Return to Ord Mantell

1

The tree stood in the middle of a small jungle clearing, its gnarled, woody tentacles wrathing through the air in search of prey. As Zekk approached, the tentacles twitched, sensing his movement.

The sinuous vines were camouflaged, deceptively lush and green. He took another step forward. The ground around the tree’s warty trunk was littered with bones—broken grayish-white remnants of previous victims, stripped of flesh, now decaying in the humid air of Yavin 4. Zekk moved even closer, and the hungry tree trembled in anticipation.

He told himself he had nothing to fear. Of course he would have been much more comfortable had he been carrying a lightsaber, a Jedi weapon that could counter any attack from this plant-thing—but that would have been too easy. Much too easy.

Zekk wasn’t interested in a simple end to this exercise. Instead, he carried only a plain staff. He had found the length of dried wood in the jungle and stripped off its bark. It was all the weapon he would allow himself to use in this important test.

He stepped forward, faced the wrathing tentacle tree, and prepared to do battle. “I will let the Force guide me,” he murmured to himself, “allow it to direct my Jedi reflexes to respond to any tricks the enemy may devise.”

The carnivorous tentacle tree reached toward him, its deadly branches whispering together in a leafy sigh.

“Most of all,” he went on in a hushed voice, “I must not let myself be tempted by the easy power I can unleash through the dark side.”

Zekk had already traveled the dark paths of the Force when he trained at the Shadow Academy. Now he was a new student learning to use the light side—but at the same time, he was an old student… with many scars on his conscience.

He raised his stick. The tree’s tentacles quivered as it prepared for this easy prey.

“The Force is with me,” Zekk said, and stepped in among the dangling branches, his staff held high.

Three of the whipping vines thrashed at him, making the stick their primary target. Zekk snapped his wrist downward. A loud crack rang out as the staff beat back two of the tentacles.

Another serpentine appendage crackled and wrapped itself around Zekk’s right wrist. Without hesitation, he tossed the staff to his left hand, swung it up, and battered the offending tentacle as he yanked his hand free.

His skin burned and tingled as the clutching vine tore away from his wrist. He realized then that this plant-thing exuded some kind of irritating acid through its tiny spines. His hand began to swell, but Zekk turned his concentration back to the vines that still lashed at him. He could deal with the pain later.

He struck left and right, knocking the thrashing vines away. His hand turned red and throbbed; he could barely bend his fingers. A forest of tentacles now whipped and clawed at him. He could have severed them all with a single sweep of a lightsaber blade, but Zekk drove them back one-handed, using only his staff.

Simple victories were not worth fighting for. Without a challenge, victory was meaningless. He had come here to learn a new lesson—and unlearn an old one.

To begin Zekk’s training in the light side of the Force, Master Skywalker had told him to start with simple exercises to test his most basic skills. Somehow, Zekk didn’t think that venturing out into the jungles to battle this carnivorous tree was quite what the Jedi teacher had in mind. Perspiration trickled down Zekk’s face and neck. His long dark hair clung in damp strands around his emerald-green eyes.

Zekk smiled.

He gritted his teeth and drove inward. He had fought many times before. The Dark Jedi Brakiss had trained Zekk to become the Second Imperium’s darkest knight. Together, they—along with many other followers of the Emperor’s ways—had battled Luke Skywalker’s students at the Jedi academy.

But Zekk and the other Dark Jedi had been soundly defeated, and Brakiss killed. Broken, Zekk had turned away from the dark side. Even though he had formerly been a close friend of the Solo twins, Jacen and Jaina, Zekk could not easily grant himself forgiveness. He couldn’t just join his friends and begin training as a Jedi of the light side as if nothing had happened.

Instead, Zekk had gone off on his own to search for meaning in his life. He trained to become a bounty hunter and used his Jedi prowess to hunt down difficult bounties that no one else could capture. But in those months Zekk had learned something important about himself: although he had the skills, he didn’t have the mind-set that would allow him to find any quarry for whatever reason and simply turn the victim over to anyone who happened to pay the price.

When Nolaa Tarkona, head of a subversive political group called the Diversity Alliance, had set an open bounty on the merchant Bornan Thul, Zekk had at first gone on the search, hoping to prove himself to Boba Fett and all the other bounty hunters. But Zekk had realized in time that the information Nolaa Tarkona wanted from the human merchant concerned a deadly human-killing plague—and that if he succeeded in his task, the entire human race might become extinct.

