Swift studied the holo-diagram one more time, fixing the details in his mind, then looked up at the nearest chrono.
"I make it five minutes until we go," he said. "Evens?"
CC-8642, or "Evens" to his friends – Swift among them – glanced over at the chrono himself, then nodded.
"That's right, sir," he confirmed with a nod. "Four minutes fifty-five, now."
He cleared his throat. "Sir. Do you think we've got a chance?"
"You're the military expert," Swift reminded him.
"That's not what I was asking, Sir," Evens replied. "And, honestly, everything boils down to this being either very easy or very difficult, without any real middle ground. And which of the two it is… sort of boils down to you. Sir."
"Well, then," Swift replied, thinking. "I'm quite familiar with the layout, and… honestly, I think we've got a good chance. We still need to work hard, but my first two missions as a solo Knight went well enough, so… I don't have luck as bad as Kenobi?"
"We're all grateful for that, Sir," Evens chuckled.
An alarm started flashing, and Swift suppressed a sigh before squeezing himself into the final assault pod.
They were built for… smaller occupants, though he could fit in at a pinch, which was why he'd avoided getting in until the last moment.
His commlink crackled to life, and Evens' voice sounded in his ear – the clone commander having taken his own seat with much less reluctance. "Exiting hyperspace in five, four, three, two, one-"
There was a surge of changing pseudovelocity as the strike cruiser dropped out of hyperspace, and Swift focused on the readouts.
The whole point of this mission was to mount an ambush on an enemy force, and the strike cruiser was already launching fighters – a whole wing of them, which spread out and began sweeping through the Vulture Droids flying combat patrol. They reacted almost instantly, but not in the right way, having fixated on the cruiser instead of the fighters, and Swift saw the clone pilots sweep almost the whole droid flight from the sky in the first few seconds.
More importantly, their target was close – closer than they'd planned for, actually, and the strike cruiser nearly stood on its tail before rolling to bring the starboard docking bay into alignment.
The Force swirled with potential, and Swift listened to it with ears pricked.
"Go!" he said, suddenly, and the whole assault force launched in one go.
The Clone fighters fell in beside them, V-19s volleying missiles and BTL-B Y-wings launching torpedoes, and explosions blew away the nearest turrets on their target. Then a wave of vulture droids launched, and Evens whistled into his helmet commlink.
"Looks like someone over there knows what he's doing, Sir," he said, as their escorts engaged the incoming fighters. "Let's hope they haven't figured out what we're up to yet… impact in ten seconds!"
When the assault pod made contact, Swift didn't bother waiting for the cutting drill to finish getting through the enemy ship's armour. Focusing with the Force, he pounced, and the force of his paws slammed right through the side of the Confederate frigate's hull.
"I'll take bay four," he said, breaking into a sprint. "Evens, divert the bay four team to bay three!"
"Well, this plan lasted until we landed," Evens observed. "On it, Sir."
Drawing on his memory of the layout of a Munificent class star frigate, Swift pelted down first one corridor and then another. Turrets popped out of the ceiling ahead of him, and the lightwhip fastened to his tail flicked out to slice them off before they'd fired more than one or two shots.
He ran into one of the organic crew at one of the junctions, accompanied by two crew droids as he rushed to battle stations, and the Lothwolf threw his 'saber with a toss of his muzzle to slice one droid in half. The other got bowled over by his massive weight, and Swift's claws dug furrows into the deck as he skidded to a halt.
"Good afternoon," he said. "Please hand over all your authorization code cylinders."
The Neimoidian stared at him, and Swift held out a paw. "Handing over your authorization code cylinders is the best choice."
The Neimoidian crewman handed over his code cylinders.
Swift took them, slotting them into his webbing, then went back to sprinting down the corridor at maximum speed.
"Sir," Evens called. "We've reached bay one and bay two. Bay one is locked down, but bay two had some droids activating and we're having to fight our way to the controls."
Which meant bays three and four would probably be activating as well, and Swift reached deeper into the Force.
