Another Path 6
...Man, it's been a really long time since I've posted a part of this.
(Also, a long time since I've worked on it, but, whatever)
Anyway, here's the next bit, which happens to be my favorite, and also the longest chapter thus far...
Chapter 6
Visions of the Force
Quinlan Vos gazed down into the shadowy depths of the massive sinkhole and let his mind wander. The way that the Utapauan city clung to the walls in levels of rings descending downwards made him think of the slippery slope he’d struggled to navigate throughout the war. The things that he’d done to try and weasel his way into Count Dooku’s camp and how he’d pushed the boundaries a bit more every time, convinced that he was on verge of earning the Sith Lord’s trust-yet all that he’d really done was lose his way…
“General Vos?”
The Kiffar Jedi stepped back from the precipice and looked to the side where an armored clone trooper stood braced at attention.
“Yes, Commander Cody?”
“The code-slicers have found something, sir,” the clone commander reported.
“Good.” He gestured for the clone to accompany him as he started for what was left of General Grievous’s command center on Utapau. “How are things to the south?”
“It’s progressing well, sir,” Commander Cody replied. “The fighting has been contained on a single level now. The only reason we’ve had so much trouble with that spot is because there are multiple side caverns connected to that level that gave the enemy excellent firing positions. If we could use high-powered explosives we could clear out all the battle droids in half an hour.”
“No high explosives,” Master Vos responded. “We don’t want to risk collapsing the cave systems. Stick with grenades for now, and I’ll intervene myself if necessary.”
“Yes, sir.”
The rest of the hike through the winding tunnels was quiet. Commander Cody was competent and obedient like all clone troops, but there was a distance between him and his replacement commanding officer. Clone troopers tended to get attached to the Jedi that they served under, and Cody and his fellows belonged to Obi-Wan Kenobi, not Quinlan Vos. They would follow the Kiffar’s commands without question but there was no rapport, no comradery.
Why did Obi-Wan leave so abruptly? he wondered. He didn’t even wait around to hand his troops off to me. It’s not like him at all.
Setting aside the worry that had nagged at him from the moment that he’d arrived on-planet, the Jedi Master strode into the ruined Separatist command and control center. The cavern was cluttered with computers, vid-screens, holo-projectors, various consoles, and communications gear that had been hastily installed when General Grievous had descended upon Utapau. The fighting to retake the planet had left much of the equipment damaged by grenade bursts and blaster fire, and several clone troopers with electronics training were occupied in repairing what they could while code-slicers sifted through corrupted batches of data.
“You found something?” Quinlan asked as he approached the chief slicer, a black-furred female Bothan, Sali Dai’neyri.
“It took a lot of cleaning, but we’ve managed to salvage a recording of a message sent to General Grievous,” the Bothan woman informed him, and turned to one of her subordinates. “Play it.”
A hazy blue holo image flickered into view from the nearest functioning projector. It appeared to be of a Human male that was almost completely shrouded in a black hooded robe with only his mouth really visible. There were patches of static on the image and the audio was heavily corrupted, yet the important part of the message was still understandable.
“…So, they’ve fled to Mustafar,” the Jedi Master mused. “Good work, all of you. Let’s wrap things up here so that we can catch up with the Confederacy Council and see if we can’t persuade them to surrender.”
A chorus of agreement from the assembled clones and Bothans echoed through the cavern and he and Cody departed for the Republic’s command center.
“I’ll move on to that last pocket of resistance in the South after reporting this to Coruscant,” Quinlan decided as they walked. “I want Utapau to be free before we have to leave, and-”
A rush, like a stiff fresh breeze, flowed over him, freezing the Kiffar mid-stride. It wasn’t a warning, that much he was sure of, but he couldn’t identify what it actually was. Quinlan closed his eyes and searched the Force for an answer.
He sensed turbulence and swirling shadows and an obfuscating mist-all of what he’d become accustomed to detecting since the start of the war. Yet, in the distance, he perceived an odd white light flickering, like a lighthouse crouched on a stormy horizon. It was a brilliant light, but as he watched it the glow began to steadily fade.
Opening his eyes, the Jedi Master frowned pensively, ignoring the polite concern of the clone Commander beside him.
What is going on…?
***
Mygeeto was as frigid as ever as weak sunlight breached the remains of yet another blizzard. Ice-coated skyscrapers glinted in the shafts of light, briefly making the Separatist city appear to be a tangle of crystalline spires. It looked like something out of a fairy tale…except for the stretches of broken windows and burn marks some of the buildings bore-scars from the battle which had just concluded barely an hour before.
Jedi Master Ki-Adi-Mundi stood by a large window on the top floor of the tallest skyscraper and gazed out over the surrounding buildings that had become visible with the end of the blizzard. Behind him Clone Commander Bacara and his fellows stood with their helmets off and conversed with each other on the results of the battle, their losses in troops and munitions, and how to make up those deficits so that they could move on to the next city. The Cerean Jedi left them to gather the details for him and took advantage of the lull in fighting to reflect.
This city had been very difficult to take from the Muuns of the Banking Clans as it had been built over a web of deep crevasses, restricting travel between the buildings to narrow bridges. With the constant bad weather there had been no air support for the Republic’s troops, leaving them no option but to funnel themselves along the bridges where the battle droids could pick them off from superior firing positions. Defeating the Separatists here with minimal losses was an accomplishment to be proud of, not to mention it was a vital step in capturing the planet as a whole.
Yet Ki-Adi’s thoughts centered on his family instead of the next step of his campaign. He’d only visited them once since the outbreak of war and spoken to them a handful of times via the Holo-Net. The longer he went without seeing them, the more that he yearned to return to his homeworld of Cerea and embrace his wives and daughters once more.
As a Jedi, he was forbidden emotional attachments. He had taken a Bond-Wife, several Honor-Wives, and fathered daughters out of duty to his species, not to satisfy any emotional desire. Even though married, he’d done his best to hold his family at a distance to avoid violating the Jedi Code, and he had believed that he had succeeded.
But now he found himself increasingly wondering if he hadn’t failed after all, and become attached.
Closing his eyes to block out the view of the city, the Jedi Master tapped into the Force to help regain his serenity and focus-
An odd shiver flowed through the Force, and with it came a vision of a distant but brilliant orb of white light shining upon a twisting, chaotic sea of darkness and shadow.
…What is this?
No answer came to him, but he had a strong feeling that it was important somehow. Shaking off his trance the Cerean opened his eyes and turned back to face his clone troops. Noticing his attention on them, the cloned soldiers halted their discussion and turned to face their Jedi General.
“Commander Bacara, have the techs expedite their work on the communications array,” he commanded. “I need to contact Coruscant as soon as possible.”
***
Jedi Knight Aayla Secura stood on the duracrete roof of the massive bunker-like building that was the primary water treatment plant of the planet and looked over the landscape of odd translucent plants and oversized fungus growths. The leader of the Commerce Guild’s plan to poison the planet’s water table had been thwarted and the Separatists were on their last legs in this theater of the war. With the success of her mission, the blue Twi’lek had decided to let her troops catch a night of rest out of the oppressive humidity before they moved on to clean-up operations to eliminate the last vestiges of the Confederacy from Felucia.
This planet really is beautiful to look at, she mused as she wiped sweat from her head-tails. I could do without the muggy climate, though.
Folding herself into a seated lotus position, the Twi’lek Jedi delved into a meditative trance to explore the planet through the lens of the Force.
Felucia was a planet overflowing with life and as such it had strong ties to the Force, specifically the aspect of the Living Force. As Aayla reached out to the plants and animals around her, she could feel them respond to her presence. It was a humbling and beautiful experience and she was glad that she finally had a quiet moment to really enjoy it.
I’m glad that we were able to save this world, the Knight thought as she started to withdraw her awareness back to the limits of her body. It would’ve been a tragedy if all of this had been destroyed-
A powerful ripple in the Force jolted her from her trance and sent her running to the edge of the roof. Below her the landscape seemed to shiver as plant life swayed as if caught in a strong wind and several giant flying insects burst into the cloudy sky. The humid air echoed with the cries of startled and confused animals, and even a few shouts from her clone troops as they tried to keep their Giant Ground Beetle mounts calm.
And then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the Force-spawned disruption of Felucia’s ecosystem tapered off.
“General Secura!”
The Jedi General whipped her head around, still agitated from the surge in the Force, to see one of her clone soldiers stumbling out onto the roof towards her. He wasn’t Commander Bly, but one of the basic grunts-a replacement fresh from Kamino on his first deployment. He’d been preparing to bunk down for the night as he was half-out of his armor and hadn’t wasted any time putting it all back on.
“General Secura, what’s going on?”
Struggling to shake off her lingering unease, she looked away from the spooked young clone and back over the beautiful alien jungle once more.
“I don’t know,” she replied quietly. “I wish I knew…”
***
Even though Cato Nemoidia had fallen to the Republic more than a month ago, the native citizens didn’t seem to realize it. Privately owned battle droids of all models kept on appearing from wealthy Nemoidians’ vaults to attack the occupying forces, keeping intervention units flying from city-span to city-span to put down the spots of resistance. The flare-ups were dangerous annoyances, but ultimately futile gestures as there was no way that the Republic would lose such a valuable Separatist planet that had cost so much to take.
