Skywalker's Legacy, page 83
Chapter FourteenLuke went to the lodging station whose name Brenna had given him. He had no difficulty finding the room. It was one of the few with a lamp still on by the time he arrived. He knocked on the door, said Brenna's name softly, and she opened it immediately.
The room was not exactly top-quality. The decor was cheap, clustered around the equipment for those mindless entertainments some of Tatooine's citizens and visitors were so fond of. Luke was glad to see that they were switched off.
There was a connecting doorway, and Luke assumed that Lucy was in the next room. That was fine. He was anxious to meet his niece, but he first needed to speak with Brenna alone.
"Did you find Rupert?" Brenna asked.
"Yes. He's safely back with his ship. His father's with him."
"Then it's time for us to talk."
"I agree." Luke indicated the chairs by the entertainment area. It was not exactly the most ideal place, but it was the only sitting area available. Brenna was unable to hold back an excited smile as she sat down and waited for her father to speak. Luke's expression was sober. He knew what Brenna wanted of him, but he waited until she was seated to dash her hopes. "Brenna, I can't train you."
The smile faltered for a second, then came back. "Oh, I know you can't train me right now," she said. "I understand that. You have to take care of this other problem first."
"No, Brenna. I can't train you, period."
She laughed. "What do you mean? You're Luke Skywalker. Of course you can. I remember those stories you told me when I was sick with Sand Fever. I always wondered how you knew them. I could never find any record of them in the literature."
Luke shook his head sadly. "I've always regretted telling them to you. But you were so sick that when you begged me for stories about the Jedi, I'm afraid that I...gave in to a moment of weakness. I never dreamt that you would memorize them, word for word. If I had known, I never would have done it."
"How can you say that? Those stories meant everything to me!"
"I'm sorry, Bren. It's my fault. I didn't know how obsessed you'd become with the Jedi until it was too late. It never even occurred to me to sensor your reading material until I caught you with that book-tape. Even then, when I saw the kinds of things you were reading, I thought...it was a passing childhood fancy. What you read were highly romanticized accounts, with only a grain of truth in them. Rather than draw your attention to the stories, I tried to steer you towards other things. When I finally realized that wasn't working and forbade you to read any more of them, it was too late."
"But I feel the Force. I know I do. Even if those stories aren't all true, it doesn't matter. I still want to become a Jedi."
"I know you do, and if things were different..."
"What things?" Brenna asked. "What things need to be different for you to train me? Tell me what I have to do, and I'll do it."
Luke ran the fingers of both hands through his hair in frustration. "It's nothing you can do, Bren. It's just the way things are." He paused, then said, "There's one story I never did tell you. You asked me about your mother, who she was. This story has to do with her. It also explains why I can't train you."
"Go on," Brenna said.
Her father took a deep breath, let it out again, then drew in another before he began. "Once upon a time," he said, "there was a young Jedi Knight named Luke Skywalker, who was sad because he was the only one. So he decided to train others. His first student was Briande Brellis, a beautiful young woman who was so good and wise that Skywalker fell in love with her. The young woman returned his love, and together they set out to teach other Jedi Knights. At first, Luke and Briande were very happy. Their students were good of heart, and the number of Jedi knights increased ten-fold."
"Briande Brellis..." Brenna mused. "That name sounds fam---no, wait! Brenna Brellis? The Administrator of Croyus Four?"
"She was your mother's sister. Her name was bestowed on you out of love. Despite all the terrible things that she did, there was still...something good in her. She gave up her life to save me, and your mother wanted to find a way to keep her memory alive."
"Sweet Force," Brenna murmured. She was silent for a long moment, trying to fathom the implications, but she couldn't. So she finally looked back up at her father. "Tell me the rest," she said.
Luke nodded. "One day, a young man named Etan Lippa came to see Skywalker and asked to be taught the ways of the Force. Luke paused, and switched from his third-person story-telling voice to the first-person. "The Force was strong in him, but there was something...dark in his heart. Your mother sensed it, and asked me not to take him as a student. But I thought that all he needed was a little love and acceptance, and so I agreed to train him.
"During that time, your mother became pregnant. Rather than sharing in our joy, Etan Lippa grew jealous of it. He saw how happy we were together, and became attracted to your Mom. She rejected his advances, but that only increased his desire for her. Then one day, I left the two of them alone together. I thought it would help if your mother talked to him alone, told him how things were, told him how happy she was with the family she already had, and how someday he could have the same happiness with somebody else. But he took advantage of the situation and tried to force himself on her. He was stronger than your Mom, and the pregnancy made your mother heavy, slowed her down. But she contacted me through the Force, and I returned just in time to stop him. It was then that I finally told Lippa to leave, and never return.
