A Pitiful Sight

(19 BBY)

"Serina? Serina! I've asked you something. Wake up!" The voice at the edge of her perception was getting angrier by the minute, but the scene developing before her inner eye was captivating in such a manner she would not have turned away from it had that even been an option.

Two figures were fighting on a skiff moving in the middle of a stream of lava, one dressed in a light-colored outfit, the other wearing black. Steam was rising all around them, as the skiff drew closer to the edge of the river. Serina could not discern the faces of the combatants, they were moving so quickly in the fight, but she recognized the weapons: old fashioned lightsabers, both in a bluish color. The fighters seemed quite evenly matched even so the dark dressed one seemed much younger than the other. Back and forth it went, neither seemed to be able to get the upper hand.

Then the older one leaped to an area of higher ground on the embankment while the other remained a moment longer standing on the skiff. Now she caught a better glimpse of the younger man. Dark blond wavy hair framed a handsome face, clear cut, yet somehow twisted with rage and a fierce determination to win the fight. There seemed no way that he could attack again, yet, suddenly, he leaped up toward the higher ground. With a swift move of his lightsaber, the older fighter managed to sever the attacker's left arm and both of his legs. Then the mutilated body slid down toward the red glowing stream. Every attempt to pull himself up and away from the steaming lava by his remaining arm, made him slid even closer to the brink of the river.

The older man extinguished his weapon and looked down at his defeated opponent. He was yelling at him, but Serina could not understand what he was saying. Then he reached down and picked up a metallic object. As the mutilated figure at the brink of the river went up in flames, the other man turned away from him and left.

Serina was already starting to wonder if the young man, wounded so badly by the fight and the flames, was dead, when a hooded figure arrived, accompanied by some stormtroopers. They picked up the mutilated body and carried him away.

"Now, I just about had enough of you, young lady, even if it's your birthday today!" The rough shaking she was getting caused Serina to snap back to reality. Slowly her eyes focused on the red-haired woman in front of her. Shaking her head to drive away the remnants of her vision, Serina looked up at her teacher with an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry, it just happened again. Perhaps I should go and take some of my medicine."

Her teacher nodded. "Perhaps you should. How will you ever learn anything if you constantly fall into this absentminded state? But hurry. Now," turning back to her class, she continued, "where were we?"

Serina got up and left the classroom to go to her sleeping quarters. At times like these, she was glad for the story her parents had contrived to cover her uncontrollable visions. According to her medical file, she was suffering from a rare disorder, which caused her to unexpectedly fall into a trancelike state. So far, nobody had checked further into this "sickness", for which there was, supposedly, no cure.

As she was getting older, she was starting to understand why her parents didn't want anybody to find out about her visions. Not that she cared too much about having them - she would have much more preferred to be a normal child like all her classmates - but it didn't seem as if she had any choice in that matter.

The sleeping quarters she was sharing with two other girls from her class were small and contained only little more than their bunks and a walk-in closet. Serina laid down on her bed and stared up at the ceiling. She had been attending the small boarding school of Marhead already for close to three planting periods now. At first, she had enjoyed the chance of being around other children her age, but soon she started to notice that she was different and that the others often avoided her. On one occasion, she had asked one of her classmates why they didn't want to play with her. "You always make everybody do what you want them to do. We don't like that!" he had told her, looking at her with a mixture of fear and despise.

For a long time, she had thought about that comment. Then she had realized that he was right. Whenever the games they played didn't go her way, all she had to do was to intently look at her playmates and wish them to act a certain way and, shortly after, the whole situation would have changed to her liking. But she didn't know how she did that and it didn't work every time either. Perhaps there was some connection to her dreams, she had figured, so she had made up her mind to find out if there were others with the same kind of abilities.

Although or perhaps because Serina was a bright child, school was somewhat boring for her. Her grades weren't really great. The reason was not that she couldn't have done better, but her interests just lay elsewhere. As soon as classes were over and the other kids headed out to the playgrounds or the swimming pool, Serina would go to the school library and start searching for those things that interested her most: math, physics and history, especially Jedi history. When she had read her way through what their small school library had to offer, she started checking into the information found on the HoloNet.

But the more she studied into those things the more she became isolated from her classmates, the other kids at school and even her parents. She never talked with her parents about what was happening at school or what she was learning in her own private studies.

She had soon realized that the visions she was experiencing had to do with the mysterious Force the Jedi believed in. Once she had asked her mother about them. "Don't ever mention those sorcerers again," her mother had answered with a fierceness that had frightened Serina. "I wished the Chancellor would do something to limit their influence! They are responsible for a lot of problems in our Republic!"

Since that time, Serina had avoided this particular subject when she returned home during vacation time. Their relationship had never been the same as before that outburst and therefore, once back home, she could hardly wait to return to school to continue her studies. She loved her parents, but she wouldn't allow them to keep her from finding out as much about her abilities as was possible.

