Kenobi's Blade Read online

  Star Wars

  Junior Jedi Knights

  6

  Kenobi's Blade

  by Rebecca Moesta

  OCR: Ãîëîäíûé Ýâîê Ãðûçëè

  upload: 29.XII.2005

  In his room at the Jedi academy, Anakin Solo bent over a small

  worktable by the window slit. His ice blue eyes studied the project he was

  tinkering with. Although the thick stone walls of the Great Temple around

  him kept his room cool and dim, Anakin didn't mind. It was bright and hot

  outside today, and he needed the light low to see what he was doing. He

  found the dimness soothing. Having fewer distractions helped him to think.

  A fringe of straight dark hair fell across Anakin's eyes, as it often did,

  and he brushed the bangs aside so that he could see better.

  "It's almost finished," he said.

  On the windowsill, basking in the sun, a furry white creature with

  long floppy ears, a fluffy tail, and large blue-green eyes watched Anakin.

  The creature sat up to its full one-meter height and asked,

  "Are you solving a puzzle?"

  Anakin smiled. "Sort of. This is a programmable laser puzzle, and I'm

  trying to make a picture out of it-a hologram, really. I think I've just

  about got it." Anakin concentrated on blending and focusing the laser beams

  into the pattern he had programmed for this light "painting." Suddenly the

  hologram came together just as Anakin had planned, and he froze it into the

  puzzle's memory.

  "There. What do you think, Ikrit?"

  Ikrit, the white-furred Jedi Master on the windowsill, nodded.

  "Mmmmmm. You show great skill for one so young."

  Anakin blushed slightly at the compliment. The red stain on his cheeks

  clashed with the orange of his comfortable flightsuit.

  "I'm not that young," he pointed out. "I'll be a teenager next year."

  Just then a knock sounded at the door and, without waiting for an

  invitation, Anakin's best friend danced into the room.

  "Hi, Anakin. Good afternoon, Master Ikrit," Tahiri sang.

  She took a few twirling steps on her bare feet, and her long blonde

  hair swirled around the shoulders of her orange academy flightsuit. "Guess

  what?" she said. "Master Skywalker has been called away to Coruscant, so we

  won't have any lessons with him for a couple of weeks."

  Anakin nodded and smiled to himself. He knew that his friend would

  probably keep talking whether he answered her or not.

  "We'll be having all our lessons with Tionne and Ikrit for the next

  week or two."

  Tahiri finally came to a spinning stop beside Anakin's worktable. Her

  bright green eyes sparkled as she looked down at his project.

  "That's a great hologram of your family, Anakin," she said in a

  wistful voice. "You're lucky to have such a nice family. I always wonder

  what my parents were really like. I don't remember much, except for what

  Sliven told me."

  Sliven was the leader of a tribe of Sand People on Tatooine. He had

  adopted Tahiri after her parents were killed when she was only a few years

  old. Tahiri kept talking, not even stopping to take a breath.

  "Isn't that a bolo generator? Where did you get it? And why aren't you

  in the hologram? I don't remember seeing it before. Did you have it made

  last time you were at home on Coruscant?" She paused for the briefest

  moment, and then continued. "So, aren't you going to say anything?"

  Anakin shook his head. "I made this myself. I collected images of my

  family from everywhere I could find them, chose the best ones, and

  programmed them into this hologram. This one," he said, pointing to the

  image of Leia Organa Solo and Han Solo, "was from my last birthday. Mom

  left a meeting of the Senate to come to my party. To surprise her, Dad came

  back early from a trip to the Bespin System. I love that stunned and happy

  look on Mom's face."

  He pointed to the images of his brother and sister, the Jedi twins.

  "I added the pictures of Jacen and Jaina from shots taken here on

  Yavin 4 before they went home on break."

  "Mmmmm. It is good to remember who your family is and what you are a

  part of," Ikrit said in his scratchy voice.

  "I got the idea for it in Darth Vader's fortress," Anakin admitted.

  "From the hologram he kept of your uncle Luke?" Tahiri asked.

  "Yes. I like to think he kept it to remind himself of who he was.

  Maybe that's why-in the end, at least-he couldn't serve the dark side of

  the Force anymore," Anakin said.

  "Sometimes I wish I had holograms of my parents," Tahiri said a little

  sadly. She put her hand up to touch the two pendants on the necklace she

  wore tucked inside her flightsuit; one held the thumbprints of her mother

  and father, the other held Sliven's.

  "I do keep a little hologram of our instructor Tionne, though," she

  went on. "That's the next best thing. After all, she's the one who found me

  on Tatooine when I lived with the Sand People, and-Tionne! Yipes, I almost

  forgot! You'll never guess in a million years."

