"How long have you had these stowed away?" Rey asked.
She was sat in Leia's study, pouring over the box which the general had opened to reveal several crystal shapes, bound with bright metal. Jedi holocrons.
Leia smiled. "Only a few months, for the most part. One of our procurement people-" that is, one of the treasure hunters and explorers who served the Resistance cause "-came across them and brought them in while all of you were away. They'd been stolen away from the ruin of Luke's temple, presumed destroyed. Had you been back any sooner, I'd have brought them to you." She gave Rey a fond look. "And I rather thought it would be best to let you get some rest yesterday."
"That's appreciated." Rey rubbed a still-raw bruise over her ribs. "Magna Leptus really took it out of me." It was only a week since she and Finn had been rescued from their brief imprisonment as gladiators. The cuts were still fading to scars, and Rey was sure those would be dramatic.
"Gladiatorial combat isn't kind to anyone. Still, you held your own impressively, you and Finn both… though there's always room for improvement." The older woman indicated the open box. "I think this will be a good start."
"I didn't realise Luke had crafted his own holocrons."
"Oh, he did a few, but not all are his originally. Lots of them he went looking for and found. Most of them are actually older than me." Leia's eyes twinkled. "If you can believe that."
"General, please. You're not old." Rey's instinct was to press on and insist that Leia had decades ahead of her, but then she caught the rasp that laced the general's voice now, and found she couldn't summon up the words. She tried to disguise it by taking a sip of tea.
Leia, of course, wasn't fooled for a second. "Word to the wise, Rey? Leave fretting about old folk to the old folk. You've got enough on your plate. Your studies, for example."
Setting her cup down, Rey looked at the holocrons. "Where should I start?"
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In Leia's view, that turned out to be a lesson on the "Forms" of combat practiced by the Jedi. "If nothing else, your time in the arena should show that right now, we need you to be a warrior first and foremost."
Rey had pointed out to her that she didn't have a saber any more. The Skywalker blade was beyond her ability to repair, sundered so thoroughly that even the Kyber crystal was ruined. The crystal, despite its clean blue glow, had carried a taint from the terrible deeds it had been used to commit. Rey and Kylo Ren's struggle in the throne room had been too much for the tired, sorrowful crystal.
Maybe a powerful, knowledgeable Jedi could heal it in time – but that Jedi wasn't Rey, not for a long while yet. Leia had smiled. "So for now, you make do, just as you always have."
So Rey and the Resistance armourers had improvised and overhauled her old quarterstaff. They'd switched out some parts, built potent shock-emitters into each end, and given the whole weapon a skin of precious, near-indestructible Phrik alloy. That had been one good thing they'd got out of the whole arena fiasco: the awful, impractical breastplate foisted on Rey had been melted down for the metal. She was glad to see it go, and very pleased with the improved staff.
Still, a weapon was only as good as its wielder, and Rey was keenly aware of her limitations. She had bested Kylo Ren once, when he was unbalanced in his mind and severely wounded, and even then she had spent half the fight fleeing. When she'd faced Snoke' Praetorians on the Supremacy, she had almost been killed by two in a row.
She had already been working to address that, albeit from less esoteric sources. One of them was Finn, who had had the techniques of the Stormtrooper Legions drilled into him. That meant that as well as a capable fighter in his own right, able to spot gaps in Rey's defences or openings she could take, sparring with him was a way of understanding how some of her enemies fought.
The same went for the squad that Poe was building around the two of them, which he'd already nicknamed the Scrappers. Nyzar and LM-276 were especially skilled, as was only to be expected from two veteran gladiators. That meant Rey had several good training partners now.
And there had been less expected sources. Kaydel had dug around in the archives and found a training manual for the forces of the old Inquisitors - the Empire's feared Purge Troopers. They had used electrostaffs themselves, and Rey had adopted some of their methods She could already see the results of all this. She was growing considerably more potent on the battlefield, and spent less of her time in sparring sessions being knocked down. But Leia seemed to think that the Jedi methods would be of an altogether deeper benefit to her. Rey wasn't sure how that was meant to work, but she was willing to try.
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The Resistance base on Rukjavel was a warren, bored and built into several of that frigid world's forbidding mountains during the Clone Wars. Which meant that, as well as being well-protected from the merciless climate outside, there were plenty of secluded spaces in the depths. Leia had set aside one of the empty storage spaces for Rey. The base had plenty of training rooms, but there were already hundreds of Resistance fighters using those as the movement rebuilt.
And Rey needed peace and quiet, if she were to have any hope of absorbing the lessons in the holocron. So here she was, down in the depths of the base, her and the device.
When she was ready, datapad and stylus in hand, she reached out and nudged the holocron with the Force. The device responded immediately, the metal bindings unfurling with clicks and floating clear of the crystal core. It hung there like a frozen, symmetrical explosion. Patterns of light shown from the crystal, brilliant arcs and lines of blue washing over the chamber. And at the centre, the light coalesced into the figure of a Jedi.
