EPILOGUE

The next time I saw Luke was about three days later. I met him in the Governor’s palace not quite by chance. I’d been going to see him, but felt him speaking to the Saarai-kaar, so I headed up to the roof and the shuttle pad. I was looking out over Yumfla’s night sky and up at the brilliant curved planetary ring stretching up and out from the horizon. Beyond the ring the stars looked so bright and so inviting, and the space between them so black and cold.

“There you are, Corran.” Luke smiled as he came up onto the roof. “Your wife’s right, brown is better for your hair.”

I raked my fingers back through it. “Yeah. Gonna let it grow out a bit, too. Can’t decide on the goatee and moustache, though.”

“I’d get rid of it.” Luke shrugged and joined me at the wall. “I had been hoping to see you over the past couple of days.”

“Sorry, Mirax and I were … checking out the Pulsar Skate and making sure it was prepped for the trip back to Coruscant.” I pointed vaguely off toward the starport. “We can give you a ride back, if you want.”

“No. You’ll want time alone—or more time alone—and Elegos has learned of the Alderaanian ritual of leaving grave goods in the Graveyard. Ooryl and I are going to head to Kerilt, pick up Elegos’ daughter, Releqy, and take them to where they can leave things for Ylenic It’kla.”

I nodded. “I’ll have to make that trip, too, at some point. Leave something for Ylenic in my grandfather’s name.”

“I think that would please both of them.” The Jedi Master glanced up at the stars. “After that I think I’d like to help Rogue Squadron find the Invidious and end Tavira’s career.”

I shrugged. “Without the Jensaarai she’ll just be another proto-warlord running around out there. Someone will get her—New Republic probably. Maybe she’ll anger Pellaeon and he’ll do us a favor by taking her toy away from her.”

“That would be convenient, certainly.” Luke fell silent, for a moment, then rested his hands on the top of the restraining wall. “There’s something important I need to discuss with you.”

“Me, too.” I gave him a smile. I’d spent a fair amount of time thinking about my life and my father’s “man in the mirror” saying. I actually did recognize myself, which was good, but it forced some hard choices. I shrugged. “I’m not going to go back to the academy. I’m not going to be a Jedi full time.”

“Interesting.”

I arched an eyebrow at him. “Interesting?”

“Yes. I was going to ask you not to return to the academy.”

My mouth gaped open in shock for a second. “I wasn’t that disruptive, was I?”

The Jedi Master shook his head. “Not at all. You see, you had training all your life that directed you toward a goal that I’m trying to train my recruits for. You have a grounding that means learning to use the Jedi techniques and tools just adds another layer to you. It provides you with more things to do, things you already are well trained to do. On the way here you pointed out that Nejaa often went about as a regular man, solving problems and only using his Jedi abilities when needed—precisely because he had the other skills needed to do these jobs and didn’t have to rely upon his Jedi skills.”

I smiled as I unraveled what he meant. When the only tool you have is a hydrospanner, every problem looks like something that needs to be torqued. “I think I get what you’re saying.”

“I’d expect that of a detective.” Luke laughed lightly. “You figured out Exar Kun had to be behind Gantoris’ death and the trouble on Yavin 4 because you were a trained investigator. I missed all the evidence you saw, or didn’t want to believe it because I didn’t see how it fit together. That ‘fitting together’ training is some of what the new Jedi will need. The regimen that gets created to provide it won’t give you anything.”

“You could well be right.”

He folded his arms across his chest. “So why is it that you won’t be coming back?”

I shifted my shoulders uneasily. “It kind of gets back to what you said about Nejaa, and to part of what I did to Tavira to get her out of here. The place where I can do the greatest good right now, I think, is with Rogue Squadron. Look at you, you’re always being called away to solve some galaxy-threatening problem, having to leave the academy in someone else’s hands when training more Jedi is what you’d most like to be doing. By remaining Corran Horn and staying with Rogue Squadron, I can use my abilities where they will be critical for missions, and yet I won’t be pulled in all sorts of different directions.”

“And you will be able to remain on Coruscant and start a family.”