"After he was gone, we still worried about him. We knew that he was very strong with the Force, and that there was a lot of anger inside him. But then you were born, and we tried not to think about him too much.
"But Etan Lippa swore revenge on your mother for rejecting him and me for interfering. Somehow, he found a way to instruct himself in the Force, and then he devised a plan to destroy everything that I loved, beginning with your mother. When I was away on one emergency, he lured her with reports of another emergency that required a Jedi's attention. Your mother gave you to the care of trusted friends my sister Leia and her husband Han, whom you'll meet before too long and left, little suspecting that the 'emergency' was actually the bait for a trap. By the time she discovered the true nature of the 'emergency,' it was too late to escape. But before she died, she managed to send a telepathic message to me, warning me of Lippa's intentions, how strong he'd become, and of the danger that you were in.
"I knew that Lippa had to be stopped, but I didn't know how to do it. I also couldn't leave you unprotected. The Force is strong in you, and if Lippa ever traces the disturbance you can cause in the Force, he'll exact his revenge on me through you. That's why I changed our names, and moved to a world where you could grow up in relative safety. Before I left, I warned the other Jedi of Lippa, but that warning wasn't enough to save them. Lippa wants to destroy me, but even if he kills me, he won't be satisfied. He wants to destroy everything I've ever loved, which means the Jedi, the Alliance...and especially you. He has the potential and the desire to rebuild the Empire, and that makes him very dangerous. I wish I knew how to stop him, but I don't. The best I can do is try to protect you from him. If you don't use the Force, he can't feel your presence. That's why you need to learn the self-control to stop using the Force, and why I keep pushing you to study for the Academy entrance exam..."
When Luke's voice trailed off, Brenna shook her head. "No, Dad, you've got it wrong. You can train me, and together---"
Luke interrupted. "Brenna...a whole legion of Jedi was unable to stop him. What he would do to you...would be even worse than what he did to the others. What I felt those 'attacks,' as you call them was nothing compared to what they felt. We were separated by light-years of space. Can you imagine what he would do to you? I can't let that happen."
"But if he's as powerful as you say and he destroys you, too, then there will be nothing to stop him."
"If that happens," Luke said softly, "I just hope he never finds you. Like I said, if you don't use the Force, he can't find you. The minute he senses your presence, he'll zero in on that disturbance like a homing signal."
"Dad, If you would just train me "
"Train you for what? To be an outlaw? Because that's what the Jedi are, Bren."
"How can you say that? The Jedi---"
"I'm only speaking the truth. And I know better than anyone else alive, now. Even if there were no Etan Lippa to contend with, the Jedi are---or rather, were---nothing more than a gang of vigilantes. They operate outside of the laws of society. Would you really want to live like that?"
Brenna frowned. "When I researched the public records of Luke Skywalker, I found that you were instrumental in the passage of the Evidence Act, the bill that puts the burden of proof on the prosecution rather than on the defense."
"Because that's how it should be, Bren. That's how it was before the Empire. No one should be convicted just on another one's say-so. But the Jedi don't obey the same laws. They are self-appointed judge, jury, and in some case, executioners."
Brenna was silent for a moment, then she smiled and nodded. "Of course," she said. "It would be difficult to prove physical evidence through the Force. It only makes sense that the Jedi would operate outside the law. They would have to."
"And that contradiction doesn't bother you? That in order to serve justice, the Jedi go against it?"
Brenna shrugged. "Life is full of contradictions. If the system had a failsafe mechanism for finding and punishing the guilty, there wouldn't be any need for the Jedi, would there? Besides, I thought the Jedi were more concerned with protecting the innocent than in punishing the guilty."
"Sometimes it's impossible to see the difference. I'm just trying to show you that the Jedi aren't the heroes you seem to think they---"
Luke stopped suddenly and stared into the distance.
"Dad?"
He suddenly realized that by focusing in on the ripple he felt in the Force, he was also creating a ripple of his own. He pulled himself out of it quickly. "Brenna, go wake Lucy, then pack your things. We're getting out of here." He was already on his feet, opening the connecting door for her.
"Why? What's the matter?"
"It's Lippa. He's here, on Tatooine. Go wake Lucy and get your stuff together, and I mean now. And whatever you do, try not to use the Force."