covered with the fetid remains of what seemed to be the remains of meals from now until the last year. Battro sat down on one side and swept this all away with a loud clatter. "You sit now, yes? We talk business."

The figure slid into the seat across, the jetpack strapped to its back causing it to have to lean forward a bit.

"So, what can Battro do for you,?" asked the trader. "Battro has all kinds of things you might enjoy for use. A new shipment of darts came in last cycle. Ackalay venom. Very potent. One dart will drop a bull bantha in mere seconds." He held up a vial of darts and rattled them about. "Fifty credits per dart. But for you? Battro can go forty."

The figure made no motion to reply. The black, T-shaped visor on the helmet remained fixed upon the Toydarian. Battro could see his reflection in it.

"No? All right, he plays hard to get. Battro can work with this." Battro dug into a sweat-stained pocket and removed a small, squashed looking hunk of metal. "Starship tracker. Imperial-class. Top notch, won't even find this on the black markets. Effective to almost 50,000 light years; that's half the known Galaxy!"

Again, there was no response. Battro had to resist the urge to shiver.

"Okay," Battro consented. "You caught me. I have been holding back, the best wares for the best customer, eh?" He flitted across the room and rummaged around in a junk heap for a moment, before returning and placing an item upon the table, a cylinder measuring around a foot in length, covered in rusting grip and a couple buttons. "Lightsaber. Antique. One of those old Outer Rim types sold it to Battro when he was just starting out. The energy crystal is missing, but, well, you know what these babies can do!" He chuckled.

"No." The figure finally spoke. "I need a Force Inhibitor. As powerful you can make it. Twenty thousand midichloria, bare minimum."

Battro recolied. "One of those!?" he shouted, then lowered his voice, "one of those? I haven't seen one of those since the Clone Wars," he hissed. "That kind of tech has been blackmarked for years. Nobody who deals that stuff survives long without the Empire coming down on them like they pissed on the Emperor's robe. You can get sent to an asteroid prison for life, just for talking about them."

The featureless helmet remained utterly impassive.

Battro tried to stare it down, but all he could see was himself, glaring imperiously back. "What would you even use one for?" he demanded. "Are you hunting Jedi, is that it? Battro knows these things. You don't want to mess with those guys!" He pointed an accusing finger at the broken lightsaber on the table. "There's a reason they were wiped out. Got too powerful, too strong for their own good."

"I'll pay double."

Battro paused for half a heartbeat. "No."

"Triple."

"No. Battro will not do this, even for you, his best customer."

"Five times the going rate."

At first, Battro thought he had misheard. His sweaty brows furrowed. Now that was a lot of credits. Enough to let him retire, possibly... But for this kind of money to be thrown around so callously, something big must be going down. And for Boba to be able to use it for bribing a merchant? There was something underneath the surface of this deal, and Battro did not like it.

"And if Battro turn that amount down?"

"Then I take it, and blow the place to atoms." The figure crossed its arms. "Your choice."

Battro felt a trickle of sweat slip down his back. It wasn't from the heat, no, he felt icy cold. It was from the fact that he knew the figure sitting across from him would follow through on the threat, and give absolutely not one second of doubt about it. Hell, the station was probably already rigged to explode.

"Fine. Battro can sell you one. And one only, because it is all Battro owns." He narrowed his eyes. "But only for one condition." The figure made no move to deny that request, so he continued. "You must tell Battro what you intend you use it for, Boba Fett. Battro will not have his conscience at risk by sending his old friend's son off to die on some foolish mission for some old Jedi scum."

Boba Fett, the greatest bounty hunter in the known Galaxy, and quite possibly the most lethal being outside of the Dark Lords, shrugged his armored shoulders.

"Just the usual."

"The usual don't require Force Inhibitors strong enough to bring Vader to his knees." Battro glared at the reflective visor. "You aren't hunting Jedi, that is clear to Battro."

"You're right, I'm not."

Try as he might, the Toydarian couldn't wring any more information from the stubborn bounty hunter. He admonished himself for even trying; Fett's iron will was renowned from here to Courasant. With a bit of grumbling, Battro delved into the mounds of junk until he found the object of his search; a reinforced safe, to which the combination for only he knew. A few expert spins of the dial, and the door swung open.

The Force Inhibitor, for what it was, didn't look very impressive. A simple, finger-sized device, attached to an adjustable belt of cortosis metal, which, outside of Fett's Mandalorian beskar suit, was some of the toughest in the Galaxy. "Put that on a Force-wielder, and they wouldn't be doing anything special anytime soon," he announced upon procuring it for Fett.

"The trick is getting it on in the first place, then." Boba Fett took the item and callously slung it over one shoulder, before picking his way back through the doorway. "Your credits are waiting in the hangar."

Battro was stumped for a moment. Fett had already set out the payment? He had known... Battro had folded like a deck of cards, and the damned bounty hunter had foreseen it.

"Like father, like son!" he called after the retreating figure.

Battro then began to think about just exactly what he'd spend his newfound wealth on. He was several hundred thousand credits richer, he had gotten rid of his most illegal piece of contraband, and Boba Fett had just walked out of his shop without disintegrating him.

Today was a good day for Battro.

Boba Fett entered the solitary hangar of the Toydarian trader's space station. The only thing in the room, his signature vessel lay comfortably in the tight berth; a Firespray-31 patrol and attack craft, one of six ever made. With a class 3.0 hyperdrive and blaster cannons powerful enough to scrape the paint off a Star Destroyer, it was twenty tons of pure, unadulterated aggression in starship form. Pound for pound, the Slave I was one of the most dangerous ships in the space lanes.

Even more so, with the few personal touches Fett had installed.

The gangplank was already lowered, and Boba entered the craft, comforted by the familiar sights and smells. He had inherited her from his father, just one more piece of a mighty legacy to carry on. Boba allowed himself to remember all the adventures he'd had in this ship, if only for a moment.

The helmet scraped his ears as he pulled it over his head. Boba scowled, lines etching his craggy, chiseled face. It was said that the number of beings who had seen that face could be counted by with the fingers of one hand of the average Human. He set the helmet on a peg just inside the spacious cockpit, before sitting down in the well-worn seat that had offered views to some of the most incredible sights the universe had to offer.

The Slave I's ion engines warmed up with a gentle throb. Boba's experienced hands guided her out of the now empty hangar, and set a vector for the nearest safe jump point.

But as the ship smoothly slid away, Boba Fett dug around in his pocket before removing two cylinders, the first being the lightsaber from Battro's shop, and the other being a detonator for the gratuitous amounts of explosives he'd set in the derelict space station. He carelessly tossed the lightsaber into a compartment, where it joined almost a score of others, old relics from his Jedi-hunting days. He then put his thumb over the detonator.

"Sorry, Battro. Can't leave a trail for this one."

The space station lurched, then sparked into a small star as the explosives went off. The Toydarian had served him well, the least he deserved was a quick death, and a happy one at that.

The Slave I entered the jump point some moments later. With an audible whine and the press of a few buttons, the powerful hyperdrive warmed up. Boba threw the switch. There was a sickening lurch of acceleration, and then the view outside the cockpit dissolved from the carpet of stars into a multitude of white streaks.

Boba Fett flicked on the autopilot, put his arms behind his head, leaned back in his chair, and fell asleep.

[Chapter 3] - No Disintegrations

DEAD OR ALIVE

Chapter 3: No Disintegrations
By: Rust

Hyperspace, aboard the Slave I, destination unknown, current course unknown...

The gentle whine of the hyperdrive was a soothing sound for Boba Fett. Its presence meant he was moving, and at a pretty damn good rate at that. It meant that he was making progress. It sounded like accomplishment. Boba like to think he had accomplished something at the end of the day other than be the stuff of nightmares for every fugitive, rebel, and VIP from Tatooine to Tython.

Out of his armor, now, Boba allowed himself to partially relax. It could be said that the bounty hunter never truly let his guard down, and there was truth to this. His muscles were always somewhat tensed, like coiled springs ready to release. This twitchiness had saved his life on more than one occasion.

With the autopilot on, and the destination from Vader's instructions safely programmed, Boba took the time to hit the shower stall. The recycled water aboard the Slave I always carried a sort of metallic scent to it. He tried not to think about his own contributions to the supply as he let it spill over his shoulders.

Boba stretched, examining himself for any wear and tear that the life of a bounty hunter tended to risk. He was of average height for a human, but well-muscled like his father, with tannish-red skin, scarred here and there by all manner of blaster bolts, vibroblades, and fangs. Steely brown eyes gazed stoically back from under a wet, shaggy mop of jet-black hair that topped his head, tinged gray around the sides. Aside from the crags barely deepening in his stony, chiseled face, it was the only sign of him aging at all.

Boba had to hand it to the Kaminoans. They really knew how to build a body.

With that notion, he snorted and leaned against the wall, rubbing his face with wet hands for a moment, as if washing away his thoughts.

He still couldn't really believe it, even now.

It was too good to be true, of course.

Trust no-one. His father was right. He was always right.

And yet...here he was. Quite possibly about to begin the first step in a long climb to the top of the ziggurat, where the Empire would be waiting with a sacrificial knife, a taste for blood, and a one-way trip back to the ground.

He rubbed his temples. The risk was high, of course. He was used to that. He was a bounty hunter; death was an occupational hazard. But the reward...oh, the reward. It was so, so much higher. The stakes were utterly ridiculous, even for his exorbitant prices.

Boba thought back to that day, two weeks ago by now, when he had answered the summons of a Sith Lord and gotten the offer of a lifetime.

An offer that would either make him...

...or break him.

Liliat Sector, Tantalus System, aboard the Executor-class Star Dreadnought Executor, deep space...

The Emperor's personal chambers were sumptuous, to say the least. Aboard the city-sized cruiser, many of the Empire's elite had invested in rather ostentatious --not to mention out of line with protocol-- living quarters. After all, they'd be spending much of their time here in service to the Emperor, why not do it in style?

The Emperor himself was not aboard the Executor, at the moment. The popular rumor with the crew was that he'd gone off to oversee the construction of some goliath new superweapon, thought to be a spacer's worst nightmare. The darkest whisperings hinted at the possibility of a planet killer, though such suspicions were likely far-fetched.

A deep, steady, mechanical wheezing emanating from the fearsome man standing where the Emperor should have been.

Instead of Palpatine, none other than Darth Vader himself stood by the throne when Boba was ushered in by two of the crimson-armored Imperial Guard. The Dark Lord of the Sith looked particularly menacing as he waited on the raised dais, almost seven feet of shining black metal, capped with the imposing full helmet that had become the symbol of fear and oppression throughout the Empire. He radiated with power, a palpable tingle that filled bystanders with simultaneous feelings of dread and awe.

Then again, this was a normal impression to get from Vader.

Boba Fett found himself halted in front of the dais, the two guards flanking him on either side. The bounty hunter had been permitted to keep his weapons, a policy almost unheard-of for the tight security of the ship.

Darth Vader stomped down the steps and all but crushed the button to the holoprojector, launching straight into the details. If there was any one thing that Boba could say he liked about the Dark Lord, it was that he never, ever minced words. Given the many jobs he'd worked for (and occasionally against) Vader, Boba had racked up an impressive history with the Sith.

Vader's altered voice filled the room with a breathy baritone. "Ten days ago, Imperial probes sent to the farthest reaches of the Outer Rim made a discovery." A shimmering blue orb suddenly sprang into being in the center of the room. Boba could make out landmasses, cloud formations, even an ice cap, as the hologram slowly rotated before them.

"A new planet, formerly unknown," announced the hulking cyborg. "Inhabited by intelligent, sapient life. They have a low level of technological advancement, a peaceful culture, and are not yet a spacefaring species. The Emperor has decided that this new world, especially the populace, will be a valuable asset to the Empire."

The view on the planet zoomed in to a specific point on the largest continent, which appeared to be a city of spiraling towers built right into the side of a mountain. "This is where you come in, bounty hunter. Your mission is to abduct the acting ruler, and deliver them to me." A trio of pictures popped up, containing somewhat blurry images of the target.

It was like nothing he'd ever seen before. A brilliant white, it was of a tall, slender, four-legged disposition, sporting a pair of enormous, feathery wings and a spiraling horn jutting from the forehead. It was vaguely equine, though the graceful face was more compact, with a much shorter snout and large, intelligent eyes. A ethereal substance made up the mane and tail, and looked as if someone had caught the primary colors of a beam of sunlight and warped them into a physical presence.

He tore his eyes away from the images. "How much?" he asked gruffly.

"You will receive a commission of ten million credits, and ninety more upon completion."

At first, he thought Vader must have been joking. One hundred million credits. Enough money to purchase a small star system, let alone an entire fleet! No. This was too good to be true. Nobody was stupid enough to offer that much for a simple snatch-and-grab. Boba didn't really care why he was doing it, he didn't get paid to ask questions, after all, but he needed to know the terms before the contract was signed. All the terms.

"What's the catch?"

Vader took a moment before responding. "The inhabitants of the planet are highly Force-sensitive. It is as if the Force is a literal part of them. Several of our scanners were overloaded simply by proximity. It will not be easy to take the ruler if they have any knowledge of how to use their power. There can be no killing," Vader added firmly. "No disintegrations. We need the target alive this time, and delivered as discreetly as possible."

Boba was no stranger to the power of the Force. His own father, who had been even more accomplished of a bounty hunter, had been easily slain by Mace Windu, a Jedi Master, during the opening battle of the Clone Wars. Jango Fett had often told his adoptive son about the perils of facing such a foe. Darth Vader was a Sith, who used the Dark Side of the Force just as effectively, if not more so, than any Jedi. He didn't pretend to understand the strange power, and he'd never masked his disdain for those who used it. And now an entire species of the damned sorcerers had been discovered!

His hatred for the mysterious power warred with his desire for glory, to establish a legacy to make his father proud. In the end, the ambition won out. The payoff was not really in credits, but in legend. Pull this job off, and he'd go down in history as the greatest bounty hunter of all time. The one who faced an entire world of powerful Force-wielders and walked away with their leader.

The money was just a bonus, really.

"I'll do it," he finally said. "And when I come back, I'll be paid double." Might as well go for broke. He leaned in towards Vader. "And the next time you want my help, it'll cost you triple." He offered a hand to the towering figure. "Do we have a deal?"

Vader met his armored gauntlet with one of his own, swallowing Boba's hand in a painful, crushing grip. The two masked men stared each other down, neither backing down an inch.

"We do."

It was hard not to stare as the ship slipped out of hyperspace. Out of the nothingness, a planet sprang up, instantly growing from the size of a pinhead until it filled half the cockpit view. Boba allowed himself a small whistle. He wasn't a man to take inklings for the finer things in life, but he could appreciate beauty when he saw it.

And the world was beautiful indeed. Forests and plains, greener than those of Naboo, streaked across the surface. Might mountains reared their heads, tearing through the clouds in some places. Small, clear oceans separated the landmasses kissing the ice of the poles and the sands of the tropics alike.

It struck him deeply sometimes, how impossibly vast the galaxy was. The oldest spacers though they'd seen it all, but there was always something new to be discovered where nobody had dared to go before. Out here was no exception, the farthest he'd (or anyone else, come to think of it) ever been from the Core Worlds.

The sensors bleeped spasmodically. He pressed a few buttons, and the ship spat out some data.

He eyed the planet warily.

"No orbit?" he growled. A few more buttons were pushed, this time with a little more force. He glared at these as they flashed across the cockpit. The information they spewed was utterly inconceivable.

Apparently, the local star was the one orbiting the planet and its small moon. A star with only... he had to do a double-take. The star held less mass than the planet. Smaller in diameter, too. Much smaller. Both the moon and the sun held a perfect orbit around this confounding hunk of rock. How was that even possible? Stars needed a critical mass before the nuclear fires within began brewing. Everything about this was wrong -- it violated scientific laws like Boba violated the brain cavities of his foes.

And yet, there it was. A planet where it shouldn't exist, in a system that defied reasoning. An impossibility made real.

He scowled. The Force had a hand in this, he just knew.

The cockpit chair swiveled around as Boba adjusted the Slave I's scanners for a more close-up view, before igniting the thrusters with an intent to cautiously enter orbit around the planet. As he circled the strange world from high above, the bright hues of the day gave way to the ebony richness of night. Here and there, a few pinpricks of light shown out on the continents. He focused the scanners on the largest one.

It was a city, that much he could make out. Apparently, the naitives were intelligent enough to have a civilization. It was very close to a nearby mountain, almost on top of it. With nothing to guess about the culture of the life-forms below, he went with the usual spacer's rule of thumb when negotiating landings on unknown worlds; the brightest of lights house the highest of life. There was a good chance that was the planet capital, or at least the capital of a country. Either way, that was his destination.

Somewhere far, far below, his target lay blissfully unaware.

And he wouldn't have it any other way...

[Chapter 4] - Bounty Hunter

Chapter 4: Bounty Hunter
By: Rust

Unknown sector, unknown system, unknown planet...

Something was wrong.

Very, very wrong.

Perched atop the diarchial seat, Princess Luna felt it, a disturbance in the ebbs and flows of energy that permeated the land. Her hackles rose unbidden. Narrowed eyes scanned the shadowy recesses of the throne room.

Smoothly, the dark alicorn rose from her position and stomped down the steps. The shafts of moonlight spearing through the grand windows seemed to tremble.

The petitioner who had been droning on for the last half-hour about the various shortcomings of the railroad system voiced his protests. “Your Majesty, this is most improper to ignore a request of the people. There is a serious problem we’re dealing with at the moment!”

She whirled about, glaring down at him with all the authority of the divine.

“...Eep!”

The Princess resumed her path.

Yes, something was very wrong, indeed. The question was, what?

The huge double-doors leading into the barracks were shoved open like toys as the she stalked into the dimly-lit hallways of the Palace at night. Princess Luna took it all in at a glance, the bunks lining the walls and the large open area within filled with tables. Some of her off-duty guard were playing cards, others eating. Celestia’s golden paladins had their own barracks. Here, the night reigned supreme. The usual undertone of activity was silence as the troops noticed the presence of their commander.

“Majordomo. Present thyself,” she barked.

A dark splotch of shadow detached itself from the wall, taking the form of a black stallion, armored in pale purples and blues. The leathery wings of his order hung at his sides. He saluted crisply.

“Report,” commanded Luna. “Have there been any disturbances at the gates?”

“None, m’lady.”

“Sightings along the walls?”

“None, m’lady.”

“Hmmm. The high-altitude team, have they noted anything out of sorts?”

“No, m’lady. The night has been peacefully quiet.”

She scoffed. “Too quiet. Something is amiss, we sense. The shadows stare back tonight, Majordomo, and none of our own are doing the staring. Double the patrols. Turn away all other petitioners for the remainder of the night and ensure that Celestia is not disturbed until morning.”

Her Majordomo cocked an eyebrow. “All this from a sense of unease?”

Luna’s eyes flashed in the darkness. “An eon of experience has given us the foresight to abide by these inklings, Majordomo. No matter how trivial, ‘tis better to be safe than sorry. One such premonition of dread was ignored... and because of that, we spent a millenium sealed within yonder moon. Question our instincts again, and you will be demoted on the spot.”

He bowed low, scraping his wings against the floor. “Of course. My apologies. Your wishes are my command. I’ll see to it at once.” The stallion retreated back into the shadow, where he melted away into nothingness.

Gone was the Luna the castle had slowly come to know. Replacing this figure was the cold, calculating Luna. The Luna of olden days, the one that had taught Equestria’s enemies to fear the night.

There could be no mistakes tonight. Not now, not after so long. She was just beginning to earn the love and respect of her subjects. An error at this stage would not be suffered. Only weeks ago had the whispers of “Nightmare Moon” ceased echoing around the Palace.

Her form dissolved into a streak of starlit smoke, zipping out the doors and speeding through the castle. Faster and faster she went, ascending the tallest tower, where at the very top, her observatory awaited. Until recently, it hadn’t seen much use, until Luna had made it one of her preferred haunts.

The streak of smog solidified as it arrived upon the tower balcony, forming into the shape of an alicorn mid-stride, as if she’d been merely trotting the entire way. She came to rest at the railing and peered out into the night.

Yes. Something was wrong. Very wrong.

Boba Fett allowed himself a moment to collect his thoughts as he looked through his carbine scope. It was an E-33, with a shorter, stubby barrel, and far more powerful than the average Stormtrooper loadout.

She's in there, all right.

The hologram had burned an image into his mind. He knew what his target looked like, and the stained glass adorning many of the building’s windows showed her in vibrant relief. For a non-spacefaring race, these creatures had managed to build a very impressive city. Their buildings seemed to defy nature itself, and Boba was sure the architects of Coruscanti skyscrapers would turn green with envy at the very sight.

There was another one of her kind, perched atop the tallest of these towers. Midnight blue, instead of snow white. Boba was sure that she was looking right at him. Then he checked the range on the scope again. No, that was impossible. There was no way she’d be able to see him almost a kilometer away, shadowed in the recesses of the mountain the city was built upon. The Slave I was well-hidden on the opposite face. Not a soul knew he was here.

Still, his HUD’s crosshairs hovered over her forehead, right where the horn met skull.

After a moment, he snorted to himself. It was time to move out. Holstering the carbine across his back, he checked his remaining weapons.

A veritable armory accompanied the bounty hunter’s person. The signature rocket gleamed from its mounting atop his jetpack. A collapsible grenade launcher, a two sidearm blasters, and his wrist-mounted darts were the main stables of his arsenal. Mines, smoke grenades, and other various explosives were in accompaniment. As a precaution, he had even taken one of the many lightsabers in his collection, a last-resort weapon he’d found useful when hunting Force-sensitives. He was no Jedi Master, but it would serve for a nasty surprise.

Vader could eat reek dung, as far as he was concerned. Lethal force was always an option. Still, the normally toxic darts on his wrist had been dipped in the powerful sedative he’d picked up at Battro’s station. These would be his first choice, at least until something needed to die.

Violently.

And preferably in an explosion.

Boba crept out from the cave and began descending the mountain side, using his helmet’s electronics to send a quick query to the Slave I to make sure she was set for a quick escape. She was.

Good.

Under the cover of darkness, Boba Fett entered the city.

Moving quickly, yet with the stealth only years of experience could bring, he began negotiating the twisting streets. He kept to the shadows and alleyways. There was nary a life form about, save him.

Traveling by rooftop wasn’t an option. Through his scope, he’d noticed that some of the creatures were flying about, completing circuits around his target’s lair. With the aerial superiority in their hands, he’d have to rely on his own two feet. At least for now.

He paused as he arrived at a large road, which seemed to serve as a main thoroughfare for the city. Now deserted, save for a duo of the guards he’d seen patrolling the walls. They were currently investigating something on the other side of the road, their backs to him.

Boba took a moment to observe the creatures. Quadrupedal in nature, though he’d seen others with wings or horns. Only the target, and the dark one atop the tower, seemed to possess both. They both wore blue clothing, endowed with silver badges. Perhaps they were some sort of enforcers?

An unfamiliar language drifted through his helmet’s audio receptors. It was filled with brays, grunts and whinnies, and the occasional click of the tongue. Basic, but incomprehensible for his ears or the helmet’s translator software.

Seeing no other way to cross the wide road, Boba reasoned that he’d have to neutralize them. He grinned. Might as well have some fun with this.

“Pst. Dodge, did you hear that?”

Her partner turned away from the window of the darkened bakery, where the day’s culinary delights were still on display. “Hmm?”

The policepony was soundly bopped over the head with a nightstick. “Get away from there, we’re supposed to be on the beat. I know we don’t usually work a night shift, but something’s got the Dark Lady on edge.”

“Yeah, and I got pulled out of the station to be here,” Dodge grumbled. “‘To serve and protect,’ Cherry. From what? The boogeymare?” He flailed his hooves about. “OooooOOOOooooo...”

Cherry huffed. “Well, I don’t like it either. In case you haven’t noticed, I totally had an eye on that officer running the hoofprint station. Just five more minutes and I’d have convinced him to...” she trailed off, her ears twitching.

