Star Wars_ The Jedi Academy Trilogy 02_ Dark Apprentice - Kevin J. Anderson [56]
A rectangular ship emblazoned with the scooped blue sign of the New Republic approached through the hazy skies. Its tracking lights flickered on, and broad landing struts extended.
Artoo trundled to the side of the landing grid in front of the Great Temple. Luke approached where the ship was about to set down. Blasts of repulsorlift jets fluttered his hood and ruffled his hair. Luke stared at the ship, blinking grit from his eyes until the transport came to rest.
The boarding ramp extended, and Wedge Antilles stepped out, reaching behind him to help the bluish female scientist descend.
Luke raised his left hand in greeting and turned his attention to the young man emerging from the craft. Kyp Durron was a wiry eighteen-year-old full of energy and eagerness, toughened from years of labor in the spice mines of Kessel.
In the mines Kyp had received a small initiation into the Force through another prisoner there, the fallen Jedi woman Vima-Da-Boda. Kyp had instinctively used those skills to help Han and Chewbacca escape from Kessel and from the Maw Installation. When Luke had tested the young man for Jedi potential, the strength of Kyp’s response had thrown Luke backward.
Luke had been waiting for a student like this to come to his academy.
Kyp stepped down the landing platform, averting his eyes at first; but then he paused and looked up to stare into Luke’s eyes. Luke saw an intelligence, a quick wit, and a quick temper, survival instincts born from years of struggle—but he also saw unshakable determination. That was the most important factor in a Jedi trainee.
“Welcome, Kyp Durron,” Luke said.
“I’m ready, Master Skywalker,” Kyp answered. “Teach me the Jedi ways.”
15
staring out the observation window of the orbiting station, Leia thought the Calamarian shipyards looked even more impressive than their reputation had led her to expect.
The starship-construction facilities rode high above the mottled blue planet. Supply platforms sprawled in three dimensions, dotted with winking red, yellow, and green lights that indicated landing pads and docking bays. Small girder impellers pushed huge mounds of plasteel extruded from transorbital rubble shipments from the planet’s single moon; the girders would be used in the frameworks of the famous Mon Calamari star cruisers. Crablike constructor pods flitted in and around a tremendous spacedock hangar like tiny insects against the mammoth form of a half-built cruiser.
“Excuse me, Minister Organa Solo?”
Leia turned to see a small Calamarian female wearing pale-blue ambassadorial robes. While the males had bulbous and lumpy heads, the females were more streamlined, with olive-colored mottling over the pale salmon of their hides.
“I am Cilghal.” When the Calamarian female raised both of her hands, Leia noticed that the webbing between her spatulate fingers seemed more translucent than Ackbar’s.
Leia raised her own hand in acknowledgment. “Thank you for meeting me, Ambassador. I appreciate your help.”
Cilghal’s mottling darkened in a reaction that Leia recognized as humor or amusement. “You humans have called the Mon Calamari the ‘soul of the Rebellion.’ After such a compliment, how can we turn down any request for help?”
The ambassador stepped forward to gesture out at the bustling spacedock facility. “I see you have been observing our work on the Startide. It will be our first addition to the New Republic fleet in many months. We have been devoting most of our resources to recovering from last year’s attack by the Emperor’s World Devastators.”
Leia nodded, looking again at the splotchy organic shape of the Mon Calamari star cruiser, the New Republic’s equivalent of the Imperial Star Destroyer. The ovoid battleship had lumpy protrusions for gun emplacements, field generators, viewports, and staterooms placed at seemingly random intervals. Each star cruiser was unique, modeled after the same basic design, yet altered to meet individual