[Junior Jedi Knights] -05(3)
“Well, where is it then?” Tahiri said. “In an old fortress on a planet called Vjun,” Tionne said.
“Does anyone live in the fortress?” Anakin asked.
Tionne shook her head.
“Not anymore.”
“Well, if it’s really that important, don’t you think you ought to go find it?” Tahiri said. “And don’t forget that you promised to take me with you this time.”
“I’d like to go along, too,” Anakin added.
“Yeah, it sounds like fun,” Uldir said.
Tionne frowned.
“I’m not sure Master Skywalker will approve. It could be a bit dangerous. The news about this special thing had just reached Borgo Prime, but there might be other people who learned about where it is-other people who might want to find it too.”
“Then it sounds important enough that we ought to go after it,” Tahiri insisted. “As soon as possible.”
“Why would someone else want it?” Anakin asked, his ice blue eyes alive with curiosity. “What kind of special object is this?”
Tionne’s face lit with a wondering smile, and she gave a happy sigh.
“It’s Obi-Wan Kenobi’s lightsaber!”
Luke Skywalker, dressed in a comfortable black flightsuit, sat on the stone floor in the room where he meditated and did his office work. At the moment, though, Luke was not meditating. Before him in the center of the room stood his barrel-shaped blue and white droid, ArtooDetoo. It was time for Artoo’s routine cleaning. Anakin’s older sister Jaina often helped Luke with this chore, but the Jedi Master didn’t mind doing it himself. He actually found it relaxing. With his tools neatly laid out on the floor and fresh packets of lubricant beside him, Master Skywalker opened ArtooDetoo’s front panels and got to work.
After checking the droid’s numerous electrical connections, Luke added a few gadgets and upgrades Jaina had scrounged up for Artoo: a retractable mirror attachment, a power booster for the comm unit, and a new focusing lens for the hologram projector.
A white-furred creature with floppy ears watched from his favorite perch on top of ArtooDetoo ‘s domed head. Most people at the Jedi academy thought the quiet, friendly creature was Anakin’s pet, but Ikrit was really a Jedi Master himself. Luke had just begun to drain dirty, oily grunge from the droid’s wheel axles when he heard a knock on the heavy wooden door.
“Would you get that, please?” Luke asked Ikrit.
The fluffy-furred Jedi Master sprang down from the top of Artoo’s head and bounded toward the arched doorway. Then he reached up, unhooked the latch, and opened the door. Luke looked up from the packet of slippery lubricant he held in his hand, then smiled when he saw who his visitors were.
“Come in,” he said, “all of you.”
His words seemed to open an invisible dam, because people and noises instantly flooded into his quiet room. Luke laughed as everyone tried to talk to him at once.
“Master Skywalker, I have wonderful news,” Tionne said. “You’ll never guess in a million years,” Tahiri added.
“Can I go with them?” Anakin asked.
“Yeah, me too!” Uldir said.
“I don’t want to get left behind.” Luke put down the lubricant and chuckled.
“All right, I’m ready to hear your news,” he said as ArtooDetoo warbled enthusiastically. “Let’s start with Tionne.”
Luke was amazed.
He thought back to the last time he had seen Obi-Wan Kenobi’s lightsaber.
Kenobi,
Luke’s first Jedi instructor, had fought Darth Vader on the first Death Star. The old man had sacrificed himself so that Luke, the Wookiee Chewbacca, and Anakin’s parents Han and Leia could escape in the Millennium Falcon.
“Let me get this straight,” Luke said. “Someone on Borgo Prime-an information broker - told you that Obi-Wan Kenobi’s lightsaber was taken away from the Death Star before it blew up!”
“That’s right,” Tionne said. “The Hutt who sold me the information said that the lightsaber was taken to the planet Vjun and hidden in some sort of fortress or castle. But it’s all right-no one lives there anymore.”
“Darth Vader…,” Luke said.
It surprised him that Darth Vader would want to keep the lightsaber of his former teacher, but it wasn’t impossible. Vader could have sent it away from the Death Star just after he defeated Kenobi. Or he might even have taken it with him when he escaped the destruction of the Death Star.
“What about Darth Vader?” Tionne asked in confusion.
“That fortress,” Luke answered. He pulled some wires from a panel inside ArtooDetoo, cleaned the contacts, and reattached the wires. “I’ve been there. It’s called Bast Castle, and it belonged to my father when he was known as Darth Vader.”