Leia's commlink rang, and she picked it up.

"This is Leia," she said.

"Leia!" her brother replied. "Thank the Force."

"Isn't that your job?" Leia replied. "What's the problem, Luke?"

"Well – you know I've been running the Jedi Academy?" Luke replied. "Because I've got… some problems."

"More problems?" Leia asked. "Is there something up with how you chose to use Ossus? Or is there a problem with Ben?"

"There's not a problem with either of those, it's just-" Luke began, then stopped in frustration. "It's going to sound ridiculous, but it's the truth… I don't think I can train more than a few Jedi."

"Why not?" Leia said.

"Well," Luke began. "At first I was considering having everyone build their own lightsaber, like you did, but I realized… last month I realized that I'd gone as far as I could using wooden staffs to train with. We need to move on to lightsabers, and I'm going to have to build them."

Leia frowned.

"So?" she asked. "What's the problem?"

"I just got back from Ilum," Luke said. "I think we underestimated the Empire."

He groaned. "All right, so… Jedha was blown up by the Death Star, we knew that much. And they were mining Khyber there, but… I didn't think it through."

"Think what through?" Leia asked, worried.

"The Jedi had the places they got Khyber crystals," Luke went on. "Places that had lasted a thousand generations, each with ten thousand Jedi. Ten million crystals at least, amounting to maybe a hundred tons of Khyber. Then the Emperor strip-mined everywhere he could get Khyber crystals from."

"...you're saying there's a shortage of lightsaber crystals?" Leia asked.

"I'm saying that you've got a lightsaber, built out of Old Ben's crystals, and I've got a lightsaber, built out of Ben's spare crystals from his hut," Luke answered. "Dad's old blue lightsaber… I'm not sure where that is, but it would give us another one."

"Hold on, you missed something," Leia said. "I understand Jedha was blown up, but what happened to Ilum?"

"The Imperials mined it," Luke replied. "There's a trench several hundred kilometres wide and deep around the equator. I've got no idea what they're using them for, but… until we can find a solution, the Jedi Order is going to have to make do with three lightsabers. Counting both mine and yours."

Leia was silent for a long moment.

"Four, if I dismantle Dad's old red lightsaber," Luke added. "Though I've had a look, and the crystal is badly damaged. It's… fizzy. Edgy, really."

"Well, if you're wondering, your nephew is a teenager," Leia pointed out.

"I'm aware," Luke said. "He's already called dibs if I do it. But we really need to find out what the Empire was doing with all those crystals… that or try and mine the ruins of the Death Stars for anything useful, I suppose…"

AN:

Yep, they mined the planet pretty thoroughly.