“Cherry-” Dodge began. He was silenced by a hoof smushing his lips together.

Cherry was utterly still, save her ears swiveling madly about.

“Shh. There it is again!” She abruptly charged across the road, brandishing her nightstick.

“Hold on, hold on! Wait up!” Dodge was after her in a heartbeat. “What did you hear?!” He chased her into the alley, swallowed up by the darkness. “Cherry? Where’d you go?”

There was no answer.

Dodge narrowed his eyes, squinting through the gloom. “If this is another one of your lame pranks... it’s not funny. In the least.”

Still nothing.

“Cherry, I swear to Celestia’s pearly flanks. You’re really freaking me out right now,” muttered Dodge. Despite himself, a trickle of cold sweat broke out along his brow.

Something moved to his left. “Gah!” He whirled, shining his flashlight at it.

A monster leapt out of the shadows, covered in filth and rubbish.

“ABOOGABOOGABOOGA!” it roared.

“AAAAIIIEEEE!” screamed Dodge, cowering backwards as the monster charged forwards, seemingly dissolving as...

...Cherry’s face peeked out from under an abandoned mop, laughing hysterically. “Ahahahaha! Classic! Oh, that was just perfect. You should have seen your face. And that scream! That has got to be the best one I’ve ever. Ever. Uh... Dodge. Dodge?”

Dodge wasn’t paying attention to her. His gaze was fixed where his shaking flashlight was aimed. Utter horror played across the stallion’s eyes.

“Dodge, I am totally not going to fall for that.”

She heard something move behind her.

“Dodge... real funny. Cut it out.”

“N-n-n-not... m-m-m-me,” Dodge managed to stammer.

Cherry scoffed. “Uh-huh. This is the oldest trick in the book. Look, I know you’re feeling a bit cross with me after I pulled that on you, but this is just sad.”

A rough, cloth-like texture suddenly wrapped itself around her throat. It tightened into a viselike clamp.

“Oh, look. Here’s new twist to it. All right, I’ll give you props for thi—hurrrrghghh!”

Boba allowed himself a rare laugh.

“That one never gets old,” he murmured to himself as he prowled through the streets.

So far, the mission had been child’s play. He found himself somewhat disappointed. Weren’t these all supposed to be powerful wielders of the Force? Vader’s briefing had led him to expect an entire planet filled with the damned sorcerers.

Gradually, the city’s architecture began to change as he neared the grand keep at the center. The urban symmetry gave way to artistic spires and small parks, mottled here and there by the seemingly random changes in elevation. The city appeared to be constructed on a series of circular platforms jutting out of the mountain itself. Like some sort of high-altitude flower, really, if viewed from below.

It also meant less cover. Boba found himself taking more and more sprints across open areas, keeping to the shadows as best he could. At one point, he found himself dangling upside-down three stories up by his grappling hook, as a pair of patrols passed each other underneath him.

Boba was no fool. The fewer that saw him, the better. He only sacrificed stealth unless no other alternative presented itself, and when that happened, he met the situation with pure, focused aggression.

The passing of time soon found him in the safety of a tree, eyeing a mighty white wall that encircled the keep.

As he watched, a patrol neared. A drawbridge was lowered by the massive portcullis, and two more of the creatures, these with horns, greeted them.

A short conversation was held, before the two horned ones pointed their sharp appendages at the gates themselves. Boba’s eyes widened as their horns alit, and the entire gate began to rise by its own ghostly accord.

His HUD shimmered a little as he centered it around the figures. Sure enough, he detected a significant energy output, though the source of which was unknown. He knew well enough what it was, though. The lightsaber at his waist seemed to hang heavy.

So, the ones with horns are the Force-wielders. I’ll pay them special attention.

The bounty hunter took stock of the situation. That gate was going nowhere, not without the two horned ones to lift it. There were no terminals to hack, no computers to override. Not once had he seen electronics of any kind during his hunt through the city. Even the streetlights were powered by strange, glowing crystals or basic fire. Guards walked the wall like clockwork, and the flying ones were doing their own, seemingly random patrols.

Boba drummed his fingers along his helmet, reaching a decision.

It seemed that stealth would not be able to allow him access to the castle. Something had wound the creatures up tighter than a smuggler in his bolt-hole. Which meant that Boba was going to have to get into that place the hard way. Boba rather liked doing things the hard way. It was more his style, a trait that set his work apart from his father's.

Just another day on the job, he thought almost happily, as he sent the signal to the Slave I. There were now ten minutes before he would be able to make his exit. He just had to make sure he was ready when the time came.

Still though, to make an exit, you first have to make an entrance.

The HUD brought up one of the castle windows, tracing it to him with an arcing, dashed line. He grinned as his helmet’s computer routed the trajectory to the powerful device strapped bolted to his back. It growled, an audible hum of heat and noise.

He let fly. His jetpack roared to life, launching him screaming into the sky; up, up, and over the wall, past the dumbfounded faces of the patrols, the gatekeepers, and the fliers.

He offered them a cheeky wave as he whipped by.

CRASH!

The bounty hunter smashed through the window and carried onwards. A pristine tiled floor reared its head at him — he cut the jetpack and leaned forward, arms flung out. He rolled into it hard, coming upright onto his two feet and skidding several yards.

He was in some sort of grand throne room. Empty, it seemed. He took stock of his surroundings after sweeping the crosshairs of his darts in an encompassing circle. It was taken in at a glance; it was a large, regal room, with a high vaulted ceiling and magnificent colored windows. One of which now sported a bounty hunter-shaped hole.

Thrilling adventures, short skirts, and impregnable fortresses...

You could say he had a knack for getting into them.

Luna put down the spyglass and was already in the motion of coming about when her lieutenant slithered out of darkened tower. “M’lady. I bring word of an urgent matter,” said the incorporeal figure. “It seems your fears were... reasonable.”

Luna sighed. “Has Discord gone rogue?”

“No, m’lady. We’ve not seen a feather, hair, nor scale from the chimera since shortly after your sister sent him on his way.”

“Then what is the matter?” Luna demanded.

“There’s an intruder in the castle.”

“An intruder? They bypassed the extra patrols?”

Her Majordomo hung his head in shame.

“We see... come, my lieutenant. There’s an uninvited guest that needs to be dealt with. And made an example of, so it seems. Where were they sighted last?”

“At the Throne, m’la—”

Luna’s horn alit with an aura of pale blue. Reality itself was pushed aside as the alciorn shoved a path through space and time. A magnificent bubble of energy had surrounded the two and vanished, faster than the blinking of an eye. Where the majestic view of the observatory’s balcony had been lay the darkened glory of the castle’s throne room.

“—dy?” the Majordomo finished lamely, before the teleportation caught up to him and he staggered, groaning. Non-unicorns simply weren’t used to the sensation of raw ether.

Luna, however, only had eyes for the distant blur of motion as something caught her eye. A scrap of cloth fluttered out of sight and around the corner of the grand portcullis to the throne. She was after it like a bloodhoud. “Halt! HALT!”

Rocketing off the raised dais, she gave chase, whipping around the same corner only to find...

...nothing?

“Majordomo!” she called, after checking both hallways leading away from the scene. “Put the castle on high alert! Nopony leaves, nopony enters. Seal the gates, seal the windows, seal the plumbing if need be.”

Her underling stumbled after her. “S-should we wake Princess Celestia?”

Luna was silent for a moment. “...No. This is my responsibility, and I will see the night through. Now go, make haste.”

He nodded and melted into the nearby shadows.

Luna remained, half crouched and warily peering down either hallway.

“Come hither, come hither, wherever thou art...” she sang to the emptiness.

Somepony had been out here, that was sure enough. If she concentrated, she could still sense the disturbance in the flow, like a great rock had been passed through the tranquil surface of a pond, or how movement disturbs the tranquil flecks within a sunbeam. No. Somepony had certainly been here, and recently. But where had they gone?

Luna stomped a hoof and cast her gaze upwards in a silent plea to the stars, searching for an answer.

Unbelievably, she found him.

Boba Fett dropped from where he had been awkwardly hanging from a chandelier, his blood roaring in his ears. Below, the dark one let loose a cry and made towards him, large wings unfurling threateningly at her sides.

In the span of three heartbeats, he had pivoted mid-air and fired an entire clip of darts. By the time he landed, the upraised wing used to intercept the projectiles greatly resembled a pincushion.

Unbelievably, she remained conscious, though the wing immediately went limp. Boba was genuinely impressed.

Slowly, oh-so-very slowly, it spread to the rest of her body. She managed one step, then two, before collapsing. Her eyes fixed Boba with a look of such incredible wrath that for half a second he was actually tempted to flee right then and there.

In hindsight, he probably should have.

The long horn atop her head sizzled. His scanners beeped a warning, and then he found himself flying down the hallway, hit with such force that he actually bounced several times until coming to a screeching halt with the timely intervention of an ornate pillar. His breath rattled in his ribcage until the world stopped spinning.

“Bloody sorcerers,” he muttered as he rose to one knee, a smoke grenade in each hand. He tossed them at the struggling creature. “Choke on these.” Her figure was swallowed up in a storm of hissing clouds. He tapped a button on his helmet, switching over to thermal vision before charging into the fog.

The bounty hunter slammed a fresh clip of darts into his wrist. His HUD glimmered where the dark one was still thrashing about, coughing as the smoke entered her lungs. It wouldn't kill her, but the tear gas wasn’t pleasant at all to breathe. Meanwhile the tranquilizer had continued spreading, and her entire left side seemed to flop in ungainly motions.

He came down on her like a thunderbolt, slamming his knee into her throat and firing a dart into her face at point-blank range. Then three more between her eyes. The creature shuddered and finally lay still, though his scanners noted that she wouldn’t be down for long. The chemicals in her bloodstream were being neutralized faster than he thought possible. One dart’s worth of the stuff could bring down a bull bantha in seconds. She had been plugged with an entire clip and still managed to fight back.

She wasn’t the target, but Boba regretted leaving such a foe behind. Or alive, for that matter. The glare in those eyes promised terrible vengeance. He stood up, tapping the side of his helmet again.

A holographic map of the fortress sprang up in front of him. He pressed a few more buttons, instructing the computer to sweep the building for others bearing the same sort of signature as the dark one. A few seconds later, and it pinged, a red dot flashing on the sixth floor.

Boba set off at a dead run, tapping his helmet a final time and locking the coordinates within the Slave I’s navigational systems. The dark one was left lying sprawled in a heap. Time was now of the essence.

In the darkness, an eye opened, bright with fury and the half-crazed light that only a thousand years in solitude could do to a pony. A trembling, silver-shod hoof rose, and planted itself firmly onto the floor. The gleaming metal seemed to warp, screeching in protest as it warped and lengthened. Wings spread, a shadowy tinge seeping in from the tips of the feathers, flowing like sickly ink until it encompassed the rapidly-growing body. A black horn sparked, magic snapping and crackling with the promise of retribution.

She rose, and flexed, the tiny silver stingers dropping off her body left and right.

The shadows twisted nearby, and her Majordomo emerged, now flanked by several more of his kind. They fell to their knees at the sight of her. “Your Highness...”

Her mane cracked like a whip as her dark crown morphed into a battle helm the color of steely blue ice. “Majordomo.” Even her voice was as cold and biting as the void between the stars. “Status report.”

“The intruder is on the top floor, Your Highness. Several patrols and chokepoints meant to stop them have been decimated,” said the Majordomo. “There have been... several casualties. Only injuries, though.”

“Good,” his mistress stated.

“Your Highness... are you... well?”

She rolled her head, until a satisfying pop echoed throughout the hallway. Something on the ground caught her attention. Cylindrical, roughly the length of her horn, and metal, it sported several knobs and buttons. A rugged grip covered one half of the length. It must have come off of the mysterious intruder, she mused. Most likely when she'd blown him off his feet. With a shrug of disinterest, she tucked it away into her armored yoke.

“Never better,” declared Nightmare Moon. “In fact... I feel ready for another round.”

Boba’s foot planted itself on the door, kicking it right off the hinges. He stormed in, welcoming the relief from the smoky, charred hallway he’d left behind.

He had to give it to them, they were damn persistent, and refused to go quietly. With the alarm raised, all pretenses for subtly had been abandoned. His dart launcher was nearly exhausted, the two clips for incapacitating the target herself. His armor was dented and scratched in a dozen places, and a nozzle on his jetpack had been torn clean off by one of the winged creatures with a blade.

He spitefully tossed a mine over his shoulder as he strode in, observing the room. This was the end of his trail. If anyone was stupid enough to follow him so far, then they deserved to die. Frankly, he was fed up with having to hold back.

Sumptuously furnished, the room had the distinct appearance of belonging to a life-form that didn’t mind the mess. His scanner pointed him across it, and sure enough, there she lay.

Asleep.

With traces of... was that chocolate frosting on her face?

Despite himself, the bounty hunter’s hand met his visor in the universal gesture of disbelief.

That hand then leveled out and twitched as his dart-launcher coughed repeatedly, spraying her white hide with silver points. Without even pausing, a second clip was shoved into place and subsequently emptied, this one in places his helmet revealed were close to major veins and arteries. He was going to be damn sure that this one wouldn’t get the chance to strike back at him with her damnable powers.

For good measure, he cracked her over the head with his carbine.

And that was that, so it seemed. The leader of the planet lay before him in a slightly-twitching pile of feather and flesh. Behind him, a thoroughly-wrecked building filled with piles of bodies.

All in all, an average day.

KA-THOOOOM!

He was blown forward off his feet, landing atop the prone creature in her bed. Furniture flew everywhere, books were tossed about in a storm of pages, and the windows cracked and shattered in places. Boba head was ringing. That must have been the mine...

...The mine!

He rolled over, his carbine already out and pointing at the door, where a familiar figure stood amidst the smouldering wreckage of the entryway. Surrounding her was a shimmering energy field.

Her appearance might have changed, but those wrathful eyes were instantly recognizable, widened as they were in shock and suprise.

Wait. Why would she have that kind of rea—

Boba looked down to find the light one slumped against him in a tight embrace, snoring loudly. Both were now speckled in cake frosting and sprawled on the tattered sheets. He looked back up at the dark one.

Deep, deep, deep down inside the bounty hunter, he laughed, and he laughed hard.

Boba’s helmet beeped as a dull roar suddenly filled the air. Light and wind began streaming in through the shattered window behind him. It was time to go.

He put his carbine back and fired his grappling-hook out the window, the long length of reinforced cable tensing almost immediately as it hit something. He gave the dark one in the doorway a quick wave, then pressed his helmet one final time holding the limb body tightly against himself.

Outside, several tons of finely-crafted metal screamed to life, as the Slave I went into reverse, dragging the pair right out the window and dangling into empty space. The gangplank was lowered mid-hover as the grappling line simultaneously retracted, pulling them up into the bowels of the ship in one fell swoop.

Now surrounded by the comforting interior of his starship, Boba tossed the limp body onto the floor and slammed the hatch closed, before all-but diving into the cockpit and slamming the thrusters forward as far as they would go.

It took her a full ten seconds to register what was going on as the intruder suddenly crashed through the window, dragging Celestia with him.

An enormous, ugly machine hovered outside, heat and light emanating from underneath. She watched in horror as the pair disappeared within a hole in its hull.

“No. No. No. No. No!” she screeched, coming to her senses. Two powerful wings flared out and pushed, and she exploded out of the ruined chambers as though fired from a cannon. The ghastly machine roared again, its huge bulk defying gravity as it rocketed straight up in a blaze of searing energy.

She was dimly aware of the sound of castle in full alert, ponies frantically running amok, disorganized and leaderless. A fire had caught near the kitchens, smoke billowing out of the East Wing.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no!” She gave chase, rapidly closing the distance. Her wings ached, but that didn’t matter. The pain didn’t matter. All that mattered was her fear, her fear of being abandoned yet again. It gave her strength and sent her screaming upward in hot pursuit.

Black feathers and muscle fought cold steel and fusion.

At breakneck speeds, the ascent was made. Higher, and higher still, they rose, punching holes in clouds and leaving fragments of ice in their wakes. The air turned frigid and thin, though that did little to slow her.

“NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO—!”

A mighty crack tore the sky in half, a silver ring spread outward, and a ghostly trail of white-hot light sped after the dark bullet.

And still, acceleration. She was gaining. The world was now far behind. Dimly, she realized that she’d entered the void, her terror only growing, lending even more strength to her depleted muscles.

“NONONONONONONONOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

An unearthly surge of power surged through her, she emptied her tank in one final beat of her wings, leaving the trail of light behind and ramming straight into the machine, horn first. She stuck fast as it kept going, now wrenching her behind it at speeds even a nightmare couldn’t match.

With the very last trickle of her magic, her horn ignited.

Boba threw the switch, mashing the coordinates screen. Anywhere would do. He just had to get away! That thing was still chasing him!

The hyperdrive whined to life, before coughing as the whole ship rattled. Boba cursed as he was thrown to the floor — something was wrong! The controls flickered and smoked as he was showered in sparks. A panicked glance at the hypderdrive interface revealed the coordinates to be a jumbled mess of numbers.

"You've gotta be ki—"

Before he could cut the power, the ship jumped.

The void around her vanished as she was sucked into oblivion, pulled into the gash in reality by the vehicle. The white stars turned black, and infinity stretched out before her. Mercifully, she was released. Exhausted now, she felt herself drifting away from the hulk of mass, gently tumbling away and out of the bubble.

And then...

...nothing.

Author's Note

This chapter brought to you by the term "cliffhanger." In a related note — Ponies. In. SPAAAAAAAAAACE!

Officer Dodge Charger and his partner, Officer Cherry n' Berries, are the property of the (in)famous MisterMoniker, and characters of their own wonderful story, Ponyville 911.

[Chapter 5] - Into A Wretched Hive

Dead or Alive: Chapter 5
By: Rust

Arkanis Sector, Tatoo System, aboard the Slave I...

Celestia stirred.

Gradually, the alicorn's consciousness performed the walk of shame, bashfully sneaking back where it belonged. Slinking in behind through the open door was a whopper of a headache.

She groaned, rolling onto her back and massaging her temples with her hooves. “In the name of me, what did I do last night?” She slowly opened her eyes to discover a rather unfamiliar ceiling above. It took her another moment to realize that she wasn't lying in her bed, or a bed of any other kind. Instead a cold, hard, metallic floor attempted to conform to her shape, failing miserably.

Celestia bolted upright, abruptly regretting the decision from the resulting head-rush. Somewhere, a soft red light was flashing on and off, keeping in perfect tempo to the throbs of pain emanating from her cranium. Woozily leaning against a wall, she took stock of her condition.

Several small pins clung to her white fur in various places. She shook herself like a dog, sending them to the ground in a rain of silver. Her royal attire was missing, and in the place of the Yoke of Harmony — where once all six of the mighty Elements dwelt— was a white choker of some kind, fitting snug against her throat. A few blue bars on it pulsed with regular frequency.

She gave it strong examination, looking for some sort of release mechanism. It was obvious the jewelry was for more than show, but to what end did it serve? Celestia wasn’t keen on finding out. When no latch of button presented itself to her, she simply ignited her horn and forced it open.

...At least, that’s what was supposed to happen.

Celestia went cross-eyed, staring at the elegant ivory spire jutting from her brow. It was very sore, and it felt like somepony had decided to play the drums on her forehead with a pair of lead pipes for sticks. She tapped it a few times with a hoof.

Nothing.

Well. This certainly complicates things.

She could barely feel her magic, in that deep, burning pit next to her heart. It was an old friend, having been with her since she first ascended, all those eons ago. But that power needed a conduit, flowing throughout her entire body until it reached her horn, where she could shape and twist the flow at will. Such was the nature of unicorn magic.

But something was wrong. The fires that once roared deep inside had withered into dormancy. She tried stoking the flame, her mind pumping the bellows, until she came to the conclusion that her magic was sealed away. Even her mane reflected this, once multi-hued and billowing from her inner power, now it lay flat and dull pink.

She gave an accusing glare to the white choker.

Celestia breathed deeply. She had long ago learned the virtues of discipline, in a much darker period of Equestria’s history. Back then, those who lost their heads... lost their heads. A tide of memories surfaced, stained with the grit of dried blood and creaking gallows. Times had changed indeed. She was proud to have shepherded her little ponies into an era of peace, far gone from the ancient days of disorder and conflict.

Like she had done on countless occasions before, Celestia squashed the memories under a will forged by time itself. It was no use dwelling on the sins of the past when the present required her utmost attention.

Once more calm and collected, she examined her surroundings. Metal, in all directions, with a low, wide bench across one wall. An acrid tang of disinfectant and stale sweat hung about the air. There was a squat toilet in one corner, and only a single doorway into the room. It looked quite strong, and she doubted that she could force it open unless she’d recovered to full strength. The room itself seemed rather small to her, as her horn nearly scraped the ceiling. No doubt constructed for smaller beings.

Above, the red light continued to flare, bathing her in deep crimson before plunging the room into darkness every other second. Her skull clenched in time to the flashes. Her ears swiveled — an omnipresent rumble seemed to emanate from every corner.

Aside from that, there was nothing in the room save one very confused alicorn.

Let me see... I met with the... uh, oh what was his name? Bronze? Brass? Brass Scales, yes. He had some obnoxious title. Nice colt. I offered him a position... then I went flying. That was nice. Should do that more often. Spent some time with Luna, then went to dinner. Blueblood made a fool of himself as usual... Cadence and Armor tried not let me notice they were playing hoofsies under the table...

Something about cake. Sweet, delicious cake. She could faintly taste chocolate frosting in her mouth.

Past that, she had simply fallen asleep.

And woken up wherever... this is.

She began to pace around the room, a habit she’d accidentally passed on to her student. It was five steps long, six steps wide. The movement helped alleviate the thunderous headache. It also helped her think.

Who could have done this? And more importantly, why?

Celestia was under no false impressions about her importance to the realm. There were very few beings capable of regulating the passage of day and night. Aside from her, two others knew the spell; her sister, Luna, and her niece, Cadence. She doubted Cadence had the magical muscle to pull it off, though, not without her husband and the love of the ponies behind her. Maybe Twilight Sparkle... though she’d need to learn the spell first, and adjust to the price it required from the caster.

Celestia shuffled her wings. Yes, it’d taken quite a while to adjust to those. She wondered why they were left unrestrained, as they provided her with a great deal of mobility once out in the open.

Once, long ago, the mages of the Platinum Dynasty had the sacred duty of bringing about the days and nights, and every morning a great conclave of unicorns would gather to perform the ritual. Could the modern day unicorns band together and revive the tradition? Maybe...

Aside from the obvious ramifications of ponynapping and debilitating Celestia, there were the other, hidden ones. Celestia had forged thousands of treaties and alliances over her reign, eventually crafting an intricate spiderweb of power that benefited all other nations through trade and protection, but solidified the ruler of Equestria to the indispensable cement that held it all together.

It was a whispered phrase amongst the halls of Canterlot Castle:

“She seats the throne in Canterlot, yet rules across the oceans.”

And they were right.

Still. Her system worked. She had ten centuries of proof to back it up.

But the question arose — if nopony would benefit from her disappearance, than why was she here? It made no sense. The Nightmare had been shattered upon the altar of Luna’s redemption. A certain renegade changeling queen and her swarm, as well as the resurgent Crystal King Sombra, suffered a similar fate, broken by Cadence and her husband. Discord was busy elsewhere, enjoying his newfound freedom and role in the world.

Celestia had no other known enemies. Those who dared test her stood in memorium about the Gardens. She’d made herself paramount to her government, not to mention several others. In this game, the Princess held all the aces, and she played her cards close.

The only answer she could realize was this; that whomever had placed her in this situation obviously had nothing at stake by doing it. She drew up blanks when she thought of who could possibly benefit from this.

Amidst the pulse of bloody light, her concern deepened.

