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In stunned admiration Kratas smiled. “I believe so, Admiral.”

She turned to face the rest of her bridge crew. “We now have accurate maps and information on the political situation of the Rebel Alliance. We have struck our first blow—the first of many.”

Daala drew a deep breath, feeling vibrant and alive with euphoria. Grand Moff Tarkin would have been proud of her.

“Our next stop will be the planet Dantooine,” she said. “We have a colony to visit.”

5

Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master, gathered his twelve students in the grand audience chamber of the Massassi temple.

Diffuse orange light trickled through the narrow skylights. Lush vines climbed the stone walls, spreading out in verdant webs in the corners. Most of the flat stones were a nonreflective smoky gray; other lozenges of dark green and vermilion and ocher stone ornamented the enormous chamber.

Luke remembered standing here as a young man after their brief victory celebration following the destruction of the Death Star. He smiled as he recalled how Princess Leia had presented medals to him and Han Solo and Chewbacca. Now the grand audience chamber stood empty except for Luke and his small group of Jedi candidates.

Luke watched the students file toward him along the broad promenade. Wearing dark-brown Jedi robes, the candidates walked in eerie silence across the slick floor that had long ago been polished smooth by the mysterious Massassi.

Streen and Gantoris moved first, side by side; Gantoris looked full of self-importance. Of all those Luke had gathered at his Jedi training center, Gantoris had so far shown the most progress, the most inner strength—yet the man from Eol Sha did not seem to realize that he stood at a crossroads. Gantoris would soon need to decide exactly how he would proceed in his growth with the Force.

Behind the two of them came Kirana Ti, one of the young and powerful witches of Dathomir, who had left the other Force-wielding, rancor-riding women on her homeworld to learn better control. Kirana Ti and the other witches had been instrumental in helping him recover an ancient wrecked space station, the Chu’unthor, in which resided many records of old Jedi training—records that Luke had studied to develop exercises for his Jedi trainees.

Beside Kirana Ti came Dorsk 81, a bald green- and yellow-skinned humanoid from a world where all family units were genetically identical, cloned and raised to carry on the status quo. But Dorsk 81, the eighty-first reincarnation of the same genetic attributes, had somehow been dramatically changed. Though he seemed identical in every way, his mind worked differently, his thoughts moved along different paths, and he could feel the Force working through him. With the hope of becoming a Jedi Knight, Dorsk 81 had left his homeworld of identical people for something new.

Then came Kam Solusar, an older man, son of a Jedi that Vader had slaughtered long ago. Solusar had fled the Empire after the great Jedi purge and had spent decades in isolation beyond the inhabited star systems. Upon returning, Solusar had been captured and tortured by evil Jedi, twisted to the dark side of the Force, but Luke had bested him in the game of Lightsider. Solusar had received advanced training in certain areas, but because of his self-imposed exile, he still knew little about many aspects of the Force.

As the rest of the candidates gathered at the raised platform, Luke shrugged back his hood and tried to mask his pride at seeing the group. If he successfully completed their training, these candidates would form the core of a new order of Jedi Knights, champions of the Force, to help protect the New Republic against dark times.

He heard them stirring, not speaking to each other, each one no doubt wrapped up in thoughts of touching the Force, finding new pathways to inner strength and windows to the universe that only Jedi teachings could open for them. Their collective talent amazed him, but he hoped for even more trainees. Soon Han Solo would send his young friend,