his hold f or only a moment, but his balance was off. Trying to protect
the thyrsl from harm, he tumbled backward toward the floor-only to be
caught on a cushion of air just centimeters before he hit the
flagstones. Jacen touched down lightly and breathed a sigh of relief.
He raised his head to see Tenel Ka and Raynar standing together, locked
in concentration.
Concern was written all over the Alderaan boy's flushed face. He
swirled the sleeves of his colored robes. "Sorry I distracted you,
Jacen. Are you all right?Tenel Ka stretched out her arm and helped
Jacen to his feet. 'It takes a good deal of practice,' she said, 'to
climb with only one hand."
'No kidding," Jacen said. He held up his other hand to show her the
thyrsl. "At least we're both safe and sound," he added, a bit
sheepishly. Once again, he had bumbled in front of Tenel Ka! There
didn't seem to be any easy way to impress her.
Jaina and Lowie had rushed over in response to Raynar's announcement.
After seeing that her brother was all right despite the mishap, Jaina
grinned mischievously at him. "Nice maneuver, laser brain."
Lowie gave an urf of laughter.
'Ib cover his embarrassment, Jacen turned to Raynar. 'Hey, let's go
meet Dad and see if he's heard anything about your father."
The other boy perked up, showing sudden, intense interest.
Jacen cradled the thyrsl as they all ran out of the communications
center. Along the way, he would find a warm spot on some sunbaked
stones, well away from the reconstruction work, where the creature
couldn't cause any more mischief.
-----------------YAVIN'S SUN WAS bright and the jungle air warm, with a
light breeze but none of the strong winds they had experienced a few
days earlier. When Han Solo and Chewbacca strode out of the Falcon,
Jaina turned to look behind her. Raynar stood alone a small distance
away, twisting his brown sash around his fingers, his eyes averted from
the happy family reunion.
Han noticed him, too. He flashed a quick grin at Jaina and Jacen. His
eyes, though, were serious. "Got a surprise for you kids from home, but
let me talk to Raynar first."
The young Alderaan boy looked up hopefully. Jaina saw her father shake
his head.
'No news, actually," Han Solo admitted.
"But we've got some solid leads. If your father made it somewhere safe,
we're hoping he'll try to get a message to you. In the meantime, we've
got Lando Calrissian and some of the best ex-smugglers in the New
Republic on the search."
"I understand," Raynar said, then turned and walked dejectedly back
toward the Great Temple, his bright robes drooping around him.
With forced good humor after the sad news for Raynar, Han rubbed his
hands together. "Ready for your surprise?" Han turned to yell up the
ramp. "C'mon out."
"A.nakin!" Jaina exclaimed as their brother appeared in the opening.
"Hey, what're you doing here?" Jacen asked, giving his little brother a
playful punch on the shoulder.
"It's a long story,"Anakin said, sweeping his straight dark bangs away
from his ice-blue eyes. "You see, I had an idea for restoring the Great
Temple. You know how much I like to take things apart and put them
together again. I've always been good at puzzles."
"Well, this one has an awful lot of pieces," Jaina said, looking
doubtfully at the piles of broken stones lying about. She dismissed a
flickering thought that the whole place felt much bleaker, much emptier,
since Zekk had departed.
"I suggested that we could treat the temple like a puzzle-sort out the
pieces, then fit them back together again. I figured I could see the
patterns in my mind," Anakin continued. "Any areas that we can't
reconstruct from the original stones can be reproduced by New Republic
artists so they'll look just like the original Massassi work." He held
up a little hologram of the Great Temple, taken long ago when it had
been used as a hidden Rebel base.
"We'll use this as a template." 'Well, at least I have one brother who's
a genius," Jaina said, tossing Jacen a teasing look.
"Mom seemed so excited by the idea that I sort of volunteered to come to
Yavin 4, even though its not time for my classes to start again," Anakin
went on. "I'm not sure how it happened. I just said that I'd be one of
the best people for putting together the puzzle pieces, and Dad said
he'd help, and Mom seemed so happy. . . . He spread his hands,
looking a bit confused. 'And here I am."
Han put a comforting hand on his younger son's shoulder. "Don't worry,
kid. Your mom just has that effect on people. That's how she got
Chewie and me to help with her crazyRebellion against the Empire." The
olderWookiee groaned at the' memory.
"Yeah," Jaina said, pondering, "and I remember that time Lowie and I
volunteered to map out the orbits of space debris over Coruscant."
Jacen added, "And then you and Lowie offered to help fix old Peckhum's
space station, too." This time, Lowie groaned.
