Riptide

by Paul S. Kemp

  Marr had the weapon disassembled and laid out on the table in under two minutes. He picked up the striated, violet-colored power crystal and held it between forefinger and thumb.

  “I feel … something in the crystal. The Force.”

  “Right. All lightsabers are powered by a crystal. The nature of the crystal determines the properties of the blade.”

  “Its color,” Marr said, turning the crystal over, studying its facets.

  “That, yes, but more. The crystal is not, by itself, the power source of the weapon. Like the Force user, the crystal is attuned to the Force. Without that attunement, the crystal is just a rock. And while a non–Force user could probably ignite and wield a lightsaber, provided the crystal was properly attuned to the Force, all that lightsaber would be for him is a shaft of superheated plasma. But for a Jedi, the lightsaber becomes more: it is a manifestation of a Jedi’s connection to the Force.”

  Marr considered, nodded. “I understand. I think.”

  “Put it back together, Marr. Then activate it.”

  Marr reassembled the weapon with steady hands and activated it. The purple blade slit the air of the cargo bay. Its hum filled the quiet.

  “Be careful, but feel the weight in your hand,” Jaden said. “The blade itself weighs nothing. All the weight is in the hilt, in your hand.”

  Marr took a few slow practice swings, trying to mimic some of the technique he’d seen Jaden use.

  “Now, feel the Force around you. Feel it in you, in the crystal. The weapon is not a thing apart from you. It is an extension of you. Let the Force flow.”

  Marr closed his eyes, his face wrinkled in concentration.

  “Still your mind, Marr. You cannot think your way to the connection. Feel it. Let your mind expand outward from the Keep, let that expansion encompass all of you, me, the weapon you hold.”

  Marr’s face smoothed and his breathing grew deep and regular. Jaden sensed when Marr made the connection, a mental key fitting a lock.

  “I feel it,” Marr said.

  Jaden smiled. “Good. Let the connection continue and open your eyes.”

  Marr did so.

  Jaden took the lightsaber hilt from his belt—the lightsaber he’d taken from the clone, Alpha—and activated it. Its sparking red blade sizzled into existence, its thin red line the border between them.

  Marr stared at the red blade, at Jaden. Jaden felt the soft, faint pressure of the dark side against his consciousness. The blade’s crystal, attuned to the Force by Alpha, still carried his taint.

  “Do you feel it?” Jaden asked Marr.

  Marr nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving the blade. “It feels like pressure, like a general sense of unease.”

  “That is the dark side,” Jaden said. “The feeling is more acute when the power is greater. What you feel now is just residuum in the crystal of this blade.”

  “The intensity of the feeling is a function of the power of the dark-side user and the proximity of that user,” Marr said. With his forefinger, he drew invisible figures in the air. It took a moment for Jaden to realize that Marr was actually plotting a function. When that registered, he thought he saw an avenue he could use to speed Marr’s training.

  “Now I’ll teach you some basics of lightsaber combat. As before, feel the Force throughout. Very little about this is physical. Your strength and speed is not in muscle and tendon, but in your relationship to the Force. Let it flow through you, inform your movements. What you’re capable of will surprise you, if you let it.”

  Marr inhaled deeply, then took a few more practice cuts and spins, all more graceful than before. Jaden could feel him settling into the Force.

  “Excellent, Marr. As we engage, I want you to think about your movements mathematically. Consider the angles at which we hold our blades, the arc of my approach, the line of your blade intersecting mine, your feet moving degrees within a circle. Do you understand?”

  Marr nodded without hesitation. “I do.”

  “Good. Defend yourself,” Jaden said, and lunged at him.

  For the next several hours, Jaden walked Marr through the basics of lightsaber technique. The Cerean was a quick study, his movements controlled and precise. Jaden knew it was unusual, even dangerous, to train a new apprentice with live blades, but he also knew that he, Marr, and Khedryn would be in serious danger if they found the clones. He wanted Marr as prepared as possible.

  By the time they’d finished and Jaden deactivated Alpha’s red blade, sweat dripped off the cliff of Marr’s forehead and pasted the ruff of his hair to his pate.

