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Heeeeey, Tope Fam! It's me, your girl Amethia, back with another video. I just took an *amazing* trip through the Outer Rim on one of the Chandrila Star Line's most fantastic cruise starships, and I want to show you some of the most fabulous places Skippy and I visited.
But first, let's talk about our sponsors!
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Okay. Back to the main topic.
Everyone who's *anyone* knows about the Chandrila Star Line. They've been offering high-end cruise experiences on the most fab Corellian-built starships for, like, ever. The most famous ship in their fleet, the Halcyon, was recently refurbished, and only the hottest Coruscant influencers were invited abord for their maiden voyage. So, of course, I was *personally* invited.
"And so," Amethia said, waving one last time at the corkboard wall behind her completely covered in pictures, thumbtacks, and a parsec's length of red string connecting it all, "it's actually really simple to understand how Emperor Palpatine returned! And isn't it great that he is? Life was soooo much easier with the Empire. Here's hoping that things go super well with whatever he's doing at Exegol.
"And that's this week's holonet vid. Make sure to hit those like and subscribe buttons, and we'll see you next time!"
She sank back in her chair as the holo camera turned off. Skippy stretched, got up from his pet bed, and climbed into Amethia's lap. She gave him good scritches behind the ears and poured herself another mug of caf. Anything about current events usually got good viewership numbers, and the galaxy was still buzzing about the Emperor's weird broadcast a fortnight ago. She brought up the raw footage on a datapad and started in on editing it down to a short three hours of holo vid.
Her spacious Coruscant apartment was high enough in the city towers to get a slice of the sky visible through her large picture windows. She'd done well enough with holonet videos to have nearly everything a girl could want: designer clothes, the best food, an enormous stuffed porg taking up one wall. Life was good for an influencer.
Her comlink beeped. She picked it up to see that a new message had come in. She pulled it up on holo.
Hello, Ms. Tope,
Thank you for contacting Chandrila Star Lines about your interest in the newly refurbished Halcyon cruise of the Outer Rim. We are pleased to say that we are now accepting bookings for staterooms between the dates of--
Blah blah blah, details. She skimmed through the message while she pet Skippy. Luxurious cruise through the Outer Rim, day trips to five different planets, the famous singer Gaya performing onboard, a generous buffet, a new remodelling to really accent the classic High Republic style of the ship. She scrolled down to the details about logistics near the end.
Should you book the Standard Cabin package, the cost of the cruise will be--
She spat out her drink. Flecks of spit and caf shot right through the holographically projected numbers.
"6000 credits? For the smallest room? What, is the ship made out of pure kyber crystals?" It was outrageous that they were asking so much.
Still, her trip to the wild jungles of Pandora to visit its blue inhabitants had been truly fantastic, and had blown up the viewer count on her socials for ages. She was still making credits off the millions of people watching that travel holo.
Plus, their current holonet ad campaign kept calling the Halcyon, "The Happiest Place in the Galaxy". And at that price it had to the best thing since blue milk, right?
She grit her teeth, checked her credit balance once again, and booked a space cruise.
Okay! So, here, in a numbered list, is the places I visited that you *must* check out.
Number five: Batuu.
You probably haven't heard of this Outer Rim planet, but it's a super cute frontier world. We visited the Black Spire Outpost, a trading town on the south-east corner of the continent of Fl'orydah, a place famous for its sunny weather and beautiful beaches. Apparently, sometimes smugglers run through here and there's been a rise of Resistance activity in the system, but we managed to avoid all those guys.
Sadly, no sun for me. It was raining super hard the day we visited. Luckily the ship gave us free umbrellas so I could still enjoy the town. Look at this sweet meal I got at a local cantina! Did you know they grill all their meat with engines from old podracers? So much fire! You need to come see all the cool things the people of Batuu can make out of old space junk.
Batuu was a miserable mess. The First Order invading the ship had made the Halcyon stop at this dinky little backwater planet instead of the idyllic lakes of Naboo, and it was clear that everything here was aimed at scamming visitors. Heavily overpriced food stalls. Souvenir stands everywhere. Cute local restaurants with lines hours-long to get in. People fist-fighting each other over special, limited edition popcorn buckets. Amethia had heard rumours of a giant mouse man in bright red shorts -- who apparently was some kind of local mob boss -- roaming around somewhere and she did *not* want to run into that thing.
