Champions of the Force

by Kevin J. Anderson

  "Or," Leia said, "waiting for us to find a way to help him return."

  "I don't know how," Cilghal said in a thin, husky voice. "None of us knows — yet. But perhaps working together we can figure it out."

  "Do you have any inkling about what really happened?" Leia asked. "Have you found any clues?"

  She could sense the sudden spike of Han's turmoil. Cilghal looked away with her big Calamarian eyes, but Han answered with grim certainty. "It was Kyp. Kyp did this."

  "What?" Leia said, whirling to stare at him.

  Han answered in a tumble of words. "The last time I saw Luke, he told me he was afraid for Kyp." Han swallowed hard. "He said that Kyp had started dabbling in the dark side. The kid stole Mara Jade's ship and took off somewhere. I think Kyp came back here and challenged Luke."

  "But why?" Leia asked. "What for?"

  Cilghal nodded, as if her head were too heavy for her. "We did find the stolen ship in front of the temple. It is still here, so we don't know how he flew away again ... unless he fled into the jungles."

  "Is that likely?" Leia asked.

  Cilghal shook her head. "We Jedi trainees have pooled our talents and searched. We do not detect his presence on Yavin 4. He must have left on another ship somehow."

  "But where would he get another ship?" Leia asked, but suddenly she remembered astonished New Republic astronomers reporting the impossible news that an entire group of stars in the Cauldron Nebula had gone supernova at the same time.

  She whispered, "Could Kyp have resurrected the Sun Crusher from the core of Yavin?"

  Han blinked. "How could he possibly do that?"

  Cilghal hung her head gravely. "If Kyp Durron has managed that, then his power is far greater even than we feared. No wonder he was able to defeat Master Skywalker."

  Han shuddered, as if afraid to accept what he knew was true. Leia could sense his emotions like a maelstrom within him. "If Kyp is on the loose with the Sun Crusher," he said, "then I'll have to go and stop him."

  Leia snapped around to look at him, thinking how Han always leaped headfirst into challenges.

  "Are you getting delusions of grandeur again? Why does it have to be you?"

  "I'm the only one he might listen to," he said. He looked aside, staring down at Luke's cadaverous face. She saw his lips trembling.

  "Look, if Kyp doesn't listen to me, then he won't listen to anyone — and he'll be lost forever. If his power is as great as Cilghal thinks, that kid is not an enemy the New Republic can afford to have." He gave one of his lopsided grins. "Besides, I taught him everything he knows about flying that ship. He couldn't possibly do anything to me."

  It was a somber dinner with the Jedi trainees.

  Han used the Falcon's food synthesizers to create a repast of heavy Corellian food. Leia picked at some spiced, fried strips of a woolamander that Kirana Ti had hunted in the jungle. The twins stuffed themselves with messy fruits and berries. Dorsk 81 devoured a bland and unappealing—looking meal of heavily processed food cubes.

  Conversation was minimal, little more than forced pleasantries. They all feared to discuss what really preoccupied them — until Kam Solusar said in a hard—edged voice, "We hoped you would bring us news, Minister Organa Solo. Give us some guidance as to what we should do here. We are Jedi students with no Master. We've learned a little, but not enough to continue training on our own."

  Tionne broke in. "I'm not sure we should try to learn things we don't understand. Look what happened to Gantoris! He was consumed by some evil thing he inadvertently found. And what about Kyp Durron? What if we get lured to the dark side without knowing it?"

  Old Streen stood up and shook his head. "No, no. He's here! Don't you hear the voices?" When everyone turned to look at him, Streen sat down and hunched his shoulders, as if trying to hide under the Jedi robe. He snuffled and cleared his throat before continuing. "I can hear him. He's whispering to me now. He talks to me always. I can't get away from him."

  Leia felt a rush of hope. "Luke? You can hear Luke talking to you?"

  "No!" Streen whirled at her. "The Dark Man. A dark man, a shadow. He talked to Gantoris. He talked to Kyp Durron. You shine the light, but the shadow always stays, whispering, talking." Streen placed his hands against his ears and pressed his temples.