Adjusting his protective goggles, Jedi Master Plo Koon examined yet another pile of wreckage left over from one of the many vain attempts to throw off Republic occupation. The droids were ancient models that hadn’t been produced for more than a century and had clearly been in poor condition before they had fallen in battle. They appeared so corroded and dented that the Jedi nursed suspicions that they’d been dug out of a junk pile and been refurbished with fresh power cells to make them battle-ready.
This could be a good sign, he thought. They could finally be running out of droids. If so, I can return to Coruscant and leave Cato Nemoidia in the hands of another Jedi.
The Kel Dor ended his study of the droid wreckage and signaled to some of his waiting clone soldiers to start clearing the battle debris from the city street. There had been no markings of ownership on any of the droids and combined with their advanced age it would be impossible to trace them to any specific Nemoidian. That meant that no one would be punished for this incident, and he found that troubling.
His species had a naturally strong sense of justice. All actions had consequences, and when a law or legal promise was broken there needed to be punishment. Cato Nemoidia had surrendered to the Republic and these constant droid attacks were violations of their legal capitulation, and so those responsible should be-
An odd feeling washed over his thick Kel Dor hide and Plo paused to listen to the Force to find out why. No clear answer presented itself to him, only a vague vision of a distant pillar of light glowing over a plain of writhing shadows. Troubled, he continued walking again, picking up the pace as he took on a fresh sense of purpose.
The next meeting of the High Council might be scheduled in three days, but I feel we must move it up. That vision…it’s important, somehow. I hope that my colleagues aren’t too inconvenienced…
***
The sun was setting on Saleucami as Jedi Master Stass Allie and her escorts returned to their base camp in one of the many oases from an excursion to an old Separatist outpost. There hadn’t been much to salvage at that location and the only reason for their late return was due to how far the ruined outpost lay from their base. Thankfully there were only a handful of abandoned enemy positions left to be surveyed and then they could leave the former Techno Union world behind.
Dismissing the two clone troopers that had been with her, the Tholothian Jedi left her speeder bike to be serviced and retreated to her private quarters. The tent was simple, but serviceable, providing privacy for meditation in addition to shelter from the elements. Once the fabric door was sealed behind her, she removed her traditional Tholoth headdress and entered into her usual evening meditation.
She reached out into the troubled currents of the Force, shadowed by years of war and suffering, and-
A buzzing tingle crackled over Stass Allie’s skin as a sudden vision struck her like a bolt from the blue. A grim vista of toxic shadows stretched out before her sight. In the distance lightning flashed, growing brighter with each pulse, although she heard no accompanying thunder. There was a final brilliant white flash that lingered and made the vile shadows bend away and retreat, and then the vision faded from her sight.
The Tholothian woman’s purple eyes snapped open as she lurched from her trance, breathing heavily and damp with sweat.
That was… She shook her head, struggling through the lingering disorientation that the unexpected vision had left her with. What was that?
A Healer and diplomat by training, she’d never been one to be struck by visions. That fact alone was enough to make it clear that what she had witnessed was very important. Regaining her composure, she put her headdress back on and strode from her tent.
“Commander Neyo, I need a secure channel to the Temple, now!”
***
Boz Pity was a graveyard planet. The native sentients had been wiped out long ago, leaving behind massive memorial stones as the only sign that they’d ever existed. Neighboring worlds had developed the tradition of bringing their dead here for burial as they saw the empty planet as hallowed ground.
The Confederacy of Independent Systems had used Boz Pity as a staging ground to launch raids on the Republic. Eventually the world had changed hands and the Separatist had been driven off. But the cost had been steep and many fresh graves of clones, Jedi, and volunteers of the Republic and the Confederacy were added to the sacred fields of headstones.
Jedi Master Nejaa Halcyon pulled his dark cloak tighter about his shoulders as he picked his way through the foggy night towards the airfield. The Republic’s base of operations was nearly as quiet as the tombs and memorials that surrounded it. Most of the troops that had occupied the camp had been shipped to other more active fronts, with the last group having followed Master Vos to Kashyyyk less than a week ago. Now there were barely enough Republic forces to hold the planet should the Separatists rally and try to take it back.
The night fog turned the airfield landing lights into spectral orbs and made the hazy silhouettes of parked Delta-7s and ARC-170s look mysterious and menacing. Ignoring the eerie atmosphere, the Corellian Jedi navigated the cluster of vehicles as he made his way to his personal fighter. Surrounded by so much death, both fresh and ancient, he felt the need to record a message for his wife and son-
A chill washed down his spine and Nejaa froze. It didn’t feel like a warning, but his eyes swept his immediate vicinity anyway out of habit. Seeing nothing amiss, he rubbed at the back of his neck and continued on his way.
What was that about? Perhaps…something happened in a nearby battle front? Or maybe…
He rounded the bulk of an ARC-170 fighter and came upon his yellow-trimmed Delta-7. Parked directly to its left was another Delta-7, this one trimmed in dark purple. And as the fog peeled back upon his approach, he noticed a figure leaning against the neighboring star-fighter.
“Ylenic,” Nejaa called out. “Is that you?”
There was no reply.
Concerned, Nejaa crept closer to find that it was who he’d thought it was. Jedi Master Ylenic It’kla sagged against his Delta-7, his large eyes vacant and staring off into space. Worried for his friend, Nejaa grabbed the other Jedi by his shoulders and gave him a shake.
“Ylenic! Ylenic, are you alright? Can you hear me?”
Slowly, as if waking from a dream, the Caamasi blinked and finally began to focus on Nejaa’s face.
“My friend,” Ylenic murmured, his sensitive nose twitching. “Did you sense it?”
“Sense what?” Nejaa asked, releasing the Caamasi’s shoulders. “That chill just now?”
“I was in the dark and I smelled smoke and sickness and old death,” the golden-furred Jedi spoke as if he hadn’t heard the Corellian. “Then there was a fresh breeze that smelled dry and clean, like a desert wind, and in the distance there was a brilliant white light…” He lifted a three-fingered hand to rest over his heart. “I feel that something important has happened. I feel…hope.”
“‘Hope,’” Nejaa repeated, tasting the word on his tongue. “Some good news at last,” he remarked with a faint smile. “Let’s report this to the Temple and see what they think of it.”
***
An afternoon thunderstorm dumped sheets of rain on the smoking wreckage that littered the beaches below the forward command center on Kashyyyk. A significant chunk of the battle droid force had been reduced to scrap and greatly weakened the Separatist’s attacking force. But the Trandoshan component of the enemy army wasn’t going to let that stop them. They were committed to taking control of Kashyyyk and enslaving the Wookiee people-a goal that they had yearned to reach for centuries.
Master Luminara Unduli stood under the shelter of a thatched roof on one of the observation platforms and watched the rain fall. Beside her stood her fellow Master, Tsui Choi, equally silent and pensive. No Wookiees or clone troops were present, giving them a brief stretch of privacy.
The Mirialan Jedi was deeply worried. Master Yoda’s unexpected departure from Kashyyyk in the midst of battle left her unsettled, and the message that he’d recorded for her hadn’t eased her mind any. But she was a Jedi and she would be patient and trust in the Grandmaster.
I really wish that I knew what drew Yoda back to Coruscant, Luminara thought. He is not some impulsive young Knight that runs off at the drop of a hat. Something of grave importance is happening…
“Patience, Master Unduli,” Tsui Choi advised quietly. “Master Yoda has probably only just arrived back at the Temple. It will take more time for him to report back to us.”
“Was my anxiety so obvious?” Luminara asked as she kept her eyes on the pouring rain.
“Only through the Force,” the Aleena replied. “Your outward composure is excellent.”
“Thank you,” she said with a slight smile, glancing down at the shorter Jedi.
The shorter Master returned her smile and opened his mouth to speak…only to snap his jaws shut and go wide-eyed.
Luminara barely thought to ask what was wrong when she sensed it, too.
Closing her eyes, she pursued the odd tingle in the Force and found herself falling into a vision. Before her stretched a dead forest cast in shadow with no clear light anywhere. Bare gray branches reached up to a darkly overcast sky like hungry twisted claws and everything was silent and still.
A sudden wind blew through the trees, making the branches rattle like bones, and through the tree trunks she saw a faint light. She couldn’t move towards it but as she watched it grew brighter and brighter. It was a pure white flame burning in the distance, growing into a bonfire that reared higher and brighter by the moment. There was a blinding flash-
…And she opened her eyes, once more perched in a treetop platform on the fringes of the Kashyyyk jungle.
“Did you see it too?” Tsui Choi asked, startling her. “Darkness everywhere like a murky marine abyss, and then a distant light-a glowing white crystal that illuminates…”
“I saw it differently,” the Mirialan murmured and clutched at the platform railing with one hand. “A black forest and a distant fire.” She shook her head and looked down at her fellow Master. “Do you think that was Master Yoda’s doing?”
“I don’t see who else it could be,” Master Choi replied as the heavy rain pounding the beach below finally began to ease. “I know of no other Jedi with the power and a deep enough connection to the Force to have such an effect.”
“You’re right,” she agreed. “It must’ve been him.”
“Come,” the Aleena beckoned to her and set off for the nearby Wookiee village. “We should record our experiences while they are still fresh in our minds.”
***
It was much later than Ahsoka realized when she slipped out of the Room of a Thousand Fountains and headed back towards her room in the Initiate Dorms. Her curfew was fast approaching but she still opted to take the scenic route through as many back hallways as possible. If anyone stopped her she planned on claiming that she was just deep in thought and hadn’t realized the time and not that she just didn’t want to go back to her room yet.
