I feel properly multi-fandom!
Sep. 29th, 2012 01:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anghraineAaaaand, back to Star Wars. And eep, nearly done with this! It felt much longer when I was writing . :P
title: The Imperial Menace (7/8)
verse: Lucy
CHAPTER SEVEN: LUCY
She read out the translation of his whistling shriek, and laughed.
“That's all right. I'd like to keep it on manual control for awhile.”
Lucy wasn't entirely certain how she'd narrow her search from “Dagobah” to one man. Was he a man? Well, one being, anyway. The planet, however, made the choice for her. They inexplicably crashed into a swamp, nearly got killed by some local fauna, and made it to what passed for dry land in a dirty, soggy mess. Lucy plugged the exhausted Artoo into her fusion furnace.
“There you go,” said Lucy, and looking at her condensed, processed, imperishable meal, sighed. “Now, all I have to do is find this Yoda. If he even exists.” Her shoulder blades twitched. “Still, there's something familiar about this place. I feel like . . . I don't know . . .”
“Like what?” screeched an unfamiliar voice.
Lucy whirled around, her blaster out. The creature—person—before her was a small, wrinkled, green, only vaguely humanoid being, standing perhaps two feet tall.
“Like we're being watched!”
“Away with your weapon,” the stranger croaked—he seemed incapable of simply speaking. “I mean you no harm.”
Lucy eyed him suspiciously, and lowered her blaster, though she stayed alert, ready to reach for it at a moment's notice. The stranger, however, seemed not to be threatening, merely mad. Within the course of five minutes, he had tossed Lucy's supplies in every direction, tried and spat out Lucy's food, stolen her power lamp, gotten into a fight with Artoo, and then declared his intention of leading her to Yoda. And feeding her.
Lucy paused, but something strange was going on here, and she had no other leads. She followed him through the swamp until they reached a low hut, plain but oddly comfortable—or as comfortable as might be expected when even a short human female was taller than the ceiling. The strange being promptly threw himself about his little kitchen in a frenzy, placing dishes in front of her. It was odd; she hadn't been served by someone else since . . . ever, actually.
“Look,” she said, trying to pull back her impatience, “I'm sure it's delicious. I just don't understand why we can't see Yoda now.”
“Patience!” cried the stranger. “For the Jedi it is time to eat as well. Eat, eat. Hot. Good food, hm? Good, hmm?”
Lucy sighed and helped herself to the strange soup; it was surprisingly good. She offered a tentative smile.
“How far away is Yoda? Will it take us long to get there?”
“Not far. Yoda not far. Patience. Soon you will be with him.” He cackled to himself, and swallowed a spoonful. “Rootleaf, I cook! Why wish you become Jedi? Hm?”
She remembered sitting across from Obi-Wan, listening wide-eyed as he offered every chance she'd ever dreamed of.
“But you will learn about the Force.”
“Yes.” Lucy's fingers curled around Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber. “I want to learn its ways and become a Jedi, like my father.”
“Mostly because of my father, I guess,” she said, waiting for him to demand an explanation.
“Ah, your father,” he said. “Powerful Jedi, was he, powerful Jedi. Mm.”
Lucy stared at him. All right, this creature was mad. It was all just some kind of trick.
“Oh, come on. How could you know my father?” she demanded. “You don't even know who I am! Oh, I don't know what I'm doing here. We're wasting our time!”
He turned away with an annoyed sound, addressing nothing in particular. “I cannot teach her. The girl lacks patience.”
“She will learn patience,” another voice said. Lucy jumped—but she knew that voice! Ben? Obi-Wan was here? Then—this must be—
“Hmm,” said Yoda. “Much anger in her, like her father.”
Lucy bristled, though she didn't dare interrupt. Her father was a hero. Everyone who'd known who he was, even Han, had said so. But this—Yoda, Obi-Wan's own master, had spoken of Anakin's power with ambivalence and now sounded as if he disapproved of him? What was going on?
