Field Trip

By Star Otaku and Becker Wein

Send comments or rants to [email protected] or [email protected]

Disclaimer: Becker owns Rebecca and Star owns Roxanne. Everyone else owns him or herself, except for the Star Wars characters. They belong to a. George Lucas or b. whoever came up with them. All stores and restaurants are owned by, well, not us. And we apologize to Allanis Morrisette, because we really do like your music.

Basically all the places mentioned on Earth are in Edmonton, Alberta Canada. The City of Champions! J

A ginormous (really big) thank you to Ashley, Mandi, and Stephanie for letting us use you names! J

Authors’ note: Takes place sometime around the Hand of Thrawn books. May contain spoilers (although Becker hasn’t finished reading them yet, so we’re not sure).

Dramatis Persone

Terran Delegation

Roxanne DelValle (human female from Earth)

Rebecca McKee (human female from Earth)

Stephanie Carvalho (human female from Earth)

Mandi Blanchette (human female from Earth)

Ashley Iwoskow (human female from Earth)

Wraith Squadron

Colonel Garik ‘Face’ Loran (human male from Pantolomin)

Lieutenant Dia Passik (Twi’lek female from Ryloth)

Captain Kell Tainer (human male from Sluis Van)

Lieutenant Tyria Sarkin (human female from Toprawa)

Major Voort ‘Piggy’ saBinring (Gamorrean male from Gamorr)

Lieutenant Hohass ‘Runt’ Ekwesh (Thakwaash male from Thakwaa)

Lieutenant Kolot ‘Kettch’ (Ewok male from Endor)

Kirney Slane (human female from Corellia)

PART ONE

"We’re coming up on the third planet, Face."

"Great, Kettch," Colonel Face Loran answered the Ewok. "Where are we landing?" he asked Kirney Slane.

"Northwestern continent, northwestern side," the red haired Corellian women answered.

Kell let out short laugh. "Is there a reason or are you just in a northwestern mood?" he asked.

Kirney lightly slapped him. "The area has what passes for high tech on this planet, plus one of the lowest population per square kilometer for their technology."

Runt looked up from his comm display grinning. "I’m picking up radio signals from the planet. Should I put them on?" Without waiting for an answer, he put the signal on speaker. The occupants of the Lambda-class shuttle were assaulted by a screeching voice:

‘And I here to remind you, of the mess you left when you went away. It’s not fair to deny mind me, of the cross I bear that you gave to me. You, you, you oughtta knew!’

At the cries from the rest of the Wraiths, Runt turned off the speaker; after he had let them suffer a bit. By the time he shut it off, the shuttle was landing.

Tyria Sarkin whispered to Kell on their way out, "I’m a little afraid of this world already."

"I can’t believe Mr. Fiacco would keep us in so long! What a jerk!" cried Mandi to her friends, Ashley, Roxanne, Rebecca, and Stephanie. All the girls had been kept after school to discuss their dropping marks in the Math Accelerated Program that their school offered.

"I know. All the buses have left. How are we supposed to get home now?" Ashley asked.

"We can take the ETS, but it doesn’t come for half an hour," said Rebecca. "Let’s wait in the field, since no one’s around to care." To herself, she added, "So far, grade nine sucks!" Everyone nodded in agreement to both her statements, so they started their way over to the field.

Roxanne looked down dismally at her backpack. It looked almost inflated in was so full. "Can one of you guys help me?" she asked.

Stephanie was looking confused, as she could not see the situation, so Rebecca explained the predicament to her. Stephanie laughed and asked, "What do you have in there? Your locker?"

"Um, sort of. It’s just the books for my homework."

"More like a library!"

The five of them walked into the field, and soon saw a triangular-shaped ship, beginning to land in on the grass. It had a fin-like wing at each corner, the bottom two of which were folding up.

"I’m either more insane than I thought, or that’s a Lambda-class shuttle," Rebecca mumbled.

