As soon as the ship jumped to hyperspace, Vernestra found a spot to sit in the empty cargo hold. So far meditating in hyperspace had been useful, and Vernestra wanted to hope that the Force would deliver them to Sylvestri, Imri, and Reath before anything else happened to them. She ignored her too-rapid heartbeat and the way her palms were slicked with sweat.

She would hope that the Force saw fit to grant her one more vision.

Vernestra began to breathe, deep and even, her body sinking into the familiar rhythms of meditation. She felt herself deep within the Force, a wave in a vast ocean, pulled from her body, like slipping into a warm bath after a long day. Only she wasn’t settling into heated water; she was being drawn out into the cosmic Force.

She tried to stop it from happening. She reached for her physical form, trying to sink back into her body like they taught Jedi when they first learned to meditate, so they would not become too lost in the vastness of the Force, but she couldn’t stop her headlong plunge into the magnificence of the galaxy.

This was the first time Vernestra had ever been aware of the beginning of one of her visions, and she could sense that she was being both pushed toward a certain place in the galaxy and pulled. Was this what a Wayseeker did? If so, Vernestra could understand why certain Jedi felt compelled to follow that path. There was a purposefulness to it that was reassuring even as it was unsettling.

She looked around, or rather saw with her displaced consciousness that she was back in the massive ship she had journeyed to last time. She didn’t hesitate, running down the corridors she’d already traversed, heading to where the voice had beckoned in her previous vision.

Hurry, hurry. I have so little time left.

Vernestra rounded the corner of the empty ship and slid to a stop before a door. It opened easily as she approached, and in the room were rows of navicomputers and a medical pod that had seen better days. Machines beeped and whirred, and as Vernestra looked down at the pod, she saw a frail old human woman, her pale skin lined and folded in on itself.

Yes. We must hurry. I have a gift for you. One last Path before I pass on. It was always meant for you.

The old woman opened her eyes and didn’t, and Vernestra had a sensation of seeing two versions of the woman: the one she wished for people to see and the one that truly existed. Was it a trick of the Force or created by the nature of the old woman’s affliction? She didn’t know, and she had the sensation that something was very wrong with the old woman and had been for a long time.

“Gone traveling,” the woman said. “But I have a Path for you.”

“Vern! Wake up!”

Vernestra stiffened. Jordanna and Master Cohmac both stood over her, and Vernestra’s heart pounded as her face flushed in embarrassment.


Star Wars The High Republic Out of The Shadows Chapter 34