Before I start, here is the reasoning behind this fic.
(Going off of Terry Pratchetts' "Trousers of Time" concept, and adding a taste of Temporal Mechanics, this is what I have:
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and this is true even in reference to time and space. Thus, our reality has an uncountable number of realities branching off of it, from small things like whether this morning you put left shoe on before your right or vice versa, to big things, like Germany winning the First World War.
Sometimes, these diffent realities are so similar, they rub against each other, weaking the "walls" of their realities. Furthermore, inside each reality, there are certain resonances. For instance, no matter how far apart two KOTOR universes might be, they will always have a Revan who was mind wiped by the Jedi Council.
Sometimes, though, the resonance is very subtle, but can be amplified by certain events. The use of the Mass Shadow Generator on Malachor V, for instance, killed a vast number of Force-Sensitive beings. These deaths, all happening at once, caused a breach in the walls of reality. In most of the realities, this event passed without mishap, but in the story I want to write here, another reality (our own) was interacting with the KOTOR reality, and something, or rather someone, came through, and harmonised with the Exile.
Because of this, the Exile now has what I'm referring to as "Inter-Dimensional Uncertainty". At almost random times, she'll phase out of reality, and the second entity phases in in her place.)
On with the fic.
+++++++++++++
TEN YEARS AGO....
OVER MALACHOR V
+++++++++++++
Turbolasers flashed and glowed red-hot as two fleets tore into each other, like starving Kath Hounds. Mandalorian gunships and Republic frigates blazed as enemy fire burned through the vacumn. On the bridge of one Republic destroyer, Jedi Knight Fiolla Karris touched a panel on her chair, and nodded to the Zabrak beside her.
"The time is now. Activate the Mass Shadow Generator, Bao-Dur."
"Yes, General." Bao-dur replied in his usual toneless voice, and activated a terminal as Fiolla opened a channel to her leader. The holopit flickered into life as Revan, the Jedi leading the Republic defence against the Mandalorians began to speak.
"What's the situation, Fiolla?"
"We're transmitting the activation codes for the MSG now, Revan. The weapon should fire in 180 seconds from now."
"Very well, General Karris. Start pulling your ships back to Point Gamma to avoid the effects of the MSG." Revan said, as the hologram winked out.
+++++++++++
APRIL 12th, 1944
KOHIMA, INDIA
+++++++++++
The whistling of shells and small-arms fire was almost overwhelming. Sergeant Peter Openshaw and his squad hunkered down behind a fallen tree and fired at the approaching ranks of Japanese soldiers, who streamed towards their location on Garrison Hill.
"Come on lads! Let's give these yellow devils a bloody nose!" Openshaw bellowed, sighting down his No. 4, and cranking off round after round. There was a sharp chattering sound, and a Jap LMG opened up, kicking up mud and dirt around the squad.
"Tony!" someone said, as one of the squaddies jerked backwards. Peter crawled over to take a look. It was bad.
"Parkins! Jones! Get Harris back down the line, to the nearest aid station. Thompson, Smith, go with them and try to round up any able bodies you can."
"Right away, Sergeant." the four men said, and slipped down the other side of the hill, out of the Japs' Line of Fire. Openshaw looked back at the five men with him, and nodded to himself.
"All right, we're in a tight spot, lads, I don't deny that. Nonetheless, we have to try to hold this ridge until Thompson and Smith get back. If neccessary, we'll pull back to that line of rocks over there. Until then, let's give 'em hell!" Openshaw barked, his strong Northern accent betraying his Manchester upbringing.
An unholy scream of "BANZAI!" rang out as he spoke, causing the reduced squad to duck as another fusilade of Japanese gunfire snarled overhead. The Japanese were attacking again, this time a full company in strength. The six British soldiers raised their rifles and SMG, and replied in kind, occasionally rolling hand grenades down to the Japs.
The Japanese were being pushed back, when suddenly mortar bombs started exploding around the Brits. "Fall back, I'll cover you!" Openshaw bellowed, loading fresh ammunition into his rifle.
+++++++++++++
OVER MALACHOR V
+++++++++++++
"MSG activating in T minus 10 seconds." Bao-Dur said. Fiolla nodded, and kept her eye on the holochart.
+++++++++++
KOHIMA, INDIA
+++++++++++
Openshaw heard the whistling sound of a falling mortar shell. He leapt to his feet to run, but the bomb was too close. Peter shut his eyes-
+++++++++++++
OVER MALACHOR V
+++++++++++++
"Activating!" The ship suddenly lurched as the force of gravity multipled exponentionally. Ships, fightercraft, and people cried out as they were crushed by an unyieldingly massive force. Their dying screams echoed out through the Force, hammering at the mental walls of all Jedi, and Fiolla Karris in particular. She grabbed at her head, her fingernails cutting into her flesh as she screamed in pain.