Such consequences had forced him to change his mind and join forces with the young Jedi Knights after all. After they defeated the Diversity Alliance and the Emperor’s plague was destroyed, Zekk had decided to start all over again, to become a true Jedi Knight. This time he would do his training in the right way.

If only this tree would let him.

Shorter, spikier tentacles emerged from the hole of the tree, thrashing, grasping at him, but again Zekk drove them back with his staff. He could have pulled back at any time, but instead he pushed closer. Then, although the irritant chemical in his swollen right hand bothered him, he gripped the stick with both hands again. He would not let the pain slow him down.

Zekk didn’t have any clear idea of how he would define “victory.”

He did not intend to kill the tree, but as his battle fever picked up, he fought more furiously, pounding the tentacles with his hard staff.

Another whiplike vine snapped sharply and struck him in the forehead just above his eye, drawing a trickle of blood. He reeled backward, blinking his eyes against the stinging tears and red droplets.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, two of the vines wrapped themselves around his stick, twisted hard, and yanked it from Zekk’s hand, tearing the flesh on his palms. Then, as if sensing victory, the relentless tentacles also grabbed at his arms and legs. Zekk stood trapped in a blizzard of grasping strands.

A black static of anger overpowered his fear. Zekk used the Force to reach out and locate his stolen staff. He jerked the stick back toward him—so furiously that two vines ripped away from the central mass of the tree and began oozing clear sap.

With the dying tentacles still dangling from his staff, Zekk swung around, using it as a flail against the others. He used the Force again to tie several of the strands into knots and laughed out loud at how easy this battle was becoming.

Then, in a flash of comprehension, Zekk realized that he was not truly succeeding; he had unleashed his anger and tapped the dark side as a conduit to his Jedi skills.

“No!” he said through gritted teeth. He refused to win against the plant-thing in this way. Zekk threw the retrieved staff aside and stood unarmed as the stinging tentacles drew back, then poised themselves to attack with renewed force.

But Zekk kept his mind clear, his thoughts calm. “I am not your prey,” he murmured.

The tree had no intelligence, just a rudimentary mass of vascular plant fiber with reflexes that responded like muscles. Hungry tentacles lashed at him—only to slide harmlessly away, as if his entire body were coated with some invisible super lubricant.

“I am not your prey,” Zekk repeated.

The ineffective vines reached toward him, but they could not touch his skin. Sinuous appendages danced in frustration around his arms, his head, his back.

Zekk turned away from the tree and walked slowly beyond the reach of the grasping tentacles. He knew he had temporarily let down his guard, a failure of sorts. But he had seen the dark side, recognized it, and rejected it! He would put it behind him now. He felt as if he had emerged from a raging storm with only a few drops of water clinging to him. The storm was past. A sense of warmth and peace came over him.

At the edge of the clearing, standing beside the thick bushes, he saw Master Luke Skywalker watching him with a quiet smile on his face.

“I’m proud of you, Zekk,” he said. “It took courage to turn away from your old instincts. Sometimes it’s harder to unlearn bad teaching than it is to learn new skills. It will be hard to forget what Brakiss taught you.”

“Yes,” Zekk said. “I’ve got to learn it the right way now. I feel like a kid learning to walk again—and I thought I already knew how. It’s… intimidating.” He said the word in a small voice, as if reluctant to admit it. “All the tests and exercises here remind me of what I learned at the Shadow Academy. I’m afraid to do things the same way. I mean, what if I do them wrong again?”

“There’s no single way to become a Jedi,” Luke Skywalker said. “If it makes you more comfortable, we’ll find a different path. Try a new assignment. Take something you’re already good at—something you enjoy—and use the Force, little by little, to enhance your abilities. It doesn’t have to be fighting with a staff, or levitating rocks, or sensing danger. The Force is in all things. Find a task that feels right. Enjoy it, but let the Force guide you. You need to learn to accept your Jedi abilities, not fear them.”

“I can try anything?” Zekk said. “Anything I enjoy?”

“I’m sure you can think of something, Zekk,” Luke said.

The darkhaired young man just smiled.

