Dantooine:

Training

I can't really explain the Force, or how the training allows you to tap into it to someone that doesn't have at least some ability. I have had so many roll their eyes at this, and while I have always tried to explain, most don't want to hear anything that isn't a how-to manual.

I found the easiest way to explain it, is like this;

Go out and look at a rainbow, or a sunrise or a sunset. Record every feeling. The wind on your face, the smell of flowers in the distance, the rustle of leaves, the aftertaste of a good brandy you had before you stepped outside.

Now, picture a baby still in the womb that has so many birth defects that it will never see, smell, hear, taste or feel anything. It floats in the amniotic fluid, totally cut off from the outside world. Now assume for an instant that you and this baby share a telepathic bond, but it is only on the verbal level. You cannot thrust pictures into that mind.

Now explain everything your senses recorded when you were outside looking at that vision. You can, but most languages use words that link to the physical feelings you have. You can describe the sun as molten, but if they don't understand what heat is, what good will the word do?

Within two weeks of beginning, I could hear the delicate scent of the flowers. I could smell the color purple. I could touch the rustling of the solar wind as it caressed Dantooine. I could see the taste of that brandy. I could taste the pulse in Bastila's throat.

There is honestly no other way to describe it.

Those of us that can use the Force have a tiny bacteria name Midichlorians to thank for it. Midichlorians are a benign viral symbiont, one that inhabits every creature in the galaxy but harms none of them. They live within us and are a focus for the Force. If you have the training you can feel them drawing it from around you, and you can in turn direct it.

I found that if I approached learning about the Force as I had long ago with the blade, it became easier somehow. Try to do what Master Zhar or Master Vandar suggested. Try until I could do it. Then in my own time, try harder, move harder things, concentrate more deeply. Soon I could take a ball bearing in a bowl, and cause it to roll around the bowl until it flew over the lip into my hand. I started lifting small things, the same ball bearing, then a book, then a chair, finally as I floated with chairs rotating in a circle as I were the sun with it's planets. I commented to Bastila one morning that I felt I could lift the Ebon Hawk, then hastened to tell her it was only a joke because of her disapproval.

I dived into the archives as if I were swimming in that knowledge, and felt it pour into my mind and settle there, causing thoughts I had never imagined to grow. It made me hunger for more. I read the treatises of Master Vodo-Siosk and every master that followed him.

I found that my companions had their own colors and perception of those colors about them. Canderous was a flaming red of suppressed emotion. Carth was a roil of anger and mistrust, with glimmers of humor and happiness. Except for the loss of her world, Mission was a furnace of repressed excitement, and Zaalbar balanced her with a patience at odds with his appearance.

Bastila worried me, because she had shoots of darkness I could almost touch. They linked as Belaya said to her quick temper and pride. I didn't say anything because I felt that everyone here who was a Jedi would see them as well as I.

Master Vrook was always there in the background, watching my meditation, seeing me lifting objects, now some as heavy as a ton or more, standing and watching me read in the Archives. His aura was almost a blinding blue, but there were shoots of darkness there as well. They linked to anger and for some reason, regret.

After a few weeks, Master Zhar handed me over to Master Vandar. Vandar was the master of the lightsaber. He was working on what appeared to be such a device as I walked in. "Sit; I will be ready in a moment." He said.

I watched him work. His tridactyl hand worked smoothly with the hilt, adjusting some mechanism within it, then he gave a chuff of satisfaction.

"We were concerned about teaching you the lightsaber, young apprentice."

"I don't understand, Master. I have used a sword before."

"Yes you have, and that is why we are concerned. You know what a light saber is, yes?"

"It is a collimated beam of energy focused through a crystal that heightens the strength, and limits its focus." I replied.

He snorted. "Read Master Koori's treatise have you?" He asked.

I shrugged. About sixteen centuries earlier, crystals had been found that directed energy into a forced beam, but at the same time did not let it extend too far from that focus. No one knew why the crystals worked in such a manner, and those who worked in fields affected by this discovery were still arguing to this day. Master Koori's book was the definitive work, and only 400 years old. Practically last month for the Jedi.

