Shards of Alderaan

10

Yavin’s sun was bright and the jungle air warm, with a light breeze but none of the strong winds they had experienced a few days earlier. When Han Solo and Chewbacca strode out of the Falcon, Jaina turned to look behind her. Raynar stood alone a small distance away, twisting his brown sash around his fingers, his eyes averted from the happy family reunion.

Han noticed him, too. He flashed a quick grin at Jaina and Jacen. His eyes, though, were serious. “Got a surprise for you kids from home, but let me talk to Raynar first.”

The young Alderaan boy looked up hopefully. Jaina saw her father shake his head. “No news, actually,” Han Solo admitted. “But we’ve got some solid leads. If your father made it somewhere safe, we’re hoping hell try to get a message to you. In the meantime, we’ve got Lando Calrissian and some of the best ex-smugglers in the New Republic on the search.”

“I understand,” Raynar said, then turned and walked dejectedly back toward the Great Temple, his bright robes drooping around him.

With forced good humor after the sad news for Raynar, Han rubbed his hands together. “Ready for your surprise?” Han turned to yell up the ramp. “C’mon out.”

“Anakin!” Jaina exclaimed as their brother appeared in the opening.

“Hey, what’re you doing here?” Jacen asked, giving his little brother a playful punch on the shoulder.

“It’s a long story,” Anakin said, sweeping his straight dark bangs away from his ice-blue eyes. “You see, I had an idea for restoring the Great Temple. You know how much I like to take things apart and put them together again. I’ve always been good at puzzles.”

“Well, this one has an awful lot of pieces,” Jaina said, looking doubtfully at the piles of broken stones lying about. She dismissed a flickering thought that the whole place felt much bleaker, much emptier, since Zekk had departed.

“I suggested that we could treat the temple like a puzzle—sort out the pieces, then fit them back together again. I figured I could see the patterns in my mind,” Anakin continued. “Any areas that we can’t reconstruct from the original stones can be reproduced by New Republic artists so they’ll look just like the original Massassi work.” He held up a little hologram of the Great Temple, taken long ago when it had been used as a hidden Rebel base. “We’ll use this as a template.”

“Well, at least I have one brother who’s a genius,” Jaina said, tossing Jacen a teasing look.

“Mom seemed so excited by the idea that I sort of volunteered to come to Yavin 4, even though it’s not time for my classes to start again,” Anakin went on. “I’m not sure how it happened. I just said that I’d be one of the best people for putting together the puzzle pieces, and Dad said he’d help, and Mom seemed so happy….” He spread his hands, looking a bit confused. “And here I am.”

Han put a comforting hand on his younger son’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, kid. Your mom just has that effect on people. That’s how she got Chewie and me to help with her crazy Rebellion against the Empire.” The older Wookiee groaned at the memory.

“Yeah,” Jaina said, pondering, “and I remember that time Lowie and I volunteered to map out the orbits of space debris over Coruscant.”

Jacen added, “And then you and Lowie offered to help fix old Peckhum’s space station, too.” This time, Lowie groaned.

“Getting people to volunteer is one of your mother’s many gifts,” Han concluded. “That’s why she’s a politician.”

Anakin looked over to where Luke Skywalker and some of his students were still collecting chunks of rock that had been blasted from the top of the temple pyramid. “Well, little brother,” Jaina said, “what are you waiting for?”

Anakin took a deep breath and blew it out. “I volunteered—I guess I’d better get started.” He trotted off toward the Great Temple.

“I brought you each a little gift, as usual,” Han said, producing a smooth, pearl-pink sphere and offering it to Jacen. “It’s a gort egg.”

“Wow, I’ve always wanted one of these,” Jacen said. “They make great pets—kind of like miniature woolamanders with really soft feathers. You can even teach them to talk.”

“It’ll take almost a year to hatch,” Han warned, “and you have to keep it warm the whole time.”

“No problem,” Jacen assured him, looking over at his sister. “Uh—is it, Jaina?”

She pretended to heave a deep sigh. “I think I can manage to build you a temperature-controlled cage, Jacen.”

“And for you, Jaina …” Han held out a meter-long chain of devices that looked like a rope of Corellian nerf sausages. “A modular signal transmitter.”

“Great! More components for my collection,” Jaina said, grinning.

“Don’t thank me too soon,” Han said. “The transmitter works, but this is such an old model that it doesn’t have much range.”

