Jeet Syllba, Mandalorian warrior, once in his prime a harbinger of death and fear to those who hoped to escape their fate, felt his armor strain at his sides. Squeezing his flesh against its constraints, he grunted with each breath as he shambled as stealthily as he could, stalking through the dense underbrush of Voss. Too many sweets, he thought to himself; too much ale and cantina time, reclining on couches, and bouncing a Twi'lek dancer or two. The Empire had been good to him; no real fights for some time, just collecting easy bounties of soft and pathetic traitors and tax dodgers. Chasing down smugglers for the Hutt cartels was a young man's game, and he had found easy credits in picking up the jobs from the sleepy bureaucrats on Coruscant. He cursed himself for it now. The Emperor was dead, as well as the prospect for easy bounties, and his retirement rested on procuring this one last, solid score.

He was no longer luxuriating in the glittering light of a city sunset, watching the traffic streaming across the sky. Instead, he was struggling to keep his balance in loose Voss mud, finding himself snagging on branches, making gasping noises like a youngling clambering on a female his first time. Thank the great god Kad Ha'rangir that had no clan could see him, so as to lose their respect for him now.

As ill-suited for it as he knew he was at this moment, this job was just too tempting to pass up. A Jedi bounty was not the kind of thing that comes up every day. And a prize like that would make your reputation forever. He'd retire in glory, and songs would praise his skill for generations to come. The clans would be coming for him, eager to put him up with full hospitality and hear him tell his tales.

But right now he was scouting the ridges opposite the imposing castle at the highest peak in the Vossik plain. The Voss natives in the village below were busying themselves with whatever such primitives get to; cleaning gourds and beans, pulling out nerff wool to make their tunics, and just living their lives close to the soil. Syllba watched them with a bit of disinterest and slight contempt. There are, in the galaxy, predators and prey, from every level, the masters taught. The old Mandalorian way was the way of the hunter. The alpha predator was at the end of great chain. Gathering food and wool was busywork for slaves and other lessers. By Syllba's reckoning, all those in the valley below owed him for their existence for his choosing not to slaughter them on a whim.

At that thought, his footing floundered in a pile of leaves, and his awkward bulk gave way under him. While he flailed his arms to steady himself, he found himself helplessly toppling backward. He cursed himself for letting his physical prowess get away from him like this. He was bulkier now than he was used to being, and living in low gravity environments had let him forget how poorly fit a proclivity toward leisure had left him. His panting echoed hollowly in his helmet as he raised himself up, putting hands on his knees and grunting. In his mind he began an inventory. He vowed he'd behave like a Death Watch youngling waiting to be patched in; strictly sparse algal meals near a level of fasting, intense resistance exercise, weapons practice drills every morning and night. He'd get back to the ship and start, he swore.

After this bounty, he could sit back and retire, growing as fat as he pleased.

::|:: ::|:: ::|::

Luke assumed a meditative trance in front of the vast windows of his father's castle, standing on the alternating shades of stone of what had once been an overlook terrace. In the ensuing eons, it had been enclosed with glass and plasteel, serving to offer up the grand view of the Voss mountains. It served as a grand ballroom back when the dwelling was a hunting lodge. Lately, it had been the keep and occasional home for Darth Vader, Lord of the Sith.

He felt the heat of the sun warming the chamber as the rays passed over him. His hands were pressed together, and he was motionless, reaching out and feeling the Force around him. Behind him were three pupils now. Stormtrooper Jafan stood in a similar meditative trance, wearing his loose, gray-with-red-piping Imperial fatigues, while his two Vossik children, Qyr and Panna stood beside him, imitating the Force trance as best they could.

Luke Skywalker, the last Jedi, now guided them in a slow meditative dance, moving with the Force around them, shadowing the sun's trajectory. In this trance, they felt the pull of the sun's energy like the pulse of a heartbeat, in tune with the Force. Luke enjoyed the sense that teaching these meditations would be their first step into a larger world. The last of the Jedi would become the first of their return.

"Pass on what you have learned." Yoda's last words echoed in his mind. A former stormtrooper and two half-Voss children, red and blue accents in patterns on their skin, were his pupils for now. Maybe they would not become Jedi, but it was a start. The children of a Force sensitive, and also of a Voss mystic, had a heritage that made them unique in the galaxy.

The holocrons that were hid away within this castle by Vader, most importantly, were the key to perpetuating the knowledge of the Force. The Empire had been nothing if not diligent in suppressing the religion, but if ever there was a return, these would be the most prized possessions in the galaxy.