“Was I any different when you taught me?” Obi-Wan asked evenly.
“Hm!” said Yoda. “She is not ready!”
Lucy looked around, trying to trace the voice. Obi-Wan, however, was nowhere to be seen.
“Yoda,” she said urgently, “I am ready. I . . . Ben! I can be a Jedi. Ben, tell him I'm ready!” Agitated, she started to rise, and smacked her head on the ceiling.
“Ready, are you?” said Yoda, and eyed her with what, even on his alien features, was evident disapproval. “What know you of ready? For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi. My own counsel will I keep on who is to be trained! A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind.” He turned back to the invisible Obi-Wan. “This one a long time have I watched.”
Lucy's eyes widened. He'd been watching her? But—then why—how—
“Never her mind on where she was, hm, what she was doing. Hm. Adventure, hmph! Excitement, hmph! A Jedi craves not these things.” He whirled on Lucy. “You are reckless!”
Memories crowded her mind, ending with her own careless words to Han. I always wanted more. Bigger causes, faster speeders. Poor Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru had to put up with an awful lot. She flushed and lowered her eyes. It was impossible to deny.
Particularly since he'd been watching her. Ugh.
“So was I, if you'll remember,” said Obi-Wan. At least he was on her side, and not quite as bizarre. Just . . . a disembodied voice? All right, pretty odd.
“She is too old,” Yoda said, and now he definitely sounded as if he were just looking for excuses. Lucy brightened. “Yes, too old to begin the training!”
“But I've learned so much,” Lucy pleaded.
Yoda stared at her, as if he could see right into her mind—he probably could. She felt weighed on some kind of cosmic scale. The little Jedi Master sighed.
“Will she finish what she begins?”
“I won't fail you,” she assured him. “I'm not afraid!”
“Oh,” said Yoda, his voice lowering, “you will be. You will be.”
Lucy gulped.
Yoda's training was, in fact, absolutely nothing like Obi-Wan's. There was no technology involved, not even her lightsaber. Yoda seemed to be doing his best to pretend it didn't even exist. Instead, she ran, climbed, flipped, and jumped, training harder than she ever had in her life. Her time as a soldier was nothing to it. She'd never been so fit, but she wasn't sure how it'd help her become a Jedi until she started to feel the Force, not just in fits and snatches as she had with Obi-Wan, but all around her.
“Run!” commanded Yoda. “Yes. A Jedi's strength flows from the Force. But beware of the dark side. Anger...fear...aggression. The dark side of the Force are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny—consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan's apprentice.”
“Vader?” Lucy caught her breath, fighting back the burst of anger she always felt at the name. She wouldn't let him win. She would be a Jedi. She released the breath on a sigh. “Is the dark side stronger?”
“No, no, no. Quicker,” Yoda said. “Easier. More seductive.”
Lucy blinked. “But how am I to know the good side from the bad?”
“You will know. When you are calm, at peace. Passive. A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.”
Lucy frowned, remembering her few weeks with Obi-Wan. She supposed chopping off an alien's arm in a bar had been a sort of self-defense, but . . .
“Tell me why I can't—”
“No, no, there is no why!” said Yoda. “Nothing more will I teach you today. Clear your mind of questions. Mm.”
Lucy carefully lowered the Jedi to the ground, then pulled her jacket over her sweaty shoulders. Something tugged at her mind—something come from a dark, dripping cave not far away. Lucy stared at it.
“Something's not right here,” she said. “I feel . . . cold, death.”
Yoda sank onto a small boulder. He studied the ground. “That place is strong with the Dark Side of the Force. A domain of evil it is. In you must go.”
“What's in there?” she asked, eyeing it.
Yoda didn't lift his eyes. “Only what you take with you.”
Lucy glanced between the cave and her master. It wasn't exactly an appealing description, but if this was what it took . . . all right. She picked up her weapon belt.
