Star Wars, page 10
“Stop!” Zeen cackled. “I can’t take it!” It was hard to imagine she had been sobbing on Ram’s shoulder just a few hours earlier, but that didn’t matter. Ram knew as well as anyone that the saddest people sometimes had the biggest smiles.
Qort’s entire demeanor shifted, his back straightened, and he stroked an imaginary beard while squinting at the ceiling. “Now, Elzar,” he chortled loftily, “I don’t think that’s what the teaching manual says about levitation lessons.”
“Master Stellan!” Lula squealed. “Someone stop him!”
“Sssstop me?” Qort hissed, now with his head craning forward, tongue flickering out like Sskeer, the Trandoshan Jedi he was mimicking. “Sssstupendous! Ssssstep right up and try!”
Ram could’ve sat there all day watching Qort perform, but then he wouldn’t get step one of his plan done, and that was unacceptable. “Um, oh, Zeen,” he said when the laughter had died down some. “Ah, Master Buckets wanted to see you about something, I think.”
Zeen quirked an eyebrow at him as everyone else oohed.
“You’re not in trouble!” Ram clarified quickly. “Some baking thing!” He would have to figure his way out of that lie somehow, but he’d get to that when the time came.
“Oka-ay,” Zeen said, sliding out from the table and leaping up with a wholly unnecessary but very graceful twirl. “I shall return! Don’t let Qort do Master Sav until I get back! I have a dire need to see that one!”
Ram watched her leave and then slid into her spot and leaned conspiratorially toward the other three Padawans. “Okay, listen up! I have a plan!”
Farzala wiggled his eyebrows. “A secret plan? That Zeen couldn’t know about? Do tell.”
“I think Zeen’s super homesick, so—”
“Wait.” Lula looked stricken. “Did something happen?”
Somehow this felt like it was going off the rails already. “No,” Ram assured her. “She was just crying last night and—”
“She was crying?” Lula asked. “From homesickness?”
“Well, she kind of hedged on what it was exactly about. She said she was homesick but there was more to it than that? I guess? I’m not really sure.”
Qort said something despondent in Aloxian. Ram felt the whole plan slipping away from him. “The point is, I’m throwing a surprise party to cheer her up!”
“Oh?” all three said together, eyebrows raised.
“In the Mid-Tower Exquisite View Room!”
This was met with various oohs and aahs.
“Tonight!”
“Oh, no!” Lula moaned. “We have a top secret ops training tonight with Masters Buckets and Kantam. It’s some high-level thing no one will tell us about beforehand.”
“Oh,” Ram said, trying not to look too disappointed. “I’ll. . .I’ll figure out something else, I guess.”
Qort flashed a knowing smile and said something that Ram didn’t quite catch, except the words home, smile, and heart.
“It’s an old Aloxian saying,” Farzala explained. “‘Whenever the heart smiles, the lonely traveler is home.’ More or less.”
Qort nodded his approval, then, slowly, in his thick Aloxian accent, said, “Maybe, even without us, Ram can make Zeen feel like home is here. And Zeen’s heart will smile?”
Lula stood abruptly. “All right, everyone, these lightsaber drills aren’t going to drill themselves.”
“I’m not sure that’s how that expression works,” Farzala said, heading off with Qort. “See you later, Ram! You’ll figure it out.”
It was late morning now, and the breakfast crowd had mostly thinned out except for a few stragglers eating alone, reading datapads or watching holos. Ram let the gentle murmur and occasional clink of dishes fill his fast-moving mind for a few moments. Then he stood. “Maybe Ram can make Zeen feel like home is here!” Ram ran.
“Vee-Eighteen!” Ram yelled, barging into his quarters.
“Alert! Aware! Prepared for whatever may come!” the big boxy droid announced sleepily, his ocular lens blinking to life. “Advise me of the source of danger, and I will eliminate it!”
Tip and Breebak, Ram’s furry little Bonbrak friends, had been napping on top of V-18 and now glanced wearily about, muttering vague curses in Bonbreez.
“No danger,” Ram said, “but I need your help.”
The two Bonbraks grumbled and curled back up, immediately snoring.
