His master was just coming to the end of a speech, the same one he had been giving, with minor variations, since his arrival on the planet: paeans to peaceful coexistence, effusive praise for the courage of laying down your arms, exhortations to think of the world their children will inherit. The royals on both sides were listening politely and, although a few were nodding solemnly, most were whispering to each other with condescending smiles on their faces.
If only the explosive device could be disabled remotely. Ironically, he had ensured it could not in an attempt to save himself from the sort of doubts he was now going through. "Plans are fragile things," he remembered Nerra saying to him once and seeming to take an odd delight in it, "and life often dashes expectations to the ground."
He strained his mind. There must be something he could do, some way to stop the impending explosion. There simply wasn't enough time to descend into the temple cellar and make his way to the bomb itself; it had taken him hours of crawling through the grimy mud the previous night and now he had ten, fifteen minutes at the most.
There was a polite round of applause. His master had bowed deeply, his speech apparently concluded, and looked around the room, perhaps hoping that his words would set off a spontaneous dialogue. After a few awkward moments of silence, he motioned the padawans to follow him and began to make his way towards the exit. The royals on either side did not seem to be looking forward to their time together, the women especially seeming to wear looks of agony. He looked around and caught sight of Eeso almost in a corner, looking anxious and pained. The padawans were streaming out of the sanctuary and through the long corridors to the gardens outside; noticing himself falling behind, Noval hurried to fall in step.
He had read the mind of the Plessian munitions expert several times and while he had not tried to retain any of the technical knowledge, some of it stuck. He had not only seen through the man's eyes, he had felt what it was like to be him, experiencing his thoughts and impulses as if they were his own. He remember now the feverish flash of insight that seemed to send the Plessian into a fit of euphoria, the knots of nanofoam that were the linchpin of the device, delicate and beautiful and very unstable.
He could try overloading the emitter in his lightsaber. It would fry the machinery inside to a crisp but in the process a pulse would be created; and if this pulse came through at just the right, resonant frequency, the nanofoam within the bomb would diffuse and the knots would collapse in a matter of microseconds.
They padawans were passing through the stone archway leading to the gardens, the master walking slightly ahead of them. Noval did his best to shut out all notice of his surroundings, moving forward mechanically as his mind raced. It all depended on the order in which knots were reached by the pulse. If the knot which connected the plasma chambers were to collapse first, the walls of the chambers would puncture and the plasma would mix, likely leading to an explosion several times bigger than planned. If any of the other knots were reached first, the detonation circuit would malfunction and the bomb would not go off when the countdown was reached.
How did he position the bomb, what was its orientation relative to his location now? He did not remember. He pulled and tugged at his memory, all with no effect. There were too many turns inside the cellar and besides, he had not taken much notice of the angle at which he secured the bomb to the cellar floor.
He had two chances out of three, and in the present circumstances this seemed to be as good odds as he could hope for.
Noval hesitated. So much depended on making the right decision. Was there a better way, something he could do to increase the odds? Minutes had already passed since he had left the hall. Most of the padawans were now sitting on the benches beneath the clumps of trees, idly chatting, while the master sat apart from them with his hands outstretched and his eyes closed. A few of the most earnest padawans were setting up to meditate beside the master. He had not been mindful of the time and he was not sure how many more minutes remained until the detonation.
He considered again telling his master what it was that he had done; but the truth was that it was already too late. The right time to make this decision was back in the temple sanctuary. As things stood, if they were to head back inside the temple now, the bomb might go off by the time they reached the royal families.
Again his mind went over the space of possibilities and again he came up blank.
He pulled out his lightsaber then thought better of it: best not to seem out of place. Taking a furtive look around, he was relieved to see no one seemed be paying him any attention; still, he slid the lightsaber back at his waist with a mock carelessness, as if he was about to do a sparring exercise only to change his mind. Using the force, he tweaked a few of the strings of energy within, feeding power to the circuit which powered the crystal within, gently, steadily, until the emitter was putting far more heat onto the wires than they could handle.
Two chances out of three. It was a funny thing, how much could depend on the throw of the dice. There were many lives he could live but he would only live out one and it would be decided now, by this little bit of randomness. Comforting to imagine a grand plan behind it all, all the little chances and coincidences adding up to a grand purpose, but the very notion strained belief.
He wondered briefly if the galaxy would be better or worse for it had he not become a Jedi.
It was a bit of a coincidence itself, his joining the order, for the planet where he grew up was on the fringes of the outer rim and Jedi were unheard of there. He was raised in an orphanage, never knowing who his parents were or even whether they were still alive. The other kids had called him "witch boy," not unkindly, for all the times he had made objects tremble from afar with a furrow of the brow or a wave of the hand. His abilities were evidence he was god-touched, or so his elders told him; one day, he would become a shaman, for who better to divine the intent of the spirits than their favorite?
He accepted this at the time without much thought. Looking back, those days in the orphanage might have been the happiest of his life. He lived in a world of certainties and his path had been set; he had little desire for anything more. It was so very unlike his time in the temple, full as it was of confusion and striving and uncertainty.
He might have never been given to the order were it not for a passing trader who noticed him levitating a pebble for the amusement of his friends. That trader came to see the owner of the orphanage that night and left with Noval as his slave (on the far fringes of outer rim, everything had a price and humans were no exception). The owner named what he thought was an extraordinary sum for the special boy, and was surprised to receive it in full after a minimal amount of haggling. The same trader took him to Dantooine and turned him over to the Jedi some weeks later, collecting a hefty finder's fee in the process.
And now here he was, trying to disable an explosion he himself had set in motion in an attempt to sway galactic politics. If that trader had looked the other way, he would still be on his homeworld, likely apprenticed to a tribal sorcerer and spending his days learning incantations and memorizing tribal lore. He wondered if that might not have been the better outcome after all.
The lightsaber began humming lightly at the edge of hearing. He had throttled the energy so that the overload would occur when the beads of energy vibrated at just the right frequency. Only moments remain, he thought, and then all would be decided. His hands found the hilt of his saber and he could not help gripping it tightly.