  Anakin didn't try to guess, but that didn't seem to faze Tahiri. Her

  face glowed with the excitement of her news.

  "Tionne invited us to do something special because we helped her find

  Obi-Wan Kenobi's lightsaber and the Holocron in Bast Castle. She wants us

  all to come and watch while she explores the lessons in the Holocron! She

  said to come right away. We're supposed to bring Uldir, too."

  Anakin looked at his wrist chronometer.

  "In that case, we'd better hurry. You've been here several minutes

  already, and this sounds like something we don't want to miss."

  Tahiri grinned. "It's almost like going on an adventure-except there

  won't be as many stairs as in Vader's fortress."

  After stopping to collect Uldir from the kitchen, where he was

  working, the junior Jedi Knights and Ikrit trooped up to Tionne's chambers.

  They settled themselves in a loose semicircle around the Jedi instructor.

  Uldir wiped his hands off on the brown Jedi robe he wore and ran them

  through his shaggy chestnut hair. Tahiri noticed that he seemed more

  excited than any of them to be able to find out more about the Holocron.

  That was good, Tahiri decided. Uldir's parents were cargo pilots for

  the New Republic. He had stowed away on a freighter and come to Yavin 4 in

  hopes of becoming a Jedi. Even though Master Skywalker had found no Jedi

  talent in the sturdy teenager, Uldir had stayed at the Jedi academy to

  study the Force.

  Anakin, Tahiri, and Uldir had become good friends. But since they had

  all returned from Bast Castle-the fortress that had once belonged to

  Anakin's grandfather, Darth Vader-Uldir had been so withdrawn and quiet

  that Tahiri had been worried. Now that Uldir had found something to be

  excited about, Tahiri was glad. After all, she was excited, too. She always

  enjoyed taking lessons with her teacher Tionne, of course, but this was

  something special.

  "We will sta
rt at the beginning," Tionne said in hushed tones. The

  silvery-haired instructor's face dimpled into a smile as she sat down and

  held the gleaming milky cube lightly on one palm. She spoke in a musical

  voice and her enormous mother-of-pearl eyes seemed to shine.

  "This is a Jedi Holocron. Each Holocron contains the recorded

  teachings of a Jedi Master, like a small library of knowledge. It passes on

  the Jedi Master's wisdom to future Jedi."

  Tionne nodded to Ikrit, who dimmed the glow - panels for her. The

  teacher cupped her palms around the pearly cube. A glowing image sparkled

  to life in the air above it.

  "Welcome, my children. How may I teach you today?" asked the hologram

  of Ash Krimsan, a tiny, plump woman with black hair. She wore a long, soft

  gown as red as wine.

  "Please, tell us about yourself, Ash Krimsan," Tionne said. Tahiri

  shot her teacher a curious look. It seemed a bit odd to ask questions of a

  hologram.

  Then, to her amazement, the hologram answered.

  "I have spent the last two hundred years of my life teaching the very

  young," Ash Krimsan said. Her face beamed with kindness and wisdom that

  came from the Force.

  "How could she hear our questions?" Tahiri whispered. "She's only a

  picture."

  "When Jedi Masters record their Holocrons, they also program in

  answers to the 'questions they think will be asked most often," Ikrit

  whispered back. "That makes it easier to find information quickly."

  The hologram paused for a moment, then continued.

  "I believe that unless we teach future Jedi to use the Force when they

  are children, they may never reach the full talent they were meant to have.

  "

  Uldir snorted. Out of the corner of her eye, Tahiri saw him clench his

  fists.

  "Master Skywalker wasn't a child when he learned about the Force," he

  muttered, "and he's pretty powerful."

  In the image, Ash Krimsan opened her hands and held them out as if

  offering a gift.

  "That is why I have gathered all of my lessons and placed them into

  this Holocron for you, my children. These words are for you and for all

  Jedi who are to come. Teach your children well, and trust the Force. I will

  put this Holocron in one of the great Jedi libraries, so that future Jedi

  Masters may share what I have learned when they teach their students."

  "Library?" the silver-haired Tionne said breathlessly.

  Tahiri perked up. She had never heard of a great Jedi library.

  "Can you tell me where it is?" Tionne asked.

  With a sweep of the Jedi Master's arm, her image dissolved and a new

  one appeared. Robed figures with lightsabers at their sides walked through

  gleaming metal passages that curved away out of sight. Plasteel beams

  formed arches where corridors changed from one subject area to another.

  Large windowports framed triangles of multicolored transparisteel. Small

  alcoves filled with spot-lit artifacts dotted the walls. Crystalline data

  wafers filled row upon row of archive cases.