Plus, it was absolutely pouring rain, and the umbrella the crew of the Halcyon had given her had dissolved almost immediately.
Skippy shivered, curled up inside her large purse. She reached in to give him a reassuring pat. "There, there. It's okay, boy."
She sat on the covered patio of Oga's Cantina, picking at her overpriced lunch of tossed salad and scrambled eggs as her floating camera droid automatically recorded video footage, and tried desperately to ignore a red, horned Zabrak man at the next table over who had had far too much to drink and was apparently a chatty drunk.
"Say," the man slurred into his drink, "have you heard of Luuke Skywalker?"
"The Jedi who died?"
"No, no, no," the man said, waving her comment off. "Not Luke Skywalker, Luuke Skywalker. He's a clone of the Jedi master, but--" He leaned in close and dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "--eeeeeevil."
"Huh."
"And lemme tell you about Bigger Luke, the clone of the Jedi master who is slightly taller--"
A blur of black and grey marched past the cantina patio. It took a second for Amethia to recognize the figure, but she grabbed Skippy's bag under her arm and pushed back her chair. "I have to go. Now."
She headed back out into the rain and followed the man around the corner, where he stood in a covered alley filled with crates.
"Lt. Croy?" Amethia said, and he turned to face her. His expression looked annoyed and he had the straight posture that the First Order expected of their officers.
"Do I know you?" he asked.
"Uh, no. Not yet." Her words tumbled out in a rush. "I'm one of the passengers on the Halcyon. I saw you were asking other people on board for help in dealing with some Resistance spy. I tried to get your attention, but you kept talking to other people, and then my schedule was super wonky and I couldn't catch you when you were free, and I think you called me the wrong name once..." She took a deep breath. "I want to help."
"And you are...?"
"Amethia Tope, holonet influencer. Maybe you've seen my videos? They get, like, millions of views."
"I have not," Lt. Croy said bluntly.
"Oh," said Amethia with some disappointment. "Still, if you're looking for civilians to help, I'm all-in on the First Order."
Lt. Croy sighed. "Fine."
He pulled out a palm-sized holoprojector, and brought up the image of a Wookie.
"We have reason to believe that a Resistance spy has snuck aboard the Halcyon and is attempting to ferment Resistance activity on the various daytrip planets the ship visits. Goes by Chewbacca; aligned with General Organa and partners with the late General Solo. We think he's using the ship's visits to leave information for local contacts. I think we can stop him, but the First Order are a little--" He waved a hand at his neatly-pressed grey uniform. "--conspicuous. His fellow passengers would be far less obvious, and thus I need someone to help."
"I'll do anything to help!" Amethia said eagerly.
Lt. Croy arched an eyebrow. "Anything?"
"Absolutely."
He pressed a button and the hologram disappeared. "We received security cam footage that showed him leaving a drop somewhere in this alley. Sadly, these are all mass-produced crates, so it's impossible to tell from sight alone which of these was smuggled down from the Halcyon without scanning its serial number."
He handed Amethia a scanner and a comlink unit.
"Scan the QR codes of these crates until you find the Wookie’s dropped intel."
Her heart sank. "But there's like hundreds of boxes back here! How am I supposed to find the one with the drop?"
Lt. Croy shrugged, uncaring. "Then you'll have to scan all of them until you find it. The First Order thanks you for your service."
He turned and left the alley.
Well, that was disappointing. Amethia had hoped for something cooler, like firing a blaster or a big chase. Something that could have dramatic background music.
Amethia turned on the scanner and grumbled to herself as she scanned the first QR code of many, many more to come.
Number four: Hetzal.
Hetzel is a gorgeous planet. They're super famous for all the big harvests that come from there. There was some kind of big disaster there centuries ago. Something about a ship being destroyed in hyperspace and the Jedi having to team up to save the planet from its debris, maybe? I don't know anything about ancient history. But the people here built a huge garden park here to thank the Jedi for that stuff and we got to visit The Great Hyperspace Disaster Memorial Gardens.
