A CHANGED GALAXY

Anakin Solo looked smugly at his big brother and sister. "I told you
someone was here, someone who needs us."
Jaina looked at him and shrugged. "We never said we didn’t believe you
Anakin, I just couldn’t sense the same presence from where we were like I
can now." She glanced at her twin brother for confirmation, but before he
said a word something changed.
"Wait, it just got very faint, like a machine cycling down. I wonder what
could cause that?" Jacen Solo looked at his twin sister with a look of
confusion, then understanding. "If that’s something that happens on a
regular basis, that would explain why no one has felt it before. Right?"
"I guess so, but why would it happen? Whoever it is is still alive, but
it’s like someone put a dimmer switch on a Jedi."
The boys laughed at Jaina’s description, but it felt right somehow. That
feeling made them all more confused, and much more curious.
"Well, I still feel that the person needs our help. Let’s go and help
before we have to do more assignments."
"Maybe we should tell Uncle Luke," Jaina suggested.
"Not if we don’t want more chores and stuff," Jacen protested, agreeing
with Anakin. "I swear, he doesn’t know how to have a real vacation."
"Besides, it’s a further trip to go back to Anchorhead to tell him than it
would be to just go and look around. I know it doesn’t feel like there’s
anything urgent we need to do now, but if I were the one who needed help I
would want it sooner rather than later." Anakin said that and then left,
set on doing things the way they made sense to him. The twins glanced at
each other and nodded, Anakin was right as usual, even if he was impatient.
It wasn’t far to the cave where they felt the person would be found. It
was well hidden, but the Force guided them when their eyes failed in the
suddenly darker chamber. An ancient control panel was imbedded in the rock
beside a door. Anakin looked at it, and had the door open in next to no
time.
The room they found looked like it hadn’t been disturbed in over a century.
It was a laboratory of some kind, but it had more of the feel of a tomb or
shrine. In the center, encased in a clear tube, was a girl that looked to
be around 20, Anakin’s age. Old style machines monitored her life signs and
counted down an unknown cycle. There were what looked like two work
stations, but any experiments or research that had been done had long since
been finished and cleared away. There wasn’t much dust, but the stale air
gave clue as to why. The room had been sealed and made airtight when the
last person had left, besides the girl.
"I found something," Jaina announced, crouched in front of a cabinet.
"It’s a box with some things in it."
"Well, open it," Anakin demanded.
They gathered around to look at the items inside, curious to see what kind
of clue they would find. There wasn’t much; an old Jedi robe; a lightsaber;
and a holopicture of a little girl, an older Jedi couple, and an old Jedi
master the three knew was Yoda.
"She was an old Jedi. I wonder why she is here, like this." Anakin
couldn’t stop himself from wondering about her while the other two looked
for more items. He wandered over to get a better look and saw that her
clothes were charred in the middle of her chest and the skin underneath
looked like it had grazed by a blaster bolt. He looked closer, examining
her every detail in a daze.
"The date here indicates that she’s been in here over a century," Jacen
said softly at one point. "Maybe even a century and a half."
Anakin barely heard his brother; he had found some sort of strange looking
necklace on the girl. He reached forward, resting his hand on the cylinder.
Triggered by the touch, an older woman’s voice began to talk. "I am
Doctor Modarr, one of the team of scientists responsible for the condition
of the young Jedi you see before you…."
The three listened to the recording in silence. The message obviously
never got to the Jedi Council, and if her only child was a Jedi she was
probably killed when Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader tried to wipe out the
order. Any of her daughter’s descendants had probably been killed as well
if the Force was strong in her family.
"She doesn’t look old enough to have a Jedi child." Anakin couldn’t
believe that someone so near his age would have a child that old.
"Maybe the recording was made years later, the child in the holo only
looked about two or younger." His big sister scrunched her eyebrows
together as she tried to think of other reasons. Finally she shrugged, the
answer was either lost in history or the girl, Tam, would tell them if she
woke up.
Jacen brushed off his hands, dusty from rummaging. "I think it’s time we
told Uncle Luke, so we can get this girl in a Bacta tank and healed as
quickly as possible."
The others agreed, leaving everything as they found it and returning to the
landspeeder to go and report what they found.

