Way, Way Out Past The Barrier

Lost in space
The Onyx Cinder is hurtling through hyperspace, with Wim, Neel, Fern, and KB as unwilling passengers. Fern asks Wim what he did, while Neel fears they will be smashed into pieces. Fern manages to turn off the hyperdrive, taking the four younglings into an unfamiliar region of space. The children wonder where they are, prompting Neel to panic and say they are lost. Wim offers to bring them back, but Fern grabs him and warns him not to touch another button.

The younglings are startled by a creaking howl. They look down the corridor leading to the cockpit and see the one-eyed droid they had encountered earlier. The droid confronts the children, demanding to know where his captain is. Regarding them as intruders, he drags Wim down the corridor. Fern stops the droid by claiming that the captain is dead. The droid lets Wim go but continues searching for his master. Fern blames Wim for the situation and takes charge of the group.

Fern addresses the droid, who identifies himself as SM-33. She asserts control of SM-33 by claiming that she killed his previous captain and threw him into space. Wim protests and contests Fern’s captaincy until SM-33 suggests that they duel to the death. Fern orders SM-33 to show them around the ship. The droid proceeds to give the children a brief tutorial about starship systems. KB says she understands. When Wim is about to touch a button, SM-33 warns him not to touch the emergency hull demolition sequencer.

After Fern rebuffs an offer from Wim to fly the ship, SM-33 tells the children that the ship’s systems need to be fixed. He says he knows a safe location to obtain the necessary supplies. Fern insists that he take them home, prompting the droid to point to the stars and ask which is their home. When Fern tells them that their home is the planet At Attin, SM-33 is unaware of the planet. KB suggests searching his databank. While the droid searches, a rat scurries out of his brain and jumps onto Neel, scaring him.

SM-33 suggests Atollon, Al Alcor, and Aldhani, but the younglings are unfamiliar with those worlds. The droid points to the stars on the windscreen and asks where their destination is. Neel surmises they are lost and tells Wim they have passed the Barrier. When the other children, particularly Fern, blame Wim for the misadventure, he storms off. When SM-33 asks if he should throw Wim out of the airlock, Fern tells him to focus on getting them to the spaceport he mentioned. The droid takes the ship into hyperspace.

Aftermath
Back At Attin, two safety droids from Search Team Four investigated the seismic activity generated by the departure of the Onyx Cinder. A distraught Wendle approaches, telling them his son Wim and three other children left on a starship. The droids express disbelief, stating that flying beyond the Barrier is impossible and illegal. Wendle insists that they help him find his son. The safety droids tell him to follow them.

Onward to Borgo Prime
Meanwhile, Neel encounters two skeletons while searching through the ship’s compartments. He is found by Wim, who believes the two individuals were killed during a duel. An excited Wim shows Neel the captain’s bedroom and dons a pirate’s hat. He shares one with Neel. Neel asks if Wim wants to go home, and he says he wants to be with his family. However, Wim is engrossed in his space adventure, telling his friend that they are on a starship and can go anywhere in the galaxy. Neel is concerned about the decrepit state of the ship and tells Wim that they are heading towards a spaceport.

SM-33 flies the Onyx Cinder to Borgo Prime, an asteroid spaceport surrounded by several pirate ships, including the pirate frigate that raided the merchant vessel earlier. He tells the children that Borgo Prime has a reputation for luxury and danger. He docks the ship among the other parked ships connected to refueling stations by docking cables.

A dingy docks with the Onyx Cinder. A small furry alien ferryman invites the younglings aboard. SM-33 volunteers to stay aboard the ship to make repairs. Before Fern and the others depart, he warns them not to trust anyone and always to be armed. The dinghy passes through the port shield into a crowded dock full of beings of various species. Lizards run across the cables. Wim pays the alien ferryman with his credits—the ferryman scurries laughing.

