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Chapter Text

“This time. These are the coordinates. I can feel it. We’ll find the legendary planet!” exclaimed Anthea, the team’s anthropologist.

Luke took the datapad from Anthea and began punching in the coordinates.

“You’ve been leading us round the sector for eight full days. Crillan doesn’t exist,” scowled Felissia, psychologist from Cathar whose words cut as deep as her claws.

In the cramped quarters of the frigate, the team had been getting on each other’s nerves.

“Or perhaps,” said Jasper, the geoengineer, “it doesn’t want to be found.”

Wedge sighed as he entered the cockpit and swapped seats with the one Anthea had been lounging in. "I'm sure she's been able to use the data from the previous jumps to pinpoint the location this time."

Luke checked the fuel gauge as he prepared to launch them into hyperspace. "Alright folks, we only have enough fuel to make this last jump. Then we’ll have to return to base and call the mission off."

Wedge nodded, and strapped himself into the co-pilot seat.

“Launching into hyperspace in three, two, one...” Luke slammed the lever down. He watched the stars streak out into the hyperspace tunnel. He gazed at it enchanted for several minutes, before growing tired. Sitting in that seat for the past three hours and listening to all the others complain was eating at his sanity.

Taking a deep breath, he got up and went to his cabin. He could hear Cilia the microbiologist snoring like a bantha from the next cabin over, but no one was napping in his at the moment. At least he had some privacy.

Sitting himself cross-legged on the floor, he grabbed the blanket off his bunk. He wrapped it round himself so he'd be warmer sitting still for so long. Space was far colder than Tatooine.

He breathed deep and tried to centre himself.

It was much harder to feel the Force in the deep reaches of space. Nearby or on a planet, his senses thrummed with life, even a place as barren as Tatooine. But up here, the Force rang like a hollow octave. There, but empty.

He stretched his senses out. He caught the signatures of those on the ship well enough. But stretching further, it was empty and blank. All he felt was the echo of a passing star.

Luke opened his eyes and checked his chrono. That’d count enough for today. Grabbing his datapad, he looked at the stars he’d drawn for each session. He had managed to meditate every single day since Ben had taught him. He felt very proud of himself, but struggled knowing if he was doing it right at all.

“Ben,” he whispered. “Are you there? Can you guide me? I don’t know what I’m doing. Or if you’re even there."

"I don’t know how to be a Jedi. Or if Han was right, and the Force isn’t real.”

“I know you helped me make that shot, but I need some solid proof."

Unclipping his lightsaber, he placed it in front of him. Ever since someone at the base told him Jedi could make things float, he tried every day.

Stretching out his hand, he took the time to feel his saber in his mind. He found it easier to concentrate on, as it played a mournful hum in his mind. He liked to think the saber was grieving for his father. Or for Ben.

Float upward, he willed. He relaxed his mind, imagining it gliding up to his hand. Forcing it to rise with intense willpower had done nothing but give him a headache the first three days.

The saber wobbled.

Adrenaline coursed through him. Did he do that? Or was it just the space-turbulence?

He frowned, watching it again without doing anything. Yes, it did wobble from time to time. Burying his head in his hands, he moaned. This technique was impossible to practise here.

The only thing to try to do was deflecting some bolts with his remote, but his quarters were too cramped to practise. He snatched it up and resigned himself to dealing with everyone watching him again, as he entered the ship’s lounge.

Switching on the remote, he watched it float up, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He felt the subtle change as the remote entered sentry mode. Activating on his lightsaber, he held it up and prepared for the onslaught.

It fired, and he deflected it. One, two, three, ow! He flicked his lightsaber off and rubbed his elbow in pain.

“Told you he couldn’t do it,” said Jasper.

He looked up to see the geoengineer and Felissia snickering.

Luke narrowed his eyes, but lifted his lightsaber and kept practising. One, two, ow, ow, ow! He opened his eyes again and snatched the remote from the air, shutting it off.

“What did you do to it?” he demanded.

Jasper grinned, idly twisting a strand of chin-length bleached hair through his pale fingers. “I had been getting real impressed by your displays, almost convinced your powers were real. Felissia claimed you memorised the pattern it flew in, and were relying on hearing to fill in the rest. So I made a few… modifications while you were sleeping. I re-randomised the pattern and doubled the frequency it fired. Turns out you couldn’t keep up.”

He held up a credit chip, and Felissia greedily swiped it from his palm.

“You’re betting on my ability to use the Force?” Luke spluttered.

“Hey.” Jasper raised his hands, fingers coated in a variety of coloured rings. “There isn’t much else to bet on up here. We’ve already made all our bets on whether we’re going to find any planet, and what’ll even be there if we do.”

“Tell you what,” continued Jasper. “They say Jedi can read minds, or know when someone is lying. Play a round of sabacc with us. If you win, we’ll all shut up about not believing you can use the Force.”

“Why is my belief in the Force such a big deal to you?” challenged Luke.

“You’re the Commander on this trip. We’re a little… nervous about someone leading us to our deaths on a misguided hunch.”

Luke frowned. He’d never played sabacc before, but he could absolutely do with getting everyone off his back.

This was his first official mission since the Death Star. He had no idea why that meant he was ready to be a commander, but thinking of tricky situations in the desert he was afraid his team would crumble on this when the stakes were high.

"And if I lose?"

“You stop acting like the Force is real. We make decisions on logic alone.”

Luke sighed. “Deal me in.”

Chapter Text

Jasper clapped his hands. “Gather round everyone. Today we’re betting on the Force.”

Cilia, the Mon Calamari, clambered out of her room, rubbing the sleep from her large eyes. Anthea emerged from the ‘fresher, her brown fingers tying a brightly coloured scarf around her grey-streaked hair, and took a seat opposite.

“You playing, Wedge?” asked Jasper. Wedge's gaze darted at Luke, then back at the others, not wanting to pick a side.

“My nerves are shot after too many games with Captain Solo. I'll stick to dealing.”

“Suit yourself,” said Jasper. Pulling out a set of sabacc chips, he began distributing them among the players. “Wait, where’s my deck? I swear I packed it.”

“No problem,” said Anthea. "I have a Centran-style deck I discovered in an old shop selling things found on Crillan.” She darted into her cabin and began rummaging around for it, continuing the story as she did.

“It was a goldmine of information, in fact some of the journals I found there are what I’ve used to track down the location of the planet. I know Crillan is in this sector, but it keeps slipping through my fingers. Ah, here they are.” She emerged back from her cabin carrying the deck.

“These cards are a little different, but the play is quite similar. Closest to positive or negative twenty-three wins, with positive twenty-three beating the negative, and an Idiot’s array beating that. Legates have a value of eleven, aces are one or fifteen, and fives can have any value between two and ten.” She handed them to Wedge, who dealt out two cards to everyone.

Luke picked up his cards, and tried to gauge everyone’s reaction in the Force. All he could detect were notes of cautious optimism or calculation. The others began drawing and discarding cards, but Luke couldn’t get any sense on what they were. Only how confident they felt about their hands. He picked up his own cards and noticed they contained detailed artwork of humanoid aliens he assumed to be the Crillans.

"Do you really think those journals are accurate?” Cilia asked Anthea.

Anthea grinned, rubbing her hands together. “Absolutely. I can feel it. Crillan was erased from the Republic’s records ten thousand years ago, and even the Empire has been unable to find its legendary supply of kyber. But my journals chronicle the Republic’s initial discovery of the planet.”

Jasper drew his card with a satisfied flourish. “And if the rumours are true, we’ll have enough kyber to produce the kind of firepower that could turn the tide of the war.” He looked down at the half-assembled turret taking up the bulk of the hold, to the annoyance of everyone on board.

“One turret mounted to a frigate this size could take out an Imperial star destroyer. We have to find Crillan.” He dropped to a whisper. “I have to atone for helping design that thing. I promised Erso I would.”

“Negative twenty-two,” Felissia called, showing her hand. The others all threw theirs down in disgust. Luke sighed. He’d had a twenty, and thought he’d be able to win, and bet quite a lot of chips. He tried to look at the discarded cards to match them against his perceptions, but Wedge swept them up and began dealing the second hand.

“It’s alright, Luke,” Felissia purred, honing in on his frustration. “It’s easy to mistake your skill at reading body language, or a gut feeling for something mystical.” She picked up the two cards of her new hand, and Luke could feel the confidence radiating off her.

“Someone’s got a good hand,” said Jasper. Luke gulped as he saw his remaining chips. He needed to start winning soon.

“I don’t think so,” he said, mustering as much of the Force as he could. “You should fold.” Felissia snapped her eyes at him, drawing a fanged smile against her gleaming white fur.

“Trying a little mind trick, Honey?” she purred. “They aren’t real.”

Luke frowned. “I saw General Kenobi do it. He managed to get us past Imperial Stormtroopers on duty.”

“Well, I published three papers about that. Subjects will respond to a command if they are distracted or not thinking clearly. But they would even respond to a recording, which wouldn’t be using the Force at all.”

Luke frowned, trying to recall his own perception of the event. It was the most irrevocable demonstration of the Force he had. Was it true? Could it be done by anyone, even a recording if the victim was on autopilot?

“Surely other science exists that demonstrates the existence of the Force,” replied Luke.

Cilia straightened up. “Are you talking about midichlorology? The science of midichlorians?”

“Er, what are midichlorians?" asked Luke.

"Ah.” Cilia put her cards to the side and lit up like a beacon, like she'd been waiting for someone to ask her this her whole life.

"The midichlorians are said to be what allows a Jedi to connect to the Force. However, after thirty years of constant research, I have concluded all their claims are bunk. Along with the Force."

She interlocked her long webbed fingers as much as they would allow. "There I was, bright-eyed and blubber-full, needing a project for my PhD in microbiology."

"The Jedi claimed the more midichlorians a life-form had, the stronger their connection to the Force. They claimed we could not survive without them. They assumed the amount you had was fixed throughout your life. They claimed some people were born with a higher count, and were part of a privileged few that could train to interact with the Force. The rest of us are consigned to the occasional gut feeling and dash of persuasiveness. Or the odd moment of luck. And some of us unlucky ones, like me, are 'Force-Nulls', and can never feel the Force."

"So you would think, if the Force was real, these things would hold true.” She leaned closer. "But they didn't. Not a single one."

The turn was hers, to which she replied, “Trade,” swapping a card for a new one, wriggling with delight at her luck. "I devised a test to determine if my rats were interacting with the Force."

"I placed a device in front of them with five buttons on it. It was connected up to a datapad I could see which showed a randomised button for each press as ‘correct’. If they pressed the correct one, I'd give them a treat. If on average they scored above random guessing, I'd consider them ‘Force-sensitive’. I would do this to each rat many times over the course of several weeks."

"What I determined was this. On average, the rats with higher m-counts scored higher on the tests, and the lower ones scored lower. Simple, right? Felissia here needs to recant everything she said and become a believer in the Force now."

"But they wouldn't be able to consistently do it. And sometimes, if they were very hungry, even the Force-Nulls could do it."

"This struck me as odd."

“I hypothesised they still had a small amount of midichlorians, or it was the strain of midichlorian that was effective, not the amount. I tried injecting some rats with additional midichlorians, and measured their aptitude. Strangely, they didn't do much better."

"The strangest thing was, it took two days for the rat's levels to drop where they were pre-injection. If I kept injecting one every day, it started to get sick. So what’s important is not how many midichlorians you have floating around. It's how many your body can support."

“Also, their levels would fluctuate naturally throughout the day, and at different points in the female’s cycle. A ‘medium’ rat’s levels could be read as ‘low’ or sometimes ‘high’ depending on whether it had been hungry or stressed. And the more the rats did the puzzle, the more they would have. One I had with me all the way through my studies, took its levels from ‘null’, all the way to ‘super high’.”

“The most important thing is what I call a rat’s ‘max capacity’. No matter how hard and how long I trained them, there was a threshold that none of them ever got above. I believe this would be different for each species.”

“With these findings I arrogantly approached the Jedi, and laid them all out. I told them they need not stick to children above a certain count, but could take anyone. Regardless of age, if they were willing to put in the work, they could become as powerful as any Jedi in the same number of years. The only difference would be they might not see any visible results in the first year of training.”

“In fact, such people may progress quicker in later years, because they would have been forced to lay down a solid foundation of discipline and persistence from the beginning. Whereas someone like Luke may have more struggles at that point, because the basic skill may have come so naturally they might have skimped on the foundation. Or even cause injury if the first time they are encountering their limits is after years of careless habit.”

“The Jedi told me they had been studying the Force for thousands of years, and knew it far better than I ever could, especially as a Force-Null. When I pressed them to train me and see what happened, they told me that even if my findings were true, adults like me were far too old to unlearn their thinking in order to wield the Force with the necessary discipline. And a life free of attachments made it possible to fulfil your vows to the Order and your duty to the Republic. It was a great sacrifice to become a Jedi and one that should only be asked of those raised in the tradition directly.”

“I was told to leave, and denied any further assistance in my research.”

“My anger turned to suspicion, and suspicion turned to revenge. I had peeked beneath the facade of an irreproachable, all-powerful organisation, and was giddy and drunk on power. When the Jedi fell, I saw my chance to prove them wrong. The Empire provided me with all the funding I wished. And that was where I met the budding Felissia. Reviewing my evidence in the light of her psychology experiments, we wrote the definitive paper that disproved the existence of the Force once and for all. It has been cited thousands of times ever since.”

“After that, I concluded all my results were bunk, and I was just testing the rats’ skill at reading my facial expressions, not their Force sensitivity. I had no desire to become famous for discovering the ‘unknown body-language-reading propensities of the common Coruscanti rat,’ so I left it at that and took to studying other micro-compounds in lifeforms. Did you know that the human gut biome can completely repopulate in—”

Felissia clamped her hand over Cilia’s mouth. “That’s enough from you. She’ll prattle on for days about her various microbes. Now are we finishing this hand or what?”

Luke was dumbfounded. “The Jedi’s behaviour doesn’t make any sense. Kenobi started training me a few days ago.”

“Call,” said Jasper. Ah—damm it, he hadn’t been paying attention to the others.

Anthea piped up. “The Jedi weren’t always like this. After too many court cases of family members pressuring Jedi into using their powers to win sabacc games and one even setting up their family as shadowy crime lords on their homeworld, the maximum recruitment age was set to ten. All contact with their families was banned. Kenobi might not have cared about your age now that the Republic was gone, and gambling may have even been his source of income.”

“Although the Jedi had always faced this kind of pressure, one day something made them give in and radically alter their teachings. I just don’t know what. Strangely, that happened around the time Crillan was wiped from the Republic’s map.”

Luke gulped. The Jedi were sounding more flawed than the idea he had of them from talking to Old Ben. “But if they won those games, it surely demonstrates their power was real, at least?” he said.

“I’d happily lose at sabacc to someone who might cut my arm off,” said Felissia. “That’s why they kept getting involved in the shadier sort.”

Luke scratched his head. "Has anyone met a Jedi?"

“Oh I have,” said Felissia. “When I was a child, they came to Cathar to negotiate a truce for a local dispute. I bumped into them on Coruscant many times since, when I came there to study. But they refused to display their powers whenever I spoke to them.”

“What about Vader?” Luke asked. “Everyone who defected from the Navy whispered stories about how he could choke people without touching them.”

Felissia raised her hand. “Oh, you have me to thank for that. When I worked in COMPNOR, I would exaggerate three-fold any story we got about Vader. Everything is hearsay, I assure you. All he has to do is bribe a couple of officers into playing along with his hand trick. Besides, he’s dead now. He wouldn’t have survived the explosion from the Death Star, thanks to you.”

Luke was aghast. "You have the skills to help people work through so many problems, yet you chose that instead?"

Felissia examined her claws. "Why put people together, when I can take them apart?" She bared a smile, placing her canines on display. "It's much more fascinating." She drew a card, smirking as she added it to her hand. "Don't worry Farmboy, I'm coming for the Empire now."

“So are you gonna exaggerate what Luke can do too? Already making rebellion flyers about how he floated everyone’s blaster out of their hands?” asked Jasper.

“Oh no,” replied Felissia. “My propaganda days are behind me. I got fooled by the Empire’s nonsense once. I’ve dedicated the rest of my life to unmasking the truth.” She narrowed her eyes at Anthea. “You’re bluffing, by the way.” Anthea’s expression wavered for a split second, then she folded in a pout.

Luke sighed. He’d been so distracted by Felissia’s talk of Vader he hadn’t noticed.

Everything he did or said, if it was possible to dismiss as blind luck, they did so. Even if it was in no way probable. Was there any way to convince them? Oh, how he wished he could make his saber float and shut them all up!

Giving up all pretence of being subtle, Luke closed his eyes and dug into the Force. The cards shone brightly within it?

“There’s something about these cards,” said Luke. “They’re connected to the Force. It feels like they don’t like being used for sabacc.”

“Says the loser,” laughed Jasper. Luke looked down at his chips. He barely had enough to get him through the last hand. If it wasn’t called at the earliest opportunity, he would get cleaned out.

“They were probably fortune-telling cards,” said Anthea. “Most decks in the Centran style are used that way.”

Wedge gathered up the cards and dealt out the final hand. Luke peeked at his cards. He had the legate of flasks, and the master of sabers. With eleven and fourteen, that gave him a total of twenty-five. It was over the limit of twenty three and made his hand worthless. Luke bit his lip and tried not to frown. Instead of discarding, maybe he took a chance at drawing another card? If he drew a negative it would bring his total down.

When his turn came he picked up another card. He sucked in a breath. The Queen of Air and Darkness. Negative three, no negative two. This gave him a Pure Sabacc! He clutched his little family of Crillan figures to his chest and tried to keep the grin off his face.

“Stand,” he said, when his turn came round again, not daring to disrupt it. Thank the stars they weren’t playing with a disruptor field that could shift the value of the cards at any time.

Two turns later Felissia called the game before he could. The rest of them had one more turn before everyone laid down their cards. Luke’s heart hammered. The outcome of this hand would determine the safety of everyone on the mission, possibly even his own life.

He felt a swell of dismay from Cilia as she studied the card she’d drawn. She’d probably bombed out.

Anthea traded one of her cards, then Luke felt unsettled as a sombre look crossed her face.

“All my life I’ve never been able to decide if I believed the Force was there. I like the idea of the Force, but I always believed staking my life on it was foolish,” she whispered. “So why does this card make me feel like I’m about to cry?”

She cleared her throat. “It’s been a fun game, but it’s not possible to establish whether something like the Force exists or not. I’ll leave it to the rest of you to decide how to handle the mission.” Dropping her cards on the table, she abruptly stood and returned to her notes.

“Uh, I guess she folds then,” said Wedge, and put her cards face down on the discard pile, but not before they had all seen the Idiot and the edge of a red two.

Luke gulped. If she’d managed to draw a three as well, she’d have the Idiot’s array, and beaten him herself.

The turn went to Jasper, who traded one of his cards, but with the subtle curl of his lip, and the grating squeal in the Force, Luke was sure he’d drawn a terrible card. So it was only Felissia he had to worry about.

His heart hammered in his chest as he watched Felissia lay down her cards. She had the mistress of sabers, worth thirteen, and the five of sabers. That made eighteen.

“Woohoo!” he shouted.

Felissia looked at him with a cold smile and uttered, “Pure Sabacc.”

She tapped the five with a clawed finger. “Fives are wild, Farmboy. I claim this as a ten.”

Luke was shocked. “What kind of rule is that?” he protested. He dimly remembered Anthea saying that at the start, and chastised himself for throwing so many away throughout the game.

Cilia laid down her cards, the mistress of flasks and a card that said Demise, with a value of negative thirteen. “Thirteen and negative thirteen make zero,” she said. She tapped the Demise card, showing a skeletal figure reaching through the mist. “That card was creeping me out the whole round. I thought it would make me win, but it didn’t. I should’ve discarded it the moment I saw it.”

Now it was his turn. Luke laid down his cards, feeling a sense of comfort as he laid down the queen. Surely the Force was on his side now, and he would win.

“Pure Sabaac,” he said.

Felissia nodded. “We all knew that.”

Wedge looked at Jasper. “Lay down your cards, then we’ll do a Sudden Demise.”

Jasper laid his cards down. He had the two of credits, and the four of flasks. “Compared to everyone else here, I lay shame to you all with a grand total of… six.”

Luke suppressed a giggle. Yeah, that was a really low number. He looked at Wedge.

“I’m going to draw an extra card each for Luke and Felissia. It will be added to their scores.”

Taking the first card, he placed it by Felissia. Two of sabers. That brought her up to twenty-five. She barred her fangs and hissed at her loss, making Luke scared at the thought of battling her in something other than cards.

Luke took a deep breath. As long as he got a negative number, he wouldn’t bomb out.

Wedge drew the card for Luke and flipped it over. A silver moon graced a starry sky, most of its face concealed in shadow. The Satellite… Negative nineteen. His head swam as he tried to calculate his new total. So that brought him down to…”

“Four. Which is beaten by my six. You lose, Commander,” said Jasper.

