DISCLAIMER: Star Wars and all publicly recognisable characters, names and references, etc are the sole property of George Lucas, Lucasfilm Ltd, Lucasarts Inc and 20th Century Fox. This fan fiction was created solely for entertainment and no money was made from it. Also, no copyright or trademark infringement was intended. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. Any other characters, the storyline and the actual story are the property of the author.
Luke emerged from the conference room, wiping at the drying tears on his cheeks and eyes. Artoo was standing down the hall, Rath kneeling in front of him and fitting something onto one of Artoo's repair arms. The little droid beeped and turned his dome towards Luke, while Rath bit his tongue and snapped the tiny tool he was holding. "Blast it!" he hissed, his brow wrinkling.
"What are you doing?" Luke asked, dropping into a crouch beside him.
"I'm trying to fit a vacuum extension onto your little astromech droid here," Rath said, pressing on the silver tube with his large hands. "He's agreed to do some cleaning while we're gone."
Artoo beeped assent. Luke stared. "Gone? Gone where?"
"Dinner, m'boy." Rath grinned and a faint tremor in the Force sent the extension snapping into place. Artoo lowered it to the floor, and a faint buzzing was heard. The thick dust began to be sucked into the intake, revealing a dark red carpet underneath. "Even a Jedi eats."
"But I want to keep working here!" Luke exclaimed, watching as Artoo revealed more of the carpet.
Rath smiled, shook his head, and stood up with a grimace. "I know you do, but unlike your little friend here we can't just plug ourselves in. Anyhow, we can work a little more after dinner, then Kayvee will take you home. She'll pick you up tomorrow at sunrise, all right?"
"Aren't you going home?" Luke asked, astonished.
"No," Rath said thoughtfully, looking around. "I'll only stop by the Jedi's Choice to pick up a few personal things, then I'm coming back here to stay."
Luke glanced around, then felt an embarrassed smile creep across his face. Rath sensed his turmoil and smiled a little, his eyes crinkling at the edges. "Would you mind if I... also moved into the Temple?" Luke asked haltingly. "I feel like I belong here..."
Rath smiled wider and clapped a broad hand on Luke's shoulder. "You should, young Luke. You should feel like you belong here. And so you will..."
Luke stuck his head into the room that Rath had directed him to, in a high wing of the Temple. This place was almost entirely self-contained, Luke thought with astonishment. If supplies were cut off, it would probably be able to sustain itself and everyone inside for months.
The room itself was sparsely-furnished, but comfortable. Sandy-colored couch and chairs were in front of a small holopad, and a pair of doors led to a bedroom and bathroom. Luke tossed his bag onto the couch and slumped down beside it, closing his eyes.
“So, Luke. What do you think?”
Luke sighed but did not move. “I’m really in love with the Temple, Ben...”
“It’s hard not to be,” Obi-Wan Kenobi said, sitting on the floor a short distance away. He had adopted the visual age of around thirty, what he had been in the holo. “I spent my entire childhood here. And portions of the rest of my life...”
“It’s amazing,” Luke pronounced, getting to his feet and pulling his bag open, yanking his few clothes out of it. “With Rath’s help, I keep... I keep seeing things as they WERE, not as they are now. I saw Master Jinn, I saw Yoda, I saw YOU...” He stopped, at a loss for words.
Obi-Wan nodded solemnly, clearly understanding. He looked sad for a moment, looking over the room, then smiled back at his former pupil. “Get some sleep, Luke. There’s still much to be done.”
“What do you mean?” Luke asked, alarm rising inside him.
An impish grin split Obi-Wan’s face. “I mean,” he chuckled, “that the river behind the Temple needs clearing. Two decades of weeds, Luke...”
Luke moaned and fell face-down in the sofa. When he finally emerged, his old teacher was gone.
He slid off the sofa and walked into the bedroom, and crawled under the covers that Threepio had placed on the firm mattress. The dust still hung, tickling his sinuses, but he fell asleep before he could sneeze.
“Luke!”
Luke awoke automatically to Rath’s booming voice. His skin, all over his body, felt numbed by the night in his jumpsuit. His head felt like someone had been whacking it with a large book. He groaned, stretched, and scratched himself.
Artoo passed by the bedroom, beeping a happy good morning. Rath stuck his head in and grinned. “Good! You’re awake.”
He vanished from the doorway and began walking around the living room, with an armful of sandy-colored clothing. Luke stared out blearily, shoving the covers aside. “How did you get in?” he asked slowly. “The doors were locked.”
