"They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Naturally they became heroes." - Releia Organa

An explosion rocked the tiny rebel spacecraft, Tantive IV, as it sped through space, a massive OZ Star Destroyer at its back.

Inside, two droids tried to make their way through a bouncing passageway.

"Did you hear that?" the golden one turned to ask the other. "They've shut down the main reactor. We'll be destroyed for sure! This is madness."

Rebel troops ran past them.

"Oh Trowa, we're doomed!"

 

The Star Destroyer had caught the smaller ship in a tractor beam, and many forms in plastic-looking white armor forced their way through the door. A 6-foot ominous figure in black flowing cape and metal mask stepped through the doorway. It was Darth Zechs.

 

Meanwhile, a mysterious girl dressed in white inserted a card into a slot on T3-B3's metallic form and ran off.

 

"Trowa? Where are you?" The golden droid ran through passageways, peering into random rooms.

"Trowa! Finally I've found you. I was worried."

"I'm leaving."

"Where to?"

"On a secret mission."

"Will you come back? I'd like that very much. Hey, stop pulling me! You don't expect me to come along?! Well, I suppose...."

 

Q-4PO stepped into the brilliant sunlight. He was in the middle of a desert nowhere.

"Trowa, what place is this?"

Without a reply T3-B3 exited the cramped escape pod and started off across the sand in the direction of a very rocky patch of land. Q-4PO hurried to catch up to the smaller tripodal robot, thinking the sand and dust quite familiar somehow. He liked deserts.

 

The Princess Releia struggled as she was led down a hallway of the Tantive IV by an armored stormtrooper.

"Get your hands off me!" she demanded, trying to step on her captor's feet. She was intent on venting her anger on him. If his buddy hadn't fired a random blast aimed at her hiding spot, she wouldn't have felt the need to shoot him earlier. And consequently, she wouldn't have been detected quite so soon....

The stormtrooper abruptly stopped walking. Releia raised her head to look up.

"Darth Zechs," she acknowledged with dignity of the tall Sith Lord standing before her. "Only you could be so bold. When everyone hears you've attacked a diplomatic ship -"

Zechs smiled behind his mask. It had been a long time since he'd last seen the Princess. "Don't look so surprised, Your Highness. You know transmissions were beamed to this ship from the colonies by rebel spies."

"I don't know what you're talking about. This ship is just as ordinary as any other. We are on a mission to spread peace and to find my lost love. I will search the galaxy for him, if need be. You won't get away with this."

"Oh, but I already have."

 

Rasid Kurama-Lars turned to look over his shoulder at the solemn youth stepping darkly out of their Tatooine moisture farm. He paused for a moment, contemplating how it came to be that this strange boy had come to be part of the Maganac Corps family.

"Heero!" Rasid called back to him. "See if there's a translator that speaks Bocce over there."

The boy strode quickly toward the Jawa transport parked before him. He noticed a golden protocol droid among those offered for sale and silently headed toward it.

"Quatre, I agree with you. Asking for a ride was not the best idea."

"What can we do now?"

"Hope someone buys us and then escape later."

"Kisama," Heero addressed Q-4PO, interrupting the droid conversation. "Do you understand the binary language of moisture vaporators?"

Q-4PO stiffened, momentarily afraid T3's plan had been overheard, until he realized the human boy could not understand the language of astromech droids.

"Why yes I do, in fact," Q-4PO recovered. "Ah, and.... so does my counterpart here, actually! Perhaps you can get a good deal for the two of us." Q-4PO gestured toward T3-B3 at his side.

"Really?" Heero looked quite skeptical. "Do you speak Bocce?"

Q-4PO smiled warmly. "Oh, it's like a second language to me, sir."

"Mission accomplished. Follow me."

T3-B3 beeped in relief as the teen led the way toward his uncle.

 

The second commander addressed Darth Zechs. "Lord Zechs, the battle station plans are not aboard this ship. Releia must have hidden the plans inside an escape pod that was jettisoned. We've sent a detachment down to retrieve it."

Zechs nodded, flipping his platinum blonde hair over his shoulder. "My sister, there'll be no one to stop us this time," he whispered to himself. "And then I will finally reveal our true identities. Won't Noin be surprised."

 

Late that afternoon in the garage area of the Maganac homestead Q-4PO sighed in contentment.

"Thank the maker! This oil bath is going to feel simply lovely."

T3-B3 chirped in reply, while Heero sat working at building a model mobile suit complete with miniature self-destruct hand grip.

"Sir?" Q-4PO ventured after a minute of silence. "I'm not sure what planet I'm on. Would you please tell me?"

"If there's a bright center to the universe, you're on the planet that it's farthest from."

"Is that so? What is your name, sir?"

"Call me Heero."

Climbing out of the tub, Q-4PO grinned. "And I am Q-4PO, Human Cyborg Relations, and this is my counterpart, T3-B3. But you may call us Quatre and Trowa, if you like. We chose codenames to seem more personal. I'd love to be your friend."

Heero unplugged a recharger from T3-B3 and began to scrape several connectors on the droid's head with a chrome pick, briefly wondering why this T3 unit had such an unusual head shape. The forehead stuck out in points, like some weird kind of bangs. Heero hadn't ever seen this kind of design in a droid before.

"You have a lot of carbon scoring here," he informed T3-B3.

"With all we've been through, sometimes I'm amazing we're in as good condition as we are, what with the Rebellion and all," Q-4PO answered for him. "We've both narrowly missed destruction on quite a number of occasions. It's our lot in life."

"Do you know of OZ?" Heero questioned at the mention of the Rebellion. "The subsidiary of the Rockefeller Foundation...."

