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SW Gray Tales 15: Knowledge
🕑 Added 2025-07-11 10:32:28 +0000 UTCA week in the apartment felt like a lifetime and an instant, all at once. My days fell into a rhythm: dual practice of Hyper Perception (yeah, bitches, I changed the name again), burning through the Basic Sciences Compendium, and then the weird, wonderful mind-meld of psychometric learning on the Power Conduits book.
I tore through the science compendium like a fighter jet on a runway. The relief that washed over me was immense. The fundamental laws were the same, just dressed up in different terminologies. It was a psychological anchor, a tiny, vital piece of my old life that was still relevant here.
Never thought I'd genuinely miss Newton, but here we are.
Of course, there were plenty of futuristic concepts too. Gravitons, the key to gravity wells and anti-gravity tech in repulsor fields. Novel applications of electromagnetism, like the tech to constrain plasma for blaster bolts, and, I guessed from my foreknowledge of the Star Wars universe, lightsabers. Good thing this was just a basic science book. Trying to parse the mathematical foundations of that stuff, even with Hyper Perception, would fry my brain.
Psychometric learning, as I'd dubbed the phenomenon of absorbing knowledge from books' echoes, was starting to feel like a legitimate superpower. A brilliant thought had come to me after getting home that first day: what if I could learn how to use tools the same way?
Total bust. A hydrospanner doesn't know what it's doing; it just spans and spans. A screwdriver doesn't understand which screw does what; it only knows how to screw you over when you drop it in a dark engine compartment.
A disappointment, but a minor one. Who knew? Maybe some tools, especially those tied to the Force, like lightsabers with their kyber crystals, would yield better results. The thought sent a giddy shiver down my spine.
That aside, as I'd expected, psychometric learning for electronics had produced catastrophically beautiful results.
I didn't instantly grasp the function of every component, but my basic understanding of circuit building had almost completely transferred over from my past life. The fundamental principles were largely the same, but even with those building blocks in place, learning the specifics was not so easy. Basic science compendium was good for basics, but I won’t get much out of it if I wanted to go to advanced topics.
The hunger for knowledge I was feeling was just growing more and more, and now I felt that maybe it was time… to go a level up.
[Vasha’s Pov]
I was drying the last of the dinner plates when he said it, his small voice cutting through the quiet hum of the apartment's air filtration system.
"I think I'm done with this one."
I glanced over. Ezra was sitting on the couch, the massive Basic Sciences Compendium resting closed in his lap. I set the plate in the rack, wiping my hands on a towel.
"Done?" I asked, walking over. "As in, you're tired of looking at it for tonight?"
That's what I'd expected. I'd gotten him that book to keep him busy for a while, give me some time to figure out the school situation. It still felt surreal – me, thinking about primary schools. I hadn't even had time for a decent date in… well, years. And now I was playing mom. I must have a loose wire somewhere.
He shook his head, his dark hair flopping into his eyes. "No, like, done done. I read it all."
I chuckled, stepping around the coffee table and sitting on the edge of the couch next to him. "Ezra, honey, just flipping through the pictures isn't really reading. You have to read the words to learn, you know? And then understand what they are saying. It's okay if it takes you time. This is a big book."
I reached out and ruffled his hair, a habit I seemed to be developing. "What did you actually read?" I asked with a small smile. "How about you show me?"
He huffed, his cheeks puffing out. "I really did read it! All of it! Try me!"
Alright, kid. Show me what you got. I grabbed the heavy book, opened it to the index, and scanned the topics.
“Okay, Mr. Speedy Reader," I said, trying to keep the amusement in my voice, but the undercurrent of suspicion was now there. This kid was weirdly intense. "Let's start easy. What's the difference between a solid and a liquid?"
He didn’t even hesitate. "Solids have a fixed shape and volume because their molecules are stuck together. Liquids can change shape, but their volume is still the same because their molecules can slide around each other."
Perfect textbook definition. A little too perfect. Okay, maybe he memorized a line or two. Lots of kids can do that.
"Not bad," I said, casually flipping to another section. "Okay, why does metal feel colder than cloth, even if they’re both the same temperature?"
He frowned, thinking for a second. Good. He wasn't just reciting. "Because metal conducts heat away from your skin faster," he explained. "It's like… the heat is flowing out of you, so you feel the coldness more. But cloth is like an… insulator. So the heat stays in."
He stumbled over "insulator," like he was trying on a new word. But the explanation itself was solid. Maybe a little advanced for his age, but still plausible for a bright kid. (A/N: While narration is done in English, do mind that the actual terminology could be different due to different scientific directions)
My brow furrowed but at the same time, I felt a bit of pride too. He definitely wasn't just memorizing. Time to turn up the heat.
"Hmm," I said, pretending to be unimpressed. "Alright, Genius. If you double the mass of an object, what happens to its gravitational pull?"
He paused again, his brow furrowed in concentration, but I didn't miss a small, almost involuntary grimace. Like he was fighting a little with the problem. Good. If he could answer this, I was going to be officially weirded out.
"It doubles too," he said, a little slower this time. "More mass means more gravity. Like… like if you have two starships stuck in a gravity field, the one that weighs twice as much will pull twice as hard on the planet." He made a little whooshing sound with his mouth, like he was imitating a starship falling.
He knew it. He actually knew it. This wasn't rote memorization anymore. He was applying the concept, using a real-world analogy. My mind started racing. How does a seven-year-old just know this stuff?