  "This is too dangerous," Kirana Ti said, knitting her eyebrows. "On Dathomir I've seen what happens when a large group falls to the dark side. The evil witches on my planet made things terrible for centuries — and the galaxy was saved only because they had no spaceflight. If the witches had managed to spread their dark workings from star system to star system ..."

  "Yes, we should all stop our Jedi exercises," Dorsk 81 said, blinking his large yellow eyes. "This was a bad idea. We shouldn't have even tried."

  Leia slapped both her hands hard on the table. "Stop this talk!" she said. "Luke would be ashamed to hear his students saying such things. With attitudes like that, you'll never become Jedi Knights."

  She fumed. "Yes, there is a risk. There will always be risks. You've seen what happens to someone who isn't careful — but that simply means you must be careful. Don't be seduced by the dark side. Learn from the sacrifice that Gantoris made. Learn from how Kyp Durron was tempted. Learn from the sacrifices your Master made in an attempt to protect you all."

  She stood and looked at each one of them. Some flinched. Some met her gaze.

  "You are the new generation of Jedi Knights," she continued. "That is a great burden, but you must bear it, because the New Republic needs you. The old Jedi protected the Republic for a thousand generations. How can you give up after the first challenge?"

  "You have to be the champions of the Force, with or without your Jedi Master. Learn as Luke learned: step by step. You must work together, discover the things you don't know, fight what has to be fought. But the one thing you can't do is give up!"

  "She is right," Cilghal said in her maddeningly calm voice. "If we surrender, the New Republic will have one less weapon against evil in the galaxy. Even if some of us fail, the rest of us must succeed."

  "Do or do not," Kirana Ti said, and Tionne finished the phrase that Master Skywalker had drilled into them. "There is no try."

  Her heart pounding, her stomach watery, Leia slowly sat down. The twins stared at their mother in amazement, and Han gripped her hand in admiration. She breathed deeply, began to let herself relax —

  When suddenly a strangling outcry of death shattered her soul. It sounded like an avalanche within the Force, an outcry of thousands upon thousands of lives wiped out in an instant. Around the table the other Jedi candidates, all those sensitive to the Force, clutched at their chests or their ears.

  Streen let out a long wail. "It's too many, too many!"

  Leia's blood burned through her veins. Painful claws skittered down her spine, plucking her nerves and sending jolts through her body. Both of the Jedi twins were crying.

  Baffled, Han grabbed Leia's shoulders and shook her. "What is it, Leia? What happened?" He apparently had felt nothing. "What?"

  She gasped. "It was ... a great disturbance... in the Force. Something terrible just happened."

  With a cold wash of dread Leia thought of young Kyp Durron, turned to the dark side and now armed with the Sun Crusher.

  "Something terrible," she said again, but she could not answer Han's other questions.

  The Force moved through all things, weaving the universe into an invisible tapestry that tied the smallest living creature to the largest star cluster. Synergy made the total far greater than the sum of its parts.

  And when one of those threads was torn, ripples spread through the entire web. Actions and reactions ... great shock waves that affected all who could hear.

  The destruction of Carida screamed through the Force, building power as it reflected off other sensitive minds. It rose to a tumult that struck —

  And woke.

  Sensory perceptions rushed back to Luke Skywalker like a storm, freeing him from the smot
hering nothingness that had trapped and frozen him. His final shout still echoed in his ears, but now he felt strangely numb.

  The last thing he remembered was the serpent—shaped tendrils of black Force wrapping around him. Rising from the summons of Exar Kun and Luke's misguided student Kyp Durron, the serpents of Sith power had sunk their fangs into hm. Luke had been unable to resist their combined might. He had tried to use his lightsaber, but even that had failed.

  Luke had fallen into a bottomless pit deeper than any of the black holes in the Maw cluster. He did not know how long he had been powerless. He remembered only an emptiness, a coldness ... until something had jarred him loose.