"How did you learn of the name? I had the impression OZ is something of a secret."

Heero scoffed. "It was, but if one can hack a computer, one can learn about anything. Besides, now the network of rebels on the colonies understands the Foundation is behind the Alliance, since mobile suits are crushing all opposition. There seems to be something stuck in here really well -"

A fragment broke loose with a snap, sending Heero tumbling backwards. Suddenly a hologram recording began to play.

"Help me, Obi-J Kenobi. You're my only hope."

Heero got to his feet and edged closer to the image. It was fuzzy but he could see it was a girl about his age. Her long beige hair was pulled up into a hairstyle not unlike that of the famous idol singer/bounty hunter, Lady Une. The girl's regal white dress fell almost to her feet, and she glanced over her shoulder cautiously. The message began to repeat.

"Who is she?" Heero found himself asking.

T3 beeped.

"I'm afraid I'm not quite sure, sir. Trowa says it's old data."

"Is there more to this recording?"

T3 whistled and beeped a message to Q-4PO.

"Trowa says he is the property of Obi-J Kenobi, a resident of these parts. And it's a private message for him. I'm not sure what he's talking about -"

T3 interrupted with another string of beeps.

"Ah?" Q-4PO quickly caught on, realizing this was a chance to make their escape and carry out the important mission. "Oh, yes. Now I remember. Obi-J Kenobi. Such a gentle person. Quite nice.... sunglasses, he had. I.... wonder what's the fellow's been up to lately?"

T3 beeped again. Q-4PO wasn't all that good at lying. Honestly, how did he think up sunglasses?

Heero frowned in thought. "I wonder if he means old Doc Kenobi. I don't know of anyone named Obi-J, but Doc lives out beyond the Dune Sea. Replay the recording."

T3 beeped a reply.

"Trowa, you're a genius," Q-4PO thought to himself in admiration. Aloud he voiced "He says the restraining bolt has short circuited his recording system. If you remove the bolt, he might be able to play back the whole recording."

Heero shot the droids a look that could kill and silently popped the bolt off. The image immediately disappeared.

"Play back the entire message," he commanded.

"Heero? Heero!" a shout came from the other room.

"I'll be right there, Abdul. Quatre, see what you can do with him. I'll be right back." Heero marched out of the garage.

T3 beeped in mock innocence as a certain green tank-top faded from view.

"No, I don't think he likes you at all," Q-4PO agreed.

 

The next morning Rasid peered into the kitchen area at Afmad, who was preparing himself breakfast.

"Have you seen Starkiller this morning?" he asked.

"He left early. Said he wanted to read another chapter of that book of his before he started this morning."

"Not again. I don't like those novels. All destruction and killing and fighting. It's not healthy for the boy. In my opinion, those stories'll start to plant ideas in his head if we don't watch out. Where are the new droids?"

"Went with him, I'd imagine."

"Oh, too bad. I was hoping to have my morning coffee with Quatre-sama. He's such a polite machine, we're really getting along nicely. He loves coffee as much as I do."

"Quatre-sama, Captain?"

Rasid waved his hand. "Never mind. I just started calling him that."

"Him, Captain?"

"Oh, well, you know. It, I guess. It really seems to have a heart, though. Maybe we can have coffee when he gets back."

"Coffee, Captain?"

"Yes. I've never seen a droid who drank it before. Usually they don't eat anything. Amazing, isn't he?"

 

Heero sped along in his landspeeder, scanning the desert floor. Those two new droids had run off the night before, and he was determined to capture them and start them working. Maybe he'd punish them first. They were costing him an hour of leisure reading. He scowled as he sighted a golden form in the distance.

 

Heero slowed to a stop before the fugitives. Quickly jumping out of the speeder he pointed a blaster at them. The robots recognized it as a model containing a powerful magnetic ray.

"Where do you think you're going, onore?"

"To pay a visit to Obi-J," Q-4PO admitted. "Would you be fortunate enough not to blast us into a million pieces right here?"

"We're going back. Now."

T3 beeped that Heero was not leaving any room for argument. Completing this mission would be more difficult than he had pictured.

Suddenly, a Tusken Raider jumped out at Heero from behind a large sandstone rock and knocked him to the ground.

"Sand people!" Q-4PO cried, before getting shoved by another of the enemies and losing his footing, one arm swiftly yanked off and tossed beside him.

The creature raised his ax blade gaderffi and delivered it lightning fast in the direction of Heero's head. Heero shifted his weight and hastily blocked the attack with his blaster, but it smashed on contact. Tossing the remains aside, Heero launched himself at the towering Raider and punched it in the abdomen.

T3 was about to be cornered by a new group of the Raiders. A massive bantha was also headed straight at him. The droid spun to face them and redirected most of his energy to the gears in his base. With one last look around he lifted off and commenced one of his exemplary triple flips. After soaring over a Raider's head he landed gracefully on the the flat sand surface and wheeled himself into a small cave for safety, realizing he couldn't fight this sort of opponent.

Part 2 Preview: Heero sings karaoke, Obi-J explains mysteries of the Force, Han Duo gets into an argument, Q-4PO makes a startling discovery, and more! ^_~

Gundam Wing characters, names, etc. © copyright by Soutsu Agency, Sunrise, Terebi Asahi, Bandai, and associated parties. The characters of this work are used WITHOUT permission for entertainment only. This story is not meant for sale or profit.

Star Wars characters, names, etc. © copyright by Lucasfilm Ltd. and associated parties.

Story © copyright 1999 by Stephanie M. Taylor

Comments and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated! Please e-mail me at: dioptase @ quixium .com

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