OSSUS

ABOARD THE DATHOMIRIAN CURSE

They deployed from the Curse’s cargo hold: Ageless driving the bike, Namyr holding onto him from behind. They both had gear bags strapped to their backs and weapons holstered at their sides, with blaster rifles clipped to the bike’s side. Kevv stood at the top of the ramp, just as they were revving up the bike. “I’ll be here,” he called. “I’ll have my commlink on me at all times.”

Ageless looked back at the Duros. “All right. We’ll be in touch.”

“Good luck out there,” Kevv told them.

“You, too,” Namyr said.

“And may the Force be with you.”

Ageless nodded. “You, too, my friend.”

With that, Ageless pressed the accelerator pedal, and the speeder bike started forward with a jolt. Pretty soon the canyon walls became a blur all around them. The sun was setting, the shadows were lengthening. They soared into the unknown, heading for the K’tuzian Stretch.

* * *

ABOARD THE GOZANTI-CLASS STARSHIP EMPEROR’S MIGHT

LOCATION: IN ORBIT ABOVE OSSUS (POLAR ORBIT)

ROLE: RECONNAISSANCE

CURRENT MISSION: MONITORING & PROTECTING EXCAVATION SITE “TRIDENT-17Δ.778-Σ”

Mara didn’t know why she had been summoned up from Ossus, and asked to report to the Emperor’s Might on urgent business, but she already sensed something was wrong. She moved lithely through the starship’s corridors, blast doors opening and revealing officers and stormtroopers moving quickly on some urgent business. None of them saluted her, for she had no formal military rank, but most of them did stand to one side when she came through in some sort of deferential treatment. Recognition for whatever power the Emperor had instilled her with.

Mara had spent years as the “Emperor’s Hand,” mostly a closely guarded secret by Palpatine’s side, the existence of her relationship with the Emperor known only to Darth Vader and a handful of other high-ranking Imperial officials. But recently, just weeks before the trap at Endor was ready to be set against the Rebel Alliance, she had been given special clearance and sent to a forgotten planet in a stretch of dangerous space, to help oversee the unearthing of precious ancient Jedi artifacts.

And now that she was approaching the Main Conference Room of the Gozanti-class ship, just down the hall from Moff Inrammen’s private quarters, she sensed an uneasiness from all the personnel around her, as if they were suddenly afraid of something. She could sense this even without the Force, although the Force did reinforce this feeling. They’re scared. Something’s changed. Someone’s here. Someone they did not expect. A strange presence…

Mara felt a wave in the Force, almost like what she imagined a starship’s sensors felt when they detected a heatwave bounce-back, a response to prodding the energies of the universe and getting feedback. She had sensed this kind of thing before, but only around Force-sensitive beings, those who had been educated and heavily trained in its applications.

But no one like that ought to be here, she thought. Surely it isn’t Lord Vader or Palpatine himself. That wouldn’t make any sense. She had assurances from Palpatine that his and Vader’s focus was to be Endor for the time being.

When the door to Inrammen’s quarters swished open, Mara stepped in to find the Moff standing by a window, overlooking Ossus, just as the sun was peeking over the horizon. And he wasn’t alone. Two people stood in the room with him, one of whom she knew as the captain of the Emperor’s Might, a woman named Viheer. Captain Viheer had barely said two words to Mara since she’d come onboard, and that was just fine by her. She was a tall, dark-haired woman, with a sharp chin and high cheekbones that made her look every bit as haughty as her Coruscanti noble name made her out to be. Viheer stood beside Moff Inrammen, hands clasped behind her back, and she turned to face Mara as she entered, nodding slightly in greeting.

Odd. Moff Inrammen always meets me alone. He wants our debriefings to be private, just as the Emperor instructed.

The other person in the room was someone Mara had never seen before, and as soon she looked upon him, a warning from the Force rang inside her skull like a bell.

