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A thick, sinuous arm struck the side of the minisub. Not hard-just an exploratory tap-but it sent them careening end over end beneath the water. Bubbles burst out all around the submersible.

Cilghal wrestled with the controls. "Hang on," she said as Zekk tried to steady the craft in the midst of the foamy turmoil.

Anja was thrown backward into her seat.

Lights flickered and dimmed inside the cabin before the emergency generators kicked on, adding fresh illumination.

Zekk grunted as his head smacked against the wall. "Tell me this sub has some sort of defense system."

"Unfortunately, this is not a fact," Tenel Ka said. "And I doubt we are capable of outswimming that creature."

Jacen looked through the front windowports into the cold arctic sea.

He sensed that the giant shadowy hulk would turn and swim back, return for another pass-and that this time it would be less reticent to make a full-fledged assault. He reached out with his mind, trying to use the Force to find the massive creature's primitive mind. But the beast's attention was entirely absorbed by the new prey.

"That wasn't even an attack yet," Zekk said. "The thing was just checking us out." He rubbed the back of his neck, as if he tingled, and looked back at Jacen. "Next time it'll want a meal."

The minisub's stabbing lights spread out in white cones through the water. Bubbles still drifted up, shrouding them in a watery bead curtain.

Moments later the gigantic silhouette swam into the light, showing off its thick body core studded with long deadly tentacles, and its large ravenous mouth. The creature undulated toward them, thrashing through the water. The tiny underwater vehicle would never be able to travel that fast. They could not escape through sheer energy alone.

The creature's maw opened wide.

Cilghal added power to the hull attitude jets, tilting the craft at a steep angle to rise toward the jagged ceiling of ice under the polar cap.

The sub sputtered out of the way. Snapping with its tentacles, the monster pursued.

Despite Cilghal's attempts to control it during the violent evasive maneuvers, the small grappling claw that held the last andris container ripped loose. The second claw bent and jammed. The crate popped free, drifting... slowly sinking.

"There goes the spice!" Anja said, and Jacen couldn't be sure if she was disappointed or just observing a fact.

Seeing the bright morsel fall away from the larger craft, the sea monster swerved and ducked toward it. Long tentacles reached out, grasped, and in a single swift movement the creature's fanged mouth came forward and chomped down on the container. Swordlike teeth tore through the outer coverings, freeing the spice ampoules.

Vials began to shatter... and the beast swallowed a thousand doses of andris. All at once.

Jacen stared as the monster gulped down an immeasurable quantity of the intense stimulant. "Uh-oh," he said, "now we're really in trouble. If you thought that monster was hyper before, wait until the andris kicks in."

Below them, the creature thrashed about in growing agitation.

And then it turned its attention back to the minisub.

Under the humid, hazy sunlight of Yavin 4, a steady flow of Jedi Knights came and learned and became the hope of the galaxy. Nothing would stop them now.

Master Luke Skywalker considered his students over the years, remembering them all. Alone at first, he had been so tentative, so uncertain, as he tried to bring back the association of heroic fighters who had performed so many legendary deeds in the days of the Old Republic.

But now the Jedi training center had taken on a life of its own. The new Jedi learned as much from each other, and from his former students, as they took from Luke's lectures and intensive training sessions.

Never again would the order of Jedi Knights be limited by the bottleneck of having only one teacher and a single student.

Luke's very first trainees, the batch of twelve he had taken and trained after his Jedi search, were full Jedi Knights.