Chapter 2. Obi-Wan
For a moment I felt stunned and was totally speechless. There was complete silence in the room. Then I exploded in anger.
"Is this some kind of sick joke?" I demanded of the stranger. I stared at my mom, waiting for some kind of reasonable explanation.
My mom took a deep breath and started to move toward me. "It's true, Emma. I know this is a big shock, but ..."
I shook my head. "No, Dad is dead. You told me. I saw his medal … and he never came back here."
My mom started to speak again, but the man put a hand on her shoulder and said something to her in a low voice that I could not hear. Then he turned to me.
"Emma, search your feelings. You know I am your father. I have a lot to explain, it is true, but I am back now and I give you my word I am not leaving again. Well, not unless you and your mother come with me."
I continued to stare at this strange man. But he wasn't a stranger, I could feel it. He had auburn hair, blue eyes and a neatly trimmed beard. He was tall and was wearing a long black jacket and blue jeans. He looked exactly the way I imagined my father would have looked at the age of forty-eight … minus the beard and a few years. Come to think of it, he looked pretty good for a man who would have been forty-eight years old.
I looked at my mother again. She just nodded.
Returning my gaze to the man, I said, "Ok, if you're really my dad, why did you say your name was Obi-Wan? My dad's name was Owen. Hey, do you know I'm a big fan of Star Wars? Is this some kind of weird belated birthday present?" It was early December, and my birthday had been over a month ago. Maybe my mother had hired an actor to pretend to be Obi-Wan because she knows I'm a huge Star Wars fan. But still, to say he's my father … that was just cruel. And my mother was the sweetest, kindest woman I knew.
"I changed my name not long after I landed on this planet," the man claiming to be Obi-Wan announced.
"Are you an actor?" I demanded to know.
The man laughed lightly. "No, I'm not an actor. I am telling you that my name is really Obi-Wan Kenobi. You are my daughter, Emma and your mother, Lara is my wife."
"Ok, the show is over. There is no way Obi-Wan Kenobi would ever get married and have a kid. I'm done here." I turned to walk back up the stairs, then turned around. "Unless you can show me a real lightsaber and use the Force, I am not going to believe you." I looked at my mom. "I am very tired now and am going to sleep."
"Wait, Emma," the man said. He slowly unzipped his jacket, revealing a blue sweater. He was also wearing a belt, and there was something clipped to his belt. I watched in disbelief as he took the object from his belt, ignited it, and with a flash was holding a blue lightsaber in his hand. He held out his other hand, and my mother's empty smoothie glass, which she had placed on the table by the stairs, slowly floated into the air.
"Do you believe me now?" the man asked seriously. He closed his lightsaber and placed it back on his belt.
I just stood there, not sure what to say. I wasn't as shocked as I might have been earlier in the day if a complete stranger had waltzed into my house and demonstrated Force powers. I had done the same thing myself a little over an hour earlier. No, now I was more inclined to believe that Star Wars was real than to think that my long-dead father had miraculously come back to life.
"You did the same thing yourself, earlier today, didn't you?" the man asked me. He took a step toward me, looking like he wanted to touch my shoulders. "You realize that you have these powers, too?"
"What?" my mom asked, looking from me to Obi-Wan and back to me. "You didn't say anything earlier to me, Emma."
I laughed, trying not to sound hysterical. "This just happened a few hours ago, Mom. I didn't know what to believe. I thought I was imagining things. How could I say such a thing to you, anyway, unless I was joking? Like you would have believed me ..." My voice trailed off. My mom was looking at me with an expression that was half worry, half excitement. She looked like she believed me. Well, now that Obi-Wan had demonstrated his Force powers ... I shook my head. I couldn't think of this stranger as Obi-Wan.
But he wasn't a stranger. I knew this for a fact. I didn't know if he was really my father, but he definitely was not a stranger. I had met him before … how did I know this? Somehow, I just knew.
"You said this would happen," my mom was saying to the man. She took a deep breath. "One day."
The man nodded. "I've been tracking her Force sensations for three years now. I knew it would happen eventually. I thought it would have happened sooner, but ..." He looked at me with a proud smile, then turned back to my mom. "I was already on my way here when I felt the stirring in the Force and knew that she had finally discovered her powers."