The male Human was of average height, with both legs missing from the knees down and replaced by cybernetics. His robes were black, and he had on a vest that could’ve been at home at a formal function, and yet also appeared tactical. From his belt hung a strange sight, pieces of what appeared to be a disassembled lightsaber, of the double-bladed spinning lightsaber type, with circular handguard. An Inquisitor’s lightsaber? she thought, looking up at the pale-faced man. He was much older than her, possibly older than Moff Inrammen, with barely any blond hair left, in either his short-cropped hair or his well-groomed beard. Cold, blue eyes gazed upon her, revealing a predator’s patience.

“Emperor’s Hand,” said Moff Inrammen, turning to face her. “So glad you could make it. Close the door and have a seat. This man here is…empowered by the Emperor. That is how it’s been put to me. Similar to your agency here, he is on his own endeavor.”

“I wasn’t aware of another joining our party,” she said, calling upon the Force for control, to keep the tension from her voice.

“None of us were.”

“It was a sudden matter,” said the stranger, in a calm baritone voice. “An ad-hoc function, I assure you. If things go well, when this is over, you ought never see me again for the rest of your life.”

Well, that sounded ominous. “If the Emperor sent you, then of course we will all extend what resources we have. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“As a matter of fact, you can. I understand there is pilot named Cazrael who says he is certain he spotted one or two Rebel ships entering Ossus, possibly using a clever skipping maneuver.” The stranger walked closer to her, his black half-cape swishing softly against his fine garments. “I understand you have a ship well suited to careful searches, one with an advanced sensor array. I confess, it surprised me to discover a SoroSuub Horizon-class vessel here, but when I asked Moff Inrammen to give me a ship’s manifest, so that I could see what available assets we have, it jumped right out at me. When I asked who it belonged to, I was delighted to hear the name Emperor’s Hand. I’ve heard it mentioned in a few intel reports.”

Mara shrugged. “Whatever you need…eh, I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name?”

“You may call me Ether. And I shall call you Hand, if that is all right. It seems you and I are both rather unique in terms of how we serve the Emperor. Likely, you and I were never meant to meet. Compartmentalization of information and all that. I can only imagine your skill set.” The would-be Inquisitor’s gray beard parted in a small smile.

He knows, she thought. He knows I’ve had training in the Force. He senses it on me just like I sense it on him. How could either of us ever miss it? But who is he? An Inquisitor? But they’re all dead. Aren’t they? “I have my own mission,” Mara said. “And the Emperor wants nothing to intercede—”

“I’m sure you do,” Ether said. “But I’m also certain that if the Emperor feared Rebel saboteurs had come to Ossus, he would see that as a threat to your mission. Surely that takes priority right now? We could ask him, but alas, the range on the comms buoys Moff Inrammen’s people have laid out can only stretch so far. He’s currently headed for Endor, I’m sure you know, to oversee the Operation there. We’re on our own out here, all having to make sacrifices on the fly. So, what do you say, Hand? You help me investigate these possible infiltrators, and I’ll help you with whatever mission you’ve been sent to do.”

Mara shifted uncertainly, and folded her arms across her chest. It would help to have another Force-sensitive at a place such as this, with one such as the Dark Voice possibly interfering, and with the very essence of this place suffused with the Force, as well as both Jedi and Sith history.

Captain Viheer spoke up for the first time, saying, “I will commit this ship’s sensors fully to the search, Ether. You shall both have our undivided support while you make your sweep.”

“There, you see?” said Ether, smiling warmly, like they were all family here. “With all of our efforts combined, we ought to make short work of this. The Emperor's final victory over the Rebellion is so very close now. We are at the rallying point of destiny. All of us. What we do here will help the Empire in ways we cannot yet even imagine, it will echo for all eternity. Let us never forget.” The way he spoke brooked no argument, and Mara had the feeling that whoever this man was, he was used to issuing orders and having them followed. He wasn’t used to hear the word No.

