Lunch was uneventful. While eating he continued to consider his slip up and decided it would be best to carry on as he had begun. If he tried to slow his progress now he wouldn’t just be standing out, no they would think he was trying to deceive them. In a way he was deceiving them, but he didn’t dwell on that.

  Before long he was following the initiates back to the same classroom. Again he was working his way through lessons intended for children howeverThis time he was being watched more closely than he would like. The teacher was discrete but Des could almost feel her interest in him. To avoid her attention he focused wholly on his holopad, trying to exclude the rest of the world. Before he knew it he had another notification telling him the class was at an end.

  Getting to his feet he once more tried to move with indifference. To what extent he succeeded he had no idea but this time he was not stopped before making his exit. He made his way back to his room, though he was not entirely sure what he would do when he got there.

  He had no intention of losing most of a day again to meditation, so that was out. He could try socialising but the idea of hanging around a bunch of kids so close to infancy did not appeal to him. He still needed to test his inventory limits and try to figure out what other powers he might have.

  Upon reaching his room Des’s experimentation began. With a few items of clothing from his closet he soon found his first limit, he could hold a maximum of four items at a time. The size of the items did not seem to make any difference to how much he could hold. He had few belongings to test with and nothing big enough to find the size limits of his inventory.

  Unlike last time, there were no itching sensations when viewing the articles of clothing within his mind. He put this down to the relative simplicity of the clothing compared to his holopad, the clothes were just fibres after all. The one annoyance was the audible pop made everytime he moved something in or out of his inventory, that could be an issue.

  All that testing only took a few minutes, without the means to test his inventory more he moved on to his unknown powers. No strange or unexpected feeling stood out to him, he couldn’t even feel the force, that had left him when he came out of his meditation.

  With no clear path forward Des considered what he did know, ‘I got four tertiary powers, two I know, two I don’t. I felt the force when I meditated so I must have access to it, I just can’t feel it now’.

  The only thing that made sense to him was he needed the force active within him to access the rest of what he could do. Fortunately he was in the one place sure to be able to teach him that. The thought brought a smile to his face.

  Moving on Des turned to what was fast becoming his lifeline, his holopad. He had paid little attention to the educational software when he had first examined it, that had been a small mistake. Within it was a class schedule, which Des noted made no mention of force training or lightsabers. There was also the mapping feature Knight Casin had used and some basic utilities like a stopwatch and calculator. Though not much, it might be helpful.

  The library was not mentioned within his map, it covered a relatively small area. If Des had to guess he would say the map covered the daycare section of the temple. Based on that alone he figured exploring was probably discouraged, but if he did go poking around he would at least be able to find his way back.

  With an hour or so to kill before last meal Des decided ‘if I grind through all this kiddy material as fast as I can, then they might move me onto the good stuff’. Images of lightsaber battles and throwing objects around with the force danced through his mind. With a new sense of urgency Des dove into his work determined to get through it as fast as he could.

  ***

  Intention became routine, days began to pass as Des moved from class to meal to his room and then back again. It was at the end of his second week when something unexpected happened. He had returned to his room to find someone waiting for him. From his temple memories this was Knight Yule, the Jedi who had found and brought him here. Yule had regularly checked in on Des ever since, asking after his well being.

  “Knight Yule” Des greeted the Jedi with surprise, quickly considering the reasons why he might be here. ‘Is this a regular visit or have I prompted this’, the mans face gave no clues Des could read.

  “Hello Des. Please, take a seat” Yule instructed without inflection or tone.

  Des moved to the bed and sat down, he remained silent and waited for Yule to begin.

  “I trust you have fully recovered from your trip to the medical wing?” The question was not what Des had been expecting, it was pleasant to have someone ask how he was. Des nodded his confirmation waiting for more.

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  “While you were there you gave the healer your name” he paused, seeming to look for a response or reaction but Des didn't see what the man was getting at. Why would his name matter?

  “What else have you remembered?”

  There was a moment of panic within Des, ‘He can’t mean my first life, can he?’ Des didn’t think so. ‘ So what is he looking for’

  “Remember about what, sir”

  “The attack, your parents, your life before I found you on Dantooine. Anything?”

  The unexpected question brought Des up short, ‘attack, what attack’ he wondered. As for his parents, the only ones he could recall were from his life on earth. This line of questioning had opened him to thoughts he had not yet considered. ‘I did not just materialise here, I was reborn here, I had parents I can’t remember. Wait, why do I look the same then? If I had new parents shouldn’t I look like them?’ he had seen his reflection and paid it little mind. It was him, much younger yes but still him. Same face, same brown hair and same blue eyes. He pushed at the memories, looking for any sign of the people who had borne him into this world. He got a brief flash of his earth parents wearing hardy rough spun clothing which were out of place on earth but fit this universe perfectly. Had his parents been reborn here as well?

  A cough brought Des out of his thoughts. Knight yule was watching him, waiting.

