disclaimer type=standard

Anything you recognise is either JK's or George's. I dare say anything else belongs to them too.

/disclaimer

o_ooo000ooo_o

Ima-Gun Di sat in the Room of a Thousand Fountains. Ordinarily, the Red Nikto Jedi Master would not select such an aquatic scene for his meditation; his species had evolved in the deserts of Kintan. Arid air and bright sunlight was more to his liking. However it was not for his benefit that he sat in the Fountain Room this day.

Seven younglings sat arrayed before him, each with their eyes closed and bodies relaxed. The expressions of concentration on their faces ranged from serene to comically intense.

"Relax and feel the Force flow through you," Di said softly. "Let your senses ride the flow. Feel each other's presence, their place in the Force." He paused his instruction, letting the small group follow his words. He let his own senses reach out to them. They were ready.

"Now, gently change the course of the Force. Encourage it to flow around you, rather than through you."

One of the younglings frowned, and the Force rippled around him.

"Do not demand it," he gently chided. "Request it. The Force is your ally, not your servant."

The group as a whole struggled with the task. Hiding oneself from the sight of others with Force talent was a skill few gained without difficulty.

"Observe," he said, his voice soft and reassuring. "Reach out with your mind. Look for me through the Force." He waited a moment before continuing. "Now, observe the effect the technique creates."

Di gently disengaged himself from the Force, creating a small 'null' space within the flow. With the Force no longer touching him, he was as vulnerable as any non-Jedi - blind and powerless. However, he was also invisible to those searching for him through the Force.

Di sat in the tiny pocket empty of the Force for long moments, allowing the younglings time to observe and probe. Giving them a demonstration of the effect would aid them in trying to recreate it themselves.

Suddenly, screams echoed around the room.

Di's eyes flashed open, and he let the Force flood back. Pain erupted briefly in his soul, but he pushed the distraction away and leapt to his feet, hand reaching unconsciously for his lightsaber.

It did not appear needed. There were no enemies in this peaceful room, here in the heart of the Jedi Temple. But Jedi forms lay insensate around the room. A more careful examination showed that all the other Masters and Knights were flat on their collective backs. Even some of the older Padawans. With the exception of himself, the most experienced Force-user still conscious was a ten year old Padawan.

Di once more scanned the room, this time looking for threats. Everyone who could touch the Force to any great degree had been floored. Everyone who still lacked the experience to do so was fine. What had happened?

Had some unknown agent attacked them through the Force? It seemed that by willfully cutting himself from its flow, Di had unwittingly protected himself.

The Force told him nothing; indeed, the Force was barely responding. It rolled and churned and roiled, like a primitive, invertebrate worm thrashing about in pain. Around him, panicking younglings fretted over Jedi Knights and Masters where they lay. The noise of babbling voices rose steadily until an odd splash and a gasp drew Di's attention.

The head of a human male, his mouth open wide, burst above the surface of the main fountain. Noisily, the young man sucked in a deep breath, before apparently diving under the surface.

Di frowned at the unexpected presence. Was the human attempting to rescue someone in the fountain? Di breathed out, focusing his mind. He stretched out with his senses.

The Force was strained and muted, and appeared scared from some horrific wound. Even so, it was apparent that the human was the only being under the water's surface.

It was also apparent that he was in terrible pain. Even from a distance of over ten metres, Di could hear the man scream underwater.

The human once more broke the surface and thrashed around in the water. After a moment, he discovered that the fountain was only a little more than a metre deep. After a second of embarrassment, he placed his hands on the stone edge of the fountain and hauled his sodden body out.

The unexpected newcomer was slender and wiry – his clothing clung to his frame enough that Di could make out his musculature. The soaking clothing appeared well made and functional, and the rapid way it dried indicated that it was made with modern super-hydrophobic materials. He appeared to be in good health, if much shorter than the average human. Yet he wore a positively primitive set of corrective lenses over his eyes.

