Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was a completely normal day, boring in its regular routine, as usual. But then the unbelievable, the evil, the insane happened...

"You can't start like that!" Nici slaps me on the wrist - which is only possible because the woman doesn't adhere to the conventions of the civilized world and throws herself lengthways across the table so that she can stretch her dark blonde fuzzy head over the laptop screen, "that sounds like crap!"

I blink and tap the keyboard without pressing any letters. "Aha, lady, what did you write?"

In response, Nici turns the corners of her mouth into the oversized grin she usually puts on when she has "forgotten" her homework for the third time in a row and wants to stop the teacher from giving her the whole thing twice. "Nothing, but it's still better than THAT!"

Her emphasis on the last word is full of disgust and she hacks at the sentence with her fingernail, dangerously close to my poor screen, to let me know what she means. Not like there are more laptops with open Word files on the table and she has to show me which one she's referring to, the whole table is empty except for my water bottle, two pens, the laptop and an open notebook.

Irritated, I roll my eyes and tilt my head, which gives me a great view of her frizzy curls wiping across my keyboard because Nici absolutely will not keep her head still. "Well then, how would you like it to be, you carrot fish?"

"Better than that," comes the reply, totally unhelpful, and Nici finally pulls her head back, revealing my three little sentences grinning at me from the screen. That's decidedly bad - And then everything I've managed to put together in half an hour. It's unbelievable how difficult it is to start something like this.

With a hiss, the doors to the common room open behind me and my remaining concentration disappears completely, prompting Nici to throw a cheap ballpoint pen at my head as a friendly reminder, which was previously lying peacefully next to me at the table. "Just write it the way it started!"

My gaze slowly returns to the screen. "It's your responsibility..."

"Go ahead, I don't care." Nici snatches the pen from the table again and sticks it between her nose and upper lip.

"I'll do it. And I'll also summarize this conversation so that everyone knows who had this stupid idea and who they should say their thank-yous."

"Absolutely fine with that, as long as you do something now."

"Do it yourself," I grumble, yet I dutifully look at the screen and delete my carefully crafted sentences to start all over again.

The product can be seen below.

Once upon a time...

... in a galaxy far, far away...

Ah, wait. Nici wants it differently. All right. Let's rewind to the day it all started - which was quite a while ago.

In fact, that long ago that I have no idea what we were doing before we ended up where we're chilling now.

The story begins sometime towards the end of the summer, after all the Middle-earth adventures that I'd actually pretty much finished writing at that point. Gradually I remember what was going on back then, and I'm making up the rest. No, i'm joking. But dialog reconstruction is so awful, you ALWAYS can't quite remember exactly what it was like...

Anyway. Let's get started. Welcome to "Help, we're switching universes!"

Still no idea where we are? Note your guesses here.

That's good, nobody has a clue, neither do we, great. As always, everything is in order.

Let's go!

"What's that supposed to mean?" Folding my arms, I give Nici an offended look. "Legolas says I'm really good at Sindarin for a human now!"*

My conversation partner looks at me with a gleeful, almost malicious smile and kicks a branch lying on the ground, but it doesn't move a bit - which could be because the term 'branch' doesn't really fit - big fat monster thingy tree would be better.

It's just before midday and Nici and I are once again beating our way through the bushes in the woods behind the house. All right, behind the residential area. And behind the fields and the river and - we're somewhere deep in the forest, no humans left, just the small path and us.It's just before midday and Nici and I are once again beating our way through the bushes in the woods behind the house. All right, behind the residential area. And behind the fields and the river and - we're somewhere deep in the forest, no humans left, just the small path and us.  Considering autum is coming fast, the leaves are already starting to turn red, it's quite warm, the sun is also shining, peeking a little through the dense coniferous canopy of the forest, but almost nothing reaches us down here; dense fir and spruce trees reliably hold back the rays and provide cozy shade. Nevertheless, you can easily see the now really well-trodden, trampled down path that winds around the trees like a tipsy snake.

After all, this is no longer just a game trail that is rarely or never used by two-legged friends. We've been following it quite a while, past thick conifers, and reminisce about the bunch of idiots we fished out of the shallows of our forest some time ago. Little did we know at the time that it would turn into something really weird that almost made me die.
And what do we learn from this, dear children? Don't just take anything you find somewhere with you, especially if it's a bunch of fictional characters.

"Jojo...?"


"No," I reply, nevertheless turn to the side, where Nici had been walking fives seconds ago. She's no longer there, she's stopped, her head is stretched forward and she's tapping her finger in the air like a little woodpecker. "What do you - what are you doing?"

Tapping the air it seems, she's playing pantomime and keeps touching an invisible wall right in front of her with her
finger, which runs right through the forest and we're standing on one side of it, at least that's how she's behaving.

"Are you okay?" What in seven hells is she doing - and not even reacting, still pokes the air right in front of her nose again, highly concentrated and utterly ignoring me.

At the same moment, something flickers in the air, then circular waves spread out from Nici's fingertip, getting bigger and bigger like a spider's web suddenly building up. And then the whole thing starts to pulsate white.

I can't even get a word out, I can't scream, whirl around or reach out to touch my best friend, because at the same moment everything becomes glaringly bright, the forest around us, the ground full of pine cones and old, brown needles; everything disappears into an eye-cancerous white nothingness, leaving me blinded.

A second later, the world is dead- truly dead. No more noises. No warmth or cold. No wind gently stroking your cheek.
No more cracking twigs under your shoes.

I am floating?

There are no colors - instead, everything is just gray. Not light gray, not dark gray, something right in between.
Then, before I panic, like any halfway normal person in this situation, my consciousness kindly says goodbye.

Chapter Text

My skull is pounding as if it had to demonstrate the ringing of church bells on a Sunday morning, hence why it takes two seconds before I even think about opening my eyes.

What - that is grey, a wall, straight in front of my face - is that steel?

Blinking several times on my part doesn't exactly have the desired effect, at least not immediately. My fucking head hurts, there's a fire throbbing through the back of my skull, everything in my body aches. Alright - and where am I, because apparently I'm lying on a smooth surface, although the last time I remember I was still in the forest.

First sit up, check where I am, I can't see anything except the wall. Walls, it' a corridor that I'm lying in, it seems to go on forever, with no one in sight.

Hopefully it stays this way, until I'm standing - next mission for today, in order to get up, I have to turn onto my stomach, although my insides don't like that at all, suddenly making me nauseous and forcing me to take a break, even though the surface below me is far too cold for such fun - Not that it matters, I have to breath through the Neusea until it vanishes. Alright, now I just have to stand up, slowly and carefully, take a quick look to the side - nope, no one there, the corridor is still empty - That's the second I decide against standing and in favor of sitting against the wall until I'm feeling better. No point in getting up here, I'm merely wasting my energy.

For now I look down the corridor, a very gray corridor with metallic-looking walls - or whatever it is, because when I try to scratch it with my fingernail, I can't come to a clear conclusion. Nothing trees, leaves, earth, sky, forest scent of earth and moss, nothing, instead it's a corridor into which other hallways open at regular distances. Straight as a die it goes on, I can't even see the end. At the same moment, the smell of iron and some pungent chemical stuff hits my nostrils, I suspect cleaning agent, but the whole mixture smells strange, so strange that I stick with 'stuff' as the name and run my tongue over my teeth.

Okay, okay, everything is fine, I'm totally fine -  Where am I, how much time has passed between my last memory - Nici's and my walk in the forest - and the present here, and, more importantly, how did I get here?

The questions are buzzing around in my head, intensifying the throbbing of my skull, causing me to snuggle up against the wall. Everything feels strange here, I can't shake the feeling that it's wrong, that it shouldn't be. My back gets cold, the wall behind me is so icy that it penetrates my sweater within seconds. Disgusting. Rubbing a hand over my skin at my temples is a firm step in the healing process, according to my brain. I was never injured, but this objection is ignored without comment.

Silence surrounds me, a steady tapping can be heard from somewhere, deep below me something hums constantly, barely audible, apart from that it is completely quiet. Quiet enough that I can still hear my heartbeat, beating faster than usual - I have to breath and calm the fuck down. Breath, just breath. Just as I've almost made it and can think clearly again, someone groans next to me, sounding like an old tree whose trunk is being bent by the wind. In a flash, I turn my head in that direction, only to stare at the sun-yellow shirt of a person lying on their back a few meters away from me, one hand draped over their face.

Nici, my three brain cells shout, I scramble on all fours in her direction before I can even think about it. Her blonde curls form a crippled halo around her head, I push them aside, then rescue the scrunchie, which is only hanging in four individual hairs, before reaching out and tapping her shoulder. "Hey, look at me!"

Under her hand, I can't see much of her face, but the rest is unnaturally pale. However, she's not as unwell as she looks, as she can still talk and a Nici who can still get her teeth apart is practically healthy. "Dude, what is that...!"

She bends two fingers so that she has enough air between them to look up at me scowling. "Stop that stupid grinning, you look like you're having a seizure."

Without responding to the last sentence, I slump back against the wall behind me - brr, cold, stupid idea! - and hunch my shoulders. "I have no idea what's going on here either."

That's right, I don't even know where we are or why. There's still this feeling in the pit of my stomach, a strangely light one, as if I were a helium balloon, with dark red warning signs flashing in between. Beside me, Nici pulls her knees up to her torso before pushing herself up just enough to rest her skull on my leg.

"My head is about to burst, have we been drinking, weren't we just in the forest, I've never had such a bad blackout..."

Since I can't give her an answer, I just put my hand on her head, close my eyes and concentrate solely on catching my breath. Breath until the throbbing in my skull fades. No point in getting up, something inside me insists that we should stay right here and the headache suddenly gets worse just thinking about looking around. It's almost peacefully moment together - of course, that's the second someone starts shouting.

"What the - Sir?!"

Immediately I open my eyes - not alone anymore, where the fuck did he came from?! He, the guy in the white armor not even three meters away from us - How is that possible, I didn't hear shit!

The little curled-up hedgehog on my leg flinches in fright and smashes its elbow against my kneecap as it shoots up, but I don't feel it at all. To be precise, I don't feel anything at all, no headache, no nausea, I can just jump up. Could jump up. Instead, I watch the guy with my jaw dropped as he pulls his arm up to chest height and then hisses something unclear into a strange, four-buttoned device attached to his arm. It glows a cheerful green before it starts to flash frantically. Not a word, neither of what the guy says, nor of Nici, can be heard in the sudden noise level around us, had I switched the world to mute before?!

The steady tapping from earlier are actually footsteps, identified by my brain as marching soldiers. The information flashes up somewhere, but I don't even get a chance to think about it, because at the same moment three more guys come storming out of one of the cross corridors behind Guy One, black blasters at the ready and aimed at Nici and me.

Wait. I was thinking Blaster. Blaster.

"You see that too, don't you...?" I sound surprisingly normal for howling inside, unlike Nici, whose eyes are the size of a two-euro coin.

"You mean the clone trooper armor?"

Jeb, she's totally useless. And so am I, because it can't be, it's simply not possible, so my brain switches to emergency mode and uses all its capacity to search for logic, which is why I don't have time to break out in hysterics. "Bad. Since you can see it too, it can't be my imagination...?"

Two people hallucinating at the same time would be very strange, Nici thinks - but we're doing it right now, which she knows and looks like a deer in headlights. "So - he's already here. I think so. I can see something. The head says it's a clone, but that would be crazy."

Right, that's why it's really problematic, have we taken something - oh no. Nope, that's the universe again, what does it have against us!

The "Captain, come in, please!" from our new arrival mixes with the curse I've just chewed between my teeth and directed towards the ceiling - after all, according to various religious scriptures, gods are above us, so that's the right address for my complaint.

This is overheard, because the reinforcements appear next to the unreal little people. They stand there like little tin soldiers, completely motionless and staring at us, at least that's how it feels, even though we can't see their faces, they are hidden by the helmets.

Either they're totally surprised, or they're in mental shock, but if these are the guys I think they are, it's simply impossible - there, the world starts up again, someone's pressed the 'play' button, because there's finally some movement from the guy on the outside. "Sir, what do you want us to do?"

Good question to be honest, still no one moves. Okay, this is only going to get worse if we don't get more info right away, but my The Clone Wars days are too long ago. Few years ago I could have told you who is on screen based on the markings on the armor in seconds, only that part of my brain has been overwritten, I can't even think of names apart from Rex and Echo!

Before I can do anything stupid, one of the supposedly clones points the blaster at us. "Get up, come on!"

Next to me, Nici sticks her head out like a little turtle, the only reaction and clearly not the desired one. "Now they're talking too, fuck me - Jojo, help. Do something!"

What's the matter, I'm more haphazard than the federal chancellor myself!

Second blaster at the ready, fuck, that's going in the completely wrong direction and there's shouting too. "Get up now!"

The sound alone makes me flinch, physically at least, mentally I'm not there yet. This simply can't be happening, I must be crazy, Nici must have been drinking, both of us actually and the same thing and then some drugs in the system, in the bloodstream, a substance must be making our brains believe things, everything else is absurd, wrong, pointless, impossible. Stupidly, the warning light inside me says that whatever it is, it is real for me right now and I should react to the threat very quickly.

Two steps ahead of our three companions, Nici stretches out her hand defensively, blinking as if she could dissolve the gang with it like a foreign object from her eye. "Yes. No. No!"

The type of helmet they have, that T-shaped visor, I know that, later they look different, that's the Phase I armor, from the beginning of the Clone Wars. Take a deep breath, that makes sense, that's logic, I can work with that. 501st is blue, blue is 501st and these are Skywalker's, which probably means - maybe - flagship, which in turn means Kenobi is nearby, there's almost only two of them - what's happening? At a nod of the head from our finder in the middle, two of the group break away and take a step forward towards us, while the rest aim at us. The way you deal with intruders, it's not our fault, nobody cares, they put us in a cell anyway, THAT is logical and I think everything with logic is great. But I need more time for that, I get time by overstraining them just like my head feels right now.

"Or else what, are you going to shoot me?"

Important question, answer is extremely relevant - and not a clever idea, because there are no verbal answers, instead the person at the back hisses something into his com that clearly contains the words "Intruders on the ship" and "Refuse to cooperate, please authorize firing order!".

Bloody hell, it wasn't planned like this! I'm not even ready to panic when a siren wails from somewhere, its shrill alarm shrieks through the corridor, while the light in the corridor suddenly changes from cold white to dark red. The clones' blasters gleam ominously in the gloomy hue of the light, and suddenly the white plate armor seems intimidating.

Next to me, Nici raises her arm in the air and flicks it wildly to attract general attention. At least the flicking movements are visible, the rest is swallowed up by the siren. "Guys, we don't have a clue what's going on here either, can you maybe calm the fuck down?"

Did anyone even hear that, the alarm wails at regular intervals, drowning out Nici effortlessly, even though she was shouting against it. Once again there is no answer, slowly a familiar pattern, but everyone's helmets are raised almost imperceptibly, but at the same time - without that I would never have seen it. Why- Ah, more figures, in the previously empty corridor to our right, another group storms in, at the very front a clone that everyone knows and that I have always found on the screen even with completely dirty armor, conspicuously marked by a strange belt with a footboard on the shoulder of his armor, blue markings on his helmet.

If that's who I think it is, then - no. No, that's just not possible. Emergency operation, collecting information, not thinking about 'why, how, what', that doesn't help anyway!

Second familiar figure, right next to the important blue one, a guy with bright light blue eyes and dark brown tousled hair, much shorter than in Episode Three. He's not wearing black either, the long robe on top is dark blue, the sleeves are red and he's wearing boots, but it's not winter - there's something on his belt. It glitters in the red light, about as long as a ciabatta, only round and made of metal. I know that one. I also know the other one, both are more than familiar to me, the names dance before my inner eye until I realize that 'Captain Rex' has drawn both blaster pistols. He's aiming at us. Just like the rest.

Before I can think about it, I jump up with one leap, my index finger outstretched, quite the teacher. "Rex, you blonde, what the hell, put that away, it's ouchy!"

When there's a bunch of people standing in front of you with their guns with their fingers on the trigger, that's by far the most idiotic thing you can do, because I can just see the glaring flickering circle flying - and at the same moment the world is over. I am out. All my muscles are failing, I can't do anything about it. Suddenly I'm on my knees, as if someone had smashed a board against my temple, I tip to the side and land face first against the wall.

This can't be happening, can it? I can't even get my hand up, my body behaves as if it's minus thirty degrees outside and I'm in a state of shock. Instead, I struggle to get another sentence out, not to mention blinking, even breathing is suddenly exhausting. "EY...! I am-- unarmed! Flys on your fucking visor...?!"

"Stand down!" is shouted by someone behind me, I can hear it, but I can't turn around. I couldn't even dig my fingernails into the ground and I'd like to, because I would have needed the announcement ten seconds ago - well, maybe I got it before and didn't hear it, my brain was and is busy. I limit myself to Anakin in front of me until it buzzes and he suddenly has a large glowstick in his hand. It gets worse by the second, why can it get any worse, it's a joke!

Nici is smarter than me, she is still sitting motionless against the wall right next to me, just turning her head back and forth between the lightsaber holder and the three figures in now pink-looking armor - armed and threatening - before she very slowly raises her hands. One hand looks funny - it's showing the middle finger. It's nice that she's defending me against the arm-wrestler who shot me with the sleeping pill, I'll have to thank her later, I can't do that right now. My limbs are heavy, as if I had lead vests all over my body from the X-ray, each limb weighs ten times as much, sticks to the floor and doesn't respond to thought. I'm trapped in my own body, clearly checkmated, and yet the Skywalker idiot is standing around in an attack stance with his lightsaber drawn and Rexi is aiming at us!

He says something. Well, the first one, but I can't understand anything, because the whole ship is deafening us and the siren echoes through the corridors. At least it keeps me awake for a bit, and suddenly someone presses hard on my eyelids. Sleep sounds nice, really nice. But I can't, I have to stay awake somehow, WAIT, otherwise I won't be able to hear anything and wake up somewhere - NONONO!

This stun shot is really tough, I can't turn my head on my own, I'd like to use my hands to help, but I can't because I can't get them off the floor. I must probably be happy just to be able to sit and not lie completely paralyzed on my side. Thanks for that!