The annoying thing was that the ship's corridors were a labyrinthine maze, so he couldn't simply sprint straight there. The path he was following meant he only had to cut through two blast doors – the first one loomed up, and Swift turned his lightwhip up to full power before lashing out with both weapons at once – but it was costing precious seconds.
"Bay three team is in contact already, at junction T-12," Evens passed on to him. "Sir, they report a Droideka."
"I'm through the first door, Evens," Swift replied. "I'll be at bay four in twenty seconds."
Twenty seconds turned into almost a minute, because bay four had woken up three droidekas, and the design brief for the droideka – as Swift had discovered once – had specified being able to defeat Jedi with a withering barrage of high impact blaster fire and shields strong enough to keep a Jedi from simply reflecting shots to quickly destroy the droid.
Fortunately, Swift discovered now that they had certain weaknesses as well. One of them was that they were slow when deployed, and Swift was not, and the droid brain commanding the Droidekas hadn't been programmed right to realize that a Jedi could drop twenty feet down an open elevator shaft in less than a second and come out fighting.
Smashing one to pieces had given the other two time to deploy, and they unleashed a deadly crossfire, but Swift's saber blurred in his grip as he deflected each shot… and sent his lightwhip rolling across the floor, coiling the energized portion around to deflect any shots aimed at it and getting it through the shield of the second Droideka.
Tangling the Droideka up in his whip stopped it from firing for a moment, and Swift picked up the third one with the Force before flinging it at the second one. Their shields lit up with a fzaaap and briefly shorted out, which gave Swift the opening he was after, and he pounced to flatten them into a tangle of fused metal.
By then, more conventional battle droids were advancing, and Swift refocused for a moment – then charged.
Ten minutes after first contact with the hull, all four cargo bays were locked down – Swift's assistance having turned the trick with bay three, unsticking the clone strike force – and Evens had a composite company ready to support the attack on the bridge.
"We're going to have to hurry, Sir," he added. "Fighter cover says that two Sep cruisers are on the way, and they're not going to like us trying to walk off with their new frigate."
"Then let's take the bridge before they can complain," Swift said, thinking. "Have one of the Y wings land in the fighter launch bay, we're going to need their astromech droid calculating as soon as possible… actually, what kind of force are the bridge walls rated for?"
"You're going to smash it down with your paws, aren't you, sir?" Evens asked.
"They can't be solid walls, unlike the blast doors," Swift replied. "Commander, put two rockets into the same spot whichever side of that door you feel is more expendable, and I'll go in after them."
"We're going to need to have that talk about leading from the front again," Evens decided. "Sir."
He gave a hand signal. "Buster, Seconds, rockets on three."
The stolen Munificent vanished into hyperspace just ahead of the turbolaser fire of two CIS cruisers, and Swift allowed himself to exhale in relief.
They had a hold full of over a hundred thousand battle droids, which would need to be dealt with somehow, but they also had a working – if slightly dented – Munificent class frigate for the shipyards to pull apart and dissect.
It had been a good day's work. Though Swift would have to tell the shipyards that the large claw marks and gouges all over the ship hadn't been there that morning.
Another month down the road, and with several missions behind him, Swift was starting to form a picture of how the Jedi Order was managing to cope with the war.
It was a little unsettling, and he hoped that the more experienced Jedi had a better handle on things than him, but it felt… off kilter.
Like he had been when battling on the vision of Lothal, missing a paw and doing his best to compensate.
The Jedi Order simply wasn't experienced, not individually or as a group, at putting the right Jedi and the right army units in the right place. The Republic Army wasn't really experienced in that either, and nobody was, but there was a steady and heartbreaking litany of injuries and deaths among the Order coming from the front lines… Padawans, Knights and Masters alike.
It was true, the Jedi Order was large, and they absolutely were doing good, but… the resources of the Jedi were not limitless, and everything was under strain.
Their current mission was just one indicator of that, as the 211th had been sent to Jedha to protect the temple there against the prospect of Separatist attack. Jedha was, logistically speaking, a backwater – somewhere that would be completely unimportant, were it not for the Khyber crystals found there.
