Chapter Two
The moment that Lantash brought their commandeered Al'kesh out of hyperspace near the planet that was to be their temporary home – while they repaired the ship – Elliot found himself gripped by a profound sense of déjà vu. The planet below was eerily familiar, like he had definitely seen it somewhere before especially given it had two moons and orbited twin suns. Yet he couldn't place where exactly he had seen this place before.
"You may have seen it in some of the SGC's mission reports," Lantash commented sensing his hosts confusion and immediately realizing the reason for it. "There are quite a few planets like this in our own galaxy after all. For some reason they tend to be where the largest deposits of high grade naquada ore can be found."
"Perhaps," Elliot agreed, "during the training and familiarisation lectures for Stargate Command we were shown a lot of the mission reports. Still, I wish I knew where exactly I've seen this place before, it's like its there in my mind but I cannot quite place it."
"It can be quite vexing when its like that," Lantash agreed knowing from experience what that was like, it especially happened when something bubbled up from his genetic memories inherited from Queen Egeria and the others in her genetic lineage and not something he had experienced himself.
"To quote a certain Jaffa we both know indeed."
Lantash chuckled slightly especially as Elliot perfectly mimicked the deadpan voice that Teal'c used whenever he said that word. Then he turned his attention to the sensors and ran a scan of the dustbowl of a planet below searching for somewhere, anywhere, suitable for them to land where they wouldn't attract attention from anyone. After all they had quite a bit of work to do to repair the Al'kesh after they'd gotten hurled into this galaxy, once that was done, they would have to start figuring out just what they were going to do now as the Al'kesh certainly wouldn't be capable of getting either of them back to their own galaxy in any reasonable timeframe.
The first scan results came back almost immediately confirming that the planet below was indeed a fully desert world with no surface water anywhere to be found beyond small amounts of vapour in the atmosphere. Though strangely sensors were confirming sizeable bodies of fresh water beneath the surface – and not just in aquafers but actual lakes and oceans of both fresh and saline water. With the shallowest being only about a hundred and fifty meters beneath the surface of the planet not far from a large settlement that seemed to be primarily a spaceport. Yet there was no sign of anyone drilling down to the water to extract it.
"That's weird," Elliot commented, "even on Earth in the desert regions we drill down to the aquafers at the very least in order to get at the water. Yeah, it's often hot and contaminated with elements leached from the surrounding rock but both those problems are relatively easily fixed."
"It is strange."
A sudden proximity warning from the sensors caught his attention. He glanced at them to see a small object; a spacecraft of some type was coming out of deep space trailing streams of particle exhaust similar to those produced by Serrakin ion engines. It was also on a course that would see it collide with them in less than two minutes unless he adjusted course. Which he quickly did taking the ship straight up by ten thousand metres giving the incoming vessel plenty of clearance to pass beneath their still cloaked vessel.
A few moments later the vessel passed beneath them. It was a very sleek and elegant looking ship, plated with something similar to chrome that made it gleam like a mirror. It was being propelled by two cylindrical engines that glowed with soft blue light that were located on the edges of its sleek wing shape. From the wave of shock and incredulity that suddenly came from his host it was clear that it was also a ship that Elliot somehow recognised.
"That's impossible!!" Elliot exclaimed, "how can that be real!"
"You recognise it?" Lantash asked as confused as his host seemed to be by the fact that Elliot actually seemed to recognise the vessel. Especially given that to the best of his knowledge the Tau'ri had never been outside their own galaxy especially since they were limited to using the Stargates for interstellar travel.
"Yeah, it's the royal starship of the elected queen of a planet called Naboo," Elliot explained, "it's fictional from The Phantom Menace. The first of a new trilogy of Star Wars films that George Lucas is making now."
"How can Star Wars be real?" Lantash questioned as he was quite familiar with the concept of Star Wars given all the times that Martouf and he had interacted with the Tau'ri in the past. Plus, Jacob, after being blended with Selmac, had been kind enough to fill them in on the idea behind science fiction shows and movies like Star Trek, Star Wars and so on. It had given the High Council quite a few intriguing insights into the culture and mindset of the Tau'ri nation state that had control over their planets Stargate.
"I don't know… unless."
"What?"
"Unless George Lucas is Force sensitive and saw all this in a vision of some type," Elliot speculated though he sounded uncertain, "well its either that or we were hurled into another universe as well as being catapulted clear into another galaxy by the Goa'uld weapons fire hitting our hyperspace window."
"Well, we can check that," Lantash commented instructing the sensors to scan the local space-time strata and determine what its quantum resonance frequency was. Somehow neither of them was surprised when it came back as being exactly the same as their own resonance frequency. They were not in another universe; this was still their own reality.
