Shakvail: Beginnings/Chapter 4: Knight

Coruscant Coruscant Sector Core Worlds 26 BBY

Shakvail stood one step behind and one step to the right of her master as they reported to the council. This position symbolized deference and rank, but did not serve to shield her whatsoever from the twelve Jedi Masters who surrounded them on all sides. The padawan felt very nervous, and avoided eye contact with these revered figures.

It was a ridiculous impulse, to try and hide from their view, but she couldn’t help it. She knew several members of the council quite well, and had spoken with almost all of them privately at least once, but to meet them like this was different, almost frightening. For a padawan to be part of a meeting with the high council was usually the result of disaster. This was not such a circumstance, but the shadow hung over it all the same.

The masters, for their part, gave Shakvail little attention, focused primarily on the report Z’meer was giving of their most recent mission.

“Most dangerous indeed, this strange weapon you uncovered,” Master Yoda’s voice was tinged with weary concern. “Certain are you, that destroyed it was?”

“Yes master,” Z’meer’s voice was calm and steady, displaying a confidence Shakvail dearly wished she could emulate. “When I raised it up again with the Force I discovered there was no holding mechanism, the whole slab shattered to pieces when dropped a second time. It was clearly a single use design.”

“Do you know how it worked, precisely?” Plo Koon interjected, his voice betraying his curiosity even through his mask.

Z’meer gave a slight shift of her head, indicating that Shakvail must speak.

The padawan had known this moment was coming, and dreaded it, but she took a single steadying breath and began to explain. “The stone used in the trap had an unusual internal crystalline alignment. This interacted with the metal lining of the holding array to generate a massive natural charge through the friction of its movements when dropped. The lower surface where it struck was coated with a layer of cortosis sheeting four microns think. The force of the strike created a cortosis resonant ion charge that shorted out the connection between the power cells and focusing crystals within our lightsabers.” The words tumbled out of her, and only when she stopped did she realize she was racing, but there was no time for embarrassment, the councilors processed her fast words and responded with questions.

“An oddly low-tech method,” Master Saesee Tiin interjected. “Could it be duplicated?”

Shakvail had expected this question, and had an answer ready, which aided her nerves. “The stone used was not native to Diado, and that precise crystalline alignment does not appear in our archives. It did not appear to be synthetic in origin, so creating another device would require finding the original source. Preliminary analysis does indicate that large quantities are required to build the necessary charge, and the range seems to be limited to a few meters at most.”

“So it could only be used for this sort of trap,” Plo Koon summarized. “A small blessing.”

“Even so, investigate this, we must,” Yoda cautioned, and there were nods of agreement.

“Did you have any success in determining the origin of this strange tomb?” Master Oppo Rancisis questioned.

Z’meer again nodded to Shakvail.

Turning to face the venerable master, the padawan answered, again sticking to what she had more or less prepared beforehand. “The structure was composed almost entirely of common, basic construction materials, which have been in use for most of the Republic’s existence. Our best information comes from what could be recovered of the remains. Carbon-dating places the two bodies at roughly thirty-five hundred years old.”

“A most turbulent period in galactic history,” Rancisis said ominously. “Did you learn anything else? Their identities perhaps?”

“Nothing was preserved,” grabbed by the rush of knowledge, Shakvail largely forgot who she was addressing. “Genetic testing was fragmentary, given the state of the remains, but it appears to identify the Jedi Knight as Alkaraki, a near-human species from the western Outer Rim discovered around that period, and her antagonist as Voss.”

“Voss,” Master Windu spoke the single word and the room fell silent.

Shakvail, suddenly conscious once more of just where she stood, clamped her mouth shut.

“Is there something more Padawan?” Master Rancisis probed lightly.

Tense, and feeling foolish, Shakvail knew better than to try and hide the truth. “I ran these species through the archives, a habit of mine when encountering new names, masters, and much of the information regarding Voss is highly sealed.”

“Many reasons for this restriction, may there be,” Master Yoda spoke quietly, but drew all eyes to him. “Trust you must, padawan, that good reason the council has for this prohibition.”

“Of course master.”

“Investigate further, this incident, we must,” Yoda continued. “Master Rancisis, if you will.”

“I will be happy to follow-up,” the Thisspiasian acknowledged, as everyone had felt he would.

“Concluded then, this matter is,” Yoda resolved, but without stopping the diminutive Grand Master turned to look directly at Shakvail. “Arisen has, a second subject.”

Feeling considerable trepidation, Shakvail made her body obey and faced directly at the elderly master. “Which is?”

