Death-Star Crossed Lovers, Chapter 1 · 12:30pm Jul 2nd, 2018
Chapter 1: An Unexpected Encounter
Ensign Starwise Sunbeam hurried down the crowded, gunmetal gray corridors of Quadrant 4, Level 87 North. She dodged around squads of stormtroopers, hopped over mouselike MSE-6 repair droids, and raced toward the dwindling light of her objective.
“Hold the lift!” she shouted. “Officer--huff, huff--Officer coming through! Hold the liiiift!”
Ahead, the adjutant in the turbolift saw her coming and stabbed at the control panel. The doors began to slide shut.
“No! Noooo! Hold it!” Starwise put on another burst of speed, her hooves rattling the deckplates. “Please I need that lift—”
Sadly, the turbolift did not need her. The doors closed just feet from her muzzle with the quiet hiss of an airtight seal. Some mechanism behind the doors hummed, and the lift was gone.
“No! I can’t be late!” She spun around – the area around her was clearing rapidly, as the assembled technicians and troopers decided they had better things to do than surround a panicking junior officer. “Stairs! Where are the stairs?”
There: emergency signs directed her to the stairwell. She pounded through the door, knocking aside a gunner’s mate with a breathless apology. Yeomen hugged the walls as she trampled down the stairs, taking them four at a time. Beside, held in the faint cerise glow of her magic, hovered a dossier of critical engineering documents she’d spent the past week pouring over. Over her other shoulder hovered, under its own power, a heavily modified P5-32 personal assistant droid. No larger than a common sparrow, it deftly kept up with its charge no matter how frantically she tumbled and crashed through the winding maze that was the Death Star.
“I told you we were going to be late,” P5 said. He wasn’t out of breath at all. “I said, ‘Ensign Sunbeam, it will take 15 minutes to traverse the quadrant to the meeting room Commander Double Rhombus reserved for the meeting,’ and you said, ‘P5 you worry too much, we’ll catch the turbolift and—’”
“I know I know I know!” She paused on a landing and panted for breath. “Where’s the next turbolift?”
The LEDs on P5’s side blinked as he accessed the network. “Down two levels. It won’t arrive for 435 seconds, however. We’ll still be late.”
“Okay. Okay.” She licked her lips. “We’ll take the executive lift! It’s only one floor away!”
“Ensign Sunbeam, we can’t!” P5 cruised beside her as she jumped out of the stairwell. “The executive suites are for flag officers and their staffs only! We’re not allowed in!”
“No one will know!” Starwise Sunbeam paused to catch her breath and pat her mane back into order. She couldn’t be seen out of regs here, of all places. She trotted forward, legs high, just like they taught at the academy. She had to look like she belonged. “Now, just be quiet and—”
She rounded the corner. Something gray and solid and tall also rounded the corner, coming the opposite way, and they crashed together. Starwise fell back onto her haunches with a yelp, hooves reflexively rising to cup her muzzle. The papers held in her magical grip fell to the floor and splashed outward in a dozen directions.
“Ow!” she cried. “Careful! Didn’t your mother ever teach you to walk on the right side of the… of the…”
“I beg your pardon, ensign,” a deep, elegant baritone rolled over her, squashing her pitiful attempt at a witticism. The voice held within its dulcet tones a deep and bottomless well of confidence, born from decades of command, honed to a razor’s edge by the steadfast application of an iron will. His was the voice of glaciers, grinding continents to dust; his was the voice of the tides, a rolling, endless, depthless power that cared not the pitiful concerns of mortal men and ponies but shaped their lives to his will. His voice seized her soul with its first utterance, flayed her, leaving her exposed as she had never been exposed before, all her secrets laid out and revealed. She shivered, naked in soul if not in body, and longed to weep in gratitude of simply hearing him speak.
“Ah, you seem to have dropped your papers,” he continued. “Let me get them for you.” And he bent his knee, his uniform tightening around his legs as he lowered himself to her level to gather the papers she had lost. Her eyes strayed across his chest, his powerful shoulders, his graceful, artist’s hands, and finally her addled mind comprehended who he was, and she realized the depths of her mistake.
