I've got reason to believe that at least one lost Jedi descendant might be
there." With a swish of his cloak, Luke turned to depart from the
Information Center. "I'll check back with you when I come home." The door
slid shut behind him.
Threepio spoke immediately to Artoo. "Punch up the data on Eol Sha--let's
see where Master Luke is going."
Artoo obliged, as if the idea had been in his own circuits. When the
planetary statistics came up on the screen accompanied by ancient
two-dimensional images, Threepio raised his golden mechanical arms in
horror. "Earthquakes! Geysers! Volcanoes and lava! Oh my!"
When Luke emerged from hyperspace, the starlines in the viewport funneled
into points. Suddenly brilliant pastel colors splashed across the
universe--magentas, oranges, and icicle-blues of ionized gas in a vast
galactic ocean known as the Cauldron Nebula. The automatic dimmers in the
pilot's compartment muted the glare. Luke looked at the spectacle and
smiled.
Leaving the hyperspace node, he punched in the coordinates for Eol Sha. His
modified passenger shuttle arced through the wispy gas, leaving the nebula
above him as the engines kicked in. The double wedge-shaped craft descended
toward Eol Sha.
He had wanted to take his trusty old X-wing, but that ship was a
single-person craft, with room for only an astromech droid in the back. If
Luke's hunches about Jedi descendants proved correct, he would be bringing
two candidates back to Coruscant with him....
According to outdated records, the settlement on Eol Sha was established a
century before by entrepreneurs who intended to use ramjet mining ships to
plow through the Cauldron Nebula and scoop up valuable gases. The mineship
pilots would distill the gaseous harvest into pure, rare elements for sale
to other outposts.
Eol Sha was the only habitable world close enough to support the commercial
venture, but its days were numbered. A tandem moon orbited very close to the
planet, spiraling in on a death plunge as gravity dragged it down. Within
another hundred years the moon would crash into the planet, smashing both
into rubble.
The nebula mining scheme had never paid off. The incompetent entrepreneurs
had not counted on the true costs of ramjet ships and the unremarkable
composition of the Cauldron's gases. The outpost on Eol Sha had been left to
fend for itself. At about that time the Emperor's New Order had begun, and
the Old Republic had crumbled to pieces. The few survivors on Eol Sha had
been forgotten in the chaos.
The outpost had been rediscovered two years ago by a New Republic
sociologist who had visited them briefly, recorded his insights, and filed a
report recommending immediate evacuation of the doomed colony--all of which
was promptly forgotten in the already blossoming bureaucracy of the New
Republic and the depredations of Grand Admiral Thrawn.
The item that had attracted Luke's attention, though, was that a woman named
Ta'ania --an illegitimate descendant of a Jedi--had been one of the original
colonists on Eol Sha. Luke would have suspected the Jedi's bloodline had
ended there, except for one small detail.
According to the sociologist's report, the leader of the ragtag colonists, a
man named Gantoris, was said to be able to sense impending earthquakes, and
he had miraculously survived as a child when his playmates were killed in an
avalanche. Somehow Gantoris escaped injury while the others, a mere arm's
length away on either side of him, had been crushed.
Luke attributed many of these stories to exaggeration in retelling, for even
someone with a great deal of Jedi potential could not control such things
without training--as he himself knew. But still the clues and the
circumstantial evidence led him to Eol Sha. He had to follow every lead if
he was to find enough candidates for his Jedi training center.
Luke took the modified shuttle on a figure-eight trajectory around the
looming moon and vectored in on the remnants of the outpost on Eol Sha.
After crossing the terminator where the planet's night fell into day, Luke
looked out the viewport at the scabbed and uninviting surface of the planet.
His hands worked the controls automatically. As he swooped low, he could see
the decrepit and shored-up habitation modules that had been battered by
natural disasters for decades. In the near distance hardened mounds of lava
sprawled around a volcanic cone from old eruptions. Curling smoke rose from
the heart of the volcano, and glowing orange smudges showed where fresh lava
seeped through cracks in its side.
Luke took the shuttle past the battered settlement and beyond a stretch of
cratered, jumbled terrain. The shuttle settled onto the rocky hardpan, and
Luke exited through flip-up doors behind the passenger seats.
The air of Eol Sha smoldered in his nostrils, filled with acrid sulfurous
smoke and chemical vapors. The gigantic moon hulked on the horizon like a
platter of beaten brass, casting its own shadows even in daylight. Murky
clouds and volcanic ash hovered in the air like a hazy blanket.