She was seventeen now and had studied to be a Jedi since she had been brought to the Temple as a small child. She’d successfully made it through numerous battlefields on dozens of different planets and survived waves of murderous droids. Surely that meant that she could choose her own bedtime.
Her wandering path eventually led her out of the narrow back corridors into one of the larger main hallways. With the late evening hour and with so many Jedi out serving in the war, the hall was empty except for her. Sensing no one, she decided to risk it and linger to admire a few old paintings that hung on the walls nearby before continuing on to her destination.
One painting of an odd pyramidal silhouette hovering over a misty mountain range and backlit by a gorgeous sunset caught her attention and drew her close enough to read the tarnished name plate attached to the frame.
“Vision of Tho Yor”… Ahsoka narrowed her blue eyes and tugged thoughtfully at her striped right head-tail. What the heck does that mean?
The Togruta girl was so distracted by unusual painting that she didn’t detect other people approaching until it was almost too late. When the sounds of echoing footsteps reached her immature montrals she almost panicked. With no real good hiding places available, she darted back down the little side corridor that she’d come from and pressed her back up against the wall just in time to avoid being seen.
“I just…I can’t believe it,” a female voice said. “He can’t be dead.”
“Well he is,” a male voice replied. “I was a part of the search and as much as I don’t want to believe it myself, there’s no way that he survived.”
“But he was here on Coruscant, not on a battlefield somewhere,” the female argued.
“Are you forgetting the Separatist attack on the Senate already, Darra?” the male snorted. “Just because we’re on Coruscant doesn’t make us immune from danger.”
“I know that!” Darra snapped. “It’s just…he was going places. He was a Knight and a General, and he’d made it through so many battles, and the Supreme Chancellor had chosen him-someone our age-over all other Jedi in the Order to represent him on the High Council. And now he’s just gone.”
The pair paused just a few steps shy of her hiding spot and Ahsoka carefully inched along the wall away from the main hallway to hopefully decrease the chance of being spotted by the older Jedi.
“I understand,” the male Jedi said. “He was one of us and his death is shocking and unexpected. But you can’t dwell on it, Darra. The war is still going on out there and you need to keep your focus or you’ll end up like him.”
“You’re heartless, Ferus!” Darra spat. “He was our friend-”
“We weren’t really friends, Darra,” Ferus interrupted. “Don’t delude yourself. You’ll never be knighted if you refuse to see things as they really are.”
Darra was silent for a long minute before the sound of footsteps started up again.
“Darra-wait!”
A pair of blurs stormed past Ahsoka’s hiding place.
“Leave me alone, Ferus!” she hissed. “It’s getting late and I’m going to bed.”
There was no further conversation between the two as one hurried after the other down the hall. When she could no longer hear their boots on the marble floor, Ahsoka stopped hiding and scampered on to her room in the Initiate Dorms. She stopped dragging her feet or pausing to puzzle over artwork and within ten minutes she reached the cluster of rooms that had been assigned to her year of the Clawmouse Clan.
Palming open the door to her small room, the young Togruta flopped down onto her simple cot and sighed.
The hall used to contain all of her clan-mates; Younglings who had shared similar potential with her and had left the crèche at the same time as she had. They’d attended many of the same classes, studied together, trained together, and played together all the way up until they’d turned eleven. Then, one by one, they’d been chosen by a mentor, assigned to a mentor, or sent off to the Service Corps, and moved out of the hall.
All except for her.
Ahsoka’s master had not invited her to move into shared quarters as she was of the opinion that that particular practice promoted attachment. So she remained in the hall as other Younglings moved into the rooms around her. They weren’t fresh from the crèche, but there was enough of an age gap between them that she felt distinctly apart from them. And soon they would begin to be chosen or assigned to masters and leave, too.
“A Jedi knows no attachment,” Master Laurial’s stern words echoed in her mind. “Not even to other Jedi. There is no bond for a Jedi, but the Force.”
Ahsoka’s lips briefly twisted into a frown and she shook the memory away. Thinking of the Sephi woman always brought up negative feelings. It brought up the disappointment that Plo Koon would not be her master and that despite her stellar records she needed to be assigned a master, that she was not chosen by anyone. And then there was the frustration (nothing she did ever seemed to be right in Master Laurial’s eyes), the loneliness (Master Laurial had always been so distant and discouraged her from making friends), and the beginnings of despair-
Enough! she chided herself. It’s late and I need to get ready for bed.
With that in mind, Ahsoka sat up on her bed and arranged herself into a meditating position. Crossing her legs underneath her, resting her hands on her knees, straightening her back, and closing her eyes, she slowed her breathing as she descended into her trance. Feeling the cool energy of the Force wash over her, she let her feelings over her past be washed away to be replaced with determination and-
A deep ringing, like from an enormous bell, vibrated through her connection to Force and the blackness behind her eyelids was washed away by light. Above her a blazing white-blue star sparked to life and its rays struck the ground around her like lasers, driving back shadows that writhed and hissed like serpents. Ahsoka looked up at the star as it grew in fits and starts, ballooning from a tiny point of light to a ball of fire that looked big enough to consume the entire Temple. The ringing grew louder, echoing in the hollow spaces in her young horns and making her teeth rattle and her bones throb. Her heart pounded with fear at the raw power she felt radiating from the light, and yet its majestic beauty called to her.
And then, with a final searing flash, her trance faltered and she was abruptly back in her silent, dimly lit room.
“What…” Ahsoka clutched at her chest, panting and struggling to get her heartrate under control. “That was… What was that?!”
***
All Obi-Wan could perceive was pure brilliant white in all directions. He was completely disoriented, yet he felt no distress over the fact. The turbulence was past and now there was only a sense of peace and serenity in the white light. There was also the presence of his late former Master holding him steady, but that was quite impossible and he tried to ignore it.
And then his fellow High Council members drifted back into his senses-violet, blue, and green lights in a sea of white.
Obi-Wan, how are you? Yoda inquired with concern.
Who is this? Shaak asked before Obi-Wan could formulate a response. Who shielded us?
It feels like Qui-Gon Jinn, Mace stated. But how can that be?
What? Obi-Wan sputtered, startled that his comrade sensed and identified the same presence. I-I don’t understand… How can this be?
I would love to explain, Qui-Gon Jinn’s familiar voice replied, but I don’t have the time so I must leave it to Yoda. However, before I move on, there is something that I’d like to show you.
Before Obi-Wan could protest, Qui-Gon’s smoke-like presence faded and thinned, and the void of white light that they floated in began to change. A swirl of color flowed into existence and slowly coalesced into a landscape of pale golden sand, cloudless blue sky, blinding sunlight, and a dusty settlement crouched on the horizon. Shifting his field of vision, Obi-Wan saw an elegant starship with graceful lines and silvery mirrored skin resting nearby…
Wait. Obi-Wan looked up and saw not one sun, but two blazing mercilessly in the sky. This…this is Tatooine, during the Trade Federation’s blockade of Naboo.
Are you certain? Shaak asked.
Absolutely, he replied. Queen Amidala’s ship was very distinctive.
Most curious, this is, Yoda mused thoughtfully.
But why are we here? Mace wondered. This is ten years before the outbreak of the war. What is so significant about this time and place?
Qui-Gon’s voice made no reply, but the vision they were experiencing abruptly shifted. The landscape blurred around them as they were thrust towards the distant settlement, the spaceport of Mos Espa. When they stopped moving they found themselves in a very poor neighborhood where crude homes were chiseled into banks of sandstone.
The only native in sight was a lone Human boy sitting on the steps of the closest hovel. He was young, perhaps nine or ten years old, with a dusty mop of fair sun-bleached hair and simple well-worn gray clothing. The youth was hunched over and carving some small object-wood, bone, or maybe ivory-in his hand with a rusty knife.
Something caught the boy’s attention and he paused to look up from his carving, revealing a tanned face and a pair of clear blue eyes. Blind to the Force presences that hovered around him, the child caught sight of something that made him smile. He left his little project on the sandy steps he’d been sitting on and scampered across the hard-packed street towards an approaching figure.
“Master Qui-Gon, sir,” the boy chirped as he skidded to a halt in front of the towering figure. “You came back!”
His old Master looked just as Obi-Wan remembered him. His Jedi robes and lightsaber were covered by a plain, dusty poncho to disguise himself in the desert spaceport and avoid notice. Looking down at the boy, the tall Jedi smiled warmly.
“Only for a little bit,” the Jedi chuckled. “I still have my mission to complete. But before I leave, I wanted to give you this.”
Qui-Gon produced a cloth pouch and presented it to the child who, upon peeking at its contents, goggled at the Jedi Master.
“There’s so much money in here!” the boy exclaimed. “Is this really for me?”
“Yes, Ani,” Qui-Gon nodded. “Those are the proceeds from selling that racing pod that you built. Since I have no more need of it, and since I can’t return it to you, this seemed like the best solution.”
“But…” the child squirmed anxiously. “Don’t you need money to fix your ship?”
“I did, and I got all the money that I needed from the race’s prize. The replacement parts have been purchased and are being installed as we speak. I have no need for this money.”
The boy still looked uncertain. “Are you really sure that you want to give me all of it?”
“I am,” the Jedi Master said firmly. “Without your help I would still be looking for a way to pay for the necessary hyperdrive parts. You’ve more than earned this. I’m only sorry that I can’t do more for you, Ani.”