Yoda's head jerked up at that. “Your weapons—you will not need them.”
Lucy stared at the domain of evil. She'd go in, but she wasn't doing it without her lightsaber. She strapped the belt on anyway, and headed into the cave.
#
Lucy had nightmares almost every night after she returned. Yoda, however, didn't seem particularly concerned with her failure, but just continued her training, pushing her to further and further extremes, until she was not only moving beyond her own capacities, but—she was almost certain—beyond the human. After that, he had her lifting nearby stones without touching them; it took weeks, but eventually she managed it, if not with the focus that Yoda demanded.
And then he wanted her to lift her entire ship with her mind, as if that were no different than lifting a few rocks. Size matters not—how was that even possible? Discouraged, she wandered off, throwing herself to the ground, only to see the tiny Jedi lifting her X-Wing with one withered hand.
Lucy caught her breath and ran forward to see it.
“I don't—I don't believe it,” she stammered.
Yoda looked at her soberly. “And that,” he said, “is why you fail.”
After that, she tried to ignore what she thought she knew—including basic laws of physics. Anything is possible with the Force, she chanted at herself daily. Anything is possible. Anything.
Her exercises became easier. Even Yoda hinted, now and then, that she might be improving. She lifted just about everything in sight.
“Concentrate,” Yoda murmured. “feel the Force flow. Yes. Good. Calm, yes. Through the Force, things you will see. Other places. The future...the past. Old friends long gone—”
A city hung in the sky—
Han was screaming, sparks flying over his chest while a group of Imperials watched—
Strange men punched him in the stomach until another man in purple ordered them back—
Leia bent over him, her face strained—
Leia paced back and forth, and Lucy could feel her fear: Leia, who faced down Imperials without flinching—
Leia watched, horror-struck, while Han was lowered into a pit—
Lucy's eyes flew open.
“Han! Leia!” she cried. Everything tumbled to the ground, including Lucy herself.
Yoda just shook his head. “Control,” he said, stabbing his stick into the ground. “You must learn control!”
“I saw,” said Lucy, frowning, “I saw a city in the clouds.”
“Friends you have there,” Yoda told her.
She dropped her head onto her hands. “They were in pain.”
“It is the future you see,” he said, while Artoo, grumbling, righted himself. Lucy looked over at him.
“The future? Will they die?” Her voice cracked. No. Not Han and Leia. And a weaker part of her thought, anyone but Han and Leia.
Yoda lowered his head, concentrating. His right ear twitched.
“Difficult to see,” he said finally. “Always in motion, the future is.”
“I've got to go to them,” she declared.
He tried to argue her out of it, of course. It didn't matter. Someone was hurting Han and Leia and Chewie. The Empire—the Empire had them. She wasn't a Jedi yet, but she was more than she had ever been. She could help! She had to try.
“You must not go!”
“But Han and Leia will die if I don't,” returned Lucy, and kept loading her gear into the X-Wing.
“You don't know that,” said Obi-Wan.
Lucy turned around, half-expecting to see nothing—but he stood there in person, slightly transparent, slightly shimmering, but indisputably present.
“Even Yoda cannot see their fate,” Obi-Wan added.
“But I can help them! I feel the Force!” said Lucy. Her hands were tight by her sides. How could even Obi-Wan expect her to just sit and do nothing? Stopping things like this were the whole reason she'd become a Jedi!
“But you cannot control it,” Obi-Wan reminded her. “This is a dangerous time for you, when you will be tempted by the dark side of the Force.”
“Yes, yes,” said Yoda. “To Obi-Wan you listen!—the cave, remember your failure at the cave!”
“But I've learned so much since then.” Lucy crouched down to look her master in the eye. “Master Yoda, I promise to return and finish what I've begun. You have my word.”
“It is you and your abilities the Emperor wants. That is why your friends are made to suffer,” said Obi-Wan.