"The Jedi made the lightsaber because they needed a weapon of last resort." Vandar said. I understood. As much as they tried to maintain the balance, Jedi did gather enemies. Those that wished more than an agreement had given them, governments that felt their rights were more important, and of course the Sith. We could have walked around in four meter tall powered armor with all of the weapons it could bear, but it's kind of hard to convince people you're only there to help with all of that firepower on your back.

But the Jedi of that time had to protect themselves. They had begun with the sword back when the Republic was formed, and when vibroblades were invented used them instead. Then the lightsaber was designed first around normal crystals such as quartz or even diamond, but now primarily around these rare and valuable crystals.

"What does pure energy weigh?" Vandar asked.

"Nothing, Master." I replied. The question made no sense.

"Exactly. But a true blade, even a vibroblade with just that strip of metal in the center does. That is one reason why a child is easiest to teach. You can hand a child a lightsaber, and he has nothing to compare it to. You however are used to that weight, to having to resist swinging too hard, or too lightly. To stopping the blade in an instant because your muscles are used to it. If I handed you a lightsaber, you would hurt yourself long before you dealt with an enemy." He flicked a switch, and a lightsaber blade shot out.

"This is the best I could do on short notice, young one. The 'blade' is made by a crystal with a low powered power cell. Enough to form the blade and little else. It can singe flesh, but will not cut it. I have designed it with only this setting to protect you. Catch." He flicked it off, then tossed it in my direction. Using the Force I caught it, and brought it into my open hand. He picked up a solid mask of metal, and tossed it to me and I caught it bringing it to my other hand.

"Stand there in the en garde position. Put on the helmet and await further instruction." I did as I was told. The instant the helmet was on, I could see nothing. Pads covered my eyes so that I could not even try to squint around them. But I could hear, and still feel the Force. There was the greenish white of Master Vandar before me. He stood with both hands on his cane. "Switch on your weapon." The blade surprised me, I didn't know until then that energy itself was something the Force could sense. Then I chided myself. I had seen students here walk through a hall with blaster turrets blazing, deflecting the bolts with the very weapons they carried. Of course you could feel energy!

"Now you know from your past how to use a sword. Use this as one." I slowly began the first Kata I had learned so many years ago from Kalendra. The blade felt odd, and I couldn't explain why.

"There are more complex forms. Use them."

I began into the saber dance, as a single bladed version among the Echani is called. Part of that requires you to shift your grip, holding the pommel as if it were a knife with the blade down along your arm instead of being thrust forward. Then you would progress into what is called the wheel, a defensive spiral of the blade spinning before you to block any attack. Your wrist holds the blade firm.

At least in theory. I started to shift my grip and go into the wheel, when I felt a sharp burning sensation in my forearm, then in my knee. I lost control of the weapon, and felt it also score across my chest. I dropped it, gasping.

For a long moment, there was silence. "I had hoped from what you did at the start that it would all flow so simply. I am sorry for that. But now you see why we worried. You must practice this every chance you get. Alone, with others watching to tell you how you have done, with that blade only. Do not go back to your other weapons, in this they will only hurt your progress You must do it with your eyes closed, and if you cannot keep them closed, with the helmet you now wear. Until you have learned this, there can be no going forward."

"But Malak-"

"As needy as we are, Malak must wait on this." He replied. "Go back to your ship."

As much as they bothered me when I had learned the Force, I found that being around the crew of my ship was more restful than not. I wanted to read but I was worried that I could not handle a simple single blade. What good would I be if I could not bear the weapon of my order?

I went to the Port cargo hold. Canderous had taken over the other, incessantly tinkering with the swoop bike he had somehow gotten aboard. Most everyone else stayed away from him. I looked around the area, and judged I had enough room to dance if the sword would let me.

