Disclaimer: ::sigh:: I guess I must admit, I don't own Star Wars. It
belongs to the master of our universe, George Lucas.
A/N: I actually found this idea on a Star Wars Website. It was offering challenges for writers. This challenge: In your story, include something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and an Ewok. Anybody else gonna try? Tell me please, I want to read!! Hope you enjoy, and please review and tell me what needs to be fixed. Thanks a ton!
~Sammy Solo
P.S.- This story is not supposed to be anything amazing. It's certainly not based on any established characters. I didn't strive to have it historically correct. If you find something so wrong with it that I should be called a traitor to Star Wars kind just for messing up this bad, please let me know before I get an angry mob at my door. Thanx!
Phyla Injoy sat crossed legged in front of the holoprojector, watching the drama play itself out. She loved to watch the people on the holo. There was a lot she didn't understand, because she was so young. At least that's what her older brother said. But she didn't care, it was fun anyway.
"You shouldn't watch those things," said a voice behind her as the door opened. Phyla peeled her eyes from the holo and turned around. Her grandmother had just opened the door, and slid silently onto the couch behind Phyla.
"Why not?" asked Phyla stubbornly. "There's nothin' else to do."
"Sure there is," her grandmother corrected. She stood up and walked around Phyla, then reached out and turned the holo off.
"Hey!" Phyla objected.
"I'll tell you what," said the older woman. "I'm going to tell you a story, and if you don't like it and don't want to hear more, you can go back to your holodrama. Deal?"
"Fine," said Phyla, and she faced the couch as her grandmother sat back down.
"You know, when I was your age, the holo was actually worth watching," Grandma began. "Every time you turned it on, there was something new happening in the galaxy."
"I don't wanna hear anymore," Phyla interrupted.
"But I haven't started the story yet!" Grandma said with a sly smile. "You have to at least hear some of it. When I was growing up, we weren't sure what our lives were going to be like. Supreme Chancellor Palpatine was gaining more power, and my father was against him all the way. You see, my father was in the Galactic Senate. He stood at the front of the opposition against Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. His opposition didn't matter, however, when the Clone Wars started."
"You were my age during the Clone Wars?" asked Phyla in amazement.
"Well, maybe a little older," Grandma responded.
"Wow, you're old!" Phyla said. Grandma chuckled. "Maybe, I'm not old, maybe you're just new!" Phyla didn't really understand that comment. Of course Grandma was old, and what did it mean for a person to be new? Seeing the look of confusion on her face, Grandma said, "You'll understand when you're older. Anyway, for most of my childhood, I lived here, on Coruscant. But."
"Grandma, I thought you were Corellian?" Phyla interrupted again.
"I am," Grandma answered patiently. "But since my father was a Senator, we lived on Coruscant so he could go to all the Senate meetings. But when the war started, my father was the target of an assassination attempt. They." She seemed to struggle with what she wanted to say, then decided against saying it. "It's not important what they did," she corrected. "But we had to move. So, my father, my brother and I packed all of our things and headed to Corellia."
"What about your mother?" asked Phyla. As much as she didn't want to admit it, this story was actually interesting.
"When the bad guys tried to kill my father, they killed her instead," said Grandma shortly.
"Oh," said Phyla. She couldn't think of anything else to say, and apparently neither could Grandma. She sat there, staring towards Phyla but not really at her. "Are- are you gonna finish the story, Grandma?" Phyla asked timidly.
This seemed to bring Grandma back from the staring. "Yes, sweetie, I will. I was fifteen when we moved to Corellia. My father changed his name, and began communicating with a man named Bail Organa."
"Organa?" Phyla asked, the name striking a thought. "Like that nice Princess lady who's always on the holo?"
"Very good!" Grandma said. "This man was that nice Princess's adopted father. She was even younger than you when my father and her father knew each other. They began to plan to overthrow the Supreme Chancellor."
"Why?"
"Well, because he was a very bad man. He had a lot of power, and was using it to hurt people. He killed a lot of people and took over a lot of planets. You know how if you don't like someone, you can say you don't like them and not get in trouble for it?"
"Yeah."
"Well, with Palpatine, if you said you didn't like him, he probably would have thrown you in jail forever. My father and Bail Organa both knew that he had to be stopped.
