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« Reply #85 on: February 11, 2018, 09:29:54 PM » |
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Ladies and Gentlemen, the time has arrived.
BOOK TWO: KNOWLEDGE
CHAPTER 13: Templar Business
Years passed. A Rebellion rose, and an Empire fell. The Templars leveraged the knowledge of Kadmaur's Archive to great power, managing to slow the effects of time on their bodies, project their consciousnesses across great distance and do many other things that the Jedi Council probably would have balked at. They also learned to manipulate the living stone fortress that the Archive was stored inside, and a warden was there always, usually accompanied by at least two researchers, toiling tirelessly over holocrons and books, transferring the information to datapads so that a backup could be established, for that was the goal of the Templars. Their Order was sworn to prevent what had happened to the knowledge of the Jedi Order from happening again. Of course, with the Empire currently falling to pieces and the Sith allegedly dead, perhaps for good this time, that was not as much of a risk as it had been ten years ago when the work began.
But, that was the deal. When one became a Templar, they swore to protect the Archive and seek out new knowledge to add to it, and in return, all of the information in the Archive was available, to use as one saw fit. The Templar numbers were, by design, never high. There were four Masters; Dala and Rakham Crescentfall and Nadia and Anton Stark. Light and Dark were represented equally in shades of grey on their council, because the dozen and a half or so active Knights came from all three creeds. There was occasionally tension, but the Knights tended to work solo, and when they worked in teams they chose their partners, so it was rare for there to be any serious dispute over philosophy. The Dark Jedi did not bring any wrongdoing into the cantina or the archives, the Light Jedi did not attempt to preach, and the Grey Jedi minded their own business.
Heditt had not been seen in ten years. His presence could still be sensed by Rakham occasionally, but he'd made no attempt to contact anyone within the Templars. Rakham supposed that after grief had driven him to isolation, he'd found contentedness somewhere. None of his old comrades resented him for that, but they did still miss him from time to time.
Life went on. Rakham, Dala and Tasrii lived on Nar Shadaa, but they weren't often there. Usually they could be found at the Archive or running across the galaxy, searching for new additions to the Archive or simply following the flow of the Force to help those in need. Right now, though, all three were at home, taking a much needed break from their adventures.
As midnight began to fade away on Nar Shadaa, Nadia gently ran her finger over the round scar on Tasrii's chest. Her life as a pit fighter had left the Zabrak with many scars, but this was the one that had come closest to killing her. Nadia snuggled closer to Tasrii, wrapping her arms around her tightly. They led a dangerous life together, and the thought that someday, inevitably, something was going to take them from each other almost made Nadia sick. Despite the love they felt for one another, they still had their fights, and they'd had a bad one earlier that night. Nadia was certain that she'd started it, but it had been over something so trivial she could barely even remember what it was. Sometimes, she was certain that there was something wrong with her, something broken inside that made her push away her loved ones without even knowing she was doing it. It had been the same all her life, and she still blamed herself for Rakham, her best and only friend at the time, leaving Nar Shadaa when he was young. She sighed discontentedly and closed her eyes, hoping and praying to finally pass into sleep and leave her stress behind.
"I'm sorry." She barely whispered, not wanting to wake Tasrii.
"I forgive you." Tas' voice was no louder, and she took the smaller woman into her arms, drawing her into the safety of a lover's embrace.
...
In a decrepit hangar near the spaceport, Rakham busied himself mixing a can of paint. He hadn't been sleeping lately, and this was where he spent most of his nights. In the hangar sat two Eta-2 starfighters, each of them expertly restored, retrofitted and customized by Rakham and Tasrii. Rakham's was a flat, sky colored blue, Tasrii's deep burgundy. They'd been equipped with upgraded turbolasers that could probably take down a cruiser if they really wanted to, and custom racing engines that outperformed any production model fighter on the market. Right now, Rakham was adding the finishing touch to his paintjob; a bright yellow pinstripe along each wing, set back six inches from the edge. As he reached the end, he backtracked, painting the ship's registration number over the stripe by the cockpit. He stepped back and admired his handiwork with a smile. He and Tasrii had found a shared passion when it came to working on old machines. It was pleasantly distracting. He moved on to her craft, trading his yellow paint for black, and repeated the process. All that was left now was to finish installing the custom leather upholstery in the cockpits, but that would wait until they could finish the project together. Tasrii had no skill with a paintbrush, and had practically begged Rakham to finish the exterior of her fighter. In turn, Rakham had struggled for hours attempting to properly run his wiring harness, and Tas had finished it for him in fifteen minutes. However it had happened though, the job was done, and done well. Rakham turned, and jumped so badly he nearly fell on the floor.