His wits still appeared a bit scrambled, however. He placed his feet squarely on the tiles surrounding the fountain, but swayed violently as he rose to his full, unimpressive height. Balance lost, the human fell to one side, his head striking the stone of the fountain edge sharply. The dull 'thunk' was clearly audible from Di's position.

The Jedi Master blinked and moved forward at speed, more than a bit embarrassed at his temporary loss of focus. Still, the human did not appear to be incapacitated. Indeed, he showed great presence of mind and began to calm himself with a series of deep, slow breaths.

An adaptation of a Jedi technique? Di frowned slightly at the thought. The young human did not appear to be Force sensitive. At least, he did not instinctively draw on the Force to refresh himself. Still, the Jedi Order had influenced countless spiritual movements during its long history. Meditation and breathing exercises were not useless to the non-Force-blessed. Such techniques were useful to all in focusing concentration.

The newcomer lifted his body upright but remained on his knees and looked around at the room and its occupants. "Where am I?" it said in the manner of someone asking a question. But the language was not familiar to Di.

It did not appear that any of the conscious Jedi understood him either, youngling or no.

"Does anyone speak English? No? Er, Français? No? Deutsch? Er, Nihongo?"

Di stepped forward, pulling a small flimsy from his robes. "Do you speak Basic?" he asked as he offered the material to the human, gesturing to the wound on his head.

The human shrugged, but took the cloth and held it to his head. Di turned to one of his students. "Please fetch a protocol droid, youngling."

The injured human looked around the room, his breath hitching slightly as he noticed the unconscious Jedi. Di immediately felt the odd man's apprehension spike. He rose to his feet, still swaying slightly. Di gently reached out and gripped the man's shoulders, steadying him.

"I should go," the human mumbled in that odd language of his. He reached up and tried pushing Di's hands away. "Excuse me."

"You should rest, you are injured," Di said softly, trying to calm the man with his voice, to let him know that he would not be blamed for the unconscious bodies lying around him.

"Excuse me," the human repeated more forcefully, disengaging Di's hands from his shoulders. He started moving towards the nearest exit.

Di's student returned at that moment, leading one of the Temple's protocol droids. The C-series droid was one of the more unintimidating models, but the human's reaction was still one of shock. He almost jumped at the sight.

Had he never encountered a protocol droid before?

The silver droid stepped towards the human, stopping at the exact distance statistically derived to be least likely to cause offence in the human and near-human races. "Greetings, I am C5-R82, human cyborg relations."

The human blinked and his jaw dropped open. He appeared even more surprised than he had been a second ago.

Di addressed the droid. "He does not appear to speak Basic."

The protocol droid engaged its first contact protocols, and began cycling generic greetings in the more common tongues spoken throughout the galaxy. The droid could speak and translate untold hundreds of thousands of languages, perhaps even millions if it were one of the more modern models.

However, none of the initial languages seemed to be familiar to the odd human. Despite his initial wonder at the droid's appearance and vocal abilities, he quickly grew impatient. "Sorry, I don't understand. Do you speak English?" he reeled off with a shake of his head.

C5-R82 shifted the first contact protocol to a more primitive setting. The droid touched its chest-plate and recited its designation.

The human mimicked the action, saying, "Er, Harry."

C5-R82 repeated the words exactly.

The human sighed. With a shake of his head, he responded, "Just Harry. Where am I?" he asked, looking around the room.

The droid gestured towards the centre of the room. "Jedi Temple, Harry." It paused, before continuing, "Do you know of the Jedi? Do you have Jedi on your world?"

But the human had apparently lost interest in communicating. He gave a wave of his arm and started moving towards the main entrance. A few of the less shy younglings trotted after him, babbling questions in their own native tongues. C5 gave a squawk and tried following along, but its short pace made it impossible for it to keep up.

Di would have followed, had there not been dozens of Jedi in need of assistance.

With a sigh, the Master set about triaging and caring for his friends. The mystery of the odd human would need to be solved another time.

