Chapter 1

Jawa was far from stupid and in fact had distinguished himself in his studies at his planetary system's local branch of the Galactic University graduating first in his class composed of forty thousand some sentient beings from eleven different races. No, he wasn't unintelligent; he was just somewhat absent minded from time to time. If he had time to second check his work things usually turned out quite well; if he didn't get enough time sometimes things could get awkward — now was one of those times.

He'd been hyper-sailing towards the far side of the Galaxy when he ran out of fuel. Now fuel wasn't terribly hard to come by on most civilized planets but the various elements necessary to charge up a fuel cell could take on various forms that sometimes made them a bit difficult to find on less sophisticated worlds; that combined with the fact that he was crossing a completely uncharted area of space made things even more challenging and dangerous so Jawa had elected to make the trip alone and could not count on any shipmates helping him to locate the elements he would need. On top of that when his ship had began losing power Jawa headed for the largest life sustaining planet within his reach and upon entering its atmosphere he had to divert the remaining power away from the cloaking mechanism and life support and re-direct it to the stabilizers and inertia dampening system.

Jawa was able to guide the craft down through the planets moisture laden atmosphere and was selecting a landing site when the last of the fuel cell's power drained out. His ships AI had been scanning the surrounding area as Jawa piloted his craft in as controlled a descent as possible.

Hi. I'm Bill Bruckner, or Big Bill as the other seamen had called me before I'd retired. I thought I'd write down a little of my story in case someone is interested in reading it after I pass on. I'm not really expecting to bite the dust anytime soon — but you never really know and it just might be fun for me to read it later myself someday.

Anyway I was out on the lake in my old fishing boat just enjoying the early evening peace and solitude my little slice of the planet offered. The dusky sky was turning dark and a few stars were just beginning to become visible when I saw a large asteroid like object pass about sixty feet over my head. The edges of the rock were almost glowing with heat like the coals I'd see in my fireplace when the logs had broken apart and the heat was strong and steady. I felt the wave of hot air brush past me as the asteroid continued on until it made a large thump as it landed at the muddy edge of the lake flattening about a half an acre of cattails and swamp grass. It had landed in what was mostly mud but even so a series of short choppy waves nearly overturned my boat. I managed to keep afloat and ride out the series of waves before starting the little trawler motor and heading for the dock.

I had spent most of my adult life on ocean going merchant vessels. When I retired a few months back I finally decided to visit the little patch of land in Minnesota that my grandfather had left to me. When I was growing up Gramps had brought me here quite a few times for a little fishing. There was a nice little cottage not too far from the dock I was now tying the boat to and of course the boat itself along with the other necessary fishing gear. This was my second time up here since I'd retired just two years earlier at the age of fifty. Having no wife or kids to spend my money on stretched my income farther and living aboard ship meant I hadn't had to deal with mortgage, rent, car, or auto insurance payments using up my money either. For nearly my entire career I had invested my earnings in the stock market. About ten years earlier my grandfather had passed on and left me a rather sizeable sum of money — even after Uncle Sam took its tax bite out of it. I invested this money as well. I could retire when I reached fifty because, while I wasn't filthy rich by any stretch, I could afford to live quite well on the interest and dividends from my investments without needing to rely on social security or a company pension.

I quickly ran from the dock to my pickup truck and drove the short distance around the lake shore to the muddy area where the asteroid had hit. Sure I'd heard of asteroids striking the Earth before but the situation seemed really strange to me right from the moment I first saw it in the boat. First, the asteroid passed overhead but it wasn't going very fast at all. Second, when it hit it didn't plow a deep furrow in the mud or even slide very far from where it first impacted.

The heat from the surface of the asteroid evaporated the water into steam forming a shroud of fog hovering over the ground immediately surrounding the asteroid; in the semi-darkness of an early Minnesota evening it gave an almost eerie appearance to the rapidly cooling rock. I stopped the truck and walked through the fog until I was standing at the muddy edge of the lake nearest the asteroid. I slipped out of my jacket and tossed it back towards the truck. The friction heated rock was warming up the formerly cool air rather nicely and with the jacket I was just too warm.

I stood looking at the enormous rock in front of me and asked myself "Just what is one supposed to do when an asteroid lands anyway? Let's see — no one was hurt and there's no severe property damage to speak of either."

As I was musing over the new curiosity that had so recently plunked itself at the edge of my lake I was quite shocked to hear a pop and then a hissing noise. Looking in the direction of the sound I saw a section of the rock was sinking into the surface of the asteroid up near the top of the enormous rock. It was some kind of door or hatch! A bright light shown around the edges of the opening hatch as the door swung further inward. Finally the door was retracted all of the way leaving a sharp beam of bright light spilling out into the darkening evening.

