Part 15 (1/2)

”No, I meant me learning to use one.”

Jax considered the idea, his eyes roving around the studio for some suitable surrogate for a lightsaber. He found a long piece of duraluminum about two and a half centimeters thick and only a bit shorter than a standard blade. Taking a remote, which he'd packed earlier, from his bag, he entered the cage of light, activated the droid, and tossed it into the air where it hung, humming, awaiting his instructions.

”Is that a toy?” Kaj asked.

”Not exactly. It's a practice droid-a remote. It's what every Padawan starts out with. It shoots EM beams at you, and you try to parry them before they hit you.” He gestured Kaj to a place along the sidelines. ”Watch,” he said.

He closed his eyes, took up the duraluminum rod, and faced the bobbing sphere with it. He gave the activation command, and the little ball shot away from him.

He followed it with the Force, circling, moving as the remote moved. He felt it dart in for an attack, felt the tiny neural net about to trigger a sizzling beam of energy. He moved easily to intercept it with the rod and felt an answering fizz of energy run up the ersatz lightsaber to his hands. It tickled, but not unpleasantly; the metal diffused the charge. He continued the exercise, showing Kaj the basic postures and moves of s.h.i.+-Cho, not opening his eyes until he had deflected a dozen shots.

Meanwhile, Laranth prowled the perimeter of the light cage, even going up to walk the gallery, scanning for leaks.

”Wow,” breathed Kaj when Jax at last deactivated the remote. ”That was amazing. You never even looked at it.”

Jax stared at the boy in disbelief for a moment, then burst out laughing. ”After what I saw you do, you're impressed by my fencing with a remote?”

”When I use the Force in defense it's all instinct and desperation,” Kaj said earnestly. ”I can't control it like that-I just strike our. Even when I use it to do other things like get food or clothes or find a safe haven, I'm never sure of it. I never know quite what it's going to do.”

”I understand. Every Padawan goes through that. Every Padawan has to learn his own technique.” Jax held the ersatz lightsaber out to the boy. ”Try it.”

Kaj looked wistfully at the real lightsaber hanging from Jax's belt. ”Couldn't I...”

”Not yet. As you pointed out, you don't really know your own strength.”

”Yeah.” Kaj took the rod. ”Do I need to close my eyes?”

”Try it with them open for a while. Then maybe we'll try a mask.”

Obediently, Kaj mimicked Jax's stance and waited for the remote to engage him. He deflected the thing's salvos well enough from the outset, never letting them touch him. But Jax could see what he meant about the desperation. He wasn't antic.i.p.ating the remote's attacks using the Force. Rather, he was using the extraordinarily quick reaction times the Force granted him and moving when the blink of the remote's tiny weapons port gave it away. There was a difference, and it could mean life or death in a battle situation.

Jax halted the practice after several minutes and found a sash in Ves Volette's wardrobe that he used to cover Kaj's eyes. Below the makes.h.i.+ft mask, the boy smiled. Jax could feel his eagerness. He wanted a chance to challenge himself, prove himself.

Not waiting for Jax to start the drill, Kaj spoke the activation command.

The remote bobbed into the air and immediately zapped Kaj with a bolt of energy.

”Ow!” the boy yipped and spun around.

”Stand by,” Jax instructed the remote, struggling to keep a straight face. ”Think of the s.p.a.ce around you as a field-a fabric woven by and of the Force. That field joins you to everything else in your environment: Me, the rod, the droid. let the Force guide you.”

”But the remote is a mechanism-it's not alive. How can the Force read the intentions of a mechanism?”

”It's not a matter of intentions, Kaj. Yours or the remote's. The Force exists everywhere-in the present, and also in the past and the future. And the Force can move you in the right direction.”

”But the speed...”

”I've been watching you move, Kaj. With the blindfold off, you were reacting to the sight of the beam port opening, and it didn't hit you once. The Force can affect your reflexes so that you can be even faster. Feel the Force, Kaj. Let it guide you...”

A slow smile spread across Kajin Savaros's face. He slashed the air with his practice lightsaber. ”Let me try again, Master.”