Luke followed the poses taught by the great masters of the past as recorded in the holocrons. He moved his hands slowly, passing them in a circle, tracing contours of the Force against the flow of life through his own limbs, paralleling the direction of the crude viscous of his body. Jafan had brought his children for training in the Force to expose them to things which he never had been himself. For him, a Force sensitive raised in the Empire, where knowledge and practice of the way of the Force was forbidden, this was an exploration of something he had been denied.

Luke finished the long circular motion of the exercise. He returned to the forward facing stance with his hands together. He pushed them apart and shook them off.

"That's all for today." He turned and looked at his students, and gave a quick bow. Jafan was steady, straightening up and bowing slightly. The children fidgeted somewhat as they straightened up. They had not quite understood the explanation of these meditations and exercises, but they gave it their best effort. Luke could sense that the Force was strong in them. The boy was very young, just barely seven. The girl was older, and she had yet a particular affinity to the Force, even if she couldn't quite feel it yet. He addressed their father, the stormtrooper Centopt.

"How do you feel, Jafan?"

"I feel the Force, Master Jedi. More so every time. It's strange, reaching out like this. I can feel the pull of it, active, like the leash of a gundark. But it comes and goes from my hold, as well."

Luke nodded. He looked toward the children who were shuffling off now, talking to one another rapidly, their minds already elsewhere.

"I think they show a lot of promise. The Force ways were traditionally taught to the young."

The young Trandoshan, Drrsala, came in. He wore a white tunic over his reddish scales. He functioned as Luke's servant now, and wheeled in a tray with a stone pitcher of water and plasteel drinking cups. Drrsala grumbled slightly in his language and bowed in deference.

Luke paused and sipped as he peered at the valley through the windows, gesturing to Jafan and the younglings to help themselves as well.

"Go ahead and rejoin the garrison, Centopt. I believe we'll have some visitors to entertain."

::|:: ::|:: ::|::

Qyr liked to be around the garrison. The lessons by the mystic elders bored him during his daily routine, and he didn't like the chores of working the gardens or helping his mother carry goods to the market. The troopers were much more exciting to be around. They looked like they had much more fun, getting to run around in armor, carrying blasters and using the screens and comm-links that he never got to use down in the village. He and his sister Panna also liked tauntauns, and it was a thrill to see them when he visited, in hopes for getting a chance to take one for a ride. He day-dreamed that someday he could be a trooper, or maybe even a ranger, riding a tauntaun all day in the open plains, hunting his own food, and no mystics to lecture him on composure.

His father was Centopt, and had been for all the life he knew. He didn't understand his father, as he mostly seemed to be tired or grumpy whenever he was around, but he knew he'd had a hard life. All the troopers knew him and welcomed him, and he felt proud to see his father marching through the ranks, the orange badge on his shoulder denoting a rank that instantly gathered him an amount of respect from outsiders. His father was the exact opposite of a boring mystic in his mind, and it was a surprise to Qyr how much he now seemed to be interested in the human mystic. Almost every full human he ever met was a trooper, and the only ones who were not he had only seen in the market. He was only half-human himself, and he didn't know that the humans had mystics. The mysterious Master Skywalker, with a droid hand and sandy hair like his own, was talking to his father a lot, now. He liked the Jedi meditation better than the long lessons of the Voss mystics, especially given that he got to move and, more than just sit quietly, he could reach out and feel something solid out there beyond his grasp when he did the exercises.

He watched his father now, with his helmet back on his head, standing in front of his men. They looked serious as they stood together at attention. They were waiting on the Voss mystics coming up the side of the mountain in their flowing white robes.

Master Skywalker slightly stood apart from the garrison, donning his cloak with a grey and black pattern, holding his hands together in front of him, waiting the mystics. Stormtroopers stood on either side formally at attention, giving the Lord of the castle an honorary guard.

The mystics came walking up the path, their white robes pulled taught against their bodies, and many of them leaning on walking sticks to support their gait at this altitude. Reaching Skywalker, they bowed in unison with their hands crossing their chest. Qyr could not tell which was his mother, but he knew that she was there under the white robe, along with five other women and matched by an equal accounting of males. Tonda, in the lead, and the eldest Voss mystic, his reddish and blue skin tones now slack with his advanced age, still relied on leaning on his stick when they reached level ground, could bow only slightly. He spoke first in accented Basic.

"They say to address you as 'Commander Skywalker,' and not 'Lord', as Black Mask was." He bowed slightly, again. "It is an honor to be here, Commander Skywalker."

Luke bowed in return, meeting their gestures. "The honor is restored," he replied, citing an old Jedi formality.

"The castle belonged to your people for a long time, in the days of Voss-Ka and the Gormak wars. Long before my father was here. I am pleased you have returned here."