“Grand Moff Tarkin!” P5 buzzed beside her. “My lord, I am so sorry! I… I directed the ensign here! It was my fault we—”
“Silence, machine,” a second voice interrupted. Dark, where Tarkin’s was deep; it hummed its vowels and hissed its consonants, machine like, a robot’s voice given breath by a man. Black robes swept forward, and Darth Vader, the Dark Lord of the Sith, stood before her.
He raised his hand, and an iron vice gripped Starwise around the throat. She lifted into the air with a choked gurgle, her hooves pawing at the invisible force strangling her.
“What shall I do with this clumsy fool, my lord?” Darth Vader asked.
“Easy, Vader,” Tarkin replied. His eyes never left the papers gathered in his hands. He stood, towering over Starlight like her father Starwise like a stately elm. He leafed through the pages, humming quietly, his eyes never ceasing their constant dance.
“These designs… you drafted them?” he finally asked. At last his eyes turned to hers, and all thoughts of reply fled from her mind.
His eyes were the blue of the arctic ocean. They pierced her through, as easily as turbolasers pierce the weak tungsten hulls of rebel starships. She felt herself fall into his gaze, forgetting the crushing pressure on her throat, the panic of her flailing hooves suspended in the air, even the horror of being caught sneaking through this forbidden place. In some distant, still-rational part of her mind, Starlight recalled that only minutes before her life consisted of being late for some silly meeting with the head of engineering. But now she had seen this stallio man, and lost herself in his presence, and she wanted to laugh at her earlier self.
Reality and gravity returned. Vader released her to crash onto the deckplates. “Answer him, foolish girl!” the hideous cyborg demanded.
She coughed. She tasted blood. But still she met Tarkin’s gaze. “Yes. Yes, those are mine.”
“Mhm.” Tarkin flipped to the next page. Her biography, apparently: “Ensign Starwise Sunbeam, class of 17. Top of your year with a degree in mechanical engineering. You specialized in thermal exhaust port design. A rather esoteric field.”
“It’s underappreciated,” Starwise replied. “Not enough people understand the importance of proper reactor venting. I… I hoped it would be useful on the Death Star.”
“It may yet.” Tarkin tapped the edges of the pages, bringing them back into alignment, and offered them to the unicorn. “Vader, I believe we’ve found our new executive assistant. Start the paperwork to have her transfered to my office. I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow, ensign.”
With that he nodded to her and stepped past, already aimed like a missile at his next task. She shivered at the thought of being his target, and then – only then – did his words register.
“Executive… assistant?” Her heart skipped a beat. “Me… I’m his new executive assistant!”
“A position I have full confidence you will fail at,” Vader said.
Starlight Starwise gasped and jumped. She’d nearly forgotten he was still there. She started to bow and mutter some insipid vow to try her hardest—
“Save your words, unicorn,” Vader commanded. “Know this. Your obvious intelligence and peerless writing skills may have impressed Grand Moff Tarkin, but he is only concerned with the mission and the Empire. I, however, am entrusted with his well-being. Beneath that stern exterior lies a sensitive soul and tender heart. If you fail him, Starwise, if you hurt him, you will wish I’d been allowed to choke the life from you at our first meeting.”
With that Vader spun away, his cloak billowing out as he pursued his master. “Your trial starts tomorrow!” he called back as he vanished around the corner.
Starlight stood there panting. She barely heard P5’s nattering voice, or noticed the other staff officers peeking out from their offices to see who had just joined their ranks. Only one thing concerned her.
What have I gotten myself into??
On a whim, I googled "Starlight glimmer star wars." The internet did not disappoint.
We don't deserve you.
Not enough pony, too much Star Wars. Reads like a Star Wars fic that has a pony thrown in for good measure to lure MLP: FiM fans to read that author's Star Wars fic.
Clearly an attempt to leech off of the popularity of MLP: FiM and stories centered around it to get that Star Wars story to become popular.
A proper ponification would look different. Needs more pony, much more.
Starlight you silly pony you.
Nice bit of fan-fiction in fan-fiction.