  "The Jedi library," the voice of Ash Krimsan continued, "is on a space

  station in the Teedio System-Exis Station. The vast library there holds the

  collected knowledge of many, many Jedi."

  "Exis," Tionne murmured. "I've seen it before."

  Uldir jerked upright beside Tahiri. His amber eyes went wide.

  "Exis Station? That's where the Mage Orloc said he was from."

  The Jedi instructor's pearly eyes opened wide with surprise. She set

  down the Holocron, and the glowing picture of Ash Krimsan winked out.

  Anakin looked at Uldir.

  "How do you know?" Uldir shrugged. "Orloc told me himself, when we

  were alone in the hangar bay in Vader's fortress." Tahiri remembered that

  when their group went to Vader's fortress on the planet Vjun to find Obi-

  Wan Kenobi's lightsaber, a strange man in purple robes had gotten there

  ahead of them. After the companions found the lightsaber and the Jedi

  Holocron, the Mage Orloc had stolen them. In the race to recapture the

  treasures, Uldir had been the first to find the Mage-and had almost paid

  with his life. In the end, they got back both objects, but the Mage had

  escaped.

  "You mean that magician guy lives in a space station that holds a Jedi

  library?" Tahiri said.

  "Well, not really," Tionne answered. "I know that the library isn't

  there anymore. The space station has been empty for a long time now."

  "You mean you went there already?" Tahiri asked. "Was it in one of

  your research trips?" She knew how much her teacher Tionne loved to study

  Jedi history. Every few months the silver-haired instructor went out on a

  trip to find anything she could about Jedi Knights who had lived long ago-

  stories, songs, tapestries, and so on.

  "Yes," Tionne answered with a faraway look on her face. "It was many

  years ago. I heard that there was an ancient library in the Teedio System,

  so I looked for it. The legends said that a great Jedi meeting was held

  there once. I had hoped..." She shook her head. "When I got to the space

  station, I found it had been deserted for thousands of years. According to

  the station's records, a disaster had happened that made the sun in the

  Teedio System send out solar flares and heavy radiation. "The station was

  evacuated and the contents of the library were sent to Jedi throughout the

  galaxy for safekeeping. The flares lasted for so many years that no one

  ever returned to the station."

  "Are there still flares?" Uldir asked.

  "Every nine years or so the flares come again," Tionne said. "But

  there was no danger while I was at Exis. I decided that even though the

  library was empty, I had to save the station for what it once was. That was

  where Master Skywalker first found me. He was searching for new Jedi

  students at the time. I'm not sure exactly how we did it, but the two of us

  started the space station's engines and moved it to a safe distance from

  the sun."

  "All by yourselves?" Uldir asked, looking doubtful.

  "Well, we did have the help of Artoo-Detoo and some old space station

  droids," Tionne said.

  "I'd like to see it someday," Anakin said. "It sounds like a pretty

  interesting place, even if it's empty."

  "It sure does," Tahiri said with a grin, "but I'm not ready for

  another adventure yet-at least, not if it means climbing more stairs."

  "How about another lesson from the Holocron?" Uldir suggested.

  Tionne frowned. "I'm not sure we should.... Ash Krimsan said that she

  made the Holocron to be used by Jedi Masters."

  Uldir's shoulders sagged with disappointment.

  "Well, what about Ikrit?" he said stubbornly, nodding at the furry

  Jedi Master across the circle.

  "Mmmmm." Ikrit nodded. "The boy is correct: I am a Jedi Master." He

  spread his white-furred paws. "But Luke Skywalker is the master of the Jedi

  academy. I will leave it for him to decide how this historical treasure

  should be used."

  Tionne looked relieved.

  "That's settled then. We'll put the Holocron back in Master

  Skywalker's chambers until he returns."

  She stood, picked up
the glowing pearly cube, and left the room. Ikrit

  followed her.

  Uldir's amber eyes grew stormy.

  "It's not fair," he muttered. "We're the students. We're the ones who

  need those lessons. I'm ready to learn more right now."

  Tahiri put a hand on his strong arm.

  "There are lots of other ways to study until Master Skywalker gets

  back. After that, I'm sure we'll get plenty of chances to have lessons from

  the Holocron."

  "Uncle Luke should be back in a couple of weeks," Anakin added.

  "Let's work on lighting candle flames-we can make a game out of it,"

  Tahiri offered. She hoped she could distract the gruff teenager from his

  disappointment.

  Uldir looked interested.

  "Okay. That sounds better than trying to lift leaves. We've done that

  lots of times. I've never even gotten mine off the ground."

  "But you're learning about the Force," Anakin pointed out. "That's

  important progress. It's one reason Uncle Luke lets you stay at the

  academy."

  Uldir snorted.

  "Progress? Maybe. It just seems like there ought to be a faster way."