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"We need Luke," Obi-Wan said. "But if we proceed too quickly…if we make the wrong choices…" He sighed. "I sense great power in him, perhaps greater even than Anakin's."

"Search inside yourself," Yoda said. "Know the answer, you do."

"He is too old for us to shape," Obi-Wan said slowly, as if sifting through his thoughts as he spoke. "He is neither Padawan nor Master. He has grown into his own person, without our help or interference—now we must give him the space to grow into his own man." Obi-Wan sighed, gazing out at the murky bog, then up at the stars. "He will be tested—I cannot save him from that. He must be tested. Perhaps this was our mistake with Anakin. Not that we found him too late, but that we put too much upon him too soon. We burdened him with power he could not control, with responsibility he could not bear. This time, we must be cautious—let Luke become the man he needs to be. And hope that this is the man we need him to be."

Yoda nodded. This was the same judgment he had reached. "Ready, he is not," Yoda said. "Patient we must be."

They could not let fear of Luke's future prevent them from training the boy. But they could equally not let their own eagerness for a champion fool them into seeing something that wasn't there.

And, of course, Luke was not their only hope.

There was another.

CHAPTER TWO

Princess Leia Organa felt a prickly tingle run up her spine—someone was watching her.

She didn't turn around. "See anything that interests you?" She kept her eyes focused on the datapad in her lap, but the screen might as well have been blank. She hadn't been able to concentrate for hours. The closer they got to their destination, the faster her thoughts seemed to swim away from her.

"Not a thing, Princess." Normally, Han Solo's sarcastic drawl made her want to put her fist through a bulkhead. But at a moment like this, Han's voice—his presence was almost a comfort.

Almost.

"Well?" she snapped. "What is it?"

"You asked me to let you know when we dropped out of hyperspace," he reminded her. "This is me, letting you know."

Leia suppressed a shudder. Or, at least, she tried to.

She heard Han take a step into the cabin. Then another. "Leia…"

"I'll join you in the cockpit in a few minutes," she said coolly, keeping her back to him and her posture rigid. "I want to watch the approach."

"It'll be a rough one."

"I think I can handle it."

"You think you can handle anything," Han countered. "That's the problem."

"No, the problem is you trying to tell me what I can and can't do." The banter was making her feel more normal than she had all day. Guess being trapped in space with a nerf-herding laserbrain has its advantages, she thought.

"Maybe you forget, Your Highnessness, but I'm captain of this bird. That means I say what everyone can and can't do."

"And I say I'll be joining you in the cockpit in a few minutes," she said, durasteel in her voice.

She heard his footsteps retreat toward the door. "You know, you don't have to do this."

Leia brushed a hand across her cheek, enraged to find it dotted with moisture. She shut her eyes and took a deep, shaky breath. Then she finally faced him. "Yes," she said, in a low, dangerous voice. "I do."

"Suit yourself, Princess." He snorted. "You always do."

She waited until he was gone, then wrapped her arms across her chest, encasing herself in a tight hug. "Pull yourself together," she murmured. "It's just another landing."

And it would be. Landing on Delaya would be total routine—but to get there, they would have to make it through a dangerous storm of debris. Millions of whirling meteors, some no larger than her fist, others several times more massive than the Millennium Falcon. A collision could prove fatal.

Except it wasn't debris, Leia thought. It wasn't trash.

It was all that remained of the planet Alderaan. What had been a thriving planet, home to two billion people, was now nothing more than a few rocks spiraling through the emptiness of space.

Leia set