CHAPTER
THIRTY-FIVE

Jacen Solo turned from where he had been leaning on the balcony railing and faced his little brother. “Couldn’t sleep?”

Anakin shook his head as he emerged on the Solos’ balcony. “Nightmares.”

“Of?”

“Dantooine.” Anakin rubbed sleep sand from his eyes. “I keep having this dream where I’m cutting down reptoids right and left, but it’s never enough. They still overrun the refugee camp. When we get there—’cuz you’re in the dream, too—we find a lot of dead people. Chewie and Dad and Mom are among them.”

Jacen sighed. “That’s a nasty one.”

“What do you think it means?”

The older brother shook his head and turned to lean on the balcony railing. “After my experience on Belkadan, I’ve given up trying to figure out what dreams mean. Yours could mean anything. You’re still dealing with Chewie’s death. By the same token, since Mara wasn’t among the dead, could be you’re congratulating yourself over having saved her. I don’t know.”

Anakin joined his brother at the railing and stared out at the lights moving through the Coruscant cityscape. It was hard to believe a month had passed since he had left for Dantooine with Mara. “Mine is clearly a dream. Yours could have been a vision. Uncle Luke thinks it was.”

“Right, but the future changed, so I got drowned and tortured.” He half smiled at his brother. “And since we left Belkadan to come save you, it was probably you that set the future in motion that got me.”

“So I could be dead and you’d be happy?”

“Not what I said, Anakin.” Jacen caught a quick flash of sadness from his younger brother. “And Dad wouldn’t be happy if you were dead, either.”

Anakin snorted. “Have you seen him yet?”

“No, you?”

“No. Threepio thinks he’s ‘inspecting’ cantinas here. Inspecting the bottom of glasses, more like.”

Jacen sighed. “I’m not sure I don’t envy him.”

“What?”

“I’m having nightmares, too, Anakin. Nightmares of Dantooine.”

“Like mine?”

“Sort of.” Jacen scratched at the back of his neck with his right hand. “I’m there, like you, killing and killing and killing. I’m a gatekeeper. The reptoids really need to get to the other side of the gate, and I’m only letting them through in pieces.”

“That’s what you had to do.”

“Did I?” Jacen ducked back as an inebriated swoop jockey buzzed them. “What we did wasn’t noble, it was just butchery. While the control vehicle had them under its sway, they marched forward like droids and we just took them apart. Then, when Uncle Luke destroyed the control vehicle, they went berserk. They were beasts and we just slaughtered them.”

Anakin grabbed hold of Jacen’s left wrist. “But you had no choice. If you didn’t kill them, they would have killed lots more refugees.”

“Yes, I know that. I acknowledge it. I take responsibility for it, but I still have to ask myself what does doing that have to do with becoming a Jedi Knight?” He squeezed his eyes tightly shut. “How did that bring me closer to understanding the Force? How am I now a better Jedi Knight than I was before?”

Anakin’s hand slipped from Jacen’s wrist. “But the job of a Jedi is to safeguard people. There’s no more noble a reason to do anything. You risked your life to save others.”

“Did I? Do you honestly believe any of those reptoids could have seriously hurt us? Over half of Colonel Bril’nilim’s soldiers survived that assault. They aren’t Jedi. We didn’t need to be using lightsabers there, Anakin. We could have been using vibroblades or simple clubs.”

He turned and opened his arms. “And was saving those refugees all that special? We stopped them from dying, but to what end? Does this make them better people than those who died? Are they more noble? Will they learn from this experience and make the universe a better place?”

“I don’t know, Jacen. That’s the future—”

“Which is always in motion.”

“Right. What I do know is that we kept some of them alive. That’s enough for me.”

Jacen nodded slowly. “I know it is, Anakin. I wish it was enough for me, too.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know.” Jacen lowered his voice to a whisper as anguish poured off Anakin. “Look, Anakin, you did wonderfully on Dantooine. You learned a lot. You took good care of Mara. You kept her alive under very difficult circumstances. You really are a hero because of all that and everything you did to fend off the reptoids. I’m not trying to take anything away from you or what you did. I want you to understand that.”

“Okay.” Anakin folded his arms across his chest. “What about you?”

“That’s just it. I don’t know.” He pressed his fingertips to his temples. “I thought that going off on my own would be the key to getting closer to the Force; but then I saw the slaves and had to act. The Force sends me a vision and I act on it, only to have things go wrong. But, from that wrong came the right of saving you and Mara on Dantooine, and being there to help hold off the reptoids. It’s as if I’m walking around in a circle, circling around the goal I want. Sometimes it seems as if I need to be alone, and others I’m thrust into the heroic mold that has shaped and consumed Uncle Luke. I know there are other approaches, but I don’t know if they are right for me.”

Anakin frowned for a moment. “Sounds like you’re trying to plot a course without knowing what your final destination is.”

“Huh?”

The younger Solo boy made a circle in the air with his right index finger. “You said you were circling your goal, but you never defined it. You never said what it was. Me, I want to be a Jedi Knight, just like Uncle Luke and others before him. I don’t know what you want, and I don’t think you do, either.”

Jacen nodded. “That’s how I feel, but I think it’s because I want to be something more. I don’t know what it is, but I guess I think there’s something more to the Jedi order than we’ve been able to recover. I know it’s out there, but I don’t know what it is.”

“Then it could be that going off and thinking about it isn’t going to get you closer to your goal.”

Jacen cocked an eyebrow at Anakin. “How is it that you’re so philosophical all of a sudden?”

The younger boy blushed. “On Dantooine, when Mara made me stop using the Force like a crutch, I had a lot of time to think about things. I realized I was using the Force too much. Uncle Luke uses it like an adviser or sometimes a power source. Others use it like a vibroblade, some like an opinion poll, and yet others like a whole variety of tools. I thought a lot about all that, and I guess I chose to follow in Uncle Luke’s footsteps.

“That’s not an easy path.”

“Easy isn’t for Jedi.” Anakin smiled. “Of course, trying to find your own path is much more difficult. Maybe what you have to do is to walk a bit on the other paths and see how you can weave bits and pieces of them together.”

Anakin’s comment found echoes in Luke’s admonishment that Jacen was still young and lacking in experience. Perhaps I do need to explore more of the Jedi ways and get to know myself better. He realized that while he was more judicious in his use of the Force than Anakin, he didn’t really know how he would function without it. Can I truly discover how to integrate myself with the Force if I do not know who I am without it?

Jacen reached out and tousled his brother’s hair. “Look, one thing, no matter what I think about what we did at Dantooine, I was proud to have you at my side. I don’t know what I’ll be in the future, Anakin, but I know you’ll be a great Jedi Knight. I have confidence that you will succeed, no matter what life throws at you.”

Anakin sharpened his eyes. “Are you really Jacen, or some Yuuzhan Vong in an ooglith masquer?”

Jacen threw an arm around his little brother’s shoulders. “For now, I’m Jacen Solo.” What I will be in the future, however, is anyone’s guess.