Star Wars - Kenobi

exactly those terms, before. It nearly took my breath away, just now. Almost every friend I’ve ever had is dead. Most killed by Sith evil.
    And I’ve never lived without the Jedi Order to fall back on, to help me when things went badly. What does it mean to be a Jedi alone?
    I think you tried to tell me, more than once. Your stories about other Jedi who lived without the trappings of the Order—but who still followed the Code. Kerra Holt, back in Bane’s time, cut off from the Republic. And who was that half Jedi? Zayne something? Zayne Carrick. He wasn’t a part of the Jedi Order, and yet he did good deeds anyway, on his own. He relied on his friends and didn’t need some official imprimatur to do the right thing.
    Maybe I can do that. I can’t rebuild the Jedi Order, but I can certainly put together the support system it provided. Emotionally, if not in terms of power to resist the Emperor.
    Maybe starting with Annileen and the Claim …
    No. That would be following the living Force alone—wrapping myself in the present. Not worrying about the future, the longer strands, the bigger issues. A Jedi is responsible for balancing both. I’m responsible—especially now when there’s no one else to do it.
    Still, Annileen …
    Wait.
    Hold on.
    I just realized something.
    I’ll be back.

PART FOUR
    THE RIFT

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
    THE EYEPIECES OF A Tusken narrow and confine the world, but they also bring it into focus. Now, just hours after the suns had set, there was much to be seen on the sprawling ranch southeast of the oasis.
    Shining yellow through the lens were the domes of the ranch house, a cluster of bubbles beneath the rising moons. Larger than many of the other homes on the desert, it was further lit by security lights on masts. Sheltered decks atop the sand connected the house to its garages.
    The old man stood on one of these porches, bracing against the nighttime chill. The door to his house was open behind him, and light spilled from it—as did the words of his wife, audible all the way to the northern ridge. Old Ulbreck sought peace outside most evenings, and did so again tonight. Puffing on a cigarra forbidden him by his doctor and wife, Ulbreck looked relaxed and confident in his domain. No one here could tell him what to do.
    The other person present would have been harder to see, but for his movement. Wrapped against the cold, Langer, the night watch, continued to wear a rut into the ground. Usually, the guard stood motionless, but not when the old man was outside. Langer was reputedly a good shot with his rifle, but he hadn’t used it in years; some relation of Ulbreck’s wife, he had the easy business of protecting the household. The other sentries were far out in the fields, patrolling the vaporators. Those were what the old man really cared about.
    The watchful intruders, who’d studied the ranch on previous nights, knew all this. They knew Ulbreck’s habits and defenses, and they knew the timing of the sentry landspeeders’ circuits around the ranch. The daylight theft of a vaporator thirty-seven hours earlier had resulted in Ulbreck assigning more sentries to each vehicle, but the routes and timing hadn’t yet changed.
    The members of the raiding party had arrived separately, from two different directions. On their final approach, the four had converged, running single-file, in the Tusken manner, until they reached their planned stations behind the northern ridge. Through their eyepieces, they all saw the same thing. Everything was as expected. What remained was to wait for the clouds to pass over the larger moon.
    When it happened, they moved. The first pair of raiders charged across the ridge, careful not to stumble over their bulky robes. Behind, the remaining two atop the dune lifted their rifles and fired. Several shots to the security lights left the farm in darkness.
    Langer noticed it first. “Tuskens!” But the call just brought blasterfire in return. Langer dived to avoid the shots, which paused long enough to allow the advance pair of raiders to strike. The nimbler attacker arrived first, gaderffii raised. The blunt end of the weapon struck Langer across the face, sending him into unconsciousness.
    Ulbreck had started to move on the sentry’s yell. His rifle sat where it usually did these evenings, just outside the door to his house. But now the shots from the ridge raked the decking, keeping him from reaching his weapon. He slumped behind a post and yelled to the