Author's note: Fans of James Herriot stories will recognize his influence here. That is to say, please don't be grossed out by some veterinary (and other biology) details included here. Put your biology nerd cap on and enjoy the ride!

Please also note that this is a jump back in time, where we get to see what was happening to Devin while Varda was off on Takodana meeting Ahsoka and then spending her time on Yemer during the last few chapters. We'll catch up with Varda again in the next chapter.

The Way of a Siluan

Chapter 39: A Jedi Revealed

13 BBY 11 months 30 days

~ Moosachu Plains, the planet Nechako ~

Five years ago we put an end to useless divisions and brutal war. Five years ago we were free at last from the interference of a superstitious and hypocritical Order. And so, on this great day, we celebrate the rise of a new era. Now we stand, one galaxy, united in pursuit of peace, order and good government. Together we will work to build the greatest civilization the universe has known. To the Empire!

In the massive image projected against the flat beige outer wall of the Moosachu Farming and Community Co-op, the black-robed figure of the Galactic Emperor stood on a high pedestal, white hands raised as if in blessing, and the shout went up from thousands of grey-clad officials and white-clad stormtroopers and multi-coloured civilians gathered in what used to be the Temple plaza. To the Empire! The shout echoed from twenty or so farmers in plaid jackets and canvas pants standing on the short spring grass of the Moosachu Plains as they watched the proceedings: To the Empire!

Devin couldn't quite bring himself to repeat those words, but he pumped his fist in the air and whooped loud enough that no one would notice the difference.

Fireworks began to go off, on screen and in the sky above the small crowd: those on the Moosachu Plains a dim reflection of the dazzling gold and blue explosions of glitter and flame that graced the skies of Coruscant, but the red and green and yellow bursts of sparkles still cast a celebratory light in the overcast sky of a cool spring evening on Nechako.

The pulse of the exploding fireworks punctuated the pounding of Devin's own heart, throbbing in his ears. For five standard years there had been these Empire Day celebrations. When the first one was held, he had hoped that no one would notice if he didn't go. But his neighbour Silas had stopped by for a drink, saying he wanted advice on a problem with a batch of cows he'd brought into his herd, and then invited Devin to go along with him for the festivities. "Come on, man! Fireworks!" Silas had said. "It's OK, I got stuff to do," Devin had told him at first, but when Silas pressed and then pressed him again, Devin found himself more emotional than he'd expected. "There's no way on the face of this planet I'm going!" he shot back, surprised at his own burst of anger. "What's wrong with you? What do you have against Empire Day?" Silas had countered. "Sorry, it's the anniversary of my mom's passing," Devin had managed to mumble, hoping that grief the size of the whole Jedi Order could somehow seem explainable by that one loss. But Silas bought the half-truth and left Devin alone.

When the depression that came with that anniversary had lost its edge, Devin had taken a sober look at his situation: more than anything, he needed to hide. He needed to fit in, to act normal, to be just another guy. On Nechako, everyone and their droid saw the Empire as a beacon of new economic opportunity, so fitting in meant pretending to be patriotic. No one would look for a Jedi survivor among a bunch of backwater farmers celebrating Empire Day.

Now, on the fifth standard-year anniversary of the Jedi Purge, watching those little red and green and yellow fireworks in the cloudy evening sky, Devin's stomach clenched in a knot but he steadied himself by calling up a grim sense of satisfaction: it was working. Five standard years after he'd come here to hide, no one showed any signs of having any idea that he was a Jedi.

In the cloudy night sky, the last noisy fanfare of fireworks peppered the air with coloured sparks. A final cheer went up and then a shrill voice came over a megaphone, calling Devin back to the present. It was Barb Shirley, local rep for the Imperial governance system.

"I'm proud to be part of the Empire! Are you with me?"

The small crowd cheered.

"I said, are you with me?"

The crowd cheered again.

"I said, ARE YOU WITH ME?"

The third cheer went up, long and deafening. Devin suppressed the urge to cover his ears.

Grinning from ear to ear in the artificial light, the speaker surveyed the small crowd. "Well, I am glad to see you all here. Thanks to the fine folks of the Planetary Council, there's free meatcakes and sugar-pudding!" She gestured to the big tent that had been set up with lights and portable heaters. Inside, Devin could see a row of food-laden tables and volunteers bustling around them. "So line up and get your share! In the meantime, the upper division homeschool support group will be handing out drinks. To the Empire!"

Devin felt more like puking than eating, but he joined what he hoped was indeed the final cheer of the evening, and got in line. He looked around first for Jonah, and when he saw a volunteer herding his son and several other little kids into line, he let it be and surveyed the rest of the small crowd.

The forty or so adults there were a mixed group: mostly humans of various phenotypes, with a smattering of Twi'leks and Rodians. Chatter soon picked up, the hum of conversation buzzing around them. It was all just small talk, but to Devin, the crowd seemed to have a weird vibe, like this celebration was just a clean bandage over an ugly wound. Some of the families there had sons or daughters who were working on the Bulkley River Dam. When it got blown up, some had lost an important income stream; some had lost their lives.

Devin felt bad for them, but he also felt scared for himself. A week later after Garth and his buddies blew up the Dam, local radio was still hardly talking about anything else: the search for the perpetrators, the condition of survivors from the camp that got blown up, negotiations with off-planet overseers and investors. Devin hadn't told anyone he was involved, not even Shie. Garth kindly hadn't given Devin's real name to any of the other guys involved, and so far no one seemed to have the slightest idea he'd had anything to do with it. But the stress of wondering whether he'd be found out grated on him, wearing away the thin defences that kept even more difficult emotions at bay.