"One time, the two men met face to face on Corellia. I went with my father to the meeting, curious to see the man who had so much in common with my father. As they were talking, I noticed a young man, about my age, standing at the door to the room. He was very handsome, and when we made eye contact, his smile took my breath away." Grandma sighed with the memory.
"Eww!!" Phyla objected. "You didn't say there was mushy stuff in this story!"
"Do you know who that young man was?" Grandma asked. Phyla shook her head. "That man was your grandfather. So, if there was no mushy stuff, you wouldn't even be here." That silenced the young girl. "While my father and Organa were still talking," Grandma continued. "The young boy motioned me out of the room. I met him out in the hallway, and we talked for as long as the two politicians did. He was a Jedi Knight."
"Wow!" Phyla exclaimed. "Pop was a Jedi? How come he never told me?"
"Maybe because you never asked," Grandma responded. "Anyway, Kiram- your grandfather- had been assigned to protect Bail Organa. The Jedi Council knew that the senator was in trouble. He was trying to start a group that would fight against Palpatine's rule. My father was helping him do it.
"From that first time, my father and Organa started meeting often. I always went with my father, because I knew Kiram would be there. He was so handsome in that Jedi robe, and the lightsaber made him look absolutely daring."
"He had a lightsaber?" Phyla asked in amazement. "What did it look like?"
"It was blue, the same color as his eyes. We continued to meet like that, but we couldn't ever get together at any other times. Kiram always had to stay with Bail, so we couldn't meet in private.
"And then one day, when I was about 25, we got horrible news. A new associate of Palpatine's had been ordered to kill every Jedi in the galaxy. Now Palpatine had gone too far. My father, brother and I packed our things again and headed to Alderaan. I was very excited: I was going to get to see Kiram again!
"We got to Alderaan at about the same time as a courier carrying a message that spelled death for my father and Organa: Palpatine had named himself Emperor, and spies inside his castle had learned of the construction of a huge new battle station called the Death Star. The Rebellion, the group started by Bail and my father, would surely be crushed by this monstrous invention.
"We knew that the Empire would eventually reach Alderaan. Bail's adopted daughter, Princess Leia, went on a mission to try to steal the plans to the Death Star. My father urged me to leave the planet, but I couldn't stand the thought of leaving Kiram. Much to my dismay, my father arranged my departure on a passenger ship bound for the Outer Rim.
"On the night before I left, Kiram and I snuck out of our rooms to meet each other. I wanted him to come with me, but he couldn't. He had been assigned to protect Organa, and that was exactly what he was going to do. He's a very loyal man, your grandfather." Grandma saw the look on Phyla's face and decided to try something.
"Gee," she said. "I'm awfully thirsty. Maybe I'll go get a drink, then come back and tell the story later."
"No!" Phyla objected. Grandma raised an eyebrow. "I mean, you have to at least tell me how you two got off of Alderaan," the young girl said, trying to cover up her interest with casual curiosity.
Grandma smiled. "Interested in the mushy stuff now, are we?"
"No," said Phyla defensively. "I just want to know what happened, that's all."
"Well, we were stuck. Kiram couldn't leave Alderaan, and I was being forced to go. We were afraid we would never see each other again, especially with so many Jedi being killed throughout the galaxy. So we did the only thing the two of us could think to do: we got married."
"Married!?" Phyla asked, filled with surprise. "But isn't that against the rules for a Jedi? And against what your father would want?"
"Yes, it was. But at the time, we didn't care. We were in love, and sometimes that's all you need." Phyla looked confused again. "Once you fall in love, I promise you'll understand what I mean," Grandma assured.
"We were married that very night. This way, we thought, even if they could physically separate us, in spirit we would always be bound together through our love.
"The next day, I was due to leave Alderaan. At the palace, where we were staying with Bail, it was a day of sad goodbyes. My father would be staying there with Bail, as would my brother. Bail ordered Kiram to escort me to the spaceport, handed him a bag, and told him to go with me. He said that Alderaan was no place for a Jedi, especially with the Empire coming. Kiram objected, but by this time just about all the Jedi in the galaxy were gone. With no Jedi Council to consult, Kiram had to take commands from Bail. He went with me." Grandma noticed with amusement that Phyla seemed to relax a little when she realized that Kiram was going to be okay.
