[Legacy Of The Force] - 08

Chapter 1


When the nation is in its darkest peril, the great warrior-sailor Darakaer shall be summoned from his eternal sleep by a rhythm beaten on his ancient drum. For his final pledge was that he would come to our aid when the drum sounded, and that we should call him when we sailed to meet the foe.

-Irmenu folk legend

JEDI OUTPOST, ENDOR: TWELVE WEEKS AFTER THE DEATH OF MARA JADE SKYWALKER

Ben Skywalker had thought it would be a simple matter of thumbing his lightsaber into life-screaming vengeance or choked into silent grief, he didn’t care which-and slicing Jacen Solo’s head from his body.

He sat flicking the blade on and off, staring down the shaft of blue energy and watching it vanish only to snap back into vivid life over and over again. He saw his mother, who couldn’t be summoned back again at the flick of a switch, although he would have given the rest of his life for one more chance to tell her how much he loved her.

But the image that he wanted to erase yet couldn’t was Jacen Solo’s face. So many people said Jacen was a stranger now, but a stranger was someone you never loved or looked up to, and so their brutality or careless cruelty was just repellent detail, the distant stuff of holonews bulletins. Family, though…. family could hurt you like nobody else, and they didn’t even have to torture you like Jacen did to leave scars.

The face of Jacen that Ben would recall until the day he died was the one he saw on Kavan while he sat with his mother’s body, the face that promised Ben they’d get whoever did that to her. And that was why it simply would not go away; there was something wrong about that face. something missing, or something there that shouldn’t have been. Ben picked away at the memory, checking his chrono every few minutes, convinced that he’d been waiting for Aunt Leia for hours.

I had the chance to kill him. Dad stopped me. Maybe… maybe I could have killed Jacen without turning dark. Will I ever get another chance?

Jedi had killed Sith before. They said Kenobi killed a Sith on Naboo, but nobody thought it was an instant passport to the dark side; some dirty jobs had to be done. Ben had thought his absolute, all-consuming need to destroy Jacen had passed; but it hadn’t, and neither had his grief. It had simply shifted position. It ebbed and flowed, some days worse than others. He would not get over it. He would learn to live with the loss-somehow-but the galaxy had changed and would never return to normal; it was an alternate universe, nearly familiar enough for him to navigate, but where the most important landmarks were gone forever.

Now he was ready to pour his heart out to Leia. There were some things he wasn’t ready to tell his father. Luke Skywalker might have looked as if he was dealing with his grief, but Ben knew better, and if he told him what he really thought…. Dad would kill Jacen, he was sure of it. He’d snap. Ben had to be the responsible one now.

But if I’m wrong… I’ll only hurt Dad more.

Nothing added up.

I don’t believe Alema killed Mom, Sith sphere or not. I just don’t.

How did Jacen know where to find me on Kavan?

How did he know I was there with my mother’s body?

Ben had thought it was odd at the time, even when the shock of finding her body had nearly paralyzed him. But even in shock, he’d had the presence of mind to record evidence at the scene, every bit of data he could grab, just as

Captain Shevu had taught him. Jacen had mind-rubbed him once: he wasn’t going to let him rewrite history again.

And that was my instinctive reaction. Even when I found Mom dead…. something inside me said that was important. I’ll trust that.

Jedi would have said it was the certainty of the Force; cops like Captain Shevu would have said that Ben’s investigative training had kicked in. Either way, Ben had more questions than he had answers. But he was more sure each passing day that Jacen, his own cousin, his own flesh and blood, really had killed his mother.

He waited.

Eventually he heard two sets of footsteps coming down the passage, and had a sinking feeling that Luke might have met Leia in passing and decided to tag along. But when the doors opened, it was Leia and Jaina.

“Ben?” Leia always had that calming tone that said everything was under control, even when it wasn’t.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’ve got some difficult things to say, “he said. “You might not thank me, but I can’t sit on it any longer.”

The accusation was meant solely for Leia, and for a mo-ment he was reluctant to blurt it out in front of Jaina as well. But she needed to hear it.

“You know you can tell me anything, “Leia said. “Do you want Jaina to leave us alone?”

“No, no. As long as you don’t rush off and tell Dad, because he thinks I’m over the Jacen thing now, and I don’t want to start him worrying again.”