  “Tired?” Jaden asked him.

  “Not physically tired, Master. But it’s mentally exhausting.”

  Jaden thumped him on the shoulder. “That means you’re doing it right. There’s one more thing to learn today.”

  Marr waited, eyebrows raised.

  “Go to the other side of the bay and activate your weapon.”

  Marr did as he was told, and while he did Jaden removed one of the cells from the power pack of his DH-44 and set the blaster to stun. It’d still pack a decent wallop, but a hit would not knock Marr unconscious.

  “Don’t try to guess where I’m firing.”

  “You’re going to fire?”

  Jaden nodded. “You must feel it, not see it. You could do it as well with your eyes closed as open. Angles of approach, Marr. Velocities. Let yourself feel the space around you.”

  Though the Cerean’s face remained placid, he could sense Marr’s apprehension.

  “Close your eyes and settle your mind in the Keep, Marr.”

  Marr closed his eyes, inhaled.

  “Now, expand your perception outward. Don’t merely sense the objects and people around you. Sense the energy of the objects, perceive the lines of the Force that connect one thing to another thing, each thing to every other thing.”

  Behind him, Jaden felt Khedryn enter the cargo bay. Khedryn said nothing and lingered near the open bay door.

  “I feel it!” Marr said. “Interconnection. I see it. It is … vast.”

  “Very good. Now, realize that your will and the Force are likewise interconnected. Each gives the other direction, but the causation is not linear. In fact, there is no causation. There is, instead, synchronicity.”

  Jaden knew the lack of causation would be difficult for Marr, the logical mathematician, to grasp.

  “I … think I understand. Synchronicity.”

  “Then use that understanding to deflect this blaster shot back at me.”

  Jaden activated Alpha’s lightsaber in his off hand, an awkward gesture given his wounded fingers, and fired his depowered blaster at Marr.

  Marr attempted a block too late, and the shot hit him in the chest. He grunted, his breath catching, and staggered back two steps. To his credit, he did not open his eyes or mention the pain. Jaden felt Marr’s determination grow.

  “I felt … something,” Marr said.

  Khedryn chuckled, but Marr seemed not to hear him. Jaden held up a hand for Khedryn’s silence.

  “Fall into the Force,” Jaden said, and fired again.

  Again Marr missed the block, and again he grunted with pain, staggered backward.

  “Again, Master,” the Cerean said, his tone even.

  Five times Jaden put blaster shots into Marr, and four times Marr failed to block them. On the fifth, he interposed the purple line of his blade and sent the blaster bolt careering into the near bulkhead.

  Jaden expected him to erupt in happiness, but Marr did nothing of the kind. His eyes still closed, he said, “I think I have it now. Again, Master.”

  Jaden fired, more rapidly, and Marr blocked each shot in turn, sending the shots everywhere but back at Jaden.

  “The angle of incidence is equal to the angle of deflection,” Jaden said. “You control the angle of incidence.”

  He fired again, again, and by the third shot Marr sent the bolts right back at Jaden. Jaden deflected them into the floor with the lightsaber he held i
n his off hand. He fired more rapidly, moved as he fired, and Marr kept blocking, kept returning the shots at Jaden.

  “Enough,” Jaden said, and deactivated his lightsaber. “Excellent, Marr. Well done.”

  Marr opened his eyes, nodded, and deactivated his saber. “Thank you, Master.”

  Khedryn walked into the cargo bay. “If you two are done dinging up my cargo bay, we can make the jump to Fhost.” He patted the bulkhead. “She’s ready to move.”

  “I will help with the pre-jump,” Marr said, and hurried past Jaden. He caught himself, turned, and said, “That is, if we’re done, Master?”

  “We are. Go.”

  Marr smiled and offered Jaden the hilt of his lightsaber. Jaden stared at it for a long moment. For years, its purple line had been the string that wove together his past and his present. It was time to move away from the past.

  “Keep it, Marr. It’s yours until you build your own.”

  “But … this is yours, Master. You’ll have no weapon.”

  Jaden held up the hilt of Alpha’s weapon. “I have this.”