"We ran into more trouble, however, when we reached the spaceport. Imperial saboteurs had destroyed the ship we were set to leave on. Imperial guards were arresting anyone who had been trying to leave on that ship, saying that Rebels were using the ship to escape. The Empire had reached Alderaan, and we needed to get out of there!
"So once again, we put our heads together and came up with only one thing. We moved to the next docking bay and "borrowed" the ship that was sitting there."
"Who did the ship belong to?" Phyla asked.
"We didn't know," Grandma said, then, with a chuckle, added, "And we never found out."
"If you didn't know who you were borrowing it from, how were you gonna return it?"
"We weren't planning on returning it."
Phyla gasped. "You stole it?"
"Desperate times call for desperate measures, Phyla. For being a Jedi, Kiram was quite good at doing illegal things. He cracked the code to the locked docking bay, and together we hot wired the ship and took off.
"We weren't out of trouble yet, however. As we reached orbit, we found an Imperial Star Destroyer in our path. They ordered us to stop the ship and prepare to be boarded, but we couldn't! If they found Kiram, they would spot him as a Jedi and kill him for sure. So, we made a break for it.
"A word of advice from my own experience: never try to outrun an Imperial Star Destroyer. Of course, we didn't know any better. We managed to escape into lightspeed, but with both the hyperdrive and sublight engines leaking.
"We had no idea where we were going when we made that hyperspace jump. We just knew we were getting as far from Alderaan as our damaged engines would take us. When the hyperspace engine finally failed, we were at Ord Mantell."
"Where's that at?" Phyla asked.
"Near what is now Imperial Space. Back then, it wasn't a good place to be unless you were a smuggler or a bounty hunter. Neither of us wanted to land there, but we both realized that we wouldn't get anywhere on a damaged sublight engine. So, reluctantly, we set down.
"We never realized that the Empire would have put a bounty on our heads. The bounty hunter that found us was one of the strangest creatures I'd ever seen. It was called an Ewok, I learned later. At the time, all I cared about was the fact that it had a blaster pointed at my head."
"Oh no!" Phyla gasped. "What did you do?"
"I did the most sensible thing in the galaxy: depended on my Knight to save me. And he did. As handsome as your grandfather was at that age, he was equally skilled with a lightsaber. That Ewok never knew what hit him." Grandma stopped and yawned. "It's past your bedtime, isn't it, Phyla? Maybe we should stop for tonight."
"No, you can't! You have to have to have to tell me what happened!"
"Alright, alright. Where was I.oh, yes, the bounty hunter. Once we had escaped the clutches of the Ewok, we realized how desperate we really were to get off of Ord Mantell. So, we pooled every single credit we had and bought a rickety old starship. We named her The Dream, after our dream of being together. She wasn't much, but with a little hard work and a lot of luck we left that blasted planet behind. Now, though, we faced another problem: where to go next.
"We made a random hyperspace jump toward the Outer Rim. As Kiram rummaged through the bag Bail had given him, he found a small holorecorder. It was a message from Bail, telling us of a new Rebel base being formed on the fourth moon of the Yavin system. We jumped in, identified ourselves, joined up with the Rebels, and the rest you can learn from your history instructors."
Phyla was staring at Grandma with shock painted on every feature. "But what about Grandpa?" she asked. "If he was a Jedi, how did he escape from the Empire?"
"He basically stopped being a Jedi," Grandma explained. "He hid his lightsaber, and only used his skills with the Force in life-or-death situations. In fact," she continued thoughtfully. "I don't think I've seen him use his lightsaber since the day we escaped from that Ewok."
"Did you fight in the Battle of Yavin? Or Hoth? Or Endor?"
"Yes, I did," Grandma responded. "But those are other stories for other times. Right now, I'd say it's time for bed." Grandma led Phyla to her bedroom, got her into her pajamas, and tucked her in. "Now, wasn't that better than a holodrama?"
"Grandma?" Phyla asked shyly. "Will you come over and tell me another story tomorrow night?"
Grandma kissed Phyla gently on the forehead. "Of course I will. Goodnight, my sweet." She turned off the light and keyed the door shut, leaving Phyla to her dreams of handsome young Jedi and grand adventures in the galaxy.
