Light and Shadow
Author: Paul Danner
Medium: Short story
Publication date: N/A (canceled; archived on MyUselessKnowledge.com)
Timeline placement: c. 4,000 BBY
"Light and Shadow," not to be confused with Shadows and Light, is a short story intended for publication in Star Wars Adventure Journal, West End Games' Star Wars RPG periodical. The Adventure Journal was canceled after fifteen issues, with a further three planned issues never seeing the light of day. Since it was never officially published, "Light and Shaddow" cannot be considered truly canon in Expanded Universe continuity, but since it was canceled due to financial rather than editorial reasons, there's no reason not to accept it as headcanon as is.
We're introduced to Lian Dray, a disgraced fallen Jedi in self-imposed exile on the planet Vigil. A student of Jedi Master Ven-Mah Tyrrahl on the planet Monfreen, Dray was an eager student strong in the Force but, like every fallen Jedi in this era of Star Wars fiction, he chafed under his master's slow tutelage and longed to unlock his full power and potential. Master Tyrrahl cautioned him against venturing into the Citadel of Shadows, Monfreen's dark-side ruins, but sets the challenge before him if Dray feels the need to prove his worth. Of course Dray fails the test and succumbs to the dark side when he enters the ruins. What exactly happens to him isn't made clear but it ends with him killing his friend Yeres Threem and alienating his girlfriend, Cayli.
Which leads Dray to where we find him as our story begins, in exile on Vigil, presumably hiding out from the Jedi so as not to be arrested for fucking murder. Dray is doing his morning meditations when suddenly a starship falls out of the sky and crashes on the planet. He rushes to the fiery crash site and finds two adult passengers already dead, but their seven-year-old daughter still lives and is trapped in the wreckage. Dray rescues her and learns that her name is Nova.
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| Lian Dray carries Nova to safety. |
Nova is immediately able to read Dray's aura and perceive the darkness in his soul. He uses an old Jedi technique from Kevin J. Anderson's Jedi Academy Trilogy where you can test someone's Force strength by trying to read their subconscious mind and seeing how forcefully/Forcefully they instinctively push back against you. Nova pushes back so hard that Dray is catapulted through the jungle for half a mile before landing in a lake.
It isn't long before two dark-side acolytes, brother-and-sister twins Xash and Sindra, come looking for the little girl. It's not clear if they somehow caused her family's ship to crash, or if the family was already on the run from them and crashed for unrelated reasons, or if they were even aware that someone was after them before they died. But they're here now, and Dray gives in to the dark side and kills them both. Nova is terrified by his brutality and runs off into the jungle.
The whole story up until this point has been told from Dray's point of view, but now we get a flashback to his Jedi training immediately before he entered the Citadel of Shadows, and for some reason we switch to Master Tyrrahl's point of view. But the flashback is framed as Dray remembering it after Nova runs away. Very strange stylistic choice.
Dray then has a premonition of an adult Nova, now turned to the dark side, coming to kill him. This is what makes him decide to set off into the jungle and rescue her. I realize that this is supposed to be him seeing her dark future and realizing her soul is in mortal peril, but it comes across as comically self-serving that he only decides to go help the little girl after seeing that she'll grow up to kill him.
Dray finds Nova locked in an energy cage, the prisoner of Thannor Keth, Sorcerer of the Sith, master of the two dead acolytes. Strong in the Force he may be, but dude can't figure out how to make his spaceship go. Keth tells Dray that if he fixes the ship, Keth will allow him to live. Dray responds by using the Force to make the ship's engine burst into flames, then while Keth is distracted he frees Nova and they make a break for it, but she makes him promise "not to do the bad thing anymore."
But Thannor Keth comes after them, blasting Dray with Force lightning. He also casts what appears to be a kinetite, a super-obscure Force technique previously used only by Darth Vader in 1978's Splinter of the Mind's Eye. As Keth prepares to deliver the killing blow, Dray knows that he can defeat him if he calls on the dark side again, but he is determined to keep his promise to Nova, and he lets the anger in his heart melt away. Keth summons the dark power to kill Dray in some vague way, but just before he strikes, Dray and Nova reach out to one another through the Force, and her power flows into him, creating a Force barrier that reflects Keth's attack. He is annihilated by his own technique, leaving behind only a scorched robe on the ground.
Dray lapses into unconsciousness. When he recovers, he takes Nova in his ship, the Lady of Light, to be trained by the Jedi on Ossus, where he will also have to face up to betraying his friends and murdering one of them. He thinks of Cayli, and Nova, reading his mind, says that he should tell her he still loves her. Dray knows that he will be hunted for his crimes, but for the first time, he feels the return of something he thought was long gone:
<Hope...>
Surprisingly decent story, a real shame it was never published.