“Submitted, your master has, your name to undergo the Jedi Trials.”

Shakvail’s heart jumped and her mind froze for a long second. At last! She was finally to become a Jedi Knight.

Master Windu picked up where Yoda left off. “The High Council approves this course of action, and it has been determined your Trials shall begin immediately. You will report to the Trials Chamber tomorrow at dawn, but understand that your Trials begin the moment you leave this chamber, and could take many forms.”

“I understand Masters,” Shakvail, trembling with anticipation and no small amount of trepidation, answered.

“Then we are adjourned,” Mace Windu declared.

The high council filed out quickly, but Z’meer paused at the door to speak to her padawan. “This test you must face alone,” the human woman explained softly. “But you are a skilled student, and shall be a strong Jedi. Mind what you have learned, hold fast to yourself, and you cannot fail.”

“Yes master,” the warmth of this statement, especially from her usually reserved master, set Shakvail’s heart aflame.

&	&	&

Shakvail awakened at three-twelve am, local time, according to the chrono at her bedside in the small dormitory room she currently occupied.

“Excitement,” she muttered, annoyed at herself. A proper Jedi Knight would be able to sleep soundly even before the most important day of her young life, or so she imagined. Not that she was tired, of course. Like most Jedi she needed only a modest amount of sleep, and she had spent almost the entire return journey from Diado in healing trances or resting in bed on her master’s orders. The wounds to her shins were fully repaired, and she was ready, but it was still annoying.

Denial of her current state of nervous anticipation would be worse than dealing with it, so Shakvail dutifully made ready for the day. She made the usual trip to the refresher, brushed out her parted hair, and put on the traditional pale gray robes of a padawan. Looking at the garments, she thought it might well be the last time she wore them. This was a happy thought, for she disliked the color, it was too soft, too weak, and made her hair stand out too much.

She rather hoped to change into something darker, perhaps charcoal gray or indigo, soon.

With roughly four hours remaining before she must report to the Trial chamber, Shakvail refused to waste time. She was not in the mood to meditate, and instead walked quickly through the temple, taking a well-worn path down to the Archives.

While the Jedi Temple was surely busiest during Coruscant’s daylight hours, it was always active, even late in the night. Jedi stationed off-world often did not bother to adjust to local time on brief return trips, members of nocturnal species were naturally more active at night, and some Jedi simply preferred the relative calm of the deep hours when others slept.

The archives of the temple had a fairly regular set of nighttime occupants, and most were known to Shakvail, for the padawan had a reputation for pulling all-night research sessions in preparation for missions to far-flung locations in the Rim. Several rose from their workstations as she passed, giving nods of acknowledgment and encouragement. The temple had few secrets, and all knew she was to undergo the trials. No one spoke to her, keeping a careful distance to avoid interference.

Shakvail picked a station and booted up her log in, hoping to get some work done while she might. Fascinated by the woman who had passed her the lightsaber she now carried, she sought out everything she could on the Alkaraki. An obscure species, far from galactic events, many of the entries were centuries out of date and desperately in need of revision. This was common in the archives, which had been understaffed for a very long time. So she searched the HoloNet, scrolling through public sources and a variety of private resources the Jedi had the right to access. Taking careful notes she assembled revised versions of various entries and prepared to send them on for review to the analysis droids.

Periodically Shakvail’s terminal would ping with an alert, indicating mail from an associate, or an update for a search she had running in the background. She checked these frequently, filing them or ignoring them as appropriate.

At five-nineteen she received a message from a distant branch of the Intergalactic Zoological Society. Opening it, her eyes were pulled fully around by the headline: Safol sighting in Klina Sector.

She managed to keep to her chair, barely, and sought focus in the Force. It was not lost on her that this could be, and in fact probably was, a test. It could also be entirely real, and simply an error, something that had occurred at least three times in the past decade. The final possibility, and the one she could not ignore, was that a member of her species had actually been found.

“Normal, keep it normal,” she muttered to herself. She had to handle everything as she would otherwise. This wasn’t the first report, nor would it be the last. She’d followed several mysteries of species diversity over the years, at the behest of Jedi, government, and private interests. There was a right way to do things, and that was the only way.

So she took the report, pried it apart, and started to authenticate it. Shakvail was no slicer, but she understood documentation, procedure, and protocol. She could pry free the truth from the thousand lies that swarmed about the scholarly community of the galaxy, a realm full of corruption, graft, and exaggeration, truth obscured by a mountain of money. It was a depressing reality, that science, art, and the pursuit of knowledge had been so corrupted, but the Jedi were responsible for fighting for more than one kind of justice, and this was a duty she felt called to pursue.

