Chapter 7.

That first time I caught the rim of another planet peeking around the edge of my window, I was somewhere between awe and ironic laughter. There I was, in space, traveling commercially like it was an everyday thing, while astronauts on Earth trained incessantly and had to go through rigorous testing to even be considered for a space mission. All I had to do was pay about 1500 credits and pack my bags. I pitied NASA.

The shuttle landed in what could have been Atlantis. Naboo, at least, didn't look like a bad place to be, based on what I saw out the window. Everything was made of white stone with gray stone trim; buildings in the city around me rose up for several hundred feet in places, and the sunlight made everything glow. Big bronze fountains with dark green patinas were scattered through the streets, and plants grew from hanging pots here and there and coiled themselves around the walls and columns they met. Roofs seemed to be made of copper covered in a thick layer of patina, and in the distance some kind of Olympian castle topped a waterfall that could have swallowed Niagara twice. Outside people wore clothing that looked like an odd mix of Japanese and Victorian British. Sometimes a machine would go by that looked like a convertible Corvette, but with a thicker, more rounded front, and two or three large jet-like engines at the back, usually sticking out on short wings. Also these machines had no wheels, and made no contact with the ground. Onduin said they were called speeders. They hovered with stabilizers like spacecraft did.

When the call came for the passengers to empty themselves out into the Noobian spaceport, the exodus came as a steady stream of people, not the mad tsunami of eager travelers that came for the boarding call. Here we were let down on another steel ramp, but this one was polished and smooth. The Noobian spaceport was nothing like the last one. Everything seemed very commercial and utilitarian, but here instead of a cement bunker it was more like a white, Gothic cathedral. Windows towered up over the concourses where they were met by arches that flowed back down to the floor. The ceiling was scalloped from riding over the arches and dips in the walls. Sunlight and white walls made the place bright. It was also a busy place. Some intersections between different parts of the spaceport were little more than a roiling mass of people. Then, here and there, were men in SWAT-like armor plating and loose uniforms, but almost completely white. They didn't have shields and helmets like SWAT people, but they were definitely armed. They had a black insignia on their left shoulders that looked like what would happen if you cut a hole in the middle of a big gear and then turned it inside out; and black utility belts, with some kind of gun clearly attached to the hip. There seemed to be one or two on patrol every few hundred yards. I thought they must be local security, seeing as they blended in with their bright surroundings. They almost looked too modern for it.

"That," Onduin said, nodding subtly at one as we walked past, "is an Imperial stormtrooper."

I did a double-take. "Those guards?" I said, after a long pause. Onduin nodded. "I thought they looked different. I thought they had helmets, and full body armor."

"I wonder if the director of your show isn't the one who came here," Onduin said. "Maybe he got his story from someone else. That would explain some inaccuracies."

"I guess it could," I mumbled. This was different. These people did not look remotely like the stormtroopers from Star Wars, other than the white outfits. "Do they all look like that?" I asked.

"Mostly," Onduin said. "Unless they're from a special service unit. Then sometimes they'll wear camouflage, or different insignia."

I wondered if I should worry or not. If details, like what stormtroopers look like, were not true to the movie, then a lot of things here could be different from how I expected them to be. At least the big things all seemed to be in order: there was a fascist Empire, a Rebellion, Jedi knights who carried lightsabers and so forth. Now, however, I knew I could only trust what I saw in the films as a basic guide.

We only stayed on Naboo for a few hours. Before long the boarding call came for our next connection, Kashyyyk 1764, apparently a space station orbiting a planet called Kashyyyk. Now the movement of travelers into the shuttle was far more chaotic than it had been on Kovnyett; people boarding the ship were dodging people coming off it through other doors and people walking past and trying to get somewhere else. It was more of an erratic rush than a single, inexorable migration. People at the back ran to get in on time. It was worse than Dullas.

Onboard, there were no discernable differences between this shuttle and the last. Now Onduin's cabin was on the second floor, while mine was on the fourth. I was on the right side now, towards the front of the row. This trip went much like the last one, only shorter. From Naboo to Kashyyk 1764 was only two days. The space station we landed at, however, was nothing like the last.

