Saga - ST The Princess of Renatasia [OTP challenge - WIP]

The Princess of Renatasia​

OTP Challenge: Fairy Tale...IN SPACE​

Navigation link: most recent chapter

CHARACTERS
Supreme Leader Snoke - Extra-dimensional, forty-foot Mordling humanoid.
Ben Solo / Kylo Ren - 14-year old human boy. Progeny of Han and Leia.
Cadet Unamo / "One" - 15-year old girl. Highest-scoring cadet. She will later become Chief Petty Officer aboard the Finalizer.

19 ABY. Snoke's Throne World

"And there she remains to this day, waiting for a stranger with a gash in their head to kiss her to wake her up."

Sitting on his massive, to humans anyway, stone throne, with one leg crossed over the other, Supreme Leader Snoke brought the Sleeping Beauty tale to the end, and closed the giant book, resting it on the golden fabric tented over the higher of his desiccated grey thighs.

He looked fondly over the right armrest, down at the teenage Kylo Ren, formerly Ben Solo, whose repulsorlift bed was at the side of the throne, but down at floor level.

He used the Force to pull the blankets snug around the lad's shoulders, and muss his hair, and avoid the risk of crushing the boy's skull by doing it physically with his comparatively massive hands.

"Uncle Snoke?" Kylo murmured in a half-asleep surprisingly gentle voice for someone who had helped with the slaughter of Skywalker's erstwhile Jedi Academy on Yavin. "That bad fairy really went off the deep end, over missing out on a couple of gold plates, didn't she?"

The elder Force User, despite the boy facing away from him, his head on the white pillow, nodded. "She sure did."

The tale had documented some princess having a party in her honour - birthday, hundred metres on the tricycle without going over her beribboned handlebars, something important in a young girl's life - and the known fairies had been invited by her parents, the King and Queen of the Realm of Mathilde, and each had been presented with engraved gold plates to mark the occasion.

One fairy, however, had not been seen recently, due to being locked in a tower - she had had a side business going, testing people's security systems, and had apparently gotten trapped long enough for people to forget about her.

By time she had arrived at the party, she had missed out on the bounty, and already in a bad mood, had cursed the princess to befall some mishap in the future that would render her unconscious for many centuries.

"Can we go look for her?"

"Look for who?"

"Sleeping Beauty."

The old Mordling frowned down at the teenager. "You do know that fairy tales are fictional, right?" The forty-foot tall being felt a stirring through the Force, in possible reaction to his statement. He raised an eyebrow towards the distant dark wall of his throne room. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me."

"Uncle Snoke?"

"It is possible that the Force does not know the difference between fantasy and reality." He gazed down at the boy, thoughtfully. "Tell you what. If you can find a location for this comatose femme, I will put Operation Bizarre Rescue on the roster, then we can go check this out."

Snoring was the only answer that he got.

****

"We will take my ship." Snoke advised after breakfast, two standard days later, instructing Kylo to get ready, and meet him on the landing field in an hour.

After the youngster departed, the forty-foot humanoid moved outside his headquarters fortress to do some slow Tera Kasi moves, to loosen himself up. He would be laying down, with little opportunity to move, during the trip to wherever this Comatose Pretty Person was being held.

Soon enough, Kylo was running, a bulky pack over one shoulder, and his lightsabre hilt hooked to his belt, towards the open side ramp of a gargantuan, arrow-shaped Venator-class Star Destroyer, dominating the light grey expanse of the several square-kilometre ferrocrete pad.
The vessel blocked out the sun as the boy ran into the shade underneath it.

He paused to gaze in wonder up at the huge vessel.

Oh, he was used to Star Destroyers. His Uncle Terrik had an old Imperial-class one called the Errant Venture. But seeing one out through a shuttle's ports before you docked inside, was a far cry to sharing a piece of real estate with one that was actually landed, casting a shadow over a kilometre long, and over half a kilometre across at its widest.

The name FLAIGON'S FIST was printed in black upon the maroon ventral hull near the end of the bow.

The ramp that looked wide enough to admit a battalion of troops about twenty abreast.

There was a small number of white-armoured First Order stormtroopers, scattered under the ship, or arranged around it, along with automated anti-air emplacements, flak cannon and missiles pointing towards the skies.

A couple of troops waved at the teenager as he ascended the ramp, his pace slowing the further he went up; Ren having to bend forwards, so that the pack did not make him fall backwards, which would have done his street cred no good.

Within a few minutes and breathing hard, Ren reached the horizontal deck beyond the ramp, and stopped just past the lip, dropping the pack between his booted feet, hands on knees as he tried to get his breath back.

Kylo, his shuttered eyes looking down at the floor while he got his breath back, heard the sound first, thin fabric fluttering in the wind, a bit like the sailing craft on some of the family holidays.

He glanced along to the dimly lit large square-cut corridor to his right, which also extended to his left as well, with the latter direction running parallel to the main hangar in the bow.

He spied a rough triangular silhouette fluttering from the bulkhead, as if there was a shy, flag-waving Ewok, there.

"Ee choya? (Hey?)" He tried in Ewokese, the attempt not eliciting a response. He could still sense a presence, though. Conflicted thoughts. "Hello? Is someone there? Show yourself."

An awkward-looking teenage girl with a shoulder-length bob of blonde hair, appeared, wearing a white-and-orange sleeveless sundress with a full skirt that rippled around her knees as she stepped out into the cold wind being channelled into the ship.

Her hands were buried in the billowing fabric in a vain attempt to hold the skirt down, and frankly, he got the impression that she did not wear that fashion style much, which could be the source of her conflict.

She glanced into the shadows to her left. "Tee, collect the man's bag, please."

A multi-wheeled Treadwell droid rolled smoothly into view, basically a maroon rectangular platform, low to the ground, with a multitude of bent metal arms ticking up from the centre, and bending towards the platform, ending in a pincer.

It already had a black pack on it, similar in size to his own, but not as lumpy. Clearly she was a more organised packer.

The Treadwell stopped a metre short of him, and extended one arm to close a pincer over one of the straps.

Honestly, the former jedi student expected its back wheels to leave the deck as it adjusted to the weight of his luggage. He had really put a lot in there.

It dragged the pack along the floor, then lifted it up, lowering it onto the platform part, still keeping the pincer gripped.

"Hello." Ren greeted warily, narrowing his eyes to regard her suspiciously as she shifted nervously from one black, thick-soled, combat boot to another.

"Hello. I'm Unamo." She returned, looking him up and down, also.

He had not interacted with any of the younger members of the First Order since coming here, although he had heard myriad immature and high-pitched voices in the distance, or beyond buildings and walls, as they went through their training separately from the circles that he ran in.

They stared at each other.

"I'm accompanying you on this mission." She stated, to break the ice.

"Really? I thought it was just going to be the two of us." He hesitated, then clarified. "Uncle Snoke and I, I mean."

