Star Wars - [Young Jedi Knights 1] - Heirs Of The Force

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Shafts of morning light glinted off the polished stone surfaces. The light carried an orange cast reflected from the orange gas giant hanging in the sky-the planet Yavin, around which the small jungle moon orbited.

  Dozens of other Jedi trainees of varying ages and species found their places in the rows of stone seats spread out across the long, sloped floor. To Jaina, it looked as if someone had splashed a giant stone down on the stage, sending parallel waves of benches rippling toward the back of the chamber.

  A mixture of languages and sounds came to Jaina's ears, along with the rich open-air smell that came from the uncharted jungles outside. She sniffed, but could not identify the different perfumes from flowers in bloom--though Jacen probably knew them all by heart. Right now, she smelled the musty body odors of alien Jedi candidates--matted fur, sunbaked scales, sweet-sour pheromones.

  Jacen followed her to a set of empty seats, past two stout, pink-furred beasts that spoke to each other in growls. As she sat on the slick, cool seat, Jaina looked up at the squared-off temple ceilings, at the many different shapes and colors mounted in mosaics of alien patterns.

  "Every time we come in here," she said, "I think of those old videoclips of the ceremony where Mother handed out medals to Uncle Luke and Dad. She looked so pretty." She put a hand up to her straight, unstyled hair.

  "Yeah, and Dad looked like such a ... such a pirate," Jacen said.

  "Well, he was a smuggler in those days," Jaina answered.

  She thought of the Rebel soldiers who had survived the attack on the first Death Star, those who had fought against the Empire in the great space battle to destroy the terrible super-weapon. Now, more than twenty years later, Luke Skywalker had turned the abandoned base into a training center for Jedi hopefuls, rebuilding the Order of Jedi Knights.

  Luke himself had begun training other Jedi back when the twins were barely two years old. Now he often left on his own missions and spent only part of his time at the academy, but it remained open under the direction of other Jedi Knights Luke had trained.

  Some of the trainees had virtually no Force potential, content to be mere historians of Jedi lore. Others had great talent, but had not yet begun their full training. It was Luke's philosophy, though, that all potential Jedi could learn from each other. The strong could learn from the weak, the old could learn from the young--and vice versa.

  Jacen and Jaina had come to Yavin 4, sent by their mother Leia to be trained for part of the year. Their younger brother Anakin had remained at home back on the capital world of Coruscant, but he would be coming to join them soon.

  Off and on during their childhood, Luke Skywalker had helped the children of Han Solo and Princess Leia to learn their powerful talent. Here on Yavin 4 they had nothing to do but study and practice and train and learn--and so far it had been much more interesting than the curriculum the stuffy educational droids had developed for them back on Coruscant.

  "Where's Tenel Ka?" Jaina scanned the crowd, but saw no sign of their friend from the planet Dathomir.

  "She should be here," Jacen said. "This morning I saw her go out to do her exercises in the jungle."

  Tenel Ka was a devoted Jedi who worked hard to attain her dreams. She had little interest in the bookish studies, the histories and the meditations; but she was an excellent athlete who preferred action to thinking. That was a valuable skill for a Jedi, Luke Skywalker had told her--provided Tenel Ka knew when it was appropriate.

  Their friend was impatient, hard-driven, and practically humorless. The twins had taken it as a challenge to see if they could make her laugh.

  "She'd better hurry," Jacen said as the room began to quiet. "Uncle Luke is going to start soon."

  Catching a movement out of the corner of her eye, Jaina looked up at one of the skylights high on a wall of the tall chamber. The lean, supple silhouette of a young girl edged onto the narrow stone windowsill. "Ah, there she is!"

  "She must have climbed the temple from the back," Jacen said. "She was always talking about doing that, but I never thought she'd try."

  "Plenty of vines over there," Jaina answered logically, as if scaling the enormous ancient monument was something Jedi students did every day.

  As they watched, Tenel Ka used a thin leather thong to tie her long rusty-gold hair behind her shoulders to keep it out of her way. Then the muscular girl flexed her arms. She attached a silvery grappling hook to the edge of the stone sill and reeled out a thin fibercord from her utility belt.

