Chapter 4 – Cress

The next time I awoke, my head hurt less, and Thorne was sitting next to me. "Cress!" he exclaimed. "You're awake!" He scooped me out of bed and kissed me. "Aces and spades, why didn't you come back to the main room and tie yourself down? Never mind, I'm just glad you're okay. You have got to see this place. It's gorgeous! And you haven't met Luke yet! Rey said she talked to earlier, but you fell asleep pretty quickly, so I don't know if you remember." He was carrying me out of the building.

"Thorne!" I laughed. "Put me down! I can walk! And yes, I do remember Rey. She said we were on … Ahch-To? In another galaxy?"

"Yeah, pretty weird," Thorne replied. He set me down, but I immediately stumbled from dizziness, so I leaned on him for balance. As we walked, I tried to think. Rey. Luke. Another galaxy. Jedi. The Force. Why did everything here seem so familiar? Think, Cress, think! I told myself. If you can beat a computer at a strategy game, why can't you solve this puzzle? But no matter how hard I tried, the pieces wouldn't fit.

Soon we found the rest of the Rampion crew, minus Iko, watching Rey and a man in a brown cloak fight with… glowing swords? When Rey and the man saw us, they pressed buttons on their sword hilts, and the glowing blades disappeared. "Hello, Cress," the man said. "My name is Luke Skywalker. Welcome to the first Jedi Temple!"

At dinner that night, we tried to figure out how we had gotten to Ahch-To and how to get back to Earth. "It just doesn't make any sense!" Cinder said. "Nothing was wrong with, with anything, really. And besides, how did we end up in a whole different galaxy?"

"I believe the Force was involved," Luke replied. "Size and distance do not matter to the Force, and I felt a disturbance when you crashed. I suspect you may have had something to do with that disturbance, Cress. You are very strong in the Force."

I blinked, startled. "Me?"

Luke smiled. "Yes. You could be a Jedi, if you so choose. Cinder and Winter also have potential, but you are the strongest of your group."

I let that sink in. All my life, Mistress Sibyl had called me a worthless shell, good only for my blood and my computer skills. In a society full of power and manipulation, I was powerless. Now, however, Luke claimed I did have power and with training, could become a great warrior. It was like something out of a net drama!

"But it doesn't matter, does it?" Wolf interrupted my thoughts. "If we're just going home as soon as the Rampion's fixed."

"How?" I demanded. "The Rampion isn't designed for travel outside the galaxy, and we don't even know how we got here!"

"And I have to fix Iko!" Cinder added.

"Cinder," Kai said gently, "You can fix Iko anywhere. I have a country to run. Remember, last time I vanished, you had kidnapped me. Let's try to keep you on the public's good side; I don't want people thinking I'm marrying just another crazy Lunar."

The conversation continued like that, Kai insisting we needed to get back as soon as possible, and Cinder protesting that she needed to help Iko before she could start work on the Rampion. Finally, Luke broke in, "This argument is irrelevant; your ship is too small to survive intergalactic travel. The Force brought you here, and the Force will send you home in good time. You are here for a reason."

"Oh, stars," Scarlet grumbled. "So now we're stuck here?"

Stars… I thought. Stars… "Star Wars!" I blurted.

Everyone stared at me, confused. "Uh, Cress? Mind explaining yourself a little?" Thorne asked.

I blushed. "Oh, right." I explained that some of the second-era films I had watched in my satellite were called "Star Wars," and we seemed to be in the same galaxy in which the films were set. I had watched episodes 1 through 7, but Mistress Sibyl had crashed my satellite before I could watch the other films. "I don't know how second-era Earthens would know about this place and everything that's happened here, but apparently, they did."

"Fascinating," Luke replied, "but irrelevant. As I said before, there is a reason the Force brought you here, beyond simply training Cress. Do the rest of you have any special skills?"

Thorne grinned. "Well, we're good at overthrowing evil queens." He went on to explain our roles in the Lunar Revolution.

"We don't have any evil queens here, but there is the First Order," mused Rey. "Maybe you're supposed to fight them?"

"Kylo Ren," I realized. "He was training as a Jedi, but turned to the dark side, like Anakin, right?" I looked at Luke. "Maybe we're supposed to bring him back to the light side, the way you brought Anakin back."

Luke nodded slowly, "Perhaps. I will discuss it with Obi-Wan's Force ghost tonight. Either way, I will begin training you, Cinder, and Winter as Jedi in the morning, so get plenty of sleep tonight."