I burned myself almost constantly for the next three days. I used up all of the burn salve we had aboard, and Carth ordered more, which was delivered as everything else we had ordered, without complaint. I went to bed hurt, angry and frustrated rather than continue because I knew that while those emotions might speed my actions, they would also draw me away from the light. If I had to be mad to use the blade correctly, what good would I be?

After a while I was burning myself less. Then one day I was thinking about something I had read in the Archive. A book that had not been written on Dantooine, but on Korriban; captured during the Sith war of so long ago. It was a copy of an even older book according to the forward, a book almost as ancient as the Republic itself, which had also been a mere copy of one even older. The wording had been archaic, and hard to read, but something about the wording of the most recent translation only a century old made a deep impression.

Then they came, the invaders, ripping out places of worship on Korriban among others, placing within them great symbols of their power. Long was the tyranny as they used the Force and matter as one to strike terror into the hearts of all that faced them

I walked into the cargo bay, and ran over what the words had said translated from so long ago. I picked up that damn sword, and began to move in the first Kata.

The seat of their power was the Star Forge, an engine of great might and darkness. That gave them their every want and need, and protected them from attack. Strong were they in the Force but then they met an enemy who was as great. Planets were devastated, and billions were fed into those flames. Then it was that a great plague struck them Many died, and others lived yet found they could no longer touch the Force. The Star Forge fell silent, for without the Force, a being could not make the controls work, for the Force imbued the very walls. And without it all was solid immovable matter.

Then did the oppressed come, taking the ships that their masters could no longer work, raining fire on them wherever they dwelt, even to the foot of the Star Forge itself, for the weapons that could turn a planet to dust were silent, they would not obey the pleas of those they had once protected.

Yet one who still used the Force threw up a wall of such power that no weapon could penetrate it. The ships that had come fell into the star or crashed on the planet and those far enough away fled-

"Danika."

"Hm?" I opened my eyes, looking at Bastila. As I did, I saw a flash of light pass less than three centimeters from my face. I did not stop, but instead looked forward. The blade was moving, and I was dancing with it as I had learned. But this blade was that weakened lightsaber beam. I watched my hands going through the intricate movements, and could see I was into Kata 11, about half way through the twenty Kata set used for practice. I stopped. "How did I do that?"

"How did you do it without a qualm, without a cut for almost an hour?" Bastila asked.

"I don't know. I had read something that I think might be the clue to what Revan was looking for, and was concentrating on what the words might mean when I started."

"Think of something else." She commanded. "Start again."

I did as she had bid, my eyes firmly closed. I started to run through our equipment inventory. Surprisingly large for a ship of our mass. After two hours without a burn she stopped me again. She held her lightsaber. "Try this, but be careful."

I took it, and the twin blades sprang from it. Again I closed my eyes. This was easier. I had been training with twin blades since I was a young woman, and I knew the nuances of them as well as I knew anything in my life. I began to dance in earnest; the slow glide forward, the whip of the blades past my face as I went into the Water wheel, the variant of the wheel practiced with paired blades-

"Danika."

-I suddenly knew I had done this before. Not with a paired blade such as this, but with a single blade, the joy of that impression leaped in my heart, and I began to whirl the weapon faster-

"Danika..."

-I had done this somewhere, perhaps in a past life some people speak of. I had been the best and even masters had watched in amazement as I had cut flies from the air, and strips of paper from a sheet held by a volunteer-

"Danika!" I stopped the blades beside my hip, one forward one back in the low guard position. I opened my eyes. There had been a metal crate before me, one of the empties we hadn't returned to the quartermaster yet. I had cut it in half, not in one blow but in neat strips that lay on the deck, glowing from the heat of the weapon, starting with a wedge of metal, then progressively larger shapes. I stepped back from it, my thumb found the stud, and the blades fell silent and vanished. I handed it back to Bastila, and she looked at my handiwork.

"I think you are ready."

