Lightsabers

2

Jaina paid attention to her uncle Luke’s words with only half a mind, the rest of her concentration focusing on the problem of where to get the precious components for building her very own lightsaber.

She and her brother, along with Lowie and Tenel Ka, were in one of the upper solariums in the Great Temple, a room made of polished marble slabs inset with semiprecious stones. Bright light streamed through tall, narrow windows that had been chiseled into the stone blocks by ancient Massassi tribesmen.

Luke Skywalker sat nearby on a deep window ledge, uncharacteristically relaxed and boyish. He enjoyed being with a small group of trainees, especially his niece and nephew and their friends, talking about things that interested him.

“You may have heard about Jedi Masters during the Clone Wars who were able to fashion lightsabers in only a day or two, using whatever raw materials were at hand,” Luke said. “But don’t get the idea that your weapon is a quick little project to be slapped together. Ideally, a Jedi took many months to construct a single perfect weapon that he or she would keep and use for a lifetime. Once you build it, the lightsaber will become your constant companion, your tool, and a ready means of defense.”

He stood up from his seat on the window ledge. “The components are fairly simple. Every lightsaber has a standard power source, the same type used in small blasters, even in glowpanels. They last a long time, though, because Jedi should rarely use their lightsabers.”

“Got some of those power sources in my room,” Jaina said. “Spare parts, you know.”

“One of the other crucial pieces,” Luke continued, “is a focusing crystal. The most powerful and sought-after gems are rare kaiburr crystals. However, though lightsabers are powerful weapons, their design is so flexible that practically any kind of crystal can be used. And, since I don’t happen to have a stash of kaiburr crystals”—he smiled—“you’ll have to make do with something else, of your own choosing.”

Luke held out the handle of his own lightsaber, sliding his palm over the smooth grip, then igniting it with a startling snap-hiss. The brilliant yellow-green blade drowned out even the bright sunlight in the room.

“This is not my first lightsaber.” Luke drew it back and forth through the empty air so that its hum changed frequency. “Note the color of its blade. I lost my first lightsaber years ago … my father’s lightsaber.” He swallowed and seemed to struggle against a dark memory from his past. Jaina knew the story of how Luke had lost his other lightsaber during a duel with Darth Vader on Cloud City. In that terrible fight Luke Skywalker had lost not only his lightsaber, but his hand as well.

“My first weapon had a pale blue beam. The colors vary, according to the frequencies of the crystals used. Darth Vader’s lightsaber”—he drew a deep breath—“my father’s lightsaber was a deep scarlet.”

Jaina nodded solemnly. She remembered fighting Vader’s holographic image on the Shadow Academy—though it had actually been her own brother Jacen in disguise. Her lightsaber experiences had not been pleasant on the Imperial station … and now her feelings about the energy blades were even more confused. Her friend Zekk had also been taken by Brakiss and the Second Imperium. Jaina knew she would have to fight to get him back.

Luke continued, “One of my students, Cilghal, a Calamarian like Admiral Ackbar, made her lightsaber with smooth curves and protrusions, as if the handle had been grown from metallic coral. Inside, she used a rare ultima-pearl, one of the treasures found in the seabeds of her watery planet.

“My first true failure as a teacher was another student named Gantoris. He built his lightsaber in only a few intense days, following instructions given to him by the evil spirit of Exar Kun. Gantoris thought he was ready, and my mistake was not seeing what he was up to.

“You, my young Jedi Knights, must be different. I can’t wait any longer to train you. You must learn how to build your lightsabers—and how to use them—in the right way. The galaxy has changed, and you must meet the challenge. A true Jedi is forced to adapt or be destroyed.”

Tenel Ka spoke up. “Where will we find these crystals to build our weapons, Master Skywalker?” she asked. “Are they lying on the ground?”

Luke smiled. “Perhaps. Or it’s possible they could be scavenged from old equipment left here from when this place was a Rebel base. Or maybe you already have resources you haven’t yet realized.” He shot a quick look at Jacen, but Jaina couldn’t decipher what the glance meant.

“I’d like you to start on your lightsabers immediately.” Luke switched off his throbbing weapon and looked down at its handle. “But I hope you’ll need to use your weapons only rarely … if ever.”

A few days later, Jaina sat hunched over her worktable inside her quarters. She had strung up extra glowpanels to allow her sufficient illumination to work through the night. Dozens of tools and pieces of equipment lay on the tabletop, arranged in a careful order so that she knew where every component, every wire and circuit might be found.

After Jaina had given each of her friends an appropriate power source to build their own lightsabers, the young Jedi Knights had split up to search for the precious crystals and other components that would make their new weapons function. Jaina, though, wanted to make the lightsaber particularly hers, a symbolic extension of her unique personality. She would make it from scratch in a way that the others would never attempt. She smiled at her own ingenuity.

Dark smoke rose from the portable furnace she had brought in, and she blinked to clear the chemical fumes from her eyes as she bent over it. Carefully, she added the next batch of powdered elements in the precise mixture her datapad suggested. She drew on her Force powers, amplifying her vision to observe the chemicals interacting, to watch them bond into a tight, organized lattice.