“That’s okay, Dad—it’s modular. I can figure out a way to link in a higher-powered signal booster,” Jaina said, feeling her spirits lift at the prospect of this new mechanical challenge.

Jacen asked, as if the thought had suddenly struck him, “Why is it so important to Mom to rebuild the Great Temple just like it was? I mean, the Massassi weren’t a particularly honorable race. Is she just doing this for Uncle Luke?”

“No,” Han said. “There’s more to it than that. You kids never really saw the planet Alderaan, where your mom grew up, since it was destroyed before you were born.”

“We’ve seen holoclips,” Jaina pointed out. “And those framed images you gave her.”

Han nodded absently. “Alderaan was a center of culture and education. Peaceful planet … lots of artists, philosophers, musicians. Grand Moff Tarkin made your mother watch while he used the Death Star to blast her home planet into tiny little chunks. Ever since then, anything the Empire ruined, your mom’s tried to set right again. And in her memory, Yavin 4 was our first safe haven after your uncle Luke and I rescued her from the Death Star. For her, the Great Temple is a symbol of the Rebellion’s struggle to build a fair government for everyone in the galaxy. So it’s kind of a personal thing. Mom’ll be coming here in six or seven days to check on our progress.”

“Hey, shell be here for her birthday then,” Jacen said, counting the days.

“We thought it would be nice to have the whole family together for a change,” Han said. “Even if we have to come here to do it.”

“Dad,” Jaina said. “Jacen and I have been trying to come up with just the perfect gift for Mom’s birthday. We thought that maybe if we went to the Alderaan system and got a special piece of Mom’s planet, one that she could take with her wherever she went, like a keepsake….”

“Yeah,” Han said in a soft voice, raising his eyebrows in surprise. “Yeah, I think your mom’d like that. But I don’t have time to take you kids there. I’ve got to help with the work here, not to mention keeping up with the search for Raynar’s father.”

“Well, we could go by ourselves in Tenel Ka’s ship,” Jaina said, trying to hide her expression of eagerness and fervent hope.

Han looked even more surprised. “Oh, yeah. I forgot about the Rock Dragon. Tenel Ka’s parents contacted Leia for permission to station a Hapan ship here.”

“You mean we can go then?” Jaina said.

“I didn’t say that….” Han frowned, as if thinking it over seriously. “Well, all right,” he said at last. “But only on two conditions.”

“Anything,” Jaina said, and her brother nodded.

“First, you have to let Chewie and me check out the ship personally, so we know it’s safe for you to fly. Second, I want you back here in three days. No more. Just to Alderaan and back—no sightseeing, no joyriding.”

“We promise,” Jaina said. “What could possibly go wrong?”

In the end, Han and Chewie found nothing more significant than a rear stabilizer to replace on the Rock Dragon. By the next morning, the ship was ready for its flight to the Alderaan system.

“Not a bad little hunk of machinery,” Han said to Tenel Ka, looking around the cockpit approvingly. “Did they set it up specially so you could fly it with one hand?”

“The controls have been adjusted to make that possible,” Tenel Ka said. “But Jaina has agreed to act as pilot.”

Han crossed his arms over his vest, wearing a look of fatherly pride. “A Solo at the helm, huh? Good choice.”

Jaina sighed in relief at her father’s response. “And Lowie’s going to be my copilot,” she said. Chewbacca pounded a hairy fist on his nephew’s shoulder.

“I’m all ready,” Jacen said. He tossed his duffel into a storage net, plopped down in one of the passenger’s seats, and buckled his crash webbing.

“I am also prepared,” Tenel Ka said, seating herself beside Jacen. “Jaina, you may depart when ready.”

Lowie took the copilot’s seat with an enthusiastic bellow, and Jaina strapped herself in at the pilot’s station.

“Three days now,” Han Solo called after them. “I have your word on it.”

Jaina looked at her father and rolled her eyes. “Well be fine, Dad. We’re just going to get a piece of rock. If we’re not back in three days, you have my personal permission to send out a search party.”

“Hey, if I can’t trust my own kids, who can I trust?” Han shrugged, a lopsided smile glued to his face, but Jaina could tell her father was struggling to look nonchalant. Then he and Chewie left the ship and stood outside on the landing field.

As the Rock Dragon took off, Jaina risked a glance away from her piloting tasks to watch her father and Chewie waving goodbye. Something felt strange, she thought.

Maybe she just wasn’t used to being on this side of the cockpit viewports, looking out at her father.