His eyes started to sting and he hoped he wasn't going to cry. He rubbed them both hard, making it look like he was tired, but quickly stopped when a pulse of pain reminded him why he shouldn't do that. His left eye was still sore from an embarrassing incident that morning, and he hoped no one would comment on how red it still looked. Then he almost laughed. Of all the things he didn't want anyone to find out, that was one story he could afford to spill if he had to.

Almost at the food tent with the smells of fried meat and alliums wafting out to meet him, Devin looked over the row of volunteers dishing out food inside. His neighbour Silas caught his eye and grinned, and Devin made sure to grin convincingly back.

"Hey, Mr. Baxter! Want a free beer!" a boy's voice said beside him, and Devin found a chubby teenager pressing a flimsiplast cup into his hand. It was Dominik Tam, the kid from the farm where he used to buy grain. He was a big stocky boy a head shorter than Devin, Twi'lek, with a big grin across his pimpled orange face.

"Thanks!" Devin said, and took a swig. It tasted like cheap mass-produced stuff – Bulkley Bud, he was guessing – but the alcohol hit still took the edge off his tension.

"You're not drinking any of that, remember?" a woman's throaty voice grated behind him. He turned to see Dominik's mother, Kat Tam, elbowing her bulky frame into the line behind him, glaring at her thirteen-year-old son with arms folded across her ample chest.

For a moment the boy glared back, both mother and son twitching their lekku in a silent argument until the boy backed down. "Yes, Mom," the teenager drawled, rolling his eyes.

Kat and Devin both watched the boy move down the line, handing out drinks to each person in turn. From three people down the line, he looked up from his work to glare at his mom again. "Stop watching me! It's embarrassing!"

Kat snorted, turning around to face Devin. "Kid thinks he's thirteen going on twenty."

Devin chuckled, feeling a bit more natural now that the beer was doing its work. "Teenagers can be like that," he said sagely. He'd handled enough of them back in his Jedi days. The AgriCorps tended to get the kids with attitude problems.

Standing sideways in the slowly-moving line, Devin glanced back at Dominik. He'd known Dominik ever since he was a pudgy kid who liked catching frogs and showing them off to whoever was willing to listen to him talk, but over the winter Dominik had gone through a big growth spurt. He looked like a real teenager now, and something about him reminded Devin a lot of a youngling called Bryn he'd trained back at the AgriCorps station on Deema, but it wasn't a good thought. Bryn was probably at the AgriCorps station when the Clones blew it up.

Oblivious to his thoughts, Kat wiped her nose on the sleeve of her red plaid work-jacket and took a swig of beer. "So you think they'll catch those bastards?" she said.

Devin flinched. If she was talking about the Clones, that meant she knew...but she couldn't possibly know. He pulled a blank. "What bastards?"

"Those scum-bags who blew up the dam, y'idiot."

"Oh, those guys!" Devin said, feeling oddly relieved. "They deserve a blaster through the brains if you ask me." He took another pull of his beer, relieved that he managed to pull the comment off so naturally. That was what he had planned to say when someone brought up the topic.

Kat spat on the grass and then scuffed at it with the toe of her boot. "This whole crap-shoot is going to kriffing cost us more than we can kriffing pay," she growled.

"Yeah, this planet could have used the payback from that project a whole lot sooner than we're going to get it."

Kat snorted. "The money was probably all going to Bulkley anyways," she said. "I'm not worried about some damn hospital we were probably never going to get. What gets me is, you really think they'll let a little two-bit place like Nechako keep our spot in the IAP if we can't keep a few lousy terrorists from screwing up the Empire's biggest investment around here?"

"Oh," Devin said, seeing her point. He hadn't thought of that before. A lot of farmers were worried about losing the guaranteed access to fertilizer the Imperial Agriculture Program gave them, not because of terrorism but just because Nechako was having a hard time keeping crop yields up as high as warmer parts of the sector like Lothal. It wouldn't be that hard for some Imperial official to use that combination of agricultural and political problems to justify cutting Nechako from the Program. Devin folded his arms across his chest, mulling over this new problem. If that Nechako got cut from the IAP, that would leave almost all his neighbours in the lurch...

"But I guess you got no reason to give a damn about that do you?" Kat's voice was all sarcasm.

Devin coughed into his fist and shifted uncomfortably. Kat sometimes ribbed him like that, poking at his decision not to join the IAP like everyone else, giving him a narrow look, like she was trying to figure something out. She was giving him that look again now, about to say something when Devin found a quick way out. They were inside the tent now and had just reached the table where volunteers were handing out Nechako's standard festive meal: meatcakes and sugar-pudding. He picked up two flimsiplast plates, handed one to Kat and then turned his back to her like he was focused on getting something to eat.

"Hey, Dev-man!" Silas, first of several volunteers handing out food, was grinning ear to ear and waving a pair of metal tongs. "Two per person. What'll it be, white or green or one of each?" He gestured to the platter of miniature meatloaves.

"White," Devin said, holding out his plate with one hand. Both kinds were made with some kind of ground-up avian meat but the green ones had a dye in them that he didn't quite trust. He rubbed his sore eye.

Silas deposited the meatcakes on Devin's plate with a concerned look. "Hey, what's with your eye. Looks kinda red."

Devin gave a rueful little laugh. "It's pretty stupid," he said. "I was ploughing up a new patch for our veggie garden and I happened to look up at the sky just as a bird flew overhead. Shit fell right in my eye."

Behind him, Kat cackled, and Devin thought that Silas too would laugh like it was the funniest thing he ever heard, but instead his young neighbour kept a straight face. "You still have birds?"