The gardens are so gorgeous. They grow their own fruit there, and there's a restaurant with desserts made entirely from local food. Look at this delicious pie! It smelled sooo good. There's nothing like Hetzel apples baked into a fresh pie to make you feel all warm inside. I got a private tour from one of the locals, and I know *way* more about apples now.
Amethia was pretty sure this whole trip was cursed, because she'd somehow ended up with the single worst guide in the entire galaxy. Ehvyn, her tour guide, was a middle-aged-looking human with a mop of curly hair, a face full of tics and cringes, and a cast wrapped around one of his arms. And he was way, WAY, too into trees.
"And this one is a Tholian apple tree," he said, gently caressing its trunk with the hand of his uninjured arm. "Given the perfect climate conditions it'll produce a good three bushels of apples every harvest season. And then we'll waaAAve hello to another year of pies, and we'll thaaaAAaank the stars above for the harvest."
He kept switching into this whisper-singing tone every so often, like he was expecting music to suddenly start up, which, 1) weird, and 2) was super annoying.
He headed over to another, slightly different tree and gave it a good pat.
"And this one is the Alderaan apple tree. Some Alderaanian farmers were off-world at the time of its destruction with a load of apples to deliver to Coruscant, and with the funding of Senator Organa of the New Republic, we were able to use those to start up a cultivation project to nurture those seeds into trees again. We worked with genetic researchers from--"
Amethia tuned out the super boring tree talk and let her gaze wander around the area. The orchard was full of trees, sure, but they'd also set up recreation areas for people to picnic or host parties surrounded by nature. It was kind of nice, if you were into that kind of thing.
She spotted a group of stormtroopers talking to people at once of the picnic sites, and Lt. Croy among them. Finally, something good.
"--but we're working with Alderaanian survivors to make sure that the cider has the proper amount of spices," Ehvyn said, still droning on about apples.
Amethia cut him off. "Look, Ehvyn, I'm sure you want to get home to your kids, or whatever--"
His brow creased in confusion. "Kids? I'm only 17."
"17? But, you-" She shook her head. "Never mind. Thanks, *so* much for the... informative talk, but I need to go."
"Oh. Okay. Um, enjoy the rest of the memorial guardian." He pointed to a hand-painted wooden sign. "And if you liked the tour, please consider donating some credits to the Konarr Project to help keep the orchard running. We appreciate it!"
He waved as she walked off, glad to be away from the endless droning apple talk.
Lt. Croy was standing back a little from the group, watching a swarm of stormtroopers interrogate a Gungan family. He looked up when Amethia approached.
"Lt. Croy! Hi! Nice to see you here," she said.
He looked at her blankly. "Have we met before, Miss...?"
"Uh, Tope. Amethia Tope. We talked on Batuu." She leaned in closer to whisper conspiratorially. "About the Resistance spy."
"Ah, yes. Of course I remember you," Lt. Croy said unconvincingly.
"Are you still looking for more Resistance intel? I found the crate for you. I can help some more!"
It had been *ages* in the rain on Batuu with that scanner scanning box after box after stupid box, but she'd found the right one at last.
Lt. Croy considered her offer. "This nice Gungan family has kindly told us that Chewbacca was through here holding a box, but he must have left because our scanners don't detect any Wookies in the area." He pulled up a holo display of a roughly drawn box with a ribbon tied around it. "They recall seeing him holding a yellow crate tied in security wrappings the first time they spotted him, but not the second time." He held it in front of Amethia for a closer view, then put it away.
"Find where he left the package in the area, and I will be indebted to you."
Amethia did her best attempt at a salute. "Aye-aye, sir! You can could on me."
Lt. Croy chuckled lightly. "At ease, trooper," he said before wandering back over to First Order stormtroopers.
Amethia looked around the area to see what she was dealing with. The gardens were huge and the day was beautiful, so there were tons of people around. She walked down the main path passing picnics, outdoor parties, kids playing ball games, and old people catching up. If she were a Wookie, where would she hide an intel drop?
