From the outside Anil Kesh looked like a three-legged spider straddling the Great Chasm, its central copula suspended over the gap by a trio of metal arches. Beneath it, mountain ridges tumbled into blackness that claimed even daylight. As she stood on the temple balcony, looking down into the gap, Tasha Ryo felt a deep disquiet not from the darkness but the Force itself. Every Je'daii adept could feel the wrongness of the Chasm. Some said the black rift contained a well of Force-power more raw and dangerous than anything else on Tython. Others claimed there was something in it that twisted Je'daii perceptions and turned minds toward madness. All agreed that it was a place best studied from the safe distance of Anil Kesh.

There were nine temples on Tython in which Je'daii adepts gathered to study the Force, and Tasha had always tried to avoid this one. Other Je'daii studied science and alchemy here, claiming that the Chasm's unique properties made Anil Kesh ideal for experiments. Even now a shaft of energy plunged from its central cylinder into the black gap, scouring for quantifiable information on the Chasm. For Tasha it had always seemed dangerous, even reckless, like dancing on a cliff's edge.

The Chasm unsettled her more than most; though she'd never ventured inside it she could still sense some of what it contained. Some Je'daii were called to be scientists, other rangers or teachers. A young journeyer, Tasha was training to become a seer. She had been touched by visions of the future since childhood and she felt especially vulnerable to the Chasm. Time inside the black rift was not what it should have been.

Finally she'd just learned a little truth of it, and that unsettled her all the more.

"I knew it was a bad idea to enter the Chasm," her uncle said as he stood beside her on the balcony. "But I was young then, and confident. We'd just won the Despot War. We thought there was nothing a Je'daii couldn't handle… So my friend Daegen Lok and I descended as far as we could, farther than any other Je'daii."

"Farther than any who've come back," Tasha whispered.

Her uncle nodded gravely.

Warm wind rushed up from the Chasm, playing with her green robes but barely rustling Hawk Ryo's simple brown tunic. He was a Je'daii ranger who spent most of his time on the other inhabited planets in the Tython system, from sun-warmed Malterra to far-out Ska Gora, and of course their homeworld of Shikaakwa. He was a fighter and an adventurer, a very different kind of Je'daii from Tasha altogether. She'd never known how different until today.

She hugged herself tight against the wind. "What did you see in the Chasm?"

Hawk lowered his head and bent over the railing. Grey lekku trailed off his shoulders and dangled toward the black. "I blocked this from my memory for so many years. It drove Daegen mad. I could have been… just like him."

"Please, Uncle." Tasha was afraid to hear it, but she knew she must.

Hawk's voice dropped to a whisper. "I saw stars on stars, planets and planets. Thousands, millions. I saw infinity that day. I thought I could grasp it in my hand. For that moment… I think I knew those worlds. I knew everything about their names, the kind of beings who lived there and the civilizations they built… Even though there was no way I could have known."

Tasha nodded. Everyone in the Tythan system knew the galaxy was a vast and teeming place, though without spacecraft capable of exceeding lightspeed none of them could reach the other stars. They knew, nonetheless, that those stars teemed with life, and that faster-than-light travel was possible. The denizens of the Tythan system had, thousands of years ago, come from dozens of other planets and represented as many species. Those among them who'd felt the call of the Force had found entry to the great Tho Yor, black spacecraft shaped like double-pyramids joined at the base which had collected Force-users from distant planets and gathered them here on Tython to commune together and train in the Force's ways.

That had all been thousands of years ago. Children of Je'daii who couldn't feel the Force now outnumbered those who could and had settled the system's other planets, where the Force was less dangerously strong than on Tython. No one knew why some children of Je'daii were touched with the Force and others not. Hawk Ryo's brother, Tasha's father, had no such power. Volnos Ryo, a Shikaakwan crime lord, had nonetheless fathered a daughter with a Kora Ryo, Je'daii master. Both parents crowded Tasha, trying to turn her into an heir. She threw herself into studying the Force in hopes it would offer something that transcended petty family squabbles.

