“Anything.”
“That’s not helpful.”
“I’m not asking for help,” he said from under a holochess table. “I’ll find it myself. It’s around here somewhere, I can feel it.”
“Feel what?”
“This. I think.” He crawled out from under the table, but hit his head on the underside and dropped what he was holding. “Ow!” The item rolled across the floor.
“I’ve got it.” Maize stopped it with her foot. When Karr climbed to his feet, she nudged the object in his direction with her toe.
“Thanks! I’m glad it didn’t break. I couldn’t hold on to it. I tried, but even with the gloves it was difficult.” He picked up the orb at his feet. It was gray, dotted with silver circles. He held it with a squint, struggling to keep control.
His head was spinning and his eyes were watering, but he wouldn’t put it down.
“What is it?” Maize asked again.
RZ-7 caught up to the pair of them. “Sir, what did you find?”
“I have no idea!” he said merrily, poking and prodding it. “But I know it’s important!”
“Okay, so tell us what you see. Concentrate, or whatever it is you do.”
“I am, I am,” he assured them.
He hugged the thing between his leather-clad palms and concentrated as hard as he could. Then he pulled off one glove and gingerly touched the orb with his fingertips.
The dark ship’s interior, lit mostly by RZ-7’s buttons and the weak yellow safety lights that had come on when the ramp dropped, grew darker still. It went black, and no matter how hard Karr blinked or how closely he looked, he saw nothing at all except darkness, and then brightness, and then…
When he opened his mind’s eye, Karr noticed he was still on the ship. Was the vision not working? Normally it transported him to a different time and place, but he was still beside the holochess table.
Suddenly, a blue lightsaber sliced through the air, erasing any doubt in his abilities. Whatever the orb had witnessed, it had witnessed it on that very freighter. Karr tried to focus on the face of the person wielding the lightsaber, but his talents weren’t that honed yet. Was it a Jedi?
“Now that you’re comfortable holding the lightsaber,” he heard someone say, “why don’t we move on to technique?” Something about the voice pinged in Karr’s head. He knew it from somewhere but just couldn’t place it. Karr followed the voice until it led him to a different figure. He couldn’t see that one’s face, either, but the man was wearing a flowing robe. Now that, Karr thought, was definitely a Jedi.
“You’re not going to make me fight you, are you?” said the person waving the lightsaber.
The man in the robe laughed. “No. But we should work on your connection to the Force.”
A nearby golden blur—a droid, maybe?—asked, “May I be of any assistance, Master Kenobi?”
Master Kenobi? Karr did a mental double take. No wonder the voice sounded familiar. It was the same Jedi he had seen in his earlier vision.
Kenobi responded, “No, Threepio. Young Skywalker here must do this on his own.”
Skywalker, too! This was too much of a coincidence. They must have been two very important Jedi to come up twice in his visions. And to think they once stood on the very spot Karr was standing. Although much earlier, he imagined, since Kenobi seemed to be training Skywalker and he had not yet become the General Skywalker of the Clone Wars vision.
Karr watched as Kenobi crossed to something that had caught his eye. He pulled from a compartment the very orb Karr was holding. For a moment, Karr felt he was sharing something with the Jedi Master. Not just the vision. Not just a lesson. But a connection.
“Try and defend yourself against this,” Kenobi suggested.
“What if I can’t?”
“The bigger question is, What if you can? Besides, it’s a training remote. It is equipped with nonlethal blasters specifically for those who wish to practice. I’m guessing our pilot handles that blaster better than we imagine.”
“Unless this belongs to the Wookiee,” Skywalker joked.
Kenobi smiled as he tossed the remote into the air. “Focus.”
Skywalker faced off against the target as it hissed and darted across the room. With each dodge and swing, Karr couldn’t help copying the Jedi in training, almost as if he was waiting his turn.
Until something stopped them both.
Kenobi reached for his chest and looked for a place to sit down. Skywalker retracted the lightsaber.
