Jedi Master Kyle Katarn’s starship, the Raven’s Claw, came out of hyperspace in the Coruscant system and descended into the planet’s atmosphere. It was a typical late afternoon, accompanied by the heavy rush hour skyway traffic of countless citizens heading home after a day’s “work,” probably behind some desk within a single one of those towers littering the landscape, Kyle thought as he entered a skyway. The hustle and bustle of Coruscant made Kyle feel slightly annoyed though, even more so now that it had worn out its initial appeal years ago. Kyle could see the Jedi Temple in the distance, which gave him a warm feeling. This was not Kyle’s home, but it felt like when he was a child, getting closer to his relatives’ place. It was that familiar feeling a physical place brings up inside you, no matter how long you’ve been away.
Kyle set the Claw to autopilot to complete the landing procedure, while he grabbed his traditional Jedi robe from the closet. He smiled, because also reminding him of visiting relatives in his youth, he was wearing an article of clothing he was not particularly comfortable in, but wore in order to show respect to the person he was visiting. Kyle walked down his starship’s ramp and saw C-3PO standing all alone, ahead of him on the landing pad. The two disparate figures walked towards each other. An organic, animal-like being in a dark brown, almost black robe and a jerky, shiny and golden mechanical thing meeting at the centre of the walkway between the landing pad and one of the temple’s doorways. “Greetings, Master Katarn. I hope you had a pleasant trip.”
“Thanks, 3PO and how are things around here?”
“As perfectly usual as one may expect,” said C-3PO in his chipper, almost overly polite tone, while jerking his permanently bent golden arms up and down. Kyle had learned that C-3PO was more versatile than others had given him credit for. Even though most of his memories on Tatooine were wiped, Kyle had discovered from Luke that C-3PO had been assembled on that desert planet originally. He may not have sounded like one, but C-3PO was still a farm boy at heart so to speak, just like Luke and Kyle. “If you please, follow me and Master Skywalker will be meeting you shortly.”
“Lead the way, golden boy,” said Kyle as he waved his hand forward. He knew C-3PO would be somewhat irritated by this nickname, but it was all in good fun. It was just too bad that C-3PO did not quite fully grasp what having fun was, being a droid and all.
“Golden boy? I suppose I am golden, but I most certainly am not a boy, not a boy of any species, please mind you.” This was just the kind of reaction Kyle was hoping for, causing him to raise his eyebrows and grin slightly.
The dark and golden figures entered the doorway into one of many of the temple’s lobbies. The innards of the temple had an interesting look nowadays. Part Old Jedi Order, part New Jedi Order and part Luke. The old style was cavernous and sparse, with giant pillars and majestic arches spread everywhere. The new style was more closed in and functional, but still retained the circular shapes from the old days, now with green and red banners intermixed with the predominantly brown hues from before. Luke’s style, which was only noticeable in the rooms immediately surrounding his quarters, including this particular lobby, added a lighter colour tone to the atmosphere, along with expansive windows that gave a great sense of openness. Above, there was an enormous skylight, as big in perimeter as the circular lobby itself. The walls of the lobby had a pattern of circular windows, each overlapping one another, looking like an unbroken chain of light all the way around. Luke did not care for statues, pillars, artwork, nor did he display any of his medals or other trinkets from his past for others to see. Stairways arched along both sides of the lobby and proceeded to a doorway just under the skylight.
“Master Skywalker will …,” C-3PO was cut off by the Jedi Grandmaster himself, who stood at the bottom of the stairway to their right, who C-3PO did not see upon entering the lobby, as his droid senses were not as in tune as Kyle thought they would be.
“…Kyle,” half-shouted Luke, in an upbeat, friendly tone.
“Master,” said Kyle politely as he nodded his head towards Luke.
Luke nodded back. “Welcome back. Did your trip go alright?” asked Luke.
“Yeah, the hyperspace route was smooth, but the sky traffic coming in seems to be getting worse,” replied Kyle.