Anakin, or at least the guy who looks like him, turns his glowstick-holding arm closer to him and the light on his black glove flashes green again. He says something, moves his lips silently - then the siren chokes off before the next howl attempt, the light jumps back to bright white. No more red glow, looks more normal again, except for the thing with the blasters still pointed at us.

"Can't be true," Nici grumbles next to me, then takes a deep breath and stands up higher against the wall. "To the guy in the skirt, I know that's a kama, since when do you point guns at civilians, that's a war crime under the Geneva Convention!"

Nice one, I applaud inwardly, that's all I'm capable of. My activity is limited to breathing and desperately thinking about muscle cramps, I don't want to collapse, that would be embarrassing. Stay standing! All right, sit, I don't care! Very, very slowly, our would-be skywalker turns his head to the captain next to him, who doesn't answer until the boss is already looking at him demandingly, but he blurts out the next sentence as if shot from a pistol.

Hahaha.

"Sir, I have never seen these people in my life."

Anakin looks even grimmer, literally glaring at Rex and his captain somehow adopts an attitude, even though he still has both blaster pistols at the ready. How he does that is fascinating!

"She knows your name, Rex..." His tone doesn't match the expression on his face, Anakin sounds more overwhelmed than angry, at least until he casts a wry glance at us. There they are again, the dark staring eyes, it was just so nice and peaceful.

"Who are you, who sent you and how did you get on my karking ship!" Barely noticing, he tightens his grip on his lightsaber as if preparing to strike.

I don't even know if you're real, so don't expect a real answer, if I could even give you one, because so far my tongue is a dead washcloth in my mouth. Next to me, almost hysterically Nici waves both hands, still raised. "Hello, unarmed, harmless, nice, relax, please!"

All of a sudden, the lightsaber looks very real in Anakin's hand, and it hums just like the real thing. The whole air is electrically charged, it's those minutes before the storm breaks out - in our case a human one getting fucking angry right now. Fuck, fuck, fuck, it's getting worse and worse and they all look so big from down here on the ground anyway!

A questioning, panicked look at Nici, who just shakes her head, which is helpful, she looks back with: 'How-did-we-get-out-of-this-and-what-is-this-about-where-are-we-here-short:-many-many-question-marks-what-are-we-doing? Back and stretches her arms even higher, fingers spread wide to show she has nothing in her hand. It doesn't work, although she bares her teeth. If she were a hyena, it would pass for a smile, but this way it looks like a threatening gesture from a cornered animal or Pennywise down the drain and Anakin's about to flinch...!

Disarm, ANYTHING!

And that's exactly what I do, I spit out the first thing that comes to mind. "Hey, do you have sunburn on your face, you're so red there..."

The fuzzy head next to me chokes, starts coughing - with her hands up, you don't learn that at school! - Then she giggles before she really starts laughing. It sounds desperate, a little crazy and doesn't stop because Nici is doing the only right thing in a situation like this. It probably really is, because Anakin doesn't blow up, we just stand there (alright, I'm sitting/glued to the wall).

Okay, more of that, something - My feeling in my arms and legs returns, everything tingles as if I've choked off my blood. I stretch out my arm, grab the wall next to me so that I can finally sit up straight again and no longer stick to the aisle like a squashed banana. Come to mom, little prop, moving isn't cool yet, the hand-to-wall method is the best right now. Time to retreat, answer questions, we can do that. At least I can, Nici is still laughing.

"Hello."

Good start, let's move on. Saying hello shows sophistication and that I know the customs of the civilized world, and it also makes me look peaceful. I hope so. Introduction, next point, besides, nobody's talking me into it yet, everything's fine.

"I'm Jojo and the seasick air-raid siren next to me is called Nici. We're here by chance and nobody knows why. Any other questions?"

Silence. Great, that doesn't make it any better, especially because Anakin's gaze pierces me like a spear before Nici abruptly stops giggling, sits down on her knees and faces Sykwalker. "I'm going to get my ID now. Don't you dare shoot me too, I've got it in my pocket. Do you mind?"

He clenches his jaw, but nods, which is why Nici very slowly puts her hands down, pulls her cell phone out of her back pocket and demonstratively removes the pink cover with her fingernails in front of Anakin. Hidden behind it is a small gray plastic card with a picture, which she clasps between two fingers, clips the plastic cover back onto the iPhone and then holds out the ID card to Anakin. "Take a look for yourself. It's right there."

The Jedi waits a moment, scrutinizes her with an indefinable look (and the lightsaber hums happily in the meantime), then takes the ID card - and immediately furrows his eyebrows. Ah, right, the letters, there was something about that.

"Can you read these?" I ask extra politely, still clutching the wall for security, "I can find you a letter code too..."

Oh, well, that look is particularly dark, not to say 'extremely super angry', maybe he really is about to snap. Good point actually, less lashing out and more... Diplomacy is probably in order. Should. Would be. The whole situation has become so bizarre that I can't take it seriously anymore (It was okay until the Perso, but now - Nah!) Nici had that moment too, she laughed, I solve it with stupid comments. What I shouldn't do. But how do I act in situations where I shouldn't do something? Exactly.

"I'm used to a different caliber, guy in an open dress. You don't scare me!"

Chapter Text

"Nicole Sandra Maier," the Jedi reads out all at once, and with each further glance at the text on the plastic card, the wrinkles on his forehead deepen. He certainly can read it, though his pronunciation is hesitant, yet quite fluent. "Federal Republic of Germany..."

Before he has even spoken the last sentence, he lowers his arm and closes his fingers around Nici's ID card as if he wants to crush it. "You think you're funny, don't you?"

"You're the only funny one here," I mumble - far too loud, it's quiet around me, of course he heard me!

Anakin just stares at me.  I should keep my head down - wait, no, if I do that, he'll believe his thesis, which is 'They're lying to me', more than the bad thing for us - attack, attack is the best defense. "The ID is legit, you're not really going to tell me that you know all the states in this stupid universe, are you, you're not 3PO!"

And I did it again, having information i am not supposed to know, should not be able to! But Skywalker doesn't get into it, on the contrary, he looks completely perplexed and that means something. Doesn't suit him at all, only the still ignited lightsaber is in Skywalker style. Don't look at it, bad Jojo, no. Since childhood I've always dreamed of holding one of these in my hand, and now it's here, humming quietly in front of me, glistening brightly and probably best used as a flashlight at the moment, because there's no real reason to hold it up any more.

Careful now, but again in a moment, that worked well earlier. "Is the light bad here or why do you still have that thing in your hand?"

Then two things happen at the same time: Anakin really does put it away and Nici points to the backpack on the wall - hang on, was it there before - how did I miss it?

"Can I get something from the backpack or will someone shoot me?"

Rex lowers his blaster pistols at a wave from Anakin, just like the other clones - finally, damn it, I've never been able to take such a deep breath.

"Go on." The Hero Without Fear points at her with his chin, "You can't do anything anyway."

Point taken, Nici fortunately refrains from commenting, instead pulling up the zipper on her backpack. The rest of us stand around her and watch as she searches for something - I have no idea what she's doing and watch curiously as Nici suddenly stops and holds out my wallet.

At least I'm not the only one looking stupid - Anakin also does, the clones block the view with their helmets. In front of me, the purse is firmly shaken by Nici, who raises her eyebrows in a demanding manner. Am I supposed to show my ID - I am,  she serious?

Nici glances sideways at Anakin. "You want the second ID as well, don't you?"

"Yes," Skywalker snarls immediately, still holding her ID in his hand, rotating in his mechanical hand without looking at it.

A clear instruction, all right, I take the wallet - full to the brim as always, filled with lots of small change and several cards pushed into the flaps one on top of the other, making the wallet a highly effective projectile - and start the search for the ID.

"What do we havehere, I can offer you four library cards, school ID, shopping list, Hunkemöller customer card and - An ID-card." Buried deep down, of course, in the 'important compartment', right under the RFID blocker. With pointed fingers, I pluck out the small plastic square, pinch it between my fingers and hold it in Anakin's direction.

Anakin snatches it - not without comparing me and the horrible picture on it, of course (it was a bad day for a passport photo, I look like I've been smoking weed) - then squints his eyes and fixates on the little letters, silently forming words with his lips. He does know how to read our letters, admittedly with difficulty, but apparently he knows our alphabet from wherever. It doesn't really matter, makes it easier for us. 

We spend a relaxed minute with Anakin deciphering my ID, leaving me to glance down the corridor to the left - there are still three guys blocking our way, though they're having their blasters lowered. On the other side, the reading Skywalker is in the way, and his captain, who, judging by his body language, still looks like a panther about to attack. Nici decides to tie her hair back out of her face, her thick curls disappearing into a big bun that looks a bit like an oversized bird's nest.

Finally, the knight has reached the end of his reading lesson and has definitely run out of patience, clearly audible in his voice. "What's that supposed to be?"

Still an ID-card - he's got a point, though. By Star Wars standards, the thing probably looks like a child's detective ID, causing me to search for an explanatory answer to clarify the situation. Nici is faster than me.

"We're not from here and have no idea?"

She sounds like this happens to her three times a day. In return, Anakin grinds his teeth - well, the explanation is at best not great, at worst a provocation - causing Nici to raise her shoulders. "I know that sounds like crap..."

Right. It won't end well here if we don't provide information straight away, because Anakin is seething with rage. Stay cool, information, we need more information. First of all the most important thing: Where are we?

Behind the armored guys to my left, I can't find a clue in the corridor that goes on endlessly, but since Anakin is here, it actually means that we're on his ship, or at least that's how it should be logically. Time for a test. "And we're on the Resolute, right?"

Realizing in the same second that this was a seriously dumb idea, they look at me like they just discovered a bomb on me. In the blink of an eye, Anakin's gaze jerks up, Rex raises his blasters next to him - Shit, shit, shit!

"How do you know that?"

Skywalker sounds questioning, in a strangely sweet way, he doesn't actually want to know the answer anyway, which makes it threatening. However, this situation is so nuts, basically everything that could go wrong is going wrong, I can only scream right now and my brain isn't helping either, it's not giving me any clever ideas. We need to do something, now, before they decice to shoot us.

The Jedi in front of me makes impressive use of his 1.93 meters, I feel like a fruit fly under his stare, and he has a humanized tank with two raised blasters next to him. My skin tingles at the back of my head, it's extremely unpleasant to be looked at like that - hang on.

Anakin goes from "I'm about to kill you" to "Wait, error message", then to "Uh - What, how, huh?" in the space of a breath. - and then he just closes his eyes. No blinking, no, he's really got them closed. He was about to kill us, what's going on now, is the Force telling him something or whatever, can the Jedi even do that? Even if they could, the Force would have warned him anyway if we were planning to attack him. Not that I hadn't already thought about it, but that would never have worked. In short, I'm confused, Rex is confused, Nici is confused and Anakin... just has his eyes closed.

We're all standing in the hallway right now, were supposed to be killed two seconds ago, but the Chief is offline.

It takes quite a while - the silence becomes more and more uncomfortable, lying over our heads like a suffocating blanket - then Anakin opens his eyes again, having a strange look in his eyes, but this time more... dismayed. No more angry glint, it's gone, extinguished like a torch in a bucket of water. Are my eyes broken, what's going on here?

He doesn't give me time to think about it, suddenly the world is running at normal speed again as the first order is given to Rex. "Take them to one of the cells, I'll contact my master."

He says, whirling around with dramatically twirling Jedi robes, and is already past his captain before Rex has a chance to answer his "Yessir!"

Anakin leaves for real, walking down the corridor with long strides without turning around again, I stare after him, stunned to say the least. Then suddenly the blue Rex armor is in the way, closing the gap in the chain created by Anakin's departure before we get the idea to make a stupid escape attempt. Not that an escape would have had any chance - wait a minute. He did say cell. A fucking cell - absolutely not, this cannot be happening, this will not be happening!

Next to me, Nici flinches and takes a step back. "This is deprivation of liberty, I'll report you! Besides, we couldn't go anywhere anyway!"

She whirls around and holds out her index finger, pointing it at each of the soldiers in turn as if it was a knife and not a finger with a dangerously bright painted yellow fingernail.

"Oh, Anakin, I like you, especially your beautiful blue eyes... Oh wait, it's the sun burning holes in your hollow skull and I can see the sky!" I yell after him - quite the teenager, mom would be proud - but before I can even take a step to follow him, Rex makes a little one in my direction. Oh come on, now!

Trying a new tactic, Nici switches from wagging her finger at me to crossing her arms and tilting her head as if everyone around her is crazy. "I take it we're such a threat that we have to be locked away?"

Neither Anakin nor the clones - two of whom are now taking a step towards us - give her a direct answer, at least not a verbal one, because although Skywalker is already quite a distance away, has definitely heard my sentence, seeing his step stops for a second. At least that's what I tell myself before covering Nici's back and glaring angrily at Rex.

He's probably already giving his boys instructions that we can't hear anyway. Stupid com.

I want one too.

For half a second, I glance at Nici, who hisses at the two clones that have stepped forward. "Should we be flattered?"

"Ask Rex." she replies huffily, taking another step back. "I'll report you all!"

"Calm down, hands to the side, do not make a threat.", is the verbal response, the other is two blasters pointed at us, freezing us in our tracks.

Fucking great.

Nici growls something that sounds like: "You baboon ass!", gives Rex a bitter look before we raise our hands at the same time. Resistance is futile and ridiculous, we got it!

The captain isn't impressed, instead he gives two of his men a wave and they take another step closer to us. It's getting decidedly uncomfortable here.

"Forward." His voice sounds controlled, yet there's a certain edge to it, as if he's just waiting for us to do something stupid - like attack him.

We don't, we stand there stiffly with our hands up, even when White Armor One and Two grab our wrists and separate us in the same second.

I hate my life.

Afterwards we remain silent, walking through the monotonous corridors of the ship that played such an important part in my childhood. There are clones in white armor everywhere, staring at us, yet doing it discreetly. They look at us while running in squads. Only for a second at most does a helmet turn in our direction and just as quickly away again, a strange mixture of observing and simultaneously ignoring us, as if we were just normal problems you have on a cruiser.

Four clones in front, four behind, two next to us, one between us. We walk through the gray, unchanging corridors for almost ten minutes, then we seem to be approaching the cells - the corridors become darker gray, there are fewer cross passages than before, but many more armored doors.

We stop, two of the clones press on a control panel protruding from the floor to open the cell door, causing it to shoot open with the typical Star Wars sound of the sensor doors , revealing a tiny square room with three steps leading down into it.

One of them steps forward, his hand already outstretched to touch one of us on the arm as he pauses and doesn't move for a second until he turns to his captain for help. "Sir...?"

He sounds questioning, I'm still looking confused because I don't realize why, when Nici shifts gears faster: "Don't even think about touching me! None of you touch me, just call Tano, she's female!"

Ah, that's the point, they have to search us. There's no difference between male and female superiors for the clones, but we're civilians, not Jedi - when you get right down to it, we're not even prisoners, but we're not guests either, but we could be. And upsetting guests because you go against their basic principles is a bad idea.

Nici puts on a real show, ranting furiously and occasionally trying to explain some non-existent crime with foreign words, which she supports with dramatic hand gestures and wild grimaces until the captain gets a bit fed up and pulls off his helmet. He does look like Rex, at least the face is right - short-cropped blond hair, strong brown skin, caramel-colored eyes, no tattoos, but an undefinable look.

"Nobody here would ..."

"Shut up, you have no say in this!" Nici's voice goes up two octaves as she glares at the poor guy and, to back up her words, stands up to her full height, which is over five foot seventy. "I know who you are, Rex, I'm reporting you for sexual harassment!"

Well, the offense hasn't been committed yet, but does Rex know that? Never mind.

I feel sorry for him. Because I like Rex. Rex is cool. And keeps a cool head, ignores Nici's dramatics, but lets us pack all the items that, quote, "You don't want to get somehow damaged" into the backpack, as well as both cell phones and Nici's necklace. We don't actually get touched, we just have to turn our trouser pockets inside out and open our jackets.

Take a deep breath, just go with it. Rex keeps a suspicious eye on us the whole time and then makes a gesture that we should go into our new home.

Behind us, the cell door probably shoots shut with compressed air, then the thing is locked and we're trapped in this Tupperware box with two plank beds against the walls.

They'll regret that. Firstly: I'm vain and never leave the house without a nail file. Secondly, did you know that Nici can pick locks?

Chapter Text

"Hair clip." Without looking, Nici stretches her hand demandingly in my direction. She has squeezed herself between the steps leading into the cell to have direct access to the detached cable cover. There's not much room for her to move, which is why I'm standing right behind her, one leg on the steps, and performe the role of an assistant. Which means in this case that I pluck all three clips out of my hair as a precaution, causing the bun to come undone and leaving me with the tangled strands at the back of my neck. That problem is taken care of after I hand Nici the required utensils.

Nici closes her fingers around the small pieces of metal like a Venus trap closing its leaves around a fly, shoves two pins into her mouth and twists the last one she has kept in her claws between her fingers before fiddling with the cover again. She's now sitting that close to the wall, her bun sticking to it like a spider's web, leaning forward a tiny bit and narrowing her eyes, even though the tip of her nose is almost touching the clasp in her hand that she's using to poke around in the lock.

While the cells are locked manually, our theory is that the doors close with compressed air. In other words, there needs to be a system behind it locking the doors, and once you override it, the door is at least unlocked, the only thing you still have to do is push it open. Apparently no one has thought of this before us, since the cable cover runs inside the cell - sure, they just rip out the cables and wonder why nothing works.

Well, let's see, Nici has a plan and works with the remaining clasps clamped between her teeth, highly concentrated on something that I don't really understand. Not that I have to, I've been a support worker ever since and have done a great job of handing things over, holding them and playing torch at the same time, something that's not so easy when you're using a wristwatch as a flashlight and are not allowed to glare or cast a shadow onto your friend. Otherwise she won't be able to see anything, which makes the execution of the cell breakout plan more difficult.

And we have to get out of here, it's about to get boring, apart from the steps leading into it the room doesn't have much else. After a minute you're done exploring the two by two meter square with two plank beds made of metal-like material in bulges on the walls, both parallel to the door with the head facing forward. Our cell breaking operation here is the most exciting thing you can do. And let's be honest, humanity does an insane amount to avoid getting bored, our behavior is purely typical of the species.

