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Jaina stood alone with her father, looking expectantly at the last bulky package he held in his arms. He set it on the weedy ground of the landing clearing and stepped back so that Jaina could pull aside the rags that covered it.

"Great wrapping job, Dad," she said, smiling.

"Hey, it works." Han spread his hands.

Jaina gasped as she removed the coverings, then looked up at her father, who grinned and shrugged nonchalantly. "A hyperdrive unit!" she said.

"It's not in working condition, you understand," he said. "And it's pretty old. I got it off an old Imperial Delta-class shuttle they were dismantling on Coruscant."

Jaina remembered fondly the times she had helped her father tinker with the Falcon's subsystems to keep it running in peak condition-or as close as they could get. "Oh, Dad, you couldn't have picked a better present!"

She jumped up and hugged him, wrapping her arms around his dark vest. She could tell that her father was pleased-and maybe even a little embarrassed-by her enthusiasm.

Her father looked down at her and raised one eyebrow. "You know, there's a couple more components on the ship. If you wanted to help me bring 'em out here, your dad could show you how they all go together."

She ran after him into the ship.

5

It was late that morning when Jacen and Jaina finally caught up with their father, Chewbacca, and his nephew Lowbacca. The twins, who had spent hours at their respective assigned duties and Jedi training exercises, arrived back at the students' quarters just as they saw the threesome emerge from a formerly empty room.

"Hi!" Jacen called, hurrying up to Lowbacca with his sister in tow. "Are you tired from your trip? If not, I could show you my room. I have some really unusual pets. I collected most of them from the jungles here and Jaina made some cages for them-you should see those cages-and Jaina could show you her room too. She's got all sorts of broken-down equipment that she uses to build things out of." In his enthusiasm, Jacen never even paused to take a breath.

The much taller Lowbacca looked down at the human boy as Jacen rattled on. "Do you like animals? Do you like to build things? Did you bring any pets or equipment with you from Kashyyyk? Do you like-"

His father chuckled into the stream of questions. "Therell be time enough for that later, kid. We spent most of the morning with Luke, and then we got Lowbacca settled in his room. You two want to take him on a tour of the academy, get him familiar with the place? By now, you probably know your way around better than Chewie or I do."

"We'd love to," Jaina answered before their father had finished his sentence.

"We're the perfect tour guides," Jacen added with a confident shrug.

"Jaina and I came to the Jedi academy for the first time when we were only two years old." He smiled a cocky, lopsided grin-the one their mother always said made him look just like his father.

Lowbacca gave an interrogative growl. "He asked how many times you've given this tour," Han translated.

"Well," Jacen sputtered, his face reddening slightly, "if you mean in an official capacity, as opposed to, er, um..." His voice trailed off.

"What he means is," Jaina put in firmly, "this is our first time."

Lowbacca exchanged a glance with his uncle. Chewbacca raised a furred brown arm, indicated the long corridor with a flourish of his hand, and gave a short bark.

"Right," Han said. "Let's go."

The twins led the group down a set of mossy, cracked stairs to the main level and out onto the grassy clearing in front of the Great Temple.

Jacen was eager to prove himself a good tour guide and pointed to each squarish level of the gigantic pyramid as he spoke.

"At the very top is an observation deck that gives one of the best views of the big planet Yavin overhead-unless of course you climb one of those huge old Massassi trees in the jungle," he said with a laugh. "The top level of the pyramid has only one enormous room-the grand audience chamber-that can hold thousands