by James Luceno
Leia’s eyes widened with fear. “Did you defeat it?”
Mara nodded, and managed a slight smile. “It won’t kill me yet,” she replied with a less-than-comforting chuckle.
Leia nodded, full of admiration for this strong and stoic woman. Every time the disease had cropped up, Mara had focused her strength, had focused the Force inward, and beat it back. “But it was more difficult this time,” Leia remarked, thinking she had the answer to Mara’s uncharacteristic tearful reaction.
The woman shook her head. “Not so bad an attack,” she replied.
“Then what?” Leia asked.
Mara took another deep breath. “My womb,” she said solemnly.
Then it hit Leia fully. “You’re afraid you might not be able to have any children,” she said.
“I’m not so young anymore,” Mara answered with a self-deprecating chuckle.
It was true enough—Mara, like Leia and Luke, was past forty, but except for the disease, she was very healthy and, as far as Leia knew, still able to have kids. Leia surely understood the woman’s concerns, though, given the disease’s attack on her very core of womanhood.
“When I married your brother, we talked about having kids,” Mara explained. “He had watched your three grow so strong and wonderful, and more than anything in the world, we both wanted our own.”
“You can still have them,” Leia assured her.
“Perhaps,” Mara answered. “But who knows, Leia? I’m growing tired of fighting, and this disease shows no signs of letting up.”
“Nor is it gaining any ground,” Leia reminded.
“I haven’t given up,” Mara assured her. “But I can’t have kids now—I don’t even know if I’d pass this along to them, or if they’d be killed by it inside of me. And who knows when it will be over, or if it will have caused too much damage for me to ever have them?”
Leia wanted to say something reassuring, but how could she possibly dismiss Mara’s obviously well-grounded logic? She put her arm on the woman’s shoulder. “You have to keep hoping,” she said.
Mara managed a smile. “I will,” she promised. “Besides, I’ve got Jaina under my wing now, and that’s almost as good.”
A quick flash across Leia’s face betrayed her.
“What?” Mara asked with concern.
Leia blushed and laughed out loud.
“What?”
“There have been times when I’ve been so jealous of you and Jaina,” Leia admitted, smiling with every word. “I see the bond between you, and I feel both wonderful that Jaina has found so inspiring a friend and mentor, and awful. When I see the two of you working together, I want to rush over and hug you and choke you all at once!”
Mara’s expression revealed true concern, until Leia fell over her, wrapping her in a tight hug. “Oh, you’ll beat this,” Leia said. “You will. And you’ll have babies, and maybe soon after you, Jaina will have her own.” She pushed Mara back to arm’s length. “And won’t that be fun?” she asked. “The three of us sitting around, trading stories, while Luke gets to baby-sit them all.”
It was the perfect thing to say at that moment, and the edges of Mara’s lips turned up, just a bit, into a smile, and a flash of hope crossed her vivid green eyes.
Leia knew, though, as she and Mara headed back to the bridge, that it might well be a fleeting hope, and an image of herself and Jaina sitting and talking to Jaina’s babies about their brave, deceased great-aunt Mara nearly broke her down at that moment.
Nearly, but she held back the tears. She had to, they all had to, for Mara’s sake.
Jacen heard the telltale hiss and electric snapping as he approached the main chamber of the Millennium Falcon. Anakin was in there, he realized, and practicing with his lightsaber again.
Always practicing.
Normally, Jacen would leave his little brother alone, knowing that the two of them simply couldn’t come to any philosophical agreements in their present states of mind. This time, though, after the spectacle of the council meeting, Jacen was in the mood for a good argument, and so he moved through the hatch.
There was Anakin, soaked in sweat, dodging and turning, his lightsaber flashing to parry each of the many energy zaps of the small remote as it floated all about him, seeking a hole in his defenses.
His little brother was getting good, Jacen had to admit, as Anakin brought the glowing blade down in a cross to the left, up high to the left, and back over to the right in flashing sequence, each movement neatly picking off an energy missile.
The sequence ended, and Anakin clicked his blade off and stood breathing heavily.