"Um, yeah..."

"I haven't seen a bird in years," Silas said, dishing green meatcakes onto Kat's plate.

"Oh," Devin said, mentally scrambling for an out. It was no wonder Silas didn't have birds; being part of the IAP meant spraying so much pesticide that there was no way for most birds to survive, but Devin did not want to talk about not joining the IAP right now. "I'm closer to the river than you are, I guess."

"I'm right on the river and I never see birds." There was Kat, giving him that narrow look again. "You're weird, Baxter. Was that why you didn't join the IAP, cause you like birds?"

"Must be!" Devin did his own best sarcastic drawl. "Now where's that sugar-pudding?"

He pushed on down the line, adding fried purple alliums onions and some kind of red sauce to his meatcakes before the next volunteer scraped a fat blob of blue and white sugar-pudding onto his plate. Kat was still right behind him.

"I better go find Jonah," he mumbled, and slipped away into the small crowd.

After rounding up his five-year-old and feeding Jonah half his meal, Devin did his best to make small talk about homeschooling and cattle weights and grain prices for the rest of the evening, but conversation kept heading back to the IAP. Though Kat's worries had never been voiced on radio from what Devin could hear, more than one farmer in Moosachu had come to the same conclusion that their days in the IAP were numbered.

"But I guess you're not worried about that, though, are you?" said another neighbour, and an odd little feeling made Devin look sideways before he answered. There was Kat Tam, not far away, watching him.

It was only 2200h, but it felt more like midnight when Devin let himself into the barn back at his place.

He slid the door open and just stood there in the dark, letting the clean, honest smells of hay and manure wash over him, listening to the few animals he kept in from the fields shuffle in their stalls, blunt teeth grinding cud or feed.

After the Empire Day celebration he felt completely spent. He felt tired and sick and dirty. He didn't feel like seeing anyone, not even Shie. Jonah had sobbed himself to sleep in the speeder on the way home, after having a complete meltdown from too much of that sugar-pudding, and so as soon as Devin had deposited Jonah in bed, he left the house and chose the barn instead.

At least Jonah's noisy meltdown gave Devin an excuse to leave the party. Now, with Jonah asleep, Devin was glad for some time on his own. He felt his way into the barn in the dark, some of his tension melting now that he felt truly hidden. The barn was a domain where he could be his real self, Devin Strong, who knew and loved the way the Force connected him to his land and his livestock, instead of pretending to be just another Devin Baxter on a planet where anyone who found out who he really was could turn him in for the tidy sum of ten thousand credits. But here, in this moment, he felt safe.

All but sightless in the dark, he let his familiarity with the place guide him through the farm office and hay storage over to the door to the livestock partition of the barn. Beyond that door was an under-cover paddock where he'd brought a few inu in from the fields. They all had injuries of one kind or another. One had a badly sprained leg; she was carrying twin calves, both too big for her young frame. The night of the Darksider's grisly visit, she had sprained her left foreleg, stumbling under the unusual weight of her first pregnancy. He felt bad about that. Aggie had warned him that selling off the older females from the herd would mean the younger cows getting pregnant sooner than was healthy, but when he downsized the herd to become a part-time farmer, full-time stay-at-home dad, it seemed more economical to keep the younger animals and let the older ones go. The least he could do now, he figured, was try to help her heal.

The paddock was under a skylight in the sloping barn roof, and in the moonlight streaming through it, Devin could see in muted tones of blueish grey and black that the inu cow in question was up on her feet again. He padded over the straw-covered flood and paused at the paddock gate, watching her and the two others, the way the moonlight caught their big dewy eyes. Now that he wasn't so focused on trying to act like he wasn't a Jedi, he could feel them with a kind of cross-species empathy that made it seem as if the edge of his own being were melting away and blurring with theirs. He could feel in his own body how that one cow's three legs ached from bearing the extra weight while favouring the painful front left, and sense the strain of her skin stretched tight over twin calves who jostled inside, almost ready to come out.

Perhaps it was this encounter with a connection so real after an evening of being so fake; Devin wasn't sure what set him off. But he bent over the rail of the paddock, resting his head on his arms and his arms on the cold metal, and cried.

He cried, lungs heaving with silent sobs. He cried because he was frazzled and tired and had no idea how long it would be before that Darksider came back and proved that the shield he and Varda had made wasn't good enough. He cried because pretending was lonely but he had to keep doing it even though it might only be a matter of time before something slipped and his neighbours found out.

He cried because Varda was so broken by her own sorrow that she wasn't at all the person he'd thought she would be.

He cried because it was partly his fault that Eo wasn't there anymore.

He cried for Master Lu and for the kid back in the AgriCorps who looked like Kat's son Dominik and for all the masters and all the younglings who should have grown up to be knights and Corps members and masters and who he'd never see again.

He cried so hard that it took a while to realize that a big wet nose was nuzzling his shoulder, and even longer to clue in that a big warm tongue was licking his hair.

Devin blinked back tears and choked on something that was half a sob and half a laugh and looked up to see all three inu in the paddock gathered around him, prodding at him with nose and tongue, staring at him with those big wet eyes.

He told himself that their bovine brains were just trying to figure out whether he'd brought food, but a deeper part of him knew that they too had a spark inside them, not just of intelligence, but of empathy.

"You guys!" Devin said, and laughed for real this time. He gave them a little Force-push back so that he could squeak the rusty gate open just enough to slip into the paddock before creaking it shut behind him.