“Oh, I had Artoo pick the lock,” Rath replied airily.
Luke groaned and resisted the urge to drop in a heap on the floor. “I feel terrible.”
“Well, sleeping in a standard, everyday jumpsuit is bound to give you a rash,” Rath replied from the living room. Artoo beeped agreement and turned in circles.
There was a faint flicker of the Force, and a light-colored shirt and pants were flung through the door, catching Luke in the head. As he pulled the tunic off his face, a pair of boots followed, hitting the table next to him.
He frowned, and held out the garments. “What are these?”
Rath appeared in the doorway, the now-familiar misty smile coming across his face. “That, boy, is the garb of a Jedi Knight. Durable, comfortable, not very attention-getting.”
Luke looked at the elder Jedi, then held the shirt out, examining it more closely. The cream-colored fabric showed a couple of rips, neatly sewn so that the seams were barely visible. Pants and tunic were both made of the same soft, thick cloth; the boots were high and rugged-looking, a little scuffed around the toes. Luke rubbed the sleeve between his thumb and forefinger.
“If it doesn’t fit, I can find you another,” Rath offered.
Luke held the shirt up to his torso and frowned. “I think these will fit. Thank you, Master Rath.”
Rath smiled and shut the door. Luke heard the lock clicking into place as the outer doors whizzed open, then shut.
He stripped off his jumpsuit and boots, rubbing at his bare skin. Then, he slowly picked up the tunic and pulled it over his head. It was a little loose, but fitted well enough. The pants were slightly too long, falling under his heels, but he rolled them up a little. The boots, he thought happily, were perfectly-sized.
As he belted in the tunic and clipped his lightsaber to it, a shiver ran through him. He stared down at himself.
Jedi Knight.
The gardens of the Jedi Temple were huge, a giant array of plants carefully arranged around paths and allowed to grow wild over them. A huge clear shield over them allowed some rain to come through, but not so much that no one could walk when it was raining.
Only, Luke thought, wincing, the gardens had been untouched for twenty years. And, as a result, they looked a bit like a jungle. Long vines, living and dead, twined through everything. Flowerpots were home to generations of weeds, the trees were covered in uncut deadwood, and Luke could see an artificial river at the end of the gardens, choked with greenish sludge and more weeds.
Rath was walking amongst them, his light clothing standing out amidst brown and green, with Threepio, Kayvee, and Artoo trailing behind him.
“Hey!” Luke called, waving. Rath turned around and waved back, gesturing at him to come.
Luke started jogging through the brush, but soon slowed to a walk as the vines caught on his feet and legs, tripping him up. He was breathless and disheveled when he reached Rath.
“Master Luke,” fluted Threepio, looking Luke over. “May I say, sir, that you look quite distinguished!”
“It’s true, m’boy,” Rath replied, smiling. “You look as if you’ve always worn it.”
Luke flushed, slightly embarrassed. “Thank you for the clothing, Master Rath.” He paused, looking around at the jungle. “What are we going to do about it?” One hand went to his lightsaber.
Rath saw it, and frowned. “No,” he said vehemently. “Lightsabers might set the things on fire, especially deadwood and dead weeds. We’ll do it the old fashioned way.”
Luke tried desperately not to whimper as Rath pulled a pair of metal knives from his tunic.
Six hours later, both Jedi had abandoned their tunics as they sawed through vines thick as Luke’s fingers, overgrown and strangling shrubs that were the size of young banthas.
Luke glanced at Kayvee and Threepio. Though the two protocol droids were limited in their locomotion, they were pulling mats of dead grass from the hedgerows, revealing black earth beneath.
Kayvee said something softly, then awkwardly walked to Rath, who was yanking a dead tree from the dirt. His muscles gleamed as he used the Force to augment his own physical strength.
“Master Rath?” she fluted.
The tree broke free, leaving only a few roots still sticking out of the soil. Rath dropped it and gasped, wiping sweat from his forehead. “Yes, Kayvee?” he asked.
“I would like to point out that the cycle that had been continuing for the past twenty standard years has caused the soil to become quite nutrient-rich,” Kayvee replied, waving her silver arms a little for effect.
“Good!” Luke grunted from somewhere in the underbrush, his voice strained with effort. A dessicated shrub popped into view and fell next to the tree. Luke appeared on the edge of it, panting desperately. “That’ll make it... all the easier... to replant later,” he wheezed.
“Luke,” Rath said, eyeing him concernedly. “We should take a break, or you’re going to get sunstroke. We can keep going at nightfall.”
