When Cade passed through the gate between worlds, the transition came with a warm tingling through his body and a flare of white that swallowed his vision. The tingling faded before the white, and for a minute Cade simply stood on the other side of the gate and waited before the new world faded to existence around him.

He breathed the alien air and felt it on his skin. It was cool without being cold and dry in his lungs. When his vision cleared he saw why. Before him was a vast plain of dusty earth and bare rock, spread out in low undulating hills. He saw no plants at all, no running water, no signs of life. Desolation stretched on for miles and miles. It could have been the surface of an airless moon.

That was strange; stranger was what he saw when he lifted his head. They truly were at the heart of the galaxy. He'd never seen a sky so densely packed with stars. Most of them were old and deep on the color spectrum, and red and orange lights seemed almost as plentiful in the sky as night-black. With this many stars, he thought, there was no night, only an unsettling perpetual twilight. Cade rotated his body to look in all directions and noted several points of bright light on the horizon. Some were stronger, some dimmer, but unlike the broad corona a lit-up city projected into the sky, these looked like luminous spears climbing into the air, maybe hundreds or thousands of meters, before fading into starlight.

The landscape was strange, the sky stranger. Strangest of all was how this place felt in the Force. Back on Lehon, the ancient Rakata homeworld, he'd felt oppressed by an invisible dark miasma left behind by that dead conquering race. He felt similar remnants here but they weren't dark exactly. What he felt, rather, was the promise of raw power. He stretched out with the Force but couldn't grasp it or see it clearly. It lurked on the edges, like those strange light-pillars on the horizon, hinting but not revealing greater things.

Cade was a long time taking in this strange place. Eventually he turned attention to his companions.

All four of them still stood before the hypergate. The high stony structure looked like a perfect match for the one on Rohakalla. Now that they'd passed through, all light had vanished from the portal and it seemed just an empty arch. Looking through it, Cade saw more of the same: lifeless landscape, star-packed sky, strange lights in the distance.

Finally he turned attention to his companions. Eli was restless. He looked in all directions, eyes narrowed, trying to make sense of what he saw. Kyra was different. She emanated a sense of wonder and, Cade thought, a nagging fear of the unknown. Finally, there was Khat Lah. The Yuuzhan Vong stood farthest from the others, slightly on the downward slope of the hill on which the hypergate was perched. He watched the three newcomers with a calm, patient expression. He'd probably seen something like this before.

"Okay," Cade said, "What now?"

"We have days of travel ahead of us. I suggest we start walking."

Cade looked back at the teenagers. "You two okay?"

Kyra jerked at the sound of his voice but said, "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Yes," Eli agreed, though his eyes were still on the distant landscape. "The Force… I can't feel it."

"It will awaken in you," said Khat Lah, "But it will take time."

"How much time?"

"You will know when it happens, and it will happen. Be patient, Eli Horn.'

Eli shifted the pack on his back. "Yes. I can be patient." He looked uncertain, lost, and definitely not like a dangerous Sith apprentice. Cade had to remind himself what the kid was capable of.

Without another word, Khat Lah started down the slope. Cade followed, with Kyra and Eli coming silently behind him. The hillside was all hard rock, but when they reached more level ground the earth became lined with a pale gray dust. Cade could see some of it had been packed hard, apparently by passing feet.

"You give many people this tour?" Cade asked Khat Lah.

"No one you haven't already met on Rohakalla."

Looking down, he could even make out some individual footprints. It occurred to him that he felt no breeze on this world; no wind at all. The air was stagnant, which meant there'd be little erosion. He looked at the star-packed sky again and couldn't see any clouds.

"Where are we going that it's gonna take us days to reach?" he asked.

Khat Lah raised a hand at one pillar of light glowing on the far horizon. "There."

"And what is that?" asked Kyra.

"There are places here that are incredibly rich with Force power. It breaks through the planetary crust and rises to the stars, like heat from a volcano."

That sounded extremely dangerous to Cade. "You've been there, I take it?"

"Yes. I've travelled all over this planet, seeking the eruptions."

That explained some of the gray in his hair, the lines on his face. He said time travelled faster here, which meant he must have spent many local years charting this world.

"And when you came over here, did you do it alone?" Cade asked. "Or did you bring your Yuuzhan Vong buddies?"

"When I first crossed over, I explored alone."

"What about the Kwa?" Eli asked.

