Vision of the future

lightsaber back at that chamber, didn't I?'

'Thanks for reminding me,' Mara said, feeling her cheeks warming with embarrassment. 'I really thought I had better control than that.'

'It's the long, sustained control that's often the hardest to master,' Luke said. 'But I've found some special techniques for that. Here, lift up your lightsaber and I'll show you.' Shifting her hip to free the lightsaber—and to incidentally move her leg off a rock that was starting to become uncomfortably sharp—Mara lifted the weapon out in front of her. 'You want it on?' she asked, getting a Force grip on it and dropping her hand away.

'No, that's not necessary,' Luke said. 'All right, now, hold the lightsaber steady in front of you. I want you to keep an eye on it but to also visualize it in your mind, just the way it's hovering there. Can you do that?'

Mara half closed her eyes, her mind flashing back to their trek through the Wayland forest ten years ago. There, too, Luke had slipped easily into the role of teacher, with her taking the role of student.

But a lot had changed since then. And this time, perhaps, she would be the one who would be presenting the most important lesson. 'Okay, I've got it,' she told him. 'What next?'

* * *

Mara was a quick study, as Luke had noted in the past, and easily picked up the rudiments of the focusing technique. He kept her practicing with it for another half hour, and then it was time to move on.

'I hope your droid's not going to run out of power before we get there,' Mara commented as Luke used the Force to lift Artoo over yet another section of claw-slash ground. 'I'd hate to think we'd dragged him all this way just so he could become a floor decoration.'

'He'll be all right,' Luke said. 'He's not using much power right now, and your droid fitted him with some extra power packs on the way in.'

'Wait a second,' Mara said, frowning. 'My droid, Slips? I thought you said you came by X-wing.'

'We came down to the planet by X-wing, yes,' Luke said. 'But we came into the system in the Jade's Fire. I guess I forgot to mention that.'

'I guess you did,' Mara said shortly, a flush of anger making Luke wince as it flowed through her emotions. 'Who in blazes gave you permission—? Never mind. It was Karrde, wasn't it?'

'He pointed out that your Defender doesn't have a hyperdrive,' Luke said, hearing the defensiveness in his voice. 'Two people in an X-wing cockpit gets pretty cozy.'

'No, you're right,' Mara said reluctantly, and he could sense her forcing back her reflexive protectiveness toward the one thing in the universe she truly owned. 'You'd just better have it well hidden out there. And I mean really well hidden.'

'It is,' Luke assured her. 'I know how much that ship means to you.'

'You'd better not have scratched the paint, either,' she warned. 'I don't suppose you thought to bring the beckon call?'

'Actually, I did,' Luke said, frowning slightly as he dug into one of the pockets of his jumpsuit. For some unknown reason an old memory flashed back: the time he'd gone back to Dagobah and stumbled across an old beckon call from some pre-Clone Wars ship. He hadn't known what it was, but Artoo had remembered seeing Lando once with a similar device, and so they'd headed to Lando's mining operation on Nkllon to ask him about it. Arriving just in time, as it happened, to help Han and Leia fight off a raid by Grand Admiral Thrawn.

But why should that particular memory come rising back now? Because Mara was here, and he'd seen his first vision of her at that same time? Or was it something about that ancient beckon call—or the Fire's beckon call, or beckon calls in general—that was triggering something deep in his mind?

Mara was looking oddly at him. 'Trouble?' she asked.

'Stray thoughts,' Luke said, pulling out the beckon call and handing it to her. 'You're not going to be able to call the Fire from here, though. We're way out of range, and I seem to remember the beckon call being strictly line-of-sight.'

'No, there's also a broadcast setting,' Mara said. 'But the range is pretty limited. Still, there may be transmitters in the High Tower I can run the call signal through.' She sent him one last glower on the subject. 'Though you can bet I won't bring it out of hiding until and unless we can neutralize their nest of fighters. Speaking of which, you never told me what happened with the pair you ran into.'

'There's not much to tell,' Luke said, unhooking his lightsaber and igniting it. A quick swipe, and yet another stalactite blocking their path went crashing to the ground in front of him. 'They told me to stay with them, then ran through a series of quick maneuvers. I thought at the time they might be looking for an excuse to open fire.'