Chapter 10​ When Anaïs had rejoined Master Lucian on the bridge, they were nearing Uphrades, the only planet in the Uphrades system, the main planet and system sharing the same name as was common. It’d been effectively destroyed millennia ago, a Sith superweapon having trapped everyone on the planet, set fire to the atmosphere, and caused tectonic disturbances powerful enough to rip chunks off the surface entirely.

Now, looking at it in the distance, the planet was a giant ball of clouds and mist, red lightning occasionally flashing across the surface. However, that wasn’t their destination, the moon orbiting it was. This was surprising as, by the records she’d looked up, the planet didn’t have a moon. The records might’ve been incomplete, but, taking a seat at the secondary position on the bridge and bringing up the files, she couldn’t find any reference to it. At all. She glanced at her master, wondering if he’d removed records of it from the ship’s computers, and, if he had, where else he’d broken into in order to remove it from as well.

The concept was ludicrous, but the man had said he’d broken into the offices of the main maker of sensors to make sure his ship was still undetectable, so she couldn’t dismiss it. If she asked, he’d probably say so, but she put it aside, the issue not important as they started to approach the unknown moon with an unnamed ship.

There was light cloud cover, which they broke through, and she looked at the ship’s sensors to try to find out what she could about their new ‘home’, at least for the next several months. The surface of the planetoid they were landing on was near lifeless, a thin smattering of thorny scrubs here and there, a flicker of movement as something darted into the shrubbery. The air was too thin to breathe for long, like that of a mountaintop, but there was an atmosphere. The moon itself was odd as well, seemingly lumpy on their approach, and with maybe a third of the gravity she was used to, though the ship’s artificial gravity meant she didn’t feel it, yet.

As the ship turned, heading towards the only bit of color on the landscape, she caught sight of her Master’s ‘bolt hole’, not that she knew why a Jedi would require one, and, just like everything about the last two weeks, it wasn’t what she expected. “Is. . . is it under the junk?” she asked, glancing over the ship’s sensors. “Because I’m not detecting anything.” Which made sense for a hidden base, but, with her actively looking for it, there should be something.

She’d been thinking of a hidden valley, or a mountainside that opened up, or maybe a pure black space station, as that would fit her master more. Not a pile of destroyed ships, several of them enormous, massive hulks twisted with age, the elements, and long-ago violence.

Their vessel approached the conglomeration. The largest of which, a curving hull over four-hundred meters long, was buried under all the others. It was hard to make out completely, the smaller ships laid out around, and on, it, but, as they closed, she could make it out as they headed for a darkened hanger.

Without saying anything, Master Lucian landed his ship, powering down the cloak and putting the generator into standby. Standing and stretching, he commented, “Welcome to your new home, Padawan. Come along, and grab an oxygen mask if you want to. You won’t need it for long.”

Walking out without waiting for a response, Anaïs hesitated. Would she not need the mask because they were coming back to the ship, or because she was going to learn a technique that would mean she wouldn’t require one? She, like all Padawans, learned how to control her breathing, letting herself go longer without air, or do more in low-oxygen environments, than a normal person. But there was a limit to how long one could go before basic biology said, ‘that’s enough.’

Trusting her master, she hurried to follow, the boarding ramp already opening when she finally caught up. Glancing at her, Master Lucian nodded, stepping off the ship and almost gliding over to a set of controls, each stride a small jump of its own. She stepped off the ship as well, though the moment she did so something felt. . . off. Not the different gravity, which sent her bounding off to the side, almost falling but with more than enough time to catch herself, it was something else. Moving back to the ramp, she immediately felt better in a way that had nothing to being the weight she was used to, the change so sudden it was instantly recognizable.

This place reeked of the Dark Side.

It wasn’t as bad as the Sith Saber, nowhere close, but as she stepped out again, her steps a little more graceful, she could feel its cloying presence at the edges of her mind. Even after only a few days, she could block it out better than she had the nightclub, and this was a great deal darker than that, no swirls of Light mixed within, but that still left her wondering why a Jedi would live somewhere like this.

“Are you coming, or not, Padawan?” her master prompted, tapping away at what appeared to be an unpowered computer, though, to her surprise, a door opened, the inside illuminated with dim red light, which didn’t look ominous at all.