"It’s a Lambda," Roxanne replied.

"What the hell’s a Lambda-class whatever?" Mandi asked.

Stephanie was getting confused again. "What are we talking about?" she asked.

"It looks like something from Star Wars," Ashley mentioned.

"It is!" Roxanne cried. "Hey, look. There’s someone coming out."

The hatch at the shuttle’s bottom opened up, and a handsome, brown-haired man stepped out. He looked as though he could be a movie star. In stark contrast to him was the giant, two-legged, pig-like creature that disembarked the shuttle second. The first two were soon followed by a tall man and women, and a creature that looked like Big Foot with the head of a horse.

"Stephie," whispered Rebecca.

"Yeah?" she whispered back.

"You know how we wished for some Star Wars characters to come to Earth? Well, it’s happening!"

Face was the first to notice the quintet of girls standing near the bottom of the shuttle’s ramp. He felt Piggy tensing behind him, in preparation to fire, should the need arise. Face knew Kell and Tyria would also be ready for a fight. With all the backup behind him, Face stepped up to the girls unworried.

"H-hi," stammered the shortest one, twirling a piece of her short, black hair. Her friends all stuttered out their own shocked greetings.

"Hi," Face replied, examining the group, with the same intensity they were studying his squadron with. "We, um, seem to be lost. You think you could help us?"

"Sure." The tallest girl stepped forward, followed by another holding onto her wrist. "I’m Rebecca, and these are my friends, Ashley, Mandi, Roxanne-" the short one- "and Stephanie." Rebecca indicated each girl as she spoke her name.

The last listed was the girl Rebecca was leading. "I can’t believe I’m seeing this!" she exclaimed.

"You’re not, Stephanie," Rebecca replied. "You’re blind!"

Face quickly exchanged glances with those behind him. Were these people so primitive that they had not found a way to cure blindness?

"I’m Face Loran, and these are some members of the scouting party I’m with," Face replied.

Stephanie laughed. "Your parents actually named you Face?"

"Nah," joked Kell. "They named him Garik, but his face was so ugly, they called him Face." Kell’s statement was followed by a grunt as Tyria elbowed him in the ribs.

"Seriously, we need some help," Face said. "Could you show us to a place we can land the shuttle and do some scouting without attracting unwanted attention?"

Seeing the hopeful looks on her friends’ faces, Ashley piped up, "If you’ll fly us."

Face’s nod of agreement was followed by a collective "Yes" from the girls.

The inside of the shuttle was roomy enough to accommodate everyone. It was strange for the girls to actually be inside of the Star Wars vehicle, since they only saw the insides in their imaginations.

Inside the Lambda-class shuttle, there were two more aliens, and another human. Face introduced the redheaded human as Kirney Slane, the teddy bear-like creature as Kolot (but said to call him Kettch), and the women with the two tails on her head as Dia Passik.

"Where can we take them without raising any suspicions?" wondered Mandi.

"I remember hearing about a sci-fi convention on the south side. It’s in a community center, right near a wooded ravine where we can hide the shuttle."

"Great idea, Roxanne, but you have the memory of a geek!" Rebecca exclaimed.

Roxanne relayed the directions to Kettch, who was piloting the shuttle. It wasn’t long before they were landing near the aforementioned ravine. From there, it wasn’t a long walk to the bus stop to catch a ride back to the north side, all the time keeping up pointless conversation about how fun the convention had been. They attracted some strange stares, but only because they sounded and looked like hard core science fiction fans.

"Let’s take them back to our houses and get them into some regular clothes," suggested Stephanie.

"Right," retorted Ashley, "and how are we supposed fit a giant pig, a human horse, a living teddy bear, and a worm-headed something into human clothes?"

Outraged corrections on their species came from each of the non-humans. "That’s Gammorean to you," from Piggy.

Runt said, "Thakwaash here."

"I am an Ewok," replied Kettch.