She suddenly spotted the crate Lt. Croy had mentioned. It was on a table, carefully placed next to stacks of nicely wrapped gifts.
She looked up to see a Congratulations Norman & Niles! banner hung overhead, an open buffet table nearby, a large group of people in fancy clothes milling around, a four-piece band playing some lovely jizz music, and realized that the Resistance had left their intelligence drop in the middle of a wedding reception.
Great. Wonderful. Super easy to grab.
Amethia grabbed a glass from a catering droid carrying a tray full of refreshments, and tried her best to slide her way through the crowd. She'd been to all kinds of fancy events for influencers on Coruscant; the trick was to act like you totally knew you belonged there, and that you were too busy to make small talk.
After carefully bobbing and weaving around delighted guests in fancy clothes, she reached the side of the gift table. There it was: the yellow drop box, wrapped up tight, with a Resistance symbol painted on the side. She tried to slide it out of the pile without anyone noticing. Closer, closer, a little closer, and...
"Um, *what* are you doing?"
She flipped her head up to see a orange Twi'lek woman wearing a frumpy mother-of-the-groom dress watching her, arms crossed. "Just what are you doing with that?" she asked.
"Oh, yeah." Amethia laughed. "I forgot the card in my landspeeder. I'm just gonna grab this, rewrap it, and bring it right back."
The woman narrowed her eyes at Amethia. "I don't recognize you from the ceremony. Just who invited you?
This was bad. This was so bad. She was going to get caught. Her cruise was going to end right here on Hetzel and the Resistance would know all kind of First Order secrets.
Amethia's mind flashed through dozens of different paths of talking her way herself out of this, and then went with the easiest solution.
She grabbed the glass she'd left on the table, and chucked its contents at the woman.
The Twi'lek woman screamed as a full glass of wine splashed all over her and stumbled back into a waiter carrying a tray of fancy wrapped pastries. Amethia used the noise to grab the package and flee into the forest of apple trees all around the party.
She slunk through the trees away from the uproar of the party, back to where the First Order group was. The stormtroopers had stopped interrogating the Gungan family, who were hastily packing up their seafood picnic, and were milling about while Lt. Croy checked out something on a datapad.
Amethia held the box out to him. "Ta-dah!" she said proudly.
Lt. Croy took the box from her. "Very nice, Ms. Tope. I'm genuinely impressed." He snapped his fingers, and a stormtrooper stepped up to take the crate from him. "You did good work for the First Order. I'm glad you're helping us."
Amethia beamed. Maybe Hetzel wasn't so bad after all.
Number three: Brendok.
Do you like trees? Brendok is an amazing forest planet that's like 90% trees. Everything there smells like pine! It's so beautiful. We visited the northern hemisphere, which has a city in the middle of a continent-wide redwood forest.
Apparently, Brendok used to have a coven of spoooooky Sith witches ages ago, but these days it has an artsy city with a large Wookie community. They put on big, fancy musicals for Life Day at their concert hall that run for a couple of months. They do a different story every year, so it's always fresh when you visit. We were so lucky: the Halcyon had a daytrip to Brendok that included tickets to one of those shows!
Doesn't the theater look amazing? It's built out of living redwood trees, so the whole building is actually alive! I wasn't allowed to make any holo recordings during the show, but they had the famous Wookie pop star Kssyyyrk in the cast as General Obi-Wan Kenobi, and his voice was to die for. I won't spoil the ending, but it had a really big surprise!
Amethia didn't speak Wookie.
Sure, she spoke Galactic Basic like everyone else, and she was fully fluent in Na'vi, but Wookie was way out of her wheelhouse.
The program said that the Life Day play was a musical featuring all the hottest modern Wookie pop songs about the life of Gungi, a heroic Wookie Jedi who lived during the Clone Wars, but it just sounded like the endless howling of wild animals to her. Skippy would have hated this if she'd brought him.
Plus, her seat was directly behind a large redwood tree holding up the roof, blocking a good half of the stage.
She was just cursed with these stupid view-blocking poles, wasn't she?