She gestured past him, along the empty corridor running parallel to the long main hangar in the capital ship's bow, that Kylo knew had been converted into a pilot station that the Mordling giant could lay down in. "Supreme Lead-"

"Una. We talked about this." Snoke's authoritative tones boomed along the passageway.

"Sorry, Uncle Snoke, wanted you to have another child along. Presumably to keep you company."

Kylo pressed a finger into the chest of his black tunic. "I'm not a child."

"And yet," finally, there was perhaps a hint of a smile on her youthful but severe face, "we are investigating a fairy tale."


To be continued...

 

Fascinating response to the challenge.

 

Thumbs up.

 

...Continued.


The Unamo girl turned, gesturing towards what Kylo could now see were a bank of turbolifts. "Come on, I will show you to your cabin."

She looked aside at the curly-haired youth as he fell in beside her. "Do you prefer Kylo or Ben?"

"Kylo, please." After a moment, it occurred to him to reciprocate. "And you, what do you prefer?"

She frowned. "I don't care; call yourself what you want." She stopped at one of three turbolift doors set into the right-side wall, and pressed the 'call' button, which lit up to show that it was working.

"No, what do you like to be called?"

"Oh." Her smile, indicating that she liked that someone was caring about what she wanted, even in this small way, told him that he had made the right move. "One."

"As in the numeral, or the victory?"

"The numeral."

"Cool."

Back down the front of the ship, they could hear Snoke talking again, telling someone that if everybody and everything was aboard, to bring the ramp in and seal up; his legs were getting cold.

The turbolift took them into the conning tower on this side of the ship, with the girl explaining that the other tower held the crew that would be controlling the huge vessel, although Uncle Snoke would be able to personally steer the vessel from his position in the bow, if he so wished.

The Treadwell patiently trundled after the two teens as they turned right from the closing doors, along a corridor whose floor was well scuffed. This had obviously been a working ship.

Unamo / One stopped at one set of doors that showed a scuffing on both doorframes, around waist height.

She thumbed the entry control on the side, and the revealed interior was a bare steel room with grey walls, with a rough-surfaced, unevenly surfaced metallic cylinder perched on it's side in the centre of the floor. It looked a lot like the trunk of a metal tree.

Kylo looked from it to her. "Someone's idea of art?"

She managed half a smile at that. "If you get upset, that is for you to slash at with your lightsabre. We're going to be in space, so we cannot have you slicing at random bulkheads, in case you cause a hull breach."

Ren raised a bemused eyebrow at her as she continued.

"If you are in a different part of the ship, do you think you can count 'one one-thousand, two one-thousand, and so on, till you get in here?"

"I'm...I'm sure I can manage that." The boy knew that he had a temper. He had reduced an old Massassi temple on Yavin to a smoking ruin one night, to attest to that. That that was the reputation that he was gaining amongst the First Order, was bothersome.

Grandfather, Darth Vader, had been feared for his capriciousness, how he had little patience for failure amongst his underlings.

In time, Ren also wanted to engender the same in his eventual subordinates, but he did not want it to be such that they steered him away from load bearing walls. Fear without respect was no good to anyone.

He nodded at the centrepiece. "What is it?"

"We cut down a tree, then drizzled molten durasteel over it to sterilise it." At this point, Unamo practised blanking her mind, for this mission was intended for train her in a number of practices outside the norm. If she was successful at keeping this one thought away from the boy that she was standing next to, she could keep him ignorant of the small patch of cortosis, somewhere in there, that if he happened to hit it with his lightsabre, could randomly extinguish the blade.

First Order pranks. What're you gonna do?

Ren stared at her. "You did that to sterilise it? Overkill!"

"Yeah." Unamo muttered in a neutral tone, sealing the room. "You're the one to talk about 'overkill'."

****

The kids were allowed to settle into their cabins for about an hour before they each heard a knock on their doors, and a muffled female voice, unfamiliar to both, told them to meet in the pilot lounge in ten standard minutes.

Fortunately, the place was on the same deck as their cabins, so by trial-and-error, and the relevant door saying 'Pilot Lounge' on it, both children found it fine, and entered, where a pleasant older femme with sun-beaten features, and straight brown-hair that curved up slightly as it caressed her white shoulder pads, indicated that they sit together on one of several off-white synthleather couches, with room for three people.

Unamo slouched back with her knees apart, while Kylo had his arms crossed, both looking up at the femme before them, on the other side of a low-to-the-floor coffee table, unsure what to expect.

The woman stood with her arms crossed, and her feet shoulder width apart, was in a partial ensemble of white Imperial-era stormtrooper armour, with all the protection above the waist, with the plates over a long-sleeved charcoal body-glove with a thigh-hugging skirt that was a zigzag of visually-pleasing light and dark creases, cinched at the waist with an Imperial-era stormtrooper equipment belt, and scabbarded E-11 hanging down the outside of her right thigh. Black knee boots completed the look.

Kylo loosened his position to vertically waggle a forefinger at her outfit. "You know that wouldn't work, right?"

"What're you, an Ewok Poet?"

Ren frowned. "I...I don't get the reference."

"Doesn't warrant one." She uncrossed her own arms, and smiled pleasantly down at them. "I'm Sergeant Helsing. Alternately, Maria Van Helsing, Aunt Maria, or MVH-1001; whichever appeals to you." She paused. "I'm assigned to take care of you while you are on the ship."

"A lot of that going around." Kylo interrupted, re-directing his finger to indicate Unamo beside him. "She's looking after me. I'm looking after her-"

Unamo shot him an indignant glance. "Since when?"

"Since Uncle Snoke commed me in my cabin, and instructed me that when we returned home, you were to be healthy and in one piece, both mentally and physically." Kylo told her honestly.

"And you had to be told that?"

The boy's cheeks flushed and he looked down into his lap. "You probably heard about Yavin-"

"Let's not get into that!" Maria interrupted gently. You are both to look after each other, is that clear? And that's because we're one big happy family!" She paused, giving both a moment to murmur their agreements. "Okay, how do you want to play this? I can prepare nutritional meals for you, breakfast, lunch and dinner; or just give you the keycode for the Cake Deck-"

"Deck?!" Unamo echoed incredulously.

"-and trust you not to eat so much that you start reproducing by fission like Rathtar."

That instantly seemed to dispel the bantha in the room, both youngsters audibly smirking, then exchanging momentary glances before blurting in unison at her, "Keycode, please!"

Helsing pulled the thumb-sized grey widget from a hard belt pouch, and held it up, pinched between her fingers, she made to pass it to Unamo, then held it up by her, as she regarded the teen with disapproval. "First though, that is not how good little girls sit. The back of your skirts or dresses will get all scrunched up and unsightly."

"I'm not a little girl."

"And yet..." Kylo let the sentence hang, referencing their earlier exchange.