Paramount now was returning to her little ponies. They were so protective of their Princess, but she adored them with the deep, fierce love of a mother.

Which meant getting out of this cell.

Her course now charted, Celestia shrugged off her melancholy mood and turned her attentions to the door. Still sluggish, she examined the rugged construction with the timing of the flashing strobe. There were no visible handles or mechanisms on the door itself, though there was a sleek metal box mounted on the wall next to it. A small red button on it was flashing in a similar manner to the one over head.

Press the shiny red button. Oh, the irony.

Celestia snorted with amusement, before gently touching her hoof to it. The entire door suddenly shot upwards into the ceiling with a screech, revealing a similarly decorated hallway outside her cell. She arched an eyebrow. Escape wasn’t supposed to be that easy. Most likely, some sort of trap was in store.

She ducked her head through the portcullis and peeked around the corners. More pulsing red light fixtures were upon the ceiling, and cables seemed to be running along the walls. In one place, they were occasionally sparking. Crates and other strange objects littered the passage, seemingly tossed about in an undecipherable manner.

Just then, the floor shifted under her. An audible metallic groan echoed throughout the prison. Celestia stumbled, hooves clip-clop-ing across the floor. Thoughts raced through her mind. She’d experienced that kind of sensation before, on... ships!

She was on a ship, or possibly a skycraft. Which meant that she was either at sea or air. Celestia chose an arbitrary direction — left — and began picking her way down the hall. Every so often she had to duck under an overhanging protrusion, or sidestep a piece of debris.

At the second corner, she heard a noise. Pausing, she let her sensitive ears swivel about. Was... was that breathing? It was faint, but steady. Could it be her captors?

She cautiously peeked around the edge. A small chamber greeted her, with a raised dais in the middle, a thickly cushioned throne of some sort atop this, all surrounded by banks of machines. Their intermittent flickering cast a light on a figure by an enormous, rounded window, slumped against the wall.

Celestia crept across the room. The figure came into view. It was lying on its side, arms and legs skewed as though it had been thrown into the wall by some great force.

At first, she thought it to be some sort of diamond dog or minotaur, judging by the the bipedal nature, but legs were wrong. The paws, as well. Too many fingers, too small. The creature was covered in scarred armor, capped by an imposing helm with a black t-shaped visor. Celestia brought herself close to it, and could see herself in the visor’s reflection. The breath from her nostrils steamed her visage.

So... this must be the... thing... responsible, she mused, drawing back.

For a long moment, she just stood still and stared at the thing, unsure of what to do next. She wasn’t afraid of the creature. Not in the least. Whomever it was, it wanted her alive, that much was evident. For if it wished to kill her, it had the chance when she was helpless, asleep in her cell.

But now, here she was, and it was helpless before her. Celestia looked around. What had happened here? Her head pounded. More questions, less answers.

Another flashing red light on console surround the throne caught her attention. She crossed the room again and investigated the odd furnishing. It was awkwardly shaped, and looked to be uncomfortable for her to sit upon, so she daintily dipped her head and pressed the flashing button with the tip of her horn.

A gentle whine filled the air, and the flashing red strobes ceased. A long, horizontal line of light suddenly came into being on the wall just above the slumped creature. The whine intensified, before the light began expanding upwards, following a curve up to the ceiling. Celestia shielded her eyes from the brilliance.

When she looked again, she realized that it was a giant window, strange symbols flashing here and there about it. Most were red, and blinking.

Through the window, however, was sand.

Lots and lots of sand.

And... by all that was holy, were those two suns in the sky!?

Something cold pressed itself to the side of her head. She smiled, despite the circumstances. The creature was wily indeed, waiting until she was distracted by the view until moving. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw it standing on hind legs, one forelimb raised to point some sort of silver thing at her. Probably a weapon of some sort.

The other forelimb reached out and danced across the consoles, dextrous fingers pressing this figure or that icon. More bangs and rumbles filled the air, and the floor began to tremble just a bit. It finally drew away, all attention now on her.

Nopony moved a muscle.

Eventually, Celestia relaxed, slowly turning to face the creature. She was taller than it, she noted, by almost a full head. To put it at ease, she slowly sat down on her haunches.

The creature made some sort of weird gurgling sound.

Celestia looked at it blankly. “Excuse me?”

More burbling, this time accompanied by some rasping.

It took Celestia a few moments to realize that it was speaking, though in no language she’d ever heard. That fact alone distressed her, though she did not show it. All sentient species knew common Equestrian!

“I’m afraid I don’t understand a word you’re saying,” she eventually said, slowly shaking her head. “But I hope you realize the consequences of your actions nevertheless.”

The creature pointed down the hallway with the silver object, stepping threateningly forward. The message was clear — move it.

“Hmm. Don’t worry, I’ll go along. No need for one of us to do something rash,” she amiably stated. Simply because the creature didn’t speak Equestrian was not complete ground for assuming it didn’t know Equestrian. And it was best to keep talking, to present an aura of amiability.

With a sigh, she rose back to her full height and slowly made her way back through the messy corridor. The creature was a pace behind, and from the corner of her eye she watched it keep the silver thing pointed at her at all times.

“An interesting vessel you keep,” she commented at the disorganized mess. “If a bit untidy.”

The creature grunted, poking her roughly with the object.

Soon enough, they were at her cell again, and the creature escorted her inside before pressing several buttons on the wall console. The flashing red light switched to a clear green. It then turned and faced her — she couldn’t tell where it was looking — and then stalked out as the cell door shut behind it.

Almost immediately, Celestia was at the wall again, poking the buttons with her hooves, trying to summon her friend the Shiny Red Button. The creature must have securely locked her inside this time. That didn’t bother her much, though.

She’d already gotten what she needed.

Hyperspace, aboard the Slave I...

In the space of ten seconds, things had gone from bad to worse. The ship bucked wildly the instant her hyperdrive activated. Boba shielded his face as the cockpit was showered in sparks as several displays short-circuited. A warning klaxon began to blare.

Ignoring the Slave I’s condition for the moment, he quickly leapt out of the chair and staggered back to where his captive lay sprawled in a heap. The floor stubbornly refused to cooperate with where his feet fell. His ship groaned like a wounded animal.

Falling to his knees beside her, he swiftly wrapped the Force Inhibitor around her neck. There. That was one less thing to worry about. With a grunt, he threw the heavy alien over his shoulders and stumbled into the interior of his ship.

By the sounds she was making, he was needed back at the cockpit, and soon. When a fuse box mounted on the wall abruptly exploded in his face, sending him and his cargo to the ground, he knew there was no time to lose.

He punched the door open to the prison cell, all but throwing his prize inside. Her wings splayed out where she fell. He appraised them with a raised eyebrow. He’d have to deal with those at another time.

A minute later, he was sprinting back into the cockpit, vaulting over the back of the chair and firmly planting himself at the helm. His fingers practically flew across the controls, and the Slave I spat a readout of technical data into his helmet’s HUD.

The navigation system had malfunctioned, it said, the instant before he threw the switch to the hyperdrive. Some kind of external power surge... The coordinates he’d originally plugged had been scrambled. They were careening wildly through hyperspace!

He frantically tapped out a series of commands on the nav system, seeking to shut down the drive, and drop out of lightspeed before they collided with a star or were entangled in a gravity field.

The computer blinked red. ‘ERROR,’ it read. ‘HYPERDRIVE NAV SYSTEM DAMAGED.’

Boba put his armored fist clear through the screen.

‘CRITICAL MALFUNCTION. STABILIZATION IMMINENT.’

He was thrown against the restraints as the ship abruptly lost momentum. The alarm klaxons were blaring loud enough to wake the dead.

Through the cockpit window, a planet sprang into view. And it was rapidly approaching. His helmet informed him that he was looking at Tatooine, one of the most backwater cesspools in the galaxy.

His helmet also informed him that the ship was traveling much too fast to slow down in time. Crash landing imminent.

Thinking quickly, He yanked on the yoke, and the careening ship came turned a full about-face as she fell helplessly through the stars. The throttle was mercilessly rammed forward, and the Slave I’s ion engines screamed to life. The effect was immediate. The entire ship rippled and heaved as the contesting forces attempted to win her over, the planet’s gravity well already making it’s grip felt.

“Rrrrrrrrrgghhh!” Boba Fett pushed the throttle down as far as it would go, then further still, bending the metal lever almost completely over. It wasn’t enough. Despite the enormous thrust of her engines, the improper hyperspace drop had left her with too much inertia.

“It never fails,” the bounty hunter grumbled. “I just washed and waxed this thing.” Boba did the only thing left that could be done, activating the ship’s shields to double strength for the rear.

He screamed, a single long roar of defiance, his battle prayer to the beyond.

In the skies above Tatooine, a bolt of light streaked across the horizon, careening high above the air in the skies over the Dune Sea. It was so bright that even in the oppressing radiation of the twin suns, life forms far and wide could see it.

The Slave I touched down several miles outside of Mos Eisley, hitting the desert flats at a shallow angle. Her shields flickered with the impact, but held, as the ship was sent into a dizzying roll, several tons of metal performing an intricate ballet of destruction across the dunes. Boba was immediately ripped from his chair from the impact, and flew across empty space.

The last thing he noticed before the opposing wall claimed his consciousness were the pulsing red warning lights.

Mytaranor Sector, Kashyyyk System, Kashyyyk...

Silence.

Where once the raccous calls of birds and wildlife filled the mighty forest of tall woshyr trees, the purest form of quiet hung about the air. It was as if the land was holding it’s breath for some unspoken climax of tension to be released.

It didn’t have long to wait.

In the deepest, darkest underworld of the forest, a midnight blue hoof appeared over the edge of the mighty crater its owner had carved into the loam. Smoking holes in the gigantic woshyr described the descent of the projectile, striking clean through even the strongest of the trees, some thicker than mountains. If one held position above the forest, they could see straight down this tunnel of carnage, five kilometers down to the floor itself.

The cause of all this destruction seemed rather nonplussed as she inspected the view for herself, staring at the distant pinprick of light visible through the hole she’d carved. The forest was completely dark, save for that shaft of sunlight illuminating her figure.

Princess Luna cracked her neck.

“That hurt,” she finally commented, craning to inspect herself. One of her wings hung awkwardly by her side, dragging uselessly upon the ground. Luna frowned, wincing at the pain of the injury. It seemed broken. She would have to splint it at once, or risk having the hollow wing-bones heal improperly.

Looking around, Luna ignited her horn, levitating a pair of large splinters off the ground. A simple application of magical force and the rough surface was compressed smooth. These would serve for splints. She looked around again, before pulling a length of vine off the trunk of a nearby dead tree. The living plant wrapped the splinters tightly in place, and the wing was immobilized against her side.

Celestia knew some potent healing spells, Luna remembered. Surely...

Celestia.

It all came back to her in a rush.

...Celestia!

The intruder at the palace. The brief, but furious fight. The stinging darts, the subsequent numbness. Her anger transforming her, pulling her out of the darkness, her fear fueling her onwards. Her sister. The flying machine, roaring away into the night sky, she in hot pursuit. A flash of light... and then...

...and then...

...and then?

Luna face fell into a small, grim smile, her eyes closed in an odd sort of amusement.

It seemed she was lost, and her sister as well. She’d no idea where she was, and never before had she seen trees quite this size. Quite plainly, she’d no idea where in Equestria she or Celestia was! Not a single clue was present.

Her mind drifted over last night’s conflict.

Actually, there was a clue.

Her magic dug underneath her peytral plate, pulling out the object the intruder had dropped during their scuffle. The metallic, cylindrical object was the only thing she could go off of. Curious, her aura skimmed the cold surface. What was it? She held it aloft, one end pointed somewhat over her shoulder.

What happened next, nopony could have predicted.

Behind her, a twig snapped.

Quite accidentally, her magic spasmed just a bit, the pale aura pressing down a button on the cylinder’s side. There was a click, a sudden hiss, and a shaft of blue light three feet long erupted from the end she was pointing behind her.

It also served to impale the enormous spider that had been looming behind her right through the face.

...Where did that even come from? she wondered, dazedly looking at the monstrous corpse that twitched on the ground behind her. Casting her eyes about the darkened forest to check for more danger, she then inspected the object.

It emitted a low, powerful hum, the beam of blue light projected almost blinding in the darkness of the forest. It was a bit like a sword, Luna mused, swinging it back and forth a few times. She suddenly whirled and slashed, striking a mighty blow through the trunk of a nearby tree. The scorched crevasse it left gave her an appreciation for the device.

She ran her magic over it again, soon discovering two dials that adjusted the ‘blade’ width and length. She couldn’t resist a grin. While the weapon was no doubt something unique and powerful, a sword just wasn’t her style.

Seizing a fallen somewhat-crooked limb off the ground, she warped the tip with a thought and fused the cylinder to it at a sharp angle, before casting several strengthening spells on the whole thing. She now wielded a curious scythe, a fusion of technology, nature, and magic.

The weapon twirled through the air in her telekinetic grip, and she watched the blue light dance amongst the darkness. Another press of magic, and the ‘blade’ deactivated. She planted the shaft into the ground and cocked it over her shoulder.

“I dub thee... Reaper,” she said. How apt. “You once served another, but now I am your new master. Together, we shall save my sister! ...And take our revenge upon her captor,” she added softly.

A moment’s work later, and Reaper hung between her shoulderblades from a harness of vines. Luna couldn’t help but chuckle a little as her form dissolved into a dark vapor, before vanishing into the gloom of the forest.

Soon birds began to sing again, and beneath the shade of the mighty woshyr trees, life continued.

Author's Note

Yes, this was written scattered throughout the timeline on purpose. Because fuck linear timelines. You should know by now, time isn't straight. It's a big... wibbly-wobbly... timey wimey... oh, you get what I'm saying. And fuck science, too! When hyperdrives and magic collide, it isn't pretty.

Also, to everyone wondering why Boba didn't tie up her wings:

But seriously, though. That'll come into play later.

[Chapter 6] - Nopony Cares If You Upset A Droid

Dead or Alive - Chapter 6
by: Rust

Liliat sector, Tantalus system, aboard the Star Dreadnought Executor...

It was often a subject of mystery among the men, though they dare never breach the details to the source.

What was he?

‘He’ knew how to listen, to more than the hushed whispers he left in his wake, tinged sometimes with awe, sometimes relief, but always with a twinge of fear. They broadcast their emotions across fragile stillness of his mind, much like how a ripple might disturb the perfect surface of a tranquil pool.

‘He’ was a man. Or... what was left of one. Doomed to imprisonment in a suit of life-sustaining armor, he did not know if there were any alive who would recognize the tortured face beneath the iconic black mask. What had been burned away by battle years ago had been replaced with shining metal and sparking circuitry. The only thing that still felt remotely similar to him was the pain the augmentations constantly caused him, in the gaps between flesh and steel. He denied the suit’s administration of numbing medications, however. The dull burn let him know he was still alive, though even his life was no longer his own.

‘He’ was goaded by agony, enhanced by science, and equipped by supernatural rage. The Dark Lord of the Sith was a force of nature that had been put upon a short leash and staked to the ground, a savage dog that needed to be kept away from important guests. Even when his Master let him out to play, there was always a measure of caution in the act of release.

Darth Vader had no intention of biting the hand that fed him.

At least... not yet.

The impressively tall cyborg stood impassively before the holoprojector, arms crossed before his wide, button-encrusted barrel chest. Nobody ever knew what Vader was thinking beneath that legendary visor, and he preferred it that way. Some thoughts were meant to be private.

His subject, the recipient of the holo transmission, was suspended at a crazy angle above the machine, as though the user had to orient himself in a peculiar way as to use it.

Judging by the state of affairs dictated by the flickering phantom, that was exactly the case.

“—chhck. Tatooine... crash landing... damage, but repairable bzzzt...”

“You have nothing to blame but your own incompetence,” he stated bluntly. “Has the target suffered any injury?”

“Frcchht! No, Lord Vader. None that I can tell of.”

“The consider yourself fortunate. If the prize has not been moved to a safe, off-world location, within three days, I will begin moving to secure it myself. You have my warning, bounty hunter. Failure is not a tolerable option.”

He didn’t bother to listen for the reply, instead severing the connection with an irate push of a button. After a moment of simply staring at the empty void where the projection once shimmered, made a stiff about-face and made for the exit of the communications room.

An officer was waiting for him, datapad presented. “Lord Vader. A message, from the Kashyyyk system.”

Vader took the pad without even bothering to acknowledge his presence. Such worms were beneath him, scrabbling and slithering about through the delicate system of commanding Imperial ranks.

Beneath the mask, a scowl formed. The message brought ill tidings. Another prison camp had been overrun, the third one in the span of a week. Unacceptable. The Empire needed those Wookiee slaves badly. The Emperor had his special ‘pet project’ to see completion, after all.

The datapad was crushed to splinters in the grip of a massive, gloved fist. Vader dully realized that the act had punctured the gloves he wore, and noted a speck of black droplet of oil upon the dark glove as he tossed the wrecked device away.

He stared at it for a good while, that little black speck.

“Make ready my personal shuttle,” he finally wheezed to nobody in particular. It didn’t matter who heard him, the message would spread or heads would roll. His word was law, save for the Emperor himself.

Darth Vader stormed off. There was an uprising to crush, and he had some time to waste.

Unknown sector, unknown system, unknown planet...

“Hah... whoo... hah... okay. Spike. Hah... Read me that last passage again.”

“Twilight, I know this is super important to everypony, but you really need to take a break! You’re just going to get hurt if you keep straining yourself like this.”

Atop the tallest tower in Canterlot, Princess Twilight Sparkle determinedly shook her head, her fledgeling wings shifting in agitation. “That’s not an option, Spike. It’s been three days since Princess Celestia and Princess Luna disappeared.” She took a moment to recover her breath, taxed by her previous efforts. A glance was cast outside the window at the night sky, the same one which had hung about heavens for the past seventy-two hours.

“Or, at least it should have been three days,” Twilight sorely added.

By now, the temperature had dropped to an unnaturally low level for this time of the year. So long without the sun had cooled this side of the world. Ponies went about in scarves and winter saddles, at least when they weren’t cowering in their homes. Despite her efforts, there were still persistent rumors that Nightmare Moon had returned once more. Witnessed had claimed seeing her on that fateful night, flying away after the machine that had swallowed up Princess Celestia.

With their absence, the sun and moon had hung in respective paralysis, unconcerned with the affairs of the mortals below suffering the effects of their constant presence. Twilight would almost have welcomed a resurgent Nightmare Moon at this point. At least she knew how to move the feathering moon!

The new Princess shook her head once more. “I’m sorry, Spike, but I can’t rest until we figure out how to change night into day. Ponies are going to start suffering if the temperature gets lower. Farms will die without sunlight. You don’t want to see Applejack out of business, do you?”

Spike, a small purple dragon that served as her assistant and unofficial little brother, gave a little pout as he looked away. “...no. But running yourself ragged isn’t the answer either!”

“I’m sorry, Spike,” Twilight repeated, giving him a comforting nuzzle. “Unless Cadence finds something in the Crystal Library, then this is all we can do. We’ve got to keep trying. I’m sure Starswirl the Bearded wrote something about moving the sun and moon in this book.”

Spike looked down at the ancient tome within his claws, currently open to a page containing a spell that Twilight thought might be the key to their problems. “Fine. But I don’t like it.” He placed a talon upon the arcane inscription and began reading aloud:

“Nature’s clockwork,
catching the eyes and spirit of all.
Reflect the thread of the weave
and dark’s light becomes night’s day.”

“...For a genius, would it have killed him to make a rhyme every once and awhile?” Twilight grumbled as she gritted her teeth, eyes closing with mounting effort. Upon her brow, her horn ignited in a pale violet glow, shining brighter and brighter until with a crackle of sparks...

Boink!

“Boink?” Twilight echoed. “Scientific progress goes ‘boink?’”

“Uh, Twilight?” came Spike’s voice. “You might want to undo that one.”

She looked — and facehooved. Spike was holding up a mirror to her. Looking back from the glass was a moss-coated alicorn with light emerald eyes, a silvery mane, two paler shades of green running through this.

All around, the natural appearance of things seemed to have changed. Spike, scales now a similar shade of green to her, poked one of the dark-purple spines upon his back. “Uh... what did you do, Twilight?”

Twilight took a peek off of the balcony, to find the darkened sky was now a blinding white, studded with black pinpricks. The moon now hung like a massive void. Below, the city of Canterlot seemed to have been affected in a similar manner. It was as if she were looking at a negative photo of the world. “I seem to have reversed the color palate for... um, everything,” she muttered lamely.

“At least it’s not dark out anymore.” Spike said, busy admiring his inverted eyes, which combined with the draconic pupils, gave a very unsettling effect. “You know, I kinda like this look.”

Twilight couldn’t resist a chuckle, despite the circumstances. “Sorry, Spike, but we gotta change this one back.” Another flare of magic erupted from her elongated horn, and the fledgling’s spell was banished. Twilight blinked a few times as she slumped a bit from the strain. When they opened again, her eyes had recovered from the sudden shift of color.

“Alright... Spike, next page.”

Arkanis sector, Tatoo system, on the planet Tatooine...

Sand.

Sand everywhere.

Rolling hills of the stuff, in a vast expanse for every direction. Here and there a lonesome outcropping of wind-blasted rock would puncture the shimmering landscape, lonely epitaphs of a land forever changed. Tatooine’s twin suns beat down relentlessly, blasting the surface a until it bleached. It looked like an ocean, frozen in time and fossilized in perfect relief.

Sweating inside his suit of armor atop one of these many rises, Boba reasoned that the Dune Sea had a rather apt title.

For the moment, he was the only living thing in the area. He cast a glance back to where he had come from, to where the crashed Slave I had been locked up tight, his prisoner left sealed in her cell with a supply of water and food.

Boba Fett grumbled to himself. Even in his armor, which was equipped with moderate climate control features, it was, to put it bluntly, hot as balls. He held up an arm, to find that the metal plates encasing him were giving off heat waves. With a snort, he leaned back into the seat of his speeder bike and gunned the throttle, a hoversled in tow behind. He kept such a vehicle on the Slave I in the event of just such instances, when fast travel was needed without the presence of a starship. His carbine gleamed from where it was slung around his shoulder.

Despite all this preparation and more, he could not shake the feeling of unease. A sixth sense of his, honed by years of experience, was sounding the alarms on all accounts. This place... something about it put him on edge.

It was almost as if the desert was watching him.

He whirled around, to be greeted by nothing but the same monotonous view as everywhere else he looked. The bounty hunter gripped the throttle just a bit tighter.

Three days.

Perhaps it was Vader’s ominous warning that struck a chord of paranoia within the bounty hunter. The deal had changed. But then, so had the circumstances. Boba found himself marooned on a distant world, and forced to conceal his prisoner from all eyes.

It wasn’t the first time the Sith had turned the tables on him. For one reason or another, Fett and Vader seemed to have a long, tumultuous history of bargains. In the dawning days of the Empire, he had often been contracted by the mysterious man to hunt down renegade Jedi, occasionally side by side.

Vader was not known for his patience. Boba now had three days to get his ship off the planet, or the right hand of the Emperor was going to swoop down and complete the job himself.

Boba was not about to lose the prospect of sealing himself into the records of history as the greatest bounty hunter who ever lived. Nor was he willing to face the Dark Lord in a fair fight. Whole worlds had burned in the red glow of that lightsaber.

Boba repressed the urge to shudder, masking his unease behind a stony facade of purpose. He concentrated on driving. As the landscape became a sun-scorched blur around him, he gave a quick check to his helmet’s holonet connection, which was pointing him towards his destination.

There — he could just make it out now, a distant blot on an otherwise uniform horizon, slowly sailing upon an ocean of sand.

A sandcrawler, probably fresh from a swap meet.

People often failed to realize just how hardy life had to be to survive on Tatooine. The Jawas were a prime example of such underestimation. In the harsh desert, one adapted to the conditions, or they died. Utilizing abandoned mining machinery and eeking out a nomadic, scavenging existence out in the desert, where others floundered to live, the Jawas thrived. They were scavengers, with a notorious streak for repairing the items they found just enough to be buyable.