Luke looked like he wanted to keep going, but he simply nodded wordlessly and pulled his tunic over his head.
The training gym was a large area, the floor lined with hard mats, but not as hard as the cement floors beneath them. Luke knelt and thumped one experimentally, as Rath emerged from a back room, holding a pair of lightsabers. “Here, take one,” he called, one of the sabers flying from his hand and into Luke’s.
Luke stared at it, moving it back and forth in his hand. The cool metal gradually warmed into his palm, feeling right in it. “What are these?”
“Training sabers. Worst they’ll give you is a burn. I’m a little rusty after all this time,” Rath replied, igniting his saber. It burned a brilliant golden color as he twirled it, smiling absently at the familiar hum.
Luke ignited his, watching the blue blade shoot out and slice through the air. “When?” he asked, taking a fighting stance.
“Now!” Rath called, lunging forward, his saber suddenly whipping into action in front of Luke. The two blades met and sparked madly, hissing in the silence. Whish! Fizz! Zzzz!
Luke automatically sprang back and blocked the lightning blow, and then a second, then a third. He was astonished at the power behind Rath’s quick blows, less than that of Vader but quicker.
“You’re quick!” he said breathlessly, blocking a blow to his legs. “My father was stronger, but you’re really fast!”
Rath smiled, and barely dodged a strike towards his neck. “I’m far from the best, Luke.” The blades met and sizzled. Rath slipped back quickly, quietly catapulting himself behind Luke. Luke whirled, and blocked a second blow.
“Who was the best?” Luke asked, sliding sideways on the mat and spinning to meet another strike.
“Qui-Gon Jinn...” Rath gasped, “was said to be the best in nearly four hundred years.”
“Qui-Gon Jinn?” Luke asked, momentarily off-balance. He frowned at the older Jedi, who briefly lowered his lightsaber. “Really?”
“I joke not,” Rath said with a grin, then quickly swung another blow toward Luke’s torso. The young Jedi spiralled up, using the Force, and knocked the tip of the golden blade as it targeted his foot. “Obi-Wan Kenobi was formidable in his youth as well, as was your father. But I really didn’t know either of them well...”
As the older Jedi struck at Luke’s wrist, Luke twisted his arm upward--and caught Rath in the side of the head with the lightsaber. He stumbled slightly, looking dazed. The faint smell of singed hair filled the air.
Luke instantly switched off the blade and grasped Rath’s forearm, concerned and guilty. “Master Rath, are you all right? Do you need help?”
Rath shook his head slightly, and smiled crookedly at the young man. “Good thing they’re training sabers, otherwise you’d have taken half my head off.”
Luke grimaced and glanced down at it. “Do you think we should stop for the day?“
Rath sighed and held the small cylinder in his broad palm, as if weighing it. His dark eyes misted over, almost sadly. “Sorry, Luke. I shouldn’t have brought you to this after such a hard day. It’s just... all this time as a bartender, rather than as a Jedi... I loved that life so much, it’s hard to postpone any part of it again.”
Luke smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “We’ll have plenty of other training sessions, Master Rath.”
Rath shot him a grateful look, smiling quietly.
In the homes and clubs nearby, hundreds of people gathered at windows, staring and whispering at the huge Temple in the midst. A small section near the base was lit up with lamps.
The lamps shed little light over the entirety of the huge Temple, yet it affected the people watching, deeply.
As the Republic was restored around them, a vital part of it was also being restored. The faint glimmers of light in the gardens seemed to herald a sudden light of hope...
The sludge in the river was up to Luke’s knees, and he had to repress a shudder at the rotting stench of it. His pants were rolled up to mid-thigh, but they were still getting soaked with greenish fluid. He privately uttered a prayer of thanks that Kayvee was working on the cleaning units.
The Temple’s gardens were as brightly-lit as during the day, blooming flowers open and colorful on their thick vines and trees. Threepio and Artoo were still clearing away some of the smaller vines, sometimes getting tangled in them.
“Gah!” Rath gasped, pulling a small vine from his long white hair, still bound in a long ponytail. He grimaced at it, and wiped at the sludge welded under his broad fingernails. “Luke, that’s enough.”
Luke made no argument, climbing out of the huge trench and wiping the green slime from his legs. “We’re making progress,” he said hopefully.
“A few more days, and we can have water redirected through here,” Rath commented, pointing up it. “The general aqueducts supplied the water for here...”
