5

Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master, gathered his twelve students in the grand audience chamber of the Massassi temple.

Diffuse orange light trickled through the narrow skylights. Lush vines climbed the stone walls, spreading out in verdant webs in the corners. Most of the flat stones were a nonreflective smoky gray; other lozenges of dark green and vermilion and ocher stone ornamented the enormous chamber.

Luke remembered standing here as a young man after their brief victory celebration following the destruction of the Death Star. He smiled as he recalled how Princess Leia had presented medals to him and Han Solo and Chewbacca. Now the grand audience chamber stood empty except for Luke and his small group of Jedi candidates.

Luke watched the students file toward him along the broad promenade. Wearing dark-brown Jedi robes, the candidates walked in eerie silence across the slick floor that had long ago been polished smooth by the mysterious Massassi.

Streen and Gantoris moved first, side by side; Gantoris looked full of self-importance. Of all those Luke had gathered at his Jedi training center, Gantoris had so far shown the most progress, the most inner strength—yet the man from Eol Sha did not seem to realize that he stood at a crossroads. Gantoris would soon need to decide exactly how he would proceed in his growth with the Force.

Behind the two of them came Kirana Ti, one of the young and powerful witches of Dathomir, who had left the other Force-wielding, rancor-riding women on her homeworld to learn better control. Kirana Ti and the other witches had been instrumental in helping him recover an ancient wrecked space station, the Chu’unthor, in which resided many records of old Jedi training—records that Luke had studied to develop exercises for his Jedi trainees.

Beside Kirana Ti came Dorsk 81, a bald green- and yellow-skinned humanoid from a world where all family units were genetically identical, cloned and raised to carry on the status quo. But Dorsk 81, the eighty-first reincarnation of the same genetic attributes, had somehow been dramatically changed. Though he seemed identical in every way, his mind worked differently, his thoughts moved along different paths, and he could feel the Force working through him. With the hope of becoming a Jedi Knight, Dorsk 81 had left his homeworld of identical people for something new.

Then came Kam Solusar, an older man, son of a Jedi that Vader had slaughtered long ago. Solusar had fled the Empire after the great Jedi purge and had spent decades in isolation beyond the inhabited star systems. Upon returning, Solusar had been captured and tortured by evil Jedi, twisted to the dark side of the Force, but Luke had bested him in the game of Lightsider. Solusar had received advanced training in certain areas, but because of his self-imposed exile, he still knew little about many aspects of the Force.

As the rest of the candidates gathered at the raised platform, Luke shrugged back his hood and tried to mask his pride at seeing the group. If he successfully completed their training, these candidates would form the core of a new order of Jedi Knights, champions of the Force, to help protect the New Republic against dark times.

He heard them stirring, not speaking to each other, each one no doubt wrapped up in thoughts of touching the Force, finding new pathways to inner strength and windows to the universe that only Jedi teachings could open for them. Their collective talent amazed him, but he hoped for even more trainees. Soon Han Solo would send his young friend, Kyp Durron; and Luke had strongly hinted for his former opponent Mara Jade to join them, since they had struck an uneasy truce during the battle against Joruus C’baoth.

At the podium Luke tried to stand tall. He found the core of peace inside him that allowed him to speak with a firm voice. “I have brought you here to study and to learn, but I myself am still learning. Every living thing must continue to learn until it dies. Those who cease to learn, die that much sooner.

“Perhaps it was misleading when I called this an ‘academy’ for Jedi. Though I will teach you everything I know, I don’t want you merely to listen to me lecture.

“Your training will be a landscape of self-discovery. Learn new things and share what you have learned with others. I will call this place a praxeum. This word, made up of ancient roots, was first used by the Jedi scholar Karena, distilling the concepts of learning combined with action. Our praxeum, then, is a place for the learning of action. A Jedi is aware, but he does not waste time in mindless contemplation. When action is required, a Jedi acts.”

