Umbrous - Empire's Shadow

Part 1 - Awakening of Shadow


Chapter 10

It had been some weeks since Kaan had found Master Yaddle's recording on holocrons, and he had spent much of his free time since then trying to open others.

So far, he had only managed to open a smaller, more basic one which contained a recorded message from Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. It had been found with a dead Jedi on Tatooine ten years previously, and when Kaan had sat down with it in his lap, with much difficulty the corners twisted off and a blue hologram flickered to life, appearing to stand on the central blue cube. It took the form of a robed man with greying hair and a sombre expression:

"This is Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. I regret to report that both our Jedi Order and the Republic have fallen, with the dark shadow of the Empire rising to take their place. This message is a warning, and a reminder for any surviving Jedi: Trust in the Force. Do not return to the Temple. That time has passed, and our future is uncertain. We will each be challenged. Our trust, our faith, our friendships. But we must persevere, and in time, a new hope with emerge. May the Force be with you, always."

A load of Jedi drivel from a recently deceased member of a long dead Order; Kaan had nevertheless been overjoyed the first time it had opened. His excitement had led him to rush his second attempt, leading the holocron to simply topple out of his lap.

The third attempt, however, had been attempted with more caution, and it had floated in the air above him, albeit with beads of sweat rolling off his brow.

By the fourth attempt, his mother had heard the voice coming from the training room and had been just as excited as Kaan to see him open a holocron. They had celebrated that night, and his mother had told him to try diving deeper.


Now Kaan stared at another holocron cube before him. It was an old object, with a crack in the top right corner, and a metal casing that showed obvious signs of rust, meaning it predated the invention of durasteel.

There was an inscription on its front side in an old Jedi language, which Kaan had painstakingly translated as 'The Subtle Arte of Moving with the Force.' Kaan could feel the crystal within pulsing, waiting for its knowledge to be accessed.

This was clearly an ancient holocron, possibly thousands of years old, from back when the Jedi had yet to establish the Temple on Coruscant, and they were just beginning to condense their knowedge into holocrons.

Kaan grimaced at the thought of not only opening a holocron, but possibly having to translate the contents from the Jedi language to Galactic Standard, a language which, while known as Basic, had only been established as such a millennium or so before the founding of the Republic. Bracing himself for hours of manual translation work that no droid at his disposition was equipped to handle, he set up a recorder and placed the crystal in front of him.

Instead of sitting cross-legged with the holocron on the floor in front of him, he tried standing and holding it in his hand. This time, it opened much more easily, as if the art of opening holocrons were some internal engine whose gears needed to be warmed up and greased.

It floated out of his palm, and the image of an aging human female materialised. She had flowing red hair flecked with grey streaks, and a protruding nose that seemed almost familiar. Kaan was both surprised and pleased to see this, as humans had not formed a prominent part of the ancient Jedi Order, but Basic was originally a human language, meaning this woman might speak it, albeit with an archaic cadence. And indeed, she did, with a distinctive Naboo accent:

"Greetings I give. Master Yatra Palp'atine is mine name, and this lesson, I give about the Arte of Moving with the Force."

So, this was an ancient ancestor of the Emperor himself! For a moment Kaan entertained the notion that this may be someone with a similar surname, but the physical resemblance was there, and this Jedi carried herself like a patrician, from a distant time when a Jedi would still be allowed to maintain ties with their birth family.

She wore Jedi robes held in place with golden buckles and her saberstaff's hilt had an electrum finish. The view in the holocron expanded, and now Kaan could see a miniaturised training room not unlike his own, with the obvious exception that it was made of unglazed wood, barely processed metal, and plastic.

Plastic! This was a group of materials, Kaan knew, that had been used in times past for all sorts of applications from construction of small buildings to food packaging. Kaan was not familiar with the chemistry involved, but knew that over time, it had been discovered that their structure slowly disintegrated, and resulted in microplastics all over the place, including the air, which was deadly to certain species.