That was when Rey realised her teacher would be a warrior from the time of the Clone Wars. She knew the face from some of Luke's writings, and knew his name even before he spoke. "Greetings, young Jedi – or perhaps not so young. I am Cyn Drallig, master of the guard of the Coruscant temple. To my flatterers, the Temple swordmaster. And from today, your tutor."
He was older than she'd expected. His long hair gleamed in a way that suggested it must be silver, and his face was heavily lined. Nonetheless, he was clearly in superlative physical shape and a honed warrior. There was no mistaking the brightness of his eyes, or the balletic poise with which he moved – though thanks to the nature of the projection, it meant that he appeared to be walking on the spot.
"Herein, we will explore the Forms of lightsaber combat, perhaps the principle art by which we and the Galaxy at large define ourselves. These are the skills by which wars have been won, the Sith Empires vanquished and Mandalorian armies put to rout. They are also the arts by which we steep ourselves in the Living Force. And as such, we do not take the matter lightly."
So I see, Rey thought. But she held her tongue, brimming with curiosity.
Nonetheless, it was as if Drallig sensed her unspoken remark. He raised a single finger. "This holocron is intended as a backstop against the unthinkable happening. If the Order fell tomorrow, and our every last Master was lost, this record will serve to preserve our arts."
And a wise measure at that. Even if Rey was using the device after the fall of a different Jedi Order.
"If we speak of 'form' in purely physical terms-" the Jedi's eyebrow quirked briefly "-then we have already erred. How so? Well, a Jedi in combat is never a purely physical proposition. The Force binds and permeates us, as you well know, and as you attune your body and mind to fight, so your connection to the Force will likewise be affected."
He took his lightsaber from his belt, igniting it and flourishing it. "We guard against the Dark Side just as we guard against our corporeal foes. Our use of the lightsaber is a quite deliberate choice. Unlike a blaster, it lends itself to defence as well as offence. For above all, we are peacekeepers."
And I will be, Rey told herself. When all this is done.
"The Dark Side is the ever-present temptation to pay back violence with violence, to seek power for itself. When we fight, that hazard is heightened. Not only must we reckon with our own heightened emotions, most obviously anger, but an enemy's emotions will bleed into the Force as it surrounds you. It's not so simple as mere proximity immediately corrupting oneself, more that the temptation is heightened to fight fire with fire. One must have control."
Rey diligently took notes, already trying to commit Drallig's movements to memory. This sounded about right. Her cheeks burned at how easily Luke had disarmed her back on Ach-To, the smack of his stick on her flanks coming all too easily to mind.
"For a preamble, let us summarise the Forms themselves, starting with the one where it all began." Drallig brought his saber en garde, the stance somehow looking simpler than his previous one. "Shii-Cho, the Determination Form. A simple style, owing to that it was developed along with the concept of the lightsaber itself."
He ran through a flurry of attacks, and it seemed to Rey that the movements were simpler – or perhaps more limited than what she had seen from Kylo and in old holos. The lateral and diagonal strikes no longer apparent. As if…
"For the observant, it may appear that I'm wielding my saber as if it possessed but one cutting edge. That is the case – Shii-Cho was conceived when the broadsaber was the dominant weapon among the Jedi, requiring direction to cut. While that may seem limiting, for a learner it is something of a virtue." He smiled, apparently anticipating the confused look that Rey wore. "We start with the basics, and build ourselves a framework from which our skills can grow. It is from the foundation of this Form that every Jedi reaches upward and outward. Indeed, for some practitioners its primal energy is potent enough to warrant mastering it to its fullest extent, rather than embracing another Form."
Which was all very well, but Rey wanted to see the more advanced schools, the ones she recognised something of. She wanted something more than primal for herself. So the mention of Form II, Makashi, made her sit up and take notice.
"The Contention Form. Where Shii-Cho was conceived with the intention of confronting foes who could not match a Jedi's skill, Makashi came about at a more fraught time for the Order. Rogue Jedi and Darksiders became prominent threats, and eventually the Sith Order, our ancient enemy, came into being. The Jedi found themselves in need of a means to counter foes who were strong with the Force. So, Makashi was devised."
Drallig moved through a sequence – a kata, Rey corrected herself – of the Form. The movements were more nimble and fluid – cuts and jabs rather than the slashing and stabbing motions of Shii-Cho.
"Just as Makashi addressed the dangers of other lightsaber wielders, massed enemies armed with blasters warranted a response of their own. Hence," and now Drallig settled into a defensive stance, arms brought guardedly close. "Form Three, Soresu. As one might expect from the Resilience Form, this is tailored to the demands of longer battles and requires the wielder to be centred in the Force."
His saber snapped rapidly from one position to the next, economical and never seeming to open Drallig to the full weight of the hypothetical attacks he was defending against. Rey thought of Kylo Ren's strength, the brute force of his assaults, and she could certainly see the appeal of just turning those to one side, opening him up to a quick retaliatory strike. But she didn't see any real evidence of such moves in the Soresu kata.
She might have dwelt on it further. At that point, however, Rey's belly protested audibly and shattered her concentration. She remembered Leia's advice, and took that as her cue to join her friends in the mess hall for lunch.