And that made it critical, because the ancient Gathering on Ilum that had long been enough for the Order was something Count Dooku had taken part in himself. It could be vulnerable.
So Jedha, as a backup, could also be vulnerable.
"This is a holy city," his liason with the Guardians of the Whills insisted. "There is no place for conflict here."
"I understand," Swift said, firmly. "And it is my hope that nothing happens. But it could."
"Jedi," the Guardian replied, just as firmly. "The presence of your troops makes this city a part of the war. A target. And if it is attacked, and the temple destroyed, it will be no relief that you were right to be worried – because you caused the problem you claim to solve."
Something about that tickled the back of Swift's mind, but it faded the moment he tried to pay attention to it.
"I would like little more than for there to be no problem at all, Guardian," he replied. "I wish there was no war. But there is a war, and we have to deal with the galaxy as it is… and I have been to two different worlds so far that were attacked by the Confederacy without any provocation at all."
The Guardian frowned, then let air hiss through her teeth.
"I still don't like it," she said. "But I'll concede that I don't currently have a good, solid reason… just, try not to cause too much disruption? This is still a holy place."
"I understand," Swift agreed. "That's part of what I'm here for. And we're not really worried about infiltration, but something overwhelming… would it help if most of the Clones were out of sight? I don't think we need to do patrols, for example."
Three weeks after arriving on Jedha, Swift was beginning to think that maybe everything would be well there. The 211th were quartered all over the temple-city, split up into platoon sized units and on some kind of rotation about who went out when, and Swift himself was spending a lot of his time simply talking to the Guardians and learning about their own interpretations of the Force.
One thing that particularly caught his attention was that, for all that they protected a temple full of Khyber crystals, they didn't actually use lightsabers themselves. There was a weapon used by high ranking guardians called a lightbow, which was an unusual sort of ranged weapon, but aside from that their main focus was on using the Force to enhance staffs or other weapons made of much more mundane materials.
Or on using blasters, which apparently wasn't quite so big a deal for them as it would have been for a Jedi.
"We feel that relying on a lightsaber can cause a wielder of the Force to become more detached from the way others solve problems," a Guardian explained, atop one of the towers. "And understanding is crucial to any use of the Force."
Swift nodded. "I have found that the lightsaber is useful for self defence and protecting others," he volunteered. "While my lightwhip is a tool of disruption and allows me to enhance my reach, though the Force itself is a potent tool as well."
"That is as it should be, young one."
It wasn't the Guardian who had spoken, and Swift wheeled around – not panicked, because the Force had given him no warning of a threat, but confused anyway because the Force hadn't given him any warning.
A robed near-human woman was standing there. She looked quite young, though Swift wasn't good at judging humanoid age, and she spread her hands. "Peace, Knight. I am here because the Force wills it."
Something was nagging at Swift's memory again, and this time he was able to tease it out – stories about a Jedi Master of great age and skill, who never visited the Temple. "You are… Master Fay?"
"Well done," she smiled. "Yes, that is my name. I hear some in the Jedi Order consider me a legend?"
Swift shrugged, aware not only that the Sith had once been considered legends but that Lothwolves themselves were still considered extinct on Lothal, and the Jedi Master's smile grew.
"I think I now understand why the Force has guided me here," she decided. "Tell me, young one – I work without a lightsaber, but unlike the Guardians I am certainly still a Jedi. You work without hands… do you think you could use help with that?"
It could have been an insult, but it wasn't, and Swift nodded.
"I am always grateful for help," he replied.
"Well, then," Master Fay said, lacing her fingers together and pushing them out. "Let's see what we can do."
Master Fay was… impressive, and humbling, and truly a revelation.
She didn't do anything spectacular, during the training sessions she had with Swift over the course of two intense weeks, but did simple things with a casual effortlessness that might have driven Swift to distraction – turning what had looked or seemed nigh-on impossible into something so easy it almost seemed she could do it in her sleep.
