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Now, on to the chapter!

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“Afraid?” Dan raised his eyebrows at Jolee’s words. He knew the Cosmic Force held a grudge against him, but fear? “I’ve got no clue… maybe it just hates the fact that it can’t control me, like it can the rest of the intelligent life in this galaxy?”

 

“You think the force controls us?” Bindo gave a gruff laugh and shook his head. “The force might have a consciousness, but it lets us mortal’s decide our own paths.” The hermit waved to the trees around them. “Life has its own will, one that the Force respects.”

 

“Maybe, but it has no problem whispering into the ears of its users,” Dan shrugged. Of course you always had a choice, but when it dangled visions of the death of your family with little context, Dan called foul. “It tells half truths about the future to guide things in a specific direction.”

 

Anakin was the most obvious example of this. Born of Plageus’ experiment with the living Force and Midi-clorians, it was still the Force that chose to birth him into slavery. It tortured the boy with visions, premonitions that drove him over the edge.

 

“I suppose that’s true, from a certain point of view,” Jolee snorted. “I admit that my own destiny would have benefited from better guidance than the force provided me!”

 

Dan nodded. Bindo’s wife had fallen to the dark side, killed at the hands of his Jedi brothers after he failed to do the deed himself. A flick of his biofield returned Dan to the air, where he gave a long stretch.

 

“I make my own destiny, as do those at my side,” Dan squinted through the trees, until he found the remnants of Rakata technology. Jolee rose to his feet and Dan waved for him to follow. “I know that you’ve tried to communicate with the ancient ruins not far from here, come for a walk and we’ll discover the truth of it together!”

 

“You’re certainly well informed, or have you been personally spying on an old man’s travels through the forest?” Jolee shook his head. The grey Jedi followed Dan between the trees and cast a confused look to their surroundings. “It’s too quiet… normally this path would be crawling with katarns, but I can’t sense any life at all…”

 

“Strange…” Dan feigned ignorance. By now, all the wildlife in the area had fallen under Venom’s influence. The symbiote’s clones would spread themselves across the surface of the world, until Dan collected enough to constitute an army. “I’m sure it’s fine, let’s keep going!”

 

“Mmhmm…” Jolee squinted at Dan and barked out a laugh. “Something tells me you’re behind it, another layer to the strangeness of your existence.” He shook his head and hurried to keep up to Dan’s advance. “You’ve got plans for the creatures of this world, I think… as well as the machine at the end of our path!”

 

“That machine is part of a broken terraformer, the same one responsible for the changes to both the animals and plants on this world,” Dan shrugged at the force user’s perception. It was to be expected, since beings who favoured balance had a better grasp on the true voice of the Force. “I want to collect a big enough sample of the affected organisms to create a breeding population on another world, then reverse engineer the terraforming technology and see what I can create.”

 

“Big dreams…” Jolee snorted as he struggled to keep up to Dan’s pace. The pair burst into a clearing amidst the trees, where a large, rusted machine lay, choked in vines and moss.

 

“Life forms detected, determining parameters…” A half-lit hologram of a long dead Rakata lit up on a pedestal before them. It looked from Jolee to Dan, a flicker in its lifeless eyes. “Initiating neural recognition… patterns rejected…”

 

“See, this obstinate machine won’t talk to anyone!” Jolee kicked a foot-full of dirt at the blue toned projection. “Rejected patterns… rejected patterns! That’s all it ever talks about!”

 

“That won’t be a problem,” Dan flicked his wrist and launched a symbiote clone into the inworkings of the machine. The Rakata hologram flickered and dulled, replaced by a blue-toned projection of Venom. “Is there anything we can salvage?”

 

“Much corruption exists in this database…” Venom’s hologram gnashed its teeth, slightly unstable. “The machinery can be salvaged, but the operating system must be rewritten if you wish to control its functions.”

 

“What kind of creature is that suit of yours?” Jolee stood, at a loss, as Venom ravaged the Rakatan systems. “I’ve never seen anything like it…”

 

“Stick around long enough and you’ll have one of your own,” Dan released a wave of symbiote clones to engulf the broken down equipment. They would absorb and replicate its structure for later use. “Venom and his children have all sorts of benefits you can’t imagine.”

 

“And why would I stick around with you?” Jolee barked out a laugh. “I’m just an old man, my adventuring days are well behind me!”

 

“Please,” Dan rolled his eyes at the man’s act. Jolee Bindo was far from the end of his journey. “We both know you’ve been waiting for an excuse to leave this place,” he gestured to the silent forest. “Help me restore control of this world to the Wookies, then I’ll show you parts of the galaxy you’d never imagined existed!”

 

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“So this is Dantooine, huh?” May stepped from the scout’s landing ramp and took a deep breath. “Much better than Taris, full of the smells and sounds of life!”

 

“The Jedi have put in efforts to keep the landscape here as natural as possible,” Bastila puffed out her chest, eyes bright as she praised her Order. “The training conclave helps keep the peace amongst the locals and prevents irresponsible use of the planet!”

 

“I bet,” May rolled her eyes at the boastful Jedi. From what she’d learned, this conclave had trained a large number of Jedi who eventually fell to the dark side, Revan included. “Let’s visit the temple, and the council of masters… I’d like to ask them a few questions.”

 

“The council already knows that we’re here,” Bastila frowned at May, before she shifted her gaze to Revan. “I hope you’ll be willing to see reason and accept whatever judgement they have for you!”

 

“You’d better hope they don’t try to punish her,” May stretched her hands above her head, sunlight on her skin. She flashed Revan a reassuring smile and clapped her hands. “Now lead the way!”