When Luke stepped away from the passenger shuttle, he could feel the ground
hum beneath his boots. With senses heightened from the Force, he could touch
the incredible strain the close moon placed on Eol Sha, squeezing and
tearing it with tidal forces that grew worse each passing year as the moon
spiraled closer. A hissing white noise permeated the air, as if the
innumerable steam vents and fumaroles breathed out gasps of pain from the
world.
Pulling the dark cloak about him and securing the lightsaber at his belt,
Luke strode across the rough terrain toward the settlement. Around him small
craters and deep pits dotted the ground, encircled by white and tan mineral
deposits. Sounds of gurgling steam came from deep beneath them.
Halfway to the settlement Luke fell to his knees when a jolt went through
the ground. The rocks bounced and the earth rumbled. Luke spread his arms to
keep his balance. The tremors rose, then fell, then increased again before
stopping abruptly.
Suddenly, the random craters around him crackled, then belched towers of
steam and scalding droplets of water. Geysers, all of them--he had walked
into a field of geysers, triggered by the earthquake to erupt
simultaneously. Steam rolled over the ground like a dense fog.
Luke pulled the hood over his head for protection and took shallow breaths
as he trudged forward. The settlement was not far away. On all sides of him
the geyser field continued to gasp and howl, gradually lessening as the
spumes declined in intensity.
When Luke finally emerged from the steam, he saw two men staring at him from
the doorway of a rusted and ancient prefab shelter. The outpost on Eol Sha
had been built from modified cargo containers and modular self-erecting
shelters. By the looks of the hovels, though, the maintenance subsystems had
failed decades before, leaving the forgotten people to eke out a crude
existence. The rest of the settlement seemed deserted and quiet.
The two men stopped their work shoring up a collapsed entranceway, but they
didn't seem to know how to react to the presence of a stranger. Luke was
probably the first new person they had seen since the sociologist had
visited them two years earlier.
"I have come to speak with Gantoris," Luke said. They looked at him with
bleak expressions. Their clothes appeared worn and patched, sewn together
from pieces of other garments. Luke's gaze held one of the two men. The
other shied back into the shadows. "Are you Gantoris?" Luke asked softly.
"No. My name is Warton." He fumbled for words; then they came out in a rush.
"Everyone is gone. There's been a rock slide in one of the crevasses. It
buried two of our youngest, who went out to spear bugdillos. Gantoris and
the others are there, trying to dig them out."
Luke felt a stab of urgency and grasped Warton's arm. "Take me there. Maybe
I can help."
Warton allowed himself to be nudged into motion, and he took Luke along a
winding path through jagged rocks. The second man remained behind among the
collapsing shelters. Luke and Warton descended through switchbacks down the
steep wall of a crack in the ground, a split wrenched apart by tidal forces.
Down here the air seemed thicker, smellier, more claustrophobic.
Warton knew exactly where to find the other survivors in the maze of side
channels and partial landslides. Luke saw them shoulder to shoulder in an
elbow of the crevasse, scrambling over newly fallen rock, working to haul
boulders aside. Every one of the thirty people there wore the same
implacable expression, as if their optimism had burned away but they could
not allow themselves to give up their duties. Two of the women bent over the
rubble, calling into the cracks.
One man worked with twice the effort of the others. His long black hair hung
in a braid on the left side of his face. His eyebrows and eyelashes had been
plucked away, leaving his broad face smooth and angular and flushed with his
exertion. He shoved rocks aside, which the other people hauled away. They
had already managed to clear some of the debris, but they had not yet
uncovered the two victims. The dark-haired man paused to glance at Luke,
failed to recognize him or understand his presence, then returned to his
efforts. By the way Warton and the others looked to him, Luke guessed the
man must be Gantoris himself.
Before Warton had taken him to the base of the rockfall, Luke stopped and,
with a quick glance, took in the positioning of the boulders. He let his
arms fall to his sides, rolled his eyes back in concentration, and reached
out through the Force, using the strength he found there to feel the
boulders, to move them, and to keep other rocks from doing further damage.
When Yoda had trained him to lift large stones, it had been merely a game, a
training exercise; now two lives depended on it.
He paid no attention to the astonished sounds as the colonists stepped back,
ducking out of the way as Luke mentally hurled boulder after boulder from
the top of the rock pile, tossing them into other parts of the crevasse. He
could feel life down in the shadowy depths, somewhere.
When the rocks began to show splashes of blood, and he exposed a pale arm,
part of a shoulder hunched in the secret shadows of the avalanche, several
people rushed forward. Luke made an extra effort to keep the unstable pile
of rocks steady enough for the rescue operations. He continued to remove
fallen boulders.
