Visit to the Resort Ship

I was excited to be invited to the grand opening of Noel of Neptonian's new resort ship, the Sky City. I warped over to Corruscant in the Danger Sled and took a launch to the big ship. I was greeted by a droid and welcomed aboard.

I sauntered over to a bar and got a drink from the bartender. He smiled, pointed at me and got me a beer. I took a pull from the bottle and almost bumped into someone.

"Oh hey, what's up Jon?" said the someone. Ugh, it was Private Hudson. What was he doing here?

"What are you doing here?" I asked. "You're not even from this galaxy!"

"Oh yeah, well, I got an invitation, too, man. I gotta meet this Noel babe. I bet she's totally hot, man."

He took a drink from his beer.

"Game over, man," he added.

"Well, that's nice," I said kind of absently. "Well, I wanted to go mingle a bit. See who else is here, you know."

"Oh yeah, me too," Hudson responded.

Hudson followed me as I went around the deck shaking hands with some old and new friends. Aayla was there, I haven't seen her in a long time. After we greeted each other, Hudson elbowed me and introduced himself.

"Hi, I'm Private Hudson," he said. "But tonight, you can call me Private Party. Oh yeah."

Aayla rolled her eyes. "Get lost, loser."

"Oh yeah, the H-Man magic is working!"

I tried to duck away, but again Hudson was right behind me. I saw that Captain Typho and a football player were talking to each other, I went over to greet them.

"How are you doing, Jon?" Typho asked. "I haven't seen you in a while. This is Michael Piett-man, he's with the Tafanda Bay Space Buccaneers."

I shook his hand. "Wow, this is pretty cool. Glad to meet you."

"Wait, are you the Jon the Intergalactic Gladiator?" asked Michael. "I'm a little star struck. I've never met an intergalactic gladiator before!"

"You're Michael Piett-man?" Hudson interrupted. "Hey, how come against the Alderaan Falcons last week on third and one you got stuffed for no gain? Man, you shoulda barreled right through everyone for the first."

"Who's this guy?" asked Piett-man.

"Private Hudson, Colonial Marines." Hudson held out his hand to shake Piett-man's.

"Hey Captain," I nudged Typho. "Give him the business."

Captain Typho quickly snapped into ultra-military mode.

"Attention!"

Hudson snapped to attention. His arms were ridged at his side. Typho looked his prey up and down.

"Private, you are one sad-sack mess," he drilled. "When was the last time you shaved?"

"This morning, sir."

"This morning?" snorted Typho. "Next time you're going to have to stand a little closer to your razor!"

"Yes sir."

"I can't hear you!"

"Yes sir!"

"Now look, Private," Typho really bit into the word private. "This is my vacation. I do not want to come here and have to babysit some ate-up marine who can't compose himself in front of a few celebrities. I want you to tell this man that you're sorry that you're bothered him."

Hudson's eyes grew wide "Oh my God!"

"I didn't order you to say 'Oh my God!'" yelled Typho. He was really getting into it.

"Oh my God!" Hudson said again.

"Private, if you say that one more time, you will be doing push-ups until I'm tired!"

Hudson gulped. "there's a man on the wing!"

I looked out the porthole. "This is space, this ship doesn't need a wing. It looks to be more like a sensor pylon to me. Holy cow, that is a man on it!"

I quickly ran to the airlock, put on a spacesuit and rocketed over to his location with the suit's Manned Maneuvering Unit. My plan was to rescue him, but when I got closer, it didn't look like he needed rescuing!

"Blah! I'm a Space Vampire!" he said. "I'm going to bite your neck!"

"How are you going to bite my neck?" I asked. "I'm wearing a space suit!"

"OK, I guess I hadn't thought of that!" the monster conceded.

"And how do you survive in space?" I asked.

"I'm a vampire!" he said. "I do not need to breathe! Mua ha ha ha ha!"

"Well, how come you're not burning up from the solar winds?" I asked.

"Look," he said. "I'm a monster, dangit. I've been sent here to bite your neck and suck your blood. Gimme a break, I'm not here to give you a physics lesson."

"Who sent you?" I asked.

"The Count!" he howled.

"Who is the count?" I demanded.

"I'm not telling!" With that, he lunged at me.

Quickly, I spun out of his way. When he lunged at me again, I booted him in the stomach.

"You should get a kick out of that!" I said.

"Whulfff, that was bad. You really need better action hero lines."

I fired the rockets on my spacesuit, launched myself at him and grabbed him as we collided. The momentum carried us away from the Sky City. I then threw him towards Corruscant's sun and adjusted my rockets to stop my own momentum.

"Don't like my lines? Well that just burns me up," I said. Maybe he was right.

The Space Vampire howled as his momentum increased dramatically towards the sun. As he flew towards it, his skin began to crumble. Soon he was no more than so much dust burning into the bright star.

This was the Count's second attack against me and I still did not know who he was or where he is.

"Count!" I yelled out into the cold, empty space. "COUNT!"