Yavin system, forth moon, rebel base, barracks, pilot country.

Three days after the Battle of Yavin.

Luke Skywalker watched the swaying hips of his latest conversation partner with detached interest. She was certainly nice to look at, maybe she was a good conversationalist, he didn't know. She was the latest of about three dozen women to offer themselves to him. Once the cloth flap that was posing as his door fell back into place behind hyperdrive tech 2nd class Andori's still swaying form, Luke sprang to his feet and started pacing the ten meter square of his room. His hands seemed to leap to his head as he made his short circuit of what he thought of as his zoo cage. "Everyone come on in, take a look at the rarest creature in the Galaxy! Limited engagement only, hero on display." He muttered to himself, the bitter words seeming foreign on his tongue.

Everyone he knew was gone. His family burned in their home for buying some damn droids! Biggs killed by the same monster that he had just learned had killed his father. The rebel intelligence reports said that only Vader had that particular version of tie fighter. Heh, advanced, if he had the money that Vader did, the tie fighter would not be the way he went. He'd start with a larger frame and build up. Stronger shields, more maneuvering thrusters, stronger weapons. He'd talk to Biggs . . . But Biggs is dead. The thought echoed in his suddenly empty head. He had no friends, and no way to make them. All anyone saw was the hero. Made the one in a million shot with no computer assistance. Isn't he great, fought Vader himself, fighter to fighter and lived to tell the tale. Never mind the real heroes who had left to fight that monstrosity and never came back. All they saw was the poster boy. No one knew him. No one seemed to want to know him. "Everything I know is gone." He said quietly as he sank onto the floor, his arms warped around his legs, and his chin tucked glumly on his knees. No one here called him Luke.

Movement at the entrance to his room pulled him from his thoughts of despair. "What seems to be the mater, Mr. Skywalker?" The voice was cultured, controlled, and dripped with polite concern, and was as empty as the Jutland Waists (if you didn't count the Sand People.) He stood and turned to face his latest guest. At least she wasn't here to "Give the bunk a repeated strain test. Won't you help?" like the one yesterday.

He sighed, the strain of the last few days obvious on his voice. "I think after everything that's happened you can call me Luke." His eyes held an echo of the pain in his voice as he turned to the face that had pulled him into this whole thing in the first place. "Sorry, I'll try again." Leia smiled at him. "Luke, what's wrong?" The smooth controlled aspect to her voice was gone, but he could hear an edge to her voice that hadn't been there before. He sighed slightly as he gave her a wry smile in return. "There's nothing really wrong. I'm just out of my depth. I mean if you asked me a week ago what I thought I'd be doing, my wildest guess would have been signing up to the imperial academy." Leia looked slightly alarmed at that so Luke hastily explained. "It's not that I wanted to be an Imp!" His voice had a frantic edge to it, but it did serve to calm the princess. "It's just that I couldn't think of a way off of Tatooine. I only ever had about 30 credits to my name at any given time. Before I met up with Obi Wan I'd only ever been as far as Anchorhead. Mos Eisley was the first space port I'd ever been to. Still is now that I think about it. I was gonna sign up with the academy, learn to fly space fighters, or freighters or whatever, and jump ship. Just like Biggs. . ."

Luke's pain seemed to radiate from his very being. "Just. . . Just like Biggs and I planned." Leia, who had moved closer to him while he was talking, reached out and touched his shoulder. "I didn't realize you were so close to pilot Darklighter." Luke looked into her eyes and saw his pain reflected in her. "He was my best friend, only friend really, for years. I wasn't all that popular on Tatooine." She smirked up at him. "And we've held you up as a hero. You've never had to deal with anything like that before have you?" He seemed to think about it for a moment. "Well there was that time I won the Beggar's Canyon Race back home, but no, not really." She seemed puzzled for a moment. "What is Beggar's Canyon? You mentioned it in the fight." Luke smiled at this. "It's a canyon, obviously, very narrow. It goes from about twice as wide as the Death Star trench to about half as wide in some places and it's very curvy. We'd take our air speeders through as fast as we could. I actually set the all time speed record, for a human that is. Looking back on it I guess it was because my father was a Jedi or something. I still don't understand this stuff."

Leia notice that he became more animated as he gestured to describe his homeworld than she'd seen him since the Death Star. "You weren't ready for any of this were you?" He seemed to deflate, but she could tell that he was reveled that someone had noticed. "No, no I wasn't. I mean, I'm just a farm boy from a tenth rate world. Sure I wanted to make a difference, but I never thought that I'd actually do it. Now everyone looks at me and wants a hero. I'm not even used to being off the farm, let alone some great hero. I think I need to get away from everything for a little bit. Don't get me wrong, I'm sticking around to help as much as I can. I just need to get my head on straight." Leia grabbed his had and pulled him out of his room. "Come on, I'll take you to the quartermaster and get you kitted out for the jungle here. Take a walk, get your head on straight. Just be careful, the deep jungle is very dangerous, impassable in places. If you get stuck com link for help.

Yavin system, forth moon, deep jungle

4 hours later.

He'd never felt moisture like that this before. Now he understood what off-worlders meant when they said Tatooine was a dry heat. Not that he missed Tatooine at all, nope, no, not one bit. Who was he kidding of course he missed Tatooine or rather the people that he'd known there that he would never, could never, see again.

"Uncle Owen, aunt Beru. Ben." The young man sighed as he made his way trough the so called impassable jungle of Yavin IV. "Impassable heh, they just never tried hard enough. Though, father's light saber helps with the underbrush. I wonder if they've missed me yet. After all, I'm the big hero now. Who knew that something I thought I wanted all my life would turn out to suck so much. Sure people know who Luke Skywalker is now, but none of them know ME. The closest things I have to friends now are Han, the droids and the princes, but she doesn't need to hear me wining about all I've lost. Her entire planet was destroyed." He shook his head in disbelief "How could they do that, there were billions of people on Alderaan. They just blew it up because the Alderaani didn't agree with imp' policy. I just wish I could have stopped them sooner. Then . . . Bigs would still be here. If only there were a way I could make a difference. Dammit Uncle Owen! Why did you keep Ben away? If I were a Jedi I might have been able to stop all this . . . I could have blown up the Death Star that much sooner." His shoulders slumped as he paused momentarily. "I could have helped Ben rather than just standing there staring as that thrice damned sith killed him."

He came to a stop in front of a huge temple with strange, almost violent, glyphs all over the surface. He felt something old and . . . powerful coming from inside, and he felt it moving. Calling to him. Like Ben did, after. . .

"This isn't going to get me anywhere. Now I'm going crazy. I shouldn't have left the base. I should have just sat there and let them call me 'Hero' all they wanted." The youth let out a huge sigh as he faced the temple. He looked up into the sky and the huge red orange ball that was the planet Yavin. "I'm sorry Uncle Owen; I shouldn't have said that. . . I wish. . . I wish the last words between us . . . I should have told you how I felt not that I wanted to leave you . . . to serve the ones that would kill you even. . . I'm . . . I'm sorry."

You wish you had been able to stop the deaths of your family? I will tell you what you need. That which will give you the ability to save those you wish to save. You must seek the power of the force.

The young man looked up and finding nothing stared at the temple and its strange power. He knew it was coming from the temple in front of him. Although why a temple would want to talk to Luke Skywalker, Tatooine farm boy was beyond him. "What are you? Who are you? What do you want with me?"

I was a Jedi while I lived, the most powerful of my time. My name was, and is, Exar Kun. As for what I want with you I want to help you learn the true artistry of the universe. If you let me I will teach you the ways of force and help you become a Jedi . . . just like your father.