"They helped me open the gate, and several came through, but they did not go far. They felt this place was dangerous." After a pause he added, "They were right."

"Great," muttered Kyra. "Dangerous how. It looks… totally dead."

"You will learn. In time."

Cade was hoping that once they got over here the vague cryptic answers would stop. He wasn't the only one frustrated; Kyra released a labored sigh and shifted the pack on her shoulders.

"You know," Cade said, "if this is such a long trip, we could have taken the repulsor-sled from Mynock. Or one of the speeder bikes from his ship." He jabbed a thumb at Eli.

"Mechanical devices do not function if taken through the gate," said Khat Lah. "Only living beings may pass intact."

Well, that was interesting. Cade had heard about ancient pre-Republic technology that was powered by the Force itself, but he'd never considered seriously how such creations might operate. It implied what Maladi had said during her long dying rant, that the Force used to be much stronger than it was now, more connected with the everyday life of every being.

"Then does that mean this thing is useless?" He slapped the lightsaber at his waist.

"I do not know. A Jedi's weapon is simple, and in its fashion draws from the Force."

Because he had to know, Cade took his lightsaber in one hand and thumbed the trigger. The green blade shot out; its hiss and hum seemed like a roar on the soundless plain.

"Well," he muttered after shutting down the blade, "That's something, anyway."

As they walked on Eli said, "This is a strange planet." His voice was soft with curiosity.

"You think?" Cade said.

"I see no plants. No animals. How can there be oxygen without any plants?"

"There is life here," Khat Lah said. "It blossoms around the eruptions and sustains the rest of the planet."

"How?"

"The Force is strong there, so strong life flourishes out of bare rock. You will see. Be patient."

"I am patient," Eli muttered, and they kept walking.

They passed over more low ridges. The expansive stone landscape passed slowly by. The faint packed-dirt trail led them down a gradual slope, and from a distance they could make out angular structures that stood in contrast to the surrounding natural curves. As they drew closer still, Cade realized they were nearing the ruins of a city. Chunks of walls, crumbling on either edge, rose ten or twenty meters high. Fragments of a few arches jutted above their heads.

"So people used to live there," Eli muttered. "You said this planet… attained consciousness. Like Zonama Sekot."

"There are cities on Zonama Sekot as well," Khat Lah reminded. "The Force is all life. The beings who lived on this world were part of the matrix that formed its consciousness."

"But you said the consciousness got… subsumed into the Force. That it left behind all physical form. Does that mean all the people- all the sentient beings- who lived on this planet… ascended? Whether they wanted to or not?"

"What they wanted, I cannot say. But all life on this world was transformed, probably in an instant. We'll see more evidence on that to come."

"Do you have any idea when this happened?" asked Kyra. "The Kwa have their Journal of the Whills. They say it goes back twenty-five thousand years."

"What happened here happened longer ago than that. We will discuss more later. Let us keep walking."

They walked. Cade was generally not a guy who got creeped out easily, but things started to get to him as they passed through cyclopean ruins jutting out of an ancient desert. This planet felt wrong in the Force, fundamentally different than anything he'd ever known. It was ancient, but everything here felt half-formed, malleable, raw. He suspected that feeling would only get strong as they approached the eruption in the distance.

The Force didn't change as the planet turned to face its sun, but the dry plain was cast in a new and sickly pallor. The star that rose in the sky was red and dying. It was large overhead but the light was dim, more like the reflected glow of a moon. As star like that, he thought, might be around ten billion years old. How wondered the age of the rock he stood on how, and how long ago its total consciousness has dissolved into the Force. Perhaps it took millions of years of continuous life for a planet to evolve collective awareness. If so, planets like this one would be concentrated in the Deep Core, where billions of years of gradual draw from the galactic center's black hole had collected the most ancient stars.

Khat Lah had said this world had ascended a long time ago. Cade had a feeling he wasn't kidding.

Even trying to think about this beggared imagination. The Rakata and their Infinite Empire had perished, what, twenty thousand years ago? The mythic Celestials, who'd apparently once been their masters, had disappeared maybe ten or twenty thousand years before that. This place was more ancient by magnitudes, as old as the galaxy, as old as the Force.

Cade was no longer disturbed by this place. He was starting to get afraid.

