The Last Jedi

Forty-Two


The place Jax Pavan stood was dark. He had the impression of a vast space and reached out with the Force to augment his eyes. Gradually, the place came to light—literally—as soft areas of multihued ambience bloomed in the darkness. These vague lights fanned out away from him on both sides in orderly rows that rose to a great height. They were too regular to be stars.

He knew—and had loved—this place. It was the great library at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. It no longer existed.

He swept his gaze over the darkened walls with their spectral lights—lights that were growing in brilliance with every passing moment. They were the “books” lining the library shelves—dataspheres, memory chips, holocrons, light scrolls, even old books composed of bound flimsi and ancient scrolls of flowing text on plant fiber.

He had been standing in the broad doorway of the vast chamber; now he stepped forward toward the center. Among the ranks of lights, some grew brighter. Here, an amber halo surrounded a datasphere; there, a datascroll gleamed like a tube of palest gold. He wondered at their contents … and found himself many meters in the stygian air, reaching for a datascroll, knowing it contained a treatise on Force projections.

Useful. He took it from the shelf, feeling its warmth—and it dissolved into his hand.

Startled, he stared at his palm. It glowed with the residual aura—almost obscuring the already healing slash that cut diagonally from the heel of his hand to the base of his fingers.

The knowledge contained on the scroll emerged into his semiconscious mind like an island rising from a retreating sea. Of course, it made sense. It would require practice and discipline, but it was a similar discipline to the Force cloaking he had already been using.

He returned his eyes to the shelves. They weren’t really shelves, of course; he realized that. He wasn’t really in the library. The library was gone—swept away in an orgy of horrific and senseless violence. He was in his own head, choosing the knowledge he would bring to conscious light, having chosen the metaphor through which he acquired it.

There, a bright white luminescence many tiers up. In a heartbeat he was there, looking at a datasphere that shone like a tiny moon. It was a record of Darth Ramage’s experiments with energy—with pyronium, specifically.

Jax snatched it up and assimilated it.

He chose several other points of enlightenment—a treatise on healing, acquired from Jedi long dead, another on the sort of Force cloaking he’d stumbled upon when meditating on the miisai tree, another by an ancient Jedi Master on the nature of the Force, another on Force communications, yet another on something Darth Ramage called “tunneling,” which allowed the Force-user to concentrate his focus so tightly that he touched nothing but the target of the focus.

During this time, Jax was aware he was working his way toward a great, red brilliance high up on the curving wall of his mind’s library. It was a Holocron—a cube that pulsed with energies that told him this was the soul of Darth Ramage’s work … if the work of such a madman could be said to have a soul. He had been avoiding it, he knew, afraid of what it might tell him—what it might force him to know. Nonetheless, he found himself facing it, reaching for it, touching it. Knowing it.

It was a treatise on the manipulation of time.

His heart clenched. He wanted this as much as he feared wanting it. If Darth Ramage had been at all successful at manipulating time, what might Jax Pavan, Jedi, do with the knowledge?

Careful, Jax. Careful. Could this knowledge help Yimmon?

He drew his hand back, hesitated, then thrust it out again. There was no way to know if it might help Yimmon without knowing what it was.

He lifted the ruddy cube from the shelf, felt it submerge into his hand to emerge in his mind.

He saw time not as a stream, but as a vast ocean teeming with myriad currents. On its deceptively placid surface, islands bobbed. The first thing he understood about the islands was that they were not all alike. Some extended their roots to the floor of the sea; some floated freely. There were fixed points—nexuses—and floating points that drifted about them.

The second thing he understood about these “islands” was that they did not march in a straight line. Indeed, they were not all even held by the same currents. How, then, did one move them or move among them?

Islands move not, unless the currents move them.

The assertion—embedded in this new knowledge—brought Jax up short. It had the texture of one of Aoloiloa’s mystical pronouncements.

