A month later found me seated once again in front of Master Janren in the Jedi temple, but this time she was not the only one before me. The entire high council, including Yoda who stood to her right, were present on this the day that would mark the beginning of my formal training. I glanced nervously at Master Janren, who gave me a comforting smile. I gulped; could the council sense my nerves?
Choosing to look beyond the solemn faces of the other masters who lined the room and the Padawans they had recently acquired, I noticed a small flicker of movement and felt the same in the Force. A sentient being was moving inside the room with a DL-44 blaster in a holster on its hip. Master Yoda cleared his throat and I looked back at him, tearing my gaze from the intruder but keeping him in the back of my mind.
"To take you as her Padawan learner, Master Janren wants," he began. I nodded, and he continued the rather dull rites that the master and apprentice were supposed to recite. The shadow in the corner grew more distinct, into the shape of a tall, skinny boy who must've been around my age. He checked the blaster, then positioned himself in the corner so that he could see into the temple. Evidently, he was spying on the Jedi. A tug at my hair brought me back to the subject of the ceremony: the symbolic braid was being woven into a strand of my hair.
As the last bits of the ancient ritual were completed, I tried to catch Master Janren's eye and explain to her about the kid with the DL-44. But she dismissed my worried expression as more nerves and merely smiled at me. I sighed, twisting the braid in my hair. Hopefully when all the Jedi filed out, there would be time to discover who the mystery intruder was.
There was a bit of commotion as the room was cleared, and I ran up to-I thought excitedly- my master. "Master, there's a boy over there-" She turned towards me, then looked in the direction of another Padawan.
"That one?" She gave me a humored smile. "All right, Padawan, I'll admit he's cute, but not worth leaving the Jedi order for." I was too anxious to be embarrassed. Shaking my head vigorously, I tried to point her in the right direction. "Well," Master Janren said with a sigh, "I suppose, since it is your first night as my apprentice, I can let you stay here with your friends. You know where my apartment is, right? I'll see you there in a few hours." She walked out of the room, pausing to talk to one of the many Jedi approaching the exit. Already my master thought I was strange, I thought dejectedly. But at least with her gone, I could be free to see what the boy was up to.
The corner he was in was an archway that led to a private balcony overlooking the temple grounds, and beyond that, the city-planet of Coruscant. Luckily, the corner was far away from the exit, so none of the masters would notice one small Padawan gone missing. I had a practice lightsaber hooked on my belt, so I could always defend myself if necessary. His shadow retreated further into the corner as I approached, hand on the cylindrical hilt of my weapon just in case. Drat. I would have to go out onto the balcony, and from there, he might have buddies who could help him to safety.
I strode out onto the balcony, sensing his presence with the Force long before I saw him with my eyes. He seemed younger up close, with brown hair a shade lighter than mine was that seemed to fall somewhere between his eyebrows. I could sense his fear as well as see it: in his brown eyes, laden with confusion and suspicion, the guilty way he was looking around, hands reflexively going to his blaster. "W-who the hell are you?" he stammered, trying to sound tough.
"I should be asking you that." I tried to sound authoritative, but being only a little past ten, I miserably failed. "And more importantly, why are you on the balcony of the Jedi temple? This is sacred ground. You're not supposed to be trespassing here," I added, wondering if he was perhaps ignorant of the customs of Coruscant. He didn't look like any citizen I'd ever seen. Suddenly, I shouted, "What are you doing with that?"
"This?" He held up the blaster he'd just removed from a holster that appeared to be on his belt. A closer look told me that it was in fact sewn to his pants, and was altogether a crude, homemade version of the kind sold in stores. "I'm getting it ready. That's what you do when you're threatened."
"That's not what I meant," I said quickly. "It's just, I don't see a lot of kids with DL-44's. Or any who talk like you, for that matter." He blushed at the last comment.
"The swearin's a habit," he muttered. "And the blaster's a gift. From my dad, to defend myself," he said with pride. My forehead wrinkled in confusion, and the boy was taken aback; he must've felt like he said the wrong thing. Giving me a strange, almost lopsided grin, he laughed and said, "Kidding. The captain of the starship I work on gives 'em to everyone on board. We tend to run into trouble, or otherwise it finds us."
"I've always wanted to fly a starship someday. Maybe go on an adventure. That, and becoming a Jedi knight, is my greatest dream," I blurted out, sensing that this boy might actually appreciate hearing about my life. "Have you ever flown?"
"The captain's teaching me. Most of the time I just carry goods and stuff, and get him outta trouble when he does something stupid. It's rarer for me to not have to save his…er, hide than it is for me to have to. Oh, and we play cards," he said as an afterthought. "So probably the most exciting thing is nearly getting killed."
"Sounds like fun."
He grinned again, something halfway between a smile and a smirk. Suddenly, the grin was wiped from his face as panic took over. Swearing loudly, he checked his wrist comm and frantically located a frequency, hastily apologizing for his language before returning to his conversation. "Captain?" he asked nervously.
A familiar voice came through. "Kid, where're you at? We shoulda left Coruscant two timeparts ago!" The boy looked sheepish, and muttered something about cargo deliveries. Shutting down the comm, he turned to me. "I gotta go. Sorry."