"Twi’lek," added Dia.

"Sorry," said Ashley, her tone sarcastic. "But now matter what, we can’t walk around the city with them. Not unless we really were going to go to that stupid convention, and that’s not really an aspect of our culture we should expose them to."

Roxanne smiled. "I can take the aliens to my house, since my family’s out of town overnight. But we need some way to keep in touch while everyone else is getting shown around the city.

Face pulled out a small white cylinder with a tiny speaker on one end. "Roxanne’s right. We’ll keep in touch on our comlinks and describe all the stuff we see to you so you won’t feel left out."

"No offense, or nothing," said Rebecca, casting an apologetic glance at the aliens. "It’s just no one on Earth has ever seen non-humans before, and even if they say they have, their considered nuts."

"Not unlike some people, or one in particular, that I know," Stephanie said pointedly in Rebecca’s direction, as she stepped away from her friend to avoid the anticipated slap.

"Besides," Mandi consoled the aliens, ignoring Stephanie, "Roxanne can teach you about the wonders of TV"

Roxanne said, "Good idea," and led her group of towards her house.

"Where are we going now?" Rebecca asked her friends. "We need a place were there’s a lot of our culture in one place."

"Who knows, but if we want to get anywhere, we have to catch the bus to Northgate, and transfer there," answered Ashley.

"How long until the bus arrives?" Kell asked.

Mandi, the one mot familiar with the bus routes, thought a moment and started to answer that it should be soon when the bus pulled up. "Ah, my great mental powers caused it to come now," Mandi announced in a knowing voice. The statement caused Stephanie to double over from her hysterical laughter.

Roxanne led her group up to her house. It was a white two-story with six windows, a garage, and a door at the side. Roxanne took some keys out of her heavy backpack and opened the door.

"Welcome to my humble home!"

As the aliens entered, Roxanne gave them a quick tour of the house. Afterwards, Kettch spoke up. "At least this place is more civilized than Endor."

"But not as technologically advanced as us," commented Dia.

Runt surveyed the living room and stopped in front of the television. "Is this the wonder you call TV?" he asked.

"Yeah, that’s the television," said Roxanne. "We normally just call it TV. Sit down." She grabbed the remote, and flicked it on. "Lots of different types of shows are aired and shown on TV’s all over the world."

"Like the Holo-net," said Piggy. Roxanne played dumb, as the girls had agreed earlier, even though she knew exactly what Piggy meant. They were playing dumb because they didn’t think that their new friends would take it very well if they were told that on Earth their galaxy’s history was a series of books and movies.

"What most kids my age enjoy watching are music videos, like these." Roxanne flicked the channel to Much Music, and a woman standing in a desert holding a suitcase appeared on the screen. The sound also flooded back with a familiar screeching voice singing familiar lyrics blasted out.

‘And I’m here to remind you, of the mess you left when you went away. It’s not fair o deny me, of the cross I bear that you gave to my. You, you, you oughtta know!’

Dia covered her ears and cried, "Not that torturous song again!"

Roxanne, who was quite concerned, muted the volume. "Don’t worry. It’s just a song. It’s over, okay?"

"It’s alright. We just picked that up on our way in. I do not know how your society stands it," explained Piggy.

Roxanne turned off the TV and said, "Well, we can discover more about that later." She left the room and returned shortly with an armful of books and magazine.

"These things are books and magazines. They’re simply text on paper-"

Roxanne’s explanation was cut short as the comlink crackled to life and Tyria’s voice came on. "Hey everyone, how are you doing. Right now we’re heading towards what they call a mall…"

They had been pacing the bus terminal when Rebecca had come up with the perfect idea of where to take their guests. "West Ed!" she cried. "The biggest mall in the world. What better place could there be?" Everyone agreed, and it wasn’t long before they found the bus they needed. After sprinting to catch it- which they almost failed in- they did a quick pocket search to find enough change. Then they were off.

