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At that moment the Jedi used all her stored reserves-and acted. She ignited the lightsaber and slashed sideways with her branch arm, like a bent sapling suddenly released to snap straight again.

"I am sorry, Grandfather Tree," she said-and her lightsaber blade cleaved through the trunk of the tottering old Massassi tree, severing it from the stump and letting the arms of gravity embrace it. Its wide-branched top leaned over and the tree crashed onto the two Dark Jedi intruders.

They had time only to look up with a muffled outcry of surprise as a meteor of branches and vines smashed down upon them.

The Jedi deactivated her lightsaber, then felt a trembling through her entire wooden body. In one act, she had drained months and months of her energy reserves. She stretched her branches up toward the sunlight, dug her roots deeper.

It would take her a long time to recover from this day.

- ----------------

AFTER CROSSING THE river, Jaina fought her way through the jungle, seeking a suitable path through the thickest underbrush while keeping herself hidden from other attackers. Right now, the tangled forest was her ally, and she could use the cover to her advantage. She wasn't afraid to combat the Dark Jedi threatening the academy-but she had a vital mission in mind... something more to her tastes.

As long as the defensive energy shields remained down and the generator damaged, the entire area was vulnerable to repeated attacks from the skies. Luke Skywalker's trainees were defending themselves... but if Jaina could somehow repair the shield generator and get the protective force field up again, the new Jedi Knights could take care of these audacious enemies one at a time.

Jaina finally made her way to the clearing where her father and Chewbacca had recently installed the new energy shield generator. With only a glance she saw that the machinery was irreparable, despite her usual knack for fixing things.

Normally, she could make temporary repairs to get systems up and running again, at least for a while. But not in this case. An Imperial saboteur had used thermal detonators to wipe out the entire generating station.

It was hopelessly ruined, a pile of shrapnel; no simple fixup would do.

Jaina's attention remained on the generator for only a moment, however.

She caught her breath.

There in the clearing sat an Imperial TIE fighter in perfect condition.

Ever since Chewbacca had given Lowie the T-23 skyhopper, Jaina had longed for a vehicle of her own. That, in fact, had been the impetus behind her desire to repair the crashed TIE fighter the young Jedi Knights had found in the jungles-Qorl's TIE fighter.

She stopped and stared, frozen with excitement and apprehension. But other than the muffled noises of battle in the jungles and the distant shouts and blaster fire near the Great Temple, she heard no sound.

Jaina withdrew her lightsaber and pressed the power stud. The beam sprang outward, ^ glowing an electric violet. Then she crept forward stealthily, ready to fight if the TIE pilot emerged with his blaster drawn. But she sensed no one else around, heard no noise from the craft.

"Hello?" Jaina called. "You'd better surrender if you're an Imperial!"

She waited.

"Uh, is anyone here?"

Only the simmering jungle noises answered her.

Moving forward, letting her eagerness take over, she ran to the abandoned TIE fighter. It was a sinister-looking ship: a rounded cockpit suspended between two flat hexagonal power arrays, twin ion engines that would propel the small fighter across space, a bank of deadly laser cannons.

Ideas and possibilities thundered through her mind. If she could pilot this ship into the enemy's midst, Jaina would be in disguise. She could slip in among them, and they wouldn't know she was actually an enemy...

until it was too late.

Switching off her lightsaber again, Jaina opened the cockpit hatch and crawled inside. She had studied how TIE fighters worked when she and her friends had replaced