Transcendence was elusive and there was so much they still didn't understand. Tasha lifted her head and saw one Tho Yor hovering silent above Anil Kesh, as it had for generations. No one understood how the great black starships operated, nor who'd made them, or for what purpose. No Je'daii had stepped inside one since the Great Migration ten thousand years ago. They only knew that the Tho Yor had chosen their ancestors to train on Tython.

Hawk was staring down at the Chasm still, face furrowed. He seemed stuck in memory. "I knew everything in that moment," he whispered. "The stars. The past and the future. It was too much. I had to pull away."

"What did you see of the future?" Tasha whispered.

"I can barely remember any of it, thank the Force." He closed his eyes. "But… I saw armies in the darkness. Warriors with blades of pure light. I saw monsters, aliens the like of which Tython's never seen."

"Did you see them here, on Tython?" she asked.

"I… I think so." Hawk shuddered, lifted his head, and opened his eyes. "I've been trying very hard to forget that, Tasha."

"I've seen it too," she whispered.

"I was always glad not be blessed- or cursed- with visions. Then I inflicted one on myself. I'm lucky I didn't go as mad as Daegen Lok has."

She touched her uncle's arm. "It's not just the future we saw. It's now."

"Now?"

"I've met the pilot of the strange starship that crashed here weeks ago. He's human and can use the Force, but in a different way than any of the Je'daii here. He doesn't care about keeping the opposite halves of him balanced. He draws entirely on his own anger and fear. He embraces Bogan."

She cast a look skyward. Beyond the hovering Tho Yor she saw the faint daytime outline of Ashla, the light-colored moon in Tython's sky. Bogan, the dark moon, was for now hidden, but often they occupied the sky together. It was the constant sight of those moons that had led the Je'daii to theorize the Force has possessed two halves that needed to be kept in balance.

"Some Je'daii," Hawk said warily, "Can become unbalanced too."

"The human was trained to embrace Bogan. Bogan is all he knows." She shuddered at the memory but had to press on. "I touched his mind. I saw some of what he's lived. It's a terrible thing, Uncle. No companionship, no love. He was raised to be a weapon. And in his memories I saw the weapon-makers."

"Aliens like we've never known," Hawk said. "Creatures with tall heads and eyes jutting out of stalk on either side. Green and blue skin, hairless but not scaled, like amphibians. They wield blades of light and they all use Bogan's power." He clenched the railing hard. "And they sent that ship as a scout?"

"They're coming to Tython. Your vision in the Chasm is about to come true." Her uncle closed his eyes. She could feel him struggling to grapple with the unleashing of his memories but she pressed on. "The aliens are called the Rakata. They already have an empire that spans the stars, and they're coming here. Soon. They've embraced Bogan, stole then technology of other civilizations, and turned them all into weapons. They're monsters, Uncle. I don't know how we can survive this."

He stiffened. "The pilot told you all that?"

"Not just him," she shook her head. "Uncle, come with me to Akar Kesh."

She could feel Hawk's reluctance. The man wanted nothing more than to jump onto his ship and fly out to adventure in the farthest reaches of the Tythan system. Though he was a ranger he was also a Je'daii, and he knew he could not evade his responsibilities.

"All right," he said, "Show me everything you've found."

From the Chasm it was several hours by air to Akar Kesh. The Je'daii of old had built their temples at stunning vistas and this was no exception. Located atop of a high butte rising from salty seas, the complex at Akar Kesh took the form of eight monolithic stone slabs, evenly carved by Je'daii craftsmen thousands of years ago and arranged in a circle around a broad shallow lake. Beneath the edifice were quiet meditation chambers, large gathering halls, and secure vaults where the Je'daii kept some of their most prized artifacts, some of which were said to date from the time of the Tho Yor arrival. Like Anil Kesh and the other temples, a Tho Yor hovered silently in the sky above. This one was larger than the other eight, and like them, nobody understood what purpose the great devices served. It was like they were standing sentinel over the temples, waiting for something that only the Force could will.

Tasha and her uncle barely spoke on the ride to Akar Kesh. He'd walled himself off in the Force and she got no intimation of what he was thinking as she led him through the stone-carved underground corridors until they found Master Ketu. The human, elegantly middle-aged with tan skin and a trim beard, was in a study room, pouring over some of the old written histories, when the two Twi'leks entered. He looked up from his book, took in Tasha and her uncle, and said, "So you've come for it then."