Walking towards him from the direction of the open door was an aging, dark skinned human man, with a shaved head, steely silver eyebrows and a piercing, serious stare. He carried an ornate lightsaber, but wore no Templar pendant, and his right hand had been replaced by a prosthetic.
"Sam! You're gonna kill me sneaking up like that!" Rakham exclaimed.
"I found it." Sam said, without further explanation, his voice low and rich. Rakham's eyes widened.
"Already?"
"Right here." Sam pulled a data disk from his pocket and handed it to Rakham, who took it gently, holding it as though it were some small fragile creature instead of a chunk of metal.
"How did you track it down so quickly?" Rakham asked, never taking his eyes off of the treasure.
"It's all about who you know."
"Have you seen the contents?"
"Seen and copied. It's all there, mostly."
"Thank you, Sam. Are you sure I can't pay you?"
"That map ending up in the right hands will be payment enough. Take care, Rakham." With that, Sam turned and made to leave, but Rakham stopped him, holding out a Templar pendant.
"It's yours if you'll have it." He said.
"I've had enough bad experiences with Jedi Orders to last my lifetime. I'll be in touch." With that, he marched back out into the night. Rakham left not long after, rushing back to the cantina to find a terminal he could plug the data disk into.
...
A week passed, and the makeshift stone landing pad at the Archive was getting crowded as Templars from around the galaxy answered Rakham's emergency call. There were fighters, shuttles and discreet freighters scattered haphazardly around the stone ledge, and various people could be found here and there, pilots, copilots, bodyguards and other associates of individual Templars who weren't allowed inside the Archive.
Kadmaur's treasure hall had been converted into a library. There were several long tables, each stacked with carefully organized books, holocrons, manuscripts and datapads, and scattered about the room were large, comfortable chairs. Continuing through that room, one came to the dining hall, where much of the art from the treasure hall had been moved. In this room there was a great round table, and on the rare occasions that the order met, it was here that they ate, debated, mourned or celebrated as the situation called for. Two spiral staircases were present in the dining room, one leading to the lavish but barely used "barracks", which was more like a wing of luxury suites, and the new treasure room, while the other led to the vast archives that the place was significant for. There were many other rooms, of course, including Kadmaur's old office and chambers, both of which now belonged to the Warden, and a vast network of passages and miscellaneous rooms.
Now, all members of the order who were present had gathered around the table in the dining room. It was a motley group. Not counting the four masters. there were five humans, a Hapan, two wookies, a Duros, two Twi'lek, a Miraluka and, of course, Tasrii. The thing that set them apart most was their disparate equipment. They showed flight suits, armor, long coats, robes and plain clothes in equal number. Some concealed their lightsabers, others displayed them proudly. Many carried various other weapons. The only unifying thing was the pendant around each Templar's neck. Rakham was the first to speak as the last Templar to arrive, one of the humans, finally sat.
"I'm not gonna waste your time with pleasantries, friends, but let me say that I'm happy to see you all here and in good shape." He said, pausing as a murmur of appreciative response passed through the small crowd. "I also want to apologize for being so vague in my message, but what we have here must not fall into the wrong hands. Sam came through for us." He produced the silvery disk from a pocket, and put it into a holoprojector on the table in front of him. A blue starmap blinkered to life over the table. "If he was telling the truth, and the Masters believe he was, this is a map to every known Jedi Temple in the galaxy. It was secreted away during the Purge so that it wouldn't fall into the hands of the Sith, and now it's resurfaced at last."
A buzz of conversation erupted, and it took a moment for the Masters to quiet it down and answer questions.
"Do you think we'll actually be able to find anything at the old temples?" The Miraluka woman asked.
"At many of them, no, I don't believe we will. The old Jedi were smart to hide this; the Emperor hoarded or destroyed every scrap of Jedi knowledge he could find, and I'm sure that he found many temples. If we're lucky, though, we could strike gold. There are dozens of temples on this map, and hopefully time and the Empire showed mercy to a few of them." Rakham answered.
"It looks like there's a sector missing from the map." A human man pointed out.
"There is. I don't know if the disk got damaged, or if Sam removed it, but either way, he gave us this freely, so I won't complain."
One of the Wookiees wailed a question. What is the plan?
"I would like everyone who's willing to choose two or three locations from the map to investigate. I would rather no one walked into this alone, so I'd like for you all to consider forming pairs or groups to work together with. I won't insist upon it, but places as strong in the Force as these old temples are can be very dangerous. I've already broken the starmap down into a list of coordinates and sent it to you all, so group up and choose however many you'd like to investigate. If you find anything, bring it back here, and on the slim chance that any of these temples are inhabited, leave them alone and mark the coordinates. Any questions?"