Holding multiple objects at once, and doing different things with them. Reacting with blazing speed. Catching objects she hadn't seen, by pure feel – or lifting objects at a greater distance than Swift had ever seen done before, or even doing all of them at once. And moving not just matter but energy around, as well, to the point that the reason Master Fay didn't use a lightsaber became obvious.
She really, truly, had no need of one.
"Master Yoda often says there is no try, only do," Master Fay told him, looking out from the top of the Jedha main tower. "And that's a substantial part of it… what a Jedi is capable of is related deeply to their own feeling about what is possible."
The Jedi Master adjusted her hood, then reached out her hand, and long seconds passed before a stone floated into her hand.
"There are other things as well, of course," she added, showing Swift the stone, and he balanced on three paws to touch it with the fourth.
It was cool, and had clearly not been in the sun before Master Fay lifted it.
"So… the more you believe you can do, the more you can do," Swift said. "Or, the more the Force lets you do."
"I don't think that's quite right," Master Fay mused. "The idea of the Force letting you do something, I mean."
She spread her arms. "You don't ask the Force for permission. The Force is just there, and when you reach out to it you are becoming more connected with the light of the universe… and when you do, then to do something as trivial as move a cup is the simplest thing possible."
"Then…" Swift began. "Wouldn't that mean that doing big things was easier than small things?"
"I don't think so," Master Fay replied. "Something which I think isn't as well known as it is is that anyone who uses the Force is caught in a kind of tension… the deeper they sink into communion with the Force, the easier it is to do something, but the harder it is to have a reason to do that thing. Or take seeing the future – if you sink deep enough into the Force, you could see everything that would or could ever happen, but at that point you would be so detached that you wouldn't care any more."
She held out her hand, and the rock orbited it. "That might be why the Dark Side is a quick route to power. It is all about desire, about wanting something, and that serves as an anchor. But that also prevents you from accessing the truly deep wells of the force, because it simplifies who you are, and to do the greatest things you must be a complex and developed person."
Swift thought about that, then decided that he was following it. Rather than reply directly, he closed his eyes, and tried to do what Master Fay was talking about – to sink deep into the Force, and to remain focused on what he wanted to happen and why.
Then there was an explosion, and his eyes snapped open again.
A flight of Vulture Droids was coming in, laserfire flashing down on the landscape around Jedha, and as they approached he drew his 'saber and flicked his commlink on. "Commander, fighters incoming!"
"I hear you, Sir," Evens replied. Then he said something else, but Swift barely noticed.
He was too busy consumed with wonder, as a dozen Vulture Droids strafed Jedha and not one of their shots landed. The powerful bolts of laserfire simply stopped in mid-air at least fifty metres above the streets, then all the Vulture Droids froze in place as well, and Master Fay lifted one hand.
She flicked it in a small movement, and the Droid starfighters all crashed into the desert outside Jedha. The frozen bolts of laserfire dimmed, fading away like quenched embers as Master Fay closed her hand, then Swift shook his head slightly and broke out of the almost-trance he'd been in.
Jumping off the observation platform, he began sliding down the side of the temple and checked his commlink. "Commander, I'm on my way to ground level. The fighters I saw aren't a problem any more."
"Got it, Sir," Evens replied. "We have reports of a landing craft, it's already deploying droids and transports. I'm scrambling the battalion now."
After the battle was over – it had been a single small cruiser launching a raid, rather than anything more major, but no battle was truly simple – the temple master told Swift that, however reluctantly, they were requesting a more serious Republic Navy picket for the system.
Swift had to wonder whether that had been the whole point of the raid, but suspecting that didn't make it so they could just not defend Jedha, and he confined himself to saying that they should make sure the reinforcements didn't come from anywhere obvious.
That also meant new orders for him, though, and he was to rotate back to the Temple for another assignment. Evens and his battalion were coming with him, though Master Fay was going wherever the Force took her, and the temple master smiled enigmatically.
"I sense your paths may not cross again," he said. "Or they may, as the Force wills. And it is my belief that the Force also wills this."