Mara looked over at Inrammen, who nodded stiffly at her. That nod said everything. That nod said, You don’t want to know what I know about this man. Do as he says, for all our sakes, and then let him be out of our hair.

“Very well,” she said. “Me and my ship will be at your service, until such time as we find these Rebels, or else determine there never were any.”

Ether’s smile widened. “Excellent. I am certain that we will all benefit from our time together.”

* * *

ALONG THE K’TUZIAN STRETCH

Namyr let Ageless parked the speeder bike, while she walked to the edge of the hill and looked across to the opposite ridge of the canyon. The canyon separating them from the survey team high numerous, kilometer-high basalt pillars, each one jaggedly shaped, with several crenelations for hiding. Namyr looked at the survey team from afar, and saw that it was full of droids, Human researchers, and a cadre of stormtroopers commanded by a single black-armored purge trooper. Namyr thought, Now this looks nasty. She was looking at the laser-line perimeter traps, highly noticeable and glowing red-hot, visible even from this distance. They were solid, horizontal beams, spaced inches apart. Try to walk through them, and they’d cut you to pieces.

“We’re not getting through that,” she said, when Ageless came to join her. He’d just hidden the bike under an overhang, and thrown some petrified ku’dru branches in a pattern that, if somehow spotted, would appear like the large nest of a native bird they’d seen the week before. The bird was as large as a Human, it was reptilian, with feathers only down its spine, and wings that beat fast like an insect’s. Its nest was often made of these large petrified ku’dru branches.

“Think we can go around?” Ageless suggested.

Namyr scanned below the research zone with her eletrobinoculars. She hissed through her teeth. “There are a couple of narrow passages if we go into the canyon. But it’s a massive drop. If we fall…that’s it. Unless you brought a jetpack?”

“I didn’t.”

“Maybe we can grab one of theirs at some point,” Namyr said, and pointed to a pair of scout troopers flying high up in the air, about a kilometer away, both wearing jetpacks and hovering above a collapsed, dormant caldera. This entire canyon looked like it had been blown apart and carved by ancient volcanic activity. “Until then, though, it looks like we’re humping it.”

“Ascension cables?”

Namyr nodded. “Get them out of my gear bag.” She and Kevv had the climbing gear with them since even before Malastare. Construction workers used them all over the galaxy these days, and she and Kevv had briefly posed as workers a few months ago when passing through an Imperial customs checkpoint. She still had the ascension cables, thank the Force, because they were about to come in real handy.

Once they started strapping them to her arms, Namyr went about adjusting them on both her and Ageless. Ascension cables were old Clone Wars tech, but they’d stuck around for their other uses. Namyr fastened a spare to her DC-17 blaster pistol, in case the one around her wrist failed. These were old models, after all, and had barely been kept up.

“Do you know how to use these?” she asked.

Ageless nodded. “It’s been a while, but we learned how to deploy from LAAT gunships using these at the Nest.”

“Then you’ll remember if you’re not prepared, it can give you mean whiplash.”

“Yes, just like I also remember you want to know who’s going first, so that we don’t get our lines tangled together. So, who’s taking lead?”

Namyr held out a fist. Ageless smiled, and did the same. They played rolling-fists-over-fives to see who went first, and it was Namyr. So, after climbing down to the ledge where the clifftop suddenly terminated, she positioned herself on the lip. Bending her knees, preparing herself for the sudden jerk, she took careful aim at a far wall, and waited for the ascension cable’s sensors to find satisfactory rock for its grappling hook. Once it was locked on, it gave a silent vibration, which she felt in her arm.

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She fired. The grappling hook shot out from her wrist gauntlet, and smacked into the side of a distant basalt pillar that rose up through the center of the canyon. The line pulled itself taut, and she sprung forward, taking a deep breath and forcing herself not to look down as she swung for all of four seconds. And then, suddenly, here came the hard jerk. The gauntlet that housed the cable suddenly yanked, and reeled in the cable at high speed, pulling her up. Wind roared in her ears as she ascended up to the basalt pillar, and planted both feet against the cold stone wall.