Boba really didn’t care for the quality of their wares. He didn’t plan on using them for long, as it was. His ship had to be repaired somehow, without bringing it into Mos Eisley. He needed skilled, obedient workers who could endure the brutal days and frigid nights of the desert. What he needed were a couple of droids.

As the bounty hunter shot across the wastes towards the distant crawler, a flicker of movement disturbed the otherwise tranquil desert behind him.

A solitary figure crested a dune, watching the receding vehicle.

After a moment, it vanished into the sands.

You could always smell a Jawa long before you saw one. The little monsters secreted pungent aromas, repulsive to a vast majority of life forms. Through these, the Jawa people could tell a great many things about their kind, including moods, identity, even age. It was yet another attribute they had evolved from long millennia scrounging the sands.

At the moment, though, all Boba could smell was a bad deal.

“That’s it!?” he exclaimed. “This is all you have? Just these two?”

The Jawa next to him nodded eagerly, chattering away in his high-pitched language. The language translation software within Boba’s helmet informed him that the wares on display had been acquired quite recently, and were in much better repair than the usual stock. Though the small droid on the right was quite the feisty one, if the Jawa was to be believed. The other, on the other hand, apparently had a nasty habit of running its mouth.

“Hello. My name is C-3PO, human-cyborg relations. This is my companion, R2-D—”

He waved dismissively. “Do you know anything about starship repair.”

The golden protocol droid seemed taken aback, for all the expression the immovable face could give. “How rude! Why, the first being in months to hold an intelligent conversation, and I am cursed to face such terrible manners.”

“Yes or no, droid.”

C-3PO made a sniffing noise. “If you must know, Artoo here is quite capable to perform such a function, and has proven himself on several occasions—”

Boba interrupted it a second time, turning to the Jawa. “Then I’ll take the little one, the mangy astromech.”

“Bee-boop, brrraawwp!” said the small white-and-blue droid.

“R2, such profanity!” chastised his companion.

Boba ignored them. “How much?” he asked the Jawa.

The Jawa informed him that the two were a package deal. They seemed unwilling to function when separated, despite the gratuitous usage of electric shock therapy and restraining bolts.

Boba resisted the urge to groan. “You,” he addressed the gold one. “Do you do anything else besides whine?”

The droid’s optical processors performed a blink, a feature Boba found oddly life-like. “I have served for the past eleven years upon Alderaanian corvette Tantive IV as a translator and foreign etiquette consultant. At the moment, we seem to have been separated due to unforeseen circumstances. I am sure Master Organa will be—”

“Translator?”

“Yes,” the droid replied stiffly. “I am fluent in over six million languages.”

Maybe he could use the droid to decipher the words of his mysterious guest. In the event he ever had to interact with her kind again, having the data might come in handy. Besides, someone had to make sure she didn’t keel over before he delivered her to Imperial hands.

“I’ll take them,” he told the Jawa, handing over a sack of credits.

“Pree-whoooo,” whistled the little one in a mournful tone as the transaction took place.

C-3PO patted the small astromech droid on the top of his dome. “I agree, Artoo. A bed feeling, indeed.”

The Jawa jangled the bag in his hands a couple times, and seemingly satisfied with the sound it produced, tossed him the restraining bolt remote. The deal was done.

“Come with me,” he told his new property, before turning on a foot and sweeping away. Boba’s footsteps echoed loudly on the inside of the sandcrawler, despite the constant whirring and clicking of ancient machinery that the Jawas had patched to it. It was a wonder the monolith even started up, let alone served as a living quarters to a whole tribe of life forms.

Out of the yawning bay and down the ramp he went, almost glad to be back outside in the desert. It positively stank in there. The two droids were not far behind, the gold one tottering along while the astromech followed closely on three motorized wheels.

The sandcrawler had stopped in a small break in the Sea, between two large outcroppings of rock, which formed a natural windbreak and a source for some much-needed shade. For a moment, Boba cast a glance along the cliff edges. He could have sworn he’d just seen a flicker of movement.

Three days.

It was time to go. Now.

His swoop bike was just where he parked it, though a few Jawas were standing nearby, gesturing and pointing to the thing. They scurried off when Boba glared at them, menacingly stroking the butt of his carbine from where it poked up behind his shoulder. They probably wanted to strip the thing down and sell for parts.

He opened up the hoversled, lowering a steep ramp to the ground. “Get in,” he said.

R2-D2 wasted no time, chuffing a constant stream of ill-tempered noises as he rolled aboard. C-3PO, however, seemed somewhat hesitant. “Are you quite certain that will function as an adequate transport? It seems rather decrepit.”

Boba sat down onto the seat of the bike, pressing a few buttons. With a cough and a rattle, the machine started up, powerful engine whining as he revved the throttle a few times. He looked back. “Get in, or I’ll leave a piece of you behind. You get to pick what.”

The protocol droid clammed up at that, swiftly boarding the sled and closing the gate behind it.

As the strange group lifted away and began speeding out into the desert, Boba’s HUD suddenly flashed red. A warning message scrolled across his vision, from the computer aboard his ship.

The Slave I's security systems had been triggered. Somebody was breaking into his ship.

Oh, you have got to be...

Suppressing a surge of anger, Boba gunned the bike’s engine until it screamed.

Amidst the bowels of the downed starship, a solitary being sat in perfect stillness. For nearly an hour, her form had not moved, save the slight expansion of her chest required to breathe. In the darkness, her ivory features might as well have been carved from stone.

Celestia was searching.

Deep within her breast, she felt the roiling energy that had once moved heavenly bodies. She could feel it, pulsing faintly in time with her heart, seeking a way out. And yet... something squeezed it, pressing in from all sides, a choking barrier that ferociously stifled the roaring inferno into the tiniest of embers.

A single bead of sweat trickled across her brow, down over her closed eyelids. She made no move to wipe it away.

As if reaching some pre-determined level of focus, Celestia gathered her strength yet again, this time giving every ounce of her being.

Suddenly, the alicorn hunched over, emitting a faint hiss of effort. her wings trembled at her sides. Within, the fire roared to life, unbelievable power surging out as forcefully as she could muster it. She goaded the tide into the encasing shell, brutally slamming herself against it.

Again...

… and again...

… and again.

It bent, just in the slightest. She diverted all her strength against the bulge, exploiting the weakness for all she was worth. Further, further, further still, the suppression gave.

Atop her spiral horn, the dimmest of golden lights flickered to life.

And promptly sputtered out.

Celestia gasped as the magic was crushed back into place. Her heart skipped a beat, her vision flickering madly. The world began to spin, and suddenly the floor was racing up to greet her. Exhausted, she gladly met its cold embrace.

She wasn’t sure how much time had passed when she awoke. The inside of her cell offered only the same, metallic features as before. She felt weak, weaker than before. She dragged herself across the floor, over to where a trough of water sat fixed on the floor, below a small spout on the wall.

If there was any sensation that her long life had not dulled, it was the simple slaking of thirst. As the cool liquids sloshed down her throat, she felt herself reviving. She eventually surfaced for air, breathing harshly, before plunging back in until the trough was dry.

When she was done, Celestia rolled over onto her back, wings sprawled haphazardly out, her tongue flopping from her mouth as she panted for breath.

Another failure.

Time and time again, she’d strained against the handicap. The mighty Sun Princess, brought so low that even the simple act of igniting her aura was beyond her reach. The irony was not lost to her. Despite everything, a dry chuckle escaped Celestia’s lips.

When her breathing had finally steadied, and the clammy sensation of magical exhaustion began to fade, she noted that she could hear something unusual.

She’d grown used to the faint hum of machinery detectable through the metal walls of her cell. The spout would give a “beep!” every hour on the hour before releasing a small amount of water into the trough. Sometimes an erratic “whirrrrr!” would sound through the door. Every once and awhile, she could hear a tiny “pip-pip-pip!” from the white collar around her neck.

No. This sounded more like...

Her ears swiveled like sonar dishes.

Wait a minute. Where did it go? I could have sworn—

KA-WHOOM!

Her cell rocked with the thunder of a spectacular concussion not far away. Celestia’s teeth rattled in her skull. All traces of fatigue now leaving her, she swiftly rolled over and found her footing, moving to press against the wall to the immediate side of the door.

She pressed an ear to the wall. Something was moving in the hallway outside. No. Somethings. Rough, muffled words could be made out, spoken in a language she did not understand. Occasionally, a shout. Something crashing and breaking.

Celestia began to think.

It would seem that her prison had suddenly grown to accompany an unknown number of guests. Were they invited? Or were they here to free her?

The door abruptly flew open. Celestia flinched, pressing herself against the wall.

It came in slowly; a tall, gaunt figure, built in the same manner as her captor. Celestia could tell in an instant that the filthy creature before her shared little ancestry with her armored Jailor. It hadn’t noticed her, intent on rummaging through the cell. The thing was covered in sandy robes, and sported a frightful mask of wrappings. It smelled absolutely putrid. It held a long, staff-like device in one hand, using it to poke the walls and furnishings of the room.

Apparently satisfied with its findings, it turned to leave — and spotted her.

“UUEEEEEEEYY-HUY-HUY-HUY!”

Celestia had little time to react as the creature suddenly lunged at her, bellowing a garbled way-cry. The end of the staff was swung forth, bristling with a spiked end. She ducked, and it embedded itself into the wall behind her and instant later.

Whomever these things were... they were not interested in rescuing her!

Diplomacy was out of the question, it seemed.

It blocked the only exit, so a timely retreat was also out of the cards.

There was nothing else to it. She would have to fight.

As it struggled to free the weapon, she presented her side, quickly flaring her wing with as much speed as she could. In a blur of white feathers, she slugged the creature right in the gut. It flinched, before savagely kicking at her throat. She gritted her teeth, and responded with another wing-strike, this one to the junction between the creature’s legs.

It let go of the staff, stumbling away as it clutched itself in pain. She didn’t give it a chance to retaliate, leaning up to bite the forgotten weapon still stuck in wall. Her muscles tensed, it was ripped loose with a screech of metal. She gracefully twirled in a circle, the spiked end describing a graceful arc until it slammed into bone and flesh.

The creature was knocked away, landing flat upon its back at her hooves.

Celestia menacingly loomed over it, and hesitated — the spiked staff was now poised for a killing blow.

Her hesitation proved a mistake, as the creature wasn’t done yet. With a hellish roar, it rolled, pulling something from its grimy robes as it rose to stand.

Celestia’s eyes widened. The jailor had threatened her with just such a device. It was obviously some sort of potent weapon. She lunged, swinging the staff from the side as the creature’s grip suddenly tightened on the device.

A hot blast of red passed to her left as the device let out a short scream of noise. Behind her, a hole was scored several inches into steel.

By some miracle, her staff had nudged the weapon to the side at the last possible second, following through to crack the creature right in the chin. The masked head snapped back, and it sank to its knees with a gurgle.

The weapon clattered to the floor. Celestia spat the staff out and dived, picking it up by the stubby handle. She pointed it at the creature and —

— recalled what happened to the cell wall, pulling it to the side at the last second.

It didn’t really matter anyway, seeing as she hadn't even pulled the trigger.

“Hurrrffffgh!”she frustratedly exclaimed through the weapon’s grip. With no other alternative in mind, she swiftly pivoted on her forelegs, hindquarters bunched like powerful springs.

The last thing the creature saw before it was knocked senseless were two gold-shod meteors. Its lifeless body was hurled back across the room and out the door, striking the opposing wall of the hallway with such force that it dented the metal, before sliding down to a motionless heap.

Celestia did a double take.

The door was open.

“Yes!” The alicorn hurled herself out of the cell and into the hallway. She already knew what lay in one direction, the room where the confrontation with her Jailor had taken place. She whirled and bolted down the other way, sharply turning a corner and colliding headfirst with another of the creatures that had been coming to investigate the noise.

They both stumbled away, rubbing sore faces, before remembering what they were supposed to be doing.

“HUY! HUY-HUY!” the creature roared, leveling what seemed to be a much larger version of the device Celestia held in her mouth.

The alicorn backpedaled wildy, using her wings to propel herself back around the corner. In the place she’d occupied a second before, a bolt of red whizzed by, striking the wall and melting metal where it struck.

Celestia fiddled with the one in her mouth — how did they even use these things, anyway? It tasted disgusting, no doubt because of the filthy state of its former owner.

Another bolt ricocheted wildly around the corner. Celestia groaned, giving up on the device and tucking it under a wing. Frantically, she looked around for something — anything! — that she could use.

Her eyes settled on the fallen creature.

A moment later, she charged around the corner a second time, gripping the limp body by the scruff of its neck, the improvised shield shuddering as several more blasts of light slammed into it. Unable to react until it was too late, the other masked beast became the target of a runaway alciorn pain-train as she galloped at full speed, using the body held in her teeth an impromptu battering ram.

She ran through with the blow, carrying it with her as she steamrolled forward, through the entry to another room, down a ramp, and plunging into painful brightness.

Boba Fett peered through the scope from where he was situated on the crest of a dune.

Thk-thk-thook!

His carbine slammed back into his shoulder as a trio of blaster bolts whipped through the air, colliding squarely with the back of one of the figures moving around the half-buried Slave I. The ship had come in from space at a shallow angle, skipping across the tops of the sandy peaks for almost a kilometer, before half-burying itself in the side of a dune, the stern and keel of the ship extending outwards into the air at a crazy tilt.

Behind him, the two droids used the sled for cover.

“Oh, good heavens!” cried C-3PO, as a flurry of retaliatory shots passed by overhead.

“Breeep woo-pweeet!” replied R2-D2.

“Artoo, if not charging a party of Sand People is considered cowardice, then I am most certainly considered a coward!”

“Brrrp-brrrp.”

“What — how dare you!”

Boba tuned out the noises of the bickering droids, absorbing himself in the battle. There were five Tusken Raiders outside the ship. The landing ramp looked blown open through his scope. No doubt there were more inside. A trio of banthas, lumbering, shaggy creatures that the Raiders used as mounts, stampeded here and there as Boba’s potshot sent them into a panic. One of the Raiders was trampled as he tried to calm one of the them down, the beast fleeing over a dune.

Thk-thk-thook!

A trio of bolts in his back made sure he stayed down.

Boba noticed a glint as a Raider pulled something out of its robes. His HUD illuminated the object with a warning glimmer. The small metal sphere arced through the air, thrown from the Raider's hand. It thumped into the sand by Boba’s side, rolling into his body. He glanced at it, then savagely kicked it away. Three seconds later, a mighty explosion sent a plume of dust three stories high.

Boba scowled. “Don’t bring a grenade to a rocket fight,” he barked, before ducking his head down. A streak of metal suddenly screamed into the sky from where it had launched from its housing on Boba’s jetpack. His helmet’s targeting computer guided the missile home to a stunning blow.

KA-WHOOM!

A thunderclap echoed across the desert as the rocket detonated, savagely consuming two more of the Raiders in a ball of fire. The remaining banthas made a run for it, lumbering away from the scene of the crash.

Boba pumped his fist, before ducking back down as a stream of hot plasma arced by. It seemed the last of the Raiders had taken position on top of his ship, and had the fortitude to bring a rickety machine gun with him. From the elevated position, he was able to bring an impressive rain of firepower down on the bounty hunter. Boba wondered what unfortunate corpse they’d pilfered the weapon from.

Boba turned away from the lip as it evaporated in a hail of lasers, scooting down the dune until he could crouch. He glanced back at the droid cowering behind the sled.

...Droid? The smaller one had slipped off.

“Hey!” he called to the gold one over the machine gun. “Where’s the astromech!?”

If droids could cringe, C-3PO did the closest approximation of one Boba had ever seen. “He went to, and I quote, ‘save the day.’”

“What!?”

With a start, he realized that the gunfire had stopped. He scrambled back up to the lip, peering through his scope.

R2-D2 stood on the top of his ship, with what appeared to be a cattle prod extending from his cylindrical body. The body of a Tusken Raider lay in a twitching heap in front of him.

Very, very slowly, Boba Fett lowered the scope and turned back to the droid.

“Are you serious?” he asked, gesturing to the triumphant astromech atop his ship. He could have sworn the droid was striking a heroic pose.

“Quite so. Artoo and I seem to have a nasty habit of getting into these sort of situations all the time,” C-3PO sighed.

Beneath the iconic Mandalorian helmet, Boba’s eye twitched. Outclassed by an bucket of bolts! He’d never hear the end of it.

“Tell no-one of this,” he commanded.

“As you say.”

Boba left him there and hustled over the dune, breaking into a run. The ship soon loomed over him, pitted here there by fresh blasterfire. R2-D2 was rolling down the smooth side of the half-buried craft, chirping merrily as the droid joined him. the bounty hunter stopped at the blown-open gangplank, cautiously peering into the darkness of the ship. What foul traps had already been lain within? Who else had dared to breach the sanctity of the closest thing Boba had to a true home?

Those questions were answered when something charged out of the darkness. He instinctively rolled backwards, snapping his carbine up as he came about, putting the new threat in his crosshairs.

Unbelievably, it was her.

Two more Raiders flew off her quadrupedal form as she skidded to a halt in the sand, blinking in the ferocious light of the twin Tatooine suns. The interlopers collapsed in a heap at Boba’s feet.

For the second time in a day -- a new record -- Boba Fett was flabbergasted. During that long moment, nobody moved an inch, Boba staring at his captive in equal parts surprise and confusion. She stared back at him in a similar mixture of disbelief. So stunned was he that he failed to notice movement at his feet. Something took his footing out from under him.

The white being reared, surging forward as Boba scrambled away. Right then and there, he almost pulled the trigger out of sheer reflex, avoiding what would have been a very messy situation.

Instead, her front limbs slammed downwards on one of the Tusken Raiders, which had been pointing a small blaster up at Boba from where he lay. From that angle, a shot would have gone right under Boba’s helmet and into the underside of his chin.

Beside him, R2-D2 let loose an admiring whistle.

She'd saved his life.

This... complicates things.

Coming to his senses, Boba leveled his carbine at her. She paused, eyeing the stubby rifle, her wings flaring out to her sides in unease. Despite the act she'd just performed, there was still a mammoth bounty on her head. Boba knew in that instant if he let her go, there was no catching her. Not before Vader came down and glassed half the planet to get her first.

Three days.

Failure was not an option.

She moved first. With catlike reflexes, he responded by dropping his carbine, slamming a button on the side of his wrist before a thick cable lasso whipped out at her, passing around her shoulders as she sprang high into the desert air, wings already pumping for height.

Boba hauled back on the lasso, and it tightened, snapping her wings back to her sides. She gave a pained yelp and fell, crashing to an undignified heap in the sand. She was up faster than he expected, anchoring herself against another yank. Boba obliged her, bringing the full brunt of his strength to bear. The cord binding them flexed and rippled with tension. Her stance did not break, but she nonetheless began to slide across the sand.

He saw her eyes widen with panic, then narrow with a very similar frown of determination. He had seen that look before -- it was the mark of a being with exceptional willpower.

Boba’s arms were nearly yanked out of their sockets when she began pulling back, gripping the cable in her mouth. The bounty hunter grunted and tried to dig in, but found himself giving the ground he’d won not seconds ago. He passed the place he'd started as the creature continued dragging him further from his ship.

She was stronger than him, he realized with growing unease.

“I say,” a tinny voice announced. “Is there any way I could be of assistance to resolve this dispute? Negotiation is a core feature of my programming.” It seemed that C-3PO had finally caught up, both droids milling about by the open ship.

He ignored the droid. There was still one trick he had up his sleeve.

Or, rather, attached to his back.

The jetpack burst to life, belching twin jets of fire that abruptly launched Boba high into the air. On the ground the ivory creature fell back from the surprise slack.

Perfect.

Boba angled himself downwards, screamed downwards, rolled, and swept past her, trailing the cable behind him. He banked, hard, and maintained the turn, flying in a rapid circle around his prisoner. By the time she realized what was going on, the bounty hunter had already wrapped the cable around her legs a number of times.

He cut the pack, tumbling down into the sand next to her, and gave the lasso a final, savage heave, sending his immobilized prey down for the final count. She squirmed against the bonds, but with her wings clipped and legs bound together, could do no more than wriggle uselessly in the sand.

Boba lay sprawled out next to her, catching his breath. After a moment, he noticed she was looking at him, sand dusting her white features and sprinkled in her pink hair.

Those eyes... deep and twinkling, as if she were listening to some unknown joke. The color of a brilliant sunset, they were laced with an expression of sadness, confusion, and hurt that Boba didn’t need a translator to understand.

Why? she implored.

Even if he used the right tongue, Boba had no words to answer.

Suddenly feeling quite dirty, he rolled to his feet, stood up, detaching the cable and swiftly knotting it in place. He turned to the droids. “Get her secured inside, on the double. Goldie, find out what language she speaks,” he told the taller one. “Make it quick. The Sand People will be back once they find out what happened here, and in greater numbers.”

With that, the bounty hunter left them, storming into the darkened recesses of the downed starship to see what had become of his home.

C-3PO and R2-D2 watched him go.

“Artoo... do you recognize that man from anywhere? The mask he wears seems familiar somehow,” said C-3PO.

R2-D2 gave a little shake. “Breep-ptew! Poo-ti-wheeet.”

“Boba Fett? The bounty hunter? Oh, Artoo, what have we gotten ourselves into this time..."

Bending themselves to the task, the two droids began dragging the still-struggling alien back into the crashed ship.

Author's Note

Boba Gets Owned Count: 2

[Chapter 7] - Someone Move This Walking Carpet

Dead or Alive: Chapter 7
by: Rust

Mytaranor sector, Kashyyyk system, on the planet Kashyyyk...

There is a common conception that a traveler of the Galaxy will not understand the true definition of wilderness until they happen to find themselves in Wookiee country.

One would not be wrong in assuming this.

Huge, sprawling forests cover the land, often spreading coast to coast across entire continents. The native wookiees believe that the forest is all one connected being, rising from underneath the shadow of a singular tree and joined by the roots to cover the planet. They say that when the woshyr trees could not grow any further out, the began to grow up. The small, green shoots — able to be cupped within a palm at first sign of life — take root in the mossy , rich loam. And once they begin to sprout, they do not stop their quest for sunlight.

Thousands of years pass, and the little green shoot is five kilometers tall. An entire ecosystem exists within its encompassing canopy, creatures live and die there without ever once touching the ground. Amidst the sun-dappled boughs, life flourishes.

Beneath the trees, however, primeval, forgotten things stalk through the eternal shadows. Fierce, alien cries occasionally disturb the oppressive stillness, swallowed up by the gloom.

The Shadowlands. The Notherworld. This place goes by many names, but the extreme danger present there is recognized by all. Here is the coldest, darkest, and farthest from sunlight a life form can hope to get. Here is where the true nightmares live, slinking around like ribbons of black silk, hunting, watching, waiting for any foolish enough to stumble into their domain. Here is where fear goes to die, and terror is born from its bones.

Beneath the jungle roof of Kashyyyk, something stirred.

Something stretched and clacked its mandibles at an alien scent in the air.

Something salivated, gobs of liquid spattering onto the moss below.

Something vanished into the deeps, hungering, stalking.

It screamed in primal rage.

The hunt was on.

Through the forest it went, crawling across the trees as if defying gravity, before springing the incredible distance between them. Soon, more of its kind joined it, drawn by the cry and eager to join in the kill. They numbered many, a pack that together matched the speed and strength of any carnivorous titan.

The scent drove them on, a spice in the air that crackled with lightning and kissed like the soft, quiet places of the night. A trespasser; and it smelled like nothing they’d ever known.

Life forms heard them coming as they raced through the undergrowth, hiding and burrowing away into their bolt holes. They did not care, and left them unmolested, for there was bigger game afoot to sate their hunger. The frightened creatures trembled in their burrows as the war party passed them. They knew the awful truth of such a gathering of predators:

Blood would be spilt.

