Mal Cedric? I'll never forget him. No one on Sullust will ever forget him.
If you want the story, pour me a drink first. No, the good stuff. I'm not telling this man's story on cheap beer.
Now, Mal? He first came to the outskirts of what was once our little mining town, Coalpit, oh about three years before the Imperials. Five years into the collapse of the Republic, when Chancellor Palpatine declared himself emperor. We didn't know who Mal was at the time, not even his name. He didn't tell us until the end.
I was working in the local tavern when I first met him. He came inside one evening with his hood up, sat down at a stool at the end of the diner, and asked for a bite to eat and a glass of water.
"Soup or stew, if you happen to have it, Miss," were his first words to me. "And some water, please."
Pretty sure it was the first time anyone had said 'please' to me.
Now a polite man in a cloak and a robe, well groomed, lean and fit, not drinking alcohol at this hour? Thinking about it, I should have known exactly what he was. But the news said they were all dead. And we had no reason to believe otherwise.
So being a nosy kid like I was, I asked him, "where you from, Mister?"
And he gave me the most cryptic answer I've ever heard. "A place that doesn't want me anymore," he said. And you know how sometimes you can really see someone's pain, as if it did something to their eyes?
He looked like the entire galaxy hated him.
And in a way, he was right.
He built himself a small home out in the hills, well away from the village. And you need to understand something about Sullust. We all live underground. Our entire village is underground. Then surface is volcanic ash, lava rivers and acid rain. Crazy fool had to walk for nearly an hour on the surface just to get home after he visited us to buy supplies or look for work.
The local roughnecks didn't like him very much, at first. That same evening, a band of workers on one of the deep mining projects Coalpit was built around came up to tell Mal to move on.
He doesn't lay a hand on any of them, even when one of those fools grabbed him by the collar and threatened to punch him. Mal smiled, and asked him in this weirdly gentle voice, "You really care about these people of yours, don't you?"
"Yeah?" The guy threatening him asked, but you can see the fight's been taken out of him.
"Of course you do. It does you credit," Mal replied, and he took this slow, gentle step backward. Mal pointed up at the stars, and he said, "I never saw enough of that compassion out there."
Then, despite being threatened, Mal clapped the guy on the shoulder and gives him a smile that made mine look like a scowl. And I smiled really sweetly when I was ten years old. "You can call me," Mal said, "if there's any trouble. I will come."
Fun fact, in case this makes sense to you. The guy who grabbed him? Nien Numb. Lando Calrissian's co-pilot during the Battle of Endor. In case you ever needed proof that the galaxy is a tiny place.
Right. Or that the Force works in mysterious ways.
Anyway, he kept to himself most of the time. Came to the village a few times a month, always paid his way. Never stayed overnight. He got a reputation for fixing problems. Little things, like the water purification system in the hospital, or finding an old lady's missing pet. He didn't mind doing it, and whenever he did a job, we had to barter hard to make him accept anything.
Usually Susan Lumm's pie. Pretty sure the woman was sweet on Mal.
But a few months later, a rockrender tunnelled its way into the outskirts of the village. Now, a rockrender is a big beast. Not quite an AT-AT, but it will eat one if you give it long enough.
We gathered every blaster we could, but we knew we were going to lose people. It wa a pretty tearful march out. I snuck out and stole a blaster, because I was ten and thought I was invincible. And when I got to the new cave it had carved, well, Mal had already beaten me there.
He was standing in front of it with his hand out. The rockrender was so big it could have killed Mal with a sneeze, but that crazy fool just stood there as calm as we are right now, and waited.
The rockrender howled at him, stomped its feet, shook the earth, nearly collapsed the cave it made. But Mal waited it out, like a mountain watching a storm. He did this for the better part of an hour, waiting while the monster scuffed at the rock and raged at him. The rest of the village arrived by that time, and they all hung back and waited.
Eventually, the rockrender must have exhausted itself, because it lowered its head until its nose was right in front of Mal.
And then that man did one of the craziest things I've ever seen. And it's still true, even after I joined the rebellion. Mal rubbed the rockrender's nose, laughed, and wished it well when it turned and left.
