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“Are you all right?” one of his students asked. The voice was overlaid with his own, filled with the same trembly fear seventeen years ago. “What’s wrong?”

Luke put his left hand over his face. He was shaking. “There’s been a great disturbance in the Force.” He wondered how they could fail to feel it, how he had failed to feel something even stronger, all those years ago.

As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

“Ben,” he whispered. “Another Death Star?”

But he expected no answer. Ben’s comforting presence had left him before the Jedi Academy, before Grand Admiral Thrawn.

Luke closed his eyes, feeling for the location of the disturbance. He found a great emptiness where a moment before there had been life. The residue of pain, the deeply held surprise, the shock of betrayal, remained like an echo of a shout over a canyon rim.

“Master Skywalker?” The voice belonged to one of his most promising students, Eelysa, a young woman from Coruscant. “Master Skywalker?”

He waved his right hand at her. His back hurt from the force of his landing, his chest ached from the lack of oxygen, and his heart ached from the magnitude of the loss. Somewhere in the distance, Artoo whistled, a mournful sound.

He had to sit up, to show them everything was all right, even though it wasn’t.

“Master Skywalker?”

Her voice merged and blended with the echoes in his head. He opened his eyes. In the shade of his shaking hand, he saw Leia’s face, scorched and blood-covered. He reached toward her, and then she was gone.

It is the future you see.

The destruction did not come from Coruscant. He would know if Leia died. Or Han. Or the children.

He would know.

Artoo whistled again, impatient this time.

“Find Artoo,” he said. His voice sounded haunted, shaky, preoccupied, like Ben’s had after the destruction of Alderaan.

Feet snapped twigs around him as three students left in search of Artoo.

Or as they ran from Luke and his sudden, startling loss of control.

“What happened, Master Skywalker?” Eelysa was crouched beside him, her small, slender body hunched against an unseen enemy. She had been a surprise, a native of Coruscant, born after the Emperor’s death, her Force abilities untainted by the poisons around her. She was young. So very, very young.

“A million people died a moment ago, all in great pain, and with great suddenness.” He pushed himself up on his elbows. A vast evil had returned to the galaxy. That much he knew.

And it threatened Leia.

He knew that too.

For now, the days of teaching were over. He and Artoo had to leave immediately for Coruscant.

Leia Organa Solo, Chief of State of the New Republic, adjusted the belt on her long white gown. She took a deep breath. Mon Mothma placed a hand on her arm. Leia smiled distractedly at her, much as she had as a young senator, facing Palpatine and his followers in the Imperial Senate.

She let the breath out. That was the emotion she was feeling, something she hadn’t felt since she was a teenager. A sense of loss, of defeat, of the life changing without her permission or control.

Mon Mothma closed the golden carved door and turned the lock. They were in a small dressing room that had been added during Palpatine’s days as Emperor, a room just outside the Senate Assembly Chamber. The room had been used as a secret communications area, but it masqueraded as a dressing room. The walls were gold leaf and delicate. A mirror covered one panel, floor to ceiling, reflecting both Leia and Mon Mothma. In some ways, Mon Mothma looked like an older, calmer version of Leia, although her short hair was now streaked with silver. Tiny lines webbed her skin, lines that had been there since her devastating illness at the hands of Carida’s Ambassador Furgan six years before.

“What is it?” Mon Mothma said.

Leia shook her head. She smoothed her damp hands on her skirts. She didn’t look much different from the girl who had walked into the Imperial Senate filled with hope and idealism, Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan, the youngest senator, the one who believed