It's His Galaxy (And We're All Living in It)

Into the Danger Zone

Milo's head hurt. His knees hurt. His back hurt. Basically, everything hurt. And he couldn't be happier about it. Because it meant that he was alive. The Jedi may have said that there was no death, only the Force, but in Milo's experience, they were very, very wrong. There was a great deal of death in the galaxy. He had seen it with his own two eyes. Broken bones, you could heal from. Death, not so much.

And to make matters even better, Zack and Melissa were alive too! The day kept getting better and better.

"Did someone shoot us down?" Melissa said, looking groggy. Had she slept through the whole crash? That was dedication. Milo was honestly impressed. He resolved to ask Melissa her secret as soon as they were back learning about the Force.

"Nah, this is regular old Murphy's Law in action," Milo explained. "You'll get used to it after a while. The secret is to take deep breaths at regular intervals. I know, it doesn't sound like much, but it helps!"

Milo stood up and tried his best to ignore the jet of pain that echoed throughout his entire body. He was better at it than he used to be, but this had been a pretty bad crash.

They were in a place that probably could have been mistaken for heaven at first glance, it was so beautiful. Milo's idea of heaven, admittedly, probably involved a ton of ancient ruins to sift through, but it was close. Not only did it have Zack in it (and Milo was sure that his mere presence made any space 3.625798 times more heavenly than average), but it contained grass of the most beautiful green, rock faces of the most amazing brown, ravenous beasts that were heading his way, and Zack.

It was nice to be back in the great outdoors again. Milo was a nature person at heart. He was never happier than when he was breathing fresh air and enjoying...

Hang on a second. There was something he was missing. Oh, that's right! The ravenous beasts that were heading his way.

Man, where was his head today?

Milo had forgotten more about xenobiology than most people ever learned, and unfortunately one of those things was the identity of the horrid creatures heading this way. They were squat, bloated creatures with dull, yellow-green wrinkled and bumpy hides. They had four three-toed feet, short and stubby tails, and a thick, bony ridge traveling down their back, from which thin, fleshy spines protruded. Their heads had an upward-facing jaw, connected low on the skull, and thin, sharp, needle-like teeth jutting from the lower jaw which protruded over their upper lip. Their eyes stood on short stalks and moved independently of one another.

Darn it, what was the name of these things? It was going to haunt him all day. It started with a C, he remembered that much.

"MILO, WATCH OUT!" Melissa screamed. Her vibrosword glinted in the light as she cut off the creature's head. But then another one of them lunged at her from behind, knocking her to the ground and sending the vibrosword spinning out of her hand.

Zack blasted away at the creatures, but his shots kept on bouncing off their hides. It would have been quite impressive, really, if Zack hadn't been in mortal danger because of it. Ah, the natural world was a beautiful thing, even when it was trying to kill you.

Milo took a deep breath. He really did not like using Murphy's Law in combat situations, as a deliberate weapon. Using it against non-sentient mechanical devices was one thing. Using it against another living being, even one without sentience, was quite another. He was terrified that he'd end up slipping into the dark side. But there was no other choice.

He couldn't quite say how it worked, not with words. One moment, he saw the Restoration Zone as it was. The next moment, he saw it in the Force. The Force whispered knowledge to Milo, the knowledge of how to rend anything he saw or touched. He knew instantaneously how to send the whole mountain crashing down on their heads, for example. It would barely take any effort at all. Do it, the Force whispered. No, I should be more specific. The dark side whispered.