They let me stay up for the party they threw for him that night. Our little village has never, ever celebrated like that. They baked all through the night, emptied most of the bar's local brew, and no one worked the next day.
I fell asleep pretty early. And when I woke up in the morning, the entire town is passed out at home, in the bar, on the street. All except Mal. And guess where Mal is.
No, he didn't go home. He stayed for the festivities. All of it. I woke up the next morning, went past the bar on my way to school, and he was inside the bar with a mop, smiling like he won the lottery. He was cleaning up after his own party, and he looked as happy as a virgin on his wedding day.
Still cannot believe I didn't figure out what he was by then.
After that, well, he stayed in his cave, but some of the roughnecks stormed over to his shelter with building supplies and built him a proper home. We also gave him a speeder, because damnit we liked him. He came to the village more, made it a weekly thing where he'd tell stories at the local library. Talked about the galaxy and its wonders.
He told us about the world city of Coruscant, the fires of Mustafar, the towering trees of Kashyyyk, the green hills of Alderaan, the mystery of the Maw near Kessel. He told us the galaxy was full of beauty and compassion.
Mal also helped out more. He repaired safety equipment, went with the roughnecks when they started hitting a new vein or were worried about rockrenders. He helped care for anyone who got sick in the mines, and drafted letters to send to the imperial governor about working conditions.
We stopped letting him pay for meals at that point. He was our guardian, our treasure. And all of that was still before we learned who he was.
What he was.
Mal stayed overnight at the village only once more. It was one of his last days alive. He didn't sleep, he spent the night sitting beneath a gazebo in the town square, meditating I guess. Though most people who meditate get really annoyed when a kid like I was comes and bothers them.
Mal just smiled.
"How are you so kind?" I asked him.
"I have you to thank for that," Mal said in response. He waved his hand out at the village, and added, "Coalpit has reminded me of everything I wanted to be, since I was a youngling."
And being a kid, I had to ask, "You wanted to be a hermit living on the surface of a barren planet?"
Mal, well, he had a reply to that, too. "I wanted to hold a sword up to every evil in the galaxy. I wanted to stand between danger and people who didn't deserve to be swallowed up by strength and indifference. I wanted to help people live and be happy. You and Coalpit gave me all of that, kid."
"Where's your sword?" I asked, because I was a cheeky little runt.
But Mal pointed back to the village, and he asked me, "What do you feel, when you look back there?"
I sighed, and told him what I felt all the time. "I feel happiness. Like there's a bunch of warm little balls of light all around us, where the others are. Some are happier, some have worries which changes their colour. But they're all brighter, warmer, since you came."
Mal points to the space in front of him, and said, "Please sit."
So I sit down. "Close your eyes," Mal said.
So I close my eyes.
"Feel that happiness. Feel how each little light reaches to each other, like the light of stars stretching across the distance from one to another."
And when Mal said that, it felt like someone had dropped me in a warm bathtub filled with joy. It was deeper, wider, and grander than anything I've ever felt, before or since.
"And past Coalpit. Can you feel the rocks and sand of Sullust, still and quiet, at peace?"
I could never explain to you how I could, but I felt it like I can feel my own breath.
"And beneath that, can you feel the heat below, the fire?"
"Yes!" I cried out, confused and overjoyed. "What is that?"
Mal was still smiling when he said, "Your eyes, opening for the very first time."
And for the first time I've ever seen, Mal's brilliant smile faded a bit. "And what do you sense, when you see me?"
"Joy, and peace," is what I wish were grown up enough to have said at the time. Instead, goofy kid me said, "You feel like a giant, pillowy bubble of real happiness."
"Pillowy? Who ever heard of a hermitage making someone fat?"
"You keep eating Susan Lunn's pie," I said.
And oh did he laugh at that one.
"I need you to promise to remember what I tell you next. Can you do that?" Mal asked.
"Yeah, of course."
"Good. Because I want you to find someone who feels the way I do. Look for that giant presence of pillowy happiness. Once you do, I want you to tell her my story. Especially this part. Until you find her, keep this part of the story to yourself. Can you promise me that?"
I nodded. "Yes, I can do that."
"Second point," Mal said, holding up two fingers. "The way you looked at the world just now, I need you to promise to never do it while you're angry. If you're afraid, remember that happiness before you try. Please promise me that."