Jacen started a slow, almost mocking, clap.
“Could you do as well?” Anakin asked, before he had even turned around to face his brother.
“Does it matter?” Jacen replied.
Anakin crinkled his face in disdain and snorted.
“You spend half your life dancing around with that thing,” Jacen commented.
“We’re Jedi Knights, or soon to be,” Anakin replied.
“And all the Jedi should spend all their waking hours alone, dancing about with remotes,” Jacen said sarcastically.
“You practice,” Anakin retorted.
“And I spend more time alone than you do,” Jacen agreed.
Anakin looked at him skeptically, as if to ask, given that admission, what the problem might be.
“There is a reason for the solitude, and the practice,” Jacen tried to explain.
“To hone our skills,” Anakin replied.
Jacen was shaking his head before his little brother had even finished that expected response. “To deepen our understanding,” he said.
“That again?”
“That, always,” Jacen said firmly. “When you are practicing, what are you thinking about?”
Again, the skeptical expression.
“Are you fantasizing that you’re hunting outlaw Gamorreans?” Jacen asked. “Saving the galaxy, as Dad once did?”
“When I’m in the practice regimen, my mind is clear of clutter,” Anakin replied, but again, Jacen shook his head, unsatisfied with the answer.
“Right before you fall fully into the Force,” he clarified, “and right after. What are you thinking about?”
Anakin’s expression turned to one of anger.
“What are you thinking at those times?” Jacen pressed. “What fantasy battles do you wage in these sessions?”
“Why does it matter?” Anakin snapped.
“Because that’s not the truth of the Force,” Jacen answered, just as sharply. “You keep thinking of it as a tool, a weapon in your war against everything you see as bad. But that is such a limiting philosophy.”
“It is a weapon,” Anakin replied slowly. “A powerful weapon and a great responsibility.”
Jacen shook his head. “Those are the minor truths of the Force,” he said. “The ones that so many like you focus on to satisfy your personal hunger for glory.”
Anakin seemed as if he was about to spit.
“The Force is a method of serenity and truth, not an outward-projecting tool to be used to further any single person’s perception of good,” Jacen lectured.
“Do you think the New Republic is evil?” Anakin scoffed.
“Neither good nor evil,” Jacen explained, taking no offense. “But I don’t agree with all of their actions. Certainly individual communities have suffered at their hands, just like during the reign of the Emperor.”
“But this time, in actions taken for the greater good,” Anakin argued vehemently, obviously not pleased with hearing any comparison between the New Republic and the old Empire.
Jacen merely chuckled, the simple, mocking reaction having the effect of turning Anakin’s words around so that the younger brother had to recognize the subtle truth in them.
“I’m getting sick of hearing all of this,” Anakin remarked.
“You’ll hear it until you learn the truth,” Jacen replied immediately. “That is my resp
onsibility.”
“Uncle Luke told you that?”
“This isn’t about him,” Jacen replied. “It’s about you and me.”
“He’s going to put the Jedi Council back together,” Anakin said, as if those words gave him a victory.
“He has to,” Jacen said, his tone making it clear that he wasn’t happy about the admission. “Or risk disaster because of the other Jedi Knights like you, running through the galaxy, righting every wrong.” He waved his hands dismissively at his brother and turned to leave, but before he had gone two steps, Anakin grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him about.
Anakin held up the pommel of his lightsaber. “This,” he said emphatically, “is an instrument of law.”
“No,” Jacen snarled in his face. “That is a tool through which a Jedi might look inside himself and find his inner peace, a measuring stick for his acceptance of the Force.”
Anakin’s expression revealed clearly that he didn’t get the point at all.
“To deny full entrance of the Force during such a practice session will weaken your parries and get you stung, and often,” Jacen replied. “It’s not about waging war, Anakin. It’s about finding peace, and your place in the galaxy.”
“Pretty words that mean nothing when the fighting starts,” Anakin retorted.
“A Jedi at peace is a better warrior by far,” Jacen said.
“Prove it.” Anakin accentuated his challenge by turning on the blade, causing it to flash and hum to life right before Jacen’s face.