Jax felt a warm flush of gratification at the words. Maybe he did have something to teach, after all. He stepped outside the wall of light, called the remote back into action, and watched Kaj dance with it.

It zapped the sleeve of the youth's tunic once, and another time caught his vest. But with a growing smile, the boy parried its bolts, at first hesitantly, than with increasing confidence, dancing this way and that within the circle of kinetic light.

Laranth returned silently to Jax's side. ”He's getting c.o.c.ky,” she murmured.

She was right. Jax could tell by the swagger in Kajin's mostly graceful movements. Probably a good time to end the practice, though it might be beneficial for the kid to get zapped once more.

Even as he had the thought, Kaj made a bad parry. A flourish brought his hand too high, and the little floating sphere stung him on the wrist. He cried out and spun after the thing-it dived and got him again on the neck and a third time on the b.u.t.tocks.

Before Jax could shut the remote down, Kaj roared in incoherent rage and let loose an explosion of Force energy. The hapless remote was blown dear out of the circle of light and the duraluminum rod shot straight at Jax.

If he had not practiced what he'd preached about gauging intention, he would have been skewered. As it was, the rod flew past him, narrowly missing, pa.s.sing through the exact spot where his heart had been an instant before, and buried itself fifteen centimeters deep in the plasticrete wall of the studio. He turned to sec the light bowls supporting Kaj's ”safe room” shake violently.

”Kaj!” Jax shouted, reinforcing the verbal command with an application of the Force as he dashed through the veil of light and into the circle. The boy tore the blindfold from his eyes and stood facing Jax, panting and rigid with anger, a hand raised to defend against attack.

Outside the circle, Laranth had her blasters trained on the boy.

”It's just a drill,” Jax said. ”Just a drill. Calm down.” Slowly the red rage melted from the boy's eyes, to be replaced by miserable fear. ”I'm-I'm sorry. I don't know what happened. I just lost it. I'm so sorry.”

”That,” said Jax, ”is what we have to work on, Kaj. You can't use the Force out of anger or hatred. You draw on the dark side when you do that. Remember: There is no pa.s.sion; there is serenity.”

Kaj's shoulders slumped and he nodded. ”There is no ignorance; there is knowledge. I need knowledge.”

”No kidding,” muttered Laranth, holstering her weapons.

Fear flickered again in the boy's eyes. ”I don't want to go to the dark side, Jax. I don't want to be like that Inquisitor. I felt him. When he came after me. He was all cold hatred like . . . like a frozen methane lake. He wanted to kill me and he didn't even know me. I don't want to be like that. Teach me not to be like that, please.” He looked from one Jedi to the other in naked entreaty.

”We'll try,” Jax said, looking to Laranth for accord. If we survive the lessons, her expression said.

”The good news is that nothing leaked out,” Jax continued. ”I saw what was happening, but I didn't sense it.”

”Lucky you,” added Laranth drily. ”If you'd been blindfolded, you'd be dead now.”

And if anyone bad told me two days ago that that would he a comforting thought, Jax thought, I'd've called them crazy.

They moved to more gentle pursuits after that, the two Jedi putting Kaj through a scries of meditative exercises geared to feeling the textures of the world around him, using only the Force. That was far more successful, and Kaj seemed to have left the shadow of his explosive first lightsaber practice behind. They ate and then the boy slept on a couch Jax pulled into the light cage.

”He looks even younger when he's asleep,” Jax commented. ”Makes me feel ancient.”

Laranth said, ”You'd never suspect he was capable of blowing this entire building apart, would you?”

Jax chuckled, realizing suddenly how much he'd missed the Gray Paladin. He glanced at her, sprawled with feline grace on a low couch in the upstairs living room, and wondered how he had ever been foolish enough to let her leave. A couple of thoughts collided in his head on their way to his mouth: Ask her to come back to the team and help train the boy. Ask her what she really thinks of Tuden Sal's plot.

He opened his mouth to speak-and at that moment, the door in the foyer chimed, then glided open to admit I-Five, Den, and Dejah.