Star Wars_ The Jedi Academy Trilogy 01_ Jedi Search - Kevin J. Anderson [71]
“Seven or eight years ago, when the Empire took over Cloud City, everything got much worse. The people were agitated. Their thoughts were full of chaos.” He looked up at Skywalker in dismay. “I haven’t spent much time with people for eight years.”
Gantoris could sense the man’s emotions winding toward panic—and just when Gantoris felt certain Streen would refuse, Skywalker held up a hand. “Wait,” he said. “Why not just watch us train for a while? Maybe you’ll see what I’m talking about.”
As if pleased at having an option that did not require him to make an immediate decision, Streen nodded. He looked toward his floating platforms and gas tanks with a palpable stab of regret, as if wishing he had never come back to Tibannopolis. Gantoris could feel an echo of the other man’s emotions, the yearning for freedom that Bespin’s clouds offered, the solace of being alone.
“Show me your new Jedi exercises, Master. Teach me other things.” Skywalker seemed to flinch at being called “Master,” and Gantoris wondered what he had done wrong—was not Luke Skywalker a Jedi Master? How else should he be called?
Skywalker brushed aside the comment. He pointed to the thicket of girders and rusted metal bars in which flocks of the leathery black creatures made their homes, chittering and moving about in the afternoon. Far below, the clouds thickened into what could become another storm.
“Those flying creatures,” Skywalker said. “We will use them.”
Streen stiffened. His face grew dark and ruddy. “Hey, don’t disturb my rawwks.” Then he lowered his eyes, turning away as if embarrassed by his outburst. “They’ve been my only company all these years.”
“We won’t harm them,” Skywalker said. “Just watch.” He lowered his voice to speak as an instructor to Gantoris. “This city is a complex mechanism. Every girder, every metal plate, every life-form from those rawwks to the airborne algae sacks and everything around us, each has its own position in the Force. Size matters not. Tiny insects or entire floating cities, each is an integral part of the universe. You must feel it, sense it.”
He nodded to the derelict structures around them. “I want you to look at this city, imagine how the pieces fit together, find the girders with your mind, tell me what you can sense and how one thing touches another. When you think you have found the intersection where a rawwk and girder touch, I want you to reach out and push with your mind. Make a little vibration.”
Skywalker curled his forefinger around his thumb and stretched forward as he nodded toward a lone rawwk sitting on the end of a weather vane. He flicked out his finger, as if to shoo away a gnat, and Gantoris heard a distant pinnngg. Startled into the air, the rawwk flapped its wings and cried out in alarm.
Gantoris chuckled and, eager to try, flicked his own finger in imitation of what the Jedi had just done. He imagined seeing a whole flock of the rawwks take flight—but nothing happened.
“It is not that easy,” Skywalker said. “You aren’t concentrating. Think, feel yourself doing it, envision your success—then reach out with your mind.”
More serious this time, Gantoris pursed his lips and squinted, looking for his target. He saw a delicate many-branched antenna on which five rawwks sat. He pictured the antenna, knowing his target, and stared. He took a deep breath and pushed. He still didn’t quite know what he was doing, but he felt something happening in his mind, something working, some outside … force linking him and the antenna.
He watched as the antenna slowly swayed. The rawwks stirred but remained on their perches. Anyone else watching might have assumed the wind had shifted at that moment, but Gantoris knew he had done it.
“Good attempt. You have the right idea, but now close your eyes,” Skywalker said. “You’re letting your sight blind you. You know where the antenna is, you know where the rawwks are. You can