Coruscant, Jedi Temple 21.9 BBY (1 Month Later)
Hands held curved before my upper midsection as if grasping a sphere the size of a deflection-remote between them, I watched calmly as the shimmering blue-white pinpoint in-between my hands began growing.
The tempo of the Force's song increasing as the escalating trill became a solid whine while the pinpoint swiftly expanded to fill the entire space between my hands.
Slowly, gritting my teeth with the effort of remaining perfectly calm and focused, I drew both my hands an equal distance further apart as the bubble of telekinetic force continued to expand, and smiled fiercely to see it remain stable.
Continuing to compress the gathered energy, before beginning to uniformly reduce the compression as more energy was added to the bubble was the entire crux of the Force Burst technique, after all.
The shimmering bubble expanded to two meters in diameter, then three, and finally a full four meters across. Still, I sensed none of the intensifying instabilities which had plagued all but my most recent efforts.
At five and a half meters, I recognized I was approaching the safe maximum for a detonation within a fairly confined chamber itself only twenty-five or thirty meters in diameter.
This realization prompted me to relax my telekinetic grip on the translucent sphere's rearmost portion. Instantly, there was a flash as the great orb of compressed telekinetic force shot across the training-chamber with the speed of a blaster-bolt.
Striking what appeared to be a four meter high, eight meter wide, meter thick wall of solid duranium. Buckling on impact as if an angry god had just thrust-kicked the wall's central portion, the barrier was folded into a sharp "V" like a book had been snapped shut.
Until finally the ravening release of energy passed through the deepest circular impact-point completely. Splashing against a force-shield sheathing the interior wall of the room in an entrancing shimmer of iridescence.
A moment later, what had been a devastated hard-light construct vanished. Leaving me not only my sixth success, but my first unqualified success with Force Burst at what I would call live combat speeds.
I should have been jubilant. Today was my twentieth life-day, yet I'd mastered one of the most difficult and devastating of all telekinetic techniques.
Something the most famous practitioner of Force Burst, Satele Shan had been nearly thirty-three before accomplishing. It was an amazing achievement, and a likely sign of things to come.
Instead, my mind kept returning to the same bleak thought. "It's going to take years at this rate. Years, before I'll be able to match Palpatine." This grim realization rose up from the darkest recesses of my mind.
Trying to adhere to me like my concern for the innocents presently imperiled, and the frustration I felt while considering the gulf in power separating me from the prime movers responsible for exacerbating of the imminent galactic holocaust could curdle and taint my spirit.
I resisted these splinters of darkness with the increased poise and focus I'd discovered during the Trials, but there was no denying that my awareness of Palpatine's genius capacity for planning was a small torment to me.
The man had been given years to pursue his winnowing of the Deep Core, Slice, and Unknown Regions.
Trusting the assumption that his having used no more extreme a Dark Side technique than Essence Transfer prior to his being overthrown by a redeemed Anakin Skywalker meant he hadn't actually possessed any such examples of Dark Side lore would be the kind of blind complacency that had once resulted in Order 66.
"There's no telling when Sheev discovered how to create and control Force Storms, after all" I found myself thinking. Grimacing, as I remembered the time the reborn Sith Lord had snatched Luke off the surface of Coruscant with a wormhole like it was nothing.
Shaking my head sharply from side to side, I focused then let go of such useless concerns and frustrations. Releasing them into the Force, as I drew in the cool serenity of the Force to center myself.
"There's a very good chance I'm more naturally gifted than Palpatine, and I know I best Bulq in every possible point of comparison except experience. If I remain mindful of the present, the future will attend to itself" I murmured to myself.
Forcing myself to believe the words, as I continued waging my endless war against unrealistic expectations of myself.
"You aren't an apprentice anymore, Anakin. It's good to see you're making real progress with letting go of your fears for the future" Dark Woman said from behind me.
Yet the approval in her voice was palpably overshadowed by a whirling mix of concern and frustration I sensed as a raucous discordance in what was normally the stately march of her Force-presence.
Before I'd Faced the Mirror, I likely wouldn't have been able to parse the layers of feeling in my mentor beneath recurring waves of strong emotion.
Now, I also perceived the ambivalence the Jedi Master felt concerning the prospect of sharing her concerns, and even a persistent disquiet the reason for which I couldn't identify. All of this, I took in as I turned to face my former Master.
Summoning my lightsaber from a protected niche in the wall with an upward then inward flick of the fingers on my left hand.
I clipped the weapon to my belt, then deactivated the force-field sheathing the training-chamber's interior with the same smooth downward gesture of my straightened index and middle fingers which Vader had used to close doors and cut off potential escape-routes for the surviving Separatist leadership on Mustafar.
It was one of a million tiny ways I'd begun demonstrating to myself in the wake of the Trials I didn't need to be in a state of constant dissonance with everything about my predecessor to avoid his fate.
I noted my mentor noticing the improvement in my fine control which was a consequence of the Trial of Skill, but elected not to provide a distraction from a conversation she was already reluctant to have for reasons currently eluding me.
Patiently remaining silent as I joined her in the corridor outside the training chamber, I observe the way my mentor seems to be weighing her options. It makes me wonder what in the name of the Force could have troubled a woman who considered extreme mortal peril nothing to lose her grip on her emotions over.
"Are you familiar with Senator Rush Clovis of Scipio by any chance? He's a high-ranking delegate of the InterGalactic Banking Clan" Dark Woman eventually explained. Her voice had regained it's usually poised diction, but I could sense a sliver of genuine trepidation join the concern she was already feeling beneath her outward show of self-control.
