Journey to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

by Kevin Shinick

  He pulled a small knife out of his pocket and was busy scratching his first initial onto the bench when a side door slid open.

  Kragnotto, the Ankura Gungan teacher in charge of the science program, led a Mirialan girl into the room by her arm. He was hauling her a little too fast and a little too rough to actually be helpful, and she was not playing along very well—dragging her feet and generally making the teacher work for every bit of progress.

  When they reached the bench, he thrust her toward it. “You waits here! And the next time meesa find you rummaging through meesa things,” he said, his cheeks shaking and showering anyone within a meter radius with spittle, “yousa gonna get more than just detention.”

  The girl smiled like she didn’t care. Maybe she didn’t.

  The Gungan left the way he’d come in, letting the door slide shut behind him. Karr kept his head down, minding his own business. He didn’t need extra trouble. He went back to work on his carving like he hadn’t seen a thing.

  But after a few seconds, the girl spoke. “Seriously?”

  Karr glanced up. He was the only person she could possibly be talking to. “Seriously…what?”

  “Are you really writing your name on the bench?”

  He held up the small knife and wiggled it for show. “No, I’m carving it on the bench.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Leaving graffiti on a seat while you wait for detention? Isn’t that a little on the nose? We get it, you’re a rebel. For your next trick, maybe you could break a window or play some music super loud. That’ll show ’em.”

  Karr had no response. Wasn’t picking a fight with someone you don’t know also a little on the nose? But from what Karr knew of the Mirialan species, their skin was usually green like hers or pink, not green or pink with flushed red cheeks, so clearly she was fuming about something other than Karr’s petty vandalism.

  Karr had seen Mirialans before, but something was different about this girl beyond the flushed cheeks. Was it her eyes? They were sparkling blue, but almost more than sparkling. Glittering. And did they have specks of gold in them? Maybe. He had never been so close to a Mirialan before, or stared so long at—

  “What are you looking at?” she barked.

  “Uh, nothing,” he said as he went back to his amateur artwork. There was definitely something different about her, but he was not about to look up again to find out.

  He was just starting to make good progress on the K when she asked him, “What did you do?”

  “Huh?” He chanced a glance at her.

  “What. Are. You. Here. For?” she said slowly, as if teaching him the language.

  Karr tried to make his answer casual. “Oh…I tried to choke someone using just my mind.”

  The girl eyed him suspiciously, like she didn’t quite believe him but she kind of wanted to. “You used the Force to choke somebody?”

  Now she had his attention. “You know about the Force?”

  “I’m not an idiot. Do you really have the Force? Did you really choke somebody?”

  “I said I tried to.”

  It was her turn to scowl at him. “So you don’t have the Force. Do you even know what it is?”

  “Um, of course. It’s an energy field created by all living things.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she said with a flap of her hand. “Binds the galaxy together and all that. Why is it everyone always says the same thing about the Force? Makes you wonder how true it all is, doesn’t it? Like that’s all anybody knows, because that’s all somebody wants us to think.”

  Karr was stunned. He almost never met anyone who knew about the Jedi, much less had an opinion about them. “What are you talking about? Why would you think it isn’t true? You can read about it in history archives. Some of them. A little bit.”

  “You can read about Sith Lords, too. But nobody believes in those.”

  Karr remained silent.

  “Besides,” she continued, “I’ve been on Merokia for about three days, and I’m already pretty sure I’ve seen all the archives this planet has to offer.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means, there might be a more boring, pointless planet somewhere out there in the galaxy…but I wouldn’t bet any credits on it. I guess that’s what happens when your planet is so close to the Unknown Regions and so far from the Core.”

  Karr didn’t disagree with her, but the judgment still stung. “Then what are you doing here?”

  She withdrew to her end of the bench, like a kleex retreating into its shell. “My father moved us here for work. I had to leave all my friends behind,” she complained, mostly to herself.

  Karr nodded like he was sympathetic to her problem, but he didn’t really have any friends to miss. If he disappeared the next day, no one at school would even notice he was gone, or wonder where he went.

