• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

"This is not my first lightsaber." Luke drew it back and forth through the empty air so that its hum changed frequency. "Note the color of its blade. I lost my first lightsaber years ago... my father's lightsaber." He swallowed and seemed to struggle against a dark memory from his past. Jaina knew the story of how Luke had lost his other lightsaber during a duel with Darth Vader on Cloud City. In that terrible fight Luke Skywalker had lost not only his lightsaber, but his hand as well.

"My first weapon had a pale blue beam. The colors vary, according to the frequencies of the crystals used. Darth Vader's lightsaber"-he drew a deep breath-"my father's lightsaber was a deep scarlet."

Jaina nodded solemnly. She remembered fighting Vader's holographic image on the Shadow Academy-though it had actually been her own brother Jacen in disguise. Her lightsaber experiences had not been pleasant on the Imperial station... and now her feelings about the energy blades were even more confused. Her friend Zekk had also been taken by Brakiss and the Second Imperium. Jaina knew she would have to fight to get him back.

Luke continued, "One of my students, Cilghal, a Calamarian like Admiral Ackbar, made her lightsaber with smooth curves and protrusions, as if the handle had been grown from metallic coral. Inside, she used a rare ultima-pearl, one of the treasures found in the seabeds of her watery planet.

"My first true failure as a teacher was another student named Gantoris. He built his lightsaber in only a few intense days, following instructions given to him by the evil spirit of Exar Kun. Gantoris thought he was ready, and my mistake was not seeing what he was up to.

"You, my young Jedi Knights, must be different.

I can't wait any longer to train you. You must learn how to build your lightsabers-and how to use them-in the right way. The galaxy has changed, and you must meet the challenge. A true Jedi is forced to adapt or be destroyed."

Tenel Ka spoke up. "Where will we find these crystals to build our weapons, Master Skywalker?" she asked. "Are they lying on the ground?"

Luke smiled. "Perhaps. Or it's possible they could be scavenged from old equipment left here from when this place was a Rebel base. Or maybe you already have resources you haven't yet realized." He shot a quick look at Jacen, but Jaina couldn't decipher what the glance meant.

"I'd like you to start on your lightsabers immediately." Luke switched off his throbbing weapon and looked down at its handle. "But I hope you'll need to use your weapons only rarely... if ever."

A few days later, Jaina sat hunched over her worktable inside her quarters. She had strung up extra glowpanels to allow her sufficient illumination to work through the night. Dozens of tools and pieces of equipment lay on the tabletop, arranged in a careful order so that she knew where every component, every wire and circuit might be found.

After Jaina had given each of her friends an appropriate power source to build their own lightsabers, the young Jedi Knights had split up to search for the precious crystals and other components that would make their new weapons function. Jaina, though, wanted to make the lightsaber particularly hers, a symbolic extension of her unique personality. She would make it from scratch in a way that the others would never attempt. She smiled at her own ingenuity.

Dark smoke rose from the portable furnace she had brought in, and she blinked to clear the chemical fumes from her eyes as she bent over it.

Carefully, she added the next batch of powdered elements in the precise mixture her datapad suggested. She drew on her Force powers, amplifying her vision to observe the chemicals interacting, to watch them bond into a tight, organized lattice.

The precisely pure crystals began to grow....

She adjusted the temperature, watching intently, though the process of crystalline growth took hours.

She focused her mind on shaping the facets as they emerged from the