“Are you all right? What’s wrong?”
“I felt a great disturbance in the Force. As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.”
Then, just like those voices, Karr’s vision was silenced.
When his eyes were working correctly again, he saw that RZ-7 must’ve gotten a few more lights on. The room was brighter, and tiny rows of secondary indicator lights blinked softly on standby. His head was splitting, but he didn’t care—not at all. He grinned from ear to ear.
Maize stood above him. She smirked and put one hand on her hip. “You look pretty happy for a guy who just fell and hit his head.”
“I hit my head?”
“On the seat,” she said, cocking her head toward the bench.
He climbed to his feet. “I didn’t feel it. How long was I out?”
His droid supplied, “Nine point zero two seconds. Approximately.”
“Worse than my reaction at Sconto’s, but definitely worth it,” Karr said.
“If you say so,” Maize said skeptically. Satisfied that he wasn’t going to die or anything, Maize slid onto the bench seat and put her feet up on the rounded table between them. It was bolted to the floor. Her boot heels scraped the top, but it didn’t wobble.
“The first time I fainted, I was out for ages. My parents thought I was dead.”
RZ-7 backed him up. “You’re on a strong upward trajectory, sir. You’ve emerged from your trance after nine seconds with a smile. This is your most successful vision to date! Assuming that your head doesn’t explode within the next hour.”
“I don’t think it’s actually going to explode. It just…kind of feels like it.” He rubbed at his temple and tried not to groan.
“Was it worth it? What did you see? Did you get anything new?”
He flung himself onto the seat beside her. “Totally worth it! I got those names again. The same ones as before.”
“Skyhopper or something?”
“Skywalker,” he corrected her with an eye roll. “And Kenobi. But it was earlier.”
She asked, “What do you mean?”
“Skywalker wasn’t any kind of a general in this vision. And he didn’t seem to know much of anything about the Force. He was…training. Like me, in a way. Only he had a true mentor. A real Jedi to show him the way.”
Maize could see Karr’s spirits dampening. “Maybe,” she added. “But you know what he didn’t have? A cool friend helping him find what he needs by flying him around the galaxy.”
Karr smiled. “That’s true.”
“And you’ll get there. Just give it time. We’ve really only just started if you think about it.”
Karr realized Maize had a point. If that same struggling Skywalker went on to become a Jedi who could pull ships from the sky using only the Force, then maybe there was hope for Karr yet.
All three explorers ducked out of the freighter unseen, brushed off some of the sand, dust, and grime they’d picked up along the way, and headed back into Niima Outpost to see if anyone knew anything more about Skywalker or Kenobi. Briefly, they split up—RZ-7 opted to try his luck with a few other maintenance droids; Maize poked around the market; and Karr visited the food stalls, where he chatted up absolutely no one who had anything useful to share.
“This stinks,” he complained to no one in particular. The outpost wasn’t very big, and there were only so many people to pester. “A man pulled ships from the sky!” he yelled. “How is it nobody knows
anything about it?”
No one was within earshot, and no one answered—but a soft ruckus began to rumble through the crowd. People were chattering nervously. A few folded up their booths at the market, rolling up rugs and shutting cabinets full of food, stashing supplies and hanging signs that said closed in half a dozen languages.
Something was happening.
Karr shielded his eyes and squinted across the bright, dry landscape. The blockhouse shutters were open for business, but the line there had thinned. A little side landing where livestock and droids were corralled, sorted, and sold had become very quiet except for the nervous grunts of happabores.
“Stop it! Get off me!”
It was Maize.
Karr panicked, scanning the scene for her—then following her voice as she continued her shrill, angry protests. When he finally caught up to her, his heart sank.
She was being dragged away between two First Order stormtroopers.
They completely ignored her kicks, shouts, and thrown elbows, hauling her out of the outpost and toward a ship whose hull poked up beyond the far side of the nearest dune.
