Luke raised his hand, palm out.
The monster snuffled and waited, motionless, its wicked tusks less than a meter away from Luke Skywalker.
The jungle fell silent. The breeze died away. Jacen held his breath. Jaina gripped his hand. Tenel Ka narrowed her cool gray eyes.
The silence seemed so overwhelming that when Luke at last broke the frozen moment, his whisper sounded as loud as a shout.
“Go,” Luke told the creature. “There is nothing you need here.”
The monster reared up on its hind set of piston legs, its eye tentacles thrashing in a frenzy. Then it let out another high-pitched trumpet before it spun around and crashed off into the thick undergrowth. Branches cracked, trees bent to one side as it plowed a wide path back to the mysterious jungle depths from which it had come.
Like a snapped string, Luke’s shoulders slumped with exhaustion. He seemed barely able to keep himself from trembling as Jacen, Jaina, and Tenel Ka rushed toward him, calling his name. “Uncle Luke!”
Luke turned and looked at the three friends with a smile.
Old Peckhum stumbled up, clutching the antiquated blaster rifle. His eyes glittered with unshed tears. “I can’t believe you did that, Master Skywalker!” he said. “I thought I was dead for sure, but you faced that monster with no weapons at all.”
“I had enough weapons,” Luke said with calm conviction. “I had the Force.”
“I wish I could do that, Uncle Luke,” Jacen said. “That was really something.”
“You will be able to do anything you want, Jacen,” Luke said. “You have the potential—as long as you have the discipline.”
Luke gazed off into the jungle, where they could still hear trees crashing and shrubs snapping as the monster continued to blunder its way through the forest.
“There are many mysterious things in the jungles,” Luke said, then he smiled at the twins and Tenel Ka. He nodded toward Peckhum’s ship, the Lightning Rod, which still sat open, filled with crates and boxes of supplies and equipment.
“I think our friend Mr. Peckhum is having a rough day,” Luke said. “He’s got a lot more to unload, and he’s probably eager to get back up into orbit, where it’s safe.” He flashed a smile at the old supply runner, who nodded vigorously.
“Why don’t you three consider it a Jedi training exercise to help him. Besides, we need to get ready because tomorrow—” He looked at Jacen and Jaina, eyes sparkling. “Your father and Chewbacca are bringing us another Jedi trainee.”
“Dad’s coming here?” Jaina said with a yelp.
“Hey, why didn’t you tell us before?” Jacen added. His heart leaped at the thought of seeing his father again after a full month.
“I wanted it to be a surprise. He’s flying in on the Millennium Falcon, but he had to stop at Chewbacca’s planet first. They’ve already left Kashyyyk, and they’re on their way here.”
Filled with excitement, the young Jedi Knights eagerly helped unload Peckhum’s supply ship. It was hard work, demanding more concentration and control of their Jedi lifting abilities than they were used to, but they finished in less than an hour. Jaina and Jacen chattered to Tenel Ka about all the adventures Han Solo had experienced. Jaina groaned about how much work it would be to clean up their quarters in time, so they could impress their father.
Finally, the battered old freighter flew off into the misty skies toward the orangish gas-giant planet of Yavin.
Jacen smiled and looked wistfully at the trampled clearing. The next ship to arrive on the landing pad would be the Millennium Falcon!
4
“There,” said Jaina, mentally relaxing her hold on a large mass of tangled wires and cables. It came “to rest in a more or less contained jumble atop one of the newly tidied stacks of electronic components in her room. “That should do it,” she added with a satisfied nod.
“Does that mean we can go to morning meal now?” Jacen said. “You’ve been at this half the night.”
“I want Dad to be impressed.” Jaina shrugged.
Jacen laughed. “He never stacks his tools this neatly!”
“Guess I did get a little carried away,” Jaina replied, matching his grin. “We’ve still got a few hours before they get here.”
Jacen snorted and stood up from the floor, where he’d been sitting next to his sister while they worked. He brushed the dust off his jumpsuit and ran long fingers through his dark brown curls. “Well, how do I look?”
Jaina raised a critical eyebrow at him. “Like someone who’s been up all night.”
He hurried over to peer anxiously into the small mirror that Jaina had hung above her cistern. She realized that her brother was just as nervous and excited about seeing their father again as she was.
“It’s actually not too bad,” she assured him. “I think raking the twigs and leaves from your hair really helped. Here, put this on.” She pulled a fresh jumpsuit from a chest by her bed. “You’ll look more presentable.”
When Jacen went into the next room to change, Jaina took his place at the mirror. She wasn’t vain, but, as with her room, she preferred to keep her personal appearance neat and clean.
She ran a comb through her straight brown hair and stared at her reflection. Then, with a quick peek over her shoulder to be sure her brother wasn’t looking, she pulled back a handful of strands and worked them into a braid. Jaina would never have gone to this much trouble for an ambassador or some silly dignitary—but her father was worth the effort. She hoped Jacen wouldn’t notice or comment on it. Finished, she stepped through her doorway and poked her head into Jacen’s room. “All the animals fed?” she asked.
“I took care of that hours ago,” he said, emerging in his clean, fresh robe. He heaved a long-suffering sigh. “At least someone’s had their morning meal.”
Jaina gnawed her lip, anxiously scanning the sky for any glimmer that might herald the arrival of the Millennium Falcon. She and Jacen stood at the edge of the wide clearing in front of the Jedi academy, where the hideous monster had appeared the day before. The area’s short grasses had been trampled down by frequent takeoffs and landings.
Jaina smelled the rich green dampness of the early morning in the jungle that surrounded the clearing. The foliage rustled and sighed in a light breeze that also carried the trills, twitters, and chirps that reminded her of the wide profusion of animal life that inhabited the jungle moon.
Beside her, Jacen shifted impatiently from one foot to the other, a frown of concentration etched across his forehead. Jaina sighed. Why did it seem like everything took forever when you were looking forward to it, and things that you didn’t want to happen arrived too soon?
As if sensing her tension, Jacen suddenly turned to her with a mischievous look in his eye. “Hey, Jaina—you know why TIE fighters scream in space?”
She nodded. “Sure, their twin ion engines set up a shock front from the exhaust—”
“No!” Jacen waved his hand in dismissal. “Because they miss their mothership!”
As was expected of her, Jaina groaned, grateful for a chance to get her mind off waiting, even if only for a moment.
Then a comforting hum built and resonated around them, as if the sound of their mounting excitement had suddenly become audible. “Look,” she said, pointing at a silver-white speck that had just appeared high above the treetops.
The glimmer disappeared for a few moments and then, with a rush of exhaled breath that she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, Jaina saw the Millennium Falcon swoop across the sky toward the clearing.
The familiar blunt-nosed oval of their father’s ship hovered tantalizingly above their heads for a moment that seemed to stretch to eternity. Then, with a burst of its repulsor-lifts, it settled gently onto the ground in front of them. The Falcon’s cooling hull buzzed and ticked as the engines died down to a low drone. The scent of ozone tickled Jaina’s nostrils.