"Come on, you stupid piece of shit..." Snarling more with every word, Nici pokes around in the mechanism, bending the hair pin sometimes in one direction, sometimes in the other. Pretty stubborn, that thing, nasty lock. She tries again, my poor barrette turns into a stretched hyperbola - the locking mechanism has to give way now! It doesn't, but my hair pin cracks. Nici jerks her head back, away from the broken part of the barrette that bounces towards her. "Shit!"

One hair pin left.  If Nici could, the rest of the clasp stuck in the lock would start burning on the spot, but she can't, so she bares her teeth. "You asked for it, you stupid piece of shit, I'll get you with the nail file!"

That was my cue, I quickly hand her the desired utensil and watch Nici attack the lock again. Behind the lock are a series of cables, carelessly hidden by a kind of plastic cover, which we were able to break just by kicking it. On the one hand, my inner Monk is screaming about this, but on the other, I now know how insecure various security systems that keep entire countries running are. The cover doesn't rank high.

The longer I stare at the cables, the more convinced I am that it should be possible to override them. If only I'd paid attention in physics - wait a minute, that was something to do with electricity, the only time I've ever understood everything in a subject. Plus we've already proven our skills, because the camera in the cell in the top corner (well disguised as a large, round bobble) has my shirt on it and is therefore blind. Rule number one, if you try stupid things, there's no need for witnesses, especially when you try to break out.

It's a bit chilly in my bra, but what can a woman do? While Nici continues to tinker with the scratching noises, I stare at the cable harnesses and scramble in my brain for clever ideas. Need something to do anyway, I can't see much of Nici's poking beause the light here is shit. Kinda dirty and dark at the same time and our light source - Nico's heart rate sensor - doesn't really brighten things up, it's just exhausting for the eyes. Better than nothing anyway, of course, let's just be glad that they're not sure if we could be upgraded from prisoners to guests at any time, otherwise they would have searched us down to our underwear, packed us into prison suits and taken everything on our bodies regardless of the fact that we're female. Hail to Anakin, who can't express himself clearly, he saves our asses!

For a while it stays quiet, you can't hear anything except the barely perceptible scratching of the nail file, I watch Nici like a hypnotized squirrel and ponder how we're going to get the door open at all after we've unlocked it. It must be possible to reconnect them, the electronics should be really simple. If the bolt doesn't block, the door opens. It doesn't even report this to where, at least not when it's opened from the inside, since the system doesn't even anticipate that.

Suddenly there's a deep crack in the mechanism, Nici freezes, then silently throws her hands up in the air, almost thundering her fist into my face. "Take that, you fucking lock, I warned you and now you're open regardless!"

A quick pat on the back for the ingenious noodle, then we abruptly get serious. We're not free yet, have only reached the first stage, now comes part two: the door simply has to open. Our eyes are simultaneously fixed on the dark, smooth thing in front of us, which might seem intimidating on a human, but since it's a door it's unsurprisingly unimpressed.

"Can we pull it open somehow?"

Shit, it looks like the door is made of one piece. Not split in two or anything, no, it ends seamlessly in the door frame. We'll never get our paws in there, so pulling it open is out. Next to me, Nici pulls a face and looks at her cracked lock again.

"Nah, not a chance. You can't even get a finger in there, it won't work."

Right, new plan, not much left - it's time to look for ideas for our four cables. Nici leans over the steps with her hands over the door frame before shaking her head. "So the door is unlocked, but we can't get out."

The cables. Tearing it out doesn't help, if the power doesn't say open up, the door stays closed. We need this opening impulse, it can't be that difficult.

At the same moment, Nici turns her head towards me. "We'll do something with the cables, they'll get us out of here. Think about it!"

The two of us sit down next to the steps, lean forward and fixate on the cheeky black strands, dimly illuminated by Nici's heart rate monitor in my hand.

"This... is military," I start slowly, pushing our poor light source even closer, "mass production. Surely there must be some kind of abbreviation for production, where which part should go!"

"Mh," Nici says, then she reaches forward turning the cables a little towards the light. "They're loose and not tied together, that's dangerous, alright. What exactly are we looking for, any symbols...?"


She's right, it's not a nice cable management system, they're all very loosely tangled together, there are no cable ties, which makes it easier for us, even if our light leaves a lot to be desired. Nici runs her fingernail up the cable bit by bit before pausing. "There, there's something, some kind of aurebesh sign... or something."

And fuck, we can't read that - so why is Nici grinning like that?

"Jeez, Jo, it doesn't matter what it says. The cables already belong to the door, trust me!"

Uh-huh. Yes, uh, and what if they don't? My idea with the things suddenly seems very crazy to me, how much electricity is flowing through there?

"Pocket knife with you?" The watch is swapped back from owner to owner, with Nici not even deeming my question worthy of an answer - well, she was rarely stupid and let's be honest, I wasn't really expecting a meaningful contribution. Instead, Nici pushes her way out of the corner, pressing the nail file into my face before taking my old stand halfway up the stairs.

"There. It even has a bit of plastic at the end, that counts as insulation..."

Someone just has to tell the electricity now. But we want to get out of here, I have the choice between imaginary flashing warning lights in my brain and my will to escape, which is why I voice my concerns. "I'm not keen on sawing through these things with a nail file and getting the electric shock of my life..."

And two seconds later, I'm still wedged up against the junction box. What kind of idiot builds that into a cell anyway? No time for that now, I have to tear through the cable here with a nail file - let's hope the wire is thin enough.

Next to me, Nici presses on her heart rate monitor turning the display back to the cables so that I can see where I have to work. "Plastic handle, Jojo. Trust your electric insulation!"

She's cannot be serious. An how is that even supposed to work, I mean, I have to grab the other side, otherwise I won't get enough momentum behind it to simply cut the wires!

The look on my face must be pretty indignant, because in response to my: "I've got a really bad feeling about this", Nici just lifts the corner of her mouth a little and shakes the nail file so that I finally take it over. "That's Star Wars, sweetheart. Belongs like this."

"That's Star Wars, sweetheart. It's part of the game."

Such a cute little piece of metal, glittering happily in the twinkling light and looking at me invitingly. I prefer to look at the cables again whilst stroking them with my fingers as Nici looks at me generously. "I'll give you CPR too, if it knocks you out."

Great attempt to convince me. Unfortunately, she now thinks it's worked because I snatch the file from her fingers before I think about it any further.  "Very nice. I still doubt whether we can even get through the plastic edging with this thing, it's quite thick..."

I haven't even spoken when an arm with a bright yellow painted fingernail appears in front of me in the dimly lit area, hacking at the cable sheathing. "It's easy, just prick it with the tip."

Oh, this is going to be great. Please don't let it be thick plastic - is that even called plastic in Star Wars?

Under Nici's watchful gaze, I place the tip of the nail file on the first packaging for the wires underneath. "For the record, I think this is the biggest screw-up you and I have ever done."

"I have complete faith in you and your physical abilities." Might be more believable if Nici wasn't leaning as far away from me as possible, arm outstretched for the maximum distance possible if she's still supposed to be lighting things up for me.

Well then, let's go. At least it should, the edging is tough and refuses the intruder until I manage to prick a slit in it. There it is, the wire, visible under its packaging, it took long enough. First I have to make the hole bigger, I use my fingernails to make it wide enough for the file to fit lengthways. So far it's going pretty well, on to step three: hold on, apply the file and pull it towards me with full force.

Inwardly, I expect to scream, feel my muscles spasm, stop breathing and try desperately to catch my breath - instead, there's a blow to the chest and sparks fly from the loose ends of the wire.

That's it. Only my arms are slammed against my chest by the momentum of the ripping motion, the wire snapped like a broken twig.

Right. In return for my eye-rolling, I recieve a prompting shake of the heart rate sensor and move on to the next wire. It works in the same way, although I have less force when tearing, but I get through. The hour of birth of the second severed wire. Now I have two of them, what's next?

Looking at the metal ends, which I keep my distance from as much as possible because there's still electricity on them, "Should I hold them together or...?"

"Give me that, it's like short-circuiting a car." Nici shoos me out of the uncomfortable operating position with a waving light hand and then hands me the headlight job before she does something with the cables in a casual movement, I want to ask her what - the door shoots open.

Freedom.

The next second I'm glad that no guards were left standing outside the door, then Nici and I look at each other before doing a silent victory dance for several seconds. Luckily we've covered the camera, if someone had caught it on tape it would have been embarrassing.

Instead, my brain jumps abruptly and I whirl around to Nici. "Do you have a pen and paper? I want to leave a message. Wording: 'Where there's a will, there's a way'. In memory of Denmark's most ingenious prison escapee, Carl August Lorentzen."

The guy simply made keys out of cutlery, got out of his cell through a forty-centimetre-high wall box, continued to break stones out of the wall in the corridor until he dug an eighteen-metre-long tunnel to freedom under a staircase in the prison. He left a note with the exact same inscription for the guards.

Nici briefly searches all the pockets of her pants and jacket, revealing a crumpled piece of paper and a fineliner. "I have... a chewing gum wrapper and the pen that I didn't pack because the stupid guy gave it back to me when I'd already put everything away."

"That's enough for me." I take both, unroll the piece of paper and get to work.

We put the piece of paper on the cot on the wall, then I climb onto Nici's shoulders and get my shirt back. The clone watching the videos later can look forward to seeing pictures of me in my bra and pants.

"Where are we actually going?" Nici asks as she takes a big step over the non-existent doorstep into the cell corridor after setting me down again. It's a bit uncomfortable out there, dark gray everywhere and again almost endlessly long - Ah no, there's a closed armored door in one direction. First out of the cell, I decide on a hop step - highly inelegant, but floor exercises has never been my thing - then I stare down the corridor. So, now -- Yes, what now? The ideas didn't go that far, after "Get out of here" further planning was postponed until later and later was after "Get out of here" because we had to leave first. Crap.

"Ehh...?"

A short pause, then Nici casts an oblique glance at the open door of our temporary dwelling. "Should we have thought about this beforehand?"

We should have, but in the meantime it was somehow more logical NOT to, we were busy doing it and now we're looking dumbfounded.

Well - I'm out of my depth and want to hear something from Nici, but she just shrugs her shoulders defensively.
"Shall we sit in front of the cell and wait?"

Nah, that's stupid too. To come up with a better idea, I stare past her - in the corridor, just like the two minutes before - and wonder why the alarm doesn't go off. Ah, well, we didn't break into anything, we bypassed it, the system thinks it was itself, not an external attack. And because we have this strange intermediate status, we're not quite treated like prisoners, there aren't even any guards outside of the cell.

Nici leans against the doorframe and is completely preoccupied with her heart rate monitor before she twists her arm around again and gets the rings of death in her eyes through the flaring screen. "Maybe we stop at one of the windows and look out into space? I saw some on the way."

Now that's a solid suggestion, I've never been to space, it needs to be seen!

"Do you remember how we got there?"

Very slowly she turns to the right, sticks her tongue between her lips and makes a head movement, which makes me turn with her, whereupon she points down the corridor -- The armored door. The closed armored door. Shit.

"Well," Nici starts, "if we go through there, the alarm will go off, you can bet your ass it will."

She's right. So the other way. What did we break out of the cell for again?

Chapter Text

"I think he wants to join us." Nici pushes her noggin a little further forward and, pressed tightly against the wall, eyes around the corner into the corridor with the cells. Looks funny how she squeezes herself flat to make sure you can't see more than the tip of her nose. To be honest, we're not well hidden - we're in the only place we could be, namely the neighboring cross corridor. We didn't dare go into the cells, in the end they locked themselves and our number of hair clips is limited.

"Yes, they are coming! They'll make wonderful faces....!" Her visible anticipation disappears as she breaks off her sentence, instead she bares her teeth and looks highly offended, "oh shit, they've got helmets on, it's no fun like that!"

Poor game piece has to take the brunt of it, she pushes him across the pitch with such force that the chalk lines painted on the ground become blurred. "I can't believe it, the backpack retrieval was more exciting!"

Well, it was unlocked further down the corridor to my left in a supposed storage room for the prisoners' personal belongings. Except we weren't, which is probably why it wasn't locked, at least that's my theory.

Now to the real problem, our visitors. I want to have a look too, hide under Nici's armpit to carefully push my nose around the corner. Sure enough, four snowmen in white (in white, of course, snowman, hello?) are walking in perfect unison, even if the formation has fallen somewhat apart. Two of them wear dark blue 501st markings, the armor of the other two is still completely colorless - they're called shinies. Haven't been accepted into any battalion yet, more than enough of them won't survive their first battle, never get colorful armor like their older brothers. I remember that, it made me sick to my stomach back then. I do now too, but for a different reason, because they'll want to join us. There's no one else in the entire cell block except us. Why isn't Anakin here, it's really just for him!

They probably want to see us, there's no one else in the entire cell block. Why isn't Anakin there, it's actually just for him!

Nici's head disappears above me, giving me more space, but I don't need it because it's her cell phone and not mine that's connected to the box, so there's no need to check the technology, that's the fuzzy head's job. Nevertheless, I retreat in slow motion behind the wall, our shield, watching Nici's concentrated swipe on the display in the corner of my eye. Proper work, that's how it should be, always working through the checklists.

"Bluetooth loudspeaker is on standby and ready." At this point I get a nudge in the side, "they don't know Ocean's Eleven, you do realize that, right?"

Yup. But if I've got the box with me, charged and packed in my backpack, then it has to be used, that's what the universe wants, I'm just following instructions! "Crystal clear. Just press play when I tell you!"

She gives me a thumbs-up, prompting me to acknowledge with the same hand signal and then peer around the corner again. Man, they're fast, they're already there, that's about the middle of the aisle and that's where we were originally sold off. Would be interested to know why, cages are normally filled from the front to the back and not all over the place.

Before I can think any further, one of the people marked in blue shouts something - sounds like a curse -, rams his legs into the floor for half a second, then runs the last four meters to the cell door. Well, it should be closed, and it was, but now it stands cheerfully open like a missing tooth in his teeth. His buddies follow him immediately, two disappear into the dark hole - I wave aggressively in Nici's direction, let's go!

Inside the cell, well-placed on the second bunk, the music from Oceans Eleven starts playing - from the SWAT team disappearing from the casino with 150 million dollars. You don't even have to know the movie, the music is enough*. Yay, great joy for my inner Monk, take that, no one's locking us up!

That's when there's a clang through the whole ship, the endless corridor at the back is intersected - that's the armored door. The closing armored door. At the same moment the siren goes off again, its wailing is even louder than the first time, almost shredding my eardrums. Above us, the lights turn red again, bathing the whole corridor in a pale light, just bright enough to see Nici's "Oops" face.

Um. So that wasn't the plan, well, we might have expected it, but... the plan didn't go any further than that! Yeah, that's the second one we don't think through to the end, so what. I blame it on these universe jumps, it messes up brains, simple as that!

Together with Nici - both she and I have our hands pressed to our ears - we pretend the show will go on. There's not much else to do, so we stare back at the scene of Plan A's disaster. Wait a minute. Two are standing in front of the cell and the other two... are running towards us. Boy, are we dumb. Not that many escape routes here, to be precise, there's one: The cross corridor. Our cross corridor, the one we're sitting in right now. Holy shit, I've given up my brain, that's what a three-year-old stoned squirrel comes up with, we need to get out of here, this time we're really going to be prisoners!

Technically I was about to jump up, everything inside me screams "FLIEH, DU NARR!", when suddenly Anakin is there. Again. We're doing inane stuff and Anakin suddenly appears in corridors, we had that earlier today. Skywalker is not alone, they only exist in packs according to canon, in his case that's Rex in the timeline and... Oh, my. That takes on a whole new dimension, heavens.

Rex has friends with him, one of whom has orange on his armor, an antenna on his helmet and no kama - Commander Cody, another guy I find everywhere - two other clones in blue, Rex's people, and: A redhead in cream-colored robes. Looks pretty pink from the red light above us, just like his light clone trooper armor on his arms and legs, basically an impractical color no matter where or when, but this guy is all about style. Holy fuck, I wasn't prepared for this.

Nici acknowledges my frantic chin movement with a slow-motion head shake before she yanks my hand away from her ear and yells into it to drown out the alarm. "Holy shit, Anakin said he wanted to talk to him on the phone, but now he's really here!"

A second later, there's no point in shouting because the siren is off. Great and my ears are still ringing, but I'll have to tell her that part later because I'm quiet now. Some instincts the body never gets rid of, that's a good thing, they're saving our asses right now. One false noise and they will storm us, half the ship is guaranteed to be looking for us, after all, this time they are really sealing it off, all armored doors have been closed. How quickly will they comb the areas?

Not really relevant, we can't do more than watch anyway. Anakin stands outside our ex-prison, looks like he's either about to kill someone or just turn around and leave, Cody has turned his head towards Rex with his helmet on, who's standing next to his general, his back half to us and not moving.

Admittedly, the speaker thing is bold. If they find my candy wrapper now, Cody will throw us out of the airlock. All right, three angry people, one... Kenobi. He runs his hand over his beard in his typical manner, puts his second hand in the crook of his other arm and - he's grinning. Not a small grin, he looks at his Expadawan with a highly amused expression. "Anakin. This should look familiar to you, why are you so astonished?"

Wait a minute, did he just COMPARE us with Skywalker? The SWAT team exit song is still playing on the loudspeaker in the background, Anakin opens his mouth like a ship's loading ramp, but doesn't say anything, only amusing Kenobi even more, while Skywalker is already spinning around to his captain. "Why- Why did you leave them equipment, how can you not think of taking a damn hydrokey, that's a failure of leadership, Rex!"

Well it wasn't like that, Rex can't be blamed for the Republic running cable covers in the cells, not to mention Skywalker wasn't clear on what we are now, prisoners or guests or transportable prisoners!

An elbow hits me in the ribs - that's right, the siren is off, I can put my arms down again, I no longer have to cover my ears - Nici makes a head movement and then just stands up. "Nah, he's not going to do that to Rex, I'll take the bulls by the horns now!"

