Star Wars_ The Approaching Storm - Alan Dean Foster [163]
“I know.”
“Not without danger, either.”
“I know that, too.”
The student rubs again at the hermit crab shell, and then drops it into the pond. Startled water-skeeters skitter madly from the splash, trying to stay afloat.
“Bigger than the Jedi, bigger than the Force, you cannot be,” Yoda says.
“But the Force is bigger than the Jedi, Master. The Force is not just these walls and teachings. It runs through all life, high and low, great and small, light—” Awkwardly the student stops.
“—and dark,” Yoda says. “Oh, yes, young one. Think you I have never felt the touch of the dark? Know you what a soul so great as Yoda can make, in eight hundred years?”
“Master?”
“Many mistakes!” Wheezing with laughter, the old teacher reaches out with his cane and pokes his student in the ribs. “To bed with you, thinker of deep thoughts!” Poke, poke. “Your Master, Thame Cerulian, says the most gifted Padawan he ever saw, you are. Trust in yourself, you need not. I, Yoda, great and powerful Jedi Master, will trust for you! Is it enough?”
The apprentice wants to laugh along, but cannot. “It is too much, Master. I am afraid …”
“Good!” Yoda snorts. “Fear the dark side, you should. In the mighty is it mightiest. But not yet Thame’s equal are you; not yet a Jedi Knight; not yet a member of the Council. Many shells have we left for you, Dooku—as long as you can fit inside this one,” he says, rapping his student’s skin. “Tomorrow, go you must, into the darkness between the stars. But home always will this place be. If ever lost you are, look back into this garden.” Yoda hefts his glow light, so shadows like water-skeeters dart away from them. “A candle will I light, for you to find your way home.”
REBELLION
(0–5 YEARS AFTER STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE)
This is the period of the classic Star Wars movie trilogy—A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi—in which a ragtag band of Rebels battles the Empire, and Luke Skywalker learns the ways of the Force and must avoid his father’s fate.
During this time, the Empire controls nearly the entire settled galaxy. Out in the Rim worlds, Imperial stormtroopers suppress uprisings with brutal efficiency, many alien species have been enslaved, and entire star systems are brutally exploited by the Empire’s war machine. In the central systems, however, most citizens support the Empire, weighing misgivings about its harsh methods against the memories of the horror and chaos of the Clone Wars. Few dare to openly oppose Emperor Palpatine’s rule.
But the Rebel Alliance is growing. Rebel cells strike in secret from hidden bases scattered among the stars, encouraging some of the braver Senators to speak out against the Empire. When the Rebels learn that the Empire is building the Death Star, a space station with enough firepower to destroy entire planets, Princess Leia Organa, who represents her homeworld, Alderaan, in the Senate and is secretly a high-ranking member of the Rebel Alliance, receives the plans for the battle station and flees in search of the exiled Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Thus begin the events that lead her to meet the smuggler and soon-to-be hero Han Solo, to discover her long-lost brother, Luke Skywalker, and to help the Rebellion take down the Emperor and restore democracy to the galaxy: the events of the three films A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi.
If you’re a reader looking for places to jump in and explore the Rebellion-era novels, here are five great places to start:
• Death Star, by Michael Reaves and Steve Perry: The story of the construction of the massive battle station, touching on the lives of the builders, planners, soldiers, and support staff who populate the monstrous vessel, as well as the masterminds behind the design and those who intend to make use of it: the Emperor and Darth Vader.
• The Mandalorian Armor, by K. W. Jeter: The famous bounty hunter Boba Fett stars in a twisty tale of betrayal within the galactic underworld, highlighted by a riveting confrontation between