Tam awoke again after a long time of immersion in a Bacta tank. They were
just pulling her out when weary awareness hit her. "Where am I?"
"The Jedi who found you decided to bring you back to Coruscant for
treatment. It was a wise precaution considering the condition you were in
when you were found."
"I see. Who are you?"
"I am See-Threepio—"
"A protocol droid. Who sent you and why are you here?"
"Master Luke sent me to make sure you recovered comfortably and to assure
you that all was well and you are safe. You must rest now and regain your
strength."
"Yes, I am a bit sleepy…."
Tam was asleep in an instant, reassured that she was finally safe. Strange
dreams made her toss and turn until a medical droid administered a light
sedative, then she was left alone in her hospital room until morning.
She woke up, aware of her surroundings, yet feeling strangely displaced.
The protocol droid had said she was back on Coruscant, and she could tell
vaguely that it was the same planet she had lived on her entire life, but
something felt off. She tried to reach out with the Force to figure out
what was wrong, but the effort left her drained with no real results. Tam
heard voices outside her door, then the door opened and an older man with
sandy brown hair and clear blue eyes walked in. He wore Jedi robes and
carried a lightsaber, but it was no one she had known during her training.
"Hi, how are you doing this morning?" The strange Jedi smiled, shedding
years off his wizened face. Tam found herself smiling back, at ease with
the older man.
"Tired, disoriented, weak, but unhurt. I know that when I woke up I was in
a great deal of pain at first, but I assume I was given immediate medical
attention. I’m glad to be back home, when can I go back to the Temple?"
"You will be here for another day or so, to make sure you are fully healed,
but I’m afraid it will be impossible for you to go back to the Jedi
Temple."
"If it’s because of what Master Yoda said—"
"You knew Master Yoda?"
"Yes." Tam blinked a few times, trying to digest the implications of what
he had said. "He is my master, he sent me away to get my mind in order
after…you don’t know what happened, do you. You can’t be a Jedi; I knew
every single one. Is this a trick by the senator?" Tam winced, holding her
head as the fear made her head hurt.
"No, you have been in stasis for a very long time. My niece and nephews
found you in the desert wasteland of Tatooine, it was sheer luck that you
were found at all. I grew up not too far from where you were hidden, but
never found the cave where you were."
"I don’t understand. How long was I in stasis?"
"Over 100 years, but probably less than 150. Many things have changed
since then, many things that I think would surprise you greatly."
"Who are you?" Tam was still wary, but there was something about him that
made her feel at peace despite being unable to use the Force.
"I am Jedi Master Luke Skywalker. Don’t worry, you’re control of the Force
will return to you with time and practice. Take my word for it, you will be
safe here."
"Master Skywalker, why can’t I return to the Temple?"
"The Temple here on Coruscant was demolished a long time ago, and the Jedi
were hunted down and nearly all were killed."
"But we were the protectors of the Republic! How could that have
happened?"
"The Republic was taken over by a corrupt Senator, and he became Emperor.
His assistant, a Sith lord named Darth Vader, helped him wipe out anything
that could have been a threat to his power."
"Yes, I can see how the Jedi would be a threat to that. I don’t understand
how the Sith could be involved, they were wiped out long ago, tripped up by
their own evil. At least that’s what I had been taught."
"Somehow their kind survived. There is always evil in the galaxy; if it
hadn’t been the Sith it would have been some other menace. That is the
nature of the dark side."
"Yes, we had been seeing signs of a growing corruption in my day, but I
thought we would have held out longer or something…."
Master Skywalker shifted his position and changed the subject. "That’s
enough of a history lesson for today. You will have plenty of time to catch
up on events while you recover your strength."
"Wait, I want to know one more thing. I assume from the way you have been
talking that something of the Republic has survived, but what of the Jedi?
How has the order fared?"
"Yes, we have a New Republic and the Empire has been nearly eradicated.
There are still those who fight in the name of the Empire, but they are
scattered now. Unfortunately, during the time the Emperor was in power many
of the Jedi teachings were lost forever. We have sought out what little we
can, but we have had to rebuild the order without many of the old ways."
"Thank you. I’ll probably be lost if I am allowed to continue my training,
but this may be the kind of distancing from my problems I need."