The hunt was on!

From the darkness, out slid a confident, midnight-blue face. It scrunched up in something like satisfaction as a deep breath passed through its nostrils.

“What a wondrous realm this is!” declared a rather nonchalant alicorn. Princess Luna exhaled, as though savoring the air. Her eyes shined in the darkness, piercing the veil with ease. “This place is wild and untamed. It stirs the blood and makes one feel... alive.” Her good wing fluttered at her side. "Hmm. Perhaps too alive."

She padded softly through the forest, Reaper nudging up against her shoulders from its scabbard of vines. Every once and awhile she would unsheathe it and flourish the knobbly branch about, the act of learning the unique balances of the weapon being something to take her mind off of the unfamiliar scenery around her.

The darkness was near-absolute, broken here and there by strange phosphorescent plants, shining and twinkling all the colors of the rainbow as they clung to the massive trunks or bursting out of the wet ground. Insects hummed and whined, flashing like brief stars throughout the blackness.

Luna’s silver-shod hooves led her to a shallow crag in the ground, where a swift creek ran out from underneath the roots of a nearby tree. She peered at it, her reflection displaying a look of relaxed curiosity and mild amusement.

Even the water seemed different. She could sense the tiny flecks of life within the liquid, filling it with their essence, turning the brook into a flowing stream of liquid light. She dipped her head and drank from the glowing waters, slaking the thirst that had built up from travel.

For several hours now, Luna had been making her way between the immense trees. Here and there, some muffled shriek or predatory cry would pierce the air, and the alicorn would pause mid-stride, ears pricked, trying to pierce through luminescent forrest, wondering what sort of creature made that noise. They sounded unfamiliar and alien... reinforcing the singular fact that she was hopelessly, undeniably lost.

Even still, she was confident that her quarry was not far, despite the fact that she could not sense her sister in the slightest. She was more aware of the absence of her sister’s presence than anything else, for it had been a very, very long time indeed since Celestia’s aura of magical power was not present, a prickle in the back of her sister’s mind. Even more disturbing was the fact that she could not sense any of the world’s magic... at least, that of the familiar strain of Equestria. Here, in this dense wood, the magic felt wild and savage, and it filled her with an almost predatory state of being.

It was... intoxicating.

All the more reason she make contact with somepony, anypony, and soon. Messages — primitive letters, really — had been scrawled out upon large leaves, slabs of bark, anything that would record her words. She had attempted to send them, to Celestia, to Majordomo, even to young Twilight Sparkle.

Each time, the spell had imploded upon itself, consuming her power until she had to sever the connection entirely or risk fatiguing herself. That had never happened before; the spell had been designed by Celestia herself to send a message to anyone, anywhere in the world, as long as the sender had met the recipient in person.

A thought came to her. A ridiculous thought.

Why, ‘tis as if I am upon another world entirely!

Luna froze for a moment, her eyes glazing over, then snorted with amusement as she trotted off again. “Hah! My jesting knows no bounds...”

Arkanis sector, Tatoo system, Tatooine, aboard the Slave I...

Boba sat very, very still.

Maybe if he pretended he was asleep, she’d go away.

He glanced up.

Nope. Still there.

The damage to the interior of the ship was minimal. None of the critical systems had been damaged, and the only structural issues were the cell door and a light fixture in the hallway, the door suffering being jammed halfway open by debris in its tracks, and the light crushed by the apparent impact of a Sand Person striking it with the force of a small cannonball.

He’d seen the ship’s security footage. Seen what she could do. She moved like a fish and struck like an eagle, gracefully quick and stunningly powerful. Those long white limbs held a deceptive strength that should not have been physically possible.

She was locked up tighter than a Neimoidian bank vault.

So why did he feel so uneasy around her?

Boba slumped into the cockpit, vacantly staring across the room. The Mandolorian armor he wore was filthy with sand and blood. He bleakly realized he’d been wearing it non-stop since before picking up his prisoner.

The smaller droid — what did he go by again? — was busy molesting the Slave I’s control panel with all manner of gadgetry, whirring and beeping to himself. Apparently he knew what he was doing; life support systems had already been reactivated, allowing the ship’s air conditioning to kick in. That much of a mercy had been granted.

Meanwhile, the taller, gold one was busy holding a rather one-sided conversation with the prisoner in question. Boba had heard him cycle through several hundred languages by now, in the vain hopes that she might pick up a familiar dialect.

Instead, she seemed incredibly preoccupied with staring Boba down from across the room. The old cell was out of the question, now that the door had malfunctioned. So instead she sat, still trussed up like the catch of the day...

...Watching him.

Boba had never before been so glad of his helmet. It hid the cold sweat that had begun to form on his brow.

As much as C-3PO had been trying, he’d only been able to get one word from her, after playing the universal ‘point at this and say its name’ game. Boba had to give him credit, when it came to linguistics the droid had the patience of a saint.

The golden man had put a finger to his chest.

“See-three-pee-oh,” he enunciated, before tapping himself. “Droid.”

Her ears flicked, the only indication she’d heard him.

A metal finger gently pressed against her chest. She glanced down. The only time in the past hour that she’d broken her concentration. That finger tapped very softly.

She eventually understood. A garbled language was muttered.

Two words.

C-3PO told his new Master that the language used was something he’d never encountered before, not at all in the six million he was versed in. But he could piece together a little, even if it was just from two single utterances. That was the nature of his programming, after all. Countless years of experience also assisted his deductions.

Her name, he surmised, when roughly translated to Basic, had something to do with the light, or maybe the stars. The strange designs of a sun upon her rear likely supported this theory. The title of her race had no translation, but he knew it regardless. Po’nii.

That’s what she was. A po’nii.

Boba crossed his arms and scowled beneath the visor.

“Stop that,” he told her. Of course she wouldn't understand the words. How could she? But tone of warning was unmistakable. She was smart, he'd grant her that.

She blinked, but didn't falter. Again, that expression of mild confusion and wounded pride came to her face.

Why?

Why indeed? Because she was going to make him rich. She was the key to the kingdom of immortality in the pages of history as the greatest bounty hunter who had ever lived.

Because she was the greatest challenge he’d ever faced so far, and Boba Fett never, ever backed down from a challenge on his talent.

Because she could help him step out of his father’s shadow.

Somehow, every one of those arguments seemed shallow in the face of such honest hurt. The fact that she had saved his life not two hours ago unsettled his stomach to the point of nausea.

Boba’s scowl deepened, and he sank into his seat. He kicked at the astromech droid.

“Hurry it up!”

Mytaranor sector, Kashyyyk system, on the planet Kashyyyk...

Luna poked at a softly glowing mushroom with Reaper’s butt, the fleshy fungi easily several times larger than her.

“Aye, this certainly be not the Everfree,” she commented, leaving it behind to crest a small rise. She beheld the grave of a once-mighty titan of the forest, long since toppled over upon its side. High above, the space in the canopy it had once dominated had been swallowed up by its younger rivals, eager to edge out the competition. The rotting megalith, covered in softly-glowing splotches of fungi and vines, dwarfed her to such a ridiculous degree that she began to wonder if this was what ants felt like. Even upon its side, the top of the trunk was further from the ground than a Canterlot spire. She paused upon on the hilltop, her eyes twinkling.

A change in course was needed, she thought. Blindly wandering about the forest would serve her no good. She needed a landmark, or some way to tell direction in the maze of undergrowth. To do that, she needed to find a way to top of the canopy...

Her injured wing gave a painful twinge.

...Without flying. She would have to get creative.

Where the forest titan had fallen, its roots — Luna thought they greatly resembled a city’s sewage system in both size and shapes — had been dragged up into the air, creating a steep slope around the very base of the trunk, one that she thought might serve as a place from which to attempt to scale into the green roof of the forest.

Once she got up there — without the use of flight — she could get her bearings, track down Celestia, soundly pummel her kidnapper, and get the both of them home in time for a stout of the finest ale and bawdy ballads around a tavern hearth.

She caught herself. Was the situation really so dire that she had begun missing Canterlot? The city of angels come to earth, forever caged within their stone-and-iron citadel?

Stars forbid...

No, she was certainly not in Everfree country. Nor any forest she had ever encountered before. This one was far, far more ancient. But that begged the question; if she was not there, then where? Luna could not say, but regardless felt that she had left Equestrian borders behind long ago. She was off the map now — here there be monsters.

In the shadows behind her, a twig snapped.

Speaking of... she thought, whirling as Reaper flew out of its harness. Brandishing the weapon, she warily eyed the direction of the disturbance.

She suddenly became all too aware of the fact that the ambient noises of birds and bugs had mysteriously died away, replaced only with the sounds of her even breaths and the crunching of leaves and needles beneath her hooves.

A deathly stillness had descended. She fancied she could hear the sound of her own heartbeat, steady and strong.

“‘Tis quiet...”

Luna was no fool. A lifespan measuring centuries had granted her the time to harness experience in a great multitude of fields.

She of all ponies knew that when you stare into the abyss... the abyss stares back.

“Too quiet.”

Something was out there, staring back. Thinking, plotting... hunting. A predator had picked up her trail, of this she was certain.

Luna allowed a grim smile, a flash of white teeth in the darkness. For a second, they flickered, flashing as a set of serrated, ivory fangs. Her coat seemed to darken just a shade, her mane crackled with power, the stars within sparking like embers.

“Do you truly think that the shadows grant sanctuary?” she quietly muttered to the forest. “From me?”

No response came. She hadn’t expected one.

A small spark shot out of her horn, hovering inches above. A heartbeat later, it emitted a deep blue pulse, spreading outwards into the gloom in all directions.

She closed her eyes and saw.

In her mind’s eye, the scene was revealed to most minute of detail, life shining in bright colors as the spell passed over it.

Beyond the edge of her clearing, the world turned red.

Despite herself, Luna started backwards a pace.

No single foe waited in the shadows; instead, they were legion. Dozens upon dozens. She could feel their forms, clinging to the backs of trees and dangling from long, silken threads, every one of them tensed. She sensed their hunger, a predatory furnace that burned deep within empty bellies.

It would be prudent to leave.

Now.

Luna turned and bolted.

The upturned tree loomed before her. She ran for it, pounding across the open ground. She began to curve upward along the trunk, picking her way through the eroding soil. Here and there massive roots blocked her ascent, made all the more challenging to traverse due to the fact that they were the height of large carriages. It got to the point where she began leaping from root to root, the ground to sloped for her hooves to purchase. Muscles far stronger than any normal pony propelled her tirelessly, up, up, up!

The small spark of light followed, pulsing slowly as it illuminated the surrounding area, painting a picture within her mind.

A tide of crimson had breached the treeline. They were coming after her.

Scuttling figures shimmered, the sound of clanking carapaces and a war cry of frenzied hissing breaking the tension.

The hunt was on!

Luna put her back into it, propelling herself ever onward like a graceful gazelle, bounding up the vertical face. Several hundred meters above the forest floor, she reached the summit. Luna looked down at the dizzying drop below her, where the excavation of the root system had ripped a terrible, jagged wound in the earth — a fel pit — a scar so depressingly vacant of anything that even her eyes could not pierce its secrets. The world seemed to spin and sway. She found herself looking deeper, her being pulled by an indescribable force, closer and closer to its stygian depths, until —

The spark pulsed again, painting the singular, monstrous blob within the chasm so red it seemed like blood.

She tore her eyes from the depth, shuddering. There were some places even the night could not reach. She extinguished the spark with a thought.

The alicorn quickly observed her surroundings. A ring of mighty trees surrounded the clearing carved by their fallen sire, twisted trunks rising up into the shadows. One of them, a silver-grey giant, was closer than the others. Luna judged the distance — even for her, too far to jump. Tauntingly, a withered branch, puny only in comparison to its brothers, jutted out from the side.

Luna glared at the branch, secretly hoping it would spontaneously combust as punishment for such defiance. It did not. Huffing, she settled for an alternative method of travel.

Reaper flourished at her side, bright blue blade simultaneously igniting in time with a downward slice that began to hew a large, pony-sized section of bark from the fallen tree. Two more blows fell, and a long, board-shaped slab was ripped away. Quickly sheathing her weapon, Luna hoisted the chunk in a telekinetic grip. A bead of sweat formed near her temple. She brushed it away. Telekinesis was a simple magic spell, but the power it consumed increased exponentially the larger the items the user wielded. She was not without her distractions, as it were. The forest seemed determined to prevent her escape.

Something leapt at her out of the darkness. She spun away and gave it a mighty thwack with a hind leg. With a crunch and a squeal, the shape of a massive arachnid spun away towards the forest floor, into a growing ocean of movement.

“A colony...!?” spat Luna. “Stars above, they hunt me like wolves!”

She redoubled her efforts. The plank drifted into empty air, surrounded by a shimmering azure aura. A stepping stone to cross the stunning fall.

Luna glanced downwards again, at the deep, dark hole torn in the ground. Unbidden, a small jolt of unease ran through her.

Something monstrous dwelled within. The gates of Tartarus seemed a more appealing destination.

Luna tensed her hindquarters, sized up the jump, and sprang. Sailing through the air, she landed solidly on the bark, which dipped a fair bit as it took her weight. She grimaced and rubbed at her stomach. “Perhaps a temporary ban upon the thieving of mine sister’s sweets is in order,” muttered the alicorn.

An enraged screech broke out from the upended tree-trunk. Luna glanced back — and hit the deck — as a streak of something pale whipped overhead.

Luna hissed at them, slipping into her older tongue in the heat of the moment. “Back, foul pests! Thine countenance is most admirable, but the consequences of this pursuit doth sentence thee unto a terrible conclusion!”

One of them closest to the edge reared backwards, and for the first time, Luna was could see her foe quite clearly.

A spider. A great, hulking spider, larger than the Royal Carriage, covered in a thick and knobby hide the color of shadow, here and there painted by glowing fungus. Six red eyes, beady and glaring with bioluminescent hate. Fangs the length of her hind legs parted as the creature convulsed and vomited a thick glob of white at her, trailing a tether. There was no time to react, and it slammed into her side with a squelch, smothering her injured wing. She was suddenly yanked forward, almost off her floating platform, as the beast began to reel her in.

Luna narrowed her eyes. “Thou hast made thine bed. Now lie in it.”

Reaper whirled forth in a spinning blur, the blade of hot light cutting cleanly through the silken rope, beyond... and sheared the peak right off spur of land sticking into the air. No less than a dozen of the spiders dropped into empty space amidst a shower of collapsing earth and roots.

Eager to use the time she’d bought, Luna twisted her board about, accelerating towards the tree across the death-defying span. More globs of silk whipped past. Her hooves flung outwards, ready to absorb the impact of her —

CR-R-R-AACK!

She’d been hit. The slab shattered in half. She plummeted, but did not relinquish her magical grip. Her right hoof caught an edge — snagged — and held fast, jerking her violently into place. The other, forgotten section of bark spiraled away. She dangled, helplessly watching as it sailed off out of her reach and fell into the deep, impenetrable abyss. The falling peice vanished, swallowed up into a darkness so complete it seemed almost a physical presence. There was no wet rattle, no soggy smack of impact. It was as if the renegade debris had simply fallen into infinity.

The swarm of insects surged below, chattering greedily as their prey dangled far above.

Luna held her breath, paralyzed by the sensation of her heart suddenly rushing into the back of her throat. She wondered just how deep that hole was. Swallowing a lump of unease, she hauled herself upright onto the floating plank, quickly scrambling into action as the rotten bark began to crumble beneath her hooves.

She desperately pushed for the safety of the branch, sensing immediately she’d little time before her ride disintegrated completely. The alicorn undershot her mark, and she leapt an instant before her purchase vanished, front hooves wrapping around the rough bark of the branch as her chest slammed rather painfully into the wood.

Her grip slipped an inch. She jerked backwards. On pure instinct, her shoulders twitched, a primal drive screaming at her muscles to fly, and a horrible clicking noise filled the air as the broken left wing strained and failed against the vines binding it to her side. Its partner successfully deployed, the sudden drag wrenching her violently off the branch and into open sky. The black pit spread out beneath her.

And then, it moved.

Something huge surged upwards, breaking out of the stygian pit like an icebreaker smashing through a frozen ocean. Limbs the girth of castle towers splayed outwards, fangs capable of shattering solid rock glinted, droplets of venom coating the tips. A putrid tide of air wafted through her nostrils, exhaled from heaving lungs.

Luna stared, wide-eyed, her mouth taking the shape of a small “O.”

There was no sound.

There was no time.

With a speed belying its enormity, the monstrosity rose to meet her, surrounding her with nothing but chitin and flesh and hair, pulling her down, down, down into the darkness.

The swarm screeched in victory, rushing forward after their titan as a single, mindless entity.

Mytaranor sector, Kashyyyk system, geosynchronous orbit above the planet Kashyyyk, aboard the Star Destroyer Devastator...

The tall, broad-shouldered figure remained motionless from where he stood at the observation deck, hands clasped calmly behind his back. The pitch-black armor he wore held an icy sheen, occasionally reflecting the various lights coming in from the window before him.

A middle-aged officer standing beside him shivered.

“Do not look away, Admiral.” The rasped command came from twixt the wheezing breaths. “They knew very well the repercussions of such disobedience.”

“I-I know, m’lord. There is no doubt... but surely...” the admiral trailed off, unsettled by the sight before him. He licked his dry lips. “Surely they have suffered enough. Even for savages, this is... extreme.”

Through the window, the nighttime side of Kashyyyk was visible, speckled here and there with hot cherry-red dots. This was due to the fact that a quarter of a continent had been reduced to ash.

When Vader had ordered his customary strength of bombardment down from orbit, by Empirical standards, that really meant; leave any alive and you'll be next under the crosshairs. The normally ferocious firepower the fleet commanded had taken a zealous, almost frantic edge.

“The killing of so many,” he reasoned. “The Empire needs these Wookiees as slaves, not corpses."

The admiral swallowed an uncomfortable lump in his throat. He turned to the Dark Lord. “S-sir, we’ve been at this for almost a twenty-four hours. Every ship in the fleet is running the risk of damaging their turbolasers — ACK!”

Something powerful clenched about his neck, and he was wrenched a foot off the deck, and forcibly twisted until his face pressed against the cold window.

“You looked away, Admiral.”

“M’lord-d! Ghaack...!” He was choking, something squeezed around his neck. All he could see was the ruins of a blasted land, filling up his vision, his head, his soul...

“This is what happens to those who do displease me,” said Lord Vader. “I read the reports of the mercy you showed them on your last excursion here. The Empire has no use for soft officers. You will watch this world burn until I return from the ship. If you move so much as an inch from this spot, I will behead you where you stand.”

Suddenly the Admiral was on the deck, looking up, gasping as he grabbed at his throat, sweet sweet air rushing into his lungs. “Yes, m’lord. Ah! As... as you say. If... I might inquire, what — ghah! — requires your attention on the planet? We’ve... wiped the rebels out by now.”

“I sense disturbance in the Force. Something down there sings strongly with it. I intend to find out what.”

Lord Vader swept from the observation window, stalking back over the raised catwalk that went the length of the Devastator’s control room.

“The Force?” the Admiral weakly called after him. “A Jedi, then?”

“No.” It seemed, in that instant, the black helmet warped just a bit, into an expression of the true face of malevolence.

“This is no Jedi...”

On the planet Kashyyyk...

The smell of death permeated everything, thick and cloying in her nose.

Deep, deep below the earth, she lay in a huddle, thick tendons of goo immobilizing her, pinning her upside down to the cave’s ceiling. Half her face was pressed against this as a single teal eye took it all it.

The cave was crawling with spiders, covering almost any available surface. Here, in the absolute darkness, she could see faint glows of bioluminescence flicker in their abdomens. Phosphorescent fungus illuminated what the arachnids could not, tinting the air a sickly blue-green.

A struggling to her left alerted her to the fact that she was not alone.

A similar cocoon of silk was plastered to the ceiling beside her, panicked growls and yelps issuing forth. It thrashed wildly, and Luna saw a face rip itself out of the prison, sucking greedily at the — technically — fresh air. It was smushed and thick, but far furrier than a diamond dog, small fangs jutting out from a powerful jaw.

It saw her staring at it. A questioning noise emanated from its mouth, something between a growl and a yodel. Clearly, some poor soul taken captive by these predatory fiends. She could not abide that. As a Princess, she was duty bound to deliver her subjects from harm, even if they looked like a living carpet.

The words it spoke, though — she did not understand it. She was not versed in all the languages of her realm. Fortunately, that would not be an issue.

Her horn flickered to life with a feeble glow. The thing saw it and cooed.

She greeted it in the universal language of thought, projecting her intentions through a magical mind-meld. A soft query of concern, nothing more than a tickle in the back of the head. It’s consciousness felt not unlike the forest; wild and free, but tempered with a sense of wisdom and rationality; a noble savage.

It immediately stopped struggling, an expression of surprise crossing its face. Luna was bombarded with a thousand emotions at once, the most prominent being confusion and fear.

She swaddled it in her reassurance, projecting the sensation of safety. Her reassurance was clearly understood, even if the spell muddled the translation. It understood her intentions, at least. She was here to help, and would drag this unfortunate soul back to the light, as such was her sacred duty.

But how?

It seemed she would need the help of an old companion of hers.

Princess Luna, like all true Princesses, was an alicorn — a fitting leader of a diverse and specialized species. The blood of the three pony tribes roared through her veins, granting her the strengths and weaknesses of each race.

Earth, sky, and stars mingled in the body of a single pony. But Luna knew there was something else, something twisted and pathetic that had long ago sank its teeth into her and never let go.

Even now, it screamed to her, begged with her to let it free. Unleash the beast within. Giving in would be so easy, all over in a second! Embrace the pain and the fear, let them consume and feed... Surely she would —

No.

Even now, even here. In the den of a demon, she held on tenaciously.

Never again will you master me. The tables have turned, now I hold the chains. You are nothing more than a tool, an ends to a mean.

An image flashed through her mind.

...Welcoming ivory wings, so soft, so warm, the truest comfort after so long in exile...

Another. It came faster than the last one. Luna gritted her teeth, feeling herself begin to unravel at the seams. It was fighting her back, harder and sharper than ever.

...Celestia sitting next to her at the long table, laughing at the dab of cake frosting adorning her nose...

Wicked, evil things skittered in the darkness, hissing and bubbling at their catch.

...Shrieking in glee, romping together through the castle gardens. She was little, her mother’s shoulders were the tallest perch in the world, Celestia its greatest hero...

Luna felt her body convulse. On Canterlot, her unexpected desperation had granted her the strength to overpower it, to catch it off guard.

...Ancient summer days and cold winter nights, and through it all, she was there, always there...

Celestia had always been there for her, even through their quarrels.

Luna could not let her sister down. Some still-rational part of her mind realized that this fear came not from falling, from failing in her quest, but from the possibility that she would lose Celestia.

A massive shape loomed over her tightly-wound body. A splash of something acidic splattered into the ground near her. She could hear it hissing as it melted through the earth.

A panicked yodel of distress sounded from the creature, as it struggled furiously. The spiders suddenly sprang at it, one of them sinking its fangs in deep. It bellowed in agony. The others worked feverishly, ripping it off the ceiling and dangling it above the waiting monstrosity.

...Atop the mountain, their city gleaming below, watching the sunset together as they once did so many years ago...

Luna was afraid. Not for herself, but for her sister. That she would never see her again. Never feel those soft wings caress her tight, hear the melodic bell-toll laughter, see that half-hidden smirk or mischievous waggle of an eyebrow.... Never.

She was afraid that she would fail.

Luna convulsed again. Her gritted teeth seemed to take a jagged edge, the pupils of her eyes pulsing as they twitched and began to change shape.

It was there worming its way through her mind, seeking a weakness. If she would just let go, then she would certainly see Celestia again. Give in, and let the storm bloom to unstoppable might.

No. No. NO.

