Crash Landing on Earth

Chapter 5

Penny's perspective

Penny got up before everyone else the next day, or so she thought.

As she made her way out to the balcony to eat her Chobani Flip yogurt out on the swing like she normally did, she noticed that Billaba lady out in the grass patch doing what looked like yoga meditation. Penny attempted to just ignore her and go eat her breakfast, but something pulled at her mind, and she decided to watch Billaba do her thing. Unfortunately, though, Penny was never very good at stealth, especially when she was eating.

The loud crunch of the package as she dumped the cookie toppings into the white yogurt gave her away as Billaba turned to look at the child.

"Um, sorry," Penny said quickly. "I didn't mean to bother you..."

"No, no," Billaba smiled softly. "Not at all."

"Whew!" Penny sighed in relief. Then she tilted her head. "But what were you doing over there?"

"It is a procedure called meditation," Billaba explained. "We jedi meditate quite often to quiet our minds and connect with the force."

Reminder- raid Eli's bookshelf later today for info on the Force, Penny thought as she slowly shoved another spoonful of yogurt into her mouth.

"Do you usually get up early?" Billaba asked.

"Yeah. Petey does too, but he doesn't get out of bed until he's called for breakfast."

Billaba nodded slowly. "I see."

"Is Caleb your... uh... kid?" Penny wanted to ask but decided to hold her tongue. She felt she could be more sensible than to just outright ask if someone was a kid's mom.

"Not exactly." The space lady chuckled as if she had just read Penny's mind. "He is my padawan- like a student, in a way."

"Ohhh. So then..." Penny trailed off, visibly shocked that Billaba was apparently a mind reader. "Oh. Ok..."

She got on the swings and continued eating.

Kendall's perspective

As Kendall pondered what to do for the day, it came to her that something had to be done about long distance communication.

Comms didn't work on Earth. Heaven knows Kendall had tried them. She tried contacting her clone commander- no luck. The council- pfft, yeah... no.

But the group needed to keep in touch one way or another. Kendall opened her MacBook and went to her bank account. From her summer job she had earned just about enough to buy an iPhone 11 pro with a buy one get one free offer which would expire in a week from now, or 4 smartwatches for the kids, and 4 iphone 11s for the adults. Or other way around if Depa, Delara, or the clones preferred to use the watch.

Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Petey snooping around behind her, his eyes widening at the screen as the ever so insightful kid immediately understood her motives as always. By the time she turned to look at him, he had already dashed off to loudly notify the others that Kendall had some brilliant idea and that everyone should gather around to hear it. She facepalmed. Just when she hoped to keep it a surprise...

Depa and Penny came first, then the clones and Delara. The padawans came last, partly due to an argument over who got to be Kirby in Super Smash Bros, which they unfortunately dragged all the way to the dinner table where Kendall was sitting in front of her laptop. 

"All right, you two," Kendall told the two bickering teenagers. She handed Leda an old Chuck E Cheese token from 2017. "Settle the matter and be done with it."