Eight years before the instigation of Order 66
Jedi Temple, Coruscant, Core region
"Kyle!" The call echoed down the halls of the Temple, startling Kyle from his studies with its suddenness.
Those around him cast curious looks in his direction. Some of them were wondering what he might have done to deserve his name being shouted down the hallways in such a manner, whilst others wondered who it was that might be shouting it.
Kyle could tell from the voice who was shouting, but wasn't any more certain than they were about why his name was being shouted. There was a hint of anger to the voice, and though he wasn't able to think of anything that he had done which would provoke any kind of anger, a nervous flash passed through him.
He looked around at the entrance to the study circle just as Master Sei'lar stepped through it, his pace not slackening as he strode over to the desk that Kyle was working at.
"Master? What's wrong?" Kyle asked, noting that his Master's anger seemed more generalised than specific, or at least not directed towards Kyle himself.
Rather than answer directly, Master Sei'lar directed a question to Kyle. "Is your ship ready to fly?"
Kyle frowned. The Long Shot was one of the sticking points between himself and most of the other Jedi in the Temple; a gift from his parents, delivered by one of their oldest friends, Master Mikhail Zane; Kyle's former Master before he had been transferred to the ranks of the Seekers.
Jedi were not meant to own such possessions, but it had been hard for the Council to force him to refuse it; Master Zane had been sufficiently prepared to quote a number of times in history where Jedi had owned ships of their own; Cay Qel-Droma's Nebulon Ranger and the old Jedi Justice Cruisers had been merely a sample of it.
Thus, whilst Kyle was permitted to retain ownership of the YT-2400 freighter, he was required to keep it away from the temple, where it would attract less attention. It was also docked under Master Sei'lar's name, rather than his own, to ease matters further; Seekers had been dealing with issues like this for a long time, even if they rarely had to deal with the situation of a trainee Seeker being gifted a freighter.
"She's ready to go," Kyle responded, knowing better than to ask further questions. "I just need to call ahead to tell Red to start the pre-flight if you want to go somewhere."
"Then do so," Master Sei'lar replied brusquely. "We must move quickly. Come." Without waiting for a reply, Master Sei'lar turned and stalked rapidly out of the study circle.
Kyle hurried out after his Master, abandoning his notes in his haste. He had never seen Master Sei'lar so agitated before; his Master's sense was clearly elsewhere, his thoughts echoing loudly across the surface of the Force as he cast them rapidly athwart the Temple to some distant recipient. Kyle's minimal training in that area was insufficient to allow him to understand such a conversation that he was not a direct part of.
As he hurried, he pulled the comlink from his belt, signalling for Red to get in touch with him. The astromech had come with the ship, and was the only one of the droids on board it that hadn't had a memory wipe recently; his parents had developed an attachment to the droid, and had managed to impress a similar attached to Kyle onto it before passing it on to him along with the ship.
"Red? Come on Red, wake up," Kyle called into the comlink as he hurried along. After only a few seconds, the astromech whistled back at him. A lifetime of being around astromechs had left him reasonably capable of understanding the nuances of their language, though he found himself with a long way to go in some areas. "Yeah, I know," he replied, guessing at the thought behind the acrimonious tone. "Forget that for now. Master Sei'lar wants to go somewhere in a hurry. Start on the pre-flights so that we can get moving right away."
There was an affirmative, if concerned, whistle from the other end of the line, and Kyle broke it quickly, dashing to catch up with his Master. He was suddenly aware that whoever they were meeting, they were close by; the raw power that Master Sei'lar was using to converse with them telepathically had reduced during Kyle's conversation, and he was actually able to pinpoint the recipient himself with a bit of effort, so that it was no surprise to hurry around a corner onto a catwalk above one of the Temple's reception areas, and find someone waiting for them on it.
Two someones in fact, Kyle realised, though that only one of them had been communicating was not a surprise as such; the other was clearly a Padawan from the cut of his hair and clothing, even if Kyle didn't recognise him personally.
Sithspit, he thought vehemently to himself, hoping that this was going to be a quick encounter.
"Master Kenobi," Master Sei'lar greeted the person he had been conversing with. "I trust that you are ready to leave."
Master Kenobi nodded. He wore the traditional robes of the Jedi Order, and wore them well. He had however discarded the normal brown robe that went over the rest. "Assuming that you have some form of transport available," he replied.