Luna had given in once. Never again. She cracked her mental whip and shoved with her mind, crushing it into its prison deep inside.

...Fear gave way to pain, the pain her body caused as it betrayed her...

...Pain fell to anger — how could she be so useless...!?

...Anger swelled into white hot rage, rage she squeezed and compressed, guiding it as it surged upwards and outwards as cold tide of power...

A hiss. One single light in the darkness.

Reaper blazed brightly, crackles of lighting shooting up and down its blade.

She moved like never before.

The feeling of a shaggy, mossy coat around her shoulders. A primal roar of rage and disbelief from below. An answering scream from the masses. She could feel the air change the second the pit’s walls rushed past. A deathly chill, the aura of a tomb. It would not be theirs.

The forest seemed to hold its breath.

Within the mighty gash, an explosion of black rippled through its depths. A fallen angel rose from the chaos, wielding a blazing scythe of light.

The dark streak rocketed skywards, a comet blacker than sin. Nightmare Moon gritted her serrated teeth, her entire ebony body surrounded in a telekinetic grip, the shaggy creature feebly hanging on around her neck. She cannoned high into the air, just past the withered branch as her magic finally sputtered.

Reaper lashed out, the haft held in a death grip by the black alicorn’s rough teeth, the blade sinking into the tough bark. It held, smoking. Her momentum swung them up and around the branch, and she landed lightly on its length.

Nightmare Moon planted her scythe and calmly gazed down at the carnage.

A rumble shook the tree as her foe dragged itself back out of the hole, one fang and an entire leg missing, nothing more than jagged, cauterized stumps, still glowing a hot red. Its children followed, pouring out from behind like champagne spurting from an uncorked bottle.

The wounded monster let loose an unearthly howl, rushing her tree. It speared the bark with barbed legs, and heaved itself onto the vertical surface, its immense bulk defying gravity. Skittering around and over it came the smaller minions, bolting upwards after her. They soon covered the entire trunk in a seething, heaving horde, rising ever higher in pursuit.

On her back, the furry creature gave a pained moan, its body wracked with shivers.

Poison. She would have to move fast.

Nightmare Moon hissed with exasperation. “The things I do for love.” The long, midnight horn was lowered, spiraling ridges suddenly illuminating with cold light, little snaps of electricity dancing up and down. Through a clenched jaw, she growled with the effort of guiding her rampant power.

The dark alicorn triggered the spell. A tiny tongue of blue flame winked to life at the tip of her horn, eager and hungry to grow.

She obliged it. Not a drop in the ocean of rage was held back.

An almighty pillar of fire spewed forth from the point just above her horn, a hurricane of azure flames so powerful she was nearly pushed off her branch from the recoil. The magical flamethrower swallowed up the first of the encroaching waves, vaporizing them instantly.

The spiders kept coming, throwing themselves at the gout heedlessly. They dropped off in scores, keening as they finally succumbed to her might and plummeting to the forest below.

And still, they kept coming. Sheer numbers began to press back at her. Their titan reached the front of the pack, now covered in the scorched carapaces of its brethren, which acted like armor plating against the flames. It bulldozed through her curtain of fire like a thing possessed, its legs punching huge footholds into the bark.

She abruptly changed tactics. The river of flame suddenly rushed backwards, collecting into a single shining ball of light. Nightmare Moon screamed with the effort, exhausting all of her reserves in a last-ditch attempt. The alicorn arched her back, and with monumental willpower, released the entirety of the spell at once.

For first time in centuries, the darkness beneath the trees was beaten back as the world flashed white.

A single, monstrous bolt of lightning lanced downwards at the beast, hammering into its face with such almighty force that it pushed the entire arachnid down the trunk, its legs carving huge tracks into the bark.

The thunderclap followed a split second later, a concussive shockwave that shook the forest to its roots, as debris began to rain down from the distant canopy and nearby dead limbs were blown from their anchorage. Spiders were blown in every direction, falling through the air like leaves in an autumn wind.

Nightmare Moon slumped, leaning heavily against the side of her tree, breathing hard. Across her back, she could feel the creature’s convulsions intensify.

Smoke filled the realm below. She allowed herself a grin — it’d been a while since she’d been able to bring her full power to bear. It felt painfully satisfying, like stretching an underused muscle.

That smile vanished in an instant.

“I-impossible...”

A ragged mess of a face rose up out of the smoke and mist, followed swiftly by scorched limbs and soot-stained carapace.

The beast yet lived!

Nightmare Moon crouched, feeling ragged and hollow, allowing the furry thing to slide off her back and onto the wide branch. She shakily slid into an offensive stance, Reaper igniting once more at her side.

"So be it."

She would not make it easy for them.

From above, a long, warbling roar of defiance. Nightmare Moon whipped around and beheld, though she did not quite understand.

A sudden streak of red zipped by her from behind, slamming into one of the monster’s remaining eyes, cratering it and throwing a splash of gore into the air.

They were everywhere, on branches, clinging to the trunks, standing tall and proud on wide, wooden platforms quickly lowering from the canopy, one of which halted a meter from her branch. They bristled with spears, knives, and strange crossbows, one of which was pointed directly between Nightmare Moon’s eyes.

The creature’s kin had arrived.

The one aiming the crossbow at her was almost as tall as she was; huge, hairy, — undeniably male — with knotted dreadlocks and a leathery harness, it emitted another savage war-cry. There was no doubt he was the leader of the band.

His companions stormed down into the carnage, roaring and yodeling loud enough to wake the dead. Firing red bolts from their bows and goring with their spears, their impressive strength quickly turned the spiders into full rout, pushing them back into their hole. The titan was last to flee, screaming a single, pain-filled bellow as it retreated under the onslaught.

Nightmare Moon watched the leader carefully. His beady eyes were locked onto the Reaper’s shining blade, with something like a mix of wonder and fear. She stomped the butt into the branch, deactivating it.

His attention immediately shifted to back to her, and his stance — and aim — significantly tightened up.

A plaintive warble came from her side. She looked to see the one she had rescued, gesturing to her with fading strength. Nightmare Moon gently picked it up in a telekinetic aura, laying it down on the platform the leader stood upon.

He held a hushed conversation with the wounded one, before glaring at her and gesturing, curling his hand upwards at her. The intent was clear.

Nightmare Moon hesitated, then sprang off the branch, landing delicately on the wooden platform suspended above the forest floor by cables of vines. She could smell the scent of moss and musk on the creature, not an entirely unpleasant sensation. The leader stomped once, twice, thrice upon the platform, and it suddenly jerked into motion, slowly ascending into the canopy above.

Nightmare Moon sighed to herself, leaning heavily against Reaper’s haft and sitting down on the rough wooden planks to watch the forest go past. She felt exhausted, more drained than she had been in centuries. The titanic effort put into her magic was finally catching up to her, forcing her eyes to lower and the half-welcomed caress of slumber to blossom from her breast.

Hold on, Celestia. Your sister is coming...

The last thing she saw was a warm, bright light.

Author's Note

Now with twenty percent more RavensDagger.

ALL PRAISE THE PROPHET OF PROSE

Or I'll smack your buns, or something.

[Chapter 8] - The Force Is Strong With This One

Dead or Alive: Chapter 8
by: Rust

Arkanis sector, Tatoo system, Tatooine, aboard the Slave I...

Boba Fett was in a foul mood.

He gritted his teeth, once again thankful for his concealing visor. His frustration was partially justified, though.

His quest had been idle for far too long.

"Can't you work any faster?" he complained to the dirty astromech droid. They were down in the tiny engine room, made even smaller by Boba's after-market alterations. The Slave I had been fast before, but there was nothing wrong with a little more muscle under the hood, so to speak.

The engines worked fine. No, the reason he'd been stranded so long was the damage caused to his hyperdrive. It was a beast of a machine, fueled by a science so abstract it was almost sorcery. His customizations had allowed his ship to earn an astounding Class 0.7, where top-tier Imperial cruisers still ran on Class 2's.

There was only one ship he knew of that could run faster.

But in the meantime, the lack of hyperspace travel left him relatively marooned in system, lurking in the shadows behind Tatooine's major moon, Ghomrassen. It would take him a long time to cross the Galaxy on his backup hyperdrive; only a Class 8. Too long. Vader's time restriction echoed loudly in his mind.

Three days...

Well, he was already a day-and-a-half in, and it would take at least ten hours in the hyperlanes to get him to the coordinates the Dark Lord had provided for the drop-off.

Despite everything, Boba Fett felt a twinge of unease. He had personally bested some of the most dangerous, malicious life-forms in the known Galaxy. The Clone Wars had baptized him to malevolence and chaos, and a lifetime of hunting his dangerous prey had dulled his sense of righteousness... but Vader?

Darth Vader was on a whole other level of evil.

He did not want to cross that man if he could help it. The atrocities committed by the Dark Lord were as legendary as Boba's own exploits... Entire species had met their end, impaled on the end of an angry red lightsaber.

The few times their interests had conflicted over the years had given Boba a healthy respect for the Sith's prowess. Of course, that didn't mean he was above playing on the cyborg's notorious lack of patience to extort higher prices for services, but that was where he drew the line. Pissing contests were one thing...

Boba shook his head. No, they needed to get moving, and they needed to do it yesterday, lest he jeopardize the Fett family name's rise to immortality.

He aimed a kick at the astromech droid. "If that drive isn't operational in an hour, I'm giving you to the Hutts to serve drinks."

And by 'giving' he meant 'ejecting from high orbit.'

And then... trip to Mos Eisley, to steal the fastest ship he could find. There was no use kicking a dead bantha, even if he had sunk thousands of credits into the Slave I. The scrappy astromech belched at him, but redoubled its efforts nonetheless. Sparks flew from where it was busy patching up the damaged hardware. Boba left it there, stomping back up to the cabin, only to be transfixed once again by the hypnotizing gaze of his mysterious prisoner.

Oh, right.

He'd forgotten why the engine room had seemed so appealing, if only to escape her wounded expression. Gods above and below, was that actual guilt he was feeling?

He shuddered, plopping down into the cockpit and immersing himself in the HoloNet.

The armored alien had returned, pointedly ignoring her once again. Or was it? It was impossible to tell with that reflective visor. She studied it a few more moments, just to make sure. There had to be something about it she could use. The best case being some way to free herself of the strange metal choker that stymied her magic.

Celestia turned back to the... thing.

It had identified itself earlier, with some strange word she had never heard before. Droid. It was just a title, but she was beginning to understand what it might mean.

All living creatures emitted a small field, an ambiance of energy, so to speak. It was this that was the source of her spells and enchantments. While she had fuel within her to burn -- and ample stores of it, too -- there was a spark required to ignite her magic. Without the life-force, she was simply a sarcophagus of potential energy, with no way to unleash it. She suspected that the choker around her neck was directly inhibiting her ability to tap into this ever-present power, effectively crippling her magic by removing the necessary catalyst. Ingenious, really.

But the golden creature currently chattering away in front of her did not emit this life force.

It was as if a dead body had risen from the grave and was trying to talk to her! It was intelligent, she could plainly see that, and it even appeared to have a personality. And yet, it did not seem to be alive. In fact, it did not even seem to be made of flesh. Through the gaps in it's gold plating she could see a plethora of wires, deeper still she saw bones of metal.

Perhaps a spirit had been imprisoned within it. That was a likely explanation, though one she did not wish to believe. Was the thing a lich? Some kind of possessed artifact? Maybe even a poltergeist that had inhabited a puppet? Dark magic was afoot here. Either way, it was an abomination to life as she knew it.

Still, for an abomination, it was polite.

She decided that it was a type of golem. She supposed that was what droid meant.

"C-3PO," the droid said, pointing a finger towards its face.

"Swee. Trie. Prie-aw." She struggled to replicate the noises. Her tongue felt thick and clumsy. Oh, if only she had her magic, she could whip of a translation spell matrix in the blink of an eye! It had been too long since she'd struggled, actually struggled with learning. She envied her former apprentice. Twilight Sparkle had a frighteningly adaptable intellect, which would no doubt surpass her own over the coming centuries.

Still, at least the droid was communicating with her. That was something. Perhaps she could try and worm some information out of it.

Celestia prodded her choker with an ivory hoof. "What is this?" she slowly asked.

"Magic eenhibhitohr," said the droid.

Celestia blinked.

"Magic," the droid repeated.

"Force," C-3PO said.

"Force." The prisoner declared. Again, and this time with gusto, "Force!"

Beneath his helmet, Boba raised an eyebrow. The po'nii had spoken in perfect Common. And she was... smiling? It was the first expression he'd seen on her face other than terror, anguish, or the disturbingly peaceful expression she wore in combat. She laughed. That was a universal language. It was a beautiful laugh, like the chiming of temple bells. Boba felt his gut churn. Looking back at the display, he felt it fall to a simmer as he immersed himself in the expansive virtual world, idly scanning the local shipyard's inventory.

He set the display down, suddenly struck by inspiration.

I should buy a battlecruiser.

Heh. Naaah...

Arkanis sector, Tatoo system, Interplanetary space...

Far above the blistering deserts, a shape glinted in the starlight.

It slid smoothly of the planet's shadow, illuminating a battered and rusting hulk, shaped like a smoothed rectangle that cut through the ether with malevolent intent. It was large for its purpose, and bristling with firepower, but that suited the sole living occupant just fine.

Aboard, the dank atmosphere was polluted by a simply appalling stench. Huge, furry skins hung from the walls, tacked by crude metal spikes, some even dangling heavily by exposed, hissing pipes. Some were still dripping, former occupants only recently evicted. A rotting corpse on the galley's table had begun to undergo rigor mortis, a once-proud wookiee contorting into impossible angles, flesh hanging off it in grisly strips.

Nothing moved in the oppressive interior save for the skins themselves, stirred like grotesque puppets in the ventilation system's stale breeze.

The scent of death was everywhere.

At the bridge, a scaly hand tightened its grip around the command chair, an eerie green glow illuminating the owner. Slitted, reptilian nostrils opened and closed, breathing in the putrid air as if it were gaseous ambrosia. Draconic, slitted pupils greedily darted this way and that over the readings brought by the hovering holo-display, calculating, fantasizing, raging.

The hand clenched, powerful muscles gouging its claws deep into the metal armrest. A powerful frame leaned away from the light, basking in the aura of the slaughterhouse adorning every spare inch of space; a hunter, supremely confident of his skills and helplessness of his prey.

A soft rumble could be heard as the starship's engines described a sudden deceleration.

"Oh-ho-ho... I'm going to enjoy this, Fett."

The hunter lurched forwards, all-but punching a button on the console back into the machine. The display spat out a message.

Ion cannon online

>Charge 100%

>Acquiring target... Firespray-31

>Firing on command.

"Eat hot plasma, mandalorian scum!"

Arkanis sector, Tatoo system, Tatooine, aboard the Slave I...

Several things happened at once.

Celestia's head snapped to, eyes wide as she struggled to move but still bound by steel cord. Her inner mind was screaming loudly, the instinctive connection to her magic blazing bright and seemingly trying to rip itself right out of her spine. All thoughts of bridging the language gap had been forgotten.

The droid recoiled, questioning her with garbled words, but she had no ear to hear its strange tongue.

Something bad was about to happen.

Something very, very bad.

She could feel a presence drawing close, still just a faint tickle in the back of her head but potent enough for her to recoil. Her nostrils flared. She smelled... rotting flesh. The alien and the droid were rapidly spitting words back at each other, the alien gesturing with frustration.

Then, the strange lights at the alien's console began to pulse a deep red, and harsh klaxon beginning to blare from somewhere in the room. He stared for a moment, seemingly stupefied, before he roared something inarticulate, then hit the deck.

A terrifyingly loud scream of thunder split the air. The floor dropped right out from underneath Celestia's hooves, and she followed it a moment later as everything not secured slammed into the metal floor, droid and alien included. A rumbling bass overtone could be heard in the background, slowly gaining strength.

All the lights in the room flickered once, then died. The familiar hum that had permeated everything suddenly vanished. What did it mean? Celestia's mind raced, sorely aware it was out of its element.

The alien was abruptly illuminated by a sharp light appearing from the helmet. By the swath of brightness, Celestia saw Swee Tre Prie-aw struggling on its back, seemingly turned turtle. She braced her shoulder underneath and rolled it over.

Loud bangs could be heard, nearby, but... muffled?

It took her a minute to realize they were coming from outside.

The were being boarded. And judging by the tenseness of the armored alien as he crouched behind the console, this was not something he had expected, either.

Celestia saw her chance. Whoever was assaulting the ship must know about her presence, or else why bother boarding instead of outright destroying the ship and be done with it? She could slip her captive and join up with the intruder! Of course... now she just needed a weapon of some sort to surprise him...

The scent of rot and decay was beginning to be overpowering.

In the jump, her bindings had loosened. Not much, but enough for her to awkwardly shuffle to her hooves, if she kept low. But the darkness would be a problem... Her eyes squeezed shut as a new source of light made itself known, the eyes of the metal 'droid' had lit up, casting another ribbon through the impressive darkness.

Abruptly, a bolt of red streaked past, ricocheting off the metal walls. Something could be heard roaring from further down the ship, a voice she had never heard before. The alien screamed something back, popping up from behind the console to fire a few blasts of his own from the sidearm at his hip.

"Psst!" she hissed, so as not to alert the alien. "Swretee Piyo!" She was sure she had garbled the name, but the droid turned to her, casting blessed illumination all around where she crouched.

There!

On the floor some sort of metal cylinder, almost the length of her forelimb, sporting a black striped grip and a few dials and buttons.

She quickly bent over and grabbed it in her mouth clamping down with her teeth so as to have a firm grip when she used it as a bludgeon.

Fwissshhhhhh!

In a split second, a solid beam of red light extended out from one end of the rod, slicing clean through the metal bindings immobilizing her limbs and cutting a small slash across the side of breast. It burned! A low, gentle hum filled the air. With a panicked squawk, she spat the thing out, the crimson beam vanishing instantly with a soft sssshwhp!

In front of her, the droid made a sound that seemed something between reverence and sadness.

"What in Equestria...?" she murmured.

Then it hit her like a ton of bricks. The red light beam had sliced through metal cable. She glanced down at the white choker around her neck.

Celestia resisted the urge to grin like a foal, picking the device up again in her mouth and...

...and suddenly realizing she had no idea how to turn it on.

She poked at it with her tongue.

Fwisssshhhh!

An angry cylinder exited from the tube, this time from the opposite end... strange. Never the less, this time she kept her grip and slashed her new weapon right at the choker's beeping console. It was destroyed spark and a hiss, although the blade was unable to cut through the white surface underneath. The choker remained around her neck, the circuitry smoking ruins.

But it was enough.

Oh, by the sun, it was enough.

A supremely empowering wash of heat and warmth erupted from her gut, finally let loose, flowing through her veins and bones to fill every inch of her body! Her ivory coat began to glow softly in the dark, her pink, hanging mane was once again struck through by a wash of brilliant color, shivering in a breeze that did not exist. She flexed and the constraints binding her wings snapped with a creak and a groan.

She spat the device out, holding it aloft in her resurgent telekinesis. Purely by accident, another bolt shot from down the dark corridor and hit the red blade, bouncing right off it! It then glanced off the back of the armored alien's head, who promptly turned and froze at the sight of her in her full majesty.

Celestia was upon him in an instant.

Boba felt himself slam into the back of his command console with such force the metal wrapped around his body. His breath exited his lungs in a rush, and he could have sworn he felt something crack. An ivory leg planted itself on his chest and pushed, pinning him with what felt like the weight of speeder.

For the first time in his adult life, Boba Fett felt afraid.

The cards were now stacked against him. If she didn't kill him, the scaly, slimy, shit-for-brains excuse for a bounty hunter currently firing potshots from around the corner would, and if he didn't... The Dark Lord of the Sith would. He was immobilized by a Force-wielding quadruped with a lightsaber. His ship was all but marooned. He could feel his legacy slipping through his fingers like grains of sand.

The spiraling horn atop her head began to glow, and Boba braced for the worst.

Then... a voice. An impossibly beautiful, yet terribly wise voice.

"My name is Celestia, Princess of Equestria, called the Dawnbringer, the Mother of Flame, and Champion of the Light. You have kidnapped me from my own bedroom, assaulted the people of my kingdom, and imprisoned me against my will. Give me one good reason why I should not slay you for the crimes you have committed against me, villain."

It took him several heartbeats to realize that she was actually the one speaking. When her mouth moved, the words he heard did not seem to match up. His eyes flicked to the glowing of her horn. She must be using some kind of Jedi sorcery to make herself understood... hopefully it worked both ways.

Boba rasped, "Listen, Celes--"

The lightsaber blade swung up, hovering an inch from his throat. He could hear it's hum in the back of his skull. Of course, it had to be that particular weapon. At least she hadn’t realized it had more than one blade...

"Princess Celestia," he hastily amended. "I'm Fett. Boba Fett. And -- I don't know if you've noticed but, you chose a really bad time for this." At her raised eyebrow, but lack of stabbing, he continued. "We've been boarded by one very pissed-off Trandoshan who seems intent on punching a hole in my ship from the inside with sheer poor marksmanship." At this, another bolt sped past, missing Celestia by inches. She did not flinch in the least.

"I am well aware. I intend to restrain you until they arrive to rescue me."

"RESCUE!?" Boba found it very hard not to burst out laughing at that. "Princess, the only thing that scabsucker around the corner wants with you are your wings nailed to a wall and your barely lifeless body in a jar. Bossk is a bounty hunter! And he's hunting you!" Suddenly, he could see light at the end of the tunnel. "...In fact, I had to kidnap you so that he couldn't get to you first!"

She didn't seem convinced in the least. "For what reason would there be a price on my head? How could I have earned the ire of somepony I've never met, Mister Foot?"

"Fett."

"I couldn't care less."

"Look -- I'm not entirely sure why someone posted a bounty. Or why it's such a large one." That wasn't the truth, but it wasn't a lie, either. The Empire's plans for her and her people had never been fully revealed to him. "But the fact of the matter is, Bossk will deliver you in pieces... dead or alive."

Her eyes narrowed, but in them he could see the faintest spark of uncertainty. "Why did you imprison me? Why the restraints and the miserable conditions? Why not simply tell me and spare me this awful journey!?"

"Would you have believed it if I had simply landed in front of your castle, waltzed inside and said, 'hello, someone's about to bust in here and shoot the place up, shove you in a cage, and take you halfway across the known Galaxy to be sold to the highest bidder!?"

"..."

"Hell's teeth, you're lucky I was the one to extract you. Bossk would have leveled the city! I did not kill a single person, I only used sedative-tipped darts --"

From around the corner came a hoarse scream. "FETT! OH, FETT! I CAN HEAR YOU PRAYING IN THERE! YOU BETTER MAKE YOUR PEACE AND MAKE IT FAST, BECAUSE I'M LEAVING YOUR SHIP WITH ANOTHER SKULL FOR MY COLLECTION! WHERE'D YOU HIDE IT, FETT!? COME OUT, COME OUT!"

Boba Fett smiled beneath his helmet and through his flashing HUD. Good 'ole Bloodlust Bossk. "See?"

Celestia frowned at something over the console, then looked back at him.

"Princess, I saved you from... that animal. You can smell it, right? That's his ship, he's docked with us. The Hound's Tooth. Go inside it and see for yourself what kind of monster you'd be siding with. I can help you, Celestia. I want to help you." Gods above, it hurt his black heart even say the word 'help.'

Another flurry of blaster bolts careened from the hallway. One of them just barely grazed the side of Celestia's jaw. She flinched, eyes wide, as if finally realizing the danger of the weapon, and crouched behind the console, still pinning Boba down with a single hoof and rubbing at the angry blaster burn with her other.

He suddenly realized the crimson lightsaber was no longer pointing at him.

"This will not be the first time I have saved your sorry hide, Boba Fett." Celestia closed her eyes, taking her weight off him. "Keep that in mind, next time you stab me in the back."

The lightsaber was suddenly brought into a whirling flourish around her head, and she leapt up and over the console, out of sight.