"We’ll talk about your training later when you have had time to adjust. I
have things to attend to right now, but I will be back. If you want company
I know some people who would like to meet you, but if you need some time
alone…."
"No, I have spent too much time alone and I miss interacting with people.
I would be grateful for some company."
"I’ll send them in when I leave. First I would like to do something…." He
reached for her and brushed his fingers against her temple. Her headache
subsided at his touch and he smiled reassuringly. "You were using the Force
to heal yourself the entire time you were in stasis. It may have kept your
abilities intact, but you are worn out from the sustained effort. Don’t try
anything strenuous for a few days, and don’t push yourself until I tell you
that you are ready."
"Don’t worry, I don’t think I’ll do much of anything until I’ve had some
rest. I don’t want another headache."
He smiled and left. Not long after that three people walked in. There
were two young men and a young woman, near Tam’s age, and they all looked
related. In fact, they looked like they could be related to Master
Skywalker, the youngest man had the same bright blue eyes.
"You must be Master Skywalker’s friends, right?"
"Well, yes and no. He’s our uncle and our teacher, but I guess we’re
friendly on top of that. I’m Anakin Solo, and these are my big brother and
sister, Jacen and Jaina."
Tam nodded at each, smiling and feeling a kind of kinship with each. "So
are you all Padawans like me, or are you Jedi knights already?"
"What was that word? Padawan?"
"It’s an apprentice, a young student before the Trials. You don’t use that
word anymore?"
Anakin shook his head. "I’ve never heard that word before, it must be an
old term that was lost way back when."
"Oh, I really have missed a lot, I guess. It only felt like a little over
a year to me, but everything has changed so much."
Jaina shook her head in sympathy. "I can’t imagine what it would have been
like. Our dad was frozen in carbonite for a few months, but that’s nothing
compared to this."
"Dad doesn’t talk about it much, but he said that it was really rough and a
lot had changed and caught him off guard. Mom said it changed him a lot, in
ways she hadn’t expected." Jacen smiled slightly and moved to pat Tam on
the shoulder.
"It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I was dreamy most of the time,
like I was disconnected from reality most of the time. I’d feel stirrings
in the Force, flashes of faces when someone I cared about died. I even had
a confused conversation with Master Yoda when he became one with the Force,
but I didn’t understand what was happening. Most of the time I spent in
introspection, reliving mistakes and taking comfort in the happy times. It
was almost comfortable until I was revived."
"What about the blaster wound?" Anakin wanted to know. "Didn’t that
bother you?"
"Is that why I was in so much pain? I didn’t know about that, can you tell
me anything about it?"
Anakin nodded. "There was a recording that played when we found you. It
said you had been hit right before you went into stasis, but too late to
stop the experiment. I thought you would know, would have felt something
like that."
"I remember some pressure right before the chamber closed, but I was in a
heavy trance at the time. I thought it was just part of the whole thing…."
Tam shook her head in wonder that she was still alive. "Did the recording
say anything else?"
"Yes, but we’ll let you listen to it and a few other things alone. It
would seem that the two head doctors took a personal interest in the whole
matter and did some investigation and made notes for when you were revived.
We haven’t heard all of the messages, but they should give you the
information you want."
Tam looked into Anakin’s eyes as he talked and felt a stirring in the pit
of her stomach. Her heart beat faster and her head seemed lighter that it
had a few moments ago. She shook the feeling with difficulty by repeating
to herself: There is no passion; there is serenity. Soon she was able to
think straight again and go on with the conversation as long as she didn’t
look into those crystal blue eyes again.
"Tell me, is there any news of my daughter?"
Jaina smiled reassuringly. "Yes, Doctor Modarr said in the first recording
that your daughter had entered training to become a Jedi. We don’t have any
records of the time, so we can’t tell you what happened to her after that."
"Good, I’m glad to hear her grandfather couldn’t take that away from her."
"Why would he do a thing like that," Anakin asked.
"Revenge against me. He was a powerful Senator and his son and I fell in
love. That would have been bad enough, but his son died and he blames me."
Tam’s shoulders collapsed and her head bowed in remorse. "I can’t help but
blame myself as well. If I had had more self control, he wouldn’t…." Her
voice trailed off.