Obi-Wan swallowed a sigh as he watched the vision of the past play out before him. Now he understood why his Master had been so vague about how he was getting the funds they needed by pod-racing. This child had been involved somehow, and he was one of his Master’s many charity cases.
Helping those in need was one of the most important parts of being a Jedi, but his late Master had had a bit of a problem with that. Qui-Gon had a tendency to collect unfortunate creatures, like Jar Jar Binks, during their missions and wander off on tangents to help others before getting around to solving the problem that they’d been dispatched from the Temple to deal with in the first place. While things usually worked out in the end, it often led to complications and sometimes even threatened failure of their official mission, and Obi-Wan had often times found himself struggling to keep his Master on task.
“It’s okay,” the boy said bashfully, fidgeting with the money purse. “I don’t think this is enough to free me and my mom, but it’ll be a really big help.”
He’s a slave, Shaak observed, surprised and troubled by this revelation.
Obi-Wan’s attention sharpened. As his Master had laid dying in his arms deep beneath the royal palace on Naboo, Qui-Gon had wanted him to do something for him. The older man had died before he’d been able to make his final request and now Obi-Wan suspected that this slave child might be involved in what his Master had wanted him to do.
“Yes, well, now that I’ve delivered that, it’s time for me to be going,” Qui-Gon said regretfully.
“Okay.” The slave boy immediately wilted. He peered up anxiously through his messy bangs at the taller man. “Say…Master Qui-Gon, sir? Would-would you promise not to forget me?”
The Human Jedi blinked in surprise, and then smiled. “I could never forget you, Ani.” He moved a large hand out from under the poncho and rested it on the slave boy’s shoulder. “I’ll tell you what. After my mission is complete, and after I take care of a few things back at the Jedi Temple, I’ll come back here and visit with you again. How does that sound?”
The child’s mouth dropped open and his eyes were even wider than they had been when he’d spied the large sum of money and they sparkled with a guarded bit of hope.
“You really mean that?” the boy asked, desperate to believe the Jedi. “You promise that you’ll come back?”
“I promise,” Qui-Gon said solemnly with a gentle smile. “I don’t know how long it will take, but I will come back to see you, and your mother, again.”
The slave child’s smile was ecstatic. This promise clearly meant more to him than the money that he’d received as a reward for his help. But the boy’s happiness only put a bitter taste into Obi-Wan’s mouth as he knew that his Master’s promise would not be kept, and the poor child would be left utterly disappointed.
Bouncing with barely restrained excitement, the boy slipped out from under the Jedi Master’s hand and sketched a clumsy bow.
“May the Force be with you, Master Qui-Gon, sir!” the boy said, stumbling a bit over the Order’s traditional greeting and farewell.
“And may the Force be with you, Anakin Skywalker,” the Jedi replied warmly, returning the child’s awkward bow.
Flashing the Jedi a final brilliant smile, the slave boy spun around and charged up the hovel’s uneven steps, waving the money purse and calling out to his mother. Qui-Gon watched the child go with a fond gaze before turning away and striding towards where the queen’s ship lay on the city’s outskirts. The vision ended there, as did the last vestiges of the dead Jedi’s presence, but Obi-Wan barely paid any attention to it.
His mind was focused solely on the slave boy’s name and what it meant.
Oh no…
***
Anakin lay on his back. Beneath him was the endless sandy expanse of the desert. Above him was the vast night sky filled with countless colorful stars. And he had absolutely no idea how he’d gotten there.
All that he knew was that he was exhausted and everything hurt.
As he lay there and watched the distant twinkling lights, he became aware of something flowing in the air, between the stars. Streams of multi-colored light stained by pulsing shadows ran together and branched out like rivers. It was strange and beautiful and mesmerizing and, on a whim, he reached up and dipped his right hand into the nearest part of it.
A wordless whisper of a thousand voice washed over him. A soothing tingle of energy eased his exhaustion and pushed back his pain. A promise was offered to him-that if he just let go of everything: his attachments, his memories, his name-his pain would end and he would belong forever.
This wasn’t like the Darkness. There was no hunger, no rage, no hate, no pain, no demand that he let go. The river of light only invited gently with warm welcome, if only he left behind all of the things that weighed him down. If he discarded those things, he would be light enough to be carried away…
With a sigh he reached deeper into the river of energy and-
“If you do that, Anakin, there is no coming back.”
He paused and his brow furrowed as he tried to place the voice. It sounded the same as the odd blue smoky presence-masculine, deep, strong, but gentle and warm. Hadn’t he known someone who’d had a voice like that?
“What’s so bad about that?” Anakin wondered, his hand still immersed in the shimmering flow of rainbow light.
“That is the way to become one with the Force, and once you do you will never be able to touch the ones that you love again.”
Anakin withdrew his hand from the energy flow and vaguely wondered why it wasn’t mechanical. He thought about never hugging his mother or Padmé again, or leaning against Obi-Wan’s shoulder after a trying mission. It was a distressing thought, but…would it be so bad for them?
His mother didn’t need him anymore; she had a husband and a step-son to love and dote on. Padmé definitely had no need for him; he’d kept so many secrets from her and complicated her life and she would be so much better off without him finding new ways to make things worse. And Obi-Wan would be much better off with him gone-
“Don’t think that way, Ani,” the voice scolded gently. “They would miss you just as terribly as you would miss them. And what about the ones that you haven’t met yet?”
“What do you mean?” He tore his gaze away from the panorama of stars and let his head flop to the right where he saw a man crouching beside him on the pale glowing sand. The man looked tall, broad-shouldered, almost regal, and he was quite transparent with a bluish glow. When he studied the man’s face he finally was able to place why the voice and presence were so familiar. “Master Qui-Gon…sir?”
“None other,” the dead Jedi chuckled.
“Am I dead?” Anakin rasped.
“Not yet.”
“Then…” His thoughts scrabbled in sluggish circles. “This is a dream?”
“In a sense, yes,” Qui-Gon replied. “Look up again. I want to show you something.”
Anakin blinked but did as instructed. As he gazed up at the crowded night sky, it occurred to him that it wasn’t a night sky full of stars, but lights of living beings. And then it suddenly changed. A tiny section of it zoomed in like it was part of a vid-screen until all of the little lights were eclipsed by what the dead Jedi Master wanted him to see.
It looked like a nebula, a gauzy cloud of dark dull green and blue. From deep inside it there were two hazy points of light barely shining through, like infant stars still forming from cosmic dust. The view was beautiful and he found himself smiling faintly at it in wonder, although he couldn’t figure out why.
“What is this?”
“Nothing, yet,” Qui-Gon told him.
“What?” Anakin sighed and scrubbed his oddly not-mechanical right hand over his face. “Is this a riddle? I hate riddles.”
“I don’t mean to be so mysterious,” Qui-Gon chuckled. “But as you should well know, the future is not set. And they belong to the future.”
“That doesn’t help me any,” Anakin grumbled.
“It will all become clear to you in time,” the Jedi spirit assured him.
Anakin rolled his eyes and gazed up at the hazy stellar cloud above. Flickers of green and gold sparkled through the dusty veil. He reached his hand up experimentally to see if he could touch it, only to be disappointed. Trying to probe the phenomenon with the Force gave him only hints of something warm and sleeping before the effort of focusing sparked a pounding headache.
“Don’t strain yourself, you’ve been badly hurt,” Qui-Gon warned. “You need time to heal.”
“Right,” he groaned and looked back over at the spectral Jedi Master. “So…what’s next?”
“Now you choose,” Qui-Gon said. “Stay here and become one with the Force, or return to the land of the living.”
“I can choose to stay?” Anakin wondered. “Why’d you stop me before if I was allowed to stay here?”
“Because you didn’t know what you were choosing,” the dead Jedi explained. “As I warned you, there is no going back once you have merged with the Force.”
“…What do you think I should choose?” Anakin asked wearily.
“Whatever you want,” Qui-Gon answered most unhelpfully. “It is your life to do with as you see fit, not mine.”
Whining in frustration, Anakin threw an arm over his face and tried to think. The idea of returning to his body where there was nothing but pain and problems waiting for him was very unappealing. Surely he’d earned the reward of joining with the Force, which would give him freedom from his suffering, after knocking off two Sith Lords for the Republic.
Yet what Qui-Gon had said about his mother, Padmé, and Obi-Wan, and the mystery of the shrouded lights of the future niggled at him, and made him hesitate.
“I guess…I guess I’ll put off becoming one with the Force for now,” he decided, dragging his arm from his face to look up at Qui-Gon Jinn’s gentle smile.
“Okay then, Anakin,” the Jedi spirit said and held out a transparent blue hand. “I will help you return.”
He took the ghost’s hand and was pulled to his feet. Dizzy and disoriented, he stumbled along in Master Jinn’s wake. The night sky above them and the faintly glowing desert sands under their boots began to fade, and Anakin felt heavier and slower. Eventually all that he could see was the bluish spectral form of the dead Jedi leading him through the blackness.
“Master Qui-Gon,” he piped up timidly as a sudden fear struck him. “Will I ever see you again?”
“Yes, you will, Ani,” Qui-Gon replied. “I can’t say when or where, but you will.” The Jedi looked back at him with a faint smile and started to fade. “I promise.”