Jedi trainees dragged a few more dried branches and pieces of dead wood from the surrounding jungle and piled it high in the courtyard. Master Luke Skywalker readied a bonfire while his students gathered to hear him speak.

Jacen Solo ran a hand through his tousled hair, scratched an itch on his scalp, and settled down on the ledge beside his friend Tenel Ka.

They had found seats on one of the stone blocks of the rebuilt pyramid’s lower levels; from there they would have a good view of the fire and Jacen’s uncle Luke.

Jacen’s twin sister Jaina, who loved to tinker with machines, had spent the afternoon with their Wookiee friend Lowbacca and his miniaturized translating droid, Em Teedee. They had worked beneath the Hapan passenger cruiser’s navigational consoles, upgrading its starmaps and position-finding capabilities. As Princess of Hapes, the warrior girl Tenel Ka actually owned the Rock Dragon, but she preferred to let Jaina and Lowie pilot it.

Now the two tinkerers and the tiny, silver droid hurried up to sit beside Jacen and Tenel Ka as four new students prepared to light the bonfire.

Jaina still had a few smudges of grease on her cheeks and chin.

Lowie’s ginger-colored fur was ruffled, but they both looked satisfied.

“So, the ship’s up and working again?” Jacen asked. “There’s no telling when we might need to grab it and go rescue somebody. We’re Jedi Knights now, you know.”

Jaina gave an unladylike snort, as if insulted at the suggestion that she might not have left the ship in perfect working order. “Of course it’s working. Rock Dragon’s ready whenever we are.”

“Oh, my,” Em Teedee said. “I do hope you aren’t planning any emergencies. In future, I suggest that we avoid any adventures that might involve emergencies. Far too dangerous, if you ask me.”

“Come on, Em Teedee,” Jacen said. “We’ve upgraded your capabilities. Don’t you want to test your limits?”

“Indeed not,” the little droid said from his place at Lowbacca’s belt.

The Wookiee chuffed and patted the droid good-naturedly.

Tenel Ka’s face remained solemn during this exchange—then again, she usually was serious, Jacen thought, even though he constantly tried to make her laugh. “I am ready for whatever circumstances dictate,” she said. “We are now required to look at the fire and listen to Master Skywalker.”

“This is a fact,” Jacen said with a chuckle, repeating Tenel Ka’s own oft-used phrase.

Earlier that afternoon, a ship had come in bearing a pair of Jedi Knights who had been trainees when Luke Skywalker founded his Jedi academy here. The two Jedi visitors, exhausted from a dangerous mission they had just completed, had gone quickly into the temple to refresh themselves. Not long afterward, Luke had announced a celebration for that evening. Jacen wondered eagerly what his uncle intended to talk about.

Now the fire blazed high. Orange flames crackled through the pile of dead wood; spicy-smelling smoke wafted upward from the burning lichens and mosses that clung to the underbrush. While the last few Jedi trainees made their way to their seats, Jacen played with a small bluish-green frill lizard he had found making a nest out of a mound of dry leaves in a crevice between the Great Temple’s stone blocks.

The lizard appeared content to sit on Jacen’s left fist, but seemed much less comfortable with Jacen’s opposite hand. Every time he brought his right forefinger close to the lizard’s nose, the creature flared out an intimidating scarlet frill around its neck and flapped its scales in self-defense. When Jacen pulled his finger away, the frill went back down. He moved his finger close again; the frill reappeared, and the lizard’s eyes opened wide.

Tenel Ka watched with interest. The lizard-skin armor she wore clung to her body and glittered in the firelight. Though the night would be cool, the warrior girl never seemed to require any more warmth than the supple armor provided.

As a hush fell over the crowd gathered by the ancient pyramid, Master Skywalker stepped in front of the bonfire. The flames blazed higher behind him. He stood silhouetted in warm light, just a normal-sized man, despite the fact that he had changed the fate of the entire galaxy.

“We’re all here because we are—or want to be—Jedi Knights,” Luke said.

“Except for me, of course,” Em Teedee said primly, and Lowie shushed him with a growl.

“Jedi Knights protected the Republic… but it is important for us to think about whether being protected is always, good.” He paused to let that sink in. Tenel Ka frowned, and Jacen tried to think of a circumstance where protection might not be desired.

“We learn from our mistakes,” Luke continued. “And sometimes, if we shelter people from all the bad things that can happen, they don’t learn to protect themselves… and even greater tragedies may occur.”