Ageless’s hook smacked into the rock just above her. He was ready and waiting for her to move. Namyr clung to the rock by one hand, finding a suitable handhold, a “jug” as climbers called it. Then she aimed towards the next stony pillar, fired, hooked in, and then leapt and went plummeting before being violently reeled towards her destination.

She and Ageless swung through the canyon like this, stopping every so often to check in with one another over commlink, waiting and listening. Once Namyr was certain no one had discovered them, they swung on, through the deepening night, from one colossal basalt pillar to the next. The canyon was filled with these, some with overhangs at the midpoint, and here, Namyr and Ageless made camp. They didn’t create a fire, of course, because that could get them spotted, but they laid out blankets and slept, eating MREs at sunrise. Upon nightfall, they got underway again.

Whenever they heard the whine of a twin ion engine, they took cover. Twice, they came upon a group of scout troopers surveying the enormous clifftops, and moved stealthily around them, giving the troopers a wide birth.

Then, one night, when they spied a dig team repelling down the canyon, Namyr and Ageless got out their spelunking gear and repelled down the opposite wall. They saw the dig team had excavation droids with them, and were walking into a cave entrance along the cliff face. Namyr and Ageless watched the cave entrance from afar for a few hours until they came out. The team took an airspeeder up towards a large Nuira-class construction ship. Viewed through her electrobinoculars, Namyr could see the big ship bringing down a colossal, circular saw.

“A mantle saw,” she said.

“Mantle saw?” Ageless asked.

She lowered the electrobinoculars. “It’s about what it sounds like. They’re used to saw through a planet’s mantle. But that’s only if you wish to go really, really deep into a planet, maybe to get at a hidden water table, or to begin terraforming operations. I don’t think the Empire wants to do something so costly as terraforming.”

“Could the Jedi have vaults that run that deep?”

“If so, I didn’t know any of the Jedi built subterranean cities or passages that went quite that far down.”

Ageless shrugged. “Maybe it’s something else? Like diverting lava flow away from a chamber they want access to?”

“Could be. Or it could be that they’ve found old vaults that sunk deeper than they’d anticipated. Maybe these earthquakes keep shaking the soil loose, causing some of the more ancient structures to keep sinking.”

Ageless nodded. “Well, since they’ve abandoned the caves over there for the moment, what’s say we go have a peek?”

It took them less than five minutes to cross the canyon using their ascension cables. Once or twice, Namyr felt a gasp tear at her throat, when it felt like her cable’s grappling hook was going to come loose. They landed at the cave entrance, and entered slowly. Ageless produced a scanner that searched for droids or other sensor traps inside. He gave her an all-clear nod, and they moved in, and found a large cavern. The air was filled with dust, and there were five mobile sensor stations, all of them connected to a ground-penetrating-radar device.

“Looks like they were looking for other places to dig,” Ageless said. “Looking to expand their operation.”

Namyr nodded wordlessly, and scanned around.

Currently, the equipment was all shut off, but Ageless found the power switch, and Namyr quickly accessed the menu screen of one station. She was locked out, of course, as this was all Imperial equipment. No matter, her slicer’s kit, which was tucked snugly in her belt, was easily deployed, and after a only few seconds of inserting mal-code, she had access to some of the more basic commands.

She pulled up sensor data on one screen, and then brought up a hologram that showed a 3D image of the caves below them. Caves not yet accessed, but presumably would be soon.

Ageless, who had been silently guarding the cave entrance with his blaster pistol out, glanced over to what she was doing. “Anything?”