Luke looked over at Jasper’s cards in shock. He had forgotten about him, since his total was so low. He kept adding up the numbers, but they didn’t sum any differently.

Jasper grinned in triumph. “Very well, Skywalker. You concede we act on the assumption the Force does not exist for the remainder of the mission.”

The others got up from the table, while Jasper stayed behind to pack up the chips.

Luke opened his mouth to complain. Indignation swept through him. This wasn’t fair! He could’ve won if that stupid deck hadn’t decided to betray him. What was its issue? He drummed his fingers. That was it, it was offended by the ‘fives are wild’ rule too and didn’t even deign to stoop to its level.

“Luke! Come here!” shouted Wedge from the cockpit. “We've found it.” Shaking himself from his sulk, he ran up and strapped himself in beside Wedge.

He looked out the viewport. Crillan hung in the distance, surrounded by six moons. Reddish-peach clouds covered the planet, contrasting patches of aqua beneath.

For so long with minimal Force exposure, it felt like a symphony. But unlike Yavin, it played an ominous tune.

Chapter Text

“I’ll message Princess Leia with our coordinates,” said Luke. As he punched them into the long-range transmitter, he realised they were different to the ones Anthea had given him. Had they stumbled on Crillan by blind luck? Or was it the Force?

He pressed send, but it wouldn’t go through.

“It seems like the planet’s field is interfering with our signal. I can’t send our coordinates to the Alliance.”

“Never mind, just land!” demanded Jasper. “I’m not going to wait five hours while you use the sublights to move far enough away and back.”

“You do realise if anything happens to us, no one will be able to find us,” warned Wedge.

Jasper waved his hands. “Ugh. Drop us off and go back and send the signal if you insist.”

Cilia chimed in too. “Yes, I can’t wait to get my hands on the biological samples down there.”

Luke frowned. He felt uneasy, but he had promised the others he would act logically on this mission.

He looked across at Wedge. “I’ll stay with them below. It should be safe enough for you to pilot this ship yourself to send out a signal afterwards.”

Wedge nodded, and they began their descent.

As they glided through the atmosphere, Luke realised the planet was covered in trees. But unlike Yavin or anything he'd seen in a holobook, their leaves were practically blue. There weren't any green plants, instead the colour of the leaves ranged from teal to a deep navy.

“Over there,” Anthea pointed. “It looks like there is evidence of an old settlement. That there beside it used to be a quarry.”

Luke frowned as he studied it. All around the vast area, the trees grew scraggly and smaller, as if it was hard for them to grow near it. He brought the ship down in a clearing by some of the stunted trees and the bare maze of stones. As soon as the ramp opened, Cilia darted out into the terrain.

“What species is this? I have not seen this variation,” she mused. “What pigment do they use to perform photosynthesis? Do they have chlorophyll at all? Or a different enzyme? Ah, why are their leaves so thick?" She placed her equipment on the ground and knelt to collect a sample.

"Wait, moss too! The same turquoise colour! Ah, here we have blue, aqua, turquoise, and silver. Silver is likely lacking the pigment. Other colours have various quantities of it. I must analyse it, no wait, I must grab more samples!”

Luke let her prattle on as he walked out a few paces and stared in awe. After five whole days stuck on the ship, the Force thrummed around him. Pulsing through the trees, crisscrossing between their roots, singing through their leaves.

He looked up at the sky. Instead of blue, the atmosphere was tinged a soft red colour. Not the red of blood, the red of a peaceful sunset on Tatooine.

"Whatever the pigment is, I call it the Brightwater Pigment," said Cilia. "It will be good to finally get something named after me. Of course the real mystery is why they grow progressively smaller the nearer to this settlement. I wonder if there is a compound in the soil that was a by-product of city life. They might have deliberately mixed salt into it to inhibit the forest's growth." She put her plant cuttings aside and began scooping up bags of dirt.

The others wandered out of the frigate and stood beside him.

“Is this planet inhabited?” asked Luke.

“No, I haven’t picked up anything other than these trees yet,” replied Jasper. Luke sighed. Well, at least they were alone.

Luke turned from the trees to the rocky maze that stretched out on the other side of the ship. “So this was an old city?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Anthea. “The walls were made of stone, but they’ve all crumbled and had new rock form around them. We could be looking at something a million years old. There aren’t any other natural phenomena that could destroy a city in this way.”

Wedge ducked back inside the ship, while Luke and the other three began walking over to the stone city, leaving Cilia to her samples.

“It would have been massive,” Anthea said wistfully, as the four of them wandered through.

Jasper knelt down and took a few rock samples. “Let’s date them to know for sure.”

Luke reached out his hand and touched one of the stone walls. He flinched as the sound of screams filled his ears. Drawing his hand away, he took a deep breath and directed his gaze to where the feeling had been the strongest. Pulling a rock aside, he revealed a fossilised skull.

“What’s this doing here?” he said.

Felissia frowned, then crouched down and pulled more rocks aside, revealing several more skeletons. “Stars. This wasn’t a gradual abandonment. This is a tomb.”

“What?” Jasper tugged Luke out of the way, then scraped off a flake of the skull.

“Perhaps this was caused by a volcano,” said Jasper, looking around at the horizon. “I don’t see any traces of ash, however.”

“A flood?” Anthea asked.

“No,” said Felissia, tracing the bones. “They’re crouched down, covering their heads. Not drowning.”

Luke cautiously stretched his senses out over the city. It wasn’t just here that echoed of death. Spying a taller ruin, he began clambering up to the top. He took a deep breath, then steadied himself as he stood up on the thin wall and stared out over the city. Small craters dotted the city in a precise grid. He’d seen this kind of damage before in his history holotexts.

“Look up here,” he called out. “This city wasn’t destroyed by the ravages of time. It was bombarded from above.”

Jasper’s machine beeped. “Ten millennia ago,” he said. “That’s much sooner than a million years.”

“That’s the time I calculated the planet was abandoned,” said Anthea.

Felissia leapt up beside him in a few effortless bounds. “Sylvar’s ghost,” she breathed. “There were not many genocides of this scale in the Old Republic. What happened here to make someone so afraid they would destroy a defenceless city like this, and erase the planet from galactic records?”

Luke took her hand as she helped him clamber down. “To cover up their war crime?”

“Good point. That’s what I would do,” she said. Stars, had she even tried to unlearn her Imperial thought patterns?

Luke dropped to the ground and jogged after the others, who had been taking samples from more skeletons they had uncovered. As he was about to catch up, Jasper ground to a halt and Luke darted around him, nearly tripping in his course-correction.

“Whoa! No worries, you’re alright Luke, I found one!”

“Found what?”

Pulling out his vibroknife, Jasper began digging at something buried next to another fossilised skeleton.

“Wow,” he exclaimed, as he held a small crystal up to the sky. It shone a dazzling coral under the sun. “I’ve never seen kyber this close to red in the wild. It might be a compound in those clouds that causes this. True red can only be made synthetically, but this is a remarkable discovery. I'm calling the mineral component the Kelrian Compound.”

“Wait,” said Luke. “If you can create kyber synthetically, why did we even come here in the first place?”

“Oh, because we can’t create them larger than what can be used in jewellery,” said Jasper, wiggling his plethora of kyber rings. “Even creating one that’s big enough for a lightsaber is quite the feat of skill. Did you know that before he died, my father created the crystal Vader used in his lightsaber?”

Staring at everyone’s face, his expression fell. “Oh right. That isn’t a flex anymore.”

Luke held out his hand and Jasper deposited the crystal in his palm. The gem called to him, swirling in the Force. Grabbing his lightsaber, he held it up next to it. Was there a crystal in it too?

"It feels strange. It reminds me of the feeling I have when I hold my lightsaber, although less familiar." He shut his eyes. "I can feel it in front of me."

“Is that so?” Luke started as he turned to see Felissia grinning at them, with her hands on her hips.

“In that case,” she continued as she swiped the crystal from him, “If I hide it you should be able to find it.” With that she disappeared. Luke sighed and hooked his lightsaber back onto his belt, wincing at the pain of her claws.

“I thought we’d settled this,” he called out after her, but to no avail. Was she angry about losing her Pure Sabacc to his? He’d still lost the game!

Might as well get a head start. He closed his eyes and spread his awareness out. Dozens of crystals embedded within the rocks assailed his senses, combined with the echoes of so many people who had died. Breathing deep, he tried to remember the signature of the one he held.

Frowning, it eluded his grasp. He tried to think about where Felissia was, but that made his head spin. He took a deep breath and tried again, but only got the feeling she had finished hiding it and was on her way back. Okay, that won’t help. Try to focus on the song of that crystal. Luke played it in his mind, over and over.

In an instant, a veil lifted, and it sang out to him. Luke stumbled forward, not daring to open his eyes lest the connection break. His hands bumped against rocks and the Force guided his feet away from stones that would trip him. Despite that, he barely managed to keep his footing.

Soon he rounded right in on it and opened his eyes. It was lying on the ground, right in the middle of an open space. Not a particularly good hiding place, Felissia, he thought.

“I found it!” he shouted. "Right here!"

The others came running, but Felissia skidded to a halt a few metres away. Her eyes narrowed.

“That’s not where I left it.”

Chapter Text

The Force prickled and screeched with dissonance. Luke’s stomach churned as he didn’t know if it was her haunted stare that warned of danger, or something else.

The ground gave way beneath him.

“Aaaaaahh!” he screamed.

Tumbling.
Rolling.
Stones.
Bleeding.
Darkness.

Luke. Luke. A woman stood in front of him. She wore an ornate coral gown, with six gems braided into her thick, flowing hair. An aura of coral, orange and yellow surrounded her with the colours shifting and bleeding into one another. She reached forward and placed her hands on the sides of his head.

Luke awoke to a throbbing in his skull. Bile coated his mouth, and a huge wave of nausea overtook him. He began coughing up more as the sounds of the crew bickering washed over him.

"Why did the crystal move like that?" asked Jasper. "It's like it was trying to lure Luke into falling into this cavern."

"Nonsense," said Felissia. "I left it nearby, it must have been the wind that blew it from its hiding place."

Luke squinted in the darkness to see Cilia put a piece of medtape on his arm where she had finished drawing a vial of blood.

"Ah, my dear Commander, you're awake!" She flicked a light in his eyes and Luke squeezed them shut. She pulled them open and shone the light in anyway. His vision felt like it was tunnelling in.

"Good news, your concussion is doing far better. I had thought you had cracked your skull when we first found you.” She grabbed an alcohol serum and began dabbing his cuts with the stinging liquid.

"You've had a right fall, and given us all the scare." Luke lifted his eyes and made out a curtain of rocks spilling into a chamber, illuminated by a ray of light above. It must have been fifteen, no twenty metres he had rolled through them? At least he hadn’t fallen straight down, if he did he’d be dead.

"It looks scary, but it's more scratches you have than anything else. The only real danger is that you have a concussion." She sprayed his cuts again, this time with bacta spray. It brought instant relief, the sensation soothing and healing.

"There's a few bigger ones that need a bacta patch, but none that need stitches." As she grabbed them out, Luke noticed the vial of blood again.

"Why did you need to take my blood?” he asked.

"Oh, you weren't waking up, so I wanted to check your inflammation markers, and see if any infection was building up. While I technically have all the qualifications for a field medic, this is the first time I've used these skills in the field, so I wanted to be thorough. I'm normally tucked away inside a microbiology lab."

She slapped the last bacta patch on him, then picked up the vial of blood. Placing a drop inside a piece of equipment, she gave it a shake.

"Let me check your inflammation levels under the holoscope before I clear you." She pressed a button, illuminating a cloud of blue-tinged blobs above it. “Let's see, there's some signs of inflammation, but it's even lower than I'd expect for a concussion that caused loss of consciousness for this long. No sign of any infection.”

Luke gingerly sat up and shifted himself forward, looking at the display with fascination. "What is all this?"

"This is your blood. These are your red blood cells,” she said pointing at a semi-transparent shape with darker shapes within it. “Those are your white blood cells, there don’t seem to be too many which is good. Those little things are platelets. If there are too few it can indicate clotting and WHAT is THAT?"

Luke fiddled with his blood-stained clothes as she pointed at a blob a bit smaller than the other cells. "What do you mean?" he asked, hoping it wasn't bad news.

"Oooh, weird medical stuff, let me see." Felissia crowded between them as Cilia zoommed the holoscope in.

“Since when do you care about messy organic things?” accused Jasper. “I thought you were all about the mind?”

Felissia rolled her eyes. “There is a lot I know about how a sentient’s body works in order to understand how it affects their brain or brain-like structures. Like how being hungry makes you cranky.”

She peered at the holoscope display. "Oh kriff, that is weird."

"That," Cilia proclaimed, "does not belong in human blood." She tapped her chin a few times, then turned to Luke. “By the way, have you done a full interspecies panel before?”

"Interspecies panel?" Luke asked. "I'm a full human. I've done all the routine DNA checks growing up.”

“Ugh,” Cilia said, clamping a hand over her brow. “Those only check your DNA."

"But not all species have DNA! Not all species have cells or even blood! Do you know there are life forms out there, that for all intents and purposes, are indistinguishable from rocks! And sometimes, when two species intermingle, their offspring pass the biomarker exams for both species at a hundred percent. Nothing in biology ever fits into simple little boxes."

Picking up the vial of blood again, Cilia placed a few drops in another machine and pressed a few buttons that started a timer.

"For example,” she continued, “my people are considered sequential hermaphrodites. Most of us are born male, then develop into females at around forty standard years."

"To further complicate things, this switch isn't always clear cut. Chemicals in our diet or differences in our DNA can cause us to change back and forth at any point in our life, or leave us in an in-between state."

The machine beeped, and Cilia turned back to it. "I instructed this machine to run a DNA panel and as many other biomarkers as it could support.”

“Let’s see, your DNA has come out looking pretty normal, although there are a couple of unusual genes. Mitochondrial DNA is the most normal thing of all, so whatever you have going on, I'd say it's not on your mother's side. There are unusually high levels of gases and proteins in your blood, but it just lists that mysterious little component as 'unknown'."

“Basically, some of your biomarkers are dead on human, and some are... way off. But not even in a way that makes sense.”

“Stars, look at that m-count,” she breathed. The Mon Calamari’s left eye swivelled toward Luke and fixed him in an unnerving stare, while her right continued to read the display.

“My research found that humans have a max count of twenty thousand. And you, young Luke, have a count of thirty thousand. Which would be impossible if you are a full human."

"Why?" asked Felissia. "That's higher than the range I was taught on Cathar, but it's not uncommon to see variation in biology outside standard bands."

"No," said Cilia. “The Jedi wouldn’t let anyone see the records they kept of their own, but I have looked through historical databases for the general population that store trillions of tests. And I have never seen those levels in a human. In fact, not in any life form, come to think of it.”

"From a biological standpoint, this level is toxic for a human. They're just not built to feed that many. I mean, they normally die back before they can cause any harm, but having that many would compete for nutrients and starve you to death. Why you are alive and healthy at this age is beyond me."

She scratched her head. “Do you tend to eat as much as a bodybuilder, even when you aren’t doing much physical exercise?”

“Uh,” said Luke. “A little more than usual, but not enough that people comment on it.”

"Unless... Ah! That extra component in your blood. That must be designed to manufacture the common proteins they need! Of course, and the extra gases and protein levels are due to their increased food requirements! This is fascinating. If I could just take a sample of your stem cells—"

Felissia elbowed her in the stomach. "He's a patient, not your lab-pet."

Cilia sighed, and reluctantly put the holoscope and biomarker panel away, looking like a sad akk-pup.

“Can you at least tell me about your family’s genetic history?”

"Well," Luke frowned. "I never knew my mother, but my aunt had the basics about my mother's side. They were all human there." He scratched his head. "I'm not sure how she got it, considering they only met once." He narrowed his eyes. Ben must have told her.

"On my Father's side, someone showed me a holo of him back at Yavin." Luke smiled. "He looked just like me, right down to the same sandy-blonde hair. And so did my grandmother in the holo we kept of her, though hers was a bit darker."

"And your grandfather?" Cilia prompted.

"There was no grandfather," Luke replied.

"Oh," said Felissia, elbowing the microbiologist sharply in the gut.

“Why, but surely—oof.” Cilia doubled over clutching her abdomen.

For once, Luke was grateful for the psychologist's ability to read people like transpiriglass. But it still wasn't enough to deter Cilia.

"Hold on, are you saying she reproduced asexually? If so, that would be the first case recorded in humans." Felissia thrust her face into her palm, but Cilia straightened up and continued on. "You absolutely must tell us more."

Luke stiffened. He hated telling this story. Offworlders never took it well. Especially this scientist looking at him like a curious puzzle, not a bastion against a legacy of trauma.

“My grandmother, Shmi Skywalker, was born into slavery. When she grew older, she was sold onto a Hutt pleasure ship. As the ship hurtled through space, she cried out to the stars for vengance on all who would hurt her. This was her prayer:"

"Set me free, set me free,
Come take revenge, revenge for me!
As ever from this woe I flee,
You stars, you sky, come set me free."

"Set me free, set me free,
No family are left for me.
Oh little child, if I had thee,
You, too, would fly to set me free."

"Set me free, set me free,
Where hands are kind; consent I see.
But here for me love may not be,
Come take revenge, go set me free."

“The men still came to her that night, but afterward she dreamed she was asked if she wanted to become pregnant. If she did, one day her son could bring about the answer to her prayer."

"Over the next few days, the men who had touched her started dying. One choked on an olive. One slipped in the ‘fresher. One broke his neck walking down the stairs when the ship passed through some space-turbulence.”

“Whispers spread throughout the ship, and no one dared touch her. The ship stopped on the nearest planet, Tatooine, and sold her off. But the rumours followed her. While she was spared from being sold to Jabba's palace, she still lived the life of a slave."

“Oh Honey,” said Cilia. “Your grandmother caught something from one of the men. It was probably a virus or parasite that wasn’t deadly to her. Something that kills hosts that quickly will need hosts it doesn’t so it can keep spreading.”

“Or she bedded an assassin and spilled their secrets,” said Felissia. Luke scowled at her.

“What? It’s a logical step to take.”

He ignored her and continued the story. “On Tatooine, she gave birth to my father and began using the name Skywalker. She remained a slave for another twelve years, but finally found freedom. Although not through my father."

“And so her prayer lay dormant, till she was taken by the Tuskens and starved and dehydrated. But then my father came to rescue her, and slaughtered the entire village at her death.”

“So the sad thing was, even though the prayer worked, it still didn’t help her much.”

“Or he knew the prayer and deliberately enacted a form of vengeance she might appreciate,” said Felissia.

Then she frowned. “The entire village. Did he kill the women and children too?”

Luke grimaced. “I hope not. That question kept me up at night as a boy. I kept turning it over in my mind. Was he fated to do such a horrible thing? Could I be fated to do something like that too?”

Felissia shook her head. “Shmi’s dream was just her mind helping her cope with a horrible thing that happened. Free yourself from belief in the Force, Luke. The freedom from toxic concepts like a cruel fate is worth the loss.”

Luke turned his gaze to Cilia and fixed her in his stare. "The names of those men have been struck from memory by many fearsome Tatooine curses," he said. "Do you understand now?"

Cilia nodded. “My apologies, Commander. I'm sorry for your family's pain." She began packing the medkit up. "Right, well, it's all looking good, so I'd say you're officially patched up. As long as you take things easy, that head shouldn't give you any trouble, and you’ll live to become a fine old woman." She packed the last of the medkit away, then helped him to his feet. He nodded when he didn’t feel dizzy or faint.

Felissia pulled out her com. "Wedge," she called. "Luke's woken up and doing fine. We'll set up our supplies and start exploring down here. You're clear to fly out and transmit our location to the Alliance."

Looking around him, Luke noticed many carvings around the chamber, which was supported by a grid of ornately carved columns.

“What is this place?” he asked.

“We are in an old Jedi temple,” said Anthea.

Luke’s eyes grew wide. “A Jedi temple?” He looked round at the carvings. Yes—he could see figures carved into the wall holding lightsabers and sitting in meditation postures.

Anthea pointed to some kyber set inside a mural, where many small figures holding a kyber crystal clustered around a few taller ones. “The Jedi must have used this place to get new kyber for their sabers. So why did they hide Crillan from the Republic? No, it talks about how they tried to bring the planet into the Republic, but the inhabitants refused.”

“Wait, what is this?” With help from Jasper, she lugged a few boulders away from another mural.

"When they first came here, they made an agreement with the Crillan for the Republic to harvest their kyber. But then a great danger grew in the Dark Side of the Force, which they sealed away below."

She traced her fingers over the Old Basic, the last section of the writing consisting of hastily scratched letters.

"Unfortunately, this also sealed away the Crillan temple beneath. Tensions became high and the Republic navy was called in."

“Right,” said Luke. “So we know where to avoid.”

“What?” asked Anthea. “No, we know where to go.” She tapped an image with a cluster of kyber in it, beneath the image of the seal. “That’s where the biggest crystals are.”

