[Black Fleet Crisis(38)

Their eyes met. Luke felt her gaze like a light cast into the dark corners of his psyche. Her voice disarmed him. Her words unveiled him. She had taken down all his shields, and he was defenseless against her, his mind wholly open to her. But it was a strangely safe feeling.

She already knew his most unthinkable thoughts, and still she held her hand out to him.

“Test me, if you must, ” Akanah said.

“No, ” he said. “It’s not necessary. “

“I will wait here, if you want to return to Yavin for your testing equipment, ” she offered. “But I can tell you what you would see-nothing. The White Current is not the Force you know, only with a different name. But it is a manifestation of the All. I will teach you what I can. “

“You assume a great deal. “

“I speak from hope only. Will you come with me, Luke Skywalker? “

“I don’t know, ” he said. “There’s something I must do first-someone I need to tell. “

“Leia. “

“Yes. Is there any reason I shouldn’t? “

“No reason, ” she said, and smiled. “You said it was not necessary to test me. But that question-“

“You’re right, ” Luke agreed. “If you’d said, ‘No, this has to be our secret, ‘ I would’ve doubted you. But there’s another reason I have to do this. I have no memories of my mother. Leia has but a few, no more than glimpses touched by emotion. “

“There are more memories there. Nashira was protected, just as you were. “

“I can believe that. But what you’ve already told me may be enough to unlock any hidden doors, allow me to probe her mind with more success than I’ve had in the past. And to find another few glimpses of her here”-he touched his temple with his fingertips-“would mean a great deal. If you could tell me even more-“

“I’m sorry. ” Akanah’s sudden smile was touched by humor. “Fifteen years ago, you weren’t important-just Fallanassi gossip. If I had known what was to come, I would have paid more attention. “

He laughed. “Will you wait here while I go see Leia? “

“Of course, ” she said. “I’ve waited long enough for this night. I can wait a little longer for our journey to begin. “

Luke’s flight suit felt strange on his body, both too loose and too confining. The E-wing looked like an inert sculpture in its hangar, covered by a fine, pale coating of dust that had fallen out of the still air.

“Artee, ” Luke said. “Exit standby mode. “

Almost instantly several lights of different colors glowed on the dome and faceplates of the astromech droid. A moment later it gave an answering chirrup.

“Preflight the ship, ” Luke said, starting his own quick but thorough inspection.

The droid whistled, and Luke glanced down at the display bar on his flight suit.

“Yes, you can stop monitoring the house systems, ” Luke said.

R7-TI’s response had the stridency of an alarm.

“Yes, I know there’s someone in the house, ” Luke said, ducking under the left wing. “Just leave some lights on and the upper passways open. She’ll be fine. “

The E-wing passed both Artee’s and Luke’s checks with flying colors.

Both the design and the example before Luke were relatively new, far more able and robust than the T-65 X-wing he had flown against the first Death Star at Yavin. And the E-wing he was about to climb into had been overhauled to factory-new condition after its last taste of combat.

Still, he hesitated.

Technically, the E-wing was on loan to the Jedi academy for training purposes, but only because there was no provision in the quartermaster’s regulations for loaning a front-line starfighter to a civilian. Ackbar had persuaded him that, given the unpredictability of life, it was far more sensible for him to have a fully armed E-wing at his disposal than an unarmed sprint, ketch, or runabout.

“Think of yourself as a member of the Republic’s militia. And a militiaman should have his weapon at home with him, in the event he is called on again, ” Ackbar had said.

Luke had accepted that argument reluctantly. But in the months before he returned to Coruscant, he had become more and more uncomfortable in the E-wing’s cockpit. It was a heavily armed killer, anIntimidator , an unspoken threat wherever it appeared. As such, it represented a part of his life that he was trying to leave behind.

His X-wing had fit him like a second skin, like an extension of himself. He had taken joy in flying it, even in battle. But that had been another, younger Luke. The E-wing was different. It was an embarrassment, an ugly set of clothes he was forced to wear when he went out in public. And he missed the familiar presence of Artoo, who simply did not fit-physically or electronically-in the E-wing’s R7 astromech interface.