Mashable has a great exclusive today with another excerpt from the highly anticipated sequel Star Wars: Aftermath “Life Debt” from Chuck Wendig. Last year’s Star Wars novel debut from Chuck didn’t disappoint and with the two excerpts we have seen so far, this one looks be another winner. We make no bones about it here at the Post that we are huge fans of Mr. Wendig and his punch the creative Yetti right in the crotch style of writing. With this new novel, Chuck delves deep into Han and Chewie’s move to liberate Kashyyyk from the Empire. Something that started in Star Wars: Aftermath as an Interlude, that now, takes center stage. However, this excerpt comes completely out of left field and is centered around Princess Leia. Here we read how Leia, now pregnant with her Son is trying to mediate and learning the ways of the Force as instructed to her from Luke.
The room is white and mostly empty. The walls are padded. The windows are many, and the sunlight streaming in is bold and bright.
The only things in this room are Leia and a potted plant.
The plant is a sapling of the sanctuary trees of Endor, though some call it a serpent’s puzzle, named so after the way the dark branches weave together in a kind of organic knotwork.
She grew it from a seed—a small knobby acorn given to her by the little Ewok known as Wicket. She grew the plant in a pot of Chandrilan soil, and to her shock and delight, it took.
It has become a focus of her meditations, as suggested by Luke. She decided, after storming out of the meeting room, that it was best to come here. Best for her to focus on something that wasn’t the state of the galaxy, or the nascent New Republic, or that nagging feeling in the deep of her middle that Mon Mothma has betrayed her in some small but significant way.
She sits with it in the middle of the room, hands gently resting on her pregnant belly.
She clears her mind.
And then she tries to feel the tree.
She does this at least once a day.
Leia has never felt the tree.
Not for lack of trying! She sits here. She empties herself of breath, and then she tries to free herself of thought. Just like Luke taught her to. That part works fine most of the time. But he said it was possible to feel the lifeforce of things with the Force.
She swore to him that she just doesn’t have it. It being that mystical, intangible power that her brother possesses and (this thought comes with a set of chills grappling up her spine) that her father—her birth father—possessed, too.
Luke continues to swear that, with time, she will come to feel the Force just as he does. He explained that it was how she felt his pain back during Cloud City—him hanging there, wearied and beaten and about to fall into the roiling clouds below. He said he’d teach her.
And he did teach her. Some things, at least.
Then? He left.
Just like Han left.
Luke …
She finds her mind wandering to him now. Her thoughts reach for her wayward brother like a living thing, like branches seeking the sun. I need you here. I need your help. Luke sometimes had a farm boy’s naïveté, yes, but right now she feels she could use a little of that.
Her mind is a tangle of thoughts. The complexities of politics, the love of (and anger over) Han, the loss of Luke, and above all else the ever-persistent worry about the life she carries —
Her skin tingles. Her mind feels suddenly unmoored from the rest of her. Leia feels dizzy enough to fall over.
Oh.
Oh, my!
There! There it is. Washing over her and through her — an awareness unlike any she’s ever felt before. A pulsing glow, flickering and strong.
It’s not the plant. It’s not Luke. It’s not even Han.
It’s her child.
This isn’t just a mother’s recognition of the life inside—that, she already knows. She’s already well aware of the bump and tumble of that little person she carries. (And she already knows about the heartburn, and the pre-breakfast nausea, and the post-breakfast nausea, and the post-post-breakfast hunger …)
This goes beyond all that. This is something separate from her. It isn’t a physical feeling. It is all around her. It suffuses her like the perfume from a jungle of flowers. As such, she is suddenly aware of her child’s mind and spirit: She senses pluck and wit and steel blood and a keen mind and by the blood of Alderaan is this one going to be a fighter!
Wait.
He?
It’s a boy.
It’s a boy.
Her hands fly in front of her mouth as she both laughs and cries at the same time. This, she thinks, is the light side that Luke always goes on about—the promise of light, the promise of a new life . . .
And then, the black edging of the dark side encircles her bliss like a noose. Because what rides swift on the heels of hope but fear — a fear that stretches out far and wide like a growing shadow. Fear of having a child in an unstable galaxy. Fear of whether or not Han is alive — or Luke, too. Will the child grow up with a father? An uncle? A mentor? What is her legacy and what will her boy’s legacy be?
Her breath catches in her chest. She has to force herself to breathe.
Clear your mind. Clear it all. Focus, Leia. Focus.
Are those her thoughts?
Or are they Luke’s?
Once again we see the imagery of a tree tied to the Force and although in this instance it looks coincidental, I don’t believe it to be so. There has been a concerned effort by the creative mammoths at Lucasfilm to tie the Force to something tangible and real. We first saw the imagery of the tree as a back drop in the final episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, where Yoda makes his final remarks of the series in the courtyard of the Jedi Temple with Obi Wan Kenobi and Mace Windu. Something of real importance later on, when outta nowhere, in the final installment of the short comic series Star Wars: Shattered Empire, Luke secures two trees from Imperial Forces. Two trees that were torn from the heart of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. I still cannot stress how that fourth and final comic to that series threw everyone for a loop and concluded in a way that had us all scratching our heads.
Then of course was the big reveal with the drone shots of Pinewood Studios for the production of Star Wars: Episode Eight. There we witnessed the tree of monumental significance, on an island rumored to be the first Jedi Temple. For this Author, the merging of trees as a symbol for the Force is as elegant as a well defined math theorem. A symbol which is hot in popular culture as referenced in the Lord Of The Ring trilogy with the Tree of Gondor and the red leafed Weirwoods in HBO’s Game Of Thrones. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said “The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn”, a quote most befitting a Jedi Order that is in the cusp of a revival. Whether its the heavy jungles of Degobah where Yoda escaped to exile or the colossal tree seen on AHCH-TO, this natural wonder looks to become an integral part of mysticism of the Force.
Another great take away from this excerpt of course is Leia’s use of the Force and her training to experience it. Many of us have simply gave into the reality that Leia would stick the practical world of courage and hard decisions and leave the mystic mumbo jumbo to Luke. She would take on the hard work of politics and command of military forces by natural means, albeit with a little help from the Force from time to time. Once again Del Rey and the great writing talents they have secured, opens us up to Leia’s in a way we have not witnessed before. Where Star Wars: Bloodline showed us her determination and courage forged in the crucible of politics, “Life Debt” dares to show us Leia’s soft side as a Mother and the fear of what that may bring. Leia is fast becoming the ring bearer for all of Star Wars by encapsulating the true nature of it’s ups and downs. Where most characters in our Galaxy are straight lines and predictable, Leia is a tree of mangled branches trying to reach sunlight. A tree that we cannot wait to climb and get stuck in.
Check out Mashable and their exclusive here and our great thanks to Chuck Wendig for another short bit of brilliance. If you really want to pair this up right, read the excerpt with a crisp beer and a raging thunderstorm out your front window.
Special thanks to Artist Sinuswave for the great work of Leia and Kylo in the header image. Please check out more of his work here.
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