The precisely pure crystals began to grow….

She adjusted the temperature, watching intently, though the process of crystalline growth took hours. She focused her mind on shaping the facets as they emerged from the molten mixture in the furnace, making the planes tilt at appropriate angles. The growing crystals gobbled up and stored the extra energy pumped into the mixture by the furnace.

Finally, by morning, her eyes bloodshot and gritty from lack of sleep, Jaina shut down the system. She let the furnace cool until she could reach in and take out her beautiful, sparkling crystals.

They were a rich purplish blue, shimmering with inner energy. They had formed perfectly, as she had expected, guided by her own mental skills. She held them in her palm and smiled. Now for the next step.

The tip of Jacen’s tongue stuck out between his lips as he focused with unaccustomed concentration on the mechanical task at hand. It had already taken him a week to get this far.

He wanted to rush through the project, jam the components into place, connect the power, and turn on his lightsaber—his own lightsaber—but he took Uncle Luke’s words seriously. This was a weapon he would use for the rest of his life, the weapon of a Jedi. A few weeks didn’t seem so long to invest in creating it.

Much as it went against his nature to do so, Jacen forced himself to be meticulous and patient, knowing that he had to make sure everything fit together just so in the precise configuration required.

He had the power source Jaina had given him, and it was easy to find pieces of metal in the right shape and size to form the casing. He used Jaina’s tools to cut the pieces into interlocking configurations and file down the rough edges. After a few days of doing that, he installed the power source, connecting all the leads. Then he added the control buttons.

Jaina could have whipped the casing together in just a few minutes, but it took him days to gather all the parts. Now, even though his scavenger hunt was over, it still seemed to take forever to assemble the thing.

Jacen would rather have been outside hunting for more specimens to add to his menagerie—or better yet, playing with the ones that cheerfully bounced about in their cages, often housed mere centimeters from other creatures that would gladly have had them for breakfast.

He heard the crystal snake rustling in its repaired cage, and then one of the reptile birds began to chirrup—but Jacen steeled himself, focusing on the project at hand. The lightsaber was almost finished, almost finished! He would be the first to complete his, and Master Luke would be very proud.

With the handle mostly assembled, he wrapped special grip-textured bindings around it so that he could hold and wield the blade with the gentle ease of a Jedi swordsman. Now Jacen was ready to install the powerful crystal.

He went to the personal locker box where he kept his valuable possessions and withdrew a small, glittering object—a Corusca gem. He had snared the gem during a mining demonstration at Lando Calrissian’s GemDiver Station, and had later used it to cut himself free from his locked quarters in the Shadow Academy. He had offered the jewel to his mother as a special gift—but she had persuaded Jacen to keep the gem, to find a special use for it. And what could be more special than using it in his own lightsaber?

Lowbacca prowled through the clutter in the former Rebel control room, left over from when the Great Temple had been used as a base in the struggle against the Empire. The soldiers had left most of their old equipment here when they fled the small jungle moon. In the years since, most of the machinery and computers had been gutted for other purposes, since Luke Skywalker’s Jedi academy did not rely heavily on gadgets and technology. Although Jaina had already scavenged these rooms, Lowie knew that a great deal of equipment still remained to be picked through.

Poking his snout into shadowy corners, the Wookiee snuffled and rumbled thoughtfully to himself. He lifted metal coverings to look around, rummaging through wires and circuit boards, taking apart flat-screen displays.

“Master Lowbacca, I simply cannot imagine what you think you’re accomplishing,” Em Teedee said from the clip at his waist. “You’ve been prodding around here for hours, and you’ve found nothing.”

Lowie let out a short growl.

“Well, really! No, I don’t believe you can sniff them out with your nose. What an absurd notion! How could anyone possibly sniff out a crystal?” Em Teedee’s temper seemed to be getting short and Lowie wondered if perhaps the little translating droid’s batteries were running low.

“Anyway, I doubt you’ll ever locate any kind of crystal in here. I’m sure the entire control room was thoroughly ransacked years ago.”

Lowie barked a comment as he continued his search.

“Quite the contrary,” Em Teedee said. “I am not a pessimist—I’m simply being realistic. I don’t know why Master Skywalker should expect everyone to simply find appropriate crystals here or there. What if one of you created an inferior lightsaber? What good would that do? I daresay it’s a possibility. I really think you should give up the search.”

With a sudden bellow of triumph, Lowie reached into the cluttered interior of a small, high-resolution projection system and withdrew two glittering components: a flat focusing lens and a spherical enhancement jewel. The items had been used in the high-res display, and Lowie knew instinctively that they could be applied to the same general purpose inside his new lightsaber.

With great delight, he held them in his long hairy fingers in front of Em Teedee’s optical sensors. He growled with pleasure, and a hint of smugness.

Em Teedee replied with some degree of petulance, “Well, of course I could be wrong.”