Instead of a steel ramp on 1764 there was some kind of crude, wooden wedge. Everything in the space station was barebones. Open steel supports and pipes and wires along the walls and ceiling were clearly visible everywhere. There weren't many people, but there were at least two stormtroopers to be found for every 50 feet I walked. Windows, low and wide in the walls, looked out on the stark spectacle of black space, and on one side of the space station I could see the vast, opalescent surface of a green planet, with thin white clouds swirling through its atmosphere here and there, especially towards the poles. I stopped for a few minutes to look at it. Something about the planet, and the space station, struck me as unwelcoming, and a little sad.

"That's where the Wookiees live," Onduin said suddenly.

"The who?" I thought it sounded familiar, but I couldn't remember what a Wookiee was supposed to be.

"There goes one now," Onduin said under his breath, nodding subtly at a passing alien. Suddenly I remembered another name: Chewie. This creature looked just like Chewbacca, but with darker fur and some small braids outlining one side of its face. Then I remembered that Chewie was a Wookiee. This made sense.

We continued walking to find the departure gate, and I saw something very odd. Pushed into a corner, and half-covered by a tarp, were three round, empty cages, all about four or five feet wide and eight feet tall. They were made with thick iron bars and lots of supporting rungs, like barrels. I got a bad feeling looking at them. "Wonder what they keep in those?" I said quietly.

"Wookiees, I imagine," Onduin whispered. I'd never seen such a venomous look on his face. "The Empire has few qualms with slavery. That's why there's so much security here. They've barely got enough troops on the surface to frighten the Wookiees out of joining the Rebellion, and they don't want any insurrections starting here. All that's keeping this fragile peace from imploding is a few Wookiee leaders on the surface, who gain a few credits every year by allowing this, and whatever troops the Empire can spare to maintain the stability. It's a bomb waiting to go."

My first reaction was disbelief. Part of living in America is having slavery as a huge part of your history, yet being so far removed from it in daily life that it starts to seem like some ancient fairy tale. My disbelief began to ebb into disgust after a few seconds, though, because those cages weren't getting any less real. This was when the reality of living under a fascist dictatorship began sinking in for me. It blanketed the world in a quiet fear that made even life seem more urgent. In America, I'd complained a lot about the mass of bickering, resentful lawyers that constituted our government; but the truth is, even bickering, resentful lawyers are better than a single unnaturally powerful maniac. The government was not benevolent; its cares did not include catering to the whims of the people. There was no freedom of speech here. There was no democracy. There was no argument with the government. If they wanted to buy you as a slave, it seemed, there was nothing stopping them. In a world where people have no rights, I realized, walking around with a forged ID was incredibly dangerous. Unfortunately, I'd burned that bridge several days ago.

We found our gate, but we still had some time to kill. There were rows of seats like an airport there. I sat down in one to rest and watch the luggage while Onduin went off to buy some food. I was preoccupied, thinking about the situation I'd gotten myself into. The seats looked old and worn, and there was almost no one else in the entire gate, except for a family sitting off in a corner 50 feet away, and a man sitting directly in front of me. He was wearing slacks and a pinstriped shirt, like a businessman almost, but he looked too haggard for that. He had blonde hair that had been combed back neatly at some point, but had clearly endured some wear. His shirt had the sleeves rolled up, and there were what looked like some grease stains around the cuffs, and also on his side. Pale dried mud had worked itself into the crevasses of his scuffed brown shoes. He looked fairly young, like he was in his early 20s maybe, but he could've passed for older what with how drawn he was. His eyes seemed kind of sunken in, and there was a fresh scar running from the bridge of his nose to one eyebrow. There were a few more shallow scratches on his face and the backs of his hands. I might not have noticed all this if he didn't remind me so much of the German from Agonis. They could've been twins. This person barely moved for the longest time, staring off at something to his right, with a sort of hollow expression. Then he shifted a little, and glanced up at me. His eyes got a little wider then, but they did not move. I started worrying this might be the same person. As it turned out, my day had just started.

"Gutentag," the man across from me said quietly.

It was definitely him.

The echo of a smile crossed his face. "It's you again. Isn't it?" he said, sitting up a little straighter.