"No, I don't have food!" he told them, and scratched the over-pregnant one behind the ear. They all needed him to check on something: one with lightsabre wounds still healing from the night the Darksider came, one with hooves cracked due to a mineral deficiency, but he didn't have the energy to be here all night. He decided to work on healing the over-pregnant one's sprained leg and then call it a night.

He shooed the other two off. The full-grown inu were much smaller than other bovines raised on Nechako, only about chest-height at the shoulders, and he easily caught the one he wanted by grabbing a handful of the loose hide around her shoulders, resting the other hand on her broad forehead, feeling her warmth, willing her to stay calm and at ease, assuring her of his will to heal. When it took and she slouched against the paddock fence, Devin reached down and picked up her left foreleg, bending her knee to raise the lower half of her leg upwards, bending over as he took it in both hands, running his fingers up and down along the main bone.

She twitched, almost jerking her leg out of his hands when he found the line of the fracture, but he calmed her again and refocused himself, cold bare hand wrapped around the warmth of the cow's limb, Force-connection more than touch showing him the hairline crack in her bone. It would take a few sessions like this – several, more like it – but he knew that if he kept focusing on that bone, willing it to knit itself back together, it would. The crack was already far less discernible than it had been when he first started working on it a few sessions ago.

Healing like this took all his focus, but he liked it being that way. In that moment, there was nothing in his whole consciousness but his awareness of that cow and her sprained leg and his will to will it to heal. No wondering whether anyone would figure out that he was a Jedi or find out that he helped blow up the dam. No Darksider lurking in the night. No Varda broken by grief, putting herself in harm's way, running off to Yemer when the safe thing was to stay put. No Kat Tam making him nervous with those narrow, prying looks. Moments like this were the closest he ever got these days to bliss.

When he finally noticed his back aching from bending over so long, Devin let the cow's foot back to the ground and straightened up, hands pressed to his lower back as it complained with a pop and a crack. The moon had gone past where it could shine through the skylight and Devin felt the cow by her warmth and her Force-presence more than he saw her outline in the dark. She shuffled a little, testing out her front left foot, letting it take her weight a few seconds longer than she'd been able to before. Then he heard her urp something up and start chewing her cud, nudging him with her wet nose again.

He scratched her between her ears. "Thanks," he said, feeling a little better now, and then let himself out of the paddock and made his way out of the barn.

As the big barn door slid open and cold fresh air slapped him in the face, Devin did a double-take. He didn't think he'd parked his speeder that close to the door but there it was, gleaming dully in the cloud-shrouded moonlight. Then he saw a blond head bent over the steering console and realized it wasn't his speeder.

Devin gave a sigh of resignation. It wasn't the first time this had happened.

In a place like Moosachu, there wasn't much to do besides work, and when most people weren't working, they drank. Some were better than others, but Silas was worse than most. Devin didn't usually have to deal with it, but once in a while, when Silas was drunk enough to have no inhibitions but sober enough to bundle himself into his speeder, he would show up on Devin's doorstep, wanting to talk. "Why does he have to come here?" Devin had grumbled to Shie more than once. "He needs a friend," she always told him. "And so do you." It was hard to be friends with someone who could never know who he really was, but Devin had gotten pretty good at asking the right sort of questions to keep Silas talking about himself, or about farming, good enough to maintain a fairly surface-level friendship if nothing else.

And so Devin opened the door to the covered cab of his friend's speeder. A burst of warm sour air greeted him as he poked the lanky figure planted face-down on the steering console.

"Hey Silas, wake up!"

Silas groaned.

"Silas, it's late. We got to get you home." Devin reached over to the dashboard and flicked the switch for the interior light.

In the thin yellow gleam, Silas raised his reddened face and gave Devin a bleary look. "You're here!" he said, and grinned.

"Yeah, you're at my place."

"Sorry, I did it again."

"It's OK, Silas," Devin said absently, trying to decide whether he'd rather have the trouble of towing his neighbour's speeder behind his own and dropping Silas back at his own place or whether he'd rather let his drunk friend pass out on the living room couch. He checked his chronometer. It was already well past midnight, and Silas' place was an hour away.

Deciding to opt for the couch, Devin gave Silas a little push. "Shove over, buddy. We're driving you to my house so you can crash for the night."

"What?"

"I'm not letting you drive home like this, and you're going to freeze if you sleep in your speeder, so..."

Silas gave a sloppy shrug. "Alright," he said. He fumbled over to the passenger seat, burping loudly. Devin hoped he had stuff in the cupboard for a simple remedy in case he had a very hung-over guest to deal with in the morning.

Devin slipped into the driver's seat and turned on the power box. Drunker than usual, Silas started up a mumbled monologue about how great the fireworks had been and how many meatcakes he'd eaten and whether it would be a cold spring. As he drove the short distance to the house, Devin listened to Silas with half an ear, meanwhile making mental notes for his work the next day. Shie would be home from work until mid-day, and so theoretically, he could have some farming time before lunch. He'd have to get Silas going first thing in the morning, though, if he was to make any real use of the time. Either that, or get up really early.

Soon the grey dome of the house loomed up in the headlights. Devin pulled Silas' speeder up near the door and then went around to the passenger side to help Silas out.

"Here we go, buddy!" Devin pulled his friend's arm up around his shoulder to prop up the weight of his half-limp neighbour.

"Thanks, man," Silas mumbled as Devin bundled his through the door and into the warm house.

"It's all good. Let's just try to be quiet. Shie and the kids are in bed."

Devin remembered that with Varda having moved into his dad's old house, the spare bedroom was free again. He let Silas down onto the yet-unmade bed before rummaging in the closet for a pillow and blanket.