Bracing herself, she joined him as he ‘walked’ deeper into the wreckage, copying his motions and quickly getting used to the lesser gravity. The hanger had been dusty and dirty, small piles of detritus gathered in the corners, but, while the air was a bit stale, it was oddly clean in these twisting hallways. Reaching a turbolift, she was unsure of it’s stability, but trusted her master and stepped onto it after him.

The elevator smoothly descended, the feeling of darkness increasing, the shadows dancing around the edges of the enclosed space, before the lights suddenly shifted from red to white and they passed through an energy field that buzzed through them harmlessly. Suddenly it was much easier to breathe, gravity was suddenly normal, and the feelings of encroaching malignance disappeared entirely, just as fast as it’d appeared when she’d stepped off the ship.

Looking to Master Lucian, who glanced at her with a slight smirk, she asked, “Was that. . . was that fake? The Dark Side, or, my feeling it?”

“Oh, no, that was very much real,” he disagreed pleasantly, the elevator still descending. “One does not kill sixteen million people, and an entire Agri-world, by burning them to death without leaving an echo. Uphrades is, and may always be, resonant with the Dark Side of the Force because of what happened here. Not as much as some, it was only a single event over a few months, and not years, or centuries, of suffering, but enough.”

“Enough for what?” she had to ask, wanting to ask about what other planets he was referring to, but trying to stay on topic. “Enough to train against?”

Her master looked at her, an eyebrow raised, as the turbolift slowed to a halt. “Because I take so many students, of course I’ve built this complex for training. No, it is enough to mask the Force presence of those who reside in the Light, be they Masters, or new Padawans.”

The doors opened, revealing a wide-open room, closer to a warehouse, boxes stacked thirty feet high against the walls, halfway to the ceiling. Up the walls were openings for hallways, with no visible way to reach them, the doorways hanging open like cliffside tunnels, and it looked as if someone had just scooped out this section of the ship in its entirety.

What was attracting her attention the most was the glowing bronzium disk in the center of the ceiling, a series of rings spinning in alternate directions surrounding it, glowing blue runes carved into their surface. “What is that?” she asked, having never seen anything like it.

“Presence suppressor. Took forever to fix, and the reason we can rest easily,” he replied, motioning for her to follow as he walked to one wall and leapt without breaking stride, launching himself up to land lightly in one suspended doorway, turning to wait for her.

Oh, that’s what they’re for, she thought, trying to follow. She couldn’t do so easily, and stopped, trying to remember the steps. Force Jumping was something that everyone could do, but most could only do so for ten or fifteen feet, not the twenty he just had. Then again, it was supposed to be used in combat, and, like so much, she’d hit the level she thought was mastery of it, only to be casually shown there was so much more.

She ran through the process, which was two-fold. The first was to enhance her legs, infusing the Force into her body to make the jump beyond what mere muscles could allow. The second was to use telekinesis to push down, at the ground, not mooring herself in the Force as one needed to if they tried to use telekinesis on anything heavier than themselves. That combo of leap and push was what was needed to propel herself higher into the air than should be possible.

Pushing herself hard, trying to Force Jump further vertically than she ever had before, she called deeply on the Force and launched herself upwards. She flew, high, definitely high enough, only to realize that while her technique had been perfect her aim had been off, and she was going to fly face-first into a hard steel wall. Desperately pushing away with the Force, she successfully reversed her course only now to be on a path to smash into a pile of boxes.

Before she could summon enough power to push herself away again, her trajectory slowed, until she was hanging mid-air. “Let me guess,” her master’s voice called, as she reddened with shame over not even able to make a simple jump, “they’ve lowered the standards of the physical courses as well. Literally in this case.”

“I could’ve made it,” she muttered, though not quietly enough for him not to hear.

“Indeed, it is not your power that is lacking, but your aim,” Master Lucian agreed, laughing. “Don’t worry, Padawan, it’s okay. We are here to train, after all.” Bringing her to him, Anaïs landed in the opening, put down right in front of him, his presence in the Force receding. “Have you learned how to fall, at least?” he asked, turning around and continuing down the passage. “From at least fifty feet up?” Master Lucian added, before she could respond.

