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From the empty corner of the room, Luke heard the gentle, wise voice of Ben Kenobi responding to Yoda. 'He will learn patience,' Ben said.

'Much anger in him,' the dwarfish Jedi teacher persisted. 'Like in his father.'

'We've discussed this before,' Kenobi said.

Luke could no longer wait. 'I can be a Jedi,' he interrupted. It meant more than anything else to him to become a part of the noble band that had championed the causes of justice and peace. 'I'm ready, Ben ... Ben ..." The youth called to his invisible mentor, looking about the room in the hope of finding him. But all he saw was Yoda sitting across from him at the table.

'Ready are you?' the skeptical Yoda asked. 'What know you of ready? I have trained Jedi for eight hundred years. My own counsel I'll keep on who is to be trained.'

'Why not me?' Luke asked, insulted by Yoda's insinuation.

'To become a Jedi,' Yoda said gravely, 'takes the deepest commitment, the most serious mind.'

'He can do it,' Ben's voice said in defense of the youth.

Looking toward the invisible Kenobi, Yoda pointed at Luke. 'This one I have watched a long time. All his life has he looked away ... to the horizon, to the sky, to the future. Never his mind on where he was, on what he was doing. Adventure, excitement.' Yoda shot a glaring look at Luke. 'A Jedi craves not these things!'

Luke tried to defend his past. 'I have followed my feelings.'

'You are reckless!' the Jedi Master shouted.

'He will learn,' came the soothing voice of Kenobi.

'He's too old,' Yoda argued. 'Yes. Too old, too set in his ways to start the training.'

Luke thought he heard a subtle softening in Yoda's voice. Perhaps there was still a chance to sway him. 'I've learned much,' Luke said. He couldn't give up now. He had come too far, endured too much, lost too much for that.

Yoda seemed to look right through Luke as he spoke those words, as if trying to determine how much he had learned. He turned to the invisible Kenobi again. 'Will he finish what he begins?' Yoda asked.

'We've come this far,' was the answer. 'He is our only hope.'

'I will not fail you,' Luke said to both Yoda and Ben. 'I'm not afraid.' And, indeed, at that moment, the young Skywalker felt he could face anyone without fear.

But Yoda was not so optimistic. 'You will be, my young one,' he warned. The Jedi Master turned slowly to face Luke as a strange little smile appeared on his blue face. 'Heh. You will be.'

= IX =

ONLY one being in the entire universe could instill fear in the dark spirit of Darth Vader. As he stood, silent and alone in his dim chamber, the Dark Lord of the Sith waited for a visit from his own dreaded master.

As he waited, his Imperial Star Destroyer floated through a vast ocean of stars. No one on his ship would have dared disturb Darth Vader in his private cubicle. But if they had, they might have detected a slight trembling in that black-cloaked frame. And there might even have been a hint of terror to be seen upon his visage, had anyone been able to see through his concealing black breath mask.

But no one approached, and Vader remained motionless as he kept his lonely, patient vigil. Soon a strange electronic whine broke the dead silence of the room and a flickering light began to glimmer on the Dark Lord's cloak. Vader immediately bowed deeply in homage to his royal master.

The visitor arrived in the form of a hologram that materialized before Vader and towered above him. The three-dimensional figure was clad in simple robes and its face was concealed behind, an enormous hood.

When the hologram of the Galactic Emperor finally spoke, it did so with a voice even deeper than Vader's. The Emperor's presence was awesome enough, but the sound of his voice sent a thrill of terror coursing through Vader's powerful frame. 'You may rise, my servant,' the Emperor commanded.

Immediately Vader straightened up. But he did not dare gaze into his master's face, and instead cast his eyes down at his own black boots.

'What is thy bidding, my master?' Vader