The Force Wills - Chapter 137

I waved off Captain Typho as he took Padme’s senatorial speeder back into the distant air lanes that surrounded the Jedi Temple.

For a moment, I stood rooted to my spot, only feeling the wind that blasted over the primary landing platform of the Temple.

It was so nice to be on a planet, that deep down in my heart, I considered a home. Yes, Coruscant was in many respects a horrible place from many points of view, but I had grown up here in the Temple. Nothing could replace those formative years. Naboo and Concordia were my second homes, at some point I would probably hold more immediate fondness for both.

I grabbed my backpack and war chest, shouldered the former, engaged the repulsors of the latter and walked into the primary Temple hangar.

This early in the morning it was its usual bustle, with contractors and Jedi working on more than a dozen different ships - the rattle of power tools, welders, the hum of overhead tractor beams moving heavy equipment and hull panels. Most Jedi here were too busy to even look in my direction, though I could feel the odd probe through the Force as the more sensitive ones sent their perceptions in my direction.

I could probably do more to rein in my Force presence, but I was just too weary at the moment - not in body, but in spirit. Yes, just coming from a two week vacation to Zeltros should’ve relaxed anyone, but a crash course on the Matukai arts was not a holiday. So while all my primary masking and stealth was in place, the training under Master Kohl had pushed me considerably further than what I had bargained on. It was an ongoing effort to moderate myself and most of it had been done on the four day journey to Coruscant.

Beyond the hangar, I walked into the pristine and serene majestic hallways of the temple - which I couldn’t help but feel I was disturbing in some manner. Sure, it wasn’t everyday that I walked in my beskar’gam (minus the helmet) through these halls, but I hadn’t come back in my own ship to leave it behind.  

Most of the Jedi I passed didn’t blink twice, but a few adepts and younglings outright gawped and stared as I went about my way.

Their hushed whispers naturally carried to my montrals despite their attempts to be discreet.

“Is that-?”

“Yes, the Mandalorian Jedi…”

“It’d be so wizard if she could teach our class.”

“It’d definitely be better than-”

“Hush, you realize as a togruta, she doesn’t even need the Force to hear you two,” said a young female adept pointedly.

Naturally, I couldn’t resist that moment, turning my head to give them a pointed side-eye.

They quickly scampered to catch up to the rest of their class.

The journey to Anakin’s temple quarters was a relaxed amble, which I firmly fixed in memory, enjoying every moment. Too much was in flux and I had to treasure the temple as it was now. The war was nearing the end of its second year and the critical moment was looming ever closer.

I paused at the door, my hand hovering over the controls, before I chuckled and used the Force on the internal locking mechanisms, letting the ID scanner also do its thing.

“Should I even bother getting unpacked, Master Yoda?” I asked, stepping inside.

Yoda was in his usual beige leggings and tunic, seated on a meditation cushion with his gimer stick in his lap and patiently waiting.

His high-pitched throaty laugh echoed in the apartment and green-gold eyes twinkled at me. “Urgent, this is not, Padawan Tano. Only leave again, in two days, you will.”

“Not that long, but I’ll take it,” I grinned and quickly hurried into my own room.

I dumped everything and took the time to don my version of Jedi attire.

When I sat down on the opposite meditation cushion from Yoda, the diminutive grandmaster was staring at me with narrowed curious eyes. “Hmm, the Force has changed in you. Grown yet stirring along new paths. Paths that are also old. Many centuries since I saw it last.”

I folded my hands on my lap and only nodded. Trust Yoda to figure it out in mere seconds.

“Much time we will soon have to discuss. Yes. Now, other duty and training for you, I have. The Gathering you must oversee.”

Ah.

One of the most sacred rites that Jedi adepts underwent during their journey through training, which firmly put them on the path to padawan. It was a coming of age moment, where young Jedi were also sent for the first time and into the wild currents of the galaxy with supervision.

Having undergone my own Gathering rite, I knew what to do in general, but there was much behind the scenes that also went into it, which was why Yoda was here.

“So you’ll be teaching me hyperspace navigation?”

“Yes, begin immediately we shall. Know you do, that in the Force, time, space, can matter little. In hyperspace, even more so. A sufficiently trained Jedi, see a ship’s path they can, guide it from danger, find the narrow safe path between singularity, planet, black hole.”

Yoda held out his clawed hand, palm up.

I raised my hand and laid it on his without hesitation.

In the blink of an eye, we were no longer in the Jedi Temple or on Coruscant.

Our minds were in an infinite blue-white expanse.

At first it was totally featureless, but then when my perceptions had adjusted I realized that in the far distance, a smooth upward curve or ‘gradient’ nearly 12 000 kilometers away stretched ‘up’. How I knew that was another question as it just popped into my mind the moment I thought about it. It was as if I was literally remembering or just knowing, because I had always known and would know.

‘Careful you must be,’ Yoda told me. ‘Focus. Dangerous it is. Lose yourself, you will.’

I could only agree as I was seeing the influence of Coruscant’s gravity on hyperspace. 