The moment the thought flickered through his mind, Jax knew with horrible certainty that Darth Ramage’s knowledge about time manipulation had come at the expense of Cephalon lives and minds. Hundreds, perhaps even thousands of them.

Separation destroys us.

He could feel the echoes of agony in the interstices between visualization and articulation. Darth Ramage had ripped this perception of time in its extended dimensions from the minds of Cephalon victims, but in so doing, he had cut them off from their network of joined consciousness, leaving the individuals horrifically alone, isolated in this vast temporal sea.

Aoloiloa must have known it. Had he foreseen that the knowledge would be useful to Jax? Or had he foreseen something else—someone else that such information might be useful to?

If Jax, in possession of this knowledge, fell into Darth Vader’s hands—into the Emperor’s hands—what then?

Jax pulled his consciousness away from the knowledge—but it was too late, of course. It was fixed in him like a hot, red star. He closed his eyes and the library vanished.



Magash paced the council hall below the Clan Mother’s chambers, her mind roiling. She knew nothing of what the Jedi was experiencing in his catatonia, but she could feel the repercussions of it in the Force.

Why had he felt it necessary to pry into that Holocron? He knew it vibrated with dark energies. What contents could possibly have been so important that he was willing to risk his life—and their lives? Knowledge that would save his friend, he’d said. Knowledge that would benefit anyone allied against the Empire; that could help to bring the Empire down.

As much as Magash wanted to see the Empire fall, she realized there was a part of her that didn’t care what happened to the rest of the universe as long as her small part of it was spared. She was not naïve enough to believe in that possibility, though. The Nightsisters and Nightbrothers had already brought Dathomir to the attention of the Sith. That could not be undone. And perhaps, just perhaps, when the Jedi woke—if the Jedi woke—he would have knowledge that would also benefit the Singing Mountain Clan.

She felt a frisson of awareness ripple up her spine and swung about to face the steps that led up to the second-floor gallery. Jax Pavan stood at the top of the stairs, regarding her solemnly.

She moved to look up at him, wary. What effects might the knowledge he’d assimilated have on him?

“I wanted to thank you, Magash, for going with me to the Infinity Plain. For being willing to help me pry knowledge out of the Holocron. For standing by me and befriending me.”

She blinked. “What have you learned?”

He smiled. “Mother Djo wants to see you.”

The Clan Mother wanted to see her? Then why hadn’t she simply summoned her through the Force?

Frowning, Magash, started up the stairs. The Jedi turned and moved up the broad hallway in front of her. At the door to Mother Augwynne’s chambers, he turned … and disappeared.

Magash stopped dead in her tracks. Is that what the Holocron had taught him to do? Teleport? Render himself invisible? Walk through walls?

The door of the chamber opened and the Jedi stood before her. He wasn’t smiling now. He was studying her face. She knew what he must see there—stunned disquiet.

“What was that? What did you just do?”

He held the door open for her to enter, and now she did feel Mother Augwynne’s summons.

She entered the chamber and turned to face the Jedi. “Was that teleportation?”

He shook his head. “No. Projection. That was one of the things Darth Ramage was experimenting with—using a personal Force projection to make it seem that he was somewhere he was not. Which, I suppose, opens up all sorts of possibilities about the stories of his demise.”

“So you were in here, projecting the version of you that came out to speak to me. But you didn’t seem to hear what I said to you. You didn’t answer my question.”

“I didn’t hear your question, Magash, because I wasn’t in here projecting that at the same time you were seeing it. I was speaking to Mother Djo.”

Magash felt as if there were wool in her head. “I don’t understand.”

“It was an autonomous projection. I programmed it, I guess you could say, to do just what it did. And only what it did. Beyond that …” He shook his head—wearily, Magash thought.

“But still, wouldn’t it have required you to be projecting it while I was seeing it?”

“No, because of something else Ramage was experimenting with: manipulating time.”

Even as he said the words, Magash could feel the unease that quivered in the Jedi’s aura. She looked at him sharply, wanting to pierce the shell of control he wore.