Luke repositioned a small translucent cube on the raised dais behind him. He ran his fingers over the cool surface of the ancient knowledge repository Leia had stolen from the resurrected Emperor. The Jedi Holocron.

“We will invoke a past Jedi Master from the Holocron,” Luke said. “We have used this device to learn the ways of the old Jedi Knights. Let us see what stories it has for us this morning.”

He activated the precious artifact. In the distant past it had been traditional for each Jedi Master to compile his life’s knowledge and store it within a great repository such as this, which was then passed to one of his students. Luke had only begun to fathom its depths.

An image formed both inside and outside the cube, a half-tangible projection that was more than just a stored bit of data; it was an interactive representation of the Jedi Master—a stubby alien, part insectile, part crustacean. It seemed to be bent with age or too much gravity. Its head extended into a long funnel, like a beak from which dangled whiskery protuberances. Close-set, glassy eyes stared like glittering pinpoints of knowledge.

The creature leaned on a long wooden staff, its legs spindly and knobby as it swiveled its funnellike face to contemplate the new audience. Tattered rags covered its body, sticking out in odd directions like clothing or external skin. Its voice came out in a reedy melody, like high-pitched music played under fast running water.

“I am Master Vodo-Siosk Baas.”

“Master Vodo,” Luke said, “I am Master Skywalker, and these are my apprentices. You have seen many things and recorded many thoughts. We’d be honored if you would tell us something we should know.”

The image of Master Vodo-Siosk Baas hung his beaklike head on a jointed elbow of neck, as if in contemplation. Luke knew that the Holocron was simply uploading and sifting through reams of data, choosing an appropriate story through a personality algorithm stored with the Jedi Master’s image.

“I must tell you of the Great Sith War that occurred—” Here the image paused as the Holocron assessed the current situation. “Four thousand years before your time.

“This war was caused by a student of mine, Exar Kun, who found forbidden teachings of the ancient Sith. He imitated the ways of the long-fallen Sith and used them to form his own philosophy of the Jedi Code, a distortion of all we know to be true and right. With this knowledge Exar Kun established a vast and powerful brotherhood and claimed the title of the first Dark Lord of the Sith.”

Luke stiffened. “Others have claimed that title,” he said, “even to this time.” Including Darth Vader.

Master Vodo-Siosk Baas seemed to lean more heavily on his walking stick. “I had hoped Exar Kun and his kind were defeated once and for all. Exar Kun joined forces with another powerful Jedi and great warlord, Ulic Qel-Droma. Exar Kun worked his invisible threads into the fabric of the Old Republic, bringing downfall through treachery and his distorted abilities with the Force.”

Master Vodo looked at the gathered students. Gantoris seemed incredibly eager to hear more, leaning forward and staring with wide, dark eyes. The image of the long-dead Jedi Master turned to face Luke. “You must warn your students to beware of the temptations of conquest. That is all I can tell you for now.”

The image flickered and wavered. With a feeling of deep uneasiness Luke silenced the Holocron. The images returned to swirling pearlescence inside its cubical walls.

“I think that’s enough for this morning,” Luke said. “We all know that other Jedi have followed the wrong path, bringing not only themselves but millions of innocent lives to doom and suffering. But I trust you. A Jedi must trust himself, and a Jedi Master must trust his apprentices.

“Explore yourselves and your surroundings, in teams or alone, whichever makes you comfortable. Go to the jungle. Go to other parts of this temple. Or simply go back to your chambers. The choice is yours.”

Luke sat down on the edge of the raised stage and watched the students file out of the grand hall. The translucent cube of the Holocron stood mute beside him, a vessel filled with valuable but dangerous knowledge.

Obi-Wan Kenobi had been Luke’s teacher. Luke had listened to every word the old man had said, trusting it; yet Luke had later learned how often Obi-Wan had obscured the facts, had distorted information—or as Obi-Wan explained it, simply offered the truth “from a certain point of view.”

Luke watched the robed forms and wondered if his students could handle the knowledge they might discover. What if, like ancient Exar Kun in Master Vodo’s story, they were tempted to uncover the forbidden teachings of the Sith, that so subtly yet crucially differed from the Jedi Code?

