Star Wars_ I, Jedi - Michael A. Stackpole [69]
I frowned and tried to recall. “Nope. I think my sensory range was about two meters, and you were outside it. So was the pillar until I jumped back.”
“And when you were hurt you probably pulled the sphere in even tighter.” He opened a panel on the remote and twisted a small dial. “I’m going to move it out to four meters. You need to be able to push your sphere out larger and larger, and track the things inside it. If you don’t know where you are and what you’re doing, you’re in deep trouble.”
“Got it. Pilots refer to it as ‘situational awareness.’ If you can’t track your own people and the enemy in a vape-brawl, you end up doing a burn-in on some world.”
“That’s it exactly. My father used to refer to it as a sphere of responsibility. He used to tell me that as Jedi our sphere of responsibility was as big as the galaxy, and the best Jedi could understand and sort out whole star systems. I’d not actually felt that until the other night, in the grotto.”
I nodded. “I copy. As a pilot I tended to be pretty good in the situational awareness area, but using the Force is like trying to learn to see after having been blind for most of my life.”
“Not easy, but you can do it.” Kam slapped me on the shoulder. “And don’t let Kyp’s progress bother you.”
“Bother me?” I gave him an annoyed stare. “Kyp’s progress doesn’t bother me. It really has no effect on me.”
“Really.” Kam’s eyes narrowed and sank back into shadows. “You’re not a bit envious of the attention he is getting from Master Skywalker?”
I hesitated for a moment and let the question roam around in my brain. I shook my head. “I know I’m competitive, and I would have thought you’d be right, but I don’t see Kyp as someone I’m competing with. I’ve been second best before. That’s a role I can accept. I make it my mission to make sure the front runner can’t relax, but I’m more concerned with doing my best than I am with beating someone else’s best.”
Kam’s expression lightened considerably. “That shows a fair amount of maturity.”
“Kinda scary, isn’t it?”
“Not in a Jedi Knight.” Kam tossed the remote into the air and it withdrew to a range of four meters. “Go again, Keiran Halcyon. Concentrate. Show me your best.”
SEVENTEEN
Of course, my best was nothing compared to Kyp Durron’s best. Kyp’s growth in the Force was nothing shy of incredible. In just over a week he surpassed anything the rest of us were doing by light-years. Master Skywalker didn’t know what to do with him, he was so good. Kyp gave us hope that reestablishing the Jedi Order could be and would be done.
I tried to get to know Kyp, but he kept himself aloof and apart from me. He made other friends among us. Dorsk 81, the yellow-fleshed clone from Khomm, had been closer to Gantoris than most, and Kyp’s friendship filled a void in his life. They spent a fair amount of time together, heading off into the surrounding jungle as a survey team all by themselves.
Kyp had grown up in the spice mines of Kessel and was very strong in the Force. Growing up in prison made him hold himself very close, and he didn’t take to prying into his life. My attempts to open him up just drove him away from me, so I backed off. I didn’t want to do anything that would make getting to know him impossible later.
And it wasn’t as if I didn’t have other things to do.
Gantoris had been dead for over two weeks, and I was really no closer to finding out who or what had killed him than when the smoke was still curling up off his body. I still felt we had a sociopathic killer on Yavin 4, but no one had found any clues of someone lurking here. We had Gantoris’ body, but his killer had vanished without a trace.
The Holocron was not much more help in solving the murder, but it did give us some planetary history to work from. Yavin 4, it turned out, had been the seat of power of a formidable Dark Lord of the Sith, a fallen Jedi known as Exar Kun. He had been seduced