"OOOOH, FETT, I CAN HEAR YOU COMING, YOU WANT TO PLAY, HUH!? WELL ALRIGHT, LET'S... wait, who the hell are you? Wait, is that a --"

The sounds of combat erupted from behind him, several meaty thwacks and what seemed to be a body being repeatedly slammed into something hard and metal. More blaster fire. The dreadful humming of a lightsaber in motion.

Boba activated his helmet’s remote camera feed, a small length of wire coiling from the extension bolted to the side of its armor plating. Like a little worm, the wire stretched out and pivoted, a tiny lens at the end transmitting a live feed to his HUD. He could see everything from the corner of his eye.

He wished he hadn’t.

‘Celestia’ was a force of nature. She seemed to know exactly where the blasterfire would go, manipulating her saber in a terrifying red storm that arced and swirled about herself, the blade suspended in the air with her Force-powers.

“What the hell are you...? No, get away, get away!” Bossk retreated around the corner, the ivory wraith following with slow, ominous steps.

Celestia came to the corner and abruptly vanished in a gout of raging fire.

Boba felt his heart sink. He always did love that flamethrower. There goes the bounty, the starships, the legend...

Unbelievably, when the inferno cleared the po’nii still stood, glaring imperiously at something around the corner. There was not a trace of injury upon her — in fact, small tails of fire still smoldered harmlessly upon her fur and long, flowing hair. She barked something in her musical language, her long-handled lightsaber flourishing at her side.

She strode purposefully forward, around the corner and out of sight. Boba terminated the camera feed, once again forced to look out the window.

He could still hear it, though. The sound of wrathful roaring, an impressive amount of blasterfire, and that accursed hum of a lightsaber moving with purpose. Then, a heavy thud that actually shook the entire ship, followed by a disturbing gurgle.

And then, quiet.

Boba struggled, trying to pry himself out of the warped console that had conformed to the shape of his body. It must have caught on his jetpack, though, for he could not seem to pry himself free. His entire body ached. He then realized there was no way he was getting out of his predicament without the po'nii whom had entombed him there in the first place.

He began to think.

"Bossk!" whispered to himself. "I swear to all that is holy, I am going to sell you as a handbag!"

He and the Trandoshan bounty hunter had a long, checkered past. Necessity had often forced them to work as a team to bring in bounties undreamed of by the lone wolf. Grudging he might be, but Bossk had actually taught him a lot about the trade in his younger days. Mostly, they ended up betraying one another. Good times.

In hindsight, he shouldn't have been surprised that Bossk was interfering. They were rivals. How the hell had the Hound's Tooth even snuck up on him? It was a freighter for godsake. Bossk must have jammed his scanners, somehow...

Although, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was up.

Somehow, Boba's job wasn't so secret anymore. Bossk knew about his precious cargo. Moreso, he knew about how much she was worth. Hell, he must even know where and to whom she was to be delivered.

Somehow, word had leaked.

And if Bossk knew, everybody knew.

Boba's blood chilled in his veins. This job had not turned out like he had expected. It was supposed to be a simple snatch-and-grab, but no, the damnable dark po'nii from back on Equus had ripped him right out of the hyperlanes. He hoped her body was floating aimlessly through the cosmos, forever preserved as a monument to her own stupidity.

The bounty hunter leaned back his head, heavy helmet meeting console with an audible thunk.

"Master... I had no idea we were transporting a Jedi." Oh, right, he had forgotten about the fricking droid. C-3PO stood off to the side, bathing the dark cabin with its eye beams. It must have seen everything.

He snorted. "That's no Jedi." No, she was a far cry from the nigh-invincible Knights an Masters he had seen fight in the Clone Wars. They were utterly terrifying, masters of their strange and savage art. He had seen Jedi perform miracles. This po'nii, Celestia, she no doubt wielded that same power, but he doubted she had the same amount of experience as them, or even the same teaching. She was mere Padawan, and that was stretching it. Boba had killed plenty of those. In a fair fight, he was sure she would fall to him. "That's another breed entirely."

The slow, heavy thud-thud of hooves on metal announced said breed's return to the Slave I. She took her sweet time, eventually coming to a stop next to the window, looking out at the stars with an unreadable expression.

"I have dealt with the intruder," she said after a moment of contemplation. "The beast is back in his... c-craft."

Boba took that as a sign she must have gone inside the Hound's Tooth. He almost felt a pang of sympathy for her. The ship was a glorified slaughterhouse.

"You were right, Boba Fett. That monster would have proved to be my undoing, had I let him. And the savagery displayed... he would have felled a great many of my little ponies, if not out of collateral, then simple pleasure."

She turned to him.

"I will not thank you for inadvertently sparing them that atrocity. However, I will also not condone you for your methods."

Boba shrugged. "So what now, Your Worshipfulness?" If the sarcasm was noticed she made no reaction. "You need me to make your next move. And I won't be much use like this."

Celestia thought for a moment. He could almost see the little light flickering on in her skull. Her horn's glow pulsed, and he was ungracefully wrenched free of the console with a shriek of grinding starship parts. He dangled helplessly a couple feet above the deck.

Helpless.

Aboard his own ship!

How the tables had turned, at least for the moment.

"For now, I suspect we must flee this place." Celestia finally set him down, none too gently. "I am a stranger to your ways and this society, though I would hazard a guess that more bounty hunters may yet attempt to hinder us should we remain in the same place."

"We can't go anywhere until the hyperdrive is fixed."

Her face screwed up in confusion. "Show me."

Boba led the po'nii down the hallway. He noticed the plating had been deformed and marred by blaster fire and the longer, more destructive slashes of a lightsaber. He hadn't seen that kind of battle damage in years. "Did you kill him?" Boba asked.

"No."

He snorted. "Should have." He paused at the main doorway to the outside. It was opened, and it seemed the Hound's Tooth was still connected to the Slave I by means of airlock. He was grateful for his helmet's air-filtration system, because judging by the way Celestia was covering her nose, the stench must be overwhelming. With a grimace of disgust, he reached into the airlock and slammed the disengage. A heavy door rolled across the gateway, though not before he casually chucked a thermal detonator inside.

Boba closed the Slave I's hatch and descended down to the engine room.

Celestia followed, saying, "What did you throw in--"

KRACK-OOOM!

The detonator exploded, no doubt rupturing the Tooth's airlock. The freighter disconnected from the smaller craft, drifting away into orbit around one of Tatooine's moons. There was really no practical reason to trigger the ship's atmospheric depressurization alarm, aside from the automatic compartmentalization, which would trap Bossk wherever he was for a little while. That, and he just like beating on the putrid thing.

"Some extra time," he droned.

Celestia made no reply, but he could feel her frown on the back of his head.

They squeezed into the cramped engine room, where the astromech droid was still busy at the 'drive, sparks flaring from where it worked. "Pree-whoot! Brrrp-mrrrp," said the droid when he kicked it.

"I would ask that you not use such foul language, sir," Celestia huffed.

Boba stared at her.

"...What?"

He shook himself, realizing it must be the sorcery powering her sudden ability to communicate. And now she spoke 'droid! Wonderful.

"Peep-boop, bre-e-et?" said the astromech.

"Hmmm? No, I've made an arrangement."

"Bedededede-boop!"

Celestia cast a sidelong glance at him. "Yes, I agree wholeheartedly, he is rather irate, isn't he?"

Boba could feel his blood pressure rising.

"Deelee-deedee-doo."

"Is that so? Let me have a look, Mister...?"

"Woo-peep-dee-doo."

"Artoo? Splendid..."

Celestia and the droid hunched over the hyperdrive. Boba hovered behind them, curious as to what was going on, and a little frustrated at not being included. The droid and the princess began a hushed conversation. The bounty hunter lasted nearly five minutes of this before saying, "Well?"

Celestia stood. "Well, I am able to allow your... hyper-drive... to function again. It seems an internal power coupling has ruptured, according to Mister Artoo. I can supply the necessary energy needed to bypass the break entirely. Simply activate it, and I shall do the rest."

"You?" Boba palmed the visor of his helmet. "Listen, I don't think you're familiar with the sort of energy we're dealing with here. This stuff is so advanced, to your people it must be magic."

A crackle of lightning ran along the lines of her horn, illuminating an infuriatingly confident smirk. "I fail to see the issue, Mister Fett."

Boba scowled. "Fine."

"But."

Oh, sweet baby sarlacc in the cradle... He tried to remain civil. He needed her, he reminded himself. "Yes?"

"We travel only where I wish, and only by my say."

Boba gaped at her. "You can't possibly be serious."

"Afraid so," she narrowed her eyes. "With my powers restored once more, I can sense that I am not alone in my predicament. Somewhere out there, my sister, Luna, is alive and must have found refuge somewhere. I intend to find her before I plan my next move."

Luna? How could another po'nii have been...

Boba felt a massive headache come on. "She's not sort of darkly colored, is she?"

"Why, yes, how did you know?"

"...May have run into her once or several times."

Celestia blinked. "I can show you the general direction to where we must travel, but you must navigate us there yourself."

Boba shook his head. "No. Absolutely not. There is no way in Jabba's sweaty buttcrack that I am --"

Hyperspace, aboard the Slave I...

"-- actually doing this," Boba muttered slowly bumping his helmeted head into the console. Outside the cockpit, the hypnotizing streaks of hyper speed blurred past. He checked the ship's speed, resuming his repeated bumping when he noticed that they were now traveling at what seemed to rank the Slave I as a Class .5 hyperdrive.

She's actually going faster now than ever before, Boba lamented. Down below, an eerie rumble signified Celestia's union with the ship, an unholy pink light emanating from underneath the metal grills of the floor.

Boba eventually fell asleep in the chair, finally succumbing to the call of the dreamland after a long and treacherous ordeal. He slept surprisingly well, all things considered.

Author's Note

Hey, guys. It's my birthday today.

As you read this, I am no doubt in the middle of some good 'ole fashioned pain and suffering, brought to you by the wonderful folks down at basic training. You're probably wondering, "What the hell? How can you write pony there?"

Well, I didn't. I wrote this back in early August. Our mutual friend Nathan Traveler, current baby-sitter of my account, has been instructed to release unpublished chapters on specific dates. Today, my birthday, I decided to give you all a gift, because fuck it I'm magnanimous like that.

Anyway, special thanks go to Nathan Traveler, the incredibly sexy RavensDagger, and cockmeat sandwiches.

[Chapter 9] - Knightfall

DEAD OR ALIVE

Chapter 9: Knightfall
By: Rust

Mytaranor sector, Kashyyyk system, on the planet Kashyyyk...

A gentle night rain tickled her hide through the open window, but still she slept on.

Her body lay nestled high in the woshyr treetops, tucked safely away by cautious beings. While the forest swayed with the rivers of clouds and wind that played in the highest reach, the trees would creak and groan, giving off a barely-audible hum as the wood flexed and water dripped down their boughs. Visitors to Kashyyyk often told of this strange natural phenomenon, as if the forest itself would sing.

She noticed this, watching from the realm between the conscious and the dreaming, a shade of a fragment of the mare that crept through the trees.

Her body slept on, but her spirit yet soared.

Most of the night had been spent as many others before it. She was no stranger to prowling the dreams of little ponies, traveling all across the land crafted by their sleeping minds, a ghost in a hall of mirrors. This city held it's own unique flavor, though, unique to the creatures that inhabited it. One that tasted... invigorating.

They lived miles above the forest floor, her rescuers, where the clouds sometimes scraped the treetops and the air didn't taste of gloom and things that had never seen the light of the sun. Their city was built into the sides of the very trees themselves, great domed platforms bulging out from the mighty trunks like mushrooms. Lights flickered in the night from a few windows, but many were dark and cold.

She noticed this all and more as she glided through the shadows, spectral wings no longer crippled by bone and flesh. There was a peacefulness to this place, a sort of sanctity that reminded her of the monastery that had once been the only building on the face of Canterlot Mountain.

They hunted and gathered in the shadows of the trees, one large family splintering off into several smaller clans. They built many things from the wood of their homes, and as such took great pride in their health. She slid through a multitude of slumbering minds, carefully glimpsing from afar, learning all she could.

Some of them remained awake, though their eyes were not keen enough to spy her, a slash of smoke in the dark. Figures moved, far and few between, taking the bridges strung between the treetops or ambling through the passageways that honeycombed their buildings. She let herself brush past one on a bridge, letting a ghostly wingtip kiss the top of its head. Foreign concepts and memories swirled her mind, each blossoming like a new flower in the dark.

The People of the Trees, she gleaned. That was what they called themselves. An apt name. They tasted strange, and yet so familiar, bearing many traits that she knew were borne in her little ponies. Honest... undoubtedly. Fiercely loyal, to family and friend... Generous... Kind... Underneath it all, a ferocity she could not describe, a terrifying mix of pride and instinct that made her spirit boil in all the right places.

She immediately decided she liked these creatures, these People of the Trees.

Despite everything, she felt better than she had in long while. A change in scenery did a mare good every couple of centuries. Canterlot had been feeling rather stuffy of late. It reminded her of the old days, when the Equestria was still wild and raw. When she and Celestia roamed the countryside, brave adventurers righting wrongs and pummeling villains. Oh, the ballads they had inspired!

Oh, Celestia. How terribly thou art missed.

But it would not do to dwell on such saddening thoughts. She would be reunited... somehow. Her interest sated for the moment, she turned herself skyward. Like a cork from a bottle, she shot out from the treetops, slid through the clouds, and emerged into the night sky.

It took her a moment to comprehend what she saw. Shining resplendent in the silver gleam of the dreamtime, a trio of beautiful orbs hung among the stars, dewdrops above the ocean of forest.

Her moon had... foals?

Scrutinizing the largest of the three, she came to a startling conclusion. This was not her moon. It's pockmarked surface was unfamiliar, as were those of its children. Reaching out with a tether of magic, she was further astounded when it resisted her call, willfully carrying on it's course without any further guide, the smaller two following their mother like ducklings in a row.

Where had her moon gone? Where had her stars gone? These constellations were unfamiliar, and they too were cold and distant to her advances.

But still, she could not help but rejoice a little at the sight. The sky pulsed with more light than ever before, and it was quite beautiful, even if the canvas had been marred by a clearly untrained painter.

Still. Like much else she had seen of late, it left her with more questions than answers and an uneasy feeling in her spirit.

Slipping down beneath the boughs, she reluctantly left her night behind, unsure of what to feel by the sight of the new moon and its children. She promised herself she would return soon. But in the meantime, she had more to learn from her rescuers.

One in particular.

They had obviously been planning all along to save their comrade, the one she ascended from the great spider's lair with. She did not like to think it, but she may have only been saved by the grace of luck, being in the right time and the right place of their intervention.

There was no end to the questions she had to ask, and she decided she would speak with her creature first, the one who was there with her in the deep.

The essence of its spirit wasn't that hard to find -- they rarely were -- and she dove down through the city to find that the creature was sleeping in the same building as she was, nearest to the center of the city and below what seemed to be a large gathering hall. She slipped through the same window she had originally left from..

A pile of deep blue and black shivered in its nest as she began to glide past, but stopped. She took the moment to look at herself while she slept. The forest had not been kind to her mortal shell, now covered in scrapes and bruises and dirt, the larger wounds having been treated by the People of the Trees with bandages and strange smelling salves. She had now been awake when they brought her in, nor had she been dreaming yet.

Luna looked down at her sleeping form and saw something that was not quite herself, some strange mix of her and the darkness within she had harnessed. Nightmare Moon's fangs still glinted from half-open lips, and patches of black still blotted her coat like ink-stains. Her good wing was still larger than the other, raven feathers tightly tucked for warmth.

It would fade, as it had before. She had come to peace with that part of herself.

Beyond, on the other side of the room she now came to see as a sort of sick back, her creature was at rest in its own nest, sitting upright with legs crossed underneath it, arms folded across its furry chest as the shaggy head slumped forward. It too sported a few bandages and scrapes, she noticed.

Whispering a prayer under her breath, Luna's shadow reached out.

The world became a blur, accelerating away from her at a sickening pace until it screamed to a jarring halt. Luna looked around, her surroundings had changed to the dream of its creator.

She stood on the shore of a frozen underground pool, bright, glowing crystals spiking from the ceiling and ground. Here and there, one poked out from the surface of the ice. A cold chill permeated her core, and she ruffled her feathers for warmth.

Her creature sat in the same position upon a small rise of rock in the center of the pool. It was wearing a colorful poncho, a thick belt wrapping around its waist. Before it, a slim length of wood floated motionless in the air. Silence deafened the cave, so loud she fancied she might even hear the blood pumping through its veins.

Luna tiptoed across the ice. Frost crept up her silver shoes, but she failed to notice.

"Hail, and well met!" she called out, her voice echoing weirdly through the crystal cave. Dragonbreath passed from her mouth.

The creature gave no sign of hearing her, other than open a single eye, a deep golden brown.

"We wish to have words with you," Luna explained, coming to a halt on the ice before the small rise of rock it sat upon. "There is much that needs be discussed. Will you hear us?" There was no need to change her tongue; here they spoke the universal language of thought.

A second eye opened now, an expression of curiosity crossing the furry face.

"So you have finally come for me, Dark One."

Luna cocked an eyebrow at the odd title. His -- she decided to refer to it as a male after hearing the voice -- customs were new to her, so she felt it was not necessary to question. Still, she now had an open audience to finally begin learning more about this alien place she had come to. One step closer to discovering where that armored monster swept her sister off to.

But now that she was standing in the doorstep, she found difficulty putting the proverbial hoof in.

"Who... are you?" she awkwardly settled.

He shifted slightly. "You did not already know?" He seemed surprised.

Luna shook her head.

"I am called Gungiwaroo." He grunted, taking the handle of wood that floated before him in hand. "And your hunt ends here."

Luna's eyes widened. "Truly? Thou knows the location of my sis -- Wagh!" A hiss of ignition, and a brilliant arc of emerald green cleaved through the space before her muzzle . Had she not instinctively flinched away, it would have taken her throat.

The creature had cleared the gap between them in the blink of an eye. A shining blade of light was now gripped in clenched fingers. Luna was astounded - he had a weapon just like Reaper!

Reaper...

...The only prize which she had taken from the monster...

...The same monster that spirited Celestia away...

The jigsaw puzzle of her circumstances were shaken roughly.

...This creature had just attacked her with the same weapons of the monster...

...And must therefore bear some affiliation with it...

...Which meant this creature was one more step on the stairs to Celestia.

...Logic.

"Thou hast no concept for the ferocity of the posterior pummeling container thou just opened!"

A flick of a thought, and her scythe blazed into life. Pale blue and deep green clashed together on the cave walls, to the tune of crackling and humming emitted by the two blades. The creature growled deep in his throat. Luna growled back at him, lightning sparking about her horn.

They charged.

Unknown sector, unknown system, unknown planet...

Two police ponies watched as for the first time in over a week, the celestial bodies jerked into motion. The skies above Canterlot darkened further as the moon unsteadily jerked around at a rapid pace. After a moment of travel, it had zig-zagged all the way to the far horizon. To the east, a pink glow began to shine through the overcast not yet cleared by the weather crew.

It started quietly at first, a distant rumble that soon grew to a jubilant cacophony that made the cobblestone streets dance and the towers sway. A great cheering sounded out over the vast land of Equestria, sounded forth from the throats of ponies far and wide.

Twilight Sparkle was victorious.

The new Princess had finally done it. Not simply was it enough to move the sun or the moon. No, Princess Sparkle had taken on the challenge of maneuvering them both. At the same time.

The two police ponies sat on a bench in the city park, waiting to begin their shift and relaxing as they were wont to do. Uncharacteristically idle, they watched the celestial movement in silence. Singing had begun to break out through the streets, and appeared as though a spontaneous city-wide block party was on the cusp of birth. The mare nudged her friend, who grunted stoically, "I'm not going to say it."

"But you promised!"

"Nope. Not happening."

"Puh-leeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaase?"

"Not. Happening."

"Oh? Then I suppose me accidentally dumping those embarrassing photos of you at last year's Hearth's Warming party isn't happening either.."

"Cherry, for the last time, I didn't know she was the Commissioner's daughter! Or under eighteen."

"...Wasn't there one with a sombrero? And one or two maracas in places they should never be?"

"Cherry!"

"And let's not forget about what happened to the back yard. That statue was expensive!"

"I apologized for that one. Wait, you were the one who blew that up!"

"Did I?"

"Yes!"

"Or are you just saying that to make me not want to leak the one with Fancy Pants."

"YES! Wait, I mean no! And there is no picture with Fancy Pants!"

"...At least, with his front end."

"CHERRY WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU."

"I'M SUFFERING FROM A SEVERE CASE OF NOT HAVING A PROMISE KEPT!"

"Fine! I'll say it, okay! Just don't... don't let those out."

"..."

"Well?"

"Twilight Sparkle is the prettiest, prettiest pony princess ever and I was wrong to think that she was crowned for marketing purposes."

"There. Was that so hard?"

"I hate you, Cherry."

"Love you too, Dodge."

They then set out into the new day, to apprehend suspects and damage large amounts of property in the process. And it was almost as everything should have been.

Mytaranor sector, Kashyyyk system, on the planet Kashyyyk...

Loud crashes of light blasted through the icy cavern.

At the center, two combatants whirled like dervishes, exchanging a flurry of heat and noise. Each time their blades collided, their features were blanketed by the sparking illumination that erupted forth. One stoic and determined, as if hewn from mossy stone, the other contorted into a predatory grin of barely-restrained wrath.

Luna dipped under a smooth horizontal swing, allowing the green blade to coming within inches of the fur on the back of neck, before rearing high, telekinetically whipping her scythe up and two the left, a move that would have taken an arm off had the creature not shuffled to the side at the last instant. She laughed loudly, enjoying every second of the bout, and the knife's edge to eternity it brought with it. Her foe had some amount of skill, it seemed.

They parted, swirling backwards a few steps, each panting heavily.

"You wield the blade of a Master. The Force all but sings in your veins, though it feels neither dark nor light. You bear great power, and you are certainly no Jedi. But... you are no Sith, either," Gungiwaroo declared. "Curious."

"Cease thy cryptic terms!" the alicorn shouted at him, lowering her horn and unleashing a blast of lightning.

The green blade was barely raised in time, and although it absorbed the pillar of electricity, the creature tumbled backwards several feet, rolling swiftly back upright. It beckoned with a paw, and a loud cracking was heard from above.

Luna glanced upwards, and was confused to see a sharp stalactite descending towards her. Had the creature just used magic!? She smoothly pirouetted backwards, pivoted upon her forelimbs, and, channeling her magic into her hooves, bucked the pillar of rock as it whistled past. The entire mass rocketed away, a metamorphic missile that soared across the cavern.

Gungiwaroo dove to the side as it speared past him, plowing through the ice and into the deep pool. The ice shattered all around their outcropping, breaking into small paces that revealed a dark, mysterious lake of crystal clear waters. The creature scowled, before charging her again, a yodeling battle cry sounding from his throat.

The alicorn gratefully met his rush, shrieking like a banshee.

They collided at the center of the rock outcrop, and Luna found herself bowled off her hooves by the much more robust creature. Pushing back at the emerald blade that shoved at her throat, she back-flipped away, kicking him under the chin as she disengaged.

Luna grinned ferociously. Her foe had the edge in terms of raw brute strength, but she was faster by far, and she was determined that her magic bested his tenfold. Warrior spirit singing, she dove in from the side, slashing each time from new, surprising angles that forced him to take gradual steps away or lose limbs in the process. Each time he found a gap in her assault, she merely cartwheeled away from the brutal counterstrike, flawlessly meshing her evades with offense by using her momentum to simply attack from the side.

Gradually, she began driving him back across the outcrop. She could see the unease in his eyes as they neared the water's edge. It only spurred her on to greater heights of aggression, and so focused was she in her mounting bladework that she failed to note a colossal mossy palm open itself in front of her face.