“Ah!” V-18 chortled. “As it happens, I had quite an eventful night with the fellas, you see, and—”
“No time for all that,” Ram said, already heading back out. “Scour the databanks for images of Trymant IV from before the Emergence struck. Holo-images! And load them up in your databanks!”
“But, Master Ram!” V-18 complained. The door slid closed; Ram was already gone.
Ram bolted down the corridor, dodging slow walkers and walk-and-talkers and the occasional just-standing-arounder. It wasn’t yet midday, and he was already all sweaty and winded, but he had to keep moving! There was so much to do before tonight. “Master Buckets!” he blurted out, rounding the corner into the kitchen area, where the enormous Chagrian was delicately folding thin strips of dough into tiny basket-shaped delicacies.
“Padawan Ram Jomaram,” Torban Buck said without looking up. “I just had the strangest conversation about you with Zeen Mrala.”
“I know! I know!” Ram insisted. “I came to explain.”
Torban squeezed the edges of another wee little doughy basket and grinned at it. “Excellent.”
“I’m throwing a surprise party for Zeen to make her feel more at home since she’s homesick, and I had to get rid of her so I could tell the others!” Ram wasn’t sure why he was yelling; it all just felt so urgent and important, and no one seemed to understand.
“Ah,” Torban mused, “that explains why she came in here asking what I needed her help with.” He scooped a dripping blob of something delicious-looking from a nearby bowl and plopped it into the tiny dough basket.
“Yes!”
“You have a very good heart, Ram Jomaram.”
“Yes! I mean, thank you! I just—”
“But I strongly recommend against lying to people you care about, even if it’s in the service of trying to make them feel better.”
Ram thought all his teeth might grind each other to dust, the way he was clenching his jaw. “Yes, Master Buckets.” A moment passed while Torban began forming another dough basket, and Ram wasn’t sure if he was supposed to say something else or not. Finally, he ventured, “What did you, ah, say to Zeen?”
Torban chuckled. “Oh, Buckets of Blood could always use another set of hands in the kitchen! She didn’t need to know that I hadn’t sent for her!” He let out a mighty belly laugh.
Ram exhaled. “Th-thank you, Master Buckets. And, ah, any chance I could convince you to change the time of your super top secret ops training with the other Padawans so you and the others could come to the party and make Zeen feel better?”
For the first time since the conversation started, Torban Buck looked up from what he was doing and leveled a devastating stare at Ram. “Now, Padawan Ram Jomaram,” the Chagrian said somberly, and that was when Ram knew he’d pushed his luck. “What makes you think I would even confirm or deny the existence of something that is designated super top secret?”
“I . . .”
“But if there was such an event happening, which there may or may not be, I would most likely not be at liberty to change the time for a party . . .”
Ram sighed. “That makes sense, yeah.”
A slight smile broke through Torban’s stern façade. “. . . much as I would like to.”
Nothing was working.
Everything was falling apart.
That about summarized Ram’s day so far. He had a total of zero (0) attendees for the surprise party. He didn’t know if V-18 would find any useful images of Trymant IV or not. And he had almost gotten in trouble for lying and mentioning a classified thing that he wasn’t supposed to know about.
Ram strutted in an aimless huff through the corridors, suddenly with no direction whatsoever, nowhere to go at all. And to top the whole mess off, having a sense of urgency had staved off his own spiraling sadness, the deep longing he felt for the familiar safety of his workshop in Lonisa City. The funny part was, he knew he wouldn’t even want to stay there long—these wild days and nights of battle and excitement and terror and bigger, better friendships than anything he’d ever experienced, they’d changed him, and he knew it. The fight against the Nihil had given him a sense of purpose, a feeling that he wasn’t just some random kid in a giant churning galaxy but rather a crucial part of a collective whole. For the first time, he knew he could actually do something to make the galaxy better for other people, and nothing would be the same ever again.
Really, he just wanted to take one deep breath and inhale the weird, rusty, dusty combination of scents that made up his workshop, combined with the particular smell of Valo in the springtime. That, he was pretty sure, would solve all his problems.