They took periodic breaks for food and water, dropping their packs and sitting down in the middle of the plain. It felt strange, having an entire planet to themselves. Through the Force, Cade felt that Eli was curious and wary. Kyra was impatient. Khat Lah was watching them all closely, Eli especially. The Yuuzhan Vong had a clear emotional investment in the kid; Cade hoped it didn't come back to bite them.

The red sun climbed high quickly; the planet must have had a quick rotation time. As it began its downward slouch, Khat Lah led them into a canyon pass. The rock seemed cut straight through, as though by giant vibro-blade instead of a river. Cade had led the kind of life that made him wary of narrow passes and high walls from which an ambush could spring, and even though he knew he'd find nothing, he reached out with the Force for other lifesigns. Not even animals here.

When this planet's living conscious had been absorbed into the Force, every living thing had been sucked up with it, and Cade had a hard time believing they all wanted to be part of an immaterial energy field. Then he wondered whether the living consciousness on Zonama Sekot was just a young and teething form of whatever this planet had evolved to after millions of years.

More terrifying thoughts. Cade was so distracted by them he didn't notice they were approaching the canyon's end. When the sight became clear it took his breath away. The land sloped suddenly downward, and as he panned his head from side to side he realized he was standing at the brink of a crater at least dozen kilometer in diameter. On the other side he could see more craters pocking the far distance.

"It's like a meteor storm hit this place," Kyra muttered behind him.

Khat Lah said nothing. Cade sensed he was waiting for them to understand. He dropped his pack off his back, took out his macrobinoculars, and began scanning the craters. They were deep and perfect pits, the kind you saw on airless moons that had racked up impacts over the eons and didn't have the atmosphere to erode them. This planet did have an atmosphere, and occasionally Cade had even picked up a faint breeze. He looked at the crater edges and his stomach went cold. They were half-crumbled to dust but still visible: slumping walls and fragmented arches, like they'd seen in the ruined city before. He realized now that the city they'd passed had been a mere village, and the entire vast plain ahead of them had once been covered by a sprawling metropolis.

"Those weren't meteors," Cade said. "This place was bombed. It was a war."

Grimly, Khat Lah nodded.

The others took it in in silence. Even a massive baradium bomb or a turbolaser volley from high orbit couldn't have carved craters this deep. Maybe someone had precision-dropped asteroids on the city. Maybe they were using ancient weapons, more powerful than anything around today.

Stang, he thought. Maybe somebody back then had built their own Death Star.

"I thought you said this planet ascended," Kyra said, voice slightly trembling.

"Come," Khat Lah said gruffly. "Walk with me. We will camp at nightfall and then I will explain."

They began the process of crossing the plain, skirting around the edges of the craters. It was a long walk, silent with foreboding as the three humans tried to process what they were travelling through. The old red sun, which had climbed the sky quickly, now lingered over the far horizon.

Cade grew tired before it dropped out of sight. The disturbing sights and heavy packs were wearing them all down. When the sun disappeared the world only seemed to grow a small bit dimmer, as the Deep Core's stars still glowed overhead. He was glad to be done with the blood-red pallor, if nothing else.

They hadn't entirely exited the crater-pocked ruins when night fell. Cade didn't look forward to sleeping in an eons-old graveyard, but he had even less desire to keep trekking. Khat Lah understood that, and with the sure guidance of someone who'd made this pilgrimage before, he led them to a bald crest of land wedged between two craters.

"This is a high place," he told them as they lay down their packs and got out materials for a fire. "It is easy to keep watch from."

"What exactly do we have to be on the lookout for?" Eli asked.

Khat Lah didn't answer. Kyra pressed, "Do we need to keep watch for something?"

"Not tonight," he said.

Nobody tried to get more out of him. Instead Eli took out a flare-stick from his pack and twisted the ends in opposite directions to spark the fire. He tossed it on the stone top of the hill and they watched flame consume the stick. It wouldn't burn high but it would burn long, warm them against chill, and heat up some of the canned food they'd brought.

It still wasn't much of a meal. Once they'd seated themselves by the fire and started digging into their tins, Kyra reminded Khat Lah, "You were going to explain what this place is."

"Indeed." The Yuuzhan Vong exhaled and looked into the fire. "You understand that I do not know everything. What happened here touched the very nature of the Force, and minds like ours cannot comprehend them. Only the Whills can do that."

"You say this planet ascended," Cade said. "That it voluntarily shed its flesh- which means all the life-forms on it- to become one with the Force. And that makes it a Whill."

"That is correct. As far as words can say."

