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Jacen groaned with impatience. It was always Later, always Some other time, always Maybe when you're older. He sighed. "You're the teacher. I'm the student, so I have to listen, I guess."

Luke smiled and shook his head. "Ah. Be careful-don't assume a teacher is always right, without question. You have to think for yourself. Sometimes we teachers make mistakes, too. But in this case, I am right: You're not yet ready for a lightsaber.

"Believe me, I know what it's like to wait," Luke continued. "But patience can be as strong an ally as any weapon." Then his eyes twinkled.

"Don't you have more important things to be worrying about right now than imaginary lightsaber battles-like getting ready for your trip? Don't your pets need to be fed?"

"I'm all packed, and I'll feed the animals just before we leave," Jacen said, thinking of the menagerie of pets he had collected since coming to the jungle moon. "But the trip is what I came here to talk to you about."

Luke raised his eyebrows. "Yes?"

"I-I was hoping you could talk to Tenel Ka and convince her to come with us to see Lando Calrissian's mining station."

Luke's brows drew together, and he chose his words carefully. "Why is it important to change her mind?"

"Because Jaina and Lowbacca and I are all going," Jacen said, "and... and it just won't be the same without her," he finished lamely.

Luke's face relaxed, and his eyes sparkled with humor. "It's not so easy to change the mind of a Force-wielding warrior from Dathomir, you know,"

he said.

"But it doesn't make sense that she wants to stay behind," Jacen exclaimed. "She made up some dumb excuse that it would be boring-said she was sure Corusca gems weren't any more beautiful than rainbow gems from Gallinore, and she's seen plenty of those. But she didn't sound bored; she sounded worried or nervous."

"We must think for ourselves," Luke said, "and sometimes that means we have to make difficult or unpopular decisions." Luke put an arm around Jacen's shoulders and led him toward the door. "Go feed your pets now.

Have a safe journey to GemDiver Station-and rest assured, Tenel Ka has good reasons."

Tenel Ka woke with a start, shivering and drenched with perspiration in the cool, stonewalled chamber. Sunset-copper hair hung across her vision in tangles that had once been orderly braids. Her bedsheets were twisted about her legs as if she had been running in her sleep.

Then she remembered the dream. She had been running. Running from black-cloaked shadowy figures with purple-splotched faces. Muddled memories of stories her mother had told her as a child swirled through her sleep-fogged brain. She had never seen those terrifying forms before, but she knew what they were-witches from Dathomir who had drawn on the dark side of the Force to work all manner of evil.

The Nightsisters.

But the last of the Nightsisters had been destroyed or disbanded long before Tenel Ka had even been born. Why should she dream of them now? The only Force-wielders left on Dathomir used the powers of the light side.

Why these nightmares? Why now?

She squeezed her eyes shut and flopped back on her bed with a grunt as she realized what day it was. This was the day that her grandmother, Matriarch of the Hapan Royal Household, was sending an ambassador to visit Tenel Ka, heir to the Royal Throne of Hapes. And she didn't want her friends to know she was a princess.. . .

Ambassador Yfra. Tenel Ka shuddered as she thought of her iron-willed grandmother and her ambassadors, women who would lie or even kill to preserve their power-although her grandmother no longer ruled Hapes.

Tenel Ka shook her head in wry amusement. The impending visit must be why she had dreamt of the Nightsisters.

Although the inhabitants of her mother's primitive planet of Dathomir and her father's plush homeworld of Hapes were light-years apart, the parallels between the Hapan politicians and the Nightsisters of Dathomir were obvious: All were power-hungry women who would stop at nothing to keep the power they craved.