Taken together with the contents of the previous pad, it was enough to answer the riddle of what I was being shown.
My nonexistent lips wanted to twitch into a smile, because why wouldn't some of the bolder and more driven individuals from the current crop of Initiates scout their prospective Masters, as those potential Masters themselves scouted potential apprentices?
...
The lightest of psychic touches brushed my awareness just as my attention was returning to the three teens themselves. Triggering a reflex born of long and grueling training, my mind snapped shut like a trap, then my shields came up, and the world became an incomprehensible whorl of colors and indistinct shapes a split-second later.
Leaving me back in my body. Gasping like I'd just run ten kilometers at a dead sprint, with my heart hammering, and my stomach roiling in momentary protest of the vertigo like sensation.
The physical aftereffects of my Force-fueled jaunt through the ether being brought to an abrupt end began subsiding as soon as I opened my eyes, but my irritation over the interloper's interruption was taking a little longer to fade.
It helped that Master Tiin was wearing what I needed a moment to recognize as an apologetic expression, as he explained in his very direct manner "I regret disturbing what I now realize was a moment of deep communion with the Force, Anakin.
Your mental presence seemed so attenuated when I found you, I began to share Master Jinn's concern that the darksider responsible for the attempt upon Senator Amidala's life might have injured you in a manner not readily apparent."
Rising from the meditation cushion, I decided to provide the explanation the Iktotchi Jedi Master seemed to be looking for.
"I think the Force was showing me a next possible step on my path as a Jedi.
I was meditating to regain my equilibrium after the dark side adept's attack, then I found myself slipping into a highly focused state, before my awareness was suddenly drawn elsewhere. It seemed similar to Farsight, but viscerally comprehensive in a manner I'd never experienced before."
Another Jedi might have inquired what I meant by that, but Saesee Tiin only replied "Something you should discuss with Master Yoda, perhaps."
Sensing there was more reason for the Jedi Master's presence than him being the one selected to inform me the High Council was finally ready for me to attend them, I simply nodded my silent agreement with his suggestion, then waited patiently for the Iktotchi to reveal his real reason for being here.
For the first time I could recall, Master Tiin seemed hesitant and uncomfortable, as he eventually began to explain "The initial findings of the Sentinels sent to investigate the dark side manifestation still permeating the speeder annex seem to confirm Master Jinn's theory that it was an attack targeting you specifically. One designed to fill you with an ungovernable rage, at the very least."
Looking at me steadily, his thin lips were pursed with distaste, as he finished "The other members of the Council are concerned you may have been adversely affected by this attack, and don't even know it.
There is also some question as to how you managed to resist such a powerful and insidious form of psychic assault, if indeed you were completely successful in fending off the assassin.
Which is why the other members of the Council requested I use my abilities to carry out an examination which will hopefully allay those concerns, and perhaps answer some of the questions which have been raised.
If you would lower your shields, please, we can conclude this unpleasantly intrusive business as swiftly as possible."
It was the most I'd ever heard the normally terse and taciturn Jedi say at one time, but his clear unhappiness with the prospect of a mandatory mind-reading procedure did little to quell my own displeasure with the situation.
Keeping my tone respectful, I replied with all the diplomacy I could muster.
"You know me well enough to understand the premium I place on my privacy and sense of personal agency, because I remember what it was like to live without either. It's my hope, Master Tiin, that you'll keep this in mind while perusing my thoughts." I could have said more, but most of what I might have stated would have made me sound like someone with something to hide.
"Given that I am someone with quite a few things to hide from most of the Order, that would be more than a little problematic" I found myself thinking.
It was difficult to tell with the thick reddish-orange skin, and the subtle differences in facial musculature normal for his species, but I thought the tall, cranial-horned telepath looked rather sympathetic, as he answered directly.
"I'm only interested in your emotional state from the time of the attempted assassination up to the present, and those memories which pertain to the event in question.
Once I've examined these things, I'll ask you to slowly return your shields to the condition they were in while you were escorting the Senator. Anything else would fall beyond the scope of what I agreed to determine."
He paused a moment, and I could see the curved creases arcing downward across his cheeks grow deeper, before he very quietly finished "I have some familiarity with what it's like to be singled out and looked on with suspicion for one's abilities."
It was a rare admission concerning the personal life of one Saesee Tiin, and the closest thing to an acknowledgement that all was not what it should be with the High Council I was going to get from the fiercely dedicated Jedi Master.
With a resigned sigh, I dropped the outermost layer of my shields, then the inner layer. Finally willing the mirror-walled fortress about the wellspring of my volition and innermost thought-processes to dissolve.
My teacher had taught me how to take my mental defenses to the next level when she'd realized how committed I was to the idea of protecting my mind and will, but I'd simply accepted this development as another example of her extreme thoroughness as a mentor, when compared to more "traditional" Masters.
It was something I was grateful for, of course, but nothing I considered especially remarkable. Not when I considered some of her more grueling and harrowing training methods.
I knew what request was coming next, so I spared my instructor in starfighter combat the trouble. Meeting his yellow eyed gaze, I facilitated the telepathic Councilor's ability to read me. It was a stressful, intensely uncomfortable experience.
Knowing I was so completely exposed to someone who was so dedicated to the Order, he really might consider my opinion of it's present state the worst sort of heresy and disloyalty.
Still, I was a Jedi Knight, not some wet-behind-the-ears youngling. I'd faced the Crystal Caves, survived being Dark Woman's apprentice, and overcome the Trials. I could, albeit with effort, meet the scrutiny of one mind-reader with the calm balance befitting a Jedi.