Bureaucracy leaves a certain kind of evidence behind, recognizable if the viewer is cued to the right language. She was able to authenticate the origin of the message as legitimate, and the sender as real, but the content was far more questionable. The report was second-hand, passed on by a customs office on a minor space station at the edge of Hutt Space, an area only marginally under the Republic’s control at the best of times, which these were not. Shakvail dismissed the series of garbled statistics generated to provide an illusion of substance, and focused instead on the images attached.

They were grainy, marginal, taken from an overhead security camera designed for spotting violence, not identifying telltale features. Shakvail took a single look and was far from convinced. There was a male near-human in the footage, one with eyes that might be teardrop-shaped, and hair that was the correct interlaced random pattern, but it all just felt off. She suspected a low-level entertainer with interesting tastes in dyes was more likely. Despite this, she could not discount the possibility that she was staring at a member of her species.

The feeling of wrongness, an intuitive sense that something was incorrect, stayed with her, and she took a look at the report again. There was something oddly familiar to the scenario.

On an impulse she did not fully grasp, but refused to ignore, she ordered a comparison search of the file to existing records.

It returned a single match.

The file was an almost-identical match to a report issued ninety-five years previous; one that had never been followed up and had vanished without a trace afterward. Looking at both side by side, Shakvail saw that the timestamp had been altered. A remarkably simply maneuver to provide a false report, one she now remembered having looked at during her initiate years.

Chuckling slightly, she turned away, recognizing this for the test it was. It seemed a sign that now was a good time to stop playing data games and prepare for her challenge when dawn came. Feeling oddly relaxed, tension drained away, she moved to close the terminal.

Her finger froze mere millimeters above the button.

Something held her back. She could not define it, but she recognized that to simply stop there would be a mistake.

She sat back down and re-opened the file. A test, it certainly was, a deliberately falsified document designed to measure her vulnerability, or capriciousness, or some such feature. It was surely that, it had to be. Yet she was not convinced.

It was too easy.

The padawan’s mind stuck on that, the challenge was not difficult enough. Discerning the truth had been too simple. No test for knighthood would be so basic, play so easily to her strengths.

Altered the timestamp, falsified a file and rerouted though the Outer Rim. Shakvail stepped back, moving away from the screen to think. Grasp the entire problem, not just a piece of it. Don’t think about the test; think about the totality of the situation.

Her left hand shot up above her head a moment later.

“Master Sinube!’ Shakvail called, having seen the elderly Cosian Jedi when she arrived earlier, and knowing he often worked nights.

“Hmm…” the beaked Jedi Master sauntered over, leaning on his cane and moving with his trademark slow deliberateness. “What is it young one?”

“I believe I have a security breach to report,” she pointed to her screen. “This file was doctored with an altered time stamp and rerouted through a relay on the Outer Rim when it in fact came from our archives. You are the senior Jedi present so…”

“Very good, yes,” Master Sinube noted. “This is indeed serious, we should make sure to investigate, why if the security of the archives have been compromised there’s no telling what trouble we might face.” He waved over one of the floating JN-66 analysis droids. “We must investigate this thoroughly.”

Now came the ultimate question of whether this was only a test, and more importantly, whether or not she had passed. Shakvail glanced at the chrono display in the corner of the terminal. “Master, I’m due to be in the Trial Chamber in less than an hour. I will delay, of course, unless you feel everything is under control.”

The elderly Cosian’s beak twisted in a rough approximation of a human smile. “You might as well run along, young one, I’m sure the droids and I can handle this, and Master Nu when she arises for the day. Best not to keep the Council waiting,” Sinube’s mirth extended into the Force, and the padawan knew that this was indeed a ruse, but her response had been noted.

“Thank you master,” Shakvail bowed swiftly, and hurried from the hall.

&	&	&

The Jedi Trials chamber was located deep within the temple, in a structurally isolated location just in case matters got a little out of hand during testing. It was reached through a dead-end hallway that did not prompt idle visits, so only those who were required to be there would find their way. The hall had no door, and so Shakvail simply stepped through the archway into the chamber.

High-vaulted and massive, the ceiling receded above her as she entered, drawing the eyes upward. Statues of ancient masters, all at least a thousand years dead, lined the stepped platforms, massive stern figures in stone and bronzium, staring down with empty timeless eyes on all those who dared to enter.

This imagery did not persist, for as the padawan’s boot tapped its first step on that stone tiling the backdrop changed.