Yoda’s mind grabbed my own and with a deliberate will, we were pushing our senses through hyper and a moment earlier… or was it later? Our perspective was of the entire star system.

‘When navigating, your anchor, even more critical it is. It must be not just the ship, but also the hyperdrive itself. Use it almost like a lightsaber, you must…’

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Thankfully, whilst hyper navigation through the Force was something you could take a lifetime to immerse yourself in its intricacies and you could make your career as a Jedi navigator in the Explorer corps, it wasn’t so difficult that you had to train years for a general proficiency. Yoda had shown me the way, let me experience hundreds of memories of successful navigation which he himself had undertaken with various ships.

He had even taken me down into the bowels of the temple, where the Explorer division had a hyperdrive mockup simulator that only partially interfaced with the other dimension. Enough for sensors and data to let a prospective navigator know whether they had properly ‘driven’ the hyperdrive or crashed the ship into a star.

That done, they had me interface with it and simulate the hyper navigation I would need to achieve to properly travel to our destination of Ilum.

My first try was obviously a nasty failure - smacking the simulated ship straight into a pulsar.

The damn thing was so pretty in hyperspace and my distraction had cost me.

It took me three more tries before I successfully pulled off a flawless emergence outside a simulated mass shadow of a planet.

Then I resolved to take a full day of prep time, just strapped into the simulator and doing an Ilum run, over and over.

I was eventually kicked out of the simulator by the very annoyed sullustan Jedi who ran the thing, when even he had enough of my little bout of OCD. 

It was just as well, because the organizing of the ship that would take us to Ilum was also on my agenda.

The Crucible was a truly ancient Paladin-class corvette that literally dated back to the Old Republic. It was kept in good enough upkeep by the Jedi Order that it could make this journey every standard year. The blueprints for every part were kept in the Archives and the creation of more was a journeyman level project for any Jedi whose studies carried them into the realm of mechanics. It was a flying museum and the only parts which hadn’t been replaced at some point, was the central superstructure. It still used the Old Republic Jedi Order symbology in many places.

It was just under a hundred meters long and had a flattened hammerhead fore section, which smoothly narrowed to three blisters at the waist which used to have medium turbolaser turrets. Those had long since been removed and any idea of refitting them with much more power hungry, modern weapons always failed because it would mean changing the main reactor entirely to support it.

Next came the port and starboard docking ports, which transitioned into the blocky rear engineering hull, where a cluster of six main engine nacelle thrusters was housed in an old alternating up-down configuration.  

It stood on its landing struts in the main temple hangar with a quiet, humble authority, in defiance against even time itself. Its presence was also attracting quite a small crowd of Jedi and mechanics who were admiring the old workhorse in its understated silver, beige and red color scheme.

Only the most senior Jedi mechanics were allowed to work on her, and the dedicated team of eight were all already busy in and around the hull, making last minute preparations and scans.

“Master Hinalu,” I bowed to the short bothan with tawny fur wearing a brown, stained greasy overall and a toolbelt, who was looking at what looked like a broken part of a fuel pump rather fiercely.

“Ah, Padawan Tano, about time you arrived.” He bowed in return, seemingly friendly enough on the surface, yet I caught the slightest hint of suspicion he had towards me for some reason. Now why would the Temple’s chief starship mechanic be that way? Or was I just picking up on the natural bothan tendency towards such paranoia? “Master Faabb down in Navigation was beginning to think you’d need to be cut out of the simulator with a lightsaber.”

I chuckled, letting myself blush a bit, “Yes, got a bit carried away. The idea of getting lost thousands of light years away from the nearest hyperlane because of a mistake on my part, got to me somewhat.”

“I trust you worked through that mental block?” he asked, his violet eyes intent. “I will not be signing off on you taking the Crucible otherwise.”

“I did, eventually, master,” I said with simple honesty. My own past was to blame really, as my brain latched onto the various ‘lost in space’ scenarios and fictions I had seen, read and within this life there was also no shortage of similar incidents in history - usually a result of poor maintenance on a hyperdrive or a nav-computer malfunction.

Hinalu carefully and politely probed me through the Force to gauge my words, before nodding, “Good, so far everything is on schedule. We had a fuel pump malfunction yesterday during testing, which has been our primary focus, but it will be solved by the time of your departure tomorrow.”

“How are the shields?”

“Nominal. Why do you ask?”

“We are at war, Master.”

“You are going west, padawan. Far from the front lines. Ilum is practically in the Unknown Regions.”

“There has been some recent intelligence that the Separatists are stepping up their campaigns to arm and sponsor piracy against Republic shipping and interests.”

This was not exactly a new tactic and we had dealt with it before. This intelligence had come from Master Kohl, who had been fighting such a pirate band for months in southern Outer Rim. I had passed that on to Master Yoda, trusting him to be discreet in how it was obtained.

“Interesting, but since you are going to the Namadii Corridor, where there is nothing of value for pirates… Well, to be on the safe side I’ll see what I can do to strengthen the shields to modern standards. Perhaps a new phase inverter attached to the generator with a supplementary power core will do the trick.”