"Well, not historically, no. But my understanding is that you are for the duration of this mission." Maria gestured for her to rise. "Stand up, please, and follow what I do."

One grudgingly levered herself up off the couch, her fists sinking into the soft cushions, which did not help.

The sergeant put a palm around to the rear of her own skirt, narrating her actions as she smoothed the black synthleather in a downward motion, then telling Unamo to do the same with the back of her own, and keep her hand and skirt in place above the back of her knees, directed her to re-sit and cross her legs, either one thigh over the other with calves touching, or crossed at the ankles.

"Good girl. Now, stomach in, back straight, and that will serve you in good stead should you seek to become an officer within the First Order." She tossed the widget towards her student, who caught it with both hands. "With great...something, comes great responsibility. Failing that, there will be a mop and bucket on hand for any spills."

"There's a cake deck?" Unamo pressed, returning to more familiar ground.

"A Venator normally carries around seven thousand, four hundred beings. While I'm not suggesting that that is all they would be eating, still you would need a lot of cake." Maria turned to look across the lounge. "Let me just pull up a chair."

A single armchair, same colour as the couch, skimmed across the floor, stopping just behind the sergeant.

"Show off." Unamo murmured out the side of her mouth as Kylo lowered his hand.

"What? I can't help?"

"Thank you." Sergeant Maria sat, crossing her legs and leaning forward over them. "So, how do we know that we are supposed to be going to Renatasia?"


To be continued...

 

WarmNyota_SweetAyesha Cowgirl Jedi 1701

Thank you for reading, and for your support.

 

A cake deck that's my kind of deck And an "Ewok poet" --

 

First installment

Aaaaand here it is. I didn't know what to expect, but I totally didn't expect this, it's safe to say so.

Love this approach to warping reality. Brilliant.

The idea of a young Kylo being idealistic despite the awful things he has done is interesting. Creepily enough, he might have been brainwashed, but psychology-wise, he IS a misguided idealist, so it absolutely fits.

Love it how he tries to talk in Ewokese on the ship.

And, once again, I love your multi-layered interpretation of Snoke and...I don't even know why!

...

Second installment

I'm not sure what this says about me, but next to that Thrawn story of yours, this is my favourite thing you have written, so far. Enjoying it, enjoying it a lot.

This had me wondering, for a bit. Is this girl humble, drilled/programmed or...both?

This, and Snoke's species...is it canon? I didn't find anything on Wook, but then again, I have trouble keeping up these days, still.

O________________________O

OMG. SHE HAS A SKIRT ON, KYLO MAKES A COMMENT ABOUT HOW IT WOULDN'T WORK AND THEN HE'S AN EWOK POET. THIS IS PRICELESS.

To those who don't get it: I made a reference about some clothing items being impractical for combat in a reply to another I-5 story.

Was wondering the same thing. I guess we'll see.

 

I knew that I was going to like this from the brief description you put in the OTP thread, but I wasn't prepared for the mental image of Snoke reading a bedtime story to Kylo and I had to stop reading for a moment and laugh to my heart's content.

Although I have to say that the idea of not one, but two teenagers calling Snoke "uncle" is kind of creepy. Hilarious, but creepy.

Kylo is wonderfully awkward around Unamo. It's a great little touch to have him manage to be actually nice at one point (when he asks how she liked to be called) but he's generally so immature when compared to her. The whole bit about the durasteel tree trunk with a hidden chunk of cortosis, and Kylo's musings about Darth Vader, was simply brilliant.

Maria Van Helsing's outfit was another priceless moment in a story that's already full of them. Now I'm waiting to see her reaction to the idea that they're going to Renatasia because the Force doesn't understand the difference between reality and fiction.

EAGERLY waiting for more! I may not be able to review as soon as you update because DRL and all that, but you can be sure I'll be pouncing on the next post as soon as it's up.

 

...Continued.


Kylo raised a hand. "I took a shuttle to the nearest world with a proper library, and did some research. The story was not always called Sleeping Beauty, but used to be called The Princess of Renatasia. Once I established that that is a star system in the Centrality-"

"Centrality?" Unamo interrupted. "What's that?"

"Small collection of star systems, not far from Hutt Space. For some reason, the Empire allowed it to operate semi-autonomously. If you have heard of the Flamewind of Oseon, that is there." Kylo had been looking at Unamo as he explained, but now looked from her to Maria, and back. "The Empire engaged in subterfuge in order to invade the place, so us turning up in a Star Destroyer might not go well. We won't be announcing ourselves as First Order."

"Yes, I have orders regarding that. We're going in undercover as location scouts for the Interstellar Pod-Racing Consortium, the IPRC." The girl sighed, exhaling through her nose. "I have a cheerleading costume for a team sponsored by the New Republic military, which will hopefully allay the locals' fears." She pinched at the bodice of her dress. "It's worse than this."

"Well, I think you look very pretty." Maria commended with an encouraging tone.

"It's not my job to look pretty! Well, on this mission, I suppose it is. Or prettier. They dyed my hair for drokk's sake." She raised the coloured part of her hair. "You think I would have put pink in it!"

"A bit of pink. Big deal."

"And the blonde. I normally have dark hair."

"Well, I would hold onto it. You look quite nice."

****

Renatasia star system

It took most of five standard days to reach the destination star system, and they caved after just two days of eating cake alone, submitting to nutritional meals provided by the First Order sergeant, and partnering up for jogs through the corridors and levels of the portside tower, which they had the run off.

The Venator-class Star Destroyer coasted through the empty space between worlds, as her crew, the skeleton staff working inside the starboard tower, decided which planet to visit first. A task which they quickly tired of.

The children were summoned.

A friendly-faced lieutenant in a pressed uniform and highly polished boots, met them at the turbolifts, ruffled both of their heads, and took them forward for a quick tour of the bridge, where Unamo stood back and gawked in wonder at the multi-coloured lights and displays within the sunken crew pits on either side of a dark grey command walkway that headed forwards to the large, triangular bridge windows giving a majestic view of the capital ship's maroon and white front end.

Green light from the planet that they were over, reflected off portions of the ceiling brightening the bridge somewhat, as well as making the central walkway more visible.

Unamo initially baulked at crossing to the windows, then stroked her hair down, grabbed at her skirt with one hand to keep the rest taut about her knees as she stalked determinedly across to join Kylo, the lieutenant, and the tall figure exuding stern authority, from his neatly brushed fiery red hair, down to his polished black kneeboots, the vessel's captain, Armitage Hux, at the front.

Unamo stood before him, snapping to attention, and saluted smartly, betraying her secret position as the highest-scoring cadet at that time within the First Order's sub-adults, but she could not bring herself to ignore protocol in Hux' presence.

Kylo glanced at her in surprise, his expression relaying that he wondered what she was playing at. He himself made no attempt to salute Hux.

Although the fourteen-year old would have spat upon any concept of a jedi, he had learned that while they walked the halls of power, they rarely observed military protocol.