  “I can’t believe it took me three whole days to get detention, though. I must be losing my touch.”

  “Wow. You must be…fun. So where did you move here from?”

  “CeSai,” she replied.

  Karr had never heard of it, but he didn’t want to say so out loud. Otherwise, she might think she was right about his home planet being a nowhere planet, in the middle of no place. Merokia wasn’t perfect, but if you weren’t local you didn’t get to complain about it. “Oh, yeah,” he nodded, and then he lied. “I hear it’s nice. Is that where you learned about the Jedi?”

  Smugly, she said, “It’s where I learned they’re a big fat hoax!”

  “No way, the Jedi aren’t a hoax.”

  “How do you know? Have you ever seen one?”

  “I’ve never seen a rancor, either, but I know that it’s real. The Jedi kept the peace in the Republic,” he said, echoing his grandmother’s explanation of their role in the galaxy.

  She scoffed. “The Jedi were a story the Republic made up. They used it to keep order in the galaxy—and by scaring everyone with the idea of a magical army of space wizards.”

  Karr didn’t even know where to begin. “Um,” he said forcefully, ready to launch into a full-length lesson on the strengths and virtues of all things Jedi, “actually, the Jedi were around for thousands of years! Why would the Republic invent a fake magic army when they already had a real clone army?”

  Carefully, as if she was being very patient with someone who was very slow, she said, “Exactly. Isn’t it funny how the Jedi went away when the Clone Wars ended? The Republic didn’t need them anymore, so they let them…I don’t know. Fade away, or whatever.”

  “That’s not true!”

  “Okay, then what happened to them?”

  Karr didn’t have a good answer. “I…I don’t know. But that doesn’t mean they never existed.”

  She shrugged and leaned back, folding her hands behind her head. “Just trust me on this one.”

  “Why would I trust you? I don’t even know you!”

  “Good point.” She leaned across the bench and offered him her hand. “I’m Maize Raynshi.”

  Karr grudgingly held out his own. “Karr Nuq Sin.”

  But she didn’t shake it. She used the grip to pull his hand closer to her face. “What’s with the gloves, Karr?”

  “They protect my hands.”

  “Well, yeah,” she said. “That’s what gloves do. I mean, why are you wearing them indoors?”

  “So that I can control my abilities.”

  She folded her arms. “Your totally real choking abilities? Those must be amazing gloves.”

  “I…” He paused. He barely knew this girl, but he barely knew just about everyone, so it didn’t matter anyway. He told her the truth. “Sometimes when I touch things, I can see the past. I mean, the past of whatever I’m touching.”

  Maize cackled wildly. “Bantha fodder! I don’t believe you. Show me.”

  Karr tried to retreat. “I can’t just do it on command.”

  She grabbed his gloved hand again. “Come on, what do you see in my past?”

  “It doesn’
t work that way. In fact, I’m not sure it works with people. I think it has to be an object. Like an item that’s witnessed something big.”

  Maize let go of him and scanned the room for something that might work. Seeing nothing with potential, she reached into her bag and pulled out a small metal drafting tool. “Tell me about this,” she said, holding it out to him.

  “What is it?” asked Karr.

  “I got it from my dad.”

  “Is he a Jedi?”

  “No, you nerko. He works for the First Order.…Wait a minute.” She withdrew the object and held it close to her chest. “Aren’t you supposed to tell me what it is?”

  He sighed and removed his right glove. “Fine. Give it here.”

  He took a deep breath…closed his eyes…and took the tool with his bare hand. In an instant, his blood pressure skyrocketed—like every drop in his body shot to the top of his head and then had nowhere to go. The pain pushed against his skull until he screamed at the top of his lungs.

  Then he did the exact opposite of what a boy his age should do to look cool.

  He passed out.

  He’d only just met Maize, but he could already pick her voice out of a crowd. This time, she was the one who was kneeling beside him, shaking him. “What happened? What did you do? Come on, Karr—get up!”

  For a few seconds, his ears worked better than his eyes.