“Tell me about it, especially around this time of day,” agreed Luke. “Thanks for coming by the way. Like I said, things have been going well lately.”
“So you don’t want to talk business, Luke?,” asked Kyle, dropping the “Master” formality which the two had agreed upon in the past was not required for Luke’s ego, but Kyle thought he should still call him once in a while as a sign of respect. Kyle didn’t quite believe that this was just a purely friendly visit.
“Nah, I thought we could have some supper. Hungry?”
“You buying? Or is this courtesy of the great tax payers of the great New Republic?”
“Technically, it would be the tax payers,” replied Luke with the tiniest hint of a sense of guilt.
“Alright! Sounds good to me. We’re all civil servants around here anyways,” said Kyle as he glanced over at C-3PO.
Luke turned his attention towards the droid as well, “thank you 3PO.”
“I will be leaving you then, sir,” said C-3PO politely as he walked towards a side door.
Luke gestured towards the stairway to their right. They began walking side by side, slowly up the curved stairway, closer to the skylight and the doorway at the top.
Luke broke the moment of silence and commented, “You know, I haven’t seen you since that incident on Corellia.”
“What a bunch of bantha shit that was,” said Kyle. “Those protesters just wanted to show their faces off on the Holonet.”
“You don’t think they truly believed in their cause?”
“Maybe they did, but they should have found other ways to get attention.”
“Such as?” asked Luke.
“Starting a charity to raise money for those poor people or they could’ve made a proper holo-documentary to get their point across,” replied Kyle as they walked through the doorway and began trekking across a long outdoor walkway in the wind, towards another temple building.
“That probably would have worked out a lot better.”
“Worked out a lot better for everybody,” replied Kyle with a slightly annoyed look on his face, reminiscent of his feelings when he was assisting in the negotiations between the protesters and the Coronet police officials.
“Have you been back there since then?” asked Luke as a gust of wind blew their robes a little to the side.
“Can’t say that I have. You?”
As he gripped his robe, preventing it from getting caught in the wind gust too much, Luke said “Yes, as a matter of fact I was there again just two weeks ago for the opening of the Disadvantaged Peoples’ Healing Centre.”
“Oh yeah. Hopefully you had more fun this time around.”
“Yes, it was nice to see a peaceful outcome,” replied Luke genuinely. This made Kyle smile a bit. He always envied Luke’s genuine caring for others. Kyle cared for other people, but not as much on an emotional level. It may have been due to his bitter time being an Imperial officer in his early days or perhaps his maddening experiences when he flirted with the dark side of the Force on Dromund Kaas. Those experiences definitely added to his coldness, but above all else the death of his mother before he joined the Imperial Academy always weighed heavy on his heart.
The skyway traffic was still in rush hour mode, but was soon to slow down, as the two dark robed, bearded wizards traversed across the walkway surrounded by the bright and busy skyline. The two menacing beings resembled Sith Lords from times forgotten, perhaps meeting to discuss serious and devastating plans.
They entered the doorway into the next circular building. The inside had a lot of white and sandy tones, much like a Tatooine homestead. There were oval windows spaced separately along the perimeter of the building, which were fewer than and not as glamorous as the circular windows in the previous lobby. “Anything you’d like to have in particular?,” asked Luke, as they came up to the server droid, K-LA (Kayla), who was waiting for them just outside the dining room.
“What’s on the menu tonight?,” asked Kyle to Luke.
But Kayla answered with her cutesy high pitched voice instead, “we will be serving algae supreme with wafers, glockaw sauce and spicy vegetable mix. For starters: your choice between xachibik broth, nyork chowder or topato soup.”
Kyle looked towards Luke, who was raising his eyebrows. “I’ll try the nyork chowder,” said Kyle. He was thinking of trying the xachibik broth, but on second thought Wookiee food was too spicy for him.
“I’ll have the topato soup,” answered Luke.