His Grandfather certainly had not, so he had no plans to.

"So. You are the Away Team." Hux eventually said, putting his arms behind his back as he peered down at the two. His face looked like one made for sneering, but he was clearly resisting the temptation, likely due to the backing they had from the Supreme Leader.

"Sir." Unamo clipped, her feet together, arms by her sides, staring straight ahead, which happened to be the window just beyond the captain's left arm. She was hoping against hope that he did not shout at her regarding the pink streak in her hair. THAT on the bridge of a Star Destroyer? People had been spaced for less, she imagined.

"At ease. I am aware that you have orders from the Supreme Leader."

She relaxed her stance, a bit, clasping her fingers behind her back, and spreading her feet to a shoulders' width.

She was relieved as all Hapes when the Captain's attention turned to Kylo.

"And you, Master Ren." Now, Hux face seemed unsure whether to sneer or smile. "I understand that we have you to thank for the snuffing out of Grandmaster Skywalker's attempt to resurrect the Jedi Order. "

Out of her peripheral vision, she was interested to note the fallen Jedi almost seem to wilt under the presence of Hux looming over them.

"Th-that's me." He managed, gamely meeting the man's burning glare.

"May I ask what motivated you to betray your friends?" Hux waved a hand over the silent bridge. "So that we do not, um, make the same mistake?"

Kylo said nothing, a void in the conversation that Unamo was prompted to fill.

"We heard-" She stopped as both Hux and Kylo glanced at her.

"Go on."

Having put herself on the spot, the teenager glanced guiltily at her Partner-in-Cake. "W-we h-heard that you were disappointed with the ou-outcome of a g-game of musical chairs."

Kylo shrugged. "That...that is actually surprisingly accurate." There had been more to it than that, obviously. But that had been the flashpoint. Brodie had pushed him over to get the last chair, and when he had appealed to Uncle Luke, the jedi grandmaster had not wanted to get into this.

He glanced wistfully out the small left side ports at the other tower. He was a long way from that tree.

"We have standing orders not to join you in any games of chance." She added, breaking into Ren's thoughts.

"Well, I've never liked the game." Hux admitted, staring at Kylo. "But drokk, even to me, that sounds unnecessarily harsh."

"Games including, but not limited to, musical chairs, of course; Sabacc, three-dimensional Chess, normal Chess, Chess for Dummies-"

"Draughts. No such thing as Chess For Dummies'."

Kylo put up a hand, stopping Unamo and Hux. "Enough. I get it. Now, why were we brought up here, Captain Hux?"

"With me." Arms behind his back, Hux led the way back across the walkway, towards the rear of the bridge.

"Geentech's Operations' game." Unamo added, trailing after the officer and the former jedi.

"Shut up."

"Coruscant Monopoly. Even if you're the speeder."

"I'm actually not too bad at that, but still, shut up."

Hux led them through the blast doors at the rear of the bridge, into a compact windowless room between the bridge doors, and the sealed doors that led further back to the turbolifts.

A rectangular light-table occupied the centre of the room, at waist height, which he stopped beside, and looked back at them as they caught up. "We have tapped into the Renatasian library databases, in an attempt to track down the location referred to in the Princess' tale."

"Have you found anything?" Ren asked, putting a hand on the table edge, and watching the rising light shafts break around his fingers.

"Not yet, but that is why you were called up here. The lieutenant will show you what to do." He snapped his fingers, looking back at his subordinate, the younger officer closing in from a respectful distance. "And they will be needing chairs."

"Yes, Captain."

Hux nodded at both youths, and heading back to his area, blast doors sealing in his wake.

To be continued...

 

You have these intimidating types, LOL in Ren and Hux, and they come across so ironic and multilayered. I like Unamo. She seems to be truly herself, not a Sith aspirant.

 

Ewok Poet - thank you for the comments!

It was this character - Maria Van Helsing - and her same outfit, that you commented on, last time.

You are right that the girl had been drilled. Snoke called the training unit, the moment that he knew he was taking Kylo on Operation Bizarre Rescue. He wanted to know who their highest scoring cadet was, boy or girl.

This is partial reward for Unamo, for being the best, but then multiple layers in play, getting her to act undercover as a fellow youngster for Ren; non-military if we run into any locals; allowed instructed to behave as a girl for a change; in-the-field experience for what she has been taught (that perhaps she can pass on in her own right), that conceal thought thing with the cortosis patch in the tree. Depending on how this goes, maybe permanent promotion from an at-length connection where Snoke is the Supreme Leader, to this Uncle business where he considers her alongside Kylo as actual kids to be sponsored.
And then, this mission just needs someone along who knows what the heck they are doing.
And, oh yes, Ben Solo gets a child to interact with, and has specific orders not to let her come to harm. Snoke is not going to wear the killing your underlings guano, whether "Grandfather" did it or not.

Since childhood, I have had a pulp space fantasy novel called Star Fighters, whose heroes and villain line-up, paralled that of the Original Trilogy (the plots were different though)., and whose publishers were not afraid of using SW-style cover imagery to help boost book sales......it worked on me.

Their version of the Emperor, a malignant, self-aware nuclear pile named Ylang-Ylang, attempted to resurrect his own ancient race of giant humanoids, the Mordlings. His actual attempts weren't that clever, running down corridors, chasing and eating his minions.
My Snoke is a more civilised and intelligent version, forced to escape via portal when the planet Flaigon, as in Flaigon's Fist, fell under sustained attack by a team-up fleet of the Something of Light and the League of Free Worlds, or whatever their Jedi Order and Rebel Alliance expies were.

 

...Continued.

"Whoa. The man is intense." Kylo opined, huffing out his release of tension.

"You are telling me!" She nodded, joining him in releasing a sigh. She walked around to the other side of the table and sank to her knees so that she could lean her crossed forearms onto the illuminated surface.

By the third hour later, there were four people at or within sight of the light table, chairs for each, likely to avoid a repeat of the purported musical chairs incident; with Ren seated with his legs crossed, a slice of sponge and cream cake in his lap as he watched the three sets of translucent holos - temples, statues, local mythological figures - flashing past, being operated right now by Unamo, the perspiring girl crouching at the side of the light-table and moving her arms like a galloping cat, with her palms sliding back over black rollerball controls, whilst on the diagonal corner to her, their sergeant was spelling the lieutenant, on their own rollerball.

"Limmie." Unamo dropped another game into her pool.

"Shut up." Kylo snatched at his plate and sprang off his chair, his other hand pointing at the holos. "There! Central stream, that X-Wing armed green goddess nest-fragger!"

"Language!" Maria cautioned, but Kylo ignored her as Unamo stood and looked where her team-mate was pointing, the middle stream showing a blocky town hall type structure, fronted by crenelated columns, and steps so extensively wide that they looked like they had been done by the Venator's ramp designer.