++++++++++
?
++++++++++
The bomb did not explode. Cautiously, Peter opened his eyes after a few seconds.
"What the blood and stomach pills...?" he faltered, turning his head around this way and that.
He was suspended in the centre of an endless expanse of purple, streaked with black. In front of and behind him, two huge circles of pitch black shimmered, giving the impression of unimaginable speed as Peter stood upright. Slowly, he slung his rifle over his shoulder, took his eyeglasses off, and rubbed his face slowly. Donning his glasses once more, he looked around. Nothing had changed.
"Oh boy....." he sighed. He had no clue what was going on, but he had the feeling that if something was going to happen, it would take a while to get to here..... wherever 'here' was. Sighing once more, he pulled a carton of Benson and Hedges from his tunic, and drew out 'the lucky smoke', the one that he'd found upside-down in the pack when he'd bought it at the NAAFI, which was to be only smoked in the direst of occasions.
"Wh-Whoops!" he said, as the carton slipped out of his hand. "Damn! That was my last packet!" he said crossly, seeing the cigarettes disappear. As he despondantly looked after them, he spotted a glowing reflection in his spectacles.
"What on Earth?" he wondered, turning around. "Oh, I say......" he breathed.
Before him, the dark circle now had a spot of bright white light growing. Peter stared as he was sucked into it. "Oh, Bliiiiiimmeeyyyyyyyyyyy....."
+++++++++++++
OVER MALACHOR V
+++++++++++++
Peter felt his jaw drop as the light faded away. "...Bloody Hell..." he gaped soundlessly. He was suspended miles and miles over a planet, surrounded by what could only be spaceships. In the centre of his view, was a spaceship far larger than anything he'd ever seen, even in one of those Flash Gordon serials at the pictures. He floated towards it, like a moth to a flame. As he drew close to it, he saw the name painted on the hull, identifying it as the VALIANT.
"It's English!" he exclaimed.
=====================================================
Fiolla Karris was lying down on the deckplates, barely concious. The awful screaming had mercifully ceased, but it had extracted a terrible toll on her. The bridgecrew were in a state of barely controlled panic as they fought to pull the Valiant out of the gravity well. A few marines and medics bustled onto the bridge, lead by Lieutenant Azkul, who directed the troops and medics.
Unseen by anyone, Peter drifted onto the bridge, towards a striking woman with almost white-blonde hair, who was lying on the deckplates. He looked at her as people bustled about.
'I say.....' he thought, watching a pair of orderlies load her onto a stretcher. 'She's beautiful...' Idly, he reached out, and traced her fine jawline.
"Hey! What do you think you're doing?!" a woman shouted. Peter jumped, and his head thumped against something.
"Ohgodthebackofmyhead! he yelped, putting his hand up to rub the bruise that was forming. Looking around, he performed a double-take. "What the blue blank blazes?" he exclaimed, seeing the woman standing not a foot away from him, next to the stretcher, with her hands on her hips. For several seconds, his eyes darted between the two.
"I said, what do you think you're doing?" the woman said, taking a step towards Peter.
"Woah, woah, woah, woah, easy, easy. I didn't mean to cause any offence." Peter said, waving his hands in front of him in what he hoped was a concilliatory fashion.
"Well... You don't look like the sort who'd cause harm to anybody..." the woman said bluntly. "Just who are you, anyway?"
'Well, thank you very much!' Peter thought archly, as he repositioned the rifle on his shoulder. The sling was cutting into his shoulder. "Openshaw. Sergeant Peter Openshaw, British Army. And you are...?"
"Karris. General Fiolla Karris of the Galactic Republic." the woman replied sternly, but inwardly chortling at the sudden change in demenour of this 'Sergeant Openshaw'.
With an "Erk!", the British Sergeant shot upright into a stiff pose of attention, which partly dislodged his glasses, and saluted. "I apologise for speaking so rudely, ma'am!" he barked, feeling a bead of cold sweat trickle down the side of his face.
Fiolla blinked at the strange man who was staring cross-eyed towards her. Quietly, she began to laugh. It rose higher and higher, until it was an out-and-out cackle.
Suddenly, the ship lurched again, and the stretcher swung to one side, passing through Openshaw and Karris at the same moment. There was a metaphysical gurgling sound, and Peter and Fiolla both corkscrewed down into her body, with a cry of "Stop the universe, I want to get off!" on Peter's part, and "What the fra-?!" from Fiolla.