"Getting people to volunteer is one of your mother's many gifts," Han
concluded.
"That's why she's a politician."
Anakin looked over to where Luke Skywalker and some of his students were
still collecting chunks of rock that had been blasted from the top of
the temple pyramid. "Well, little brother," Jaina said, what are you
waiting for?"
Anakin took a deep breath and blew it out. "I volunteered-I guess I'd
better get started." He trotted off toward the Great Temple.
'I brought you each a little gift, as usual," Han said, producing a
smooth, pearl-pink sphere and offering it to Jacen. "It's a gort egg.@@
"Wow, I've always wanted one of these," Jacen said. "They make great
pets-kind of like miniature woolamanders with really soft feathers. You
can even teach them to talk."
"It'll take almost a year to hatch," Han warned, "and you have to keep
it warm the whole time."
"No problem," Jacen assured him, looking over at his sister. "LTh-is
it, Jaina?"
She pretended to heave a deep sigh.
"I think I can manage to build you a temperature-controlled cage,
Jacen."
"And for you, Jaina . . ." Han held out a meter-long chain of devices
that looked like a rope of Corellian nerf sausages. "A modular signal
transmitter."
"Great! More components for my collection," Jaina said, grinning.
"Don't thank me too soon," Han said.
"The transmitter works, but this is such an old model that it doesn't
have much range."
"Mat's okay, Dad-it's modular. I can figure out a way to link in a
higher-powered signal booster," Jaina said, feeling her spirits lift at
the prospect of this new mechanical challenge.
Jacen asked, as if the thought had suddenly struck him, "Why is it so
important to Mom to rebuild the Great Temple just like it was? I mean,
the Massassi weren't a particularly honorable race. Is she just doing
this for Uncle Luke?"
"No," Han said. "There's more to it than that. You kids never really
saw the planet Alderaan, where your mom grew up, since it was destroyed
before you were born." 'Ve've seen holoclips," Jaina pointed out.
"And those framed images you gave her."
Han nodded absently. "Alderaan was a center of culture and education.
Peaceful planet . . . lots of artists, philosophers, musicians.
Grand Moll Tarkin made your mother watch while he used the Death Star to
blast her home planet into tiny little chunks. Ever since then,
anything the Empire ruined, your mom's tried to set right again. And in
her memory, Yavin 4 was our first safe haven after your uncle Luke and I
rescued her from the Death Star. For her, the Great Temple is a symbol
of the Rebellion's struggle to build a fair government for everyone in
six or seven days to check on our progress."
"Hey, she'll be here for her birthday then," Jacen said, counting the
days.
"We thought it would be nice to have the whole family together for a
change," Han said. "Even if we have to come here to do it. 'Dad,"
Jaina said. "Jacen and I have been trying to come up with just the
perfect gift for Mom's birthday. We thought that maybe if we went to
the Alderaan system and got a special piece of Mom's planet, one that
she could take with her wherever she went, like a keepsake.
'Yeah," Han said in a soft voice, raising his eyebrows in surprise.
"Yeah, I think your mom'd like that. But I don't have time to take you
kids there. I've got to help with the work here, not to mention keeping
up with the search for Raynar's father."
'Veil, we could go by ourselves in Tenel Ka's ship," Jaina said, trying
to hide her expression of eagerness and fervent hope.
Han looked even more surprised. 'Oh, yeah. I forgot about the Rock
Dragon.
Tenel Ka's parents contacted Leia for permission to station a Hapan ship
here."
"You mean we can go then?" Jaina said.
"I didn't say that. . . ." Han frowned, as if thinking it over
seriously. "Well, all right," he said at last. "But only on two
conditions."
"Anything," Jaina said, and her brother nodded.
"First, you have to let Chewie and me check out the ship personally, so
we know it's safe for you to fly. Second, I want you back here in three
days. No more. Just to Alderaan and back-no sightseeing, no
joyriding."
"We promise," Jaina said. "What could possibly go wrong?"
In the end, Han and Chewie found nothing more significant than a rear
stabilizer to replace on the Rock Dragon. By the next morning, the ship
was ready for its flight to the Alderaan system.
"Not a bad little hunk of machinery," Han said to Tenel Ka, looking
around the cockpit approvingly. "Did they set it up specially so you
could fly it with one hand?"
"The controls have been adjusted to make that possible," Tenel Ka said.
"But Jaina has agreed to act as pilot."
Han crossed his arms over his vest, wearing a look of fatherly pride.
"A Solo at the helm, huh? Good choice."
