Off to the side inside the senate building, Mara covered her ears as Leia continued her speech to the rest of the senate. She turned to Anakin and Luke and said, "Even after all these years I still don't get how she can go on so long without taking a breath. Doesn't she get tired?"

Anakin smiled under his mask and said, "She gets that from her mother. Padme could argue with people who didn't listen to her all day long too." He thought back to their time together during the clone wars. "I once body guarded her as she spoke in the senate, and I woke up with my face in the carpet. I had fallen asleep and fell face first into the floor. No one brought it up. No one noticed."

"Really?" Luke asked, amused, "Did you bodyguard for her often?"

"No," he said, "we had to be careful. I'd help her out most of the time, as often as I could, but we made sure she'd request someone else in the order every once in a while, so it didn't look like we were getting too close."

Luke looked him over nervously and said gently, "You never bring up your past or my mother. What's going on?"

Anakin confessed, "I've been remembering certain things from the past as of late. There are things Palpatine said a long time ago that have been resurfacing."

"You too?" Mara asked nervously.

He nodded.

"I've been remembering things too," she said anxiously, "I figured it was just some nightmares coming back to haunt me from the empire days. It's not like I've never had those before. Do you think the force is trying to tell us something?"

Anakin replied, "Always. Unfortuntely I've never been good at decifering what visions mean. I always had to go to Master Yoda for help."

Luke asked him, "What sort of things have you been remembering?"

Anakin answered, "He once told me the sith have powers the jedi consider unnatural," he said, "and he knew how much I wanted to have signifigance in my life before I turned to the dark side." He paused to shake his head. "Visions are warnings and calls to action, but I can't figure out what these visions are warning me of, or how I'm supposed to take action."

Mara asked anxiously, "What could it mean?"

"Time will tell," Anakin replied, anxious.

Luke said, "By then it might be too late. I wish we had answers now."

"Ben Skywalker," Ben introduced himself to Rey outside the new jedi temple, "nice to meet you, Rey." He was 18, taller than his father Luke, and had his mother's fiery red hair.

"Does everyone here know about me already?" she asked, nervous.

Annika replied, "My grandpa's been seeing you in visions and he's told us about them for a while now, but he doesn't understand why he keeps seeing you. It's like you're connected to the First Order somehow."

"What exactly is the First Order?" Rey asked, still worried about the Jakkuians she grew up with.

Ben answered, "They started off as a group of systems who didn't want to join the People's Republic my parents started rebuilding years ago. They let them be since it's not like they could force them to do anything. Then they started making systems who had already joined us want to leave and join them. Now it's like they're a gang who fly around and try to recruit people to join them. No one is going to stop them because they don't want another war, but I don't know." He shrugged. "I feel like we could be doing more. My dad thinks they're trying to restart the empire."

Rey insisted, "I'm not connected to those people. I don't know anything about them."

"The force works in mysterious ways," he said, "you'll get used to that. My dad tasked me with helping to train you to become among the new order of jedi."

"Right, the new order," she whispered.

Annika asked, "What do you know about jedi?"

Rey froze. She knew she didn't know much but she didn't want to look stupid in front of Anakin's grandchildren and Luke's children. "All I know is the jedi had much power in the senate during the high republic era of nearly 1,000 years," she explained slowly, "and the sith didn't like that, so they killed them all during the clone wars and then the sith were in power during the empire era. Darth Vader turned back into a jedi and Luke Skywalker killed the emperor and now we have a new republic-for the systems who would like to join."

"That's..." Annika hesitated.

"Who told you that load of crap?" Ben demanded angrily.

"My dad."

"Your dad," he repeated, "why didn't he come here to Naboo with you?"

She lied, "He decided to stay behind on Jakku and fight the First Order himself." As she turned away from them, Annika and Ben glanced at each other knowingly. They could tell she was lying.

Ben said, "Right. Well enough about that, come inside and meet our little cousins." He had her follow him inside the temple properly.

Three pre-teens were chasing each other around the meditation room. Annika said, "You guys! Running is forbidden in the meditation chambers! You know that!" They stopped and quickly stood in a line in front of them.

"Rey," Ben explained, "This is Anakin Solo, he's 13, and the twins, Jaina and Jace who are both 12." Anakin stood the tallest, while Jace was slightly taller than his sister Jaina. They all looked like a different mixes between their parents Leia and Han Solo.

"You're part of the First Order?" Anakin asked Rey.

"No," she insisted.

Ben asked, "Would you three get back to meditating?"

Jace said, "You're not the boss of us."

"My dad says I'm charge of your training now," he said, "so sit down and start meditating!"

Jaina asked as she sat down alongside her brothers, "How are we supposed to meditate in here with so much fear in the air?"

Ben said, "That's the new girl, Rey, she's just nervous, but a true jedi can meditate even when others around them are untrained." He looked down at them as they got into position. Rey sat down beside them nervously and readied for her first real lesson in the force.

Meanwhile, outside the senate building, Han walked up to the front doors to see Leia, Luke, and Anakin exiting the main entrance and walking down the stairs together.

