Space travel was something else I never grew tired of. This was only my third trip, but since the first basically consisted of an awful and ongoing stench when I was three I did my very, very best not to recall it.
The smoothly rising arc that Dark Woman's Rho-1 Limulus-class Courier took as it rose out of the atmosphere and accelerated to a point far enough from the planet to engage the hyperdrive provided a beautiful view of the mostly green and brown planet striated with white bands of cloud. Something else the natives of this galaxy took for granted.
They completely missed out on the joy and sense of freedom that came with being a member of an interstellar civilization.
"Enjoy the view while you can, Anakin. We won't be seeing much except hyperspace and a bit of black when I drop out to reorient on a new hyper-lane for the next week. Ilum is on the other side of the galaxy, after all"
Dark Woman pointed out. Her usually prim demeanor a little softer as she saw just how excited I was, and how much I was enjoying the trip so far.
"It's just so amazing when you think about it, Master. Crossing the galaxy being something two people can do in a week! A person with the means could see so much in a lifetime, if they've a mind to."
I couldn't help the enthusiasm in my barely adolescent voice as the stars stretched into the blue-white of hyperspace suddenly. Even the Force felt different while we were moving so fast. Vibrating gently like the string of an instrument struck moments earlier.
"Perhaps the galaxy would be a brighter place if more had your enthusiasm for such simple things" the Jedi Master replied. Her weathered and deeply lined features once more quirking into a small smile.
..
..
One Week Later
Ilum from orbit was a white and blue ball covered in huge swathes of rapidly moving white as our ship drew closer and began it's descent. More detail of the planet below became visible as we dropped, but I would have known we were getting close if I'd been unconscious.
The Force not only sang a far more powerful song here than anywhere else I'd been. It kept echoing back at me again and again. Although "echo" wasn't anymore accurate a term to describe the indescribable phenomena than "reflection" would have been.
I guessed aloud that the odd sensation I was feeling were the crystals and the Force-vergence present here. Which observation was rewarded by my Master with a bit of cryptic commentary.
"Ilum is a place strong in the Force, but it's difficult to quantify what that means by way of conversation. It is a place of testing for some, and deep contemplation for others. Somewhere which has become as important to the Order as it is to your training.
I know how you love to define and delineate, but you'll have to learn the truth of Ilum for yourself, Anakin" Dark Woman remarked. A note of reverence and deep respect having entered her strong and normally unflappable voice.
The ship set down with an almost imperceptible thump a few moments later. The Jedi Master directed me to the cold-weather garments in the gantry-way compartments, and a couple of minutes later I was walking on the surface of a planet I'd imagined countless times.
This was where a Jedi's story really got started. I couldn't deny my rising anxiety, so I used a trick for calming oneself Vinrae had taught me. Ironically, it involved focusing intently upon my body's physical responses to my present stress and anxiety, then tracking and cataloging each minute change in my breathing rate, heartbeat, muscle tension, and even my perspiration.
It ate up a lot of one's attention, but damned if a couple minutes of doing nothing but pinning down physical reactions to distress didn't go a long way toward alleviating said distress.
Dark Woman didn't say anything about my near panic-attack or my reaction to it, but she did give me a rare smile of approval as I brought my body and emotions under control.
When she struck off at a brisk walk to the north, I focused on using a Matukai technique to keep myself warm in Ilum's wintry environs as we walked. With the cold-weather gear it wasn't strictly necessary, but it was more comfortable, and it did serve to help keep me from putting too much pressure on myself.
The path we were following was somehow being kept free of the imposing snow drifts which had formed like great walls of white and gray to either side of it. Giving our immediate environs a very closed in feel that was only exacerbated by the sound muting quality of the densely packed snow.
The only clear sounds I could make out were our boots crunching through thin patches of ice that had formed, and the omnipresent wind. It ranged from an almost inaudible whirring to a mournful howl when gusts began to pick up strength. Overall, it felt like Master Dark Woman and I were the only living things on Ilum.
Never one to speak just to fill up silence, and intolerant of those who did just that, Dark Woman was a perfectly self-contained island in this silent white desolation. I wished I possessed that unshakable calm and seemingly perfect poise, but every day forward felt like one day closer to the doom of the galaxy.
"No, I'm not doing this again. Not here, and not today of all days. I'm just one person trying to fight his way free of the tire-fire, and still a few months shy of being thirteen no less! I will do whatever I can to stop Palpatine, but I'll drive myself crazy if I keep obsessing about what's happening without any let-up."