“And what would you like to drink?,” asked Kayla. Luke and Kyle both settled for tea and water. The pink coloured droid thanked them and rolled away with a low pitched humming noise. Luke gestured towards the dining room, which Kyle entered first.
This was not like a typical Jedi Temple dining hall, with the long tables and cold Jedi-like aesthetics. This was Luke’s private dining room. The cozy room consisted of three main oval shapes: the room itself, the table and a singular window looking out onto the cityscape in the distance.
Kyle felt a strange, strong electrostatic shock run up his leg as he put his foot onto the carpeted, cream coloured dining room floor. However, despite the oddness of this physical sensation, Kyle just sluffed it off as his leg’s nerves merely reacting to becoming reacquainted to walking around after having been cooked up in the Raven’s Claw during his trip. The two Jedi masters took their seats, just as Kayla rolled right into the dining room with their drinks and said in a cheerful tone, “here are your drinks and I will be right back with your soups”.
“So, what do you think about the Force nowadays?” asked Kyle, not quite expecting how Luke would answer such an open ended question.
“Everything seems to be in balance for the most part.”
“Nothing being clouded out there?” asked Kyle, slightly sarcastically.
With a calmly satisfied look, Luke answered, “no, it feels … good.”
“That’s good to hear. I can’t sense the big picture like you, so I’m glad things aren’t falling apart … yet … anyway,” exclaimed Kyle, as he took a sip of his tea.
With a concerned little frown on his face, Luke asked “what do you mean ‘yet’?”
“I mean, sometimes it feels like it’s just one thing after another.”
Luke paused and slowly let out the words “we should be grateful for these good times.”
“Cheers to that,” Kyle genuinely agreed as he clinked his cup to Luke’s.
“But, you actually want to know what I think about the Force? Right? Generally?”
“Yeah,” answered Kyle as he took a big gulp, “sure. Same views as always, I guess?”
“For the most part, yes. I do believe in what I teach after all,” Luke replied as he took a long sip of his tea.
“After all, you are the founder of this new Order,” announced Kyle as the two friends smiled.
“In my mind, the Force between all things is like a cobweb of light that pulls and pushes things apart,” stated Luke, as he moved his hands outward and then inward.
“Like gravity.”
Luke explained, “yes, but gravity is just a passive force, while the Cosmic Force brings balance to all life in the galaxy. Wherever living things might be taking too much, the Force pulls in the light of other living things to bring balance, over vast distances and periods of time.”
“And that’s us, right? Shining Jedi lights being pulled to wherever the Force needs us to bring balance.”
“Right,” answered Luke. Kyle could see a heavy sense of duty shining through the Jedi Master’s hopeful eyes.
Kayla rolled back into the dining room and happily announced, “Here are your soups, gentlemen,” dropping off Kyle’s nyork chowder and Luke’s topato soup, along with a plate of crackers. The two knights concentrated on consuming their soups. Kyle enjoyed the creamy and chewy chowder. Luke crumbled some crackers into his smooth and salty topato soup.
Carrying on from where they had left their conversation, Luke announced, “think of the Cosmic Force as the higher level motivation behind our immediate connection to the Living Force, so that we can help bring peace to the beings around us.”
“Well said, Master. But when you say ‘motivation’, what are we talking about exactly?”
Luke replied with an inquisitive expression, “I think it’s not just the motivation we find within ourselves when we listen to the midi-chlorians, but some other consciousness tied into the Force.”
“I know, I know, I know. The will of the Force. But do you actually believe in the Whills?” asked Kyle, realizing that they may be restarting a debate as old as time.
“I don’t know if it’s the Whills or perhaps some god-like beings, like the Twin Deities in Dathomiri shamanism for instance,” said Luke with that same inquisitive look.
“Sounds a little far-fetched to me. I’m still holding out for some higher powered microscopes that might show us some Whills interacting with the midi-chlorians,” Kyle stated.