But anyway, he thought, turning another corner and finding himself in the gymnasium area, his problems weren’t the point of all this. Zeen’s problems were. And probably she’d be in one of these practice rooms, either meditating with Lula or hanging out while the Padawans practiced their lightsaber skills. Ram picked one at random and pushed the button beside the door. He’d find Zeen and tell her everything. No point in a surprise party that no one was going to be at.
The door slid open, and instead of Zeen or Lula or any of the Padawans Ram had become close with, it was a whole other group of teenagers. The two boys sparring had to be Reath Silas and Bell Zettifar. And that was Vernestra Rwoh and Imri Cantaros watching from the sidelines. If Ram constantly found himself in awe of his new friends—and he did—these were the young people his friends were in awe of. Vernestra was already knighted, the youngest Jedi Knight anyone could remember. She and the others were always off on wild adventures, fighting amazing battles, learning important intel about the Nihil. They were the most extremely wizard people in the known galaxy, basically. Sure, Ram and his friends had all just almost been blown up on Takodana, but that seemed trivial compared with being a part of the joint campaign with the Hutts to root out the carnivorous plant monsters, the Drengir, or taking on Nihil scientists on a secret space station.
“Aha!” Bell yelped, leaping over Reath’s lightsaber swipe and landing in a squat.
“Oh, not again,” Reath groaned as Bell launched himself into the air, raining a flurry of attacks down as he sailed overhead.
“Amazing,” Imri marveled.
“He’s all right,” Vernestra allowed. “But remember . . .”
Reath parried each strike, but the last one sent him hurtling backward toward Vernestra as his saber clattered to the ground. She held up a hand, palm out, without looking up from her conversation with Imri. Reath let out a gasp, frozen suddenly, mid-stumble. “The moment you think you’re winning . . .” She made a pulling motion with her other hand, and Bell’s lightsaber flew across the room, extinguishing with a sparkly shush. Then she extended both arms. Reath sailed forward, smashing into Bell, and both boys landed in a tangle. “. . . is when you’re closest to defeat.”
Maybe, Ram thought as Reath and Bell helped each other up and gave Vernestra a grudging and possibly sarcastic round of applause, the opposite is true, too—that the moment you think you’ve lost is when you’re closest to victory. A smile warmed his face, unbidden. Maybe the Force had led him to this very room for a reason. The notion gave Ram a sudden burst of courage, and he stepped forward intending to say Greetings, fellow Padawans. But as the words were coming out, he remembered Vernestra wasn’t a Padawan, so instead he ended up saying “Greetings, fellow Vernestrawans.”
Ram cringed a small groundquake inside himself. Everyone looked up with surprise, but they were smiling, and the smiles weren’t cruel.
“Hey, Ram!” Reath said.
Ram hadn’t even realized Reath Silas knew his name, so that was a good start. “What I meant was hi! Padawans and Jedi Vernestra!”
Vernestra waved off his explanation. “Think nothing of it, happens all the time!”
“Thank you!” Ram said, unsure what he was thanking her for but plowing ahead nonetheless. “I’ve come because I’m throwing a surprise party for Zeen Mrala because she’s homesick and I wanted to do something to make her feel better but everyone else has a special top secret training tonight so they can’t come but I know it’d really mean a lot to her if you all came because you are all. . .extremely . . .” Words! Where were the words Ram wanted to speak?! Gone. “Extremely you, which is the best thing a person can be. Each of you! You.”
A few seconds passed. Various glances were exchanged. Ram fidgeted. Finally, Vernestra spoke. “That’s really thoughtful of you, Padawan Ram,” she said, and Ram could tell two things: 1) she really meant it, it wasn’t just some condescending brush-off, and 2) there was a big but coming next. Sure enough, Vernestra continued, “But we’re, uh, part of that top secret op, too, I’m afraid.”
“But the most important thing,” Bell said quickly, “is that you’re trying to make your friend happy. It doesn’t matter how many people are there or what kind of party it is. What matters is that you cared enough to try. That alone will make her feel more at home, I promise.”
Ram nodded, taking one step and then another back toward the corridor. “You’re right,” he said. “Thanks anyway.”