“I have,” Anaïs told him, falling silent as they went down several passages, into a smaller turbolift, and then through several more into a wide chamber, lit, but inactive. Odd looking columns stood in the center, with railings set a good distance around them.

Typing away at the main console, she heard machinery below their feat start to churn, falling into a low hum, and electricity started to arc along the columns, showing the need for the railings. “And this will get things online, the power cells were running lower than I would’ve liked,” he announced. “Lets get you settled, and, hmmm, I’d say you can have the Little One’s room, as he hasn’t used it in centuries, but he’d likely complain. I’m sure I can find something for you. Maybe. . .” he trailed off, walking back the way they came, and Anaïs just followed once more. She wanted to be uneasy with this, this, this entire thing really. With secret bases on Dark Side Moons. With assassinations of criminals, even if they were absolutely evil. With going from Initiate to Padawan in less than an hour. But she’d left what she was comfortable with a while ago, back on Fabrin at the latest, so she was just going to take things as they were.

>​

“I believe it’s time to truly test you, Padawan,” Master Lucian intoned, the two of them in another large room, somewhat reminiscent of the training halls back at the temple. Only, instead of smooth stone, carefully sculpted to let in light and air flow in, this room was durasteel, the illumination and breeze both artificial. The ground was soft, thick black mats covering the floor, and the walls looked almost molded, as if something had bent and hammered the metal in place instead of the smooth planes of most of this ship’s corridors.

“You weren’t before?” she had to ask, thinking of the training she’d already gone through, already harder than anything she’d done in years, pushing her to the point of exhaustion, only to train her more as she healed herself of the injuries she’d accrued during said training.

He shook his head, “That was the basics, but the more I see the more I realize my own estimations are off. I thought, with your age, you would be at a higher level than most potential padawans, and I was wrong. Not necessarily about your level of comparative skill, as opposed to the others,” he clarified before she could object that she was skilled, “But about my own idea of your skills, and how I needed a better understanding of what they are. So, as we have been doing, we must start from the very beginning, and work our way up from there. We’ve covered the basics of the basics, though not to full proficiency, but I need a better idea of your other abilities. To start with, do you have any natural talents in the Force? Anything you found you could do without formal training?”

It was her turn to shake her head, the answer coming easy enough as she paraphrased what she’d learned at the Temple, “I thought everything required training. That’s why Force sensitives are given to the Jedi, as without proper guidance they will never be able to use their gifts.”

“That’s what your instructors taught you?” he asked skeptically. At her nod, he sighed, “No, Padawan. Many Jedi develop abilities they are not trained in, though further training can help hone them. Pyrokinesis, Beast Speech, Shatterpoint, Psychometry, there are quite a few, the last of which, the ability to read echoes left by the Force in items would be of great use as a Sentinel, though training would be required to protect yourself from its. . . negative effects, when treading the shadowed streets, as we Sentinels do as a matter of course. Some, like Pyrokinesis, can be learned. Others, like Psychometry, cannot, or at least I do not know how to teach you, and neither would anything in the archives. I’ve checked.”

She thought about it, thought about what she’d learned, what she’d practiced. “I’m good with Force Barriers,” she offered, creating one over her hand, the ghostly white disk floating above her palm. They’d been the first ability she’d mastered, or that the teachers had told her she’d mastered, at least.

Her master regarded it, before there was a stirring in the Force and a lance of physical force, the faintest of shadows the only visual sign, slammed into her shield. It broke, cracking in half, and the attack stopped itself before it touched her hand, even as she shifted the one of the destroyed portions down to protect herself, the other fading into nothingness.

The attacking force tapped at the shard of shield, then struck it, shattering it too, before dissipating even as she tried to reform it.

“You do have a bit of talent for them,” he agreed mildly, though it held a weight the faint praise wouldn’t have had from the Temple instructors, from whom it would be a reminder of her need to work harder. “So other than the six, nine, however you want to count them, do you have any talent with the others?”