At the same moment, she turns on her special smile that she normally uses to convince the bus driver that she has forgotten her ticket for the last time in the month, grabs me by the arm and pulls me to my feet. "Well, they must have heard us - ARE YOU LOOKING FOR SOMEONE?"

The shout was pointless, they're all looking anyway. Nici grabs my hand to make sure I keep up before she strolls leisurely down the corridor, behaving as if our fellow visitors are the intruders and not her. "It's about time you got your asses over here, we've been waiting for almost two hours!"

Skywalker stares, his left eyebrow twitching, one fist clenched, but he doesn't make a sound, unlike Kenobi, who gives his former student a meaningful look. "Anakin. I think we need to talk about our security protocols."

"How about you talk about Anakin's security protocols, that guy is choleric, Thorin would be jealous," I add my two cents. "Not to mention that it's your own fault we're outside. Your cable cover runs IN the damn cell. Are you guys stupid?"

Beside me, Nici bobs her head back and forth in half-agreement. "Oh, Thorin's gotten better, the guy was just frustrated. And old. That's when you get cranky."

"Great, life's getting on my nerves too, and yet I'm not biting my captain just because I can't figure out how someone can get a cell door open without R2."

"That's enough!" Anakin hisses at us, Nici and I exchange a look - a reply is beneath us, instead Nici fishes for her cell phone and kindly stops the music.

So, here we are, in front of my childhood heroes, I could touch them, the fact that this would make me look like a psycho makes me bury one hand in my trouser pocket and I limit myself to nodding at the clones. "Hi, Cody, we haven't had the pleasure of meeting you yet. I don't know the other four, names please."

No movement, they're just waiting for Kenobi or Anakin to bat an eyelid, then we'll be tackled to the ground - but that doesn't happen, on the contrary, Kenobi defensively raises his hand and holds his men back. Much to the chagrin of his commander, who wanted to knock me to the ground, or at least he stands there as if he's about to eat us for breakfast and then drink his coffee from our skulls.

Unfortunately, that's Kenobi and he likes to talk, especially to people like us, since he finds us interesting by the way he looks. "Good afternoon, ladies. May I ask how you made it out of the cell?"

Nici smiles even more amiably than she already does. " Wouldn't you like to know? A magician never reveals his tricks. Who knows when you'll lock us up somewhere again, I'm pretty sure I could report you for it. Deprivation of liberty. Bad press for the Jedi Order, we're also minors, now it's getting really ugly..."

Anakin hisses under his breath, glaring at Nici. "You've trespassed on a military cruiser, we could report YOU!"

Trespassed, seriously, that's not even true!

A roll of the eyes on my part is clearly justified. "Then look at your stupid surveillance videos, what do you have them for if you never watch them? They cost money! We appeared out of nowhere, shouldn't you be able to feel it, you're a Jedi, the Force means something to you, doesn't it? I had other plans for the weekend too!"

Not de-escalating, I don't care, somehow we have to get it through their heads that we are a) neither enemies b) nor spies or c) bounty hunters, otherwise it looks bad for us. Therefore, take the bulls by the horns.

"The Force," Anakin repeats venomously, raises his hand and is about to wave his index finger in the air, stares at Nici's shoulder for a second too long and snarls at Rex instead. "I bet the Force had something to do with the cell, didn't it?"

"Nah, I can do it without your invisible friend," Nici returns, this time in the same tone of voice, while the captain automatically stands at attention.

"Sir..."

Shaking her head, Nici gives Anakin a wry sideways glance and then focuses on Kenobi. "Don't defend yourself Rex, you've done nothing wrong, Anakin is giving unspecific orders and there's little you can do about the fact that your doors can be short-circuited. Better be glad, Skywalker, that it was us and not actual enemies, we could have spent hours running around the ship doing stuff."

There is a brief pause, then Anakin stomps through his men, who hastily make way for him so that the hero without fear can march into the cell. The sentence contained a magic word, which he now has to check, ignoring the rest for the time being.

"Left corner next to the steps!", I call out to him, otherwise he'll have to search.

No answer, why should he, however, he actually listens to me, kneels down next to it and has a strange look on his face. Completely focused, all the anger is gone. Notice, you fire up his nervous system with exciting information for him and bang, his curiosity gets the better of him and he makes a note of it for later.

"Interesting..." He emphasizes the word strangely, doesn't even look at us, the cables are the only thing he's paying attention to.

"You might want to apologize to Rex." Speak sweetly and look a bit as if it's normal, which it is, whatever, "and to everyone else you've just snapped at."

Oh boy, now Anakin's actually looking at me - no, instead he's looking at Rex, guiltily. His captain tries to choke him off with a "Sir, not necessary...", but the Jedi stands up and nods at him.

"I'm sorry."

That was unexpected. At first I can't think of a stupid comment, something Kenobi obviously sees and takes advantage of, seeing as the Jedi eyes us both like a rare animal. "How do you know Cody?"

No comment on Anakin admitting he made a mistake, in front of two little teenagers? Nevertheless, Nici thinks it's important to give Anakin feedback, hence why she gives him the thumbs up.

Cody quickly pulls off his helmet - his face is motionless, oh come on! - before tucking the bucket under his arm as if it were none of his business and we are absolutely mad. "I've never seen these people before in my life."

He sounds exactly like that, making me feel dumb. Is that how you tell this is a marshal commander?

Rex also plucks the thing off his head, the other clones keep it on, it's probably an officer thing. "None of us have this, but..." Now we get an icy cold Rex look that makes me want to crawl for cover on the spot, "they know our names anyway."

"Not the numbers?" Obi-Wan says, putting a hand to his chin and scratching his beard, "most civilians only know one of the numbers."

"Mate, I can do both, but that's not the point, of course we know the names, or should I call you 'annoying Jedi number two' from now on?" I cross my arms, look briefly at Kenobi and decide in favor. "Annoying Jedi Number Two, AJN2 for short. Ninja2. Ninjaturtle."

"The Obi - the DIY store - sells turtles anyway," Nici says dryly, a nasty smile playing around his fuzzy lips. "The DIY store turtle number two, then."

"The red DIY turtle number two!" Nodding my head with great satisfaction, Nici takes this as an opportunity to thrust an outstretched index finger in the Jedi's face.

"WITCHER, BURN HIM!"

"Banned because of fine dust pollution, finally also known in Saxony."

At my blow, Nici shrugs her shoulders, spins around once before slowing down abruptly and grinning at Kenobi. "Ah right, the global warming... It's cool to know you're not turning thirty. But who am I telling, you're standing next to someone who's had half their life stolen so they can be sent to war to die quicker. No one cares about that, everybody thinks it's normal."

The mood shifts now, Kenobi puts on his poker face, still looks less friendly than before, somehow different, but I don't care about the Jedi - Cody and Rex don't, though, because they look very scary. Once again to go like a bull at the gate, we can do that, then plan B, that already worked earlier: Distraction!

I move my head towards the ceiling, after all, the lights are still red and Kenobi is therefore pink. "Would it be possible to restore normal lighting conditions? When half of you look like you've had red underpants smashed into your white underwear, it's hard to take things seriously..."

Indeed, it succeeds again. At a hint from Anakin, Rex radios the bridge to inform them that we've been collected and the ship can return to normal operation. "All-clear, the prisoners have been captured..."

"Captured?!" A lie is that something Nici is unwilling to overhear and communicates accordingly. "We got ourselves caught! You had nothing to do with it!"

Rex's voice is full of self-control as he finishes his sentence, but then admits that we "turned ourselves in".

No, not like that, we just didn't know where to go because there are no evacuation plans here and we wanted to avoid setting off the alarm. Do prisons have evacuation plans? There must be. But - no, that wouldn't make sense.

"Turned ourselves in," Nici repeats with a snort, crosses her arms in front of her chest and looks at Rex with a raised eyebrow. "That's not quite true either, apart from that it sounds like we're criminals."

"So are you," comes the dry reply from the captain, who doesn't even give us a sideways glance but steps aside so that he can continue sparking and we no longer interrupt him with unqualified comments. "You have trespassed on a military ship, regardless of how you ended up there."

Ouch. Why is he always right?

Chapter Text

Obi-Wannabe clears his throat, one hand on his beard, he looks at us in turn, ignoring Rex's objection - which confirms my theory that we really aren't prisoners, they're not interested in that at all. They're rather interested in something else and that seems to be important enough for them to overlook the felony - if it is one. "Johanna Viktoria Michaelis and Nicole Sandra Maier, i presume?"

Anakin even passed on the full name. My shoulder shrug is in sync with Nici's thumbs up, presenting it to the Jedi before lowering her hand. "But Jojo and Nici is enough, plus she reacts..." Wild waving in my direction, "not to the whole name anyway."

Guilty as charged, I have no regrets, yet pull my 'I'm-such-a-poor-child' face. "My name is shitty and too long!"

From Nici I earn a snort. "Do you want a tissue to dry your tears?"

I sniffle a little, dramatically supported by a trembling lip, prompting Nici to search her trouser pockets for a handkerchief, as Kenobi interferes with my stage performance, demanding attention with his tone of voice alone. "Right, then: Jojo and Nici. You are indeed unusual, I understand what Anakin means."

That Anakin means what, keep talking, it's getting important! A quick exchange of glances with Nici, who is brushing her hair behind her ears so that she can see what she's looking for, but Kenobi doesn't feel the need to elaborate on his sentence. Instead, he continues talking as if there wasn't an elephant in the room, skillfully ignoring it and Nici's questioning gestures as well. "The Jedi Council must be informed about you, they will decide on your future whereabouts..."

Uh-huh - no.

"On what legal grounds do a bunch of bathrobe wearers want to decide on my fate?"

That would be the limit. Certainly not.

"What she said," Nici agrees with a growl, now, true to her teenage self, with a sour expression on her face. "I think that's questionable at best, you can forget it."

Kenobi raises his hands placatingly, pretending that we've just misunderstood and he didn't mean it that way. "It's good for you too, don't worry about it. However, it's not up for negotiation."

The look on Nici's face promptly becomes even grimmer; she absolutely cannot stand it when decisions are made over her head. "Says who, douche?"

" Do they really think that just because they decide this, we have to comply?" I'm not asking anyone in particular, there's no support for me anyway, but we're not going to be taken for fools! "If my mom finds out, she'll cut off your balls AND your beard."

Cody's eyes get a little bigger than normal, Anakin, untouched until just now except for the content of the thing, makes a choked noise and turns red, trying not to laugh out loud. Blood in the water, Nici smells it faster than a shark and focuses entirely on Skywalker. Always go for the weakest link in the chain.
"And the part with the beard is the most serious, we all know that. NOBODY must dare touch the sacred facial hair of the endangered rare red DIY-turtle!"

How do they do that? The giggling Skywalker makes me grin along and even Kenobi can't look away from his Expadawan. He's still not talking again - Kenobi speechless, is that possible?

"In his previous life," Nici ponders aloud, running a finger along her lip with a twinkle in her eye, "he was a dwarf. According to the hair color, that would be Glóin."

"That makes Anakin Gimli." 

Actually, I want to expand on the idea, but Kenobi interrupts me.

"The Jedi Council will talk to you, whether you like it or not, and you're coming to the bridge now." That was an order, before it was more of a statement, now we're one step higher.

At least Anakin is getting his composure back, although he tries not to look his master in the eye and suddenly finds the floor brutally interesting.

Sighing softly, Nici uses the voice one uses for children when they've said something particularly stupid. "Does he realize that the great Jedi Council can't make us do anything?"

"They can," Kenobi cuts her off, once again the diplomat with importance in his voice. "We're going to the bridge now, we have much to discuss."

"I see," says the fuzzy head next to me, pursing her lips, but her tone sounds more venomous than before. "Are you going to tell us what what oh-so important things we have to talk about?"

Kenobi's eyebrow goes up a notch, then he blurts out a sentence that removes Nici's resistance in a second. "Why you don't have a force presence. For example."

One second. What the fuck?







The Force permeates us, it surrounds us, it holds the galaxy together. The Force is also fucking weird and a bitch.

Yet it lives in every living being, noticeable to Jedi and Sith. Each sentient has their own presence in the Force, their own signature of life. The dead have none, theirs expire in dying, merge into the Force, a kind of ever-flowing river. Living beings are individual droplets of water, some stronger, some weaker than others. When they dry up, they go back into the river of life, that's roughly how it works in Star Wars and always has - until now.

We are very clearly alive, not droids, and still have no presence. We are simply not there - not alive. The river avoids us, pretends that we are not part of it and that is a most astonishing problem: We cannot exist, it goes against all the rules that have been discovered over thousands of years. No wonder the Jedi get restless when their own radar can suddenly be fooled.

The ride up to the bridge in the rather spacious elevator is silent. Nici and I are separated by Kenobi, who stands between us, with Cody and Rex flanking us. Anakin is in the front row and I stare at his back; after all, the guy is abnormally tall. There's no one else in the elevator but us, our three escorted clones are turned off down at the entrance, apparently not allowed on the bridge, probably something military with bullshit like ranks or something.

Little to do here and even less to see, the only thing that moves is the glowing display above the closed doors, where the pixels change to some even weirder looking symbols. Presumably numbers in Aurabesh, incomprehensible for me, but at least an indication that we are moving, since the thing moves almost silently. It's an unpleasant feeling, this moving without moving, my brain expects environmental noises or sensations, but I don't get the slightest jolt or creak. Just keep breathing, it can't be long now, simply look at the funny signs - what is that, an upside-down, amputated one?

Stupid narrow rooms with people inside, that was all a minor problem until I was eight and didn't want to take the stairs with my parents and siblings in the stupid shopping center. I thought I was really cool until the thing got stuck and I was locked in for three hours with a bunch of strangers. The display is now my friend, it distracts me, always nice cryptic sign after cryptic sign, I think it's great. Until one stays too long, I should already have the next picture to distract my brain, then the doors open with a hiss. Also great, just get out of there.

Our group silently starts to move, out of the passenger cabin and into the large room, previously well concealed behind Anakin's back. Glass position plates bigger than me with white circles stand around, plus four control consoles full of buttons and a round holotable in the middle, opposite which two armored doors close off the rest of the ship. Behind them is probably the actual bridge. Maybe it's more colorful than this, the whole room consists of three colors: Light gray, dark gray, medium gray, makes you sad right away, the only colorful things here are the blue and orange on Cody and Rex's armor, walking in perfect step. Good soldiers, how do they do it?

Before I can think about it, an R2 unit with blue and white paint rolls out from behind the holotable and beeps something in binary - way too many languages I don't understand around here - but the tone is annoyed, you can hear it, plus it's a certain droid, it sounds like that often enough.

He's greeted before I start to think. "Hi, R2, good to see you...!"

Ha, confused, because the astromech abruptly stops beeping, whistles instead - no idea what, I still can't do binary.

"He wants to know who you are." Skywalker, already halfway across the room, pauses for a second and checks something on one of the consoles, visibly biting off any further questions about how we could possibly know his droid, only Kenobi's gaze flits over us, again, quite typically, indistinct.

Nici takes over the introductions, waves cheerfully to the droid, then the doors snap apart and prevent R2 from answering. Good, I wouldn't have understood anyway, besides, my brain is busy.

"Master, we've received a call from the Jedi Temple..."

I know her. Hahahaha, I actually know her very well, she used to be my childhood heroine, that's... creepy, especially since I remember her much older, she's barely older than my brother! Was Ahsoka motherfucking Tano always this small? Small is the wrong word, she's already taller than me, young is more like it - the one in front of us is the epitome of the word teenager, Ahsoka is barely fourteen, telling her master all about "position" and "call", gesticulating so wildly that the beads of her padawan head attached to the montrals bob back and forth between her blue and white lekku.

I stare for the moment, at least until Ahsoka glances past Anakin, narrows her eyes and breaks off mid-sentence. "We have company, nice of you to tell me that too, Skyguy."

Oh, that was Snips in pure form, truly a teen, her curiosity winning out over the snapping tone at the same moment. "Who's that?"

Okay, well, not surprising, it's not every day that two unknown people suddenly appear who you know nothing about and who couldn't actually be here. After all, it's a military ship - which this teen is co-commanding. Absolutely insane.

There's no answer from me, so Ahsoka fixes her gaze on Nici, who unpacks her sunbeam smile and indicates a bow. "Aloha, we are pain and panic - Jo, bow down in three, two, one! -, reporting for duty!"

Anakin sighs a little too deeply, then turns to the side and makes a sweeping motion in our direction. "Snips, may I introduce you to Jojo and Nici, who suddenly appeared about three hours ago, set off the alarm and broke out of our cells."

"That wasn't so difficult," Nici says promptly, "we just didn't have a plan for what to do afterwards."

"And," Skywalker interrupts her, crossing his arms, looking meaningfully at Ahsoka, "they have no Force presence and know far too many things to have any idea about."

Ahsoka blinks, her eyes darting back and forth between the two of us as Skywalker makes a head motion towards me. "Go on. If you know Rex, you know Snips."

We do, the only question is whether I'm doing HIM a favor and giving the right answer, but we need allies, which is why I shrug slowly. "Dude, you're smart, so that's how you can tell the Chosen One... Hello, Ahsoka, and why are you so tall!"

Good idea, not creepy at all, inwardly I could slap myself, but Ahsoka looks more confused than suspicious.

"Would the DIY store turtle like to contribute something?" Nici says smugly, Kenobi skillfully ignores her and looks at his commander instead, encouraging Nici to take a step towards Ahsoka and hold out her hand. "I'm Nici. Hi. Fancy joining the chaos duo?"

The ambush works, Ahsoka shakes her hand before nodding to me. "Then I guess you're Jojo. Wherever you know me from..."

Nici skips the last sentence, grinning around the area instead. "Want to know how to get out of your cells?"

Chapter Text

We are indeed on the Resolute, in the Outer Rim, together with the 212th on the Negotiator, the cruiser next to ours. Both ships were actually waiting for new orders, then we appeared, that's the current state of affairs. At the moment, I've got my nose stuck to the huge window pane and I'm looking out into space. It's amazing, I never want to not see it again, this infinite nothingness of sparkling dots, you feel insignificant and like you've arrived at the same time. Beautiful is perhaps the right word for it, it can't really be described, not even captured in photos, even though Nici has been trying to do so since they left us in front of the window.

