Embers: Sequel to Crash and Burn

“I don’t know about this, Jacen.”

“I had my misgivings, too,” Jacen admitted. “But, Uncle Luke, I don’t know what else to do with her. I can’t keep her at home all day, and if I do, then eventually Ta’a Chume’s spies are going to find out that I’m hiding something.”

“I really don’t think you’ll be able to hide her on Coruscant at all, not for long,” said Luke. “But it’s possible. Still – she looks so much like you.”

“That’s what’s going to help us,” Jacen explained. “I don’t think I can keep up with the lie that I’m not her father – but we don’t have to let on that Tenel Ka is her mother. Except for her hair, she doesn’t look much like her. Heck, she could even be Mara’s daughter.”

“I don’t think so,” Luke said, with a warning tone but a playful gleam in his eye.

“Ta’a Chume thinks Allana is dead and won’t be looking for her unless somebody does something obvious. Everybody knows that Tenel Ka and I split. What better reason for it than finding out that I fathered someone else’s child? We’ll say her mother was a prostitute on Tatooine, and that after I found out Allana died, I felt bad about not being around for her, so I went back to Tatooine to pick up my other daughter.”

Luke rubbed his chin. “Ah, I could see that working. Still, we shouldn’t make a big to-do about her, because that would draw too much attention. We’ll quietly enroll her into the Academy as Lannie Stonerunner, and take it from there.”

“We might have to tell Ben, though,” Jacen said. Ben was Luke and Mara’s son, almost eight. Jaina also had two young children in the Academy, a daughter Nilla, and son Verayan. All of them were probably going to be in the same classes as Allana, since there weren’t enough young students to make more than one class for the larger group activities.

“And then Nilla is going to want to know – and she’ll probably figure out the truth anyway. We’re going to be dealing with a lot of possible leaks.”

“What if we just don’t tell any of them the whole story?”

“I don’t think that they’d like being lied to,” Jacen said.

“Tenel Ka hid who she was for a long time when she joined the Academy, and she was a lot older,” Luke pointed out. “And that didn’t seem to cause any problems.” He smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile; it was one of awkwardness. He didn’t know much more of the real story than Allana did. In fact, he probably had even less information to work with. Jacen put up his mental shields just in case something came out of his thoughts that he didn’t want to be read by someone else, although he wasn’t sure that those shields would hold up to the probing of a Jedi Master if the Jedi Master really wanted inside his mind. Much less the son of Darth Vader himself.

“I’m sorry,” Luke said, misinterpreting the reasons for Jacen’s sudden closing up. “I didn’t mean to bring up some things that you didn’t want brought up. Although I think that it would be better for you to work through your problems now, instead of keeping them all bottled up. This situation could get serious, even more than it already is, if we make a mistake, and if you’re not focusing much, then there’s a lot more of a chance that you’ll miss something important.”

“There isn’t much to work out, not now,” Jacen said. “I didn’t want to be a slave on Hapes. That’s pretty much the whole story, and now that Tenel Ka is the Queen Mother, there’s no way around the fact that I’d be stuck in the public eye over there if I went back. That marriage was one of the worst things I ever did.”

“You knew that before you even entered it,” Luke said.

“Yeah. I guess I thought that true love conquers all. Live and learn.” Jacen stood up. “Enough of that, though.”

Luke nodded. “I think you’re doing things right now, though. I mean, you’ve made up with Anakin, at least. If you ever want to talk about what happened on G0-CVII, you know that I’m here to listen. It might not matter from the perspective of the Jedi as a whole, since that threat is gone – the Stellar Imperium is completely dissolved and we haven’t had any problems from those people for years. But if it’s affecting two of my Knights – my nephews – then it might be very important.”

“Another time. Not now.”

There were a few unresolved issues from the war, things that had nothing to do directly with Jacen or Anakin or the two of them together, but he doubted that they would come up now. One of the Sith Lords hadn’t been killed; he had simply disappeared, first going into the Unknown Regions with his daughter, who would now be about eleven years old. After that, there were rumors that he had returned to the central galaxy, but nobody knew where he was and there was nothing more heard about him. Jacen guessed that Welk had truly renounced being one of the Sith, or had gotten killed, and there was nothing more to be heard from either him or his daughter Desa. In either case, Jacen had more pressing things to worry about than them.

