Chapter Sixteen

ENCYLCOPEDIA PROGRAM INTIATED

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BOOKMARKED SELECTION LOADING...

BOOKMARKED SELECTION: HISTORY OF THE PRE-EMPIRE ERA

SUBCATERGORIES:
I. Pre-Republic
II. Early Republic
III. Fall of the Republic

SUBCATEGORY "III. Fall of the Republic" SELECTED

The Galactic Republic was increasingly corrupted and self-serving in its later days, ignoring the needs of the people. Our glorious Emperor Palpatine was selected as Supreme Chancellor during this period, but even his incredible selfless sacrificing, political skills, and love for the common folk were not enough to save the Republic from a dead system, crushed under the weight of incompetent and greedy fools.

A great problem were the menaces calling themselves servants of the Force, although we now know that the Force is only meant to be controlled by the Emperor and Lord Vader. These "Jedi," as they called themselves, were constantly meddling where they were not needed and recruiting helpless children to their polluted and unethical cause--

ENCYCLOPEDIA PROGRAM TERMINATED

-

"Hey..." Glynn's face filled Saera's vision as she opened her eyes.

"Hey...what happened? What..." And then it all came back to her. "Oh, Gods! How? Why?" She shot up. "Is he...dead?"

"I don't know. But just sit down; I think I got some answers. I contacted some people...you do have a bounty on your head, but it's only if you're alive. Our friend wasn't very good at what he does, or he would've his blaster set to stun."

"But who would want a bounty on me?"

Glynn took a deep breath. "Um, well..."

"My father." She felt sickened at this revelation.

"He tried to keep it quiet, but I guess he wasn't getting any results, because a couple of weeks ago the bounty was almost doubled."

"What a bastard. Sending scum like that after his own daughter. I cannot believe this."

"Saera, there's only one way they're gonna stop tracking you. You've gotta get the bounty lifted. You know what I mean?"

"Yeah," she sighed. "I just don't want to." She paused for a moment. "Oh, and thank you. Thank you for...comforting me. I'm sorry I acted like such a baby. I thought I was going to die. I was scared."

"It's OK," he said gently. "I understand." He reached out and touched her arm, then there was a silence again as she looked down at her hands in her lap and felt his eyes studying face.

"Well, we've gotta get off-planet soon, in case the bounty hunter told someone where you are, so you need to do it within the next couple of hours. Just come and get me when you're done."

"Can't you stay? I don't want to have to do this myself."

"I've got preflight checks to do. And Saera, I'll always be here for you, but this is one thing I just can't get involved in. It's something you've gotta do on your own. OK?"

"Yeah, I know." She flopped back down on her bed. "I'm just not ready."

"You've gotta be."

-

"Dad?"

"Saera?" His voice came in crackly over the connection and his picture was fuzzy and lined, but he was there. "Saera, where are you? I've been worried sick! Are you alright?"

"Relax, Dad, I'm fine, no thanks to you."

""Where are you? Saera, you must come home immediately!"

"Dad, I can't. The Gaellia's programmed to go straight to a predetermined location the second we activate the hyperdrive. Besides which, I don't want to."

"Saera, what are you talking about? What's the Gaellia?"

"Dad, just let me explain. I know what you did!"

He stopped short of his next question. "I don't know--"

"Save it, Daddy Dearest. I know all about the bounty you put on my head. Good job almost getting me killed!"

"What do you mean, I specifically said 'alive or nothing!'"

"DAD! They're not that smart. A bounty hunter just tried to kill me, and probably Glynn, too!"

"Who's Glynn?"

"My friend. The pilot I hired. That's beside the point. How could you do that? How could you send bounty hunters after me?"

"Saera...I didn't mean for you to be in danger. I just miss you so much, and you left so suddenly...I couldn't bear it if anything happened to you! Saera, you're all I have left in this universe...please, don't do this to me anymore. Please just come home..."

"Dad, are you..." Crying? I think he's telling the truth. What have I done to him these past months?

"Dad...I can't come back right now. The Gaellia's set to--to go straight to a predetermined location. As soon as we activate the hyperdrive."

"Can you please tell me what's going on?" he pleaded.

"I can't." She suddenly wanted to tell him. "It might cause...problems. Where we're going isn't of any use, anyway. I've got to make this quick. We need to leave."

"Saera, please come home."

"I...maybe. I'll try."

"Please."

She couldn't speak for a long moment. "Yes. I'll come home, if it's at all possible. I don't know what's going to happen, but it will probably be a few more months before I can come. I'll talk to you. I promise."

"Thank you, Saera. Please just come home."

"I'll try."

"I love you."

"I...love you too."

"Please take care of yourself."

"Bye. Remember to get the bounty removed."

"I will."

She cut off the connection. That conversation had been so strange, and yet she felt slightly liberated, even though she'd promised to go back to where she'd run from. She hadn't realized that her father would be this affected by her flight. Maybe he wasn't so bad, after all.

-

"We can leave." Saera looked a little exhausted, but she also had a small smile, which Glynn took to be a good sign. "I don't think there are going to be any more bounty hunters after me."

"Strap in, then. We just got cleared by the authorities." She complied and he got them off the planet and into hyperspace without a hitch. He watched the navscreen intently, but the Rebels had been incredibly careful and nothing showed where they were heading.

