“Master, you shouldn’t be teaching that Mandalorian boy the way you have.
It doesn’t align with Jedi doctrine.
The Council would never approve of this.” Obi-Wan stood squarely in front of Qui-Gon the moment the training session ended.
Qui-Gon stopped walking, meeting his apprentice’s troubled gaze with quiet steadiness.
He didn’t rush to answer.
“Obi-Wan.” His voice stayed as gentle as always.
“I hear your concern.”
“This is more than concern, Master.” Obi-Wan stepped closer, urgency straining under his controlled voice.
“The Jedi Code is clear.
Force training happens under the Temple’s guidance, beginning in early childhood, tempered through discipline and stillness.
Kurt is too old for this.
He carries strong personal attachments.
He’s bound to Mandalorian tradition in ways he won’t let go of.
In his hands, the Force is nothing but a tool.
Master, you’ve seen with your own eyes how history repeats itself when power slips its leash.
Are the lessons of those who fell to the dark side not enough?”
Qui-Gon listened without interrupting, his eyes distant, as though looking past his apprentice toward something further off.
Across the pad, Kurt wiped sweat from his brow, exhausted but glowing, still turning over the sensation of power moving through him.
“Obi-Wan.” Qui-Gon spoke at last, his voice low and certain.
“The code you’re describing is a foundation for safety.
I taught it to you.
I’ve lived by it most of my life.
But the Force itself is larger, deeper than any rule we’ve built around it.
What the Council says is not the whole of what the Force is.”
He raised a hand toward Kurt.
“You see a boy too old, too emotional, too bound to a cause.
I see a soul who, in his darkest moment, answered the Force’s call on pure instinct and showed a gift beyond anything I expected.
His attachments, his Mandalorian spirit — these aren’t fated to lead him to darkness.
They’re his roots.
They’re the unique source of his strength.”
“But that’s also his greatest weakness!” Obi-Wan pushed back.
“Power drawn from emotion grows strong through emotion — and warps through it just as easily!
That kind of personal drive is exactly the soil the dark side takes root in.
Without the Temple’s structured teaching and constant oversight, how is he supposed to resist that pull?
If it slips even once—”
“Then do you believe leaving him outside our doors, letting a gift like his ferment in ignorance and unspent anger, is somehow the safer path?” Qui-Gon cut in, his eyes sharpening.
“His connection to the Force has already awakened, Obi-Wan.
It won’t vanish because we chose not to teach him.
It will simply run wild, an unbroken horse that could throw him into far worse danger at any moment.
I’m not teaching him to bypass the Council — though I’ll admit their formalities frustrate me at times.
I’m teaching him because he needs guidance now, while he’s most in need of understanding this power, of learning basic control — so he understands the Force is about more than combat and revenge.
It’s about perception.
Balance.
Connection to everything around him.”
“Even so, that should be the Council’s decision to make!
Training an outsider — someone with this kind of background — in secret is an open disregard for procedure.
It’s a betrayal of everything our Code—”
“Our Code?” A rare edge crept into Qui-Gon’s voice.
He stepped closer, closing the distance between them.
“Does our Code truly instruct us to abandon someone teetering on the edge of the dark side?
Simply because he doesn’t fit the mold we’ve built for recruiting Padawans, are we meant to let this gift, this young man’s potential, go to waste under our own rigid rules — or worse, push him toward the very darkness we fear?”
He drew a slow breath, his tone softening, though his conviction never wavered.
“Procedure matters.
But sometimes, listening to what the Force wills, acting from the heart of what we believe, brings us closer to the Light than blind adherence to rules ever could.
I understand your loyalty, Obi-Wan.
But in this, I believe I’m walking the path the Force has set before me.”
“As for the Council — I’ll face them, when the time is right.
But right now, keeping a soul who may one day turn the tide from sliding toward the dark, helping him understand rather than fear his own power — that is the responsibility I carry as a Jedi, here and now.” He looked steadily at Obi-Wan.
“Your concern, I take to heart.
It reminds me to stay watchful.
But my decision stands.”
“Understood, Master.
I’ll report this to the Council.” Obi-Wan turned to head back to the ship to file his report, but Qui-Gon stopped him — handing over a blood sample he’d taken from Kurt earlier, asking him to test its midi-chlorian count.
While the two argued, Kurt sat some distance away, still deep in meditation, a ring of small stones hovering around him, his thoughts drifting toward the road ahead. The source of this chapter is novelping.com.
And then — he saw it.
A figure cloaked in black.
A blood-red lightsaber.
The unmistakable yellow-and-red of Sith eyes.
Fallen Jedi and Mandalorians scattered across the ground.
The vision hit like a nightmare, and Kurt dropped straight to the ground, the floating stones clattering down around him.
Is that the future?
Is that figure a future Vader — or someone else entirely?
Faced with a future this uncertain, something inside Kurt kept insisting he needed to grow stronger — that he needed to put the Hyperion’s strength to real use.
He couldn’t continue meditating after that.
He made his way back to where his clan was staying, and watching the children, the shape of his resolve sharpened: to protect his family, he needed to grow stronger, which meant bringing the Hyperion’s weapons and equipment back to Sundari, reinforcing New Mandalore’s forces.
Only by defeating Death Watch would there be any future worth having.
Satine came and sat beside him.
“Thinking about Death Watch?”
“No, Cousin.
I’m just thinking about how to end this war faster.
I’m going to reach out to the traditionalist Mandalorians — propose we accept their Super Commando code, and form a united front against Death Watch together.”
“Kurt, as my advisor, I’ll leave that in your hands.” Satine trusted him completely enough to hand him full authority on it.
“But that new ship of yours — how did you get it?
If we had more like it, we’d win this war that much faster.”
Kurt turned the question over in his head for a long moment, having never actually prepared an answer for it — how was a band of orphaned children supposed to explain owning cutting-edge military hardware?
Eventually he settled on pinning it on his long-dead parents.
“My parents built a weapons company on Vadiira, years back.
They left behind a lot of unfinished design drafts.
Between scavenging and what little capital was left, I managed to assemble the Viking in the old shipyard there.” The lie came easily, one piece after another.
“I had no idea your aunt and uncle left something like that behind.
But why not take the children and live out on Vadiira, away from all this fighting?” Satine sounded a little skeptical, but let it go — everyone had their private reasons for things.
“Because there are still more children out there who need saving.
I can’t just walk away and let them die.” Kurt’s thoughts went, unbidden, to all the faces still waiting to be found.
Just then Almec approached, looking for Satine to discuss matters of civil administration.
Kurt excused himself, heading toward the holding cells to see the captured Mandalorian assassin.