Tests:

Danika

I couldn't wait for some of it. I went to Master Dorak, and showed him the book I had been reading. He pounced on it, and was lost in it before I could do more than explain what I had read. I left him happily engrossed in a time beyond that of the Republic. Both Master Vandar and Master Zhar were away, and I wanted to tell them both what had happened, but of course could not. I was walking back through the corridor when Master Vrook came around the corner. It wasn't until then that I realized that except for watching me from a distance, he had not gotten close to me since the Council meeting of almost two months ago. In fact, while there were fifteen Masters present, only the Council members would even speak to me. I didn't know why, but it was a fact I had to accept.

"How is your training going?" He growled.

"I believe I am finally ready to work with an actual lightsaber." I admitted.

"Finally." He motioned, and walked into the training room. He keyed a sensor, and a remote ball glided from its niche. "Helmet." He snapped. I picked it up, and slid it on. "Saber." He flipped the handle to me and I caught it without using the Force. "En garde."

I flicked it on, and waited in middle guard position. The remote was invisible, only the humming of it's anti-grav unit giving me an approximate position. I moved the blade, and felt a bolt deflect into the wall.

Then they became faster and faster, a rain that would hurt if one of them struck me. The sound of the unit became diffuse, and the rain fell harder and faster. I was untouched, but I didn't know how long that would be true.

Then they came in a flurry, I could have sworn the remote was flying around me but I could no longer hear it.

"Enough!" Master Zhar shouted. The rain stopped. "Take off your helmet, Apprentice. " I slid it off, and looked at the five remotes that still circled me. I looked to Master Vrook. He stood beside Zhar, glaring at me with such hate that I was stunned.

"Better than I had ever imagined." Vrook said softly, then he handed the remote controller to Zhar and padded out. Zhar looked after him for a long moment, then back at me.

"Your final tests begin tomorrow. I would suggest you get a good night's sleep." Zhar sent the remotes back to their niches, and left. I looked at the lightsaber in my hand, then set it on the desk at the end of the room.

The next morning, I arose early. Bastila who had been working with me when I practiced my training was absent, and part of me missed her. She had become almost like my shadow for the last two months or so. I picked up a mug, accidentally dropped it, and caught it with the Force a few centimeters from the floor.

"Beats having to clean it up doesn't it?" I looked at Mission where she stood. She had begun to smile again but it was a sad smile. The kind a child gets after they find that the monster they thought was under the bed was real, regardless of what their parents said.

"Yes it does. Tea?"

"Sure." I handed her the filled mug, got another and poured mine. "So what is it like to use the Force?"

"Like finding out you have only taken shallow breaths all your life." I grinned. "Or finding out that boys are really attracted to those new growths that bothered you a year before." She laughed out loud, once again the child without a care. I could see her growing up, having children being happy-

Her face contorted screaming. I could see her hands raised in supplication rather than defense. As if that would stop me. I blocked a blaster bolt and knew it was Carth, could hear him pleading with me to stop or he would kill me. Canderous would do nothing, I knew. He was mine, had been mine since the day he had joined us. Bastila would bend to my will, fall on her knees and proclaim me master. Malak would die, not quickly, but by cut after narrow cut as I sliced away every bit of the betrayer's flesh. I could feel the blade slicing through Mission, watched her fall. Heard Zaalbar's scream of rage and pain and betrayal. "Wait your turn." I snarled, turning to face him. The bowcaster was up, but his heart warred with his oath and I reached out, feeling his skull collapse in my Force imbued hand-

-"Danika!" I started back, looking at the mug at my feet, shattered. I set down the pot, and sat, shivering with a cold that had nothing to do with temperature. She fussed about me, and I finally had to beg her to sit. "Please Mission, I'm all right."

"Well you looked like someone had hit you with a stun baton."

"It wasn't a stun baton, it was the Force." I replied. Feet ran up the gangway, and stopped at the passageway to the central room. Bastila came in, eyes wary. Her lightsaber was in her hand, and I knew she was ready to trigger it in an instant.

"Well at least I finally know you how to roust you out of bed in the morning." I joked. It had been a running gag among us. Bastila was usually the last awake, and was not by any stretch a morning person. I was almost as bad, but at least they didn't have to threaten me with ice water.