"How did you learn all this?" asked Eli. "Was it at that… eruption we're heading toward?"

"I gained… understanding there. Much of what I'm about to tell you is recorded in the Journal of the Whills, but the events took place eons before the Kwa civilization existed. It is myth and legend, but with enough truth left in it. This galaxy is billions of years old. Galactic civilization, as you know it, has only lasted how long? Twenty thousand years? Thirty? Does that not seem strange to you?"

"Honestly," said Kyra, "Trying to image thirty thousand years is enough to fry my brain."

Cade laughed softly, but Eli said, "This planet and its star have to be ancient. But when did this… ascension take place? You keep saying this was eons ago, but what does that mean? Can you give us a number?"

"No. I cannot," Khat Lah said. "My points, however, is this. There are depths. The Force springs from life. It is as old as life and goes back deeper than any of us can ever know. The Kwa believe that there were great empires that spanned this galaxy millions of years ago, centered on worlds like this one. Yet traces of them have vanished. Dissolved into the Force, or ascended."

"What does this have to do with those Celestials?" asked Kyra.

"Celestials are a name for what we do not understand. According to the Kwa they once served powerful masters. They used the Force in ways we can't conceive and eventually joined with it to become Whills. They dominated this galaxy for tens of thousand of years and shaped entire star systems." Khat Lah took a breath. "The Kwa think even they had precursors. Time goes back deeper and deeper. Layers of beings beyond our understanding strode stars like giants. Worlds like this attained collective consciousness, transcended their physical forms, and were subsumed in the Force."

"Worlds," Cade repeated. "So they're more like this out there?"

He nodded. "The Kwa are certain of that. You know of Mortis."

His mouth felt dry. "Yeah."

"The Kwa believe Mortis was such a one, and there were others. The living worlds had ascended millions of years ago but their Force power was so strong that echoes remained, like electric pulses twitching through a long-dead body." He pointed to distant pillar of light. "According to the Journal of the Whills, the Celestials sought to harvest that power. They captured those worlds and put them inside great eight-sided monoliths, like that around Mortis."

"What about the Ones that Anakin Skywalker met? The Father, Son, and Daughter?"

"The what?" Kyra tilted her head.

Cade sighed. "I'm just passing down hearsay, but supposedly, way back during the Clone Wars, Anakin Skywalker ended up inside Mortis. He met three beings there with grancha crazy powers who were supposed to maintain balance in the Force. The son was dark, the daughter was light. The father was supposed to keep balance, but he died 'cause Anakin wouldn't take his over throne. Not that I blame him. I always thought it sounded like a metaphor, not anything close to real, but…" He looked at the surreal landscape, the dense bright stars. "Stang, what does seem nowadays?"

Khat Lah said, "The Kwa suggest the Father, Son, and Daughter were Celestials who decided to remain in the physical realm, directing events as they saw fit."

"Until they and Mortis all went dead."

Khat Lah nodded.

"So basically," Kyra sighed, "This place is older than old?"

The Yuuzhan Vong nearly smiled. "Basically."

"What about the hypergate? How did it even get on this world?"

"It was built by the Gree. I know that much for sure. When they served the Celestials they ranged across the entire galaxy. Somehow they even navigated the dense packing of stars to find this old world near the heart of the galaxy. They built one gate here and linked it to the one on Rohakalla, which was then inside their empire. The Journal suggests this became a place of worship for them. To pass through the gate and come here was an act of religious pilgrimage."

Cade looked at the pillar of light faint in the distance. Some things, apparently, never changed.

"When we first came here," Eli said carefully, "You told us that here was where the old gods kept. What did you mean by that?"

Khat Lah looked at the light-pillar too. "You'll discover when we get closer."

Cade was finally starting to understand. Khat Lah wasn't answering questions because he couldn't. After all the years he'd spent here there was a lot he still didn't understand and probably never would. He'd brought Cade here in hopes his Skywalker blood could unlock more secrets. That was plain to understand, but he still didn't get what Eli and Kyra were here for, especially Kyra.

The girl was trying to puzzle it out herself. She said, "You've talked about these Whills, how they give up their bodies and merge with the Force. What then? I mean, you have this name for them. That makes it sounds like they've got some identity still and didn't just, I don't know, disappear."

"A wise question." Khat Lah looked to Cade. "I'm sure your father told you about the Living Force."

