Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens the Weapon of a Jedi: A Luke Skywalker Adventure (14 page)

“I’ll crawl if I have to,” Luke said, getting shakily to his feet with Threepio and Farnay’s help and clipping
his lightsaber to his belt.

“I thought you were dead,” Farnay said. “How did you do that?”

Luke smiled.

“The Force showed me my enemy. As well as my friends.”

He stretched his hand out to the pikhron matriarch, stroking her scaly muzzle. She closed her eyes and sighed, and Luke bowed his head to her, then to the rest of the creatures standing around
them.

“Go on now,” Luke
said gently. “You don’t want to be here when the Empire comes back.”

The matriarch snorted and began to make her way toward the pile of rubble, the rest of her clan falling in line behind her. One by one the great beasts climbed over the debris and
disappeared.

Artoo whistled urgently.

“Master Luke, Artoo says he’s detecting the sound of ion engines,” Threepio said.

“We’d better
go,” Luke said.

Sarco’s electrostaff lay in the grass, deactivated. At either end a circle of grass was burnt black. Luke bent and picked up the weapon, eyeing it with distaste, then walked cautiously to
the edge of the pit and peered into it.

He saw nothing but darkness. But there was a faint tickle in the back of his brain, like an unpleasant smell one could just detect. And he knew
the Scavenger was alive.

Let him rot then,
Luke thought.
Down there with the imaginary treasure he wanted so badly.

He threw the electrostaff into the pit. He heard the rattle of its fall, then silence.

TIE fighters shrieked somewhere overhead. Luke nodded to Farnay, and they hurried out of the courtyard as fast as Luke’s still shaky legs could carry him, the droids trailing behind.
The
great hall was lit with shafts of late-afternoon sun, casting the shapes of the Jedi statues in shadow on the far wall. The shadows looked whole, Luke thought.

“Just one more moment,” Luke said as they reached the tunnel leading back to the cave and the river valley.

He knelt in the middle of the hall, resting his hand atop the Jedi’s massive stone one.

“The Force brought me
here,” he said quietly. “And what I learned here saved me.”

He swallowed, then continued. “I will become a Jedi. I will rebuild the Order. And one day I will come here again. I swear it on the memory of Obi-Wan Kenobi. And my father. And all the
Jedi who walked these halls.”

He got to his feet. The sun was almost at the horizon. It was time to go.

J
ESSIKA PAVA’S COMLINK chimed for the third time in the previous five minutes.

“Hold on a sec, Threepio,” she said with a scowl, activating the device. “Yes? It’s Pava. What’s that? All right—I’m on my way. Be there in a
minute.”

She shut off her comlink and shrugged at Threepio.

“Afraid I’m needed in the command center.”

“I understand, Blue Three.”

She smiled. “Call
me Jessika. Before I go, I want to hear how you got off Devaron. The Empire found Skywalker’s Y-wing, after all. So how did you get away?”

“That
is
a tale,” Threepio said. “When we returned to Tikaroo—”

“I’m afraid I only have time for the short version, Threepio. The
very
short version.”

“Oh,” Threepio said, sounding disappointed. “Well, Miss Pava, Master Luke reclaimed his starfighter—which
had been repaired quite capably by Kivas, I must say. On the way
to space he dropped several bombs at the base of the spire, cutting off the paths into the jungle. I’m pleased to say that meant the end of those dreadful hunts.”

“And the alien? The one they called the Scavenger?”

“Just recalling that awful creature puts me at risk of a short circuit,” Threepio said. “Master Luke claimed
he was alive. My sensors detected no trace of him, but he was quite
insistent.”

Jessika’s comlink was chiming again.

“Stang! I said in a minute, didn’t I?”

“You did,” Threepio said. “And it has been one minute and two seconds exactly.”

“Right. I have to go. But…just tell me about Farnay. Did you ever see her again?”

“Oh, yes,” Threepio said. “Artoo and I were delighted to
be reacquainted with Farnay when Master Luke kept his promise and returned to Devaron. She’d grown into quite a
capable young woman. It would be my pleasure to tell you that story, Miss Pava. But there goes your comlink again, the beastly thing. So I suppose that tale will have to wait….”

JASON FRY
is the author of The Jupiter Pirates young adult space-fantasy series and has written or cowritten more than thirty novels,
short stories, and other works set in a galaxy far, far away, including
Star Wars: The Essential Atlas
and the Servants of the Empire quartet. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his
wife, son, and about a metric ton of
Star Wars
stuff.

PHIL NOTO
began his career at Walt Disney Feature Animation where he worked on such films as
The Lion King
,
Pocahontas
,
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
,
Mulan
, and
Lilo & Stitch
. In 2001, Phil started his comic career as the cover artist for DC Comics’ Birds of
Prey. Since then he has worked on numerous projects such as Danger Girl, Jonah Hex, Avengers, Uncanny X-Force, X-23, The Infinite Horizon, and most
recently, Marvel’s Black Widow.