Left at the window, well, rather in the front room of the bridge, which was previously still closed and there are actual windows here, the thing is glazed almost all round, at least at the top when you're standing on the footbridge. There are recesses to the left and right, where the cruiser's controls are located, countless consoles are operated by a bunch of clones - they should be, they don't really have anything to do, we're waiting, the ships aren't moving - they prefer to look at us instead. I would do the same, but so far I'm busy with the window, until I tear myself away and look at the first one in front of me in the recess. His head is turned away in a flash, a hasty "Sir...!" follows, something I try to stifle with a smile that hopefully makes me look nice.

"Hi. Your name is...?"

Now I've confused him, why does it work every time? There's a pause for at least a second, during which I sit down cross-legged and hold my hand out to him. "I've never been to space!"

The clone below me in the hollow is one of the lighttroopers, not wearing any of the familiar armor, but the gray, uncomfortable-looking uniforms that remind me so much of the Nazi uniforms from World War II - well, that's where they're inspired from - who shakes my hand at the same moment. The young man has a damn firm handshake, looks just like the one next to him, same standard hairstyle and no tattoo as far as I can see. "Light, sir."

"Ah, cool. I'm Jojo, and you can call me by my first name, you should have more brains than I do."

"He does." Nici doesn't even look at me, she's busy taking pictures, her phone screen is drawing shadows on her face because she's concentrating hard on adjusting some settings in the camera app - not that it would do any good on an iPhone.

I wave in her direction as if she were an annoying fly. "Nici, do me a favour and shut up. Respectfully."

Back to Light. He's hardly older than me, at least in terms of his face, why are they all so young, same with Anakin! I slide over to him, this hole in the ground is pretty deep, I'm enthroned like a gargoyle above the guys, half of whom are now looking at me blatantly. "That one is Nici and stupid. Question continues, what's your neighbor's name?"

It's awkward when you suddenly have the entire attention of a room, especially when you can't interpret half of the stares. The motto is to overplay it, I just grin at everyone. "Hi!"

Then, all of a sudden, the hand of the guy in the far corner of the recess twitches up. "I'm Patch."

"Patch and Light, I can handle this... Gotta warn you guys and gals, I'm shit with names - human up there..." The part goes to Nici, "make yourself useful and give me the backpack, I'll make name tags now, otherwise it won't work."

She doesn't talk back, actually pushes the thing over with her foot without looking at what she's doing. "Good idea, I'll be right there in a second."

Where are the sticky notes! I dig through the junk before giving up and simply emptying the thing out. A flood pours over the bridge, two pads, my pencil case flies out, and because a certain someone (me) didn't close it properly, all the pens (three to be exact, all ballpoint pens, a pencil plus two highlighters and the Edding), scissors, erasers and a triangle are scattered over the bridge, the JBL box, two notebooks, my current evening reading, a fat tome, wallet and four chargers. Nowadays, every dirty device has its own port and recently many USB-C cables can only charge, data transfer is a useless feature, right. You need another USB-C cable for that, so I can't help the number.

Well, I can put everything away again, except for the thing right in front of me. It's a cube filled to the brim with neon pink sticky notes and doesn't move very well because of its corners. "Haha, gotcha!"

It must be disturbing, I realize, but it's already too late for that, because I proudly wave my trophy around and then throw myself halfway across the floor to grab my favourite pen. It's made of white plastic, has a funny imprint and originally came from a furniture store. While still lying down, I write on the first piece of paper before standing up again and sticking the top sticky part Light on my forehead for the sake of convenience. "For me to remember, please wear it open, the company says thank you!"

Light blinks slowly and I give him a 'yes-I-may-be-funny-but-please-just-work-with-it-then-it's-easier-for-me' smile while I scribble on Patch's note and draw a smiley face. Because wait, I felt like it. Light plucks his pink piece of paper from his forehead and sticks it to the breast pocket of his uniform. Very good choice of place, I can see it. Delivering note two is the next item, so I have to go to Patch, which is the easiest way through the recess, so I stick my legs in. "Can I go down?"

No one complains, so I hop in, suddenly I'm the smallest because they're all stupidly 1.83m tall. Frustrating.

The paper makes a funny noise when I take the corners and pull them on, it clicks slightly. "Hey, Patch, mail for you!"

Light doesn't say anything, but his hand gesture seems like I can just walk over to the one still without a name tag in the narrow aisle connecting the individual seats at the controls, which I do. "There, look. It's best if you stick it somewhere where we can see it."

Earlier he may have been the first to respond, but now I've confused the next guy. "Ma'am?"

No more sir, we've come this far, but that's when Patch actually picks up the neon pink slip of paper and attaches it to his uniform, just like Light did on the breast pocket. Victory, another one marked, only 200,000 more to go. How many clones were there again and why do they think it's a good idea not to hand out tags, how are you supposed to know your way around!

I'll share my thoughts out loud. "Tell me, why aren't there any name tags here? The sticky notes don't stick so well, they fly off safely."

Oh fuck. Yes, why don't the clones have name tags, unlike other soldiers, now I remember why I hated the Clone Wars so much! Replaceable, it doesn't matter if some get killed, nobody cares, besides, they shouldn't even have to have names, there are numbers, that was the original plan of the Kaminoans and even the Republic prefers to use the columns of numbers, otherwise they couldn't even justify the army.

That sucks - Nonono, we don't do it that easily.

Nici is still snapping pictures of space above me, don't look at me. The ideal victim and I just happen to have the right thing in my hands to attract her attention. Of course I could also say something, but my idea is much better and a cube like this is sure to fly well, I just have to aim a little. It does fly pointy, hits Nici in the back, who whirls around as if bitten by a snake, her eyes glittering murderously, and she holds her cell phone in her claws like a knife. "You corrosive little amoeba, I'll turn you into sock mush!"

Defending yourself with information has already worked several times today, never change a running system, lesson number one. "My dear Nici, I have the first demand for the Jedipack, after all, we are a sensation in terms of power technology, and that should be exploited. So, we want nameplates for all the clones, it can't be that they don't have any!"

A short pause, then Nici blinks, takes three steps towards the hollow and stares the clone down, which she realizes at the same moment. "Sorry, I had to see for myself - fact, they didn't give you any, what a bunch of perverted bastards - Jo, alright, we're so going to exploit the shit out of this."

She turns around briskly, marches over to my mess on the jetty and bends down for the block, which I can see because I'm pulling myself up by the edge. The pages are colorfully smeared at the bottom and the person sitting next to me has left the nice message 'Jojo, you're stupid', seems strangely normal here in space. Almost like home, where colorful flashlights can't fizz or cut up walls.

Before I can think any further, Nici clicks her pen three times and starts writing. "Planeeeed... Blackmail...ing-measurenaaaah-mentsss.... Firrrst... Nameee...taagss. What do we give away in return?"

Tactical meeting look to me, I raise an eyebrow as hands still hold me to the perimeter. "We don't run over to the Seps and tell them the best way to get into the Jedi Temple?"

Maybe suggesting betrayal in front of a bunch of soldiers is a stupid idea, but no one tackles us away, not even when Nici bobs her head in agreement. "Fits, right in the face, I like it. You can also use it for everything, wonderfully universal!"

"And criminal..." I start, but then drop back down again, "we've already been criminals since today anyway, if we've already started, we can continue to strengthen our careers!"

Over the edge, the pen in Nici's hand is pointed in my direction and then stabbed into the air with reinforcing hand gestures. "You'll get somewhere someday, I'll write it down. Do you have any highlighters?"

She doesn't wait for an answer, I can hear her rummaging around in her rucksack for my pencil case. Quite bizarre, the longer I realize that we're running around on a Star Destroyer and I'm standing in front of a clone who has that typical neutral look on his face. Not the only one, but the further away they are from me, the less they hide, at least you can tell a bit by their facial expressions.

Moving on, there's room for improvement and I have to hand out signs after all, so Patch's neighbor sitting at the control next to him is next. "Hi, I'm Jojo, and your name is...?"

The clone looks at me, though he doesn't take his eyes off me, he seems to duck his head at me. "First, ma'am... First. My name is First."

Great, one more, only I've thrown away my writing pad, so I have to ask Nici to throw it back first. Then First also gets his scribbled note in his hand. "Please, thank you, you're welcome, I can't think of any more words!"

Sometimes you should just shut up, now I seem even more disturbed than I already do. I turn the cube back and forth with one hand on the back of my neck, nibbling on my lip. "I'm sorry. Still haven't digested that I met motherfucking Rex... And talking to you right now. Do you like chocolate as an apology - Nici, is there chocolate in the backpack?"

"In the backpack..." Nici, up on the jetty, leans forward so she can look at me pompously, "It's nothing, my dear banana unicorn, because you tipped it out!"

Oh, that's helpful.

"Thanks, smartass, you sound like my mom. Would you pleaaase..." I pronounce the last word with a horrible French accent, "look if there is chocolate flying around for First as compensation for me?"

She does indeed, even turns onto her stomach to look in her rucksack. "Nope, there's nothing here."

Shit, I've been there five minutes and I owe First.

"And with that, I owe First a chocolate bar" I scribble on the next sticky note with a shopping list - that is, I write 'shopping' at the top and 'chocolate' directly underneath with a mirror line before I look up at First. "Will be delivered later. Dark, white or milk?"

He hesitates briefly, he's not quite sure about me yet, but then a tiny smile appears on his face. "I haven't tried it yet, ma'am. I just got off Kamino."

What. No, that can't be right, he doesn't know chocolate, that's not possible! It's time for a survey, I have to get onto the gangplank, but I don't want to climb out, which is why I hang onto the edge again so that I can at least stick my head out. "Okay, boys, hands up, who's never had chocolate?"

It takes a while, then the first ones raise their hands, Patch right next to me also does, looking just a little too cute. Smarty pants, I have siblings, try that with an only child! "Another question. Who wants chocolate, then Patch, the scrounger here, can come forward legally."

"I've got a better idea." Nici jumps to her feet before counting off, using the pen in her hand as a pointer. "I'll write a seating plan and you tell me what kind you want."

"Good plan." Nodding appreciatively, I nod at her as she plonks herself down. At the same time as me, handing out the name slips, Nici draws a seating plan. We work through the clones one after the other before I change the recess and clamber out of the first one very elegantly before moving on to the second. When we're halfway through the boys there too, an idea flashes through my brain.

"Oops, Light?" I ask a little louder, because after all, I'm on the other side of the jetty as I'm handing one of the last guys his pink slip of paper with greasy jojoba letters on it, "quick question: can you all use every piece of equipment in here?"

The answer comes like a shot from a gun and contains no formal salutation; on the contrary, Light is the quickest to warm up, along with Patch. "Of course. Any man can replace anyone at any time."

Replace. The whole purpose of clones, something they get beaten into their brains until they say it out loud themselves. I have to swallow hard, before I can look down at the floor, I quickly blurt out my idea. "Do you know class memory?"

Sev (CT-26-7777, the 'Sev' doesn't stand for Severus Snape, but for the short form of Seven), who I've just provided with a name tag, shakes his head as Nici, still chilling over her seat and currently drawing an elaborate flower on the edge of the seating chart, looks up. "Each of you swaps places with someone, and two people have to sort back. Normally everyone writes a name on the board beforehand, but Jo wants us to learn the names, doesn't she?"

Insert nod on my part here, Nici squints an eye and finger guns.

"Ma'am... that's not allowed," Light says cautiously from over there, Nici turning her head to him, pen tucked between her nose and upper lip.

"Where does it say that?"

"I'm pretty sure civilians aren't allowed on the bridge either," I throw into the room, grimacing. "Apart from the fact that they're using this room as a playpen for Nici and me, trusting you to stop us from pressing funny red buttons... Brave."

"Stupid," Nici objects leaving me to throwing my arms up.

"I didn't want to say it quite so drastically until the complete idiots in question, i.e. the DIY store turtle and the sandman, were in the room."

Nici promptly hums the Sandman tune and then starts laughing. "That's a worthy name."

She clicks the pen again to make the pen retract and then looks at Light with puppy dog eyes. "Can we play?"

Chapter Text

Yes, we play class memory with the boys. Also on the list of nicknames we've already given the guys:

- The guy whose name Nici always forgets ("I've forgotten that name again, it's just not allowed to be said!" - "The one whose name can't be said?" - "Voldemort!") That clone didn't have a name yet, but he liked Voldemort. Even when we told him roughly who it was.

- My chocolate buddy (even though only two of us here have any idea what chocolate is, and only bad stuff at that)

- Person in the back corner (for the last one)

- Person in the front left corner (left corner person in the front left corner, self-explanatory and always changing)

The first round generally takes forever, but after that we can assign the names to faces at times and have an idea of how teachers must feel at the beginning of the school year. The second round goes more smoothly, and the third is just over when the doors shoot open and the Jedi march in, I don't see Rex and Cody anywhere, Ahsoka has also disappeared - when the Jedi are talking, (still) non-Jedi have no business being there. While the Jedi walk across the bridge towards us and Obi-Wan looks at the pink notes on the clone troopers in confusion, Anakin looks at me and Nici, both sitting cross-legged at the end of the bridge.

Absolutely not, e ither you talk to us, or we just stay seated, Skywalker. Because my attention is fixed on the Jedi, I don't see the slightly startled expressions of the two clones right next to the bridge until they look at their generals in a bit of a panic - right, half of them aren't where they're supposed to be, which is why I try to tell them with a vague hand gesture that we'll sort it out. Apart from that, the metal rod fuzzies can't tell them apart anyway, especially not the crew on the bridge, they usually don't even talk to them directly. They don't now either, Obi-Wan just makes an all-encompassing gesture, scrutinizes us with his ice-blue eyes - Light, back in his seat right next to us, immediately looks down.

"What's that?"

Stupid question, which is why I tilt my head, unimpressed. Wasn't there a time where you could expect more from Kenobi? "What does it look like, maybe the stuff you keep from your soldiers? Like name tags?"

"Look, you get one too." Nici catapults herself up from her seat and hands the red-haired Jedi a piece of paper with a mocking bow. But without a name, lovingly labeled with: J-2. And a heart painted around it.

At the same moment, Nici holds out a second piece of paper to Anakin and gives both Jedi a smile that consists entirely of teeth. "Look, I've got one for you too. J-1, goes well with the other!"

Subtly turned around, that's how it has to be, the ones with the names get numbers and the ones with the numbers get names, if they don't get it, I'll file a lawsuit against their command posts, because you can't give an army that much stupidity in the claws (even if we like to do that at home).

"Written out," says Nici as if she hadn't just given a slap in the face, "it's for Jedi One and Two. Makes it much easier than the stupid name thing, much shorter than Anakin or Obi-Wan, you can shout it better too. Or do you want to swap numbers?"

For the fact that we supposedly have no Force signature, there is suddenly an invisible tension over the whole room, Skywalker has his teeth clenched and exchanges a wry look with Obi-Wan. He looks decidedly unconcerned, of course, and puts on a friendly face as if Nici had never said anything.

"Well then, the Jedi Order awaits you. Come with me."

Anakin next to him turns around and is already halfway back from the jetty - but not really, I click my tongue. "What is the polite thing to say when you want someone to do something, the magic word?"

Ice-cold look, but he follows up with: "Please." before his gaze falls on the boys' notes in the recesses. He can read it, albeit slowly, but he can see at a glance that there are letters and no numbers. Never a number.

There's not really a reason to refuse anymore, Nici stomps past Obi-Wan with her head held high and tugs me behind her by the wrist, past Anakin, who is still staring into the recesses. Only when Obi-Wan clears his throat does his gaze jerk up and the Jedi follows us. It's better that way, the fear in Patch's eyes was real and haunts me through the hissing doors that shoot shut behind us at the same moment. Now it's just the two of us and two Jedi, with one of them, Obi-Wan, pressing a button on a keyboard and then multiplys himself. Nonsense of course, but a blue holo-message pops up, the whole room is filled with Jedi wearing important robes in even more important looking chairs, spread out in a circle and all of them in life-size. How is that possible, the holotable is much too small for that... I'm confused and prefer to concentrate on that rather than on the stares from the council members. Something resonates there, a kind of presence, each of them has this aura of someone you'd better not mess with. Power or a strange force perhaps describes it quite well - they can use it too, hahaha, funny.

They all look so expressionless - or rather cold, not to say unfriendly. Hey, it's not our fault that your laws of nature are for the trash now!

Anakin lowers his head slightly, just like Kenobi, but a little less low than Anakin, maybe we should, but we come from a democracy, that doesn't happen on principle alone. Doesn't suit the guy in front at all, some guy with upturned drinking horns in his head, reminds me a bit of a Capricorn, but he doesn't say a word - just like the rest. It just stays quiet, nobody says anything for seconds, but we're scanned from head to toe.

Are you finished then?

I'm fed up and decide to speed up the process, after all, we are biological wonders. "Are they on mute?"

Nici next to me shrugs, then raises her hand and pokes Ki-Adi-Mundi's hologram through her eye. "Score, blink..."

He looks indignant, really indignant, that probably doesn't happen that often. Nici just snorts before pulling her cell phone out of her pocket and focusing all her attention on the screen. "Let me know if anything interesting happens."

"That's enough." What's enough, we haven't even started yet and then Windu of all people says that, damn man, I used to like you!

Rolling my eyes is an adequate response, Nici tries a decidedly slow shake of the head, then I use rule one and try the tactic of nagging back. "Oh my God, it can talk! A miracle has happened, the ability to learn language and coordinate the tongue properly has developed after a long time of hardship, praise the Lord by burning something, something alive in the best case, it always screams."

The colorless Zabrak Eeth Koth, the beige one of course, blinks a second too long, while Anakin of all people next to me gives a minimal nod, indeed a directly supportive one, in my direction. Ha.

Windu lifts his chin a little higher. "You think this is funny. It's not, it's serious, act accordingly."

Dude.

"Right, because I listen to you, Nick Fury..., okay, if you were Fury, I probably would. Alright, Capt'n Sharky has won - Nici, what do you think?

I actually get an answer from the Swombi, even if Nici doesn't think it's important enough to look away from the screen. "I haven't said anything here yet, you've taken over - but yes. They want something from us, right now would actually be the part where you do the funny thing called 'speaking'."