She'd figured as much. Did he think that would keep her from risking herself for them? When Han was being tortured and Leia in agony because of her?
“And that is why I have to go,” said Lucy.
Obi-Wan's voice dropped, turning sorrowful. “Lucy, I don't want to lose you to the Emperor the way I lost Vader.”
“You won't,” Lucy said confidently. Vader had fallen, but he was evil. Whatever the meaning of her vision in the cave, she wasn't anything like Vader. She couldn't be. She'd never do half the things he had.
“Only a fully trained Jedi Knight with the Force as his ally will conquer Vader and his Emperor. If you end your training now, if you choose the quick and easy path, as Vader did, you will become an agent of evil,” said Yoda.
I won't. Never.
“Patience,” urged Obi-Wan.
Lucy closed her eyes. “And sacrifice Han and Leia?”
“If you honour what they fight for,” said Yoda, “yes!”
Lucy stopped. Leia, she thought, might urge her to this. A sacrifice today for a victory later. Han—Han never would. But in the end, it didn't matter what they would do. She had to do what she thought was right. And that wasn't some cold balance of risks and opportunities.
“If you choose to fight Vader, you will do it alone,” Obi-Wan told her. “I cannot interfere.”
Lucy's mouth firmed. “I understand.” She walked back over to the X-Wing. “Artoo, fire up the converters.”
Artoo beeped happily.
“Lucy!” Obi-Wan called after her, and Lucy tiredly turned back. “Don't give in to hate. That leads to the Dark Side.”
She contented herself with a nod, and clambered into the ship.
“Strong is Vader. Mind what you have learned,” said Yoda, even more somber than usual. “Save you it can.”
“I will,” Lucy said. She forced herself to smile and waved down at them. “And I'll return, I promise!”
The roof of the X-Wing closed over her. Lucy buckled herself in, then lifted her comlink.
“Artoo,” she said, “set the course for Cloud City.”
Jedi training, by sweetestremedy
title: The Imperial Menace (7/8)
verse: Lucy
CHAPTER SEVEN: LUCY
Artoo took Lucy's X-Wing into hyperspace, leaving the battle far behind them. She sank back, adrenaline still surging through her blood, and looked at the course Artoo had charted.
No. She reached forward and corrected it.
She read out the translation of his whistling shriek, and laughed.
“That's all right. I'd like to keep it on manual control for awhile.”
Lucy wasn't entirely certain how she'd narrow her search from “Dagobah” to one man. Was he a man? Well, one being, anyway. The planet, however, made the choice for her. They inexplicably crashed into a swamp, nearly got killed by some local fauna, and made it to what passed for dry land in a dirty, soggy mess. Lucy plugged the exhausted Artoo into her fusion furnace.
“There you go,” said Lucy, and looking at her condensed, processed, imperishable meal, sighed. “Now, all I have to do is find this Yoda. If he even exists.” Her shoulder blades twitched. “Still, there's something familiar about this place. I feel like . . . I don't know . . .”
“Like what?” screeched an unfamiliar voice.
Lucy whirled around, her blaster out. The creature—person—before her was a small, wrinkled, green, only vaguely humanoid being, standing perhaps two feet tall.
“Like we're being watched!”
“Away with your weapon,” the stranger croaked—he seemed incapable of simply speaking. “I mean you no harm.”
Lucy eyed him suspiciously, and lowered her blaster, though she stayed alert, ready to reach for it at a moment's notice. The stranger, however, seemed not to be threatening, merely mad. Within the course of five minutes, he had tossed Lucy's supplies in every direction, tried and spat out Lucy's food, stolen her power lamp, gotten into a fight with Artoo, and then declared his intention of leading her to Yoda. And feeding her.
Lucy paused, but something strange was going on here, and she had no other leads. She followed him through the swamp until they reached a low hut, plain but oddly comfortable—or as comfortable as might be expected when even a short human female was taller than the ceiling. The strange being promptly threw himself about his little kitchen in a frenzy, placing dishes in front of her. It was odd; she hadn't been served by someone else since . . . ever, actually.
