Gershwin and Jedi Rowan rescue the princess

Once upon a time, there was a boy called Gershwin. He lived on a planet far, far away, a very, very long time ago.

His parents were farmers, but they didn’t farm animals or crops. They farmed batteries. On this distant planet, batteries grew underground, and everything needed them.

People travelled on speeder bikes. They looked rather like motorbikes, except they had no wheels. They hovered above the ground until someone pressed the go button, and then they flew faster than you had ever seen.

Gershwin lived at a small spaceport filled with spaceships. Some were tiny, for tiny people. Others were big enough for elephant-type people. Their owners could fly around the stars, but Gershwin had no money for a ship of his own. He kept farming batteries, hoping to earn enough.

One day, while looking for batteries, he found a little robot. It couldn’t talk. It just beeped.

“Beep, boop, boop!”

Suddenly, a hologram of a woman appeared.

“Help me! I need your help. Find Rowan, and he will know what to do.”

Gershwin had heard of a man called Rowan, who used to spend time at the spaceport, though he didn’t know what Rowan did. He walked to the cafés and restaurants and asked for him. Nobody had seen him.

Finally, he tried the information office. The man behind the desk thought for a moment.

“Rowan? I knew that name a long time ago. You must mean Jedi Rowan.”

He gave Gershwin directions to a little cave outside town. There, Gershwin found Rowan and showed him the robot’s message.

“We have to help her,” said Rowan. “We must get to the spaceport and find a ship.”

“But I haven’t got a ship,” said Gershwin. “I don’t know anybody who has.”

“Come with me anyway. I think you’ll be good help.”

Back at the spaceport, nobody was willing to lend them a spaceship. Then they met a woman called Elara. She had been exploring the galaxy, looking for strange animals, new forests and things she had never seen before.

Rowan explained that a woman needed rescuing and asked for a lift to the local star system. Elara was feeling friendly.

“Yes. Come on, let’s go.”

They climbed aboard her spaceship and took off among the stars. Following the robot’s signal, they found the biggest starship Gershwin had ever seen. It was bigger than London, the size of a small sun.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” said Gershwin.

“Yes, me too,” said Rowan. “But don’t worry. We’ll see to it.”

As Elara flew closer, their ship jolted. A tractor beam had caught them. Like an enormous invisible rope, it pulled them towards the starship and into its hangar.

“Follow me,” said Elara. “I have a special place we can hide.”

She lifted a hidden hatch, and all three of them and the robot climbed beneath the floor. People came aboard and searched overhead, but the hatch looked just like the rest of the floor. Nobody found them.

When the searchers had gone, they crept out, quiet as mice. They left their spaceship and explored the starship until they reached the jail cells. Through a little window in one door, they saw the woman.

“We’re here to rescue you,” said Elara.

“Did you bring Rowan?”

“Yes. He’s right here.”

She was delighted. They opened her door, and the four of them hurried back towards the ship. But alarms were sounding. Her disappearance had been discovered, and soon the captain appeared.

“You get to the ship,” said Rowan. “I’ll take care of him.”

Rowan ran through the corridors with the captain chasing him. The others reached the spaceship, where the robot had started the engines. Elara jumped into the pilot’s seat.

“We’ve no time to wait. Rowan is dealing with the captain. We need to go.”

They flew out of the hangar, but the tractor beam caught them again. This time, Elara fired the ship’s energy blasters at it. The tractor beam blew up, and they were free. They went to light speed and headed for Gershwin’s home planet.

Rowan was still running. He returned to the jail cells and opened every door, one by one. The prisoners poured out. There were so many that the captain couldn’t get through them. They grabbed him, put him in a cell and locked the door.

“Follow me!” called Rowan.

He led everyone back to the hangar. They climbed into their ships, and Rowan found a spare one. Together they took off. The starship couldn’t capture them all, and soon they were travelling at light speed towards Gershwin’s planet.

They landed at the spaceport and congratulated one another. It turned out these people were good people after all. Some had done things they shouldn’t, taking from rich people to give to poor people so they wouldn’t starve. They had been punished for taking things, but they had wanted to help others.

Now they were free. They celebrated with food and drink, built ginormous houses and lived on the planet with Gershwin.

And that was how they rescued the princess.

The end.