The Force Awakens

Chapter 22

What could I have done if Luke didn't pull me out? The Force is powerful, filled with temptation. It feeds on my strongest emotions. I can't let myself lose sight of who I am and who I'm meant to be. I know I'm not evil, not like my brother. We would never be one in the same. I could never do what he's done. We aren't linked together.

But linked we were, and it was of no consequence that I might be halfway across the galaxy. The Force was not bound by the limitations of space, distance, or time.

He sensed me standing in the rain, near the dilapidated junk heap of a ship Han Solo had once owned. His nostrils flared in disgust.

When Ren's mind intruded on mine, I was thinking of someone else: the resistance fighter pilot. The love of my life and one of the first people I could fully trust. Poe Dameron.

I was concerned about him, so much so that I just had my Wookiee friend send a message to the Resistance and was contemplating sending another. Ren laughed. He has forgotten what love felt like, thought it was a weakness.

Discerning Ben's presence, I hissed, "Murderous snake."

My recognition solidified our bond. I could see him and he could see me, as if we existed in the same place. He went toward me. Rain ran down my face.

"You're too late," I said. "You lost. I found Skywalker."

"And how's that going?" Ren asked with a chuckle. "Has he told you what happened? The night I destroyed his temple? Has he told you why?"

"I know everything I need to know about you."

"You do?" Ren mused. "Yes, you do...You have that look in your eyes from our little forest duel, when you called me a monster."

I stood firm. "You are a monster."

"Yes," he said. "I am."

I broke the connection, opening my eyes. I was alone again.

To shake off the contact with Kylo Ren, I worked up a sweat and practiced hand to hand combat. I targeted a large, jagged standing stone with each end, ducking, parrying, and jumping, as if she faced a real opponent—as if I faced Kylo Ren.

After a bout of exercise, I paused for a brief rest. My eyes fell on my satchel, which lay on the ground where I had dropped it.

The hilt of Luke's lightsaber protruded from its pocket. I glanced at the boulder, then back at my hilt. It occurred to me that if I wanted to master the Jedi path, I would also have to master the lightsaber. I could not rely on pure adrenaline alone to defeat more skilled opponents like Kylo Ren.

I picked up the hilt. Flicking the activation button, I extended the blade and marveled at its bright blue beam, nearly weightless in my hand. This lightsaber had played a large role in recent galactic history, and here I was holding it as if it were my own.

Wielding the saber, I resumed my duel against the standing stone, slashing and blocking an invisible foe's blade, careful not to strike the rock itself. As Luke had taught me, I focused on my breath and opened all my senses. In nudges and tugs, I began to feel the Force guiding my movements, as if I were a dancer swaying to music.

"Impressive."

Luke's voice jarred me back to the here and now. My blade sizzled through the air to bite into stone, cleaving the boulder in two. Its upper chunk fell away and tumbled down the mountainside to smash into a wheeled cart at the bottom. The pair of Caretakers who had been pulling the cart glared up at me.

I cringed, switching off the lightsaber. I didn't mean to do that.

Luke stood behind me. I had the feeling he'd been watching me for a while. He beckoned me to follow him.

We climbed up the mountain stairs, returning to the meditation ledge. But this time he did not give breathing lessons or riddles. He led me through the mouth of the cave that had pulled at me before and into the Jedi temple.

The entrance widened into a spacious chamber. I followed Luke to a pool in the middle, circled by a retaining wall. "I've shown that you don't need the Jedi to use the Force," Luke said. "So why do you need the Jedi Order?"

I didn't overthink my reply. "To fight the rising darkness. They kept the peace for a thousand generations." My reflection stared back at me in the glassy pool, while Luke's held a frown. "And I can tell from your look that every word I just said was wrong."

Luke's tone turned grim. "Lesson two. Now that they're extinct, the Jedi are romanticized, deified like gods. But if you strip away the myth and look at their deeds, the legacy of the Jedi is failure, hypocrisy, hubris."

"That's not true," I protested. I had studied the old tales, even begged members of the Resistance to hear any story of the Jedi they knew. Some of the Jedi might have been liars and hypocrites, but they could not be deemed failures if they had protected the galaxy for as long as they had.

Luke grew more somber as he spoke. "At the height of their powers, the Jedi allowed Darth Sidious to rise, create the Empire, and wipe them out. It was a Jedi Master who was responsible for the training and creation of Darth Vader."

"And a Jedi who saved him," I countered. In my opinion, Luke seemed to be a little hard on the Jedi and himself. According to the tales, his training in the Jedi way had enabled him defeat the Emperor and pull Darth Vader away from the dark side before his death. "Vader may have been the most hated man in the galaxy, but you saw there was conflict inside him. You believed that he wasn't gone, he could be turned."

"And I became a legend," Luke said with a sigh. "For many years there was balance. I took no Padawans and no darkness rose. But then I saw Kylo"—he hesitated before correcting himself—"Ben, my nephew,  your brother, with the mighty Skywalker blood. In my hubris I thought I could train him, I could pass on my strength. I might not be the last Jedi."

His gaze shifted away from the pool. "Han," he said, "your father..... was your father about it. He would've preferred his son learn to use a blaster rather than a lightsaber. But Leia trusted me with her son. I took him, and a dozen students, and began a training temple. By the time I realized I was no match for the darkness rising in him, it was too late."

"What happened?" I asked. This part of the tales I didn't know. No one did.

Luke looked into the cavern's shadows. Some moments passed before he spoke. "One night I came to him in his sleeping quarters, to see if I could resolve the matter." His voice strained. "He woke and saw me standing there, and then...the darkness exploded within him. He called on the Force to bring down the ceiling on me. I was incapacitated and it was a long time before I dragged myself out of the rubble. He must've thought I was dead."

Luke turned back to the pool. Its waters were still and clear. "When I came to, the temple was burning. Kylo left with a handful of my students and slaughtered the rest."

His story triggered my memory. I recalled the vision I'd  had on Takodana of Luke, cowled in a black cloak, kneeling and touching R2-D2 with his artificial hand. A structure burned in the background. It must have been the temple that Luke had built.

Luke let out a heavy breath. "Leia blamed Snoke. But it was me. I failed."

I could feel the anguish of his soul, mired in self-doubt. "You didn't fail Ben. He failed you." I fixed my gaze on Luke. "I won't."