There was silence in the room as the others shared in her suffering. Jaina
came over and gave her a hug, trying to comfort and reassure her. Jacen was
only a moment behind his sister, and she backed away a bit, knowing he could
help Tam more and understand her situation better. Anakin took a step
forward and paused, torn. He wanted to be the one to comfort her, but he
wasn’t sure how and he knew that Jacen was better at that sort of thing. He
quickly buried a twinge of jealousy for his big brother, knowing that Jacen
couldn’t help being so understanding and glad that Jacen’s heart belonged to
someone else.
Tam gathered herself together slowly, realizing that all these people had
died so long ago that none of it mattered any more. She still missed Voron
and her daughter, but they were long gone and beyond her power to help.
"Thank you, I never got the chance to say goodbye in my heart. That’s why I
was away from the Jedi Temple in the first place, I was too distracted and
hurt to concentrate on my training."
"I’m glad I could help," Jacen said softly, standing up.
There was another pause in the conversation. Anakin couldn’t stand the
silence, so he asked a question that had been on his mind since they had
found her. "How is it that you’re so young, but you had a daughter old
enough to go to the Jedi Academy?"
"I was 21 when Cshanil was born, and she was just barely 2 when I went into
stasis. I didn’t plan on having a child that young, it was a matter of one
thing leading to another, then I found out her father was dead and three
days later realized I was carrying his child. I’m sure she was accepted
into the Jedi Academy less than two years after I disappeared, I could tell
long before then that she had the ability. Her midi-chlorian count when she
was a baby was quite high."
"Her what?"
"Midi-chlorian." She looked around and saw puzzled faces on her newest
friends. Sighing, she dredged up some of the most boring teachings she had
ever had to sit through. "Midi-chlorians are what give us the ability to
feel and use the force. They live in our cells in a symbiotic relationship
with us. Without them our abilities would be inaccessible to us and we
would be like everyone else. The more midi-chlorians we carry within us,
the greater our link to the force. I’m surprised you didn’t know that."
"Many of the old teachings have been lost to us, including much of the
technology. How could you tell how high a person’s midi-chlorian count is?"
Anakin sat on the edge of the foot of her bed, leaning forward in his
curiosity.
"We had instruments that could measure it through a sample of blood, but
I’m not sure of the exact method or how to make a machine that would measure
it." Tam shrugged, wishing she could be of more help.
Jacen stood suddenly, realizing the time. "Jaina and I have to go, I just
remembered we told an old friend that we’d stop by while we were here on
Coruscant."
Jaina stood also, startled. "I almost forgot, and if we don’t leave we’ll
be late. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize we had been here so long. We’ll be
back later, I promise."
Jacen paused in the doorway. "We will be back, as soon as we can arrange
another visit. You won’t be lonely until then will you?"
Tam was trying to put on a brave face to tell him it was fine, but Anakin
spoke up first. "I’ll stay here, I said hi to all my friends already, so I
don’t have anywhere to be."
Jacen smiled and waved. "See you later then, and don’t forget to get some
recovery time in Tam." He and Jaina were gone, leaving Tam and Anakin alone
together.
They smiled at each other, kinda waiting for the other to talk first. Tam
shook her head in wonder suddenly and decided to talk first. "You know, I
don’t even know what questions to ask to find out all that’s changed
since…."
"Yah, I know what you mean. It’s a pity so much was destroyed when the
Emperor took power. At least then we could tell you what happened to some
of the people you knew."
"I do know what happened to them, all of them. At one point or another
they all died, even Master Yoda. If I expected anyone to still be around it
would have been him. He was the closest thing I had to a father, and I
always thought he would out live me."
"It’s strange to think you’re old enough to have known Yoda. Uncle Luke
told us how he died before we were born, but you don’t look any older than I
do."
"How old are you?"
"Just barely 20, why?"
"Even just going by how old I feel, I’m almost three years older."
Anakin laughed. "You don’t have enough lines on your face to pass as that
old. Maybe someone would think I’m three years older than you, not the
other way around."
Great, yet another drawback to this whole stasis thing!
Anakin laughed again, easily picking up on her thought. "Aside from the
fact that you have to tack on nearly 150 years to your age now, and you
don’t look old enough to be a Jedi, what drawbacks?"