"A mall?" inquired Kettch via comlink. "What’s that?"

"An building with a lot of stores in it; like the Imperial Plaza on Coruscant," explained Tyria. "I guess it’s the largest on Earth."

"West Edmonton Mall," Roxanne said. "Good choice."

"Well, I’m so glad you approve," Ashley replied, her tone condescending. "We gotta go; people are looking at us."

The small group at Roxanne’s house ended the comlink transmission and returned their attention to the stack of books and magazines.

"There are many of these on Earth, just like there are many different languages and dialects."

"You mean that you do not have an official planetary language, such as the Basic we are speaking now?" asked Piggy.

"That’s right!" Roxanne exclaimed. "There are over a thousand languages and even more dialects; basically one for very region, in every country, and on every continent. An example would be English, which you call Basic. In Canada, the version of English we speak here in the west differs from that spoken in the Maritime Provinces in the east."

"She’s beginning to sound like a protocol droid," commented Dia.

"Huh?" asked Roxanne, pretending to be clueless.

"Never mind."

"What do you want to see first?" Stephanie asked Tyria. "Between me and Rebecca, we know all the mall."

"What is there to see?" she answered with another question.

Mandi stopped to think. "Umm, there’s Galaxy Land, the movies, the dolphins, the World Waterpark, go-carts, the food courts, the Ice Palace, Professor WEM’s Mini-Golf, arcades, and, oh yeah, the stores."

"It all sounds quite interesting," answered Kirney.

Rebecca grimaced. "Cool, Kirney, cool." At Kirney’s bewildered look, Rebecca elaborated. "It’s slang. ‘It all sounds quite interesting’ makes you sound like some fifty year old granny! Say stuff like cool, awesome, even sweet! Anything but ‘quite interesting’!"

"I have no idea what most of that stuff was," said Kell, "so you should pick."

"Ooh, ooh, let’s go see Star Wars! Please, please, please!" Stephanie begged, falling to her knees before Ashley dragged her up by her long brown hair.

"No!" Rebecca said quickly. It came out harsher than she meant it. "We can’t." Stephanie pouted. Star Wars: Episode One was her favorite movie. It was Rebecca’s too, but these people were from the Star Wars galaxy.

"Where are they from, Steph?" Ashley hissed, to remind Stephanie of their guests.

"We can go to a movie later- The Mummy’s playing at the cheap theatre-, after some shopping, food, and ‘Rock ‘N Ride," Mandi suggested.

"Oh yeah, good thing I got paid today," Rebecca said. "I can pay for our friends, if the rest of you can pay for yourselves."

"What is Rock ‘N Ride?" asked Kell.

"We’ll show you later. Right now, let’s eat. I’m starved!" Rebecca’s suggestion was met with hungry agreements.

"Back to Dinner Squadron!" Face commented.

Roxanne was about to pick up yet another magazine when she noticed that she was getting hungry. She wondered if the aliens were getting hungry as well. "Any of you hungry?"

"Starved," answered Runt.

"What is there to eat?" asked Dia.

"We could try pizza," suggested Roxanne. "It’s a very popular dish in many cultures. I just hope you don’t get sick from your first experience with Earth food."

"I would like to try piz-za," Kettch said.

When no disagreements emerged, Roxanne picked up the phone to order two large pizzas. The non-humans watched Roxanne operate the primitive device. "It’s like an extremely simple comlink," Piggy observed.

Dia nodded. "Just how backwater is this planet?"

Roxanne hung up the phone, and informed everyone that the pizzas would be there in half and hour. She then showed them a Terran computer; it did not impress the aliens. A few tense minutes occurred while she was showing off the internet. An advertisement for a Star Wars auction came up, and Runt wanted to see it. Fortunately, the pizza arrived before Roxanne needed to make up a bogus excuse.