He opened his hand, and Swift was presented with a glowing white Kyber Crystal.
The moment he set eyes on it, the last remaining Ilum crystal he hadn't done anything with yet flickered with interest, and Master Fay smiled.
"I may not use a lightsaber, but I think you should listen to your own," she advised. "Ask old Huyang about a lightclub… they're not used much these days, but I have a feeling you'll need one."
Back at the Temple, Swift wasn't rushed straight off to another assignment – which was a bit of a novel experience, since the start of the war.
Instead, Master Mundi talked to him about the process of taking on a Padawan, which was a lot more unguided than he'd expected when he was an Initiate.
There was so much about the process that was guided by the Force, or should be, that there wasn't really a rule about how to do it or even when a Knight should take a Padawan. It was just felt that a Knight should listen to the Force and act when it felt appropriate to act, and that coincidences around the choice of a Padawan were so often not really coincidences at all that they should be attended very closely.
"There is something to be said for hard rules," the Cerean added. "But there is something to be said for intuition. We allow intuition to work first, because the other way around would not make much sense."
"Thank you, Master," Swift said, bowing. "I have a vague feeling, but vague is all it is… I will meditate on it."
Master Mundi examined him.
"You know, I think you actually will," he said. "For some Jedi that would mean that they'd had enough of the conversation."
True to his word, Swift did meditate on the matter, but nothing quite snapped into place.
There was definitely a tension in the Force, though. It wasn't bad, not like he'd felt at other times, but more… it took Swift a while even to find the words, but after a long moment he decided that it was like the feeling you had when there was a rainstorm about to break and you were just waiting for the rain to begin. Or perhaps the rain would sweep overhead and happen somewhere else.
It wasn't good, and it wasn't bad. The rainstorm just was, and either you got wet or you didn't.
Swift reflected for a moment on how species who grew up indoors probably had different views on the rain, then took out his bag of parts and tools and started working on putting together the lightclub Master Fay had pointed him towards.
As his third weapon, more than many Jedi Knights ever constructed, Swift was starting to get a much greater understanding of how the parts fitted together and how to achieve exactly what he was after. The casing was bigger, to allow for extra power cells and enable the longer blade he wanted, and while he could still hold it in his muzzle it was a little too long to twirl on a side handle like his original blade.
Instead Swift made it so the blade could change length a little more easily, consulting one of the Holocrons he and his Master had found on Tython for inspiration, and arranged his pair of crystals so that they could be adjusted to form a resonance at ten times a second. That would drain the power cells much more quickly, one reason to have more of them, but it would also help him carve through the heavily armoured targets he kept encountering during his career.
Working on the lightclub was like another sort of meditative trance, and Swift had lost track of time when there was a soft hiss from the door to his quarters.
His ear perked, and he looked around to see a young human initiate looking very worried.
"Um… I don't think this is the right room," he said. "Sorry, Knight Swift, I thought this was a cargo lift door. I didn't realize he was so big…"
The last sentence had been whispered, but Swift heard it anyway.
"It is not a problem, Initiate," Swift replied, and as he spoke something happened to the air in the room. It was like a release of tension, and Swift looked down at the parts to his lightclub before twitching his nose slightly.
They all rose into the air at once. The focusing assembly twisted into place, one of the rings he'd been considering drifted away and a new one took its place, then everything fitted together like a complex puzzle and aligned in a way that was tremendously right.
When he activated his new weapon, a thick bar of yellow light lit up the room.
"Wow," the Initiate gasped. "I've never seen a lightsaber like that!"
"Neither had I, until I just built it," Swift said. "But you should probably get to where you were going. I'll take responsibility for any delay caused by my unusually large doorway."
It wasn't until after the Initiate had left that Swift began to wonder something, because he almost felt like he'd seen that human before… but older.
The memory didn't come, and he shook it off.
"Your style continues to develop well," Master Xan said, a little over a week later, stepping back and turning off his lightsaber. "I still remember trying to redesign forms for you, but I hadn't thought this far."
"Until I made this blade, I hadn't thought this far," Swift replied.