  He and Maize weren’t alone anymore; he could hear several accents and dialects in the lobby around him and the sound of people arguing about what to do. He opened his eyes and learned that he was the center of attention for the second time in half an hour.

  He blinked hard, trying to get his eyes to work right again.

  Maize asked him, “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” he muttered. “I just need a minute.”

  He could see Maize then, and he focused on her face to calm himself down. Although from his point of view, she was either kneeling above him, looking at him upside down…or else her head had come loose from her neck and she was speaking through her—

  “Tattoos!” That was what was different about Maize, he thought as her face came into focus. Most of the Mirialans he’d met had facial tattoos, but Maize didn’t.

  “What do tattoos have to do with anything? Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Uh, sure,” replied Karr, feeling caught again. “Why?”

  “Because you cried out in pain and then passed out on the floor,” she shot back.

  “Oh. Yeah. Right.”

  Karr had done that so many times that he had forgotten how scary it could be to people seeing it for the first time. One guy told him it was like watching a space slug give birth to triplets. Another said it was like he was wrestling some invisible entity. What nobody had ever said, though, was that it was like he was a Jedi. But he hoped that it was just because they’d never seen one.

  “Are you going to get up, or what? You’re making everybody worry.” She sat up straight, cross-legged, so she wasn’t hovering over him anymore. “That was scary!”

  “Sorry. I’m fine. Don’t worry.”

  From his position on the floor, Karr stared up at all the gawking faces. The most concerned-looking face belonged to the Ovissian headmaster. Maybe it was because he was interested in the boy’s welfare, or maybe he was worried about how this would affect the school, but most likely it was because he stood next to Royke, who didn’t look concerned at all.

  “Loser,” the Besalisk muttered.

  The headmaster said, “Let’s get him to his feet.”

  “Yeah,” echoed Royke. “He’s got detention coming!”

  But lucky for Karr, detention was the last thing on anyone’s mind. The headmaster inclined his four-horned head and asked, “Are you okay?”

  “I’ll survive. I always do.”

  “We should still contact your parents,” he said. “You need a doctor.”

  “Sure,” said Karr, even though he knew that doctors would be no help. “Actually, we have a medical droid on hand for whenever this happens. These seizures. They’ve been happening off and on for years. I can just call Arzee. He’ll come check me out.”

  The headmaster agreed and helped him to his feet. “I do remember reading something about that, in your file. Go ahead and call your droid. Okay, everyone. Let’s give him some air.”

  Karr activated his comlink. “Arzee-Seven? I had another seizure.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, sir,” said the droid. “I’m on my way.”

  When everything was settled, the headmaster instructed everyone who hadn’t fainted dramatically to get back to class.

  “I should probably wait outside,” Karr said, hoping he was about to get away clean.

  Maize piped up. “And shouldn’t somebody go with him? Or something? In case it happens again. He’s in a very fragile state, sir.”

  The Ovissian thought about it. “That’s not a bad idea.”

  “I could go with him,” she said. “Mr. Kragnotto already yanked me out of class anyway.”

  “Is that all right with you, Karr?”

  “Uh, sure.”

  He came to a decision and nodded. “Then get home safely, and we’ll see you again when you’re well.”

  “Wait a second!” cried Royke. “He’s not getting detention? That’s nexu dwang!”

  Maize flashed him a rude finger gesture as she left the building by Karr’s side.

  On their way out, Maize said quietly, “You said you could see the past when you touched things. You didn’t say anything about falling to the ground, screaming.”

  “I didn’t? Well, sometimes I fall to the ground, screaming. Now you know.”

  The family speeder appeared in the distance, and soon Karr could see the familiar figure of RZ-7 in the driver’s seat. Medical droids didn’t usually drive, but it wasn’t so weird that anyone said anything about it as the speeder pulled up to the school—where an assortment of other vehicles was already parked. The area was dotted with all sorts of landspeeders, large and small. The only thing they had in common was that they were all kind of beat-up. Most of them were either secondhand vehicles or they belonged to teenagers who were still getting the hang of driving.

