YAVIN 4

CHAPTER 7

Callista sat alone in the jungles as night gathered on Yavin 4. Near the horizon, a lambent glow from the setting gas giant streaked the sky; Massassi trees rose tall, spreading their many-branched silhouettes against the deepening purple. Stars poked out, lights twinkling through a cloak of blackness.

She had not gone far from the Great Temple where Luke Skywalker had founded his Jedi academy. The stair-cased pyramid had endured for thousands of years, and stood now like a jagged black cutout surrounded by dusk.

Callista sat with her long legs crossed in front of a campfire she had built from dry brush, concentrating, allowing no distractions. Her malt blond hair was mussed and windblown, but her gray eyes were fixed on the flames. The warmth spread out in waves, gentle but insistent, driving back the damp coolness that settled over the lowlands.

She stared into the flames and pushed, but she felt nothing, not even a flicker of her former abilities. Feathery tongues of fire licked at the logs, lending the bark a soft orange glow. Tiny sparks drifted into the air in corkscrew patterns, like incandescent starfighters crashing to oblivion. Callista grimaced and tried harder to touch the flames with her mind, to nudge the embers.

But nothing happened. She sensed no communion with the fire.

Luke’s other Jedi trainees could make the flames dance, pulling them out like flexible sheets to make faces, images, twisting them into braids. It was a simple Jedi exercise. Callista had learned how to do it many years ago; back then she had not even needed to concentrate. But now, try as she might, the flames would not respond. Her Jedi powers had abandoned her.

She stood with a lost sigh of frustration and kicked apart the logs to let the fire die. Sparks showered upward like a rekindled space battle, and the embers fought to maintain their brightness.

Callista trudged back toward the great stone pyramid, wondering when Luke would come back. Behind her, the fire gasped and died into a waning glow.

As Callista readied for bed, alone, she answered a summons at her door, surprised to find the Jedi woman Tionne standing in the corridor.

“I found something in the records,” Tionne said, blinking her mother-of-pearl eyes over an anxious expression. She had a narrow face, pointed chin, high cheek-bones, and large eyes framed by long silvery hair that gave her an elfin, ethereal appearance. “It isn’t much, but I thought you’d like to know.” Her voice had a musical lilt, and it was not surprising that Tionne enjoyed singing, accompanied by a stringed instrument of her own devising.

Tionne was not one of Luke’s stronger trainees, but she had proven to be his most skilled assistant and teacher at the academy. She had always been intrigued by Jedi lore and legends, and she spent much time studying archives, compiling a great history of the thousand generations of Jedi Knights who had served the Old Republic.

“Come in,” Callista said, gesturing. “What is it?”

Tionne raised her pale eyebrows. “You might like to know that at least you aren’t alone. Not in history at any rate.”

Callista perked up. “Other Jedi have lost their powers before?”

“Yes, there was another.” Tionne sat down on the rumpled covers of Callista’s sleeping pallet, her mysterious pearlescent eyes widening. She enjoyed nothing more than retelling the Jedi legends she knew and loved so well.

“Ulic Qel-Droma, a great warlord who fought in the Sith War on the side of evil with Exar Kun. He betrayed Kun and led the Jedi Knights here, where they trapped Kun’s spirit in the temples and laid waste to the entire moon. But by turning to the dark side, Ulic Qel-Droma damned himself forever, and in a final confrontation he was stripped of his Force ability.”

“But how?” Callista said. “The Force is in all things. How can one Jedi Knight strip another of the ability to use it?”

“Ulic was not deprived of anything,” Tionne continued, “in a manner of speaking, he was blindfolded to the Force. Ulic no longer had access to it.”

“But how could I have had such blinders placed upon me?” Callista said. “Was it just a consequence of my spirit entering another body?”

“Cray’s body,” Tionne said with a slight tightening in her throat. Callista remembered that the silver-haired Jedi woman had known Cray well, had trained with her—and now Callista’s spirit inhabited the same body, while Cray herself had died in a suicide mission against the Eye of Palpatine.

“I can’t explain it,” Tionne said with a shrug. “I can only tell you what I’ve learned. Every piece of information adds more to the solution. Someday”—Tionne rested her long and delicate fingers on Callista’s forearm—“we’ll find the answer.”

Callista nodded and stood to usher Tionne out the door. The Great Temple had fallen silent with late evening, the other Jedi trainees either sleeping or meditating in their own chambers. Out in the corridor, the little astromech droid Artoo-Detoo puttered along the flagstones, looking lost without Luke Skywalker.

Callista vowed to keep trying, keep searching. There had to be some way. She had waited for so long inside the computer, and now that she had found her love in Luke, she would not let him go without a fight. But she could not be a part of him, true Jedi to true Jedi, until she regained her ability to use the Force. She couldn’t give everything to him until then.

Their time had been so brief before they had been snatched apart, left with only their loss, to look into each other’s eyes with an invisible barrier between them that neither could breach.

Callista swallowed, but her throat remained dry. Despite her reservations, she could not wait until Luke Skywalker returned to her.

When Luke did return several days later, Callista knew instantly that he had been unsuccessful. She was unable to read him in the way she had once sensed emotions with her Jedi potential—but she could tell by his demeanor and downcast expression that he had not found the answers he sought.

She met Luke on the landing grid in front of the pyramid. The other Jedi students emerged one by one to welcome their Master home. Callista ran to him. Luke moved quickly, delighted to see her. He caught her in his arms, holding her close, but said nothing.

She kissed him, then spoke quietly into his ear. “General Kenobi did not answer your summons?” she asked.

He looked at her strangely, blinking his cool blue eyes, and then smiled. “I keep forgetting you were a Jedi so long ago that you knew Obi-Wan when he was a young military commander.”

He averted his gaze. “No, he didn’t answer.” Then he spoke quickly as if to reassure her. “But that doesn’t mean anything. I’m going to keep trying—and so are you,” he said.

“You can bet on that,” she agreed. “I’d do anything so we can be together.”

“So would I,” Luke said, “if only I knew what to do.”

“Let’s go greet the others.” Callista slipped her arm around his waist. He held her, and the two walked toward the temple. “I’m sorry you didn’t find the answer,” she said, “but just having you back makes me happy.”

“That much I can give you,” Luke said, “but I hope we can have more … so much more.”

“We will,” Callista said.