Ahsoka Tano wasn’t Anakin Skywalker‘s only student. She was his first official one, an important distinction; assigned to Anakin as a Padawan because Master Yoda hoped it would teach her master the importance of letting go. The lesson backfired rather, because Ahsoka was the one who learned that – by leaving the Jedi Order completely. Anakin, for his part, was left shattered by the experience, his faith in the Jedi Council shaken just a few months before the events of Revenge of the Sith.
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But Ahsoka wasn’t the first Jedi who Anakin mentored. Early in the Clone Wars, Palpatine encouraged Jedi Knights to take younglings under their wings in combat situations, arguing it would develop greater trust between them and their mentors – and, in a sinister detail, between younglings and clone troopers. Anakin wound up working with a group of younglings, including a delightful character named Mill Alibeth who was singularly ill-suited to the Clone Wars.
Mill Aibleth Was Anakin’s First Real Student
The story of Mill Alibeth is told in Mike Chen’s Brotherhood. A young Zabrak, Mill possessed a rare Force power that made her very vulnerable indeed during the Clone Wars; she had a variation of empathy, allowing her to sense the pain and uncertainty of others. All this naturally meant she experienced wartime in a very visceral manner indeed, withdrawing from the Force itself until Anakin taught her to use her power to lessen the experience of pain in others. In any other time, Mill would have been an asset to the Jedi; during the Clone Wars, she left the Order, recognizing she had no place there.
Anakin was a good teacher to Mill, and he had a profound impact on her life. If not for Anakin, Mill would have completely withdrawn from the Force rather than learning how to use her inconvenient powers to the benefit of others. It’s possible Yoda heard of Anakin’s work with Mill and some of her fellow younglings, and decided to tap into his potential as a teacher by giving him a Padawan. Whatever the truth may be, though, it’s always been striking that Anakin has another student out there who gives him a legacy.
Star Wars Has Just Revealed What Happened to Mill Aibleth
We already knew Mill survived the Dark Times of the Empire’s reign by living in the underworld. She was a bounty hunter by the time of the sequel trilogy, even hunting Rey at one point, but we didn’t really have much of a sense of how she survived Darth Vader and his Inquisitors. Now, Mike Chen’s new novel Low Red Moon – which serves as a prelude to the Star Wars: Outlaws game – has offered an unexpected answer. Mill worked as a force for good during the Dark Times, using her developing Force healing powers to save lives alongside her friend Vivert Stag, another former Jedi youngling.
The pair did jobs for crime syndicates on occasion to pay for their work as healers. “Things are always falling apart,” she explains in Low Red Moon. In this particular book, they took too great a risk in stealing a new bacta tank from the Hutts, but matters became complicated due to the interference of Darth Maul’s Crimson Dawn. It’s wonderfully ironic that a former Jedi youngling was unwittingly causing trouble for Maul’s criminal enterprise, and it raises the exciting possibility we’ll see more of Mill and Vivert in the upcoming Maul – Shadow Lord series.
Mill’s cameo in Low Red Moon is a tremendous moment, continuing her story in such an unexpected way. She was a delight in Brotherhood, with a fantastic dynamic between Mill and Anakin, and her future as a bounty hunter had seemed rather odd given her powers. Now, we finally have a story that serves as connective tissue, explaining why Anakin’s forgotten student got caught up in the underworld.
Mark Chen’s novel Low Red Moon is available now from Amazon.
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