"Wait a minute." I was determined to get to the bottom of this mystery, once and for all. "You've been tracking me? And you came here for what? If you're really my father, why would you leave and pretend to be dead for all these years?" I was growing angrier and angrier at the thought that this might be true. Then I turned to my mother. "Did you know about this?" I asked her accusingly. Had she really known my father was alive for all this time and kept the truth hidden from me?
"Emma, I never thought that he would return. I didn't know until tonight that he had," my mom assured me. "He called me after dinner, and when I heard his voice I couldn't believe it ..." She looked pale, paler than usual. I hoped she wasn't going to faint.
"Emma, please don't blame your mother," the man pleaded with me. He put his arms around her. "None of this is her fault. I am completely responsible for all that has happened."
"We made the decision together," my mom reminded him, tilting her head back to look up at him. "When you told me you had to go back, I agreed that it was the only way."
I couldn't believe this. There was now no doubt in my mind that this man was my father. My mom wouldn't do this to me if it weren't true. But how? How could my father possibly have been alive all this time? And never to call or visit … He had been such a loving father. How could he have just walked out on his family? And why hadn't my mom ever told me he was really alive? Why had she pretended that he was dead?
My mind was spinning with a million questions. I just stared at the two of them, waiting for an explanation.
"Why don't we go into the living room, sit down, and talk about this?" my father suggested. "We have a lot to talk about."
"YOU have a lot of explaining to do," I stormed at him, stomping my feet as I made my way into the living room and plopped down on the sofa. "How could you just leave us like that? And stop saying your name is Obi-Wan. As much as I love Star Wars, I know you're not the REAL Obi-Wan. Your name is Owen."
My father sighed. "No, my name is really Obi-Wan," he insisted. "I changed it to Owen when I thought that I was stuck on this planet and would have to live here forever."
I shook my head, refusing to accept this. "Are you trying to say you're from another planet? And just what planet are you really from?" I asked him sarcastically.
"I arrived here from Coruscant," he answered me immediately.
I rolled my eyes, even though I know my mom hates it when I do that. "Sure you did," I answered him. "Alright, Obi-Wan, just how is it possible to fly from Coruscant to Earth? Aren't they in different galaxies?"
"Emma," my mom scolded me. "I know this has all come as a big surprise, but please show your father some respect."
My father held up a hand. "It's all right, Lara," he said in a soft voice. Then he turned to me. "I will start from the beginning. Well, the beginning of my arrival on this planet."
"I am willing to accept Star Wars is real. In fact, I am thrilled that it is real. But you need to explain how all this is possible. How can it be real? Does George Lucas know?" I demanded. I couldn't imagine that he did.
My father gave me a small smile. "No, he doesn't," he answered. "You, your mother, and I are the only people on this planet who know that it is real, and it will remain that way. No one else on Earth can ever know that Star Wars is real."
"Why?" I demanded.
"Patience," my father told me. I rolled my eyes again. "I will get to all of that later. First, let me tell you my story."
"This had better be good," I mumbled, leaning back against the sofa. I wasn't sure I could forgive him for this.
"Where should I begin?" he murmured to himself. He stroked his beard. "Ah, yes. It was toward the end of the Clone Wars. After the Battle of Coruscant, General Grievous escaped, and the Republic searched the galaxy to determine his whereabouts. Not long after, the Republic Clone Intelligence informed the Jedi that they had discovered Grievous' location, and the Council decided to send me and my clone troopers to handle Grievous. We were headed to Utapau when our ships were surrounded by a number of Separatist vessels. I was able to destroy two of them before my ship took a direct hit from their command ship. I tried to send a distress signal to Commander Cody, but my controls were not working. I was able to set the coordinates to jump to hyperspace and return to Coruscant before my ship started to spiral out of control. However, something unexpected happened during the lightspeed jump. The shot to my ship damaged the hyperdrive, and the coordinates started to blink and change. When I emerged from hyperspace, a blue planet I had never seen before was ahead of me. The ship was badly damaged, and it took all of my pilot skills to safely land it in the mountains. I later discovered I had landed in the Appalachian Mountains in Virginia. I wounded one of my legs in the crash, but other than that I had no other injuries. It was nothing short of miraculous. When I emerged from the ship, I had no idea where I was. I still had my comlink and holoprojector, but they were not working. I was able to walk a short distance on a trail before I encountered two hikers. They called an ambulance for me and took me to the hospital. When I arrived at the ER, the nurse on duty happened to be your mother." He smiled fondly at my mom.
