Disclaimer: Still don't own Star Wars. At least not until I stage my takeover of LFL...

Anakin gaped at the spirit standing before him. "Dead? But you're my age, you shouldn't be dead yet."

Solo shrugged. "Fortunes of war. It's a lot more painful for my siblings than it is for me now."

"You shouldn't be dead."

Solo nodded. "Master Yoda said as much."

None of this made sense. Here was a total stranger, who felt he could just make himself at home in Anakin's bedroom, claiming to be his dead grandson from the far future. He claimed to be acting on the future orders of Master Yoda himself, and he was asking Anakin to run off alone on some crazy crusade. It would get him in Force knew how much trouble with the Council, especially the contemporary Yoda. It had to be a joke. Some trick with holograms concocted by one of the other students. Where they had thought of this ludicrous grandchild idea he would never know.

"You don't believe me, do you." Solo's voice was soft.

"Would you believe me, if the positions were reversed?"

"The point isn't what I would or wouldn't believe, it's what you have to believe now. If I were a hologram, would you be able to feel my presence?"

For the first time, Anakin reached out and tried to sense Solo. There he was, a blaze of strength. He was not only real, but also a powerful Jedi. Which made sense, if his story of his ancestry was to be believed.

"My body may be dead, but I'm still alive, still part of the Force. There's only one thing that lives and yet is not part of the Force."

Now Solo really was speaking nonsense. The first thing that Qui-Gon had instructed him about the Jedi way was that all life was part of the Force, and without the Force life could not exist. "That's impossible."

" 'Impossible' is a word you have to be careful with. It has a tendency of coming back to haunt you at the worst possible time. If you want to survive, you have to learn how to ignore the odds."

"Then tell me, how is it that something lives without the Force?"

"We can't explain it, all we know is that we've been confronted with the fact of it every day since the Vong invaded. We can't feel them, but we know that they're there."

"Wait just one second. You're telling me that these Vong don't appear in the Force and you want me to fight them for you? Are you completely out of your mind?"

Solo shook his head. "I'm quite sane, thank you. Dying gave me a lot of perspective on the universe."

Anakin rose from his chair. "You really think that I could win this?"

Solo began to lay a hand on his shoulder, before realizing that he wouldn't be able to feel it. He shoved it into the pocket of his robe instead. "I don't know if anyone else can."

"Then, if it rests in my hands, I cannot turn away."