“It’s your ship, Master,” I said gracefully with a bow. 

“Hmph, and don’t you forget it, Padawan. I want her back in pristine condition.”

I walked up the main embarkation ramp and practically breathed in the history that this ship had seen. With my own growth in the Force, since I had walked these old corridors during my own Gathering, I could almost feel and see the memories in every inch of the ship’s panelling, floor and furniture. I wasn’t talented with psychometry at all and yet it was still bleeding through. The Crucible had seen hundreds of thousands Force-Sensitive passengers through thousands of years of history and every inch of the ship dripped with memory. Master Vos, as the foremost practitioner of psychometry, must’ve been practically drowned in the feedback during his own Gathering.

My first destination was the main cargo hold and checking on the food stores.

There were going to be seven organics, including myself, to feed on this journey and only one of them was human. A quick reference to each species of Jedi adept coming aboard, quickly showed that the ship was lacking enough food for ithorians.

I fired off a quick message to the Jedi Temple commissary and grinned when I sensed someone trying to be sneaky.

“Professor Huyang,” I greeted and turned to two lines of packed crates and the darkened passage between them.

The ancient yet pristine architect droid relit his two golden visual receptors set in a regally designed face, with a vestigial nose, mouth and a structure that even imitated having a beard, whilst two pronounced cones served for ears and he was even wearing an imitation cap.

“Padawan Tano,” greeted Huyang, stepping into the light, which glinted off his very capable 1.8 meter tall frame with silver plating. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for literal centuries. May I see it?”

One didn’t need Holmes level deduction to know what the architect was speaking about or asking for.

I put down the datapad, reached to the small of my back and held out the unique hilt of the Darksaber.

He stepped forward and I could sense the caution every inch of his silver body as he reached down and carefully took the weapon from my hand.

An extra set of sensors popped out of Huyang’s forehead to cover his right eye as he intently inspected the unique weapon built by Tarre Viszla, under his own supervision more than nine centuries ago.

“Hmmm, surprisingly good condition, despite being in the hands of non-sensitives for so long.”

“For the first century, the Vizsla kept it in the secure vault of Concordia since they raided the Jedi Temple for it. It then began being used in various traditional ceremonies, passing through many hands and wielders. It was only in the last three generations and Pre Vizsla in particular, that he openly wore and used the Darksaber.”

“Awful lapse of security on our part,” Huyang turned the hilt over, inspecting the curved emitter. “We told the Mandalorians that Tarre Vizsla decreed in his will that the Darksaber should remain in the Temple museum.”

“Mandalorian tradition holds that every warrior’s armor and weapon must enter their tomb. Tarre undoubtedly knew that his clan or the succeeding Manda’lor would not merely accept a will dictated to the Jedi as binding. From their point of view, it might as well have been falsified or merely a lie to keep the Darksaber from its rightful place.”

“Troublesome boy,” Huyang scoffed.

I nodded, “In so doing, by orchestrating the raid on whom the majority of his people still considered the old enemy, he effectively created a legend and symbol that every traditional Mandalorian still holds to. The leadership falls to the true holder of the Darksaber.”

The droid held the hilt parallel to the floor and ignited the blade.

Huyang titled his head, “Fascinating, the blade itself is exerting enough kinetic force on my arm with precision to make it totally impossible to use effectively. I can hold it up, but if I tried to make any attack, I’d likely damage my arm in the process.”

“The Darksaber is effectively its own kyber-based entity at this point. It judges those who would wield it. If they’re found wanting or if they gained it without ritual combat to the death from the previous bearer, then it will not allow itself to be wielded.”

“Remarkable. It’s rare for any lightsaber to survive long if it’s used often throughout its builder’s life. After a Jedi’s death, if the weapon survives it’s usually kept in the Museum archives, shielded and only seen. Perhaps because this weapon has seen so many active wielders and because of its unique kyber crystal, that it has essentially become what it is now. If we passed on a Jedi lightsaber for long enough, perhaps a similar entity would be born.”

“That’s exactly what would happen,” I confirmed with a vehemence that caused Huyang to tilt his head in curiosity.

“You are in contact constantly with this kyber entity, Padawan?”

“Comes with the territory of being its wielder,” I nodded and listened to the Darksaber briefly. “It remembers you somewhat, as Tarre came to you for help in its early maintenance.”

“Oh, how I wish I could study this more,” Huyang gave with a very organic sigh and shut down the blade before carefully putting it back in my hand. “But I doubt the Darksaber would appreciate it or allow it - knowing how I feel about others doing the same to me.”

I nodded in agreement. Huyang was one of the oldest droids in the galaxy that was currently known. Even HK was a spring chicken in comparison to the architect droid’s twenty-five thousand standard years or 17 043 years according to the traditional Coruscant calendar. Therefore, he was a natural subject of curiosity and study to many Jedi and other academics - especially technologists. Huyang’s base technology, the strata upon which his mind was based, was ancient but not primitive at all. In many respects, he still outclassed every droid built since the Rusaan Reformation, due to the interregnum and tech loss the galaxy suffered in that era.

