Disclaimer: Most of these ideas belong to George Lucas and anyone else involved in the creation of Star Wars. I do not mean any copyright infringement, as this is a non-profit fan made story intended to be shared as fan enthusiasm. Enjoy, potential readers.
"Miss Montanari?" someone was asking for her, repeating her name over and over in a melody of sympathy and pity. She didn't want pity. She just wanted to be left alone for a while.
Why did she even choose to go to the stupid dance? She had just been asking for trouble. Now she had hurt someone, and she didn't even know how she had done it.
"Summer?" Alice was here now. "Can I come in?"
"Leave me alone!" she shouted. Her voice sounded alien when it was upset, like it was the voice of another person.
She heard a sigh. "Thank you. But it seems I will have to go in myself to talk to her." It was Ms. Gallwood. Figures that it would be her. The closet door opened, though she was sure that she'd locked it.
"Summer." Ms. Gallwood whispered. "You have to listen to me." her voice was quieter than she'd thought was humanly possible. "We don't have much time. I know what's happening to you."
She couldn't believe it. No one believed her when she told people of the arcane energy that she believed surrounded her. Why would a teacher, even Ms. Gallwood, be any different?
"Come on, we have to get you out of here. That wave you sent earlier projected it even further."
"What...wave?" were the first words out of her mouth. She glanced at the face in the dark. Ms. Gallwood's eyes were triumphant. Her teacher offered her a hand, which she hesitantly took.
Alice was confused when she finally emerged. "Summer...what happened?"
"I don't know, Alice." Summer replied, stopping for a moment. Ms. Gallwood mouthed for her to hurry. "Excuse me, ah...Ms. Gallwood wants me to come with her."
"Are you in trouble?"
She repeated her earlier words. "I don't know. I-I'm sorry, but I don't know."
Razim smirked as he felt a wave of anger project itself, stronger than any of the previous disturbances he had felt while he'd been in the galaxy. Then again, that person's constant tapping into the force had been what leaked the planet's location to his master. If this person could be turned, they could be a powerful ally. But there was also something down there...a presence that felt older, more mature in the Force. He couldn't grasp where he'd felt it before, but he had.
He brought up a holo-screen, monitoring the information he received on his scanners. It seemed that the blue planet was mostly water, though not nearly as much as places such as Manaan. There were multiple climates. He smirked. Multiple climates made for a vast abundance of resources.
The planet had little technological advancement, which made it vulnerable for when the Empire managed to get a star destroyer through the wormhole. However, isolated planets were rather creative in terms in technology. That would be a problem later on. Razim was confident, however, that it was a small advantage that would be easily squashed.
That presence, though...that could be a problem. He would have to make his first moves before it acted.
Summer was confused when Ms. Gallwood led her straight past the science classroom. "Um...where are we going?"
Ms. Gallwood shook her head. "Not here. We need to speak, outside, where less people will hear us."
Summer gaped. It wasn't snowing like it had been the night before, but it was sure to be freezing. "At this time of year?"
Ms. Gallwood sighed, murmuring something she didn't comprehend. "Don't you have a coat with you?"
Summer vaguely remembered placing a sweater on one of the chairs that had been set out in the gym. "Um...sorry, not at the moment."
"We'll just have to manage, then." the teacher sighed, opening the door. Timidly, Summer stepped out into the snow. This wasn't all, though. She walked steadily away from the school for what Summer felt like was hours, though it probably had merely been minutes.
"What did you mean about you understanding what was happening...that, er-thing. Back there."
Something was conflicting her, something that Summer couldn't put a finger on. She wondered if she would even be told at all. She didn't expect for it to be put so bluntly when-
"You have the Force." Ms. Gallwood told her, striding up to a large oak tree and turning.
Summer stared, then cracked up laughing. "Oh, I see. Now you're teasing me for being a Star Wars fanatic!"
Ms. Gallwood rose an eyebrow. A torch of amusement was hurled into her mind.
You have the Force. Her voice whispered in her mind. Summer was no longer laughing when she heard it.
"I-I...how? They're just stories. Star Wars isn't real…"
"Why is it real to me, then?" Ms. Gallwood questioned. "Why was I born in the galaxy you say isn't real?"
She turned to her teacher, confused. "It is...I can feel it! You're telling the truth! Oh… That's why you're so smart! You're from a galaxy where people are even smarter. And you have the Force. Do you have any idea how many Star Wars fans…" she paused, realizing she was fangirling. "Who are you-if you don't mind me asking?"
"You don't trust me." Ms. Gallwood, or whoever she was, stated.
"It's been a strange day." Summer wrinkled her nose. "Is Ian going to be alright?"
"Yes," said the Star Warsian. "But I would advise you to monitor your anger a bit more. You've been projecting so many emotions that you've been tapping into your Force energy. It could alert the Empire of this planet's existence."
"Alert the Empire? But then...what time period was it when you left?"
"I'm a survivor of Order 66."
"Then...the Empire could find out-"
Ms. Gallwood rose a hand. "I know. I've thought of that."
"So...you survived Order 66? But...you would have been so young."
She stiffened. "I was four." she said bluntly. "One of the padawans managed to get me to a shuttle. But the hyperdrive was...malfunctioning. I never got that padawan's name..."