Master Sei'lar glanced at Kyle, who nodded back in agreement. Master Sei'lar was slightly taller than Master Kenobi, but otherwise startlingly similar; their clothes were in the same cut, colour and style, their physical proportions were the same, and even the colour of their hair and eyes were the same. Master Sei'lar had more hair of course; Bothan fur was much more prevalent than Human hair, but even then it followed the same kind of style, where Master Sei'lar was growing a beard to rival that of Master Kenobi.
"We can leave immediately then," Master Sei'lar declared, gesturing towards the stairs.
Both Masters hurried off, leaving their students to jog to catch up, not exactly trying to avoid each other, but certainly not getting too close.
Kyle's own Knighthood had come just after he transferred into the ranks of the Seekers, which presented itself as an oddity since he was still following someone around as if he was their Padawan. This was, unfortunately, normal for Seekers, who used the normal ranks of the Jedi Order, but whose training took place in a less determinate manner; it was possible for a Jedi Master, whose talent for seeing the Now was discovered late in their career, to be apprenticed to someone a fraction their age.
Technically, as he ranked as a Jedi Knight, Kyle outranked Anakin Skywalker. In practise he knew that he would never be able to pull it off. Skywalker was a traditionalist in that way; Seekers were outside the normal run of things, and so their authority extended no further than their own Chapter.
There was another reason that Kyle would never try to pull rank on Skywalker, and that was a lack of desire to even acknowledge his existence.
"Kyle's ship will be ready for us when we reach the spaceport," Master Sei'lar explained as they hurried out of the temple. "With luck Url cannot be more than an hour ahead of us, and we will be able to catch him easily."
"An hour ahead won't help us much if his ship is faster than your Padawan's," Master Kenobi replied, gesturing towards an airspeeder. Clearly the two Masters had taken the responsibility of arranging different parts of their transport to... Wherever they were going.
Skywalker jumped to the airspeeder's controls, and Kyle noticed the pained expression that flashed across Master Kenobi's face at this act. He made no complaint however, leaping into one of the back seats. Master Sei'lar joined him there, leaving Kyle sitting in the front passenger seat, a situation he did not relish; he had served as Master Zane's pilot from a young age, and Master Sei'lar had adopted him into the same position when he came to Coruscant. Being in such a small vehicle that was so obviously being piloted by someone else was a trying experience for him at the best of times.
Skywalker proved to be every bit as hard to be a passenger for as Master Kenobi's expression had hinted; he drove recklessly, as if the presence of other traffic was a burden or insult to him, dodging other vehicles with a casual laugh and an increasingly small margin for error. Kyle could sense Master Kenobi tensing at every stunt, each one matched by Skywalker's smile flickering up a notch.
No word of complaint was made however, from either Master, both of whom were in quiet conversation for most of the flight. Kyle desperately wanted to know what could be so urgent that Master Kenobi would allow his Padawan to fly in this manner.
What was most annoying was that, as an expert pilot himself, Kyle could see that Skywalker was showing off, although neither Master might actually have realised it; split-second turns were delayed an instant longer than they needed to be, the airspeeder was swung out especially wide so as to nearly clip the roof of another that had been slightly slower in getting out of their way. Skywalker was being deliberately flashy; not enough to slow them down, but enough to get more of a thrill out of the ride.
The spaceport was normally nearly twenty minutes away from the Temple by airspeeder. Skywalker managed it in fifteen, sliding them into a parking bay sideways as he pulled the most rapid stop that the vehicle's design would allow.
Now Kyle found himself leading, followed very closely by Master Sei'lar, to the Long Shot's bay.
The YT-2400 was a design based on standard Corellian engineering: a disc-shaped hull, with an independent cockpit. Like the YT-1300 the YT-2400 had the cockpit mounted on the side of the disc, although unlike the YT-1300 it lacked the additional prongs at the front, which reduced its cargo capacity somewhat. Kyle's parents had gotten around this by removing more of the cargo space for two weapon mounts and turning the ship into a patrol craft for their trading post. By law both of those weapons were locked down whilst the ship was docked, although Kyle knew full well that they could be unlocked at a second's notice.
Red already had the ship's ramp down and the engines were humming softly as the various astromechs brought the ship to readiness when the four Jedi arrived and hurried aboard. Kyle caught a despairing flash from Skywalker and a more generalised anxiety from Master Kenobi, but ignored both. Skywalker had been showing off, and now it was Kyle's turn.