  Now, as the sudden clamor of sensory impressions filled him, it took him some time to sort out and make sense of what he could see: the walls of the grand audience chamber, the lozenge—shaped stones, the translucent tiles set out in hypnotic patterns, the long promenade and the empty benches spread like frozen waves on the floor, where once the entire Rebel Alliance had celebrated their victory over the first Death Star.

  Luke's head buzzed, and he felt giddy. He wondered why he should feel so insubstantial, until he looked down — and saw his own body still lying prone and motionless below him, eyes closed, face expressionless.

  Astonishment and disbelief blurred Luke's vision, but he forced himself to focus again on his own features. He saw the faded scars from when the wampa ice creature had attacked him on Hoth. His body was still draped with the brown Jedi robe, his hands crossed lightly on his chest. The lightsaber lay at his hip, a cylinder of silent plasteel, crystals, and electronic components.

  "What's going on?" Luke said out loud. "Hello?"

  He heard the words thrum through his head like vibrating transmissions, but they made no sound at all in the air.

  Finally Luke looked at himself — the part of himself that was aware — and saw an insubstantial image, like a ghost reflection of his body, as if he had reconstructed a hologram using his impression of what he looked like. His spectral arms and legs appeared to be garbed in a flowing Jedi robe, but the colors were washed—out and weak. Everything was sketched with a lambent blue glow that sparkled as he moved.

  With a rush of awe and astonishment Luke suddenly knew what had happened. Several times he had encountered wavering spirits of Obi—Wan Kenobi and Yoda, and his own father, Anakin Skywalker.

  Was he dead, then? It sounded ludicrous because he didn't feel dead — but he had no point of comparison. He recalled how Obi—Wan's and Yoda's and Anakin's bodies had all vanished upon their deaths: Obi—Wan and Yoda leaving only crumpled robes, Anakin Skywalker leaving only the empty body armor of Darth Vader.

  Why, then, had his own body remained intact, stretched out on the raised platform? Could it be because he was not yet entirely a Jedi Master, completely given over to the Force — or could it be that he was not truly dead?

  Luke heard a whirring as the turbolift rose to the top chamber. The sound seemed eerie and unnatural, as if he were using senses other than his ears to hear.

  The turbolift doors slid open. Artoo—Detoo extended his front wheeled foot and rolled out, moving slowly, almost respectfully, along the polished stone promenade. The droid proceeded toward the raised platform.

  Luke's shimmering image stood in front of his body where it lay in state, and he watched with joy as the little astromech droid came to him.

  "Artoo, am I glad to see you!" he said. He expected the droid to bleep with wild excitement. But Artoo gave no indication that he heard or detected Luke.

  "Artoo?"

  Artoo—Detoo trundled up the ramp to Luke's shrouded body. The droid hooted, a low, mournful sound that expressed deep grief — if droids could feel such emotions. It tore Luke apart to see his mechanical friend looking at the body; his optical receptor winked from red to blue and back again.

  Luke realized that the droid was taking readings, checking on his body's condition. He wondered if Artoo would detect anything different, now that Luke's spirit had been set free; but the droid gave no sign.

  Luke attempted to move over to Artoo, to touch the polished barrel—shaped body. It took him a moment to figure out how to move his ghostly "legs." His image skimmed across the floor with a dizzying fluidity. But when he stroked Artoo, his hand passed directly through.

  He felt no contact with the plasteel of the droid's body, no sensation of the floor against his ethereal feet. Luke tried walking completely through the droid, hoping somehow to scramble Artoo's sensors, but Artoo continued to take readings, unperturbed.

  The droid gave another sad hoot as if in farewell, then spun around and whirred slowly back toward the turbolift.

  Luke called out. "Wait, Artoo!" But he held little hope the droid would hear.

  A quick idea came to him: rather than using his illusory hands, he reached out with the Force. He thought of how he and Gantoris had used little nudges from the Force to rattle metal antennas in the airborne ruins of Tibannopolis on Bespin.

  Luke reached out invisibly to tap Artoo's shell, hoping to make a loud spang that would at least let the droid know something was amiss. He pushed and thumped with all his intangible might, and succeeded only in what he thought was a barely audible bump against the droid's metal casing.