"He needs to know what we know," Taha said, but hesitated to tell more. Her uncle had been repressing memories of what he'd seen in the Chasm for a decade and she didn't want to drag out his secret.

But Hawk said, "I need to know what Daegen Lok and I saw in the Chasm. What we both saw."

Ketu's eyes narrowed at the confession, but he nodded and rose. "I'd warn you, Hawk, what we've learned isn't comforting."

The Je'daii ranger snorted. "I'm disturbed enough as it is. Tell me everything, Ketu."

"Follow me, then."

The human led them to the secure lower levels, Hawk behind him with Tasha in the rear. To her it felt like a funeral procession. When the human unlocked the door to the vault Tasha saw it was just as she and Ketu had left it several days ago. The twin objects sitting on the table were an odd contrast. One was a skull with an elongated cranium, eye-sockets mounted on either side, and a small jaw full of still-sharp teeth. The other was a glass-smooth and eight-sided double-pyramid, shaped like a Tho Yor but small enough to hold in two hands.

"We recovered the skull from the vehicle crash site," Ketu explained.

Hawk bent close to look at it. "It's like nothing I've ever seen on Tython…"

"Do you think this is what you saw in your visions?" asked Tasha.

Her uncle shook his head. "I don't know. What I saw was obscured by darkness… and it was alive."

"The human who survived the crash carried a weapon," she added. "A blade of light ignited by the power of the Force."

Hawk's frown deepened and he shifted attention to the double-pyramid. "What is this? Some kind of… holocron?"

"It is exactly that," said Ketu. "Adept Ryo, would you like to show us?"

Tasha took a deep breath and steadied herself. The holocrons she'd worked with previously had been recorded by Je'daii generations past and contained digital gatekeepers in the persona of long-dead masters. Part of her training as a seer had involved studying the past extensively, and while she was used to holocrons this one reacted like no other. A powerful, concentrated Force presence was required to make it speak. On her first attempt the device had shut her out, and she'd had to take it to senior masters for help.

This time she had to at least try and do it herself. Tasha cupped the holocron between her palms, held it up before her, and reached out with the Force to connect with the energies pulsing through the ancient device. They reacted to her touch and a ghostly blue image resolved from the pyramid's peak. The creature that appeared was another unfamiliar on Tython, at least to those still living. The tall long-necked body was draped in robes and the leathery blue face that peered out was roughly reptilian, with vertical-slit eyes and a mouth of small fine teeth.

"Peace. I am A'nang of the Kwa, last of the Tython Kwa, master of the holocron. Ask, seeker, and I will guide you."

"Fascinating," Hawk muttered, "Do we know how old this holocron is?"

Master Ketu shook his head. Records by the early generations of Je'daii reported being taught by saurian aliens called Kwa, but their kind had gone extinct on for Tython many thousands of years. Like the cephalopod Gree who'd supposedly built Tython's Old City, time and obscurity had reduced them to legend.

Opening the holocron had been easy for Tasha; now she readied for the hard part. Still firmly touching the device with the Force she said, "Please, Master A'nang, tell us again of the Rakata."

The Kwa in the image lowered his head, and the reply was mournful. "If you would revisit the coming grief, then I will not stop you. The Rakata are a pestilence on the galaxy that to our shame we, the Kwa, unleashed."

The image of A'nang was replaced by one showing a sea of creatures with elongated heads and jutting eyestalks gathered around a single Kwa. Behind the Kwa was great archway made seemingly of stone, but the arch's interior was set aglow by crisscrossing beams of light. Tasha had seen this before, and the holocron's next words were familiar.

"Through the use of the infinity gates by which we traversed the galaxy, we came to the Rakata homeworld of Lehon, drawn by the power of the cosmos- what you call the Force. The Force was strong within the Rakata and, as we had done with so many worlds, we helped the Rakata understand that power and gave them advanced technology.