“Okay,” Anakin mumbled as the Jedi Master’s spirit vanished from sight, and closed his eyes. “I’ll hold you to that…”
(Also, a long time since I've worked on it, but, whatever)
Anyway, here's the next bit, which happens to be my favorite, and also the longest chapter thus far...
Chapter 6
Visions of the Force
Quinlan Vos gazed down into the shadowy depths of the massive sinkhole and let his mind wander. The way that the Utapauan city clung to the walls in levels of rings descending downwards made him think of the slippery slope he’d struggled to navigate throughout the war. The things that he’d done to try and weasel his way into Count Dooku’s camp and how he’d pushed the boundaries a bit more every time, convinced that he was on verge of earning the Sith Lord’s trust-yet all that he’d really done was lose his way…
“General Vos?”
The Kiffar Jedi stepped back from the precipice and looked to the side where an armored clone trooper stood braced at attention.
“Yes, Commander Cody?”
“The code-slicers have found something, sir,” the clone commander reported.
“Good.” He gestured for the clone to accompany him as he started for what was left of General Grievous’s command center on Utapau. “How are things to the south?”
“It’s progressing well, sir,” Commander Cody replied. “The fighting has been contained on a single level now. The only reason we’ve had so much trouble with that spot is because there are multiple side caverns connected to that level that gave the enemy excellent firing positions. If we could use high-powered explosives we could clear out all the battle droids in half an hour.”
“No high explosives,” Master Vos responded. “We don’t want to risk collapsing the cave systems. Stick with grenades for now, and I’ll intervene myself if necessary.”
“Yes, sir.”
The rest of the hike through the winding tunnels was quiet. Commander Cody was competent and obedient like all clone troops, but there was a distance between him and his replacement commanding officer. Clone troopers tended to get attached to the Jedi that they served under, and Cody and his fellows belonged to Obi-Wan Kenobi, not Quinlan Vos. They would follow the Kiffar’s commands without question but there was no rapport, no comradery.
Why did Obi-Wan leave so abruptly? he wondered. He didn’t even wait around to hand his troops off to me. It’s not like him at all.
Setting aside the worry that had nagged at him from the moment that he’d arrived on-planet, the Jedi Master strode into the ruined Separatist command and control center. The cavern was cluttered with computers, vid-screens, holo-projectors, various consoles, and communications gear that had been hastily installed when General Grievous had descended upon Utapau. The fighting to retake the planet had left much of the equipment damaged by grenade bursts and blaster fire, and several clone troopers with electronics training were occupied in repairing what they could while code-slicers sifted through corrupted batches of data.
“You found something?” Quinlan asked as he approached the chief slicer, a black-furred female Bothan, Sali Dai’neyri.
“It took a lot of cleaning, but we’ve managed to salvage a recording of a message sent to General Grievous,” the Bothan woman informed him, and turned to one of her subordinates. “Play it.”
A hazy blue holo image flickered into view from the nearest functioning projector. It appeared to be of a Human male that was almost completely shrouded in a black hooded robe with only his mouth really visible. There were patches of static on the image and the audio was heavily corrupted, yet the important part of the message was still understandable.
“…So, they’ve fled to Mustafar,” the Jedi Master mused. “Good work, all of you. Let’s wrap things up here so that we can catch up with the Confederacy Council and see if we can’t persuade them to surrender.”
A chorus of agreement from the assembled clones and Bothans echoed through the cavern and he and Cody departed for the Republic’s command center.
“I’ll move on to that last pocket of resistance in the South after reporting this to Coruscant,” Quinlan decided as they walked. “I want Utapau to be free before we have to leave, and-”
A rush, like a stiff fresh breeze, flowed over him, freezing the Kiffar mid-stride. It wasn’t a warning, that much he was sure of, but he couldn’t identify what it actually was. Quinlan closed his eyes and searched the Force for an answer.
He sensed turbulence and swirling shadows and an obfuscating mist-all of what he’d become accustomed to detecting since the start of the war. Yet, in the distance, he perceived an odd white light flickering, like a lighthouse crouched on a stormy horizon. It was a brilliant light, but as he watched it the glow began to steadily fade.
Opening his eyes, the Jedi Master frowned pensively, ignoring the polite concern of the clone Commander beside him.
What is going on…?
***
Mygeeto was as frigid as ever as weak sunlight breached the remains of yet another blizzard. Ice-coated skyscrapers glinted in the shafts of light, briefly making the Separatist city appear to be a tangle of crystalline spires. It looked like something out of a fairy tale…except for the stretches of broken windows and burn marks some of the buildings bore-scars from the battle which had just concluded barely an hour before.
Jedi Master Ki-Adi-Mundi stood by a large window on the top floor of the tallest skyscraper and gazed out over the surrounding buildings that had become visible with the end of the blizzard. Behind him Clone Commander Bacara and his fellows stood with their helmets off and conversed with each other on the results of the battle, their losses in troops and munitions, and how to make up those deficits so that they could move on to the next city. The Cerean Jedi left them to gather the details for him and took advantage of the lull in fighting to reflect.
This city had been very difficult to take from the Muuns of the Banking Clans as it had been built over a web of deep crevasses, restricting travel between the buildings to narrow bridges. With the constant bad weather there had been no air support for the Republic’s troops, leaving them no option but to funnel themselves along the bridges where the battle droids could pick them off from superior firing positions. Defeating the Separatists here with minimal losses was an accomplishment to be proud of, not to mention it was a vital step in capturing the planet as a whole.
Yet Ki-Adi’s thoughts centered on his family instead of the next step of his campaign. He’d only visited them once since the outbreak of war and spoken to them a handful of times via the Holo-Net. The longer he went without seeing them, the more that he yearned to return to his homeworld of Cerea and embrace his wives and daughters once more.
As a Jedi, he was forbidden emotional attachments. He had taken a Bond-Wife, several Honor-Wives, and fathered daughters out of duty to his species, not to satisfy any emotional desire. Even though married, he’d done his best to hold his family at a distance to avoid violating the Jedi Code, and he had believed that he had succeeded.
But now he found himself increasingly wondering if he hadn’t failed after all, and become attached.
Closing his eyes to block out the view of the city, the Jedi Master tapped into the Force to help regain his serenity and focus-
An odd shiver flowed through the Force, and with it came a vision of a distant but brilliant orb of white light shining upon a twisting, chaotic sea of darkness and shadow.
…What is this?
No answer came to him, but he had a strong feeling that it was important somehow. Shaking off his trance the Cerean opened his eyes and turned back to face his clone troops. Noticing his attention on them, the cloned soldiers halted their discussion and turned to face their Jedi General.
“Commander Bacara, have the techs expedite their work on the communications array,” he commanded. “I need to contact Coruscant as soon as possible.”
***
Jedi Knight Aayla Secura stood on the duracrete roof of the massive bunker-like building that was the primary water treatment plant of the planet and looked over the landscape of odd translucent plants and oversized fungus growths. The leader of the Commerce Guild’s plan to poison the planet’s water table had been thwarted and the Separatists were on their last legs in this theater of the war. With the success of her mission, the blue Twi’lek had decided to let her troops catch a night of rest out of the oppressive humidity before they moved on to clean-up operations to eliminate the last vestiges of the Confederacy from Felucia.
This planet really is beautiful to look at, she mused as she wiped sweat from her head-tails. I could do without the muggy climate, though.
Folding herself into a seated lotus position, the Twi’lek Jedi delved into a meditative trance to explore the planet through the lens of the Force.
Felucia was a planet overflowing with life and as such it had strong ties to the Force, specifically the aspect of the Living Force. As Aayla reached out to the plants and animals around her, she could feel them respond to her presence. It was a humbling and beautiful experience and she was glad that she finally had a quiet moment to really enjoy it.
I’m glad that we were able to save this world, the Knight thought as she started to withdraw her awareness back to the limits of her body. It would’ve been a tragedy if all of this had been destroyed-
A powerful ripple in the Force jolted her from her trance and sent her running to the edge of the roof. Below her the landscape seemed to shiver as plant life swayed as if caught in a strong wind and several giant flying insects burst into the cloudy sky. The humid air echoed with the cries of startled and confused animals, and even a few shouts from her clone troops as they tried to keep their Giant Ground Beetle mounts calm.
And then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the Force-spawned disruption of Felucia’s ecosystem tapered off.
“General Secura!”
The Jedi General whipped her head around, still agitated from the surge in the Force, to see one of her clone soldiers stumbling out onto the roof towards her. He wasn’t Commander Bly, but one of the basic grunts-a replacement fresh from Kamino on his first deployment. He’d been preparing to bunk down for the night as he was half-out of his armor and hadn’t wasted any time putting it all back on.
“General Secura, what’s going on?”
Struggling to shake off her lingering unease, she looked away from the spooked young clone and back over the beautiful alien jungle once more.
“I don’t know,” she replied quietly. “I wish I knew…”
***
Even though Cato Nemoidia had fallen to the Republic more than a month ago, the native citizens didn’t seem to realize it. Privately owned battle droids of all models kept on appearing from wealthy Nemoidians’ vaults to attack the occupying forces, keeping intervention units flying from city-span to city-span to put down the spots of resistance. The flare-ups were dangerous annoyances, but ultimately futile gestures as there was no way that the Republic would lose such a valuable Separatist planet that had cost so much to take.
