Oracle at Pelgrin 2: Ree on the Brain

But on the way back, Ree keeps having dreams. The first night, she’s building a protocol droid. The second, she’s pod-racing. She dreams of fleeing up the gangplank of a ship at someone’s orders and being pulled in by a Jedi. One evening, it’s particularly bad, and she wakes up panicked from a dream where someone dies and she’s terribly upset at the funeral.

After she dreams of hurling herself out of a hovercar and hearing someone call out to her by someone else’s name, she starts wondering about calling Luke. But before she makes a decision, she dozes off in her chair (not having slept well in days) and dreams of feeling extremely guilty about something—worried that someone specific will be mad, but going to their rescue…then a battle with all sorts of crazy stuff going down: droids, Genoshans, more Jedi than actually exist at this point, Boba Fett being killed by…Mace Windu? And a young Obi Wan.

At this point, she wakes and makes notes of all the dreams she’s had so far. Next dreams is of a lightsaber duel with Count Dooku alongside Obi-Wan, which really narrows things down.

At breakfast the next morning, a day or so out from Coruscant, Z jokes, “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it. It’s cool if you’re dreaming about me, I understand.” Lydia: “Who would want to dream about you? Maybe a woman with a can opener.”

Ree tries to stay awake after that, but she’s been sleeping lousy for days now. She dreams about Anakin’s vision of Padme dying, then recalls talking to Yoda about “letting go” and thinking it’s lousy advice.

When they get to Coruscant, they talk to Cilghal about all this. Cilghal believes Ree synched herself up with Vader’s brain pattern. She’s not sure how to reverse this, but neither of them is happy about seeking advice from Luke. Cilghal says she’ll research it, and Ree decides to talk to Dalt…or have someone talk to him for her.

Dalt points out that the pattern of dreams is dangerous, because Ree’s nearing the point in the sequence where Anakin became Vader. He suggests going back to the Oracle and using it to put things back. When Kedrihm notes that keeping Ree awake the whole time will be an adventure, Dalt insinuatingly suggests that they could take Kyp along. Kedrihm’Val pointedly ignores him, though about half the planet by now probably thinks that Ree and Kyp have a thing.

So they head back, prodding Ree frequently, to try to fix her. When they stick her in the meditation chamber, she has a vision of a battle between the Republic and Thule, and sees a dead Jedi Master. She thinks it’s either Luke, Kyp, or Zann. When they head out from the Oracle again, they spot footprints heading around the side of the tower. Oola checks the cameras on the place, spotting someone coming out of a compartment in the side of the tower and into the building. Some kind of hibernation pod, or a droid? Kedrihm notes the tracks are too heavy for a human. So they head back in, and hustle upstairs when the tower begins to activate.

The door to the meditation chamber is already closed. The droid is downloading a brain pattern into itself. Oola spots the channels that are active...the Emperor! That thing’s gotta die. Once the process finishes, the droid stops at the other side of the door while the crew discusses options for shutting it down. It retrieves a lightsaber from the chair, at which point Oola locks it in and starts to overload it with Ree’s goody-two-shoes Jedi pattern. It tears the door of the hinges and comes out swinging.

The droid kicks at Oola, putting its foot through a panel. Z blows up a few panels trying to shoot it, then zaps it with a cable. Ree and Kedrihm’Val both attack its head and then Z trashes the torso.

Oola shuts down the machine now that its spent about two minutes broadcasting Ree across the galaxy. Luke calls about then, wanting to know if everything’s okay, and if Ree tried to send a telepathic signal. They reassure him. Kedrihm’Val spots Z trying to set charges, for which he gets scolded, but he thinks it’s a bad move to leave the Oracle sitting around like this.

Everyone is creeped out by SARR being exceptionally nice on the way back. “You okay?” Ree asks him. “I’m fine,” he says. “Maybe you need some sleep?” “…No comment on the robot revolution?” Oola asks. “What? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

When they get back to Coruscant, the Council bugs Ree to make sure she didn’t try to send them a signal, because everybody kind of felt one. Great. Imagine: thousands of Rees doing deeds of justice and goodwill across the galaxy.