Rebecca sighed, grateful to be on this bus and away from the noisy, crowded mall. Any amount of time spent out with these guys would have been a lot, but nine hours was a little much. Beside her, yawns from all her friends quietly said they felt the same. Of course, the yawn from the perpetually tried Stephanie didn’t say much, but still the point stood. Right now, their guests were gathered around the comlink, having a conference with their compatriots at Roxanne’s house.

"Hey," Mandi said, moving to sit by Rebecca. "This has been a really strange day, eh?"

"You’re telling me!"

"No, I’m asking you."

Rebecca looked at her strangely, than got the joke. "Shut up! But seriously, it was strange the way they went nuts over Kentucky Fried Chicken. And how they flipped in HMV when You Oughtta Know came on."

"I think the funniest thing was how all of the rides in Galaxy Land seemed boring to them," Ashley joined in.

Stephanie piped up happily, "But at least they’d go on the upside-down roller coaster with me!"

Rebecca smiled, then looked down the aisle at the others. They were so involved in their conversation, they were completely oblivious to anything the teens were saying. "Roxanne and I know who these guys are. Remember that Rouge Squadron books on tape I got Stephanie last Christmas?"

"Those aren’t them!" Stephanie yelled, attracting some curious stares from the few other ETS riders.

"No they aren’t, but they were an X-Wing squadron from books in the same series. At the end of the seventh book, they got transferred to an intelligence squadron," Rebecca explained.

Ashley looked thoughtful. "But if they’re intelligence, what are they doing here?" she inquired.

"My guess is that it is about fifteen years after Return of the Jedi, around the time Specter of the Past was written. The Empire was getting real small and powerless. In fact, Admiral Pellaeon was considering having the Empire surrender. The Wraiths, these guys, may just be scouting for new members for the New Republic."

Mandi stopped the explanation by calling out that they had just missed their stop. The group disembarked at the next stop, then started walking towards Roxanne’s house.

Roxanne was debating whether or not to dig out some Pepto Bismol for the alien’s heartburn when the comlink beeped. "Hello," called Face’s voice.

Dia answered. "Yes, love?"

"We’re heading back to meet up with you now, and we’ve been thinking. These people have showed us around some of their world; maybe we should return the favour."

"Face!" Dia scolded. "They’re not some little pets you can just pluck off their planet and take them with us."

Roxanne perked up at what she heard. Go a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away?! "Yes!" she cried. "I’m your little pet, arf, arf! Take me with you." Everyone snickered, except for Roxanne, who thought her response perfectly logical.

Piggy added in his opinion. They could learn something from the girls, as no one had every seen a planet indigenously inhabited by humans so far out. It was finally agreed unanimously that Roxanne, Stephanie, Rebecca, Mandi, and Ashley would be leaving Earth first thing the next morning.

"I gotta go pack!" Roxanne yelled, jumping for joy.

After the announcement was made to the rest of the girls, they all ran home, grabbing a suitcase full of all the stuff they thought they would need. By the time they arrived back at Roxanne’s house it was nearly time to leave Earth.

Before they left, Rebecca decided to call a meeting to discuss what everyone would be doing once they reached their destination. It had been decided that Stephanie would get bacta treatment to regain her eyesight as soon as they found out where they were going.

"I am so going to visit the Hutts," Mandi proclaimed.

"Hutts are sick," responded Stephanie. Mandi stuck her tongue out at her friend.

"I’ll stay with Mandi to make sure she eventually comes back from wherever the Hutts live," Ashley offered.

"I am going to learn to fly an X-Wing," Rebecca decided. When Stephanie opened her mouth to protest, Rebecca continued. "And we’ll all get tested for the Force."

Roxanne had known for years what she would do if this opportunity ever occurred. "Being the smartie-pants, overachieving nerd that I am, I’m going to check out their science field with Qwi Xux. But also being a workaholic, I’ll take all the diplomatic duties as well."

"At least it’s not us," her friends replied.

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