"Devin?" Silas slurred as his friend draped the blanket over him.

"What?"

"Why are you different?"

An electric shock shot through Devin's stomach. Then he laughed it off. "I'm not different! I'm just another dude."

"But you have birds." Silas' eyes were wide and he spoke with great solemnity.

Again, Devin got an unsettled feeling deep in his gut. But he forced a laugh. "Who cares about birds? You're drunk, Silas. Get some rest."

Despite the late night, Devin woke early the next morning while it was still dark outside, eye flying wide open as if an alarm had gone off. Shie was still out like a light beside him, and his first thought was of how to get back to sleep, but something kept niggling in the back of his mind, the kind of feeling that if ignored, would haunt him, and if acted on, usually brought him to the right place at the right time for something he could never logically have been aware of.

And so Devin got up, feeling his way into his farm clothes in the pre-dawn black before going out into the hall. He paused at the door of the spare bedroom. Even through the closed door he could hear Silas snoring. His Force-sense always felt a bit fuzzier than usual ever since he and Varda constructed that experimental shield, but even after standing a minute or so outside the door, nothing seemed wrong. He did the same at Jonah and Siri's bedroom, and could sense nothing amiss.

Quietly, Devin pulled on his coat and scarf and gloves, then opened the front door and stepped out into the cold. A thin line of pale grey was seeping over the eastern edge of the sky and one of the moons was setting to the west. In the thin light his breath made a faint grey plume as he stood on the doorstep, listening carefully, reaching out with all his senses. But nothing in the starry sky or in the thin wind spoke of anything being wrong.

Frosted grass crunching beneath his feet, Devin made his way to the barn. The air was warmer in there, and it held a note of foreboding. When he got close to the paddock where the three inu cows were, he heard heavy breathing and felt a prickle go up his spine.

Now was not the time to enjoy working in the dark. Devin hit the button on the wall to turn on the lights, and saw that the young inu he had been healing was down on her side on the paddock floor, lungs heaving, her pregnant belly almost dwarfing her compact frame. As he let himself in through the gate and ran to her side, she rolled distended eyes. Devin felt her pain knife through him. He quickly stepped around to check her rear.

Devin knew right away that she was in labour, and so he was not surprised to see the pink-brown lips of her birth canal stretched wide, but instead of a calve's neat little black forefeet, the wet wool of the young one's rump protruded by just a couple of centimetres.

One hand on the calf's rump, the other on the mother's heaving side, Devin focused himself, reaching out, reaching in to feel what was happening. It didn't take long to feel in his own core the grind of the calf's young bones against the mother's pelvis, to read in her fatigue the hours of straining, unable to deliver the big calf backwards from her small body, with yet another calf scrunched up behind the first, waiting to come out.

Devin shifted his weight, uncomfortable in his squatting position, but not ready to get up just yet. He knew well enough how to push a calf back into a cow and turn it around, but it was more dangerous with twins, especially on the mother's first delivery like this; if he wasn't careful, he could tear her uterus and one or both calves could be injured.

But he had a trick that had sometimes worked before and just might work again now. It was more mind-control than telekinesis, and more animal connection than mind-control, though it drew on all three.

He shifted again and knelt down beside the cow's back, standing up on his knees to lean over her belly and trace one hand along her side, feeling with his hands first for one calf, then the other, then reaching out with the Force for their prenatal minds and for the mind of their mother.

"The Force is with us, we are one with the Force. The Force is with us, we are one with the Force," Devin chanted softly, and soon his whole awareness was immersed wholly in that one place, that one moment, the line between his mind-body and that of the inu mother and her two unborn blurred to imperceptibility. He pushed himself to hold on to his own mind even while maintaining the connection to theirs.

Willing the cow's contractions to slow, Devin guided the breached calf back inwards, partly by telekinesis but mostly working with the mind and body of the two calves to adjust themselves in their tight space, finding a little movement here, a little there until the first calf was wholly back inside.

Devin was dimly aware that sun was pouring through the skylight when his aching knees demanded that he rise, but he was in the zone now, still connected even though he stood up, no longer touching the animals but moving his hands through the air in a smoothly flowing motion to guide the first calf into its proper forward dive through the mother's birth canal.

When the first calf finally showed its little black front feet to the outside world, Devin got back down and pulled, putting his arms and back to work now to give his mind just a little rest. When the calf came out all long legs and wet wool and big eyes and straightened its knees out into its first wobbly stand, he almost could have sat back and laughed and cried but there was still the other calf to go. The next one's legs were in the right place but its neck was bent dangerously back, and so all over again, Devin was back to guiding and coaxing cow and calf through the Force, the line between his being and theirs a vague blur, his energy supplementing their energy until the second calf too spilled out into the world and started to bawl for milk.

The mother inu was so tired that she could barely get up, but Devin needed her to stand up and feed the newborns. He put one hand to the woolly back of her head, just between her fuzzy ears.

"You can do this," he said, the simple words filled with power, and then he could feel in his own muscles her strain to get up, and he rode the wave of oxytocin relief with her as the calves both latched on and started, for the first time, to feed. It was finished!

Completely exhausted, Devin let himself sit back on his hands and butt on the straw-covered floor, almost laughing with relief as he pulled back from the bond. He gave himself a few seconds to just sit there, catching his breath, then ran one hand through his hair and remembered all in a flash: Silas! It was well into mid-morning, and Shie wasn't going to appreciate him leaving her to deal with a very hung-over guest. Devin decided he'd better get up and scrambled to his feet. He turned to head out the paddock gate, and then froze.