The children are nervous to be among the rough-looking spacers. Despite Fern attempting to tell the group to stay together, the others split off outside a brothel with red lights. One of the door women outside the brothel notices the children. Meanwhile, KB visits a pet kiosk, taking an interest in a caged red furry fuzzball with wings and several aquatic jellyfish-like creatures in glass spheres. While watching a vendor showing off several small spherical droids, KB bumps into Fern. Before they can search for the boys, one of the door women offers to help get them to safety in return for money. Fern tells her that they have a ship. When she adds that they are from At Attin, the woman is unaware of their homeworld.

Pirate entanglements
Meanwhile, Wim and Neel go to a food stall where a hairy fry cook serves them. Neel suggests trying the same noodles that an alien with a long snout is trying. The cook splits open a lobster-sized bug over their noodles. When the fry cook says that the noodles cost two Credits, the children struggle to pay. Wim places a credit from his sock. The cook regards it as treasure but lies that it is insufficient to extort more money from Wim.

A crustacean alien accuses the hairy fry cook of cheating and hurts his arm. He asks the boys where they found an Old Republic credit in mint condition. Neel tells the crustacean alien that Wim’s father gave it to him as lunch money. A Nikto private named Vane asks the children where they are from, encouraging Neel to tell them they are from At Attin. The spacers respond with laughter. Vane thinks the coin is a fake, but the crustacean alien disagrees and warns him to back off with a knife. When one of the aliens suggests the children have more, Wim pours his bowl over the grill to distract them, allowing them to flee.

Meanwhile, Fern and KB try to convince the door woman that they are from At Attin, but she doesn’t believe them. Wim and Neel flee Vane and the crustacean alien. Fern fires her blaster as the pursuers converge on the children, causing an object to fall to the ground. Vane attempts to convince Fern to drop her gun while the alien vendor says to hand over all the credits. The crustacean believes the children are indeed from At Attin, but Vane disagrees.

Vane disarms Fern and points the blaster at her. As the children raise their hands, SM-33 comes to their rescue and raises his legs, one of which is a peg. He confronts Vane, who demands the droid return to his ship. Fern adds that SM-33 is defending KB and the boys. Vane attempts to attack SM-33, but the droid throws the Nikto into the stand, selling the flying droids. He then throws the fry cook into the path of a flying droid and pummels the crustacean alien. SM-33 then fights several pirates, throwing one of them into the pet kiosk and freeing several fuzz balls from their cage. SM-33 counsels the children to return to their ship.

Prisoners of Brutus
The children and SM-33 barge through a tattoo parlor, angering the customer. Approaching the dinghy, Wim attempts to pay the furry ferryman. When Fern asks why SM-33 took them to Borgo Prime, the droid replies that he assumed they were pirates, too. Fern disagrees, but SM-33 is shot in the head by the Shistavanen Brutus, who is leading a band of pirates. The rat scurries from SM-33’s head and is picked up by Neel.

Brutus demands to know how the younglings and their droid found their port. Fern retorts that they should have asked their droid. The cyborg promises to interrogate them while Brutus orders that the children be secured. When Fern challenges Brutus, Neel tells her not to aggravate him. Brutus orders that they be locked in the brig, prompting Wim to ask what a brig is.

The mysterious rescuer
Inside their cell, Wim grumbles at the bad turn of their adventure. Fern is upbeat and suggests they come up with a rescue plan. Neel moans while KB says they should find a way off the brig. Neel releases the four-eyed ray to get the key to their cell, but it gets confused and hurries away. KB says that repaying SM-33 is the second step of their plan, while the third step is finding a way home to At Attin, which the pirates and spacers regard as a myth. KB recalls a legend about At Attin holding an eternal treasure, which Wim regards as dumb.

Fern blames Wim for the misadventure. Wim suggests bribing their way to freedom, but Fern doesn’t trust the pirates. Wim blames Fern for sending them to the pirate port and landing them in trouble. A hooded figure calls out to the children from behind, telling them to stop fighting. Fern tells him to back away, but the hooded figure offers to help them escape and find their ship in return for taking him along. He says that the key hanging nearby is their key to freedom.

Fern points out that they can’t reach it. The hooded figure reassures them that distance is an illusion and appears to use the Force to levitate the keys and their ring towards them. Wim remakes that the stranger is a Jedi, but he raises a finger to his lip. He asks the children if they can keep a secret.