The third time Gungi sang/screamed at the space pirates trying to steal his precious Life Day Orbs, she'd had enough. She grabbed her things, and pushed her way past a pair of beefy human men and a Rodian in a ridiculous wig to get to the aisle and out of the theatre.
The theatre doors led to an open-air lobby, a lovely place with benches set up for waiting and posters featuring glamourous headshots of all the big Wookie stars in the show. Blooming trees lined the courtyard, but it was easy to get a good view of the main street of town.
Wyn'nypegg seemed to be a big arts city. Aside from the theatre, the main shopping street had an outdoor concert stage, book shops, and even a pottery studio. People of various species meandered along the street. An Ithorian mother and child stared into the front window display of a shop full of hand-made toys. A pair of Wookies chatted together in low tones outside the cheery entrance to a bar. An old Chandra-Fan man poked at hats from a street vendor to see which one best fit his bat-like head.
Wait a second.
Amethia pulled the holo that Lt. Croy had given her out of her pocket. Her gaze flicked between the image of the Resistance agent and the Wookie on the road in front of her. That fur pattern. That bandolier. That posture. It couldn't be…
"Chewbacca?" she called out.
The Wookie perked up at the sound of his name. "Rrr?"
"Aha! I thought it was you! The First Order will want to know about this."
Chewbacca froze -- and then broke off into a sprint down the road to the north.
"You won't get away that easy!" Amethia said, chasing after him. She dug the comlink out of her pocket. "Lt... Croy?" she said, panting hard with the exertion of running.
"Yes?" he replied.
"Found... the... Resistance agent... on planet. Chasing... him..."
"Give me your coordinates when you have him and I'll send a team of stormtroopers down. We'll get this Wookie yet."
It was so hard to keep up. Amethia tried to hit the gym as best she good, but as a holo vid influencer she wasn't in super great shape. Plus, Wookies were so much taller and more athletic than humans. Try as she might, Chewbacca easily outran her.
He suddenly turned left, down a path that ran into the woods, and Amethia followed him down. The trees grew closer and the green underbrush made it harder to see ahead. She lost sight of Chewbacca, but she kept running.
The path suddenly opened up to a wide clearing. Large standing stones had been placed in a ring ages ago. Some of them still had stone caps; others had fallen to the mossy forest floor. Ancient symbols were carved into some of the stones.
Amethia remembered the cruise director on the shuttle ride down saying that there used to be a secret group of Force people here in ancient times. Sith witches? Space druids? Something like that.
A human man with dark shaggy hair sat in the middle of the stones, carefully painting a small-scale replica of one of the stone arches. Chewbacca was nowhere to be found.
Amethia took deep breaths to stabilize her breathing and walked over to him. "Has a Wookie come through here?"
The man looked up at her with a drowsy expression and rubbed his handlebar mustache as he thought about the question. "Seen a lot of Wookies here. Ain't seen any lately, I'm afraid. Just me and me work."
Amethia's eyes scanned the whole henge area, but it was no use. Centuries of people visiting this place had worn the ground down to smooth dirt paths. It would be impossible to track a Wookie if he'd managed to escape into the trees.
She grit her teeth as she pulled the comlink unit back out. "Lt. Croy? He's escaped."
"Of course. Let me know if you see him again." He cut the feed off without giving her a chance to answer.
How frustrating. She'd help Lt. Croy catch that Resistance agent, even if she had to work at it until the fat Wookie sang.
Number two: Kef Bir.
Better pack a good jacket, because there's so much water on Kef Bir! This moon orbits Endor, and used to be nearly all ocean until those rebels against the Empire blew up a death star. Whoops!
There's a species of furry horses called orbaks that live on Kef Bir, and the galaxy has gone crazy for them in the last few years. People love them so much that lots of people love to train orbaks and bring them back to Kef Bir once a year for a big event where they show off how tough their horses are: Brawny Con!
Since the Halcyon was passing by Kef Bir while this year's Brawny Con was on, we got to spend a day checking it out. Look how into it people are getting! Maybe someday I'll get a little orbak of my own. Wouldn't that be cute?