She calmed, but was not amused. Neither was I. "I felt-"

"I know. I saw a vision. A horrible vision." I pointedly did not look at Mission. "I think I have to speak with Master Vandar and Master Zhar right now."

"They are expecting you." Bastila hung her lightsaber from her belt.

We walked to the Council room in silence. I was still horrified by what the vision had shown me. Mission dying not by chance but by my hand just a few weeks away. How I knew the timing of that event was unimportant. Mission had become like a younger sister to me. I wanted to hold her in my arms wipe her tears away. If I could I would have gone to the wreckage of Taris, and put it back like it had been even if it took several lifetimes. If I had to use my bare hands and my own blood as mortar I would have done it gladly. Zaalbar was sworn to me, and my oath to him would have been doubly violated if that occurred.

I didn't want the Force if I would have to do something like that with it!

Master Vrook was not there, which made me happy in a vague way. I came up to the other masters, and instead of standing, I fell to my knees and told them everything I had seen during that horrible vision. I told them in a leaden voice, and found myself crying as I did. Part of me would be ripped away in an instant if they judged it necessary. I would go on living, but never feeling the Force ever again, never knowing what I might have been, or done with it. Like having eyes, but knowing that you were to be blinded.

I didn't care.

I finally ran down. Kneeling in silence. "I can't go on with this if that will happen." I whispered, "I can't put their lives in danger not from Malak but from me!" I looked up, barely seeing them through my tears. "Take this from me, I know you can. Make my mind a blank and fill it as you will. I don't want-" I looked away. "-I don't want to become that person."

"What makes you think you will?" Asked a gentle voice. I looked back. Somewhere during the recital, Master Vrook had come in. His face was impassive, but in his eyes I could see pain. He walked over, kneeling beside me. "People go through their lives with choices all around them We who use the Force are most sorely tried because our choices can harm those we love more than ourselves. We always walk that knife blade. Vandar, Zhar," He laughed softly, "Even I. Will you listen to me for once?"

"Always, Master." He looked sad at that.

"The Force can give you visions of the future. But some are not true though they can be if we do not take care. They are the potential in all of us, the evil we could do if we do not restrain ourselves. I believe that is what you saw. There will be a time of great test for you before you confront Malak, a time when your entire existence and all of ours will rise or fall on what you do. You must be strong for all of us. For this Twi-lek girl, for the Wookiee, even for the Mercenary who you now have following you like a tame Kath hound. You will send them to hell, or save their lives with your actions."

I nodded jerkily. Then I hugged him, burying my head against his chest as I cried. I felt his discomfort, and one of his hands patted me jerkily. "Now no more of this. Master Zhar awaits your final tests."

I never felt less ready than that moment. I walked into the training room and fell to my knees again.

"Stand, Apprentice." Zhar said softly. I stood, and he watched me for several moments before he spoke. "Do you honestly feel so lacking in worth?"

"I must, Master. I had a vision of killing a girl I love as a sister, a Wookiee that has sworn a life debt to me, damning me twice over. Not only seeing them killed, but being the instrument on their deaths! What manner of animal am I?" I looked at him.

"Apprentice, do you deny what Master Vrook has said to you?" He asked.

"No Master. But what he said suggests that I have the potential to be that monster."

"As do we all, girl." Zhar replied. "Do you think we who are Masters merely have found a way to immediately decide what is right or wrong and miraculously follow it?" He shook his head with a sad smile. "Exar Kun was close to being a master, but he struck down Master Vodo-Siosk Baas on the very floor of the Republic Senate to show his disdain. Ajunta Poll had been a master when he led the exiles and created what are now the Sith two millennia ago. A Master has even more to fear than a mere Apprentice, child. We have greater powers, and our fall is farther. Do you believe that you cannot stand against this darkness within yourself?"

"Master, is it not written 'The darkness within ourselves is always the true enemy'?"

"Yes. Now, do you believe that?"