“This knowledge … unsettles you. It disturbs you. Why?”

“I couldn’t even begin to explain.” He glanced aside at the Matriarch, who was watching from her chair near the hearth. “Suffice it to say, it’s potentially devastating knowledge … in the wrong hands.”

Magash found herself filled with warring emotions—dread, excitement, curiosity. She took a step toward the Jedi.

“You can travel in time? You can change things that have been or will be?”

“Travel, no. Influence, maybe. I have to be honest with you.” He included the Clan Mother in his glance. “I don’t know, right now, what I might be able to do with this knowledge. But I know what Darth Vader might do with it. So, I wish to beg a further favor from the Singing Mountain Clan.”

“And what is that?” Augwynne Djo asked.

“First of all, I wish to leave the Sith Holocron with you. I know that you will neither attempt to use it for ill nor allow it to fall to the forces of the dark side.” He locked each woman’s gaze with his own—first Mother Augwynne’s, then Magash’s.

“That is acceptable to me,” said the Clan Mother. “What else do you wish?”

“If I survive my … attempt to rescue my friend, I wish to return here and have you purge this knowledge from my mind. Utterly purge it, so that it will never be misused, either by Vader or by me.”

The words chilled Magash’s soul and she became aware, again, of the shadows that clung to this man.

“As you wish,” Mother Augwynne said.

The Jedi bowed to her in a gesture of deference. “Then, with your permission, I would like a place I might meditate before I leave Dathomir.”

The Clan Mother returned the Jedi’s bow.

Magash bowed to them both.



“Do you really fear that you would misuse the knowledge you have gleaned?” Magash asked as she escorted Jax to the meditation chamber he had been accorded.

“I fear I would be tempted.”

“To undo your mate’s death?”

Perceptive of her, but not unexpected. Magash Darshi, Jax thought, would make an outstanding Padawan.

Catching his nod, she protested, “But what would be wrong with that? If I understand your situation clearly, if you were to undo what was done at that time, there would be no need to mourn your mate, rescue your friend, or even fear acquiring such dangerous knowledge, because in that time line, you would never have had the need—”

She broke off and met Jax’s eyes. He could see she had stumbled upon the paradox. “You would never have needed to acquire it … But you would still have had this Holocron, yes? So you could acquire it.”

“For what reason? And once having used it—even assuming I could use it in that way—how easy would it be to use it again … and again? How many wrongs could I right? How many would I right? How many would I have to right simply because I could not foresee all the consequences of the time lines I’d already touched?”

Magash led him into a small balcony room high up on the flank of the main tower. As luck—or Augwynne Djo’s sensibilities—would have it, it overlooked the Infinity Plain.

She turned to look at him. “You don’t know how the time manipulation works, then?”

“Not yet. I may never fully understand it, which might be a great mercy.” Or a great tragedy. “Right now, Magash, I have a storm of knowledge in my head. Flotsam and jetsam. Disjointed pieces, flying every which way. I need to try to get the pieces to fit together somehow.”

She nodded. “I will leave you then. I wish you success, Jedi, in your endeavor.”

He chuckled at the continued formality in her tone. “Jax, Magash. My name is Jax.”

“Jax,” she repeated, and bowed to him before leaving the room, as if he were her equal.

In his meditation, Jax saw himself as sitting at the hub of a great wheel. The bodies of knowledge sat at the ends of spokes, separate. He must somehow connect them.

The connection between the Force projections and time was simple enough to see, but the nature of the time manipulation suggested by Darth Ramage’s research was, at first, impenetrable.

Jax found himself looking down on his “islands” in the ocean of time, contemplating how one could move the floating points. He let his mind dive into that ocean, imagining the pull of tides and currents, seeing them fall into almost artistic fractal patterns.

Then, with a suddenness that stole his breath, the patterns fell together with a soul-deep thrill of comprehension: in order to move an island in time, you had to change the currents that affected it, and in order to change even one current, you had to make minute changes in the ones around it—especially the ones that preceded it and from which it was born.