  “I don’t remember any attack sir” Des began. He was hesitant to speak of his parents but an odd feeling seemed to be encouraging him to continue, so he did. “I remember my parents yes, but not my life before the temple”

  There was no change in Yules' expression but Des got the feeling he was disappointed. Deciding to ask his own question Des spoke “what happened To my parents sir? How did I end up here?”

  For the first time an expression broke out on the Jedi's face. Des could not place it, was it sadness, anger, hope? He waited, while the answer would not change his situation, a part of him wanted to know.

  “You truly have awoken.” seeing the confusion his statement had brought to Des, Yule elaborated “You’ve changed, before you were” he paused, seeming to seek the appropriate words, “less. You had withdrawn inward, you barely spoke. The healers said you just needed time but I worried for you”. The way he said it it almost sounded like an admission of guilt.

  “I see”. Des paused, “and my parents? This attack?”

  The Jedi seemed to deliberate before answering. “Your home, it was raided. They killed everyone in the settlement. When my master and I arrived you were the only one we found alive. I’m sorry for your loss Des”

  Des had already lost his parents, the grief while still present had greatly dulled. With everything that had happened to him since he first realised they were gone, it felt far more distant than perhaps it should. This news didn’t change anything for Des but there was one question he still wanted answered.

  “Who did it?”

  The expression on the Jedi’s face this time was crystal clear. Disappointment. That had been the wrong question to ask but Des wanted an answer. He tried to hold his ground. He tried to make his resolve clear. In the end Yule conceded.

  He seem to sigh internally before answering “it was the Sith”

  The answer took Des’s mind on a journey, there was something in the way he had said ‘the Sith’ that was ringing alarm bells within. The sith were worthy of alarm bells in and of themselves but there was something else. He had said it as if the sith were something he was acustem to, a well established and known threat. Not a threat long gone or newly discovered but instead familiar. Disparate thoughts coalesced into a question.

  ‘When am I?’

  How had he not considered when he was, where he had been dumped in the timeline. It should have been one of his first questions. He hadn’t even thought about it, was this some remnant of the brain damage. Was he becoming a moron?

  Misreading Des’s fear, knight Yule placed a hand on his shoulder and said “do not be afraid Des, you are safe on Coruscant, the sith, they are far from here.”

  Des feigned a weak smile, he felt the need for information more keenly than ever. Seeing an opportunity, Des decided to ask, “Knight Yule, is there a public network I could access with my holopad? I have questions, things I’d like to know that are not in any of my lessons”. He would have asked his teacher this but she had creeped him out since day one.

  “There is, but it's not usual for one so young to have access”. Though it did not show in any visible way Des got the sense the Jedi was wrestling with a decision. ”I was informed that you are doing rather well at your lessons. May I?” he reached out indicating the holopad still in Des’s hand, Des handed the device off curious to see what he would do.

  Yules fingers dance across the holopad, pausing occasionally while the Jedi read. At one point his eyebrows shot up and he looked right at Des as if seeing him anew, He said nothing though and continued his task. Before he was done he looked once more at Des then punched out a final series of taps before handing the pad back.

  “There, you have basic holonet access. I will be leaving the temple in a few days and am unsure when I will return. If you have questions you still can not answer before then seek me out. Beyond that I would recommend the library, I arranged provisional access for you, so as long as you conduct yourself well you should find all you seek”. The Jedi seemed to deliberate before adding “I fear dark times are ahead Des. Study hard and may the force be with you”.

  He was up and out of the door before Des could truly register what he had said.

  ‘Dark times’, Des did not like the sound of that but he was safe here on Coruscant right? He was in the Jedi temple, where could be safer? Images of Anakin slaughtering younglings flashed through his mind. He pushed that aside thinking ‘Damn Jedi has a flair for the dramatics’.

  ***

  It was later that night and Des was still lying in bed mulling over what he had found. The first thing he had checked was the date, it was the year 2530 ATC, which meant after the Treaty of Coruscant. The problem was that that was just a number and meant absolutely nothing to Des. He next tried searching for characters from the movies hoping that would at least tell him if he was before or after that time. None of the names he tried worked, not even Yoda. That at least made him think he was in the past. He reasoned that if he was in a time after the events of the movies then those that were involved would be famous. Or at least there would be some record of them. No he was in the past, he was sure of it but how far back?

  ‘Yoda was what, nine hundred years old, and there’s no mention of him so I'm probably before even his time?’ Realising this Des decided it wasn’t important. If he was so far removed from the events of the movies then when he was really didn’t matter.

  He had then moved to the state of the galaxy, he trawled through news sites and gossip slowly piecing together a picture of the galaxy he now called home. It was not dissimilar to the galaxy of the prequels, the republic controlled most of the core and middle rim. The outer rim was mostly lawless with a significant Hutt presence. The main difference was the Sith. In the movies there had been two, here, if he was reading between the lines correctly there were hundreds, possibly thousands. They held power over portions of the outer rim, small portions yes but their influence seemed to be growing.

  Des wondered if this was what Knight Yule had been alluding to with his talk of ‘Dark Times’.

  As he lay in bed, one thought dominated his mind. ‘This galaxy is far more dangerous than the one I knew’.