Star Wars_ MedStar 02_ Jedi Healer - Michael Reaves [93]
“—and that’s pretty much all there is to tell,” Barriss finished. “Well, except that a protocol droid called I-Five will likely show up there eventually with an encoded message covering what I’ve just said. I was worried that something might happen to keep me from passing this along, I’ve been unable to reach you via comlink, and I-Five needed a reason to get to Coruscant anyway, so we joined forces. He’s a most unusual droid, and he has a connection to the Temple—he once belonged to the father of one of our Padawans. You may find him useful.” She realized that she was babbling somewhat, and stopped.
Master Unduli stood quietly for another moment. Then she said, “You feel certain that what you experienced was not some kind of… illusion?”
“It was no illusion, Master,” Barriss said. “It was a joining with the Force more powerful than I could ever imagine possible. It was real. Of that, I am as sure as I am of speaking to you now.” More so, she wanted to add, but didn’t.
Her Master nodded. “An extraordinary event.” After a moment, she added, “Master Yoda and several others on the Council mentioned recently that they sensed—not a disturbance, exactly, more like a surge—in the Force. Perhaps this is the explanation.”
Barriss waited a moment, but the other woman remained silently preoccupied. At last the Padawan said, “I feel great danger for these people, Master. As I told you, the ‘accident’ aboard the MedStar was no accident. Whoever is responsible will strike again, and I also feel—no, I know—that, using this new connection, I can prevent it. I have not the least doubt of that. The power is staggering. Even now, I feel the echoes of it reverberating within me.”
“Why have you not already used it toward this end, then?” Master Unduli asked.
“Because I’m not qualified—I don’t have the experience or the wisdom to make this kind of decision, or to take this kind of action.” Barriss spread her hands. “Master, what should I do?”
The small hologram of her Master stood silent for a moment. Her expression, given the image’s size and resolution, was hard to fathom. Then she said, “This is not an easy question to answer, Barriss. You are there, I am here, and I cannot know your situation as you know it. But, taking that into account, I think that you should—”
The hologram wavered, blinked, and scan lines ran up it in a pulsing wave. Master Unduli’s voice warbled, cutting in and out: “—try—find—know the truth, because—” Then the image vanished and the voice stopped.
No! Barriss wanted to scream. Come back!
She tapped the controls on the unit, her movements just short of frantic, but it was no use. The connection was sundered. Gone.
Gone.
Barriss ran her fingers through her hair distractedly. The weight of responsibility she had thought she was about to have lifted, or at least partitioned, settled down on her again, even heavier than before.
What was she supposed to do? Had any Padawan ever been given such a thorny problem to solve?
There was but one bright spot, and that one wasn’t as bright as all that—at least the Jedi now knew the situation with regard to the bota. Whatever happened here on Drongar, they would be able to consider and make a decision, backed by the wisest and most adept of the Jedi Council. That didn’t make her personal choice any easier, of course, but it was something.
And, she reminded herself, eventually I-Five will get there with the full story, and the vial full of extract. Surely I have fulfilled whatever my obligation is regarding the Council’s knowledge of this. It isn’t just on me anymore.
But the weight she felt seemed no less. Indeed, before it had seemed like a yoke of wood; now, like one of stone.
She wondered how much longer she could stand beneath it.
36
Once he had cleared the last of the picket ships, Kaird felt a definite sense of relief. Yes, he was a professional, and facing death was ever a part of his life. He wasn’t afraid of the return to the