Lightsabers

7

Jacen couldn’t help brooding as he wandered aimlessly through the halls of the Jedi academy, keeping to the shadowy corridors that were least used by other students. Jaina walked beside him in stunned silence, as she had for the past two hours. She seemed to need her brother’s company as much as he needed hers, though neither of them knew quite what to say.

Jacen still couldn’t understand why Uncle Luke hadn’t allowed anyone else to stay with the unconscious Tenel Ka while the medical droid tended her. Neither had he allowed anyone to be present when he went to the Comm Center to contact Tenel Ka’s family and inform them of the accident.

Uncle Luke himself had scooped up Tenel Ka’s limp form and rushed her back to the Great Temple. As the twins hurried behind, Jacen had sensed the Jedi Master drawing on the Force to help the injured young woman maintain her strength, as well as to move faster and to keep from jarring her. At the same time, he had sent a continuous stream of soothing thoughts toward Tenel Ka’s unconscious mind, thoughts of peace and healing.

Jacen had known he should try to do the same, to help his friend in any way he could, but his thoughts were in such a turmoil that he was afraid his attempts would only make things worse. Perhaps that was why Master Skywalker hadn’t let any of them stay with the warrior girl once they returned to the Great Temple. He had assured the friends that he would call instantly if Tenel Ka asked for them.

Since then, the twins had roamed up and down stairways and dim passages, both of them alone with their private thoughts. When Lowie joined them without a word, neither asked where he had been. After all, he often went out to the tall trees alone, to sit and think about his home on Kashyyyk, his parents, his younger sister…. Now he was ready to be with friends again. But Jacen was not surprised to note, when he glanced down at Em Teedee, that the little droid had been shut off.

They were all disturbed by what had happened—no one more so than Jacen. He replayed the scene over and over in his mind as they walked: the sizzling, popping sound of the lightsabers as they clashed, the look of challenge in Tenel Ka’s eyes, the glowing green of his own energy blade passing through hers…. He squeezed his eyes shut in an effort to block the rest from his mind, but that was a mistake. The scene was too vivid in his memory. His eyes flew open again.

“I can’t wait any longer,” he choked. “I have to see Tenel Ka to make sure she’s all right—and to apologize to her.”

“We’ll go with you,” Jaina said. Lowie purred his agreement.

When the three Jedi trainees reached the room where their friend had been treated, they saw Luke Skywalker emerging, Artoo-Detoo at his side.

“How’s Tenel Ka?” Jacen asked immediately. “Is she awake? Can we see her?”

Luke Skywalker hesitated, and Jacen could see the concern written on his face. “She’s still recovering from the … shock,” he said. “She is awake now, but she’s not quite ready to see you yet.”

“But a time like this is when she needs her friends most,” Jaina said.

Artoo-Detoo swiveled the top of his domed head back and forth once and buzzed an emphatic negative.

“But I have to see her,” Jacen objected. “I need to do something for her—tell her jokes, hold her hand…. Blaster bolts! She only has one hand now, and I’m the one who’s responsible.”

Artoo gave a low mournful whistle, and Luke looked at his nephew in sympathy. “I know this is hard for you,” he said, “but it’s even harder for Tenel Ka. I remember the thoughts that went through my head when I lost my own hand on Cloud City, fighting with Darth Vader. I had just learned that he was my father. It felt as if I had lost a part of myself, a part of who I was … and then I lost my hand, too.”

“But hands can be fixed,” Jaina pointed out. “They can be reattached and healed in bacta tanks.”

Luke shook his head. “My hand was gone. There was nothing to reattach.”

“But your synthetic hand works just as well as your old one did,” Jacen said.

“Perhaps,” Luke said, flexing his lifelike prosthetic and running the artificial thumb along his fingertips, “but it was a difficult decision to make. I remember thinking that maybe I had just taken another step toward becoming more like my father, like Darth Vader—partly alive, but partly a machine. Tenel Ka will have to face the same decision herself. When her lightsaber exploded, it destroyed any chance we had of reattaching that arm.”