Moreover, by this time, durasteel had been invented as a more sustainable and stronger replacement, and plastics quickly fell out of use. But this training room had plastic rafters, and Master Palp'atine's hair was held in a plastic clip. Kaan was brought out of his moment of historical reverie by the Jedi:

"The Force does surround us, bind us, and penetrate us. As we move, so it moves, and as it moves, so do we. If I lift mine hand, the Force is moved with it, and yet my hand is moved because a current of the Force willed it so.

Then can not the same be said for when I walk, or run, or jump? There are those of us who been fortunately born with the ability to sense the Force. If then we lend our own strength to these currents, then we may transcend the limits of our own bodies."

She demonstrated this by jumping high in the air, suddenly speeding up mid-jump, and then using the Force to assist in a momentum-defying landing.

"In all these actions, the Force does act as our guide, and moves our bodies the way our minds wish, correcting our inaccuracies and sharpening our focus."

Kaan knew this, having to an extent been successful in attempting increasingly difficult acrobatic manoeuvres without incident. His mother had been duly impressed by his ability to jump over her and at the wall, before flipping back over her head and landing with a flourishing bow.

But he still couldn't figure out how to use the Force to help him jump onto the high rafters in his training hall, or for that matter, soften his fall when he landed.

"When you are about to run, do feel the Force around you, within your legs. As you push the ground backwards so does the ground push you forward. When you jump, the Force does render you weightless, gives balance. When you do fall, the Force does fall with you, as your landing is the will of the Force, and the will of the Force is in your landing. Learn this, and your movements will be made ever more graceful by the Force."

Master Palp'atine bowed her head and the hologram flickered out, and Kaan immediately got to work. He closed his eyes and stretched out with his feelings, listening for the Force's presence.

Immediately he got feedback, feeling the Force around him, like he was submerged in it. He began to sense currents, movements, some larger and some weaker, as faint whispers in his ears.

He began to direct the Force towards his legs, felt it coalesce and give him strength as he crouched, ready to spring up. He opened his eyes, still feeling the Force within him, and looked towards one of the ceiling rafters. He sprung up, and suddenly he felt as if something were pushing him upwards, guiding his movements.

He soared into the air, arms outstretched, and as he reached the rafter, he realised that his original jump would have carried him too far away from the rafter to grab a hold of it.

The Force itself must have stepped in to correct his trajectory, allowing him to grab onto the rafter and swing himself on top of it noiselessly. To any being watching, it must have seemed like he had flown, and indeed looking down his head spun upon seeing the ground a good five metres below him.

Kaan looked down from his perch, and then looked at another rafter near him. Feeling the Force within his legs once more, he jumped on top of it. He just overshot with his left leg, but in an instant his hands had grabbed the rafter and he was stable again.

Euphoric, he jumped from rafter to rafter, until he had reached the highest rafter, eight metres from the ground, and decided to try falling.

Looking down, Kaan felt queasy. He knew logically that this fall was not fatal, and that even if he slipped and crashed, he would at most break an arm or a leg. But he still felt uneasy, and he once more turned to the Force to settle in his stomach, calming him.

Then, he lightly jumped off the rafter, feeling the Force at his waist, and imagining that he was sinking in water rather than air. Time slowed down, and he was very aware of every second he spent in the air, every moment an eternity.

In the air, he felt a small wind ripple around his cheeks, and heard the air resistance faintly roaring around him. He spun around as the rafters seemed to go past him in slow motion, and he felt as if he were a spacecraft, soaring in the depths of space.

And when he finally reached the ground, he dropped into a low crouch, feeling the blood rush out of his head, before getting up, dusting himself, and going to eat dinner, his nonchalance audible in his very footsteps.


I couldn't help but include that bit about plastics, especially given that there is no way plastics don't exist in Star Wars (for chemistry reasons).

Also, I couldn't resist putting in Palpatine's great-something grand-aunt as a Jedi.

Next week onwards, Kaan's private and public life will begin to come together. I simply needed 10 chapters worth of exposition to set the scene (and totally not for padding to give me more time to come up with a story).