The Trials Chamber vanished, to be replaced by a much smaller room, one with austere decoration and wide windows letting in the view of Coruscant’s speeder-clogged skyways and high towers behind. It expanded around Shakvail, drawing her into the center. Five wide chairs rose from the floor, centered around a single small pedestal in the center, one meter high and topped with an open metal box, inlaid in wrought iron.

As shocking as this shift might have been in other circumstances, it was oddly seamless. Powered by one of the most advanced holoprojection systems in the galaxy, the recreation was flawless, and induced a false truth through all five senses. The Safol could only just tell it was a simulation, empowered by the insight of the Force, and the occasional split-second gap in the visuals as they struggled to keep up with the adjustment of her long-skewed optical motion.

She knew this room, and dreaded it. This was the chamber of the Reassignment Council. Even as she watched the five Masters who governed this most ominous of Jedi agencies ushered in, taking their seats and staring down at her with cold, sorrowful eyes.

“Padawan Shakvail,” the leader of the council spoke. His voice was deep, quiet, and compassionate, but also without mercy or remorse. “You have been summoned here for a final review of your case. The council shall deliberate with you present. You are not to interrupt, but may speak as your own advocate if called upon. Do you understand?”

“Yes master,” she knew the forms, every Initiate, every Padawan, knew the forms, all had watched friends summoned for this specific purpose, and then watched them leave the Temple afterward, never to return.

Without further ceremony, they began to debate.

It was a simple process, each master raising examples from her record, analyzing them with comment by the others, and then weighing the matter accordingly. Shakvail was offered the chance to explain her choices twice, and to apologize for a personal failure once, but that was all. She was otherwise frozen out, a mere spectator as her fate was determined.

How long they spoke the padawan did not know; could not keep track. Words and issues blurred together, melding with her personal memories, often ever-so-slightly different from what these ethereal masters claimed had happened. Slowly her hopes faded, and she came to look upon the end of the discussion as a terrible inevitability, an arrow flying at her face she could not possibly dodge; must not.

In the end it was as she expected. The voices died away into silence, only for the leader of the council to speak with slow clarity. “It is the will of this council that the Force has not chosen you to serve as a Jedi Knight. In recognition of your contributions to scholarship, you are hereby assigned to the Jedi Educational Corps.”

It was a brutal proclamation, and Shakvail stood shock still, unmoving in silence, for a long time. Her dreams dissipated, blown away as vapor before those stone faces around her. She would not be a Jedi Knight, consigned instead to labor out her life in the archives, valuable but forgotten, the last lonely Safol buried in history rather than searching to reclaim it.

“In recognition of this determination, Padawan Shakvail, you are required to surrender your lightsaber to the keeping of the Order,” the master continued. “Please place it in the receptacle provided.”

Shakvail’s gaze turned to that little box, and noticed its cushioned interior for the first time. There a small, cylindrical depression existed, suitable for a very specific sort of weapon.

Hands trembling, she un-clipped the lightsaber from her belt.

At the core of her existence, deep down in the bowels of her mind where the truth of her being resided, she was aware that this was a simulation, a test. Yet she knew that did not mean it was not real, was not true.

This fate, this reassignment, was possible, and it was not her right to protest. A Jedi, of any sort, whether knight or corpsman, must acknowledge this demonstration of authority and the will of the Force.

She took the ancient lightsaber, marked with its delicate jade inlay of abstract whorls in gentle green, the weapon so recently bequeathed to her by a Jedi of a former era, and slowly, gently, placed it in that velvet case.

Motion stopped. The simulation froze, broke, and crumbled, dissipating almost instantly.

Only the little pillar and case remained, with Shakvail’s lightsaber sitting there, looking delicate, a piece of artwork, not a killing tool.

“Very good padawan,” a strong and vibrant voice echoed through the chamber from behind her. “Now pick it up.”

Shakvail did as instructed, and turned to see Mace Windu standing behind her, a rare smile on his face. “So it was a test,” the Safol managed, still numbed from the experience.

“Actually, two,” Windu corrected lightly.

The remark imparted the duty to Shakvail to answer which tests it had been. “The Trial of Courage, and…” she paused, feeling her way back through the experience, awful though that was. “The Trial of the Flesh.”

“Yes,” the Jedi Master nodded. “The courage to go forward in the face of terrible loss, and the experience of that loss. Physical induction of pain is pointless against any species that undergoes hormonal override, but the loss of dreams is a pain all its own.” The padawan accepted this, though she felt the method was brutally grim. Was such a harsh test so necessary? Only the masters could say. She was not ready to make such judgments. “So I am not going to have to turn in my lightsaber after all?”