There were “mother” currents, Jax realized. Currents in time that spun off child currents—and local currents as plentiful as moments. With that epiphany came another, less welcome one: You can’t alter one current without altering every downstream current—and island—to which it is connected.

It wasn’t a trickle-down effect, or a domino effect. It was a cascade effect. And as quickly as he realized that, he understood what Darth Ramage must have also understood: that such complex manipulation—or even comprehension of time—could be achieved only by a network of powerful minds that were, themselves, not entirely in the time stream.

Minds like the Cephalons’.

Ramage’s reasoning was clear, too, then. The Cephalons formed such a network—that was what gave them their perception of time. Their sub-brains were each linked to various aspects, patterns, waves—each word was equally applicable—of the time sea.

Jax shuddered with the awareness of the experiments in which Darth Ramage had psychically cut individual Cephalons off from their fellows, to prove that the network existed. Ramage had concluded that if the Cephalons’ network gave them the ability to see currents in time and find the islands, a similar perception might give equally powerful minds—minds of dark side Force-users, say—the ability to alter those currents.

Jax was surprised by his own bitter laughter at the irony of the situation. The tool Darth Ramage would have needed to run such an experiment didn’t exist in Sith experience. Even perceiving time as the Cephalons did required the deeply cooperative efforts of a host of powerful minds. Such a collective would be impossible to achieve for a group of dark side Force-users, in which fear, distrust, and ambition made up the air they breathed.

Impossible now for the Jedi, too, Jax thought. He was growing ever more convinced that there were no Jedi left to cooperate with.

He thrust the thought aside and gazed down on his time islands. The island bearing the Far Ranger and her crew was out of reach to a single Jedi. But a closer island both in time and space—a small island in a local current …

He thought of the brute-force projection of himself that had fooled Magash briefly. He hadn’t considered currents then; he had simply cut across them. That near to the present moment, they were barely eddies. But what if he looked closely at those eddies? Could he affect them significantly without sufficient power? The Cephalons’ power to see time as they did arose out of their network, and he had none. That suggested what he needed was more raw power.

Of course. The pyronium.

He turned what he now knew about pyronium’s interaction with bota over in his mind. There was no bota. Not anymore. The bota plants that now existed had mutated so that they no longer had the capacity to enhance a Force-user’s abilities.

But the bota was irrelevant. What was relevant was what it did: it enhanced Force connections. So the real significance of pyronium was that it could somehow be harnessed by or channeled through Force energies. It was theoretically an unlimited source of raw physical power—as the Force was theoretically an unlimited source of psychic energy.

Darth Ramage’s interest in the bota had been that it presumably could heighten or deepen the Force energies needed to condition that power and apply it.

Meaning what?

Jax took the pyronium out of his belt pouch and held it out on the palm of his hand. It appeared to his eyes as a milkily iridescent gem the size of small egg—a flattened ovoid. The Force was not an engine you could plug into. It was a field. An emanation.

A source.

Acting on an impulse, Jax extended Force tendrils to the pyronium, then lowered his hand, leaving the pyronium nugget floating before him in midair. It began immediately cycling through the visible spectrum—yellow, orange, red, violet, indigo, cyan, green, and back to yellow, after several beats in its opalescent form where, Jax realized, it was likely making a few stops on a part of the spectrum he couldn’t see.

He fed more Force energy into the gem, and the colors brightened and cycled more swiftly. Of course, it was absorbing the kinetic energy from the Force. But it was doing more than that. It was cycling the energy out again, thought-directed into an impulse that buoyed it up.

Jax sat back and withdrew his Force energies from the jewel. Instead of tumbling to the floor of the little room as he might have expected, it stayed aloft … because he’d touched it directly with the Force, surrounded it with the Force, and given it direction through the Force. It continued to follow that direction.

At the outer edges of the conceptual wheel in which Jax sat, a shimmering rim burst into being, connecting the spokes.