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“Not an easy decision to make.…”

“Nope.” I stood and offered her a hand. She took it and I steadied her as she got back onto her feet. “But then, as you said, easy isn’t for a Jedi, is it?”

TWENTY

Master Skywalker tossed his cloak to Kam and brought the hilt of his lightsaber to hand. “Thank you, Kam. If you would see to the others for a while.”

“As you wish, Master Skywalker.”

The Jedi Master looked up at me as I slipped my lightsaber into my right hand. “We don’t have to do this, Keiran.”

I gave him a wry grin. “I think we do, Master. And I think you have a question you want to ask.”

Luke nodded slowly. “Is our duel a prelude to your leaving, too?”

The pure pain in his voice sank into me and pinned my heart against my spine. Luke was watching his dream of the Jedi academy collapse around him. Gantoris had been roasted alive with his own hatred and anger. Kyp, his most promising student, had fallen under the sway of an ancient evil and had vanished. Mara Jade, one of the Emperor’s trusted practitioners of the Force, had come to the academy for instruction, but inside a week had chosen to leave again and even that morning had been whisked away by Han Solo and Lando Calrissian aboard the Millennium Falcon.

For having been open for only a little more than a month, the failure rate for promising students was staggering. I could have taken Luke’s question as a confirmation of my abilities, but I felt it really marked how battered he felt at the moment. I could understand that because I was feeling a little betrayed by Mara’s departure as well.

I saw her that morning when I’d arrived to get her for our run. “Ready to go?”

“Yeah,” she replied, “but not running.” She stood in her room in the color-shifting flightsuit in which she had arrived. Her bed had been made up and the Jedi robe she’d worn had been folded neatly and placed at the foot of the bed beside her heavy satchel. “Thought another candidate might find a use for the robe.”

I leaned against the door jamb, using my body to bar the way out. “I thought you told me you weren’t a quitter.”

A little fire blazed in her eyes, but she brought it under control with an ease that surprised me. “I’m not. I’ve learned a lot here, but what I needed to learn isn’t exactly what you need, or what others here need to learn.”

“Want to run that by me again, with the help files enabled this time?”

She relaxed just ever so slightly, shifting her weight to her back foot. “When the Empire trained me, I learned a lot of the things all of you are learning. I practiced them and perfected them. You and I have trained together with lightsabers. Do you think I picked all that up in an afternoon or two of quick study?”

I shrugged. “Well, with Kam and me as examples, it’s possible.”

“Cute, Corran, but you know it’s not true.”

“Okay, score one for Mara Jade.”

The flesh around her eyes tightened: “My Imperial training directed me toward using dark-side techniques for tapping the Force. I let emotions fuel what I did. I came here thinking Luke would show me new things I could do, new abilities to learn, but what he did instead was show me how to employ the light side. I’m still doing the same things, but I have a new fuel source.”

“One that runs a bit leaner, isn’t as easily accessible.…”

“Right, but one that won’t burn the engine out.” She graced me with an open, green-eyed gaze that surprised me with its vulnerability. “The other day, when you were talking about the willingness to sacrifice yourself for others, you mentioned friends and those who could not take responsibility for themselves. I started thinking about the Smugglers’ Alliance. I’ve got a lot of things to think about.”

I nodded slowly. “And your little sojourn here was prompted, in part, by being uncomfortable with that responsibility.”

“And here I thought all CorSec agents were not that bright.”

“We have our moments.”

“Up to now I’ve been responsible for myself. I’ve been able to make