(Going off of Terry Pratchetts' "Trousers of Time" concept, and adding a taste of Temporal Mechanics, this is what I have:
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and this is true even in reference to time and space. Thus, our reality has an uncountable number of realities branching off of it, from small things like whether this morning you put left shoe on before your right or vice versa, to big things, like Germany winning the First World War.
Sometimes, these diffent realities are so similar, they rub against each other, weaking the "walls" of their realities. Furthermore, inside each reality, there are certain resonances. For instance, no matter how far apart two KOTOR universes might be, they will always have a Revan who was mind wiped by the Jedi Council.
Sometimes, though, the resonance is very subtle, but can be amplified by certain events. The use of the Mass Shadow Generator on Malachor V, for instance, killed a vast number of Force-Sensitive beings. These deaths, all happening at once, caused a breach in the walls of reality. In most of the realities, this event passed without mishap, but in the story I want to write here, another reality (our own) was interacting with the KOTOR reality, and something, or rather someone, came through, and harmonised with the Exile.
Because of this, the Exile now has what I'm referring to as "Inter-Dimensional Uncertainty". At almost random times, she'll phase out of reality, and the second entity phases in in her place.)
On with the fic.
+++++++++++++
TEN YEARS AGO....
OVER MALACHOR V
+++++++++++++
Turbolasers flashed and glowed red-hot as two fleets tore into each other, like starving Kath Hounds. Mandalorian gunships and Republic frigates blazed as enemy fire burned through the vacumn. On the bridge of one Republic destroyer, Jedi Knight Fiolla Karris touched a panel on her chair, and nodded to the Zabrak beside her.
"The time is now. Activate the Mass Shadow Generator, Bao-Dur."
"Yes, General." Bao-dur replied in his usual toneless voice, and activated a terminal as Fiolla opened a channel to her leader. The holopit flickered into life as Revan, the Jedi leading the Republic defence against the Mandalorians began to speak.
"What's the situation, Fiolla?"
"We're transmitting the activation codes for the MSG now, Revan. The weapon should fire in 180 seconds from now."
"Very well, General Karris. Start pulling your ships back to Point Gamma to avoid the effects of the MSG." Revan said, as the hologram winked out.
+++++++++++
APRIL 12th, 1944
KOHIMA, INDIA
+++++++++++
The whistling of shells and small-arms fire was almost overwhelming. Sergeant Peter Openshaw and his squad hunkered down behind a fallen tree and fired at the approaching ranks of Japanese soldiers, who streamed towards their location on Garrison Hill.
"Come on lads! Let's give these yellow devils a bloody nose!" Openshaw bellowed, sighting down his No. 4, and cranking off round after round. There was a sharp chattering sound, and a Jap LMG opened up, kicking up mud and dirt around the squad.
"Tony!" someone said, as one of the squaddies jerked backwards. Peter crawled over to take a look. It was bad.
"Parkins! Jones! Get Harris back down the line, to the nearest aid station. Thompson, Smith, go with them and try to round up any able bodies you can."
"Right away, Sergeant." the four men said, and slipped down the other side of the hill, out of the Japs' Line of Fire. Openshaw looked back at the five men with him, and nodded to himself.
"All right, we're in a tight spot, lads, I don't deny that. Nonetheless, we have to try to hold this ridge until Thompson and Smith get back. If neccessary, we'll pull back to that line of rocks over there. Until then, let's give 'em hell!" Openshaw barked, his strong Northern accent betraying his Manchester upbringing.
An unholy scream of "BANZAI!" rang out as he spoke, causing the reduced squad to duck as another fusilade of Japanese gunfire snarled overhead. The Japanese were attacking again, this time a full company in strength. The six British soldiers raised their rifles and SMG, and replied in kind, occasionally rolling hand grenades down to the Japs.
The Japanese were being pushed back, when suddenly mortar bombs started exploding around the Brits. "Fall back, I'll cover you!" Openshaw bellowed, loading fresh ammunition into his rifle.
+++++++++++++
OVER MALACHOR V
+++++++++++++
"MSG activating in T minus 10 seconds." Bao-Dur said. Fiolla nodded, and kept her eye on the holochart.
+++++++++++
KOHIMA, INDIA
+++++++++++
Openshaw heard the whistling sound of a falling mortar shell. He leapt to his feet to run, but the bomb was too close. Peter shut his eyes-
+++++++++++++
OVER MALACHOR V
+++++++++++++
"Activating!" The ship suddenly lurched as the force of gravity multipled exponentionally. Ships, fightercraft, and people cried out as they were crushed by an unyieldingly massive force. Their dying screams echoed out through the Force, hammering at the mental walls of all Jedi, and Fiolla Karris in particular. She grabbed at her head, her fingernails cutting into her flesh as she screamed in pain.