  Tenel Ka lowered herself like a spider on a web, walking precariously down the long smooth surface of the inner wall.

  The other Jedi trainees watched her, some applauding, others just recognizing the girl's skill. She could have used her Jedi powers to speed the descent, but Tenel Ka relied on her body whenever possible and used the Force only as a last resort. She thought it showed weakness to depend too heavily on her special powers.

  Tenel Ka made an easy landing on the stone floor, her glistening, scaly boots clicking as she touched down. She flexed her arms again to loosen her muscles, then grasped the thin fibercord. With a snap from the Force she popped her grappling hook up and away from the stone above and neatly caught it in her hand as it fell.

  She reeled the fibercord into her belt and turned around with a serious expression on her face, then snapped the thong free from her hair and shook her head to let the reddish tresses fall loose around her shoulders.

  Tenel Ka dressed like other women from Dathomir, in a brief athletic outfit made from scarlet and emerald skins of native reptiles. The flexible, lightly armored tunic and shorts left her arms and legs bare. Despite her exposed skin, Tenel Ka never seemed bothered by scratches or insect bites, though she made numerous forays into the jungle.

  Jacen waved at her, grinning. She acknowledged him with a nod, made her way over to where the twins were sitting, and slid onto the cool stone bench beside Jacen.

  "Greetings," Tenel Ka said gruffly.

  "Good morning," Jaina said. She smiled at the Amazonian young woman, who looked back at her with large, cool gray eyes, but did not return her smile--not out of rudeness, but because it wasn't in her nature. Tenel Ka rarely smiled.

  Jacen nudged her with his elbow and dropped his voice. "I've got a new one for you, Tenel Ka. I think you'll like it. What do you call the person who brings a rancor its dinner?"

  She looked perplexed. "I don't understand."

  "It's a joke!" Jacen said. "Come on, guess."

  "Ah, a joke," Tenel Ka said, nodding. "You expect me to laugh?"

  "You won't be able to stop yourself, once you hear it," Jacen said. "Come on, what do you call the person who brings a rancor its dinner?"

  "I don't know," Tenel Ka said. Jaina would have bet a hundred credits that the girl wouldn't even venture a guess.

  "The appetizer!" Jacen chuckled.

  Jaina groaned, but Tenel Ka's face remained serious. "I will need you to explain why that's funny ... but I see the lecture is about to start. Tell me some other time."

  Jacen rolled his eyes.

  Just as Luke Skywalker stepped out onto the speaking platform, a flustered Raynar emerged from the turbolift. Puffing and red- faced, he bustled down the long promenade between seats, trying to find a place where he could sit up front. Jaina noticed the boy now wore an entirely different outfit that was as bright as the one before, and of colors that clashed just as much. He sat down and gazed up at the Jedi Master, obviously wanting to impress the teacher.

  Luke Skywalker stood on the raised platform and looked out at his mismatched students. His bright eyes seemed to pierce the crowd. Everyone fell silent, as if a warm blanket had fluttered down over them.

  Luke still had the boyish looks that Jaina recalled from the history tapes, but now he carried calm power in his lean form, a thunderstorm bottled up in a diamond-hard gentleness. Through many trials Luke had somehow emerged bright and strong. He had survived to form the cornerstone of the new Jedi Knights that would protect the New Republic
from the last vestiges of evil in the galaxy.

  "May the Force be with you," Luke said in a soft voice that nevertheless carried the length of the grand audience chamber. The words in the often-repeated phrase sent a tingle across Jaina's skin. Beside her, Jacen flashed a smile. Tenel Ka sat up rigidly, as if in homage.

  "As I have told you many times," Luke said, "I don't believe the training of a true Jedi comes from listening to lectures. I want to teach you how to learn action, how to do things, not just think about them. 'There is no try,' as Yoda, one of my own Jedi Masters, taught me."

  From the front row, in a flash of bright color, Raynar raised his hand, waggling his fingers in the air to get Luke's attention. An audible groan rippled through the chamber; Jacen heaved a heavy sigh, and Jaina waited, wondering what question Raynar would come up with this time.