“Look,” she said, trying to pull back her impatience, “I'm sure it's delicious. I just don't understand why we can't see Yoda now.”
“Patience!” cried the stranger. “For the Jedi it is time to eat as well. Eat, eat. Hot. Good food, hm? Good, hmm?”
Lucy sighed and helped herself to the strange soup; it was surprisingly good. She offered a tentative smile.
“How far away is Yoda? Will it take us long to get there?”
“Not far. Yoda not far. Patience. Soon you will be with him.” He cackled to himself, and swallowed a spoonful. “Rootleaf, I cook! Why wish you become Jedi? Hm?”
She remembered sitting across from Obi-Wan, listening wide-eyed as he offered every chance she'd ever dreamed of.
“But you will learn about the Force.”
“Yes.” Lucy's fingers curled around Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber. “I want to learn its ways and become a Jedi, like my father.”
“Mostly because of my father, I guess,” she said, waiting for him to demand an explanation.
“Ah, your father,” he said. “Powerful Jedi, was he, powerful Jedi. Mm.”
Lucy stared at him. All right, this creature was mad. It was all just some kind of trick.
“Oh, come on. How could you know my father?” she demanded. “You don't even know who I am! Oh, I don't know what I'm doing here. We're wasting our time!”
He turned away with an annoyed sound, addressing nothing in particular. “I cannot teach her. The girl lacks patience.”
“She will learn patience,” another voice said. Lucy jumped—but she knew that voice! Ben? Obi-Wan was here? Then—this must be—
“Hmm,” said Yoda. “Much anger in her, like her father.”
Lucy bristled, though she didn't dare interrupt. Her father was a hero. Everyone who'd known who he was, even Han, had said so. But this—Yoda, Obi-Wan's own master, had spoken of Anakin's power with ambivalence and now sounded as if he disapproved of him? What was going on?
“Was I any different when you taught me?” Obi-Wan asked evenly.
“Hm!” said Yoda. “She is not ready!”
Lucy looked around, trying to trace the voice. Obi-Wan, however, was nowhere to be seen.
“Yoda,” she said urgently, “I am ready. I . . . Ben! I can be a Jedi. Ben, tell him I'm ready!” Agitated, she started to rise, and smacked her head on the ceiling.
“Ready, are you?” said Yoda, and eyed her with what, even on his alien features, was evident disapproval. “What know you of ready? For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi. My own counsel will I keep on who is to be trained! A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind.” He turned back to the invisible Obi-Wan. “This one a long time have I watched.”
Lucy's eyes widened. He'd been watching her? But—then why—how—
“Never her mind on where she was, hm, what she was doing. Hm. Adventure, hmph! Excitement, hmph! A Jedi craves not these things.” He whirled on Lucy. “You are reckless!”
Memories crowded her mind, ending with her own careless words to Han. I always wanted more. Bigger causes, faster speeders. Poor Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru had to put up with an awful lot. She flushed and lowered her eyes. It was impossible to deny.
Particularly since he'd been watching her. Ugh.
“So was I, if you'll remember,” said Obi-Wan. At least he was on her side, and not quite as bizarre. Just . . . a disembodied voice? All right, pretty odd.
“She is too old,” Yoda said, and now he definitely sounded as if he were just looking for excuses. Lucy brightened. “Yes, too old to begin the training!”
“But I've learned so much,” Lucy pleaded.
Yoda stared at her, as if he could see right into her mind—he probably could. She felt weighed on some kind of cosmic scale. The little Jedi Master sighed.
“Will she finish what she begins?”
“I won't fail you,” she assured him. “I'm not afraid!”
“Oh,” said Yoda, his voice lowering, “you will be. You will be.”
Lucy gulped.
