“I wish we could go to a galaxy far, far away!”
“Lili!” shrieked one of her older sisters as Lili’s feet began transforming into tiny white comets.
“What’s happening?” her other sister cried, panic in her voice.
Gripping both of their arms tightly, Lili reassured them with a calming, reasonable explanation. “Sarah, Fi, relax. We’re just teleporting.”
Fiona’s blue eyes widened, and Sarah opened her mouth, but they were gone before she could make a sound.
The three sisters found themselves falling through a darkening sky when the mini comets reassembled. Lili had never tried to get her bearings during a free-fall, and the feat was far more difficult than she imagined. Clothes and hair buffeted by the wind, she glimpsed flashes of color and picked up the sound of motors rushing past, nearly drowning out their screams. A gray, rectangular building with dots of various colors loomed below them, which she soon realized was a ship landing platform. “Listen!” she yelled above the wind, “We’re on a planet in Star Wars! We need to find somewhere to land!”
If the situation weren’t so dire, Lili would have laughed at their flabbergasted expressions. In all fairness, they had never teleported before and were not yet used to such strange happenings. Just as she turned her eyes below to find a safe spot to land, a blue speeder whizzed right beneath them.
Thump. They crash-landed onto its wings, making it wobble. Thankfully, the gravity on this planet was slightly less than on Earth, so the landing gave them nothing but a few bruises that they’d feel tomorrow. Fiona, the leader of the trio, sat up first to check that they were all there. Her sigh of relief was cut short when she turned, blue eyes flashing with anger, on Lili.
Now, this whole mess was definitely not Lili’s fault. She had simply felt sorry for her sisters, stressed about homework and cramming for tests, and had wanted to take them on an adventure where no time on Earth passed to distract them from their problems. To give them that adventure, she had wished all three of them to the Star Wars universe. After twice traveling to fictional worlds, she figured that she could get them home. Probably.
So clearly, none of it was her fault.
Fiona, for some reason, disagreed. “What did you do?” she demanded, clinging to the speeder.
Lili swallowed. “Don’t worry, I just teleported us… a little bit. But we can get home! All I need to do is go back to our arrival point and wish us back. Simple!”
“We arrived in the sky!” Sarah objected.
“True. That might be a problem.”
“Might be a problem?” Fiona shook her head, then faced forward to assess the situation. “Okay, when we land, we’ll need to—”
At that moment, the speeder slowed, and they had to adjust their balance to stay on. It touched down, and the pilot climbed out, stretching after his trip. As his webbed finger reached above his head, he locked eyes with Lili and stopped, mouth open, staring at the three humans on top of his ship. Frozen, the girls stared back.
After a long moment, his surprise wore off and he began to shout something in an alien language, waving his arms about–their cue to scram. They took off, not stopping until several minutes later to catch their breath. Lili smiled hopefully at her sisters. “You gotta admit, this is pretty cool.”
As dusk fell, millions of Coruscant lights twinkled, illuminating the city. Shadows enveloped the narrow streets, but above them, skyscrapers stretched farther than they could see.
“Why did you bring us here?” Sarah wondered, marveling at the lights.
“To give you an adventure.” Lili glanced nervously from one to the other and hoped they wouldn’t be too angry.
To her relief, the corners of Fiona’s mouth twitched upward. “This is pretty adventurous.”
Lili grinned. “I’m glad you said that, because I have an idea to get us home that’s… not something we would tell Mummy about.”
“YES!” Sarah threw her fist in the air as Fiona raised an eyebrow skeptically. Putting her plan of vehicle-theft into action, the trio set off in search of a vehicle.
Five minutes later, the three lurked in the shadows by a hot pink speeder near a noisy building. Sarah’s eyes narrowed. “Why did you have to choose hot pink?!” She hated hot pink with passion.
“It was the first speeder I saw!” Lili defended herself, “Thieves can’t be choosy.” Ignoring Sarah’s disdainful sniff, Lili turned her attention back to the speeder. “Nobody’s watching it right now. Let’s—”
Furious roars and crashes erupted from the building, which she now realized was a bar—not exactly the best place for three girls alone at night, even if all three of them knew jiujitsu. “Get down!” Fiona hissed, pulling them behind a wall.
The fighters—a large brown Wookie and a green alien—burst onto the street, struggling to draw weapons between punches. Other creatures followed, forming a circle around the brawl, and some even joined in.
“Chewie!”
Lili and Fiona jumped at the sound of a familiar voice. Sarah, the non-Star Wars fan, tilted her head in confusion.
“Chewbacca, listen to me!”
“It’s Han Solo!” Lili grabbed Sarah’s hand in excitement.
Catching on to the excitement, but still baffled, Sarah asked, “Who’s Han Solo?”
“Only the best Star Wars character to ever exist!”
“I know, this is great, but focus, Lili.” Fi cut in, “We still need to get that speeder.”
“The hot pink speeder.” Sarah pouted.
Rolling her eyes, Fiona continued: “When we make a run for it, if anyone tries to stop you, only break their arms if you have to. Try to choke them out first.”
They slid out of their hiding place and through the shadows, skirting the free-for-all until they came to the speeder. Fiona climbed into the cockpit while the others hopped in behind her. She started it up, and as it rose into the air, they heard shouts from below, the loudest Han Solo’s. “Hey! Bring back my speeder!”
“Sorry!” Lili replied as they zipped away.
Considering she didn’t even have her driver’s license, Fiona was an outstanding pilot. She only crashed into three other speeders, dodged two of the three cement walls along the way, and managed to pull out of all seven nose-dives before the impact. Lili and Sarah had the most heart-stopping half hour of their lives on that ride. When, at last, they reached their arrival point, Lili turned to her sisters, glowing with excitement. “That was epic!”
“Yeah! Except the hot pink speeder.” Sarah added.
Fiona, slightly green from the ride, was still clenching the steering wheel with white knuckles. After a moment, she managed to release it, and, in a slightly nauseated voice, asked, “Ready to go home?”
They nodded. In a swirl of comets, they dissolved, leaving nothing but a hot pink speeder floating in the sky.
Photo Credits: https://www.moddb.com/mods/battlefront-ii-addons-for-remastered-addition/images/coringuscant-space-8