  "Master Skywalker," Raynar said, "I don't understand what you mean by 'There is no try.' You must have tried and failed at some time. No one can always succeed in what they want to do."

  Luke looked at the boy with an expression of patience and understanding. Jaina never understood how her uncle could maintain his composure through Raynar's frequent interruptions. She supposed it must be the mark of a true Jedi Master.

  "I didn't say that I never fail," Luke said. "No Jedi ever becomes perfect. Sometimes, though, what we succeed in doing is not exactly what we intended to do. Focus on what you accomplished, rather than on what you merely hoped to do. Or what you failed to do. Yes, recognize what you have lost--but look in a different way to see what you have gained."

  Luke folded his hands together and walked with gliding footsteps from one side of the speaking platform to the other. His bright eyes never left Raynar's upraised face, but somehow Luke seemed to look at all of the students, speaking to every one of them.

  "Let me give you an example," he said. "A few years ago I had a brilliant trainee named Brakiss. He was a talented student, a voracious learner. He had a great potential for the Force. He seemed kind and helpful, fascinated by everything I had to teach. He was also a great actor."

  Luke took a deep breath, facing an unpleasant memory from his past. "You see, once it became known that I had founded an academy to teach Jedi Knights, it's not surprising that the remnants of the Empire would have their own students infiltrate my academy. I managed to catch their first few attempts. They were clumsy and untalented.

  "But Brakiss was different. I knew he was an Imperial spy from the moment he stepped off the shuttle and looked around at the jungles on Yavin 4. I could sense it in him, a deep shadow barely hidden by his mask of friendliness and enthusiasm. But in Brakiss I also saw a real talent for the Force. Part of him had been corrupted long ago. He had a deep flaw surrounded by a beautiful exterior.

  "But rather than reject him outright, I decided to keep him here, to show him other ways. To heal him. Because if there could be good even in the heart of my father, Darth Vader, there must also be goodness in someone as fresh and new as Brakiss." Luke gazed up at the ceiling, then returned his glance to the audience.

  "He stayed here for many months, and I took special interest in teaching him, guiding him, nudging him toward the light side of the Force in every way. He seemed to be turning, softening ... but Brakiss was colder and more deceptive than even I had suspected. During one part of his training, I sent him on an illusionary quest that would seem real to him, a test that made him face himself. Brakiss had to look inward--to see his very core in a way that no one else could ever see.

  "I had hoped the test would heal him, but instead Brakiss lost that battle. Perhaps he was simply not prepared to confront what he saw inside himself. It broke him somehow. He fled from this jungle moon, and I believe he went straight back to the Empire--taking with him everything that I had taught him of the Jedi Way."

  Many students in the grand audience chamber gasped. Jaina sat up and looked at her twin brother in alarm. She had never heard this story before.

  Raynar again had his hand up, but Luke looked at him with narrowed eyes so full of power that the arrogant student flinched and put his hand back down.

  "I know what you're thinking," Luke continued. "That I tried to bring Brakiss back to the light side, and that I failed. But--just as I told you a few moments ago--I was forced to look at how I had succeeded.

  "I did show Brakiss my compassion. I did let him learn the secrets of the light side, uncorrupted by what he had already been taught. And I did make him look at himself and realize how broken he was. Once I accomplished that much, the task was no longer mine. The final choice belonged to Brakiss himself. And it still does."

  Now he raised his eyes and looked across the gathered Jedi. As Luke's gaze passed over them, Jaina felt an electric thrill, as if an invisible hand had just brushed her.

  "To become Jedi," Luke said, "you must face many choices. Some may be simple but troublesome, others may be terrible ordeals. Here at my Jedi academy I can give you tools to use when facing those choices. But I cannot make the choices for you. You must succeed in your own way."

  Before Luke could continue, sudden screeching alarms rang out, sounding an emergency.

  Artoo-Detoo, the little droid Luke kept near his side, rushed into the grand audience chamber, emitting a loud series of unintelligible electronic whistles and beeps. Luke seemed to understand them, though, and he leaped down from the stage.