“That remains to be seen,” Master Windu said evenly. “You have passed three trials, but two remain. One stands before you now.”

“So you are my Trial of Skill?” Shakvail’s mouth crept up on one side, making a half-smile. “I thought it might be.”

“I possess the ability to perceive shatterpoints,” this was well known, though little spoken of, in the Order. “Something very rare, even among Jedi. You possess a similar ability, though one granted by biology, not the Force. I wish to see its full capacity for myself.”

“Well then, no point in waiting around, yes?” Shakvail smiled.

“Quite,” Windu made a gesture with his hand, swiftly sweeping the little pillar and box to the far side of the chamber with the Force. He reached down and pulled free his lightsaber, igniting the unique violet blade with the signature snap-hiss.

Shakvail activated her lightsaber, the gently transparent green blade that was as solid as any other despite its image, in response. She took the blade in both hands, raising it high to even with her chin, and slid her right foot slightly forward.

Windu shifted his own stance, raising his own blade high in a two-handed grip, angled back above his head.

This was the two-handed stance of Djem So, defensive but strong and powerful. It was also far from the master’s most capable attack. Neither choice surprised Shakvail. “Djem So against Niman?” she called, slowly advancing, circling for position against the master’s counter maneuvering. “As I recall the last time you chose Ataru.”

“Variation is important when facing the same opponent,” Windu’s mouth moved separate from his eyes, which remained focused on the padawan’s motions.

“True,” twice before Shakvail had crossed blades with the esteemed master duelist, both times for practice purposes only. “Don’t think I’m the same simply because I use the same form.”

“Doubtless you have new tricks, just like your master,” Windu commented, causing the padawan to recall how Z’meer’s report of fighting with her earrings had turned a few heads. Shakvail kept her saber steady, feeling the flow of the Force around her, considering her options. Niman was her method, variable, practical, and adaptive, the form favored by her master, who melded the Force with the blade in battle and considered lightsaber dueling vaguely anachronistic, something her padawan had long shared. Mace Windu stood in stark contrast to that philosophy, a man who had mastered all forms of lightsaber combat and pushed the method to its very limits and perhaps beyond out of shear love of the artistry of the blade.

How should she attack?

She moved closer, and then charged the final three steps, bringing her saber down with all her might.

Windu blocked head-on; meeting the blade and throwing it aside, positioning for a brutal counterstrike.

Shakvail ignored the oncoming blow, snapping out her right foot instead, channeling the Force with all her strength, and hurling a stream of power at the Jedi Master.

This move, unorthodox and somewhat reckless though it was, forced Windu to abort his blow, pulling his saber back with a cloak of the Force in order to block.

Shakvail took her space to bring forth another attack, falling into a series of quick jabs, but her foe was the swifter, and Windu intercepted the attacks, turning them back and launching a powerful one-two set of counters that the padawan was hard pressed to block. The second blow had sufficient power behind it to toss her halfway across the room, gasping for breath.

She struck back with the Force, stomping down to send a disruptive tremor through the floor before leaping in to attack.

Windu turned, anchored in place by his will, and his blade met the attack above his head, hurling the Safol aside.

Shakvail landed rolling, and had to flip back to avoid a deadly aerial lunge as the violet blade carved a deep mark through the tiles. She responded by stabbing at Windu’s face from a crouched posture, leading to an exchange of blows with both Jedi half-standing. The master countered by trying to pound her blade to the floor, but she managed to spin away, allowing both combatants to surge upright once more.

For several minutes they continued in this vein, blow and counter-blow, battle twisting and turning, but Shakvail knew it could not last. Mace Windu’s advantage was substantial and overwhelming, and it was only a matter of time before he pressed home and she was unable to escape.

She had to break through, and knowing this, her body responded.

Locked saber to saber, Shakvail’s focus shifted, her energy changed, and her perception moved to a different, simplified plane where connections pierced through all possibilities, revealing the essential openings in every substance, every moment.

Her arms bent, suddenly flexing to gelatin, before hardening again to stab two swift strikes, one at each knee.

Windu scrambled backwards, barely in time, and pants displayed a slender tear above the left boot.

“So, the gloves are off then?” the Jedi Master pronounced, and in the next moment his movements changed as well.

His form melted, the strong, heavy cadence of Djem So dissipating into a chaotic staccato series of shifts and shunts, irregular and unpredictable even as their speed increased to incredible levels.