"Yeah, I know this part," I interrupted him. "You met mom at the hospital. You liked each other right away, but you didn't actually start to date for another six months. Now I know why. It was forbidden."
"Yes, it was six months before I realized that I was never going to get back to my galaxy," Obi-Wan said. "Six long months of trying to communicate with Coruscant, to no avail. I guessed right away that I had somehow traveled to another galaxy. This suspicion was confirmed when I learned about the Star Wars movies." He smiled ruefully.
"That must have been strange," I said. "So, are they actually true? I mean, what happens in Star Wars. Is that the way it really is?"
"Yes, that is the way it really did happen," he confirmed for me. "Well, up to Episode 3. What happened then is very different from the movie."
"What do you mean?" I wondered. "How could it be different?"
"I'll explain that later. First, I want to finish the rest of the story and explain how it was that I eventually returned to my own galaxy."
"So, my comlink and holoprojector were not broken from the crash, but I soon became aware that they did not work on this planet. At least, there was no way to send a communication between different galaxies. So, I had no way of sending a message to the Council to let them know that I was still alive and my location."
"What happened to your ship?" I asked him. "Is it still in the mountains?"
"As soon as my leg had healed, I returned to the crash site. Luckily, no one had discovered the ship, but it had broken during the crash, and I was not able to fly it. Even if I had been able to fly it, the hyperdrive had been damaged enough that I would not have been able to jump to lightspeed again."
"But still I hoped there would be a way to return. I went deep into meditation to try to communicate with Master Yoda and Anakin. Nothing. I couldn't reach them. My earlier theory that communication between different galaxies was not possible appeared to be true. So now it appeared that I was permanently stranded on a strange planet. I knew I would have to adjust to life here as best I could. I learned quickly that the name Obi-Wan was met with shouts of laughter and jokes, so I decided to call myself Owen. Since I had been a general during the Clone Wars, and with my Jedi skills, I decided the best way to support myself was to join the army. I worked my way through the ranks rapidly and eventually became a general. After your mother and I got married, we lived in Washington, D.C. for a while. It wasn't until you were two that we moved to New Jersey to be closer to her family. That was when I became a Marine and was sent overseas for a while."
"So even though you were a Jedi, you decided to get married and have a family," I observed. "Even though it is forbidden."
"It was forbidden," he acknowledged. "But remember, I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life on this planet where Jedi are known as fictional characters. I was never going to see my galaxy again. And, Emma, all of this was the will of the Force. Everything that happened. My landing here, meeting your mother, having you ... it was destiny."
"What do you mean, it was forbidden?" I asked him suddenly. "Isn't it still?"
"I'll get to that," he promised. "As you know, when you turned five I was sent to Iraq with my division. After my last visit home, I decided to ask for a transfer to the Pentagon. We were going to move back to Virginia. I didn't want to be away so much from you and your mother. I knew that you were going to discover your powers soon, and I wanted to be able to train you."
"Train me?" I repeated. "You were going to train me as a Jedi even though ... we're not in the right galaxy? Would I even be able to use my powers here?"
He smiled. "Yes, Emma," he told me. "I have used my powers here. You never know when a good mind trick will come in handy!"
"Anyway, one morning that April, when I was deep in my morning meditations, I heard Master Yoda's voice. He had been searching for me ever since I mysteriously disappeared. The Jedi believed that I had somehow survived, even though my clone troopers had seen my ship disappear into hyperspace, never to be seen again. Yoda had finally sensed my location. I told him about the broken ship, and he informed me that Anakin was coming to rescue me. Master Yoda had a vision of me on this planet. I told him I had been able to discover the coordinates necessary to reach this planet. He told me to prepare for Anakin's arrival and my return to our galaxy. I was confused when Yoda told me he was sending Anakin, because it had been five years since I left, and if the timeline was true for the Star Wars galaxy, Anakin would have turned to the dark side and the Jedi Order would have been destroyed. I started to ask Master Yoda about this, but our mind connection ended at that moment, probably because of the difficulty in communicating between the two galaxies."
"So you decided to leave," I said. I felt hurt. "Why didn't you take us with you?"