Skywalker tried to angle for the pilot's seat as they reached the cockpit, but was thrown when he ended up in the co-pilot's seat instead; Kyle managed to grab the pilot's seat before the Padawan corrected his error, a grin on his face as he did. His parents had modified the cockpit at his uncle's insistence, since he was the one that did done most of the flying for the family, and had originally learnt to fly in a YT-1312, identical in every respect to the YT-1300 apart from the fact that everything was on the opposite side of the ship. Thus, the pilot's seat was not where it should have been in a YT-2400.
"What course should I set?" Kyle asked; it was a careful question, which respected the fact that as a learner it was not his place to question his Master's actions or ask unnecessary questions, whilst also prodding slightly about the fact that he had no idea what was going on.
"Make for the third outer orbital track," Master Sei'lar responded. "I will hopefully have our destination within the next few minutes."
Kyle hesitated for an instant, then carried on with the take-off procedure, getting steadily more confused.
Tastriff was a solar system that was almost unheard of in a galactic sense. Even the people of Coruscant would have for the most part denied knowledge of that world, even though many of them could not have survived without Tastriff's existence.
The system was almost unique in having six planets within the human-/ near-human-habitable band around the star. Each world had been heavily terraformed as Coruscant grew in power, and for thousands of years each of those worlds had diverted almost its entire output to Coruscant. Six worlds, seven moons, and fifty orbital facilities that dwarfed even the largest military outpost, all produced food almost exclusively, receiving in exchange for this a constant supply of materials for construction and repair, and anything else that they could ask for in order to keep growing more food.
Over three hundred heavy transports operated constantly on the three hour hyperspace journey between Tastriff and Coruscant, and between the different processing facilities in the Tastriff system. These ships varied in design and style and age, their owners finding that the concept of constant employment was a fine one, until you realised that it was genuinely constant: if the ships stopped for any length of time, Coruscant would begin to starve. The one thing that the people of Coruscant who understood how their world lived truly feared was not a direct assault by an enemy, but a siege that would cut off those supply lines. Plans were put forwards occasionally by radicals who feared an attack of this sort, but where never taken seriously. Coruscant would have to be put to siege and taken by a new authority before anyone would really appreciate the danger.
It was one of these transport ships, carrying the waste produce of a small fragment of Coruscant, that they had chased to Tastriff, and the shuttles from which they had followed to the third planet in the system.
Master Kenobi had deferred to both Kyle and Master Sei'lar on the matter of their destination. It made sense, since this was their intended purpose in being a part of this journey; most Jedi were taught detective skills as a normal part of their training, but even the greatest of the Jedi Investigators might call upon a Seeker for aid in finding something.
But their foe was a crafty one, as Master Kenobi had explained.
"Tetri Url is one of the librarians on Coruscant. His principle job has always been to look after the forbidden texts."
"Forbidden?" Skywalker asked with a frown.
Both of the Masters exchanged a look before Master Kenobi continued. "Over the centuries, certain documents, writings, holocrons, and so forth, all made by Sith or other Dark Siders, have fallen into the Order's possession. These can be anything from personal records, details about battles, shopping lists, up to full blown training manuals. Most of the latter are destroyed straight away, in order to prevent anyone abusing the information in them. Some however," he added guardedly, "are retained for reference purposes so that we can better identify if these practises are put into action at a later date.
"Tetri Url seems to have been spending more and more time with these documents recently," he continued. "He's been reported to be more grumpy, defensive, and dismissive of regular Jedi practises of late. The Sentinels have been busy with other issues recently, and so those of them on Coruscant haven't had time to speak to him about this. Master Joran'ala has been looking into the matter of several unusual transmissions however, and discovered the fact that several of these forbidden items have gone missing, including a holocron created by an unknown Darksider."
"How do you get from some unusual transmissions, to items missing from the Jedi Archives?" Skywalker asked.
"There are ways," Master Sei'lar assured him. "Tetri Url's disappearance from the Temple, coinciding with the disappearance of these items, and the transmissions indicating that transport was required from Coruscant to Tastriff, are too closely tied for Master Joran'ala's tastes however."
"He contacted me and asked that I look into the situation," Master Kenobi added. "We'll hopefully arrive on Tastriff shortly behind Tetri Url, and in time to question him about his motives."
Thus they had arrived on the third planet, and quickly found that the trail died out very abruptly.
"I thought that Seekers were meant to be able to find anyone," Skywalker commented snidely.