"You experienced an intense desire to torture and kill the suborned guardsmen. The rage you experienced latched on to a preexisting loathing for traitors, and your impulse to protect Senator Amidala. I can see threads of fabricated thought wound about and through your thoughts during the assassination attempt.
The torture-murder imperatives were insinuated using the rage as the vector of infection, but the provoked emotions and imperative were dulled and partially fragmented. Like a semi-solid strained through a fine mesh under extreme pressure.
It was this phenomena which robbed them of a significant portion of their capacity to impel you along the desired course.
Along with your natural resistance to taking an action you found morally repugnant due to the treachery-aspect, of course. Interesting" Tiin assessed in a distant and detached voice.
I was lingering over this part of the event deliberately. Jumping back and forth between the actual assassination attempt's lead-up, commission, and my interactions with the dying loyal guardsman. Particularly that last part, because of the likelihood that Saesee Tiin would, as a member of the High Council, know the identity of the Anzat Dark Jedi assassin.
There was no way to stop the powerful and skilled mind-reader from digging for what he liked, but readily providing him with extremely relevant information stood a fair chance of dividing his attention somewhat.
From there I let my thoughts travel the path of realizations I'd come to on the drive back to the Temple, and what I'd done to rid myself of the remnant of tarry, clinging anger which had dogged me until shortly before his approach had interrupted my journey via the Force.
It went without saying I was using all the training which provided a foundation for the Thought Shield technique to keep thoughts of Padme out of my surface-level thinking.
I couldn't do anything for the burned-in surge of relief when I saw she'd only been lightly grazed, because all of that was a germane part of the assassination attempt the Jedi Master was specifically looking for, but that by itself wasn't likely to make him jump to any Jedi Code violating assumptions. At least I didn't think it would. Which I wasn't actually thinking about now.
Looking at me intently after his gray rimmed yellow eyes refocused, I had the immediate sense the Iktotchi had seen more than I would have liked, because he was radiating that vague, diffuse sort of disapproval I had long suspected Jedi Masters actually trained to project at the rest of us when they weren't prepared to call someone out on an element of specific wrongdoing.
Rather than walk into the trap which had been catching Initiates, Padawans, and Knights slow on the uptake since the Order's days on Ossus, if not long before, I calmly pretended not to notice said disapproval, then inquired levelly.
"Would you like me to begin putting my shielding back in order, as it was during the assassination attempt, Master Tiin?"
We studied each other in silence for several long moments more, before he simply nodded. It took more time to run through the long-internalized steps to refashion my defenses than it had taken to dismantle them, but in less than a minute, I was once more a walking cypher to my fellows.
I took a moment to wonder what exactly my elected inquisitor had glimpsed in my thoughts, but ultimately decided it didn't matter.
Sooner or later, one way or another, the truth would come out. I wasn't going to live my life increasing the angst-density of the universe, as so many of my attachment-possessing brothers and sisters were intent on doing while they remained "in the closet."
Not that I considered Saesee Tiin of all people a likely tale-bearer. Not when it was the unique telepathic abilities which had so ostracized him from his peers for the first three-quarters of his time within the Order which would be at issue.
I wouldn't put it past the man to try and "develop" non-telepathic proof of my indiscretion, if indeed he'd even seen enough to know what was going on, but triggering the likely expulsion of a Jedi Knight solely on the basis of information gleaned during a mind-scan ostensibly done to ensure that Jedi's well-being?
Faced with the choice of being decapitated by Sidious's saber, or being branded Captain of the Council's Thought-Police? I knew which one he'd choose every time.
The gifted mind-reader mmm'd underneath his breath. Once more possessed of that thousand meter stare, as he continued to consider the mental defenses he'd just watched me raise.
Eventually, the powerfully built alien provided his verdict. "Was it your Master who trained you to fuse the Thought Shield and Force Guard techniques together, or is this an example of the sort of idiotic experimentation which regularly kills young Jedi Knights?"
His frown as he asked the question was deep, and there was the promise of considerably more concentrated disapproval in the Jedi Master's creased features.
I rifled through my memories of my lessons, then honestly replied "It's just the way Master Dark Woman taught me to protect my mind.
I remember her saying something about my having enough strength to put the shield-constructs together in one block, but I had no idea they were two separate techniques.
I mean, I know what Force Immunity is, but I always thought there was a big difference between that, and what I was taught. That it was something the Sentinels, particularly the Shadows, trained their own in."
Tiin shook his head, then explained "It's one of those techniques which has different degrees of mastery, like Tutaminis. I would have thought your Master would know better than to experiment with the Force, but folly can find us at any age, it seems."
He looked at me very intently, then went on very firmly "You should most certainly not consider your teacher's exceptionally ill-advised experimentation something to emulate! Am I making myself absolutely clear on this point, Jedi Skywalker?"
This was another one of those things I thought the Order crazy for embracing, but I nodded obediently. Well aware I didn't (yet) have the reputation and support necessary to change "heresy" into "doctrine."
The Jedi Master studied me for a few more moments, then said "At least that explains how you escaped unscathed. Now that this unpleasantness is out of the way, you just have to answer for everything which happened on Cato Neimoidia. A great deal has happened in a very short while, after all."
Beckoning for me to follow, he spun in place, then stalked back through the Council chamber doors which had just hissed open.
Sighing under my breath, I followed along after him.
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