"Yes Master." I closed my eyes, then opened them. "In war, fighting the enemy, I considered what I did and might do. All my life when I saw the strong use their strength to bully others, when I discovered that all the Wookiee I had seen before Zaalbar were slaves. To me owning another being, knowing that it despairs, and not caring, that is darkness beyond the fury that had risen in me at the thought. But when I killed the Gamorreans that had put a collar on Zaalbar, I had not felt anger, or hate. Or rage. What I felt was pity. They had made themselves less than sentient by their actions, and while I had to kill them, part of me wanted to put a collar on them for a time. Make them live like one of those they had so tormented, with no hope of rescue, then let them go so they would always remember what they had done."

He looked at me. "You have done in the past weeks what some have failed to do in a decade, young Apprentice. Your potential is unlimited. We cannot even imagine what heights you will scale if you stay in the light.

"But we have no more time. We must begin your final tests. You may fail them. This does not mean you cannot go on within the order. But we must reconsider sending you upon this quest. While we have taken time, more than we wished, we have taken all we can. Are you ready?"

I straightened my shoulders. "If I must be ready, I will be ready."

He nodded. "You have read the Jedi Code."

Of course I had. It was five books with a total of almost 6,000 pages among them. I nodded.

"Most students never realize that the Code you have read can be expressed very simply. That is the first step to being a Padawan. Answer these correctly;

"There is no emotion."

I paused. Unbidden, words came to me. "There is peace."

"There is no ignorance."

"There is knowledge."

"There is no passion."

"There is serenity."

"There is no chaos."

"There is harmony."

"There is no death."

"There is the Force." I felt a welling of emotion in me. Suddenly I saw all those petty rules I had read, all of those judgments by Masters long dust and the words were right somehow. I also knew that I could take the youngest apprentice and teach him these simple words, these simple answers, and it would mean nothing unless he felt them within himself. It isn't the words that bind the Jedi to our cause; it is the ideals, and living our lives by them.

Zhar smiled. "Jedi are not the Masters of the Republic, we are its guardians. We guide those we council toward the light not by force, but by example. How can you be an honest judge if you allow passion, emotion, chaos, and ignorance to stop you?

"How can we move among those who do not know the Force except as we do? One small fish in the vast school. Above all, we should have no pride in our robes, or unique weapon, or power. If we ever thought ourselves better than those were care for, we would be no better that the Sith." He looked at me with relief in his eyes. "Well done. Go now to Master Dorak. Tell him I have sent you."

I walked back through the complex. Dorak was busy in the library as always. "This might be the clue we sought!" He said, holding up the book I had found. "But how did Revan know to read it?"

I stood there a moment, then I walked to the stacks. Dorak watched me, following with a puzzled look on his face. I reached up, pulling down a slim book. I opened it, flipping through the pages with all the haste the ancient book could stand. Then I stopped. " 'It is believed on many worlds that the Force came to our Galaxy from outside, brought by a people steeped in the Dark side. From them, it is also believed, came the secret of the Hyper drive. Those and the many ruins mentioned on such planets as Dantooine and Korriban by Webelori's translation of the ancient texts of Korriban are their doing'."

I handed it to him. He took it, and looked at the spine. " 'Before the Republic Stood: What is known of the Galaxy'. By Ajunta Poll." He read.

I stared at the book. I had never been in this library before we came to Dantooine, never seen that book. But I had known it was here, and found it.

"Well done, Apprentice. What may I do for you?"

"Master Zhar sent me."

"Ah yes, the crystal." He led me to his desk, opening a case. "We have several of each color. You do know about the crystals."

"Yes." The crystals were called Adegan or Ilum crystals. First discovered in the Adega system. They were formed by the Force itself it was believed, made as other crystals have been formed through centuries of pressure and heat within planets. Yet these were unique. First, they are colored, each it's own unique color of the spectrum. The Red crystals were the most common. The Dark Jedi used them because they were easy to obtain. Then there were the Blue, green and yellow which were also common, though rare in comparison to red. Then the unique colors, violet, rose or amethyst. That is why so many Jedi have light sabers in those colors.

