Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order_ Dark Tide 02_ Ruin - Michael A. Stackpole [59]
But there was something more in his planning. Jacen had watched Corran and found him constantly walking a thin line. Clearly the resistance force wanted to hurt the Yuuzhan Vong and hurt them badly. It seemed to Jacen that Rade wanted Jedi sanction for whatever he planned to do, less to absolve himself of any guilt for excess than to know that someone who was supposed to be able to handle problems was agreeing with his plan.
Ganner, too, seemed to be itching to engage the Yuuzhan Vong. The older Jedi had never come out and asked Jacen how it felt to kill a Yuuzhan Vong warrior, but he’d given Jacen ample opportunities to describe his fights against them. Ganner would smile at him and say something like, “Well, you’re the expert here. How will you go after them?” Ganner seemingly sought reassurance that he could stand against them.
What am I looking for here? Jacen shivered. He remembered the frustration and humiliation of his defeat by a Yuuzhan Vong warrior on Belkadan. Later, on Dantooine he had succeeded in killing warriors, but he knew they were young and not terribly seasoned. Then the Yuuzhan Vong had sent the reptoids against them, and Jacen had not so much fought them as he’d butchered them. If there had been any doubt in my mind about the ignoble nature of killing and warfare, that erased it.
Yet there, on Dantooine, he had been doing what Jedi of legend had been doing for generations without end. All the songs, all the stories, pointed to Jedi defending the helpless, defeating the tyrannical, and restoring order. On Dantooine he had fulfilled the role everyone expected of him, and done it well. While the Jedi may have had their detractors in the New Republic, none of the survivors of Dantooine were among them.
They all saw us as glowing examples of the Jedi, but is that what I want? He’d long wrestled with the paradox of the Jedi. His uncle had been made into a weapon and directed at the Empire. Luke Skywalker had redeemed his own father from evil and had destroyed the fount of evil in the galaxy. He had continued to oppose evil up to and including the final battle with the Empire and even beyond that. As nearly as he could tell, Jedi were meant to be warriors.
The problem was that Luke Skywalker’s training had been incomplete. The Emperor’s drive to eradicate the Jedi had been so thorough that what information about them did remain seldom included any good instructional material. Much of what seemed to be solid was left behind by the Emperor with deliberate errors in it. Following those paths would lead one to the dark side and might even usher in a new age of the Sith.
Jacen knew, in his heart, that there was something more to being a Jedi than being a warrior. In his uncle he saw glimmerings of it, though Luke had so many demands on him that trying to focus on anything aside from problem solving was impossible. And watching Corran balance between sanctioning a bloodbath and planning an operation that would certainly take lives, Jacen also saw something more than just a warrior. Corran insisted again and again that everyone focus on the objective, which was gathering data. If Yuuzhan Vong got in the way and had to be killed, so be it, but the job was one that would help others, not quench a thirst for blood.
In them, and others, Jacen saw hints of philosopher and teacher. He appreciated that because it suggested to him a different course, but he wasn’t sure that was for him either. I keep seeing the paths I don’t think I want to take, but all that does is leave me in one spot. He shrugged. There has to be another path.
A double-click sound came through his comlink, calling him to preliminary alert status. He played out the cable to his goggles and climbed the ladder rungs sunk into the ferrocrete