Star Wars the New Jedi Order Balance Point

Jaina? Joined through the Force even before they were born, he and Jaina had always been able to tell when the other was hurt or afraid. But for him to sense her over the distances that lay between them now, she must've been terribly-- The pain winked off. "Jaina!" he whispered, appalled. "No!" He stretched out toward her, trying to find her again. Barely aware of fuzzy shapes clustering around him and a Ryn voice hooting for a medical droid, he felt as if he were shrinking--falling backwards into vacuum. He tried focusing deep inside and outside himself, to grab on to the Force and punch out--or slip into a healing trance. Could he take Jaina with him, if he did? Uncle Luke had taught him a dozen focusing techniques, back at the academy, and since then. Jacen. A voice seemed to echo in his mind, but it wasn't Jaina's. It was deep, male--vaguely like his uncle's. Making an effort, Jacen imagined his uncle's face, trying to focus on that echo. An enormous white vortex seemed to spin around him. It pulled at him, drawing him toward its dazzling center. What was going on? Then he saw his uncle, robed in pure white, half turned away. Luke Skywalker held his shimmering lightsaber in a diagonal stance, hands at hit level, pointed high. Jaina! Jacen shouted the words in his mind. Uncle Luke, Jaina's been hurt! Then he saw what held his uncle's attention. In the dim distance, but clearly in focus, a second form straightened and darkened. Tall, humanoid, powerfully built, it had a face and chest covered with sinuous scars and tattoos. Its hips and legs were encased in rust-brown armor. Claws protruded from its heels and knuckles, and an ebony cloak flowed from its shoulders. The alien held a coal-black, snake-headed amphistaff across its body, mirroring the angle of Luke's lightsaber, pitting poisonous darkness against verdant light. Utterly confused, Jacen stretched out through the Force. First he sensed the figure in white as a respected uncle--then abruptly as a powerful depth, blazing in the Force like a star gone nova. But across this slowly spinning disk, where Jacen's inner vision pre-sented a Yuuzhan Vong warrior, his Force sense picked up nothing at all. Through the Force, all Yuuzhan Vong did seem utterly life-less, like the technology they vilified. The alien swung its amphistaff. The Jedi Master's lightsaber blazed, swept down, and blocked the swing, brightening until it washed out almost everything else in this vision. The Yuuzhan Vong's amphistaff seemed darker than any absence of light, a dark-ness that seemed alive but promised death. The broad, spinning disk on which they both stood finally slowed. It focused into billions of stars. Jacen picked out the familiar map of known space. Luke dropped into a fighting stance, poised near the galaxy's center, the Deep Core. He raised his lightsaber and held it high, near his right shoulder, pointing inward. From three points of darkness, beyond the Rim, tattooed assailants advanced. More of them? Jacen realized this was a vision, not a battle unfolding in front of him, with little to do with his twin sister. Or maybe everything to do with her! Did these new invaders symbolize other invasion forces, more worldships--besides the ones that were already beating back everything the New Republic could throw at them? Reaching out to Jaina, maybe he had tapped the Force itself--or maybe it broke through to him. The galaxy seemed to teeter, poised between light and darkness. Luke stood close to the center, counterweighing the dark invaders. But as their numbers increased, the balance tipped. Uncle Luke, Jacen shouted. What should I do? Luke turned awaTyers, Kathy is the author of 'Star Wars the New Jedi Order Balance Point', published 2000 under ISBN 9780345428578 and ISBN 0345428579.