So that was that. The door slid closed behind Ram, and he was alone in his quarters. He plopped onto the bed and let out the longest sigh of his life. Bell was right, and Ram knew it. But the sense of disappointment wouldn’t let him go. He’d failed. It was something so simple, and he couldn’t even get it right. He braced himself, then pulled out his comlink and raised Zeen.
“Ramalamalama,” she answered, chipper as ever. “Just the Padawan I was looking for!”
“Actually,” Ram said glumly, “I was looking for you.”
“Oh? Do tell!”
If nothing else, Ram could track down V-18 and have him project the images of Trymant IV for Zeen, supposing he’d found some good ones. That was something. “Meet me at the Mid-Tower Exquisite View Room?”
“Of course,” Zeen said. “I’m already there. Hurry up!”
Ram wasn’t sure what to make of that, but it filled him with a little burst of joy and anticipation. He leapt off his bed, gathered himself together, and dashed out the door.
Ram stood in front of the door to the Mid-Tower Exquisite View Room and took a deep breath. V-18 hadn’t answered Ram’s calls, meaning that even his last-ditch effort to do something special for Zeen had been a dropkick straight into the Void. Ram would just have to explain all the different things he’d hoped to do to cheer Zeen up. He knew she would make a big deal out of how sweet it was that he’d tried, and she’d really mean it, too. But it wouldn’t be the same. They’d sit there in peaceful silence like they had many other nights, the silence of two outsiders who’d found a new home but still missed their old ones. But it wouldn’t be the same. A wave of loss threatened to well up inside Ram—it wasn’t just for this one silly party not working out, it was for everything that should’ve been but wasn’t. The lives lost at the Republic Fair. The many planets doomed in the Great Disaster. The fighters who had given up so much to stop the Nihil. Ram did his best to keep the sadness at bay, took another breath, then pushed the door panel.
“SURPRISE!” the word, yelled by so many voices at once, exploded out of the Mid-Tower Exquisite View Room before Ram could even take a step in, and the suddenness of it almost knocked him off his feet.
“What?” Ram gasped, caught between joy and shock. “I! But I! You were all! And!” So many smiling faces stared back at him. There were Lula and Farzala and Qort and a bunch of the other Padawans. There was Master Buck, and beside him stood Master Kantam Sy, both clapping and grinning like fools. Vernestra, Imri, Reath, and Bell jumped up and down at the far end, cheering and yelping.
“This was the top secret op training?!” Ram said.
In the middle of them all was Zeen, with an unstoppably smug smile spreading across her face. “You can’t out-surprise a surprise master like me, Ram!”
V-18 stomped up next to her and with a whir sent a perfectly rendered holoprojection of Ram’s little garage workshop on Valo across the walls. Shelves of connector bits and engine parts gave way to bins overflowing with rusted scrap metal and exhaust pipes. There was the tool table! And beside it sat the little wooden house Ram had made for the Bonbraks to sleep in. He could almost smell the grease and burnt steel and smoke.
It was all too much. “B-but,” Ram stuttered, still standing in the doorway with his mouth hanging open, “I was supposed to. . .I just wanted to . . .” No words came, so Ram just stood there for a moment, lost. Zeen got to him first, and she was still laughing even as she hugged him. How did she know how badly he needed that little bit of contact, right then? How did anyone deal with so many contradictory emotions happening at the same time?
“You were the homesick one,” Ram whispered into her flight jacket. “I was trying to make you happy.”
Around them, everyone went about the business of having a great time as V-18 played some Corellian dance hit on his speakers. “You did, Ram,” Zeen said, sniffling, too, now. “You did. But last night, I could tell you’ve really been missing home. It was all over your face. Even when you were checking on me, it was clear.”
“Arg,” Ram groaned, crinkling his nose.
“No, it’s a good thing. You shouldn’t hide how you feel just because someone else is going through it, too. Anyway, sometimes what we’re homesick for isn’t a where, it’s a who.”
Ram blinked at her. “Wait—Krix?”
Zeen grabbed her chest and jerked her head forward, cheeks puffed out like she was about to throw up. “Ew! No! Just—doesn’t matter! I’m okay! I promise! I mean, I am sad, yes, but I will be okay. And you doing all this, well, that’s made me smile more than I have in a long time.”