Kyle restrained a retort about the disruptive presence of people with a destiny. It was irritating, suddenly finding yourself unable to track down someone, when they should stand out to you like a beacon. Master Sei'lar was clearly having no more luck, and clearly had even less luck restraining his distaste as he hissed a warning at Skywalker.
"He has hidden himself," Master Sei'lar decided after a few more minutes of effort. "Clearly the documents that he has taken contain more than simply a shopping list, and he has spent his time with them well."
"Great," Skywalker said sarcastically. "So you can't find him?"
Master Sei'lar hissed again, looking sharply at Skywalker. "Perhaps, Padawan, you would be so kind as to share with us a vision of where he will be, since you so clearly dislike the idea of knowing where he is at this time."
Kyle hesitated for an instant; that had been dangerously close to insulting someone else's Padawan, which was a fairly serious matter amongst Jedi, since it reflected badly on the Master as well as the apprentice. Kenobi however didn't appear to take it personally, instead casting a glance of his own at Skywalker to silence any further comments.
"We need to find him somehow," Master Kenobi pointed out as Kyle and Master Sei'lar stood up. "Let's check with the Customs office. He came in on a waste transport, and on a world like this that would mean that he would need to pass through even more stringent checks than the regular customs. They can't afford diseases or plagues on these worlds."
"I can save you the trouble," a voice informed them.
Kyle looked around to find himself facing what was obviously another Bothan Jedi, and a Master by his appearance. His robes were similar to those of Master Sei'lar, but in a deep tan, and with a bronze and gold medallion, cast in the shape of the emblem of the Jedi Order overlaying the Republic Public Security Division's own emblem, attached to his jacket's breast. The Lightsabre hanging from his belt was a simple design, and matched by a blaster hanging from the other hip, and a stun rod in a holster on his thigh. His fur was a silvery shade, with a smattering of golden brown flecks across it, and his eyes were a piercing shade of purple. His features extended towards the more canine trend of Bothan; the muzzle was longer than more feline variety, but there was a more pronounced brow than in the equine.
"Master Joran'ala," Master Sei'lar greeted him. "I did not think that you would be here by this time..."
"I have my ways," was the simple reply. "I believe that I arrived just before you did, and I've been able to use my time to track down Tetri Url's location." He pulled a datapad from an inner pocket and held it out for Master Kenobi and Master Sei'lar to see. "There was an anomalous mass reading on one of the containers that you followed here. Not enough for a warning to come up, but enough that it should have been noted, which it wasn't."
"You think that he's hiding in this waste container?" Master Kenobi asked, his tone sceptical.
"The anomaly, and the fact that no one reported it, suggests to me a hidden compartment of some kind," Master Joran'ala declared. "Most likely one that is regularly used for smuggling. Given the urgency with which these cargos move back and forth between this system and Coruscant, I do not find it surprising that someone has started using them in this manner. I have previously encountered more bizarre means of smuggling," he added.
"So, we track down the container then," Skywalker declared.
"Already done," Master Joran'ala informed him. "It's currently moored in the tertiary dock, following a warning that it might contain contaminated materials. And it'll stay there under tight surveillance until someone checks it out and clears it, or manages to work out who pushed through a spurious hazard warning," he added with some satisfaction.
"You lied to the docking teams?" Master Sei'lar asked, not exactly aghast, but definitely curious.
"We're dealing with an opponent who can sense threats directed against him," Master Joran'ala pointed out. "An indirect threat such as this will present itself only as an inconvenience, not as something that he needs to concern himself with. Of course, once we approach, it will be different."
"Hadn't we better check that he is there first?" Master Kenobi commented. "I know that the Seekers weren't able to find him before, but if they knew where to look it might be easier."
"Actually that is part of my idea," Master Joran'ala agreed. "But only part of it." He turned to Kyle and Skywalker. "Jedi Reeves. I require you to stay here, and keep watch. Return to your ship if it will be easier, but keep track of the situation using the Now, and report to us if anything goes wrong. Padawan Skywalker, you must remain here to ensure his safety."
"But Master-" Skywalker began to say, before Master Sei'lar cut him off.
"This will be too dangerous for you," he announced. "I am aware of your skill with a Lightsabre, but if this comes to combat then Lightsabres may only be a side issue to events; the kind of knowledge that Tetri Url has access to is far more dangerous than any blade. Kyle," he added as he began to turn away. "Tolerate him, please..."