There was Silas, standing just inside the gate to the paddock, wide-eyed, mouth hanging open. For a long moment, the two men just stared at each other.

"Wow, I never, I never saw anything like that!" Silas managed to babble at last.

"How long were you watching?" Devin demanded, shock quickly turning to fear turning to anger rising up his neck.

"I saw you doing this with your hands," Silas made a choppy imitation of the guiding motions he'd seen Devin use. "You weren't even touching her and it just...it just... You're a Jedi, aren't you?" Silas breathed.

An actual Jedi Knight might have resorted to mind control; it would have worked - Silas wasn't the sharpest tool in the kit. But Devin was AgriCorps, and he was scared and startled enough to be dangerously angry. Shoulders squared, fists clenched, Devin took a step towards his neighbour.

Silas was taller than Devin but Devin had broader shoulders and a stockier build by far, and unlike Devin, Silas didn't knew that this Jedi carried no lightsabre. His arms flew up to protect his head and he cowered. "I'm sorry!" he wailed. "I'm sorry! I promise I won't tell!"

"Swear you won't!"

"I swear! I swear by every star in the galaxy and all my ancestors."

Devin softened his stance, but his muscles were still wound tight. "You better hold to that!" he said. "If you screw up, it could all be over for me."

"I won't tell!" Silas said again, coming out of his self-protective cower, awe quickly replacing fear again. "You're a Jedi!" he said with wonder. "I know an actual Jedi!"

"I was a Jedi," Devin gruffed.

That didn't phase Silas. "Can I see your laser-sword?"

"I don't have one," Devin deadpanned. He did have Master Lu's lightsabre, still unused, wrapped up in a drawer since the day Garth brought it for him, but now was not the time to mention that.

"Oh," Silas said, disappointed.

"I was in the AgriCorps," Devin explained.

"Oh, wow!" Silas said, excited again. "Does that mean you can help me next time I need a vet?"

Devin sighed and rubbed his forehead. His life had just gotten way more complicated.

Despite Silas' vow of secrecy, Devin spend the next two days feeling jittery. He almost jumped when, in the midst of making lunch, the boxy comm unit on the kitchen wall let out a loud beeep, beeep, beeep. He picked up the earpiece.

"Devin Baxter here."

"You could have fricking told us!"

Devin held the comm away from his ear and decided to play it safe by playing dumb first.

"Told you what?"

"Look," Kat Tam spat, on the other end of the comm-link, "your friend's a really bad liar and I asked him point blank. You're busted."

Devin's heart pounded; his hands and feet went cold. "If you report me," his voice grated, "you could have my whole family's blood on your hands."

Kat laughed. Even over the comm-link Devin could practically see her throw her head back, fat lekku bouncing as she did it. "Look, I'm not a fricking idiot," she said. "Didn't you hear? We lost our place in the IAP. All of Nechako. All of us. I'm gonna need all the help I can get and I figure you're it. I wanna make a deal with you, so how about this: I tell no one, and you come over and we talk about it."

That was when Devin ended the call and slammed the comm device down on the kitchen counter. He ran both hand through his hair and cursed out loud, forgetting to care whether or not Jonah could hear. He didn't trust Kat Tam for a minute, not with the promise of ten thousand credits to dangling in front of her. His mind filled with images of grey-clad Imperial officials showing up at his door to take him into custody. He wondered where he could run to with a wife and kids in tow. He wanted to bash Silas' head in.

The comm beeped again. Devin didn't answer. It beeped again and again. He clicked the line open, planning to close it again right away, if only to stop the thing from beeping, but in that second that it was open, "Hey, wait!" Kat's throaty alto voice said, and silently, Devin waited.

"Look, sorry to scare you," she said, sounding more exasperated than sorry, "but I'm not going to cause you any trouble. I can probably even help. I know you don't like me, but if you'll just trust me for, like, thirty minutes, get your butt over here and I swear it'll be worth it to you."

Kat Tam's farm was practically an industrial complex. Gleaming silos of grain and silage, hectare-sized barns packed floor to ceiling with meat avians in tight little cages. Devin tried not to let the feel of their cramped boredom get under his own skin as he pulled up in his speeder.

He still wasn't sure he wanted to do this, but here he was. A little bit of his gut told him that he could trust Kat. His gut also told him that if he didn't do this, she'd keep bugging him until he did. Or turn him in.

And so Devin got out of his speeder and went looking for Kat, walking up and down the wide aisles between barns, trying not to smell the stench wafting out from the high-powered ventilation systems.

He found Kat coming out of one of the barns, foldable datapad in one hand.

"Don't get that look on your face," she said. "These barns full of bird-shit just might save our asses."

"Hi Kat, good to see you," Devin drawled, sarcastically pleasant. "What was it that you had in mind?"

Kat scowled. "Thanks for coming," she muttered, lekku drooping just enough to show she was actually sorry. Then she motioned with her chin across the thirty-metre span between barns. "See that?"

Devin gave a good look at "that," a horizontal hundred-metre-long shining metal tube, easily ten metres in diameter, stretched along the side of the barn, with various tubes running in and out of it between the barn nearby. He'd seen contraptions like that before, just not that big. It was pretty normal, back on Deema, for farmers to use some sort of closed vessel to produce biogas from animal manure and get compost for fertilizer in the process.

"OK," he shrugged. "It's a biodigester. Not a lot of those in Moosachu, but it's a biodigester."

"That's our solution. If you can make it work."

"Work...like how is it not working now?"