“I haven’t tried,” she had to admit. “I wasn’t allowed to.” At her master’s look, she explained, “We were told to practice the basics, and that it would be our masters who showed us the deeper secrets of the Force, and guided our training. That, once we mastered an ability, we were to receive no more training and instead help guide the younglings.”

Master Lucian stared at her, expression blank even as his presence stirred. “What.”

“I was told that it was to better allow our masters to teach us when we were Padawans,” she explained, not sure why this was surprising. It was why, even if some of the things she was learning were. . . different, she’d been so ready to learn, so excited about finally being chosen. The excitement had dimmed, more than a little, but she was more sure than ever that she’d finally be able to move forward again. “As we would not have to un-learn what our masters would want us to learn, and to approach the Force in the way they wished, we were to wait once we had achieved ‘mastery’ of a subject.”

“Un-learn. . .” he echoed, sounding confused. “Un-learn? Why would. . . oh. Those. . . idiots.”

“Master?”

He shook his head. “Once again, the ‘truth’ they have shared with you is a ‘truth’, but not the truth. Unless you attempt the Dark Side version of a technique, there is, from a practical point of view, no difference in the manner of which you form your barriers, I form my barriers, and the Little One forms his barriers. No, that is a reason, and a poor one at that, one almost never true, but not the reason. Tell me Padawan, if you had not become a Padawan, what would have happened to you?”

“I would’ve joined the Service Corps,” she replied instantly. She didn’t think things had changed that much since Master Lucian’s time.

“And would you have still learned how to use the Force as you would as a Padawan? How to harness your abilities? Would you even be allowed to keep your lightsaber?” he inquired, motioning towards where her weapon at her waist.

Her hand automatically went to it, her one, sole possession for the past eight years. “They wouldn’t, would they?” she asked in return. Jedi were not supposed to be attached to their possessions, but from the way most Jedi acted, their sabers were the exception to that rule, so she might have allowed herself the same indulgence. Surely if she’d joined the explorer corps, she’d be allowed to keep it, if only to protect herself.

“A Jedi’s weapon, that is. A member of the Order, you may be, but the rank of Jedi, you do not hold,” Master Lucian commented, almost mockingly, and Anaïs felt her heart grow heavy, even as she knew that she was a Padawan now, so her fears were baseless. “If, as a Knight, you joined, then you would, but as an Initiate, not even a Padawan? You may be allowed to keep it, you would have if you were you joining the explorer corp when I became a Padawan, but of the Explorers I’ve met in the last few centuries, only the Knights and Padawans held sabers. Now, what does that tell you about why they wouldn’t train you further?”

“They were trying to keep us weak?” she asked, scarcely believing it herself. “To better control us?”

Master Lucian started to nod, but stopped. “Yes, and yes, but likely not in the way you think. Remember, Padawan, the Temple’s actions are always done for benevolent reasons, though that does not excuse them. The more you know, the stronger you are, the worse it is if you fall, and the less. . . accepting you may be of your fate, and, of course, the higher the likely hood you would question the will of the ‘Force’, as told to you by those deemed to be your betters. It’s not out of malice, but concern that they do so. To protect you, even from yourself, their lies excusable to their own ears when weighed against the possibilities of the harm the truth would inflict on the weaker among them, whatever they claim to the contrary. The fact that, even for a sub-optimal Master, having Padawans so restricted makes even the weakest Master seem all the more impressive is secondary, of course.”

Sighing, he shook his head, “I’d seen some signs, and of course heard more from the Little One, but it is only now that I am realizing how far things have gone in my absence. Next you’ll say they’re promoting Knights without passing the Trials.” He paused for a moment, as if waiting, though she wasn’t sure for what. “There’s that at least, or maybe you haven’t heard.” Clapping his hands together, his mood seemed to brighten, his Force presence, which had started to darken and roil, smoothed out once again.

“So, you haven’t been trained, and even your own self-training, like your spar with Padawan Jorel, was bereft of help of oversight. I know that your use of barriers certainly wasn’t taught to you, or I’d’ve seen it elsewhere. You have no ability past the basics, which themselves have been degraded to half of what they used to be, and then further broken down to lower the bar. Your teachers were either lying, or had been mislead themselves, and doctrine has gotten so tight that even other schools of thought have been dismissed entirely. What do you even know of other Force-using traditions?” Master Lucian asked, making her feel fairly small, her failings listed so bluntly.