During her first two school terms, there was still a lot of information about the Jedi to be found, not only in their school library, but also on the holonet. Soon, however, she noticed that this kind of information was harder and harder to be located. Even at her young age, she noticed how the attitude toward the Jedi had been changing during the course of the Clone Wars. Once they had been praised as the defenders of the Republic, now they were called corrupt and made responsible for the condition the Republic was currently in. But Serina couldn't believe that. When I am old enough, I'll get off this backwater planet and find somebody who can teach me how to be a Jedi, she told herself.

The door opened and Esral, one of her roommates, walked in. "Why didn't you come back? Miss Belk is really angry at you now. She said that she will call your parents and tell them about your behavior."

Serina sat up and shrugged her shoulders. "And what is she going to tell them?" she replied indifferently and got up. Esral only shook her head at Serina's reaction. But why should she care if her classmate had to spend the rest of the early half day period in retention.

Serina didn't really mind writing the impositions Miss Belk had given her for the next two full days following the incident. But when she was finally done with them she was quite glad. After all, it had reduced the time for her personal studies for four half days. Time to catch up again on what has happened in the galaxy, she thought to herself as she headed for the library.

It was already dark outside and the library was deserted at this time of late half day, when Serina settled down in front of the HoloNet terminal at the far end of the high-ceilinged room. Quickly she keyed in her password and called up the news from the past few days. Most of them were local news from Taanab, but some had been picked up from the official HoloNet out of Coruscant. Those were the more interesting ones, even so Serina knew better than to believe everything reported therein. Most were about the events just a few days ago, when Chancellor Palpatine had, with the support of most of the Senate, turned the Republic into an Empire with himself as the supreme leader and Emperor thereof. The articles she found were full of reports about the treason of the Jedi, about how they had supposedly tried to overthrow the senate and kill the chancellor, and about various fights between the clone troopers and the Jedi who had been their commanders for so many years. Some even displayed wanted posters for Jedi who had escaped what had become known as Order 66, a safety measure of Palpatine, who had apparently anticipated the betrayal. Or so they said. Serina, at least, had a hard time believing any of it.

As she scrolled through the pictures of the fugitive Jedi, she suddenly recognized the older of the two fighters she had seen in her vision. Obi-Wan Kenobi, a name she remembered well from some of her studies of the Clone Wars. Wars, that had come to an abrupt conclusion with the deaths of Count Dooku and General Grievous and the elimination of the leaders of the separatist movement, all of it coinciding with the Jedi treason becoming public.

Now, Kenobi had been a General in the war, often fighting alongside his former padawan, Anakin Skywalker. She remembered well the stories about the feats the young Jedi had been famous for, a poster-boy of the Republic, though she could not quite recall his face. Was he dead or on the run, just like his former master? Again, she scrolled through the wanted posters. No, his name did not appear anywhere. Perhaps he was dead? But somehow, she couldn't believe that.

Then she had another hunch. Quickly she put in a search for the name "Skywalker". Finally, a picture appeared on the screen. With amazement, she recognized the other of the two fighters, the younger man, who had been mutilated and burned in her vision. What had become of him? Was he dead? Was it not impossible to survive the injuries she had witnessed? And yet somehow, she just could not, and, for whatever reason, did not want to believe it. With new vigor, she searched for any report that might be related to the incident her vision had let her become privy to.

An hour later, Serina was nearly about to give up, when a short notice caught her eye. The Emperor's shuttle had been watched landing at the Grand Republic Medical Facility a few days prior. The author of the short article was speculating about who might have been important enough and wounded during the Jedi Purge that the Emperor would have taken him there in person. But there had been no official confirmation of any of the proposed candidates. So, nobody knew who had had the privilege of becoming the first patient treated there.

Now this is interesting, Serina thought. Could this occurrence have anything to do with her vision? After all, a dark robed figure, accompanied by stormtroopers, who else could that have been but the Emperor? She would have to keep an eye open for any further information

Then another thought crossed her mind. Obi-Wan Kenobi had not only been a famous General during the Clone Wars, he had also been described as a great Jedi, even a Jedi Master of Republic-wide renown. Now he was apparently on the run, been hunted down like all the other escaped Jedi. If he survives, I will go look for him when I'm old enough. He would certainly make a great teacher, Serina decided. I hope they don't ever catch him.

But first she would have to find a way to get off this planet. She had thought about it a great deal in the past months. Actually, there were only two possibilities she was aware of: either she would have to be good enough to go to one of the naval training academies of their sector or she would have to find a job aboard some freighter. Though she preferred the first option, the second would do just as well to get away from this mundane place. She could always apply for another of the military training schools from somewhere else. Once she had managed to at least graduate from one of them, she would have a whole bunch of choices at hand. Though she would prefer to move on and attend one of the main naval academies, there would certainly also be other options she might enjoy doing afterwards.

But to be accepted into the naval academy system was not easy. She had checked into what they required. Since she had no family connections, she would have to be good, very good, better than any of the men that applied. And the only way to achieve this was to be ahead of everybody else. Serina sighed as she called up the portion of the 6th grade math curriculum she had worked on during their last off-day. She loved all the physical sciences and history, but math was her absolute favorite. Why did she always have to sit in class and listen to the 3rd grade stuff that was sooo boring?