A knot of unease tightened in my stomach. The earlier amusement was gone, replaced by a growing sense of… something. Not fear, exactly. More like… disbelief.
I took a deep breath, trying to stay grounded. Maybe I was overreacting. Maybe he just had a freakishly good memory and a natural aptitude for science. There was one question left, the one that had stumped me when I first learned this. If he got this, then… then something was seriously off.
I closed my eyes for just a moment, gathered my thoughts, and picked the trickiest thing I could think of.
I opened my eyes and looked right at him, my voice serious.
"Alright, last one. This is a hard one. Why do planets closer to a star orbit faster?"
He paused, his brow furrowed for real this time. His expression was so focused, so intent, it was almost unsettling.
But then, he didn't just repeat the textbook definition. He went further. He started talking about gravitational wells, escape velocity, and the subtle perturbations caused by other planets in the system. He rambled a bit, getting excited, tossing out technical terms I hadn't even realized were in this book.
"...and that's why," he finished, looking up at me with bright, earnest eyes, "planets closer to the star have to move faster to maintain a stable orbit. It's like a speeder bike—the closer you are to the big magnet, the faster you gotta go or you'll splat!"
He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the galaxy.
Speeders and magnets? The analogy was… weird. Kid-weird. But the explanation itself…
Okay, shit.
I tried to keep my face neutral, but my mind was spiraling. This wasn't just memorization. This wasn't just a knack for science. He understood the concepts. He was thinking critically. He was connecting dots I wouldn't have expected a kid his age to even see.
It was bordering on impossible.
What the hell was going on?
As I sat there, half stunned into silence, my mind trying to process the improbability of it all, he hopped off the couch. He trotted over to the small pile of books near the workbench and came back with the Young Tinkerer's Guide.
He placed the thin flimsiplast on the coffee table in front of me. "I wanted to ask you about some things in this one."
"Huh? What?" My brain was still trying to parse the whole "gravitational wells" thing. I stared at the book, then at him, feeling like I was missing a crucial piece of the conversation.
"The circuits book," he clarified, tapping the cover. "Since you work on ships and droids, I figured you'd know about this stuff. I mostly got the basics, but I'm a little confused about some of the components. Like this flux capacitor and the plasma inductor..."
My brain slammed on the brakes.
"Wait," I interrupted, my voice sharp. I held up a hand. "You read this one, too?"
"Yeah," he said with a casual shrug. "Mostly. It had a lot about circuit components, series and parallel connections, basic resistance... that stuff was easy. But then it started yapping about flux capacitors, and how to implement them in a circuit, and I was just like… what? How am I supposed to know what that even is?"
He threw his hands up in a gesture of genuine frustration, like he'd been personally betrayed by the author.
You're not supposed to know any of it, Ezra, I thought, the words screaming in my head. You're seven. But I didn't say it out loud. The last thing I wanted to do was kill this... whatever this was. This strange, unnerving, brilliant enthusiasm.
A moment of stunned silence hung in the air, broken only by the faint hum of the 'fresher unit. The gears in my mind were grinding, trying to make sense of a puzzle with too many missing pieces.
My brain skipped right past "oh kriff, this kid might be a genius" – which was, at this point, blindingly obvious – and landed squarely on a much more bizarre, almost existential thought.
Oh boy. What are the odds that I'd just happen to pick up a stray kid from the market, and he turns out to be some kind of child prodigy? Maybe I was going to have my picture taken next to him at the Coruscant Institute for Science, or something.
More likely, I'd be bankrupt in a few years from all the schooling he'd want. That was if the Imperials didn't come looking for some kid throwing around "flux capacitor" and "plasma inductor" as if they were going out of style.
[Ezra's POV]
That conversation was the start of a whole new problem. Suddenly, Vasha wasn't just looking at me like a stray tooka-cat she'd brought home. She was looking at me like I was some kind of fragile, priceless artifact she didn't know how to handle.
She started talking about schools. Real schools. About how my "gift" would be wasted here, tinkering in her messy apartment. She even floated the idea of scholarships, of sending me to some fancy academy on Coruscant.
Oh boy. I didn't think this through, did I?
Attending an Imperial-sponsored academy? Becoming a renowned child prodigy? No, thank you. Public limelight meant putting a giant, flashing neon sign over my head that read "POSSIBLY FORCE-SENSITIVE GENIUS, PLEASE INVESTIGATE."
All it would take is one encounter. One curious Inquisitor, one bored bureaucrat with a Force-detecting doodad, or Force forbid, a passing glance from the big man himself. My little secret bubble would pop, and I'd either be squashed to prevent the rise of a hyper-intelligent Force-user (yeah, bitches, I'm vain) or I'd be brainwashed so hard I'd be saluting the Emperor in my sleep.
Yeah. No thanks.
So I reverted to the only weapon in my arsenal.
I deployed the waterworks. The whining. The full-on, grade-A, "I don't want to go with the Imperials!" tantrum, mixed with a healthy dose of "But I don't want to leave you to go all the way to Coruscant!"
I laid it on thick. It was manipulative as hell, but my survival was on the line.
Somehow, between the tears and my promises that I could learn just fine on my own, I managed to bargain her down. I just needed a chance, I pleaded. Give me one year. One year to prove I could handle my own education, right here.
She looked so conflicted, torn between logic and what I was selling. But in the end, she caved.