“If I must, to get the point through your thick skull,” Jacen answered, calmly walking by. He turned to face Anakin and brought his own lightsaber to glowing life before him.
Anakin closed the hatch—Uncle Luke wouldn’t be happy to find them sparring in here, nor would their father!—and turned back to face his brother, who was already moving in closer with deliberate, measured steps. “Maybe you’ll admit the truth when I beat you,” Anakin said, but it was apparent that Jacen wasn’t listening, was already falling into the levels of deepest concentration, the preface to the conscious emptiness that was pure Force acceptance.
Both paused for a long while, and then, suddenly, Anakin came rushing ahead, lightsaber twirling up and around, slicing down for Jacen’s shoulder, and when Jacen easily parried, Anakin sent it around the other way, diving along the opposite angle.
Jacen parried that, too, catching Anakin’s weapon with his own and bringing both around and down, back out to Jacen’s left, and then around some more. When the blades were each out straight between the brothers, Jacen rolled his wrist, looping his blade further about Anakin’s.
But Anakin was up to the measure, and he snapped his blade straight downward to break it free of the dangerous tangle, then brought it up again fast enough to knock Jacen’s blade aside before his brother could put it point-in at his throat and score a quick victory.
Anakin brought his blade back past one shoulder and slapped it out, sparks flying as it connected with Jacen’s parry. Again, Anakin attacked, and then again, as if he meant to beat his brother back right through a wall.
“Anger betrays you,” Jacen said, and the words sent a chill through Anakin, words that spoke of the truth of the moment, and of the dark side of the Force, a place no Jedi could ever afford to visit.
Anakin’s attack mellowed, went more to finesse, subtle thrusts and slashes, and deceptively slight movements to parry Jacen’s every attack.
And so they went for many minutes, back and forth across the room, each seeming to gain a momentary edge only to lose it again through the other’s quick response. They had to trust in themselves, and in each other, for there were no practice modes on their lightsabers. The slightest miss, or wrong deflection, or too-far thrust, could bring serious harm.
But they went on anyway, their philosophical differences playing themselves out through sword fighting, and before long, Jacen’s warning notwithstanding, both were into it viciously, swiping and dodging, thrusting low and high, and more than parrying, batting each other’s blade aside. Jacen came out of that fit first, mellowing his parries to those subtle and beautiful shifts and turns, and offering few offensive routines at all.
That sudden passivity only spurred Anakin on to greater intensity. His lightsaber slashed once, twice, and thrice from the left, then he spun about a complete circuit, reversing his grip as he went, and slashed, once, twice, thrice, from the right.
Jacen parried the first three from his left, then parried again and again from the right, and then … ducked.
And Anakin, so into the flow, thinking to take the third parry and spin back the other way, swooshed his blade right over his ducking brother and overbalanced as the weapon hit nothing but air.
Up Jacen came behind it, a sudden, subtle stab, that sent Anakin’s lightsaber flying away and made the younger boy leap back and grab his stung hand.
Jacen clicked off his blade. “The Force is a power within, for the good of within,” he said. “We’re not a galactic patrol.”
Anakin stared at his brother long and hard, clearly surprised that Jacen, who practiced far less than he, had so cleanly beaten him.
“Uncle Luke used the Force to destroy the Death Star,” Anakin reminded.
“And Mara uses it now to battle her disease,” Jacen replied. “Only when we are at peace within can we think of acting properly upon battles in the wider galaxy.”
Anakin didn’t reply, just stood clutching his hand and staring at his brother as a long, quiet moment slipped past.
“You’re getting better,” Jacen offered, and he winked at Anakin and headed for the door.
“I’ll beat you next time,” came Anakin’s predictable call behind him, and Jacen smiled all the wider as he stepped out into the corridor leading to the ladder. Down below, he heard a clank of metal and a few more curses from his frustrated father, who was still hard at work.
“You’re going to cross the lines!” Han yelled.
Chewbacca howled, and there came a sharp, sparking retort, followed by Han’s “Yow!”