Namyr scanned it quickly. She set her slicer’s kit to do a word search, highlighting key phrases that would relate to “Jedi” or “artifact” or “entrance.” She got several hits, and rotated the holographic cave map in the air, zooming in and out on sections highlighted in glowing yellow circles. “It looks like a stone labyrinth,” she said. “And there’s a vault at the end. Looks to me like it was meant to be decorative, I can see huge faces of Twi’leks, Humans, Wookiees…and that on there looks like a Bith—all of them are carved into enormous statues.”

“Think it’s important?”

“Maybe. Let me see if these sensor stations have been used at other sites. If so, they might have maps of other tunnels around the Trident zone that could be useful to us…” She trailed off, searching.

“Uh, you might want to hurry.” Ageless’s voice was suddenly tense.

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“I think I hear engines approaching. Sounds like airspeeders.”

Namyr’s fingers raced across the keyboard, and tapped the keypad on her slicer’s rig. It took her a few clenching heartbeats, but at last she found a database filled with maps and direction markers. She downloaded it all to her datapad and said, “Got it! Let’s go!” She could hear the whine of the airspeeders’ engines, they were so close now.

Namyr and Ageless raced out of the cave’s entrance, and, without thinking, they both leapt and fired their ascension cables at an enormous basalt pillar some twenty meters away, and they went swinging, side by side through the night. Namyr felt the exhilaration mixed with fear, and glanced back to see the headlights of the airspeeders just touching down at the cave’s entrance. They’d narrowly made it out in time.

Later that night, while they were both going over all they’d seen, and having a laugh about that absolutely absurd and reckless escape from the cave, they shared an MRE while Namyr displayed the maps on her datapad’s screen. She’d also managed to steal a few security reports from the trooper patrols, as well as notes from several researchers working on Trident, including—

“Doctor Aphra!” she gasped, turning the screen so that Ageless could see it. “I’ve got her reports here! It looks like she’s working alone, like Kevv suspected. And she says she’s found something in a deep chamber, somewhere in that direction.” Namyr pointed at the mountains in the east, where the sun was just about to come up. “These coordinates don’t look too far. We could swing back to the speeder bike, drive through the canyon for about three-quarters of the way, then hike the rest up this mountain here,” she pointed to it on the datapad. “Doctor Aphra calls it Mount Gujahhl. Her notes say that’s the best translation she can make out from an old Jedi tablet she found there.”

“What does she think she’s found?” Ageless asked, getting ready to lie down and get some rest. They’d been going all night.

Namyr read further down Aphra’s notes, and said, “A massive chamber. She says she thinks the other teams are wrong, that they don’t have the Observatory. She thinks she’s found the real Observatory, but she doesn’t have enough excavation droids with her, so she’s going in by herself.” Namyr scanned down the report and 3D map Aphra had sent back to her Imperial masters. “It’s deep, Ageless. Extremely deep. As in, close to the mantle.”

He perked up. “Well, I think we have our answer to the mantle-saw mystery. Looks like they’re taking her claim seriously.”

“Yes, but she’s not waiting for them. She said she’s going in immediately. This report is a few days old, so she’s probably already down there. Alone. In tunnels no one has stepped in in millennia.” She winced as she read further down Aphra’s report, and came upon a word that jumped out at her as vaguely familiar. Then she looked at the cartography files on the tunnels that Aphra had uncovered, and found passages blocked by a strange black substance, something with a faint shimmering blue glow around it. “Funny.”

“What is?”

“Doctor Aphra has several of these passages she can’t pass through,” Namyr said. “She says they’re blocked by a substance she calls…Koboh matter? She says it’s weird, because it shouldn’t be here. It comes from Koboh, some nowhere planet in the Outer Rim. Apparently, she’s read a few accounts that say a Jedi named Cal Kestis once used a special device to get through walls of this stuff on Koboh. Aphra claims she has a small, portable version of it—”

“Wait a minute,” Ageless sat up suddenly. “Did you say Cal Kestis?”

“Yeah. Why? You’ve heard of him?”