The Jedi Order would never allow any scientist no matter how skilled or knowledgeable to tamper or crack open Huyang to study him. He was not only invaluable for the history in his mind, but unsurpassed in lightsaber creation and lore. He didn’t have an entirely flawless recounting of the past millennia, having undergone periods of long isolation. He would take a ship and exile himself in the deep void, only returning when he judged the galaxy was reasonably stable or that there was a proper Jedi Order to return to.

“Well, thank you for indulging an old droid, Padawan. I will let you return to the preparations for the Gathering. If you need any advice or help-”

I smiled warmly, “I’ll be sure to knock on your door, Professor.”

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The next morning, I took my first hand at flying the Crucible, guiding it carefully out of the hangar and onto an external pad at the base of the temple. The reason was simple logistics as the corvette took much of the free room available and prevented easy coming and going for other ships. No one wanted to be responsible for an accident with the priceless ship.

That done I changed into my berkar’gam and did a final check of the ship, supplies and other necessities I requisitioned.

“Ready for this M8?” I asked, walking down the extending embarkation ramp.

“Always, mistress.”

A final look at the chrono told me I had managed everything with fifteen minutes to spare.

At only a minute to go, I finally spied a very harried group of six young Jedi adepts rushing out of the temple with backpacks.

I could feel them almost exploding with excitement when they realized that I was the padawan who would be taking them out into the galaxy. The only human, a boy of thirteen, Petro, grabbed Ganodi, a young female rodian and tried very subtly to point to me. She in turn, lightly slapped his arm away, “I know, for Force’s sake,” she hissed.

“Come along, adepts, form a line in front of me,” I said mildly.

The six jumped to obey.

It was almost painful to perceive them through the Force. They had the mildest of mind shielding and as children were wearing their heart on their sleeves. I struggled to recall a time I had ever been that young. Even in this life as a child, I had walked around with guarded thoughts and expressions. Just looking at their bright innocent spirits was enough for me to inwardly get very angry at the tumultuous time they had been born into.

Order 66, the greater crucible for the Jedi and galaxy loomed in the distance.

It wasn’t fair, but more than most, I knew that there was no inherent design for fairness in the universe.

“Adepts Katooni,” I began, a female tholothian, “Zatt,” a young male nautolan who quickly pulled his nose out of a datapad, “Gungi,” a young wookiee who I was gratified in seeing again, “Byph,” a male ithorian who looked very nervous at being under my attention, “Petro and finally Ganodi. You are here for your time of the Gathering, where a Jedi undergoes their greatest challenge and some say the only one that truly matters.”

“What is this challenge?” Gungi grumbled in Shyriiwook.

“That I cannot say, because it would spoil and pollute the challenge. However, I can tell you that afterwards you will learn how to build your own lightsaber.”

I had both my green lightsabers hover off my belt and do a slow orbit of my body.

“Yesss,” hissed Petro, whilst the others had similar exclamations and Gungi even raised a fist to the sky, giving a generalized roar of satisfaction.

“Your excitement is understandable and has been shared by countless who have come before you. Be warned, that you will be undertaking a different kind of journey here and not just in the ship behind me. It will not be easy, there will be perils and the chance of failure is high. Where we are going there is no place more sacred to the Jedi. Understand?”

“Yes, Padawan Tano,” they chorused as a group, whilst Gungi added a grumbling bass with his agreement.

“Good, now we’ll get on board, follow me.”

I led the way up the ramp and began showing them the ship layout and important areas.

“These are the escape pods,” I gestured to the heavy circular doors. “If there is ever an emergency and I tell you to use them. Do not hesitate. Inside them you will find everything you need to survive and at least make planetfall if we’re in a system.”

From there it was a quick walk through a few corridors and we entered a small mess hall. “This is where I expect you to be every morning at 0700 ship time exactly. We will have breakfast together and I will explain the schedule for the day. Lunch and dinner are at your usual times.”

We got in the only turbolift of the ship and emerged into the port cargo bay, which I had emptied and rearranged into a classroom and exercise/sparring zone. Petro visibly groaned as he recognized the layout.

“It’s a five day journey there, you didn’t think you were going on a holiday, did you?”

I was answered with five disappointed faces and only Zatt looked pleased that they wouldn’t be missing out on their academy classes. “Well, you were rated as the best in your class and I wouldn’t want this trip to cause you to fall behind. Here, Professor Huyang and I will be teaching you. He will mostly handle the academics, whilst I will move you forward in your lightsaber skills.”

The architect droid took his cue and stepped into the bay.

“Whoah, the Huyang,” Zatt said with awe. “The oldest droid in existence. Professor, is it true that you arrived in the temple in a big blue box?”

“I honestly couldn’t tell you, adept,” said Huyang with a curious tilt of his head. “I was activated and there was no hint of a blue box in sight. You are merely recalling a rumor started by a padawan many thousands of years ago, which has since become legend. I don’t go out of my way to correct it because it amuses me.”

