Ch. 2: To Feel Again

I left Kreia and continued down the hall to the damaged door. With my newly acquired plasma torch I was able to get it open. As I walked through the door and into the deserted halls I felt so lost. After talking to Kreia I only had more questions than before, and no matter what her philosophy was about their importance, I still wanted them.

My head had cleared since I woke up, and I began to wonder whether it was a blessing or a curse. I kept trying to remember what had happened on the Harbinger and how I had gotten here, of all places, but I couldn't.

I remembered I had been aboard the Harbinger, en route to Onderon, which was just another stop on my never-ending journey around the galaxy. The last night I could remember was when I was talking to some of the soldiers. Some of them were veterans; others were new recruits who had never seen war. I hoped they never would. After that, I went to my quarters and went to bed…and then woke up in a kolto tank! That was all I could remember! I couldn't remember an attack. How had I been the only survivor? All the soldiers I talked to were gone. I couldn't believe it. No matter how many time I replayed it in my head it didn't add up.

Just as I was thinking of that, I came to another jammed door. Whatever had happened here had definitely not been a small, contained accident. Just as I got my plasma torch I heard Kreia's voice, "Stop."

"I thought you were-," I said as I turned around. She wasn't there. "Kreia?" I called, feeling foolish and wondering if I had imagined it.

"Listen to me," her voice was louder, in my head like when I was in the kolto tank. "Do no doubt, just listen. Close your eyes and listen."

"What? Look, you were the one who wanted a way off this station, quickly. I don't have time to stand around and play games. Just stay out of my head!"

"This is not a game. Be careful. There is much energy in the room beyond yet it stems from nothing that lives."

"What are you talking about?" I was growing frustrated with her.

"Cast aside your physical sight and instead reach out with your perceptions, reach out past the door."

I closed my eyes and tried to feel. There was nothing at first and then—

"Ah, you can feel them, not the druids, but the small oscillations of energy echoing outward. It is there, you feel it, however faintly."

"What's happening? What did you do?"

"It is the Force, you can feel it still, even after all this time."

"No," I said harshly, "I don't want this anymore, not again!"

"Don't turn away. Listen—"

"No!" I yelled out loud. "You listen Kreia, I don't want this; I can't go back."

"Why not? Is it hatred for the Jedi, for what they did? No…I do not feel it in you. It is something else…it is fear. Yes, that is it. Because of your loss at Malachor."

"You don't know anything about me, I am not afraid!" yet even as I said it I knew she was right.

"Don't turn away again, as you did at Malachor, leave the past behind you. You can still feel the Force, echoing inside you, just as the pain of Malachor is. I can show you, guide you down the familiar paths once more."

"But it's not the same, it's faint, weak. Almost like it's coming from a great distance."

"Because you chose to abandon it. You turned away, shut it out. With training you could reestablish the connection, make it stronger, more powerful than before. Reach out once more."

I tried again; it was stronger than before, yet still enormously weaker than it had been. I opened my eyes, expecting Kreia to say something more, but she said nothing. How had I been able to feel it? When I had been exiled there was nothing, not even if I tried; now it came easily.

I pushed it from my mind, after ten years I had become a professional doing that. I knew how to push something from my mind, forget about it, until I was ready to think about it again. It was how I had dealt with things since my exile, by not dealing with them.

I tried to focus on what I was doing. I knew that I had to find something for the droids before I opened the door. I checked the bodies in the room. One of them had a mining laser. It would work. I walked over to the door, opened it and had my laser ready. The door barely opened before the droids began to fire. Diving to the left I got behind the side of the door. Once they stopped firing I took a couple well-aimed shots and they were gone.

I walked through the door blaster ready in case of more droids, there weren't any. There was a computer terminal with holorecords from the workers at the facility in the room. Apparently there had been major problems, mining droids going homicidal, explosions in the tunnels, and malfunctions in the vents. Nothing more though, and still no sign of anyone.

I continued through the deserted halls and into a large open room filled with computers. As I walked towards what looked like the main terminal a blaster shot rang out, passing close by my leg, quickly followed by another. I spun around, fired aimlessly not knowing where the shot came from. Then I saw them, two droids in the corner. I aimed, and fired, just as one was getting ready to fire at me and quickly fired on the other. I missed; the droid didn't. The shot got me in the left shoulder; the smell of burnt flesh filled my nose. I fired again, ignoring the pain, and disabled the droid. I stood up and looked around, there were no more. I was going to have to go back to the med lab, but my desire to find out what was going on was stronger than the sting, besides, it could've been worse.

The terminal was code locked. I was pretty good with computers but this was beyond me. I could only access the basic functions. I checked the security cameras, the same thing all over the facility: bodies and droids. I'd just about given up as I checked the last camera, the holding cells. To my surprise someone was there, and had been there for a while judging by his appearance.

He was sitting cross-legged, head in his hands with Pazaak cards lying in front of him. And he looked more desperate than I did. He didn't look like a miner so I wondered why he was here. Realizing I was accomplishing nothing by standing here and wondering I found the control to open the door to the cells. I decided to head to the med lab first; my wound was beginning to throb. Besides, the man in the holding cell wasn't going anywhere anyway.

I walked into the med lab and grabbed a medpack. The pain subsided and my shoulder felt better. I had another reason for coming back as well: I wanted to talk to Kreia. About the Force, how I could feel it, and who the hell she was that she could. I hadn't thought she was a Jedi. She was cryptic enough, but something was wrong about her that made me discredit the possibility that she was. Maybe she had been, but turned away.

Those thoughts passed through my head as I walked into the morgue, why she wanted to haunt that room I didn't know.

"Kreia," I said, "We have to talk." She didn't answer, didn't even move. "Kreia," I said louder.

"Listen to me!" Still she sat silently, ignoring me. "Fine," I said frustrated. "I'm wasting my time with you anyway."