A faint clank from inside had both exhausted, slimy Jedi on their feet in an instant. Luke reached out with the Force and called his lightsaber to his hand from a nearby flowerpot, noting that Rath did the same.
“Someone’s in there,” he hissed.
Rath nodded, his dark eyes gleaming, every muscle tensed. Luke began to edge slowly towards the door, igniting the green blade as he went. A tiny figure was creeping through the room... it approached the open doorway, shrouded in the night shadows....
“Long time it has been, since I had such a welcome. Hmm.”
Rath sighed and dropped his arms to his sides. Luke gawked at the small figure as it stepped forward, blinking up at him in an amused manner. The creature looked like Yoda... several centuries younger, less wrinkled, with faint brownish fuzz covering his head. He wore a simple tan tunic and a brown robe, and carried no walking stick.
The creature scrutinized Luke critically, then glanced at the still-ignited lightsaber in the young man’s hand. “Need that, you do not.”
Luke glanced at his hand, then hastily deactivated the weapon. “Sorry,” he stammered.
The creature smiled up at him, tilting his large-eared head to one side. “Sorry you need not be,” he announced. “Jedi Master Yobbo, I am.”
Rath walked over and dropped to one knee, extending his hand. “An honor, Master Yobbo,” he said solemnly.
Yobbo shook with one clawed hand, then looked at the Jedi. “Know you I do not. Who are you?”
“I’m Jedi Knight Yar-Rath Aro,” Rath replied, the name seeming foreign. He gestured up at Luke. “This is Luke Skywalker.”
Yobbo nodded up at Luke, then cocked his ears curiously. “Some tea, might I please have? Long journey, I have had.”
“Of course,” Rath said, clapping Yobbo on the back and almost throwing him forward.
“Many years,” Yobbo said ruefully. He was sitting in a comfortable chair, evidently tailored for someone of his species, in a small lounge room with many seats and low tables. Outside the windows, transports buzzed like insects.
The tiny Jedi looked down into his tea, and smiled a little. “Many years I lived on the planet Tanginor. Given to whims, the king is. Liked me, he did.”
“What did you do while you were there?” Luke asked, absently pouring sugar into his tea. Rath noticed, and his bushy eyebrows began to rise.
An impish smile spread across Yobbo’s face. He gestured grandly with a spoon. “Hunter I was! Big animals I caught, using the Force. My secret, no one knew!”
“You were a big-game hunter?” Rath asked, dubiously.
Yobbo glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “Judge me by my size, do you?”
“Yes,” Rath admitted.
Yobbo sighed, and shook his head. Then he glanced at Luke, another smile touching his round green face. “Too much sugar,” he advised.
Luke glanced down at the sugar steadily pouring from a cup to his tea, and hastily put it back on the table. “You’re going to hate that,” Rath joked, poking him in the shoulder. “It’s going to be sweeter than a Twi’lek love letter.”
Luke sipped it, and made a face. “So,” he choked, eager to change the subject. “You’ve been hiding on Tanginor for all those years?”
“Yes,” Yobbo replied. “Question may I ask?”
“Shoot,” Luke replied, wondering if his teeth were going to explode as he gingerly ran his tongue over them.
“Luke Skywalker your name is,” Yobbo said slowly, as if measuring the words. “Luke Skywalker, who killed the Emperor and Darth Vader?”
“I didn’t kill the Emperor,” Luke protested. “Vader did, before he returned to the light side. And I didn’t kill Anakin Skywalker, my father, he died because of the failure of his life-support machines.”
A look of relief came across Yobbo’s features. He seemed to hug the teacup. “Good that he returned. Relieved, I am. Good person, he was, before he turned to the dark side.”
There was an awkward silence, broken by a cough from Luke, who had absentmindedly taken another sip of his tea. “Master Yobbo,” he asked, hoping that the odd itch in the back of his throat would go away. “Have you seen any other Jedi over the years?”
Yobbo sighed. “No, sadly. However, now that the Emperor is dead, many others we shall see.” Then he glanced down the hall, where Artoo was rewiring a panel. “But for Jedi, time for sleep it is. Good night!”
He hopped off the chair and began to scuttle towards the rooms with a speed Luke hadn’t known he posessed. Rath yawned and stretched, his back cracking a little. “He’s right, Luke,” the older Jedi groaned. “Good night.”
Luke nodded and began to walk off towards his own room, calling back, “Good night, Master Rath. Good night, Master Yobbo!”
A highly-offended beep was heard. Luke laughed. “And good night, Artoo.”