Which meant that for the two of them the world had just been turned completely upside down. As if Star Wars was real, if the events depicted in the movies were destined to take place in this galaxy at some point in the future, then that meant that things like the Force was real as well. Something that was beyond shocking to both host and symbiote as it meant that reality was stranger than anyone had ever believed to be possible.
Though it also presented them both with something of a dilemma. Thanks to the works of Mr Lucas, which had certainly been influenced by the Force assuming it existed in their native galaxy which they could not rule out, they knew what was going to happen to this galaxy in a few decades at the most. How an Empire, ruled by a being, as one could not really call Palpatine a man, so cruel and evil that he would give the likes of Anubis and Sokar a run for their money in the general evil and vindictive cruelty departments, would rise to dominate the galaxy. How said Empire would commit crimes so heinous that even the vilest and most ruthless of Goa'uld System Lords would be horrified. How entire worlds would be destroyed, and countless billions killed or displaced before the Empire would be defeated at the Battle of Endor and the Sith Lord behind it all killed.
"What do we do?" Elliot asked, "do we just sit on the sidelines so to speak and let Darth Sidious destroy the Galactic Republic and build his Empire? Or do we take some action to try and stop him."
"I have no idea," Lantash answered, "this is a quite unprecedented situation, certainly nothing I've heard about or experienced over the last three thousand years has been anything like this. It is obvious that Darth Sidious or Sheev Palpatine are evil in a way that few Goa'uld ever are and have to be stopped. But how we go about doing that. I don't know."
"Telling the Jedi straight out is out. They'd never believe us especially since at the moment they believe that the Sith were destroyed a thousand years ago when the Brotherhood of Darkness was defeated after a thousand-year long war," Elliot agreed, instantly sensing a burst of shock from Lantash at the length of time the galaxy had been in active warfare so long ago. "However, before we do anything we should land and fix the ship."
"Good point."
With the discussion firmly settled, for now at least as they had more immediate concerns like fixing their damaged ship, Lantash turned his attention to finding a suitable landing site on the planet below. A planet that information pushed his way by Elliot he now knew to be called Tatooine. He noted that the Naboo vessel had landed on a vast salt pan that long ago would have been a lakebed some distance from the outskirts of one of the main settlements.
Not that far away, inside a vast cliff he spotted a perfect location for them. A large cave in a granite outcrop that was sheltered from the prevailing direction of the wind. The entrance was just big enough for the Al'kesh to enter and high enough off the floor of the desert that they were most unlikely to get any unexpected, unwelcome visitors.
"What do you think?" he asked knowing that from the movies – as hard as it was to realize that Star Wars was actually real – that his host would have a much better idea of where was safe on this planet and where wasn't than he himself had.
"Looks good. Quite secluded and hard to get to should let us do our repairs without any unexpected visitors, like the Tusken Raiders or one of the minions of Jabba the Hutt – a giant slug-like crime lord who runs this dustbowl of a planet - dropping in. While I don't doubt that we could deal with them they are a complication that we could well do without."
Mentally projecting his agreement Lantash turned his attention to taking the Al'kesh down into the atmosphere, choosing the correct angle to enter the atmosphere without unduly stressing the cloaking device and potentially leading to someone detecting them from the atmospheric disturbance if nothing else. The bomber began shaking slightly with turbulence as it headed down but a few taps of different crystals, diverting some spare power to the inertial dampeners and flight stabilization systems quickly eliminated that particular problem giving them a smooth ride down.
They were soon gliding over the sand dunes, stone mesas and salt pans that covered the whole surface of Tatooine. After a few minutes of flying, they passed over the landed Naboo vessel, its hull gleaming brilliantly under the dual rain of photons from the systems suns, and both noted three individuals leaving the ship and beginning to walk across the desert surface towards a settlement about half a kilometre to the west of them. The flash of recognition that came from Elliot didn't surprise Lantash.
"Who are they?" he asked curious.
"Well, if this is anything like the movie that trio will be Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn, an extremely annoying alien called Jar-Jar Binks who has to be one of the clumsiest people in creation and Queen Amidala pretending to be one of her own handmaidens and using her given name of Padme. They'll be on their way to a settlement called Mos Espa to acquire replacement parts for their version of a hyperdrive that was damaged by weapons fire from Trade Federation battleships during their escape from Naboo. In the process will meet both the future saviour and scourge of the galaxy in a nine-year-old boy called Anakin Skywalker. Who is currently a slave owned by an alien called Watto."
"It would be interesting to see how much matches up to the movie."
"It would but first we should fix the ship. Qui-Gon and co won't be going anywhere for a while as Watto won't accept Republic credits and Jedi telepathic tricks don't work on his species, the Toydarians. So, Qui-Gon won't be able to just use the Force to ensure his compliance with what he wants."