"She's alive!" someone shouted, and several helpers rushed into the debris,
brushing away stones and hauling free a young girl. Her face and legs were
battered and bloody, one arm was obviously broken; she began weeping with
pain and relief as the rescuers pulled her out. Luke knew she would be all
right.
Near the girl, however, the young boy had not been so lucky. The avalanche
had crushed him instantly. The boy had been dead long before Luke arrived.
Luke continued to work grimly, until they had excavated the body. Amid sobs
of grief, he released himself from his semi-trance and opened his eyes.
Gantoris stood directly in front of him. Barely suppressed anger seethed
beneath his controlled expression.
"Why are you here?" Gantoris asked. "Who are you?"
Warton stepped up beside Luke. "I saw him walk out of the geyser field. All
the geysers went off at once, and he just strode out of the steam." Warton
blinked in awe as he looked at Luke. "He says he has come for you,
Gantoris."
"Yes--I know," Gantoris muttered to himself.
Luke met the other man's eyes. "I am Luke Skywalker, a Jedi Knight. The
Empire has fallen, and a New Republic has taken its place." He drew a deep
breath. "If you are Gantoris and if you have the ability, I have come to
teach you how to use the Force."
Several of the others walked up, bearing the broken, rag-doll body of the
dead boy. The man carrying the boy let his stony expression flicker for just
an instant.
The look on Gantoris's face seemed a frightening mixture of horror and
eagerness. "I have dreamed of you. A dark man who offers me incredible
secrets, then destroys me. I am lost if I go with you." Gantoris
straightened. "You are a demon."
Surprised, especially after his efforts to save the two children, Luke tried
to placate him. "No, that isn't it."
Other colonists gathered around the confrontation, finding a focus for their
anger and suspicion. They looked at Luke, at this stranger who had arrived
in time to usher in the death of one of their dwindling number.
Luke glanced at the people around him and decided to gamble. He stared
directly into Gantoris's eyes. "What can I do to prove my intentions to you?
I am your guest, or your prisoner. What I want is your cooperation. Please
listen to what I have to say."
Gantoris reached out to take the body of the boy in his own arms. The man
who had been carrying him looked forlorn and lost as he stared at the
bloodstains on his sleeves. Gantoris nodded back to Luke. "Take the dark
man."
Several people reached forward to grasp Luke's arms. He did not struggle.
Bearing the dead boy, Gantoris led a slow procession out of the chasm. He
turned once briefly to glare at Luke. "We will learn why you are here."
Leia stood in the private communications chamber, heaving a sigh as she
glanced again at the chronometer. The Caridan ambassador was late. He was
probably doing it just to spite her.
Out of deference to the ambassador, she had reset her clock to Caridan local
time. Though Ambassador Furgan had suggested the transmission time himself,
it seemed he couldn't be bothered to abide by it.
Two-way mirrors displayed empty corridors outside the communications
chamber. At this late hour most sensible people were deeply asleep in their
own quarters--but no one had ever promised Leia Organa Solo that diplomatic
duties kept regular hours.
When such obligations crept into her schedule, Han usually grumbled at being
awakened in the depths of the night, complaining that even pirates and
sm
ugglers kept their activities to more civilized time slots. But this
evening Leia's alarm had awakened her to empty and silent rooms. Han still
had not called.
A cleaning droid puttered along the corridor, polishing the walls and
scouring the two-way mirrors; Leia watched its lamprey-like scrubbers do
their work.
With a burst of static from poorly tuned holonet transmitters, the image of
Ambassador Furgan of Carida formed in the center of the receiving dais.
Maybe the poor transmission quality was deliberate--yet another rude
reaction. The chronometer told Leia that the ambassador had made his
transmission a full six minutes past the time he himself had insisted on.
Furgan made no attempt to apologize for his tardiness, and Leia studiously
avoided calling attention to it.
Furgan was a barrel-chested humanoid with spindly arms and legs. The
eyebrows on his squarish face flared upward like birds' wings.
Despite the Emperor's known prejudice against nonhuman species, apparently
the Caridans had been acceptable enough to secure the Emperor's business,
since Palpatine had built his most important Imperial military training
center on Carida.
"Princess Leia," Furgan said, "you needed to discuss certain planning
details with me? Please be brief." He crossed his arms over his broad chest
in clearly hostile body language.
Leia tried not to let her exasperation show. "As a matter of protocol I
would prefer if you could address me as minister rather than princess. The
planet on which I was a princess no longer exists." Leia worked hard to keep
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