Free Rebel Dream: Enemy Lines I by Aaron Allston Page A

had systematically destroyed the Jedi and tried to eradicate all knowledge of their existence. Luke had sought to recover that knowledge. He’d searched out the remaining traces of the Jedi, finding scraps here and rumors there, and had learned to run those trails to ground. Most had led nowhere—as the Jedi he’d sought had either successfully vanished or had disappeared temporarily, only to be found, at last, by Palpatine’s minions and expunged.
    In learning how Jedi who had survived the initial sweeps of the Emperor’s Purges had done so—how they’d gone to ground, erased their official identities, concealed their Force powers, smuggled their lightsabers, and eluded their hunters—Luke had, without knowing it, accumulated a tremendous, if only theoretical, knowledgeof those techniques. Now, in meetings and recording sessions, that information poured from him and was added to the Intelligence training of Mara and others, becoming part of the handbook of establishing Resistance cells, as it had when he and his allies had begun setting up the Jedi underground across the galaxy.
    Eventually, realizing what good they might do for the Resistance’s cause, Luke became resigned to, even comfortable with, the meetings. And they kept his mind away from the worry and ache he could feel growing within him.
    More than twenty-five years ago, when Luke’s Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru had died on faraway, insignificant Tatooine, Luke had found himself alone—surrounded by new friends, but possessing no family. Then, over time, he’d gathered a family about him. His father had not been among those gathered; Anakin Skywalker had died months after the revelation of his true identity. But in Leia, Luke had found his true sister; then his friend Han Solo had become his brother-in-law. Their children, Jacen, Jaina, and Anakin Solo, had followed. Then Luke’s relationship with Mara, which had evolved from a murderous hatred on her part to love on both their parts—love, and a bond, expressed through the Force, that blurred the edges between them, between their thoughts and hopes—had culminated in their marriage. Finally there had been Ben, born mere months ago, and Luke’s family numbered eight, all calling Coruscant home.
    Now “home” was a conquered battlefield. His family, gathered after so much sacrifice and effort over so many years, was scattered. Young Anakin Solo was dead, and all the hopes Luke had invested in him were gone. Jacen was missing; most were convinced he was dead as well. Jaina had not come to Borleias; she was off on a personalquest of vengeance, and such quests often led to ruin, the dark side of the Force, or death … or all three. Han now recuperated from an injury at a secret Jedi base, and Leia waited with him. The only ones Luke could hold to him each day were Mara and Ben, and the three of them lived surrounded by enemies.
    Each time this realization hit Luke, he gently moved it away from his conscious thoughts and meditated, focusing himself on his purpose, his tasks, those he loved. But these Jedi techniques merely put off his worries for a while longer. The worries endured, waiting patiently to claim his attention and erode his confidence. They were the Yuuzhan Vong of his own mind.
    Luke found himself surrounded by foliage and thought for an instant that he was on foot patrol in Borleias’s jungles. But he realized within an instant that the air here was even danker than was customary on Borleias, and the precise nature of the plants and trees around him was wrong for that world. Here, the trees were darker, larger, their limbs drooping, while opaque pools of ground-water concealed furtive movements of their occupants.
    Dagobah. It was the world where he had trained with Yoda, a lifetime ago.
    So this was a dream. He shook his head. No, in dreams he was not usually so lucid. It was a vision, then, a vision through the Force.
    He turned and faced the opening into the cave. It was there that he