How had he not heard it?
How had he not seen the troopers?
He meant to rush to her side, but RZ-7 swooped in to stop him. “Sir, you can’t help her now.”
“I have to try!” He flung himself across the market, through the line at the blockhouse, and straight into the back of the nearest soldier—who stumbled and let go of Maize’s left arm. “Let go of her!”
Maize took the opportunity to lob a well-placed knee at the crotch of the trooper who held her right arm. He twisted fast enough to miss the worst of it and tucked her loose arm behind her back so he could hold her pinned.
She couldn’t do anything but writhe and swear.
The other trooper found his feet and gave Karr a shove. “Buzz off, kid. This isn’t any business of yours.”
“She’s my friend!”
“And our ride home…” noted RZ-7 in a too-loud whisper that only Karr seemed to hear.
Maize reared up and bowed her back, trying to pop loose of the soldier’s grip, but she couldn’t get any traction. “My dad sent them! They want to take me back!”
“No,” Karr said to the galaxy at large. “No, you can’t take her. She’s with me.”
“You want to come with her?” said the man snidely, his voice rendered fuzzy and digital by the helmet.
Karr was about to reply that he didn’t think he had a choice, considering it was her dad’s ship that they’d commandeered to get the adventures underway—but she stopped him by yelling, “No!”
She and Karr locked eyes, and she glared like she was trying to communicate with him telepathically. Through her teeth, she said, “Then you’d have to leave your ship here. They’re only here for me, not you! So get on your ship and get out of here.”
Confused, he asked, “What?”
“You still have research to do. Items to…to touch, or whatever. Dead enchanted space knights to track down. There’s no reason for you to come back to Merokia. You can fly around the galaxy without me,” she said pointedly, flicking her eyes toward where they’d parked the Avadora.
They hadn’t come for the ship; they’d only come for Maize—that was what she was trying to tell him.
Karr flashed a look at RZ-7, wondering if between them they could actually pilot the craft without her. The droid shrugged, then nodded.
“Hey, guys, let me go—just for a second, would you?” she pleaded with the troopers. “Hold a blaster on me or whatever you feel like you have to do, but let me give them something. Please? It’s important.”
“Fine, just for a minute—but,” he added into her ear, “no funny business. We know all about you, kid. If it were up to me we would’ve stunned you and dragged you back by your feet, but your dad is a big man in the First Order, so you’d better thank your lucky stars for that.” He let her go and took a step back so he could focus his blaster on her.
“Oh, I do,” she said sarcastically. “Every day, on every planet I’ve had to live.”
The other one aimed his blaster at her, as well. “Yeah, well you ought to. He’s probably the only reason nobody’s fired you out of an airlock yet. Now say your goodbyes, or whatever you need to do. But make it quick.”
Maize straightened her jacket, adjusted her pants, and brushed imaginary stormtrooper contamination off her shoulders like so much dirt. She walked up to Karr and looked deep into his eyes. Is she going to kiss me goodbye? he wondered suddenly. He certainly wasn’t expecting that. Especially not in front of First Order troopers. Then she dug into her satchel and rooted around until she’d found what she was looking for: the small holocommunicator she’d used at Sconto’s. “Take this,” she told him as she pressed it into his hand. “You can keep me posted on your adventures.”
“Right,” he said, adjusting his expectations. “Keep you posted.”
“And…I guess…you can reach out to your parents, if you want to. I can pass any messages along, and hey—it might keep them from sending jerks like these guys after you.”
“I promise you they don’t have access to…to”—he looked at the two heavily armed and armored troopers—“guys like this. They’ll just worry and complain, they won’t try to retrieve me.”
“Well, okay, but you should keep this anyway.”
“For you?”
“For me.” She nodded. “If that’s enough.”
He nodded right back at her, a little harder and a little more enthusiastically. “Sure, it’s enough. I don’t want to lose touch with you. Ever.”