He went back into the hallway and knelt down to see Allana eye-to-eye. “I talked to my uncle,” he said. “We’re going to put you in the Academy, just to try it out. But there are a few things we have to talk about first. One of them is about the story you have to tell them about who you are. You remember everything I said about you saying you were from Tatooine?”

“Yes, Father,” said Allana. “My name is Lannie Stonerunner and my mother was very poor. More poor than you are.”

“Good. Now, you can’t tell anybody anything different, except for me and Luke. And Anakin. And Jaina and… well, just tell everybody the same thing, and those who know the rest of it won’t say anything, either. The other part is just as important, though. You have to try your best to learn what your teachers tell you to learn. It won’t be easy. You won’t like a lot of it, and it might make you tired, and things might hurt a little. But if you learn what you should, then you’ll be stronger, and a lot of things that bother you now won’t bother you anymore.”

“So I can be like Mother?” Allana asked hopefully.

“Maybe. And you’ll learn how to use your talents to help people and to do good things. The Force is a very powerful thing.”

“Is it like witch spells?”

“It is exactly what the witches on Dathomir use for their spells, although they do things a little bit differently than the Jedi do. It’s the same energy, just used in a different way.”

“Oh,” said Allana. “Mother said those things were very dangerous and only people who know what to do with them should use them.”

“She was very right. You won’t be able to use your powers to do bad things, and some things that you don’t know now are bad will turn out to be that way. So you should listen very closely to what you’re being told until you’re able to find those things out for yourself. That is a long, long way away.”

Allana nodded and sighed. “It sounds like learning how to be a Jedi is boring.”

“I won’t lie to you. Sometimes it is boring. But it’s worth it.”

“Do you promise?”

“Yes, Allana.”

“Do you promise-promise?”

“What’s the difference?”

“A promise-promise is a promise that you can’t break, ever.”

“Yes, I promise-promise that it’s worth it if you stick it out.”

Jacen took Allana’s hand and led her down the hall. There were eighteen children already there, sitting in butterfly position on the tile floor. Ten of them were human, but Allana saw a few of other species, as well; there was a little Twi’lek boy, and a Zabrak girl, and two Rodians that looked like they might be twins. But she couldn’t be sure because most Rodians looked the same to her.

“I’ll come and get you after your classes are finished,” he whispered.

“Why can’t you stay? You’re a teacher too.”

“I’m teaching a different class, for trainees who are almost ready to go to the academy on Yavin. I’ll be back later. Now, Allana, remember everything I told you, and please, please behave yourself.”

“I will, I promise.”

“But do you promise-promise?”

Allana grinned. “Yes, Father.” She hugged him and then dashed into the tiled room, and sat down next to another human girl.

She wasn’t sure about the room at first. It was large enough to hold them all comfortably, but it was plain, with marble walls and tiles in alternating black and white. Sitting on the floor also didn’t feel very good, and Allana was actually glad that she was wearing a simple green dress instead of one of the microjewel ones. Those hurt her bottom if she tried to sit on them on anything that wasn’t very soft, because the strands of stiff gems were hard and dug into her skin.

“Class, meet the new student,” a woman said. She looked human, but she had silver hair and yellow eyes, although she didn’t really look old enough to have her hair all silver yet. “Her name is Lannie Stonerunner, and she comes to us from Tatooine. Jedi Knight Jacen Solo adopted her and brought her to the Academy.”

“Uncle Jacen didn’t tell me he was ‘dopting a girl!” the black-haired girl next to Allana exclaimed. “I’m Nilla Solo. I guess I’m your cousin.”

Allana nodded. “I never had cousins before,” she said. Tenel Ka didn’t have any brothers or sisters, and Allana only had very distant cousins, several generations removed, on Dathomir. Most of them were in the Singing Mountain clan, but some of the most distant relations that were still close enough to trace had broken off and joined with the Fire Island clan.

“My name is Tionne Solusar,” the woman said, and led the group in their introductions. At least now Allana was able to pick out who Ben, Nilla, and Verayan before; she’d never met them, and in fact didn’t even have pictures of them. Ben and Nilla were a little older than her, although she was as tall as Nilda; Verayan was just a little boy, only five.