A/N: I actually found this idea on a Star Wars Website. It was offering challenges for writers. This challenge: In your story, include something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and an Ewok. Anybody else gonna try? Tell me please, I want to read!! Hope you enjoy, and please review and tell me what needs to be fixed. Thanks a ton!
~Sammy Solo
P.S.- This story is not supposed to be anything amazing. It's certainly not based on any established characters. I didn't strive to have it historically correct. If you find something so wrong with it that I should be called a traitor to Star Wars kind just for messing up this bad, please let me know before I get an angry mob at my door. Thanx!
Phyla Injoy sat crossed legged in front of the holoprojector, watching the drama play itself out. She loved to watch the people on the holo. There was a lot she didn't understand, because she was so young. At least that's what her older brother said. But she didn't care, it was fun anyway.
"You shouldn't watch those things," said a voice behind her as the door opened. Phyla peeled her eyes from the holo and turned around. Her grandmother had just opened the door, and slid silently onto the couch behind Phyla.
"Why not?" asked Phyla stubbornly. "There's nothin' else to do."
"Sure there is," her grandmother corrected. She stood up and walked around Phyla, then reached out and turned the holo off.
"Hey!" Phyla objected.
"I'll tell you what," said the older woman. "I'm going to tell you a story, and if you don't like it and don't want to hear more, you can go back to your holodrama. Deal?"
"Fine," said Phyla, and she faced the couch as her grandmother sat back down.
"You know, when I was your age, the holo was actually worth watching," Grandma began. "Every time you turned it on, there was something new happening in the galaxy."
"I don't wanna hear anymore," Phyla interrupted.
"But I haven't started the story yet!" Grandma said with a sly smile. "You have to at least hear some of it. When I was growing up, we weren't sure what our lives were going to be like. Supreme Chancellor Palpatine was gaining more power, and my father was against him all the way. You see, my father was in the Galactic Senate. He stood at the front of the opposition against Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. His opposition didn't matter, however, when the Clone Wars started."
"You were my age during the Clone Wars?" asked Phyla in amazement.
"Well, maybe a little older," Grandma responded.
"Wow, you're old!" Phyla said. Grandma chuckled. "Maybe, I'm not old, maybe you're just new!" Phyla didn't really understand that comment. Of course Grandma was old, and what did it mean for a person to be new? Seeing the look of confusion on her face, Grandma said, "You'll understand when you're older. Anyway, for most of my childhood, I lived here, on Coruscant. But."
"Grandma, I thought you were Corellian?" Phyla interrupted again.
"I am," Grandma answered patiently. "But since my father was a Senator, we lived on Coruscant so he could go to all the Senate meetings. But when the war started, my father was the target of an assassination attempt. They." She seemed to struggle with what she wanted to say, then decided against saying it. "It's not important what they did," she corrected. "But we had to move. So, my father, my brother and I packed all of our things and headed to Corellia."
"What about your mother?" asked Phyla. As much as she didn't want to admit it, this story was actually interesting.
"When the bad guys tried to kill my father, they killed her instead," said Grandma shortly.
"Oh," said Phyla. She couldn't think of anything else to say, and apparently neither could Grandma. She sat there, staring towards Phyla but not really at her. "Are- are you gonna finish the story, Grandma?" Phyla asked timidly.
This seemed to bring Grandma back from the staring. "Yes, sweetie, I will. I was fifteen when we moved to Corellia. My father changed his name, and began communicating with a man named Bail Organa."
"Organa?" Phyla asked, the name striking a thought. "Like that nice Princess lady who's always on the holo?"
"Very good!" Grandma said. "This man was that nice Princess's adopted father. She was even younger than you when my father and her father knew each other. They began to plan to overthrow the Supreme Chancellor."
"Why?"
"Well, because he was a very bad man. He had a lot of power, and was using it to hurt people. He killed a lot of people and took over a lot of planets. You know how if you don't like someone, you can say you don't like them and not get in trouble for it?"
"Yeah."
"Well, with Palpatine, if you said you didn't like him, he probably would have thrown you in jail forever. My father and Bail Organa both knew that he had to be stopped.
