"Far, Far Away..." - Part Four

Part Four

            Djarin was surprised the Crest’s clearance code, which permitted him to land in Spaceport THX1138’s main terminal, managed to check out. There was no determining when they arrived in the galaxy. It could’ve been into the distant past or the far future. One way or another, he and his crewmates would soon find out.

            Just as he landed the Crest, he heard Gen cry out from the cargo hold, “They’re gone!”

            Djarin shot up from the pilot’s chair. “What?!” He rushed into the hold, finding only Gen there. The blue “police box” that had once taken up much of the cargo space was no longer in plain sight. Djarin was particularly alarmed and angered to see that the child was missing as well. “Where did he take him?”

            “I don’t know,” Gen said in a whisper.

            She suddenly found herself at the mercy of the infuriated Mandalorian as he pinned her against the wall with his blaster aimed for her head. Again he asked, more threateningly, “Where did he take him?!”

            “I said, ‘I don’t know’!” Gen yelled, her frustration just as evident as Djarin’s. “Look! I’m as confused and upset as you are! In case you haven’t noticed, I got left behind, too!”

            Having a moment to reflect on her logical rebuttal, Djarin backed off from her and holstered his blaster. Free from his hostility, Gen considered the situation in a calm, rational manner.

            “I don’t believe it was intentional,” she resolved. “It’s got to be a result of the latest warp we went through. Somehow, the TARDIS got lost in transit, possibly due to its temporal and dimensional properties.”

            “You want to try and explain that in a language I understand?” Djarin urged.

            Gen groaned and reiterated, “What I’m saying is that, because the TARDIS is already a time machine itself, it was influenced one too many times by the vortex we’ve been jumping through. If I were to make an educated guess, I’d say its HADS function kicked in, during that last jump.”

            “HADS?” Djarin inquired of the bizarre acronym.

            “Hostile Action Displacement System,” Gen spelled out. “When the TARDIS is under attack, even from an unusual energy source capable of time manipulation, it dematerializes and then rematerializes a short distance away after the threat disappears.”

            Djarin tried to comprehend the complexity of it all. “You’re saying that box is capable of disappearing and reappearing in and out of places?”

            “Of course,” Gen confirmed. “How else did you think it got aboard your ship?”

            Inside his helmet, Djarin’s head was spinning. “Alright, so…you said that it rematerializes a short distance from where it dematerialized. Does that mean it could have made it here on this spaceport before we did?”

            “Only one way to find out,” Gen answered with a shrug.

            She and Djarin disembarked from the Crest and commenced in asking the other pilots around the main terminal if they had seen a blue box marked “police” that passed through a wormhole. The description baffled a few and the translation was misconstrued with some others. Not a single pilot in the terminal ever seen or heard of such a ship or knew what a “wormhole” looked like.

            Their questioning soon drew the attention of a wookiee who beckoned Djarin and Gen to follow him over to his ship – the only one in the terminal that stood out with its rather junky-looking hull. Waiting there at the ship’s ramp was a young woman in white garments with her hair done up in a series of mini-buns that ran along the back of her head.

            “My name is Rey,” she introduced herself. She then nodded to the wookiee and added, “Chewie tells me that you both have seen the vortex.”

            “You’ve passed through it, too?” Gen queried.

            Rey nodded. “Not long before we arrived here in the Falcon. The strangest part is how outdated many of the ships docked in this spaceport appear to be. That and the fact no one here knows of the First Order or the Resistance. All they can talk about is the Rebellion and their fight with the Empire…but that conflict ended 30 years ago.”

            Djarin stiffened. “Did you say ‘30 years ago’?”

            “That’d mean you two are from the future!” Gen deduced of Rey and Chewie.

            Rey frowned at her words. “From the future? What do you mean?”

            Before any explanation could be offered to her and her wookiee co-pilot, all activity in the main terminal ceased just as a Lambda-class T-4a Imperial shuttle landed not far from where the Crest was docked. A contingent of Stormtroopers stormed down the ramp as soon as it was lowered, forming around the Crest with their rifles aimed on the ship. They were followed by a dark, menacing figure whose mechanized breathing reverberated across the stilled space.

            Rey couldn’t believe it when she heard and saw him. “Vader,” she gasped. “How is that possible?” Chewie concurred on her inquiry with a baffled wail.

            “This may sound crazy, but that vortex you guys passed through…it brought you back in time,” Gen explained.

            “That does sound crazy,” Rey remarked. “Then again, I’ve learned how much this galaxy’s full of crazy mysteries.”

            Djarin watched as Vader and the troopers raided the Crest. He didn’t know what interest the Empire had in his ship until one of the troopers approached Vader and informed, “The capsule isn’t on the ship, Lord Vader.”