He'd lost some of his German accent. "I guess it is," I said. I was in shock. This was even more surprising than discovering slavery. I didn't want to talk to him, but he looked so different from the last time I'd seen him that I had to wonder how he'd gotten here.

"Two hundred and seventy-three trillion people in the galaxy," he said, "and we still run into each other." He just stared at me for a few seconds, like he was trying to decide whether I was real or not. "You know... you're the first reasonable person I've seen outside of a jail for weeks."

I wasn't sure how to take that. Thankfully, he kept talking. His face was entirely expressionless. Something had taken the smugness out of him.

"Remember the last time we talked... we wage wars for these, tiny pieces of land on Earth, and we justify them with idiotic causes... names. You know what this place is?" he said, gesturing around at the spaceport. "This is the victory of the Third Reich. One, unifying, all-powerful government. They'll take everything you have, if it suits them." He paused for awhile, moving his gaze to the wall again. "Have you seen the cages?"

I nodded. "Yes," I said, a little quietly. I wasn't quite sure I could believe what I was hearing yet.

He didn't say anything for a long time, still staring off in the distance. He finally looked up at me. "Where are you going?" he asked.

"Dantooine," I said.

He paused for awhile. "Can I come?" he said finally.

I really had no idea what to say. I fidgeted, and stuttered quietly. "Why do you want to come with me?" I asked.

He shrugged. "You seem decent. And I have no reason to go anywhere else," he said slowly. He was giving me the strangest look, like a submissive dog almost.

"Why should I let you come with me?" I asked.

He just shrugged, and looked away. I didn't know what to do. I was mad at him for what he'd said, and for what he'd been, the last time we met. But this hardly seemed like the same person. Someone, or something, had shoved some humble pie down his throat. There was a long silence while I thought about this. Then, from around a corner, Onduin showed up. He walked up to us, looking back and forth between me and the German.

"I remember you," he said at last. "You came off that loader from Agonis, with Andrea." The German nodded. "How did you end up here?" Onduin asked.

"It's a long story."

"Well, none of us are in a hurry," Onduin said.

"It's a long story," the German repeated, nodding subtly at a nearby stormtrooper. Onduin caught the gesture.

"I see." He bit his lip and furrowed his brows. "Andrea?" he finally said. "I imagine you're not going to like this idea, but maybe he should come with us." The German's expression brightened fractionally.

"Um..." I fidgeted some more. Fate was conspiring against me. I decided resisting it was useless at that point. "I guess he could."

The German looked up at me. "Thank you," he said quietly. He let out a long breath. I could hardly believe this was the same person I'd met in Agonis.

He managed to get his passes for the trip before the boarding call. He didn't have any luggage with him; just some money and a comlink. The day's awkwardness became no less diminished when the three of us started trudging up the corroded ramp that lead into the next shuttle. What was this, the Wizard of Oz? "Maybe the wizard can give you a heart," I said quietly, looking at the German. My muttered comment did not escape him.

He looked at me quizzically for a moment, and then burst out laughing. I was somewhere between scowling and smiling, so I settled for looking confused. He didn't say anything, though. He couldn't have seen the Wizard of Oz... could he? At the top of the ramp, we started splitting off to find our various cabins. He had a lopsided grin as I turned to go up a set of stairs.

"Bye, Dorothy," he said. I whipped my head around to look at him, but he was already walking away. I walked up to the third floor, stumbling over a few steps on the way. I couldn't focus on where I was going. My day had been too weird.

That evening, aboard the shuttle, Onduin called me up over my comlink and suggested the three of us get dinner somewhere. I didn't like the idea. I decided to go along with it anyway. To be honest, I was curious about what the German had been doing the last few months. I wanted to know who to thank for beating some sense into him. We met around a small table in a corner over our respective plates of food. I felt really awkward right then; I was basically sitting next to him, because it was a round table. He ate like a starved animal. Even the way he'd look at me or Onduin from under his brows now and then reminded me of the wary look an eating carnivore gives any animal that approaches it. Not much was said for a long time. Only when the eating had slowed down was conversation made.

"I don't believe you've told us your name," Onduin said, looking at the German.

"Schultze," he said. "Werner Schultze. Or Vern." He shrugged a little, and started eating again.