Mentioned in passing, as if she were reading out a legal text. At the latest after Nici's action, half of them don't like us, even if the facial expressions remain frozen, the looks change until Even Piell, a piggy with drooping ears and a Japanese-style ponytail on his otherwise bald head - no kidding, he's a Lannik, and just over a meter tall, but here, thanks to the somehow enlarged holograms, almost as tall as me - clears his throat. "So this is them, Master Kenobi."

Anakin is ignored. I give the Jedi a sympathetic look while Nici puts the phone away, fixes Piell, and stops blinking to prove dominance. Dude, you're losing this, the girl was trained by elves, and they never blink*. "They're also here in the room. We can hear you, clown."

Several Jedi exchange glances, one of them - Uhh, I know her, that's Kanans Mum! What was the name again-- I don't remeber, just watch her as she makes a slight, elegant gesture, perhaps intended to placate. I'm not quite sure, she might just want to let her sleeve slip down her arm again. That's not happening now, they're just being quiet again, what's the point! The next stupid line is already on the tip of my tongue, someone is finally getting their teeth apart.

"Who are you?"

Nice short sentence, too short to identify the speaker, especially alone, because Nici is still completely focused on Piell.

"Nicole Maier and Johanna Michaelis, underage according to IDs from a country unknown to us." Obi-Wan, of course, but the question was finally addressed directly to us. In return, I shoot the DIY turtle a dirty look, raise my hand and let it chatter along in time to his words.

Nici decides she's beaten the hell out of Piell, blinks and turns to the guy next to her. "He proudly says here, deliberately emphasizing it and ignoring all the much younger padawans running around in war zones watching the boys die, slash sending them to their deaths himself."

"Hit. Ship sunk." I press my finger down again and make the final sound as Pacman dies. Now they're all scowling. It's getting really boring here, can they actually do anything else besides looking around stupidly?

"Underage", someone repeats, and because it's only a brief life movement again, I don't know who it came from.

It makes me want to vomit. "We've got a really fast one here."

They're ignoring me again, can we finally have a normal conversation here? No, they all prefer to just stare, Yaddle has me in her sights at the moment and I don't like that. Firstly, she's the same type as Yoda and secondly, she has an all-knowing X-ray vision that gets under my skin.

"What planet are you from?" A longer sentence, it's amazing - just from Plo Koon, that was mean, because I like the guy, but I don't like people talking about me while I'm in the room.

A brief scowl in his direction, the Kel'Dor simply stares back, his black mask over his eyes and mouth giving no indication of what he's thinking, but then he continues. "Johanna, what is your home planet?"

D irectly addressed, wait, he caught me completely cold, I was already thinking of the next stupid comment, when he overwhelms my brain with an unknown command. "Um... Earth? Milky Way, solar system? Lol, Nici, do you have any idea if Earth exists in the Star Wars universe?"

Chapter Text

Nici's head pops up behind Anakin's back and she leans past the Jedi to get a better look at me. "Uh... I'm completely at a loss. No?"

Well, now it's getting really complicated.

" Okay, in that case, uh..., parallel universe, other dimension - world -, I don't have any ideas either, world-parallel-dimension-universe-thing-file-something. We're from Germany, that's this mysterious state you don't know."

"Continent of Europe, planet Earth," Nici adds, looking up at the ceiling, visibly thinking. "How do you explain that - seven billion inhabitants, good at killing themselves, only human inhabitants apart from animals, but that's a done deal anyway, because we're destroying our planet. There are 6500 languages and 194 countries?"

"6500 languages on one planet," the holowindu repeats with clear disbelief in his voice, wobbling back and forth in his wavy image. I nod affirmatively in his direction, cooperation must be encouraged.

"According to Google, yes."

Does the whole Star Wars universe even have that many languages? No wonder it seems made up, our planet really isn't a good example, but what are we gonna do, lying won't do any good.

They are silent again - No, I have had enough, are we in a zoo here?! Talk to us and don't hold silent conversations above my head!

Nici agrees, crosses her arms in front of her chest and puts on her best 'you're-all-stupid' look. "A quick side note here, your cells are shit. We should have..." There's a pause to emphasize, "We couldn't even go anywhere, we were just bored."

That's got to provoke a reaction, somebody better starts a conversation right now, because how often do you get told that your military cells - usually for felons! -can be cracked open by two strange teenagers! They must realize that if we can do THAT, what else is not an obstacle for us?

Well, that's how I think, they probably see it differently, because: It's being ignored.

I'm about to scratch someone's eyes out, my pulse is already at 180 anyway - "Your presences, astonishing they are."

Yoda, Master Yoda, also speaks up, but of course NOT on the interesting topic, no, it's about our stupid non-existent Force signature, I - Damn man, I can feel my blood pounding through my head.

"Yeah, great stuff, let's maybe get back to the relevant topic - your cells can be broken into because you morons run the cable covers INSIDE, in the cell! Imagine what would have happened if we'd meant any harm, a bunch of clones would end up dead because you're stupid!"

They... ignore me. Again. So, that's it, I'm out. Determined, I turn around, rub my head and take a deep breath. "My God, you're disgusting and you're surprised that your own people don't like you.  To everyone again, people would have died, it's absolutely no wonder that half the fandom is leaning towars the sith!

Probably stupid. Pretty sure even, I don't give a shit right now.

"The ones you address with numbers," Nici interjects, clearly pissy this time. "Do you know that you normally at least give your soldiers name tags, so at least you pretend they're not cannon fodder?"

There, finally, Adi Gallia - she has such fleshy white leaves on her head - turns her head in my direction before leaning forward and resting her hands interlocked on her knees. "We didn't start this war, I don't expect outsiders to understand the meaning of this conflict. The Force must be brought into balance. If not, there will be far-reaching consequences for the entire galaxy, including your planet."

It doesn't even exist here, so there's that.

I actually want to comment on this important point, but Nici is faster.

"The Force in balance," she repeats, then spreads her arms out as if she's balancing on a slackline. "Do you seriously want me to get you a pair of scales now? Balance means that there are equal numbers on both sides, therefore you shouldn't be fighting the Sith at all."

Point taken, I want to support them and join in. "Or you'll have to find another word, because that's terminologically wrong, there's either a balance or a unity of power. Which, by the way, is never good, otherwise the good guys will quickly forget that they're the good guys. You always need someone worse to remind you what you shouldn't become."

Kaboom, Jedi Council defeated and Star Wars destroyed. Not to say I'm proud, but - Fuck yeah, I am.

Silence falls for a moment until Master Yoda speaks up before Ki-Adi-Mundi can spit something nasty into the room, because you can tell - No, off, let him talk, it took us forever to finally get under his skin! Yoda doesn't do me any favors, why should he, the universe doesn't like me.

"Many ways the Force goes, but mysterious they always are."

Great, unspecific, meaninglessly, hence the look on my face . "Aha. And the Force thinks the part with the clones is good for them, does it also say that living beings are better given numbers than names? Are you sure you're following the right side, how do you know?"

Congratulations, Michaelis, we would have finished making ourselves unpopular in ten minutes, but the old pattern remains: we are being ignored, it's enough to make my skin crawl.

Above the root of my nose it's starting to pinch, spreading across my forehead as I clench my teeth and stare at Yoda's hologram flickering as if it were a candle about to go out - wait a minute.

Anakin next to me jerks his head towards Obi-Wan - no verbal reply, it's not necessary, you can see it on their faces, the knight clears his throat. "Excuse me, I think we have visitors..."

What kind of visitor, are they bringing cookies?

At the same moment, the siren wails, for the third time today - although a different one than before, it sounds like an air raid alarm, a jolt goes through the whole ship - Kenobi hits the button on the holotable, interrupts the connection, before both Jedi whirl around and rush onto the bridge. Nici and I simply follow behind.

We're no longer alone in infinite space, behind the windows two carriers have appeared almost directly in front of us, four more are just coming out of hyperspace.  Damn, they're enormous. And they have a weird shape, angular and at the same time like a deep-sea fish, remind me of the one with the fishing rod on its head.

The guys next to us in the pits are fully concentrated, seemingly unapproachable on the outside, but their movements are choppy and their jaws are clenched tight as the first laser strikes an unprotected area. A tremor goes through the ship, the floor vibrates slightly under our feet.

"Shields up!"

"Guns ready to fire!"

"And we've received no orders," Anakin hisses through clenched teeth, Obi-Wan staring intently out through the glass.

"Well, then I'm gonna give you one.  Ensure that both cruisers survive this battle. Where's Cody?"

"In the elevator, I guess," I mumble and look outside at the laser flashes that are now flashing back and forth. Suddenly you realize that you're in evil space, floating around on a metal block with artificial oxygen and relying on all systems working at all times.

The shields are still holding, white waves spread out with every laser beam that hits you - it looks like a stone has been thrown into the water. A funny, fluorescent pattern - and that's the only thing keeping us alive. The question is, for how much longer? More and more red beams hit our shield, the waves run into each other and overlap. The whole ship seems to cower under the weight.

Anakin whirls around, yanks his arm up and snarls into the com, already halfway across the room. "Get the fighters ready, we're going out!"

The Seps had the same idea too, a load of vulture droids launch from the foremost ship, their sleek shapes reminiscent of an X-wing fighter, only smaller, without the long snout of the cockpit.

Nici next to me is as mute as a fish, neither of us speak a word.  The flying droids appear, the swarm looks like a bunch of blowflies, moving towards us at breakneck speed. Not real, my head mumbles and voice two screams: "DO SOMETHING, DO SOMETHING, YOU CAN'T JUST STAND HERE!", firing up my mind with confused suggestions how to fight back against the attackers.

There, the backpack, I've already bent down and ripped open the front compartment without having any idea what it's supposed to do - there's a laptop. So I did pack it, since when do I have a brain?

Open it up, start windwos, I have to be able to do something about it, apart from waiting for them to blow us up! Droids. Electricity. They're controlled, they need commands, controlled by a network, a computer - like the one in my hands.

This will never work, I think to myself and log into my profile with my fingers flying. It really is mine, even the profile picture is correct, Windows boots up and the start screen appears.

Someone - Nici - grabs me by the shoulder and my eyes jerk up to her. Ten seconds ago, her gaze was glued to the ships behind the windows of the bridge, now she's waving her arms around with such a choppy motion that she almost smashes her hand into my face. "What's the matter - we need access to the computer, what you're trying to do can't - won't work!"

When I don't respond, she shakes me harder, her head jerking up and down as she tries to keep an eye on the frigates out there and me in here. "Besides, you and I don't know enough about this, you'll never figure it out!

Quite true, I can't do it.

For a second, I lift my eyes from the screen. "I don't. But Carl does."

I lift my eyes from the screen for a second. "I don't. But Carl does."

Chapter Text

I've heard sirens wailing before, yet I cringe inwardly with every new wail. A flash lights up behind the window, something explodes, then there's a crash. Was that our cruiser or Kenobi's, that sounded awful.

Time is running out.

"Lots of droids means broadband, it should be easy..." I jab my index finger repeatedly at the edge of my laptop, "we just need to plug into the stuff that controls them - it should work like wifi!"

For two seconds, Nici looks at me silently, her eyebrows drawn together and her gaze piercing. Then she pulls her cell phone out of her back pocket, unlocks it with her fingerprint and moves her fingers across the screen until she holds it to her ear.

My brain reports somewhere how is she able to have a connection, a question I push far away, I don't have time for that. The ship vibrates beneath me under the constant fire of the Seps, Nici's cell phone beeps and beeps again, trying to establish a connection - damn, where's that stupid guy, normally he's always attached to it!

Metal screeches at the same moment, the whole ship sinks to one side, almost knocking Obi-Wan and Nici off their feet.

Shit, have they hit something important now?

"Well, who's that? My favorite curly head , what's up?"

Carl. He squawks cheerfully from the speaker on Nici's cell phone and Nici interrupts him before he can continue. "Carl, we're in the Clone Wars and we're under attack, we want to carry out a hacker attack, what would you do, just do it!"

The next rumble, a slight tremor, but it sends icy shivers down my spine - that felt worse than the previous bangs.

Kenobi stares at us, while Nici stares out into space and texts Carl with all the information she has. "There are six destroyers, the normal, ugly things that look like pills cut in half with little arms on the sides, you know, like in the Clone Wars

"What?!" Carl yells from the speaker of her phone, "did you take some kind of drug, what the hell, curly?"

"Do you think it's possible to do a DDOS attack?!"  Almost jumped up, but just managed to stop myself. The laptop would have resented it, however I want to see the seps blow us up, not being able to see it happen is much fucking worse!

Vulture droids race past the bridge outside, colorful laser flashes accompanying their path. The swarm is there, attacking us as well. Another major impact, quiet rattling of the glass panels in the room behind the bridge, a clone yells something about: "Shields below thirty percent, we have to evacuate!"

Shit's hitting the fan for fucking real.

"Dude, I'm not, Carl - hell, you were there in Middle Earth! -, This is real!"  Clenching her teeth, Nici speaks so fast that you can barely distinguish the words. "Really! Listen, this is real! Verdadero! Real! Genuine!"

Before Carl has a chance to answer her, I shout in. "The droids work with WLAN and they need a server to control them, if I overload it, nothing will work, right?!"

"Waiiit a fucking second, you're in the Clone Wars?"snarls the llama back, his voice vibrating with outrage, "that is so unfair...!"

For a second, Nici's gaze turns murderous, even if her conversation partner can't see it. "You bloody idiot, that's not funny right now, tell us what to do!"

That was enough of a tone, Carl is backpedaling. "Okay, okay, fine.... I'm so pissed, what the hell is this shit, it can't be, why can't you and I cannot, um - Jojo, what the fuck do you want with DDOS, are you being attacked by clankers?"

"We're on a ship," interrupts Nici immediately, "and I've already told you that, it doesn't matter, though, because we need a solution now, we're about to die!"

We need him here, damn it. Looking at my stupid best friend for a moment, I can see in her eyes that she's thinking the same thing.

You have to give Carl credit for switching into crisis mode without asking too many questions. Middle-earth makes it possible. "Girls, I get it, but in case you don't realize it, this isn't reality, never mind - DDOS is out, when you're on the ships. All you're doing is paralyzing the servers, when they reboot everything is gone again, you'd have to inject a worm into every instance, at the very most - what are we talking about, I need information!"

"And we need you," I mutter half aloud, could punch someone in the face because I can't do ANYTHING, NOTHING, I fucking HATE this...!

There, the next hit. Something explodes so brightly on Kenobi's cruiser next to us that I can see it even sitting here below the windows. The glaring light is reflected in the window panes, the shadows dance across the walkway.

Shit.

I want to scream, I really do, but I can't get a sound out. My throat is closed, cold ice is raging in my stomach, creeping up my veins, blocking every movement, not even letting me wipe the sweat from my forehead. Our neighboring cruiser is sinking, hanging strangely lopsided, which shouldn't be possible, almost looks like it's sinking, colorful fire all around.

It's the last thing I'll see, because at the same moment the windows light up white and the bridge explodes.

At least that's my first thought, yet... I'm still there, the light disappears just as quickly as it came, but someone is lying next to me in a fetal position, hunched over, gasping. What. How. Why. Q uestions, so many question marks, I feel cold and warm at the same time, the world seems to me to be razor sharp, made up of countless details that I can't memorize. No time for logic, I don't care, it's unimportant, it doesn't matter.

Everything becomes blurred, all I can see is the twinkling of lasers, colorful lights, the screeching sound of metal bursting, the jerking of the generators below us, a previously constant heartbeat that is now starting to stop. To my left, someone is shouting about flickering shields, overloaded shields collapsing. Another impact causes Nici to fall, she lands lengthways on the jetty and can't even roll off. , she lands lengthways on the jetty and can't even roll off. Her cell phone slides over the bridge, disappears into the hollow. If we survive this, Nici will freak out.

Get up. I have to get up, Carl has to do something, now, now, otherwise that's it. Grabbing his arm, I pull - the guy growls, I know him, I've just spoken to him on the phone - then, FINALLY, he stands up. Too slowly. He moves as if in slow motion. We take too long, everything takes too long--- "Ouch, never again - where's the laptop, give me that. Please tell me you bought it on my recommendation..."

Should overload my brain, everything that happens here can't actually be--- Wait, recommendation, laptop, yes, yes, I did, the thing is new and stands next to me on the footbridge undamaged.  Inwardly thanking a random god, I grab the laptop and load it into Carl's lap, who takes a deep breath and then hacks at the keyboard. "What signal are they using, how do I get access to the computer?"

My head spits out the information without me having to think, I keep staring up at the window, waiting for colorful flickers. "It's a kind of WLAN, at least I can get it in as WLAN, it's called - attention, creativity on point - Command Ship One, Destroyer Two and so on."

Everything takes as long like honey dripping from a spoon, we don't have time...!

"Aha," Carl says, the keyboard clacks, he's getting slower and slower! "Well, we can work with that, they get a worm on every instance and we just delete the boot partition, then nothing boots up and their system is dead until they reinstall everything, which should take a long time with their medieval servers."

"Cool shit, I don't care, just do IT!"  Clutching the walkway with one hand to keep from flying into the well on the next impact, Nici gazes up from the hollow. How the hell is Kenobi still standing, does he have magnetic boots?

Our shields are as good as gone. How many more hits can we take?

And then Carl starts swearing. "What's that, dude, my mother could hack that, goddammit! That should hurt, hurt so fucking bad, how can you build spaceships and then have a firewall that's worse than any cell phone?"

On the com, Anakin babbles something, I can vaguely hear his: "Master, we're going out.", Kenobi's wrist flashes green - and then the world goes silent.

Nothing shakes, nothing moves, no new impact, time is getting longer and longer-- the hit was supposed to come long ago!

Something hisses, makes me want to jump up, that was the air supply, now it's over - where are Cody and Rex coming from and why is the door ope-- Oh.

Both running figures slow down, stop, as soon as their footsteps stop, it's quiet. Nobody moves, everyone is blank staring. What the hell has happened, until two blinks ago I thought we were going to die!

Looking slowly at Carl - he's grinning, the satisfied grin of a fat cat, his hands resting calmly on the keys of the laptop. "So... can I keep these, I've always wanted an army?"