Though he possessed a single lightsaber and a mere two arms, a watcher would have sworn that Mace Windu had ten times that, or perhaps several completely separate bodies, flowing atop one another in a single united combat presence. This was Vaapad, most aggressive, dangerous, and deadly of all methods, and Windu’s was its master. He shot forward, power whipping through him, an atom shot through in a super-collider of the Force.

The many rapid and unpredictable strikes of Vaapad could overwhelm almost any defense, and easily confuse and crush any who tried to keep up with that whirlwind bladestorm.

But Shakvail was not watching those blades. Drawing deeply on the Force, she stood before the storm, pulling her defense in tight about her, blocking each attack as the force warned her, fending off the fearful assault at the last moment, even as each attack pressed closer and closer in a cycle with a single, certain outcome.

It did not matter, she did not care, instead her body sought out the key juncture, the sole critical moment of opening in the empty space between those frenzied sweeps.

Then she had it.

She struck.

The Force rang like a bell in the minds of the Jedi, and both stopped suddenly, frozen in mid-motion.

Shakvail felt the steady hum of a lightsaber beneath her ear, and the hair at the back of her neck stood on end from the coiled charges there, as the violet blade hovered at the edge of her flesh, a fingernail’s width from the skin.

“You are dead, padawan,” Mace Windu noted levelly.

Shakvail swallowed, but managed to return. “And you shall need to be fitted with a prosthetic, master.”

Windu’s eyes drifted downward, and both saw the truth in the claim, for Shakvail’s green blade stood the end of his left leg, just below the hip socket.

Both deactivated the weapons in the next moment.

“A head for a leg is not an ideal trade,” Windu noted quietly.

“True,” Shakvail could still feel that cut hanging so close. It was a stark reminder of just how deadly the masters truly were.

“You will never be a pure duelist, but it is without doubt that you possess sufficient skill to serve as a knight,” the jedi master told her. “So now a single trial remains.”

“Spirit.”

“To face the mirror is most dangerous, perhaps more than facing bare blades,” Windu noted. “You must meditate deeply, and pass into the heart of yourself; to the places you fear the most. I will remain here, to guide you to the path, and to pull you back when you are done, but the journey is yours alone.”

“I understand master,” though she deeply wished it were Master Bothu, whom she trusted above all others, rather than the somewhat remote and imperious Master Windu, she had to proceed regardless. Always an opaque test, Shakvail was further in question than most when it came to facing the mirror, for though she had been raised among humans, she was Safol, and who could say what lurked inside her consciousness.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor, Shakvail closed her eyes, and began to walk the long, deep spiral road down to her core.

Oddly, Shakvail found looking inward brought her outward, as she drifted up above the temple, then the planet, then the star system, and eventually the entire galaxy. Entranced by this vast image, it took her a moment to realize the galaxy was spinning in reverse, tracking backwards on an axis her mind somehow immediately understood to be that of time itself.

The vast luminous vortex of gas and stars sucked her down, whirling and spinning in a massive funnel of collapsed awareness as she screamed inward at speeds beyond physics into the grasp on a single star, then a planet, and finally to the top of a ruddy muddy hillside covered in yellowed plant life.

Shakvail raised her head to grasp a vast open steppe, swaying with pale grasses displaying wide spiderweb-like seed heads heavy with their cargo of embryonic life. In the distance a river wound lethargic across the plains, surrounded by swaying green grasses tall as trees. Quartz-white spider-form creatures the size of cats crawled among them, consuming downed shoots and understory ferns. In the sky above flimsy creatures with long legs and bearing parachutes of webbing glided through the air, gathering in the thick film of wind-borne pollen.

It was a vista Shakvail had seen in old holos and her dreams, the home planet of her species, Dalenspir.

Her gaze turned to the west, where the sun was setting, heavy and orange on the horizon. Resting there was a small village composed in equal parts of traditional structures of woven split culms from the native grasses, and modern prefabricated houses and machinery. The village seemed oddly empty, for there was no one about, even as Shakvail rose from her perch and walked toward it, feeling totally physical once more.

The reason for this silence from the village became clear soon after, just as she was within shouting distance.

Screaming with the roar of high-powered atmospheric engines, a pair of gunships blasted across the steppe, passing over the head of the Jedi. Great rhomboid monstrosities, all power and no grace, their design betrayed the era of their making, and thus that of the vista they suddenly dominated.

In that moment Shakvail knew exactly when this was, and what was happening.

A cry of anguish escaped her lips and she tore into a run, charging forward with all her strength.