"I mean, it works, like you put shit in and you get biogas and stuff, right? But I'm gonna guess you've had the same problem: the chemical stuff we were spraying for the IAP, it's not breaking down. I tried taking some of the compost I got from it, and like, whatever chems were on the grain, that's what you get out the other end of the avians and that's what you get out the other end of the biodigester. But you can talk to animals, right?"

"Um...kind of..." Devin said, not sure whether to like where this was going. "But wait, you had the same problem?"

"That's why you quit farming, right?"

"That's why I scaled back."

Kat rolled her eyes. "Same thing. Well, I wanted to save money and not buy their special seeds they were hawking as part of the Program thing, so I tried sowing some of my own that I had from before. They'll start in the testing seed mix I bought but none of them will sprout in anything that's got the avian shit in it, not if they're eating grain with the chemicals on it."

"Oh," Devin said. "That's interesting. So you actually tried that?" Now he was impressed. He knew Kat was smart, but she had done more research than he had expected.

"So now I'm stuck, all the feed grain's got those chems on it, all the avian shit has those chems in it, all the biodigester compost has those chems in it. And I can't buy the chem-resistant seeds if we're not in the IAP anymore. So..."

"Oh, yikes," Devin said. It hadn't occurred to him that the Imperial Agriculture Program would go quite that far. But without seeds bred to resist the toxins everyone had been spraying for the last five standard years – almost ten summers on Nechako – not just Kat but all of Moosachu would have a tough time farming.

"I've got enough of the IAP stuff left to plant for this season, but after that..."

Devin ran a hand through his hair and looked around Kat's farm. All those silos full of grain, they all carried the right DNA to grow even in the poisoned soil, but they were designed so that they wouldn't sprout without other chemicals that could only be bought through the IAP.

Kat was standing there, plaid-jacket arms crossed over her broad chest, looking at him as if she expected an answer.

Devin stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked at her. She raised an eyebrow and looked at him.

"So, the biodigester?" Devin said.

"You can talk to animals, right?"

"Sort of, but..."

"The biodigester is just a big stomach. It's full of bacteria and stuff, just like the stomach of some kind of bovine. Silas said you can make things happen with animals, just like that..." she waved her hands jerkily in the air. "So, I thought maybe you could...talk to the bacteria, make them break down the chemicals better. Then we'd have clean fertilizer at least. I have a couple of fields that are still clean. If we spread the compost on them, we still might get a crop off my old seed, and we still live to pay our bills another season."

"Oh! That's..." Devin felt the idea over in his mind. "I'll be frank. It's a long-shot, but I'd be willing to try, if nothing else."

Kat shrugged. "I know you can't do it all at once. My ex was AgriCorps. He always said you can't do it all at once."

Devin did a double-take. "What? Your ex was AgriCorps?! Where is he now?"

Kat rolled her eyes. "Beats me. I left him a long time ago. He was a jerk."

Devin swallowed. "I hope he survived," he said quietly. "What was his name?"

A sad, complicated look twisted Kat's face. "Drix, Drix Suncrossing," she said reluctantly.

"I didn't know him," Devin murmured, and for a minute they were both quiet, looking down at the ground.

Then Kat kicked at the gravel path with the toe of her boot. "He was a jerk!" she said again, more angrily this time, then got ahold of herself. "Anyways, that's not the point. The point is we're here now and I owe a chunk of cash on loans I took out to put up all of this," she gestured to the factoryscape around them, "and I'm guessing you'd rather be farming properly again too. So you in or not?" She motioned with her head to the biodigester.

Devin walked over and put one hand on the side of the biodigester. He could indeed feel the hum of life in there, of many many little tiny lives. Theoretically, he could connect with them on some level. But theoretically, changing the way they metabolized agrichemicals might well mean using the Force to carry out genetic manipulations, not something he'd done before, ever.

"All I can promise is to try," he told Kat, who had followed close behind him. "And I'll see what else I can find out that might help us." Aggie, he remembered, carried some portion of the old AgriCorps archives in her internal database. He'd ask her, he decided, to see if she had anything to help on this. And he could talk to Varda too, if and when she was ready to work on something again.

To Devin's surprise, Kat grinned, a real honest grin, her lekku perking up just slightly as she did so. She looked almost happy, if it weren't for the stress lines around her eyes. "Great!" she said. "I mean, you'll try. That's all I can ask."

Devin smiled too, feeling lighter now. "No guarantees, but I'll do my best. I can't stay long today, but I'll be back in the next couple of days to see what I can do with it."

"Yeah, sounds good," Kat said, though her face twisted just slightly with uncertainty as she said it. She turned as if to go, brusque as ever, then turned back again. "If you're going to be spending time here, I guess I should tell you..." she stopped, mouth still open as if her mind and her body couldn't quite agree about whether she was going to say this. Then she shook her head. "You'll figure it out," she said.

The biodigester was smooth to the touch as Devin reached a hand up to its metallic side, and warm from the heat of fermentation inside. The day after this talk with Kat, he was back. Aggie had offered a number of research studies that might shed some light on the problem, but ultimately, the solution to breaking down the toxins would also require his own ability to connect with the organisms inside the biodigester and coax them into changing their biochemistry in one way or another.

He was just getting focused when he heard a door swick open somewhere nearby, and for a moment, the sound of a thousand clucking chickens before the door shut again. Then there was the crunch of boots on the gravel walkway. Devin opened his eyes and turned to look. It was Kat's son Dominik, coming toward him with hands stuffed in the pockets of his oversized work jacket.

"Hi, Mr. Baxter," Dominik called out.

