"Not me. The ship," Anakin said. "Or maybe we were dreaming together. We were traveling around the galaxy, seeing wonderful things. It was so great to just be free. You were there with us. I think you were having fun, too."

Anakin held out his hand, fingers spread, and Obi-Wan met it with his own hand. A few more years and the boy would reach his full growth.

In more than just size.

"I'm going to give her a name," Anakin said, looking away.

"What?"

"I'm going to call her Jabitha."

Obi-Wan smiled.

"It's a pretty name, isn't it?"

"It is a pretty name."

"Do you think they're still alive?"

"I don't know," Obi-Wan said.

"Maybe they all just vanished and no one will ever see them again."

"Perhaps."

Anakin had a hard time asking the next question. "Our ship is dying, isn't she?"

"Yes."

Anakin stared straight ahead, face blank.

The boy loses everything he loves, and yet still he is strong.

"Vergere…" Anakin began.

"Tell me more about what Vergere said."

"I'll get the ship-I'll get the Jabitha to show you the entire message."

Vergere appeared once more in the cabin, head feathers awry, slanted eyes wary, communicating the news of her discoveries to any Jedi who might follow in her path.

The Jabitha, lay in a cold and flimsy hangar on the outpost world Seline. The Sekotan ship's skin was rapidly losing its color and iridescence.

Anakin sat on a bench before the ship, chin in his hands. Outside, winds howled and spicules of ice shattered with a harsh, tinny rattle against the hangar's thin metal skin.

Anakin tried to imagine the Jabitha back in her birthplace of warmth and lush, tropic beauty, back with her family. . wherever they might be.

Seline was a poor place for a Sekotan ship to die.

Obi-Wan and Thracia Cho Leem entered the hangar. Thracia removed her weather gear. Anakin looked up, then returned his gaze to the ship.

Thracia approached the boy.

"Not so young now, Anakin Skywalker?" she asked, sitting on the bench beside him. Anakin slid over a few centimeters to make room for the diminutive Jedi Knight.

Anakin did not answer.

"Young Jedi, you have learned some hard truths. Power and even discipline are not sufficient. Self-knowledge is the most difficult of our many journeys."

"I know," Anakin said softly.

"And sometimes wisdom seems impossibly far away."

Anakin nodded.

"You must let me feel what is within you now," Thracia said gently. Then, with the faintest tone of warning, "You are still being judged."

Anakin screwed up his face, then relaxed and let her probe.

Obi-Wan slowly turned his eyes to the dead ship, now good only for cold and heartless research, and left the hangar. This was not for him to witness. There had to be an objective evaluation; that was half the essence of Jedi counseling.

As for the other half. .

That was Thracia's greatest skill-healing.

There would be many more battles for his apprentice, many more disappointments. And many more joys. More joys than sadnesses, Obi-Wan fervently hoped.

This was how it was, how it felt, to have the heart of a Master.

Coda

No more Sekotan ships are made. In a few years, all of them are dead or destroyed.

Tarkin and Raith Sienar manage to bring the crippled fleet home. Inspired by what he calls a "great example," Tarkin redeems himself before the Supreme Chancellor with secret plans for a moon-sized battle station. Tarkin claims sole credit for the design. Sienar does not dispute him; it is a brainchild he is eager to disown. Sienar has a bad feeling about such an expensive concentration of might.

The new order will find both Tarkin and Sienar useful.

Charza Kwinn and his shipmates survive and reach Coruscant, where they are assigned new missions. In later years, with the rise of the Empire and a decline in cordial relations with nonhumans, Charza becomes a smuggler and pirate to feed his food-kin. He limits his prey to Imperial vessels.

A legend grows in the galaxy: of a rogue planet that wanders between the stars, forever lost, ruled by either a madman, a madwoman, or a saint, the legends are never clear which.

Months after Thracia Cho Leem counsels Anakin Skywalker, without explanation, she leaves the Jedi order.

Obi-Wan Kenobi has his work cut out for him. The young man, his Padawan, is growing stronger, overcoming disappointment, acquiring discipline. But the knot in Anakin's future has not completely loosened. The trial is not over; it may not be over for decades.

No balance.

No balance yet.