Luke feared what might happen should one of his students travel down the wrong path. But he also knew that he had to trust them—or they could never become Jedi Knights.

Deep into the night Gantoris hunched over the cluttered worktable, secretly constructing his own lightsaber.

A blanket of shadows surrounded him, obliterating distractions that might keep him from his task. His dark eyes had adjusted to the tight-beam glowlamp that spilled a harsh pool of light over his debris-strewn work surface, leaving the rest of the room in murk. As Gantoris moved to pick up another precision tool, his shadow flapped like a bird of prey across the ancient stone walls.

The Great Temple sat silent, like an ancient trap to stifle sound. The other students in Master Skywalker’s Jedi academy—his praxeum, as he called it—had retired to their private chambers to fall into an exhausted sleep or to meditate on Jedi relaxing techniques.

Gantoris’s neck ached, and his shoulder muscles burned from holding his cramped position for hours. He breathed in and out, smelling the thickness of old smoke and the scratchy moss that had worked for millennia to pry through cracks in the precisely placed temple blocks.

The moss had withered not long after Gantoris had taken up residence in the chambers.…

Outside, the jungle of Yavin 4 simmered with restless life, rustling, chittering, singing, and shrieking, as stronger creatures fed, as weaker creatures died.

Gantoris continued to work. He no longer needed sleep. He could draw the energy he required using different methods, secrets he had been taught that the other students did not suspect. His unbraided black hair stuck out in wiry shocks, and an acrid, gunpowdery smell clung to his cloak, his skin.

He focused on the components scattered across the table: silver electronics, dull metal, glinting glass. He slid his fingertips across the cold bits of wire, picked up a sharp-edged microcontrol box with trembling hands. Widening his eyes in annoyance, Gantoris stared at his hands until the trembling stopped, then set to work again.

He understood how the pieces would all fit together. Once he knew, once he had drawn together sufficient Jedi knowledge, everything seemed obvious to him. Obvious.

The elegant energy blade served as the personal weapon of the Jedi, a symbol of authority, skill, and honor. Cruder weapons could cause more random destruction, but no other artifact evoked as much legend and mystery as the lightsaber. Gantoris would settle for nothing else.

Every Jedi built his own lightsaber. It was a rite of passage in the training of a new student. Master Skywalker had not yet begun to teach him, though Gantoris had waited and waited. He knew he was the best of the students—and he chose not to wait any longer.

Master Skywalker did not know everything a true Jedi Master must teach new apprentices. Skywalker had gaps in his knowledge, blank spaces he either did not understand or did not wish to teach. But Master Skywalker was not the only source of Jedi knowledge.…

Once he had forsaken sleep, Gantoris had taken to roaming the halls of the Great Temple, sliding barefoot and in silence along the cold floors that seemed to drink heat, no matter how warm the jungle had become during the day.

Sometimes he wandered out into the rain forest at night, surrounded by mists and singing insects. The dew splashed his feet, his robe, making indecipherable patterns across his body like coded messages. Gantoris walked unarmed, silently daring any predator to challenge him, knowing that his Jedi skills would be proof against mere claws and fangs; but nothing molested him, and only once did he hear a large beast charging away from him through the underbrush.

But the dark and mysterious voice that came to him in his nightmares had given him instructions on how to build a lightsaber. Gantoris had been driven with a new purpose. A true Jedi was resourceful. A true Jedi could make do. A true Jedi found what he needed.

Using his ability to manipulate simple objects, he had broken past the seals into the locked Rebel control rooms in the temple’s lower levels. Banks of machinery, computers, landing-grid panels, and automated defense systems sat covered with grime from a decade of abandonment. Master Skywalker had repaired little of the equipment. Jedi apprentices had no need for most of it.