"One time, the two men met face to face on Corellia. I went with my father to the meeting, curious to see the man who had so much in common with my father. As they were talking, I noticed a young man, about my age, standing at the door to the room. He was very handsome, and when we made eye contact, his smile took my breath away." Grandma sighed with the memory.
"Eww!!" Phyla objected. "You didn't say there was mushy stuff in this story!"
"Do you know who that young man was?" Grandma asked. Phyla shook her head. "That man was your grandfather. So, if there was no mushy stuff, you wouldn't even be here." That silenced the young girl. "While my father and Organa were still talking," Grandma continued. "The young boy motioned me out of the room. I met him out in the hallway, and we talked for as long as the two politicians did. He was a Jedi Knight."
"Wow!" Phyla exclaimed. "Pop was a Jedi? How come he never told me?"
"Maybe because you never asked," Grandma responded. "Anyway, Kiram- your grandfather- had been assigned to protect Bail Organa. The Jedi Council knew that the senator was in trouble. He was trying to start a group that would fight against Palpatine's rule. My father was helping him do it.
"From that first time, my father and Organa started meeting often. I always went with my father, because I knew Kiram would be there. He was so handsome in that Jedi robe, and the lightsaber made him look absolutely daring."
"He had a lightsaber?" Phyla asked in amazement. "What did it look like?"
"It was blue, the same color as his eyes. We continued to meet like that, but we couldn't ever get together at any other times. Kiram always had to stay with Bail, so we couldn't meet in private.
"And then one day, when I was about 25, we got horrible news. A new associate of Palpatine's had been ordered to kill every Jedi in the galaxy. Now Palpatine had gone too far. My father, brother and I packed our things again and headed to Alderaan. I was very excited: I was going to get to see Kiram again!
"We got to Alderaan at about the same time as a courier carrying a message that spelled death for my father and Organa: Palpatine had named himself Emperor, and spies inside his castle had learned of the construction of a huge new battle station called the Death Star. The Rebellion, the group started by Bail and my father, would surely be crushed by this monstrous invention.
"We knew that the Empire would eventually reach Alderaan. Bail's adopted daughter, Princess Leia, went on a mission to try to steal the plans to the Death Star. My father urged me to leave the planet, but I couldn't stand the thought of leaving Kiram. Much to my dismay, my father arranged my departure on a passenger ship bound for the Outer Rim.
"On the night before I left, Kiram and I snuck out of our rooms to meet each other. I wanted him to come with me, but he couldn't. He had been assigned to protect Organa, and that was exactly what he was going to do. He's a very loyal man, your grandfather." Grandma saw the look on Phyla's face and decided to try something.
"Gee," she said. "I'm awfully thirsty. Maybe I'll go get a drink, then come back and tell the story later."
"No!" Phyla objected. Grandma raised an eyebrow. "I mean, you have to at least tell me how you two got off of Alderaan," the young girl said, trying to cover up her interest with casual curiosity.
Grandma smiled. "Interested in the mushy stuff now, are we?"
"No," said Phyla defensively. "I just want to know what happened, that's all."
"Well, we were stuck. Kiram couldn't leave Alderaan, and I was being forced to go. We were afraid we would never see each other again, especially with so many Jedi being killed throughout the galaxy. So we did the only thing the two of us could think to do: we got married."
"Married!?" Phyla asked, filled with surprise. "But isn't that against the rules for a Jedi? And against what your father would want?"
"Yes, it was. But at the time, we didn't care. We were in love, and sometimes that's all you need." Phyla looked confused again. "Once you fall in love, I promise you'll understand what I mean," Grandma assured.
"We were married that very night. This way, we thought, even if they could physically separate us, in spirit we would always be bound together through our love.
"The next day, I was due to leave Alderaan. At the palace, where we were staying with Bail, it was a day of sad goodbyes. My father would be staying there with Bail, as would my brother. Bail ordered Kiram to escort me to the spaceport, handed him a bag, and told him to go with me. He said that Alderaan was no place for a Jedi, especially with the Empire coming. Kiram objected, but by this time just about all the Jedi in the galaxy were gone. With no Jedi Council to consult, Kiram had to take commands from Bail. He went with me." Grandma noticed with amusement that Phyla seemed to relax a little when she realized that Kiram was going to be okay.