"Remember, Emma, this was during the Clone Wars. The traditional rules regarding Jedi and marriage still held."
"Wait a minute." Now I was confused. "How could it still be the Clone Wars? It was five years later."
"Actually, Emma, it wasn't," he corrected me. "As I learned upon Anakin's arrival, only one month had passed there."
"How can that be?" I didn't understand this at all.
"Apparently, time exists in different waves in the different galaxies," Obi-Wan explained. "Upon my return to Coruscant, I resumed my old life exactly one month later from when I had first left."
"So that's the reason why you look so young. I mean, younger than you should be. How old are you now?"
"I am thirty-eight," he replied.
"Wow, you're younger than Mom now," I murmured. "That's weird." I looked at him again. "So the Force somehow told Yoda where you were and how to get here. And you decided to go back without us. Didn't Yoda sense that you had a family now? And how did Anakin know how to fly to Earth?"
"I know you have lots of questions, Emma, and I will try to answer them all. So, first of all, I told Yoda the coordinates that Anakin would need to get here."
"But how could you possibly know the right coordinates?" I asked, perplexed.
"Remember, Emma, when my ship was hit, the original coordinates I had set to fly to Coruscant changed. I remembered what those coordinates were, so I was able to tell Yoda. And that is how I was able to return here tonight," he finished.
"So when did Anakin arrive here?" I asked.
"Three days after I communicated with Master Yoda. He landed in the Iraqi desert. That morning, I called your mother and told her what had happened. I told her that I was returning to Coruscant. I wanted to take both of you with me and confess everything to the Council, even if it meant that I would be expelled from the Order. But your mother insisted that I could not let that happen. She also said she wasn't ready to leave this planet, but I know she would have if I had asked her. We wanted our family to stay together, but it all seemed too risky."
"Before I left, three of my men went with me to scout the area. A large group of insurgents attacked us. One of my men was wounded. I told the other two to get him back to our base, and I would cover them. They refused to leave at first, but I told them that help was on the way and that was the order. I waited until they were out of sight, and then quickly defeated all of the insurgents. I drove their truck halfway to the desert and then crashed it, so it would look like I had been taken prisoner, and everyone would assume that I had been killed. I left my wallet and gun in the truck, but I took this with me." He held up his cell phone.
"Why did you take that with you?" I asked him. "I mean, you were staging your own death. Were you really going to call us?" I was beginning to feel angry again.
Obi-Wan shook his head. "I wanted to take it with me to show to Master Yoda and the Council. There was also a part of me that hoped that it would work on Coruscant. It didn't, of course. But it was useful tonight."
"So you just left us," I grumbled. "You should have taken us. Maybe they would have understood if you explained that you thought you would be stuck on Earth forever."
"It is possible," he conceded. "But I still wasn't sure exactly what had happened. Anakin was on his way here, and I assumed that meant time had passed differently there, and all the events from Revenge of the Sith were about to occur. I planned to warn him and the Council about Chancellor Palpatine, and hopefully prevent Anakin's fall to the dark side. But I wasn't sure if he would believe me. I couldn't take a chance that he would still turn and the Empire would rise. It would be too dangerous for you and your mother."
I sat back in my chair, pondering this. It was a lot to process all at once. Part of me understood Obi-Wan's point of view and his reasoning, his fear for our safety. But part of me was too hurt to want to understand.
My mother had been silent so far during Obi-Wan's story, but now she spoke, leaning forward in her chair. "Emma, we were both in shock," she explained, speaking earnestly. "We never dreamed that there would be a way for him to return. I couldn't risk us going there. It seemed very likely that the events of the third movie would play out the way we knew them, and it would have been way too dangerous for us."
Her voice was strained, pleading. I looked into her brown eyes, full of sadness and compassion. My anger melted away. I couldn't stay angry with her. And, looking at my father, I couldn't remain angry with him. He had suffered, too, I realized, being separated from us.
I stood up from the couch and hugged first my mother, and then my father. "I am so glad you are alive," I whispered. "I am so glad you came back." Then, suddenly, I pulled away. "Why are you back? Is it because you sensed I had discovered my Force powers? Are you here to train me? But why do I need to be trained if I'm staying here?" My mind was spinning.
Obi-Wan smiled and hugged me again, then hugged my mother.
"I am here to bring you and your mother back to Coruscant," he announced. "Tonight."