Amethia shivered as the sea breeze blew right through the thin coat she'd brought. Kef Bir was mostly ocean, and the island they'd been taken to, Questria, was small with low buildings so that there was nowhere to really escape from the wind.
Except, like, by getting close to the orbak horses.
Questria had clearly been built to focus on the orbaks. It was a small town with a small number of shops, mostly animal related in some way, with a large central area for paddocks and a fair ground for equine displays. The orbaks themselves were heavily decorated, with their fur dyed all the colours of the rainbow and their back haunches branded with all kinds of interesting designs to mark whose horse was whose.
Aside from the decorated orbaks, Brawny Con had a weird vibe. There were so many grown men around, wearing orbak ears, or shirts with pictures of popular thoroughbred orbaks on them, or carrying around orbak-themed items. Some con goers had even made piles of furs and horns into full costumes of their favourite orbaks. Impressive but, like, weird.
Amethia stared into a paddock where six orbaks milled around. Some of her friends growing up on Coruscant had been Horse Girls, but she was not. They were... fine? Stinky and kind of cute, but boring after a while.
A pair of convention attendees stood near her, just down the fence.
"They're all so adorable this year," a blue Pantorean woman holding an orbak-shaped handbag gushed. "Which one is your favourite?"
"Oh, it's gotta be Dusk Twinkle," answered a red Devorian man, who'd attached a pair of orbak ears to his long demonic horns. "Just look at her. Purple fur, big eyes, an expert in dressage? Yes, please."
"Ooh, for me it's gotta be Prism Sprint. I hear she runs so fast you'd swear she's flying. I'd bet my credits on her in the champions race."
Amethia rolled her eyes. So lame.
She left the paddock and wandered over towards an open-air area full of tables and small cafes. She was surprised to find Lt. Croy at one of the tables by himself, reading through a datapad while nursing a cup of caf. He looked up as Amethia approached.
"Oh, Ms. Tope." He gestured to the bench across from him. "Have a seat if you'd like."
"How goes the hunt for the Resistance?" Amethia asked as she sat down.
Lt. Croy gave a sigh. "Poor. Witnesses have mentioned seeing a Wookie around earlier today, but there's been no sign of him anywhere. We have reason to believe the Resistance's Kef Bir base is here in the island."
"ON the island."
"No, IN the island. The going theory is that the base is in an underground cavern carved out by Death Star debris." He took a long drink of his caf, and let his fingers wrap around the warm mug. "Doesn't matter all that much. With all the die-hard Brawny Con fans wandering around in fur suits, it's like looking for a needle in a haystack."
He placed a lid on the top his mug, and stood up with a stretch. "Time to keep hunting for needles. Enjoy your day trip, Ms. Tope."
Amethia watched him go, until the chill of the cold ocean wind made her grab a caf of her own. She watched people go by, Halcyon passengers and Brawny Con guests alike, as she let the drink warm her.
Was it worth it, she mused to herself. She'd paid so much money for a trip that had taken her to dumb Outer Rim planets to do things she hated. Why was she still even on this cruise?
A group of Brawny Con attendees wandered by her table. It was kind of neat how they all made their own unique orbak costumes. The tallest one in the group had used brown fur, and didn't have horns, and had a shiny bandolier, and wait just a minute now.
Amethia slammed her now-empty caf cup on the table and pointed. "Aha! I found you!"
Chewbacca let out a roar of surprise, and barreled through of the group into the door of a nearby shop. It swung closed behind him.
"You won't escape me that easily!" Amethia said, chasing after him. She threw the shop door open again and stormed in.
In seemed like a pet store of some kind. Brightly coloured birds hung in cages from the ceiling. A tabby Loth-cat snoozed in a sunny window-fronted box. Four monkey-like creatures banged noisily away at a food dish from a cage behind the till, their howls making a weird kind of music together.
The boy behind the counter looked shocked at her sudden entrance and blinked rapidly. "Can... can I help you?
Amethia stormed up to the front of the store and slammed the holo projector on the counter. "Has a Wookie come through here?"
The pet shop boy's cheeks started flushing a deep shade of red. "A Wookie? Oh, no. Not through here. Definitely would have noticed if one was in here, being that they're so tall, ha haaa.."