“Scanners say the entrance should be right… here.” She rapped her knuckles on a brassy slab of metal. “Luke, take your saber and cut this open.”

Squinting, Luke realised she was indicating two ancient metal doors that had been welded shut by a seal joining them together.

Digging his glowrod out of his pack, Luke flicked it on and headed toward the doors. Crunch. He froze and shone his glowrod down. The beam illuminated a skull, the lower mandible crushed by his foot. It wasn't a Crillan skull this time. It was human.

Luke shone his glowrod across the ground in a wider sweep. There were a number of bones and skeletons scattered about, all lying near the door. Several lightsaber hilts lay amid the dust.

Cilia crouched down and sniffed. "This seems consistent for ten thousand year old remains lying somewhere undisturbed."

"Why are they dead? What happened? Who killed them?" asked Luke.

"Who knows?" said Jasper. "But why are they all gathered around the door?"

Luke bent down to pick one of the sabers up, and it fell apart in a collection of rusty pieces, the crystal spilling out and rolling away.

Anthea pulled his wrist away. "Leave them, Commander. We'll return someday with the equipment to find out who they were and preserve their possessions."

Luke nodded and put his hand on one of the doors, trying to feel for any signs of evil in the Force. He recalled the twisting, sinking feeling when the Advanced TIE bore down on him outside the Death Star. The one lurking in a corner of his mind as they scrambled through the station itself.

It felt cold and empty beneath his fingers. Perhaps there was nothing there. Or perhaps it was the seal doing its job.

Luke studied the seal. Compared to the ornate door, the seal looked plain with untidy edges, as if it had been welded to the door with a lightsaber.

Ben? he thought. Is this a good idea? Nothing.

He activated his saber and plunged it into the seal. Molten liquid poured out beneath his blade, as he slowly brought it down, cleaving it in two. As he got all the way through, the doors creaked, and Luke skipped back as each of them swung open.

Wind blasted through the exposed entrance and a chill seared his bones. Switching off his lightsaber, he heard a voice echo in his mind.

Skywalker. Do you know who your ancestors are?

Chapter Text

Luke turned to the others. No one noticed the chill in the air.

Anthea clapped him on the shoulder. “Good job, Luke.” She switched on her glowrod and inspected the entrance. “Looks structurally sound. Let’s go.”

They followed her down the winding passageway, the walls painted in ornate detail. The most common colours were the turquoise of the trees, and the coral of the sky.

Luke paused by an especially spectacular mural. “What does this represent?”

Anthea tossed him her glowrod and lifted her datapad, snapping a holopic of the entire wall. She tapped on the screen, launching an analysis of the text on the image. Zooming in on the carvings a few times, she looked up and jumped into an explanation.

“The Jedi are not unique in building their religion around the Force. See, this culture had a practice around it too, before the Jedi sealed this temple under their own.” She pointed to a Crillan female levitating six crystals around her.

“In fact, through my research I’ve come to conclude every culture had a way of connecting with the Force. They would often contradict or see it differently to what the Jedi taught.”

“Can you see any reason why the Jedi may have sealed this place up? What happened in the Force to make them so afraid?” Luke asked. He stretched his senses out, but all he felt was an eerie coldness. He didn’t want to say anything lest Felissia scolded him for mistaking the way different types of cold felt to a desert dweller.

“I’m not sure. But I do know this. The Jedi had no framework for dealing with the Force in Crillan’s manner.”

“Ah yes,” she continued as more parts of her image were translated. “They did not see Dark and Light the same way.”

“Different cultures divide the Force in different ways. Some see it as one, and never divide it. Others divide it in two, like the Jedi, but in a different way. Others divide it in four, that’s the most common. Others six, eight, or several hundred, while others divide it into as many stars in the cosmos.”

“Some say every soul is a division in the Force. They think of the Force like a…” she waved her hands, “…cosmic soup of every soul that has ever lived.”

Felissia rolled her eyes. “Soul soup? Stars, I’d rather stop existing when I die, thanks.”

Anthea shrugged. “Some believe all their ancestors pass on into the Force, and you can commune with them if you need guidance. Others believe that for a soul to retain its individuality after death is very difficult, only learned by a few. Others tie their souls to a physical object, unable to appear again after it is destroyed. Others say preserving the soul after death is unnatural, or forbidden. Then such things fall into myth.”

Taking her glowrod back from Luke, she strode down the mural and traced a wheel with six spokes. A different colour orb was painted at the end of each spoke. Studying the colours of the six circles, a thought struck Luke.

“Do these represent each of their moons?”

Anthea’s face visibly increased the passageway’s illumination. “Brilliant, Luke. We’ll make an anthropologist of you in no time.”

“This culture, while it does have hundreds of divisions in the Force, it personifies those.”

“For thousands of years, all scholarship on the Force centred around the Jedi’s understanding of it. The belief was they were the ones who properly discovered it, and spread their knowledge to all other cultures at the advent of hyperspace travel. All similarities in understanding between cultures was used to claim that the Jedi had given them that knowledge, and deny their requests to the Republic in funding their own temples. This caused much of their own knowledge to wither away, reinforcing that hypothesis.”

“What?” gasped Luke. “Why would the Jedi let that happen?”

Anthea frowned. “I don’t think the Jedi grasped the scale on which this was happening, as it was barely noticeable over the course of a single lifetime. They were also vocal critics of the Republic too, time and time again. They always challenged the huge drain on the galaxy’s food and hyperfuel that Coruscant required to keep its supply chains running so the staggering population would have enough to eat.”

“As the last tree on Coruscant was cut down, and the last ancient farmland paved over to make room for a starship factory, the Jedi again expressed concern over how the Republic tended to prioritise the interests of the core worlds, and disregard the needs of the mid and outer rim. When the Republic didn’t listen, the Jedi considered standing down and refusing to take on additional missions till the Republic promised to distribute resources fairly. But too many Jedi feared how people in the galaxy would suffer if they were not able to receive their aid, even for a short while.”

“In addition, I’ve found documented evidence of Republic officials doing everything in their power to ensnare the Jedi’s dependence on them. And not just that, but increase the Jedi’s influence on the galaxy due to their loyalty to them and weaken the influence of other Force-wielding organisations, all without losing public favour.”

“Why would the Jedi allow the Republic to treat them that way?” Luke asked.

Anthea grimaced. “The Jedi debated their tight involvement and dependency on the Republic a lot, but the council would always vote to continue to receive its funding. And while they tried to accept as few limitations as possible, they always had to make compromises. Overall they thought it was worth it to use the Republic’s funding to amplify the good they could do in the galaxy. They didn’t want to risk dwindling away like other sects of Force-users.”

She shrugged. “Anyway, with the demise of the Jedi, and the publication of work from the likes of Cilia and Felissia, scientists turned to my field to also claim that the Force never existed. They said the similar ideas were invented by the Jedi first to con unsuspecting people into giving them power, and spread to other cultures from there. Then they pointed to the wildly different cultures and religions to claim there was no evidence of the Force, which would have properties universally experienced by each culture.”

“But I wasn’t so sure. As I reviewed their research, I realised if you stopped thinking about the Force the way the Jedi did, and gave what each culture said as much weight as the Jedi, a lot of similarities became apparent, even though many weren’t shared by the Jedi.”

“From this I developed what is called the Axis Framework. It has started to gain some traction, but a lot of key scholars won’t use it, because it means recanting everything they’ve published throughout their careers.”

“What’s an Axis?” Luke asked.

“The Jedi divide the Force in two, the Dark Side and the Light side. But instead of dividing the Force in two halves, or one line, and leaving it at that, my Axis framework allows you to divide it on multiple different concepts, each on their own Axis. Depending on the culture, there may or may not be moral judgements associated with where on the Axis an action falls.

“In ancient Jedi texts I see traces of the two most common Axes, both of which Crillan have as well. Crillan’s third Axis was a concept rarely discussed.”

“The first of Crillan’s Axes is the Axis of Life. One side relates to the way the Force moves through and is created by living beings. The other side relates to Death, and concerns the Force as it moves through non-living things, like planets, kyber and stars.”

“And when living things die.”

“The energy of the Force on the Life end of the Axis is described as active, vibrant, and constantly in motion. Practitioners would use the Force this way for small-scale actions they needed to perform at a moment’s notice, like leaping many stories high or running at incredible speeds.”

“The Force on the Death end is described as silent, still, and quiet. It was hard for a practitioner to detect outside a meditative trance. They would use the Force this way for large-scale actions that took a long time to perform, such as peering into the past, the future, or attempting to speak with the dead.”

Luke gasped. “Jedi can see visions of the future?” He had spoken with the dead, yes, but this was new.

“Jedi make educated guesses, and sometimes vividly daydream, just like many other people,” dismissed Felissia.

Anthea continued. “Other feats included entering a healing trance, reaching across a vast distance, or clouding a foe’s vision in the Force. If you were foolish you might tug on the threads of your fate, but tales of woe nigh always accompanied this.”

“The only way it could be grasped quickly enough to be of use in combat was at the threshold where Life crossed into Death. This consisted of skills that manipulated the body of a living thing by drawing them closer to death, like shooting lightning at them or crushing their windpipe.”

“The threshold where Death crossed into Life was considered impossible to influence. Many believed mastering its secrets could allow the user to create life, but I have never seen this recorded outside speculation.”

“It appears vital in this culture, as in many others, that both sides of this division be kept in balance.”

“Why wouldn’t a culture treat death as something evil? Why would they strive to keep it in balance?” asked Luke.

Cilia interjected. “Well, cells that grow without dying are a cancer, and a species that overpopulates will destroy an entire ecosystem.”

“Yet a fire that never quenches will not lead the forest to renewal,” finished Anthea.

"The other division most cultures make, and I can see traces of it here, is the Axis of Will. Is the practitioner acting in line with the Will of the Force, or twisting and bending it to their own?”

“This is the primary way the Jedi make their cut of the Force. All uses of the Force where the practitioner forced their will onto it were strictly prohibited.”

“Through the ages, especially the first fifteen thousand years of the Jedi Order, I realised I could trace most of the ideological conflict the Jedi had to the process of the Axis of Life and the Axis of Will collapsing into one.”

“This caused a lot of confusion and debate around what actually constituted the Dark Side, especially the use of specific Force powers considered to arise from the Death end of the Force.”

“Was the issue using the Force to harm another being? Was it using any power associated with the Death end, even those morally neutral? Or was it violating the Will of the Force, even to save someone’s life?”

She tapped on a bolt of lightning carved into the mural. “Ah, the one hundred-year debate the Jedi had on the ‘ethical uses of Force Lightning’ was such fun to research. The drama you could feel leaking from their papers, the subtle passive aggressiveness, couched in faux-non-attachment to their pet theories. And then someone would just up and admit they were actually attached to their idea and swap over to arguing for the other side like nothing had happened.”

“It was so confusing at first, as I could not make head nor tail of what anyone thought, but once it clicked that they acted like this it landed me light-years ahead of every other scholar studying them under the Empire. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall in one of their temples. Did you know there was one time I read about a Jedi arguing against what they saw another Jedi say in their vision?”

Anthea sighed in disbelieving fondness and continued. “Turns out they actually decided to ban it by saying they needed to stop their padawans from accidently shorting out their comlinks or even the power cells in their lightsabers in the middle of a war zone. I think it was an excuse everyone jumped on board to never have to deal with the argument again.”

“After that things were fairly smooth for a while. Some Jedi reframed the Axis of Life as the Living Force and the Physical Force, or even the Living Force and the Cosmic Force to retain many of the powers associated with the Death end of the Force. While those cuts of the Force weren’t adopted by many, the powers they argued for were. But from their new aversion to the Death skills came their mandate to use the Force to defend, never attack.”

“Yet they ruthlessly cut down their foes with their lightsabers.” Felissia snickered. “Hypocrites.”

“Actually,“ Anthea raised a finger. “Many Jedi thought so too. You see, the ironic declrations of your lightsaber being ‘very important’ became increasingly unironic as those scholars passed away. A few thousand years later it led to the formation of the ‘Your Lightsaber is your Life’ doctrine as the new Jedi attempted to piece together what in the worlds it all meant.”

“From that point in their history, multiple duelling styles were developed and there became much more emphasis on duelling as part of a Jedi’s training.”

“When many Jedi saw the trail of violence others left with their blades, now that many more were armed, they sat down and attempted to produce guidelines for where and when lightsaber use was appropriate in a situation. It received push-back, and many debates raged where increasingly awful moral dilemmas were presented. They coalesced along the lines of whether to remove limbs alongside weapons to defuse a violent situation quickly, or wait for a chance to disarm them unharmed but risking more people, including themselves, getting hurt.”

Anthea shuddered. “Some of those dilemmas still haunt my nightmares today.”

“Perhaps appalled that these situations were considered at all, groups of Jedi broke off and started their own temples where no one was permitted to carry a lightsaber or any other weapon.”

“However, those Jedi found themselves heavily relying on mind-tricks to get out of difficult situations. They hastily began to retroactively justify it, and those arguments came to the attention of Jedi scholars and philosophers. The debate on lightsaber use got pushed aside as scholars frantically tried to play catchup. Philosophic rivals over weapon use spanning decades or lifetimes were put aside to perform damage control as they worked together to propose a framework that limited the worst of using mind-tricks.”

“Scholars were nigh united against its use, but the new pacifist Knights taking missions in the field were for it. The framework was only intended as a stop-gap while they resolved the lightsaber-use debate. But alas, their efforts failed, as they could not persuade all the Knights to agree to never use it without coming to a consensus on lightsaber use. This divided the scholars once more as they attempted to sort it out.”

“So the hasty bacta-patch they slapped on mind-trick use was soon considered the ethical gold standard of when it was perfectly acceptable to use it. From there it spread to knights who used lightsabers as well.”

“Yet the battle still raged on the fringes throughout the remainder of their history. If Jedi are charged to never push their will onto the Force, how can they expect to push their will onto the mind of another? For all beings are connected to the Force,” finished Anthea.

Felissia shook her head. “All they needed was a good, secular ethics professor to tell them all their squabbles were meaningless. The only thing they needed to consider was the moral outcome of any action they took. Imposing your will onto a mythical part of nature is no different than the idea of imposing your will onto a block of marble as you carve a shape you desire.”

Anthea shook her head. “The Jedi are right to be wary of such a path. If you push your own will onto the Force its wrath may be your undoing. Or it may lead you down a path of endless suffering.”

“Cultures that practiced this extensively, like the Sith or Nightsisters, became their sworn enemies. Those peoples would often have a way of avoiding some of those consequences, but there would be many precautions and techniques woven in that are lost to time. Yet even the best of these only stem the tide of consequences for so long.”

“However the Jedi have never studied the dangers of blindly keeping to whatever is considered the Will of the Force. They forget that it can be the Will of the Force to cause destruction. Including their own.”

Luke gasped. “How could the Force will such a thing?”

“The Jedi would treat the Will of the Force as a monolithic thing. But this couldn’t be any further from the truth.”

"If you think about it, you are part of the Force. So your will, for good or ill, represents an aspect of the Will of the Force. And the principle extends to nearby surroundings, cities, and planets. The Will of the Force in a specific location will be different depending on the beings that make it up. Whether living or dwelling in the Force."

“The Force is part of nature, and causes disasters just as it does. Getting to know it can allow you to do much good, but you cannot take its safety for granted. It is like expecting lightning never to strike because you know its name.”

“This leads me to Crillan’s third Axis. Most cultures only recognise the first two. It often gets treated as an extension of the Axis of Will.”

“It is called the Axis of Self. It is the division between you and the rest of the Force.”

“Think of it as how much energy you have. To float something you’re capable of lifting can be done with your own power. You don’t need to push your will onto the Force to use the surrounding energy to help you.”

“To float something many times your bodyweight, like our frigate, you need to rely on the wider Force to help you. If it is the Will of the Force, it will help you without having to push your will upon it. This is also where the Jedi's doctrine of 'not disrespecting the Force' comes from. It is why they say no to using it for parlour tricks to please skeptical minds of scientists like Felissia."

Felissia grinned. "I'd always say to them, Frivolous Use, or Frivolous Belief?”

Anthea resumed talking, her tone of voice if she was summarising one of her lectures. “If you only use your own power, you risk overexertion and damage to your health. If you never rely on your own power, you are at deep risk of the consequences when engaging in the cosmic dance to do the smallest thing. And subject to the mercy of its unfathomable whim.”

Felissia made a loud yawning sound. “That all seems like a lot of work to explain why a nice coincidence happens when you shut your eyes and wave your hands about. Calling the times it doesn’t ‘The Will of the Force’, is what we psychologists call a ‘Thought-Terminating-Cliche’.”

“Right,” Luke said to Felissia. “But even if I couldn’t predict how, when, or why an object would float, if I got you to witness one instance of it, would you believe?”

Felissia paused, twitching her whiskers. “No, not necessarily. We met an ex-Jedi on our way to the Alliance. I caught him using magnets to float his com into his hand. I’d need to check any examples of that kind of power under strictly controlled conditions.”

Anthea cleared her throat. “Anyway, that’s a very, very minor crash course on my Axis framework and all 50,000 years of Jedi scholarship.”

50,000 years! Luke’s skin tingled in a mixture of awe and dumbfoundment as he tried to wrap his mind around the enormity of that scholarship and legacy.

It felt like they were something real, something he could touch. Like he could see the dust on the holocrons and feel the hand-written flimsy in each tome beneath his fingers.

This wasn’t a glimpse into the starry-eyed tales of saviours in the clone wars he’d heard from the Rebel base that a small piece of his brain still told him were stories for children. Nor were they the paradoxical stories from the Empire of them being in the same breath a myth, destroyed, yet responsible for every woe right down to your caf being cold in the morning.

And it all rested on his shoulders.

A sinking, twisting horror grew as he thought about the painstaking efforts one generation of Jedi had gone to in order to make something clear, only for it to be misinterpreted in a way they could not have foreseen a thousand years later.

He was doomed to fail.

Presently they wound into a wide, circular chamber. Six statues carved from stone stood around the edges. Five of them held a dazzling aqua kyber crystal bigger than Luke's outstretched palm, yet the sixth crystal was missing. In the centre of the chamber was a lump of coral kyber sitting at the top of an ornately carved altar.

"Wizard!" Jasper cried. "This is more than I dreamed we’d find, and it’s all right here! The weapons we build from this could win the war." He knelt at the central altar and prepared to cut the crystal out.

“Wait,” said Luke. “The Jedi sealed this chamber away for a reason. Anthea, can you translate what this room is for? Or any reason the Jedi were afraid to touch them?”

“Let me see,” said Anthea. She knelt and began deciphering the text carved into the sides of the altar.

“Thrice name yourself and your connection to the ancestor you wish to speak with, then cast your blood upon the altar. Not even the veil of death shall part you, for all live through the Force. Their blood flows in your veins, and by your blood, we summon them.”

“So it’s a way to summon ghosts?” asked Luke. “Like General Kenobi’s? He spoke to me during the Death Star battle.”

Felissia gave him a pitying look. “Luke, sometimes in the heat of the moment, when adrenaline mixes with grief, the mind experiences strange things. While I don’t doubt you heard something, that wouldn’t have been him.”

"Has he spoken to you again? We could ask him something we know that you don't know the answer to,” asked Anthea.

“Indeed,” said Felissia. “Ask him the name of the young boy he took from Cathar to train as a Jedi.”

Luke sighed. "I only heard him moments after he died on the Death Star, and as I drew close during the battle."

“Maybe his presence is tied to where he died? Perhaps you were only able to speak with him because you were near the Death Star?” said Jasper. “Which means you’ve obliterated any chance of hearing from him into space dust.”

“Perhaps a ghost needs a physical link?” asked Anthea. “That’s probably what the blood is for. If they’re trying to summon a ghost away from the place it died, they might need something for it to hone in on.”

Luke eyed the geoengineer as he pulled out his vibroknife. “Does the writing give any warnings about removing them from this place?” Luke asked.

“Well, the ancestor-ghost thing may not work anymore, and oh, there is one warning. 'Smaller crystals on Crillan may be harvested, if the large are left alone. But do not touch the sacred crystal, or you will die.'”

Cilia scoffed. “It’s just a superstition. The Jedi are long dead. So are the ones who built the temple above.”

I wonder why, thought Luke.

Jasper stood silent for a moment. Then he shook his head and dug his vibroknife into the crystal’s setting and began to lever the crystal out.

“No, stop! This is a massive archeological find!” Anthea protested. “It should be preserved for future generations.”

“There won’t be any future generations if we don’t stop the Empire,” replied Jasper.

“Wait,” said Luke. “Let me try the summoning crystal first. If it doesn’t work, then I’ll stop bothering you about taking the stones away.” He nodded at Cilia. “Give me the blood sample you took.”

She rummaged through her pack and handed it to him, and he stepped forward, holding it poised above the altar.

The voice echoed in his mind again.

Skywalker. Do you know who your ancestors are?