Breathing hard, Unamo wiped at the damp hair slicked to her perspiring forehead. There were damp patches under her arms too, from her exertions.

If Kylo could show off with the Force, so could she by showing her endurance.

The cadet cancelled her other stream, that holo fading away into nothingness, whilst Maria did the same a moment later with hers, leaving the town hall alone, floating an inch or two above the table, bathed in the light.
There was no way it could be confused with a Green Goddess, X-Wing armed or not, so she knew she must have blurred past it before he had pointed it out.

"How far back?"

"Three hundred places."

"THREE HUNDRED?!" Unamo's surprised tone was high-pitched and strangled.

"Sorry, I've got some Force-buffering going on." He tapped his temple with a finger, then laughed. "I'm kidding. Just go back fourteen."

Pressing her lips together, Unamo began palming her left-most rollerball forwards, at a more measured pace, so that she could count off images.

At the fourteenth spot, the holograph of a seated female appeared, clothed only in a loincloth or skirt, two of her slightly bent four arms out to the side and angled at thirty-five degrees to the table surface, the other two out to the side and upwards. She wore a tiara and there was an array of necklaces falling onto her ample chest.

"Where did you get 'green' from?" Unamo looked sidelong at Kylo.

"Not sure, but that's her. The bad fairy."

"Really? And someone built that?" She flashed a dubious look towards the holo. "She sure thinks a lot of herself, for a frakking fairy."

"Unamo, language." Maria glared through the diffused light at her. "Any more swearing from either of you, and I will be washing both of your mouths out."

"She prefers to be called, 'One'." Ren pointed out. "So do we know where that is?"

The lieutenant stepped up to the table, and tapped keys that were unseen to the children. A holographic plaque containing several lines of aurabesh flashed up under the seated figure. "It's in the Hexagonal Restoration Zone. Renatasia III." He looked at Kylo and Unamo. "Good work, you two. I will inform Captain Hux that we have an idea where to go. Sergeant." He nodded at Maria.

"Lieutenant."

He turned towards the sealed doors that would take him back onto the bridge, whilst she swept her gaze around at her young charges. "Alright, collect your plates, and let's get you back to your quarters. One, you at least will be needing a shower."

****

Sergeant Helsing had not been happy with the state that One had gotten herself into, so had forced both to get some cabin rest, and it was four standard hours later that the youths reconvened in the hangar.

Unamo, a Sorosuub DH77 headcomm clamped over her blonde tresses, with one sponged cup caressing her left ear, was leading Kylo on a tour of their available resources. "We've got an old All Terrain Tactical Enforcer and the crew to man it, if we need backup, as well as three larties for orbital drops."

"My preference is for us to put the ship down on the surface, though." Snoke's gravelly voice boomed along the hangar.
The elongated space provided barely enough space for the giant humanoid to lay down, and several droids were assigned to keep him comfortable, sponging down his grey skin to clear away perspiration, and to massage in emolients, plus other less clear, hygienic aids.

His head was right up the front end, whilst Kylo and Unamo were down at the feet end, with soles bigger than they were tall, bare metres from where they were stood, and where the vehicles were parked.

"We do not anticipate much of a response from the locals before we get planetside." Their 'uncle' had explained. "Renatasia did not have much of a space defence after the Empire came here, and the locals struggled to find ships to take revenge on the one that they called, The Butcher of Renatasia."

"Well, sausages are an acquired taste." Ren announced wisely, rubbing at his belly through his black tunic as he sat astride one of the two speeder bikes, Ikas-Adno 88-R Nightscreamers, that Unamo had mentioned before she got to the AT-TE.

"No." Snoke started to clarify, then decided life was too short. "Never mind."

"By the way, Kylo?" The cadet interjected. "You are not wearing that to the surface."

The former Solo looked down at the ridged saddle between his knees and frowned. "Wearing what?"

"You know what I am talking about. That cape you made."

"He made a cape?" From his position, the Supreme Leader could not see past his own shoulders, without an elaborate system of mirrors that frankly had not been a priority to acquire and install.

"He dyed one of his bed sheets black." She explained, crossing bare arms and glaring at the fallen jedi, somehow managing to look mean despite the gunmetal grey pleated miniskirt and midriff-baring crop top of her IPRC cheerleading outfit. The front of the vest showed the front view of a chocolate-brown jawa sandcrawler, eclipsing and falling out of, a yellow sunburst. It was the stylised logo of New-Republic-sponsored pod-racer, the jawa veteran of the Yuuzhan Vong war, Detective Kellerman.

"Well, every good Sith Lord should have a cape."

Ren grinned up at her. "Ha!"

"But not while riding a speeder bike, Uncle Snoke!" She pleaded her case. "Suppose it snags on something whilst we're going at speed?"

"Mm. She has a point."

Ren looked round towards the curved grey wall that was the bottom of Snoke's right foot, "Grandfather never took off his cape, did he, Uncle Snoke?"

"Lord Vader had a back brace-"

"Probably why." Unamo muttered darkly.

"-and did not frag around with speeder bikes."

HANGAR FROM THE BRIDGE. Their musings were interrupted by the public address system. WE ARE APPROACHING THE PLANET.

To be continued...

 

Aaaaaaaaaaaa, you're too fast for me, I started typing a reply last night and then crashed.

(Gonna edit this comment later...with actual content )

 

Thank you for continuing to read.

Chyntuck - What enthused feedback! Thank you!

I am pleased that the intro scene worked for you, and I really do enjoy learning what has made a person laugh. Or, that rare Royal Jelly of enjoyment, the squee!

Thank you for noting the cortosis bit, I was beginning to think it had missed its mark.

Glad you liked Maria and her uniform. She is one of my earliest OCs.

I hope the fic stays worthy of your expectations, and your nomination to the reading index. Thanks muchly for that.

 

Okay, now that the boards aren't crashing every other minute I can post a review for you – but first let me say that you deserve every single word of praise I've typed for this story. This is really an unusual approach to the challenge and I'm really glad you decided to do things this way, first because I get to read the fic and second because you're challenging me to do things outside my comfort zone. (A third reason is that I'm often a bit lost when I try to read your stories, because you use long-standing OCs and/or fandoms I'm not familiar with, but I'm navigating this one just fine.)

On to the review! Fantastic first encounter between Kylo and Hux. I could just visualise them weighing each other as they talked; Hux was his usual arrogant self but I somehow got the impression that he was a bit intimidated too – mind you, facing an unhinged teenage Force user would do that to the best of us I absolutely loved the idea that Kylo went berserk over a game of musical chairs, of all things; and the running joke about forbidden games throughout this chapter and the next one had me chuckling all the time.

Another running joke I've had good fun with while reading this is Unamo's wardrobe issues. It was interesting to see her snap into full First-Order-military mode while in Hux's presence; she was brought along to look like a pretty cheerleader but my guess is that she's someone you'd want on your side in a tight spot. I also noticed that Kylo is particularly nice to her, when he tells Maria that "She prefers to be called, 'One'."