“Yes, either way, like I teach the students, the will of the Force may not be fully knowable or analyzed scientifically. Surrendering to it is a leap of faith.”
Kyle wholeheartedly said, “a leap into a river that we must learn to go with the flow with and not fight against,” echoing the Grandmaster’s feelings on the subject.
“Well said, Master,” acknowledged Luke as he gave a warm smile. “I have been talking to Yoda, Obi-Wan and my father lately.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes, but please keep this between you and me.”
“No worries, Luke. My lips are sealed. So what did the old ghosts have to say this time?”
“Have you ever heard of Mortis?”
Kyle thought for a second as he ate a few big spoonfuls of his chowder, “no, can’t say that I have.”
“During the Clone Wars, my father, Obi-Wan and Ahsoka went to investigate a Jedi distress code that had not been used in over 2000 years. It came from the Chrelythium system, out in Wild Space. When they got there, they found a large structure, resembling a Sith holocron, just floating there in space.”
Kyle said in a low voice, “sounds pretty fishy,” as Luke gave a quick nod and smile in acknowledgement.
With a bit of excitement, Luke continued “just wait, it gets better. They were blinded by a bright light emanating from the mysterious structure. Somehow their ship got pulled inside and they lost all memory of how they landed, but they ended up on the surface of Mortis”
“Great, then what?”
“Then there they met three extremely powerful force users called: The Father, The Daughter and The Son.”
Kyle thought he would ask an obvious question to try to bring things back to reality. “What about The Mother? What happened to her?”
Luke answered with an uncertain tone as he slowly stirred his soup around, “nobody knows, but Yoda thinks possibly she had died and split into five spirits he encountered at the Wellspring of Life, a planet at the heart of the galaxy he visited once.”
“I don’t know, Luke. Are you joking around? How come I haven’t heard about any of this before?”
“Because we haven’t found any evidence of these phenomena yet, other than a few depictions of these three beings I found in the old archives here at the Temple. I only have the word from those who are deceased. Maybe if I ever get a chance to talk to Ahsoka again, she can tell me her side of the story.”
“Wherever the hell she is. Okay, sorry Luke. Go ahead.”
“Thanks, Kyle. So, The Father had trapped his family on Mortis, which was more like another realm entirely than a planet. It seemed to exist outside of the galaxy both physically and temporally. He had trapped himself, The Daughter and The Son there because he figured they were just too powerful to safely exist in the outside galaxy. The Daughter was the embodiment of the light side of the Force and The Son was the embodiment of the dark side. The Father used his power to keep them in balance.”
“Hmm,” as Kyle stroked his beard and wondered if possibly the leader of the New Jedi order had lost his mind.
Kayla rolled in once again, this time with the main course, “algae supreme with wafers, glockaw sauce and spicy vegetable mix,” she cheerfully exclaimed.
Kyle and Luke both had disgusted expressions on their faces as they peered at their plates of the unappetizing looking but otherwise healthy, Jedi-like main course. Luke politely acknowledged the droid, “Thanks Kayla.” Kayla rolled back out of the room, whistling to herself. Luke dipped his wafer into the topato soup and took a bite. He dipped another wafer into the soup, which he left there to soak. Kyle made a sandwich out of two wafers, with the glockaw sauce and spicy vegetable mix in the middle. He took a big bite.
“While on Mortis, Obi-Wan had a conversation with the spirit of his former master, Qui-Gon Jinn.”
“Here we go again,” replied Kyle, which caused Luke to raise his eyebrows.
“Qui-Gon explained that Mortis was a type of magnet and amplifier, through which the entire Force of the galaxy flowed. They were all worried that perhaps whatever happened on Mortis would be mirrored in the rest of the galaxy. Now, this is where things get interesting.” This time, Kyle raised his eyebrows and stopped eating for a moment. “You know how I mentioned the Twin Deities in Dathomiri shamanism?”