"Well, Vern? You said you had a long story, I think."

"You'd like to hear it?" Vern replied.

Onduin nodded. "If it's not a problem."

Vern nodded in return. "No... I don't have to be anywhere." He paused for awhile, then began explaining what had happened after he followed the brown-uniformed woman to the refugee center.

"I must have been there for... two? Three weeks? I spent my time just trying to figure out what had happened. I found out I wasn't on Earth, at least... no one had ever heard of it." He shook his head solemnly then. "So, the refugees from Agonis were given a kind of government allowance, coverage for lost personal documents and the like... looking back, it was pathetic. It was enough to keep outsiders convinced that people from Agonis were being helped somehow. Well, I managed to get involved with a group of men there who had agreed to pool some of our money to try and get off Kovnyett, maybe find a place where some of us could work. There were six of us, I think. We got enough money to leave Kovnyett, so we found a small ship we could lease and used that to leave. We took it all the way to the Core; to Corellia. Most of the men said there was easy work there, building the Empire's ships. So then I began wondering who the Empire was, and he explained the Imperial government, how the Empire dominated the galaxy, and he would say any Imperial job is a safe job. I didn't know better at the time. We got to Corellia, and as he said there were shipyards hiring there. I took a job with one of them for awhile, oiling down gears and the like. Then, not long after that, they decided our refugee papers from Agonis weren't enough; they needed more official documents. Well, we only had what we had, so the next day the local government notified us that they were going to take back the money they'd given us for our work, since we hadn't been working with the right papers." An ironic smile started edging its way along his face. "We didn't have that money; we'd used it to buy food and keep a roof over our heads. Then they locked us up in various places. There was a woman in the cell next to me for awhile who told stories about Imperial practices... about their cruelty, the things they'd covered up. She said her father had died in one of their work camps. It bothered me... because it reminded me of how things were at home, but all the things she talked about were so thoughtless. One day a uniformed Imperial officer walked up to the cell I was in, and said that either I could stay there forever, or I could pay it off by working for the military on Kashyyyk. I agreed then to work on Kashyyyk for awhile; so they brought me to Kashyyyk in a ship with a few other workers, and for the first two weeks or so they had me helping clear branches away from a military installation there. Then, that was done for awhile, and I thought my work was probably done; I'd already spent more hours there than I had working for the Corellians. Well, they said I had to stay there for another month. By then I knew they weren't telling the truth, but there wasn't much I could do. Then they brought me and some other people around to one of the Wookiee villages, and brought out two of them by gunpoint, a mother and a cub, I think, and they said, 'we need you to help separate these animals and get them incarcerated.' I didn't like it. I helped them once, but... they brought in three more right after, and I'd had enough. I didn't want to service the Empire any more; so I told them I was done. I wasn't doing them any more favors. They didn't like that." He rubbed the scar over his nose. "So they locked me up again. I had some time to think, and I realized,"-- he looked at me-- "that the Empire and the Nazi government were twins in many ways. So either they were both right, or they were both wrong. In the end I had trouble believing that the absurdity I'd been dealing with was right. Then, the people who passed in and out of the cells around me would tell other stories about how they got there... there were even two people from a Rebellion. They were on their way to die. They were Twi-leks, I think... they knew more about these things than anyone else I met. I hadn't really respected aliens before then, but they talked like Leonidas, and had as much fear." He shook his head slowly. "I don't know how long I was there. It could have been months."

"So how did you get out?" Onduin asked.

Vern shook his head. "I'm not sure. I suppose they got tired of paying for my food, so one day they said my time was up, and they dumped me here, on 1764. That was about five days ago."

"Where'd you get your money?" I asked.

"That's what I had left from the original allowance on Kovnyett. I might not have anything, but I managed to talk them into getting some of it back from the Corellians. People on Kovnyett are decent."

"How'd you manage that?" Onduin said.

"I told them some of what I just told you. It matched official records, so they had compassion, I suppose." He paused for awhile. "Well, there was a price. They gave me the money I needed if I let them inject some kind of electronic identification chip under my skin. Supposedly they can track me now if they need to."

"Where is it?" Onduin asked.

"I don't know. I couldn't feel it, and they wouldn't let me watch. Didn't want me changing my mind, I suppose."

