Star Wars_ The Black Fleet Crisis 03_ Tyrant's Test - Michael P. Kube-McDowell [157]
“Pretty good light show,” Lando said lightly. “Kind of a shame there’s only the six of us to see it.”
“Quite the contrary, General Calrissian,” said Eckels. “That soup will have to simmer a long time, and it would be best for the Qella if it did so undisturbed.”
The bombardment of the planet went on throughout Mud Sloth’s long climb toward its rendezvous with Lady Luck. When the two craft finally met and docked, Lando and Lobot both eagerly escaped the crowded skiff for the luxury accommodations of the yacht. Threepio went with them, chasing a promise of an oil bath.
But Luke and Eckels lingered, looking down on Maltha Obex as the vagabond, now a small thing in the distance, fell silent. Neither man spoke of his thoughts, but they shared a single mood of lingering awe and curiosity.
When Luke closed his eyes and began breathing in deep, slow waves, Eckels noted it without comment. But he was not wholly surprised when, a short time later, the vagabond disappeared completely from view.
“You have been practicing,” Eckels said, clapping Luke’s shoulder approvingly. “I confess I want to stay and document it all—most especially the day when the Qella begin to emerge. But this is best, to leave them alone. Tell me, what will you have done last?”
“I don’t know how long it will last,” Luke said, gazing down on the planet. “Maybe not long at all. The forces affecting the ship are complex, and my teacher said that my touch is still too heavy. I had to try, though—try to draw the curtain and give them back their privacy, give them some time to heal, to build.” He looked toward Eckels. “But I want to come back, to meet them. I wonder how long we’ll have to wait.”
There was more than a touch of sorrow and regret in the archaeologist’s answering smile.
“Give them a hundred years,” Eckels said, knowing as he spoke that that meant he would never return to Maltha Obex. “Or a thousand. We will let this place stay on the charts as a dead, frozen world with nothing worth stealing or exploiting. The Qella will not miss us. Their lives will be full without us. You have given them a great gift, Luke—a future.” He looked out toward the pale white disc of the planet. “Somehow I know they will make the most of it.”
EPILOGUE:
Coruscant, Eight Days Later
A damp, cold wind blowing out of a broken sky buffeted Luke Skywalker as he stood on the cliff above his seacoast hermitage. He stood there a long time, thinking of all the reasons he had raised it from the rocky sands, of the work he had thought to do there.
He had taken the broken pieces of his father’s fortress retreat and tried to remake them into something that could redeem them from their history. But he saw now that all he had managed to build was a prison, and that he had been fortunate to escape it.
Extending his hands and his will, Luke found the points of greatest stress within the structure and pressed upon them, found the points of greatest fragility and sundered them. With a roar that momentarily rivaled the wind, the hermitage collapsed in on itself, crushing the fighter still sealed within it.
But that was not enough to satisfy Luke, not enough to forever erase the temptation. One after another, he raised the pieces of the ruined hermitage, the broken ship, up out of the sand and into the air, crumbling them with the force of his thoughts, until it was a dense, swirling cloud of pebble-sized fragments and metal bits.
Then, with a final, explosive effort of will, he hurled the cloud of debris far out beyond the breakers, where it rained down on the churning water and vanished from sight.
“It’s not time yet for me to go away,” he said to the wind by way of explanation. “And when the time