  “That is a Sith weapon.”

  “Not for long,” Jaden said, and buckled it to his belt. He looked Marr in the eye. “Today was a good day. You learned a lot. But if things get hot, don’t hesitate to use your blaster.”

  “Seconded,” Khedryn said.

  “You’re feeling accomplished,” Jaden said. “And you should. But were you to face a trained lightsaber combatant you’d be cut in half before you took a first step. You’ve got a long way to go. Do not forgo good sense in an effort to prove something to me, yourself, or anyone else.”

  Marr held his gaze. “I understand.”

  Jaden smiled. “Nicely done, Apprentice.”

  “Also seconded,” Khedryn said. “You could’ve saved us a lot of grief if you’d learned this a few years ago.”

  Marr grinned, slapped Khedryn on the shoulder, and bowed his head to Jaden. Then he and Khedryn headed for the cockpit, chatting about star charts, coordinates, and various components of Junker’s engines. Jaden watched them go, thoughtful.

  He was responsible for Marr, and the weight of the responsibility surprised him. He’d have to put Marr in danger. Repeatedly. Just as Master Katarn had done with him.

  He thought Marr understood the risks, but he wasn’t sure Marr was ready.

  That was the awful burden of taking on an apprentice. One lapse in judgment, and the person who depended on him, the person who trusted him, could die.

  Jaden knew that would be hard to bear.

  He thought of Relin, who’d begun his descent to the dark side when an ancient Sith had killed his apprentice. The loss had been too much for Relin to carry.

  Jaden decided that he would chart a different course—he would not suffer the loss in the first place.

  He hefted the hilt of Alpha’s lightsaber, eyed it as he might an enemy.

  “You and I have an appointment.”

  Jaden returned to the small stateroom that served as his quarters aboard Junker. He sat at the small metal desk in one corner and rapidly disassembled Alpha’s lightsaber. His missing fingers caused him to fumble a bit, but he managed.

  He stared at the stumps, pondering the possibility of prosthetics. He’d lost all but the thumb and forefinger on his left hand—so he could still wield his lightsaber in his left. Probably he’d leave his hand as it was, maimed, a constant reminder to him that doubt—doubt over his actions, his relationship to the Force, his role in the Order—was the price he paid, and would always pay, to be who he was.

  He left off his musings and returned to the disassembly. He had expected the clone’s lightsaber construction technique to be crude, but instead found it clean and utilitarian, if inelegant.

  He laid out the pieces before him. The crystal that powered the weapon, a crimson rhomboid, glittered in the overhead lights. Fine black lines veined the facets, some impurity the clone had not eliminated. Jaden stared at it, transfixed, feeling its connection to the dark side, the way it contained, in microcosm, Alpha’s rage.

  Khedryn’s voice over the ship’s comm brought him out of his reverie.

  “Jumping into hyperspace in five seconds.”

  Jaden ticked off the moments and looked out the viewport as the black turned blue. Junker was under way to Fhost and whatever fate awaited them.

  Jaden turned away from the maddening blue churn of hyperspace and toward the maddening crimson of Alpha’s crystal. He focused his mind and fell into the Force. The interconnected network of lines and light took shape in his mind’s eye, marred only by the presence of Alpha’s crystal, a lesion in his perception.

  He took the stone in his hands, instantly felt the echo of Alpha’s madness and anger, his hate, emotional pollution that radiated at Jaden from the stone’s facets.

  He endured it and covered the crystal in his hands as best he could with his maimed fingers. Focusing his mind, he meditated.

  Once he was residing in the calm center of himself, he opened his hands and the crystal floated above his palms, turning slowly, casting red beams about the room. Jaden let his consciousness ride the beams into the crystal, into the crucible of Alpha’s rage. Howls buffeted him, black clouds of anger, lightning bolts of hate. He stood in the midst of the storm, unmoved, and drew it to him. The dark emotions crashed against the rock of his calm, the stillness of his being, and began to dissolve. Alpha’s rage burned around him, buffeted him, but had no effect. Jaden found strength in the example of the Grand Master, of his calm, measured response to the news that one of the escaped clones might have been born of Mara Jade Skywalker’s DNA.

