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Her fear that this was an illusion vanished. There might be those who would say this was not a true connection to the Force because it had been induced by something outside herself, not arrived at through inner peace and meditation. She might even have said that at one time—but not now. This cosmic oneness could not be anything else but true—she could feel it to the core of her being.

It didn’t matter how she got there. What mattered was being there.

It was if she were hungry, and, upon realizing this, was given a boundless table set with every kind of food imaginable. Choosing one dish over another was hard to do, and yet, on another level, she knew that she could.

Abruptly, the “table” swirled and shifted, melting into variegated colors like the mingling threads of spore colonies in Drongar’s night sky. It become a giant, galaxywide tapestry, a woven fabric so intricate and complex as to bring tears to her eyes. A perfect piece of art, beautiful beyond description, beyond belief—

But wait. Yes, there was perfection here, but there was something else as well. She could sense flaws in the pattern, tiny, almost insignificant defects scattered throughout its immeasurable expanse. Barriss knew, instinctively, that these tiny mistakes were somehow necessary, that they were stitches in the skein of existence—imperfect ones, maybe, but nonetheless essential. Without them, the fabric would not hold together.

She reached for one of these small twisted threads with her mind, saw it expand and shift, so that it became… readable, somehow…

The concepts revealed to her were not words, or images; neither smells, tastes, sounds, nor touch. They were instead some kind of wondrous amalgam of all of these, plus senses no being of flesh had ever had…

In that moment, Barriss, herself a part of the grand pattern, knew the flaw in the tapestry:

The camp was in danger. There was a spy among them, the same one who had been responsible for the explosions of the shuttle, and on MedStar. Not dead, as they had thought, but still alive. This spy had initiated events that would, if left unattended, cause the destruction of all those who were there.

For the briefest of times, less than an eyeblink, she had more—she had the how and why and where and when of it—but then that was gone, swirled away in a burst of energy that she could not control. She couldn’t remember the details.

She strained to regain them, aware of how supremely important it was. But now something somehow stood in her way…

Barriss abruptly found herself floundering, as if swept away by a raging, swollen river. She was tossed helplessly, like a twig—in it, but not of it.

It was the flaw, she realized. She had seen it, reached for it, but she had not had the power or the skill or whatever was needed to control it properly. And now, by trying, she had somehow disrupted the flow of the Force. She had lost her footing, her stance upon the firm ground that her serenity had given her. The roiling current had her now, was sweeping her along…

No. She had power. Great power. She would use it!

She tried to anchor herself, but there was nothing to grasp, nothing solid that she could perceive. She was caught in a flood, a gale, an avalanche that spun and disoriented her. Deep within, she knew that she was desperately seeking metaphors for that which could not be described, searching for some kind of mental analog that would enable her to separate herself from this chaos. She fought for calm, struggled to center herself, but she could not. Like a flood, it seemed to splash into her mouth, threatening to drown her; like a gale, it flung her in all directions, snatching the very breath from her lungs; like an avalanche, it threatened to crush her. It was like all those things, and none of them.

It was the Force.

She thought she heard someone speak then, a quiet and familiar voice, which she couldn’t quite place.

Let go, it said. Don’t struggle against it. Take a breath and sink beneath it …

No! I can control this, use it, wield it—!

Or—you could die.

Barriss