Next I led them to their quarters for the journey. The Crucible had more than enough to give each of them individual cabins, but that was not on the cards. Up until this point, the adepts always lived in shared dormitories in the temple and to give them any notion of complete privacy was asking for trouble.

“Petro, Zatt, this one’s yours,” I tapped the door with the names clearly stenciled on it, as we walked along the general crew corridor. “Ganodi, Byph, starboard side. Gungi and Katooni, you’re next door on the port side. My own quarters are just down the corridor on the starboard side. If you need anything during off-hours or whilst sleeping, just come and knock. Now, drop your packs by your bunks. I’m sure you want to be on the bridge when we take-off.”

At this stage, all of them would’ve had the general starship safety and familiarization courses, but the notion of actually leaving Coruscant had them all in high spirits.

By the time we reached the bridge in the hammerhead section of the ship, Huyang was already going through the pre-flight.

It wasn’t an especially large command center, with stations for pilot, co-pilot, captain’s chair, engineer and gunnery arranged in a basic circle.

The latter station had been reduced to an extra seat, with only a skeleton of the old gunnery console remaining, filled in by solid durasteel panels.

“All right, everyone, two seats are open. You can choose amongst yourself who will take them. Note, the controls on the captain’s chair are disabled-”

My impromptu game of musical chairs, had Petro jumping the gun and claiming the captain’s chair, whilst Gungi gave a big wookiee grin at claiming the old gunnery chair.

I climbed into the pilot’s chair and smoothly worked with Huyang to finish the checklist, which had the Crucible humming and vibrating with power in short order.

I thumbed the comlink, “Temple Control, this is the Crucible, requesting priority clearance.”

“Crucible, you have clearance, proceed to lane AR332, ascent window has been issued. Force be with you.”

“And you, Control.”

I pulled back on the wide yoke that somewhat reminded me of a 80s future-tech version of a B-29s.

The Crucible’s engines and motivators resonated with a very satisfying bass scream that was typical of Corellian made engines as it ascended into the skies of Coruscant. It was also quite sluggish to control input and I had to lean slightly into prescience to keep the ride generally smooth and error free.

It didn’t take ten minutes of Coruscant sky traffic to utterly bore the adepts.

Zatt was already tapping away at his datapad, Gungi lounging with big hairy feet on the empty console, Petro and Ganodi were arguing about taking turns on the captain’s chair, whilst Byph and Katooni had settled on the floor to meditate.

It was like I was living the Corusca version of bored kids seated in the back of a car.

I raised my hand and made a pinching gesture.

“Ooof,” Petro flinched, almost falling out of the chair in surprise, clutching at his own face, as his nose was lightly pinched through the Force. Ganodi didn’t have a nose so I had to make do with pinching her mouth closed briefly.

“If you two can’t sit in silence and follow the example of Byph and Katooni in your boredom, then you can do so in your cabins.”

“Yes, Padawan Tano,” Petro mumbled, his face flushing with embarrassment.

With that behind us, we finally emerged into a low orbit of the planet and slotted into an exit vector towards the Tanjay hyper point that would take us north-west.

The adepts were entertained for a few minutes watching actual orbital space of the busiest planet in the galaxy. I let M8 project live view holograms of the sheer variety of ships for them. It wasn’t for long though, as after we left orbit they fell into meditation poses, with the natural exception of Zatt.

The young nautolan was hard at work on what I sensed was rather advanced programming for someone of his age, Jedi or not. I also perceived he was actually using the Force in a very subtle way to enhance his fingers, increasing his typing speed.

“Zatt, try using orenth based comparisons.”

He paused and looked up at me in surprise, “Uh, excuse me, Padawan?”

I looked back with a friendly smile, “You’re accumulating floating point errors. Remember that machines and droids do not do math the way we do in our heads.”

He looked down at his custom datapad and with a few further taps, he grinned, “Oh, now it works. Thanks, Padawan, but how-”

“We’re coming up on the hyper point,” I said with a grin, pulsing the Force outward in just the right way to disrupt the focus of the adepts.

When all the kiddies were up and about, I gave the hyperdrive motivator a dramatic push forward.

The Crucible punched forward into hyper and I let them marvel at the swirling tunnel for a few minutes and gain their equilibrium as they were all somewhat disturbed.

“Is this how the Force always feels in hyperspace, Padawan?”

“It takes some getting used to. For most of your lives, you’ve been on Coruscant as you developed your strength and senses. That will naturally be disturbed by being plunged into an entirely different dimension. You can tell that the Force is here as well, but its qualities are quite different. Your senses will have far greater range, but do not try to explore it. If you do, I will pull you back forcefully and give you six hours of remote practice as corrective punishment. It takes training and an experienced mind to plumb the depths of hyper - something that Jedi Navigators do regularly.”

I stood from the pilot’s chair, “Now, it’s still mid-morning, we can begin with your science class for the day. Get your educational datapads from your quarters. Off you go.”

