Training Remote

“I’m not asking for help,” he said from under a holochess table. “I’ll find it myself. It’s around here somewhere, I can feel it.”

“Feel what?”

“This. I think.” He crawled out from under the table, but hit his head on the underside and dropped what he was holding. “Ow!” The item rolled across the floor.

“I’ve got it.” Maize stopped it with her foot. When Karr climbed to his feet, she nudged the object in his direction with her toe.

“Thanks! I’m glad it didn’t break. I couldn’t hold on to it. I tried, but even with the gloves it was difficult.” He picked up the orb at his feet. It was gray, dotted with silver circles. He held it with a squint, struggling to keep control.

His head was spinning and his eyes were watering, but he wouldn’t put it down.

“What is it?” Maize asked again.

RZ-7 caught up to the pair of them. “Sir, what did you find?”

“I have no idea!” he said merrily, poking and prodding it. “But I know it’s important!”

“Okay, so tell us what you see. Concentrate, or whatever it is you do.”

“I am, I am,” he assured them.

He hugged the thing between his leather-clad palms and concentrated as hard as he could. Then he pulled off one glove and gingerly touched the orb with his fingertips.

The dark ship’s interior, lit mostly by RZ-7’s buttons and the weak yellow safety lights that had come on when the ramp dropped, grew darker still. It went black, and no matter how hard Karr blinked or how closely he looked, he saw nothing at all except darkness, and then brightness, and then…

When he opened his mind’s eye, Karr noticed he was still on the ship. Was the vision not working? Normally it transported him to a different time and place, but he was still beside the holochess table.

Suddenly, a blue lightsaber sliced through the air, erasing any doubt in his abilities. Whatever the orb had witnessed, it had witnessed it on that very freighter. Karr tried to focus on the face of the person wielding the lightsaber, but his talents weren’t that honed yet. Was it a Jedi?

“Now that you’re comfortable holding the lightsaber,” he heard someone say, “why don’t we move on to technique?” Something about the voice pinged in Karr’s head. He knew it from somewhere but just couldn’t place it. Karr followed the voice until it led him to a different figure. He couldn’t see that one’s face, either, but the man was wearing a flowing robe. Now that, Karr thought, was definitely a Jedi.

“You’re not going to make me fight you, are you?” said the person waving the lightsaber.

The man in the robe laughed. “No. But we should work on your connection to the Force.”

A nearby golden blur—a droid, maybe?—asked, “May I be of any assistance, Master Kenobi?”

Master Kenobi? Karr did a mental double take. No wonder the voice sounded familiar. It was the same Jedi he had seen in his earlier vision.

Kenobi responded, “No, Threepio. Young Skywalker here must do this on his own.”

Skywalker, too! This was too much of a coincidence. They must have been two very important Jedi to come up twice in his visions. And to think they once stood on the very spot Karr was standing. Although much earlier, he imagined, since Kenobi seemed to be training Skywalker and he had not yet become the General Skywalker of the Clone Wars vision.

Karr watched as Kenobi crossed to something that had caught his eye. He pulled from a compartment the very orb Karr was holding. For a moment, Karr felt he was sharing something with the Jedi Master. Not just the vision. Not just a lesson. But a connection.

“Try and defend yourself against this,” Kenobi suggested.

“What if I can’t?”

“The bigger question is, What if you can? Besides, it’s a training remote. It is equipped with nonlethal blasters specifically for those who wish to practice. I’m guessing our pilot handles that blaster better than we imagine.”

“Unless this belongs to the Wookiee,” Skywalker joked.

Kenobi smiled as he tossed the remote into the air. “Focus.”

Skywalker faced off against the target as it hissed and darted across the room. With each dodge and swing, Karr couldn’t help copying the Jedi in training, almost as if he was waiting his turn.

Until something stopped them both.

Kenobi reached for his chest and looked for a place to sit down. Skywalker retracted the lightsaber.

“Are you all right? What’s wrong?”

“I felt a great disturbance in the Force. As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.”

Then, just like those voices, Karr’s vision was silenced.

When his eyes were working correctly again, he saw that RZ-7 must’ve gotten a few more lights on. The room was brighter, and tiny rows of secondary indicator lights blinked softly on standby. His head was splitting, but he didn’t care—not at all. He grinned from ear to ear.

Maize stood above him. She smirked and put one hand on her hip. “You look pretty happy for a guy who just fell and hit his head.”

“I hit my head?”

“On the seat,” she said, cocking her head toward the bench.

He climbed to his feet. “I didn’t feel it. How long was I out?”

His droid supplied, “Nine point zero two seconds. Approximately.”

“Worse than my reaction at Sconto’s, but definitely worth it,” Karr said.

“If you say so,” Maize said skeptically. Satisfied that he wasn’t going to die or anything, Maize slid onto the bench seat and put her feet up on the rounded table between them. It was bolted to the floor. Her boot heels scraped the top, but it didn’t wobble.

“The first time I fainted, I was out for ages. My parents thought I was dead.”

RZ-7 backed him up. “You’re on a strong upward trajectory, sir. You’ve emerged from your trance after nine seconds with a smile. This is your most successful vision to date! Assuming that your head doesn’t explode within the next hour.”

“I don’t think it’s actually going to explode. It just…kind of feels like it.” He rubbed at his temple and tried not to groan.

“Was it worth it? What did you see? Did you get anything new?”

He flung himself onto the seat beside her. “Totally worth it! I got those names again. The same ones as before.”

“Skyhopper or something?”

“Skywalker,” he corrected her with an eye roll. “And Kenobi. But it was earlier.”


- Force Collector, Chapter 10