CHAPTER NINE
Three Years Later...
Sertar Sector
Leia Organa patiently looked out the porthole, watching space pass them by. She was always one to give credit where credit was due, and she could certainly say that her Jedi training had improved her patience. If someone had told her four years ago that she would be crossing two sectors of the galaxy below light speed, she would have laughed. But here she was, on a shuttle they had commissioned on Florrum, flying off to a mystery destination that Yoda and Obi-Wan refused to disclose, other than that it would be a long trip, and she should prepare herself. For what, they refused to tell her. After three years she had thought she was closer to being treated like a Jedi Knight, but then she remembered she would be the only Jedi Knight in the galaxy, under the only Jedi Master and Grandmaster in the galaxy.
Taking a step back from the window, Leia returned to the hold, where she saw not much had changed. Obi-Wan was still leaning against the wall, asleep once again, and Yoda was somehow meditating on the constantly rocking ship. Neither were in a state to be disturbed, so Leia took the same seat she had been in earlier, and tried to imagine she was someplace else. Meditation had never been her strong suit, and it certainly didn't help pass the time.
The first thoughts that came to mind were of the Rebellion, which she quickly pushed aside. She had agreed to leave the Rebellion for a week, and worrying about it would only make it seem longer. So she rerouted her attention to her present situation. Yoda and Obi-Wan were taking her to what critical thinking told her was some sort of trial. Obviously this would involve some sort of confrontation with one of her fears or insecurities. She knew somehow the destruction of Alderaan would come up, and the Death Star...
Not now, she thought to herself, banishing the thoughts. Tears still came to her eyes whenever someone so much as mentioned Alderaan, not that she ever let it show. But sheer determination always replaced her sadness before she had time to dwell on it. Yoda said it was unhealthy, to push aside emotions in that way, but she would be damned if she suffered through those days for nothing. If becoming a Jedi Knight was the only to destroy the Empire, then so be it, she would do it.
She did notice, however, how much her emotions troubled her mentors. Obi-Wan was far more subtle in his criticisms than Yoda ever would be, but she knew it worried him all the same. They thought her biological relationship with Darth Vader placed her at some sort of predisposition for going off her rocker and plunging the galaxy into chaos. What they had yet to realize, was that she could not be any more different from that monster. Bail and Breha were her parents, not the man in the suit. She had spent her adolescence learning about the atrocities the Empire had committed, not studying the Dark Side. And there was certainly nothing the Dark Side could offer, especially not from the Emperor.
If anything she took after her mother. Spearheading the founding of a rebel movement, actively fighting the corrupt system that ruled the galaxy, having a hefty bounty placed on her head, they should be worried she became too much like Padme Amidala. Thinking about Alderaan and her parents was often too painful to dwell on, and instead she began to do more research into her birth mother. At first it was merely out of disbelief that anyone could come to love Darth Vader, but the more she learned about the Queen of Naboo the more she realized she may have something in common besides her physical appearance.
She only wished Obi-Wan and Yoda would do the same. For one, she wasn't Luke. It was a low blow, but she hadn't run off after learning the news of her real paternity, and had stuck to the training far longer. She didn't give in to her emotions no matter how much Yoda said they ran through her.
Maybe it was all part of some grandiose plan to make sure she never turned to the Dark Side, she would never know.
I've gone stir-crazy, and it's barely been a day, she thought to herself.
"Worry, you should not. Soon arrive will we," Yoda said, startling her.
Leia returned to the porthole and looked out once again, only seeing an orange dustball in the distance.
"Where is here?"
"Korriban."