The unease within my teacher is evident as I obligingly began to search my memory concerning this aristocrat from the homeworld of the Muuns, but I didn't know if I should bring my increased perceptiveness to my mentor's attention. It wasn't at all common for her to keep things from me in this way, after all.
The man's name was dimly familiar. Closing my eyes, I began breathing deep, deliberate, even breaths.
Holding up my left hand index-finger up to indicate I needed a few moments, as I waited until my mind was as calm and still as I could make it. Engaging Force-assisted recall as soon as my awareness had become a channel conducive to the it's currents.
Flashes of foreshadowing disjointed and animated flit through my mind's eye. It's been more than twenty years at this point, so it takes several seconds before the realization of what I'm seeing begins to gel. Once it does, my fists clench slowly and unconsciously, as scenes from one of my all-time-favorite animated series grow increasingly coherent.
I focus on keeping my breathing even as I relax my hands while releasing the anxiety I'm experiencing into the Force.
The now clearer-than-vision mental images of Clovis creeping on an uninterested Padme Amidala, coupled with the even more disturbing sight of my counterpart savagely beating and telekinetically manhandling another man in the grip of a jealous rage was something I'd found mildly unsettling when this was all simply fiction. Now, it threatened to upset a peace as newfound as it was hard-won.
"The High Council and S.B.I both believe Senator Clovis is working with the C.I.S. He was too canny to corner by the usual methods, so a wait and see methodology was adopted.
Until someone learned he and Senator Amidala were romantically involved during their time as first-year Senators, and that said relationship didn't end on Clovis's account. Somehow, it was decided that using Senator Clovis's desire to resume that romantic relationship was the best way to gain evidence of his treasonous activities."
It was my voice offering this summation in a perfectly peaceful and completely detached manner, but I almost felt like I was hearing the words as an outside listener. The tone had that strange listening to a recording of yourself undertone, or something akin to it.
Dark Woman shifted as she obviously sensed my growing disquiet, but it was her still-increasing frustration I focused on, as she replied "It never ceases to be unsettling. Your detailed knowledge of situations too small and complex for any possible precognitive event to account for.
Yes, when apprised of the Republic's concerns, Senator Amidala agreed to act as an agent to both aid in determining if Clovis is guilty, and gain evidence which would support a verdict of guilt."
I nodded at hearing exactly what I'd expected, but still the Jedi Master's emotional upset continued to intensify. In my calmest, most level and reasonable tone, I inquired "Master Jinn and Obi-Wan have both worked closely with Senator Amidala on several occasions. Which one did the Council choose to send undercover as her pilot, servant, or bodyguard?"
Silence. When my expression shifted from calm to obviously expectant, I felt my mentor's upset finally pierce what remained of her calm. "I'm told the initial plan was to send Kenobi along as her pilot and bodyguard.
Master Yaddle tells me they'd already sent him a holo-comm message requesting his presence, then, the Order decided to go in a different direction."
The inflection shift when my teacher had said "the Order" was subtle enough that anyone who hadn't spent literal years listening intently to her voice might have missed the disapproving bite packed into those two words.
Fark, I might have missed it anyways, if the shift hadn't been accompanied by a long, drawn-out surge of the most intense anger I'd ever felt from my master.
Emotion she was making as little effort to hide as the now bitterly disapproving cast of her pinched cheeks and pursed lips.
It was an expression accompanied by the slow, side-to-side shake of her head, as she palpably denied any involvement with the accusation she could sense shifting and rising in me with all the inevitability of a magma column in a super-caldera.
I wasn't forced to connect what I already knew with what the Jedi Master opposite me had just implied. I wanted to be absolutely certain concerning what had happened in this instance, so my power reached out and strained the knowledge from the galaxy at large like a filter skimming detritus from an engine intake.
In my mind's eye, I saw Yoda seated on a meditation-cushion. His large eyes were closed, and the Grandmaster was obviously meditating. The glowing Kaiburr Crystal hovering in the air before him making that much abundantly clear. Suddenly, the tiny, wizened green alien's huge eyes sprang open.
The wheel shaped Force-relic's internal white fire was suddenly extinguished as the crystal began to drop. Only for a small three-fingered hands to reach out and adroitly snag the artifact in one smooth motion as he hopped down off his cushion.
A few moments later, the ancient Jedi Master had scurried to a holo-comm unit set against the right wall of the chamber he'd been meditating within and made a call.
A surprised looking, bluish-white, holographic Mace Windu appeared a few seconds later. His overall expression and unusually vague demeanor giving the impression he might well have been deeply asleep only a few instants earlier. Seeing who it was on his private comm-frequency, the Jedi Master inclined his head respectfully and immediately inquired as to what was amiss.
"Senator Amidala, enlisted for it's purposes, the High Council has. Obi-Wan Kenobi, with her, you would send. With Senator Clovis, to Senator Lott Dod's palace on Cato Neimoidia, Amidala must go. Accompany her, no Jedi must. Of the utmost importance, this is" Yoda decreed in the same grim and steely way he'd never spoken of a battle on Geonosis being no victory.
Immediately, and to his credit, Windu had demurred. "If the Baron of Scipio or any of his traitorous business partners discover Senator Amidala's real reason for being present, she'll be killed! The Senator is a resourceful, determined, and highly principled woman.
But she's no Mandalorian or Echani trained to fight her way free of a Neomoidian purse-world on her own. Furthermore, she's one of the Order's most vocal supporters in the Senate, and a close personal friend of Chancellor Organa besides. What possible reason could there be to put her life in such jeopardy?"
Yoda's voice lost what little warmth it had left, as he responded "Above the needs of the individual, the needs of the community are placed. Resourceful, the Senator is, you say. If this is true, without us, Amidala may yet find success."
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