Taking a deep breath, he steadied his nerves. “What were the instructions again?”

“Thrice name yourself and your connection to the ancestor you wish to speak with, then cast your blood upon the altar,” Anthea supplied.

If this worked, he was going to speak to his father the same way he had spoken with Ben. If it didn’t, his legacy was a lie.

“Are you gonna take all day?” snapped Jasper.

Luke opened his mouth.

“I, Luke Skywalker, call upon my father to speak with me.”

Luke felt the Force spin with activity, and took a few more deep breaths and immersed himself in it.

“I, Luke Skywalker, call upon my father to speak with me.”

No Luke, don’t do it. You don’t know what you’re doing. It was the echo of a shout from far away.

Ben?

“I hear General Kenobi. He’s telling me not to do this.”

“Oh Luke,” said Felissia. “That’s your subconscious protecting you from the truth.”

Luke’s gaze hardened.

If you were real, you’d be happy for me to meet my father.

“I, Luke Skywalker, call upon my father to speak with me.”

With that, he tipped the vial of blood on the altar.

Chapter Text

The Force reached a crescendo then vanished in a hush. Luke blinked. “Is that it? What happened?” He turned around, looking for a shimmering ghost.

“Father?” he called out. “Ben? Where are you?” He shut his eyes and spread his senses out, but nothing. Absolutely nothing. The Force was silent.

He collapsed to his knees and put his head in his hands. “It didn’t work,” he wailed.

Felissia patted his shoulder. “Don’t worry, Luke. You’ll be stronger with your delusions shed.”

Jasper fidgeted with his vibroknife. “Now that we know the magic summoning powers of the crystal don’t work, you think it's safe to ignore the other warning? ‘But do not touch the sacred crystal, or you will die.’”

Felissia bared her fangs and drew close to it. “It’d be their temple guards who would kill you. I’d say that’s fair enough if someone tried to steal or vandalise an important artefact. The Emperor’s executed people for even looking at his collection wrong. If not, how would they clean the blood between each use?”

She shone her glowrod at the statue missing a turquoise crystal. “Besides, whoever took that managed to remove it fine.”

“Or they weren’t,” said Jasper, “because they didn’t come back for the others.”

Felissia raised a hand, extending her claws to their full length. Touching the tip of one to the crystal, she paused and grinned at the horrified stare Jasper gave her. Dragging it through the blood on the crystal, she scraped some off and held it to her nose and sniffed.

“Still as fresh as ever."

She was about to lick her claw when Cilia slapped her arm away. “Don’t be foolish,” she said.

“Luke has no blood-borne diseases,” said Felissia. “I checked the medical readouts when you patched him up.”

“Maybe he doesn’t,” continued Cilia, “but other people using the crystal might have. Most pathogens die without a host, but some can go dormant for several thousand years. And if they didn’t clean it, it'd be deadly to touch if someone left a nasty disease lingering on it.”

Grabbing the medkit, she pulled out a bottle of medical-grade disinfectant. “If there are pathogens on here, even ones that lasted several thousand years, I have a surprise for them.” Taking the disinfectant spray bottle, she squirted it over the crystal, foam dripping everywhere. She set a timer on her chrono and started pulling out an army of alcohol wipes.

"Doesn't it scare you?" asked Luke. "Knowing there could be deadly germs out there lying dormant for ten thousand years?"

“Nope,” said Cilia. “When you’ve seen and worked with as many pathogens as I have, there comes a point where you stop worrying anymore. Do you know how many germs are in the ocean? And the air? We swim in germs.”

“In fact, my giant bottle of disinfectant is only reserved for… special occasions. I’ve had my skin slathered in Grade-A contaminants across five different occasions in my lab. I still have scars from the last time my skin broke out in an uncategorised rash. Although you humans should really change your vials of ritual mating paint more often.”

“Don’t worry,” said Jasper. “I clean my makeup brushes every morning.”

“You still bother with it?” asked Anthea. “We’re at war.”

“That,” said Jasper, “is exactly why I wear it.”

Cilia shrugged and then grabbed Felissia's hand and began carefully cleaning the blood off her finger. "This is why I don't let you into my labs anymore. Regardless of how I operate, checking every single biological sample with your 'heightened sense of taste and smell' is not a safe way to do science."

Felissia licked her teeth. "Gotta keep my Cathar skillset sharp."

Cilia’s chrono beeped, and she knelt down and began cleaning the mixture of Luke's blood and foaming disinfectant off with the wipes. After that, she finished prying it loose from the setting with her bare hands and dropped it in her carry-sack.

She stood up. “See? Fine.”

Jasper walked over to one of the five remaining crystals held by a stone statue under Anthea's stern glare. “These would need some better tools to cut through the metal setting,” he said.

“We could get Luke to use his lightsaber. That worked great on the door,” said Felissia.

“We can’t risk damaging the crystals,” said Jasper. “I’ll come back later with the proper tools. Besides, this crystal is enough to power our turret. If it doesn’t work… at least we left the other crystals in Anthea’s historical find alone.”

Anthea huffed then pulled out her datapad and finished snapping holopics of the room.

“Coming?” said Felissia as she headed over to the way they came in. As the others left, Luke forced himself to his feet.

Glancing around the room, his eyes grew wide as he saw the woman from earlier standing there. Now that he was fully conscious, he realised she was not human but Crillan, remembering the drawings on the sabacc deck and shapes of the bones from the settlement above.

“Follow me, Luke,” she said. Studying her again, he realised she bore many similarities to the image of The Queen of Air and Darkness from his final hand. He was making her up?

“Leave me alone,” he said.

He turned his head to the sound of the others calling him. Luke! Where are you? You need to see this.

When he turned his head back, the woman had vanished. The tunnel she had been standing in sloped sharply downward. He rubbed his head. Were hallucinations a side effect of a concussion? He’d better ask Cilia. Or Felissia, she would know even better.

As he ran up the passageway with the huge mural alongside, he saw the others standing before the doorway he had unsealed. He was surprised to see it was completely dark, only lit by the shadow of Felissia’s glowrod.

“The entrance we came through,” said Jasper. “It’s caved in.”

Vader trudged through the blistering heat of Vaal’s arid grassland. He had been stuck on this Force-forsaken planet after being shot out of the sky by that bucket of bolts held together by flimsitape.

It was dry and dusty, with the dust coating his suit and all the way down his lungs. His suit had run out of food four days ago, and the oxygen for his respirator was running critically low. He was lightheaded from conserving as much as he could.

He looked down at the hyenax running by his side. He was only alive due to them taking him to their watering hole. Perhaps it was harsh out here, but he was free, away from the demands of the Emperor and the incompetence of his admirals. With a pack that fought for him as fiercely as he fought for them. He massaged his shoulder injury from fighting off the massive creature that attacked them last night. It had hurt, but it was worth it.

One hyenax paused and sniffed, lifting her head. Taking note, Vader scanned the horizon.

Ah, an Imperial outpost. His lenses highlighted the shape of an Imperial Lambda-class shuttle in the distance. Now at last he would have his revenge for his humiliating defeat. He pressed a few buttons on his chest panel and restored the standard flow of oxygen, increasing his pace.

Now he would return to being the Emperor’s pet. The memory of his master’s cackling voice swept through his mind. Never forget who created you. I own you. He closed his eyes and welcomed his anger as he thought about how he’d seen this very breed of hyenax caged and sold for entertainment in the Coruscanti underbelly.

The three garrisoned stormtroopers sat strewn around, playing sabacc, helmets off and guard down. As the hyenax approached, the soldiers squawked and scrambled to shoot the animals.

Fools, he thought, clenching his fist and snapping their necks. Let my family feed on your remains.

Entering the shuttle, he walked over to the ship’s oxygen tanks. Pulling out the canisters from his suit, he refilled them one by one. Then he grabbed a thermoflask, and mixed up a sachet of nutripaste. His shrivelled stomach complained as he tried to sip the mixture through a straw.

Gazing around the cockpit, he made some idle calculations. How many hyenax can one Sith Lord fit on a Lambda class shuttle?

When he took a seat, the Force echoed in his mind.

Skywalker. Your descendent calls you.

“Impossible,” he said. “Who dares address me?”

We are the guardians of Crillan. Your descendant calls to you from within our temple.

Hmm. The planet Crillan was rumoured to be in the Rentheon sector, which wasn’t too far away from Vaal. Gripping the yoke tightly, Vader considered this. He had been missing for a tenday, and it wouldn’t take much longer to check this out. And if his child was really out there, it was best the Emperor was unaware.

“Crillan has been lost to history.” Vader replied.

Close your eyes and enter the coordinates. The Force will guide you.

Chapter Text

“Wedge, come in.” Static. Luke lowered his com. Where was he? Shouldn’t he be back by now? He felt something drip on the back of his head.

“There’s a storm up there,” said Felissia. “It must be causing interference with our coms.”

Water was seeping into the cavern.

Luke instinctively unhooked his flask and held it up, not wanting to let the wealth go to waste. But it seeped in everywhere. Through the rocks, beneath their feet, along the sides and dripping all over the ceiling.

“Uh-oh, if we don’t find a way out of these caves, they’ll fill up with water and drown us all,” said Anthea.

“It’s the crystal,” wailed Jasper. “It’s cursed. We should never have removed it.”

“Don’t be silly,” said Felissia. “We need to stay calm and stick to rational thought to get out of here intact. You can theorise superstitions when you’re safe and dry.”

Cilia spoke up. “Something’s happened to him. The Alliance doesn’t even know we’re here. If we die here, they won’t even know where to look. Even if we have a few days before it floods, they’re not going to be able to come looking for us. Sure, I grew up underwater, but water in a place like this brings a whole host of dangers.”

Luke shivered as he felt the raindrops trickle down the back of his shirt. What was happening? Did the Force do this? But do not touch the sacred crystal, or you will die.

Felissia shone her glowrod in everyone’s face. “We are going to find a cave that is filling slower than this one. We’ll camp out there till it stops raining, then look for a way out.”

She looked at Jasper. “Have you changed your academic position on the Force, one you were so adamant about over our round of sabacc?”

Jasper’s eyes widened. “Ah, no, of course not.”

Felissia nodded. “Then we are all agreed to continue this mission on logic alone.” She nodded at Luke. “Lead the way, Commander.”

Luke gulped. What business did he have leading this group of people out of a life-threatening situation? They were all far older than him. Anthea was in her fifties, and he was only nineteen.

He blinked. Focus. Find a tunnel. He shone his glowrod at each of the various tunnels branching off the main passageway. He saw one to his left that was twisting upward. It seemed like a good choice. There was also the woman back in the cave. But her passageway led downward, so that was the opposite way to go. And who was she? Was she even real? There was an eeriness, an otherworldliness about her that made it feel like she could snap him with a breath.

Sighing, he shone his glowrod at the rising passageway. “Let’s go this way.”

They began walking. It wasn’t smooth or hewn like the main passageway they had come along. Luke had to scramble and clamber over uneven stones, made slippery with the water running down the middle of the passageway and dripping from the stalactites above.

Luke nearly tripped as the passageway got especially rocky, only to slam into Cilia. She slipped and tumbled over the rocks.

“Cilia!” Luke shouted as he clambered after her. “Stars, I’m so sorry, are you alright?” he said as he began helping her up.

“I’ll live, it’s just a few scratches,” she replied.

The others emerged, hovering around and asking if she needed anything from the medpack. Luke retreated back in shame. Why did he slam into her? He never bumped into people, and could never understand the clumsiness of those who did. Huh. Maybe that was something he relied on the Force for.

Wait.

He couldn’t sense her in the Force.

She was gone. When did that happen?

Cilia took a step, then nearly faceplanted as her foot slipped. Luke darted in and seized her arm, managing to steady her.

“Stars, why do I keep slipping,” she muttered.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” asked Anthea. “This is the fifth time you’ve slipped since we started down the tunnel.”

“Stars, it’s like my rats,” Cilia breathed.

“What do you mean?” asked Luke.

“Quick, let me draw a sabacc card. If I draw a card with a positive number, there’s no need to worry.”

Puzzled, Luke went over to Anthea and took the deck from her. Fanning them out, he held them up to the shivering microbiologist. She closed her eyes and reached forward, muttering under her breath. Positive, I name not just the pigment in Crillan plants, but every new pigment I discover after myself. Negative, I admit Doctor Thessadore was right about how quickly gut biomes deplete in response to starvation.

“No,” she gasped, drawing Hazard. She drew another, grabbing The Evil One, then Demise. “No, no no no!” Could Mon Calamari turn ashen? Luke shuddered as he placed all three negative cards back in the deck.

"I had the odds stacked toward me," whispered Cilia. “There was only a two-percent chance I could fail.”

“What are you going on about?” demanded Felissia.

“The midichlorians, for my experiments. I harvested them from my rats. But the ones I drained completely, they never survived longer than a few hours. They showed no signs of ill health. They kept getting… unlucky.”

“Like the men in Luke’s story?” asked Jasper.

Cilia nodded. “One time my student forgot to water one. Another a lothcat broke in and and started eating them. It had only got to the drained ones when we found it. Always circumstantial chance, but I drained thirty-two in this manner, and not a single one remained alive. They all died of… bad luck.”

Felissia scoffed. “Did you try a double blind trial?”

“No, that wasn’t what I was trying to prove. I needed a reliable way to get midichlorians for my other experiments without my animals dying. I had lost so many my research was in danger of being shut down by the university for carelessness.”

“Why would not being able to connect to the Force bring bad luck?” Luke asked.

“My theory is that we’re all drawing on the Force. For most of us, it functions as our intuition and gut feelings. At other times, we may be using it to influence other people to agree with us, or escape their notice. The more ‘lucky’ someone rated themselves, the more likely they would have a high midichlorian count.”

“Luke, that Captain Solo of yours, exceptionally lucky, persuasive fellow. If I hadn’t heard your father’s name, I would have bet on him having the highest m-count of all the Rebellion.”

“So midichlorians control your luck?” said Luke. Cilia slipped again, but Luke held her arm and kept her from falling. “What happens when you run out?”

“Luke, you have a bad feeling about this place, correct?” Luke nodded, surprised.

Cilia continued. “I have had one ever since you broke the seal in the Jedi temple. But as soon as I touched the kyber altar, the feeling… stopped. And I have never been as scared by anything in my entire life. I think I’m going to die within the hour.”

The Force snapped at him, and Luke grabbed her and pulled her close. Just then a stalactite fell from the ceiling and shattered where she was standing moments before.

He took a deep breath and spoke as calmly as possible. “Keep hold of my arm. I can sense when danger is about to befall you. You don’t have anything to worry about.” He could feel Felissia rolling her eyes at him, but she said nothing and walked to the front, taking the lead so Cilia could see the safest footing to use.

They continued down the cavern, and came upon a small passage leading up and off to the side. “Let’s check this out,” said Luke.

As they walked into it, an uneasy feeling grew in his gut. A jarring wrongness cut through the Force, like there was something that shouldn’t be there.

A circular pool of water lay ahead of them. Felissia shone her glowrod across it. “It’s maybe eight, ten meters in diameter. Seems to be a ridge on the other side, but I don’t see any paths leading away.”

The wrongness built into a deep sense of dread, and the urge to run the other way pounded in his head. He took a deep breath. They needed to finish checking it out.

Felissia shone her torch down. “Whoa, it looks deep. It’s completely clear, but I can’t see the bottom.”

“It must be an abandoned Crillan mine-shaft,” said Anthea.

The edges of the watery shaft were lined with kyber, this time a deep turquoise. Luke couldn’t help but feel there were also shapes like bones stuck to the sides. He shuddered. They shouldn’t be here. Every hair stood up on the back of his neck.

“I wonder if what’s down there killed all the Jedi,” said Jasper. “Perhaps the Crillan dug too deep when harvesting the crystals.”

“This well hasn’t been contaminated with muddy rainwater gushing down from above,” said Cilia. “It could be a good place to camp out and wait for the storm to pass. Besides,” she said, blinking as if in a dream. “I'd love to swim in there. Too long since I've had true access to water, my skin cracked and bleeding, cruel the ship's air conditioning...”

Luke looked toward the pool and thought for a moment he saw two glowing eyes staring at him. Panic lanced through him.

“It’s not safe here,” said Luke. “We need to leave.”

“Aww, scared of Jasper’s theories?” taunted Felissia.

He tugged on Cilia’s arm, but she remained still, gazing at the pool. “Water, water, forever I adore her,” she whispered.

“Cilia?” Luke asked, shaking her arm. “Are you okay?”

“Water, water, forever I adore her,” she said again, stepping forward, slipping out of his grasp. Luke looked up again. There was a shape this time, not just eyes.

He seized Cilia’s arm, dragging them both from the cavern.

“Luke, wait!” the others called after him.

He emerged with Cilia down the main shaft, then ran ahead with her. The path opened out into a large chamber, filled with water forming an underground lake. Glow-nits hung all over the ceiling, lighting it up much brighter than the night sky. He scarcely needed his glowrod, but the water was muddy and choppy.

“What the kriff, Luke,” gasped Felissia, as the others caught up to them. “What was that about?”

“There was something in the cavern,” said Luke. “It was mind-tricking Cilia to enter the water.”

“Water,” echoed Cilia.

“This must be where all the rain-water is collecting," said Jasper. "If we can hide somewhere above it, we should be safe for a long time.”

“Water,” repeated Cilia, slipping from Luke’s grasp. He reached out but this time only grabbed her pack. The back unzipped and the contents spilled out over the ground.

“Forever I adore her,” finished Cilia, and broke into a run. The pack slipped out of Luke’s hand as she leaped forward and dived into the lake.

“Cilia!” they all shouted. Running over to the water’s edge, Felissia shone her glowrod about the surface of the water. After searching for a few minutes, she shook her head.

“She might’ve hit her head on one of those falls. She probably thought she was home. She’ll come back up soon when she realises there’s nothing down there. Or up for air.”

“How long can Mon Calamari hold their breath?” Luke asked.

“Thirty minutes,” replied Felissia.

“Really?” asked Anthea. “I thought they could breathe underwater.”

“No, that’s a myth,” said Felissia. “They need organic gills for that.” She frowned. “She could be in there for a while exploring it. There’s no telling how deep it goes.”

“She’s probably looking for a way out,” said Anthea.

“But why’d she run in with no warning?” asked Jasper. He had opened his pack and began collecting all the medical supplies that had scattered from Cilia’s pack. The kyber crystal lay bobbing near the water, as Jasper crept toward it.

“Do you think,” he whispered. “Do you think it was because she touched the crystal?”

“I touched the crystal,” said Felissia. "Did you all forget that?"

“Yes, but only with your claws,” said Anthea. “They’re made of keratin, which is dead. You may as well have been wearing gloves.”

Jasper shucked off his jacket and gingerly wrapped it round his hands.

“No flesh contact. Got it.” Picking up the crystal, he dropped it, jacket and all, into his own pack and zipped it up. Luke nodded when Jasper looked at him, confirming he could still sense him in the Force.

Felissia shone her glowrod across the cavern onto the other side of the lake. “There. There’s a tunnel leading out of here.”

Luke gulped, remembering the dianoga that pulled him underwater in the Death Star. Unable to breathe, flailing for his life. “We’ll have to cross through the lake. Are you sure it’s worth the risk?”

“Yes,” confirmed Jasper. “If we stay here for too long, we’ll have to swim to stay afloat. Once we fall asleep we’ll die, if the cavern doesn’t fill up first. That tunnel goes upward, so this cavern will have to fill up before we get affected.”

Luke shook his head. “It’s dangerous. We can’t go in there. I think she’s dead.”

Logic. You promised them you’d rely on logic. He took a deep sigh. “Do you know how long we have?”

“Perhaps five or six hours. I can spend some time calculating how fast the water level is rising, and give you a more precise estimate.” He approached the edge of the water, and pulled out a ruler from his bag. He pushed the end between some rocks, right at the water-line, then started the stopwatch on his chrono.

“We’ll wait for Cilia first,” said Luke, setting a timer on his own chrono. “We’ll give her thirty-five minutes.”

Anthea took out a thermoflask, and the electric water heater she’d been carrying. Setting them up she began boiling the water.

“We should all have something hot to drink. The water’s very cold. It’ll make it easier to cross.” She dug into her pack and pulled out a ration bar. “All of you eat one too. We need to make sure we keep our strength up clambering through these caves. We don’t need anyone slipping like Cilia due to low blood sugar. Besides, having less weight will make the swim easier.”

Luke unwrapped his and gratefully bit into it. He wasn’t aware how hungry he was. Anthea had some soup mix which she stirred into the hot water, and passed Luke a steaming mug of goodness. He clung to the comfort in each sip, as he alternated between scanning the lake for signs of Cilia, and watching the water creep up the ruler.

After scanning fruitlessly for some minutes, Luke gave a sigh. The Force did not like the thought of him going in there. “The Force feels too dangerous. I think Cilia is dead.” He turned to Anthea. “Don’t you believe in the Force? You gave us a whole lecture on it earlier.”