What could I say to him in that moment? "Of course."
"Good," Mal said, and he let out a slow sigh. "I have a gift for you, but I can't give it to you yet. I haven't used it in years, but I am going to need it for a few more days."
"Can you at least tell me what it is?"
"I can, but I'm going to be a mysterious old hermit now and tell you that you'll know soon. Now go to bed, kid. Your world is about to change, and you should face it rested."
Yes, he said that. And as it turned out, he really wasn't kidding. Stormtroopers came the next day.
Mal had nothing to do with why they came. Some of the roughnecks and others had been petitioning the governor already. I told you that. But the kicker is they apparently made a right nuisance of themselves, and it didn't help anything that Sullust sided with the Confederacy during the Clone Wars. So when there was worry that quotas wouldn't be met, the Imperials sent a batallion to make an example of us.
We didn't know they were coming until they were at the cave entrance, and a Star Destroyer was sitting about a kilometre above our heads. Their captain announced that the entire village was to be dismantled, and anyone not involved in the unionization efforts would be relocated. They came in their hundreds, all that gleaming white armour on faceless goons. We organized a resistance, but the entire village was outnumbered, and most of us didn't know how to fight.
We put barricades up, have every gun in the village pointed at the cave entrance, and small children are stuffed into the underground tram lines leading to other cities. But we all know it's hopeless. These are stormtroopers, and we're just a little mining town.
But of course, Mal was there. Calm as can be, with that same happy smile on his face, he walked out past our barriers and put himself between us and the Empire.
"If you're tired and thirsty, this isn't a bad place to be," Mal said to them, as if they were a bunch of lost tourists. "Not enough chairs, though. Some of you may need to drink outside. Hope that's all right."
Their captain stepped in-front of his troops, and waved his rifle. "Get lost, vagabond. Imperial business."
"So many troops for a little village? These must terrible criminals," Mal said, and he didn't move an inch. "Guess it makes sense. That little girl back there by herself should require at least a dozen of you."
"Move," the Captain said. "Or I step over your corpse. Not asking again."
"My name is Mal Cedric," Mal said, introducing himself to us and the stormtroopers for the first time. The stormtrooper captain paused, as if he was looking the name up.
"To any of you who live through this, remember I did try," Mal answered, and he raised his hand.
And he held a blade of light in his hand.
I had never seen a lightsaber before. Never imagined I would. But even then, I heard stories of Jedi Knights. Legends older than the Republic, warriors who fought tyranny and monsters all over the galaxy. Fighting slavers and despots and evil with strange magic and lightsabers.
Lightsaber. Yeah, that's a good name for it. His was blue, blue like the skies of Endor when the Death Star exploded. Blue like the horizon you want to sail to. If someone made hope into a colour, it was in Mal's hand.
That moment changed us. It changed Sullust. Frankly, I think it changed the galaxy. No one who saw him would willingly hide and hope the Empire was kind anymore.
We were rebels.
The stormtroopers recoiled at the sight, and I'd like to think they felt it too. Felt how wrong they were to be there. But one of them started firing, and even Mal couldn't stand there and do nothing. He leapt like someone fired him out of a catapult, and he carved them apart.
The roughnecks charged, but there wasn't much to do. The stormtroopers ran, and we managed to shut the blast doors to the cave. Oh did we start cheering then, but Mal brought us back to reality.
"You need to start evacuating. They'll come again, stronger and stronger. And there's strength out there that I can't hope to match," Mal said.
Heh. Get me another, would you? This part stings a bit, even if it's been fifteen years.
It took three days to evacuate all of Coalpit. Three days of attacks, fairly constant turbolaser fire from the Star Destroyer hammering at the mountain, one gas attack, and a lot of dead stormtroopers. But in all the time, we didn't lose anyone. Not a single roughneck or welder or farmer or even Susan Lumm who's idea of exercise was rolling dough. And that was all because of Mal.
He was everywhere. With the wounded, guiding the elderly onto the next train, at a breach in the hill. Mal fought off every attack, day and night, for three straight days. No rest except when he meditated at that same gazebo between skirmishes. He hardly ate, fought well past when the rest of us would fall over exhausted, and he kept us all alive.
