Late at night, Lance Black made his way back to the apprentice quarters from the Archives, shed his robe, and dropped onto the bed.
The moment his head hit the pillow, sleep took him, and his mind slid straight back into the dream.
Minutes later, his brow creased.
His breathing quickened.
Beads of sweat rose along his hairline.
Tonight, it was a nightmare.
In the vision, Supreme Chancellor Palpatine drew a red blade and cut down Masters Kit Fisto, Saesee Tiin, and Agen Kolar without breaking a sweat.
Master Mace Windu met him with a purple saber of his own, and the two clashed in a fight that bent the air around them with the Force.
Round after round, until Windu, drawing on the lightsaber form he’d created himself, Form VII, Vaapad, finally knocked the weapon from Palpatine’s hand, drove him to his knees, and pinned him at the window ledge.
Blade raised, Windu named his intent: arrest.
Then Anakin burst into the room.
A brief, heated exchange followed.
Something in Palpatine’s face twisted as he muttered the same words over and over, and then lightning tore from his palms in crackling blue arcs.
Windu threw his blade up just in time, catching the bolts and sending them straight back at their source.
“I have the power to save the one you love.
You must make a choice.”
Palpatine’s voice was ragged, his face contorted in pain as his own lightning tore through him, but he refused to stop.
Windu raised his saber, ready to end it.
And Anakin ignited his own blade and severed Windu’s hand from his wrist.
A scream.
Then Palpatine’s lightning caught him full on, black smoke curling off his body as he pitched backward and fell from the tower.
The scene shifted.
A figure in a black Jedi robe strode into the Temple, clone troopers pouring in behind him, gunships and cruisers crowding the sky until they blotted out the sun.
Under the harsh light, a face turned toward him, one he knew and didn’t know at once, eyes burning yellow, a suffocating darkness rolling off him in waves.
Vwoom.
The blade swung, and Jedi fell where they stood.
Screams and wailing echoed through every hall of the Temple, and then, without warning, the scene snapped forward.
Anakin was suddenly right in front of him, his shadow swallowing everything, blade raised high overhead, coming down hard.
Hiss.
Cold sweat had soaked clean through his back.
Lance jolted awake, bolting upright, chest heaving like the blade had actually torn through him.
His hands flew across his own body, checking.
No burns.
No blood.
No pain.
He was whole.
He let out a long breath and sank against the headboard, his body finally unclenching.
But the fear stayed, coiled tight around his chest like something alive.
He looked down at his hands.
Still trembling.
Palms slick.
“Just a nightmare.”
He said it again in his head, trying to talk himself down.
But those yellow eyes wouldn’t leave.
They’d burned themselves into something deeper than memory.
Sleep was clearly finished with him for the night, so he reached into the nightstand and pulled out the object he kept there: a Jedi holocron.
Palm-sized, pyramid-shaped, its pale metal shell catching the dim light in cold glints, its surface etched with patterns too intricate to read at a glance.
Jedi used these to store knowledge worth protecting, locked behind a password of sorts, one complex enough that getting it wrong triggered the thing’s self-destruct sequence outright.
This particular holocron held everything his Master, Plo Koon, knew.
The instant he took it in his hands, a calm, steady presence in the Force settled over him, and something in his chest finally eased.
He exhaled slowly, opened his palm, and fed the Force into it.
The holocron trembled, then rose, hovering above his hand.
He kept feeding it Force energy, guiding it through a precise sequence of internal nodes, layer folding into layer, like turning the tumblers of some impossibly delicate lock.
A faint mechanical whir accompanied it as the holocron slowly opened like a blooming metal flower, a ball of white light kindling at its heart.
His mind went straight to Palpatine’s lightning, and from there to the thing he was actually looking for: Force Judgment.
His Master’s signature technique, one that channeled the Force into golden lightning.
What’s the difference between the two?
Which one is stronger?
He pushed further, chasing the answer, and hit something like an invisible wall.
This part’s sealed.
Locked by my Master himself.
Force Judgment was powerful, and dangerous enough that only someone who’d truly balanced light and dark within themselves could wield it safely.
Anyone else risked it turning back on them.
Plo Koon must have worried Lance would reach too far too soon, and sealed the knowledge until he was ready.
The seal would lift on its own once that day came.
Lance withdrew the Force, and the holocron folded itself shut, seamless again.
He looked up at the window, pulled his clothes on, and said, mostly to himself, “I need some air.”
He set the holocron back in the cabinet, shrugged into his robe, clipped his saber to his belt, and left the Temple.
No Jedi worth the title went anywhere without it.
Coruscant’s night skyline spread out before him, alive with color.
Neon signs cycled through advertisements along every wall, and the exhaust trails of passing speeders streaked overhead like meteors caught mid-fall.
He hadn’t walked the city like this, unhurried, since the war started.
Wonder where Ahsoka is these days.
Right, she mentioned those two sisters.
Rafa and Trace.
Not long ago she’d told him about some of the trouble she’d gotten into with them.
He almost went looking for her right then, before catching himself.
Middle of the night.
Bad time for a visit.
Next time.
He kept walking, letting his thoughts wander, though most of them kept circling back to the nightmare.
I was just watching it happen.
How did I end up inside it?
The question wouldn’t let go of him.
Clang.
Something fell from far above and struck the road below with a heavy metallic crash, bouncing twice before dropping toward the lower levels of the city.
Throwing things off a building at this hour.
Some people have no consideration.
He looked up and froze.
Near the top of a tower far above, a window burned with blue light, arcs of electricity flickering wildly inside.
A blurred shape flew out of it a moment later, plummeting toward the ground, a faint scream trailing behind it.
That’s…
that’s the Chancellor’s residence.
His eyes went wide, pupils shaking.
It hit him all at once.
This wasn’t a dream.
It was a memory from his other life, playing out in real time.
And the vision, Anakin standing over him with the blade raised, that had been the Force trying to warn him.
Blue lightning.
Palpatine.
That figure falling just now, that has to be Master Windu.
If this is following the film…
His chest tightened, a cold certainty of danger settling over him.
No.
I can’t let this happen.
I have to warn my Master.
I have to warn the whole Order.