Tionne talked about something called the Force, a power that came from everything that was living – and, to those with very strong sensing skills and who were highly trained, sometimes from things that weren’t. Allana didn’t really understand everything that Tionne said, but she thought it was interesting that there was a special kind of energy that they couldn’t see and couldn’t really measure, but could use to do things. Things like move objects without touching them, and heal themselves if they got hurt.

“When are we going to get our lightsabers?” someone asked.

“Not for a long time,” said Tionne. “Lightsabers are powerful weapons, and they can be dangerous if they’re not used properly.”

“Bad lightsabers might make you get your arm cut off,” Allana said helpfully.

Tionne looked her over, and frowned. “That... could happen,” she said. “Did you ever meet someone that happened to?”

Uh-oh. First day and already Allana forgot what she was supposed to say and what she was not supposed to say. “No, but I heard about it,” she said. “Father told me.”

Tionne nodded and went on with the lesson. They finished and then went outside into a small garden. Allana walked in hesitantly, because she didn’t like the idea of going into a garden after her nightmare, but this one wasn’t a maze and she wasn’t by herself.

By the end of the day, she was tired and a little bit cranky, but she managed to mind her manners the whole time. Then some of the children went up to their rooms, the ones who lived at the Temple, and those whose families lived closer to the Academy went home. They were allowed to live at home for the first few years, and then move to the Academy all the time when they were a little bit older.

“Bye, Lannie,” Nilla said.

“Bye, Nilla. I’ll see you tomorrow,” replied Allana. A very tall man with dark hair, who Allana guessed to be Zekk, led Nilla and Verayan away, and then Jacen came down the hall to get Allana.

“How was your first day at the Jedi Academy?” Jacen asked.

“It was all right. I didn’t like sitting in the teaching room because there weren’t any chairs and my bottom got sore. But then we went out to look at plants. They had plants that we didn’t have at home and I never saw before. Even some that eat bugs. I didn’t know plants could eat bugs.”

“Some do,” said Jacen.

“There were blue bugs, too, and they looked like little stones. You could almost see through them but they were blue. I didn’t touch them because they’re bugs, but they were pretty.”

“You’ll learn which bugs are safe to touch,” said Jacen. “Most of them are. You know, when I was a little boy, I liked to play with critters.”

“Do you still?” asked Allana.

“Well, no, I don’t sit down and try to talk to beetles. But I think they’re interesting, anyway.”

“Did you see the blue bugs?”

“Of course. They’re called shoba beetles. There are red and green shoba beetles, too.”

“I didn’t see those,” said Allana. “Can you take me out to look at them?”

“I don’t know. We have to be heading home, and it’s getting late.”

“But I want to see the beetles!”

“All right, but only for a few minutes.”

Jacen took Allana back into the Temple garden, and he found the right patch of flowers. “You can sometimes find the beetles if you look for white and purple flowers with four leaves on each stem, ones that look just like this. That’s the food they like to eat.” Jacen lifted one of the flowers and pointed to a mass at the bottom that looked like a small pile of gemstones. “Wow, that’s more than I thought we’d find.”

“Do they bite?” Allana asked.

“No, they don’t bite humans. Only flowers.”

Allana stuck her hand near the pile and extended one of her fingers. She waited until a light blue shoba beetle crawled up onto her hand. She started to make a face, and then she slowly pulled her hand back to look at the beetle a little more closely. “Is this one a girl?” she asked.

“Yes. These are worker beetles, and they come in different colors. The boy beetles are small and gray, and the queen has a rainbow of colors. If it just has one color and it’s not gray, then it’s a girl worker beetle.”

“Can I keep her?”

“I don’t think she’d be happy if you took her home. She would miss her sisters and there wouldn’t be any beetle queen. And we don’t have any flowers for her to eat and turn into garden sap.”

“We could buy flowers and get another beetle.”

“They would still be lonely, Lannie. Not like humans – bugs don’t think quite like us. But she would think there was something missing. No, no, please don’t pout like that. You can see the shoba beetles again when you come back to school.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Maybe tomorrow, yes. Now come on; we have to go home. I’m hungry for dinner.”

“Me, too,” said Allana. “I like the Jedi Academy, Father. I just wish we had chairs.”

Jacen didn’t say anything more, but he smiled as they made their way to the speeder car, where Anakin was waiting for them.