Star Wars: Journey to The Force Awakens: All Creatures Great and Small (4 page)

T
HE ENTIRE
Death Star seemed to shake. It was as if a small group of fighters was bombing the surface of the space station. Lights flickered, sparks flew, and panels opened of their own accord—including the one in the trash compactor.

Qyp wasted no time, darting in and grabbing the terrified Mideyean moments before something massive and monstrous—a slimy creature with a single eye—rose
from the wet depths of the compactor and tried to snatch the slitherette.

Returned to safety, Mideyean gasped for breath, conveying as best she could the danger the station posed to an innocent world.

The station shook again. Whatever was happening outside was getting quite serious.

Rushing back to the janitor’s closet, the team of animals found Bobbajo waiting, his face showing not
the slightest hint of concern.

“Well then…” the Nu-Cosian said. “I guess…we will have to blow up the Death Star then. Hmmm…”

There was a quick round of discussion, and within moments it was agreed: there was no time to wait and no reason to return to hiding. The plan to create chaos had to be shelved in favor of a new strategy: to jam the Death Star’s main superlaser cannon and make it
backfire. Luckily, the path to the cannon was nearby. The question was, could the animals reach the necessary systems in time to stop the planet-smashing superlaser from firing?

And as the great station rocked and shook from outside explosions, the three animals rushed to make the insides explode, as well.

T
HE LONG-FACED
Chevin shook his giant head incredulously. “Wait a minute,” he said. “I know this story! It’s in all the history holos! The Battle of Yavin! But there is no way you were there or that these…these animals of yours—”

The bald Bith growled at the Chevin. “Let him tell the story,” Arek said. “It’s a good story!”

Bobbajo nodded to the Bith and continued speaking.

“Lucky…for
the snee…”

L
UCKY FOR
the snee, the slitherette, and the thwip, the chaos of the space battle outside commanded all the attention of the interior patrols, and the three animals managed to reach the small maintenance shaft that housed the superlaser’s firing mechanisms.

Unluckily, however, the relevant systems were far too large for any of the tiny animals, even working together, to disrupt. Something
else was needed…something with offensive weaponry. Something…

Something exactly like the small but dangerous security probe droid advancing toward the animals right at that moment.

Mideyean moved quickly, striking the miniature probe and wrapping herself around it. Qyp darted back and forth, presenting a target for the confused droid. It fired somewhat wildly, its aim thrown off by the
squirming slitherette clutching it. The probe’s errant lasers missed the snee but struck key points in the heavily bolted access panel, and it fell open with a clang. Smeep leaped inside and used all six of her feet to pry at the exposed cables, ripping them out with a shower of sparks. The crystal computer core that regulated energy input and output was suddenly vulnerable. Still clinging to the
probe droid, Mideyean aimed it toward the core while the snee pecked at the droid’s casing.

In a furious discharge of energy, the droid unleashed a full volley of blaster bolts at the thwip, but it was too late, as Smeep had already easily dodged the blasts. Instead, the blaster fire struck the crystal computer core, which instantly shattered and exploded with an energy that the three desperate
animals were barely able to escape.

Climbing back to the corridors, the three creatures knew they had done all they could. The Death Star’s primary superlaser would no longer fire. Or more to the point, when it did, the entire station would explode.

It was definitely time to go.

B
ACK IN
the makeshift prison, Bobbajo paused in his telling of the story. Outside the town hall where the citizens of Reestkii were being held captive, everything went abruptly quiet. No one noticed though. Everyone—children and adults alike—was listening to the Nu-Cosian’s thrilling tale.

T
HE ANIMALS
returned to the Death Star’s storage closet, where Bobbajo had remained safely hidden. Calm as ever, the Nu-Cosian spoke in his usual slow voice. “You have been…busy…my friends,” Bobbajo said. Qyp the snee bobbed and weaved excitedly in the air while Mideyean the slitherette coiled around Bobbajo’s arm in a friendly greeting. Smeep the thwip stamped all six of her tiny feet excitedly.

“Ahhh…” mused Bobbajo, somehow—almost magically—knowing what they meant and understanding their story. “I see…I see….” The Nu-Cosian stroked his long white beard. “Then perhaps we had best…leave this place.”

Without too much more adventure or danger, the group traveled to the escape pod bay and launched themselves from the Death Star and into the depths of space. Through the pod’s tiny
window, they could see the great battle transpiring around them. TIE fighters and X-wings danced back and forth in a display of action and violence never before seen.