Master Tonda proceeded to introduce himself, as well as each of the dozen mystics behind him in succession. Qyr did not hear the various pleasantries as they bowed and greeted one another, making small talk and gestures of welcome. Skywalker stood straight with hands in front, nodding in turn. At last, the group turned, and he gestured to lead them into the castle.

Qyr watched the mystics line up and march into the great castle of shiny black stone, disappearing into the darkness of the curved entryway. He watched now as the troopers relaxed, shook themselves loose, and readjusted their helmets. He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see his father's helmet-less face standing over him. His father smiled, which was rare for him in Qyr's memory.

"We'll let the mystics discuss the matters now, Son. Your mother was among them. Maybe we'll all be together as a family after this. Where's your sister, by the way?"

"Oh, she went down by the tauntauns to feed them. She likes them."

"Okay, Son. Why don't you stay with me? I have some work to do at the base."

After walking a while, Qyr felt he could ask questions.

"Father? What are the Jedi? Are they like the Voss mystics for the humans?"

"They are, Youngling. But they were forbidden for a long time in the Empire."

"Are you a mystic now?"

Jafan laughed. "Maybe. I thought you might have enough of that in this family with your mother. Are you enjoying the Force training?"

"I guess so. It's not as boring as the mystic lessons."

Jafan nodded, keeping some thoughts to himself.

"There is a lot we all have to learn from Master Skywalker. The Force is out there, and yet it is in all of us, he says, but it may call to some of us more than others. If it's strong in you and Panna, I would hate to see it go to waste, as it has with me."

::|:: ::|:: ::|::

Walking along Skywalker's side in the great black stone hallway, Tonda struck up a conversation of mystic matters.

"Your ways of the 'Force' as you call it. We have investigated much in what you have proclaimed, and we have much to discuss with you, if it pleases you, Commander."

Luke remained stoic. But he couldn't help but warm up to the old man. He spoke with a musicality that had a humor within it.

"We bring you an official greeting from the Voss mystics, and a welcome to our world. Something we never had the chance to do with Black Mask. We bring songs and prophecies, Commander, from what was passed down about this place long ago."

Luke smiled beside his effort not to. He gestured to the great room which had been Darth Vader's personal quarters.

"We'll discuss it in time, Master Tonda. If you ladies and sirs would join me, I will receive you in the great hall. After your long walk, I'm sure you would care for some refreshment. I also am eager for the Voss to come in and reclaim this place that was built by your ancestors so long ago."

:::||:::

C-3PO had thrown every servo movement, optic feed, and cognition matrix routing into the process of efficiently lifting, examining, and recording the holocrons that Darth Vader had kept at the castle. His programming protested at first. Protocol and etiquette are primary functions, and sorting and lifting are for less elegant droids, all the methods and crystalline synapses whispered. But the command core in his core units rejected all this as errors, and piped through the primaries. Translation, sorting, storage, and protection of the holocrons.

Master Luke had valued his functionality, and a droid's neural mesh could not be more free of errors and overruns than a master who was pleased. Master Luke had the three extra protocol droids, as C-3P0 had humbly suggested he needed in order to expedite his functions. After assembling them and powering them on, they were told by Master Luke to follow C-3P0's orders, and the golden droid was positively alight with his new parameters. The new droids were newer models, shiny off-silver with blue highlights. Newer droids always assumed they are more advanced than their older compatriots, but Threepio was was never one to tolerate upstart chirping. After they had finished professing their own advancements and upgrades, he quickly informed them of their primary mission to decode the holocrons, and after threatening to just copy his matrix over theirs and clone himself into them, they quietly shut down opposition and obeyed. He named them C-3PP, C-3PQ, and C-3PR, which he found appropriate for the sake of sequential symmetry, as he considered himself first in the array of hierarchy.

The droids had joined together and interfaced, exchanging the necessary data that Threepio had compiled to translate the holocron glyphs. After the initial conflict, the four protocol droids were inseparable, functioning as a unit, each taking turns in holding aloft the holocrons to one another, and all joining in and speculating on possible language algorithm interpretations of the various glyphs. They buzzed with congratulations for one other for each insight that was gained.

Threepio's core was returning messages of completion and enhancement in cooperative tasking, in what the makers might called "being pleased."

