“I congratulate you,” Pellaeon said, suddenly tired of this game. “May I ask just what exactly this puzzle is?”
Thrawn smiled—a smile that sent a shiver up Pellaeon’s back. “Why, the only puzzle worth solving, of course,” the Grand Admiral said softly. “The complete, total, and utter destruction of the Rebellion.”20
C H A P T E R 2
“Luke?”
The voice came softly but insistently. Pausing amid the familiar landscape of Tatooine—familiar, yet oddly distorted—Luke Skywalker turned to look.
An equally familiar figure stood there watching him. “Hello, Ben,” Luke said, his voice sounding sluggish in his ears. “Been a long time.”
“It has indeed,” Obi-wan Kenobi said gravely. “And I’m afraid that it will be longer still until the next time. I’ve come to say good-bye, Luke.”
The landscape seemed to tremble; and abruptly, a small part of Luke’s mind remembered that he was asleep. Asleep in his suite in the Imperial Palace, and dreaming of Ben Kenobi.1
“No, I’m not a dream,” Ben assured him, answering Luke’s unspoken thought. “But the distances separating us have become too great for me to appear to you in any other way. Now, even this last path is being closed to me.”
“No,” Luke heard himself say. “You can’t leave us, Ben. We need you.”
Ben’s eyebrows lifted slightly, and a hint of his old smile touched his lips. “You don’t need me, Luke. You are a Jedi, strong in the Force.” The smile faded, and for a moment his eyes seemed to focus on something Luke couldn’t see. “At any rate,” he added quietly, “the decision is not mine to make. I have lingered too long already, and can no longer postpone my journey from this life to what lies beyond.”
A memory stirred: Yoda on his deathbed, and Luke pleading with him not to die. Strong am I in the Force, the Jedi Master had told him softly. But not that strong.2
“It is the pattern of all life to move on,” Ben reminded him. “You, too, will face this same journey one day.” Again, his attention drifted away, then returned. “You are strong in the Force, Luke, and with perseverance and discipline you will grow stronger still.” His gaze hardened. “But you must never relax your guard. The Emperor is gone, but the dark side is still powerful. Never forget that.”
“I won’t,” Luke promised.
Ben’s face softened, and again he smiled. “You will yet face great dangers, Luke,” he said. “But you will also find new allies, at times and places where you expect them least.”
“New allies?” Luke echoed. “Who are they?”
The vision seemed to waver and become fainter. “And now, farewell,” Ben said, as if he hadn’t heard the question. “I loved you as a son, and as a student, and as a friend. Until we meet again, may the Force be with you.”
“Ben—!”
But Ben turned, and the image faded … and in the dream, Luke knew he was gone. Then I am alone, he told himself. I am the last of the Jedi.
He seemed to hear Ben’s voice, faint and indistinct, as if from a great distance. “Not the last of the old Jedi, Luke. The first of the new.”3
The voice trailed off into silence, and was gone … and Luke woke up.
For a moment he just lay there, staring at the dim lights of the Imperial City playing across the ceiling above his bed and struggling through the sleep-induced disorientation. The disorientation, and an immense weight of sadness that seemed to fill the core of his being. First Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru had been murdered; then Darth Vader, his real father, had sacrificed his own life for Luke’s; and now even Ben Kenobi’s spirit had been taken away.
For the third time, he’d been orphaned.4
With a sigh, he slid out from under the blankets and pulled on his robe and slippers. His suite contained a small kitchenette, and it took only a few minutes to fix himself a drink, a particularly exotic concoction Lando had introduced him to on his last visit to Coruscant. Then, attaching his lightsaber to his robe sash, he headed up to the roof.
He had argued strongly against moving the center of the New Republic here to Coruscant,5 had argued even more strongly against setting up their fledgling government in the old Imperial Palace. The symbolism was all wrong, for one thing, particularly for a group which—in his opinion—already had a tendency to pay too much attention to symbols.
But despite all its drawbacks, he had to admit that the view from the top of the Palace was spectacular.
For a few minutes he stood at the roof’s edge, leaning against the chest-high wrought stone railing and letting the cool night breeze ruffle his hair. Even in the middle of the night the Imperial City was a bustle of activity, with the lights of vehicles and streets intertwining to form a sort of flowing work of art. Overhead, lit by both the city lights and those of occasional airspeeders flitting through them, the low-lying clouds were a dim sculptured ceiling stretching in all directions, with the same apparent endlessness as the city itself. Far to the south, he could just make out the Manarai Mountains, their snow-covered peaks illuminated, like the clouds, largely by reflected light from the city.6
He was gazing at the mountains when, twenty meters behind him, the door into the Palace was quietly opened.
Automatically, his hand moved toward his lightsaber; but the motion had barely begun before it stopped. The sense of the creature coming through the doorway … “I’m over here, Threepio,” he called.
He turned to see C-3PO shuffling his way across the roof toward him, radiating the droid’s usual mixture of relief and concern. “Hello, Master Luke,” he said, tilting his head to look at the cup in Luke’s hand. “I’m terribly sorry to disturb you.”
“That’s all right,” Luke told him. “I just wanted some fresh air, that’s all.”
“Are you certain?” Threepio asked. “Though of course I don’t mean to pry.”
Despite his mood, Luke couldn’t help but smile. Threepio’s attempts to be simultaneously helpful, inquisitive, and polite never quite came off. Not without looking vaguely comical, anyway. “I’m just a little depressed, I guess,” he told the droid, turning back to gaze out over the city again. “Putting together a real, functioning government is a lot harder than I expected. Harder than most of the Council members expected,7 too.” He hesitated. “Mostly, I guess I’m missing Ben tonight.”
For a moment Threepio was silent. “He was always very kind to me,” he said at last. “And also to Artoo, of course.”
Luke raised his cup to his lips, hiding another smile behind it. “You have a unique perspective on the universe, Threepio,” he said.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Threepio stiffen. “I hope I didn’t offend you, sir,” the droid said anxiously. “That was certainly not my intent.”
“You didn’t offend me,” Luke assured him. “As a matter of fact, you might have just delivered Ben’s last lesson to me.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Luke sipped at his drink. “Governments and entire planets are important, Threepio. But when you sift everything down, they’re all just made up of people.”
There was a brief pause. “Oh,” Threepio said.
“In other words,” Luke amplified, “a Jedi can’t get so caught up in matters of galactic importance that it interferes with his concern for individual people.” He looked at Threepio and smiled. “Or for individual droids.”
“Oh. I see, sir.” Threepio cocked his head toward Luke’s cup. “Forgive me, sir … but may I ask what that is that you’re drinking?”
“This?” Luke glanced down at his cup. “It’s just something Lando taught me how to make a while back.”