• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“Jacen,” Ben whispered.

His cousin looked younger than Ben remembered. That was to be expected, of course; this was the past after all. But there was more to it than that. Ben hadn’t realized while it was all unfolding how much the war had aged Jacen. His cousin’s forehead was smooth, his eyes clear and bright and warm. His movements lacked the gravitas they had assumed later, when Jacen wore all black, a shimmersilk cape swirling ominously about him. Before Ben was no Sith, no colonel. Before him was a Jedi Knight, his cousin, a man curious and determined to learn.

Jacen sat down in front of Tadar’Ro and looked at the Aing-Tii expectantly. “How can you go into the future at all, if it hasn’t happened yet? Yoda once told my uncle it was always in motion.”

“Yoda was correct. And yet one can still travel into it.”

Jacen shook his dark head. “How can you travel into something that is not there?”

“When you flow-walk, things become solid beneath you. Your presence brings them into being. And yet, once you depart, they return to what they were. What you see is a future, but not necessarily the future. It is real, and it is not, and it is.”

Jacen shook his head, laughing with genuine warmth. “That explains everything,” he said wryly.

He was so … open. So unguarded. Ben tried to remember seeing Jacen that way and found he couldn’t. Was it because he was here, learning with someone like Tadar’Ro? Or had the final shell of hardness, of implacability, simply not folded around him yet?

“I’m glad you’re willing to teach me. I want to learn everything I can. This galaxy …” Jacen looked off, his expression detached, but not with the iciness that Ben remembered. “It needs order. Healing. Help. Jedi have abilities that other people don’t have. We need to do everything we can to help that process.”

Help. This man had killed innocents. Had tortured a woman to death. All in the name of helping the galaxy. How had he justified it, this man who sat there with concern obviously filling his whole being?

Jacen … oh Jacen …

Ben couldn’t take it anymore. With a roar he jumped to his feet, and the images disappeared as if they had never been. The stones were empty.

Like the paradox of traveling into the future, Ben realized that Jacen had been at once firmly set on the path to the dark side, and yet not walking it. He had not become Sith, had not really even considered the option seriously. The man Ben had just seen was a Jedi, and an uncorrupted one. He was no wide-eyed innocent—too much had been done to Jacen Solo for that. But for all the pain he had endured, he was not dark. And yet the shadow was already upon him, in his questions, in his attitude; not in the seeking of knowledge, nor even in the way he would use that knowledge, but in the drive to seek it.

Ben wanted to leap up, grab his cousin by the front of his robes, and shake him, screaming, Don’t do this! Please don’t do this!

But he knew that even if he had done so, even if he had been able to tell Jacen about all the atrocities he would eventually commit, it wouldn’t have made a difference. The brokenness was already in Jacen. The progression from Jacen Solo to Darth Caedus was inevitable and unstoppable, and that knowing broke Ben Skywalker’s heart.

He stumbled away several steps before leaning against one of the standing stones. He let it support him, clutching it like a lifeline. Luke had been right. There was no healing here, no closure. No chance of “saving Jacen.” Just a horrible racking inevitability, a feeling of helplessness, and the sensation of picking at a wound that should have healed long ago.

Ben rested his head against the stone and sobbed.

BOTH TADAR’RO AND LUKE WERE WAITING OUTSIDE FOR HIM WHEN HE returned. He knew they knew he’d been crying and he didn’t care, didn’t attempt to hide his feelings in the Force. Luke looked at him compassionately as he approached.

“You were right, Dad,” Ben said without preamble. “It was a horrible feeling. I don’t think I’ve ever felt as helpless in my life. The only thing I can do now is move forward,