Adjusting his protective goggles, Jedi Master Plo Koon examined yet another pile of wreckage left over from one of the many vain attempts to throw off Republic occupation. The droids were ancient models that hadn’t been produced for more than a century and had clearly been in poor condition before they had fallen in battle. They appeared so corroded and dented that the Jedi nursed suspicions that they’d been dug out of a junk pile and been refurbished with fresh power cells to make them battle-ready.
This could be a good sign, he thought. They could finally be running out of droids. If so, I can return to Coruscant and leave Cato Nemoidia in the hands of another Jedi.
The Kel Dor ended his study of the droid wreckage and signaled to some of his waiting clone soldiers to start clearing the battle debris from the city street. There had been no markings of ownership on any of the droids and combined with their advanced age it would be impossible to trace them to any specific Nemoidian. That meant that no one would be punished for this incident, and he found that troubling.
His species had a naturally strong sense of justice. All actions had consequences, and when a law or legal promise was broken there needed to be punishment. Cato Nemoidia had surrendered to the Republic and these constant droid attacks were violations of their legal capitulation, and so those responsible should be-
An odd feeling washed over his thick Kel Dor hide and Plo paused to listen to the Force to find out why. No clear answer presented itself to him, only a vague vision of a distant pillar of light glowing over a plain of writhing shadows. Troubled, he continued walking again, picking up the pace as he took on a fresh sense of purpose.
The next meeting of the High Council might be scheduled in three days, but I feel we must move it up. That vision…it’s important, somehow. I hope that my colleagues aren’t too inconvenienced…
***
The sun was setting on Saleucami as Jedi Master Stass Allie and her escorts returned to their base camp in one of the many oases from an excursion to an old Separatist outpost. There hadn’t been much to salvage at that location and the only reason for their late return was due to how far the ruined outpost lay from their base. Thankfully there were only a handful of abandoned enemy positions left to be surveyed and then they could leave the former Techno Union world behind.
Dismissing the two clone troopers that had been with her, the Tholothian Jedi left her speeder bike to be serviced and retreated to her private quarters. The tent was simple, but serviceable, providing privacy for meditation in addition to shelter from the elements. Once the fabric door was sealed behind her, she removed her traditional Tholoth headdress and entered into her usual evening meditation.
She reached out into the troubled currents of the Force, shadowed by years of war and suffering, and-
A buzzing tingle crackled over Stass Allie’s skin as a sudden vision struck her like a bolt from the blue. A grim vista of toxic shadows stretched out before her sight. In the distance lightning flashed, growing brighter with each pulse, although she heard no accompanying thunder. There was a final brilliant white flash that lingered and made the vile shadows bend away and retreat, and then the vision faded from her sight.
The Tholothian woman’s purple eyes snapped open as she lurched from her trance, breathing heavily and damp with sweat.
That was… She shook her head, struggling through the lingering disorientation that the unexpected vision had left her with. What was that?
A Healer and diplomat by training, she’d never been one to be struck by visions. That fact alone was enough to make it clear that what she had witnessed was very important. Regaining her composure, she put her headdress back on and strode from her tent.
“Commander Neyo, I need a secure channel to the Temple, now!”
***
Boz Pity was a graveyard planet. The native sentients had been wiped out long ago, leaving behind massive memorial stones as the only sign that they’d ever existed. Neighboring worlds had developed the tradition of bringing their dead here for burial as they saw the empty planet as hallowed ground.
The Confederacy of Independent Systems had used Boz Pity as a staging ground to launch raids on the Republic. Eventually the world had changed hands and the Separatist had been driven off. But the cost had been steep and many fresh graves of clones, Jedi, and volunteers of the Republic and the Confederacy were added to the sacred fields of headstones.
Jedi Master Nejaa Halcyon pulled his dark cloak tighter about his shoulders as he picked his way through the foggy night towards the airfield. The Republic’s base of operations was nearly as quiet as the tombs and memorials that surrounded it. Most of the troops that had occupied the camp had been shipped to other more active fronts, with the last group having followed Master Vos to Kashyyyk less than a week ago. Now there were barely enough Republic forces to hold the planet should the Separatists rally and try to take it back.
The night fog turned the airfield landing lights into spectral orbs and made the hazy silhouettes of parked Delta-7s and ARC-170s look mysterious and menacing. Ignoring the eerie atmosphere, the Corellian Jedi navigated the cluster of vehicles as he made his way to his personal fighter. Surrounded by so much death, both fresh and ancient, he felt the need to record a message for his wife and son-
A chill washed down his spine and Nejaa froze. It didn’t feel like a warning, but his eyes swept his immediate vicinity anyway out of habit. Seeing nothing amiss, he rubbed at the back of his neck and continued on his way.
What was that about? Perhaps…something happened in a nearby battle front? Or maybe…
He rounded the bulk of an ARC-170 fighter and came upon his yellow-trimmed Delta-7. Parked directly to its left was another Delta-7, this one trimmed in dark purple. And as the fog peeled back upon his approach, he noticed a figure leaning against the neighboring star-fighter.
“Ylenic,” Nejaa called out. “Is that you?”
There was no reply.
Concerned, Nejaa crept closer to find that it was who he’d thought it was. Jedi Master Ylenic It’kla sagged against his Delta-7, his large eyes vacant and staring off into space. Worried for his friend, Nejaa grabbed the other Jedi by his shoulders and gave him a shake.
“Ylenic! Ylenic, are you alright? Can you hear me?”
Slowly, as if waking from a dream, the Caamasi blinked and finally began to focus on Nejaa’s face.
“My friend,” Ylenic murmured, his sensitive nose twitching. “Did you sense it?”
“Sense what?” Nejaa asked, releasing the Caamasi’s shoulders. “That chill just now?”
“I was in the dark and I smelled smoke and sickness and old death,” the golden-furred Jedi spoke as if he hadn’t heard the Corellian. “Then there was a fresh breeze that smelled dry and clean, like a desert wind, and in the distance there was a brilliant white light…” He lifted a three-fingered hand to rest over his heart. “I feel that something important has happened. I feel…hope.”
“‘Hope,’” Nejaa repeated, tasting the word on his tongue. “Some good news at last,” he remarked with a faint smile. “Let’s report this to the Temple and see what they think of it.”
***
An afternoon thunderstorm dumped sheets of rain on the smoking wreckage that littered the beaches below the forward command center on Kashyyyk. A significant chunk of the battle droid force had been reduced to scrap and greatly weakened the Separatist’s attacking force. But the Trandoshan component of the enemy army wasn’t going to let that stop them. They were committed to taking control of Kashyyyk and enslaving the Wookiee people-a goal that they had yearned to reach for centuries.
Master Luminara Unduli stood under the shelter of a thatched roof on one of the observation platforms and watched the rain fall. Beside her stood her fellow Master, Tsui Choi, equally silent and pensive. No Wookiees or clone troops were present, giving them a brief stretch of privacy.
The Mirialan Jedi was deeply worried. Master Yoda’s unexpected departure from Kashyyyk in the midst of battle left her unsettled, and the message that he’d recorded for her hadn’t eased her mind any. But she was a Jedi and she would be patient and trust in the Grandmaster.
I really wish that I knew what drew Yoda back to Coruscant, Luminara thought. He is not some impulsive young Knight that runs off at the drop of a hat. Something of grave importance is happening…
“Patience, Master Unduli,” Tsui Choi advised quietly. “Master Yoda has probably only just arrived back at the Temple. It will take more time for him to report back to us.”
“Was my anxiety so obvious?” Luminara asked as she kept her eyes on the pouring rain.
“Only through the Force,” the Aleena replied. “Your outward composure is excellent.”
“Thank you,” she said with a slight smile, glancing down at the shorter Jedi.
The shorter Master returned her smile and opened his mouth to speak…only to snap his jaws shut and go wide-eyed.
Luminara barely thought to ask what was wrong when she sensed it, too.
Closing her eyes, she pursued the odd tingle in the Force and found herself falling into a vision. Before her stretched a dead forest cast in shadow with no clear light anywhere. Bare gray branches reached up to a darkly overcast sky like hungry twisted claws and everything was silent and still.
A sudden wind blew through the trees, making the branches rattle like bones, and through the tree trunks she saw a faint light. She couldn’t move towards it but as she watched it grew brighter and brighter. It was a pure white flame burning in the distance, growing into a bonfire that reared higher and brighter by the moment. There was a blinding flash-
…And she opened her eyes, once more perched in a treetop platform on the fringes of the Kashyyyk jungle.
“Did you see it too?” Tsui Choi asked, startling her. “Darkness everywhere like a murky marine abyss, and then a distant light-a glowing white crystal that illuminates…”
“I saw it differently,” the Mirialan murmured and clutched at the platform railing with one hand. “A black forest and a distant fire.” She shook her head and looked down at her fellow Master. “Do you think that was Master Yoda’s doing?”
“I don’t see who else it could be,” Master Choi replied as the heavy rain pounding the beach below finally began to ease. “I know of no other Jedi with the power and a deep enough connection to the Force to have such an effect.”
“You’re right,” she agreed. “It must’ve been him.”
“Come,” the Aleena beckoned to her and set off for the nearby Wookiee village. “We should record our experiences while they are still fresh in our minds.”
***
It was much later than Ahsoka realized when she slipped out of the Room of a Thousand Fountains and headed back towards her room in the Initiate Dorms. Her curfew was fast approaching but she still opted to take the scenic route through as many back hallways as possible. If anyone stopped her she planned on claiming that she was just deep in thought and hadn’t realized the time and not that she just didn’t want to go back to her room yet.