Summer turned away. Here, Ms. Gallwood was talking about one of the most tragic events she'd ever heard about, and she was complaining about how she couldn't control her budding Force powers. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "But...there's more, isn't there."
"Yes." the former Jedi sighed. "I've sensed a great number of Force sensitives on this planet, ever since I was able to get my hands on several Star Wars speculations about Force powers. You earthens have an impressive collection of Force theory for people that don't even know what you're talking about."
"So, if so many people have the Force, why are you telling me?" Summer asked, attempting to maintain her composure. A part of her hoped that Ms. Gallwood was offering to train her as a Jedi, but she attempted to berate herself into squashing that hope. From what she knew of the Jedi, it wasn't wise to expect much from them.
Ms. Gallwood seemed almost amused at her. "Yes, perhaps one day you'll be able to use the Force better than I...I never made it to the rank of Jedi Padawan, after all. But I doubt that your training will start now." she crossed her arms. "I told you because I've been feeling disturbances in the Force, and they've been emanating from you."
"I'm a disturbance in the Force?" she asked, still not quite believing what she was being told. Then again, her parents had told her that Star Wars wasn't real when she was a little girl, much to her disappointment. It was odd to contradict something they had said was fact.
"You're the disturbance." Ms. Gallwood confirmed.
Summer observed her teacher for a moment. It was all starting to make sense...her talent for empathy, for the strange accidents that always seemed to happen around her (when she was eleven, she'd hoped that a letter to Hogwarts would come, simply because she was desperate for some kind of explanation), and Ms. Gallwood's determination to be a teacher despite the fact that some big engineering company would accept a job application from her in a heartbeat.
"Your name-it isn't Jessica Gallwood, is it?" she asked slowly.
A grin. "No. Well, it was the name I was given here by my foster parents. My name is Ashara Dorne of the Galactic Republic." She thought for a moment. "And no. I'm not the Game of Thrones Ashara."
Summer gave her a blank look. "I don't watch that show."
"Alright...so you don't know who that is. Just…forget I said anything."
There was a strange sound above them, like an airplane, but the sound was more magnified. Ashara Dorne looked up at the sky, her brow furrowing. "And...we don't have much time. But I promise you, Summer Montanari, that I will do my best to save your planet."
Summer realized for the first time that she wasn't scared of what was happening to herself now. She was scared of the monsters in the winter sky.
"Are you going to be alright?" Alice asked her. Summer jumped, realizing that she was brooding.
"Yeah...I'm fine." she replied, distracted.
"It's just that you've been silent ever since your dad came to pick us up." Alice was hesitant. With a start, Summer realized that Alice was afraid of her.
"Everything's going to turn out the way it's meant to." Summer reassured her. "What happened back there with Ian is never going to happen again. I'm going to make sure of it."
Alice turned to gaze out the window. "He deserved it," she stated.
"He deserved to be thrown into a wall? Get a concussion?" Summer pressed on. She probably would never be a true Jedi, like Ashara thought she'd be, but she could try. "Alice, I hurt him. No one deserves that."
Alice deflated. "He didn't."
Glad that Alice agreed, Summer turned to her father. "I'm sorry, dad." Her father's disappointed gaze from when he arrived to pick them up early would remain forever imprinted in her mind.
"I am glad you are taking a mature response to the situation." he replied. "So I accept your apology. But you are still going to get a lecture from us once we arrive."
A part of her wanted to argue, to say that it was unfair to be punished for something she couldn't control. But the person she'd spoken to had been through much worse.
"What did Ms. Gallwood do? Do you have detention, or something?" Alice asked.
"No...she just gave me a reprimand and told me to control my anger. Hate leads to the Dark Side, and all that."
She laughs. "Of course you would add that reference in."
"I don't know what you're talking about." Summer was glad she could still banter with her friend like this, even after that night.
"You're the one dressed up as Padme Amidala."
Her laughter faltered for a moment, before she continued with a bit of force behind it.
Padme Amidala was once a real person, she realized. She'd been betrayed, and Anakin Skywalker had turned to the dark side. It had been a fun story, but the fact that it was real was mind boggling. It had been painful to watch the end of the prequel trilogy, as much of a disappointment as those movies had been. It was even more painful to think about the fact that she knew everything that happened to them, and that she was sitting here on earth, doing nothing.
"Did you have fun, besides the obvious downfall?" Alice asked her, snapping her out of her thoughts.
"Hmm? Oh. Yes, Charlie is quite nice." Slyly, she added "You'd like him."
"You have a twinkle in your eye." Alice observed suspiciously.
"My daughter always has a twinkle in her eye." her father said from the front seat.
Alice rose her eyebrows. "Really? Because I've only noticed it when she's up to something."
Summer was glad for once to get off the topic of Star Wars. "Maybe I'm always up to something…what do you think of Charlie?"
Alice shoved her in the shoulder. "Stop it!"
For now, Summer was glad to just be her. She had a feeling that everything was already changing, and she wanted to enjoy the most of the little time she had.
And she was glad she chose to keep that moment as happy as she could, because the next moment, all hell broke loose.
