Travelers

Chapter 36 - The Realm of Stars

Travelers part 4
The Odyssey of Worlds

Jacob had walked away from the table where he sat with Cat, and now winter had come and gone without her ever realizing why his lucky coin had been the Canadian $2 coin. He had been waiting for something to happen. Vince was at school as much as he had been, as though nothing was wrong. Jacob waited and watched for some new opportunity to travel. He figured that with the introduction of wanderers almost nothing would end well. He still talked to Rose and saw Richard every few days, but he wondered if Richard had accidentally blundered into any other stories. It seemed he needed only walk through a door as his mind wandered, from what he had described.

Jacob was now on his way to hang out with Mal and Cat at Mal's house. He opened the passenger door to the van and thanked his mom. She backed out of the driveway as he walked up to the front door. He was greeted by Mal's younger brother, Calen. Calen was a year younger than Jacob, but the two of them had often been mistaken for the other, due to their similar hair color and length of hair. Jacob hadn't been mistaken for him in a while since he had cut his hair, but from what he had heard Calen was still called Jacob every once in a while. Calen opened the door and Jacob stepped inside.

Calen told him the others were downstairs, so Jacob went to the door to the stairs. He opened it and hesitated for a moment to make sure he would actually be heading to their basement. He walked down the stairs quickly coming to the landing that looked like two landings. The wall that the stairs faced was a large mirror, giving one a strange sensation every time you walked up or down each step. The two of them were sitting at the small round table that was in the open space of the basement. The room had a large entertainment center with a right angle couch in front of it. Behind that was a sort of alcove that contained their electric piano and a mini bar-like counter behind it. There was another side room that had a ping pong table.

He sat down joking, "Ah, the travelers of the round table." He smiled at his own joke while Mal shook her head and Cat sat stared at him. They hadn't found it nearly as funny. They played a card game then moved to play a few video games. Calen joined them when they started playing, but Jacob outpaced even him in each of the games. Each time he beat them, he felt a little bad for showing off, but he was just too competitive to throw one of the games to make them feel better. They laughed and just enjoyed their time hanging out, but of course it wouldn't last.

They had changed games to a Star Wars third person shooter, one of Jacob's favorite games, and everything went wrong. Jacob found his character moving out of the screen. Moments later, they had an Imperial trooper standing right in front of them. They glanced around them for a moment, then their gaze landed on the four teens.

He was sucked back into his game moments later, but he had clearly been pulled into their world for a moment. The three travelers looked at each other, worry showing on all of their faces. Calen, however, sat stunned by what he had just seen. He said nothing for a few moments, and the others hadn't acknowledged that he didn't know what traveling was. Jacob hesitated to tell Calen while he couldn't prove it by taking him into a story. Perhaps he would just believe he hallucinated the trooper.

"What... was that?" Calen shattered Jacobs hopes of getting out of this one smoothly. Jacob was trying to figure out how to say it exactly, when Mal grabbed her brother by the arm and led him back up the stairs. Jacob decided it might be best to follow, and Cat was right behind him. Of course, they managed to do exactly what he had been hoping not to do. They rushed through the door and found themselves standing not in the main room of Mal and Calen's home, but staring out a large window in a metal wall that overlooked a large hanger full of strange metal ships. Jacob recognized them to be TIE fighters, Twin Ion Engine fighters, the imperial standard fighter ship. He noticed a squadron of TIE interceptors, and even a few bombers among the many ships. The ships were built with maximum efficiency in mind, and little care for the pilot, so their frames were that of a large orb, where the pilot sat, with two hexagon wings that doubled as solar paneling on either side. They had managed to accidentally step into Star Wars. There was little time to explain to to the others when something he had not been expecting happened. Another ship flew across the sky in view from the hangar. It looked to be a flying saucer with a few additional thrusters jutting out the back. This sight caused Jacob to do a double take. That ship was not from Star Wars. Worlds had already begun to collide.