She was seventeen now and had studied to be a Jedi since she had been brought to the Temple as a small child. She’d successfully made it through numerous battlefields on dozens of different planets and survived waves of murderous droids. Surely that meant that she could choose her own bedtime.
Her wandering path eventually led her out of the narrow back corridors into one of the larger main hallways. With the late evening hour and with so many Jedi out serving in the war, the hall was empty except for her. Sensing no one, she decided to risk it and linger to admire a few old paintings that hung on the walls nearby before continuing on to her destination.
One painting of an odd pyramidal silhouette hovering over a misty mountain range and backlit by a gorgeous sunset caught her attention and drew her close enough to read the tarnished name plate attached to the frame.
“Vision of Tho Yor”… Ahsoka narrowed her blue eyes and tugged thoughtfully at her striped right head-tail. What the heck does that mean?
The Togruta girl was so distracted by unusual painting that she didn’t detect other people approaching until it was almost too late. When the sounds of echoing footsteps reached her immature montrals she almost panicked. With no real good hiding places available, she darted back down the little side corridor that she’d come from and pressed her back up against the wall just in time to avoid being seen.
“I just…I can’t believe it,” a female voice said. “He can’t be dead.”
“Well he is,” a male voice replied. “I was a part of the search and as much as I don’t want to believe it myself, there’s no way that he survived.”
“But he was here on Coruscant, not on a battlefield somewhere,” the female argued.
“Are you forgetting the Separatist attack on the Senate already, Darra?” the male snorted. “Just because we’re on Coruscant doesn’t make us immune from danger.”
“I know that!” Darra snapped. “It’s just…he was going places. He was a Knight and a General, and he’d made it through so many battles, and the Supreme Chancellor had chosen him-someone our age-over all other Jedi in the Order to represent him on the High Council. And now he’s just gone.”
The pair paused just a few steps shy of her hiding spot and Ahsoka carefully inched along the wall away from the main hallway to hopefully decrease the chance of being spotted by the older Jedi.
“I understand,” the male Jedi said. “He was one of us and his death is shocking and unexpected. But you can’t dwell on it, Darra. The war is still going on out there and you need to keep your focus or you’ll end up like him.”
“You’re heartless, Ferus!” Darra spat. “He was our friend-”
“We weren’t really friends, Darra,” Ferus interrupted. “Don’t delude yourself. You’ll never be knighted if you refuse to see things as they really are.”
Darra was silent for a long minute before the sound of footsteps started up again.
“Darra-wait!”
A pair of blurs stormed past Ahsoka’s hiding place.
“Leave me alone, Ferus!” she hissed. “It’s getting late and I’m going to bed.”
There was no further conversation between the two as one hurried after the other down the hall. When she could no longer hear their boots on the marble floor, Ahsoka stopped hiding and scampered on to her room in the Initiate Dorms. She stopped dragging her feet or pausing to puzzle over artwork and within ten minutes she reached the cluster of rooms that had been assigned to her year of the Clawmouse Clan.
Palming open the door to her small room, the young Togruta flopped down onto her simple cot and sighed.
The hall used to contain all of her clan-mates; Younglings who had shared similar potential with her and had left the crèche at the same time as she had. They’d attended many of the same classes, studied together, trained together, and played together all the way up until they’d turned eleven. Then, one by one, they’d been chosen by a mentor, assigned to a mentor, or sent off to the Service Corps, and moved out of the hall.
All except for her.
Ahsoka’s master had not invited her to move into shared quarters as she was of the opinion that that particular practice promoted attachment. So she remained in the hall as other Younglings moved into the rooms around her. They weren’t fresh from the crèche, but there was enough of an age gap between them that she felt distinctly apart from them. And soon they would begin to be chosen or assigned to masters and leave, too.
“A Jedi knows no attachment,” Master Laurial’s stern words echoed in her mind. “Not even to other Jedi. There is no bond for a Jedi, but the Force.”
Ahsoka’s lips briefly twisted into a frown and she shook the memory away. Thinking of the Sephi woman always brought up negative feelings. It brought up the disappointment that Plo Koon would not be her master and that despite her stellar records she needed to be assigned a master, that she was not chosen by anyone. And then there was the frustration (nothing she did ever seemed to be right in Master Laurial’s eyes), the loneliness (Master Laurial had always been so distant and discouraged her from making friends), and the beginnings of despair-
Enough! she chided herself. It’s late and I need to get ready for bed.
With that in mind, Ahsoka sat up on her bed and arranged herself into a meditating position. Crossing her legs underneath her, resting her hands on her knees, straightening her back, and closing her eyes, she slowed her breathing as she descended into her trance. Feeling the cool energy of the Force wash over her, she let her feelings over her past be washed away to be replaced with determination and-
A deep ringing, like from an enormous bell, vibrated through her connection to Force and the blackness behind her eyelids was washed away by light. Above her a blazing white-blue star sparked to life and its rays struck the ground around her like lasers, driving back shadows that writhed and hissed like serpents. Ahsoka looked up at the star as it grew in fits and starts, ballooning from a tiny point of light to a ball of fire that looked big enough to consume the entire Temple. The ringing grew louder, echoing in the hollow spaces in her young horns and making her teeth rattle and her bones throb. Her heart pounded with fear at the raw power she felt radiating from the light, and yet its majestic beauty called to her.
And then, with a final searing flash, her trance faltered and she was abruptly back in her silent, dimly lit room.
“What…” Ahsoka clutched at her chest, panting and struggling to get her heartrate under control. “That was… What was that?!”
***
All Obi-Wan could perceive was pure brilliant white in all directions. He was completely disoriented, yet he felt no distress over the fact. The turbulence was past and now there was only a sense of peace and serenity in the white light. There was also the presence of his late former Master holding him steady, but that was quite impossible and he tried to ignore it.
And then his fellow High Council members drifted back into his senses-violet, blue, and green lights in a sea of white.
Obi-Wan, how are you? Yoda inquired with concern.
Who is this? Shaak asked before Obi-Wan could formulate a response. Who shielded us?
It feels like Qui-Gon Jinn, Mace stated. But how can that be?
What? Obi-Wan sputtered, startled that his comrade sensed and identified the same presence. I-I don’t understand… How can this be?
I would love to explain, Qui-Gon Jinn’s familiar voice replied, but I don’t have the time so I must leave it to Yoda. However, before I move on, there is something that I’d like to show you.
Before Obi-Wan could protest, Qui-Gon’s smoke-like presence faded and thinned, and the void of white light that they floated in began to change. A swirl of color flowed into existence and slowly coalesced into a landscape of pale golden sand, cloudless blue sky, blinding sunlight, and a dusty settlement crouched on the horizon. Shifting his field of vision, Obi-Wan saw an elegant starship with graceful lines and silvery mirrored skin resting nearby…
Wait. Obi-Wan looked up and saw not one sun, but two blazing mercilessly in the sky. This…this is Tatooine, during the Trade Federation’s blockade of Naboo.
Are you certain? Shaak asked.
Absolutely, he replied. Queen Amidala’s ship was very distinctive.
Most curious, this is, Yoda mused thoughtfully.
But why are we here? Mace wondered. This is ten years before the outbreak of the war. What is so significant about this time and place?
Qui-Gon’s voice made no reply, but the vision they were experiencing abruptly shifted. The landscape blurred around them as they were thrust towards the distant settlement, the spaceport of Mos Espa. When they stopped moving they found themselves in a very poor neighborhood where crude homes were chiseled into banks of sandstone.
The only native in sight was a lone Human boy sitting on the steps of the closest hovel. He was young, perhaps nine or ten years old, with a dusty mop of fair sun-bleached hair and simple well-worn gray clothing. The youth was hunched over and carving some small object-wood, bone, or maybe ivory-in his hand with a rusty knife.
Something caught the boy’s attention and he paused to look up from his carving, revealing a tanned face and a pair of clear blue eyes. Blind to the Force presences that hovered around him, the child caught sight of something that made him smile. He left his little project on the sandy steps he’d been sitting on and scampered across the hard-packed street towards an approaching figure.
“Master Qui-Gon, sir,” the boy chirped as he skidded to a halt in front of the towering figure. “You came back!”
His old Master looked just as Obi-Wan remembered him. His Jedi robes and lightsaber were covered by a plain, dusty poncho to disguise himself in the desert spaceport and avoid notice. Looking down at the boy, the tall Jedi smiled warmly.
“Only for a little bit,” the Jedi chuckled. “I still have my mission to complete. But before I leave, I wanted to give you this.”
Qui-Gon produced a cloth pouch and presented it to the child who, upon peeking at its contents, goggled at the Jedi Master.
“There’s so much money in here!” the boy exclaimed. “Is this really for me?”
“Yes, Ani,” Qui-Gon nodded. “Those are the proceeds from selling that racing pod that you built. Since I have no more need of it, and since I can’t return it to you, this seemed like the best solution.”
“But…” the child squirmed anxiously. “Don’t you need money to fix your ship?”
“I did, and I got all the money that I needed from the race’s prize. The replacement parts have been purchased and are being installed as we speak. I have no need for this money.”
The boy still looked uncertain. “Are you really sure that you want to give me all of it?”
“I am,” the Jedi Master said firmly. “Without your help I would still be looking for a way to pay for the necessary hyperdrive parts. You’ve more than earned this. I’m only sorry that I can’t do more for you, Ani.”