"Just one," a human Dark Jedi spoke up. "When can we leave?"
...
The more excitable Templars had all left within a few hours of the meeting, but many had remained at the Archive, planning to catch a good night's rest in a real bed and a meal that wasn't made from dehydrated powder while they had the chance. After a day, there were three Templars living at the Archive, the Warden and two others. Dala, and Rakham had stayed behind, but they planned on leaving soon, after checking on things around the Archive.
The two researchers, the Hapan and one of the Wookies from the meeting, were both highly pacifist Force Adepts, so they rarely took missions. Their names were Edda Veek and Gra'porin. The final permanent resident of the Archive was Berra Tarun, the Miraluka. Currently, Rakham stood in her office, waiting on her to appear before he and Dala left.
Memories flooded back as he looked out the window that he'd been flung through ten years before. Pain tugged at his heart as Addy's death played out again in his mind's eye, and he could almost hear Kadmaur's voice beside him. He was still attempting to unravel the mystery of Kadmaur's final test, but his journals were written in a language that none of the Templars or their protocol droids could understand. A small part of him hoped that something would be found in the temples to shed light on the cryptic code.
With a slight creak, the door behind the desk opened, and Berra stepped into the office, taking a seat at her desk and drawing a bottle and two glasses from it.
"Well, what can I do for you, Master?" Berra poured a measure of brown liquid into each glass. Being a Miraluka, she was completely blind, her eye sockets empty, but all Miraluka could "see" using the Force. Rakham often wondered if Berra didn't see more than he did himself. She wore a simple brown blindfold, and plain robes. Her hair was long, black and frizzy, and she had soft features and pale skin. Many of the Templars, even the light ones, carried with them an air of hardship and roughness, the scars of a life lived on the run, but Berra was one of the few who did not. There was always an aura of calm and grace surrounding her, and it was enough to put anyone at ease. Rakham knew, however, that if anyone or anything threatened the Templars or the Archive, that calm could disappear in a moment, and the well-worn hilt of a saberstaff hanging from her belt was a warning of that.
"I just wanted to see how things are going around here, Berra." Rakham replied to her question, taking a seat across from her at the desk, and accepting the glass she offered him.
"Well, if it's a progress report you're after, the news is nothing but good. We're in the final stretch, and unless we find yet another secret library or treasure room, the transcription should be complete within six months. However, there is something I'd like for you to see before I let Edda and Porin loose on it." She said.
"Oh?" Rakham replied, an interested look on his face. It wasn't all that rare that something was uncovered within the Archive that was deemed of particular interest, but never had the researchers been held back from something they discovered.
"Follow me." She rose, and led Rakham on a winding path through the Archive. Many of the hidden stone passages had been left open permanently, with wooden doors installed by the maintenance droids, but there were still quite a few left hidden behind solid stone. Berra manipulated the living stone as easily as Kadmaur had, the walls opening as they approached it like hydraulic doors on a starship. For fifteen minutes they walked in silence, until finally, one of the stone hallways ended in a relatively small room.
This room was different from the others. A few shafts of natural white light peeked in from cracks in the ceiling, but it was still dim. At one end, a raised dais held a glass armor case and several pedestals. Berra waited by the door as Rakham approached it. The air here was electric with power. As he approached the armor case, he began to make out details within it, through the thick layer of dust. He conjured a gentle gust of wind using the Force, blowing away the dust.
A set of black robes hung inside the case. Under the hood, a dark steel mask, with a black visor and crimson highlights. The mask showed the damage and age of millennia. At the belt hung two lightsabers, equally as old as the mask.
"Berra, what is this?"
"You don't recognize it?"
"It's not possible."
Before either of them could continue, intruder alarms began to blare distantly. Neither of them hesitated, each taking off at a sprint, flying down the corridors that had brought them to the room, sabers in hand. Berra took a shortcut, and instead of her office, they came out in the great hall. Porin the Wookie stood roaring at a lone intruder, his green lightsaber in hand and activated. The intruder stood with arms spread out, attempting to comply with the Wookie, but entirely incapable of understanding his speech.
The intruder was ragged, to say the least. His brown robes were dusty, his hair and beard were wild and unkempt, and streaked with grey. His left eye had been replaced with a cybernetic, and scars crisscrossed his face. His left hand was missing several fingers, and right had been replaced by a cybernetic. Around his waist, various gadgets hung from his belt, including a roughly constructed lightsaber.
Berra activated her lightsaber, blue blades flaring to life from each end of the hilt, and began to speak, but before she could, Rakham strode forward, and wrapped the man in a bear hug, lifting him off his feet.
"Heditt, you look like Bantha druk!"
CHAPTER END
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