Beyond the humour though, I'm interested in the investigation and how you're going to handle it – I really enjoyed your Thrawn story because there was an actual, real mystery to solve amidst the zaniness and it was very well done, and I'm kinda hoping that this story will follow a similar pattern. I remember Renatasia from the Lando novels, but not clearly enough to tell how much of your description here is borrowed from the books and how much is your own world-building; should I go for a quick re-read or is this story "self-contained"? In any case, I'm curious to see what will come of this four-armed green fairy statue, although I suspect that reaching the statue will involve hilarious shenanigans

 

Thank you for such kind words, and such a meaty chapter review, Chyntuck

Interesting that both you and Ewok Poet are reminded of the Thrawn piece, CSI: Imp' Centre.

Renatasia is indeed from the Lando novels (great to meet someone who has read them!), but it was never really described. I am world building, using an idea I introduced in a roleplaying game, but which I did not get the chance to utilise.

I have also thrown a spanner into my own works, and I have not yet written beyond that, so I don't know how that is going to go.

 

...Continued.


Descending on Renatasia

Both kids had safety tethers hooked to the back of their belts, so that they could look down through the Venator's belly aperture at the sight below, as they descended through the white gossamer cloud cover which scudded over the lower hull and the invisible force shield to reveal a vast expanse of barren, tan-coloured desert terrain divided up by glowing green shield walls, arranged in hexagons - the Hexagonal Restoration Zone.

From directly over the zones, they took on the appearance of a honeycomb cells lined with forest green borders.

This land had been sterilised by war, several decades ago, and these six-sided stockades had been kept off-limits by their great shield walls, to allow animal and plant life to find purchase, and re-flourish.

Kylo sat at the back edge of the hole, his feet dangling several metres above what both assumed to be an active atmospheric shield.

Unamo, tethered as well, was happy to be a couple metres back from the edge, but still able to see out, albeit at a shallower angle than Ren. Whilst he had a huge panoramic square of view, hers was a thin rectangle afforded by the lip of the near deck, and the outer hull below the far side.

"Captain Hux advises that there is no clearing within the hexagonal zone to set down. We will have to land outside, and go in on speeder bikes."

"Understood." Unamo leaned carefully over the sharp tops of a white picket fence that made her safer to stand behind, and tugged twice on Kylo's tether. "C'mon, outta there."

****

Twenty minutes later, the children were astride their Nightscreamers, Kylo watching the giant Mordling indulge in some sit-ups, unwittingly gouging great swathes of scrub grass out of the landscape beneath him, while Unamo checked the safety on her backup, a scout trooper's EC-17 holdout blaster, then leaned down to tuck it into the moulded holster on the white scout boots that she had paired with her cheerleader outfit.
She sat up, cautiously scanning the horizon for any sign of local response.

To her left was the green shimmer of the kilometre-tall shield walls.

The Flaigon's Fist had landed now, but while over the Restoration Zone, they had seen that there were avenues between each six-sided area, that they would have to navigate along, to find where they needed to be, but at the moment, their presence was invisible against the shimmering verdant emerald energy.

Kylo was counting off each full sit-up that the Supreme Leader made. "Ninety-seven. Ninety-eight. Ninety-nine. A hundred."

Snoke sat up for a breather, unwittingly let go some methane. "Ah, better out than in, eh?"

Kylo and Unamo exchanged glances, neither willing to say anything.

After a few breaths, his thin chest moving with them, Snoke turned his great pale blue eyes towards his future apprentice. "Have you asked Sergeant Helsing about Lord Vader?"

Ren furrowed his eyebrows and looked up in curiosity. "No. Did she know him?"

"He commissioned her special unit, The Monster Squad. Took them everywhere with him when he was working out of the Star Destroyer Devastator. You'll have to have a chat with her when we are on the way back."

"I will. Thank you, Uncle Snoke." Kylo relishing the opportunity to find out more about his famous relative.

Snoke levered himself to his feet, his gold-embroidered white robe riding up his bony knees as he straightened and glared towards the lime-accented shimmer. "Right, let's go."

****

Hexagonal Restoration Zone

The avenues were lined by five-foot high grey metal shield generators, that presumably had more infrastructure under the neatly shorn green grass that wound between the hexagon zones.

Each side of a hexagon was about five klicks long, going by the first two that the trio had measured.

The pair of Nightscreamers whizzed along the thoroughfares, whilst Snoke came along behind at a lazier pace.

He was having to be careful, not to sting his elbows and biceps on the energy shields, and the looser edges of his robes were being attracted to the pulsing curtains on either side of him.

Ahead of him, he could see that the children had stopped at an intersection, debating which way to go next, the opaqueness of the energy barriers preventing them from looking into each enclosure to see which one they wanted.

Like his own clothing, Kylo's bedsheet cape had been attracted to the nearest shields, and it's bunched edges were dragging along the right-most one, crackling softly. The boy was not addressing the issue, likely styling it out to avoid giving the girl any "I told you so" moments.

Turning in her seat as he slowly caught up, Unamo glanced momentarily along Kylo's near-horizontal cape, then looked back up at the commanding figure. "Uncle Snoke, is there any radiation danger from being this close?"

The Mordling smiled down at her, considering for a moment her emotional progress, from a drilled drone out of its element, to a young girl who was recovering some of her youngling innocence, and now comfortable and had relaxed into her new role.

Clearly though, her mind was still on the ball, for that was a pretty good question.

"Now you ask?" Kylo queried as he lowered his bike to the floor, lifting his left leg up and over the fuselage so that he could slip off the right side, turning to pull his stuck cape hand over hand towards him, like a landed paratrooper hauling in his or her chute.

"Hey, this is your mission, not mine." She shot back.

"This is an Away Mission, One." Snoke reminded gently, using her preferred moniker. He enjoyed seeing her jaw drop in response, and just managed to suppress a grin at the look she gave him. "You are in the field. How would you check for that?"

"Oh right. Sensors." She turned back around to face the front, and he could see by her movements that she was bringing up her wrist-communicator, which these days , tended to have a lot of functions , and likely had a radiation detector. "We're all clear!"

Ren had stepped to an angled control panel set into the nearest shield emitter wall, pressing fingers into the rubberised buttons. Above him, the green shield faded to transparency as he adjusted the light frequency. None of the controls that they had found so far, had been pass worded or restricted to access, so they had been making shields invisible, having a look into the enclosure with their macrobinoculars, and in the Supreme Leader's case, eyes, to see if what they were after, was inside.

"What in Flamewind is that?" Kylo enquired, barely able to see over the emitter wall, into the wall of thick thorny vines and overgrown foliage.

"What is what?" Despite looking towards Kylo, Unamo was not at an angle where she could see his transparent bit of wall to see what had piqued his interest.

