Chương 26: Chapter 20: Unforeseen Issues

To be strong in the Force is one thing. But to believe oneself to be all-powerful is to invite catastrophe. Remember, that even in the ethereal realm we inhabit, the unforeseen can occur. ~*~*~*~ 59 BBY – 941 ARR – Coruscant Rann's days fell into a regular routine after the first few weeks of being confined to the Temple. On Prime, Taung, and Bendu days, he had intentionally stacked his schedule so he had classes from 8 in the morning to 7: 30 at night, with some time in-between to eat and spar.

His Centax and Zhell days he only had one afternoon class, so those were spent on personal projects, bladework, working as Master Nu's assistant, and meditation. Every two weeks, he took off a Cen day to rest. While he wasn't exactly glad to be taken off the active mission roster, it didn't exactly impose a huge imposition on his life.

As the apprentice of the Chief Librarian, he wasn't likely to spend tons of time out in the field as an apprentice of a consular Jedi like Master Dooku might, resolving diplomatic disputes and the like. In all likelihood, he would've only left the temple two or three times more during the year. Not that he told the Council that. Besides, the real punishment was the mark left on his record and the knowing eyes of his fellow Jedi as they saw him pass through the halls.

All of this Rann tried to push to the side as he suffered through yet another Cen day lecture of Republic Law and Governance III – Remedial. It had come as a recommendation from the Council of Reconciliation – or in other words, Master Oppo Rancisis. Master Nu told him that Oppo had defended him in front of the Council, but that apparently hadn't stopped the Councilor from getting his pound of flesh in ways.

Thus, Rann was stuck in a class with Padawans five years older than him who had struggled to understand these concepts the first time they were explained.

"Padawan Crys, I appear to be boring you," said Elder Lonar, a sour-faced human who demanded nothing less than perfect attention at all times.

"Sorry, Elder." Rann saw no point in dissembling. Elder Lonar gave him a hard look before sighing.

"I don't suppose you could explain how, exactly, we Jedi have reached our current privileged status before the Republic's law?" Rann furrowed his brow. Elder Lonar had spent the last three days lecturing on the topic, so it was quite a lot to condense into a simple reply.

"Originally, the Republic and the Jedi Order were allies, and part of the provisions were to give the Jedi certain ambassadorial privileges. Over time, as the relationship deepened and changed, the Jedi became something like a priestly caste for the Republic, serving as its spiritual and moral compass, as well as its greatest defenders. Jedi began to serve as lawkeepers, ambassadors, military officers, senators, and even chancellors.

Then, following the Ruusan Reformations, Jedi were barred from holding political or military office within the Republic. We still possess the self-same rights of ambassadors as official representatives of the Republic, as well as the right to investigate, make arrests, or use lethal force should the situation require it, but cannot hold office and are not officially part of the government.

Formally, a Jedi cannot be commanded to do almost anything, even by the Chancellor, though we are frequently invited to investigate or mediate conflicts by either the Chancellor's office or the Senate."

"Very good, Padawan," said the Elder, though his stern face gave nothing away.

"If your classmates could give such a cogent answer, we would not have needed to spend the last week and a half on the subject. Well, to continue…" Rann slumped again as the professor continued his lecture. He could feel his classmates' eyes on him. They all felt like they were being shown up by him, a mere Junior Padawan. Which they were, he could acknowledge. If he were able, he would have taken another section that at least wasn't remedial, but this was the only one that fit into his schedule.

So now he was stuck in a class with an ornery Elder and disgruntled Senior Padawans. A fitting revenge, indeed, Councilor Oppo, he thought. At least I get to work it out afterwards. An interminable thirty minutes later, and Lonar's droning was over. Rann hustled out of the class, pushing past many of the older students as quickly as possible to avoid being trapped in conversation. Soon, he found himself at the training room he had booked.

It was an expansive space, over a hundred meters in each direction and made out of white tiles. Up in the control room was an astromech Rann had made friends with, an R1-series that he suspected had somehow managed to avoid regular memory wipes. It had taken a bribe of under-the-table maintenance to convince the surly droid to help him.

"Remember, I need for the space to be constantly changing," he called out before slipping the blindfold over his eyes.

"And no more than two training droids!" Following a series of bleeps and bloops that made up "droidspeak," or Binary as it was formally known from the R1, he heard the gentle hum of two Marksman-H drones. He was secretly thrilled to be training with the same equipment as Luke Skywalker, but pushed that down to focus on the threat in front of him. Thwip-pshh. He deflected the first shot with ease, and the next.

Then he felt a faint nudge in the Force just before a gentle hiss hit his ears and the tile he was on rose into the air. Thwip. He dodged, lightsaber waving wildly as he worked to regain his balance. Thwip-pshh. Another shot deflected. He jumped off the platform onto another one that he had sensed through the Force, stumbling as he misjudged the landing. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Doing this blindfolded is much harder than I expected, he thought as he just barely dodged another laser. He could barely pay enough attention to get a read on the moving platforms, much less pay attention to the two drones firing at him. Another ten minutes of haplessly stumbling around and thankfully avoiding hit by lasers (even if they were set to stun, they still hurt), he managed to hit one of the Marksman-H droids with a deflected blaster bolt, punctuated by the dull thunk of it hitting the tiled floor.

Rann took off his blindfold as the astromech let out a sad trill.