"When you build your first lightsaber, you chose the color of the part of the order you feel you should represent. It is, in this instance, the choice you have made of your calling as a Jedi. The Guardian is blue so-"

"Wait." I stopped him. "Please, there are others, yes?"

"Of course there are." He fell into the pedantic mode he did so well.
"Blue is the Guardian. The warriors of the order. When people speak of us as the Jedi Knights, it is the Guardians they usually think of. When fight we must the Guardian is in the vanguard. Next of course are the Sentinels. They watch for the evil, and bring it to light. They search for evil, ferreting it out where ever it might be. Their color is yellow.

"The fewest of our order are the Consular. They are the negotiators, the judges of the order. When strife is to be averted, it is the Consular who is assigned. They must always remember that balance is the key to peace. When a Jedi chooses to be a Consul, she is given a green crystal."

"I know I can be a Guardian, but I do not feel that it is my path, Master." I apologized. "I have spent too much of my life dealing death and avoiding it. I feel that there is more to my life than that, and would chose another path."

"Well, back when there were thousands of us, they had a test the administered. Will you accept my judgment in this?"

"In all things, Master."

"Very well. "You observe two men locked in what appears to be a death struggle. One is struck down, and begs for his life from the ground. What do you do?"

"Why are they fighting? Is the man on the ground innocent? Easier to confront them to find out why they are in such turmoil, then deal with the problem, whether it be them or whatever has put them in this position. If the man who is attacking is wrong, stop him. If the man on the ground is the aggressor at least attempt to convince his attacker to show mercy. Beyond that I have no reason to intervene."

"Ah." He nodded. "You are in combat with a dark Jedi. He retreats for a moment. Maybe he is tired, maybe he feels that he is losing, maybe he has been injured. What do you do?"

"Master, a Dark Jedi was once one of us. Something caused him to embrace the dark. I would try to find this out. No one is completely in the Dark or the light. Perhaps my words can return him."

"Yes. You must enter a fortress to gain information. Before you is the gate, and armed guards. What do you do?"

"Are the guards my enemy? Is it possible they can be swayed by reason? I would approach them, and ask admittance. If they refuse, then I can consider a more violent options.

"I am beginning to see a pattern. You have been sent to assist a settlement in a dispute. It is rumored that Dark Jedi and Sith have infiltrated, and are causing this unrest. What do you do first?"

"Are there really Dark Jedi?" I asked. "Is it perhaps discontent that has been there for a long time, or because of recent actions by the government? Dishonest governments have tried to use claims of evil machinations to sway the Jedi Council and Senate before. There would be records, and those would be my first goal. If there was no time of unrest before, if the government was been benign, or at least not tending to outright oppression, then I will agree that it might be agents of an enemy. At that time I would discern how they might have arrived, and what they plan."

He looked at me for a long moment. Then he pulled down another box, opening it. On a strip of black silk a dozen green crystals lay in the sequence of their hues. "Chose what you would have Consular-Candidate." There was one stone the green of Kalendra's eyes, the green of a shallow sea in a storm. I lifted it gently. "Very well. Go to Master Vandar."

I walked back to the room where Master Vandar taught. There were ten children between five and eleven there. Heads covered by helmets playing a game of sorts. A remote floated in the center, and it fired a bolt of energy at one of the children. That child deflected it across the circle, where another child deflected it at an angle at another student who then deflected it at another.

"Continue." Vandar turned to me. I held out my hand with the crystal, and he sighed. He brought me to a workbench. "Construct your lightsaber. Let me see it when you are done." He turned back as another bolt entered the pattern.

I opened the drawers in order. Beam emitters, apertures, matrices, both slide and knob controls for adjusting length and intensity. Dial or color strip diagnostic readouts, Activation systems from simple studs to flat plates to treadle switches. Then the delicate lattice works of the crystal focus. Last were power cells and casings to hold it all.