"But we wrongly misjudged the nature of the Rakata and underestimated their inclination toward evil. In all of our travels, never had we encountered a species that lived only to conquer and destroy. The Rakata cannibalized their own. By the time my people understood their true nature… it was too late."

The next images showed the stalk-eyed beings, the Rakata, committing cascading acts of violence. They tortured their own, invaded other planets and pummeled them with laserfire. They took captives by the millions, attached them to machinery, and brutally extracted life force from their bodies. Most horrifying of all, their deeds were accomplished by use of the Force.

"The Rakata ignored the balance of the cosmic power and stepped themselves in only one aspect of the Force, the dark side. Ultimately, they used it and it alone. They paired their aggression with the new technology we had given them and left Lehon on a journey of conquest. They conquered and enslaved world after world, calling themselves the Infinite Empire. Their target almost always was a planet rich in the Force. They discovered they could induce hate and fear in Force-sensitive beings they enslaved and harness that energy to power their warships."

Hawk winced as he watched. It was little easier for Tasha, though she'd seen it before. It was just a recording, but she could almost feel the hideous dark energy that emanated from the Rakata. Theirs was the darkness of Bogan spread across an entire civilization. No one could have conjured a more terrifying nightmare.

The next images showed more war, but of a different kind. Explosions flashed and bodies, Rakata and Kwa both, spread around the luminous stone arch they'd seen before. The holocron said, "Ultimately, the Rakata wanted the secret of infinity gate technology. We refused to give it to them, so they made war on us, their benefactors. We did not give it to them. Many Kwa died holding off the Rakata on Lehon until the infinity gate there could be destroyed."

A great explosion filled the projection, overtaking and apparently destroying the glowing arch. Abruptly the light died and was replaced by the sole figure of A'nang himself.

"Following the Rakatan debacle, my people destroyed or disabled most of the gates and retreated to our homeworld, Dathomir. We withdrew from the galaxy in the face of increasing Rakatan aggression, knowing we helped unleash the Rakata on the galaxy. Some few remained here on Tython. I was among them." The Kwa's voice became mournful. "The Rakata are powerful, brutal, and if they come to your world you are doomed. I am sorry."

Tasha could feel her uncle gather anger into himself, but when Hawk spoke his voice was level. "I can't accept that. What is the Force for if it can't save us against monsters like that?"

A'nang shook his head. "My people once ruled a vast stellar empire. We were at our height when the Rakata rose to power. Even with the Force as our ally we were unable to defeat them."

"Then Bogan is stronger," Hawk muttered.

"If by Bogan you mean the dark, untamed aspects of the Force, you are wrong." A'nang said it as a rebuke. "However, the Rakata have mastered it in a way neither we Kwa nor our contemporaries could."

Tasha had read about the Kwa in her studies. Along with the Gree, the Killiks, and several other species, they'd been cited as one of the great civilizations to have spanned the stars, but were already in decline at the time the Je'daii order was founded on Tython. She'd never gotten a chance to consult Kwa sources directly and knew this was the only chance she'd ever have.

"Master A'nang," she said, "You make it sound like all the Rakata can touch the Force instead of just a select few. Is that right?"

"It is."

"And was the same among your people?"

The face in holocron looked surprisingly reticent. "It was, for many eons. Yet when the Rakata began to rise, our own connection with the Force started to dimmish. It began revealing itself to fewer and few individuals. Some of us theorized the Force was withdrawing as punishment for our leashing the Rakata on the galaxy. Others thought the Rakata had engineered a way to steal our power from us or infected us with a disease. If a solution to this dilemma has ever been found, I do now know it."

"What about your contemporaries, like the Gree?"

"I believe the Force withdrew from them too. I'm afraid I cannot tell you more."

"How fortunate for us," Hawk said sourly, "The Rakata have retained full use of it. Tell us more about these infinity gates."

Tasha had read a little of them in her studies. Supposedly the constructs could instantly transport matter across the galaxy without need of a spaceship. Je'daii scientists had a theoretical understanding of faster-than-light travel, but all the ones she'd known had dismissed the gates as legend.

"With the gates, we Kwa bridged the stars," A'nang said. "We travelled by spacecraft as well, but the major worlds in our holdings were linked by instant travel."

