Saga Into the Black Hole - the truely true story of BoShek

Title: Into the Black Hole
Author(s): zeekveerko
Timeframe: ANH
Characters: BoShek, Han Solo, Chewbacca
Genre: Humor
Keywords: OT, AU
Summary: The truely true story of BoShek.
Notes: [link=http://boards.theforce.net/message.asp?topic=8897351]Repost[/link] from the old board.

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Into the Black Hole

Space? You want space? You got it. Out here drifting in the dark, Earth is so huge, but I can see it all. Look hard enough you could time the waves crashing on either shore of America. Ever wonder whether the rhythms of the wave-breaks are syncopated or in perfect time with each other?

This pressure suit is the only thing that keeps me alive, out here swimming in nothing. The void between the celestial bodies, space. I think I'd really enjoy it a lot more if this stupid MMU wasn't malfunctioning. The controls are shot. Left goes up, up goes back, back goes back, they pretty much all just take me away from Earth and the ship I rode out in.

"Houston? Uh... I've got a malfunctioning MMU, and I think I might just go ahead and die helplessly drifting through this stupid vacuum." Why did I want to be an astronaut, anyway? Stupid Neil Armstrong. First American to actually kiss the sky. I'll blame my predecessors.

"Bo, we've lost you on the radar. Where are you?" Crackly little voice. Doesn't do me any good. How can some guy on that little drifting-away marble help me right now when what i really need is a ride home?

"Well... the shuttle just passed out of view behind the horizon, and it looks like... yeah, conveniently, the sun will dispose of my body in a few years..."

"All right, Bo, don't panic..."

"I'm beyond panic, Ed. I'm already dead."
Then a little bit of static comes through and then, thankfully, nothing. If I'm going to die in space I'd rather not be talking to that guy when it happens.

Well, drifting in a giant snow globe, got nothing left to do but count stars. Is that one shooting? No, I am. I wonder if they can spot me with a telescope, just a tiny spot in space. Probably not. I don't even exist anymore. Won't even make the news. It's not like I want to die, I just have no choice. This space rocket backpack just gave out entirely from messing with it too much. Maybe it ran out of fuel. Maybe if I go to sleep now I won't wake up, and somehow that will make this easier.

Sleep comes quickly. Nothing else to do out here. Earth dreams, my precious little daughter and her bright starry eyes. She looks up at me with placid innocence and says, "When's daddy coming home?"
I wake up with tears in my eyes, my face mask fogged over. I'm tempted to open it and let the outer space suck the life from my, but then I notice that the Earth is gone, and so is the sun.

"Did I sleep a thousand years?" I wonder aloud, but space offers no answers. The fact is, there's nothing around I twirl one-eighty degrees and find that instead of a big yellow sun I'm drifting into an even bigger black hole. So now I get to find out what lies beyond the outer rim of one of these things. I guess I'd enjoy it a lot more if I thought I was going to survive it. Anything that swallows light probably won't have a difficult time digesting me.

So down into the hole I go, drifting through a tunnel of space dust and streaming light, a casual observer. The journey lasts hours, days, months, or seconds... hard to tell. But at the end of the ride this thing shoots me out into a huge dust cloud in the middle of an asteroid field like a vacuum cleaner set on reverse. A huge splash of light plays around me as something large and metal swoops into my path. I grab hold and glance over my shoulder at the black hole outlet, which looks much like the exact opposite of a black hole, what with all the light and other, more tangible particles bursting from it.

Just behind us what looks like a triangular space ship is suddenly bombarded by a blast of asteroids, one of which smashes through the central nervous system of this thing and sends it careening lifelessly through space.
The thing I'

 

When I wake up the furry beast is gone, and so is my helmet. I'm lying on a semicircular couch behind a table that looks like a round chessboard, but without any pieces. I sit up and look around what can only be some sort of lounge on the ship. There's a regular human man sitting in a chair twirling my helmet in his hands, completely blows my mind. He wears tall black boots and navy blue pin-striped pants. On top of that he's got on a white button-down shirt, long sleeve, and a fancy black vest, comes out looking like some sort of modern pirate. He rubs the scar on his chin as we quietly observe each other.

Finally, in perfect American English, he asks, "Where'd you come from?"

That question just makes me laugh, but not with amusement; more of a bitter sort of laugh. "It's a long story..."

"Well, Jabba's gonna put a price on my head... I was supposed to deliver those crates in the cargo hold to him. I'd just like to know where it is that you came from, and why you dumped my cargo."

"You know what a black hole is?" I ask after some deliberation. He nods. Of course he knows. He's a space pilot. "Well you flew by the out end of one, and I just happened to shoot out and catch this ship. I had no intention..."

"The out end? I haven't heard about that part of a black hole... I tend to avoid them when I'm near." He stands and extends his hand. "I'm Han Solo."

I shake his hand. "You don't look Japanese..."

"What?"

"My name's Bo Novacek."

"How's that? Bo... Shek?"

"Yeah, sure. So are you from Earth?"

"Never heard of it. I'm from Corellia."

"Right. So... you're going to kill me, aren't you?"

He chews his lip a bit. "I considered it. Chewie talked me out of it."

"Chewie?"

"My copilot. The Wookiee you met earlier."

"Wookiee?"

Han laughs. "Are you even from this galaxy?"

"I don't know."

Alarms ring off throughout the ship, and without a word Han jogs out of the room. I follow him into the ship's cockpit, look out the front window to a tunnel of streaked and swirling light similar to the inside of my black hole. Han pulls a lever and everything slows into a solar system with two stars. The jolt nearly takes me to the floor, but I grab onto the seat behind the wookiee beast and ease into it. We fly quickly toward a yellowish, sand-colored planet. I can't see a spot of blue, and suddenly everything starts to set in. This is exactly what I wanted when I studied to be an astronaut, not a job as a zero-gravity satellite mechanic.

So here I am, living out my dreams with a total stranger and his... copilot, and all I can think of is that sad look in my daughter's eyes.

A small voice comes in through some small speaker somewhere and tells us to land in docking bay ninety four.

At this point I'm just a fly on the wall. I see everything, but have no idea what's going on. My head is swimming. The planet is entirely dester, far as I can tell, but we don't fly over the whole thing before setting down in what I can only assume is docking bay ninety four. It's just a large round wall with some stations set up along it for different ship repair facilities. No roof, a dirt floor... I'm starting to think this place is one big hole that miscreants like Han and his chewy partner just sort of fall into when times get tough.

We're met at the bottom of the ship's ramp by some armored men. I can't see their faces, but their helmets are much more stylish than mine.

"Boba Fett," Han sneers, and Chewie gurgles distastefully at the fella in the center. "You mind if I get a drink before we get to business?"

"Jabba wants his cargo now," says Fett through some speaker in his helmet.

"There were some complications," Han says, shooting a sidelong glare at me. "We were boarded by imperials. We had no choice but to dump the cargo..."

They all stand silent for a moment, statues with funny-looking guns and other sorts of mechanical devices I've never seen. Finally, Fett says, "I don't have time to waste on you, Solo."

I watch Han's hand sink smoo