"Well, if you're traveling with us, then I'll have to remove it somehow."

"Good luck," Vern replied, shrugging. He looked back at his plate, and started picking at what was left on it. Nobody said anything for awhile.

"It's between your shoulders," Onduin suddenly said. "And... there's a second one embedded in your leg. That one's in deep."

"That's a bullet," Vern said. "How do you know about that?"

"Suffice to say I have a kind of sixth sense. Though, clearly, it's not a precise instrument."

Vern didn't look surprised, or even interested. More than anything else, he looked like someone who hadn't slept in awhile. I got the feeling he'd done his share of suffering since we last met. Maybe it shouldn't have, but it made me kind of happy. Justice had been served, a la mode; and the results seemed almost magical. I didn't realize it at the time, but it was all the more magical for the fact that most men do not change, ever.

Two days later, the three of us sat down to a similar meal, though at least we weren't in a dark corner this time. Onduin had become a sort of moderator between me and Vern, since I was perpetually on the verge of starting a fight, and Vern was always brutally honest. The conversation came to a simmering halt when Vern looked me dead in the eyes and told me I was an idiot for some reason (incidentally, he'd been right, though I didn't dare admit it). It ended with the two of us staring each other down like wolves. I was ready to wind up my arm for a punch.

"Enough!" Onduin finally said. "You two fight like you're married."

The awkward silence lasted a long time. I felt like snapping at Onduin for that comment, but it was true. Even I couldn't deny it. Vern started smirking after awhile.

"So... the Wizard of Oz is still around?" Vern said, breaking the icy silence.

I nodded. "How do you know about that?" I asked. I decided I should try not to be confrontational for awhile.

"I read it," he said. "My father saw the show in New York, too."

"Really?" I said cautiously. Vern nodded. "Why was he in New York?"

"He was an exchange student in America, in ninteen... twenty-one? I think that's right."

"Ninteen twenty-one," I said. It suddenly struck me then that I really was talking to someone from the past. "Is that why you speak English? Your father taught you?"

He smiled. "That... and my mother was from Devonshire, from England; so we always spoke a lot of English in the house."

The tension between us started to soften during that conversation. Hearing a little of someone's life story changes even the most despicable people from objects of hatred into people with lives, even if those lives have been terrible. It gives one a better understanding of why people do what they do, and it forces one to view things through others' eyes for awhile. In fact, the more I learned about Vern by talking to him, the more I saw that I could have done the same things in his place. There's something very humbling about realizing that even you are fully capable of stooping to the level of racial superiority and occultism, given the right conditions. Many people did. Over the course of a couple days, I stopped resenting him so much. I even respected him a little for overcoming his innate Germanic stubbornness and cleansing himself of these beliefs.

It was our last night aboard that shuttle before we offloaded on a planet called Asmarena 2 (Onduin said he'd heard of it, but knew nothing about it). The three of us were sitting around a table at one of the 5th-floor cafes as usual, chatting. The day before, Onduin had managed to extract the tracking chip from Vern's back, and it now lay in a trash bin somewhere. He'd used some kind of Force-based telekinetic power to do it. This meant that all three of us were now officially outlaws, but nobody seemed to have noticed yet. It also meant that Vern could go wherever we went for awhile, so long as he didn't attract too much attention to himself. Onduin was now overviewing Vern on what we were going to do on Dantooine, and after that the conversation drifted to Vern's life. Onduin was fascinated by it. I listened, but I'd already heard all I needed to know. They talked for awhile, and the conversation gradually drifted to a halt. Then Vern looked over at me.

"You said you were from Kansas, didn't you?"

"Yeah."

He grinned, shaking his head. "This is the Wizard of Oz. Really, I should just call you Dorothy." He paused. "So-- what happened to you? Why are you here-- did a tornado pick you up and drop you on Agonis?"

I actually smiled a little. "No... it was like I went through a black hole or something. I really don't know what happened. I was walking through an alley near home, and then everything just went black. Like, I was awake, but I couldn't move, or breathe, or anything for a few seconds, and then I just... fell, into this hallway. It was really weird."