"Look--" Her eyes darted down to his name tag. "Luuuuke? Seriously, Luuuuke with four U's?" Did everyone in this galaxy have names with a stupid number of vowels sprinkled in?
Luuuuke looked confused at the demand. "Yes...?" he squeaked out.
She took a deep breath to steady herself and stared again. "I just saw a Wookie run in here. Are you telling me I'm wrong?"
The boy averted his gaze. "I--"
There was a sudden crash from the back room. Amethia pushed herself up on her toes to peek over the swinging gate that separated the front from the back. The back door to the shop had been pushed open, and she could see Chewbacca sprinting away towards the beach, before suddenly dropping out of sight.
In the island, indeed.
Luuuuke chuckled nervously. "Sooooo, have you ever considered getting a porg? We just got in a fresh clutch of eggs!"
Amethia sighed. Failed again.
Number one: Pandora.
Pandora! I'm so excited! You guys know how much I love this place. If you want to see more of my time there on my last trip, click here to see my previous video, An Excruciatingly Deep Dive into the World of Pandora. As the locals say, Eyweveng txasunu!
The cruise wasn't originally going to stop here, but the First Order guys made some changes to schedule. Big thank you to Lt. Croy! He's the best.
Pandora is so beautiful. It's got tropical jungles and almost everything glows with bioluminesant light. Like these waterfalls! Isn't it so cool how these islands can float in the air? The way the water flows off them is just gorgeous.
You guys know how much I love spiders, right? On my last trip here the locals taught me the whistles you can use to control the tame teylu spiders. Good thing I still remembered that, because I got one for a fun ride through the jungle. Isn't it fluffy? Looks how its little tufts glow.
We went to so many different planets on this cruise, but Pandora will always be my favourite.
If the First Order making the Halcyon stop at Batuu had been an absolute nightmare, making the Halcyon stop at Pandora had been the most amazing thing that could have possibly happened on this cursed space cruise. The itinerary had listed a daytrip at some boring dirt ball in the middle of nowhere (Tatooine? Dantooine? Amethia couldn't remember and didn't really care) but being back in the bioluminescent jungles of Pandora was a sight for sore eyes.
There was only really one town on Pandora that catered to human-sized beings instead of the local giants, so Amethia was already very familiar with Ohrlandau from her last visit. The floating islands of the Valley of Mo'ara, the cantina serving local cuisine, the vendors who sold river cruises or flights on the winged banshee lizards; not much had changed in the past year.
Which meant it would be easier to spot any Resistance agents who were trying to hide out, especially big furry ones.
The main street had a few touristy shops a few in between travel agencies catering to trips and hikes through the jungles. An older human woman tended to a large pen at one end of the main square full of teylu spiders visitors could rent to climb high up into the canopy. Amethia reached over the short wooden fence to pet the soft, glowing fur on one.
"Cute, aren't they?" the old woman said. "We've trained them to obey whistles, so they're perfectly easy to control. You can take one out for just 10 credits. A real bargain!"
Amethia should have been helping out Lt. Croy. She should have been helping the First Order to find the Resistance agent or intel drops. She should have--
You know what? No.
For all that this stupid, crummy, expensive trip was full of view-blocking pillars and failed secret missions and having the worst luck of anyone in the galaxy, it was still a fancy space cruise for fancy people, and blast it she was going to do something fun.
She grabbed a handful of credits from her bag and handed them to the woman. "I'll take your fuzziest spider, please."
The woman gave a three-note whistle, and a large purple-furred spider climbed over the fence.
"Enjoy!" the lady said. "Bring her back in an hour or so, and try to stick to the marked trails. There's a lot of wild creatures out in the jungle."
Amethia hopped up on the spider, wrapped her hands in its soft fur, whispered, "Let's go," and repeated the same three-note whistle.
The spider took off, and Amethia felt joy well up inside her. She directed it to climb one of the towering trees near the path, and felt her stomach rise and drop as it shot out webs to swing from tree to tree.