She expertly adjusted the handlebars and pressed her right toes lightly down on the foot pedal to wheel her bike around and coast in behind the boy, looking in over his unruly mop of hair.

If she got assigned to work with him again, and again had diplomatic immunity against his aggressive tendencies, she was going after all that with a comb and some hair clips.

The sight beyond the shield wall stopped her dead.

There was the usual tight mass of brush, thick thorny vines, leaves of various shades of green or brown, and standing, facing right to left, was the large quadrupedal form in overlapping bands of tan, spiked armour, of an Akk Dog.

Green leaves protruded from the low-to-the-floor snout of a mouth, as it chewed. Its' eyes were towards the ground in front of it, and its legs were so short and stubby, that they looked like they had been added on as a joke.

The thing was the size of a school bus, and what was surprising to the teenager, was that there was enough food in the enclosure to sustain something long enough to get to that size.

"Kyle," she said in a low voice, not wanting to be heard by the creature, even though it was more than a hundred metres inside the enclosure. "re-raise the shield, please."


To be continued...

 

I’m now caught up with this, and enjoying it quite a bit! Your Kylo is great fun to read; you’ve managed to make him more sympathetic than a lot of portrayals of Kylo that I’ve seen (put a little cake and a guy and it’ll do wonders! ), and it’s cool how we even get to see him thinking about his infamous temper and its implications. The special room with the metal-coated stump for lightsaber-slashing was such a fun touch, as was this:

A valid point indeed!

And now we know the REAL reason he massacred all the Jedi students and destroyed their temple! In a way I almost can’t blame them—that game raises my hackles a bit too. (Just teasing, of course. ) Well, I’ll certainly be curious to see if anything they find on Renatasia will end up kindling that temper, and if he’ll manage to count enough “one-one-thousands” to get him back to that room!

Heck, I’m enjoying all the characters. Even Snoke is kind of sympathetic in this more “avuncular” mode of his; it’s kind of cool that they were able to engineer a way for his 40-meter-tall self to come along on this mission, though that can’t have been comfortable! Maria is definitely rising to the occasion of “taking care of” the two teens with gusto and courage; it’s a big job, especially when an entire cake deck is involved! (I confess that I’m a little confused about the “What are you, an Ewok Poet?” reference, though; do you mean our own Ewok Poet ?)

I especially am enjoying One/Unamo, though. She makes for a cool foil to Kylo, and she’s such a neat combination of perky cheerleader and razor-sharp First-Order fighter. Who says a girl can’t sport a pink streak in her hair on the bridge of a Star Destroyer? She takes everything she does so seriously, whether it’s researching the history of the mysterious Centrality world they’re headed to or coming up with games that will not set off the more homicidal side of Kylo’s temper. (I could see the Coruscant Monopoly getting him pretty worked up, though!)

And now, here they are at last on the mysterious Renatasia. I recognize the barrier of thorns and foliage from the original Sleeping Beauty fairytale, of course; getting through all that plus the shields would be difficult enough if there weren’t a school-bus-sized akk dog in the way as well—One and Kylo are going to have to do some quick thinking here! (And I can’t say I blame her for wanting to go after Kylo’s shaggy mane with a comb and some hair clips. Especially some of those pretty little jeweled ones with butterflies or dragonflies on them. )

Eagerly awaiting more of this wacky-fun contribution to the challenge as Kylo and co. get down to business on Renatasia!

 

Wonderful description of Renatasia & I am sure Ren is looking forward to hearing about Vader and Helsing working together. But in the meanwhile what is that they stumbled upon in the enclosure?

 

Findswoman - Thank you very much for such a comprehensive review, mentioning so much of what you liked and enjoyed and even giving the three main protagonists their own paragraphs.

The Ewok Poet reference comes from when I had to describe Maria's outfit, I recalled our Ewok Poet being critical of it in an earlier fic, so I asked her if I could refer to it.

I loved reading how you are enjoying Unamo, especially her sartorial woes, and military ettiquette.

l learned a new word, "avuncular". Yep, I suppose Snoke is being that. When two un-related children share an equally un-related 'uncle', does that make them 'cousins', or just friends?

The foliage is coincidental, rather than from Sleeping Beauty. Most of the enclosures have been allowed to run wild, so have similar issues.
I don't know how to calculate the size of a six-sided space, where each side is five kilometres, but I don't know how one enclosure would sustain that Akk Dog...

I could not tell if you wrote "a cake and a girl", or "a cake in a guy", as doing wonders.

Thank you again for such great feedback!

WarmNyota_SweetAyesha - thank you for reading and commenting. I wasn't planning on writing out the return journey, so we won't be seeing the Maria / Kylo exchange, I'm afraid.

Glad you like Renatasia so far.

 

...Continued.


"What's the magic word?" Ren teased, looking over his shoulder towards her voice.

"Comb?"

"That is an Akk Dog." Snoke identified as he strolled up behind them, and leaned over to peer inside.

Now, Kylo was nodding in recognition. "Oh, I remember that; Aka the Akk Dog." He recalled the holo-cartoon character, but it had not looked like this thing, though the spiked, banded armour rang a bell.

It was probably the Mordling's huge imposing stature that caught the creature's attention, but the first clue that the observers had that they had been spotted, was when the 'Dog's gaze flicked up towards them, and then, a second later, the cud dropped out of its' slack jaws.

"I get that a lot." Snoke deadpanned.

He did not like the look of the thing, especially when it turned to face them, flapping a long pink tongue up over the side of it's snout as it regarded him and the children.

Snoke glanced down at Ren, standing with his back to him, several metres ahead of the Mordling. "Kylo, re-green the shield."

"Yes, Uncle Snoke." The barrier quickly opaqued, shimmering before them. Kylo looked from Snoke to Unamo. "That thing looked a bit too interested in us, wonder what in Oseon it was thinking?"

Unamo frowned to herself. "With those multiple personalities, probably, 'If we can pull this off, we can eat like Queens'."

"Where would it get the salad?"

She gestured beyond the luminescent barrier. "Helloo?"

"And what makes you think it has multiple personalities?"

Both kids looked up at him.

"Seriously, Uncle Snoke, have you seen yourself?" Kylo led.

"Precisely." Unamo nodded her agreement. "It would have to be crazy to attack you."

The Supreme Leader's attention snapped to the refulgent malachite barrier where the boy was still standing. "Kylo. Duck!"

"Where?"

Something in her uncle's tone had Unamo slipping off her elevated bike and sprinting up to Ren whilst pulling the E-11 blaster carbine that was slung diagonally over her back, forward over her head.

Kylo started to turn at her approach, but she ignored him to aim her E-11 past his head at the shimmering greenery. "What did you see, Unc-"

The red-brown jaws of the Akk Dog came through the shield, scraping sideways over the shield emitter to stop either side of the boy's head and snapped shut, or as much as it could upon finding the carbine flipped like a baton and wedged in it's maw.