Lantash sensed some disapproval from his host as he said about Qui-Gons use of telepathic tricks to get his way, and some delight that he wouldn't be able to do that here. He had to wonder why that was but decided that that was a conversation for another time. "They're going to be in for some difficulties then?"
"Yes. Qui-Gon seems to have the same knack for finding and getting into trouble that SG-1 does. Thus, we have plenty of time to do our repairs before we have to decide what to do next."
"Martouf and I both noticed that they have what do you call it a trouble magnet attached to them. But you are right we'll do our repairs before we decide what to do about Qui-Gon and co if we do anything."
A crystalline chirp from the console brought an end to their discussion. Lantash looked to see what had caused the alert and noted that it was from the navigational computer. They were coming up on their chosen destination. As a result, he reduced his airspeed down to virtually zero and began carefully searching for the mouth of the cave chosen to be their temporary sanctuary.
After a couple of moments, he found it and carefully began guiding the Al'kesh inside. There was a fairly short tunnel leading to the cave, a tunnel that from the looks of it had been carved out of a softer seam of rock by a long since vanished river, leaving just the impermeable and extremely hard wearing – in the way it was – granite walls and floor. Eventually the tunnel gave way to a vast stone cavern that was in complete darkness, not that that was hardship for either of them. The Al'kesh had external lifts if they needed them, not to mention it would be very easy to deploy some self-powering light crystals should the need arise.
Lantash set the bomber down in the centre of the vast cavern and powered down all but essential systems, including deactivating the cloaking device to reduce the requirement on the naquada reactor to minimal levels. Though he left the sensors powered up just in case someone or something nasty decided to try sneaking up on them. Then he stood up and headed back and down a level to where the engineering bay, and with it all the ships vital control crystal circuits, were located.
It was time to get to work.
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Naboo Royal Starship
A Few Minutes Earlier
Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn was puzzled as, accompanied by Jar-Jar Binks who was insisting he had to come with him to properly honour his life-debt and Padme, he slowly made his way across the desert floor towards the closest settlement. They had just left the ship when he had sensed something unusual pass nearby, in fact pass directly over their heads, yet they had not seen or heard anything. But he knew something had happened, that something had been there he could feel it in the Force.
It was the second time he had felt the odd presence, a presence that felt like two beings and yet one at the same time, nearby. The first had been just after they'd come out of hyperspace and began cruising at maximum sublight towards this desert world. As they'd been cruising, he had sensed the presence near them, as had Obi-Wan in point of fact. Both himself and his padawan exchanging a few seconds of confused telepathic chatter especially as nobody else on the ship had seen anything. Nor had the ships sensors, which could mean a number of different things. Though to his mind the most likely scenario was that someone out there was using a cloaking device of some type, a very advanced one if it could work properly inside the atmosphere as most cloaks couldn't even when using the best cloaking crystals, but the question was who and why were they interested in them as the overflight clearly indicated that they were.
Something that was deeply concerning.
"Are you alright Master Jedi," Padme asked seeing a concerned look momentarily pass across Qui-Gons face.
"I am fine," Qui-Gon replied even as he looked slightly shrewdly at the 'handmaiden'. He knew that she was no handmaid but was in fact Queen Amidala herself just having devested herself of the elaborate robes and makeup of her office – revealing the very beautiful young woman underneath. Though he had not said that he knew, he would spring that surprise on her sometime in the future when it was advantageous to let the young, elected Nubian queen know that it took far more than a simple change of appearance to fool a Jedi's Force senses. For some reason non-Force sensitives always forgot that Jedi, and indeed any Force user as despite what the High Council liked to preach the Jedi weren't the only Force users in the galaxy far from it in point of fact, could see with far more than just their eyes.
"You don't look fine," Padme pointed out.
Qui-Gon mentally sighed, guessing quite correctly that Padme would not stop asking questions until he told her what was bothering him. "It's just a disturbance in the Force," he answered before explaining exactly what he meant and what he and Obi-Wan had both sensed when they'd first been making their approach to this dust ball of a planet and what he had just sensed as the same odd dual presence appeared again overflying them a few moments ago without any sign that there was anything there.
When he was done Padme was frowning, so was their Gungan companion. "Could it be a cloaking device of some type," she asked.
"Possibly though it would have to be an extremely advanced, and thus very expensive, one to not produce any visible disturbance in the air when inside a planetary atmosphere," he pointed out, "I could probably count on one hand how many such cloaking devices there are in the galaxy as the crystals you need to power a cloak that advanced are extremely hard to find in sufficient quantities in modern times. Certainly, none of them would be anywhere near a planet like this."