As the three Masters left, Kyle gritted his teeth, and looked at Skywalker. The Padawan was clearly upset by being left behind, and probably feeling slighted at being left out of events. Kyle at least had no such issues; he would be watching events as they happened.
He left Skywalker standing there and hurried back into the Long Shot, jogging into the lounge and dropping himself into the Now.
Hurriedly he pulled his gaze back from Totality, focusing first onto Coruscant, and then onto Tastriff when he was close enough to that landmark not to get lost. His spirit-self burnt a trail across the sky, surfing down through the atmosphere on the back of a hyperspace signal before leaping clear and flowing over the area around the Long Shot.
Skywalker was standing just outside the hatch now, glowering at the world in general. The Force bent around him, his anger at being left out colouring everything about and around him. Kyle considered him, unseen and unknown, for a moment, trying to find something about his fellow Jedi to actually like, rather than only finding things to dislike.
There was nothing that he could really appreciate though: Skywalker was a Guardian by training and disposition, much as Kyle's original training had originally intended for him, but his record was for being more aggressive than Kyle could approve of; he was born on Tatooine, wherever that was, whilst Kyle was Corellian; the faint afterimage of Skywalker's thoughts hung in the air around him, the impression of a woman's face barely visible. There was nothing specifically to dislike about him from simply looking at him. But there was one thing that Kyle, and even to a certain extent Master Sei'lar, could never reconcile themselves or their philosophy over: destiny.
Seekers had no time for prophecy; an inability to perceive the future through the Force, beyond a few seconds worth of attack anticipation that was only good for a fight, left them with a limited patience for it. Seekers had perhaps the keenest minds of any Jedi for intellectual prediction, but beyond this they lacked an interest in what some of them saw as an unhelpful art, or an imprecise science.
To be around someone who was meant to be touched by destiny, particularly a destiny that to most Seekers seemed fairly ambiguous, was irritating, because it was so far beyond their remit that the prediction almost belonged to another Order.
Throwing his gaze outwards from the ship, Kyle sought out the trio of Jedi Masters, who were getting some interested looks as they strode quickly through the spaceport. Seeing a Jedi Master on this world at all was clearly unusual; when the entire planet was agricultural, with only a couple of small settlements on the surface, most Jedi tended to find their interests centred around the habitats in orbit, rather than on the surface.
Kyle kept his gaze wide, soaking up the glimpses of people, the furtive looks and the hidden concerns. In one area word had been comlinked ahead – Kyle had seen the signal as well as both ends of the conversation – and boxes were being moved hastily out of sight. A manager, caught in a compromising position with one of his staff members, hurried to tidy himself up, not realising that his guilty reaction drew more attention than if he had simply carried on regardless. In a gambling den, hidden behind a warehouse, a dozen people checked their weapons and continued to play, wagering duty shifts and recreational time in place of hard currency.
All were secret moments, all were things that a Seeker would see in passing, and all were things that no Seeker ever spoke of; whether other Jedi understood it or not, a Seeker never revealed the true extent of their capabilities, or the real scope of their gaze.
Swinging in low over the three Masters, Kyle formed his spirit-self into something approximating his normal appearance, and rested a spectral hand upon Master Sei'lar's shoulder. The elder Seeker's stride shifted subtly for a second, and then carried on as if nothing had happened.
Kyle. The word appeared in the Now, materialising almost telepathically, but seeming more as a shape in the world than something that was spoken. Only a Seeker could speak thus, and only a Seeker would be able to receive such a message.
"I'm here," Kyle replied, feeling himself speaking normally. From within the Now, he had no need for special tricks to hide his speech, or make himself heard.
Check out the container, Master Sei'lar ordered.
Losing his apparent shape, Kyle flowed forwards, finding the container easily; people's perceptions of what it might contain, and the trouble that it might cause them, although not real, left vivid marks across the huge container as it hovered in the dock. The design was one that he was familiar with; the entire structure could be collapsed down to almost nothing for the return trip to Coruscant, greatly reducing the need for cleaning it, by storing the returning food in different containers. The repulsors were a powerful design, constantly active for the duration of their stay inside the planet's gravity well, allowing easy movement of the containers, and meaning that the container was actually moored to a docking platform by heavy durasteel tethers rather than being locked in place.
