by John Whitman
moment longer.
She hadn't told anyone about Aidan. There hadn't been time. And, she
thought, it might be too difficult to explain.
The ghost seemed to read her mind. "It will always be difficult, Tash.
There will always be those who do not want to understand the Force. But you'll
be fine." He smiled.
Now that Tash had a chance to catch her breath, she noticed that the Jedi
ghost had changed. His face no longer looked haunted, and his cheeks had
fleshed out. He now looked completely distinct-hardly like a ghost at all,
except that a faint glowing light surrounded his body.
"Your wounds are gone," Tash noticed.
The ghost nodded. "Thanks to you. Soon I'll leave this place, to join
with those Jedi who have passed into the Force. You helped me remember that
the Force is always with me. Wounds-all wounds-eventually heal. Only the Force
lasts forever."
"The Force," she whispered. "I can't believe it's real. I mean, I can't
believe it's with me. What do I do?"
"Follow your heart. Seek help from those around you," Aidan replied. In
the dim light of the docking bay, he seemed to fade.
"Like who?" Tash asked. "My brother? He's only just now starting to think
the Force is real."
Aidan smiled again. "He may surprise you. Goodbye, Tash."
"Wait!" she called out. "I have a million questions. What do you mean
about Zak?"
But the ghost of the Jedi was gone.
Tash lingered inside Nespis 8 a moment longer. She would never forget
that in those dark, haunted hallways, she had finally touched the Force. She
turned and hurried into the ship.
Long after the echoes of the Shroud's engines had faded from Nespis 8,
the scream of Imperial TIE fighters made its walls shiver. The rumble of Star
Destroyers nearly shook its foundations to shards. A battalion of
stormtroopers swarmed over the abandoned space station. Once it was secure, a
single shuttle cruised ominously on board, and a black-armored figure stepped
out.
Darth Vader stopped. He reached out with the dark side of the Force,
scanning the station. In an instant, he knew they had come too late. His
assassin, Domisari, was dead.
Hoole and his companions were no longer there. Gog was nowhere to be
found-Vader was sure he was dead. His dark mind swept over the morgue, where
Gog's machinery still smoldered. Instantly, the Dark Lord knew what Gog had
been trying to do.
"Fool," the man in the mask told himself. "There is only one way to
master the Force, and that is through the dark side."
Vader was about to turn back into the ship when he paused. He felt
something... a disturbance in the Force. It was tiny, almost insignificant.
But it was there, like a footprint left in the sand.
Another Jedi?
No, Vader told himself. He had destroyed all the Jedi. He had even killed
one here, on Nespis 8, years ago. That's what he must have felt. The echoes of
that long-ago battle.
He turned to a waiting stormtrooper. "Recall your men, commander. Nespis
8 is dead."
With a swirl of his cape, the Dark Lord returned to his ship and
departed.
Had he lingered a moment longer, Vader might have detected something deep
in the bowels of the space station. At the bottom of a deep ventilation shaft,
in darkness as profound as a black hole, a figure stirred. The fingers of a
burned and blackened hand twitched, and a dark eye opened...