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Three days later, the final stop the ship would make under standard nav-computer control was in the Utegetu Nebula. A rather unremarkable brown gas cloud over twenty-two light years across.

“Do you wish for me to remain, Padawan Tano?” Huyang asked kindly.

“It’s not necessary, professor. You can continue their history lesson.”

“Very well. I’ll see you again when we get to Ilum.”

The droid left the bridge with a quiet confidence that I greatly appreciated.

I patiently waited for the hyperdrive to finish a standard cooling cycle, before I disengaged the navigation entirely, taking it out of the control loop.

Next I opened the panel that would give me manual control of hyper geometries that the drive would adopt.

I closed my eyes, embracing the Force, surging my senses and control, pushing myself with technometry into the ship itself.

My eyes became the sensors, the hull, my skin, the particle shields a comfortable blanket to weather the harsh wind.

My senses now pushed further, into hyperspace itself. 

The nebula’s mass was giving local hyper a generally smooth flattened curve that at first glance was an impenetrable wall for generating a stable entrance.

Yet, Yoda’s instruction and memories pointed the way to a specific gap in the curve of space-time, where the nebula gave way to a simple flat void.

I found it in moments and my fleshy hands in the bridge began moving the yoke of the ship, angling towards that gap.

Beyond it were hundreds of thousands of pin pricks, star clusters of every type imaginable, pulsars, black holes, a vast wilderness of cosmos.

The Force guided me, yet obeyed as my will sought the specific star around which Ilum orbited.

Hyperspace field geometry…

It aligned smoothly together as I’d practiced hundreds of times to the point of obsession, a memory which I let pass through my thoughts, not giving it any purchase.

Power from the hypermatter reactor surged towards the hyperdrive and at the right moment, my hand pushed forward on the lever.

The Crucible stretched forward as space bent and tore, flinging me into the other dimension.

The immediate future of the ship, of me, unfolded like a vast tapestry.

I altered the hyper geometries, my mind likening it to giant energetic rudder in the sea of the alternate dimension -

- and just missed a rather volatile binary system that would have collapsed my field geometries like a house of cards.

The sigh of relief coming from my lungs was a distant thing.

Eight light years later I altered course slightly relative in the z axis, to avoid a black hole the ship would encounter in thirty six seconds.

It would take another 89 relative minutes to my flesh body before we could settle into a period of nine hours that didn’t require any active navigation input from me.

A time that from my point of view, did and didn’t pass by quickly.

I settled the hyperdrive geometries and put the majority of its functions on automatic, keeping the ship going straight and level in the clear lane of space that stretched out to me.

How the future Empire would traverse the erratic course to Ilum, I could only conclude would be done initially via a trained Inquisitor, with a navicomputer recording everything they did. It was the only explanation of the ease with which the normally uncharted 1600 light years was traversed in the future.

I pulled back and opened my normal meatbag eyes.

Sometimes when I used technometry to such an extent, I could begin to understand where HK was coming from when he continuously derided the organic state of being.

A quick final checklist that the hyperdrive was nominal…

All green across the board.

I emerged from the bridge and secured it, not liking the fact that in a few future probabilities Petro would sneak into the place to poke around and sit on the captain’s chair again. It was only in one of them, that he would push a button he wasn’t supposed to and throw the Crucible out of hyper in the middle of nowhere.

My quarters and the marginally comfortable bed beckoned.

After three days, there was no way I was exposing myself to more of the rambunctious and emotional adepts, when my own state of mind was the determining factor in getting us to our destination in one piece.

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“Where’ve you been, Padawan Ahsoka?”

I smiled at Katooni warmly from the pilot’s chair as the whole gang entered the bridge. Of the six, I found I liked the young tholothian the most. She had a cautious and studious nature, combined with a very courageous spirit within. We seemingly just ‘clicked’, even if I had to ignore the slight case of hero worship, which was present to some extent in all of them. It was just something I had to live with at this point.

As much as the Jedi Temple tried to keep all the younglings and adepts more or less aloof and protected from the outside galaxy, they weren’t completely isolated from external news sources. I knew some older adepts, padawans and even some knights who were on CSO under pseudonyms. It meant the work of COMPOR would eventually find its way within the Temple and the speed of gossip would do the rest.

“Making sure we would get to our destination, meaning I needed to concentrate and not be disturbed by younglings,” I teasingly poked her in the side.

“We’re adepts,” Petro objected immediately.

I waved him off, “Bah, you’ll always be younglings to me. I trust you handled any discipline issues, professor?”

The droid moved with near organic smoothness onto the bridge, “Of course, it’d be a hot day on Ilum before I couldn’t handle a bunch of younglings.”

“Professor, your optics must be checked, we’re adepts,” Gunji growled.

“Well, adepts,” I said sarcastically, “we’re about to drop out of hyper.”

I pulled back on the motivator lever.

The hyper tunnel broke, resolving itself into streaked pin pricks of starlight bent by the exit interface back into normal space.

Ilum was a blue, purple and white planet that hung in space, dancing around the exceedingly bright blue dwarf star which some ancient Jedi had named Asar.