We are still alive, then. I guess. It all feels surreal, one second ago I was ready to close my eyes and wait for the end. Maybe that's why I'm reacting like this, is it the adrenaline? Suddenly I have to laugh hysterically, I put my head back and giggle to myself, throw myself lengthways onto the footbridge, have to curl up because I can't stop.

Sev is right in front of me, his hand still outstretched over his control panel, not moving. Nobody does, except me, because I'm chuckling like a lunatic.  Behind me, somethings moves - Nici hops down into the hollow and disappears from my field of vision just as quickly as she appeared. "Great - someone's seen my phone, can I sue the Seps if it's broken, that was really expensive!"

Normality is lovely, enough for me to sit up and stop sniggering. It feels like I'm flying, maybe that's why I'm holding on to Carl's shoulder and tousling his hair with the other one. "Great job, good llama!"

In response, his teeth are bared. "Get your paws out of my hair, I'll bite you!"

As if the threat will stop me from tousling his hair. "I've been told that human meat tastes like chicken, so it can't be that bad."

"Well, that's fine, you're a stupid hen anyway - will you stop now!"

"Now that was the Joke of the century."

"Besides, everything tastes like chicken!" Nici rests her chin on the edge of the hollow and looks up at us before pausing for the punchline. "Except chicken."

"'Cause it tastes like fish..." completes Carl, looking at me appraisingly. "Jojo is a fish and I'm about to find out how that scaly beast is going to do between my teeth if you DON'T TAKE YOUR HANDS OUT OF MY HAIR RIGHT NOW!"

"If you bite me, I'll spill Sprite over the laptop!" Despite my threat, I actually take my fingers back, but it's more to do with the fact that poor Sev is looking upset and I feel sorry for him.

Carl immediately catches his breath, throws his hands up and waves them defensively in my direction. "I dare you, Michaelis, I'll get Smaug and then we'll have Jojo on a spit!"

Oh, I've got a great flat joke. "Also known as...chicken nuggets."

Two second pause. Then Nici slams the flat of her hand into her face - or rather, the hand with the cell phone in its claws, which is probably why it hurts - jeb, it did, she starts swearing and holds her nose, hahaha.

I get a disparaging look from Carl in return, he rocks his head back and forth. "Do you think you taste good with sweet and sour sauce?"

Our bullshit adrenaline-fueled banter is interrupted by Anakin shouting from Obi-Wan's com, making Rex and Cody shrug to the second boss. "Master, what happened, why did they stop firing, what's going on?"

Chapter Text

Kenobi would love to give an answer, he is after all the diplomat par excellence, if anyone can handle confusing situations it's him, but: Usually people don't just spwan like in a video game and dismantle half of reality because they create something that simply wasn't possible in this universe. The proof is floating around in space, now completely still, nothing moves at the Seps, no fighters take off, no destroyers turn, simply nothing is happening. They are there and motionless, immobilized - by Carl.

Maybe that's why Kenobi doesn't make a sound, his gaze glides from Carl to the ships behind the windows. "Hold fire."

Something he says to the bridge crew, really nice of him to show them in some way that he doesn't mean his Padawan. Idiot. The next sentence is for his former student: "Don't start, Anakin...."

The redheaded Jedi looks to Carl, still cross-legged with laptop on his lap, eyeing my arm conspicuously, which is why I'm threatening him with my fingernails, and Nici, down in the hollow, hand on her nose and extremely pissy looking at her cell phone for hurting her nose.

"Jojo and Nici have done something and now there are three of them."

Now that sounded ambiguous, I tilt my head before nodding in Nici's direction. "Implicit statement - Nici, you were pregnant, I don't want children!"

"And how am I supposed to get pregnant, you douche?" Nici's voice sounds like she's sick because she's holding her nose, as her cell phone doesn't seem to have been kind to it. "I don't like boys, unlike you and Carl."

Carl blinks three times, sits up straighter, one hand on the laptop screen. "Uh, through artificial insemination?"

Anakin goes crazy down in the hangar, ignoring Obi-Wan's "Master?" and leaving his Expadawan alone with all the question marks, because he starts to say something and gets an icy cold sideways glance from Nici.

"Problem?"

"No, it just came on so... suddenly."

"He's a monk, the word 'sex'," I draw quotation marks in the air, "makes him embarrassed, Nici."

"Fine, I'll still run through the corridors with the Pride flag." She lets go of her nose again, puts her cell phone down on the walkway, then pulls herself back up onto it - careful not to thunder a knee into the face of the clone next to her, who nevertheless gives her as much space as he can and sends a helpless look to Rex and Cody up at the end of the walkway.

He doesn't get an answer, at least not verbally, but the commander and the captain turn their heads to their general in synchronization. A bucket like that comes in handy from time to time, especially now that Skywalker has absolutely no idea what's going on and is desperately trying to get an explanation.

"Master?! Hello?!"

Kenobi's eyes jerk back to the glowing green thing before he slowly raises his arm so he can speak into it comfortably. "Someone else has appeared." The Jedi's eyes dart over Carl, who bares his teeth at him happily, eyebrows raised in a perverse smile and grin, something Obi-Wan ignores and feeds his report with more info. "A human male this time, and apparently he's taken control of the destroyers."

Though Carl shakes his head, he doesn't even look up, instead focusing on his screen. " I didn't. I made sure they couldn't boot up because their logs were deleted."

"I don't quite follow, Master." Anakin on the phone line - sorry, com - sounds completely taken aback, seems to be looking around, at least his voice gets louder and softer. "What do you mean, where's Rex?"

Well, where do you think, there aren't that many places on the ship, so I jump up and take three steps towards Obi-Wan. "Up here, where else would he be? Get your butt up there and we'll explain it to you - and bring Soka with you, thanks."

A brief silence, then the com stops flashing - Skywalker has hung up, Kenobi looks down at me, his eyebrow raised in typical adult 'tell-me-right-now-what-you-did-because-I'm-older-and-more-experienced-than-you' mode, matched by the sentence he blurts out in the same second. "I'd like an explanation for that, Johanna."

I didn't hear that. I do not respond to my full name. Therefore, I pretend he's not present, turn to the side and, quickly looking unconcerned, start a new conversation. "Tell me, Nici... Did we have a laptop in our backpack?"

Kenobi narrows his eyes slightly behind me, I can see it out of the corner of my eye, and I only half-heartedly suppress a grin.

"No. It would have been damaged otherwise after you took Easter bread..." The word Nici emphasizes as if it was a terrible disease, "you meant to tip the entire contents of your backpack over the bridge."

There was a reason for that!

Behind me, the Jedi Master shifts his weight to the other leg, trying to get my attention back on him - it's stuck on the basic concept, I know he's there, I just don't WANT to notice him. Back to the laptop that suddenly appeared, an important issue.

"And where did it come from?"

Question of questions, no one in the room can answer me, but I've said it.

"What's it about?" comes from Carl, who is actually no longer mentally present but rather busy, judging by the clacking of his keyboard. Since I'm looking at the screen from the wrong side, I have no idea what the guy is doing.

"About suddenly having a laptop." With her foot, Nici taps the rucksack and leans her head back, "because it wasn't in there before."

Exactly, that's a lot of question marks, I'm about to come up with my first crude theory when I'm approached - by Kenobi, but with that annoyed 'Anakin' tone he's so good at. "Johanna?"

I can't hear you. No. Besides, something's scratching my neck, so I'm busy until I notice Cody - has a helmet on, will kill me right away - well, then that's the cue.

Turning to Kenobi, I momentarily acknowledge his presence again, which doesn't make him look any friendlier, especially since he's recently crossed his arms. "My name is Jojo, my dear. Not Johanna, not Viktoria, not Johanna Viktoria, just Jojo. I don't respond to anything else, as others have had to learn the hard way."

"Greetings from Thorin at this point," Nici trumpets from behind, now in a normal voice again, but she's waving her cell phone wildly in her hand, so much so that I'm afraid it's going to slip out of her fingers and then head for the wall. "And I'm serious, look...!"

She shows us her cell phone screen with an open chat, presumably referring to the last message, but I'm too far away to read it. In the same second, an ugly selfie of Fíli with a McDonald's crown (he was given it as a little joke back then, couldn't have known that he'd wear it more often now), Tauriel, her hair up with a brush (the gag was from Nici and the Elf swears by it now ("Why didn't we think of that, it's much more relaxed than having my hair down and I don't have to braid it anymore!"). "Because you're elves and think complicated?" "Hush, human. You're disturbing the brush with your blubber" "You got that word from us...")), and wine bottle in hand, with Bilbo presenting a plate to the camera - on it is a perfect-looking salami pizza and extra cheese.

Bilbo has finally stayed in Erebor and opened a restaurant with everything your heart desires - and let me tell you, the hobbit makes the hottest kebab east of the gray Antfurts. Sources claim that every recruit of the Bleakwood Guard must try one of these taste bud-burning marvels á la Hobbit without breaking a sweat before being allowed to rise through the officer ranks (Legolas certainly has nothing to do with this regulation. He really doesn't. He swears).

"Is there a party in Erebor and why aren't we invited, binge drinking without us, I'm offended!"

"Well, on the contrary, hang on, why...?" Nici pulls the phone back and looks at the screen as a light goes on because she sees the picture and she slowly explains further before holding her treasure out to Carl so he can take a distracted look too. "No, Thorin's about to come out of the council meeting and that's why there's a six-pack of elven wine back there."

Ah, makes sense, you need it afterwards, speaking from experience, I was allowed to join in enough at the beginning and got really upset about dwarves in Horst Seehofer format. I'm actually about to throw in an anecdote - Gramí, my eternal enemy, can't stand the stuff - when the doors behind us burst apart. Anakin and Ahsoka emerge, both of them in goose-step, marching right through Cody and Rex, who dodge by themselves, otherwise Anakin would have run through them. Carl is still sitting in the middle of the bridge and in the way, my stuff is still lying around - but that has no consciousness, I KNOW that Carl is aware that there's someone behind him, but he doesn't feel like turning around.

Skywalker's steps slow down, Ahsoka, who has followed him on foot, looks confused, she's holding a headset in her hand, Anakin still has it on his head. He must have run out of the cockpit and straight up, meaning he hasn't had time to take it off, hence the silver metal strip on his head, and stops abruptly behind Carl, who doesn't bat an eyelid.

"Hi. Anything to look at here, Jedi?" Disrespect flap number two, because Carl doesn't even think it's necessary to stop typing, only the corners of his mouth twitch upwards a tiny centimeter. It just doesn't work the way he wants, because Anakin refuses to be provoked, looking slowly at his master.

"So that's what you meant by 'showed up'."

Insert curt nod from Kenobi before he gestures to the window. "That's Carl, probably a friend of the other two. He broke off the Seps' attack by taking over the ships."

It's all good until then, but we wouldn't be us if someone didn't say something stupid. In this case I'm innocent, it's Carl's fault, at least he closes the laptop quickly and folds his hands as if in prayer. "Don't think they're the only ones with a shitty firewall. Do you even have one?"

Chapter Text

That was the wrong thing to say, it drops the mood in the room by a few degrees.  It was no clear threat, nor does it have to be, for Kenobi to look at him with interest. But not the nice, interested Kenobi look, no, that's the one before tea time ends and the lightsaber is pulled out.

Anakin is the first to turn his head to the side and stare at the destroyers out in space, Ahsoka follows almost at the same time. Now the things are harmless, switched off, nothing moves.

In the darkness of infinite space, I even imagine I can make out the slight flicker of the shield of our cruiser. If I were alone, I'd stare out for another ten hours, but there are two Jedi, a padawan and two clones standing behind me, who are probably realizing the same thing I am - fuck, this is NOT going well, how the hell are we going to get out of this!

“Good thing we're on your side, huh?” is the first thing that comes to mind to defuse the situation - which of course it doesn't. How could it, history has just been made.

Obi-Wan clears his throat slowly, but it's not for us - I know that because I looked at him when he did that - Nici grabs my college pad and a pen from my pencil case. Does she seriously want to draw a picture of the situation now-- Yes. She does, and starts sketching as if a bomb hadn't just exploded. It may not have been visible, but there was a detonation, the universe is shaking to its foundations.

A new, powerful opponent on the board, all that's missing is the crown for Carl - Ha, that gives me an idea. Leaning forward, I reach for my backpack. How does this portal thing work, do I have to press somewhere, or think and talk or...? Let's give it a try. “Okay, goodie bag,  I'd like a certain piece of jewelry.”

Nix, nada, niente, all I wanted was a tiara to crown Carl in perfect form - straight up mean. How weird is the mechanism, who decides what makes sense and when? Case for later, there are other problems.

Kenobi turns his head slightly in our direction, this time clearly referring to Carl. "We must make contact with Master Yoda. Immediately.”

That's how quickly Nici and I get boring. We may be a force-technical sensation, but Carl is a weapon, a weapon that can end the war.

He receives a curt nod from his Expadawan before Anakin crosses his arms. “We need new orders anyway.”

He has a slightly reproachful undertone, which is probably why Obi-Wan raises his eyebrow, but saves himself a reply. Rex and Cody stand next to each other in silence at the very back, almost at the doors to the bridge briefing room behind them, not moving.

“And what do we do with them?” Skywalker drums his fingers on his mechanical arm, “They can't stay here on the bridge.”

Question from the General, clamoring for an answer, Rex to his job - Well, at least the Captain takes a step forward, attracting the Jedi's attention. "Sir. We have enough empty cabins in the crew quarters after the... after Teth.”

“Completely free?” Anakin chews each syllable between his teeth, drawing the words out too damn long, then seems to make a decision. “Fine, then we move the girls there - what do we do with him?”

The drumming of his left hand stops abruptly, instead he points a kind of finger gun at Carl on the ground, and Carl grins at him. A little too oversweet for my taste, don't let him say anything now, things are going well for us!

Before anyone can think about it, the problem solves itself because Carl suddenly starts to become translucent all over his body. It looks a bit like he's being erased with a bad ink eraser.

“Hellooooo, help!?”

Even for Nici, this is reason enough to turn her attention away from the page and stare at Carl, almost out of sight. ” Now THIS is new. Where's our funny instruction manual?”

I'd like to have that now, too, because this disturbs me. Kenobi himself looks like he's seen Palpatine naked, although he sounds frighteningly normal. "At least explains why he feels like a Force ghost... Not that he has a signature, exactly like you.”

Nice announcement, loads of information I can't process because it sounds so baffling, let's get on with important problems - what can the backpack do and how does it work, let's try chocolate, it's nice and small.

Behind me, a heated debate starts between Anakin and Obi-Wan, because Force ghosts without the Force are a bit of a rip-off - well, they're right on that point. Nici decides that although she's affected, it's none of her business and concentrates on her sketch again, but of course doesn't miss the opportunity to point out my inadequate choice of pens.

Well, she should bring her own pens - they're there, in the back compartment of my rucksack is the wooden box I know, what the hell - why doesn't my chocolate bar work?

I actually want to ask Nici about it, instead I bite my tongue and just pull the zipper closed. Nope, not here, we'll sort it out later, apart from that I wouldn't get an answer anyway, because Nici wants to ask Button below her for ideas for the sketch, so she's distracted.

Verbally, she doesn't get an answer, however Button glances up at Kenobi before nodding his head almost imperceptibly.

For now, I treat the backpack as if it was normal - especially when I feel Rex's gaze on my back. Carl may be of interest to the Jedi, but he's no longer there, not a problem at the moment - unlike Nici and me.

Chapter Text

“Left.” Rex's voice sounds muffled, as if he's got his helmet on but it's stuck under his arm like a loaf of bread. The captain himself takes us to the empty cabins, which have been vacant since the massacre on Teth. Teth, the slaughter of the 501st. Rex lost his entire battalion there, leaving only Teth Company aka Torrent, to which Denal also belongs. I almost have a stale taste in my mouth the closer we get, and we should almost be there, because we're in the middle of “clone territory” - basic mass quarters, usually divided up for the individual units and squads. The doors are always open, showing monotonous, gray rooms with bunk beds standing close together, clones everywhere in between, mostly in blacks, but just as many in full armor. Of course, they live here, which is why we are the main attraction, almost every room has one looking straight at us.

Not surprising, the Jedi don't come here - we're not, the 501st knows theirs - and civilians three times over, this is a warship.

Occasionally I forget (but it's surreal for the little European) until someone brings me back to reality. Earlier Rex explained where we should go if there's an alarm - follow the current to the life pods, one of them will take us. If we run straight ahead long enough, we'll eventually end up in the hangar, the last option for rescue. Of course, he didn't say it quite like that, but after today he doesn't have to actually put it out there, we were there live and saw how close we were to losing the entire cruiser. In case of doubt when the alarm goes off: go into the corridor and play hitchhiker, someone will take us to the rescue pods, hopefully, because in fact they are miles away from the cabins, and Rex has refrained from giving us a “right - right - left - fourth left - straight ahead - third right - immediately left - turn once in a circle - somersault - watch out for the armored door! - Just behind it: Capsule - if you are blocked by an armored door at the fourth left, run back to the intersection and right - right - left - right again - it might still be open” briefing, understandably.

We'll never remember that, he knows Natborns well enough at this point. He's implied that he's had maps printed especially for Ahsoka and Anakin because they don't really know their way around the ship, apart from the way to their cabins, the bridge, the hangar and the canteen.

My thoughts are interrupted by a shout. “Sir, has something gone wrong on Kamino?”

The captain doesn't bat an eyelid - well, of course the shouter did it in such a way that Rex couldn't see who he was and therefore ignores him.

But I'm not Rex.

“We're from the Office of Security on Military Installations; Internal Investigations, if you'd please identify yourself and prove you're not General Grievous in a bad disguise?” Feet in the floor, turn around to the cabin - there's a guy leaning in the doorway, shaved skull, blue tattoo under his eye, I know him from somewhere. Now he's staring at me, even though I pull my ID card out of my jacket pocket with a deadly serious face and hold it under my nose for a second, only to immediately put it away again. “In the course of unlawful construction work, we check whether all the pipes are still completely leak-proof here, we don't want everyone to drown because a water pipe bursts, do we?”