"We ran into more trouble, however, when we reached the spaceport. Imperial saboteurs had destroyed the ship we were set to leave on. Imperial guards were arresting anyone who had been trying to leave on that ship, saying that Rebels were using the ship to escape. The Empire had reached Alderaan, and we needed to get out of there!
"So once again, we put our heads together and came up with only one thing. We moved to the next docking bay and "borrowed" the ship that was sitting there."
"Who did the ship belong to?" Phyla asked.
"We didn't know," Grandma said, then, with a chuckle, added, "And we never found out."
"If you didn't know who you were borrowing it from, how were you gonna return it?"
"We weren't planning on returning it."
Phyla gasped. "You stole it?"
"Desperate times call for desperate measures, Phyla. For being a Jedi, Kiram was quite good at doing illegal things. He cracked the code to the locked docking bay, and together we hot wired the ship and took off.
"We weren't out of trouble yet, however. As we reached orbit, we found an Imperial Star Destroyer in our path. They ordered us to stop the ship and prepare to be boarded, but we couldn't! If they found Kiram, they would spot him as a Jedi and kill him for sure. So, we made a break for it.
"A word of advice from my own experience: never try to outrun an Imperial Star Destroyer. Of course, we didn't know any better. We managed to escape into lightspeed, but with both the hyperdrive and sublight engines leaking.
"We had no idea where we were going when we made that hyperspace jump. We just knew we were getting as far from Alderaan as our damaged engines would take us. When the hyperspace engine finally failed, we were at Ord Mantell."
"Where's that at?" Phyla asked.
"Near what is now Imperial Space. Back then, it wasn't a good place to be unless you were a smuggler or a bounty hunter. Neither of us wanted to land there, but we both realized that we wouldn't get anywhere on a damaged sublight engine. So, reluctantly, we set down.
"We never realized that the Empire would have put a bounty on our heads. The bounty hunter that found us was one of the strangest creatures I'd ever seen. It was called an Ewok, I learned later. At the time, all I cared about was the fact that it had a blaster pointed at my head."
"Oh no!" Phyla gasped. "What did you do?"
"I did the most sensible thing in the galaxy: depended on my Knight to save me. And he did. As handsome as your grandfather was at that age, he was equally skilled with a lightsaber. That Ewok never knew what hit him." Grandma stopped and yawned. "It's past your bedtime, isn't it, Phyla? Maybe we should stop for tonight."
"No, you can't! You have to have to have to tell me what happened!"
"Alright, alright. Where was I.oh, yes, the bounty hunter. Once we had escaped the clutches of the Ewok, we realized how desperate we really were to get off of Ord Mantell. So, we pooled every single credit we had and bought a rickety old starship. We named her The Dream, after our dream of being together. She wasn't much, but with a little hard work and a lot of luck we left that blasted planet behind. Now, though, we faced another problem: where to go next.
"We made a random hyperspace jump toward the Outer Rim. As Kiram rummaged through the bag Bail had given him, he found a small holorecorder. It was a message from Bail, telling us of a new Rebel base being formed on the fourth moon of the Yavin system. We jumped in, identified ourselves, joined up with the Rebels, and the rest you can learn from your history instructors."
Phyla was staring at Grandma with shock painted on every feature. "But what about Grandpa?" she asked. "If he was a Jedi, how did he escape from the Empire?"
"He basically stopped being a Jedi," Grandma explained. "He hid his lightsaber, and only used his skills with the Force in life-or-death situations. In fact," she continued thoughtfully. "I don't think I've seen him use his lightsaber since the day we escaped from that Ewok."
"Did you fight in the Battle of Yavin? Or Hoth? Or Endor?"
"Yes, I did," Grandma responded. "But those are other stories for other times. Right now, I'd say it's time for bed." Grandma led Phyla to her bedroom, got her into her pajamas, and tucked her in. "Now, wasn't that better than a holodrama?"
"Grandma?" Phyla asked shyly. "Will you come over and tell me another story tomorrow night?"
Grandma kissed Phyla gently on the forehead. "Of course I will. Goodnight, my sweet." She turned off the light and keyed the door shut, leaving Phyla to her dreams of handsome young Jedi and grand adventures in the galaxy.