Jaina sighed in relief at her father's response. "And Lowie's going to
be my copilot," she said. Chewbacca pounded a hairy fist on his
nephew's shoulder.
'I'm all ready,' Jacen said. He tossed his duffel into a storage net,
plopped down in one of the passenger's seats, and buckled his crash
webbing.
"I am also prepared," Tenel Ka said, seating herself beside Jacen.
'Jaina, you may depart when ready."
Lowie took the copilot's seat with an enthusiastic bellow, and Jaina
strapped herself in at the pilot's station.
"Three days now,' Han Solo called after them. 'I have your word on it."
Jaina looked at her father and rolled her eyes. "We'll be fine, Dad.
We're just going to get a piece of rock. If we're not back in three
days, you have my personal permission to send out a search party."
"Hey, if I can't trust my own kids, who can I trust?" Han shrugged, a
lopsided smile glued to his face, but Jaina could tell her father was
struggling to look nonchalant. Then he and Chewie left the ship and
stood outside on the landing field.
As the Rock Dragon took off, Jaina risked a glance away from her
piloting tasks to watch her father and Chewie waving goodbye. Something
felt strange, she thought.
Maybe she just wasn't used to being on this side of the cockpit
viewports, looking out at her father.
WHEN THE ROCK Dragon reached the graveyard of Alderaan, Jaina stared out
that had accompanied the destruction of an entire planet.
Only this jagged, broken rubble remained of her mother's homeworld.
Princess Leia had grown up here, living in a sparkling white city on an
island in the middle of a crater lake, soaring in giant
repulsorfreighters across the peaceful grasslands, resting in solitude
in the ancient organic structures built by a long-extinct insect race.
.
. .
Sitting in the pilot's seat of the Hapan passenger cruiser, Jaina
surveyed the countless flying splinters of rock scattered in space
before her: huge boulders, small pebbles, congealed lumps of pitted
metal.
Each piece of debris was like a tombstone for the dead of Alderaan.
In the copilot's chair, Lowie chuffed and growled, pointing at the
dangerous swarms of rocks. Their navigation console displayed a thickly
interwoven web of projected orbital paths.
With her rudimentary understanding of his Wookiee dialect, Jaina was
able to decipher some of the words Lowie spoke, but Em Teedee translated
anyway. "Master Lowbacca feels this asteroid field will be most
challenging to his navigational and piloting abilities. Personally, I
feel it my duty to point out the potential hazards, should you choose to
proceed. Asteroid fields can be extremely dangerous."
Jaina pressed her lips together, her expression grim. "This isn't just
any asteroid field, Em Teedee-this isn't natural. This used to be a
planet, but it was blown to bits by the Death Star. It was my mother's
planet."
The other young Jedi Knights fell silent, feeling the intangible grief
that surrounded the place, mourning those peaceful millions who had died
here because of the Empire's brutality.
Jaina stared at the crumbling shards, knowing that the bones
ofalderaan's population drifted out there somewhere, as well, now little
more than cosmic dust. All the great buildings and cities: the revered
Alderaan University; Crevasse City, built light into canyon walls;
Terrarium City, famed as a metropolis under glass. . . .
Jaina had seen images of Alderaan in its glory. Her mother kept a
gallery of paintings that showed her beloved homeworld.
Han Solo had given them to Leia around the time of their wedding.
She had heard her mother tell the story many times of how she had been a
prisoner aboard the Death Star, forced to watch as Grand Moll Tarkin
used the deadly battle station to obliterate the peaceful planet.
Tarkin had given
no warning, allowed none of the population to escape.
Now only this rubble field remained.
As far as she knew, Leia had never returned to the Alderaan system.
Jaina guessed that the sight would always be too painful, but hoped that
a special shard of her mother's destroyed home would make a fine
memento.
She gripped the controls of the Rock Dragon. 'You ready, Lowie?" she
said.
"We're going inside."
"Oh, do be careful," Em Teedee said.
Jacen and Tenel Ka quietly checked their crash webbing, but did not
interrupt the two pilots as they cruised into the scattershot storm of
planetary debris.
Around them, the rocks coursed and ricocheted, spinning about to display
jagged edges, raw craters. Over two decades, the debris had collided
again and again, slowly settling into an organized cloud. Some of the
shards clung together through their own gravity, gradually fusing into
clusters of rock.
"This place has a strong . . . feel to it," Tenel Ka said. "As if I
sense the ghosts of . . . many life forces obliterated at once."
Jacen nodded. 'Uncle Luke talks about how there was a great disturbance