She shrugged helplessly. “They exist? That, misguided as they are, they are weaker in ability, even then our Padawans, and most tread dangerously close to the Dark Side, unaware of the dangers?”

“Weaker than. . .” he trailed off, disbelief stark in his tone. “Alright, the list of places I’m not taking you anywhere soon has just tripled. That might be true in the Inner Rim and the Core, but the places we’ll go. . . no. Just. . . no. Rule of thumb, any organization with the words Brother, Sister, Sorcerer, Conclave, Witches, Wizards, Night, or Cult in their name, is usually dark aligned, and something to be careful of. Anything with the words Order, Disciples, or Temple could go either way, and the words Monk, Aesthetic, or Healer is usually Light. These aren’t hard rules, but you will attract their attention, Padawan, and know that, as Force users, they might be able to fake their presence, especially if they’re Dark Adepts. That said, merely hiding their presence does not signify darkness, only caution. The Disciples of Twilight, for example, are actually fairly nice, despite their name and secretive nature. Oh, and if any force sensitive woman says they’re from Dathomir, run,” the Jedi Master instructed solemnly.

“Why?” she couldn’t help but ask. “I will, but why?”

The young-looking man winced. “They’re female supremist Force users that breed true, specialize in illusions, and who I may or may not have had a few disagreements with in the past. In my defense I was young and having a bad decade. Her attempts to trap me in my own mind were just begging for me to return the favor. It’s not my fault she was so used to inflicting it on others that she never learned how to break out of it herself. And she learned. Eventually.”

Anaïs blinked, the shift from wise old master to defensive young. . . knight, she guessed, was so sudden it gave her mood whiplash. “So, there’s a woman from Dathomir out there that wants revenge?”

“Oh, her? No, Malicia died over half a millennia ago,” he waved away. “No, it’s her daughters, with a couple dozen ‘grand’s in there, that are the issue. They’re likely to. . . ‘adopt’ you. Whether you want to be or not. You are strong in the Force, Anaïs, almost as much as I was at your age, and you’d make a very worthwhile prize, even without your connection to me. No, if a strong, smug female Force user appears out of nowhere, especially literally, raise your Mental Shields, call for help, and run.”

“I will,” she repeated, making a mental note to look up Dathomir after she was done training today.

Master Lucian sighed, “Don’t worry, Anaïs. The chances of them finding us here are so absolutely remote we’re more likely to run into Rakatans.”

Who? she thought, not recognizing the species name.

“So, we’re starting at the very bottom. You know how to meditate, and you’re learning how to use the force while moving, which is the Jedi equivalent of speaking in four-word sentences. Your ‘vocabulary’ is similarly poor, but the entire Order seems to be speaking pidgin nowadays, the dictionaries locked away for fear of the difficult words within, so that is hardly your fault,” he obviously tried reassured her, though it didn’t work. “Your progress, however, gives me hope that I was correct in my original assessment of your capabilities, even if your current skill level is lower than expected. That said, I am going to have words with the Little One, the next time I see him, as some warning would’ve been appreciated, and I know he’s laughing to himself about his little joke.”

Master Lucian paused, staring off to the side, eyes narrowed, before he turned back to her. “Now, the questions are done, at least for now, and I believe it is time for your training. A problem has been brought to my attention.”

“Problem?” she asked, with a sinking feeling as shadows coalesced into platform fifteen feet into the air, another twenty feet up, and a third thirty feet from the ground.

“Yes, you have shown you have some talent with Force Jump, as the technique has been creatively named, and claim you know how to fall. This is a skill that, not expecting a Padawan, I have taken for granted in the construction of this place. Let’s test and train both!” the Jedi Master announced. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you don’t hurt yourself too bad, if you fail, but I foresee some training of self-healing as well. If you break bones, I’ll reform them for you. I know you aren’t at that level. Yet. Never say I am not a benevolent master.”

The Jedi’s Force presence was deceptively calm, not a hint of the Dark Side at all, which must’ve been some sort of trick, as his cheerful grin was pure, undiluted evil.