“Yes. He was wanted by the Empire years ago, long before the Battle of Yavin. A saboteur, a thief, broke into a prison or two and liberated Rebel prisoners. He was working with Saw Guerrera at one point, and the Empire had a bounty on his head that attracted bounty hunters from all over the galaxy.”

“Whatever happened to him?”

Ageless shrugged. “Not sure. But the guy apparently was an adventurer, a ‘tomb raider’ you might say, he uncovered an old holocron from some place called Bogano, found his way through tombs on Dathomir. That’s where I first heard about him.”

“How’s that?”

“Because I’m originally from Dathomir. I thought you knew that.”

Namyr shrugged. “I didn’t know how long you were there. Rebel intelligence was never clear about that in your profile.”

“I still had family there when I joined the Empire, some of them got in contact with me, told me that a Jedi named Cal Kestis had either quarreled with the Nightsisters or joined up with one of them, depending on which rumors you believed.” Ageless shook his head. “If Doctor Aphra has any tech that belonged to him, and it’s the only thing that can cut through this ‘Koboh matter,’ then it’s probably worth a fortune. No telling how she got a hold of it. She sounds every bit as serious as you described her.”

“Well, according to her, someone must’ve brought Koboh matter here ages ago, perhaps some Jedi sealing off something important. And her notes clearly state that if we don’t have access to that device of hers that disperses Koboh matter, we’re not going to be able to get through certain tunnels. In fact, she says here in her notes that Koboh matter resists lightsaber blades, and may even dull the blades of a mantle-saw.”

Ageless whistled appreciatively. “Then you know what our next objective is.”

Namyr nodded. “Right. Find Doctor Aphra.”

* * *

ON THE FOREST MOON OF ENDOR

Luke Skywalker stood patiently in his binders. The AT-AT that was carrying him swayed easily, its many gears humming and grinding behind the walls. Beside him, a group of stormtroopers and an Imperial officer waited to take him to his destiny. The AT-AT came to a slow halt, and he heard the docking clamps lock into place outside the door. When the door swished and raised, the Imperial officer stepped out ahead of him, and three troopers urged Luke forward. And there, directly ahead of him, was his father.

Darth Vader’s imposing dark image approached, his mechanical breathing even, the cold, lifeless gaze of his helmeted eyes looking at everything and nothing.

Luke tensed. He had not seen his father since their battle in Cloud City. Since Vader had cut off his hand, revealed who he really was, and destroyed Luke’s world by demonstrating just how much Obi-Wan and Yoda had misled him.

“This is the Rebel that surrendered to us,” said the officer. “Although he denies it, I believe there may be more of them, and I request permission to conduct a further search of the area.” The officer held up Luke’s lightsaber, proffering it to Vader. “He was armed only with this.”

Vader gave the saber hilt a brief appraisal. “Good work, Commander,” he said. “Leave us. Conduct your search and bring his companions to me.”

Luke thought that was interesting. He wants Han, Leia and the others brought directly to him? Alive? Not taken to a holding area or executed?

“Yes, my lord,” said the officer, who did an about-face and left immediately with the stormtroopers.

Vader walked towards the shuttle entrance at the far end of the bridge, and Luke followed wordlessly for a moment. “The Emperor has been expecting you.”

Luke sighed. “I know, Father.”

Vader glanced at him momentarily. “So, you have accepted the truth.”

“I’ve accepted the truth that you were once Anakin Skywalker, my father—”

“That name no longer has any meaning for me,” said Vader, stopping in his tracks and turning forcefully towards Luke.

“It is the name of your true self. You’ve only forgotten. I know there is good in you. The Emperor hasn’t driven it from you fully,” said Luke. Then, risking a small gambit, he turned his back on his father, and walked over to a guardrail to lean against it. “That was why you couldn’t destroy me,” he added. “That’s why you won’t bring me to your Emperor now.”

A pregnant pause followed.