"That…" he gasped, still out of breath, "sucked. Way harder than I thought it would be." He watched as the room returned to its original layout, platforms lowering themselves back to the floor as the training drone rose from the floor. The R1 unit let out another string of bleeps in Binary that Rann only half understood. He was still trying to parse through it when a wall panel opened to reveal another Marksman-H.

"No. No way." He had barely survived two, after all. The astromech managed to make the most obviously taunting noise he had ever heard before lifting one of its manipulators in challenge. Rann huffed for another few breaths, but eventually asked himself, what would Mace do?

"Okay." He slipped the blindfold back on.

"Okay. Start-" Three bolts flew towards him simultaneously. He jumped. Thwip. He whirled, elbow slamming into a platform he hadn't noticed and nearly dropped his 'saber. Cursing, he rolled away from yet another. Thwip thwip. He barely deflected both, then leapt onto a rising platform to avoid a third. A backflip – combined with another deflection – got him safely away from the third volley. Another bad landing, he was stumbling back. Another Force-propelled leap and he was near the wall.

Dodge, deflect, deflect, dodge. No more room to maneuver. He leapt again, aiming for a lower platform – a wall tile flew out of the wall, he curled and – he was on the ground, groaning. Over the control rooms intercoms, he heard the R1's shrill, whistling laughter. Climbing to his feet and trembling with rage, he ripped off the blindfold.

"You karking bucket of bo- olts," he roared, voice cracking with puberty near the end but too angry to feel embarrassed.

"You did that on purpose!" The astromech just raised its manipulator and jeered at him.

"I ought to send you to the scrapheap! Or… or sell you to the Jawas." The R1 just snarked him again and spun in circles.

"Well, the droid seems to have thoroughly defeated you," called out a cheerful voice. Rann whirled to see Master Zucul making his way towards him with a wide grin and arms folded in front of him. Rann's frustration piqued for a moment before he deflated.

"Yes, master." Master Zucul chuckled briefly as he came to a stop in front of Rann.

"Tell me, what was the point of your exercise here?"

"I wanted to…" What Rann wanted to accomplish was as multifaceted as it was vague.

"I wanted to master Force Sight, Master." He wanted to prove himself. He wanted to prove that even blindfolded, he could face any challenge.

"Hmm." Rann had grown familiar with that sound growing up in the creche. It was Master Zucul's way of saying 'I know you aren't telling me the truth, but I will let you tell me in your own time.' After a few moments of silence, he said, "you know, my people have given our ability the name Force Sight, but we have always known it is a misnomer."

"What?" Rann was too frustrated to parse through a Master's wisdom right now.

"Most other beings in the galaxy perceive using sight. We do not." He gestured up to the white cloth that covered his eye sockets.

"We therefore gave them an easy frame of reference to understand our own perception, but that does not mean it is accurate." It clicked for Rann.

"I need to perceive, not see." Zucul dipped his head.

"Yes. To do what you want, you must accept the Force as it is, not what you wish it to be." Then he gestured towards the door.

"But that is enough for the day, I think."

"Yes, master." He felt better now. They strode to the door together. ~*~*~ Bathed in the soft blue glow of the archive's many holobooks, Rann looked at the terminal in front of him with dread. He knew for years that he should have investigated the Sith directly, but he'd always made excuses. For starters, he had foreknowledge of several of their plans due to his previous life. He certainly knew their end game.

He had also been afraid that the Sith would have some way of tracking what he did on the holonet, or even on the Temple's servers. But he'd known for some time that wasn't accurate. He didn't think the Sith had access to the Temple's servers, for now. And the holonet's infrastructure was totally different from the internet of his previous lifetime. The New Sith Wars, which had lasted for almost a thousand years, had reduced large swathes of the galaxy to rubble.

Some wars had been fought with sticks and stones, towards the end, with actual spears being back in vogue due to the material destruction of more advanced ways of warfare. This, combined with the truly vast amounts of data produced throughout the galaxy, meant that data infrastructure in the Star Wars universe was much more siloed than in Earth's 21 st century.

The Holonet functioned much more like the early internet, where the amount of data it could transfer quickly versus what could be stored locally was skewed much more in favor of local storage and point-to-point communication between servers and devices. The Sith couldn't really design webcrawlers that would flag his queries, at least not effective ones. But he'd still put it off until months after running into Hego Damask, Darth Plagueis of the Order of the Sith Lords.

His first few queries revealed exactly what he expected: information regarding Magister Damask of Damask Holdings, the group's involvement in Naboo's development of its plasma industry, Palpatine's family's 'tragic' death, etc. The rest of the galaxy was proceeding ahead as it should. But then he saw something unexpected. In a photo from a throwaway article from some financial paper, a tall Bith stood next to Plagueis. The caption said, pictured: Ship designer Rugess Nome next to Magister Damask, ARR 940. What?

He should be dead. Plagueis kills Tenebrous in 67 BBY, almost a decade ago. Is the caption wrong? He can barely breathe. It takes him three fumbling tries to type in his next query to the databank. [Rugess Nome: Newest to Oldest]. The results load quickly. Rugess Nome's Newest Design Stuns the Galaxy Best Ship Designer Alive? Rugess Nome. Nome Reimagines the Old Republican Style With Custom Ships His eyes blur. He looks at the dates. All within the last month.

Rugess Nome, also known as Darth Tenebrous, Master of Darth Plagueis the Wise, is alive.