Yoda's training was, in fact, absolutely nothing like Obi-Wan's. There was no technology involved, not even her lightsaber. Yoda seemed to be doing his best to pretend it didn't even exist. Instead, she ran, climbed, flipped, and jumped, training harder than she ever had in her life. Her time as a soldier was nothing to it. She'd never been so fit, but she wasn't sure how it'd help her become a Jedi until she started to feel the Force, not just in fits and snatches as she had with Obi-Wan, but all around her.
“Run!” commanded Yoda. “Yes. A Jedi's strength flows from the Force. But beware of the dark side. Anger...fear...aggression. The dark side of the Force are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny—consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan's apprentice.”
“Vader?” Lucy caught her breath, fighting back the burst of anger she always felt at the name. She wouldn't let him win. She would be a Jedi. She released the breath on a sigh. “Is the dark side stronger?”
“No, no, no. Quicker,” Yoda said. “Easier. More seductive.”
Lucy blinked. “But how am I to know the good side from the bad?”
“You will know. When you are calm, at peace. Passive. A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.”
Lucy frowned, remembering her few weeks with Obi-Wan. She supposed chopping off an alien's arm in a bar had been a sort of self-defense, but . . .
“Tell me why I can't—”
“No, no, there is no why!” said Yoda. “Nothing more will I teach you today. Clear your mind of questions. Mm.”
Lucy carefully lowered the Jedi to the ground, then pulled her jacket over her sweaty shoulders. Something tugged at her mind—something come from a dark, dripping cave not far away. Lucy stared at it.
“Something's not right here,” she said. “I feel . . . cold, death.”
Yoda sank onto a small boulder. He studied the ground. “That place is strong with the Dark Side of the Force. A domain of evil it is. In you must go.”
“What's in there?” she asked, eyeing it.
Yoda didn't lift his eyes. “Only what you take with you.”
Lucy glanced between the cave and her master. It wasn't exactly an appealing description, but if this was what it took . . . all right. She picked up her weapon belt.
Yoda's head jerked up at that. “Your weapons—you will not need them.”
Lucy stared at the domain of evil. She'd go in, but she wasn't doing it without her lightsaber. She strapped the belt on anyway, and headed into the cave.
#
Lucy had nightmares almost every night after she returned. Yoda, however, didn't seem particularly concerned with her failure, but just continued her training, pushing her to further and further extremes, until she was not only moving beyond her own capacities, but—she was almost certain—beyond the human. After that, he had her lifting nearby stones without touching them; it took weeks, but eventually she managed it, if not with the focus that Yoda demanded.
And then he wanted her to lift her entire ship with her mind, as if that were no different than lifting a few rocks. Size matters not—how was that even possible? Discouraged, she wandered off, throwing herself to the ground, only to see the tiny Jedi lifting her X-Wing with one withered hand.
Lucy caught her breath and ran forward to see it.
“I don't—I don't believe it,” she stammered.
Yoda looked at her soberly. “And that,” he said, “is why you fail.”
After that, she tried to ignore what she thought she knew—including basic laws of physics. Anything is possible with the Force, she chanted at herself daily. Anything is possible. Anything.
Her exercises became easier. Even Yoda hinted, now and then, that she might be improving. She lifted just about everything in sight.
“Concentrate,” Yoda murmured. “feel the Force flow. Yes. Good. Calm, yes. Through the Force, things you will see. Other places. The future...the past. Old friends long gone—”
A city hung in the sky—
Han was screaming, sparks flying over his chest while a group of Imperials watched—
Strange men punched him in the stomach until another man in purple ordered them back—
Leia bent over him, her face strained—
Leia paced back and forth, and Lucy could feel her fear: Leia, who faced down Imperials without flinching—
Leia watched, horror-struck, while Han was lowered into a pit—
Lucy's eyes flew open.
“Han! Leia!” she cried. Everything tumbled to the ground, including Lucy herself.