"Are we in danger," Padme asked instantly wondering if the cloaked ship, if that's what it was, and its pilot were some kind of scout for the Trade Federation as she knew that the Neimoidians would have their minions out looking for them as a matter of urgency. Looking to find them, find her, and bring her back to Naboo before she could testify before the Senate on the invasion and force her to sign a treaty legitimising their military occupation of her planet. "Should we leave and find another planet?"
"I do not believe so," Qui-Gon admitted as he had sensed no malice in the presence, for the brief time he had been aware of it. Surprise and confusion yes but no malice. "Even if whoever or whatever it is meant us harm, we would not be able to leave this planet until we get the new parts since the hyperdrive core is completely non-functional."
Padme grimaced slightly but nodded in understanding. While she had been getting changed Captain Panaka had told her of the extent of the damage that their hyperdrive had sustained during the quite harrowing escape from Naboo. Thus, she knew that the hyperdrive core was not just non-functional but was in fact completely fried as the result of a coolant leak that had not been able to be fully locked down resulting in the core getting dangerously hot. Eventually critical components had gotten too hot and melted rendering the core inoperable and thus they were very much trapped here until they could acquire a new core. As unlike most other starships travelling the galaxies space lanes her royal starship lacked a backup hyperdrive. An oversight that she would have to get corrected at some point.
"We will have to be on our guard," she said at last.
"And we will be," Qui-Gon replied with a smile of reassurance. He fully intended to be completely on his guard here on Tatooine as like many worlds that were either in, or were like this planet, on the border of Hutt space could be wretched hives of scum and villainy. Which also made it a perfect hiding place for them while they got the parts and repaired their ship as the Trade Federation would never expect them to bring someone like Queen Amidala here. Though even if they did the Neimoidians would hesitate to do anything about it as the very last thing they would want would be trouble with the Hutts.
"Tell me about this planet Master Jedi," Padme said changing the subject as they continued walking, "Captain Panaka told the Queen that it is controlled by the Hutts."
"It is," Qui-Gon confirmed, "technically Tatooine is in Republic space, but the Hutt Cartel has controlled this planet for millennia with the current ruling Jabba the Hutt having reigned here for centuries."
"I cannot believe that the Senate would allow the Hutts to control a planet in Republic space."
"They allow it because it is not worth getting into a fight with the Hutts over," Qui-Gon explained, "while they are mostly gangsters in this day and age the Hutt Empire is very old and remains potentially extremely powerful. Contesting control of Tatooine with them is thus potentially far more trouble than it is worth, I don't agree with it and neither does most the Jedi High Council but unfortunately there is very little we can do about it. The most we can do is keep an eye on things and ensure that the criminal activity doesn't get too out of hand.
"Though do not assume that everyone on this planet is involved in one or other of the Hutts criminal enterprises," he continued as they continued across the desert. The settlement of Mos Espa was visible in the distance, shimmering and rippling in the heat haze. "Most of the people here are not."
"I understand," Padme acknowledged, it was good advice never to make assumptions about the population of an entire planet. "What do most of the people here do might I ask?"
"Moisture farmers mostly," Qui-Gon answered pointing off to the right where they could see a line of white mechanical devices. Devices that they all recognised as moisture vaporators as they were used in some of the more arid regions of Naboo as while it was a temperate planet it did have some desert and scrubland regions, most planets did. "And a few isolated settlements and spaceports like the one we are heading for. Most of the people here either don't want to be bothered, or don't want to be found by anyone."
"Like we don't want to be found?"
"Indeed."
Padme lapsed into silence as they continued walking across the scorching desert. Eventually the endless sea of sand and rock gave way to small, squat white buildings as they reached the outskirts of Mos Espa. There wasn't much activity out here but as they moved deeper into the city, they began to see more activity, with sentient beings of all manner as well as droids and lizard-like beasts of burden all going about their daily business. For such a harsh planet it was a deceptively normal scene, one that you could see repeated all over the galaxy.
Following the direction of the Force Qui-Gon led them towards a slightly more industrial sector of the settlement next to the spaceport. Here there were numerous shops all advertising for everything that starship crews could need from food supplies to spare parts.
"Now what," Padme asked looking at all the shops and wondering just where the hell they were going to start.
"We will try one of the smaller dealers. Less chance of someone untoward causing us problems there." Padme nodded in agreement, and they began walking towards a somewhat shabby looking shop…
… a shop called Watto's space supplies.
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Authors Notes: Well, another chapter bites the metaphorical dust, I hope you all enjoyed it. Well both sets of protagonists are now on Tatooine and what happens next should be quite interesting, especially as when Maul shows up and sets off after the Jedi Elliot and Lantash will have a very interesting opportunity to gain something that could let them seriously derail the plans of the Sith – if they could get it into the right hands. Until next time.