The ground seemed to be made of mud beneath her, and her progress was a limpid crawl, suspended in place as she watched matters unfold.

Powerfully built figures in full suits of armor, coated a matte black and laced with yellow and green symbols, repelled down suspended lines, blasting as they came. They carried heavy rifles, grenade launchers, and other implements of death, and unleashed them indiscriminately on everything in their path. Landing, they charged from building to building, setting great fires and striking down anything that failed to match their colors.

They were not unopposed. Local people, Safols in traditional smocks and wraps issued from their homes to fire at these shock troops with sporting blasters, hunting slugthrowers, and homemade explosives. They were grand in their bravery and stout in the defense of their homes, but they were no match for the vast machine of death unleashed upon them in the name of a Sith Lord. They fought, and they failed, and they broke and ran, men and boys desperately trying to shield woman and children from those hideous weapons.

The horrors expanded through eyes that could not be closed, as Shakvail looked on. The troopers spared no one, gunning down everything in sight, kicking the bodies of parents so they rolled over and revealed screaming infants sheltering beneath. They set fire to every house, shed, and livestock pen to insure no survivors.

Shakvail’s presence dashed into the village, and she was overcome with loss and rage. Finally able to move she dashed to the nearest Sith trooper, pulling free her lightsaber. Igniting the blade, she stabbed the man from behind, cleaving his heart in two before he could even see her.

He did not fall.

The trooper did not move, or groan, or show any sign of injury. He was unaware of Shakvail entirely, continuing his deadly rounds without knowledge of the Jedi’s presence.

The Safol struck again with her lightsaber, and when that failed pounded and kicked, all to no avail. She was divorced from this reality, unable to do anything, to harm or heal, to save or punish, sentenced to the indescribable grief of the observer, to watch her people die while she stood unable to use her gifts to aid them one iota.

“It’s not fair,” she whispered, blinking through tears of terrible suffering. “It’s not fair, not at all,” In her blurred vision a child jumped from the second story of a burning barn, falling with shattered legs upon hard ground. The cries of pain drew around a helmeted head, and the blaster rose, aimed.

“Not…FAIR!” Shakvail howled, and her loss turned to fury, a firestorm of rage within her.

Her left hand shot forward, and her fingers splayed wide. Power gathered in her as that rifle came up and the little child, a girl not more than three, stared into the eyeless visor of her killer not two meters away.

Coiled energy, molten and scraping, ripped out of Shakvail, tearing across the muddy, ashen ground. Her vision went red, and the world seemed to bathe in blood.

Her invocation struck the trooper across his body, and he disintegrated, carved apart by the impact of ten thousand shearing scythes. A bloody ruin of intermingled bone and plasteel composite on the far wall was all that remained.

Sickening satisfaction, the taste of vengeance hot and crimson, blossomed on Shakvail’s tongue, scented with a metal tinge. She rose up; casting her awareness about, searching for those who deserved the scourge she had been granted.

They were many, and she began to pull power in towards her, gathering it to lay waste to the lot.

A harsh, shrill sound interrupted her concentration.

The child was still screaming, only now the pain was somehow deeper, fuller.

Shakvail turned, and saw the blood from the girl’s wounded legs was being drawn away, pulled toward her, mixed in with the dead trooper beyond, and all those fallen, rising up to drape their new mistress in a coat of honor.

In sudden revelation, the fullness of horror dawned on Shakvail, and she was consumed with the need to know the truth.

She bit down as hard as she could; sharp teeth against her tongue, lacing a brutal gouge.

Her blood filled her mouth, and it had the same taste as her vengeance.

She coughed, screamed, and clawed at her face, letting the power flow our of her, burning all the way, as her cries of rage turned to sobs, and her vision went dark, stricken with her helplessness.

She collapsed to her knees, bent forward with her hands in the ash, blood, and mud beneath.

It felt cool, the smooth empty texture of polished tile.

In the darkness sound vanished, and then smell; all the horrors of her vision suddenly peeled away, a single drop of rain buried beneath billions of others, lost in the crowd of the galaxy, each star a little drop, where life went on.

She came up gasping for breath, hardly able to breathe. Copper and iron filled her nostrils, and she suddenly realized her she was chocking on her own blood.

Turning her head, Shakvail spat a stream of red ruin onto the tiles of the trial chamber, joined moments later by the tears running down her cheeks.

“Shakvail!” She felt Mace Windu’s strong arms grab her shoulders then. The warmth and strength of the Force flowed into her haggard frame, providing some solace. “Focus, stay calm. Are you injured?”