Tam gave him a dirty look. "As if those aren’t enough…the biggest one is
that my Force powers are drained. Sure, you can read my mind, but I
couldn’t read the mind of a Rodian in pain standing right in front of me."
"I could tell. It must be frustrating, I know it would drive my crazy
considering how much I rely on the Force."
"Exactly. I feel like I’ve been struck blind or deaf or something. I do
rely on the Force, that’s what I’ve been training to do all my life."
"All your life? I didn’t start training until I was 11, and that’s younger
than anyone I know."
"That old?!? I’ve never known anyone to start training that late in life.
My parents were both Jedi, so I did start a bit younger than those who
weren’t found right away, but five or six was on the border for acceptance."
"Why so young?"
"If a potential Jedi is exposed to the Dark Side at a young age they have
more chance of turning. If a child was brought soon enough there was less
chance of that happening, and more time to school the emotions so that calm,
rational thought would be a more natural state of mind. It saved much
suffering and agonizing over the difficult decisions we must face."
"I guess that makes sense, but that’s an important time to bond with your
family and develop your own individual personality. Family is important to
young children."
"The Jedi were my family. I was loved very much and I do have a unique
personality. Sometimes a person’s family can be a corrupting influence
anyway. Not all families are good and loving, so it was a duty to save
Force sensitive children from something like that. I’ve met a person who
had slipped through the cracks and was actually hurt by their family and
twisted by that. It was necessary!"
"Fine. You feel that way, and I guess you feel strongly about it, but
things aren’t done like that any more. We don’t have the resources, the
teachers, or the right." He looked hurt and a bit angry that she had yelled
at him.
"I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell. Part of me wondered what it would be
like to know my parents better, but they were too busy all of the time. I
guess I’m a little bit jealous that you did get to know your family. I can
see it with your brother and sister, a bond that I never really got." She
sighed and rested her head on the pillow behind her, trying to get her
emotions back under control.
His next words were said softly, his concern was almost a tactile caress.
"Did you have any brothers or sisters?"
Closing her eyes she nodded. "Yes, I had one of each. They were twins,
five years older than me and trained together. Their Masters didn’t want to
damage their link with the Force by severing their natural bond to each
other. I saw them around, we knew we were related, but they still had their
bond and I hardly knew them at all. I was too busy with training to miss
it, but when I saw how you related to your brother and sister, well…"
"Yah, they’re twins too."
"I could tell. The names alone gave that away." She smiled, sitting back
up. Of course, she looked right into his eyes as she did, sending her heart
fluttering again. She quickly looked away, fighting a blush when she saw
that he was looking directly into her eyes too.
He laughed, and she wasn’t sure what exactly he was laughing at until he
spoke. "I guess it would be obvious that they’re twins. Uncle Luke is my
mom’s twin brother, and they have matching names too, hers is Leia. It does
seem to be common, and a dead give away."
"It does seem that way, even in my time. My brother and sister were named
Perrin and Perrad, after my father. I was named after my mother, but her
name was Tamal, and mine was shortened from that. It was a family custom I
didn’t mind breaking."
"Your grandparents must have had really long names." He said, trying not
to laugh.
Tam did laugh. "They did. I just couldn’t imagine naming my daughter Ta
or Vor."
They both laughed too hard to speak for a few minutes. Tam felt them
growing closer with the shared laugh, something like the Force, but not
quite. She smiled at him fondly as the laughter faded away, it felt so good
to laugh, and she hadn’t had the urge to in much too long.
"You should get some rest," Anakin said as he stood up. "I can feel you
getting tired after all that laughing."
"It’s something I haven’t done in a long time."
A teasing smile grew on his face. "I know, it’s been at least over a
hundred years." They laughed again, though not as long this time. "You do
need your sleep. I’ll be back in the evening with Uncle Luke."
"I’ll be looking forward to it," Tam said, fighting hard not to yawn.
Anakin stood up to leave and Tam said softly, "thank you. I appreciated
your company."
"I enjoyed talking to you too, Tam. I’ll see you later."
Her heart skipped a beat as she watched him walk away. She thought of him
as she drifted to sleep.

--tbc--

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