He flowed through the layers of imagined danger and the more real layers of waste that filled the container. It was a lot less pleasant than simply watching a recording of such a trip would have been, and he regretted immediately that he had chosen this route. But there was no other way, and he moved on through it, searching around until he found what he was looking for.
In one corner of the massive container, a small compartment, decidedly smaller than an escape pod, and only really big enough to hold its own life-support and power supply, plus a small space for someone to hide in, had been attached to the wall. Kyle kept his distance initially, hanging immaterial in the heavily compacted waste materials, and contemplating what to do next.
He couldn't rightly go back and tell them that he had found this smuggling pod and hadn't then checked what was inside it. He probed closer, a bit at a time, ducking back rapidly after each jab at the sense of the pod. There wasn't immediately anything wrong, and so he allowed himself to flow inwards, ready to back off should anything go wrong.
It was as if he had stepped from a starless night into a brightly lit room. He averted his gaze for an instant, allowing himself to recover, before looking around more carefully. From the outside the pod had appeared almost blank through the Now, and yet from within, the Force was not only present, but almost aggressively powerful.
The Force was bent and twisted however. What appeared to be runes of some kind had been inscribed into the inner surfaces of the pod, and these glowed with a strange light as Kyle watched them. A small, hunched figure was sitting at the far end of the pod, apparently asleep. A short black staff was across his knees, and Kyle spotted the Force-tuned mechanisms within the end-piece. He felt his way around the pod further, finding a kit-bag in one corner.
Around this bag, or its contents, the Force was twisted and warped, as if something was distorting it like the gravity well of a star. Even the colour of the Force was changed, the inner lambency of the bag's contents shining out with some ethereal light.
Edging closer, Kyle prodded the bag one, then again, and then slipped himself closer so that he could peek inside.
A stinging backlash, a violent discord with the harmony of the Force, struck out at him from the bag, hurling him out of the pod. It hadn't actually managed to touch him – it had long ago been deemed impossible to be attacked inside the Now – but the shock of it had caught him off-guard. It had also woken the pod's occupant, who looked around, startled by the suddenness of it all.
Kyle didn't wait around to find out what had happened. That discord should have been audible to the Masters, and he rushed back to them, coming to a stop beside Master Sei'lar.
"It's him alright," Kyle informed him, not waiting to announce himself properly. "There are some kind of powerful artefacts in a bag he's brought with him. One of them attacked me," he added, trying to sound offended.
Master Sei'lar looked around, slightly shocked at his unannounced presence, and then relayed the news rapidly to the other two. "Kyle, keep track of him," he called out, aloud, as the three of them split up.
Kyle flowed back to the waste container, where a hatch had opened in the far side. Even through the Force, the pod was now visible, and Kyle could see the figure climbing laboriously out of it. The figure paused to haul the back up beside him, and then jumped, leaping across to the docking platform in a single bound. Kyle was used to judging proportions in the Now, but even he had to recheck that distance; even for a Jedi that jump should have been pushing things a bit from a standing start and carrying that much dead weight.
The figure clambered up onto an inspection team's airspeeder, drawing irate cries as he did so. These he calmly ignored, until one of the team tried to grab him, and he hurled them aside with a casual gesture. As Master Kenobi appeared at the end of the platform, Url scowled in frustration, and gunned the engine. He was clearly no pilot; his driving was erratic even in a civilian vehicle, and he rammed several crates before managing to steer himself onto a clear path.
Master Kenobi tried to leap aboard the airspeeder, but a badly-judged turning bounced the vehicle further than he had anticipated and he came up short. As he rolled to his feet, a pulled a small metal disc from his belt, hurling it at the airspeeder. As it struck, the beacon started transmitting, the signal visible to Kyle through the Now.
As one Master was evaded, another moved in; Master Sei'lar struck without warning, his Lightsabre a glowing beacon in the air as he dropped from a balcony, missing by scant centimetres, but removing one of the engines from the airspeeder as he landed.
Apparently by sheer brute force, Url hauled the airspeeder back on course, driving it further through the facility and towards the relative freedom of the open fields. Kyle saw that Master Kenobi was already running to collect another airspeeder, whilst Master Sei'lar was running after the errant vehicle.
For a moment, Kyle found himself wondering about the errant Master; Joran'ala was nowhere to be seen, at least nearby. Extending his view of the area, Kyle spotted the Bothan Master an instant before he acted.