“Among other things.” I smiled, recalling fondly how much checking out and how little real work Mirax and I had gotten done on the Skate. “Part of what frightened Tavira off was the fact that she didn’t believe the Sun Crusher had been destroyed. The fact that she knew it was out there but couldn’t find it had her convinced it was hunting her. I guess, by staying hidden, I’ll be a surprise waiting for anyone who needs one.”

“So Keiran Halcyon dies here?”

“Not dies, just fades away. Few enough people know I’m him that keeping it a secret shouldn’t really be difficult.” I reached out and rested my right hand on Luke’s shoulder. “You need Keiran for anything, he’ll be there. You need Corran Horn for anything, he’ll be there. Fact of the matter is, without you, I’d be dead, Mirax would still be imprisoned and Tavira would be raiding away.”

Luke smiled. “And without you, I’d be on a slab in a temple on Yavin 4. We’re even. No harm came to my niece and nephew during that time, so I may even owe you.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.” I gave him a big smile. “There’s one more thing I want to do to wrap this whole thing up, with your permission.”

Luke nodded. “Name it.”

I did.

I leveled the X-wing out at what Whistler reported to be nineteen point five two meters above the Yavin 4 landscape and hovered there, eyeball to eyeball with Exar Kun’s statue. It actually stood a good five hundred meters off the X-wing’s nose, but those hollow black eyes watched me intensely.

I gave him a big smile.

“Whistler, you got all sensors on full record and you’re feeding the data back to the Skate at the Great Temple?”

His curt blat reminded me that he didn’t forget orders—or go gallivanting off around the galaxy leaving friends behind to be worried circuit-worn about him.

I nodded. “We are good to go and clear to fire.” I flicked the weapons-control over to proton torpedoes and set it for single fire. I dropped my targeting reticle over Exar Kun’s face, then cut my comm unit feed. I didn’t mind folks watching what I was doing, but what I had to say, that was just for me and Exar Kun.

“I know you’re gone, but I also know you planned for that, someday. This temple might be an archeological find of great value, a monument of untold wonder, but it’s also a monument to evil. You used it to infect Kyp, and mere impressions made of the glyphs infected the dark Jedi who killed my grandfather. Your evil created the Jensaarai, and even though they rose above it, people have still suffered and died because of it.

“But this isn’t revenge, which you would have liked. Nope, this is simply a precaution.” I settled my finger on the trigger. “Wouldn’t leave a lightsaber around where a kid could find it, and this temple to you is a million more times dangerous than that.”

I pulled the trigger and sent a proton torpedo streaking out at the statue. The warhead detonated when it hit the bridge of his nose, shattering his skull into thousands of fragments that sprayed out in a shower of sparks and cloud of whitish smoke. The bits and pieces of Exar Kun’s head rained down in a narrow triangle, smashing the lake’s mirror-like surface, forever breaking up the last intact images of that island.

Two more proton torpedoes took Exar Kun off at waist and knees, then I shot the rest of them into the base of the obelisk on which he had stood. It toppled wonderfully, breaking into pieces as it went. The chunks slammed into the ground and crushed walls, then bounced around inside the temple, pulverizing slab after slab of Sith writings. Some eventually ricocheted high enough to escape the temple itself, splashing down in the cold dark lake.

Switching to lasers, I raked fire back and forth across the temple, heating rock until it ran like water. Great clouds of steam rose up as stone sloughed off walls and sank, formless and unshaped and now unblemished by Sith scribings. When I was done only the island itself remained: still black as night, but now all soft and curving, no longer angular, no longer strong.

No longer a place of power, just a tranquil spot in a lake that would once again reflect the stars, and now could reflect their peace.

I flipped my comm unit back on. “This is Rogue Nine. Mission accomplished.”

Mirax’s voice filled my helmet. “We got that, Rogue Nine. Master Skywalker says ‘Well done.’ ”

“Thank him for me. It was my pleasure.” I smiled. “Exar Kun is done, the Invids have fled, this temple is gone and you’re home again. Only one last bit of business and all of this can be over.”

“And that is?”

“And that is the toughest bit of all, my love,” I laughed, “we have to tell your father our first child will not be named for him.”