The Last Jedi

Epilogue




The stop on Dathomir was relatively brief; just long enough for Augwynne Djo to keep her promise to relieve Jax of Darth Ramage’s dark knowledge. It was risky, trusting a Dathomiri Witch to restore some balance to his mind, but that act of trust was, itself, a step back into the light.

Now back aboard the Laranth, prepping for liftoff, Jax probed his mind for memories of what he’d done on Kantaros Station. The events were there—clear and crystalline. How he had influenced them was a blank—a fuzzy hollow. He could no longer sense time currents, though the concept of their existence was still in his memory. The rest of Ramage’s ideas were mere vapors—thin to transparency.

Beside him, in the copilot’s seat, Sacha moved restlessly. “You … you all clear? Your head, I mean. You got all the … dark stuff out of it?”

“Well, at least the dark stuff Darth Ramage contributed.”

“Where to now, Jax?” Den asked from the jump seat behind him.

“We’ll take Yimmon back to Toprawa, get in touch with Pol Haus and Sheel Mafeen on Coruscant, do what needs doing.”

He turned his gaze to Sacha Swiftbird. “You don’t need me for liftoff, do you?” he asked.

“Not for liftoff, no.” She shot him a cockeyed smile, the scar across her left eye wrinkling. “You got a hot date?”

“In a manner of speaking. I haven’t meditated in a long time.”

She nodded. “The tree’s right where you left it. Five and I have been taking good care of it for you.”

“Thanks.” He returned her smile.

“Um,” she said, oddly diffident, “about that red lightsaber …”

“Why don’t you keep it?”

Jax climbed out of the pilot’s chair, brushed the top of I-Five’s helm with his fingertips, laid a gentle hand on Den’s shoulder, and went aft. He hadn’t returned to his quarters since coming aboard. He’d let Sacha continue using them, and had bunked with Den and Yimmon.

The Whiplash leader had also been in need of the Dathomiri Witches’ ministrations, even once clear of the Imperials’ drugs. When Jax asked how he had withstood the Sith interrogations and seemingly lulled Tesla into a false sense of security, he smiled benignly and said, “I had an unfair advantage—two brains instead of one. And he wore his desires—and his fears—too close to the surface. It was easy enough to leave a trail where he would follow. But,” he added, his expression sober, “Tesla had quite correctly suspected that separating my cortices would rob me of that advantage. Had he not invaded my mind one last time …”

Yimmon’s recovery was aided by many hours spent in a meditative state. Jax, however, hadn’t wanted to meditate until the dark stain of Darth Ramage’s knowledge was sponged from his mind. Now, finally, he was ready.

The tree was right where he’d left it, but it looked significantly healthier. Sacha’s care was evident in the repaired feeding and watering device. She’d even returned the Sith lightsaber to its compartment.

Jax moved to the tree, put his face to its soft, silver-green foliage, and inhaled deeply of the piney scent. He took the tree, pot and all, out of the feeder and sat with it on the floor of the cabin, falling back into the arms of the Force.

It flowed like sap through this tree, he realized, roots to needle tips and out into the atmosphere; it permeated the planet beneath their landing struts, the space they would soon leap into … and him. It was the endless, changeless connective tissue of the universe, and it had connected him, and always would, to the Jedi who had gone before him … and the Jedi who would come after him.

It had connected him, and always would connect him, to Laranth.

He had not wanted to let go of her. Now he knew, with the strength of epiphany, that he had no need to hold on to what would always be there.

There is no death; there is the Force.

How often had he thought or spoken those words? Only now did he truly understand what they meant. They meant that there was no cause for grief, no need for revenge.

In his mind’s eye, the tree’s aura pulsed and he felt an infusion of warmth. For the first time in what seemed an eternity, he felt fully connected to the Force—rooted in it, just as Laranth’s tree was. He’d cut himself off, he realized—uprooted his own “tree.” He’d been exhausted after the battle with Darth Vader, but the Force was inexhaustible. He had forgotten that; had forgotten himself.

In the midst of his meditations, he sensed another presence in the room. He opened his eyes and saw a man, handsome if somewhat stern of countenance, dressed in a simple tunic and leggings. After a moment, Jax recognized him; not by his appearance, but by the unmistakable aura of the Force that he exuded. Jax stared at him, this droid who was his closest friend, who had kept the faith that he would return when nearly all others had given up.

“I’m sorry,” Jax told him. “I know I … went off into the woods for a while. Like father, like son, I guess.”

“No, fortunately. You had tools your father didn’t.”

“I had you.”

The droid was silent for a moment, then said, “You had the Force. And the contents of that Sith Holocron. And the ability to use them for good. That projection you used to distract Vader right at the end was very effective.”

Jax stared at the droid. “What do you mean? What projection? The Aethersprite?”

“No. I meant the spectral image you used to cover my approach. That burst of light. Vader didn’t see me until it was too late.”

“I … I didn’t do that,” Jax said. “At least, not consciously. I thought that was you. I felt a Force signature behind it. So did Vader.”

The droid shook his head. “It wasn’t me.”

“Then what—” Jax stopped, gazing down at the tree sitting before him on the deck. “There is no death; there is the Force,” he murmured.

I-Five cocked his head; a quizzical gesture that was simultaneously eerily familiar and completely new. “Meaning?”

“Meaning, I guess, that we go on. In whatever form—” He paused to look at the humanoid droid. “—in whatever capacity. We work in whatever way we can. We never concede to evil. And we never surrender to the darkness.”

As he said it, Jax could feel the truth of his statement. It was true that the old order of Jedi had been swept away, but that didn’t mean it was gone forever. It just meant that a new Jedi Order would arise, sooner or later, from the ashes. Whether he would be around to help usher it in or not, only the Force knew.

He looked down at the miisai tree, then back at I-Five.

“What?” the droid asked.

“I remember,” Jax said, “when I first sensed the Force from you. It was back in our old digs on Coruscant, when Tuden Sal had talked you into trying to assassinate Palpatine.”

“Yes. Just before Vader blew me to smithereens for the first time.”

“It’s accepted dogma by everyone who knows about the Force,” Jax said quietly, almost as if speaking to himself, “that the Force is manifested through living things by midi-chlorians. The higher the cell count of midi-chlorians, the stronger the connection to the Force.”

“And yet …,” I-Five said.

“Right. Your neuroprocessor has no organic components—or at least it shouldn’t have them. Neither did your original I-5YQ chassis or those interim bodies you used. This HRD body comes the closest, but it’s still just synthflesh and nanomolecular electronics. You have no midi-chlorians, I-Five.”

“This is true.”

“But the Force lives within you. How do you account for this?”

“It would appear,” said I-Five, “that the Force works in mysterious ways. Or at least that my neuroprocessor does.”

They both sat quietly for a time. Then Jax picked up Laranth’s tree and rose in one graceful movement. He put the tree back into its feeder and headed toward the hatch.

The droid turned to follow him. “Where are you going?”

“To send a message to someone in the Singing Mountain Clan. Someone with a lot of potential and an open mind. After all, someone’s got to rebuild the Jedi Order. If I am the last Jedi, that responsibility falls to me.”

I-Five chuckled. “It would seem that humans are teachable, after a fashion.”

“What about you, Five? How does being human suit you?”

“It has its advantages,” the droid admitted, following Jax. “I rather like being able to scowl menacingly.”

Jax laughed … and wondered if he might be able to teach a droid the ways of the Force.