Entry Eight

Vandar, Leston, Meetra, Vox, and I stood around our prisoner in the sealed training room. The Zabrak was now bound by his wrists, ankles, and head to a tall cushioned chair where he sat leaning back. Meetra had pointed out that even though she had pinched his connection to the Force, he could possibly steal the information we wanted from him. He mumbled incoherently as he regained consciousness. A medical droid, hovering several feet above, swept a holo-field up and down the Zabrak's body, then used a tool-laden but slender appendage to open his right lids and spray a fine mist on his eyeball.

He blinked, tried turn his head either way, scowled, and darted his gaze to each of us.

"Why did you attack a Jedi Knight and his padawan?" Vandar floated in his seat.

I tried to peer into the Zabrak's mind to detect an image associated with the answer and met with his speedily-erected mental shield that kept me out. I continued pressing my focus. Vandar repeated the question. I felt the wills of the others push against the shield and feel along its surface for cracks as I did the same.

"Who ordered you to kill them?" Meetra added to the interrogation. "Show us who you serve."

His feelings of hatred, initially dulled by the chemicals, pulsated like an infected organ.

A long while passed. We carried on our efforts to intrude upon his mind and heart, softening our offense only when his emotions flared hotly.

Cracks began to form in his barrier. Mists seeped through and entered my mind. I retained my good sense as I tapped along the telepathic surface and whispered the obvious questions. But more of the mist subtly contaminated my feelings. I felt foggy, tingly, somehow excited.

I slithered my consciousness away from the other Jedi, fearing they might sense my losing battle. Wanting to taste more of this Zabrak, I pressed against an especially rage-heated spot with a desperate strength, broke through and delved into his soul.

An alien anger clashed against my desire for power and we poured over into each other. Our two storms boiled, stirred together, became a sinister pleasure that the Sith and I both felt.

"Trust me. Tell me everything. . ."

"Why did you attack her?" Meetra asked, a cold edge to her raised voice. "Tell me."

The Zabrak broke free of his bondage with new-found super-strength and gave a battle cry in both the physical and spiritual plains.

A most intense euphoria overtook me. My muscles seized for a few heartbeats of thoughtlessness. . . then I slackened and sank to the floor. His memory became my dream, vivid insomuch I felt a phantom viewing events as they happened.

The familiar Sith knelt in front of a woman dressed in ornate robes and a hood. A cloth covered her eyes. She raked her talons down a horn and set her hand on his scalp. "Survive this quest and I promise you shall lead armies to your home planet in the Unknown Regions to destroy the final great evil of our era."

The image shifted. The Miraluka stood in a circle of light at the edge of which stood robed figures. "The girl is destined to nurture this masked Dark Lord back to their original power and beyond. Her life is fatal to the Jedi Order, the Republic, the peace of the galaxy at large. The First Circle must act."

"Jedi Masters guard her every day," the speaker was a male present via hologram. He moved his head and I caught sight of his handsome young face. "It would take months of meticulous planning to exact the assassination and make a clean escape. Someone among us must accept what amounts to a suicide mission."

"I have cause in my civilian life to visit Dantooine," said a female with a tail of long, white hair set over her bosom.
"They mistrust you," the Miraluka said. "But perhaps you could act in accordance with your public tasks while at the same time clearing a path for the member who's to kill the target."

"Most wise, First Seer." The white-haired woman bowed her head.

"My comrade and I are quite occupied with the war," the handsome holo-man said. "May I suggest our recovering Sith acolyte? He's itching for a duel."

A Zabrak stepped into the circle of light. "First Seer. I beg you to send me. I want to be the warrior who drops Bastila Shan's head at your feet."

I found myself sitting on the floor, sweating and disheveled, hair loose at my shoulders.

The four Jedi joined hands in a circle and Force-pushed the single Sith at their center, creating an invisible bubble that distorted the air.

I got up and rushed to behind Meetra's shoulder.