Caught, apart from a “Ma'am?” he can't get a word out, which I take advantage of and take a step past him into the cabin. It's so cramped, the first bed wants to kill me before I've even crossed the threshold. I lock the thought behind my pompous face, raise my hands in the air for the appropriate gesture and turn my head back towards my conversation partner. "Trainee, my folding rule please. Well, Mr...? - ID please, and then there's a warning for obstructing technical work on top of that, if I could see your ID card now - my folding RULE, trainee, now!”

The last part, of course, is for Nici, whom you can always rely on, because she gets a construction helmet out of her backpack in a flash, puts it on her head and then hands me the folding rule.

Rex stands outside in the corridor and blinks, but we must be quite refreshing, because the corner of his mouth twitches for a second. That was a blessing, we have a free pass and look so convincing that the whole room straighten themselves to stand at attention, including my colleague, who I'm charming the birds out of the trees. “I - uh, ma'am - you...?”

“The official identification card, sir...” To make the right impression, I straighten up to my full height of under one meter seventy and jut my chin forward belligerently, “and immediately, I don't have all day, there are a lot of pipes here that aren't quite leak-proof!”

Mh. There are no pipes in the room, that's unfortunate. Anyway, I unfold the yardstick regardless, while the poor guy in front of me has no idea what I want from him and looks to his captain for help, but Rex pretends not to see him. Haha. There's a rustle next to me as Nici opens a blueprint that she must have taken from the magic rucksack - except, it's a Playmobil manual for the large farm. In order for this not to be obvious at first glance, she's holding it upside down. Never mind, sketch on.

“Well, trainee, if you ever want to become a state-approved pipe inspector, I advise you to locate the defective pipe and put it on the list!” I snark at her, holding the meter up to the clone in front of me, whose eyes are now fixed pleadingly on the captain.

“Yessir, Mrs. Field Marshal!” Nici gives a snappy salute at the same time with wobbling Playmobil instruction pages, clicking her heels together ready for the stage - that hurts. It does, in the same second she contorts her face in pain, opens her mouth and rubs her heels, swearing silently. No sacrifice, no prize, remember that!

Finishing measuring the clone, I whirl around to Nici and push my non-existent glasses onto my head. "Write: The patient is due to improper handling - Stop, - Is due to improper practice -, now write, trainee, you are underpaid and exploited, you can do something for that -, do it, now! Your construction helmet is crooked, do you know what that looks like -, you are a disgrace to the Office of Security on Military Installations, do you want the whole galaxy to laugh at us?

Nicis shakes her head wildly, having tucked the manual under her armpit so that she has her hands free for the college notepad and can write down dubious numerical constructs, which she crosses out just as quickly, then she hastily straightens her helmet - and promptly knocks it off. It crashes down one floor, landing at the feet of another clone standing right next to the first bed.

True to the theater's motto: “The show must go on”, Nici looks at him and points at his helmet with her pen. “Small donation please, I don't have a family to look after, but I would like golden taps in the bathroom.”

She's got me with that, we have to stop before I start laughing, therefore I resolutely unpack the important index finger. “Due to the improper practice of 'stupid sayings' in connection with the opponents 'fallen-off-the-highway', I consider you”, at this point I poke my index finger against the chest plate of the poor guy in front of me, which hurts me more than him, ”a dripping water pipe that needs to be fixed with duct tape.”

Cue Nici, but she first picks up her construction helmet - without any change - and clutches the ballpoint pen between her teeth before pulling a roll of barrier tape out of her rucksack and throwing it at my chest.

Ouch. That hurts. For all the boys - THAT HURTS MORE THAN YOURSELF FURTHER DOWN BECAUSE THERE'S A BALL OF MILK IN THERE**!

“You were supposed to barriere taped him!” she mumbles out thanks to the pen between her teeth, ”that's what you do as an inspector from the Office for... what did you say again?”

Important things, I always say importante chosas. First, let's unroll the tape. "Office of Security on Military Installations, Internal Investigations Section for the pipes.... mh. I can't find a pipe here, but I do find someone else who's out of sorts.”

Pun of the century (twice over, internal investigations and pipes!), Rex clears his throat outside in the corridor and throws me for a loop - because he's smirking.

“Enough now, come on.”

“Rex grins, item number three on the to-do list done, trainee, the confetti!”

Bad employee here, but I wouldn't have a hand free to take the confetti anyway, because I'm busy wrapping two loops of barrier tape around the outstretched hand of the clone in front of me. “The pipe here is dripping, please stop the leak so that the stupid jokes stay inside, gotcha?"

The scissors are actually handed to me without comment, even though Nici no longer has a mouth lock aka ballpoint pen, so she could speak perfectly, instead she rolls up the Playmobil instructions like a treasure map and hits me twice on the head with the thing. "Second dripping pipe found now. It's standing in front of Hardcase, diligently wrapping barrier tape around his hand - you want to turn him into a mummy, cut it off now, you giant flying camel!”

Fine, I already snip and remove the plastic tape from the roll, turn around and walk to the door. “Flying giant camel, is that the best you can come up with, you talentless cheesecracker?”

“Excuse me,” Nici says indignantly and follows me on my heels, clutching the instruction roll in her other hand like a baton, ”you should be barrierer taped, you're a danger to the general public!  Better yet, lock you up!”

“There is no prison that can hold me.” With a dramatic grumble, I raise my hands, because sufficient theatrical gestures are now required. ”Men in black. See you around, lads!”

Three minutes later we reach it, the door in the bare corridor, which looks just like all the others before it, opens with a funny hiss. Rex makes a brief waving motion into the room, but otherwise remains motionless. “There you go.”

It's a cabin filled with four triple bunk beds standing next to each other in the middle of the room, the first one less than a meter from the door, with roughly the same distance between the beds.

Straight ahead at the top of the wall is a barred ventilation shaft, and another one high up on the ceiling next to the glaringly bright but coldly lit spotlight. Otherwise, the room is empty, except for four long metal shelves running along the entire wall on the right-hand side, on which you can probably place your armor or equipment.

The whole room is cool and gray, just like the light.

“Fresher' is down the hall, just like the holo showers, but you're sharing with Commander Tano.”

Aha, never mind, problem for later. I glance into the room for a moment, then look at Rex.  “The rooms are all like this, aren't they?”

answers me. "The ones for the senior officers are smaller and have fewer beds. And the generals' and Jedi commanders' are far better equipped, plus they usually stay in the officers' mess anyway.”

Who are these dubious senior officers? But before I can ask, Nici grabs the construction helmet out of her backpack, clamps the college pad she's carrying under her arm so that she has her hands free for the folding yard and can measure the walls. “ Are we allowed to hang pictures in there?”

“Three point eight-five standard meters long, seven standard meters wide, if that helps you any.” Rex hesitates for half a second, then he seems to make a decision. “Since you're civilians, that shouldn't be a problem. The cabin isn't occupied anyway and probably won't be again.”

It's almost as if I can see them, the boys who fell on Teth. How they lived here, laughed, joked, got angry. How they were allowed to live very briefly before they were sent to a war they don't even know the reason for. Before they were shot in this war without ever being recognized as people.

Rex has a funny, sober expression on his face and looks at me from the side. “We're understaffed as far as Torrent is concerned... - This is our job, little one. It's what we were born for.”

"Shut up, Rex. Stop telling yourself that.” I dig my fingernails into the heel of my hand, it stings, it's supposed to stop me from doing stupid things. “The latter may be true, but that doesn't mean it's right.”

This time I don't get an answer from the captain, instead Rex turns to leave when Nici's astonished outburst stops him. “Wait a minute, are you telling me you guys sleep on mattresses eighty centimeters wide?”

The blonde clone stops moving, but just nods as if it is the most normal thing in the world. Meanwhile, Nici stomps out of the room like an elephant and folds the folding rule, which doesn't stop her from gesticulating wildly. “For real?!”

A confirming look from Rex, who doesn't really understand her indignation, something you clearly see in the way he looks at her.

Nici promptly looks even more belligerent, bares her teeth and clenches a fist around the folding rule. "Jojo, we'll think of a way to get the boys proper mattresses. You might as well leave those things out, it's certainly more comfortable on the slatted frame - which isn't there. The GAR is a dump, Deutsche Bahn could learn a thing or two from it!”

Rex blinks, and then blinks again. When he looks at us again, his expression is more cagey, but if he regarded us as half-accepted troublemakers before, he now looks at us with a shy look that almost resembles 'You're serious?

Before he can say anything, however, Anakin rings through and distractedly orders Rex to the bridge, which is why the Jedi immediately cuts off the com, so that only half of the last word reaches us and Rex's reply isn't even sent. That was his cue, the captain pulls his helmet over his head and nods once more in our direction. “Rations are available tomorrow at 0700 in the canteen.”

We watch as he strides down the corridor to rejoin the generals on the bridge before exchanging a long look. What a fucking day.

Chapter Text

Something bangs dully against the door. “Get up!”

“Shut up and let me sleep, dude...” Nici snarls somewhere near my head tossing noisily to the other side, and I open one eye as a test.

It's pitch black here, except for the slit of light that shimmers through under the door, which is at the other end of the room in the left-hand corner. This is not my room, nor is it my room in Erebor, because that has windows - Ah. Right.

Heavens, I'm exhausted, I first have to yawn and then pull my arm out from under my pillow in slow motion before rubbing my face. Silence, there you go - too soon, the hammering is back. If he carries on like this, the door will fly off its hinges.

"I'm coming in now. One..., two...”, short pause, a soft sigh and a: ‘That's not my job...!’, then comes the slightly delayed: 'Three!

Hm, the door is still closed, not smashed, broken open, blown up - I was prepared for anything, since I have siblings. Gradually I begin to wake up, blinking the sleep from my eyes, waiting, almost interested, for the continuation of this morning program.

Outside someone takes a deep breath and this time he really yells - it's a him, this voice is a clone, sounds like Rex and at the same time not at all, it's not Blondie, I can swear to that. “I - I'm really coming in now, if you don't want this, then...!”

Nici in bed two - we have placed the things like an 'L' - buried in such a way that you can only see individual curls peeking out of the bedding, growling like a bitten animal, and the growl becomes more intense.

The poor devil on the other side of the door decides to bang on the door again, but this time three times, resulting in a shrieked: “THE NEXT ONE WHO BANGS, DROPS INTO THE FLOOR!” from Nici - and that chases me out of bed.

By 'chase' the word is meant literally, I shoot up from my cozy bed as if I've sat down in an anthill and I'm out of my resting place so quickly that it almost knocks me down because I slip on my socks lying around on the floor.

On my way to the door - it's very quiet there now - I stumble over something, get caught on the corner of one of the other beds, something rattles quietly and then hits the floor of the ship with a roar. Good start. Almost blind and with aching elbows I stagger on, then fail at the door opening system and am just about to stare at the thing angrily - so that it gets scared and opens by itself - when the door hisses open and the light in the room goes on at the same time.

Nici's angry howl is almost drowned out by my: “Haha, I won, you little fucker!”, directed at the opening mechanism, before someone tosses around in bed. I turn my attention away from the door to the uninvited guest at our door. A clone indeed, in all white armor, helmet still on his head and hand raised to knock.

Wonderful, besides the fact that I look a certain way in the morning before I've done my hair, which is why I decide on a tactical wave. “ They're heading for the swamp monster and the exploded facecloth, the latter is back there...”, I have to yawn, interrupting my waving attempts to indicate Nici's position, ”Morning. You've really got the shittiest job of all... what's going on, is Obi-Wan's beard on fire or has Anakin pinched his finger into R2 and can't get it out - In that case, I've got a great idea, but I need to get my daggers...”

The clone doesn't say a word, stares at me and then at the one behind me, now brightly lit.

Yeah, we've done a bit of rearranging, moved the bed frames and replaced them with beanbags on the left side of the walls. Our own beds are placed like an 'L' in the other corner, on the metal boards on the wall where Nici's bed is now - she's still in there too, judging by the blanket, because that's all you can see of her - we've left them in, but divided them off with books and games and everyday items (clothes). Who knows how long we'll stay here, but a bit of coziness is allowed. All in all, you can definitely live better here than in the things that GAR calls 'cabins'.

Once again, I yawn and point awkwardly - I've definitely curled up during the night - to an undefined destination behind me. “Anyway - come in, it's not an emergency, is it?”

Very slowly, he shakes his head and takes off his helmet in slow motion, revealing blue tattoos that literally glow from his terracotta-colored skin.

That's my buddy from last night. My brain works this time and spits out the name: Hardcase.

His armor does not yet have the pretty symmetrical stripes along the torso, to be precise he is still completely white - looks like he is still waiting for the paint, because he is no longer a shiny one, as can be clearly seen from various abrasions on the plastoid of the armor plates.

In the back, Nici growls in rage again, then throws a pillow towards the door on the off chance. It would have landed on the floor if Hardcase hadn't reached out in a flash and caught it out of the air.

Props to him. He receives an appreciative nod from me before I grab my loose hair out of my face - turning it into an ugly knot at the back of my neck for now until I get my hairbrush. ” Good catch. Keep it as a trophy.”

Hardcase, usually not one to mince his words, looks at me perplexed, then gently strokes the pink fluffy cushion with his hand. “Ma'am, are you serious...?”

"Please call me Jojo, also known as Swamp Monster, because that's what I look like at the moment. In consideration of our chat yesterday, where's your wristband? I made such an effort!”

“Jojo, shut your mouth, people are trying to sleep here!” Nici yells from her bed, her voice rising to a half-screech in the last sentence, the kind she used to use to fuck with the elves.

“You do sound very awake, get up now, I'll even make you a coffee - do you want some?” Yawning again, I put my hand over my mouth before Hardcase sees my braces and wave him over with my other hand. “Have a seat, Sir.”

He does indeed, drops onto one of the rearranged beds, converted into a sofa and positioned alongside the door. Meanwhile, I walk a meter further and plug in my Seneso, fishing three cups out of the box next to it. For Hardcase there's the one I designed myself, with the inscription 'I am crazy, mad, insane & love my brain' and the 'Beast in Black' logo, somehow fitting, Nici gets hers with the picture of Legolas trying to change a light bulb together with Kíli and Fíli and just falling down in the photo, and for me my Iron Maiden mug.

There's a stirring in the back, Nici throws back the covers and trudges up to us in the front, an exciting bird's nest on her head, looking at Hardcase with the ultimate 'I'll-pull-your-skin-into-stripes-and-make-a-damn-bacon-out-of-it-that-will-fit-you-pig-how-can-you-dare-me-to-awake-you-I'll-make-sure-you-die-an-extremely-painful-death! ' - look.

Because she's barefoot, she swears something about: “Filthy fucking engineers, these shitheads, underfloor heating would be one thing, or at least no metal to freeze my feet to!”, then pulls the basket of socks out from under the beds pushed up against the wall to grab a pair.

Meanwhile, the machine is loudly filling the first two cups, both of which I take and return to Hardcase. Well, Nici's right with her tirade, my feet are cold, eww. She should also give me socks, after all, she's just putting on her first one.

“Hey, I can have a pair of socks too, thanks.”

The: “Knit yourself some!” comes with the speed of an attacking viper, somebody's obviously not in a bad mood, on the other hand Nici is never useful before her first coffee, a fact I know. Her coffee is coming, first deliver Hardcase's cup. He still has the pink cuddly cushion on his lap, takes the mug, hesitates for half a second.

"Thanks, ma'... Jojo.”

At the same moment, a sock hits me on the back of the head, the second one whizzes past us and out of the open door. Maybe Nici is grumpy at the moment, but she's still looking after my well-being.

“Thank you, sweetheart.” Sighing, I pick one sock from the floor and then the second from the aisle before putting them on, standing on one leg at a time, or else my toes will turn into icicles.

Nici just grumbles something vague to herself before coming to us with a coffee cup and cushion in her hand, throwing the cushion down and sitting on it so quickly that the coffee spills over - it should, but Nici has worked with elves and is able to balance the cup with such speed that only a small drop runs over the edge.

In return, it gets at least as evil a stare as Thorin gives Smaug.

I occupy the seat right next to the door by the bed next to Hardcase, who takes a sip after discreetly examining the cup.

“It's after 0700, sirs,” taking another sip from his cup, ”The captain sent me to fetch you for dinner - and you'll get a cup of kaf too, but I suppose you got your own."

“We're on first name terms, Hardcase, otherwise I'll call you 'Duke of Underpants', your choice,” mumbles Nici audibly into the cup, both hands closed around the ceramic mug.

“Good idea, I'll make the crown,” Kneeling down on the bed, I stretch out and grab the construction helmet from the frame behind it. "That'll do for now, eh? If we put a pair of boxer shorts over it, Carl can ask for one...?”

Nici makes a half-approving, half-defensive head movement. "If you tie a bow around it and put glitter on it. Boy, I'm tired, we've hardly slept...”

This is also supported by the circles under her eyes, I don't even want to know what I look like, hers are already heading in the direction of a half-sided blue eye. “Well, we could pour an energy drink into your coffee, that will wake you up.”

The only response is a grunt before she dips her little finger into the coffee to avoid burning her tongue. “Let's try this on Anakin."

“Nah, Obi-Wan!”

However, they are not there, but an overtired Nici, for whom I organize a can of Monster from my rucksack, exchange the can for a bottle of vodka after a moment's thought, return to Nici and pour a good shot into her cup. “Here you go, it tastes like shit, but it'll wake you up and you'll be able to see noises.”

Normally I should be hearing something about how disgusting this is, except that Nici is tired, meaning she eyes the cup suspiciously for a moment, without saying anything. Right, back to the real problems, while her main processor boots up, I turn to Hardcase, who is clearly enjoying his coffee.

“So... should we go to the canteen and then to someone or just the canteen and they'll shout if they want something from us?”

"To the canteen, ma - Jojo. To eat.”

Taking a deep breath, Nici empties her cup - either she doesn't feel the heat or she doesn't care anymore - and puts it on the floor next to her so that she has her hands free to rub her eyes. “Eat first, I can live with that. Then I'll go back to bed.”

“Um,” I say, sitting down next to Hardcase and picking up my cup, ”you've just had coffee with vodka, that won't quite work.”

A justified objection, causing Nici to pause before standing up briskly. “Right, let's go and get dressed then - give us five minutes, do you want cookies for the wait?”