            “Capsule?” Djarin pondered aloud.

            It didn’t take long for Gen to discern what the trooper was referring to. “He means the TARDIS,” she told Djarin, dismay registering on her face. “I guess word’s gotten around about it after the two time periods we visited. But why is the Empire so interested in it?”

            Her concern dulled when they heard Vader order the troopers, “Have this ship destroyed. It is no longer any use to us.”

            Djarin refused to stand by and allow the Empire to destroy the Crest.

            However, as he was on the verge of rushing towards Vader and the troopers, the terminal was suddenly bombarded by another faction: a peculiar group of droids that Djarin, Rey, Chewie, Vader, nor anyone else in the spaceport had ever seen before. Gen, on the other hand, was able to identify them by name: “Daleks!”

            One Dalek poised closest to Vader screeched, “WE’VE COME FOR THE DOCTOR AND HIS TARDIS! WE’VE DETECTED THEIR ENERGY SIGNATURE TO THIS POINT IN THIS DESIGNATED DIMENSION!”

            Vader eyed the unusual being forebodingly. “I don’t know what you are, creature, but I will not allow you take the Emperor’s prize.”

            “THEN YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED!”

            The Daleks opened fire on Vader and the troopers, ensuing in a spontaneous onslaught within Spaceport THX1138. With his lightsaber, Vader swatted away the death rays shot in his direction and managed to deflect a few back at the Daleks that demolished them. None of the Stormtroopers’ laser fire had much effect on the Daleks, bouncing off their Dalekanium shells. Their inability in stopping them ultimately led to very many being killed by death rays, their skeletal structures briefly glowing beneath their white-plated armors as they were struck.

            Strange as this turnabout was, it was just the distraction Djarin, Gen, Rey, and Chewie needed to escape. “Follow the Falcon as soon as your ship is away from the spaceport,” Rey instructed Gen and the Mandalorian.

            While Rey and Chewie prepped the Falcon for takeoff, Gen and Djarin went straight for the Crest. Their desperate act didn’t go unnoticed by Vader. The Dark Lord swiftly advanced on them, prompting Gen to react in defense by igniting her lightsaber. It clashed against Vader’s with such intensity that her knees buckled.

            At the corner of her eye, she noticed Djarin hesitating along the ramp. “Get…the ship…airborne!” she strained in her command, feigning off Vader for as long as she could. She was so focused on the Dark Lord that she could only hope Djarin did as she ordered and started up the Crest.

            The second she heard its engines roar to life, she regained enough of her charge to unleash on Vader with stronger attacks. Unfortunately, it didn’t do much to match with the Dark Lord’s impeccable might, powered by the Dark Side of the Force. The hilt of her lightsaber was slashed right out of her hand, rendering it useless to her.

            Completely defenseless, she stood before Vader, who raised his blood-red saber high above his black helmeted head to cut Gen in two. And then he was disrupted by an incredible tremor that rocked the entire spaceport. Its entire structure lurched over to one side, toppling anything that wasn’t bolted down.

            Spared from certain death, Gen jumped aboard the airborne Crest. The gunship rocketed out of the lurching main terminal, along with Rey and Chewie’s ship – the hunk of junk they called “the Falcon.” Their departures led them into discovering what caused the ruckus in the terminal when they spotted another vortex looming over the spaceport.

            This was the biggest one yet, roughly the size of a planet. Its gravitational pull was massive, vacuuming up a multitude of ships that attempted escape, only to be ripped apart. One Star Destroyer that orbited the spaceport – undoubtedly the one Vader’s shuttle arrived from – was torn to shreds as it was caught in the vacuum.

            Djarin knew the same fate would befall the Crest and the Falcon. “We won’t survive this one. It’s too strong.”

            Gen looked on the other ships, noting the way in which they were shredded. Each one tried flying away from the vortex instead of towards it. “They’re fighting against the inevitable,” she verbally analyzed. “We have to fly into it.”

            “That’s suicide,” Djarin told her.

            “That’s the way. It’s the only way.”

            The Mandalorian looked in her aquamarine eyes, seeing the conviction in them. Even though he had only known her for so little time, he trusted her intuition. With a nod, he acknowledged, “This is the way.”

            Relaying the plan over the comm to Rey and Chewie, the Crest and the Falcon plotted a direct course into the planet-sized time vortex. They lost all control the closer they got. The spiral was more overwhelming this time – the Crest and Falcon passengers sensing every part of their bodies stretched in literal fashion. It was a nauseating, painful experience.

            It was also the beginning of an uncharted journey.