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Raynar looked in alarm at the smudges of dust and dirt on his gaudy garments. "Now I'll have to put on a whole new outfit. I can't be seen in public like this!" He brushed his fingers over the cloth in dismay.

"We'll let you get changed then," Jacen said, backing toward the door.

"See you at the lecture."

Jacen and Jaina ducked out of Raynar's room. Feeling suddenly bold enough to joke, Jacen waved good-bye with the hand that still carried the invisible crystal snake.

Together, the twins raced back to their quarters so they could put on their own robes in time to hear Luke teach them how to become Jedi Knights.

2

Jaina ducked back into her quarters to change into fresh clothes as Jacen ran to stash the crystal snake in its cage. She splashed cold water on her face from the new cistern in her bedroom wall.

Her face still damp and tingling, she stepped out into the corridor.

"Hurry, or we'll be late," she said as Jacen ran to join her.

Together, the twins dashed to the turbolift, which took them to the upper levels of the pyramid-shaped temple. They entered the echoing space of the grand audience chamber. The air was a bustling hum of other Jedi candidates assembling in the huge room where Luke Skywalker spoke every day.

Shafts of morning light glinted off the polished stone surfaces. The light carried an orange cast reflected from the orange gas giant hanging in the sky-the planet Yavin, around which the small jungle moon orbited.

Dozens of other Jedi trainees of varying ages and species found their places in the rows of stone seats spread out across the long, sloped floor. To Jaina, it looked as if someone had splashed a giant stone down on the stage, sending parallel waves of benches rippling toward the back of the chamber.

A mixture of languages and sounds came to Jaina's ears, along with the rich open-air smell that came from the uncharted jungles outside. She sniffed, but could not identify the different perfumes from flowers in bloom-though Jacen probably knew them all by heart. Right now, she smelled the musty body odors of alien Jedi candidates-matted fur, sunbaked scales, sweet-sour pheromones.

Jacen followed her to a set of empty seats, past two stout, pink-furred beasts that spoke to each other in growls. As she sat on the slick, cool seat, Jaina looked up at the squared-off temple ceilings, at the many different shapes and colors mounted in mosaics of alien patterns.

"Every time we come in here," she said, "I think of those old videoclips of the ceremony where Mother handed out medals to Uncle Luke and Dad. She looked so pretty." She put a hand up to her straight, unstyled hair.

"Yeah, and Dad looked like such a ... such a pirate," Jacen said.

"Well, he was a smuggler in those days," Jaina answered.

She thought of the Rebel soldiers who had survived the attack on the first Death Star, those who had fought against the Empire in the great space battle to destroy the terrible super-weapon. Now, more than twenty years later, Luke Skywalker had turned the abandoned base into a training center for Jedi hopefuls, rebuilding the Order of Jedi Knights.

Luke himself had begun training other Jedi back when the twins were barely two years old. Now he often left on his own missions and spent only part of his time at the academy, but it remained open under the direction of other Jedi Knights Luke had trained.

Some of the trainees had virtually no Force potential, content to be mere historians of Jedi lore. Others had great talent, but had not yet begun their full training. It was Luke's philosophy, though, that all potential Jedi could learn from each other. The strong could learn from the weak, the old could learn from the young-and vice versa.

Jacen and Jaina had come to Yavin 4, sent by their mother Leia to be trained for part of the year. Their younger brother Anakin had remained at home back on the capital world of Coruscant, but he would be coming to join them soon.

Off and on during their childhood, Luke Skywalker had helped the children of Han Solo and Princess