We had about four train trips left to make, when I felt something appear up in the skies above.
Now, were you at Hoth? No? Well, if you were ever out at night, it felt like the cold was trying to kill you. Like nature, I guess even the Force, wanted you to die. That's what this new presence felt like.
Mal didn't miss it, of course. He stood up and met with the roughnecks. "We don't have time to evacuate everyone. But I have another way for you to leave. When a path opens, even if it's not the way you expected, take it."
He pointed at me, and added, "She will guide you."
We manage to get nearly everyone out before the blast door is blown apart. It's just the roughnecks, me, and a few others. We want to stand with Mal, fight with him, but when they come for us, it isn't just stormtroopers.
There's this seven foot tall monster with them. You can hear a respirator echoing in the dark, and like Mal, that monster had a lightsaber. Red though, like spilled blood or emergency lights when some star destroyer has knocked out the power in your ship.
Wait, that was Vader? Are you serious? Wow. Okay.
Vader marched straight for Mal, but all of a sudden you could hear the earth shake, and a rockrender climbs out of the ground. The thing charges at Vader, tearing up the stone and staring to bring the cave down around that Sith Lord. At the time I'm thinking that this is going to work, and we're all going to get out okay until Vader stops it with some kind of sorcery, knocked it to the ground, and crushed its head.
And I swear to you I could hear a voice in my head at that moment. Mal's voice. It was calm in a way my imagination at the time couldn't manage. He said, "Follow the tunnel the rockrender made. And take this with you."
Then Mal turned off his lightsaber and threw something at me. All I could tell at the time was that it was metal. I held out my hands, and I don't know how or why, but I caught the thing like it was meant to be in my grasp.
Mal shouted, "Go!"
Then as Vader was bearing down on him, Mal raises his hands to the ceiling, and he closed his hands into fists. The mountain started to shake, and we ra for that cave.
We only barely made it before the rocks fall and sealed off the entrance. We were in darkness, with only a few personal lights that wouldn't last very long. The others started talking about using their lights in shifts, and how they don't know where the cave goes.
I moved apart from them, and it felt like Mal's hand was guiding my thumb as it hit the switch. And as it screeched once, and started to hum in my hand, the cave was filled with hope.
We walked. Silently and solemnly. No one offered to take a turn leading with Mal's light. I don't think anyone was willing to even ask to take it away from me. It was only a couple of hours before the cave lead to a train track, and we hitched a ride to reunite with the rest of Coalpit.
Coalpit, a little town, meaningless in the politics and plots of politicians and emperors, where a Jedi chose to give his life.
******
"That was Mal," I say as I finish my story. I pause to drain my glass, and laugh a little at what I'm feeling.
The woman I'm talking to still has her hood up, but you can see outline of the togruta ridges on her head. More than that, she has the same sense of pillowy happiness, of a quiet joy wider and deeper than what most people can hope to possess.
"And I've waited through this entire rebellion, two Death Stars, to find someone to tell this story to," I explain, and I set Mal's lightsaber on the table. "I did as he said, I've never used what he taught me in anger. I kept his lightsaber all these years, kept this secret to myself for just as long. You are the first person I have ever shared this childhood story with."
"I see," the woman says, slowly. "So why are you talking to me now? Do you want to take up that sword? Carve what's left of the Empire apart with it and avenge him?"
"Avenge?" I practically spit the words out. "Are you an idiot? Did you miss that entire story? He wandered across the galaxy to protect us. He made a choice, to put some meaningless little village above his own life. Avenging him would be spitting in his face."
I stand up, and nearly knock over the table. "Why did I even tell you this? Who do you think you are?"
But I stop when she pulls back her hood, and I can see her expression. Her smile, twinged with a bit of merriment, is brilliantly happy in that same way Mal's was. She gestures to the seat, and says "Mal picked wisely, I see."
I sit down, a little embarrassed, and she leans forward. "My name is Ashoka Tano. I used to be a Jedi, but I found myself unable to carry that mantle. But if you wish, I can continue your training."
She takes Mal's lightsaber in her hand, and holds it out to me. "And I think you've already leaned what it means to be worthy of this."