"How did they operate?" Tasha asked. "Were two gates specifically linked, or could one gate transport matter to different locations?"

A'nang's chuckle was dry and rattling. "We called them infinity gates because that is what they granted: infinity."

Beside Tasha, Hawk muttered, "Stars on stars, planets on planets…"

His words didn't register to the holocron, which continued, "One of our gates could lead anywhere in our empire. I understand the Gree had a parallel system, though their gates could only lead to a matching destination. Whether they stole our machinery or we improved theirs, I cannot say. Some things are lost even to me."

Master Ketu, undistracted by technological talk, asked, "Master A'nang, in your time, could sentients from all the major civilizations touch the Force naturally?"

"If you mean was it available to all, then yes."

"Then why is it only some of us here can touch the Force? Even children born to two Je'daii parents sometimes can't use it. We have to send them offworld, to Kalimahr or Shikaakwa, for their own safety. Other times the Force manifests itself in the parents on non-Je'daii children. We've never been able to understand how or why."

The Kwa shook his head. "If we knew why you younger races can touch the Force so rarely, we might have an explanation for our own loss. I'm sorry, Master Je'daii. I have no solution for your problem."

No solution for any problem, Tasha thought grimly. Though the Force tugged her toward the future, her visions always raised more questions than answers, which was why she'd often looked to the past for guidance instead. Sometimes it offered wisdom. Now: more questions and worse, dread.

"I have little solace to offer you," said A'nang. "However, I will say this. Though the Je'daii are small in number your connection with the Force is richer than anything the Rakata will ever know. They drown in their own darkness. When they come to Tython you must stand firm and be ready to make whatever sacrifice is necessary to protect your home."

"You already told us we were doomed," Hawk said bitterly.

"And it is when facing death that you must stand bravely. The Tho Yor gathered you Je'daii for a purpose. For ten thousand years you have trained. Perhaps, now, you will finally discover what that purpose is. But you must stand firm."

"Stand firm and face our deaths," said Hawk.

"I wouldn't surrender like a coward," Master Ketu said.

"Nor should you. Consider this your trial, Je'daii. Stand firm."

Then, all its words apparently said, the holocron went dark in Tasha's hands. Carefully, she set the double-pyramid on the table next to the Rakata skull. They combined to make a unique portrait of doom.

Master Ketu drew in breath. "We must get ready immediately. We don't know when the Rakata are coming, but they're on their way."

Tasha looked to her uncle. His head was bowed and he was lost in thought. She said, "I won't surrender. But realistically, what can we do?"

What can I do, she thought. She was just a journeyer, not yet a full Je'daii, and no warrior besides. She'd always sought wisdom in archives and truth in Force-granted visions. Both of them had combined to leave her feeling helpless and defeated.

"We'll muster all Je'daii," said Ketu. "Prepare for a defense of the outer worlds, though it sounds as though Tython will be their final destination."

"They do seek Force-powerful words," Tasha agreed.

"It's not just that," her uncle rasped. With great effort Hawk straightened, looked them in the eye, and said, "We know exactly what the Rakata are coming for. It's the same as what's in the Chasm." He held out a hand and closed it to a half-fist. "Stars on stars. Planets on planets. Infinity in the palm of your hand."

Ketu narrowed his eyes. "Whatever lies inside the Chasm, it's too dangerous to investigate now. Not when these… monsters are coming for us."

Or, Tasha thought, it was all the more imperative that they learn the truth. Ketu didn't seem eager to try, her uncle less so. He'd barely escaped the Chasm once with his mind intact. His haunted eyes said there were some revelations they could not afford to know.

She clasped grey hands together to stop them trembling. In a time like this it seemed a weak and petty thing to fall back of the Je'daii credo, but she recited it silently to herself.

There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.

There is no fear, there is power.

I am the heart of the Force.

I am the revealing fire of light.

I am the mystery of darkness.

In balance with chaos and harmony,

Immortal in the Force.

The words, drilled into her by her masters, delivered some comfort. If solace would endure in the face of the storm to come, she couldn't say. The Force gave her no answer at all.