Cade's mind flashed back ten years. The last, awful day on Ossus. His father standing before the swarm of approaching Sith, shouting, I am Kol Skywalker, servant of the Living Force! None of you will pass!

Mouth very dry, he said, "Yeah. Dad said the living Force was this moving thing. Every living being, big or small, was a part of it. Life created it. Made it grow. And when we die a little part of it joins that current."

"It joins, but does not dissolve."

And he remembered his Father's Force ghost appearing before him, gifting him with strength and wisdom when he needed it most. His body was gone but his will remained. "That's right," Cade rasped.

"The Kwa believe that a powerful enough Force-presence can turn the flow of the Living Force, especially if they pool themselves together. They suggest that mortal Sith succeeded in doing it, and your ancestor Anakin Skywalker was created was consequence."

"I'm familiar with the theory." Maladi's ranting against went through his mind.

"Imagine a being powerful enough to willingly transcend mortal flesh and join with the Force permanently. One like that could certainly direct the flow."

"Especially if it's the size of a damn planet," Kyra said.

Khat Lah nodded. "Quite so. You understand that when I spoke of old gods, I was not speaking entirely in metaphor."

Cade shook his head. "Dad talked about the Living Force too, but he also said there was a core to it, something nobody could control."

"I believe that is also truth. From a certain point of view."

Cade sighed. "I hate that kind."

"I first heard this theory from your grandmother. There is more than one nature to the Force. Jedi and Sith believe there is a light side and dark side, but Jade Skywalker told me of another division that may be truer. She told me there is a Living Force, into which all life feeds and sometimes molds. There is also a Cosmic Force, from which the Living draws strength but cannot touch. As she described it, the Cosmic Force is the wellspring and the Living Force is the river."

"Well. I can't speak to that one way or another… but Grandma was a smart lady."

"Perhaps she was wiser than any of us know." Khat Lah looked back at the light-pillar. "But that is something we will have to discover… in time."

It was a hell of a lot to process, and there was little talking after they finished the meal. They brought out bedrolls and spread them across the stony hilltop. Kyra asked Khat Lah if someone needed to keep watch. In another non-answer, he told them not to worry and rest as well as they could tonight.

Neither Eli nor Kyra was totally happy with that, but they were too tired and confused to argue. They laid down on their rolls, bodies turned away from each other, and didn't stir.

Cade lay down to do the same. He closed his eyes for a few minutes and opened them. Khat Lah was sitting on the hillside, looking out at the vast crater. Cade closed his eyes, opened them again. The Yuuzhan Vong was still sitting there, clear in bright starlight.

As quietly as he could, Cade slid out of his bedroll, walked over to the Yuuzhan Vong, and sat down.

"You look like a guy who's keeping watch," Cade whispered.

"Merely thinking."

Cade tried to read the Yuuzhan Vong in the Force, but got only the dim sensations of someone purposely stifling his aura. Khat Lah picked up some tricks along the way.

"You talk how it's dangerous here. I still don't understand why we didn't take Jao or Lowie. They're strong and powerful-"

"That is precisely why I did not want them."

"Oh." Cade thought a moment. "So I'm not strong and powerful?" Vain as it was, it kind of hurt.

"You are a special case, Cade Skywalker. For now, I am not worried about you. Their awakening will come soon."

"Awakening. You mean getting the Force back." Cade eyes their blanket-wrapped forms and wondered if they were really sleeping. "So how does that work?"

"I cannot speak to it. Like you, I did not need awakening."

Cade eyed him in the dark. He started to think this stoic-seeming Yuuzhan Vong was playing with him. "Got any hints?"

Khat Lah looked up at the stars. "Among my people, especially those who follow our old gods, pain is seen as the bridge that binds us to something greater." His voice dropped to a whisper. "It seems they were right."

"Well. You'll forgive me if that's not exactly what I wanted to hear."

"It is not your pain we should be concerned with now. It will come for them soon, maybe even tonight. How they react to it will determine much."

"So we're watching out for them?"

"They may need our help… and our guidance, in days to come."

Cade nodded. He didn't understand, but he knew what he had to do, and he wanted to get some sleep where he could. He looked at the sky and the ancient war-wracked landscape, surreal in bright starlight. Then he went over to his bedroll and slid himself inside. As he lay down he thought he heard Eli stir, but when he watched the young man's back he was still.

Cade tried to forget about it. He lay on his back, closed his eyes, and tried to sleep now, while he still could.