“That’s just a theory for how it might work if it did. It doesn’t mean it actually exists.”

She sighed. “The Force is a nice idea, Luke. My dear husband believed in it wholeheartedly. When he passed away, it brought me a lot of comfort to think he might be preserved in some way. But stalking my life on it is not something I will do. I agree with Felissia and Jasper on this one.”

“But you said earlier you thought it wasn’t possible to establish whether the Force didn’t exist?”

“You can’t prove a negative, Luke,” said Felissia. “That’s all she’s saying.”

“But your research,” said Luke. “Why would you spend your whole life studying how other cultures saw the Force, if you weren’t trying to understand if it was really there?”

Anthea placed her hand around an ornately carved amulet hanging from her neck and squeezed it tight. “I studied more than how they saw the Force, Luke. It was necessary to understand how they saw it to understand them and especially my own culture. There were so many beautiful things within it. Love, dignity, and respect for all life-forms.”

Her face set in a determined glare. “Preserving that became my little rebellion. Our ideas flew in the face of the Empire’s desire to see each of us a disposable cog in a giant machine. A machine that tore through the galaxy making each planet the same and tearing out every valuable resource.”

“Because while others embraced open rebellion, I couldn’t. My elderly parents had many health problems and depended on my professor's salary to keep them alive. If I did something heroic and got executed, there would be no one to take care of them.”

“I lectured thousands of impressionable students each day, and I took care to slip in all the fascinating, beautiful, and wonderful things about each culture. Then I made Felissia’s nonsense as boring as possible. I could see in many students when it clicked, while it glossed over the ones who didn’t care. I lived in constant fear of one of them reporting me to an ISB agent and getting hauled out in the middle of a lecture.”

“It was beautiful garbage,” said Felissia. “In fact, that’s how we met. The ISB were getting suspicious her lectures weren’t up to standard and contacted COMPNOR to send me over to look into it. I wrote a whole pile of specially tailored garbage just for her.”

Anthea nodded. “It undermined a lot of my key arguments, but I kept repeating it because it kept the ISB away.”

“Yet the guilt ate at me every day. Should I have done more? Should I have fought? Was it wrong to compromise?” She looked at Luke. “You spent your whole life outside the Empire’s influence. Tell me, what I did… was it right?”

Luke gulped. “I know what you mean,” he said. “Biggs offered to take me away with him to join the Rebellion but I told him I couldn’t till I’d helped my uncle pay off the debt on our farm.”

She drummed her fingers. “When my parents passed away, I hesitated. This life was all I had known for nineteen years. While it was miserable in many ways, it had become safe and comfortable. I was getting too old to be running around on a battlefield, and struggled to convince myself to actually fight. I didn’t even know where I could find the Rebellion.”

Jasper nodded. “I didn’t know how to resist the Empire either. All I could think to do was focus on myself and my own career. But one day all four of us were sitting in a bar, complaining about the respective scientists in our fields. Then the explosion of the Death Star came on the holonews, and we all looked at each other. In a moment we went straight for the nearest shipyard and purchased our frigate with some of the crystals I had on me, not even returning home for our possessions. As we flew away, Felissia contacted the holonet forums she used to snoop on to study why people were joining the Rebellion. And next thing we knew, we were in.”

Anthea turned to Luke. “If you can sense the lake is dangerous, you can sense if Cilia’s still alive.”

“I can’t,” said Luke. “It feels like she’s dead. But it felt like that as soon as she touched the crystal.”

“Well,” Anthea shifted on her rock. “I know you don’t want to cross, but none of us are going to stay here.”

Luke scratched his head. “There was another tunnel in the Crillan temple that led down. I think it might be worth checking out.”

“Down?” said Felissia. “That’s not any good.”

“It’d take an hour to get back there,” added Jasper. “By the time we’ve explored it, it might be too late to come back and cross over.”

Luke sighed. If he ran back and checked out the other tunnel after all the others went over the lake, he wouldn’t be able to swim across to meet them on his own. “I can't swim,” he added.

"We’ll help you," said Anthea. “Everyone will be fine, Luke. In fact, we’ll probably bump into Cilia partway across and she’ll carry you the rest of the way.”

He looked out at the water churning in the lake. He’d known, in theory, what a large body of water looked like. He would spend his holidays going to the library and checking out nothing but holotexts of different oceans. He would ignore the writing, and stare endlessly at the holos of water playing on loop. Longing deep in his soul to get his hands on a ship and pilot himself to such a place one day.

But this was the largest amount of water he’d laid eyes on in real life. The greatest riches he could conceive of. All this water. Just here, without any backbreaking toil tending to vaporators for it. If he took this much water back to Tatooine he could retire in luxury.

He thought back to the ancient Tatoo fable, when a band of desert tribes appointed themselves a king to distribute their water fairly and equally between them. To their dismay, he kept their water in order to pour himself a bath, as rich off-worlders were rumoured to do. The next morning, the king was found drowned within it. That was the first time Luke had encountered the concept of drowning. Knowing he was going to die like a king didn’t make it any more comforting.

Thirty minutes passed, then thirty-five. The top of the ruler was almost submerged. Luke’s chrono beeped.

“No sign of her,” said Luke. He looked at Jasper. “Can we afford to wait any longer?”

“No, we need to cross,” he said, looking up from the calculations on his datapad. “At the rate I’ve estimated the water to be flowing in, and the remaining size of this cavern, we only have three and a half hours before it fills up past each entrance. And if we don’t find anything safer on the other side, we’ll need to allow time to come back and return to the safest spot on this side. We need to go now.”

Felissia jumped to her feet and pulled off her jacket. “If Cilia is still alive, even if she is lost, she will be fine. Unlike us, Mon Calamari can sleep in open water, the way other marine mammals do. But we might drown before she can find her way back to us.”

“Leave everything here that isn’t necessary,” instructed Felissia, as Anthea moved to pack up. She looked at Luke.

“If it makes you feel better, Farmboy, I’ll cross first.” With that she strode into the water.

Luke took a deep breath.

Time to cross the lake.

Chapter Text

Luke watched Felissia streak through the water, propelling herself with a noiseless stroke that marked her as a predator. She emerged on the other side and flashed her glowrod to signal them over.

Jasper laid his pack on the ground. “Put everything you need to carry in here, and leave your own packs on the shore.”

“Will you be alright?” Luke asked. “That looks heavy with all those medical supplies.”

“I’ll need to concentrate hard on swimming in order to get across safely, but if you and Anthea run into any trouble, I’ll come back and help.”

Checking his lightsaber was secure, Luke followed Jasper in. The water was icy cold, and every nerve screamed with shock. He was not built for the cold at all.

He bit his lip and kept walking in. Soon the water reached up to his waist. It began to level out, which was good. Maybe he could walk all the way across.

“Whoa.” Suddenly his next step was a lot lower than the last. He slipped and lost his balance, floundering as his head slipped underwater. The water tasted foul and muddy, his arms flailing as he managed to find his footing and surface above the water.

“Anthea,” he gasped. “Help me.”

She grabbed his shoulder. “Put your arm around me. I’ve got you. Kick down with your feet. That’s it. Now you’re treading water. Okay, now start paddling with your hands. Good. Wider, slower strokes. That’s it. Now try to make them horizontal, and time them with kicking out your feet behind you. There, not flashy but that’ll do you fine down here.”

They continued to swim and the Force grew more tense with danger at every stroke. Luke gasped as an eel the width of his finger jumped out in front of him.

“Cave eels. Of course,” said Anthea. “The glow-nits. We should’ve known that’d mean there’d be a whole ecosystem down here. I bet Cilia ran in because she smelled food.”

“An ecosystem,” he gulped. “Does that mean there’ll be even bigger creatures in here?”

Anthea frowned. “I’m not sure. We’d need Cilia to answer that.”

He noted several more eels leaping out of the water, swimming away from them. They were all partly translucent, something his holotexts said was common for creatures that lived in dark waters.

“This is too dangerous,” said Luke. “The Force is screeching at me. We have to turn back.”

Anthea shook her head. “No we won’t. Jasper has already made it across. We’re nearly two thirds of the way ourselves. The first time you go in water when you can’t touch your feet to the ground is always scary. There’s no need to be frightened.”

Something brushed against Luke’s fingertips. “What was that?” he gasped, panic rising in his throat.

“Just more eels, there’s a big one brushing up against me—ahh that might not be a good sign.”

Luke stopped paddling. The Force impressed upon him to move as little as possible, and he dared not ignore it any longer.

“Stay still,” he said, trying to tread water with as little motion as he could. “Don’t make a splash.”

Her eyes grew wide. “I’m not waiting around for these eels to start taking a bite. I can’t risk your hunch to save my life.” With that, she let go of him and swam away, switching to a faster stroke that sprayed water everywhere.

“Anthea!” he shouted. “I can’t swim without you! Don’t do this!”

Three seconds later she disappeared under the water.

“Anthea!” he yelled. She resurfaced moments later, trying to splash and keep herself afloat. To his horror Luke realised the woman was missing an arm.

“Luke! Help!” she screamed.

He tried to paddle toward her, but everything she taught him went out of his head. His head kept slipping beneath the waves and he choked on the muddy water. Just as his finger-tips grazed her other arm, she vanished under the water again.

All was silent. Her amulet rose up and floated at the surface of the water.

Then she resurfaced without her head.

“Luke!” shouted Felissia. “Grab the rope!”

He turned and saw her on the shore, about to throw her grappling hook. Land near me, he willed into the Force. She flung the rope toward his outstretched hand, just as he found himself pulled underwater.

Floundering around, his hands hit something, and he grabbed on for dear life. It jerked him forward, at the same time as he felt a searing pain in his foot. Kicking with his other foot, he felt it make purchase as he was dragged along by what he hoped was the rope. His left foot was on fire, but at least it was still attached.

Then he felt rocks scraping against his lower body, and tumbled onto the shore to the noise of blaster bolts ringing out. Luke scrambled up the rocks on his arms and good leg. In the light of the glow-nits, he saw the head of an eel as big as his own, with multiple red eyes. It opened a mouth ringed with teeth, a second set of jaws lurking deep within its throat. It moved forward and bit his injured leg again, dragging him down the bank as he fumbled for his lightsaber. A sharp pain dug into his heel, and the eel opened its outer teeth as the second set of jaws pulled his leg deep into its throat.

Luke screamed in pain as the creature bit down below his knee. His lightsaber dropped from his grasp and rolled down the rocks.

He reached for his blaster but it had been knocked from its holster as he was dragged down the bank. It’s over, he thought.

Then his hand closed around his hilt.

Snap-hiss. He slashed at the eel’s gills, causing it to twist away as fire seared through his calf. As it lifted its head, he slashed frantically at its stomach. With a growl, it opened its maw and came in to bite again. He plunged his saber right through both jaws, the razor sharp teeth stopping millimetres from his hands. It let out a high-pitched squeal, then the feeling of death permeated the Force. He kicked it further into the water with his good leg, and watched it float away from him as he switched off his lightsaber. Stars, it had been at least six or seven meters long.

Felissia ran over and dragged him back up out of the water, stopping when he collected his blaster.

“Luke!” she exclaimed. “Your leg!” Luke turned and looked at his left leg.

“Oh,” he said. Then his head swam with dizziness and he laid down, his vision tunnelling.

Felissia turned to Jasper. “Get me what you salvaged from the medkit.” After rummaging through the pack, she approached Luke and yanked his shirt away from his neck.

Just as he was about to pass out, Felissia stabbed something into his shoulder. Luke felt fire surge through him and sat up gasping, with the thought I’ve got no foot I’ve got no foot I’ve got no foot racing through his brain.

“You’re in luck,” said Felissia. “Jasper managed to salvage the bio-cap,” she said, fitting it over the remaining part of his calf. “I don’t have to cauterise it with your lightsaber to make sure it stops bleeding.”

Luke choked and tried to crawl away, but she just patted his knee. “That’ll keep it disinfected and help with the pain too. It’ll start numbing down in a few minutes. And the stim shot will keep you moving for several hours.” Then she walked a few steps away and began shaking the water out of her fur.

Shining his glowrod out onto the lake, Jasper caught Anthea’s body. “Do you think it’s safe to get her body to bury, now that we’ve killed that eel? As the light flickered above the slowing waves of the lake, the three of them watched another eel lift its head out of the water and grab her. She slipped beneath the surface without a trace.

“I guess not. Well, it looks like we aren’t going back that way.”

Then he moved the beam onto the translucent stomach of the eel Luke had slashed at, then covered the light with his palm.

“Sylvar’s ghost,” Felissia murmured.

Luke leaned over and began to puke as he tried to erase a sight that would be forever burned into his brain.

“I… guess we know what happened to Cilia now,” said Jasper.

Felissia stopped shaking the water from her mud-stained fur, and gingerly pushed the bodies of the eel and the Mon Calamari within further into the lake.

This is all my fault, thought Luke. If I’d trusted in the Force, even if it was only myself who stayed behind, the others would’ve been able to swim fast enough to make it. Stars, if I even knew how to swim Anthea wouldn’t have died.

Or not. Luke frowned, and wondered if Anthea would’ve used her fast stroke from the get-go, if she hadn’t had to help him.

Should he have ordered them all to stay back? Leia had encouraged him to lead the team as democratically as possible, and Luke had been determined to stick to the agreement they’d made about the Force back on the ship.

Regardless, Cilia is dead from me forcing myself to check out the passage where the creepy shaft was. We should have stayed put or tried our luck with the downward tunnel, regardless of whether I hallucinated the coral woman.

Luke blinked, remembering the sting of his father not showing when he summoned him, and how it had shaken his faith in the Force. Combined with the weight of everyone telling him it wasn’t real, he knew even now he didn't have proof, just bad feelings that came true.

If only I was a better Jedi. If only I'd learned to make something float or how to perform a mind-trick.

He thought back to the sabacc game, and the sinking, gnawing feeling the final hand gave him when he saw the other’s cards revealed. Like it was trying to tell him something important, but he didn’t know what. Instead of telling them how to run the mission, had the Force warned them of their fate?

“Let me sing a song for the two of them,” said Jasper. “This is a common funeral dirge on my homeworld.” Climbing up on one of the rocks, his haunting tenor echoed round the cavern.

“By the seas, by the stars.
Now to sleep, er’e to part.
Guide us from the sky, our grief crashes upon the shore.
Rest in the Force, where we began, and ever end.”

Chapter Text

Vader brought his shuttle down into Crillan’s atmosphere. The Force felt strange. Old, but it thrummed in recognition of him.

Is this the place you have brought me, Spector? You had better deliver on your promise. Or I will wipe your temple from the face of this planet.

The Force drew him to a storm, and he set his ship down upon a soggy clearing. He came to an open gash upon the ground, and leaped down without harm. Finding a doorway blocked with loose stones, he shifted them aside and plunged into the darkness below.

Luke touched the last bit of his calf just above the bio-cap. He could barely feel any sensation from his finger, and the initial pain had blunted considerably. It must be numbing all the nerves in his leg. Despite that, his head still throbbed from his concussion, and he was shaking from a mixture of adrenaline, cold and fear.

Felissia finished shaking the remaining water from her fur, and then walked over to Luke. “We can’t stay here any longer. I hope you’re feeling better.”

She bent down and looped one of Luke’s arms around her shoulders, and Jasper took his other arm. Together the three of them helped Luke limp up the passageway.

The passage tilted sharply upward, and it took them a while to help him over the rocks. Then to their dismay, the passage dropped down in a steep rock face. The three of them tied their grappling hooks to the stalagmites at the top, Felissia’s still in working order after saving him from the eel. Felissia and Jasper did all they could to help him, but Luke kept slamming and hitting the wall as he tried to climb down with three functioning limbs.

As he neared the base, a deep, cold fear settled on him. He felt like he was back at the Death Star. His fingers slipped and Felissia grabbed his wrist. Jasper reached the ground and placed his hands on Luke’s back as he guided him the rest of the way down. Luke lay down panting, trying to breath through his fear.

He’s here. He’s alive. He’s after me. He’s not even human, he’s a monster that can follow me anywhere and won’t stop till he’s killed me.

“What is it, Luke?” Felissia asked.

“Vader,” he gasped. “It feels like Vader is here.”

At her frown, he continued. “It’s the same feeling I had in the pit of my stomach when we were on the Death Star. Especially when I saw Vader kill Ben—General Kenobi. Same as when I had that Advanced Tie on my tail that almost roasted me before I could fire a shot.”

“Luke, you’ve lost a limb and escaped a traumatic brush with death. Don’t forget your concussion earlier today. It’s perfectly normal to be experiencing flashbacks to when you also escaped death last tenday. It can feel extremely real and vivid, but it is just a flashback.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to breathe through it. Maybe Felissia was right. His ability to sense someone’s presence in the Force was nothing but his brain making it up. There was no way Vader would be able to find this place, if he was even still alive.

“It’s okay, Luke,” she continued. “And you don’t need to be afraid of Vader. Even if he survived Yavin, he’s still an ordinary life form. Whatever kind of life form that is, of course, no one knows.”

“Leave her arguments aside and tell me this, Luke,” said Jasper, as he took his hand and helped him to his foot.

“If the Force is actually out there, don’t you think engineers would have built machines to tap into it?”

Luke blinked. Yes, that did make sense. Why had he never thought about that?

“Why do we spend so many credits on fuel and hovertech if even the simplest life form can make something float?” he continued.

Felissia took his other arm again and the trio began making good ground as the path became a lot flatter.

“And like poor Cilia said, if it was simply a matter of midichlorians, we could connect a droid to a stack of petri dishes. We’d interface with them through an electric current or other kind of stimuli. That was why I wanted to build droids when I was a youngling. People have been trying to build such a droid since the first droid was built. And no one has succeeded.”

“Or,” he paused, thinking. “At least, no one has… till Vader.”

“What?” gasped Luke.

Jasper grinned, cracking the knuckles in his free hand. At the movement Luke noticed a large burn scar on the back of it.

“No one knows who he is, where he comes from, what species he is, or if he is even organic. Many people think he’s a droid.”

"At minimum, he's a quadruple amputee. He's been sighted on multiple occasions with injuries to each of his limbs, confirming they're all mechanical. The scientist who designed his armour bragged to me about having a remote that disabled him, but wouldn't reveal more about his condition. There was another rumour that someone hacked into his vocal processor, giving out fake commands in his name."

How could Vader be a droid? He had felt him, pulsing in the Dark, more terrifying than any living thing. And calling to him in a way that chilled him even more. He shuddered as he felt the same siren.

If Vader was a droid, that would be the final nail in the coffin of his Force abilities.

"He's not a droid, he wouldn't have the respirator otherwise," interrupted Felissia. “Cilia would be turning in her watery grave if she heard you."

Jasper wagged his index finger. "Ah, but the thousands of midichlorians stored in his torso would need a high level of oxygenation!"

His hand flew to his mouth. "Ah! That's the secret! Higher levels of oxygenation! Or interfacing with various combinations of gases. Cilia did say your blood had a higher composition of gases within it. I must build!"

He looked around, then blinked. "Right. I've figured out the greatest engineering problem of all time, and I'm stuck dying down here. With not a single droid part to tinker with."

Luke sighed. The looming feeling came closer, and he tried to shake it from his mind. It's not real, he thought. None of it was. The trio rounded a bend, and the cavern continued to stretch upward, the rainwater running down through it.

"So, if your goal was to build a droid that could interface with the Force, why did you become a geoengineer instead of a microbiologist?" he asked.

"Ah. Because midichlorians are not the only substance rumoured to interface with the Force." Jasper raised a finger. "There is another, and one far more stable than the fragile midichlorians."

He tugged on his backpack.

"Kyber."

Luke gasped. "What? How?"

"The Jedi fiercely guarded this secret." He wrinkled his nose. "All part of their attempt to tighten their monopoly on the Force."

"Kyber can focus energy to extreme precision, making it fantastic in any weapon that uses a laser. And, they act as 'containers' of the Force. I discovered a Jedi would meditate with a crystal for several days before using it in their lightsaber. This would imbue it with their Force signature, making it easier for them to handle."

Luke grasped the hilt of his lightsaber. That was the singing he felt in it. His father had tuned the crystal!

"As I discovered when I tried to play around with a lightsaber I purchased off the underground market. With every swing, it grew heavier and more clumsy, till that fatal slip that nearly took my hand off."

Jasper wiggled his scarred fingers. "I've not dared wield it again after my injury, so I'll never know if it was a clumsy accident, or actually fighting me. I removed it from the hilt, but despite all my efforts, it would never cooperate. I tried mining other crystals and soaking them in midichlorian-rich blood to achieve the same charging effect. But they never took.”

“Ooh,” he said, stopping, as he saw a wall imbued with a thick vein of kyber crystals. These were turquoise, like the ones Luke had seen lining the creepy shaft. Dropping his pack to the ground, he opened the bag up and began pulling out his tools.

“Wait, we don’t have time to harvest these,” said Felissia. “You have one big enough to power our turret already.”