Quietly and alone, Gantoris had removed access panels, stripped out microcomponents, focusing lenses, laser diodes, and a cylindrical casing twenty-seven centimeters long.…

It had taken him three nights, tearing apart the silent equipment, stirring up dust and spores, sending rodents and arachnids scurrying to safety. But Gantoris had found what he needed.

Now he assembled the pieces.

Under the garish light Gantoris picked up the cylindrical casing. He used a spot laser-welder to cut notches for the control switches.

Each Jedi built his own lightsaber to a range of specifications and personal preferences. Some included safety switches that shut off the glowing blade if the handle was released, while other weapons could be locked on.

Gantoris had a few ideas of his own.

He installed a small but efficient power cell. It snapped into place, connecting precisely. Gantoris sighed, concentrated a moment to still his trembling hands again, then picked up another set of delicate wires.

He flinched, whirling to look behind him in the shadows. He thought he had heard someone breathing, the rustle of dark garments. Gantoris stared with his red-rimmed eyes, trying to discern a dim human form in the corner.

“Speak, if you’re there!” Gantoris cried. His voice sounded harsh, as if he had swallowed burning coals.

When the shadows did not answer him, he sighed with cool relief. His mouth tasted dry, and soreness worked its way through his throat. But he willed away the feeling. He could drink water in the morning. A Jedi endured.

Building the lightsaber was his personal test. He had to do it alone.

Next, he took out the most precious piece of the weapon. Three corusca jewels, cast out from the high-pressure hell of the gas giant Yavin’s core. When he and his addlebrained companion Streen had discovered the new Massassi temple far out in the jungle, Gantoris had found these gems on the steep obsidian walls. Embedded among the hypnotic pictographs etched into the black volcanic glass, the jewels had glinted in the hazy orange daylight.

Though they had remained untouched for thousands of years, these three gems had flaked off as Gantoris stared at them. They fell to his feet in the crushed lava rock surrounding the lost temple. Gantoris had picked up the gems, cupping the warm crystals in his hands as Streen wandered among the obelisks, chattering to himself.

Now Gantoris removed the jewels—one watery pink, another deep red, and the third starkly transparent with an inner electric blue fire along the edges of the facets. He was meant to have these jewels; they were destined for his own lightsaber. He knew that now. He understood all of his former nightmares, his former fears.

Most lightsabers had only a single jewel that focused the pure energy from the power cell into a tight beam. By adding more than one gem, Gantoris’s blade would have unexpected capabilities to surprise Master Skywalker.

Finally, his fingers raw and aching, Gantoris sat up. Pain embroidered firelines across his neck, shoulders, and back, but he washed it away with a simple Jedi exercise. Outside the Great Temple he could hear the changing symphony of jungle sounds as nocturnal creatures found their dens, and daylight animals began to stir.

Gantoris held the cylindrical handle of his lightsaber and inspected it under the glowlamp’s unforgiving light. Craftsmanship was everything in a weapon like this. A barely noticeable variance could cause a disastrous blunder. But Gantoris had done everything right. He had taken no shortcuts, allowed no sloppiness. His weapon was perfect.

He pushed the activator button. With a snap-hiss, the awesome blade thrummed and pulsed like a living creature. The chain of three jewels gave the energy blade a pale purplish hue, white at the core, amethyst at the fringes, with rainbow colors rippling up and down the beam.

Accustomed to the dimness, Gantoris squeezed his eyes to block out the glare, then gradually opened them again, staring in amazement at what he had made.

He moved the blade, and the air crackled around him. The hum sounded like thunder, but none of the other students would hear it through the mammoth thickness of the stone walls. In his grip the blade felt like a winged serpent, sending the sharp scent of ozone curling to his nose.

He slashed back and forth. The lightsaber became a part of him, an extension of his arm connected through the Force to strike down any enemy. He sensed no heat from the vibrating blade, only a cold annihilating fire.

He deactivated the blade, awash in euphoria, and carefully hid the completed lightsaber under his sleeping pallet.

“Now Master Skywalker will see I am a true Jedi,” he said to the shadows along the walls. But no one answered him.