"Wait!" I yelled before he headed down the stairs nestled in the balcony platform. "You didn't tell me that Captain Solo was the man you worked for."
He shrugged. "I didn't think it mattered."
By the time the brown soles of his boots disappeared, it was already dark outside. I groaned. I was supposed to have been in the apartments hours ago, and my master wouldn't be happy. I pulled up my robes so I could run to the flight of stairs that led to where the Padawans and masters had their quarters. Reaching out with the Force, I sensed no movement in the corridor except for a droid that was cleaning the floor. I sped down the hallway, grabbing hold of the door jam of room number 287. Stopping to catch my breath, I opened the door a crack.
It was dark inside, except for a small light that filled a corner of the room with a soft glow. Tiptoeing in case my master was asleep, I walked to the small, bare room that was presumably my own. There was a door across from the bed, and I thought that it might lead to a closet. But I could hear a voice coming from inside, so it must've been the other bedroom and not a spare room like I'd thought.
There was another voice, too, this one deeper. Intrigued, I pressed my ear to the door. I still couldn't get much out of it, so using the Force, I found a way to listen in on the conversation. It was a trick that one of the older Padawans had taught to me and a few of my friends on a slow day with little training, and since then it had gotten me into all sorts of trouble. Now that I could hear what was being said, it appeared I had come into the middle of an argument.
"Every time you come back here, this happens!" Master Janren was yelling. "The room's too small, it's too risky, we can't be seen together, you've got a shipment of spice to send to some far off planet. There's something wrong every single time, Han, and you always have to be the one to point it out."
"And what about you?" the man called Han shot back. "You disapprove of the way I handle things, you're always commenting on whatever I do wrong; it's just one big competition for you. If you feel so strongly about this, then I can't see why you said yes!"
Sensing a little of Master Janren's feelings through the Force, I could tell she was frustrated, but not angry. "That's a lie," she said calmly. "We both know why I said yes. Perhaps it hasn't been long enough since you last visited. Go ahead, take the spice to Corellia. I think we need a little time to cool down."
I heard the door open and moved to my own to peer out at the entrance to our apartment. "You're right," Han said. "May the gods strike me down where I stand if I ever say it again, but you're right. I'll be back in a few months, I think." It wasn't very much of a surprise when the man came into the light, revealing him to be Captain Solo. I had suspected as much from the sound of his voice, and I could even sense a bit of his personality.
But what did surprise me was the sincerity with which my master whispered, "Take care of yourself," as they said goodbye, especially given the heated argument I had just witnessed. As did the soft peck on the lips she gave the captain before he let go of her and headed out the door. When at last she was alone, she collapsed against the wall and slid down to the floor. Sighing, she looked around, and I gasped: she had found me. "Oh, Gracie," she said sadly. "You can come out now, really, I won't get mad." I stepped forward, feeling more than a little ashamed. She patted the floor next to her, the gesture implying that that was where she wanted me to sit. Taking my face in her hands, she asked, "How much of that did you hear?"
"Enough," I groaned. She looked away from me, sighing again.
"Gracie, this is hard to put into words. But it's something I suppose you have to hear, and there's no time like the present. You have to promise me that you won't think badly of any of the people I mention, because they really are good people, even if they do not come across as such. Do you promise?" I nodded slowly.
She turned back to me, her face set in concentration as she tried to remember where the story began. "The feud between me and Master Skywalker," she said finally, "began when he was still a slave on Tatooine. He became a good friend to the queen of Naboo, Padme Amidala, when her ship landed there. When he became a Jedi, he didn't see her for ten years, but then he was assigned to protect her from an assassination attempt. They fell in love, and Anakin, that's Master Skywalker's first name, went against the Jedi code and married her. Then Padme gave birth to twins, and they lived in secret. That's the short version.
"But it doesn't end there. I am one of the twins, and Luke Diatu is the other. For a time we lived with our parents in secret, on my father's homeworld. But then we were all assigned to Coruscant for various reasons, and we needed a bigger ship to fit all of us. Enter Captain Solo and his Millennium Falcon.
"During the course of the trip, Han fell in love with me. I knew that I could never feel the same way about him because of my obligations to the order, but I still grew very fond of him. I encountered an evil Sith Lord, who tried to use these feelings to turn me to the Dark Side, but was saved when Han and my brother came for me, reminding me of what mattered. I guess it shook me up pretty bad, and I wound up confessing my feelings to him three days later.
"It was a slight shock when he proposed, but I said yes, against my father's wishes. Hence the falling out with Anakin. I revealed our marriage to him several months after, and he hasn't spoken casually with me since. So there you have it," she finished. "The short version. Someday I'll tell you the longer version, but I don't think you're ready for that."
"I was hardly ready for this!" I exclaimed. She smiled, but her expression was weary. "So, why were you fighting if you guys are in love?"
"Because, Gracie, it's not always easy. In fact, it almost never is. Our lives can be so stressful, and sometimes it builds up so much that we can hardly enjoy each other's company. I think we just had a few rough days that messed things up. Nothing to worry about," she reassured me.
"A family feud, a secret marriage, and a serious breach of the Jedi code? I'd hate to see what you'd actually worry about!"