Kyle averted his eyes upwards for a moment as he accessed his organic data bank. “Yeah, if I remember correctly from what I’ve read, there was the fanged brother and the winged sister.”
“Well, the fanged brother and the winged sister strongly resembled The Son and The Daughter. The shapes they embodied were reflections of the Living Force around them, which were that of humanoids. But The Son could also morph into a fanged creature and The Daughter could morph into a winged creature. Perhaps the Dathomirians, somehow, worshipped these very beings,” conjectured Luke as he took a bite of his topato soup infused wafer.
“Or perhaps they were just imitating the deities,” Kyle suggested as he finished devouring the first of his improvised sandwiches.
“That is possible. In the Mortis realm, there were symbols found resembling the Ashla and Bogan sides of the Force. Not to mention, there were two moons there too, like the Ashla and Bogan moons orbiting Tython. So whether this realm was dictating or just imitating things in the galaxy is unclear. But what is clear, is that my father ended up bringing balance to the Mortis realm, like he did for the galaxy.”
Laying on the sarcasm not so subtly, Kyle asked, “so, how did the great Anakin Skywalker, the Chosen One, bring balance to Mortis?”
“The Father could sense that Anakin was the Chosen One, which is why he had drawn him to Mortis initially. The Father wanted Anakin to replace him as the one on Mortis keeping his children under control. Ultimately, The Son accidentally killed The Daughter, like how Vader destroyed the Jedi. The Father sacrificed himself in order to prevent The Son from stealing his power, escaping and wreaking havoc on the galaxy, like how Vader sacrificed himself to stop Sidious. In the end, Anakin had no choice and had to kill The Son,” explained Luke with a hint of sadness to his voice.
Kyle followed the train of thought Luke was getting at. “Just like how Anakin fulfilled the prophecy by destroying the Sith. I see what you mean about the galaxy mirroring what happened on Mortis. The Son especially, was some sort of asshole. Did you say this place looked like a Sith holocron? This whole ’phenomenon’ could have been an elaborate trick laid out by the Sith.”
Luke nodded as he ate a few spoonfuls of his meal. “That’s true. After their ordeal, my father, Obi-Wan and Ahsoka reappeared in their ship, right back in the space they had started from. According to their ship’s chronometer, no time had passed and there was no sign of Mortis or the Sith holocron structure.”
“Great. Let’s just say this was not some Sith trick. Those beings are all dead now. Does that mean that we are now free to live our lives without our fates being determined by the ongoings of some god-like entities in some ethereal realm?”
“I don’t think so, Kyle. I think Mortis was subject to the will of the Force, just like we are. Obi-wan said that The Father spoke of letting the will of the Force take shape.”
With an annoyed expression, Kyle spoke. “Okay. Looks like we’re right back where we started, just like Anakin, Obi-Wan and Ahsoka when they conveniently returned to their ship. As if it all never happened. What are you going to say next? That the will of the Force works in mysterious ways?”
“Yes, something like that”. Luke paused and finished off the remainder of his soup. “For example, you know how I mentioned the Mortis gods appearing in the old archives?”
“Uh-huh,” replied Kyle, while he polished off his soup too and took a big bite of his second wafer sandwich.
“Well, since Ahsoka and Sabine brought Ezra back from the Unknown Regions, I have been talking to him about their past adventures. About five years before the Battle of Yavin, Ezra and his team found a Jedi temple on Lothal that had a mural of the Mortis gods on it.”
“Other than that, was there anything special about this temple?” asked Kyle, knowing full well there would be more to this story.
“‘Special’ would be an understatement. Sabine and Ezra accessed a portal on the outside of the temple.”
“A portal? With all due respect, Master, give me a break,” exclaimed Kyle as jovially as he could.
“You’ll want to hear about this one, Kyle. This portal was a doorway to a zone that could access all time and space instantaneously through a network of portals controlled mentally by whoever was in there. For example, Ezra was able to reach into a portal and save Ahsoka from a duel she was having with Vader in the past.”