"Hmmn. I'm gonna try to program the computer to search for where we're going. I'm so bad at this slicing stuff that it probably won't work, but we've got an undefined amount of time, and I've got nothing else to do. Even if I do manage to slice it, we'll probably already be there!"

"Yeah." Saera seemed somewhat preoccupied with the white lines of the stars streaking past the cockpit, so he just started looking through the lines of code in the computer. After half an hour with barely a dent in his progress, she was still sitting there, chewing her lip and staring off into space, literally.

"Credit for your thoughts?"

"What? Oh. Sorry. Just thinking."

"About what?"

"Our fight with the bounty hunter. Actually, I wish I could forget it, but it just keeps playing in my mind."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah. There's this one part that just doesn't make sense, though. When he tried to...get at me, he should have been able to, but it was like I had a personal energy shield or something. He just seemed to stop short, for no reason. It's just kinda weird."

"I know what happened."

"What?" He could tell she was curious, and that now he'd have to tell her the whole truth. He prepared himself for her laughter.

"I did it. I almost did make you an energy shield, but an invisible one."

"How is that possible?"

"I think I've figured it out.

"It all started when I was about ten. Well, when I first learned about it. My best friend, Sheere, was getting picked on by bullies a lot. And one day, the biggest, meanest one decided to beat him up. Sheere was a good kid, he wasn't angry or anything like that, but for some reason they just didn't like him. Maybe because he was so nice.

"Anyway, this guy had Sheere underneath him and he was really pounding on him. I was a lot smaller than either of them, and there was no way I could have saved Sheere. I'd just have gotten beaten to a pulp, too. I knew Sheere would've hated that.

"So I was sitting there, watching, powerless to help, just wishing and wishing Sheere was safe and that the guy would stop, and also that I could protect Sheere, help him. Now, at one point, the guy gets off Sheere and lets him try to crawl away. Of course, Sheere is hurt so badly that he only makes it a couple feet. This guy is laughing, and I'm still wishing, and he goes to pummel Sheere again, and BAM! It's like he hits a wall. The bully lets out a scream, turns out he broke his hand. But, I realize this is exactly what I had been picturing in my mind: a wall around Sheere."

"That's what happened--"

"Please, just let me finish. I'll explain later. So, the bully tries to get him again, and I keep on wishing until he gives up and skulks away. I help Sheere back to his house, make sure he's okay, then go home and tell my mother everything.

"She told me that I had Force powers, at least that was what she called them. She said that back before the Empire, there were a group of great warriors called the Jedi Knights. They would come out and test babies to see if they should have their Force powers trained. Mom said that I had been tested and it was decided that I didn't have enough 'strength in the Force' to be trained or something."

"A Jedi? NO WAY!"

"Hey, it's not like I could ever be a Jedi--"

"But you still have a tiny little bit. How come you didn't say anything before?"

"It never occurred to me. I believed my mom at first, and it happened a couple of other times. Once my mother was being...attacked by this guy, and I shielded her. But she said I couldn't tell anyone, ever. It wasn't safe, since there weren't any Jedi left. But it didn't happen very often, and then she died..." He looked down at his hands.

"I have this theory. Mom said the Jedi Knight told her that my slight amount of power was tilted towards protection, which would explain why the only thing I ever did was shield people. But it wasn't a constant, and after she died, I just...never got into a situation where I wanted to protect someone. So I have this theory. I know it only ever happens when I concentrate really hard. But I also think it only happens when I want it for someone enough. When I care about someone enough to want to protect them that much."

"Oh." She didn't meet his eyes. "But why didn't you say anything?"

"That's what I was trying to say, wasn't it? I get so sidetracked sometimes...anyway, I believed my mother when I was younger, but after she died and I didn't do it any more, I thought maybe it was just a story. I think I convinced myself that it wasn't true, just a myth that Mom created to explain things. And then, about a week ago, I started thinking. We were so incredibly lucky to be finding all this stuff about the Rebels when even the Empire couldn't, and they'd been searching for a lot longer than we had. Then I though about this 'Force,' maybe it wasn't just a myth. Maybe it was even guiding us. So I looked in to it in the Encyclopedia but didn't really think about it much. And then, after what happened today...I guess I know now that Mom was right."

"Wait a sec, you thought Jedi were a myth? Of course they were real! I mean, they didn't say anything in school, of course, but just about everyone knows that Jedi were real. Come on, even I know that, and I'm from Tatooine!"

"I don't know, there weren't many rumors like that in the colony we lived in. And I never really thought about it much..."

"What exactly are you going to do now?"

"I dunno. Just live like normal. It doesn't really change anything, I guess. It's not like I got a brain transplant or something, and it's always been there. I just know for sure now what it is."

"Wow. I just can't believe I am talking to a once potential Jedi! That is so cool!"

"Hey, don't go all weird on me, I'm still just Glynn Torshnar, pilot of the Gaellia."

"Yeah, yeah, I know," she said.

"But it's just so cool!"

Sorry! I didn't mean to take so long, but I had issues rewriting this chapter.

Freetrader - I don't know how I wrote this, either. I just sat in my room with a lot of nice pens and mead notebooks and spent almost all of summer 2004 immersing myself in the story. For me, this stuff just flowed. Now sequels (narrows eyes) sequels, I hate... -.-