Star Wars_ The Jedi Academy Trilogy 02_ Dark Apprentice - Kevin J. Anderson [91]
“Admiral Daala has continued her depredations. She doesn’t seem to be allied with any of the Imperial warlords. From what we can tell, she’s just trying to cause a lot of damage to anyone who opposed the Empire—and she is causing plenty of damage. You know that she has been hitting supply ships, blowing them out of space? She leveled the new colony on Dantooine.”
“Dantooine!” Luke said.
Mara looked at him. “Yes, isn’t one of your students from that group of people?”
Luke sat rigid. Some of the trainees gasped in shock. His mind whirled, thinking of all the refugees he had helped relocate to a supposedly safe place from the treacherous world of Eol Sha. But now they had been wiped out.
“Not anymore,” he said. “Gantoris died. He was … unprepared for the powers he tried to use.”
Mara Jade raised her thin eyebrows, waited for him to explain further. When Luke said nothing else, she continued. “The worst part was when Daala struck the planet Calamari. Seems she meant to take out the orbiting shipyards, but Admiral Ackbar recognized her tactics. He blew up one of her three Star Destroyers—but Daala still managed to sink two Calamarian floating cities. Countless thousands died.”
Kyp Durron stood up at the far end of the long table. “Daala lost another one of her Star Destroyers?”
Mara Jade looked at him as if noticing the young dark-haired man for the first time. “She still has two Star Destroyers, and no inhibitions. Admiral Daala can still cause incredible destruction, and she has a weapon no one else seems to have: she knows she’s got nothing to lose.”
“I should have sacrificed myself,” Kyp said. “I could have killed her with my bare hands when I was on the Gorgon.”
He lowered his voice, relating the story Luke already knew. “We stole the Sun Crusher out from under her nose, and we wasted our opportunity. We had a weapon that could have struck a decisive blow against the worlds still loyal to the Empire—but what did we do with it? We threw the Sun Crusher into a gas planet where it won’t help us at all.”
“Calm,” Luke said. He gestured for Kyp to sit back down, but Kyp placed his hands flat on the veined stone table, leaning over to glare at Luke.
“The Imperial threat is not going to go away!” he said. “If we pool our Jedi powers, we can resurrect the Sun Crusher, tear it out from the core of Yavin. We can take it and go hunt the Imperials. What could be a clearer mission for us? Why are we just hiding here on this backwater moon?”
He paused, fuming. When the other students looked at him, Kyp glared back at them. “Are you all stupid?” he shouted. “We don’t have the luxury to fine-tune our levitating abilities, or balance rocks, or sense rodents out in the jungle. What good does that do? If we aren’t going to use our powers to help the New Republic, then why bother?”
Luke looked at Mara Jade, who seemed greatly interested in this discussion. He refocused his attention on Kyp. The young man’s meal was practically untouched.
“Because that isn’t the Jedi way,” Luke said. “You’ve studied the Code. You know how we must approach a difficult situation. The Jedi do not set out to destroy recklessly.”
Kyp turned his back on Luke and stormed toward the door of the dining chamber. At the arched stone entrance to the room, Kyp whirled and said, “If we don’t use our power, then we may as well not have it. We’re betraying the Force with our cowardice.”
He gritted his teeth, and his words came out much more quietly. “I’m not certain what else I can learn here, Master Skywalker.” With that, he vanished into the corridor.
Kyp felt his skin tingling with barely contained power, as if his blood had begun to fizz inside of him. He moved down the temple corridors like a projectile, and when he reached the heavy door to his quarters, he used the Force to fling it open and slam it against the far wall with enough strength to flake a long splinter of stone from the blocks.
How could he ever have admired Master