Yoda just shook his head. “Control,” he said, stabbing his stick into the ground. “You must learn control!”
“I saw,” said Lucy, frowning, “I saw a city in the clouds.”
“Friends you have there,” Yoda told her.
She dropped her head onto her hands. “They were in pain.”
“It is the future you see,” he said, while Artoo, grumbling, righted himself. Lucy looked over at him.
“The future? Will they die?” Her voice cracked. No. Not Han and Leia. And a weaker part of her thought, anyone but Han and Leia.
Yoda lowered his head, concentrating. His right ear twitched.
“Difficult to see,” he said finally. “Always in motion, the future is.”
“I've got to go to them,” she declared.
He tried to argue her out of it, of course. It didn't matter. Someone was hurting Han and Leia and Chewie. The Empire—the Empire had them. She wasn't a Jedi yet, but she was more than she had ever been. She could help! She had to try.
“You must not go!”
“But Han and Leia will die if I don't,” returned Lucy, and kept loading her gear into the X-Wing.
“You don't know that,” said Obi-Wan.
Lucy turned around, half-expecting to see nothing—but he stood there in person, slightly transparent, slightly shimmering, but indisputably present.
“Even Yoda cannot see their fate,” Obi-Wan added.
“But I can help them! I feel the Force!” said Lucy. Her hands were tight by her sides. How could even Obi-Wan expect her to just sit and do nothing? Stopping things like this were the whole reason she'd become a Jedi!
“But you cannot control it,” Obi-Wan reminded her. “This is a dangerous time for you, when you will be tempted by the dark side of the Force.”
“Yes, yes,” said Yoda. “To Obi-Wan you listen!—the cave, remember your failure at the cave!”
“But I've learned so much since then.” Lucy crouched down to look her master in the eye. “Master Yoda, I promise to return and finish what I've begun. You have my word.”
“It is you and your abilities the Emperor wants. That is why your friends are made to suffer,” said Obi-Wan.
She'd figured as much. Did he think that would keep her from risking herself for them? When Han was being tortured and Leia in agony because of her?
“And that is why I have to go,” said Lucy.
Obi-Wan's voice dropped, turning sorrowful. “Lucy, I don't want to lose you to the Emperor the way I lost Vader.”
“You won't,” Lucy said confidently. Vader had fallen, but he was evil. Whatever the meaning of her vision in the cave, she wasn't anything like Vader. She couldn't be. She'd never do half the things he had.
“Only a fully trained Jedi Knight with the Force as his ally will conquer Vader and his Emperor. If you end your training now, if you choose the quick and easy path, as Vader did, you will become an agent of evil,” said Yoda.
I won't. Never.
“Patience,” urged Obi-Wan.
Lucy closed her eyes. “And sacrifice Han and Leia?”
“If you honour what they fight for,” said Yoda, “yes!”
Lucy stopped. Leia, she thought, might urge her to this. A sacrifice today for a victory later. Han—Han never would. But in the end, it didn't matter what they would do. She had to do what she thought was right. And that wasn't some cold balance of risks and opportunities.
“If you choose to fight Vader, you will do it alone,” Obi-Wan told her. “I cannot interfere.”
Lucy's mouth firmed. “I understand.” She walked back over to the X-Wing. “Artoo, fire up the converters.”
Artoo beeped happily.
“Lucy!” Obi-Wan called after her, and Lucy tiredly turned back. “Don't give in to hate. That leads to the Dark Side.”
She contented herself with a nod, and clambered into the ship.
“Strong is Vader. Mind what you have learned,” said Yoda, even more somber than usual. “Save you it can.”
“I will,” Lucy said. She forced herself to smile and waved down at them. “And I'll return, I promise!”
The roof of the X-Wing closed over her. Lucy buckled herself in, then lifted her comlink.
“Artoo,” she said, “set the course for Cloud City.”
Jedi training, by sweetestremedy