He leaned forward a little, listening intently. "That's exactly what happened to me," he said. "Almost. I almost felt like I was being... pulled. Like you moved, and I had to move with you."

We now had Onduin's full attention. "You're connected," he suddenly said. "You're definitely connected. I don't know why that would be, but there's always a reason for these things. Really, what were the odds of you two accidentally meeting each other on 1764? You must need one another for some reason. I'll bet it's important, whatever it is."

Vern looked over at me. Something in the look on my face must have been telling, because he started cackling. Onduin rolled his eyes, which is something I'd never seen him do before.

"You both know that's not what I mean," he said, but it was futile. I scowled a little more, Vern laughed a little more, and Onduin said the word "juvenile" under his breath. I was of the opinion at that moment that, if Vern ever started expressing interest in me, I would either go far away or kill him in his sleep. I said this out loud a few minutes later, and Vern just grinned mischievously, holding back laughter. I wasn't sure whether I should scowl at him, or start laughing too.

Gradually some seriousness entered the conversation again, and we were able to talk about this bizarre cosmic link between me and Vern with straight faces. Onduin tried asking us about our lives before Agonis, but after about ten minutes of questioning he said he couldn't see anything in our lives or experiences that hinted at why we were stuck with each other's company. He concluded that this was probably one of those things that would be revealed in hindsight. With no telling how far off that might be, we gave up on the subject, and moved to talking about the Apollo space program. Vern wanted to know everything about it, and all I knew was that Apollo 11 landed on the moon, and Apollo 13 didn't go well. The truth was, I'd spent a lot of high school doing homework and trying to avoid drama, and the space programs of decades past hadn't really fascinated me. He settled for listening to me describe modern television.

The next morning we left the shuttle and stepped out into the final spaceport we'd be in before we reached Dantooine. Asmarena 2, our last connection point, was by far the most disconcerting yet. The spaceport had burgundy carpet and dark, arched struts holding up mostly glass walls and ceilings that made the place look like the charred skeleton of some monster. Outside, the view was dreamlike. There were no other buildings near the spaceport, and there were only a handful of gates. In the distance, a cliff jutted out into the red sky, precariously supporting a gray city full of high spires and cables of some kind strung between. What looked like scaffolding was piled up on the underside of the cliff, and more cables hung from that. There were no clouds, and no visible sun. One got the feeling whoever built the spaceport had put it where it was to keep passing travelers away from the city. It had a weird vibe, like something bad had happened in that distant city. The only people in the spaceport were the people who had come off our shuttle, and considering the size of the shuttle there weren't many. Many had nervous looks on their faces. Vern certainly did. His eyes were wide, and he was always looking over his shoulder, or whipping his head around to watch if someone even walked past. Onduin wasn't acting jittery, but he never did. I was feeling about like Vern then.

We were stuck on Asmarena 2 for almost four hours waiting for our last shuttle. We hardly spoke the whole time. I had an odd feeling the whole time, like if I spoke too loud it might disturb some resting ghost, or spark some unknown calamity. It was like being trapped in a room next to a keg of black powder with a bunch of loose matches scattered on the floor. If one was very careful, and sat very still, nothing bad would happen. Now and then, I'd see Onduin's eyes following something suspiciously-- but when I looked, I wouldn't see anything. He wouldn't tell me what he'd been watching, either. Vern and I sat down on one of the long, worn benches there, and Onduin spread himself across the bench next to us, like some enormous ferret. We waited uneasily until the boarding call came.

At that moment, as if from thin air, a ton of stormtroopers suddenly washed in, tailing the crowd that was now boarding the shuttle for Dantooine. The entire spaceport emptied into that shuttle, save for the soldiers, who stood back from the gate like it might be booby-trapped. They had serious looks on their faces, and they scanned the crowds quickly, like they were looking for someone. I looked over at Vern, worried. He didn't look worried, though. He suddenly looked very calm.

"They're expecting trouble," he said seriously, quietly. "They're worried about something."

"Think they're looking for you?" I asked, also quietly.

"No. They would know me on sight. They're afraid of something else."

We continued walking up the ramp into the last shuttle, glancing around at the other nervous, confused people now and then. "How would you know?" I asked.

"I can see their faces," he said, like it was obvious. We kept walking.