R2-D2 often rolled in between them, rarely making his usual querulous tones, but only beeping a warning when rolling past a protocol droid so it wouldn't back up into him, as he went about his repetitive chores, going from terminal to terminal, turning locks and replacing boards. Threepio chided him for being rude and unfriendly, as he hardly interacted at all as the protocol droids had become such close compatriots. But Artoo just bleated a non-committal blurb and continued on his business. Threepio calculated that it was just the nature of such astromech droids, really just little more than ambulatory tool boxes that would chirp away in their own (singular and rather low-level) language. The astromechs could be as dense and mindless as a hydro-spanner, or maybe like Artoo, more clever and just aware enough to play "dumb machine" when they chose to sulk. Threepio ran the permutations of Artoo's taciturn behavior of late, and the calculation returned "typical for Artoo!", and he closed the file.

Now, with the guests arriving in the castle's grand dining hall, Threepio was breaking from the archive functions, and getting a chance to fulfill his original role as translator, and was taking full measure in showing off his complete mastery of the subtleties and intricacies of the Vossik tongue. His newer droid companions worked at serving drinks and food. He stood by Master Luke, relaying the discussions of the mystics who were in audience, sitting at the table in the great hall with a view of the valley below.

:::||:::||:::

Luke had said little. With two hands together at the table, he listened to the mystics relate the ways of their people and practices, and how they pondered on the nature of the Waskaja, what Threepio insistently said most closely what is meant in Basic as The Force.

"Why this place? Why did my father choose this castle then, here on Voss?"

Tonda thought on this, and finished slowly chewing the Vossik radish in the plate in front of him.

"The ancients told of a path of lightness and darkness. The enlightenment and power raised them from primitive beasts of the Gormak to the enlightened people of the Voss today, back when Voss-Ka was a city of greatness. They taught that there was the way to enlightenment of compassion and generosity, and there was a way to power made by wrath and fear. Our people did not forbid all such ways to initiates, and for a time, our rulers would draw from one pool and then from another."

Luke pondered this. "Balance. As there was balance in the Force. A prophecy foretold that my father would bring balance. He must have sought this out. Perhaps the Force had called to him."

Another mystic broke in while speaking his own Voss language. Threepio leaned down and translated for Luke.

"It is true that this castle was long valued by Lords of this realm, and wealthy city dwellers from Voss-Ka had long made this place a destination for hunting parties and holidays. It is a valuable piece of property. Perhaps it was coincidence or luck that your Emperor had given this to Black Mask."

Luke smiled warmly, touching the wampa scar up on his face. "My first Jedi Master said that in his experience that there is no such thing as luck." Threepio turned and raised his hands as he theatrically relayed the reply.

The mystics at the table bowed their heads and touched their fingers together in what Luke assumed was a gesture of religious significance. They agreed with Ben.

Tylo, the wife of Jafan the Centopt of the stormtroopers, was further down the table. Luke noted that she spoke with impeccably perfect Basic.

"Luke Skywalker, we spoke of the visions we have had. The rituals that Master Tonda spoke of, the rituals to channel the Waskaja of the dark way and the light way. So you must see, those rituals long ago were performed on this site. When it was the keep of a great lord, he gathered relics here, and was a host to many mystics. If those relics served some purpose, they may be buried deep here in the castle, and they may be potent still, as totems that focus the Waskaja. If you can feel them as we do, you would know the danger they imply. They have always called to us like a song, quietly beckoning to us from the top of this mountain. They were louder when Black Mask was here. But they are even louder now."

Luke settled back in his chair, disturbed by the news. He felt foolish. He knew that there was much he had to learn in the ways of the Force. He had called out to it, and let it guide him, but he was only barely more than an initiate. There was still chaos in his mind when trying to reach out, and he hadn't seen what these mystics had. Or perhaps the Dark Side that had residence here knew how to hide from him.

He felt a chill. He had felt his father, Anakin Skywalker, through the Force many times. But he felt a twinge of something slight for only a moment as if it passed through him. It was pure Vader. He looked over the mystics and they kept still, contemplative faces. Perhaps they had an insight into the Force that he hadn't. Perhaps there was a vector, hidden here in the shadows, by which the Dark Side had found fertile ground.

Tylo spoke again.

"There is something else that you should know. We know that once our people knew of the Jedi. I believe some had joined their ranks. Both on the Light and the Dark Side, so it says in what is written."

Luke nodded. "So it would be. I suspect the insight your order has on light and dark would answer many questions on the nature of the Force. I've been searching for this insight. So much of our study of the Force has been last over time."

Tonda spoke with the tone of his age and position. "Commander Skywalker, lone Knight of the Jedi, we have spoken among one another. We have an offer to deliver. An offer for you to join our rituals, and to experience the immersion of Waskaja. Outsiders seldom have ever been asked. But we believe you may be a bridge for our worlds."

Luke understood. He paused and sipped at his glass of blue milk. This would be the next step to restore the Jedi, and he knew he would have to take it.