“I bit my tongue,” she lisped, and reached to her belt for the small emergency medpac that was kept there. After a moment of fumbling, she managed to gather up the little canister of spray-bandage, open her mouth, and apply the stuff. It stung sharply, and filled her senses with the sick-sweet taste of the bacta imbued in the spray. Foul though it was, it was effective, and the bleeding stopped almost immediately, the wound already beginning to close.

“I see…” Windu’s voice was soft, hesitant. “It seems that experience, being wholly physical, did not transmit through the vision.

“All that…” Shakvail struggled to pull herself together, feeling everywhere raw and delicate, as if the lightest touch would scar her. “Was inside me?”

“Darkness resides in every being,” Mace Windu knelt beside her. “It stems from natural impulses. You feel deeply the absence of your species from your life, and mourn their loss. You also wish to see those who killed them punished. These are not radical beliefs, and having them is not wrong, but as Jedi we must be able to let go of the passions they bequeath, lest our emotion overwhelm us. You have just passed through the full crucible of the Jedi Code.”

“It was…so…so…hard…” she breathed. “Even at the end, I still wanted to rip them all apart.”

“To be a Jedi is never easy, we are tested every day. That is the price of power. You have just glanced into that abyss,” the Jedi Master paused deeply. “To a place I confess to be deeper than most go, but you were able to turn away. Remember that, for it will be a source of strength in days to come.”

Shakvail latched on to these final words, drinking them in desperately. “Then, I passed? I’m a Jedi Knight.”

Now Windu smiled. “Effectively, yes, but the Council has a formal ceremony for this sort of thing. I do hope you’ll indulge us.”

“Of course,” Shakvail’s mouth opened, and soon she found she was wracking by uncontrollable laughter, tears pouring down her cheeks.

When she regained control, Mace Windu hooked an arm under her shoulder and lifted her up. “Though I think we should take you to the infirmary first, to make certain of that injury. Odd, I have conducted many trials, but you are the first to suffer an injury in the Trial of Spirit, rather than Skill.”

“The price of being unique,” Shakvail muttered. Somehow, saying that no longer hurt the way it once had.

&	&	&

By the time she walked up the final set up steps to the highest level of the Tranquility Spire Shakvail believed that the day and night of meditation she had just endured was primarily a measure to beat giddy anticipation out of padawans so they were appropriately somber prior to this moment rather than serving some grand functional purpose. She had found little revealed in contemplating her future, for what was there to consider? She was not a knight yet, pro forma though the ceremony might be.

She did reflect that, even on this day, passing through a ceremony that was as close to identical for all Jedi as could be made possible, she was doing something unique. If the archives could be believed, and on matters of membership they were generally extremely accurate, she was the first Safol to ever carry the mantle of Jedi Knight.

Walking all but soundlessly in soft slippers, Shakvail exited the stairway into the Hall of Knighthood. Closed to the sky outside, the room was without internal light of any kind, staying perfectly black.

Without needing illumination, drawn by the Force and the trail left by thousands of padawans before her, she marched to the center of the chamber, where she knelt.

She could feel the arrival of others through the Force, and their satisfaction.

Then the first lightsaber ignited. Others followed in sequence, until a full ring of twelve stood around her, with Grand Master Yoda centered in front.

Though Shakvail kept her eyes focused on the Grand Master, she could not help but feel the presence of her own master, Z’meer Bothu, among the group, filling the position of Ki-Adi-Mundi, currently off-planet.

Standing atop a raised platform to compensate for his height, Master Yoda spoke first. “We are all Jedi. The Force speaks through us. Through our actions the Force proclaims itself and what is real. Today we are here to acknowledge what the Force has proclaimed.”

“Shakvail,” Yoda looked straight into her eyes, and she could not help but feel her whole existence was being measured by the Grand Master, as a master jeweler might examine a creation before releasing it at last for sale.

Slowly the Grand Master brought his green blade down on each of her shoulders. As he did he proclaimed. “By the right of the Council, by the will of the Force, I dub thee, Knight of the Republic.”

As the Grand Master raised his blade the last time, he cut free the slender braid of red-black hair that hung behind her right ear, letting it fall to the floor easily.

Shakvail stood with careful grace. Taking her lightsaber in hand, she ignited it, letting her blade join the others in brightening the darkened chamber. Then she turned and walked out, in fulsome silence.

She was a Jedi Knight now; her destiny had advanced to the next stage.

She felt truly at peace with her fate for the first time.