Kyle hadn't had much of a chance to form an opinion about Master Joran'ala. His reputation preceded him of course; the case of the Vagrant Stones had achieved almost mythical status on Corellia, while the details of the case of Hidden Faces had been circulated to every Temple and training facility lest anyone else should fall prey to it. He was as famous, in his own right, as Master Windu, or any other member of the Council, despite the fact that he had no place on the Council, and his activities were largely clandestine for the most part.
His means of operating largely tended to involve trying to outthink or outmanoeuvre an opponent, and by his record he was good at it. Being one step ahead was always said to be the greatest advantage that he could ask for.
This certainly appeared to be the case here; a dozen cargo transports, all seemingly innocent in their actions, simultaneously spun and set themselves down, neatly forming a blind alley and forcing Url to hurl the airspeeder into a desperate spin to avoid crashing, and to try to turn around. Even as the move began however, it went wrong, as Url managed to jam both ends of the airspeeder between two pylons, nearly throwing himself out of the vehicle altogether.
All three Masters now closed in, drawing Lightsabres as they did. Tetri Url was clearly being given no chances to try anything.
Master Sei'lar's earlier warning about Lightsabres being merely a side issue to this matter was proven correct however, as Url lashed out through the Force.
Kyle shrank back as the Force bent around Url and the contents of his bag, the power of the Dark Side spilling outwards from them. Energies flowed around them, driven, but uncontrolled, lashing out randomly.
Ice formed across the surface of a crane as the heat was drawn from it. A wind snapped through the gap between two containers, the sudden force of it shattering the bones of two workers. A droid, imbued with the malign presence of the Dark Side, went berserk and began to tear through the canteen where it had been serving only seconds earlier.
Kyle drew back further, trying to take in the scale of what had been unleashed. Energies of this scale being unleashed in such a manner were a thing of history texts, of the antiquity of the Jedi when they had battled the Sith Empire on a regular basis. To find such raw power being hurled around with such ease in this day and age was a startling thing indeed.
The three Masters, though clearly startled by the level of power, were undaunted. Perhaps it was simply that they did not see things as Kyle did; his advantaged position in the Now let him perceive the true extent of the chaos that had been unleashed here. In any event, all three of them armoured themselves with the Force, striding forwards against an almost hurricane gale that had been whipped up.
At the centre of it all, Tetri Url was working furiously, scribbling something on the ground beside the wreck of the airspeeder. Kyle saw through the patterns of lines that flowed around him that he was no longer the driving force behind what was happening here; whatever was hidden in that bag was the prime cause of the trouble assailing the spaceport, and Kyle shivered at the thought that whatever this was had probably been sitting, unnoticed, in the Jedi Temple for the last few decades, at least.
Master Sei'lar and Master Kenobi had ended up side-by-side leaning on each other as they drove into the maelstrom, Lightsabres abandoned as they clung to each other for support. Master Joran'ala, approaching from the other side, was advancing by means of another airspeeder, using the Force, and the onboard climate management field, to deflect the worst of the storm.
Master Kenobi pushed forwards, aided by Master Sei'lar, reaching Tetri Url first. The smaller Master didn't seem surprised at the interruption, merely annoyed that it had come so soon. A telekinetic blast aimed at Master Kenobi was deflected by Master Sei'lar, who hung back to provide support.
"You have to stop this!" Master Kenobi called out, bracing himself against the wind and the raw power of the Force that was being hurled against him.
"Stop this, I will not!" called back the diminutive librarian. "Renewed the Jedi must be! Advance they must!" A tridactyl hand lashed out, claws arched as if to grab at Master Kenobi's robes, despite the distance between them. The Force bent around that hand, and the gesture, hurling a bolt of lightning across the distance between them.
Master Kenobi caught the lightning against his hand, more by accident than design, trying to drive it off and losing his balance as he did. He stumbled, falling backwards just as Tetri Url was forced to direct his attention elsewhere: Master Joran'ala's borrowed airspeeder rammed sharply against the wrecked one, throwing the librarian's bag onto the floor and disturbing whatever power was at work within it.
Url hurled another bolt of lightning, forcing Master Joran'ala to dive aside this time, and then dug once more into the Dark Side, the contents of that bag once more coming to his aid as their energies flowed around his, guiding and directing his actions and, more subtly Kyle realised, his thoughts as well.
A wave of cold so sudden and sharp that even Kyle felt himself shiver against it lashed out causing frost to spring up across the surroundings. At the same time, something took shape within the Force, its form coalescing out of the essence of the Dark Side itself.