Up here, she could see creatures that nested too high for human-sized beings to see: birds with bright plumage, monkeys with glowing lines running down their bodies, dragon-like reptiles soaring above the canopy. Sure, Pandora was pretty dangerous if you weren't careful, but everything here was so beautiful.
Suddenly, there he was: Chewbacca. He stepped out of the jungle onto the path just below her, half-covered in bioluminescent dandelion seeds.
Their eyes locked. For a long second Amethia and Chewbacca stared at each other.
And then he let out a Wookie roar, and turned to run deep into the jungle.
"Oh no," Amethia said, "you're not escaping from me again."
This time, she was ready.
She thrust her hand into her bag and wrapped her fingers around a plastene handle, pulling out the limited-edition mouse-shaped popcorn bucket she'd picked up from a vendor on Batuu, now filled with a handful of rocks from the Climate Simulator Garden on the Halcyon. She spun it around to gain enough momentum, and then flung it at Chewbacca.
The bucket hit the Wookie square in the back of the head with a satisfying, cartoonishly loud THUNK noise, and he dropped to the jungle floor with a low moan, unmoving.
Amethia let the spider drop to the ground, dismounted, and ran over to the body. Chewbacca seemed to be breathing, but judging from the lump on the back of his head he was clearly out cold.
She'd... she'd done it. She'd done it! Finally, something on this stupid, stupid space cruise was going right for her.
Which was great, because if she'd missed a Wookie like that could easily pull her arms off, and it'd be so much harder to film videos like that.
She pulled out her comlink. "Lt. Croy?"
There was a crackling noise and then he responded. "Ms. Tope? Please don't bother me right now. The First Order has very important business and--"
"I caught the Wookie Resistance spy! Please send a team to my coordinates to pick him up."
There was a long pause before Croy spoke again. "You had better not be lying."
Amethia turned on the comlink's holo-projector feature and knelt next to Chewbacca to get him in the image. "See for yourself."
Croy's holo image flickered to life, showing his face with an expression of dumbfounded surprise. "I will be there immediately."
There was a short wait before a transport shuttle landed in a nearby clearing, and a group of stormtroopers quickly went to work tying up Chewbacca and leading the still-woozy Wookie back with them to the ship.
Lt. Croy broke off from the group and came over to join Amethia. His expression was hard to read, but Amethia thought she could see some respect creeping in.
"I must say, Ms. Tope, I think I underestimated you. Out of all the operatives and stormtroopers we've had searching for this Wookie on this journey, you're the first one to actually capture him."
He put a hand on her shoulder. "Thank you, Ms. Tope. You've done a great service to the First Order. Lord Ren will be pleased to know that we've captured this wanted criminal." His face softened and he gave her a genuine smile. "And you have my sincerely thanks, too. Thank you for everything you've done to help me on this trip."
Amethia gave him a warm smile back. Sure, this space cruise had been a complete disaster, but at least she'd managed to do one thing successfully. It gave her a great feeling to know that Lt. Croy finally saw her as a true ally and a good person.
***
Resistance sympathizers among the cruise guests would help Chewbacca escape from the Halcyon's brig just hours later. Amethia would see this and try her hardest to tell Lt. Croy, but he was too distracted by a lightsaber battle happening in the ship's main hall between Lord Ren and some brunette Jedi girl to pay the slightest amount of attention to her.
And that was my trip! Which planet do you want to visit the most? Let me know in the comments below.
Now that you've seen how great my trip was, I bet you want to book your own space cruise, huh? Well, good news! The Halcyon is taking lots of bookings for future cruises so you can have your own wonderful Galactic Star Cruiser trip through the Outer Rim. Make sure to use my affiliate code, SpectacularFSWH, when booking your own cruise. You get 10% off your booking, and you help support this channel. How cool is that?
Thanks so much for watching. I do this for viewers like you. A huge Thank You to all my Porg-treon supporters! I literally couldn't do this without you guys.
And that's this week's holonet vid. Make sure to hit those like and subscribe buttons, and we'll see you next time!
[credits music]
Hey, if any of you guys know who designed the dining room on the Halcyon could you let me know? I just want to have a fun chat with them.
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