Chewie’s head popped up through the open service panel.
“Get back here, hairball!” Han cried.
Chewbacca came out of the hole in a single, graceful spring—or at least, it seemed that way to Jacen until he noticed his father’s arm sticking out of the hole behind the Wookiee, a sparking cable in hand, and the wisps of smoke wafting off of Chewie’s bottom.
He couldn’t help but chuckle, but he tried very hard to suppress it when the Wookiee stormed up to him, rubbing his bottom. “Aaaah, aeeeaaah!” Chewie scolded.
“I didn’t do it,” Jacen exclaimed. “It was Anakin.”
Chewie howled again.
“No, we’re not all the same,” Jacen protested.
The Wookiee threw his arms out wide, covering about a three-meter expanse, fingertip to fingertip, and shook his huge hairy head, growling and roaring.
“I never said you could snap-turn the Falcon,” Jacen argued. “And I never did snap-turn the Falcon. Talk to Anakin.”
“Aaaahh-aaah-aaa!”
“You think you might wander over and help me with this compensator?” Han asked dryly, turning the Wookiee about. He held a pair of cables in his hand, one of them throwing the occasional spark, and his face was covered in grease so that his eyes and teeth shone brightly in contrast.
Jacen laughed again—or started to, until Chewie spun back around and glowered at him. Nothing like a Wookiee glare to sap the mirth.
“Well?” Han asked, and with a resigned roar, Chewie turned about and headed back for the opened service panel.
A short time later, Mara, Jaina, and C-3PO found their friends at work on the Falcon, while Leia headed off to issue her full report to the council.
Jaina wasted no time in pulling her brothers aside and dazzling them with her tale of evading the Z-95 Headhunters. Anakin puffed up with satisfaction as she recounted the story, taking it as proof of his understanding of the Force.
<
br /> Jacen didn’t bother to start up the argument again.
Similarly, C-3PO rushed to R2-D2 and began spewing every detail of the adventure with Nom Anor, “a most disagreeable person.”
R2-D2 clicked and whistled, seeming impressed, especially when C-3PO told of his final encounter with the Rhommamoolian leader, one in which he had faced down the mighty Nom Anor.
Mara, meanwhile, filled in Luke about the deadly intervention by Wurth Skidder.
“He’s a hair trigger,” she explained.
“You’re sure he wasn’t just trying to help?”
“We didn’t need his help,” Mara answered resolutely. “And he knew it, too. The Jade Sabre’s got more than enough firepower to blast a few Headhunters. Besides, by the time he got near to us, we were breaking clear. No, Wurth just wanted some kicks, and to add a couple of kill markers under his canopy.”
Luke shrugged, feeling more than a little helpless. A hundred Jedi Knights roamed the galaxy now—how could he keep them all under wraps?
“One at a time,” Mara said, and when Luke looked at her curiously, she merely returned a wistful smile. “You’re hearing all the problems, and they seem like they’ll overwhelm you, but that only means you have to deal with them one at a time. Your sister put Wurth in his place—for now, at least—so I don’t think you need to worry about him for a while.”
“How do you feel about a trip to the Outer Rim?” Luke asked her, and now it was Mara’s turn to offer a curious expression, and Luke’s to give a wry grin.
He fell over her, then, in a great hug and a heartfelt laugh. He always felt so much better when his wife was around.
Chewie stood quietly outside the council chamber, leaning back against the wall, his hands behind his head. When Mara and Jaina had come to the Falcon, Han had sent the Wookiee here to escort Leia, but Chewbacca understood that he had really been sent here just to get him away from Han and the Falcon. The repairs weren’t going so well, and Han and Chewie had spent the bulk of their last hour together just howling at each other. They both needed a break, and Chewie was glad for it.
But when one of the councilors, Fyor Rodan of Commenor, came out of the room unexpectedly and began wagging his finger at Chewie and grumbling about some intractable argument over certain trade privileges with Chewie’s home planet of Kashyyyk, the Wookiee realized that he hadn’t been away from the yelling Han for long enough.