The Zabrak stood atop the chair, his knees bent far, his arms stretched out to either side with hands flat. His robes were tattered from the explosion he had used to break from the binders. Perspiration dribbled down his torso, down rippled muscles, throbbing veins, and tribal tattoos. He raised his horned head and looked me in my eyes.
I shook my head, pleading with him on the inside to give up the fight.

He triggered a Force-explosion. Meetra staggered back into me, Leston flew across the room, Vandar's levitating chair spun, and Vox skidded backward on his feet.

The Zabrak reached out and Force-pulled Leston's weapon to himself while the Twi'lek was still in the air. But as the hilt reached his hand, Meetra had activated her lightsaber and bolted forward. She shoved the blade into his sternum.
The fight was over and we soon gathered at the body of our dead foe. I looked down at him and felt neausious, freshly remembering the intimate psychic moments we had shared together when he had been so brimming with passionate life. He stared at the ceiling, eyes wide open, face frozen in hatred for the galaxy.

"We wasted hours interrogating it to learn nothing." Vox turned and strode out of the training room, the portal closing behind him as we watched in resignation.

I had to share a few pieces of the what little I had learned from those hours. "I absorbed a memory from the Zabrak." They snapped to attention, all hooked by my words. "He was doing the bidding of a group called the First Circle, and he had the help of a co-conspirator. A woman visiting the planet, maybe the Enclave itself, while on official business."

Vrook broke the following seconds of silent confusion. "Odd that you are the only one among us who found this memory."

Meetra's voice was soft and hopeful. "Why did you say she may have visited the Enclave?"

"It makes sense that she would try to occupy the masters during the assassination attempt. I'm typically within a few kilometers of what amounts to a Jedi army."

Meetra became thoughtful and said, "The masters did fill out requisitions forms and bartered some artifacts with representatives from Coruscant. It's an annual affair."

"Business went as planned." Leston raised his arms in surrender. "Nothing out of the ordinary happened until we collectively sensed a spike in the Dark Side and came running to your aid."

I cleared my throat and dared to adopt a more commanding tone. "We need to study the manifests of every ship that landed here yesterday."

Meetra glanced from Vandar to Vrook. "That could be done. Security teams in the orbital stations board and closely search every ship set to land at the Enclave, then send the manifests to us."

Vrook waved his hands out as if clearing a table of nonsense. "This lead is a waste of time. Do we truly want to search for a co-conspirator that may be imaginary? Say she does exist. She failed miserably to distract the Council." Vrook treated students or newly-appointed padawans as troublesome youth below the concerns of actual Jedi. But I thought he was acting more defensive than ordinary, and when I tried to peer at his spirit, I found his feelings hidden. My enemies and allies alike concealed a great many things from me those days.

"Bastila's passions flare hotly at times, but she is true to the ideals of the Order," Vandar said. "She tends toward honestly. Let's put trust in her claim and follow this lead to its conclusion."

I smiled on the inside as I bowed to Master Vandar, appreciative of his reasonable mind.

- - -

The time was early morning when Meetra and Leston went outside to cremate the Sith's corpse and I went for my quarters wanting a couple hours of sleep. I lay down and drifted into relaxing emptiness when the clear, distinct voice of a woman sounded in my skull. "Wake, girl."

"Who are you?" I kept my voice low, for I shared this room with several other girls. I sat up and stretched my alertness to fill the room in order to detect some foreign life waiting in the deep shadows.

"The Council hides a secret that you deserve to know. Rise and follow your feelings."

"Why should I heed strange voices?"

"You sensed the Jedi deceiving you tonight. Go down to the archives and witness the weakness of the Order."

I slid my feet over the side of the bed and set them firmly on the floor, readying myself for action. "The masters forbid their students from entering the archives. Young minds are too soft to confront the knowledge contained there." A fellow student next to me grumbled in her sleep.

"Quiet. I opened the doors for you."

"You used whatever is down there to distract the Jedi, yes?"

The voice left me. Awake and my senses prematurely sharp, I stepped on the blades of my feet for the door and left into the corridor, keeping low and close to the wall as I made for the archives. While the establishment permitted students to travel the hallways at night and morning, I wanted to stay in shadow in case anything went wrong and a witness could point to me as having been in the corridor at the time. Voices spoke in the courtyard among the chirp of nocturnal insects, but this area was vacant. At least that's what I thought until I spotted a heap on the floor between myself and the archive entrance.