This was something that Kyle had not even suspected was possible. The thing appeared to be ill defined, as if its shape was a passing fancy, but there was a definite impression that it was trying not to lose shape, even if it wasn't interested in holding a specific one. Kyle doubted that it was visible as more than a vague outline to anyone else, though to his advantaged position it appeared as a red mist, haloed with the power of the Dark Side, and with lightning crackling off it.
A half-formed limb speared through the side of a cargo transport, causing the metal to warp and rust even as it shattered under the force of the blow. Another limb tried to spear Master Kenobi, who dived aside at the last possible second, barely avoiding a strike that powered through the ferrocrete floor as if it was paper.
"What is it?" Master Sei'lar called out, his tone almost horrified at the sight and the sense of the thing.
"A Force Spirit," Master Joran'ala called back. "We cannot easily face this foe," he added, raising his Lightsabre. The Force flowed through the glowing yellow blade with almost blinding intensity to Kyle's eyes, and caught a flailing limb as it swung around towards the Investigator.
The thing, the spirit, howled in a dozen tones as the Lightsabre sliced away part of the limb, its voices like shattering glass, like nails across a blackboard, like the putrid exhalation of a corpse. Everyone nearby shuddered at the sounds, unheard by normal senses and instead perceived through the shiver of your spine and the hairs on the back of your neck. The injured limb seemed to cauterise almost immediately, whilst the segment that had been cut off whirled past Kyle's sense, combusting as it did.
Perhaps less experienced than Master Joran'ala, neither of the other two masters attempted to mimic this feat, trying to armour themselves with the Force but otherwise simply resorting to physical prowess in order to dodge the attacks coming at them, trying all the time to get closer to Url who was untouched by the Force Spirit.
As Kyle watched it though, he sensed that this was not by any choice of the Force Spirit's. Rather, he sensed that whatever it was hiding in the bag was shielding Url and the bag from the Spirit's attention, and requiring quite a lot of effort to do so.
Flowing closer, dodging hastily around the flailing grasp of the Spirit, he dived towards the bag, jerking back at it lashed out at him through the Force. It hadn't been more than a very cheap distraction, but it cost dearly, as the Spirit seemed to notice the rather potent pool of Dark Side power that it was sitting right on top of.
Url flung himself hastily aside, his runes forgotten, as the Spirit pounded a significant part of itself down into the ground where he had been. Kyle reflected as he drew back that the Dark Side was not only dangerous to handle, but it was fickle when it came to being handled at all.
The bag that Url had thus far been carrying avoided being hit by leaping aside as well. For an instant Kyle suspected that Url had used the Force to pull it after him, before he realised that the way the Force had bent around the bag suggested that whatever was actually inside the bag had done the throwing.
With its concentration apparently lost, the thing in the bag was forced to drag itself once more through the air as the Spirit lunged up through the floor, sending a fountain of ferrocrete into the air as it did. Kyle pulled back from it as the Spirit flashed past his spirit-self twisting itself back towards the bag, ignoring the Jedi and Url altogether now.
Sensing the direction of its efforts, the three Jedi pulled back, Masters Kenobi and Sei'lar heading back the way they had come while Master Joran'ala took a run at the nearest cargo transport, leaping up the side of it and clambering through the cockpit and out the other side. Kyle remained as close as he dared, watching the bag drag itself around, trying desperately to evade the Dark Spirit that it had called into existence.
Url, still caught in the midst of things, was merely trying to shield himself as best he could, unable to slip past the raging Spirit. His efforts were minimal however, compared to the power that raged overhead, and ice was starting to form across his robes from the rampant energies that were twisting the Force around him.
Kyle pulled back further as the Spirit seemed to grow, actually beginning to lose cohesion from its exertions. It became more frantic in its efforts, lunging faster and faster at the bag, which continued to be hauled around by its contents, rapidly losing ground. After only a few more seconds, the bag's strap got caught on a piece of the damaged airspeeder, trapping the bag and its contents. The Spirit lunged one final time, driving itself down towards its tormentor.
"No!" howled Url, his hands stretched out as if to grab the bag despite the distances involved. For an instant, Kyle suspected that something might have almost leapt from the bag to Url.
Then it didn't matter any more.
The release of Dark Side powers as the artefacts within the bag were destroyed levelled everything within fifty metres, and the empathic shockwave was felt all the way back to Coruscant.