“That’s just one,” said Jasper. “We need a whole fleet. Besides, I’ll only be a few minutes. Take Luke on ahead if you prefer, I’ll catch up.”

Luke sighed and carefully sat down. Why was he obsessed with them? Was it really just so he could build more turrets?

“You keep talking about the Force like you believe it on one hand, and like it’s a total fiction on the other,” said Luke.

“Oh, right,” said Jasper. “The Force is a force. That’s literally in its name. It’s just a physical force, like gravity or electromagnetism. It’s a material phenomenon that with study and research I can unlock and control.”

“That’s what I’m learning to do with my mind,” said Luke.

Jasper wagged his finger. “Not like that. There is nothing mystical or sentient about it. In my research I show how you can provide a specific electrical frequency to the right crystal, and get it to behave in a specific way. But with crystals like these, I will have the missing piece to finally complete it. If my research succeeds, I will have unmasked the natural phenomena behind the Force itself.”

“Only thing you’re missing from your theory is that it has a mind of its own and can just up and decide not to work,” interjected Felissia. “That’s what people always say when they can’t demonstrate it in front of me.”

"Does kyber generate energy too?" Luke asked. “I’ve heard people say that.”

Jasper wrinkled his nose. "That would make it an infinite energy source. Not even the Jedi think the Force works like that. Life creates it and connects to it. If the kyber on the Death Star drew its power from the Force, everyone on board would have died.”

The Force began buzzing and Luke tried to shift himself backwards. “Stop,” he said. “I don’t think you should keep digging.”

Then the wall crumbled. “Jasper!” he yelled.

Jasper rolled through the rocks, the crystals tumbling from his pack as the bag rolled after him. Felissia dashed after Jasper, leaving Luke on his own. Gritting his teeth, Luke crawled after the two of them.

“The crystal!” Jasper gasped, getting up and running after it. The gem had fallen from his pack and was rolling toward a pool of water.

“No, don’t touch it!” shouted Luke, too late.

The crystal toppled into the water just as Jasper thrust his hand in. Luke’s heart pounded, not daring to check the Force to see if Jasper was okay.

Jasper turned, a grin on his face as he lifted out the crystal with his bare hand. Then his face fell. “It’s cracked. It’ll be useless for my weapon now.”

As Jasper started walking back to them, Luke checked the Force and felt the geoengineer fading from his senses, just like Cilia. Jasper was gone from the Force.

Felissia shone out her glowrod around them. “This is the same kyber shaft that we walked past earlier.” She shone the beam across the well, highlighting the small passage they had come in from.

Luke rose to his hands and knees, and began crawling over to the others. Then he was hit with that same terrible wrongness. But it was even more alert. And more hungry.

An eerie breeze swept through the cavern, seeping into his pores and making him feel ill.

If kyber you desire, kyber you require. Come to the pool, I engulf you all.

“Kyber,” muttered Jasper, stepping forward.

“Jasper?” Felissia queried.

“Kyber, kyber, all I desire,” he whispered.

“Jasper!” Felissia shouted, slapping his cheek. “Snap out of it!”

Luke slid down the rocks into the cavern, then grasped his hand around Jasper’s ankle. “Don’t wonder why, help me pull him back,” Luke ordered.

Jasper kept trying to walk into the pool as if he didn’t realise Luke and Felissia were holding him back.

“Oh no you don’t,” Felissia snarled. “You’re staying alive, whether you want to or not.”

Dragging Jasper back out of the cave, she took her grappling cable and tied him round a stalagmite, as she dodged the crystal he feverishly swung about in his hand.

“That should hold him,” she muttered, although Luke could see Felissia’s eyes were as wide as saucers.

“Kyber, kyber, all I desire,” he repeated again.

She waved her hand in front of his eyes. “Jasper. Jasper!” She snapped her fingers.

“Strange. I’ve never heard of something like this in a patient.”

“Do you believe it’s the Force now?” asked Luke.

“No,” replied Felissia, although she didn’t seem particularly confident.

She turned around, studying the passageway they were originally headed down. “Keep an eye on him, Luke. I’ll check the passage above, see if it leads to a way out.”

She left, and Luke felt sickeningly alone. He eyed the tainted coral crystal clutched in Jasper’s fingers, and shivered. They should have never cut it out.

He studied Jasper, still shivering and muttering the rhyme. Perhaps he could use the Force to help him? As he reached into it, he felt something blaze its attention on him. Gingerly he prodded Jasper’s mind for a few moments, but couldn’t detect much. All it felt was wide open, like he could drop any thought there he wished.

“Kyber, kyber, not your desire,” said Luke.

“Kyber, kyber… all I desire,” said Jasper.

Luke frowned, not daring to risk that again.

"Kyber..." said Jasper, tracing the stone. Then his voice trailed off and his hands dropped to the ground. The kyber slid from his grasp and rolled away. His head rolled to the side and he breathed out a deep sigh, and did not breathe in again.

“Jasper?” Luke gasped. “Jasper!” Luke shook him and tried to feel his wrist for his pulse, but nothing.

“Felissia! Come back!” he screamed. Jasper had just died. Dragging his pack over, he found a spare stim-shot and jabbed the adrenal cocktail right over the man’s heart. Still nothing. Undoing the cable, he clumsily manoeuvred Jasper's body down to the ground so he could try mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but nothing worked. He looked through the pack for a defibrillator, but his heart sank when he realised Jasper hadn’t managed to salvage it. He collapsed over the body and sobbed.

Whatever connection had formed between Jasper and the monster in the well, it was strong enough to kill someone from a distance, even if Luke could no longer sense it.

Felissia emerged from the corridor.

“No good,” she said. “It opens out to another lake. The water’s rising even faster there, we’ll be flooded and eaten by those eels if we stay here much longer. We need to revise the remaining time we have from three hours to a matter of minutes—”

She stopped when she saw Jasper’s dead body. "What happened to him?” she said, running over and feeling for his pulse.

"I don't know, he just... stopped breathing."

"Stopped breathing?" She felt Jasper's throat. "People don't die like that," she said.

"It was the Force," said Luke, turning to the cavern. "It did something to Jasper when he was by that well."

When Luke looked back, Felissia’s hand was resting on her blaster.

"If you expect me to believe Jasper died because the Force stopped his breathing, then I would conclude you killed him the same way as Vader."

“What?” Luke gasped. “I didn’t kill Jasper. I wouldn't even know how to do that! It was some kind of being in that well. Didn’t you hear a voice when we were there?”

"The well is empty. And there's no one else around." She pointed at the coral crystal. "Force or not, we've already established ghosts don't exist. Besides, you received training from Kenobi."

“No,” Luke pleaded. “Look, just because Obi-Wan trained Vader, doesn’t mean his teachings are going to have that effect on me. Please believe me.”

Felissia froze. “What? Did The Negotiator train Darth Vader? That’s not right, I thought he trained…” She trailed off and finished the rest of her thought in Catharese.

“That’s a good thing, right?” he asked of her confusion.

“No, I met him and his apprentice when they came to my planet. They, he—he didn’t go by Vader then,” she said as she swallowed. “No one knew where Vader came from.”

He decided to take a leaf out of her book. “Well, would you look at that, we’ve just solved a decades-long mystery. Now it’s important we both get out of here alive, and we can theorise identities when we’re safe and dry.”

Her face tightened into a smile. “Right, yes, of course.” She dropped her hand from her blaster and walked over to the crystal, picking up Jasper’s abandoned jacket on the way. Wrapping her hands in it, she picked it up, leaving a large chunk jutting out from the top.

“Luke,” she said, her voice taking on a calm, relaxed tone. “Why did you want to be a Jedi?”

Huh? Why was she psychoanalysing him all of a sudden? His mind tugged itself back to the cards they had drawn in the sabacc game, but he had no idea what they meant.

“I had been told my father was a pilot, so that’s what I wanted to be. But then I found out he was a Jedi, so when the Empire destroyed my farm, that’s also what I wanted.”

“So even after the lies were corrected about your father, you still wanted to follow in his footsteps?” she whispered.

Luke frowned. “Yes, why?”

Felissia stepped closer to him, shifting the crystal to one hand like an elongated claw. She held out her other to Luke, who hesitated a moment before reaching up and grabbing it.

“Congratulations Skywalker. You’ve convinced me the Force is real.”

With that, she twisted Luke’s hand and slammed the crystal against his palm.

Chapter Text

“HEY!” Luke yelled, wrenching his hand from her grasp and scrambling backward.

He looked into her eyes, callous and cold, as she pulled out her blaster and pointed the muzzle at his face.

“Please, it was the Force! You have to believe me!”

“I believe you,” she replied. “And I believe the Force should not be wielded by one such as you.”

Luke’s mind swam, trying to comprehend her sudden change in behaviour. He thought back to the question that had been plaguing him ever since she’d spoken it.

“What was the name of the young boy Kenobi took from Cathar?”

A look of pain flashed across her face, and the blaster trembled. “That’s not relevant,” she said.

Luke narrowed his eyes. “I think it is.”

“Baylen Stone,” she said. “He was my brother.”

“He was four years old when he was taken from us. I was ten. He was my world. I remember my parents whispering in the night about choosing between keeping him fed or ever seeing him again. Kenobi's twelve-year-old padawan bouncing him on his knee to soothe his cries."

"I finished my schooling on Cathar as quickly as I could, so I could study at a University on Coruscant. I spent many a lonely lunch-break outside the temple entrance, trying to get a chance to speak to him. By then my both parents had passed away, and I was desperate to have him back. I couldn’t dream of paying the Republic courts to fight for legal guardianship. A fight I had no hope of winning.”

“When I finally tracked him down, I begged him to leave, but he told me he couldn’t bear to leave the only family he’d ever known, for someone who was a stranger to him. The only future, life or career he'd ever known for himself.”

“I learned everything I could about why people believe things, how people get brainwashed, tricked, how propaganda works, how it is constructed, but nothing would convince him."

“A year later he did did rejoin our clan. In a coffin. At fourteen years old. On his first mission. Some destiny they promised us.”

“I chose a career where I could destroy the foundation of their teaching and authority, so they’d never take another from their people again. Only I succeeded in convincing the general public after they were wiped out.”

Her face twisted in bitterness. “My career had gotten off to a good start, then one year later the purge happened. I knew they shouldn’t have been massacred, but all I could think was, ‘good riddance’.”

“Vader I could tolerate, because he didn’t take my family from me. In fact, his hunting of them aided my revenge. But now I've learned the truth."

Luke blinked. “You’ve been treating me like the little brother you lost to the Jedi, trying to guide me away from their ideas." The blaster began shaking in Felissia’s hand, and started to lower. He continued. "But now that you’re forced to confront the fact that the Force is real, you can't risk me starting the Jedi again.”

Felissia holstered her blaster. “Very clever, Little Jedi, but you’re still missing one thing.” With that she darted away through the collapsed wall toward the well.

“Wait, don’t leave me, I can’t get out of here without you!” Luke hollered after her, as she scampered out of the dim light of Jasper’s fallen glowrod.

Squeezing his eyes shut Luke tried to catch his breath. Reaching out to the Force, he felt cold as nothing answered.

Wha—where is the Force? Is it gone, gone forever?

He had only known about it for a handful of days, but now he knew he had relied on it his whole life.

I know the Force is real now. Because I know it’s gone.

He groaned and tried to crawl away from Jasper’s lifeless corpse, staring at him with vacant eyes.

He tried to grasp for some kind of reassurance, that sunny confidence that shouldered him through each disaster Tatooine blew at him. But he couldn’t find a grain of optimism.

Stars, he didn’t know how to think anymore. His head felt dizzy, and he could feel the effects of the stim shot wearing off. Blinking, he tried to stop his vision tunnelling again, as the nausea from his concussion returned.

He looked at Jasper’s pack and crawled over to look for another stim.

He cried out as he knocked the bio-cap sideways on his leg, sending searing pain shooting up his limb. It had been working quite well when he kept it still, but whenever he knocked it he felt like the eel was biting into him all over again.

Clamping his hands to his calf, he tried to breathe through and focus on numbing the pain. It still throbbed awfully. Stars, he had been using the Force to do that when he got hurt as well?

Stretching out on the ground, he managed to reach his arms far enough and retrieve the pack without jostling his leg any further. He dug through it, but all he could find were some headache tablets.

Swallowing them with a swig of water from the flask on his belt, he glanced at Jasper again then gritted his teeth. Right, this situation sucked, but he owed it to the people who had died to get out of here alive. Smeone had to tell the scholars that what Anthea had found supported her Axis hypothesis.

He pressed his com. “Wedge? Wedge? Are you there?” Still static.

Looking at Jasper’s face, he put his hands over his eyes and gently pushed them closed. Thinking back to the song Jasper had recited for the others earlier, he sang it for him as best he could.

Alright. Now think. You’ve had all your midichlorians drained, which removes your own capacity for interacting with the Force. It also removes what people call your luck, so you’re going to be a lot more prone to accidents and falling rocks, without the Force to warn you of impending danger. You’re going to be a lot clumsier, but that doesn’t really matter since you can’t stand upright anyway.

He shuddered, not wanting to think about dying like Jasper. Or Cilia. And it might remove your resistance to mind tricks, causing you to feel compelled to run into a body of water. He looked at the gaping hole that led to the mineshaft. So whatever you do, stay away from the well.

Right, so it was probably best to get away from it, and lay low where he could recover.

Recover. Hah. The Force was gone, and it wasn’t going to come back. He wouldn’t last long without it before he died.

Snap out of it, he thought. What did Cilia say?

“When I injected rats with additional midichlorians, their levels dropped to where they were before in a matter of days…Did you know that the human gut biome can completely recolonise in a matter of—”

So, midichlorians weren’t like neurons, a cell count that was fairly fixed throughout your life, and caused permanent damage if too many of them died. They were more like gut bacteria, which would quickly return to their previous levels if most of them were wiped out. And if all of them were wiped out, you just needed to recolonise them.

He looked over at Jasper. His blood wouldn’t help, because his midichlorians would have also been wiped out. Felissia had abandoned him, and most certainly wouldn’t donate any blood if he asked.

Then there was the crystal she had dropped after pressing it to his hand. While he did tip the vial of his blood there earlier, Cilia had cleaned it off, and any midichlorians in it would have also been killed.

Wait. The vial. There’d still be some blood left inside. He emptied Jasper’s pack on the ground and began tossing equipment aside, hoping he’d salvaged it, but it was nowhere to be seen. There wasn’t even the holoscope or the blood testing kit Cilia had put some into. He hurled the remaining equipment at the cave wall and buried his head in his hands.

Were there any other life forms around? He looked up at the ceiling. There weren’t even any glownits here. That only left the eels. He thought about the pale blue blood dripping from the one he’d killed. Even if they had midichlorians, they probably wouldn’t be the right strain to live inside a human. And with his luck in tatters, an eel the length of his finger would find a way to kill him.

Then he looked at the passage Felissia had explored. He could see water lapping at the end of it. With each wave, it drew higher and higher.

Clambering somewhere a bit higher, he pressed his back against some rocks. Grasping his blaster in his left hand, he brushed his saber with his right, but left it clipped to his belt. Best not to use the dangerous laser sword in this state. It’d probably kill him faster than he could kill anything else.

It had only been when he’d gotten to the deeper part of the lake that the big eels had shown up. With luck, they’d stay out of the water that was filling up the pathways.

Of course, he thought, as he saw a group of eels poke their heads around the bend.

I don’t have any.

Chapter Text

Felissia swam through the well as fast as she could. Her hand grasped the other side, and she hauled herself out. Shaking herself off, she flicked on her glowrod again and looked about the side of the cavern.

Poor Skywalker. A pang of guilt assailed her for what she’d done, but she shrugged it off. He wasn’t even dead. She’d done far worse for the Empire. Now wasn’t the time to be having a moral crisis. She’d done enough after Alderaan to last a lifetime. And if she had revenge on Vader for the death of his son, well, that’d be a fitting atonement.

Ksss Kossh.

What?

Kssssss Kossh.

Vader? Vader was really here?

Luke had been right.

Her stomach churned in the cold. She stopped walking. If Luke was right, that meant… Vader’s powers were real. And he was going to kill her for damming his son.

“I had not expected to see you here, Doctor Stone,” the baritone rang out. “You were our most decorated COMPNOR agent. I can scarcely believe you fell for the Rebellion's propaganda.

She tilted her head. “I can’t believe you fell for mine.”

Vader paused.

She laughed. “Everything that comes out of your mouth is propaganda. I know because I put it there."

“At first you kept prattling the Emperor’s, but when I joined COMPNOR, increasingly his ideas and turns of phrase were replaced with mine."

"You can see the suffering you’re causing. You’re not that dumb. But you genuinely, truly think that once you quash the Rebellion, it will usher in a utopia of ‘peace’, where fighting will cease, and oppression can lift."

"But you are foolish to think that one day the cruelty you perform will stop when the Rebellion gets wiped out." She snorted. "It won’t. The Empire will always need the Rebellion to function."

"Every move to gain more power over its people, all the harm it causes, I need to direct that anger to a target away from the Empire. If there were no rebels, not even fake ones, the galaxy would realise how much of its suffering was caused by the Emperor, by you, and turn on you both."

"Any time you think things are going well, the Emperor will seize the chance to tighten his grip, causing us to blame another group you need to punish, to highlight the consequences of resisting. Regardless of whether anyone is fighting back. The death toll from the Empire’s genocides and ‘attempts to maintain order’ has at times been higher on a single day than what occurred across the entirety of the Clone Wars."

"I didn't think anything could be done to stop it. But the more I saw how effective my ideas were, the more I realised how frail that meant it was. Because if nothing could stop it, I wouldn't need to make propaganda to tell people so."

"And when the Death Star exploded, it gave me hope to defect and fight, as I knew we could succeed," she finished, stepping forward triumphantly.

Only to feel a pressure tightening around her neck.

"Are you looking for your son?” she choked out. The pressure loosened.

Better Luke be dead than the Empire have another Vader on their hands. And if Vader was going to kill her, she would have the only revenge she could. While Luke may have summoned him unknowingly with the crystal, it was also possible he had contacted him to defect and get bailed out of this situation. Since Luke’s connection to the Force was severed, Vader wouldn’t be able to sense him. But if Vader didn’t know what Luke looked like...

“Speak quickly,” he ordered.

“Well, you’re too late. My companion in the cave up ahead discovered his secret, and murdered him in cold blood.” Jasper was still young enough that he could pass as Luke, provided Vader hadn’t met him when he worked on the Death Star. “But you can have your revenge upon the one who killed him.”

This is a mercy, Luke. I’ve seen what Vader does to his Inquisitors.

“NO!” Vader roared as he seized her throat with his hand, lifting her off the ground and crushing her windpipe. Baring her teeth one last time, she swung her hand toward his injured shoulder.

That’s for taking my brother from me, she thought, as she watched the blood drip from her claws with satisfaction. I guess it’s soul soup time.

The last thing she was aware of was the sound of her neck snapping.

Click. Luke's blaster was out of ammo.

His aim had been dreadful as his arm couldn't stop shaking, and he'd only taken out three eels. The water had risen right up to the base of the rocks he was sitting on. Two more rose up, each as long as his uninjured leg, assessing whether to strike.

Holstering his blaster, Luke grabbed his lightsaber and switched it on. Snap-hiss.

Adrenaline spiked through him. He felt far more scared than when he held it before. He had no instinctive sense of where it was in space, and feared he would injure himself the moment he moved it.

The two eels hesitated, then squealed and dove into the water, swimming away.

Were they scared of his blade? Did they witness him carve up the other one? With relief he switched off the deadly beam.

Kssss Kossssh.

Vader?

Kssss Kossssh.

Vader was here?

Illuminated by the light of the forgotten glowrod, he saw the distinctive outline of a figure in the gloom. He looked like a dark skeleton as he continued to walk toward him.

His mind spun. Was he really here? Or was he a wraith? Was he being mind-tricked by the creature in the pool to flee into the water? He slid backwards into the water, submerging his torso.

Of course, he had sensed him earlier, but Felissia made him doubt himself and put him from his mind. And with his senses destroyed, he had forgotten about him. But how did he find them?

Gripping the hilt, he hopped backwards, the buoyancy of the water making it easier to move. There was the cliff they had lowered themselves back the way he came, which he couldn’t make on his own. His only option was to keep hopping down the flooding tunnel Felissia had explored. He kept going right till his back came upon a dead end, trapping him. He wouldn't be able to hold his breath to swim long enough through the passageway to somewhere that had oxygen. He looked up as the figure approached.

"You killed my father," he spat.

"You killed my son." Vader ignited his lightsaber and strode toward him.

Switching on his lightsaber again, Luke held it up in front of him. With one swing Vader knocked it out of his hands and it fell into the water.

“Pathetic,” said Vader. “My son would have been brimming with power, yet you are weaker than a Force-Null.

“Funny story about that,” said Luke, as he dropped his hands into the water and began frantically searching for it. “There are these crystals that drain your power. It’s real fun, you should try it sometime.”

He had killed Vader’s son? Vader even had a son?

