Light of the Jedi (Star Wars: The High Republic)

by Charles Soule

You couldn’t trust hyperspace. It was useful, sure, it got you from here to there, it was the key to the expansion of the Republic out from the Core, but no one really understood it.

Chancellor Soh’s Republic wasn’t perfect—no government was or ever could be—but it was a system that gave people room to dream. No, even better. It encouraged dreams, big and small. The Republic had its flaws, but really, things could be a hell of a lot worse.

There was that bacta stuff he’d been reading about, too, some kind of miracle replacement for juvan they were trying to grow on the primeworld, supposed to revolutionize medicine if they could ever figure out how to farm it in volume…but still, it was all just plants.

One of the objects leapt out of hyperspace, so near, and moving so fast, that in astronomical terms it was on them the moment it appeared. A gout of flame, and the anomaly vanished, along with the monitoring station, its two scantechs, and all their goals, fears, skills, hopes, and dreams; the kinetic energy of the object atomizing everything it touched in less than an instant.

The accusation hung in the air, but Ecka did not indulge it. He had made decisions that seemed correct at the time, with the best information he had. They were at peace! Everywhere was at peace. Why waste money that could help people in other ways?

He closed his eyes and opened his spirit, and there it was, the small light within him that never stopped burning. Always at least a candle flame, and sometimes, if he concentrated, it could surge up into a blaze. A few times, he’d felt as bright as the sun, so much light pouring through him he was afraid he might go blind. Honestly, though, it didn’t matter. From spark to inferno—any connection to the Force chased away the shadows.

Her lightsaber, ugly as it was, served as a perfect reflection of the great truth of the Force: no matter what a person was on the outside… …inside, everyone was made of light.

Weapons on a Vector could only be operated with a lightsaber key, a way to ensure they were not used by non-Jedi, and that every time they were used, it was a well-considered action.

The marauders saw them coming—how could they not? Bell thought that was part of the point of a lightsaber, too. It was bright, it glowed, it was impossible to ignore. Between the sound and the light, an enemy was given warning, every possible chance to simply not fight,

There was nothing so big it could not be swallowed up. Nothing so strong it could not be humbled. Nothing so tall it could not be made small. Not a mountain, and not the Republic.

“Hyperspace is not like realspace. Once a ship—or anything else—enters it, there’s no way to encounter anything. You’re in a bubble of space–time that nothing else can interact with, because each lane is, as far as we can tell, its own distinct plane of existence.”

Keven realized that he hadn’t failed after all. He, Keven Tarr, a farmer’s son from Hetzal Prime, had sliced hyperspace. What a strange galaxy this was.

Porter Engle was not angry. He had been a Jedi for almost three centuries. He knew all too well where anger could lead. He had found a better way to express his emotions when faced with situations like this. He was not angry. He was certain.

she wasn’t afraid of a firefight, but she was basically a mechanic. She was more than happy to leave combat to the highly trained space wizards.

You could not solve those problems individually. It was ridiculous to even try. What you could do, however, was make the various peoples of this high era of the Galactic Republic see one another as people. As brothers and sisters and cousins and friends, or if nothing else, just as colleagues in the shared goal of building a galaxy that welcomed all, heard all, and did its best to avoid hurting anyone. Truly tried its best.

If you could make that happen, then problems didn’t have to be solved. Many would solve themselves, because people believed in the Republic more than they believed in their own goals, and would be open to that magical word—compromise.

Plans can fail, at any step along the way. I have a goal, and goals can be achieved in any number of ways. As long as you get where you want to in the end, the roads you took don’t matter. It’s all the same path.”