Star Wars_ The Black Fleet Crisis 03_ Tyrant's Test - Michael P. Kube-McDowell [162]
Instead of lifting one of his students, he eased another boulder into the air. It hovered near the others, bobbing a bit before it found its place. The students watched, suddenly still. Luke scanned their feet, hoping for some sign of annoyance. The first one to look restless would be the first one into the air.
He had learned this method over the years as a way of teaching his students patience, and also as a way of showing them the powers of the Force. Like so many of the methods he used, it worked for some students and didn’t work for others. Often he got an insight into a student’s mind by the student’s reaction to various aspects of training. These class members were still new enough to mimic each others’ reactions. He hoped that mimicry would be gone by the end of the day.
Then a wave of emotion slammed into him—cold, hard, and filled with terror. The pain was worse than anything he had ever felt, worse than the near loss of his leg on the Eye of Palpatine, worse than the Emperor’s electric blast on the Death Star, worse than the destruction of his face on Hoth. Mixed with the terror and pain was the shock of betrayal, a shock multiplied by the millions of minds who felt it.
Luke wobbled on his hand, struggling to keep the boulders and tree aloft, to keep them from falling on his unsuspecting students. Artoo screamed as he shot across the sky, the sound mingling with the screams in Luke’s mind. Artoo landed with a metallic bang against the jungle floor, Luke’s students scattered, and the rest of Luke’s control fled.
His arm collapsed beneath him, and he tumbled to the ground, his breath gone from his body. He lay on his back, sinking in the soft dirt, the screams still echoing in his mind.
Then, as suddenly as they had appeared, the voices were gone.
“Are you all right?” one of his students asked. The voice was overlaid with his own, filled with the same trembly fear seventeen years ago. “What’s wrong?”
Luke put his left hand over his face. He was shaking. “There’s been a great disturbance in the Force.” He wondered how they could fail to feel it, how he had failed to feel something even stronger, all those years ago.
As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
“Ben,” he whispered. “Another Death Star?”
But he expected no answer. Ben’s comforting presence had left him before the Jedi Academy, before Grand Admiral Thrawn.
Luke closed his eyes, feeling for the location of the disturbance. He found a great emptiness where a moment before there had been life. The residue of pain, the deeply held surprise, the shock of betrayal, remained like an echo of a shout over a canyon rim.
“Master Skywalker?” The voice belonged to one of his most promising students, Eelysa, a young woman from Coruscant. “Master Skywalker?”
He waved his right hand at her. His back hurt from the force of his landing, his chest ached from the lack of oxygen, and his heart ached from the magnitude of the loss. Somewhere in the distance, Artoo whistled, a mournful sound.
He had to sit up, to show them everything was all right, even though it wasn’t.
“Master Skywalker?”
Her voice merged and blended with the echoes in his head. He opened his eyes. In the shade of his shaking hand, he saw Leia’s face, scorched and blood-covered. He reached toward her, and then she was gone.
It is the future you see.
The destruction did not come from Coruscant. He would know if Leia died. Or Han. Or the children.
He would know.
Artoo whistled again, impatient this time.
“Find Artoo,” he said. His voice sounded haunted, shaky, preoccupied, like Ben’s had after the destruction of Alderaan.
Feet snapped twigs around him as three students left in search of Artoo.
Or as they ran from Luke and his sudden, startling loss of control.
“What happened, Master Skywalker?” Eelysa was crouched beside him, her small, slender body hunched against an unseen enemy. She had been a surprise, a native