He twisted his body a little, sweeping the lightclub – or greatsaber, as Master Rancisis had said the weapon was called at times – in a left-right horizontal arc followed by a right-left one. Then he twisted the dial that controlled the Ilum-Khyber separation, switching it from harmonic to heterodyning, and a faint whine and extra glow built up for several seconds until he swiped the blade across in a single powerful attack.
Twisting the control back so that it switched into harmonic mode again, Swift exhaled. "I just hope it solves the problem I had."
"Even if it doesn't, it's solved another problem at least, Knight Swift," Master Xan pointed out. "Your original saber is a fine weapon, but it's a little small for you now."
"I know," Swift admitted. "I think I'm going to keep using it, but mostly for defending… if I can concentrate well enough to do more than one at once."
"I did mean to ask about your body movements, though," the Jedi Master added. "You're flexing every time you make a blow with the lightclub, and when you let it build up for a heterodyne you rear up. Did you notice?"
Swift gave a lupine shrug. "A little," he replied. "But I think it's like the gestures we all make to focus the Force. It's not something the Force needs, but we are helped by the extra synergy and concentration it brings."
"A fine point," Xan agreed. "So long as you take care not to let it become a bad habit or a crutch, I won't complain."
That made Swift chuckle.
"Now, let's see how you deal with Djem So," Xan requested, raising his lightsaber, and Swift ignited his older blue blade as well as the greatsaber and his lightwhip.
Before they could begin, though, the attendance chime rang.
"Enter," Swift called, and the door hissed open.
"I'm supposed to be doing lightsaber katas," the same young initiate from before said. "But Master Yoda directed me to come down here, instead of the room where everyone else was going. Do you know why, Master, Knight?"
"Master Yoda has his own reasons for much of what he does, Initiate Dume," Master Xan informed the newcomer. "In this case, I am unsure as to his reason."
Swift tilted his head, contemplatively, then reached out.
I am not sure either, young one, he informed the now-named Initiate Dume. But I have my own opinion as to why. Please show me your Shii-Cho form, if you would be so kind?
Dume's jaw had half-dropped, but he closed his mouth again with a flush. "I didn't know you could do that, Knight Swift… oh, sorry."
He lit his lightsaber – one which was clearly even newer than Swift's lightclub, but which aside from the difference in size had a surprising number of design similarities – and took up a stance, then began conducting the basic sweeps and strikes of Form I.
"I was a Padawan under Master Cordova," Swift said, by way of explanation. "He said he was no expert in lightsaber combat, and that his only real form was Form I, but from him I learned that Form I more than any other lightsaber form has no real upper limit. It is best when it is unpredictable, once a Jedi has mastered the structure and mechanics."
As he spoke, Swift was turning the scent of Initiate Dume's mind over in his perception of the Force.
There was something there which was different, and his opinion about Master Yoda's purpose hardened into near certainty.
"Speaking of unpredictability," Swift went on, half-uncoiling his lightwhip. "Show me how you would deal with an unconventional weapon, like this one."
Initiate Dume swallowed, visibly, but raised his weapon ready to defend. Then a calm swept over him as he let his worry go into the Force, earning him a tally-mark on Swift's mental list, and the Lothwolf flicked his tail and lightwhip out towards Initiate Dume.
Half an hour later, Initiate Dume – or Caleb, as his first name was – was panting, but he raised his 'saber again to block Swift's next attack.
The door chime went again, and this time it was Master Yoda who was framed by the doorway.
So, he asked Swift. Guessed my purpose, you have?
I had guessed, but now I'm sure, Swift sent back.
"Initiate," Swift said, getting Caleb's attention. "Well done. This has been a demanding session, and I am impressed with your endurance. Do you have any complaints about it?"
"No, Knight Swift," Caleb replied, but he did sink gratefully to the floor.
"Good," Swift told him, and crouched down so he was on the same level as Caleb as much as possible. "I realize you have only just constructed your own lightsaber, but would you consent to becoming my Padawan?"
AN:
I went there.