It was also a very strong Force Nexus and the weight of all the naturally present kyber that brimmed with the Force hung on my senses like a heavy but comfortable blanket.

“Welcome adepts, to Ilum. I hope you packed your cold weather clothing.”

They all nodded, but the sight of the planet was somewhat entrancing to their own neophyte senses.

Only when I started a breaking burn for a low orbit insertion did they blink and somewhat come back to themselves.

A quick check through the Force showed me the position of the Jedi Temple down there, where an ever patient Master Yoda was waiting for us. He had already been here for a day, coming in his own shuttle. He had done this trip so many times over his long life, he most likely didn’t even need to immerse himself with his ship.

The entry interface with the atmosphere was a little more bumpy than what I was used to, but not surprising for a ship of this age.

After six minutes of leaving a streaking trail of plasma across the skies of Ilum, we slowed down enough and cruised towards the temple.

At lower altitude the corvette was buffeted by strong winds and normal visibility was quickly gone as a snow storm rolled in over us.

I brought the ship to a landing spot six hundred meters from the Temple, which was actually part of an icy wall that towered into the sky and merely the edge of a gigantic glacier that stretched to either side of the horizon.

“All right everyone, get your gear and survival packs on, meet me at the ramp.”

After securing the ship’s systems for an extended stay, which Huyang would manage by keeping the reactor at a constant low output, I grabbed my beskar’gam helmet and hurried to the aft of the ship.

“Brace yourselves,” I warned them after a quick check that everyone was ready. Only Gunji didn’t need to bother with much external gear, only putting on a set of goggles to protect his eyes from snow and wind. I put on my helmet and slotted it in place, before triggering the ramp.

The chilly wind blasted us immediately, with snow following in its wake.

“Keep together, single file and make sure you’re sensing outwards!”

I led the way out and the adepts quickly used the face shields of their heavy parkas and put on goggles as well.

The wind was blasting us now from the east at nearly 60kph, enough that we had to orient ourselves into it, whilst wading through the snow that came up to our calves.

“How can there be a temple here?!” Katooni shouted over the wind.

“That’s the general idea! No one would guess,” Petro answered.

After three hundred meters of trudging forwards, we stepped onto solid ice. It was hard to imagine that this was actually rather reasonable weather by Ilum standards and already the snow storm we had landed in had passed us by. Leaving a generally clear blue sky with the local sun casting its weak warmth on us.

Ilum generally hovered outside the habitable zone of the star and would only dip into it during certain times of the year - creating conditions that had made building the temple possible in the first place. It had taken hundreds of years of work by the ancient Jedi, making liberal use of the Force itself in the construction and imported materials.

I stopped the group a mere fifty meters from the vast ice wall and looked down.

There hidden under the ice, barely visible, was a stone relief of the ancient Jedi symbol used during the Old Republic.

“Is there some way inside?!” Petro asked.

“Yes. Adepts, reach out with your hands, embrace the Force and project it straight forward at the wall. Only together will this door open.”

I raised my hand as an example and was careful to not complete the ancient lock with my own strength alone. It was an old bit of technology that worked with the Force itself, the method of creation lost to time.

The small but very bright spirits behind me flared with the Force, their inexpert grasp fumbling but good enough to begin directing the flow.

I shored it up, giving it direction, purpose and the last bit of strength to complete the lock.

The icy wall before us began to shake, rattle and collapse as the ancient mechanism flash melted entire sections, using the very energy of the Force that we had collectively imbued into it.

After the dense cloud of snow that had been kicked up settled back on the ice, it revealed the frontage of a narrow man-made building exterior with geometric patterns that stretched upwards as high as the glacier itself. The entrance of the place looked like the maw of some eldritch icy creature, with the icy stalagmites forming its teeth.

“Excellent work, now we have to hurry. The sun has already risen and we must begin.”

The entrance led into a long icy hallway, the angled walls of which were filled with reliefs depicting ancient sagas of the Jedi. These were so old, that even Revan’s entire story and Old Republic-era Jedi was recent in comparison to the others on these walls.

It spoke of bloody and desperate struggles, triumphs and defeats, in eras where the hyperdrive was much slower and the galaxy seemed bigger. Unfortunately, the names of the ancient warlords and Sith being fought were lost to time and the weathering of the elements.  

We emerged from the corridor and into a circular room that easily rivaled the Jedi Temple’s grand central hall for sheer scale and space. Giant statues of robed Jedi Knights towered 48 meters over us, each facing inward with their lit stone lightsabers held formally in a middle guard, the blade tips hovering in front of the stone cowls hiding their faces. The walls were lined with columns and ringed with flat surfaces and geometric reliefs that Jedi historians were still puzzling over the actual meaning to this day. Ice encrusted smaller pyramids were arranged on the vast floor, all arrayed around the central focal point of the space.

The entire area seemed designed to draw all eyes towards one end, which featured a tall flat expanse of ice, seemingly held there in defiance of the physics of temperature within the place. It should’ve melted already as the day cycle of Ilum was in full swing.