Unamo spun and forearmed Kylo across the chest to take both of them to the ground, landing beside him on her right shoulder as his head bounced off the grass.

Above them, the jaws crunched the weapon, a few bits of shrapnel spilling onto them before rows of triangular white teeth interlocked like a wampa trap, the creature withdrew through the shield, leaving it as undisturbed and as unassailable-looking as before.

"It-it came through the shield!" Kylo yelled from where he lay, whilst Unamo rolled off him and knelt up onto one knee beside him, shaken and definitely stirred. After a moment, she tugged her compact EC-17 holdout blaster from her boot and aimed it, double-handed to mitigate her shaking, up at the barrier where the monster had come through.

"We must have overestimated the strength of the shields." Snoke rationalised, clenching his right fist and thrusting it at the shield nearest him, to see if it would breach.

The charge that shot up his arm slammed him back into the opposing shield behind him, and then the Mordling, fell, pole-axed, face first through the one with the Akk Dog on the other side, ending up with his belly bridging the emitter wall, and the green shield now split into two, continuing to pulse a kilometre into the sky to the left and right of him, whilst with an audible woof, his clothing where his body was blocking the emitter, ignited.

"Cut the power!" Unamo yelled as she sprang up and ran over to Snoke's shuddering legs.

"But the creature-?"

"Cut the damn power!" She had seen enough of her fellow cadets knocked out to surmise that their movement was not due to his own attempts to rise, but that something was happening at the top end.

She got a good hold of his white silken robes , and tried to pull herself up onto his thigh, the horizontal limb like an old-style oil pipeline next to her, but because the cloth was unsecured, it just came down to her. Annoyed, she had to ungainly and rapidly skip sideways towards his feet beyond the hem of his frock, toss her blaster up onto the mound of his calf muscle, place both hands as high as she could manage and leap off the ground, tucking her legs up under her as fast as possible, so that her bare knees could get some traction on his pale flesh. "What did you do today, One?" She muttered to herself, soto voce, "Me? I jumped Supreme Leader Snoke's leg." Snatching her gun up, and careful not to slip off, she sprinted up his leg, over the rise of his rump, and jumped between the emerald energy curtains, into the enclosure.

She could see, up ahead (honestly, no pun intended), the Akk Dog gnawing at the bald pate of her unconscious 'uncle'.

Unamo dropped to one knee in the depression between his shoulder blades, thumbed the safety off, and almost dropped the thing when a red bolt smashed into the ground just in front of her knee. "Ooh, frag!"

She stole a fearful glance over her shoulder, to see if Kylo had witnessed her just shoot Snoke in the back, but the shield where he was working, was still up, although for some reason, now coloured in different shades of tangerine orange.

Turning back, she raised her aim, and fired several shots into the creature's now blood-streaked head, plus several along its flanks for good measure, to no discernible effect. "Huh." She turned, reporting with a yell, "It's armour is too strong for blasters!"

For his part, Kylo Ren had stepped back from the control panel, where his attempts to shut the thing down, had only changed the shield colour, and he was leaning strongly towards switching to Plan L.

"Hold on while I break out the snowspeeders!" He yelled back, plying her with Rebel humour while he pulled his lightsabre, the blue-white blade thrumming into existence.

He slashed it, right-to left, carving a magma-rimmed smile into the emitter's plain fascia beneath the controls, jabbed a pair of holes for 'eyes', and stepped back from the sparks and smoke, his gaze snapping skywards at the sound of a loud chunk!

Already, the shield, and it's mate on the other side of Snoke, were a fifth lower than the adjacent wall to the left, which they were close to.

chunk

chunk

chunk

Just two hundred metres high, one more should do it.

chunk

The shield disappeared, as acrid smoke billowed from the curved gash through its innards. Kylo put his free hand onto the damaged emitter wall, and jumped up into a squat onto it, now that he had a full view through the tightly packed brambles at Uncle Snoke's upper half, and Unamo retreating hastily back down it, being chased by the Akk Dog, it's clawed feet ripping up the silk as it tried to find purchase on the slip slide of the robe clothing Snoke's back.

Unamo leaned down as she skidded over his thigh, grabbing a handful of the robe's back hem, pulling it up to her sternum as she leapt forwards, tucked in her knees and dropped into the empty air between Snoke's exposed calves, the loose vestments converging on the natural crevice between his butt cheeks and pooling in after her as she tried to get out of the predator's path, hoping to swing to relative safety beneath the Mordling, rather than just slam into the ground under him.

One thing that this was not, was a science.

To be continued...

 

“Our shields can’t contain akk dogs of this magnitude!” An action-packed chapter—what an image to picture the dog chasing Unamo along over Snoke’s huge, prone, unconscious form, with the shield kind of dividing him in half (if I read aright):

We should all have such an exciting day. I do hope the avuncular (and yes, I love that word) Supreme Leader wakes up soon, though! Or do I, if One is running along in between his legs to avoid the dog? Good thing Kylo managed to get the shield out of commission, though—not that it was all that great shakes anyway if the dog and/or part of Snoke could come right through it. Looking forward to seeing how our trio will get out of this one!

 

Whew, great action trying to neutralize the shield and the predator at the same time

 

WarmNyota_SweetAyesha Findswoman

Thank you both for reading, and your continued support!

I was concerned that this might come over as too silly, but as you both know, the muse wants what the muse wants, and it was extremely keen on the 'Mordling, fell, pole-axed, face first through the [shield]', once that idea was on the table!

So, with the shield and Snoke, if you put your open hand under a waterfall, and the single sheet of water splits into two streams on either side of the hand, that is what the shield is doing to Snoke. The shield has not cut him in half; his body has created a bridge through the shield.

I have edited the description to hopefully make that a bit clearer.

After all this, I would imagine Snoke would need some serious persuading to check out another fairy tale!

 

All caught up!

You've come up with an interesting backstory and layout for this planet. I'm half-expecting that the war that ravaged this area has to do with the fairy tale and that this explains why the bad fairy would be held here. I'm also half-expecting that the fact that the sections of the land are divided into hexagons means that att sorts of inconvenient angles and turns will prevent our heroes from seeing something that's coming towards them. Mind you, if the shields can't hold back an Akk dog or Snoke, can they hold back the fairy?

I think I said earlier that Unamo is someone you'd want in your corner in case of problems, and she kind of demonstrates that in this latest entry among all the shenanigans of her trying to climb and then jump off Snoke's body. And, funnily enough, you seem to have found a legitimate plot point for Kylo's temper tantrums – when in a tight spot, count on him to ignite his lightsaber and destroy everything

I'm not quite sure in how much trouble they are right now. They're facing an angry Akk dog and Snoke passed out, but between them the two kids are quite formidable fighters, so they should be able to take it on... right?

(Oh, and I gave up on "liking" your second post. The boards keep crashing on me every time I try, but it's the thought that counts, right?)