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To begin Zekk's training in the light side of the Force, Master Skywalker had told him to start with simple exercises to test his most basic skills. Somehow, Zekk didn't think that venturing out into the jungles to battle this carnivorous tree was quite what the Jedi teacher had in mind.

Perspiration trickled down Zekk's face and neck. His long dark hair clung in damp strands around his emerald-green eyes.

Zekk smiled.

He gritted his teeth and drove inward. He had fought many times before.

The Dark Jedi Brakiss had trained Zekk to become the Second Imperium's darkest knight. Together, they-along with many other followers of the Emperor's ways-had battled Luke Skywalker's students at the Jedi academy.

But Zekk and the other Dark Jedi had been soundly defeated, and Brakiss killed. Broken, Zekk had turned away from the dark side. Even though he had formerly been a close friend of the Solo twins, Jacen and Jaina, Zekk could not easily grant himself forgiveness. He couldn't just join his friends and begin training as a Jedi of the light side as if nothing had happened.

Instead, Zekk had gone off on his own to search for meaning in his life.

He trained to become a bounty hunter and used his Jedi prowess to hunt down difficult bounties that no one else could capture. But in those months Zekk had learned something important about himself: although he had the skills, he didn't have the mind-set that would allow him to find any quarry for whatever reason and simply turn the victim over to anyone who happened to pay the price.

When Nolaa Tarkona, head of a subversive political group called the Diversity Alliance, had set an open bounty on the merchant Boman Thul, Zekk had at first gone on the search, hoping to prove himself to Boba Fett and all the other bounty hunters. But Zekk had realized in time that the information Nolaa Tarkona wanted from the human merchant concerned a deadly human-killing plague-and that if he succeeded in his task, the entire human race might become extinct.

Such consequences had forced him to change his mind and join forces with the young Jedi Knights after all. After they defeated the Diversity Alliance and the Emperor's plague was destroyed, Zekk had decided to start all over again, to become a true Jedi Knight. This time he would do his training in the right way.

If only this tree would let him.

Shorter, spikier tentacles emerged from the hole of the tree, thrashing, grasping at him, but again Zekk drove them back with his staff. He could have pulled back at any time, but instead he pushed closer. Then, although the irritant chemical in his swollen right hand bothered him, he gripped the stick with both hands again. He would not let the pain slow him down.

Zekk didn't have any clear idea of how he would define "victory."

He did not intend to kill the tree, but as his battle fever picked up, he fought more furiously, pounding the tentacles with his hard staff.

Another whiplike vine snapped sharply and struck him in the forehead just above his eye, drawing a trickle of blood. He reeled backward, blinking his eyes against the stinging tears and red droplets.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, two of the vines wrapped themselves around his stick, twisted hard, and yanked it from Zekk's hand, tearing the flesh on his palms. Then, as if sensing victory, the relentless tentacles also grabbed at his arms and legs. Zekk stood trapped in a blizzard of grasping strands.

A black static of anger overpowered his fear. Zekk used the Force to reach out and locate his stolen staff. He jerked the stick back toward him-so furiously that two vines ripped away from the central mass of the tree and began oozing clear sap.

With the dying tentacles still dangling from his staff, Zekk swung around, using it as a flail against the others. He used the Force again to tie several of the strands into knots and laughed out loud at how easy this battle was becoming.

Then, in a flash of comprehension, Zekk realized that he was not truly succeeding; he had unleashed his