Star Wars_ The Jedi Academy Trilogy 03_ Champions of the Force - Kevin J. Anderson [94]
“We’re secure here for now,” Han said. “But if they plan to go back inside the black hole cluster, we could be in for one wild ride.”
33
Riding together in the close confines of the Sun Crusher, Luke felt young Kyp Durron draw mentally closer to him as they journeyed toward the black hole cluster.
Kyp was gradually overcoming his fear and preoccupation with Jedi powers and the potential for abusing them. After his epiphany inside the temple of Exar Kun, Kyp had emerged stronger, able to accept the challenge. If he could face this final test, Luke would know that Kyp had passed through the fire of his testing—tempered by forces as dire and powerful as those Luke himself had endured.…
Luke smiled as he recalled how Leia had argued for Kyp in the Council meeting, fighting for the chance that Luke offered. During her very first session as leader of the New Republic, Leia had presented her brother’s demand; in the uproar that followed she had reasoned, cajoled, or shamed every one of them into giving Luke a chance.
She had emerged from the hours-long meeting in the middle of a bright Coruscant day. Kyp and Luke, waiting for her in one of the high mezzanine cafés within the enormous Imperial Palace, had sipped warm drinks and sampled delicacies from a hundred planets that had sworn allegiance to the New Republic. Leia had brushed aside her two bodyguards and hurried forward to meet them as other bureaucrats and minor functionaries stood up from their tables in recognition of their new Chief of State. Leia ignored the attention.
Her face was haggard and exhausted, but she could not hide her satisfied smile and the twinkle in her large eyes. “The Sun Crusher is yours to dispose of,” she had said. “You’d better take it before someone on the Council decides my victory was too easy and moves to reopen the discussion.”
Then Leia had turned a stern face toward Kyp. “I’m gambling my entire future administration on you, Kyp.”
“I won’t let you down,” Kyp had promised, holding his head high. Luke did not need Jedi powers to sense the determination in the young man.
They had flown away from Coruscant into hyperspace on a direct course for the Maw cluster near Kessel.
The two of them ate rations and shared a warm silence. When they finished, Kyp fell into a deep rejuvenation trance, a form of deathlike hibernation that Luke taught all his students; the young Jedi awoke after only an hour, looking greatly refreshed.
En route Kyp had shared fond memories of his home planet, Deyer. He spoke in a halting, wistful voice about his brother Zeth. As Luke listened with quiet understanding, Kyp let loose his sorrow and wept cleansing tears, finally allowing himself the freedom granted by the vision of his brother’s spirit in the obsidian temple.
“Yoda made me take a test of my own,” Luke told him. “I had to go into a cave in the swamps of Dagobah, where I confronted a vision of Darth Vader. I attacked and defeated him, only to find that I was fighting myself. I failed my test, but you succeeded.”
Luke looked into Kyp’s dark eyes. “I don’t promise it will be easy, Kyp, but the rewards of your efforts will be great, and the entire galaxy will benefit from them.”
Kyp looked away as if embarrassed and studied the piloting controls of the Sun Crusher. “Ready to come out of hyperspace,” he said. “You strapped in?”
Luke nodded with a slight smile. Around them hyperspace looked bruised and distorted from their proximity to all the black holes.
Kyp stared at the chronometer and concentrated as the numbers spun by. “Three, two, one.” He released the levers, and suddenly the blur sprang away from their viewport, and real space snapped into crystal focus around them.
Luke saw the distant gaseous knot of the Maw, but he instantly felt a wrenching inside as if something was terribly wrong.
“What happened to Kessel?” Kyp said.
Luke found the much closer, distorted shape of Kessel masked by an expanding debris