The pod blasted past another ship, a disk-shaped freighter—the same one that had escaped the Death Star earlier. It flew quickly past, failing to notice the jettisoned pod, and fired at a set of particularly nasty-looking TIE
fighters flying through the space station’s meridian trench.

Even from where they sat, Bobbajo and his tiny animal friends could see the distant glow of the Death Star’s superlaser as it began to power up. It would happen soon.

Any moment now…

The firing sequence had begun. The Death Star was about to destroy a helpless planet. But deep within the space station, where no one could
see, a small regulator failed to divert the deadly energy to its proper destination, and instead of vaporizing the planet below, the great gun misfired—turning its world-shattering weapon inward and ripping the Death Star apart. All that was left was a shower of glowing embers, quickly fading away into the darkness of space.

The evil that the Empire had constructed to terrorize the galaxy
was no more, thanks to the invisible efforts of Bobbajo’s tiny friends: the unsung heroes of Yavin.

W
ITH A TINY
bow of his head, Bobbajo fini
shed his impossible tale. The awestruck children of Reestkii sat with their mouths agape and their eyes wide. After a moment of reverent silence, they jumped up and cheered.

The adult citizens moved in to have a quiet conversation with the Nu-Cosian. Jol Bengim was the first to speak. “Look…I appreciate you keeping the children calm. That was the
right thing to do. And I admit…it was a good story….” The Chevin spoke confidentially.

“But we all know that’s not what happened!” interjected Xavi Brightsun. “The Death Star was destroyed by the Rebel Alliance! They blasted it through a vent with torpedoes! They had a Jedi and everything!”

Thaddeeus Marien paced the room, gesturing wildly. “And that was decades ago! It’s ancient history!
There’s no way you could have been there!”

Bobbajo smiled. “History…is an interesting thing. We know only…the versions we are told. It does not mean…that there are not…other truths.”

P’nll Vun shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. It was a fun diversion but…there are no fabulous magical pets to save us. There’s no story you can tell that will keep the slavers from taking us away.”

Bobbajo
shrugged at the Nautolan and began shuffling slowly toward the great doors of the main hall.

“Wait!” yelled Xavi Brightsun. “You can’t go out there! You’ll be killed!”

Bobbajo ignored the warning, ambling to the door and gently pushing it with one hand. The door swung open easily, and outside the pirates were…

Defeated. Or more specifically, beaten and unconscious. The citizens poured
out of the town hall, shocked expressions on their faces. The catlike slavers’ vehicle was a smoldering ruin. A pair of slavers, barely visible, was buried under a pile of heavy crates that had previously been safely stacked. Another one slumped and fell from a rooftop, unconscious before hitting the ground.

It was over. The slavers were defeated, and the only apparent defenders that could
have accomplished that…?

Out from the wreckage and chaos of the slavers’ defeat they came. The fluffy pishnes waddled up to Bobbajo and nuzzled his legs. The Nu-Cosian reached down and petted each of them. The gwerps hopped out of the shadows and bounced happily up Bobbajo’s back while the bulbous lonlan drifted down to greet everyone, floating lazily in the breeze as it did in its semi-inflated
form. One by one, the animals happily took their places in Bobbajo’s crates, cages, and coops. Even J’Rrosch hopped out of the shadows, looking grumpier than ever.

The people of Reestkii searched all over their small village, but they could find no one else. Only more unconscious and defeated slavers…

…and the chests full of riches they had plundered from across the galaxy. Treasures that
the citizens of Reestkii could claim for themselves.

As Bobbajo hoisted the elaborate arrangement of cages onto his back, the people of Reestkii stared in wonder at the Nu-Cosian and his menagerie.

“But…how…?” said Thaddeeus. “They’re just animals. And they…Did they…?”

Jol Bengim’s giant mouth opened and closed wordlessly in shock. P’nll Vun managed to speak. “It was all…everything
you told us about the Death Star…But it was just a story. Right? Your animals…these animals…they couldn’t do something like that….Could they?”

“It was just a story…” P’nll repeated.

Bobbajo smiled. “Of course…it was,” he said. “But stories…they are powerful things. Never…discount their…strength.”

Then the Nu-Cosian began his leisurely amble out of the tiny town, in search of the next
story to tell.