The Legion Renewed

Chapter Seven

Time seemed to pass slowly on Dagobah, with very little real progress taking place.

It was not due to lack of effort. Briande pushed herself even beyond what Luke asked of her. But still, there was very little advancement in her skills. At times, Luke was extremely frustrated with Briande's lack of achievement, but he refused to believe that she couldn't learn. For one thing, she knew so much already. She could use the Force to give herself a slight physical edge that an ordinary non-sensitive wouldn't have. But still, it was not enough. A Jedi Knight needed to be able to do more than just parlor tricks.

If he could just teach Briande to open herself more to the Force, he felt certain she would be able to learn the control necessary to use it.

Something bothered him about his pupil. He didn't know exactly what it was, but she always seemed very distant, somehow. Almost as if she was hiding something from him.

Luke wanted her to succeed. He had to admit to himself that there was more to Briande's training than simply giving her the wherewithal to put an end to her sister's wrongdoings. Intertwined with Briande's success as a student was his own success as a teacher. There was an underlying desire on his part to train not only Briande, but other students as well-to bring back a legion of Jedi Knights to protect the fledgling New Republic.

He wished that besides just teaching him, Ben and Yoda had taught him how to teach. But everything had been so desperate, with so much depending on Luke's defeating Vader and the Emperor, that there hadn't been time. And so now, unless he could find some way help Briande become more open to the Force, he truly would be the last Jedi Knight.

His student came back from gathering the roots and other vegetables that Luke had sent her for, and set the small sack on the table. Luke picked out a few roots from the assortment and handed them to her. She began peeling them while Luke broke off a small piece of grabol and dropped it into the pot of water that was boiling over the cooking fire. Only deference to his student kept him from putting in more of the hot, fiery vegetable that added spice to his stew. One had to develop a taste for grabol. Luke thought back to the time he had eaten a single raw leaf from a grabol plant, and smiled. He felt as if he had drunk half the lake outside in trying to quench the fire in his mouth. Yoda hadn't warned him, had only stood by and chuckled while Luke tried to cool the nerves in his mouth. He had thought that he would never be able to taste anything again for as long as he lived.

Now the cycle had come full turn. Now it was his student who was chopping bits of this and that, and it was Luke who was directing how to prepare the simple but nutritious dinner. But Luke was determined to spare Briande some of the unnecessary trials he had experienced.

As he turned around to inspect the assortment of plants on the table, he caught part of a half-suppressed sigh. "You don't like cooking?" he asked.

She shrugged. "I can think of better things to do with my time. A food-automaton does the same thing, with more efficiency."

"Perhaps," he agreed. "But there's a certain amount of satisfaction from doing something yourself. Besides-" he smiled "-it tastes better this way."

Briande kept silent. Luke knew as well as she did that a food-automaton could make food taste any way it was programmed to. It could even be programmed for variety so that one dish never tasted exactly the same way twice.

"So-" Luke said, adding a few handfulls of vegetables to the pot and stirring them together. He sniffed the concoction, tasted it, added a few dashes of salt, and tasted it again. Better. "What better things would you do, if you weren't cooking?"

"I'd train. That's what I'm here for."

"Even a Jedi Knight needs time to rest, Briande."

"Rest? When there's so much yet to do?"

Luke nodded. "You'll find that the development of strength comes from a combination of work and rest. One is just as important as the other. You have to give your body and your mind time to relax and recooperate. Otherwise they won't be ready for the next exertion."

"My sister doesn't rest. Every day, she grows stronger. And somehow, she's..."

"What?"

Briande shook her head. "I don't know. She was always very strong with the Force, but somehow she's become even more powerful. She can rebuild the Empire if I don't stop her, and I can't do that with a paring knife and a potato."

"You never know," Skywalker said, thinking that he had stopped Darth Vader with less.

"You don't know Brenna like I do, Luke. She's cold, and she's ruthless, and she's clever. She tricked me once, very nearly killed me. She won't rest until she's accomplished her purpose. She will rebuild the Empire, if I don't stop her."

They fell silent for a moment. Luke went back to the table to help Briande clean and chop the rest of the vegetables. She moved over to give him room-a little more than was necessary.

"Tell me something," Luke said conversationally as he began to peel a wild carrot. "Why do you want to become a Jedi Knight?"

"Want? I'm here because I have to be."

Luke stopped, stunned by what he had just heard. "Briande...you don't want to be a Jedi Knight?"

"I did once."

"And not now?"

Briande shrugged. "It's a dirty business. I killed once, didn't much care for it, but I'll do what's necessary."

"And necessity is your only reason? There's nothing more... personal?"

Briande Brellis turned to look at him. "If you're suggesting that I want to kill my sister, the answer is no. But neither will I shrink from the job when the time comes." Then her eyes narrowed as she studied Luke suspiciously. "Are you testing me?"

"Testing you? No, of course not. It's just that...killing...is not a Jedi's purpose. We're supposed to be preservers of life."

His student gave a slight, dry smile. "You are testing me, aren't you. Don't worry. I know what I have to do. The one thing that my father taught me is that emotions are a Jedi's greatest weakness. It took me a long time, but I finally learned my lesson."

Luke's lack of understanding was written in his face. "Learned your lesson? What lesson?"

"That as far as my sister is concerned, I can't afford to have any feelings."

Luke shook his head disbelievingly. "Not even love?"

His student laughed, but without mirth. "That's the worst one of them all, isn't it? I mean, that's what made my father an easy target for Vader, and then for Brenna later. It was the bait she used in her trap against me, and it even turned my sister to the Dark Side in the first place."

"How?"

Briande looked at Luke as if surprised that he didn't already know. Then she shrugged. "Brenna...had a lover. He was killed, and she swore revenge against the one responsible for it."

Luke nodded. "So the anger fed itself, and her love for one man turned into hatred for all mankind. There's always that danger. But Briande, no human being can live totally without feeling."

Briande raised her eyebrows as she regarded her teacher. "Maybe," she said. "But I don't intend to make the same mistake twice..."