High in the grand central spire of the Jedi Temple, eight powerful Jedi Masters sat in contemplation. Grand events were in motion, both in the Senate and around the Galaxy.

The early hour meant little to beings who could control their internal body clocks with a simple breathing exercise. Even though a small but significant fraction of the species that made up the Galactic Senate were nocturnal by nature, activity in the Senatorial Sector of Coruscant still wound down overnight. In the early hours of morning, while the rest of their neighbours roused themselves from slumber, the Jedi were as active as they needed to be.

Four of the seats arrayed around the room were taken up by holographic projections of absent council members, distance being no obstacle to modern communications.

The unassuming discussion broke off suddenly, as each of the dozen powerful Jedi felt an unusual foreboding sensation. Almost in unison, they closed their eyes and reached out with their senses.

The Force shattered around them.

Yoda, pre-eminent among the Masters who made up the council, remained the only member not to scream.

The diminutive green figure did, however, join his fellows in unconscious oblivion.

In the Senatorial Sector, a man known to all as intelligent, genial and kindly gasped in shock as his meditation was disturbed. Pain lanced through him as the Force, in which he constantly wove a shroud of darkness, split and screamed.

But pain was comforting to a Sith Lord. Pain, was an old friend.

The unprecedented disturbance left him weak and trembling, but he retained enough presence of mind to trigger a security protocol. Anyone present in his quarters would find themselves assaulted by clouds of hallucinogenic gases, ionic discharges and other, nasty traps. Though not lethal, they would ensure than any unwelcome visitor was rendered incapacitated until he was ready to properly greet them.

Only then did he relinquish himself to oblivion.

At approximately the mid-point between Tatooine and Coruscant, a J-type 327 Nubian thrummed softly through hyperspace. A state of affairs made possible by the efforts of a nine-year-old boy. The newly-installed T-14 hyperdrive generator performed to specification, enabling the sublimely beautiful craft to travel faster than light.

The nine-year-old boy in question was not thinking about the generator. He was not thinking about his mother, left behind on the arid world of Tatooine. He was not thinking about Padmé, his newest friend with the face of an angel.

His current thoughts were focused on getting the man responsible for his freedom to awaken. "Master Qui-Gon! Master Qui-Gon!" he almost shouted, holding the older man's hand and shaking his shoulder. "Wake up!"

"Ani!" his friend Padmé said, gently gripping the young boy's arm. "Let them take Master Qui-Gon and Obi-wan to the medbay."

Anakin allowed the bustling Nabooans to whisk the pair of Jedi away from him. He clutched at Padmé's arm nervously. "Why did the shock knock them out?" he asked her.

The handmaiden looked down at the short boy. "Shock? What shock?"

Anakin blinked owlishly at her. "You didn't feel it?"

Padmé shook her head. "I felt nothing."

"It was..." Anakin paused to collect his thoughts, trying to describe the sensation using the vocabulary of a nine-year-old slave – albeit a nine-year-old slave who was a mechanical genius. "… wrong. Something has gone wrong. And it made everything shake."

Padmé leaned forward, setting her deep brown eyes level with Anakin's. "Ani? Was it the Force?"

He frowned. "I think so. There's something else now. Something that wasn't here before." He frowned. "Two things, I think." He didn't know how he knew. He just did. It felt right.

"What things?" the handmaiden asked. Before landing on Tatooine, she would have politely dismissed such claims. But the prepubescent boy before her had exhibited abilities she had not believed possible.

Anakin frowned, thinking deeply. After a moment, he remembered Master Qui-Gon's words, and stopped thinking so hard. Feeling, he discovered, was much easier than thinking.

"People," he confidently stated. "Two people. They shouldn't be here. They're going to ruin everything."

o_ooo000ooo_o

AN: This secondary fic is going to be a collection of disjointed scenes from the point of view of different Star Wars characters. It will make little sense without reading the primary fic - The Havoc side of the Force.