It was as if the breath were forced from her lungs; an almighty telekinetic shove erupted from the creature's paw, tossing her end over end, out over the shattered ice, until she painfully slammed into the far cavern wall. Reaper extinguished itself as it slipped from her grasp. Gravity peeled the groaning Princess off the rock face, dropping her into the pool of water below.

The cool water was a shock to her system, cooling the raging fires that burned through her veins. Luna floated idly in the depths, not needing to surface for air anytime soon.

The respite gave her the chance to collect herself.

They resided in the realm of dreaming. This was her domain. Perhaps it was about time she utilized that.

In the darkness, two points of light burst into existence.

Luna felt herself ascending, and she reached out, collecting her fallen Reaper, and piercing the surface like a ghost ship rising from the depths. She stood upon the water itself, eyes bright with magic, the smallest of ripples upon the waters still surface betraying her mass.

Her foe stood by the water's edge, gaping openly.

"Yield, he named Gungiwaroo." She stated, without rage or eagerness in her voice. "Thou hast fought most admirably, but know that this be a struggle unconquerable."

"Not as long like a threat like you exists to my people," the creature replied.

Despite herself, Luna smiled a bit. She loved it when they went down fighting. Her horn ignited, and the fragments of ice floating in the water rose up alongside her. In a single motion, they swarmed the outcrop, surrounding the lone figure upon it in a tornado of frigid blades. A defiant howl rose up from within, and Luna felt another surge of magic welling, but she easily crushed it beneath her own.

The wall of ice fell away, revealing the creature, forced into a kneeling position at the water's edge, his limbs coated in ice and rock, seemingly fused into the stone itself. He struggled mightily, but could not break the bonds.

Luna approached him, stopping on the surface of the pool, mere feet away.

"Yield," she asked again.

And again, the creature refused, instead focusing another surge of magic, one that she felt forming against her very thoughts. His efforts were almost cute, she thought, as all his magic had been rough and unrefined, like that of a foals. She easily swatted away the mental barb as though it were a pesky fly.

But the creature had one more trick up his sleeve.

Luna felt the world around them dissolving --

-- Reforming again in an instant as the darkened confines of the infirmary.

Luna's eyes flickered open where she was curled in her nest, one still bearing a draconinc pupil. They focused just in time as something huge and furry suddenly surged forwards, knocking her to the ground and pinning her there. Luna winced -- her true body was still recovering from the conflict with the spiders in the forest.

Gungiwaroo glared down imperiously at her from above. In this world, she was battered and sore and still drained of most of her mana. In this instant, he held the upper edge...

...Were it not for the green blade of light that was currently held close to his throat, near enough to singe the thick fur and fill the air with the scent of burning hairs. Luna smirked, her aura glowing brightly around the creature's own weapon. AS an afterthought, she cast a spell of tongues, that they might converse.

"Yield," she said again.

He shook his head. "I will not unleash you upon my kin."

Luna frowned. "Thine fellow tribesmembers have taken us in to be healed and protected. Thou truly thinkst us so dastardly that we would betray the Law of Guests? We mean no harm upon thou or thine furry ilk."

"Then what," the creature growled, "do you want."

"Information," she replied. "We are looking for somepony -- somepony who bears a weapon similar to the ones we both carry, clad in green metal and rider of a flying ship that sails the stars."

Gingiwaroo glanced warily down at the weapon she mentioned, the very lightsaber currently inches away from ending his life. "A Jedi?"

Suddenly, he found the weapon shoved even closer. The sizzling of burning skin could be heard. "That word again," she hissed. "Why dost thou insist on speaking in riddles and of terms we knoweth naught?"

"Jedi?" the creature stammered. "You've never heard of a Jedi, but you wield one of their weapons!" At her icy glare, he continued, "or the Sith? Your Force aura is tinged with their darkness, though not nearly as rotten."

Luna scowled dangerously. She wore the kind of expression Celestia would fondly have called That Face She Got When She Went Dragonslaying.

"Not even... the F-force?"

"Neigh."

An uncomfortable silence lasted for a moment, or two, before Gungiwaroo relaxed himself. "Enough. I yield to you, creature. I sense there is yet to be a long night ahead for us."

Luna let the blade extinguish, and flicked it on the bed. "We are alicorn, and will be addressed as such."

"I am a Wookiee." He raised himself off her.

Luna rolled over and stood, grimacing as her joints cracked. One of her wings was still tainted black, much larger than the other, making her feel lopsided. She extended a hoof to him. "Thine name is known to us, so we deem it fair that thou have ours. We are Luna, Princess of Equestria."

He met it, but at his blank expression, she tried, "...of Equestria? Surely you have heard of it."

"...No?" He blinked again. "Though there are many stars unfamiliar to me. Surely there are worlds I have not yet heard of. Equestria. Is that where you hid all these years?"

Luna frowned. "I hide from nothing, Gungiwaroo."

Cringing, he shook his head. "I did not mean it like that."

With a snort, Luna asked, "What did you mean? About worlds other than Equestria."

"To name a few; Hoth, Mygeeto, Felucia, Mandalore, Ilum, Naboo, and Alderaan... Coruscant." His expression darkened.

Luna remained silent.

"Princess Luna...?"

"Neigh." The alicorn frowned. "This was not known to us. This was never even a possibility for us." Luna's thoughts began to whirl. Was it really possible? She detected no deceit in him. Either he really believed that there were entire worlds out there... or...

Luna sat down.

Or her universe just gotten much, much bigger.

She swallowed. "This is not what we had expected." At least she had an explanation to why there were three moons, now. She wasn't just in a strange land, she was in a strange world.

Gungiwaroo untangled his limbs and stood upright, towering over the alicorn. Luna suddenly realized how much bigger his kind were than hers. "No," he said. "It is not."

"We know not of which you speak!" Luna cried.

"Did the Emperor send you? Did Vader?" He was clearly trying to explore another path, one she was unsure of.

"Those names are not even known to us!"

The biped frowned. "Then... what exactly is your hunt for?"

"We seek out our sister. She was taken from us, by the monster we described earlier. She is the reason we are here. We..." she fought back a sniffle. "We miss her greatly."

"Show me."

So she did.

With a pulse of her horn, the surrounding infirmary vanished in an instant, pillars and wooden walls fading from the darkness as if they were always there. The scene came into stark relief, of a shattered bedroom in the tower of Canterlot Keep. Luna had taken the helm of the dream now, painting it with her memory.

At the Wookiee's sudden discomfort, she said, "Still thyself. This be merely a memory. Thou may observe as preferred."

Crouched upon the bed over the unconscious figure of Celestia, weapon raised to fire, was the monster.

Nothing moved except the two visitors. Even the flames of candles were still.

Gungiwaroo strode over to the bed, inspecting the monster. Luna had recreated it in exquisite detail, so ingrained into her mind was this vision. Everything from the sheen of the black visor to the glint of scarred armor. She wanted to find it, and crush it into dust.

The creature eventually looked back at her, even more confused than before. "Do you know who this is?"

Luna shrugged. "Someone who made a very grave mistake."

"This is Boba Fett! The Boba Fett!"

He said the name like it was supposed to mean something. Luna supposed the monster could be called whatever it wished. It made no difference to her, for the dead had no need for such titles.

"The greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy?" Gungiwaroo continued. "Who has held entire planets hostage, decimated fleets single-handedly, killed scores of Force-sensitives, and even faced Vader himself and lived to tell the tale?"

"Aye, and we hit him in the face with lightning." Luna was unimpressed.

The furry creature pinched the sides of his brow. "And you say he kidnapped your sister..." he gestured to the ivory alicorn on the bed.

"Celestia," said Luna.

"...Celestia. Why?"

Luna punched the tiled floor in anger. "We haven't the faintest clue! This was unprovoked! All we know is that he fled into the stars, and we gave pursuit, only to fail and wake up... wherever this place is!"

The scene faded away again, back to the darkness of the medical center in the trees. Insects chirped in the distance, and a cooling wind whistled through the boughs.

Luna looked at the creature imploringly. "Please... help me, Gungiwaroo. You are my only hope."

He met the gaze for a moment, then looked away. "Your sister has fallen to the clutches of the Empire. She is with the Force now. There is no hope."

"Well, where is this Empire?" Luna bristled. "Tell us, that we might pummel it into the ground with our bare hooves!"

"Its here, its there, it's everything around us." Gungiwaroo growled. "The Galactic Empire is the governing body of the stars. And if it has your sister, then she is as good as dead."

"Why!?" Luna demanded. She began to pace back and forth. "Utterly impossible. What slight could we have committed against them! We didn't even know there was life beyond our lands until moments ago!"

"Was she like you? Was she strong with the Force?"

"THOU KEEPS SAYING THAT WORD, AND WE DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHY!!!" Luna roared. Her eyes flashed while crackles of lightning danced around her starry mane.

"Astounding... such power, and you don't even know the name."

"'Tis magic," growled the Princess. "All our kind have it. Some wield it differently, but every one bears a spark of magic inside them. We merely posses the means to turn that spark into a flame." She smirked. "A very strong flame."

Gungiwaroo gaped openly. "All your kind...?"

Luna nodded proudly. "Every one, large or small. 'Tis the nature of Equestria."

"Equestria," breathed the creature. "I never imagined an entire world, an entire race attuned to the Force so strongly. But why would the Empire take only your sister?" He frowned, speaking now more to himself. "A race that clearly hasn't even taken to the stars. Why not just strike from their Star Destroyers?"

"Well..." Luna started, "We are both royalty." She went to gesture to the crown upon her head, but felt only empty air. It must have fallen off in the forest! Blast and damn!

"A bargaining chip, then," Gungiwaroo reasoned. "The Emperor must have plans for your kind..."

"Why? What business does this mad tyrant have for us! What could we have possibly done to provoke such a gross incident!" The conversation was going in circles, and she still felt like she was missing something.

"For existing, most likely," was his dark reply. "All Force-sensitives that aren't with the Emperor... are against him."

"We ponies use magic, not this Force thou speakest of."

"No. I suppose there are many names for it. The Force is your magic, and what gives a Jedi their strength. It is an energy field created by all living things, great or small. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it is what binds the galaxy together."

"You claim you wield the same power as we do?" Luna was taken aback. "After those cheap parlor tricks we witnessed in thine dream? Fie! We strongly doubt this."

"Oh, yes." The creature gestured with his paw, and his sword handle began to float above it. "Certainly not like you, for I am still but a Padawan, and apprentice of the Jedi Order. My Master was... hmm, lost to me many years ago." He put the handle back into his belt.

"And the Jedi? Thou has mentioned them before."

"Hmm." The creature stroked at the dreadlocks that dangled over its shoulders. It began, "For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the dark times. Before the Empire. We used the Force for righteousness and knowledge, seeking to enlighten and protect all we could."

"Before the Empire," Luna slowly repeated. "Whom you now state posses mine sister. What happened to your Order?"

"The Great Purge." Gungiwaroo beat his chest with a fist. "We were betrayed. Our allies turned against us in an instant. The Republic fell, and the Emperor took its place. All across the Galaxy, the Jedi were wiped out in an instant, save a few survivors. I had hoped for an instant... when I sensed you in the cave, with such power, I hoped you were a Master, who had finally come out of hiding to find me.

"I did not expect," he waved at her, "this."

Luna felt her ears lay low to her head. "'Tis an unfortunate fate to befall anypony, or creature. You have my most sincere condolences, Gungiwaroo."

The creature shrugged. "I have had many years to come to terms with it. Now I simply do what I can for my people. It is not easy. Every day, more of us are taken to work as slaves for the Empire. And I cannot reveal myself, or bring destruction and death upon those who still remain here."

A sudden rumbling shook the landing, and Luna felt her form shudder.

"What is going on?"

"I am not sure. It came from a distance."

Luna pursed her lips. "Trouble?"

"Could be."

"Then let us investigate," murmured the alicorn, blinking exhaustion from her eyes. The sick bay came into stark relief, and she could see Gungiwaroo stirring across the room. She uncurled from her sitting position and rose on wobbly legs. Looking out the window, she spied something moving far above the treetops.

"Gungiwaroo! Come and see," she called. "Great floating slices of pie!"

He was at the window in an instant. Luna noted that his kind seemed to heal much faster than her. Fascinating.

"...We have to leave," growled the Wookiee.

Luna blinked. "What? Pray tell, why?"

"Those are Star Destroyers," he pointed one massive paw out the window. Above the treetops, three monumental shapes hung in the night sky, blotting out great swaths of moonlight. Each was angular and wedge-shaped in nature, with a hunched-over portion in the back that seemed important. Already, swarms of something could be seen pouring from each one.

"The Empire is coming here," Gungiwaroo muttered darkly. They are here for you, or they are here for me. It matters not -- we must flee."

The princess stomped a hoof into the floor, cracking wood. "We do not flee."

Outside, a loud noise boomed forth from the sleeping village. An alarm of some kind. Here and there, lights came on in the mushroom-like buildings, but never enough. Far too many lay dormant and empty. Motion could be seen, stirring on the distant gangplanks.

"Then a tactical withdraw. The village is evacuating to our sanctuary." The Wookiee began herding her away from the window. "As our guest, we are bound to ensure your safety. Now come, we must be away before the ships arrive."

Luna followed, but not before casting a hateful glance over her shoulder at the distant Star Destroyers. Her wrath would not be stayed. Not for long. Soon, she would have justice on the ones who conspired against her. This Emperor and his pet Vader, the Empire itself... and especially the one called Boba Fett. Especially him.

Celestia had only recently been reunited with her. Luna would not lose her sister again.

Not without a fight.

Author's Note

Hey all! Been a while since this updated, right? Well, I've got a three day weekend here at the Navy, and finally found some free time to knock this one out. It's been halfway finished for two months now. UNTIL TODAY.

Oh. And you all know who the police ponies belong to. Some sexy asshole currently choking on sand in Bitchslapistan. Give him your love. And by love, I mean blowjobs. Give him all your blowjobs.

[Chapter 2] - Beyond the Outer Rim

DEAD OR ALIVE

Chapter 2: Beyond The Outer Rim
By: Rust

Unknown Sector, Unknown System, Unknown Planet...

It was a truly beautiful day. Celestia felt that she had outdone herself. The alicorn happily hummed while she worked, a whimsical tune she often wished some of the nobles took to heart more often.

All you gotta do is smile, smile, smile... Celestia dipped her quill into the inkwell, before signing her name on the last of the small mountain of decrees, petitions, letters, and accounts. Finally done with the day's work, she rewarded herself with a luxurious stretch, almost catlike. A crick in her neck vanished with a satisfying pop. Celestia closed her eyes and savored its defeat, that one had been bothering her all day.

Her office lay in a state of near-perfection. Everything had a place, a purpose, and a peculiar point of interest to her. Nothing unnecessary, just what was absolutely essential for her workplace to keep it functional and tasteful. She glared at the mountain of parchment in the "Out" pile. If only my kingdom worked the same way.

There was one last appointment to make before she could pat herself on the back, however. She flipped through her dossier and felt her temples pulse a little at the title of the pony.

5:45 - Verdict regarding allocation of funds for management of agricultural taxation:

----The Assistant Undersecretary to the Secretary of the Treasurer the Ministry of Commerce.

...Who even came up with these positions, anyway?

A polite knocking at the door announced that the Assistant Undersecretary to the Secretary of Treasurer of the Ministry of Commerce was here, and right on time as usual. "Yes?" Celestia called out.

The door squeaked open, and an armored head poked through. One of her guards. She coughed politely and said; "There's a stallion here to see, you, Your Highness. He says he's the Assisstant Undersecre-"

"-Send him in, please," Celestia smoothly cut her off with a gracious smile. Best to spare her the trouble of running out of breath. The door opened further and a young, very rumpled-looking earth pony slouched in, looking around the room in awe. His eyes settled on the Princess, and he began to go about the familiar motions she'd seen uncountable times.

He bowed deeply, almost kissing the floor. She hated when they did that. "Uh, good afternoon, Your Majesty, my name is Brass Scales, and I am the Assissta-"

"-Undersecretary to the Secretary of Treasurer of the Ministry of Commerce?" She couldn't help herself.

Brass Scales looked taken aback, yet very pleased. "Why, yes! Usually nopony gets that right. How did you know, Your Benevolence?"

"The title stands out," she deadpanned gracefully, carefully hiding the jab under years of diplomatic experience. "Now, Mr. Scales, before we settle down to business, would you like some tea?"

"Absolutely!" he declared, then abashedly added, "I mean, if it's not too much trouble. Er, Princess."

"It is certainly no trouble at all," Celestia affirmed. Her horn alit with a soft golden glow, and a tea set began to move around of its own accord, as the water inside the teapot was instantly heated to boiling point. "You seem nervous," she offered to keep the conversation form drying up.

Brass Scales looked in awe as a cup of tea began to pour itself right in front of him, teabag plopping into the mix with nary a droplet spilled. "It's just. This is the first time I've ever had an audience with you in private. Er, your Majesty. Ever, actually. This is the first time the Ministry sent me up here!" He seemed quite proud of himself.

Oh, they sent me a greenhorn? They must think I'm slipping. This should be fun... Celestia hid a smirk behind a sip of tea, masking the scalding of her tongue with a wall of willpower built over the course of an eon. She was suddenly looking forward to this meeting. She could finally lay out a finalizing plan that would keep the bit-hungry Ministry of Commerce on leash. "That's good to hear, my little pony. I'm sure you'll do a fine job here today. Now, then, let's begin with the first item you have to present me."

"Of course, Your Highness." Brass Scales brought out a portfolio. "Firstly is the set tax rate for agricultural business, which the Ministry thinks should be raised from 5% tax on all goods to 6.5% tax..."

Almost an hour later, they were done, and Celestia was in a very, very good mood. Every single tax increase on farms proposed by the Ministry had been blocked, the increase in funding had been granted with the extra money being funneled straight into streamlining the system itself rather than the paychecks of the higher-ups, and the Ministry now lacked an Assisstant Undersecretary to the Secretary of Treasurer , because she had done away with the position and made Brass Scales the Senior Ministry Representative. They had seriously erred in sending him, as she had them on a leash, now. That'd show the rest that she was still Princess, and not a complacent ruler to be coddled into signing away the money of her ponies. She had to admit, she rather liked working with the young stallion -- he was intelligent and eager, unlike so many of the members of the bourgeoisie that made up the government.

It was a shame he was probably being lambasted by his superiors at the moment. She resolved to offer him a position in the Royal Vaults if things took a tailspin.

Still, lamenting the state of Canterlot's bloated bureaucracy would only serve to sour her high spirits. It wasn't often she finished up early. Celestia poked her head out of the door, checking the hallway. The solitary Royal Gaurdsmare was on duty, standing rigidly at attention, almost painfully so. Celestia coughed politely.

The mare noticed. "Princess. Is there something you wish to request of me?"

"See that I'm not disturbed, please," said Celestia. "I've had a long day and I need to take a small rest." She was about to withdraw back into her study when a thought struck her. "And...at ease," she added kindly.

The guard visibly relaxed. "Yes, your Highness. Thank you."

"Thank you." Celestia shut the door and crossed the room in a flash.

Almost with a giggle, she glided onto the balcony and took flight. It felt nice to slip away, even if it was for only a couple minutes. Soon, she would be required at supper, likely treating with some dignitary or ambassador of some kind. her wings filled with air as she leisurely began to ascend above the spires of the castle.

There was a certain satisfaction she took in running her country, oiling the cogs and tinkering here and there with the gears to make it run as smoothly as possible. It had been a long time, however, since she'd had a break. The monotony of court life did tend to chafe one's patience, especially for her, who had not taken a day of from being Princess since she donned her crown many centuries ago.

She was a Princess. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year.

And she wouldn't have it any other way.

Sunset found her at the very peak of Canterlot Mountain. Celestia bit her tongue thoughtfully as she put the finishing touches on the end of her day.

She stepped back, and the golden glow of her horn faded. There was a deep sense of accomplishment she got from doing this. It was one thing to simply perform a task, but another thing entirely to enjoying ever moment of it. Celestia had never considered herself an artist, but when she looked at the stunning sky she had painted, she couldn't help but smirk a little.

It was riot of color and light, the soft orange and red of the sun bleeding gracefully into the few clouds. The deep purple behemoths hung like ships in the sky, tinged pink around the edges and the deepest of blues were no light passed through. The sun itself was tenderly kissing the horizon, a shimmering scarlet orb of warmth and contentment.

Celestia nodded to herself. The day was at an end, and it was time for her to retire. Luna would be taking over the responsibility of the kingdom while she slept. Her sister had been gone a long time, and Celestia had to admit that she had grown exhausted with managing the state of affairs on a nearly uninterrupted cycle. She might be a Princess, but she was still only one pony.

Speaking of...

A midnight-blue streak of vapor cut through the fading sunlight and landed a couple steps away with a soft rush of air. It struck the ground and splashed up, condensing in a split second into the form of Princess Luna. The smaller alicorn stretched her wings out and huffed. "There you are, sister! I have been looking all over the castle for you, and I find you out here, lazing about like there's no tomorrow!"

Celestia smiled softly. "Sorry, Luna. Would you like to sit with me?"

"I would like for us to return, post haste," Luna grumbled. "Your little ponies are in a state of near panic, not knowing where their precious Princess is."

"So is that a yes?" Celestia cocked an eyebrow.

Luna made an indistinguishable grunt, then flopped down next to her sister. "A pox upon you. They woke me just to assist in their damnable search. We've fought dragons, sister. Surely they might show some faith in our capabilities."

"Luna... they're your subjects just as much as mine." Celestia stretched out a wing and wrapped her sister in it, drawing her close. "And they will warm to you. You'll see. You just have to give it time."

Head resting in her fetlocks, Luna murmured, "maybe."

"And for the record, it was you who fought the dragon, I assisted the evacuation efforts. You know, I hear that they still tell stories about how the Night Princess defeated the great Brimstone... by punching him in the face."

"Ah, those were the days," her sister sighed. "When we weren't shackled by these... things upon our heads."

Celestia squeezed her tighter. "Maybe."

They were quiet for a time, each content in the other's company and the warmth of the setting sun. Celestia was glad; it wasn't often that she and Luna got to spend time together like this. Her sister usually slept through most of the day, keeping to a strict nocturnal schedule. She was a Princess with just as much authority as her sister, holding her own special court at night for those who sought her audience.

...And yet, all too often, it was Celestia's door they knocked on when something was amiss.

Celestia waited until the grand doors came to a rumbling halt, before finally relaxing. Her personal chambers were quite messy for somepony so organized everywhere else. But, to each their own vice, she supposed.

Dinner had been a minefield, as usual.

The late arrival of the Princess had been something of a minor scandal, the way the gossip was spreading around the castle. Some of the dignitaries and guests had taken it as a personal slight, and Celestia had spent most of the meal smoothing down ruffled egos. There had barely been enough time for her to eat, and the majority of her already-small servings had gone to waste.

Luckily, she had a secret stash for just such an occasion. Repressing the urge to cackle in glee, she placed a hoof on the wall and pushed. The stone shifted an inch inwards with a grumble of hidden gears, then vanished completely. In its place lay a hidden hollow, filled to the brim with succulent, chocolate cake.

The ivory predator smiled a wide, satisfied smile. The kind that was worn only when the prey was absolutely helpless before them. And oh, was she going to enjoy this. A few whispered words with Pinkie Pie, a few bits in the right apron, and somehow the hidden compartment kept itself full. Celestia didn't question it. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.

Or in this case, chocolate frosting.

Some time later, in a near sugar coma, the Princess lay sprawled in a heap atop her luxurious bed, lazily wriggling around in the glow of the solitary candle. She took a sip of a glass of wine as she scanned her Faithful Student's most recent friendship report. It had been too long since she had indulged herself like this. An unplanned flight, delicious cake, and now a bottle of one of Equestria's finest vintages.

Princess Celestia hadn't had a day off in centuries.

And she wouldn't have it any other way.

...Right?