  "Trouble out on the landing pad!" Luke said, sprinting for the turbolift. He continued to speak to his students as he ran, his robes flapping behind him. "Think about what I've told you and go practice your skills."

  The students milled about in confusion, not knowing what to do.

  Jacen, Jaina, and Tenel Ka looked at each other, the same thought in each of their minds. "Let's go see what's going on!"

  Chapter 3

  Jacen saw that other Jedi students, who now rushed to the winding internal staircases or crowded into the turbolifts, had the same idea.

  Tenel Ka, though, leaped to her feet and grabbed Jacen's arm, yanking him off the stone bench. "We can do it faster my way. Jaina, follow!"

  Tenel Ka raced back to the stone wall below the skylights, weaving between two short lizardlike students who seemed baffled by the commotion and cheeped to each other in high-pitched voices. Already Tenel Ka had unreeled the lightweight fibercord from her belt and removed the sturdy grappling hook.

  "We'll go up the wall, out the skylights, and down the outside," she said, twirling the grappling hook in her hand. The muscles in her arm rippled. At precisely the right moment she released the hook.

  Jacen and Jaina helped it with the Force, guiding the hook so that it seated properly in the moss-covered sill. Its sharp durasteel points dug into a crack in the stone blocks and held there.

  Tenel Ka grasped the fibercord in both hands, tugged backward, and began to climb up the rope. She dug the toes of her scaled boots against the wall, hauling herself up, somehow finding footing on the polished stone blocks.

  Jacen grabbed the rope next, holding it steady as Tenel Ka ascended like a lizard up a sunbaked cliff face. As he climbed, his arms ached. He used the Force when he needed to, raising his body up, catching himself when his feet slipped. He would have preferred to show off his physical prowess, especially with Tenel Ka watching.

  At last he pulled his wiry body to the top of the Great Temple, squirming out the windowsill to stand on the broad rough-hewn platform left by the ancient builders.

  Jacen reached behind him to grab his sister's arm and pulled her up. The humid air of the jungle clung to the top of the pyramid, making it hot and sticky, unlike the cool mustiness of the temple interior.

  Before they could catch their breath, Tenel Ka had retrieved the fibercord and was picking her way rapidly along the narrow stone walkway. Pebbles crumbled under her feet, but she didn't seem the least bit concerned about falling.

  "Around to the side," she said, not even panting. "We can get down faster that way."

  Tenel Ka ran with l
ight footsteps around the perimeter until she stopped, looking down at the cleared landing field where all ships arrived and departed. She stood stock still, like a warrior confronted with an awesome opponent.

  Jacen and Jaina came up behind her and stared in amazement and horror at what they saw down in front of the temple.

  A battered supply ship, the Lightning Rod, had landed in the jungle clearing. Their normal supply courier and message runner--long-haired old Peckhum--stood transfixed beside the open jaws of his cargo bay. His eyes were wide and white. He looked as if he had screamed himself hoarse, and could now make no sound.

  He stared at a huge, unnatural-looking monstrosity that loomed out of the jungle as if ready to attack, snarling at him... waiting for Peckhum to make the next move.

  "What is that thing?" Jaina asked, looking to her brother as if he would know.

  Jacen squinted at the behemoth. As enormous as a shuttlecraft, its huge squarish body was covered with shaggy, matted hair tangled with primordial mos's. It stood on six cylindrical legs that were like the boles of ancient trees. Its massive triangular head sat like a Star Destroyer on its shoulders, but instead of eyes inset in its skull, it had a cluster of twelve thick, writhing tentacles, each one glistening with a round, unblinking eye. Curved tusks sprouted from its mouth, long and sharp and wicked enough to tear a hole through a sandcrawler.

  "It's not like anything I've ever seen in my life," Jacen said.

  Tenel Ka glared down at the monster with a grim expression. "Working together, we can fight it," she said. "Follow!" She dashed down the wide-cut stone steps outside the tall temple.

  The monster let out a bellow of challenge so loud and so horrendous that it seemed to make the ancient stone blocks tremble. The three young Jedi Knights hurried to the ground level, careful not to slip and fall from the steep steps.