I chose a black handle 30 centimeters long. With the tools I began forming the inner workings of the weapon I would bear. The emitter was housed with four prongs to act as a hand guard, the aperture set in place. Then the emitter matrix was assembled, and installed. I chose slide controls, so I would not have to look when adjusting them, color strip readouts, with a simple activating stud.

I worked hardest on the lattice. There were three sockets, and I carefully set the green crystal I had been given in the center, using a loupe to assure that it was placed correctly. The facets had to align just so for the beam to impinge on it, and be focused into the emitter array. I felt that it was right, and delicately tightened the clamps. If they were too loose, the stone would move, ruining the focus at an inopportune moment. But if they were too tight, they would actually warp the surface of the crystal minutely. I set them where I felt they should be, then slid the assembly into the handle, mounting them in place. Finally I ran the power leads down to the power pack, and sealed the access plate.

A lightsaber is unique to the user in that no one ever gives instruction beyond the simplest terms on how to construct one. It is one of those devices that owes as much to artistry as to technology in its design. No two lightsabers are the same, even when made by the same person. There are entire cases of ancient deactivated lightsabers in the archives, and by choosing a Jedi's name, you can track their lives by the changes they made in later weapons. The 'blade' can be adjusted from half a meter in length to a meter and a half. Some can be tuned so lightly that they can burn the hair from a man's hand without burning or cutting the flesh beneath it, or set so powerful that they will carve the armor of a vehicle like butter.

I paused, then lifted it. The weight wasn't right, pulling to the pommel a little, and I reopened the case, adding an extension in the emitter matrix of a denser material. When I reassembled it, it felt right in my hand.

The students now had five bolts bouncing, and they were shrieking like any child at play would. Then together they arched all of the bolts toward me as if on command.

My hand came up, and the sea-foam green of my blade lanced out in a whirling circle. I directed the bolts to the sides away from them, into pads of ablative material that smoked as they struck. Vandar had spun as his students had done this, now looked disapproving at the world in general.

"Let me see your handiwork, apprentice." I walked over, handing it to Master Vandar.

"I apologize, Master. I acted precipitously."

He grunted. "Children will be children, even here. Whether they are eight or twenty-eight. I should have warned you."

"What, and ruined their fun?"

He chuckled. "There is that." He flicked the blade into life, running through all the adjustments as if he'd done it a thousand times. He had of course, but never with my saber specifically. "I have never seen a crystal set so smoothly by a novice." He shut it off, and handed it back to me. "Take this to master Zhar."

I bowed and walked out. One of the boys sent a bolt at my back as their game started again, and I bounced it back at him. He deflected it at the last second, the grin widening on his face before he turned back to his classmates.

Master Zhar had moved into the courtyard, meditating quietly. I approached, fell into a meditation seat, and floated in the air as I waited. A time passed, how much I do not know. If you have meditated, you understand what I mean. The Master opened his eyes, and wordlessly held out his hand. I set the lightsaber in his grip, and he looked the casing over with a narrow eye. He flicked the beam into existence, looking at me with an unreadable expression, then moved it smoothly through part of Kata I had done before him; the equivalent of a man humming as he worked.

"Well done." He stood, and I joined him. "There is one final test, and it is one we face all our lives. This will be the first time for you, but I feel you are ready." I nodded. "There is darkness in the galaxy, and it is our duty to face it. Such a darkness has overtaken a grove to the south and east of here, a darkness that grows with every minute. It infects the Kath hounds native to Dantooine, driving them into madness. They attack people with a savagery at odds with their nature. This must be dealt with. You must find the source of this evil."

"What must I do when I find it?"

"That is your test, apprentice. The choice of how it will be handled is up to you. But remember this. No one that has gone into the dark is ever lost to us. They can be saved if you will put the effort into doing so. This takes time, but never is time so precious that you must ignore the option. You may take two of your companions, no more. Because this is your test, Bastila cannot be among them." He handed the lightsaber back to me, and I put it on my belt.