“And look, I didn’t even meet your son when I was rescuing the princess, but if he willingly manned a battle station that killed two billion people, perhaps you should leave his memory to accept the consequences of those actions.”

Vader held out a hand, and the hilt flew out of the water into his.

Luke held up his arm, afraid he was about to lose a body part for the second time that day. But the Sith switched his crimson blade off, examining Luke's hilt instead.

"Where is Skywalker?" Vader demanded.

“Why, you want to kill a matching set?”

“No. I have answered their summons and come to take them as my apprentice so that we may rule the galaxy with an iron fist."

Very clever, Little Jedi, but you’re still missing one thing.

Luke gasped. "You're Anakin Skywalker." He shook his head. "No. The crystal was supposed to summon the dead. I had no idea it would call upon the living!"

“Anakin Skywalker is dead. I am what remains.”

“No,” Luke said, trying to back away. “You’re not my father.” He slipped and fell underwater. He flailed as Vader took hold of him and laid him on some rocks.

"Blood does not lie, Young One," Vader said. "What happened to you?"

"I’ve got no midichlorians," Luke chattered. "But you do.”

Looking up at Vader he saw blood dripping down from his shoulder. The slashes were doubtlessly caused by Felissia. He didn’t know whether to feel proud of her for getting a hit in, or relieved that Vader had doubtlessly killed her. He reached up and touched it.

“You’re free of any blood-borne diseases, correct?" At the helmet’s nod, he rubbed it into the gashes on his hand from where Felissia had slammed the crystal into it.

Luke sucked in his breath. Yes, he could feel the sensation of the Force slowly creeping back into his hand.

"It’s working!" he said.

"Excellent," said Vader, gathering him to his chest and rising to his feet.

"Ha—put me down," said Luke, banging on his armour.

"You are in no position to walk, Young One."

"My name is Luke. And that isn't what I meant. You can't take me by the shaft, I'm not strong enough to resist the mind-trick from the creature inside. It will compel me to run into it and die. Even if you carry me away after exposing me to it, it'll forge a connection that'll compel me to run into another body of water, or straight up kill me if I'm prevented from doing so."

Luke flicked on his glowrod and shone it toward the cliff blocking the initial passage he had come from the lake with Felissia and Jasper.

"We need to loop round that way and cross over a lake, and avoid the well altogether, provided it hasn't filled up too much. It’s filled with carnivorous eels, but they shouldn’t be a problem against you. If it isn't possible to cross, I might be strong enough to risk exposure to the well by then."

“A wise proposition,” said Vader, heading toward the wall they needed to scale, while Luke shone his glowrod, illuminating Vader's steps. "While we wait for your powers to return, I shall instruct you in the Way of the Sith."

Chapter Text

Luke frowned, thinking of all Anthea told him, which felt like a lifetime ago. Did the Sith conceive of the Dark Side the same way the Jedi did?

“Are you sure that’s wise, Father? Isn’t the Dark Side dangerous?”

“There is no need to fear. Kenobi has filled your head with useless lies. The Light is fickle and weak, yet the Dark offers near limitless power. Far better to place your trust within it.”

Luke waved his hands. “No, that’s not what I mean. I don’t think it’s safe. Your use of the Force makes it sing in pain. How do you protect yourself against its vengeance?” He swallowed, hoping he could lean on Anthea’s research to avoid having to do whatever Vader had in store for him.

Vader paused. “You are very wise, Young One. The Dark is only spoken of this way by those initiated into the Way of the Sith. Let me give you your first lesson.”

Crouching at the base of the cliff, Vader leaped up and landed atop in a single bound. “All Jedi who dabble in its arts are quickly consumed by its power. We are trained to goad them into anger during a fight, for though their strength may rise, the whiplash will surely kill them."

“But the Sith draw on power outside of themselves by first causing fear in others. This changes the fabric of the Force around us, allowing us to feed without consequences. Through their fear they offer their power.”

Luke looked up at his father in horror. “All the people you kill. It’s with their own power they die?” He had thought, when Anthea explained her scholarship to him, that evil would always have consequences, and the Force would always right its wrongs.

She had not studied the Sith.

Vader had found a way to use the Axis of Will in perpetuity, exploiting a loophole to plunge the galaxy into darkness. And no one could stop him.

“You walk around draining power and inflicting terror on everyone you walk past? Doesn’t that curse you with suffering?”

Vader paused for three cycles of breath, his mind shielded beneath layers of iron. Luke tried to sense any thoughts from him, but the Force was still too slippery.

“No,” Vader said. “I wield the greatest power the galaxy has ever seen, for all tremble at my approach.”

Luke narrowed his eyes, looking at the bleeding gashes on Vader’s shoulder, tearing through bandages of an older wound. “Then why are you injured?”

“I killed Doctor Stone with my bare hands, as her fortitude made it risky to continue assulting her with the Force,” Vader explained.

“Ha,” said Luke. “Then all I have to do to defeat you is not be afraid of you.”

Vader tilted his helmet directly at him. A bolt of fear tore right through him. Luke felt cold, like he was being eaten alive by the cave-eel, drowned by the dianoga, and flying down the Death Star trench all at once. He dug his fingers into Vader’s steel arms, gasping.

“Good luck with that,” Vader replied, laying him down and crouching beside him, as Luke was left gasping as he tried to calm his racing heart.

"What are you doing to me? Make it stop," he chattered.

"No," replied Vader. "To be a Sith you must conquer your fear. Fear is a tool we wield, it does not wield us. Now calm yourself. This is your first Trial."

"What?" Luke chattered, his mind racing a million parsecs an hour. "I c-can’t.”

He tried to suppress the fear, but his heart still rammed. He looked up at Vader. Would he kill him as a worthless apprentice? He was going to kill him he was going to kill him, what if he couldn’t calm down?

"A-are you killing me," Luke gasped.

"I am not draining your life-force. Only triggering your fear."

"I c-can't push it away.

"That is a common mistake. Trying to suppress it will not work. You must observe the fear. Ignore what your mind thinks about it. Allow it to come and go without attempting to change it."

"I thought Sith didn't feel fear," he gritted out.

"No," said Vader. "We embrace that which makes us tremble. Until all tremble at our feet."

It’s too much, I can’t handle it.

Vader pressed a button on his chest, slowing the rhythm of his respirator. "Match the pace of my breathing. Your thoughts cannot harm you. What you are experiencing is nothing more than physical sensations in your body."

Luke’s heart rammed a hundred parsecs an hour. "I feel like I'm falling through hyperspace."

"Where do you feel it?"

"In my chest, and—and all through my stomach."

"Pick the worst sensation only and study it in a detached and curious manner, as if Doctor Stone and her co-conspirators were picking it apart. Your body does not know the difference between fear and excitement, it is only the mind that chooses to label each as such."

Luke dug his fingers into the rocks and thought back to Cilia’s excited chatter when she first saw the plants on the surface of Crillan. He switched his internal monologue into her voice.

Butterflies in my stomach, yes, and ooh, there's a churning, swirling sensation like when I went on my first hovercoaster with Biggs at DustWorld. A sinking sensation like I'm gonna di—currently experiencing something quite curious. My heart is pounding and my mouth is dry like the moment Biggs leaned over and kissed me. Fascinating. I must analyse the difference in physical sensations between these two experiences.

Luke dropped his head back as his breathing steadied, and the adrenaline, while still pumping through him, started to level off.

"Good. Now we may begin dissecting why your mind spiralled out of control. Why do you fear me?" Stars, could he not have a break?

Luke looked up at the mask in the darkness of the cavern, the glow-nits reflecting like stars on the shiny helment, the beam from his glowrod illuminating him like a creature from the deep of space that strode right into a nightmare.

“You’ll kill me."

"Why?"

"You killed Ben and my father.”

Vader tilted his mask.

"Right, not my father, but Biggs and the other rebel pilots, and you work for the Empire, who killed my Aunt and Uncle. And we're on opposite sides, so you still may kill me if I don't join you or become powerful enough."

Vader brought his fist to his heart. "I swear I will not kill you, even if it brings about my own demise."

Luke’s eyes widened, then narrowed to a slit. That wasn’t the comfort Vader thought it was. “Will you maim or torture me? Your idea of a lifeday gift is a Force-induced panic attack."

"Shortly you will be strong enough to resist this technique. And with training you will soon be strong enough to defend yourself or maim me if you wish. Now why do you fear death?"

Luke squeezed his eyes shut. “I’ll be gone. I won't be alive. I won't exist anymore."

"You will be One with the Force, and experience everything it experiences."

Luke shook his head. "I'll miss my friends."

"We are all connected to the Force. You will always be with them. And they will join you in the blink of an eye."

His fingers slowing their trembles, Luke unhooked the flask from his belt and took a few swigs of water as his heart began settling down. "Huh. Some of these Sith techniques aren’t so bad."

"Some Jedi techniques are not so bad," corrected Vader. "The Sith technique is to visualise yourself violently destroying your foe."

Luke spluttered and sprayed water everywhere as he tried to wipe his mouth. He capped the flask. "Right. Dare I ask what the next lesson is?"

"I teach you to inflict this Fear yourself. The eels in the lake should suffice."

Vader picked him up again, and presently they came to the lake Luke had swum across. The water level was much higher, and the tunnel on the other side had collapsed.

“Kriff,” said Luke. “That was our way out of here.”

“Then we must augment your strength.” Vader lowered him again, then stepped forward to the edge of the lake and held out his hand. The water thrashed and foamed, as a cave-eel came into view, dangling above the water.

“It cannot harm you,” said Vader. “Strike it with Fear and reach into the Force and take its life-force.”

“What?” gasped Luke, drawing back. “No way.”

“If you would as soon shoot it with a blaster if it came into sight, why do you fear the Jedi sensibilities? Begin.”

Uh, well the logic was kind of sound. He had many injuries, so his best chance of survival would be to get as much strength as he could.

Luke reached for the Force again. It felt faint and feeble, but at least it was there. Then he hesitated.

“How do I even do that? Think scary thoughts?”

“Connect to its mind. Feel its life force. Good. Now feel its fears. What are they?"

"A bigger eel," Luke said.

"Good. Now think back to the terror you experienced earlier, and to the one that bit your limb off. Gather it up, then hurl that feeling like a dart into the eel while you strike it with the image of being eaten by the largest one you can think of."

The eel, previously hissing and snapping, began squealing and jerking in a frantic spasm.

“Good. Now draw its life force into you. Take vengeance on them for your lost limb.”

Power rippled around him. He gripped the eel’s life force and began to squeeze, draining the life into his being. The ghostly creature thrashed and squealed, but Luke kept drinking.

As the eel died, Luke felt one last swell of power. Then the power vanished, and Luke was left gasping, empty.

“Excellent,” said Vader. “You are progressing quickly.”

He dry heaved as the remnants of the eel’s power left him, his cells crying out for more. Kriff. This was addictive.

“Now for lesson number three. Do not kill your prey unless you are willing to lose your source of power. The short burst of energy is worth it if life is plentiful, but if there aren’t many around, it is best to keep them alive to perpetually drain them.”

Luke crawled toward a still puddle of water by the edge of the lake and splashed his face with water. Stars. His eyes had turned gold in the reflection.

“What’s happened to me?” Luke gasped. “You didn’t warn me about this. Will it wear off?”

“In time, if that is what you wish. The withdrawal will be painful. But now that you have had a taste of the power of others, you will never be the same.”

"To re-attune your body to the Light, you must first repay your energy debt. It will take you several days for your body to regenerate what you took, and you will feel ill and terrible. It would take me many lifetimes. And starting the process would be fatal, as being so weakened would cause me to perish from my injuries.”

"But we have no need to re-attune to the Light. There is an Empire waiting for our every need. If you only take from life-forms that fear you, you defer the consequences perpetually.”

“What if you unbalance the Force?” asked Luke, wracking his brains to determine if there were any other consequences Vader wasn't telling him.

“Balance is a Jedi myth, written to enforce their mysterious ways. I was prophesied to bring Balance, and I wiped all Light Side users out. The concept is meaningless.”

Well, he could go through withdrawal when they were on the ship, wherever Vader was going to take him, then slip out and escape. As much as he hated what he was doing, and while he felt a lot stronger than before, he couldn't afford to have the power slowly drain out from him into the Force just yet. Lifting his hand toward the lake, he shut his eyes.

"Spread your senses out and find another. Establish a connection with it, and stab it with Fear. Good. Now start draining the life force, just enough to top up what is flowing out and draw a little extra in. Good. You will find you start to do this automatically."

What? Luke shivered. What was he now? He imagined returning to the cheery, optimistic atmosphere of the Alliance, only for a hush to steal over them. The questioning glances they gave each other as they wondered what was smothering their spirit. He imagined them whispering of his strange, gold eyes, trying to placate them with the unusual properties Cilia had discovered in his blood. Only for them to step back in wariness at his inhumanness. Everyone watching him out of the corner of their eyes, the dark mutters of fear in the corridors.

He thought of Leia, comforting him as they escaped from the Death Star, even though he knew she was holding herself together by a thread. Now he would never be able to return the favour. The longer he spent around someone, the more they would suffer. If he drained the Spirit of the Alliance, would they even stand a chance against the Empire?

He tried to stop draining the eel, but his body in wailed protest, and his forgotten wounds pounded again. Right. So it was like a Spice addiction. Best to focus on breaking it when he had a better physical and mental situation to do so.

“I’ll subconsciously drain life from everyone around me? Even you?”

“You cannot harm me, Child.”

Luke narrowed his eyes. “Lesson four. Teach me that. It’ll be important to be able to defend myself from others who would weaken me. Or if the wraith uses the same trick.”

Vader paused for a few cycles. Then he began.

"Very well. You know what to do if someone breaks through your defences. But the first step is keeping them out. This technique is known as shielding. It can dampen your ability to assess your surroundings, so only raise your thickest ones when you need it."

"Imagine a thick, strong wall around you. No aspect of the Force can get in without your permission. Take a few minutes to focus on building it up."

Luke imagined a durasteel sphere encasing him where he sat. As he focused, he could feel Vader's presence start to fade. Vader reached through the sphere and touched a finger to his nose. Instantly he could feel his presence again.

"Draw it closer to you, or others may cross it by physical means."

Luke imagined it reforming into a body-glove against his skin, then covered it with blades poking out. He visualised lava flowing across it for good measure.

Vader drew his hand away sharply. "Good. That will do you well. Focus a bit longer on building them up, then they will stay put over the next few hours."

Luke grinned, enjoying the feeling of safety.

He looked across the lake one more time. "Right. We can’t go back that way, but with these shields I’ll have a chance at protecting myself from the wraith."

Chapter Text

They left the rising shores of the lake, and continued back up the path toward the well. Water was now gushing down the passageway, and there were times Vader had to wade knee deep. They still made quick progress with Vader’s ability to use the Force to jump over anything in the way.

As they drew near to the well again, Vader spoke up. “Listen to me carefully, for if the wraith does not let us pass this may spare your life. There are few who can oppose us in the land of the living, but we are merely human. There are far more ancient creatures in the Force, who have been refining these techniques for millennia.”

“There are not many ways to counter such a creature. First, we should flee, or conceal ourselves from its notice. I believe we have already trespassed on its territory earlier and its patience is wearing thin. If we leave quickly, it may be lenient toward us. However, we must cross this shaft, as there is no other way out.”

“Normally I would call upon a creature more favourably inclined to help us, and strike a bargain in exchange for protection. But I have no allies down here. If all else fails, we must strike a bargain with the creature itself in exchange for our lives.”

They came to the collapsed wall that led to the well. Looking around, Luke realised Jasper’s body had been swept into the room, and now lay next to the well, water nearly at the lip of the shaft. Luke averted his eyes. There wasn’t much left of it. The eels must have got to him. He bit his lip and regretted not doing more for him.

Vader ducked behind some rocks and laid Luke beside him, placing his hand on his lightsaber.

“What did you see?” whispered Luke.

Vader pointed to a shape in the shadows of the far cave. Luke lifted his head above the rocks and squinted. Were those the two glowing turquoise eyes that had haunted him when he passed through before?

Then the creature came into view. Luke’s gut filled with an unnatural wrongness. His brain told him the creature shouldn’t be here. That it should not exist. Every cell in his body screamed to get away. Even the discordant song of his father felt blessedly familiar compared to this.

The foul scent of corpses assaulted his nostrils. He was brought back to the smell of the charred bodies of his aunt and uncle he had tried to bury in the heat. He clamped his nose shut but it didn’t go away.

The creature had twenty skeletal arms, each attached to a different vertebrae down the side of its spine. Each vertebrae was made up of a spiky lump of turquoise kyber. Its top set of arms were the longest, with each descending pair shorter than the last. At the creature's waist, they became longer again. They also began changing into something resembling feet. After one long pair of legs, they tapered off again into a tail filled with jagged kyber.

Each limb copied the movement of the previous one a fraction of a second later. It created the effect of a set of wings, or large fins swimming through the air. It glided noiselessly toward them, like a firaxan shark or neebray manta.

Strips of rags hung from each vertebrae and limb, and the shadows cast by the dark hood over its face peeled back one by one against the light of the abandoned glowrod. The top vertebrae was the largest crystal, and in front of it was mounted an eel skull. Each crystal glowed, but ethereal light poured like a lantern from each eye socket.

One set of arms caught his attention. The bones were a jumble of different species, but those were one of the human sets. The rags at that point were a different colour too, like the green Japer had worn. Luke squinted.

Were those the kyber rings that belonged to him?

Wait.

Luke shivered.

Those were Jasper’s bones upon the skeleton.

The wraith floated across the well and drew straight toward Luke.

Vader stepped between them and knelt. “Greetings, Great One. You have done great work guarding this planet from the loss of its kyber. For I have seen a similar world without such a guardian stripped bare by the greed of those who would plunder it. May we strike a bargain with you in exchange for safe passage from your domain?”

The thing stroked its skeletal fingers down Vader’s helmet, then bored its gaze into Luke.

“Skyyyyyywallllkers. You are foolish if you think I will let you leave untouched. These are my terms:”

“As you walk the skies above,
you drain the life of those you love.
I forge a bond within your soul,
To collect my ever toll.
If you do not keep me fed,
I devour you instead.”

What? To survive, he would have to spend the rest of his life feeding on the life force of everyone he loved? And not just that, but feeding it to this creature, through a bond he could never escape from, always holding him one step away from death? Always feeling the cold dread in his heart, the stench of death in his lungs?

The creature traced a bony finger up Luke’s chin and looked into his golden eyes. The touch was burning ice.

“Do not fret, Child. You will gain such power. Power you can use to drain and kill your father.”

Luke could not stop his eyes flicking over to him.

“Yessss. Your cooperation has been coerced, you have only been playing along so you can escape at the earliest opportunity. Now thisss is your opportunity.”

It moved its head to his face.

“It may be your only opportunity.”

Luke looked down at his leg.

“Do not fear for injury, you will have the power to escape this cavern with ease.”

“In fact, you will have the power to drain even this… Emperor. Yessssss. The Emperor. Even Vader kneels to him. The only living being he ever does. Blight this ‘evil’ from the galaxy. Any who dare oppose you I shall smite from within you.”

“But also those I love?” asked Luke.

Vader tried to move, but the creature raised their right arms, freezing him in place. Only static escaped from the Vocoder.

“Essspecially those you love.”

The creature placed their left arms on Luke’s side and pushed him toward Vader.

“Take his life or I take yours. If you refuse, I eat you now. What will it be, Little Skywalker?”

Luke gulped, a tear leaking from his eye as he felt his life force start to dwindle.

Chapter Text

Luke tried to steel his shields as the creature battered them.

He looked over at Vader. Despite all the messed up things he had just done to him, now his powers were returning he could sense the spark of good in him. Did he really want Vader to die? The wraith was demanding he kill Vader, not offering, which meant he loved him.

He shut his eyes and looked at his shields, but the psychic lava was hissing and cooling near its touch, the blades were blunting and bending, and there were holes in the durasteel beneath the wraith’s fingers.

He tried to build them up but felt the panic the creature was inflicting on him, causing his life force to drain out faster. If I don’t calm myself I am going to die. He kept trying to close his durasteel armour, but the creature put five more hands on him, each finger poking a hole.

He thought back to his eel victim and drew on it harder to fight back. I’m sorry. I’ll never eat eel again. In fact, once I get out of here I’ll become a vegetarian for life. It died and he gasped as he felt weaker than before.

"Yes, that’s it," it crooned. "Drain more lives for me to feed on."

He took a deep breath, listening to the sound of Vaders respirator again, clinging to it like an anchor.

In. Pause. Out. Pause. In.

But then he saw Jasper's skeletal hand.

He’d made peace with dying before, but what if he died by this creature? What would happen to his soul? Would it be absorbed into it, trapped by misery and doom, forever poisoned by its sickness? If he took the creature’s offer, lived his life and avoided dying by its hand, would the hunger and guilt of taking so many lives carry over into death and make him a wraith like this?

We embrace that which makes us tremble. HOW COULD HE EMBRACE THIS?