Obi-Wan swallowed a sigh as he watched the vision of the past play out before him. Now he understood why his Master had been so vague about how he was getting the funds they needed by pod-racing. This child had been involved somehow, and he was one of his Master’s many charity cases.
Helping those in need was one of the most important parts of being a Jedi, but his late Master had had a bit of a problem with that. Qui-Gon had a tendency to collect unfortunate creatures, like Jar Jar Binks, during their missions and wander off on tangents to help others before getting around to solving the problem that they’d been dispatched from the Temple to deal with in the first place. While things usually worked out in the end, it often led to complications and sometimes even threatened failure of their official mission, and Obi-Wan had often times found himself struggling to keep his Master on task.
“It’s okay,” the boy said bashfully, fidgeting with the money purse. “I don’t think this is enough to free me and my mom, but it’ll be a really big help.”
He’s a slave, Shaak observed, surprised and troubled by this revelation.
Obi-Wan’s attention sharpened. As his Master had laid dying in his arms deep beneath the royal palace on Naboo, Qui-Gon had wanted him to do something for him. The older man had died before he’d been able to make his final request and now Obi-Wan suspected that this slave child might be involved in what his Master had wanted him to do.
“Yes, well, now that I’ve delivered that, it’s time for me to be going,” Qui-Gon said regretfully.
“Okay.” The slave boy immediately wilted. He peered up anxiously through his messy bangs at the taller man. “Say…Master Qui-Gon, sir? Would-would you promise not to forget me?”
The Human Jedi blinked in surprise, and then smiled. “I could never forget you, Ani.” He moved a large hand out from under the poncho and rested it on the slave boy’s shoulder. “I’ll tell you what. After my mission is complete, and after I take care of a few things back at the Jedi Temple, I’ll come back here and visit with you again. How does that sound?”
The child’s mouth dropped open and his eyes were even wider than they had been when he’d spied the large sum of money and they sparkled with a guarded bit of hope.
“You really mean that?” the boy asked, desperate to believe the Jedi. “You promise that you’ll come back?”
“I promise,” Qui-Gon said solemnly with a gentle smile. “I don’t know how long it will take, but I will come back to see you, and your mother, again.”
The slave child’s smile was ecstatic. This promise clearly meant more to him than the money that he’d received as a reward for his help. But the boy’s happiness only put a bitter taste into Obi-Wan’s mouth as he knew that his Master’s promise would not be kept, and the poor child would be left utterly disappointed.
Bouncing with barely restrained excitement, the boy slipped out from under the Jedi Master’s hand and sketched a clumsy bow.
“May the Force be with you, Master Qui-Gon, sir!” the boy said, stumbling a bit over the Order’s traditional greeting and farewell.
“And may the Force be with you, Anakin Skywalker,” the Jedi replied warmly, returning the child’s awkward bow.
Flashing the Jedi a final brilliant smile, the slave boy spun around and charged up the hovel’s uneven steps, waving the money purse and calling out to his mother. Qui-Gon watched the child go with a fond gaze before turning away and striding towards where the queen’s ship lay on the city’s outskirts. The vision ended there, as did the last vestiges of the dead Jedi’s presence, but Obi-Wan barely paid any attention to it.
His mind was focused solely on the slave boy’s name and what it meant.
Oh no…
***
Anakin lay on his back. Beneath him was the endless sandy expanse of the desert. Above him was the vast night sky filled with countless colorful stars. And he had absolutely no idea how he’d gotten there.
All that he knew was that he was exhausted and everything hurt.
As he lay there and watched the distant twinkling lights, he became aware of something flowing in the air, between the stars. Streams of multi-colored light stained by pulsing shadows ran together and branched out like rivers. It was strange and beautiful and mesmerizing and, on a whim, he reached up and dipped his right hand into the nearest part of it.
A wordless whisper of a thousand voice washed over him. A soothing tingle of energy eased his exhaustion and pushed back his pain. A promise was offered to him-that if he just let go of everything: his attachments, his memories, his name-his pain would end and he would belong forever.
This wasn’t like the Darkness. There was no hunger, no rage, no hate, no pain, no demand that he let go. The river of light only invited gently with warm welcome, if only he left behind all of the things that weighed him down. If he discarded those things, he would be light enough to be carried away…
With a sigh he reached deeper into the river of energy and-
“If you do that, Anakin, there is no coming back.”
He paused and his brow furrowed as he tried to place the voice. It sounded the same as the odd blue smoky presence-masculine, deep, strong, but gentle and warm. Hadn’t he known someone who’d had a voice like that?
“What’s so bad about that?” Anakin wondered, his hand still immersed in the shimmering flow of rainbow light.
“That is the way to become one with the Force, and once you do you will never be able to touch the ones that you love again.”
Anakin withdrew his hand from the energy flow and vaguely wondered why it wasn’t mechanical. He thought about never hugging his mother or Padmé again, or leaning against Obi-Wan’s shoulder after a trying mission. It was a distressing thought, but…would it be so bad for them?
His mother didn’t need him anymore; she had a husband and a step-son to love and dote on. Padmé definitely had no need for him; he’d kept so many secrets from her and complicated her life and she would be so much better off without him finding new ways to make things worse. And Obi-Wan would be much better off with him gone-
“Don’t think that way, Ani,” the voice scolded gently. “They would miss you just as terribly as you would miss them. And what about the ones that you haven’t met yet?”
“What do you mean?” He tore his gaze away from the panorama of stars and let his head flop to the right where he saw a man crouching beside him on the pale glowing sand. The man looked tall, broad-shouldered, almost regal, and he was quite transparent with a bluish glow. When he studied the man’s face he finally was able to place why the voice and presence were so familiar. “Master Qui-Gon…sir?”
“None other,” the dead Jedi chuckled.
“Am I dead?” Anakin rasped.
“Not yet.”
“Then…” His thoughts scrabbled in sluggish circles. “This is a dream?”
“In a sense, yes,” Qui-Gon replied. “Look up again. I want to show you something.”
Anakin blinked but did as instructed. As he gazed up at the crowded night sky, it occurred to him that it wasn’t a night sky full of stars, but lights of living beings. And then it suddenly changed. A tiny section of it zoomed in like it was part of a vid-screen until all of the little lights were eclipsed by what the dead Jedi Master wanted him to see.
It looked like a nebula, a gauzy cloud of dark dull green and blue. From deep inside it there were two hazy points of light barely shining through, like infant stars still forming from cosmic dust. The view was beautiful and he found himself smiling faintly at it in wonder, although he couldn’t figure out why.
“What is this?”
“Nothing, yet,” Qui-Gon told him.
“What?” Anakin sighed and scrubbed his oddly not-mechanical right hand over his face. “Is this a riddle? I hate riddles.”
“I don’t mean to be so mysterious,” Qui-Gon chuckled. “But as you should well know, the future is not set. And they belong to the future.”
“That doesn’t help me any,” Anakin grumbled.
“It will all become clear to you in time,” the Jedi spirit assured him.
Anakin rolled his eyes and gazed up at the hazy stellar cloud above. Flickers of green and gold sparkled through the dusty veil. He reached his hand up experimentally to see if he could touch it, only to be disappointed. Trying to probe the phenomenon with the Force gave him only hints of something warm and sleeping before the effort of focusing sparked a pounding headache.
“Don’t strain yourself, you’ve been badly hurt,” Qui-Gon warned. “You need time to heal.”
“Right,” he groaned and looked back over at the spectral Jedi Master. “So…what’s next?”
“Now you choose,” Qui-Gon said. “Stay here and become one with the Force, or return to the land of the living.”
“I can choose to stay?” Anakin wondered. “Why’d you stop me before if I was allowed to stay here?”
“Because you didn’t know what you were choosing,” the dead Jedi explained. “As I warned you, there is no going back once you have merged with the Force.”
“…What do you think I should choose?” Anakin asked wearily.
“Whatever you want,” Qui-Gon answered most unhelpfully. “It is your life to do with as you see fit, not mine.”
Whining in frustration, Anakin threw an arm over his face and tried to think. The idea of returning to his body where there was nothing but pain and problems waiting for him was very unappealing. Surely he’d earned the reward of joining with the Force, which would give him freedom from his suffering, after knocking off two Sith Lords for the Republic.
Yet what Qui-Gon had said about his mother, Padmé, and Obi-Wan, and the mystery of the shrouded lights of the future niggled at him, and made him hesitate.
“I guess…I guess I’ll put off becoming one with the Force for now,” he decided, dragging his arm from his face to look up at Qui-Gon Jinn’s gentle smile.
“Okay then, Anakin,” the Jedi spirit said and held out a transparent blue hand. “I will help you return.”
He took the ghost’s hand and was pulled to his feet. Dizzy and disoriented, he stumbled along in Master Jinn’s wake. The night sky above them and the faintly glowing desert sands under their boots began to fade, and Anakin felt heavier and slower. Eventually all that he could see was the bluish spectral form of the dead Jedi leading him through the blackness.
“Master Qui-Gon,” he piped up timidly as a sudden fear struck him. “Will I ever see you again?”
“Yes, you will, Ani,” Qui-Gon replied. “I can’t say when or where, but you will.” The Jedi looked back at him with a faint smile and started to fade. “I promise.”
“Okay,” Anakin mumbled as the Jedi Master’s spirit vanished from sight, and closed his eyes. “I’ll hold you to that…”