  “Hey, Karr! I heard you died today,” someone said. It was a Togruta hanging over the side of his speeder. “Too bad I heard wrong….” He laughed as he zipped away.

  Maize turned around and shouted, “E chu ta an do padda-mames!” at the retreating vehicle.

  “Did you just say—”

  “Something about his mother, yes. My father had some business dealings with the Hutts. It’s a wonderful language for swearing.”

  He nodded, impressed. “Thanks, I guess. That was…great. No one ever stands up for me, especially not at school. I hope you don’t regret it later.”

  “I never regret anything.”

  The idling landspeeder sputtered a bit, suggesting it needed a new coil driver but also drawing Karr’s attention to a potentially awkward problem. “Oh, no,” he said with embarrassment. “Arzee brought the two-seater.”

  With surprise, she asked, “How many speeders do you have?”

  He cringed. “Um…just the one. But it only has two seats, so…”

  Maize laughed. “Don’t worry. I’ll sit on your lap.”

  He blushed all the way down to his toes. “I’m really sorry there isn’t more room, but…I mean, you’re the one who offered to see me home.” As Karr crawled into the passenger seat, he gestured to the droid. “Anyway, Maize, this is Arzee.”

  The metallic blue driver gave her a nod of acknowledgment. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, madam.”

  “Same here.” Maize climbed in and sat on top of Karr’s thighs, wrapping her arms around his neck.

  If RZ-7 had any eyebrows, he would’ve raised them. “We’d better get you home, sir. You’re turning all red.”

  “Just drive,” Karr grumbled.

  Maize ignored his blushing and his awkward grip on her waist. “So!
” she said brightly to RZ-7. “You’re a medical droid? And they make you drive, too?”

  Karr answered for him. “Yes. I mean, no. Between you and me, he’s not really a medical droid. I built him, and I don’t know anything about medicine—so neither does he.”

  The droid revved the engine, and the speeder lurched along. “He doesn’t know much about driving, either!”

  It was hard to talk in an open-air vehicle that was zipping through the desert, but that was all right. Karr didn’t know what to say, anyway—but whenever they slowed to make a turn or wait for a train, Maize peppered him with questions.

  “What do you mean you built him?” she shouted over the speeder’s hum and the rumbling of the train.

  “I made him from parts I found, here and there. He’s working with the circuitry of a protocol droid, the hard drive of an astromech, and the casing of a medical unit. But what he’s really good at is getting me out of tricky situations.”

  “You’re just lucky the headmaster didn’t ask him for his evaluation.”

  Karr laughed. “Arzee can’t evaluate anything bigger than a splinter in my finger. I built him to be my friend, not my nurse.”

  “Well aren’t you handy.”

  The train was slow to get out of the way, so Maize had time for one more question. “I never asked you how you got your crazy ideas about the Jedi.”

  “My crazy ideas?” he sputtered. “Their story is—”

  “Their story is a mess! Nobody agrees about who they were or what they could do, and there’s no proof they ever existed at all! The stories are lies, and that’s all there is to it.”

  RZ-7 revved the engine and ducked the speeder around the last train car.

  “My grandmother told me about the Jedi, and she would never lie.”

  “Then she’s crazy and wrong, that’s all. I’ll tell her myself, when I meet her.”

  The road opened and the wind picked up, so Karr had to yell to be heard. “You can’t! She’s dead!”

  “Free your mind,” J’Hara said to Karr. He tried, but his inside voice couldn’t be quieted. He was seventeen years old and his thoughts revved at a pace usually reserved for the engines of cruisers. Though he had practiced this many times before, he still couldn’t quite get it right. Still couldn’t move the object. Was it him? Was it his teacher? J’Hara had never truly explained how she knew so much about the Jedi, and he began to wonder if she knew what she was talking about. He was growing restless and impatient. This would probably go quicker if he had a real Jedi to train him, but of course there were none. They were gone. If they even ever existed at all. All he had was his grandmother. All he had was her word. And it was beginning to wear thin.