PROLOGUE

Karryntora, Kashyyyk - 21 BBY

"The little one grows well, Shane." The warbling-voiced, short green alien stood thoughtfully next to his much taller, Human companion and watched a ten-year old girl. She was lying on her stomach, working over some problem on the datapad in front of her. Dark-haired like her father and golden-eyed like her mother, her brow furrowed in annoyance and then she noted down the answer.

Light-skinned despite hours spent working in the sun, Shane Carrick grinned almost foolishly. "Thank you, Master Yoda."

"Brought her to the temple, you should have."

Shane sighed, smiled with some embarrassment. "She's still mad at the Jedi Order. She gave me a loud NO at the top of her lungs when she was five years old."

Yoda's ears perked up and he looked over at Shane with some amusement. "Angry with us, mmh??"

"I made the mistake of explaining that I wasn't in the Jedi Order any more because I married Galatea and had a child. She got really mad and called the Jedi Order all sorts of names. Drove Yarapwyca mad for days." Yarapwyca was Ambrraksha's honor guardian who had volunteered the day Ambrraksha had been born to protect the child and serve as her Wookie tutor.

Shane couldn't help the foolish grin that slipped over his face again. "It was right before bedtime and she looked like a furious baby bird waving her arms around and with her hair all sticking out like feathers. Her volume nearly took the roof off!"

Yoda laughed. "Brought her to us you still should have. Perhaps for the best though, this is." The Jedi Master considered for a long moment, watching the girl.

Suddenly, she jumped, dropping her datapad with a clatter. She was instantly on her feet, glaring around until her narrowed eyes found Master Yoda.

"Training her, you are." Yoda grinned unrepentantly at Ambrraksha.

"Would you do anything else?" Shane didn't even try to hide it from Master Yoda. Yoda might not have been the Jedi who had trained him but the old Jedi Master knew Shane all too well.

"No. Need it, she will. Dangerous times are these."

Ambrraksha came marching up to them, her hands on her hips. Ten years old and nearly four feet tall, she could almost look down at the little Jedi Master. "Why'd you poke me?" she demanded.

"Wished to see if you felt it, I did." He paused. "Dream of the future, do you?"

Ambrraksha froze. "Sometimes," she said very cautiously after a moment. "But I hate it."

Yoda shook his head. "Do not. Of the Dark Side, hate is - and this gift, valuable will it be to you." He tilted his head slightly. Such a vivid, energetic mind. Full of life and fire - but there was fear there as well.

He turned to Shane. "Talk with the little one alone for a time, I would."

Shane nodded, but there was unease in his mind as he left.

Helped it couldn't be. Needed to learn, the youngling did. Yoda settled himself on a stump.

"Know you of the Dark Side, little one?"

Ambrraksha blinked. She was very still, watching the little Jedi Master very, very carefully.

Yes, there was fear, there.

"It's bad. Hurting people for the wrong reason, hating, being very sad, afraid," Ambrraksha ticked them off on her fingers. She considered for a moment longer, and then nodded. "That's what I know."

Yoda nodded. "And yet you fear your visions, and even hate them."

Ambrraksha squirmed a little. "I'm not perfect - and they're scary."

"Always?"

"Always."

"Your last vision, what was it?"

"A Jedi died."

"Know this Jedi, do you?"

"I asked my asha," Ambrraksha said. She used some words from her mother's language that she'd been taught and she liked asha better than 'father'. "He says his name was Qui-Gon."

Yoda regarded her seriously. "When?"

Ambrraksha looked somewhere else. "I think I was four years old."

"Prevent it, you could have."

"I was four." Ambrraksha jerked her head back to face him and narrowed her eyes. This time Yoda saw real anger. An anger that was too adult. "I didn't understand. I didn't kill him, asha said so!" ferociously battled-back tears glinted in her eyes.

"And he was right." Yoda sighed. Ill-timed, this child's gifts were. If Qui-Gon's death could have been prevented, what else might have been changed? There were no Jedi Consular these days who were not affected by the rising darkness in the Force, the blindness that came with it. None except this youngling who was not a Jedi and had little training.

Ambrraksha folded her arms and stubbornly sat almost facing away from the Jedi Master.

"Many things you must face in this universe. Fear and anger, running away- these things will not help you. You know this."

The little girl puffed out an irritated, frustrated breath. "You're mean but you're trying to teach me something. I never learn when people do that!"

"And yet your only choice sometimes it may be."

Ambrraksha considered for a moment then nodded, with some difficulty. "I know. I just ignore stuff like that all the time. Like the other younglings." Ambrraksha spoke of the Wookie children she played with as no different from herself.

"You are not one of them, Ambrraksha Carrick. You never will be . . ."