  Artoo paused, but while Luke gathered strength to make another Force assault, the droid dismissed the unexplained sound and entered the turbolift. Inside the turbolift, Artoo turned his optical sensor once more toward the body of his master, made a low, sliding whistle, and then the doors whisked closed. Luke heard the humming of the platform as it dropped back down to the lower levels of the Great Temple.

  Luke stood in the echoing grand audience chamber all alone — awake again, but insubstantial and apparently powerless. He would have to find some other way to solve his predicament.

  He looked out through the temple skylights into the blackness of the jungle moon's deep night, and he wondered what he could do to save himself.

  With a Wookiee bellow of impatience, Chewbacca urged the last members of the Special Forces team onto the remaining troop transport. The other transports had been shuttling up and down from Coruscant orbit all day, carrying weapons, equipment, and personnel to the strike force already assembled in space.

  The heavily armed battle group consisted of one escort frigate and four Corellian corvettes — enough firepower to occupy the secret Imperial think tank, Maw Installation, and to overcome any resistance from the weapons scientists stranded there.

  The last three stragglers hustled up the ramp, clad in light armor and securing tight packs onto their shoulders. Chewbacca watched the soldiers strap into theirthe seats before he punched the All Clear button to raise the boarding ramp.

  "Your impatience is not helping, Chewbacca," See—Threepio said. "The tension level is already substantial, and you're simply making things worse. I have a bad feeling about this mission already."

  Chewbacca growled at him, disregarding his comment. Impatient, he picked up the droid and dropped him with a metallic clatter into the only remaining spare seat — which was, unfortunately, next to Chewbacca's own.

  "Indeed!" Threepio said as he dutifully hooked himself in. "I'm doing my best. This isn't my area of expertise, you know."

  Chewbacca settled into a seat that had never been designed to accommodate a creature of his massive proportions. He bent his hairy knees nearly to chest level. He wished he could be with Han in the Millennium Falcon, but Han and Leia had gone to see Luke Skywalker, and Chewbacca felt his stronger duty was to go rescue the Wookiee prisoners left inside Maw Installation.

  The rest of the assault team shifted in their seats, looking around, double—checking their mental lists of equipment and procedures. Page's Commandos, a crack assault troop, would be handling most of the front — line mission, with plenty of New Republic firepower to back them up. The Special Operations Commander, General Crix Madine, had given the Special Forces thorough briefings on strategy for the planned occupation. The sold
iers were fully trained and competent.

  Chewbacca just wished the pilot would hurry up and take off. He blew out a long sigh through his rubbery lips, thinking uneasily of Han. He had waited a long time for an opportunity to rescue the tortured Wookiee slaves, though.

  When he, Han, and young Kyp Durron had been captured by Admiral Daala at Maw Installation, Chewbacca had been forced to work with captive Wookiees aboard the Star Destroyers and down in the Installation itself. The Wookiees had been imprisoned for more than ten years, working at hard labor, and the resistance had gone out of them. The thought of their ruined lives made Chewbacca's blood boil.

  Not long ago, with Threepio's dubious abilities as translator, Chewbacca had addressed the New Republic Council. He urged them to occupy the Installation and rescue the Wookiee prisoners, as well as to keep the new weapon designs from falling into Imperial hands. Seeing Mon Mothma's support, the Council had agreed.

  With a mechanical whir and a thump of metal against metal, the landing struts of the transport drew up inside the hull. With a lurch the transport rose on its repulsorlifts, then headed off the landing platform, rising into the sky as the metropolis of Imperial City glittered below.

  Threepio began talking to himself. Chewbacca marveled at how sophisticated the droid's electronic brain must be to consistently find so many things to complain about.

  "I simply don't understand why Mistress Leia ordered me to go with you. I am always happy to serve in any capacity, naturally, but I could have assisted greatly in watching the children while she visited Master Luke on Yavin 4. I've been doing a good job of taking care of the twins, haven't I?"

  Chewbacca grunted. Threepio continued. "True, we misplaced them at the Holographic Zoo for Extinct Animals, but that was only one time, and it all turned out right in the end." He swiveled his golden head.