Luke finally turned around. “Tesar and Lowbacca didn’t seem to think so.” He had felt three other Jedi Knights return to Ossus along with Jacen. “Neither did Tahiri.”
“What can I say?” Jacen spread his hands. “I’m not their brother.”
Mara frowned. “Jacen, your sister used you as a pretext and we all know it. Let’s leave it at that.” She turned to Luke. “Nanna’s on the way with Ben, and Kam says the students have all been waiting in the lecture hall since this morning.”
“Thanks.” Luke joined her and Jacen at the rear of the pavilion, then gestured at the path leading toward the lecture hall. “Walk with us, Jacen. We need to talk.”
“I know.” Jacen fell in at Luke’s side, between him and Mara. “You must be furious about the raid on the Chiss supply depot.”
“I was,” Luke admitted. “But your aunt convinced me that if you were involved, there had to be a good reason.”
“I was more than involved,” Jacen said. “It was my idea.”
“Your idea?” Mara echoed.
Jacen was silent a moment, and Luke could feel him struggling with himself, trying to decide how much we could tell them. He was trying to protect something-something as important to him as the Force itself.
Finally, Jacen said, “I had a vision.” He stopped and looked into the crown of a red-fronded dbergo tree. “I saw the Chiss launch a surprise attack against the Killiks.”
“And so you decided to provoke the Chiss just to be certain?” Luke asked. “Surely, it would have been better to warn the Killiks.”
Jacen’s fear chilled the Force. “There was more,” he said. “I saw the Killiks mount a counterattack. The war spread to the Galactic Alliance.”
“And that’s why you attacked the Chiss supply depot,” Mara surmised. “To protect the Galactic Alliance.”
“Among other things,” Jacen said. “I had to change the dynamics of the situation. If the war had started that way, it wouldn’t have stopped. Ever.” He turned to Luke. “Uncle Luke, I saw the galaxy die.”
“Die?” An icy ball formed in Luke’s stomach. Considering the turmoil the order had been in at the time, he was beginning to understand why Jacen had felt it necessary to take such dire action. “Because the Chiss launched a surprise attack?”
Jacen nodded. “That’s why I convinced Jaina and the others to help me. To prevent the surprise attack from happening.”
“I see.” Luke fell quiet, wondering what he would have done, had he been in Jacen’s place and experienced such a terrifying vision. “I understand why you felt you had to act, Jacen. But trying to change what you see in a vision is dangerous-even for a Jedi of your talent and power. What you witnessed was only one of many possible futures.”
“One that I can’t permit,” Jacen replied quickly.
Again, Luke felt a wave of protectiveness from Jacen — protectiveness and secrecy.
“You were protecting something,” Luke said. “What?”
“Nothing … and everything.” Jacen spread his hands, and Luke felt him draw in on himself in the Force. “This.”
They came to the Crooked Way, a serpentine path of rectangular stepping-stones, set askew to each other so that walkers would be forced to slow down and concentrate on their journey through the garden. Luke allowed Mara to lead the way, then fell in behind Jacen, watching with interest as his nephew instinctively took the smoothest, most fluid possible route up the walkway.
“Jacen, do you know that you have prevented what you saw in your vision?” Luke asked. He was meandering back and forth behind his nephew, absentmindedly allowing his feet to choose their route from one stone to the next. “Can you be certain that your own actions won’t bring the vision to pass?”
Jacen missed the next stone and would have stepped onto the soft carpet of moss had he not sensed his error and caught his balance. He stopped, then pivoted around to face Luke.
“Is that a rhetorical question, Master?” he asked.
“Not entirely,” Luke replied. He was concerned that Jacen had fixed the future again, as he had when he had reached across time and spoken to Leia during a vision at the Crash site on Yoggoy. “I need to be sure I know everything.”
“Even Yoda didn’t know everything,” Jacen said, smiling. “But the future is still in motion, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Thank you,” Luke said. Fearing dangerous ripples in the Force, Luke had asked Jacen not to reach into the future again. “But I still wish you hadn’t acted so … forcefully.”