"It's a damn spaceship!" I thought to myself.

Soon enough the head and shoulders of a blue skinned alien rose through the "hatchway" as I now began to think of it. The alien's body kept on rising until it was clear of the spacecraft and I could see it was riding some kind of hovering platform that reminded me of the "hover board" from the film "Back to the Future". I saw that the alien was facing away from me and looking out over the lake.

"Over here," I called in a relatively quiet voice so as to not overly startle my unusual visitor. Instead of turning its head the alien spun the whole hover board around until it was facing me.

"Welcome to Earth. My name is William Bruckner," I said as I extended my hands palm up to show I was unarmed. The alien looked remarkably human — if you didn't count the blue skin and the bright orange hair. It stood listening with its head tilted to the side, chin cupped in one hand, and a look of utter concentration on its face.

"Can you understand my speech?" I asked.

"Please continue conversing," the Alien requested.

I later learned that the Alien had some sort of translator device and needed to get an adequate sampling of English speech before it could render an adequate translation into Galactic Standard. Fortunately Jawa had been able to pick up several broadcasts in the English language and his translator was almost ready to begin translating in earnest.

I heard my voice played back "Welcome to Earth. My name is Bill Bruckner."

This was immediately followed by some rendition of my words in an alien language. The blue skinned being looked at me and said some words in his own language which were then rendered by the translator into a relatively close approximation of English: "Greetings Sir Bill. My name is Jabba the Hut."

The alien saw the mixture of surprise and amusement on my face and pressed some button on the translator affixed to its belt. The unit repeated the words "Greetings Sir Bill. My name is Jabba the Hut," and then translated the words back into the alien language at which a very frustrated look crossed the alien's face.

While my alien visitor was attempting to calibrate his translation device, I took a good look at my unexpected guest. The creature looked quite similar to a human except for its ears - they were pointed like those of the elves described in children's fairy tales. Apparently nudity wasn't taboo wherever it might be that my visitor came from and I was quite surprised to see the size of its sex organ as it dangled limply between the creature's legs. The alien cock was long and thick even while soft and in a non-aroused state. The shape of the blue penis was unmistakable in that it was just about identical with the shape of a human penis — it was just much larger in proportion to the alien's body. The creature looked to be just about three and a half feet tall.

"Okay, then — let's try it again," I heard the translator device say.

"Greetings Bill, my name is Jawa," the creature said extending its hand in the human fashion.

I shook his hand with a firm but not harsh grip and said "It's a pleasure to meet you Jawa. I bet working with that translator device can be frustrating can't it?"

Jawa carefully listened to what was coming out of the translator before replying "Yes, but it's better than not having a translator."

I was probably better suited than some to meet an alien life form. I'd visited so many different countries during my sea going days and sampled a wide variety of cultures. Basically you could get along with almost anyone if you could understand their needs and help meet them in some fashion; of course there were the occasional nut jobs for which this would never be true — but most of the time it worked.

"Jawa does our air seem cold to you? It's only a short way to my cabin and we could talk inside where it's a bit more comfortable," I offered.

"Yes it is a bit cool. Where is this cabin?"

I walked back to shore, picked up my jacket, and headed for the cabin while Jawa kept pace on his hover board. We soon reached the cabin and entered its relative warmth.

"Jawa, I'd offer you some food or perhaps a beverage if I knew what would be acceptable to you. Are you at all familiar with Earth cuisine?"

"No Bill. This is my first visit to your planet. I won't know what is safe to consume without having my ship's sensors scan everything. I hope it doesn't seem rude of me, but for now I must decline your offer."

"That's alright. I can understand your caution.

Our conversation was paced somewhat by the action of the translator, but I found that helpful since it gave me time to think before I spoke.

"So what brings you here?" I asked.

"I need to locate fuel for my ship," Jawa succinctly replied.

"Oh, what kind of fuel do you need to power your ship?"

Jawa tried to describe just what was needed with little to no success. There just weren't any words in the translator to do the job adequately. I thought about the Alien's problem for a while and then got an idea.

I led Jawa over to my desktop PC, got on the internet, and displayed the periodic table on the screen. Jawa studied it intently for a few minutes and then began to become very excited. He sat some sort of device down next to the keyboard. I assume the device must have interfaced with my computer since browser pages were being brought up at a pace far to fast for me to read them. While the pages were flipping Jawa had his index finger resting on a small pad on top of the device while his eyes were closed in concentration. Suddenly the activity on the screen came to a halt and Jawa opened his eyes.