Luke spotted him first. "Han!" He said, "You made it back in one piece. Where's Lando?"

"He's making his way back to the mines in the Falcon," he answered, "Leia, how'd it go in there this time around?" He gestured to the senate building.

"Terrible," she answered, "no one cares about the First Order bullying our ships because they're not executing 'a proper blockade' of Naboo. Their set up makes me wonder why they even bother. What's the point they're trying to make?"

Anakin asked, "How was the landing?"

"Annoying," Han answered as he started walking alongside the three of them, "but it wasn't impossible. Anyone else notice how whenever we get contacted by those space jockies it's always some brat? I've never interacted with a real adult among them. Have you?"

Luke said, "I noticed the one we caught on Tatooine was quite young, no older than 20 for sure."

Han stopped him, "What were you doing over there? I thought you went to some ocean planet called Jakku."

Anakin explained, "The First Order was in the way of Naboo on the return flight and knocked us off course temporarily."

"And that doesn't bother the senate?" Han asked.

"No," Leia said, "and neither does the fact that apparently they can shoot at ships in lightspeed now. Another thing we can add to the growing list of annoyances." She rolled her eyes. How could the brand new People's Republic not care?

"That's why I hate politics and politicans," Han said, then stopped and snarked, "including you, dear."

"Right," she replied, "that's why we have three children."

Han asked, "Where are they?"

"In the temple," she answered.

Annika asked as the cousins and Rey walked into the library of the temple later, "How'd you like it?"

"Meditating is more relaxing than I thought it would be," Rey answered.

Anakin piped up and whined, "Get used to being bored all the time because that's about all we do around here."

"Rey," Ben said, "meet the rest of the jedi." He gestured to the less than a dozen teenagers and children in the library, all different species of Togruta, Twi'lek, Wookie, and more Rey had never seen or heard of before. They all peaked around bookshelves and desks to get a better view of her.

She gasped. "This is it?" she asked, "But it's been decades since the empire fell. Shouldn't there be hundreds of jedi in training by now?"

Ben replied, "Yes, but it's hard to convince people to move to Naboo."

Annika explained, "Before the empire, master jedi would roam the republic and seek out force sensitive younglings to recruit with their family's permission. That was always deemed as controversal for those who opposed us anyway, and it's not like our dad had the resources to do that sort of thing even if he wanted to. So when he began rebuilding the jedi order he made a few changes."

"People get to stay connected with their families now," Ben added, "but to do that they have to relocate to Naboo-which not everyone is up for-especially when it got out that the former emperor was born and raised here."

"Was he really?" Rey asked nervously.

Jaina said, "Yeah, he started off as a senator just like my mom."

Rey muttered to herself, "Well isn't that reassuring."

"Outside of that," Ben continued, "my dad also decided no one starts proper fight training until they're considered adults. We don't know how to use the force to fight yet-or get to have our own lightsabers. Where did you get yours?"

Annika pulled it away from her with the force and asked, "And what did you do to the hilt?" She poked at the rinestones.

"I found it," she said, "and bedazzeled it myself."

"Annika, give that back to her," Ben said, "it's dangerous."

Rey took it back and asked, "None of you know how to fight with one of these?"

Jace spun around dramatically, as if he were holding a lightsaber, and said, "Grandpa's showed us a few things. He likes to fight with his, but Uncle Luke doesn't want us to become youngling soldiers for the republic like what happened during the clone wars a long, long, long time ago."

Rey asked, "So I'm not going to learn how to use this? Great!" She practically wanted to throw it away. In fact, she had never wanted to carry it around to begin with but whenever she tried to get rid of it something told her not to. She had no idea that something was the force trying to tell her something.

Rey's training under Ben properly began. There were bed chambers in the temple, as were in the days of old, however everyone else went back to their families at the end of the day so she was alone once again. Every night she spent it alone with her thoughts; however, she was the first one up and ready inside the temple every morning.

One morning just after sunrise, Ben came in earlier than normal. "What's the matter?" Rey asked.

"I feel like I can do more," he said, "my parents were traveling across the galaxy at my age or close to it and I've barely ever left Naboo."

"I like it here," Rey said, "the lakes are all very beautiful, much prettier than the gray ocean on Jakku."

He said, "It is pretty here but that's all it is. My grandpa knows that. I told me recently he wants to start my fight training but my dad still says no." He shook all over suddenly.

Rey shivered and asked, "What is that?"

"Excitement," Ben answered as he tilted his head to the sky, "lots of excitement coming from up there." As they looked up through the clearblue sky together, thousands of gray First Order starships entered the atmosphere at the same time.

"Just like Jakku," Rey said, jumping up, "it's an attack, Ben!"

"Get inside the temple!" Ben demanded, as he ran off the steps, "There's a shelter in the basement! Hurry! I'll get my parents! Everyone get underground!" He ran off toward his house as Rey took shelter.

As she ran, the building shook violently. The air filled with thunder and the sounds of explosions. The concussions were so loud she couldn't hear her own footsteps. Just when she thought she would be safe from the First Order they had to attack again.