I could so totally see this.
We need Starlight's Secret Shipfic game.
Isn't that Star Wars in a nutshell?
To be fair, Vader and Tarkin do go way back.
This is a devastating return of Jaxie's serve.
Isn't the Empire super, super speciesist? I'm not sure if they'd tolerate equinoids on their flagship battle station. To say nothing of questions about how magic and the Force do and don't interact...
(What? I have fun by nitpicking and taking things inappropriately seriously, whether that means too much or not enough.
)
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Oh god. That would be... I dunno, sinister, deeply troubling, and likely side-splittingly funny.
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Starlight's not a very good fanfic writer.
This sounds interesting ! Are you planning to continue this story?
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You're hardly the only one. Though apparently the imperial navy has at least one other pony in their ranks, judging by who she's trying to meet.
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Do feel free to join in...
All Bottled Up
Ship, Love Poison
With a flash of her horn, it was done. No more desperate pining for her best friend, no more vivid fantasies interfering with their friendship. It was the perfect plan, and nothing would go wrong this time!
-Summer Heat
Maud, Princess of Rock
Maud, Alicorn
Rock and Role All Night (Swap)
She stood alone before the audience of thousands. The spotlight silhouetted only her, her face impassive. "I'm here to present my rocktorate thesis." And then she unslung her guitar, and music roared forth like the clash of continents
-The Sound and the Fury
Starlight, Queen of the Wastes
Starlight, Unicorn Villain, Alternate Timeline
Burn the World (Replace)
"I have no need for 'repentance' and 'redemption'," Starlight sneered, "for I have achieved my heart's desire! Soon all will be equal...in death!"
-Unsaved, Chapter 3
Until I Get It Right
Ship
Special: Playing this card also counts as breaking up this ship.
Starlight dashed back to the map chamber in tears. Her heart and Trixies, both shattered by her foolishness. There was only one thing to do.
-Try Try Again, Again, Chapter 1
Noooooooooooooooooooooooo.
There are days when I feel like an ant in a world of giants
This is one of them.
The world needed this
Starlight Glimmer's Shipping Manifesto
Fanfic Author Starlight Glimmer
Starlight
Place this card in the center of the table at the start of the game. This card cannot be moved or removed from the grid. This power cannot be copied.
I'm so afraid, but I refuse to take the coward's way out and hide anymore. I will share my truth with the world! This would be so much easier if Twilight would understand, but how could she?
-Starlight's Secret Diaries XIII
Multiversal Cultural Exchange
Ship
“This is your fanfiction. Your protagonist is an imperial unicorn named ‘Starwise Sunbeam’ who thinks that Grand Moff Tarkin has a ‘sexy voice.’”
-Twilight Sparkle
In Another Life
Goal, 1 Point
Win this goal when you play a ship with an alternate timeline pony.
Far away war raged and fire fell from the sky, but here and in this moment there was peace. Starlight's heart ached all the more for it. She had to restore the true timeline, but how could she erase the one world where she had found love?
-The Tangled Skein, Chapter 12
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Don't make me write Chapter 2.
Omfg. Art.
...
So Vader and Star
lightwise both have a crush on Tarkin.This should be good in its absurdity, somebody write part two.
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You shouldn’t encourage me...
Magical Matchmaker
2 Points - Goal
Have four ponies shipped with love poison in the grid.
At last the chart was complete, everyone in Ponyville matched ideally by both personality and talent. Starlight suppressed a cackle. Now, on to stage two!
-Things I Will Not Do Today Even If They Would Totally Work VII
Desperate Measures
Ship-Love Poison
Twilight looked at Starlight, sad and desperate. “I’m sorry Starlight, but I just don’t feel that way about you.”
“I know you don’t Twilight. But the Windigos are coming, and we cant defeat them without love. I’m sorry too, I hope you can forgive me someday.”
-Cold Neccessity
School Discipline
Ship
”Have you been wicked your highness?”
“Yes Ms Glimmer.”
-Schoolyard Folly
Starlight / Tarkin ship?
Still a better love story than TLJ
This is beautiful. I cried!
She missed one in post.