Our footsteps on the stone floor echoed through the space as we walked towards the diminutive form of Master Yoda, who was seated in meditative pose on a flattened expanse of ice right in the middle of the circular room. He was still wearing his usual thin beige robe, tunic and leggings, demonstrating a mastery of his own body in the cold environment that actually came straight out of Matukai teachings. Anyone else would’ve frozen their ass off already.

It was a little demonstration of mastery that largely went over the adept’s heads and I could see only Zatt and Katooni had caught on to it, but they kept their peace and approached the Grandmaster of the Jedi Order.

“Master Yoda,” Zatt greeted and the adepts bowed formally together. They were naturally surprised at Yoda’s presence here already, but just rolled with it. Yoda had taught their class in the past, as the Grandmaster usually took the time to do a random teaching tour through the academy every year. It was another casualty of the war, as it further monopolized his time.

I stood at Yoda’s side as he began the Gathering.

“The Force, made physical, a Jedi is. Comes great responsibility with that, yes?” The adepts nodded in agreement. Yoda stood fluidly from his meditation. “Protect others, how does a Jedi?”

He made an unnecessary gesture and his own lightsaber hovered slowly off his belt, before igniting its green blade and began a leisurely spin on its own axis.

“Build your own lightsaber, you shall. But first, harvest your own crystal, each one of you must.”

“See, I told you,” hissed Petro at Zatt.

“No, I told you,” Zatt retorted.

“Wow.”

Yoda simply stared at the group and they immediately quieted. “The heart of the lightsaber, the crystal is.” Yoda’s blade extinguished under his Control and returned to his hand. “Focuses the Force from the Jedi, it does.”

He clipped the hilt to his belt and made a casual gesture upward.

The Force thrummed almost eagerly, as high up against the domed ceiling a massive door parted under Yoda’s strength.

Ilum’s sunlight streamed in and hit a four meter tall crystal suspended within a gold plated durasteel half-moon cradle.

Another gesture and the entire construct began spinning, the light splitting from the crystal all over the ceiling in a chaotic yet beautiful array of colours.

Until another crystal emerged from another door that opened and settled within the path of one particular beam.

That beam of light was precisely focused and redirected down straight onto the frame that surrounded the towering and inexplicable wall of ice.

It began melting and in yet another physics defying feat, became a waterfall of melting ice within seconds. The water was then precisely channeled into a circular drain right behind where Yoda was standing, and his little perch of meditative ice also began melting.

He hopped off it nimbly.

The entire display was a feat of Alter Environment imbued into the very structure of the Temple. I remembered thinking during my own Gathering, that I wanted nothing more than to spend time here on Ilum studying the secrets of this place to relearn what the ancient Jedi had achieved here.

The impending war wouldn’t allow for it.

So much wonder and mystery in this galaxy, almost begging to be unearthed and learned, yet it was not to be.

If there was one thing that I naturally despised the Sith and Palpatine especially for, it was robbing me of such opportunities.

“If Jedi, you are to become,” continued Yoda, as the waterfall ended, revealing another passageway beyond it, “enter the crystal cave, you must.” He stepped forward, folding his hands behind his back. “Trust yourself, trust each other, and succeed, you will.”

“Let’s go, adepts, drop your packs here,” I stepped into my role and guided them to the now brightly lit passageway into the crystal caves. “Once you have found your crystal, do not remain inside. As daylight ends, this doorway will freeze over again and you will be trapped.”

“Uh, Padawan,” said Ganodi, now looking extremely worried, “For how long?”

“One rotation. You will be beyond anyone’s help then.”

Petro raised his hand, “How will we know which crystal to pick?” 

“That only you can know. Now, you are all wasting time. Hurry.”

Katooni, being the burgeoning leader she was, was the first to turn around and walk inside. Petro was next and the others quickly followed suit. Byph was especially hesitant and had to hurry to catch up before the others disappeared into the caves without him.

“I’ve always questioned the idea behind misleading them,” I commented to Yoda as we both took a seat nearby on the cold stone floor.

“Sense of urgency, they must have. Remember well, the illusions within, you do. Deadly they can be.”

“I suppose it’s better than watching the old masters remain behind in exile after seeing their padawans perish inside.”

“Wasteful practice that was,” Yoda scoffed. He reached into a pocket behind his back and brought out his own holocron. “Speak now, we must, Ahsoka.”

He tapped the device, which glowed blue and began splitting open, tetrahedral pieces splitting off and hovering in the air, until a small holographic Yoda hovered above it.

“No safer place there will be, Ahsoka,” said holo-Yoda.

I closed my eyes and probed the kaleidoscope of probability as it stood now.

“Correct, Master Yoda, I suppose we have to have an overdue chat.”

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A/N: If there was one sliver of time and space to have this convo... :-) Alas, I have to end the chapter here. Unpacking this from the other side was quite fun, whereas the episode naturally focuses on the kids.

Hope you enjoyed and have a great weekend, folks. Stay awesome.