Yoda by Sean Stewart Read Free Book Online Page A

shrugged. “Speak of this once, Qui-Gon did.”
    â€œI miss him,” Maks Leem said sadly. She had never really approved of Qui-Gon Jinn; he was too quick to rebel against the Order, too ready to oppose his solitary will to the good of the group. And yet he had been a brave and noble man, and kind to her when she was young.
    She turned her attention back to Jang’s broken lightsaber. “Who sent it, Master?”
    Maks wasn’t sure Yoda had heard her question. For a long time he was silent, stroking the handle with his blunt old fingers. “Have you now a Padawan, Master Leem?” She nodded. “Your second?”
    â€œThird. Rees Alrix was my first. She is fighting with the clone troops at Sullust. My second…my second was Eremin Tarn,” she said reluctantly. Eremin had become a follower of Jeisel, one of the more outspoken of the dissident Jedi, who believed the Republic had lost the moral authority to rule. Eremin had always resisted authority—including hers when she was his Master—but he was fiercely principled. Intellectually, Maks could understand his decision to withdraw from the Order, but it had torn a hole in her Gran heart to see her very own Padawan, one she had taught from thirteen years to the status of a full Jedi Knight, deliberately cut himself out of the Order.
    As if reading her mind, Yoda asked, “Does he fill that empty place in your heart, this new Padawan?”
    Maks flushed and looked away.
    â€œNo shame in this, there is. Think you the relationship between Master and Padawan is only to help
them
?” Yoda cocked his head to one side and looked at her with ancient, knowing eyes. “Oh, this is what we let them believe, yes! But when the day comes that even old Yoda does not learn something from his students—then truly, he shall be a teacher no more.” He reached up to give her hand a little squeeze, his three fingers around her six. “No greater gift there is, than a generous heart.”
    Tears came to Maks Leem, and she let them come. “Attachment is not the Jedi way, I know. But…”
    Yoda gave her hand another squeeze, and then returned to considering the handle of the lightsaber. For a moment she saw his finger stop on a little piece of metal, surprisingly clean and fresh looking, as if it had escaped the blast or been added afterward. Yoda frowned. “This Padawan of yours—ready for the wide galaxy, is he?”
    â€œWhie? No! And yes,” she said. “He is young. They are all so young. But if any of them are ready, he is. The Force is strong in him. Not so strong as in young Skywalker, but in the next level down: and between you and me, he carries it better than Anakin ever has. Such calm. Such serenity and poise; truly it is incredible in one so young.”
    â€œTruly.”
    Something in Yoda’s voice caught her ear. “You think it impossible?”
    â€œI think he wishes to please you very much,” the old Master said carefully.
    Before she could ask him what he meant, a gong sounded the hour. “Ah—my class!” Maks said, slapping one hand against her forehead horns. “I am supposed to be teaching hyperspace navigation in Tower Three.”
    Yoda bugged out his eyes and made little shooing motions with his hands. “Then engage your hyperdrive you must!” He watched, chuckling, as she ran from the chamber with the hem of her robe flapping excitedly around her hairy ankles and her boots thudding into the distance.
    When he was sure he was alone, he tabbed the power switch on what had once been Jang Li-Li’s lightsaber. As he had suspected, the weapon had been modified; instead of Jang’s blue blade humming to life, a hologram appeared: Count Dooku, ten centimeters tall, as if standing on the lightsaber handle. He looked old…much older than he had on Geonosis. Careworn. He was sitting at an elegantly appointed desk. There was a window behind