KAYLIRA TRAMINO

Fwoom. The damaged and burning ship flew through the atmosphere of Uluno, punching holes in the clouds and causing the other surrounding ones to glow. Kaylira watched as it plummeted towards the trees, gathering speed, and prepared to block her senses.

She had, in a way, the ability to understand the voices of all life forms, be they plant or animal or person. But she would have to close her Jedi senses to them, using a talent that had taken months to perfect, in order not to hear them cry out when they were hurt.

Like the ship that just crashed into a grove of trees.

Suddenly, she felt… an explosive tremor in the Force. One of the people on board had an aura like what her Master had told her of Anakin Skywalker. Perhaps this was the legendary Luke Skywalker that she had heard so much about?

Inhaling deeply, she concentrated on using his presence to pull up a mental picture of him. She was greeted with a face that was riveting, to a small degree. But what really drew her attention to him were his eyes. They were light blue, and seemed to pierce her very soul.

Then it was gone. Suddenly, Kaylira remembered what she had set out to do: find out more about these people on her moon. Soundlessly, she sprinted through the undergrowth until she was near their ship’s crash site. She Force-jumped up to a branch, and sat down to watch them from high above.

“Chewy, get the fire extinguishers!” yelled a man with dark brown hair to a Wookiee, who yowled a response. “I said get them! I’m not going to let my ship burn!”

“Han, Han! He’s trying,” said a beautiful woman, her brunette hair up in an elaborate coil of braids. Her calm hazel gaze seemed to douse on Han’s fiery mood and sooth his anxiety.

He sighed. “All right, Leia. But I need those extinguishers, pronto!” The Wookiee ran off.

She was overcome by how lovely the woman – Leia – was in contrast to her. She had never thought of herself as beautiful, or even pretty. She was just a tiny twenty-three-year-old girl with a pixie’s build. Nothing compared to her.

She felt no envy, only longing. Her Master had eliminated that harsh feeling from her apprentice’s life as a path to the Dark Side many years ago. And few knew better than Master Tano on the subject, for she was very close to someone called Lux Bonteri. They had very passionate feelings about one another, and Kaylira had caught glimpses of a simple gold band – which was usually hidden by her finger gloves – on her ring finger more than a few times.

Suddenly she snapped back to the present. There he was, exiting the ship. Luke Skywalker. She couldn’t explain it, but somehow, she felt drawn to him. It wasn’t love, or maybe it was, because she couldn’t be sure, because she had never felt either. But she wanted to see him closer, and hear what his voice sounded like.

Meanwhile, Chewy and Han had put out the multiple fires in different places on the outside of the ship. Then Luke spoke up, and she noticed the lightsaber on his belt.

“Is anybody hurt? Where’s Artoo?” His voice sounded… well, interesting to the unseen girl in the trees. It had a slight accent – from Tatooine, as she later recognized – and was warm. It made her feel like she was wrapped up in a fuzzy blanket.

Suddenly a protocol droid, who was missing a leg, with golden coverings stumbled out of the ship. “Oh, Master Luke, it’s simply horrible! Artoo was fixing the hyperdrive when the engines were shot! It’s quite beyond my capacity, but I tried to fix him. I think I made something worse, because he isn’t functioning at all now!”

“Oh no.” He and Han ran back into the ship.