During this speech, Zekk quietly joined his friends on the ledge.

One arm was bandaged. Lowie rumbled a question, but Zekk just gave a secretive smile and focused on Master Skywalker.

“I grew up on Tatooine,” Luke said. “A desert planet with two suns. I was the foster son of my uncle Owen, a poor moisture farmer who had little happiness in a life filled only with hard work. Aunt Beru spent days at home watching the farm while my uncle and I checked our moisture vaporators, or went into Anchorhead or Mos Eisley to get supplies we couldn’t buy from Jawa traders.

“Uncle Owen knew who I was: the son of Anakin Skywalker, whom most of you remember as Darth Vader. My uncle knew I had the potential to be a great Jedi, but he wanted to protect me. He tried to keep me from my dreams because of the risks I might encounter along the way. He was doing what he thought was best for me.

“My uncle was a sad man, with great guilt on his shoulders. He knew what Darth Vader had done, and—because he was afraid for me—he spent his life protecting me on that desert planet. His heart was in the right place… but if he had succeeded, think of the outcome: I would still be a moisture farmer on Tatooine, the Empire might still be in power, and there would be no Jedi Knights.”

Luke looked up. His eyes glittered in the firelight, though most of his body was cast in shadow. Perched on the stone blocks beside Jacen, Tenel Ka nodded. He sat closer to her as his uncle’s point became clear to him.

“Challenges and diversity make us strong. Too much protection can prevent us from learning, from reaching our potential. We can learn from others, but we must also learn from our own experiences… and our own mistakes,” Luke said. He smiled. “Just try not to make too many of them before you learn.”

Another figure emerged from the base of the temple, a young man with dark hair and squared shoulders dressed in a black jumpsuit and a cape.

The sleek Jedi outfit looked comfortable, serviceable, and well-worn.

“Master Skywalker is right. And some of us certainly made huge blunders before we managed to come back to the right course,” the young man said.

“This is Kyp Durron,” Luke announced with a broad grin, “one of my first students here at the Jedi academy, many years ago. Han Solo rescued him from the spice mines of Kessel, and he came here to learn the ways of the Force.”

Kyp nodded at the audience with a grim smile. Firelight splashed across his face. “I came here to learn, but I was impatient. I listened too closely to the spirit of an old Dark Lord of the Sith, Exar Kun, and I’m sorry to say I caused quite a bit of trouble for the new Jedi Knights.”

“Like me,” Zekk murmured.

“So did I,” another voice said as a second man emerged from the temple.

A nimbus of wild white hair floated around his head and fluttered above his thin beard. He wore a vest and breeches with so many pockets that Jacen thought he probably could have carried all the components for his own starship engine inside them.

“That’s Streen,” Jaina whispered, and Jacen immediately recognized the man. Once a cloud prospector on Bespin, the old hermit had developed an affinity for controlling the weather and the winds.

Luke said, “These two have been Jedi Knights for well over ten years now. They learned from their mistakes and their successes, and they’ve served the New Republic admirably.” Kyp Durron and Streen looked both powerful and exhausted, as if they had come through some terrible ordeal that had made them stronger—though neither seemed ready to tell the story.

“Looks like they’ve had some interesting adventures,” Jaina observed.

Lowie rumbled thoughtfully. Zekk nodded.

“I, for one, do not wish to hear about them,” Em Teedee said. “I’ve heard quite enough horrifying stories about Jedi adventures in Mistress Tionne’s legends.” The silvery-haired instructor was a Jedi scholar and minstrel, and had also been among Luke’s first trainees.

“Then I guess Tionne’ll just have to make up some songs about the new Jedi Knights,” Jacen said.

Tenel Ka nodded. “Soon there will be many Jedi Knights; we must remember our heroes.”

Jacen brought his finger close to the lizard again. It flashed its scarlet frill and raised up on its forelegs. The frill spread about the creature like a tiny cape. A sudden thought occurred to Jacen. He glanced over at his sister and knew she was thinking the same thing: Kyp Durron had been a very close companion of Han Solo’s.

“Think Dad knows Kyp is on Yavin 4?” Jaina said.

Jacen gave his sister a sly grin. “Well, there’s no reason we can’t send him a message. Hey, you never know — Dad might even come for a visit.”