I crept closer, anxiety growing, and stopped when I found it to be the body of a male human Jedi who I recognized as an exercise instructor. Sinister possibilities instantly polluted my mind. What if the voice belonged to a murderer who wanted to implement me in their crime? I shook away those thoughts and took a deep breath, touching my index and middle fingers to the man's neck. Seconds ticked by with me believing him dead, then at last I felt a faint pulse.
I stepped over him and jogged for the doors which were indeed cracked open. I slid my fingers into the gap between the dual panels and used my upper body strength to wrench them open far enough for my body to squeeze through. Luckily, the mechanism was quiet.

I entered at the head of stairs leading into an ink-dark room, closed the entrance behind me, and felt the walls for switch. Finding none while precious seconds left, I sighed and bit my lip. There was one technique for Force-light that I had practiced sporadically in the past years. But I was horrible at sustaining it. Sometimes the brain chemicals brought on stress served as the best meditation aid. I elevated my open, upward-facing right palm a couple feet in front of my face and exhaled my self-doubts, but let the urgency of my situation motivate me. The Force tingled in my stomach, spread to my chest, spidered to the muscles in my arms. I visualized a ball of soft light. And the light sprang into existence a few inches over my palm. I descended the steps, even while my conjured light-source flickered like a flame in the wind.

Many dozens of shelves lined the space below at either side of an aisle. Hundreds? The way forward was pitch black, and the corners and walls were lost as well. A hover-stand floated in a random spot, used for raising a master to the upper reaches of the library. I drew closer to a shelf and saw categorized stacks of parchment protected by transparent casing. Daring a deeper journey, I passed many stands to a section holding hide-bound tomes, covers cracked and pages frayed. And then further yet I discovered rows of twelve-sided artifacts the size of my fist, made of an alien material that shimmered like water. My Force-light flickered out and I plunged to darkness.

The voice came from nearby in the cavern, rather than inside my head. "Last evening, the Jedi traded educational tools with the archivists of the Coruscant temple." A new light sparked that made twinkle and sparkle the crystal heiroglyphs on the faces of holocrons. A ghost of a hooded woman, long silver hair framing her robed bosom, held a light in one clawed hand and motioned for me with the other.

I took one step and my foot crunched on something. A shard. All around me in the faint glow were shattered holocrons and leaves of parchment. A charred scent reached my nostrils. I navigated half-blind through the waste toward the woman, but halted meters in front of her on the chance she would attack.

"Vrook opened a holocron, believing it to have belonged to a bygone Jedi. It contained the spirit of a Sith Lord, who went on a rampage here in the archive. The masters combined their efforts and banished the spirit into oblivion, only then sensing that you were in danger." She eased toward me, somehow quiet as death.

"Stay back," I stammered. "I'm renowned as a skilled fighter." Why hadn't she tried to kill me ?

"They were ashamed at the loss of artifacts containing valuable knowledge." She continued on and stopped within arm's reach. "And so they lied to you."

I backed away, but tripped on a hard fragment and my butt landed on smooth floor. "Why are you telling me this?"
She held herself confidently, face cast in shadow, her head bent ever-so down to acknowledge my lower place.

"Several disciplined minds were needed to contain one Dark Side spirit. Powerful Jedi exhausted themselves on the task. What does that tell you?"

"The Dark Side is more powerful?" The implication, I told myself, came from my need to tell her what she wanted to hear. I could think of an escape plan while she rambled.

"No. Light blinds those who walk in the deepest shadows. You would do well to dabble in the whole of the Force before something comes along to put you at an utter disadvantage. Embrace a wider view."

"You wanted me dead, but now here you are giving me a philosophical lesson." I was well-trained in the martial art of argument.

"The First Circle wants you dead. Perhaps they are correct and perhaps they are not. We shall see." The light went out.

I crawled backward on all-fours, then stood, turned, and ran for the exit.