“Alright, Luke. Whatever you say. Makes sense. Ahsoka owed Ezra a favour, as to why she eventually helped return him. This Mortis family must have truly been god-like to construct something like that.”
“That kind of power is almost unimaginable. Gladly, Ezra and Sabine were able to permanently shut it down before the Empire got their hands on it,” said Luke with a serious demeanor.
“Kind of puts their Death Stars to shame. So, how are we going to get to the bottom of all this?” Kyle asked, as he popped the last piece of his sandwich into his mouth.
“Like I said, I would very much like to talk to Ahsoka to try to clear up a few of these things. One of those being …”. Luke paused for a second, while a curious expression grew on his face. “You know that convor owl that follows her around?
“No.”
“Her name is Morai and she just might have some of The Daughter’s spirit inside her. There are some old paintings in the archives showing a connection between The Daughter and a convor at her side,” explained Luke as he continued to steadily sample the different food textures in front of him.
“Not to mention the whole Dathomrian winged sister angle.” Kyle’s eyes grew brighter as he spoke. “Now we’re getting somewhere. We just need to find Ahsoka, grab a hold of her owl and ask it if it’s controlling the will of the Force or not.”
Smiling and on the verge of laughing, Luke replied, “sounds like a good plan, Kyle.”
“Aren’t you worried that we might uncover the mystery behind the Force though? Might that not lessen our faith?” Kyle asked seriously, without his usual layer of sarcasm.
“If that’s the case, then uncovering the truth would be the will of the Force anyways.”
Kyle took a big gulp of his tea. “Hmm.” A very interested expression was on Kyle’s face as he was thinking. “What about this Wellspring of Life you mentioned earlier?”
“Okay, so you know how the Living Force powers the Cosmic Force?”
“Oh yeah,” replied Kyle slowly while nodding his head. “And how we can feel the Cosmic Force, possibly the will of the Force, by communicating with the midi-chlorians.”
“Exactly,” said Luke as he smiled and pointed his finger at Kyle. “Yoda told me about how during the Clone Wars, Qui-Gon’s Force spirit guided him to the Wellspring of Life, a planet near the centre of the galaxy. There, he learned from five Force Priestesses how to retain his consciousness and manifest himself as a Force spirit after death.”
“I always wondered how those guys figured out how to turn into ghosts.”
“Yoda calls this planet the Wellspring of Life because according to the Force Priestesses, this was actually the birthplace of all life in the galaxy, including the midi-chlorians.” Luke continued, “also, the planet continually draws in the Living Force from the entire galaxy, which the wellspring at the centre of the planet converts into the Cosmic Force and sends it out into the galaxy.”
“Very interesting, Luke. You just keep blowing me away. But at that rate, we might be getting an overabundance of Cosmic Force. Let’s hope that won’t ever become a problem.”
Luke squinted his eyes while replying with a “Mmm hmm.”
Kyle strained his face and asked, “I hope this isn’t a touchy subject, but …”, but at that moment Kyle felt as though he was being interrupted. Strangely, the room fell very silent, as orange light beams from the falling sun had begun to creep in through the window. It felt as though some sort of darkness swept into and enveloped the entire dining room. Then, all of a sudden … pain. The two Jedi masters were somehow being electrocuted, right there as they sat helplessly in front of their meals. Kyle struggled to yell out, “for fuck’s sake!”
Kyle and Luke fell to the floor, where they were screaming and shaking uncontrollably within a storm of blue electrical discharge bolts filling the room, which sounded like many mini explosions going off simultaneously.
As Kyle’s brain was being fried, a memory quickly shot into his thoughts. Sitting at a bar table in Nar Shaddaa, he had replied to the droid, 8t88, with a witty comeback, “the dark side? I’ve been there. Do your worst.” This time however, he was truly experiencing some of the worst the dark side had to offer. He thought he just might be electrocuted right out of existence.
-The End-