Then, Luke heard the snap-hiss! of his lightsaber igniting behind him, saw the green glow of its blade over his shoulder. He tensed, trying not to look back. A Jedi doesn’t fear, he thought, going through a short meditation. Anger, fear, aggression, those are the Dark Side.

“I see you have constructed a new lightsaber,” Vader said musingly. “Your skills are complete.” He snapped it off. “Indeed you are powerful, as the Emperor has foreseen.”

Luke turned, and found that Vader had turned his back on him. Sensing the conflict within his father, he seized on it. “Come with me.”

“Obi-Wan…once thought as you do,” Vader said contemplatively. Suddenly, he rounded on Luke and said forcefully, “You don’t know the power of the Dark side. I must obey my master.”

Luke decided to give him an ultimatum. “I will not turn. And you’ll be forced to kill me.” Let’s see if that elicits a response, something to draw out the good in him—

“If that is your destiny,” Vader said coldly.

“Search your feelings, Father,” Luke said, stepping towards him. “You can’t do this. I feel the conflict within you. Let go of your hate!”

“It is too late for me, son.” With a gesture, Vader summoned stormtroopers from the Lambda-class shuttle awaiting them, and the troopers walked over to take possession of Luke. “The Emperor will show you the true nature of the Force. He is your master now.”

Luke felt all hope drain from him. He tried not to fear, not to hate, not to feel pity for himself or sadness for his father. And yet…there was love. He could not deny what he felt. “Then my father is truly dead,” he lamented. The troopers escorted Luke towards the shuttle, and when the door closed, Luke turned back to face his father—

And just as the door closed, he sensed a tremor in the Force. Something reaching out from somewhere far, far away. He couldn’t explain it, but a ripple was extending outward, like fingers prodding at the fringes of his awareness, like a tantalizing smell in the next room. And the warning came with a single word: Ossus. It sounded…almost like Master Yoda’s voice. Luke had recently visited his master, and it had been tragic timing, for Yoda had passed away right in front of his eyes, vanishing as Obi-Wan had when Vader slew him on the Death Star.

Rests in Ossus, a matter of importance does.

As the stormtroopers forced him into his seat, Luke closed his eyes and reached out through the Force. He’d only barely heard of Ossus, he knew next to nothing about it except that it was somehow lost, something about an ancient Sith superweapon or a supernova or both. He tried to reach out and ask Master Yoda or whoever it was speaking to him what it meant. Instead, he received only an image, vague and foggy, the same way he had seen Han and Leia being tortured in Cloud City while he had been on Dagobah.

A vision of a possible future—

He saw a female Human, and lying down beside her was a male Zabrak. Both were asleep on the side of some gigantic rock pillar, underneath an unfamiliar sky dappled with thousands of stars and a silvery moon. He sensed the Force flowing through one of them—the Zabrak, definitely him—and he also sensed a dark power approaching them. A dark power with serious agency.

Luke winced, breathing deeply to reach out further with the Force. He sensed…he sensed that somehow his goals and the Zabrak’s goals were aligned. He felt certain of it, for the Force was guiding him now. Something as terrifying as the Second Death Star was being built or examined there on Ossus, and somehow the Zabrak and the Human were there.

And they’re the only ones who can stop it. You are the rallying point of destiny, Luke. As are so many right now. You must help them. You must.

Whatever spirit or spirits from the Force were trying to contact him, they needed him to relay a message. The Zabrak’s connection to the Force wasn’t strong enough to receive a message from beyond the veil. This Agent of the Light, if it was indeed Yoda or someone speaking as him, they needed Luke to be an conductor, or perhaps like an amplifier to a signal.

Luke searched for the source of the darkness coming for the Zabrak, and sensed a being strong in the Dark Side of the Force—no, two such beings—approaching fast from the sky.

Luke breathed even deeper, and sent his consciousness into the mind of the Zabrak, trying to convey this feeling. He only hoped it wasn’t too late.