The silent chiding I gave myself loosened the knot forming in my guts somewhat, but didn't entirely dissolve it. Snapshots of what Order 66 had looked like on the big screen flitted through my mind, but I resolutely shoved them from my mind's eye.
"This present moment is what's important. Focus on doing what you need to do now, Anakin. Leave later alone until it becomes now" I murmured to myself as I trudged along in my Master's wake.
Glancing back over her shoulder, the Jedi Master shot me a satisfied smile. Giving me even more reason to believe she had eyes in the back of her head.
Several minutes passed as we crunched along, then the temple seemingly rose up out of nowhere ahead of us. I knew it was simply an optical illusion predicated on the confined field of view created by the huge snowbanks, but you try not being impressed when what amounts to a great crystal castle just looms up in front of you without warning.
My Master gave me a couple moments to goggle at the magnificent soaring cylindrical spires and broad ramparts seemingly fashioned of solid ice, then turned and spoke to me in the most serious manner I'd yet heard from her.
Dark Woman's voice was quiet, but it lost none of it's gravity or authority as she explained "Six Initiates or young Padawans are often brought here by their Masters as a group, but I requested and received a place on the Gathering schedule for the two of us alone.
You don't need the help of your peers to lift the gate, but more importantly; you've convinced me you're psychologically and emotionally mature for your age and can therefore handle this on your own."
Pausing a moment to allow the third bit of real praise I'd had from her in nearly seven years to sink in, her voice was deadly serious when she continued.
"You may lift the Gate whenever you're ready to get out of this wind, Apprentice." The words were at odds with the seriousness used to deliver them, but the extreme gravity didn't depart from either the Jedi's body language or aura.
I studied what I'd at first taken for one great slab of semi-translucent blue glacial ice and realized there was a half-cylinder of ice dead in the middle of the wall.
With the way the snow kept piling up against and flurrying up from it intermittently the difference was easy to miss, but once I saw it, I steadied my breathing and emptied my mind of everything except the task before me.
This was the one thing I really truly blew the doors off my contemporaries at, because I'd truly internalized the whole midichlorian count higher than Yoda's thing. This didn't take decades of contemplating the Force. It simply took the basic knowledge required to lift a pebble with the Force, and true belief the pebble didn't differ from the X-Wing.
It sounded crazy to me at first, too, but when your Master simply refuses to feed you until you get it through your fool head, you catch on fast.
I raised my hand in front of me and made a vague lifting gesture as I focused on reaching out through the Force to surround and grasp that ten foot high half-cylinder of ice.
A series of escalating notes as rapid as they were powerful sang out inside my head, as my ears carried the sound of ice grinding on ice and stone to me from twenty feet away.
I had my bag of components in the light pack I was wearing, and had just begun to take my first few slow and steady steps forward while continuing to hold a couple thousand pounds of ice aloft when my Master's voice rang out sharply.
It was as much a deliberate attempt to distract me from my ongoing task as it was a need to communicate information, I swear. Just the kind of thing Master Dark Woman loved doing to me.
"It bears mentioning that the entrance to the cavern complex within will ice over completely in six hours.
If you haven't found your crystal and completed your lightsaber by then, well, let's just say we'll both make compelling wordless warnings to the next Jedi who come along. Just something to bear in mind, Apprentice."
The words were delivered with such perfect gravity, and in such flawless synchrony with the dark seriousness of the Jedi Master's present emotional state she still nearly gulled me, and that's with my knowing the "warning" is a fake-out perpetrated by every Master on every Initiate and Padawan brought here.
I bobbed my head in acknowledgement as I continued on forward. I had more than enough anxiety and doubt flitting through me as we walked beneath the huge chunk of ice to convince the woman she'd conned me completely.
What was more, as the ice now behind us slowly ground down into it's grooved resting place once more, I was forced to recognize I didn't need material dangers like being entombed alive in a glacier-temple to scare the shit out of me.
Unlike all those other Initiates and Padawans, I knew what was waiting down there in the dark for me. Something much more frightening than any white-out blizzard or icy tomb.
Me. The worst of everything in me. All charged up by the Force and set in my path to bar my way. Other Initiates and Padawans had the fears and failings of children to serve as their rock-lions and sphinxes.
I'd lived nearly thirty-one years before being reborn in a Galaxy Far, Far Away. Add to that the sure and certain knowledge of just how much worse the tire-fire which was this era could be made if I ended up drinking the Dark Side Kool-Aid. It truly didn't bear thinking about.
Except that's exactly what this was all about.
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