She raised an eyebrow and grinned. “Ever? Don’t get ahead of yourself. You’re always getting ahead of yourself….”
“You know what I mean,” he said, embarrassed.
“Seriously, check in with me every now and again—please? So I know you’re alive and nobody’s zapped you or…fired you out of an airlock.”
He vowed, “I will. Every night. Twice a day. However often you want.”
She laughed and stepped back, holding out her hands to the stormtrooper, like she expected to have her wrists cuffed. The trooper responded, “Now who’s getting ahead of themselves?” as he grabbed her by the arm.
As he marched Maize off toward the dune and the ship behind it, the other trooper looked back over his shoulder and said, “Good luck, kid. With friends like her, you’re going to need all the luck you can get.”
Karr watched them leave.
With every step, the knot in his stomach tightened.
When they were gone, and when he could hear the whirring, revving sound of the First Order shuttle’s engine, he turned to RZ-7.
“Arzee, what do we do now?”
“Keep moving forward, sir. Until we find what you need!”
“I agree,” he said with confidence.
Then the droid added, “Or until your parents successfully rally the authorities to come and find you, like the First Order came for Maize.”
“My parents don’t have the resources to drag me home, but you’re right. Eventually, her dad will remember the ship—or somebody else will. That’s when they’ll come for me.”
The droid didn’t argue. “Then we must use the time we have to do what we can.”
“Did you have any luck? Did you learn anything about Kenobi or Skywalker?”
“None of the local droids I spoke to had any ideas,” he said. “I suppose you had no luck, either?”
Karr watched the ship that carried his friend rise and take off. In a moment, she would be gone. Now more than ever he wished he had the power to pull ships from the sky the way Skywalker was rumored to have done. “No luck yet,” he said. “But I’m not leaving until I find something.”
He then turned and headed for one of the market stalls, scanning the different inhabitants for anyone who looked like they might know something or who at least could be trusted. His gaze fell on an old woman who gave him a smile that was missing a few teeth. Her sk
in was tanned to a dull, dry brown, and her eyes had the sunken, bloodshot look of someone who was permanently dehydrated. Karr got the impression she either was a thousand years old or had at least been there long enough to see a few things.
“Ma’am, may I ask you a question?” The woman nodded at him while keeping her smile. “Do you know anything about a Jedi named Skywalker who supposedly pulled ships down from the sky during the fight with the Empire here?”
The old woman nodded.
Karr’s excitement skyrocketed. “You do?” He turned and called to his droid. “Arzee! I found someone!”
As Arzee’s feet shuffled quickly through the sand, Karr turned back to the old woman. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to meet you. My name is Karr.”
She took his offered hand and continued to smile. “What’s yours?” he asked. But the woman only nodded and smiled some more.
Karr started to feel a tinge of concern. “Do you know what I’m talking about?” he asked. More nodding. Now he had an idea where this was going. He gave a skeptical look to Arzee before asking the old woman, “You wanna buy a star? I’ve got one I can sell to you real cheap.” She nodded again and continued to smile, which caused Karr to stop smiling. Clearly this woman was nuts.
From the next stall over Karr heard cackling. He turned to find the laughter was from some sort of humanoid species he wasn’t familiar with. The being had a large, almost octagonal head, but only a small portion of it was taken up by a face. And Karr might not have even noticed his hands if the tall and slender being wasn’t pointing one of three digits directly at the old woman.
“You’re wasting your time with that one,” the being said. “Been here a little too long, if you know what I mean?”
“That’s what I was counting on,” Karr said, knowing that wasn’t what the being meant. “You don’t know anything about a Jedi that pulled ships from the sky, do you?”
The humanoid pushed air through his lips in a way that seemed to suggest disbelief. “I don’t know about that, but I’ve got one better.” He leaned in and locked his narrow blue eyes on Karr. “I know of a Jedi that was pulled from the sky!”
Journey to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Page 9
