1. Rogue One - 01


    Date: 12/29/2023, Categories: Fantasy & Sci-Fi, Author: The_Technician

    ... whatever it was. A freighter once carelessly dropped out of light while aimed directly at Earth Base Seven Gamma. Luckily the commander had seen the trajectory of the ship and raised shields or the base would have been destroyed. That base, as well as Colony Seven were now gone.
    
    A small ship began to fire its engines and slowly descend to the surface of the planetoid. The ship looked like it had originally been a small interplanetary shuttle, but now there were four thruster nacelle pylons from a starship along with what appeared to be four or five dozen weapons launch tubes welded to its outer shell.
    
    The ungainly ship wobbled back and forth several times before stabilizing on the landing pad. Then a lone figure wearing a breathing assist apparatus emerged from the ship and walked the short distance to the main airlock of the base. Once inside, he pressed the intercom key and announced, “This is Rogue One. Take me to your leader.” Then he said, “I’ve always wanted to say that,” and started to laugh.
    
    He was still laughing when two armed spacers opened the inner hatch. “Come with us,” the two women said in that flat, slightly threatening tone common to all security personnel. He was no longer laughing as he entered the main control room and was ushered over to Commander Blackstone’s command station.
    
    “You say you can take down the Brulaxian shields,” she said calmly. Then she asked in that same calm command voice, “Can you?”
    
    “Yes, I can,” Rogue One answered ...
    ... firmly. “And if we coordinate an attack, I can light them up with a laser so you can get past all their other jamming technology and score direct hits with everything you’ve got.”
    
    “Why should I believe you?” Commander Sylvia replied as she carefully assessed his rumpled clothing that looked like he had been sleeping in it for weeks.
    
    “Oh,” Rogue One said with a smile, “you don’t have to believe me. You just have to believe Archie.”
    
    He then reached into a large side pocket and lifted out an insect about twice the size of a football that looked very much like a common Earth cockroach. All four of the women in the room reacted in horror, but Rogue called out, “He’s sentient! He’s sentient!”
    
    “We’ve seen these insects before,” Commander Blackstone said dryly. “There has been no indication of sentience.”
    
    “Yeah,” Rogue replied, “but you didn’t crash on one of their repair asteroids. I did, and while they were repairing my ship... and me... they implanted a translation chip in my head so I could understand them.”
    
    He reached into another pocket and set a small box on the table. The super-large roach reared up on his back four legs and a firm, human-sounding voice came out of the box. “Greetings, Commander Sylvia,” it began. “Now that our language barrier has been overcome, I think you will recognize our intelligence and accept us as equals. My name does not translate into your thought patterns, so you may call me Archie as Rogue One does.”
    
    There was a pause before the ...
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