He gulped, trying to think of a way to embrace a situation he couldn’t imagine being worse. Was there any way to summon the calm serenity Ben possessed on the Death Star?

Maybe it’ll be terrible, he thought. But maybe there’ll still be hope. Ben lives in the Force, after all. He might be able to do something.

“Ben!” he pleaded. “Can you help us?”

The creature cackled. “Force ghostsss are indeed bound to the location they die. They are much weakened if they travel anywhere else. It is laughable the power it takess me to keep your Kenobi at bay.”

Licking his lips, Luke remembered Vader’s words. If all else fails, call upon those more powerful to help. He dug his hand into his pocket, and his fingertips touched the coral crystal that had led him to these caverns.

I have no allies down here, Vader had said. But there was the woman from his visions. Although he didn’t know if she was friend or foe, she had not hurt him yet. Surely it was better to gamble on a foe that might not be than a foe that was known.

He held the crystal up in front of him and cried out, “Please, if anyone here would help us, help us now!”

The wraith struck him. Luke’s head whipped sideways and slammed into the rocks, as the crystal dropped from his palm. “You impudent child. Be silent.” His jaw aching, he looked up to meet his doom.

Instead, a rush of coral materialised and slammed into the monster. The stench of rotting flesh was augmented with the smell of freshly fallen rain.

It was her! The Crillan from his visions. Turning to the wraith, she swelled to four times her size. Her fist was the size of a boulder, and her head was as tall as his torso, as she crouched within the cavern to fit. All manner of fiery colours darted in and out from her, shifting in a consortium of yellow, orange and the coral of the crystal.

“You,” the wraith hissed. “You dare interfere! They do not claim you. The child bade you leave!”

“BE SILENT.” Her voice roared like thunder in the heart of a storm. She picked up the wraith, who thrashed in her hand, smashing stalagmites with its tail. Luke flung himself under Vader for cover.

“You are the guardian of our kyber. What debt gives you claim over the boy? Tell us its absolution, and I may be lenient.”

The wraith turned to them and pointed each free, slender, bony hand toward the turquoise kyber crystals Jasper had dug out. “Cast all shards of this shade into my well. Then no harm shall I cause you in your passage above.”

With that, the wraith stopped struggling and looked straight at Luke. “Do not trust her, Little Jedi. For she created me to steal the bones of every Jedi and thief who steals kyber from this well, and cast the seed of their destruction across the galaxy.”

“Enough,” she said, tossing it toward the well. “The crystals shall be done with as you asked. Now back to your pit.”

It dived into the water, vanishing as it hit the surface. At once, the stench of rotting corpses faded from the air. The woman turned to Luke, and he froze, his mouth going dry. The power he sensed from her shook him to his very core. If she created that thing to kill Jedi who came seeking kyber, what would she do with him herself?

Please, I don’t even think I’m a Jedi anymore. Please leave us in safety.

As you wish. With that, the woman vanished.

Huh, he thought, as he remembered the creature’s voice. The Child bade you leave. Did she leave before because he had wanted her to?

Luke looked up at Vader, and hugged the man tight. To his dismay, Vader pushed him away, but Luke realised he was fixing the buttons he had smooshed on his chest panel.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

Vader levitated all the turquoise crystals off the ground, then dropped them in the well. Luke felt as if the cavern was sighing, and the last of the stench fled his nostrils.

“Well done, Child. That was brave. Foolish, but brave. Perhaps you may taste the Light Side yet.”

“What was she?” Luke asked. “Have you seen anything like her before?”

Vader tilted his helmet. “None quite like her, no. And none who would leave without demanding payment for such a favour in return. Be on your guard, in case she returns to collect.”

Vader looked at the large coral crystal, the source of all their troubles, lying abandoned with the crack running through it. “It appears ones this colour were not included in the creature’s bargain. Is this the crystal that drained all your midichlorians?”

“Yes,” said Luke, as he dragged himself over to where his little coral crystal had fallen from his hand, and returned it to his pocket.

“Ah. We should take it with us. It will make a fine gift for my Master.”

Vader picked up the crystal in his hands. “Be calm, Little One. I have no flesh touching this, not even beneath these gloves.” He placed it in the abandoned carry-sack, then slung it over one shoulder. Then he bundled Luke up in his arms.

“Wait,” said Luke. “It used to be in the Crillan temple, with writing that indicated they believed it could summon your ancestors. I put some of my blood on it, thinking it would summon your ghost, because I thought you were, er, dead. I thought it didn’t work when you didn’t show up. But I didn’t realise it just needed some time to drag the living you across space to see me. Before we leave, do you think we could take it back and try again, to see my Mother?”

Vader’s arms tightened for a few seconds. “You have lost much blood and the crystal is cracked. We shall take it to the temple and confirm it works with another ghost first.”

“I shall jump over the well now. Are you ready?”

Luke gripped Vader’s arms and felt the ground beneath them shift, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up as they soared over the well. With a jolt, they were on the ground again.

Vader tapped his shoulder. “Direct me to this Force-shrine, Luke.”

Luke flicked on his glowrod, and shone it where they first came from. “We go this way, then continue down the tunnel with the mural on it. The other path leads to the lake.” Luke’s glowrod caught Felissia’s dead body as they began walking. His stomach churned and he remembered Vader was still very much an Imperial.

He cleared his throat. “So… when we get out of here, what happens to me?”

“I shall take you to Mustafar, where your leg will be fitted with a prosthetic. Then we present the crystal to the Emperor, and strike him down once he is weakened. Then we shall rule the galaxy as Father and Son.”

“What?” gasped Luke. “No, I’m not becoming a dictator.”

“It is the only way to ensure peace. You were not alive during the time of the Republic, and the corruption that seeped into every crack. However, the Emperor only wishes for power for the sake of power, which never stops his tyranny. But we shall wield it for the sake of peace.”

Luke thought back to the night drinking with Han and Leia after the medal ceremony. He had said, 'so when the Alliance destroys the Emperor, we’re going to make Leia the Empress, right?' He received a very long and drunk political rant in response, right down to how she had been going to disband the Alderaan monarchy once she was crowned.

“The idea is inherently oppressive,” he recited. “Good intentions cannot counter it. No one person, or in our case two, can hold the context to make the right decisions for everyone in the galaxy, or ensure their rule continues to be passed to benevolent people.”

“You should speak to Princess Leia,” he continued. “She has so many ideas for political reform, and checks and balances to stop the Republic from descending into the corruption it did before.” And Anthea will have preserved many too.

Vader paused. “She reminds me of your mother. Very well, we can speak with her once we have delivered the crystal to my Master.”

Luke gulped. Well, that was as far from Imperial ideology as Vader was going to get. Was it enough for him to stand by his side and help him?

Presently they arrived at the kyber chamber again. Vader deposited Luke safely on the ground, then took the crystal from the bag and placed it in its setting.

“Say your name and connection to who you want to summon three times, then put your blood on the crystal,” Luke instructed.

“I, Darth Vader, once known as Anakin Skywalker, summon my mother to speak with me.”

He was going to see Grandma Shmi? Luke sat up and edged closer.

“I, Darth Vader, once known as Anakin Skywalker, summon my mother to speak with me.”

Touching his hand to the blood that had been trickling down his shoulder, he spoke again.

“I, Darth Vader, once known as Anakin Skywalker, summon my mother to speak with me.” With that, Vader touched his bloody hand to the crystal.

Vader stepped back, and the two Skywalkers looked around. Would it work? Would it take some time?

Luke’s eyes widened as a coral glow filled the room. The woman was back. What did she want in payment now? And why did the ritual summon her?

Her Crillan features began to shrink, and her body become human in size and form, eyes shining blue and sandy-blonde hair flowing to her feet.

“Anakin,” she said, striding through the air toward him. “The crystal can no longer summon the dead. But your request has been granted, for I am your mother.”

Chapter Text

“What?” gasped Luke. Vader’s mother was Shmi Skywalker, not something he’d hallucinated from a sabacc deck. This made no sense.

“I am Goddess Nylakin the Skywalker, Queen of Air and Darkness.”

“I am bound to this planet, but one day I sensed a ship enter the nearby atmosphere. From it I heard a prayer of rage and desperation so feral and wild I was moved to answer. The ship was only here for a moment, but it was enough to offer her the only way I could to extend my power beyond the borders of this planet. I was still angry at the Jedi for binding my brothers and sisters in the catacombs below, leaving me no rain even for my grief."

“Eager for vengeance, I made her a deal. I would give her son the power to strike down all who harmed her. In exchange, I wove into his fate the fall of the Jedi and the Republic that had massacred the Crillan settlement in revenge.”

“That was you, Anakin.”

“When the ship left, I fretted many days as to your fate. I had no way of contacting you, offering guidance, or tempering the path of my wrath. Only a few of us could interact with events off-planet, and in anger the few others who weren’t sealed away sealed our world away.”

What in nine-Corrilian-hells? So in the span of less than three hours, Luke had discovered he had not one, but two terrifying murder-at-the-drop-of-the-hat ancestors. No wonder this place was asking him about them when he entered.

“You sent out your power to tear down the Jedi and the Republic? How could you do such a thing?”

A look of pain crept across her face. “Let me tell you a story. A long time ago, the Republic came to our planet, seeking to mine our crystals for their weapons. The Crillan did not want them to, for the crystals belong to us gods. This caused a great dispute, and the Jedi were called in to mediate. An agreement was reached."

"Smaller crystals could be taken, if large ones were left below ground. The Crillan built this chamber to honour the large ones that were dug up in the process, keeping them within the caves."

"This agreement worked for a time, and the Jedi came and built the temple above, enjoying a steady supply of kyber for their blades. What the Jedi did not understand was that it was not an agreement formed on behalf of the Crillan, but on behalf of the Crillan gods."

"For one day, a Jedi fell in love. He prepared to leave the Order for her, but she was captured and killed by the Sith. Blinded by grief, he travelled here and sought to use the Crillan ancestor temple for himself. But his love had no blood relatives, so there was no one to help him use the crystal. After it didn’t work, in anger and grief he reached out to take a crystal from the temple, intending to build a superweapon to annihilate the Sith."

"On seeing this I appeared before him, threatening to strike him with blindness if he continued. I told him to leave our crystals alone, and that she would not want such violence committed in her name. Neither we nor the temple had the power to call her forth. And calling someone out of full oneness from the Force, while they are happy to provide guidance, is always a sadness for them."

"He refused to accept this and took the crystal regardless, for which I blinded him. He stumbled about the caverns till he fell into the mineshaft with it. At his death, the Republic grew suspicious of the Crillan and drove them from our caves, only allowing them back under strict supervision."

"For many planets had begun to express their wish to leave the Republic, and fragile peace treaties threatened to shatter. The Republic feared open war, and hoped a show of force might push the dissenting planets into silence. Thus they turned again to Crillan and extended their mine shaft deep within the caverns, declaring their agreement void after the Jedi’s death."

"When the shaft reached water, the Crillan sang to the Great Eel, coaxing it to swim inside and be their guardian. It killed many of the miners, but the Jedi were called down. After a long battle, they decapitated it, its skull sinking to the bottom of the shaft."

"The next day, the Republic returned to the shaft to mine as normal. Every now and then, a worker would take on a strange, vacant look, repeating an unusual rhyme, then run into the well. They had breathers with them, but the others grew anxious when they did not surface."

"The Jedi came down to investigate, and carried away any who attempted to run in. But they would run into other bodies of water. Then they would be found drowned with their head in a bucket or by their own flask of water when the Jedi turned their heads."

"They took to restraining anyone who began uttering a rhyme, not allowing a drop of water near them. But no one who fell under such a spell lasted longer than an hour, even dying without water if there was none nearby."

"After this they sent a Jedi to meditate by the well to understand and dispel the Force presence that hung there. But he returned and began to drain the life of the other Jedi, having made the same deal the wraith offered you. A bitter duel broke out, and he fought with the strength of twelve Jedi. Many were injured, and after he was killed they dared not go back down there."

"Frantically they contacted the Republic, fearing some strange sickness lurked in the water. After that they used the last of their strength to place a seal upon the door to our temple, locking away not only the wraith but all my brothers and sisters below."

"When the Republic arrived, and received no contact from the Jedi, they believed the Crillan had killed them. They used that to justify bombarding their village from above, fearing to even step foot upon the planet."

"I am not sure which truth they wanted to suppress more. That they had broken their agreement with this planet and plundered them so, or that the Crillan were able to work with the Force to resist them, it being clear it was no longer the exclusive domain of the Jedi."

"Then they scrubbed the planet from the map and all historical records. If anything that happened here became known, it would have shattered the Republic."

"If you knew this, why were you so harsh with my Father’s fate?” asked Luke.

The goddess cast her gaze into the distance. "I can see nothing of what happens beyond this planet. I thought like the Crillan, that the Republic ships were no different to the pirate guilds that had deceived us before. There were many tragic language barriers in our communication.”

"When Shmi died, her soul walked the cosmos to find me. It was only when she taught me Basic and explained all this, that I truly understood what I had done. They did not represent a coalition of two hundred ships, but a coalition of two thousand planets. But then it was time for her to join the Force fully, and not even I can call her forth to meet you without the aid of the crystal."

Luke pointed to the cracked crystal in the center of the room. “Given the agreement formed with the Republic, can we still take the crystal to assassinate the Sith Emperor?”

“No,” said Queen Nylakin. “The crystal must remain here. While the crack prevents it from focusing its power enough to summon a ghost, the power still resides within and belongs here with us.”

“Then how will we defeat the Emperor?" asked Luke. “He uses the Dark Side of the Force to hold the galaxy in a vice, forever growing in power. He exploits a vicious cycle of creating fear with his power, then feeding upon it. The Force holds horrors beyond comprehension.”

“Yes,” she said as she crouched and placed a finger under Luke’s chin, drawing his head upward. “Yet so are its joys.”

“What do you mean?” asked Luke.

The Queen smiled and shook her head. “You fear your Emperor because you do not understand there is another Axis we teach.”

“A fourth Axis? I thought you only had three? The number six is everywhere, for each end of each Axis.”

“Yes,” said Nylakin, “because we teach the Axis of Will and the Axis of Self as one. At one end is only your own will, and at the other is acting in line with every single part of the Force. Both extremes hardly ever occur. There is almost always some part of the Force that is choosing to help you, or you are unconsciously influencing to your will.”

“Our final Axis is the Axis of Love. At one end are those who use the Force to cause fear, and feed off what ensues, while at the other are those using the Force purely through love. There are vast reaches of the Force willing to help those who act this way. And unlike fear, this help is given freely. The Force is filled with love. Even in this darkness, it still prevails.”

“Here, let me show you.” She took Luke’s hand and he felt the craving fade away. He looked down at the reflective copper surface of the floor, and watched his eyes return to blue, and the dark circles fade from his sockets. His power, which had been slowly rebuilding, returned to full strength.

As the sensation rushed back in, Luke closed his eyes and opened up to the Force. He could feel it all around him. The ground of Crillan drinking up the rain, the conflict sparring in Vader, the moons dancing in harmony, the sparks of life trilling on the planet above. Each of the kyber crystals added a refrain to the tune, and the very core of the planet hummed beneath his feet.

Nylakin’s voice broke him out of his trance. “Even if you took the crystal to the Emperor, he would foresee your motive and resist the trap.”

“He will try to feed off your fear, just as you have said. Yet your battle with the wraith has already shown you can resist him for a short period of time. What you must do first is weaken the fear he holds over the Empire. Then you will defeat him like a gnat, as he will no longer be able to drain power through it.”

“And news of his Right Hand publicly defecting, bringing much of the Imperial Fleet with him, will be just the thing.”

Luke gulped. Did Nylakin think Vader would defect? He looked at him but he made no movement. “I can’t go back to the Rebellion, not with Vader. They’ll reject me, just like Felissia.”

“Have faith in them, Luke. Once they’ve gotten over their shock, they’ll remember they’re fighting for a world where justice offers a way to restore people, not to throw them away.”

“Remember, the Emperor is just one person. He may wield more power than any other in the galaxy, but against the galaxy, he is nothing.”

Nylakin turned to Vader. “Why do you persist down this path, my son? Do you not know what happens when you die?”

“In order to truly become one with the Force, you must accept and become one with the pain you have caused. It is a fearful journey you have ahead of you. Why do you persist in making it worse?”

“It is true that those with training in the Force are able to interact with the physical world, and at times even appear to people. This tends to distract them from their journey, and what takes most people two tendays, can take them two hundred years.”

“Yet no matter how long you delay it after death, it will come for you. Even if you are buried in the Sith Temple in Korriban, tying your soul to your remains in the tombs, the other Lords fueling your pain and hatred; eventually the temple will fall and erode away. Then you will have no choice but to face your journey.”

“The Force will surround you day and night with the horrors you have committed till you choose to walk the path to face them and regain true oneness with the Force.”

“I can restore your body from the need to drain life, but I cannot take that path from you. However, there is one waiting in the Force, deliberately postponing his own journey so he may walk yours with you.”

She held her hand out to Vader but he only stood there breathing.

“Luke, give me the crystal you have been carrying with you,” she said, turning to him. Luke dug into his pocket and held up the little crystal and dropped it in her glowing palm. She wrapped her hands around it and closed her eyes.

“Here,” she said, holding it back out to him. “Now I shall always be with you. This shall be my eyes and ears as to what is happening in the galaxy. You will always be able to use it to call upon me for help. And it will heal your Father if he becomes ready.”

“Thanks,” said Luke, as he cradled it to his chest, sensing her power within it. Then he looked up at her in concern. “Won’t it weaken you to take this?”

Queen Nylakin smiled. “Do not fear for me. I was born when this planet was birthed from the stars. And I will not die till it crumbles into stardust.”

“Yet while the effect on our power would be small, you still must not take the sacred crystal. When you have left we will direct the Crillan to dig up another to transfer the power into it. Then they will be able to speak to their ancestors again and preserve their memories as they rebuild their world.”

“But the Crillan are all dead,” said Luke.

“The Crillan are not a carbon-based lifeform. While their bodies need food to stay alive, and will wear out and die, if it is only water they lack, they will dry out and fall into a state that appears as death. But if laid in a sheltered place, away from the elements, they may be revived one day by enough water.”

“And now it is my sisters, who bring the rain. After the other gods were locked away, we could not make it rain for ten thousand years. Now that the seal on the door has been broken, my sisters have gone out to regenerate the planet.”

“There were a handful of survivors from the bombing who sheltered in these caves, and suffered and dried out from thirst. But now some have awoken and drawn their first breath. The Crillan live again."

“If your people need the rain to finish waking up, how do we get out of here?” asked Luke.

She laughed. “It is safe to create a respite.”

Luke turned his head and looked at the water lapping at the entrance to the chamber. He reached out and tugged on the end of Vader’s cape. “It’s going down!”

“Though no harm would have come to you all this time. I had tried to lead you out before, but I did not want to help you against your will. Come, this way will let you exit safely.”

She walked down the tunnel she had shown Luke earlier. Vader picked Luke up and carried him through the passage after her. It turned a corner and opened into a long row of steps leading directly upward. Water only rushed down channels carved on each side, and Luke guessed they diverted into the two lakes, keeping the kyber chamber dry.

The wind tugged at Luke's face, and he looked up to see a vast array of glownits, almost as detailed as the night sky. No—those were the stars—he was outside.

“Here I must leave you, My Children,” Queen Nylakin said. “I have many other children on this planet, and I must go tend to them now. There is much to be done to restore balance now that my brothers and sisters are released.”

She looked at Vader. “The Force is with you, Anakin. Make your wife and my wife proud when you return here to speak with them again.” Then she spread out her arms and disappeared in a flash of coral.

As Vader’s rhythmic footfall carried him over to his lambda-class shuttle, Luke felt his com vibrating. Wedge! He looked up at the night sky, then back up at Vader. With one foot missing he couldn’t even run away, let alone escape with Wedge. Would his father really defect? Luke sighed and answered the call. Wedge’s frantic face lit up above his wrist.

“Luke! Stars, you’re alright! I was worried sick about you. Are the others alright?”

Luke shook his head. “They’re gone. The caves were far too dangerous. We didn’t even manage to retrieve a crystal.”

“Kriff, that’s horrible.” said Wedge. “How are we going to defeat the Empire now?”

“We need to spread courage against Palpatine, that will weak—arrgh!” Luke’s world spun as Vader lowered him to his foot and seized his wrist.

Wedge’s face froze in shock as Vader’s helmet came into view of the com.

“Captain Antilles,” he said. “This is Jedi General Anakin Skywalker. Prepare the Alliance for a large influx of Imperial defectors. We shall all be with you as soon as I have tended to my son’s injuries.” With that he ended the call and began lowering the ramp on his ship as Luke clung to him for balance.

A figure on four legs with a maw full of teeth barreled down the ramp. Luke yelped as more rushed out, forming a circle around them.

“Peace, Children. This is my cub, Luke, who we came here to find. Luke, this is the hyenax side of our family.”