“Uncle Luke, I need to see her,” Jacen pleaded. “I have to apologize.”

Luke squeezed his shoulder. “I promise to call you the moment she’s ready to talk. Try to get some rest now.”

Jacen slept fitfully, tossing and turning as images of a wounded Tenel Ka haunted his dreams.

“We are opponents,” he heard her say.

“No. I’m your friend,” Jacen tried to answer, but his voice was trapped in his throat; he could make no sound. He felt again the sickening jolt as her lightsaber dissolved beneath his and the sizzling green energy blade sliced through her arm.

The smell of singed flesh clawed at his nostrils. The sound of her exploding rancor-tooth weapon crashed against his eardrums, and his vision filled with the image of Tenel Ka’s cool gray eyes, clouded with accusation.

“We are opponents….”

Jacen felt something push at his mind, and he woke drenched in sweat, his single light blanket damp and tangled around his legs. He wasn’t quite certain what had awakened him, but he knew it was somehow urgent. It’s Tenel Ka. She needs us. The thought came unbidden to his mind. Through his open window, from the direction of the jungle he heard the faint ululating howl of a Wookiee.

Jumping from his sleeping pallet, he hurriedly fastened the front of the rumpled orange flight suit he had never quite bothered to take off when he’d lain on his bed. The distant howl came again, and Jacen could sense that Lowie, meditating at the top of a high Massassi tree, must be trying to tell him something. Without bothering to put on a pair of boots, he bolted out of his room and called at his sister’s doorway.

“Jaina, wake up. Something’s wrong.” He raced on down the hallway, not waiting for her reply. But something—perhaps Lowie’s call—had already wakened his sister, because he hadn’t even turned the corner before he heard Jaina running down the hall after him. He didn’t slow, though. Bare feet slapping against the cold flagstones, he rushed out the nearest exit and down one of the Great Temple’s external stairways, taking the torch-lit steps three at a time. He felt the nudge against his mind again and headed in the direction it had come from: the landing pad.

As he rounded the corner of the temple, with Jaina hard on his heels, he was surprised to see Lowie coming toward them from the jungle, where eerie night mists blanketed the ground with translucent white. On the landing field, though, Jacen saw something that surprised him even more.

A small, sleek shuttle, about half the size of the Millennium Falcon, lifted off the grassy stubble of the landing pad, blasting away wisps of ground fog. And there, bathed in the blue glow from the landing lights, his hair whipping wildly in the breeze, stood Luke Skywalker.

The Jedi Master was facing the shuttle, one arm raised as if in farewell, as the three young Jedi Knights raced up to him. Jacen and Jaina spoke at the same moment.

“Who was that?”

“What’s going on?”

The tall, gangly Wookiee added a questioning bark of his own.

Luke Skywalker lowered his eyes to look at his Jedi students.

“It was Tenel Ka, wasn’t it?” Jacen persisted, without really needing to hear the answer. In the dimness, his gaze locked with his uncle’s, and the Jedi Master nodded.

“Her family insisted on coming immediately to pick her up. She should be in good hands now—don’t worry.”

Jacen felt as if a bantha had just stepped on his chest. He struggled for enough breath to speak. He felt betrayed. “She’s gone! You said you’d call us when Tenel Ka was ready to see us.”

Luke Skywalker cleared his throat. “She wasn’t ready.”

Lowie gave a despairing groan.

“But we didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye,” Jaina said.

Her uncle sighed. “I know. But she’s with family now. They’ll take care of her.”

Jacen saw his sister shake her head in confusion. “But how can that be true?” Her question made no sense to him, and he looked at her, waiting for her to explain. “What I mean is,” she went on, “why would Tenel Ka’s family from Dathomir come for her in that shuttle?”

Jacen shrugged, feeling as if she expected him to understand. He didn’t. “What’s so strange about it?” he asked finally.

“That was an Express-class ambassadorial shuttle,” she said. “And it had the markings of the Royal House of Hapes.”

Three pairs of questioning eyes turned toward Luke Skywalker.