++++++++++
?
++++++++++
The bomb did not explode. Cautiously, Peter opened his eyes after a few seconds.
"What the blood and stomach pills...?" he faltered, turning his head around this way and that.
He was suspended in the centre of an endless expanse of purple, streaked with black. In front of and behind him, two huge circles of pitch black shimmered, giving the impression of unimaginable speed as Peter stood upright. Slowly, he slung his rifle over his shoulder, took his eyeglasses off, and rubbed his face slowly. Donning his glasses once more, he looked around. Nothing had changed.
"Oh boy....." he sighed. He had no clue what was going on, but he had the feeling that if something was going to happen, it would take a while to get to here..... wherever 'here' was. Sighing once more, he pulled a carton of Benson and Hedges from his tunic, and drew out 'the lucky smoke', the one that he'd found upside-down in the pack when he'd bought it at the NAAFI, which was to be only smoked in the direst of occasions.
"Wh-Whoops!" he said, as the carton slipped out of his hand. "Damn! That was my last packet!" he said crossly, seeing the cigarettes disappear. As he despondantly looked after them, he spotted a glowing reflection in his spectacles.
"What on Earth?" he wondered, turning around. "Oh, I say......" he breathed.
Before him, the dark circle now had a spot of bright white light growing. Peter stared as he was sucked into it. "Oh, Bliiiiiimmeeyyyyyyyyyyy....."
+++++++++++++
OVER MALACHOR V
+++++++++++++
Peter felt his jaw drop as the light faded away. "...Bloody Hell..." he gaped soundlessly. He was suspended miles and miles over a planet, surrounded by what could only be spaceships. In the centre of his view, was a spaceship far larger than anything he'd ever seen, even in one of those Flash Gordon serials at the pictures. He floated towards it, like a moth to a flame. As he drew close to it, he saw the name painted on the hull, identifying it as the VALIANT.
"It's English!" he exclaimed.
=====================================================
Fiolla Karris was lying down on the deckplates, barely concious. The awful screaming had mercifully ceased, but it had extracted a terrible toll on her. The bridgecrew were in a state of barely controlled panic as they fought to pull the Valiant out of the gravity well. A few marines and medics bustled onto the bridge, lead by Lieutenant Azkul, who directed the troops and medics.
Unseen by anyone, Peter drifted onto the bridge, towards a striking woman with almost white-blonde hair, who was lying on the deckplates. He looked at her as people bustled about.
'I say.....' he thought, watching a pair of orderlies load her onto a stretcher. 'She's beautiful...' Idly, he reached out, and traced her fine jawline.
"Hey! What do you think you're doing?!" a woman shouted. Peter jumped, and his head thumped against something.
"Ohgodthebackofmyhead! he yelped, putting his hand up to rub the bruise that was forming. Looking around, he performed a double-take. "What the blue blank blazes?" he exclaimed, seeing the woman standing not a foot away from him, next to the stretcher, with her hands on her hips. For several seconds, his eyes darted between the two.
"I said, what do you think you're doing?" the woman said, taking a step towards Peter.
"Woah, woah, woah, woah, easy, easy. I didn't mean to cause any offence." Peter said, waving his hands in front of him in what he hoped was a concilliatory fashion.
"Well... You don't look like the sort who'd cause harm to anybody..." the woman said bluntly. "Just who are you, anyway?"
'Well, thank you very much!' Peter thought archly, as he repositioned the rifle on his shoulder. The sling was cutting into his shoulder. "Openshaw. Sergeant Peter Openshaw, British Army. And you are...?"
"Karris. General Fiolla Karris of the Galactic Republic." the woman replied sternly, but inwardly chortling at the sudden change in demenour of this 'Sergeant Openshaw'.
With an "Erk!", the British Sergeant shot upright into a stiff pose of attention, which partly dislodged his glasses, and saluted. "I apologise for speaking so rudely, ma'am!" he barked, feeling a bead of cold sweat trickle down the side of his face.
Fiolla blinked at the strange man who was staring cross-eyed towards her. Quietly, she began to laugh. It rose higher and higher, until it was an out-and-out cackle.
Suddenly, the ship lurched again, and the stretcher swung to one side, passing through Openshaw and Karris at the same moment. There was a metaphysical gurgling sound, and Peter and Fiolla both corkscrewed down into her body, with a cry of "Stop the universe, I want to get off!" on Peter's part, and "What the fra-?!" from Fiolla.