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“True enough.”

Ben waited, but Luke offered nothing further. He waited longer, patiently, but still no more words came. So he tried again.

“It’s not a dark side ability per se,” Ben said. “Not exclusively. It isn’t inherently a harmful thing, like Force lightning or Force grip. I mean—you can’t even really change anything substantial, from what I understand. And Jedi already are able to look into the future a little bit—that’s why our reflexes are so sharp and fast.”

“We use the Force to do that.”

“And don’t you use the Force to flow-walk?”

“True, but … Ben, it’s not what you are imagining it to be like.”

“You don’t know what I’m imagining.”

“I bet I’ve got a good idea, because believe it or not, I was once sixteen, and I know what I would think it was like,” Luke said, a smile softening what was starting to develop into an argument.

“But you were a very young sixteen,” Ben said with a slight touch of arrogance.

“Also true,” Luke admitted readily, chuckling softly. “Even so, some things are universal. I don’t think I want you learning flow-walking, Ben.” He held up a hand as Ben opened his mouth to protest. “No, wait, hear me out. It’s not because I don’t think you are strong enough to use it wisely, but because—” He stopped suddenly.

Ben inhaled swiftly, his green eyes flying wide open.

They were everywhere.

Dozens—no, hundreds of them. They emerged from every nook and cranny on the suddenly ominously dark vessel, squeezing up from hairline cracks, flooding out from under chairs and consoles. Their legs were waving frantically, and they moved with astonishing speed up the chair, across his boots, up the legs of his pants—

“I see them, too,” Luke said. His voice was completely calm. “Nothing but hallucinations, Ben. Remember what we talked about.”

Ben did remember, but it was difficult to focus on remembering that these were simple mind tricks when he could feel the vaping things crawling up his legs and arms. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, falling back on logic when his mind kept feeling those myriad tiny little legs scurrying across his skin.

For one thing, such a profusion of arachnids would have been noticed immediately during the preflight check. And even if somehow this many living things got missed both by technology and human eyes, he would be able to sense them in the Force now—and he couldn’t. For another, the ship couldn’t even contain them all. All logic concluded that the spiders did not exist.

The thoughts, calming and settling, flitted across his brain in less than a second. He opened his eyes and, of course, saw nothing. He turned and met his father’s approving gaze.

“Good job, son. What did you see?”

“Spiders,” Ben said.

“Me too.”

The adrenaline was fading now. The meditation, even as brief as it had been, had sent calming endorphins through Ben’s system. “It seems kind of odd that the hallucinations are so universal, you know? Why not something more specifically tailored to the individual? I mean, there are a lot of things that rattle me more than a bunch of spiders.”

As he spoke, he thought back to the several nights he had spent on Ziost a few years earlier; of the voices, first in dreams and then when he was awake, telling him to do horrible things … leading him to want to do them. He also thought of the torture that his cousin had put him through, attempting to temper him like a piece of metal.

Oh, yes—there were a lot of things scarier than a ship full of bugs.

“I’m not sure. We’d have to study the type of radiation we’re being bombarded with, and the effects it has on human chemistry. It’s possible that it simply activates a basic, primal fear center. Spider bites could be deadly on a primitive world. Strange creatures hovering around us could be, too. Fear is a logical reaction.”

“But … bugs, Dad. Squish. End of problem.”

Luke gave his son a glance. “Still scared you at first, though, didn’t it?”

Ben felt his face grow hot. Not for the first time, he cursed the