"Hi, Dominik." Devin gave him a weak smile. When he used to buy grain from the Tams, he really liked how eager kid-Dominik was to talk about whatever bug or worm he'd just finished unearthing. He hoped he could still have a nice relationship with teenager-Dominik, but he only had a limited slice of time at the moment and really didn't need a distraction.

But Dominik came and stood next to Devin.

"Mom says you're a Jedi," Dominik said quietly. There was a note of awe in his voice.

Devin grimaced. "I was. But I'd rather you didn't tell anyone else that."

"I won't," Dominik promised.

Devin shifted his weight, wondering how many more people were going to find out.

"Can I tell you something?" Dominik asked.

"Sure, like what?"

"My Dad was in the AgriCorps."

"Oh, wow!" was Devin's first reaction. Then he remembered his conversation with Kat about her ex, and connected the dots

"But Mom never used to let me talk about it."

Now Dominik had Devin's full attention. Devin stuffed his hands into his pockets to keep them warm, ready to listen. "How come?" he asked.

Dominik had the same wide build as his mother, and at thirteen he was nearly as tall as Devin. He looked almost adult in his work boots, canvas pants and plaid work-jacket, just like any other Moosachu farmer. But when he looked at Devin, his pudgy face was young and sad.

"Before, she didn't want anyone trying to take me away to the Temple. And now..." Dominik's face twisted.

Devin nodded sadly and put a hand on the boy's shoulder. "I understand, it's hard," he said. It was hard to have to hide, to be scared that such a basic part of you could put you in so much danger. But even apart from that, it was hard being the only one, with no one else to really understand what it was like when the Force was so open to you. Devin sighed. "I have a family and a farm of my own, so there's only so much I can offer, but as much as I can..."

"You'll teach me?" Dominik grinned. "You'll teach me, right?"

Half of Devin wanted to groan at what he'd just gotten himself into. The other half of him wanted to jump up and down, just as excited as the teenager in front of him.

"I'll do what I can," Devin said. "But being in the AgriCorps isn't like being a Jedi Knight. It's not brave or exciting or anything like that. It's mostly just feeling and listening and helping things along so they can grow better, stuff like that."

"I know," Dominik said, nodding sagely. "That's what Mom told me. So you're going to work on the biodigester?"

"Yeah, did she tell you much about the idea?"

"Yeah, we've been talking about it for a while. But mom said you can..." he held his hands up and wiggled his fingers in the air. "Do something to make the bacteria in the biodigester tank kill the toxins from those chemicals better, so..."

"Well, not exactly like that, but it's like this: we're living beings and the microbes in the biodigester are living beings, so we're all connected in the Force. Through that connection, I might be able to work with them to sort of, well, talk them into doing things differently."

Dominik nodded along. "Cool," he said, but then cracked a lopsided grin. "But you know what's in there, right?" he motioned with his head to the biodigester.

Devin laughed. "Hey, you've got a point. I know, I know," he grinned. "It's literally full of shit."

Dominik giggled. "And we're going to connect with it..."

Devin laughed again, but he also noticed that Dominik said we. Working with this kid was going to be fun, as long as he could steer him in the right direction. "But hey, think about it," he knocked his knuckles against the side of the biodigester. "There's microbes in there that can work miracles. They can take literal shit and turn it into stuff we can use: biogas for heat, compost for fertilizer. That's pretty amazing. I can respect that. And that's part of what a Jedi's work is about, respecting the life of every being. That's how we connect with them. We use the Force, but we start by remembering that they are beings in their own right, trying to make a life."

Dominik gave a wry smile. "Yeah, I know. I'm just giving you a hard time. So how to we do this? I can help you, right?"

Devin laid his hand on the warm surface of the biodigester. "Feel here," he said. "Quiet your thoughts. Reach out within you for what's alive there."

Dominik laid his hand on the side of the biodigester again, scowling slightly as he tried to concentrate. He closed his eyes. Devin waited until a smile crept over the boy's face. "It's like lots of little stars, millions of them!"

"Yes!" Devin said. "I mean, for some people, it's more like seeing, for some people, it's more like hearing, but that's where you begin. We find those sparks of life and connect with them in the Force."

"And then what?" Dominik asked, hazel eyes all attention.

"Then, then we wait. We watch, we listen, we try to feel out what they're doing and what they're able and willing to do if we ask them. It helps to begin by remembering that they aren't so different from us. I mean, we're multicellular, they're unicellular, but our cells all use the same basic processes to survive."

Dominik had both hands on the side of the biodigester now, eyes closed. "OK," he said, but he looked unsure of what to do. Devin realized that he'd better admit he wasn't sure either.

"I'm going to be honest with you. My thing is mammals, not microbes, so this is pretty new for me too. Let's just say that today all we do is open ourselves up to feel what the bacteria community is like right now. Like, when you say there's a million tiny stars, are all the stars the same? How many different kinds of stars to you see? Do they stay the same or do they change in some way? Stuff like that."

"OK," Dominik said again, relaxing into it now. Devin smiled. He had missed this so much, not just working with animals but working with youth, teaching them to find their potential, guiding them into greater connection to the world around them.

Devin reached up both hands to the biodigester, and began to focus. He didn't see Dominik's million little stars, but he could almost hear the hum of a million, billion, trillion little lives, many notes in a cacophony that slowly resolved into something he could discern as harmony. Soon he was in that space where the boundaries of his own being slipped away, and he was more aware than ever of the other creatures he shared this space with. But now it wasn't just him with the power to reach out through the Force. Dominik was there, a bright spark of earnest focus working alongside him.

For the first time in a long time, Devin felt completely like himself again.

Endnote: Many thanks to my dear friend AR for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this chapter, and to Sensey of for catching several typos.