  The shrieks in his mind diminished, the roar of Alpha’s anger subsided. He sat in the lines of the Force, centered, at peace.

  He opened his eyes. The crystal still hovered above his hands, but he had cleansed it of Alpha’s contamination. It was no longer crimson, but was instead as clear as transparisteel. Ordinarily a cleansing would have taken much longer, days even. Alpha’s attunement of the crystal must have been imperfect.

  Jaden eyed the remade stone, thinking it a perfect metaphor for his own spirit, purged as it was of any temptation to the dark side. The light it cast, clean and white, brightened the dingy confines of his quarters.

  He allowed himself only a moment to enjoy his triumph before refocusing on the crystal. He had cleansed it of Alpha’s influence and the dark-side taint. Now he needed to attune it to himself and to the light side.

  Once more his consciousness rode the beams back into the crystal until he sat in the center of the light. With an effort of will, he aligned the crystal’s structural matrix with himself, made it harmonious with the Force, made it an extension of his will. Throughout, he remained peaceful, calm. He drew the crystal deeper into the Force, attuned it more closely to himself, to the lines that interconnected all things. His mind turned briefly to Relin, to the emotional churn the ancient Jedi had experienced.

  For a long while Jaden sat in his chamber, enmeshed in the Force, aligning himself and the crystal with it. In time, the process was complete. When he opened his eyes and came back to himself, he saw that the Force had transformed the crystal from clear to a faint yellow. The black lines were gone, the impurities purged.

  Smiling, he took the crystal in eager hands and placed it on the table. Moving rapidly, he reassembled the lightsaber hilt, modifying the grip as best he could with the pieces he had to hand. When it was ready, he seated the crystal into place and activated the blade.

  A clean yellow line cut the air of his quarters. The hum of the weapon was musical.

  In ancient times—Relin’s times—a yellow blade had signified that its wielder was a Jedi Sentinel, a servant of the light side of the Force who balanced his service between the art of combat and the scholarly study of the Force. It pleased Jaden to see that the Force had gifted him with such a blade. His thought of Relin during the remaking of the crystal must have influenced the crystal’s form. He nodded, satisfied. He had
purged the weapon of its dark-side influence and made it his own, at the same time honoring Relin’s memory. It seemed fitting.

  He deactivated the blade and hung it from his belt.

  He found it somewhat strange, the way he had been able to remake the crystal. It was as though he had wiped away someone’s memory and replaced it with another.

  He floated in a place of warmth, quiet. Then … sensation from darkness, something from nothing.

  He heard the low, vibratory hum of engaging electronics.

  How did he know they were electronics? He seemed to know some things.

  His extremities began to tingle, then to itch, then to hurt, pinpricks of pain in his skin.

  The whine of a device sounded in his ear. Streaks of color flashed behind his eyelids, smears of green, red, blue. He heard a mechanical voice speaking, the sound dulled, as if spoken from far away or blocked by something.

  “His vital signs are normal. He is becoming conscious.”

  “Can he hear us?” said another voice.

  “I do not know. Possibly.”

  “What will he know?”

  He heard the slow bubbling of liquid. He had never noticed it before.

  “All of the Iterations are implanted with basic knowledge roughly equivalent to that of a human adolescent. Otherwise they would be difficult to deal with when they awakened. It is easily overwritten by the Rakatan mindspear.”

  “Very good.”

  His body awoke fully to sensation, and he became aware of himself. He was a man. Restraints held his arms and legs immobile. Something was in his mouth—a tube. Adhesive strips kept his eyes closed. He tested his strength against the restraints. There was no give in them.

  “Let’s get him out,” said the voice.

  “Of course.”

  The liquid in which he floated began to drain, gurgling away into some hole near his feet. He felt vulnerable as the level of the liquid decreased, exposing first his head, then his chest, his legs. He imagined it was like being born, moving from warm and safe to cold and exposed. It felt strange to have his feet on the ground, supporting his weight. He was naked, shivering.