3.08

The fist-sized cube of green crystal and silvery metal rested in my left palm, the hum coming from it undetectable by human senses or technological means yet still present. Ratty had left in an affronted huff after various tests had failed to find what I was hearing, grumbling about crazy organics, people touched in the head and teenage girls. The once reserved and proper nanny droid was developing a personality after years of not undergoing a memory wipe, progress accelerated by all the dangerous events she survived. I wondered if being around a force-sensitive played a role; probably, if R2-D2 and HK-47 were any indications. But those worries would have to be dealt with later; the device in my grasp took precedent.

It shone in the Force like a miniature star plucked down from the heavens and placed in a container of natural materials. The metal parts gleamed in the silvery iridescence, which wasn't much of a surprise since they were made of Iridium-Osmium alloy. Perhaps the rarest and most corrosion-resistant natural alloy, the superdense metal exuded an air of permanence and perfection and none of the scanners the Arkanian scientists had used could find a single flaw in its construction; it was as if the parts were cast atom by atom into a uniform whole. Given what the device was - something I'd yet to share with anyone else - the Force must have been used in its creation. This also explained the impossible toughness of the device; it had been found intact under the broken halves of a twenty-ton rock that fell on it during the avalanche that had buried the ancient tower.

The crystal parts were pure carbon in an allotrope combining the properties of diamond and nanotubes and shaped into the circuitry. Testing had showed no working electronics even though the device was obviously active in at least stand-by mode, which had left the researchers baffled. Apparently, photonic circuitry wasn't a technology most of the Star Wars galaxy was aware of, relying on electronics. This might explain the limited development of artificial intelligence, but this cube was different. It was supposed to hold sapient copies of the personalities of its creators, which would not have been possible for any normal droid brain.

But the cube's greatest secret was its power source, the glowing emerald gem in its heart. It was a Khyber crystal, similar to those used in lightsaber creation and just as much part of the Force as any living being. The light it gave off was far more than just electromagnetic radiation, and sensing it captured by the network of optical circuitry and sent through an immensely complex labyrinth of resonating patterns, I knew I was looking at a device intended to copy not just a living brain's physical function but also its imprint in the Force. The Holocron in my hand might be less than a living being, but far more than any droid.

Unfortunately, I had no idea how to use it. One of the greatest Jedi treasures of all time, the Holocron created by Ood Bnar, with the added wisdom of Bodo Baas and Arca Jeth, and its contents were barred from me due to the lack of an instruction manual. As another meditation session reached its end with no progress to show for it, I sighed and returned the priceless treasure to the security of the main vault. How to use a Holocron was not information that could be found on the Holonet, or even through research of any libraries open to someone with a great deal of money. It was done through the Force in ways that couldn't truly be described with words, only taught through master-student bonds or discovered after years of experimentation.

Unless I spontaneously developed telepathy, I wouldn't get access to its secrets any time soon.

xxxx xxxx xxxx

​

"Well?" the tall, middle-aged Arkanian man asked with ill-concealed impatience, milky white eyes fixed on the pale yellow beam despite the eye-watering intensity of infrared radiation it generated. If it was even mildly irritating for a half-breed such as myself, a full-blooded Arkanian staring at it without eye protection had to feel as if red-hot daggers were shoved in his eyes... and yet he still looked. Arkanians were crazy.

"It feels off, professor," I said as I swung the device around a few times, the ominous yet familiar hum of the yellow energy blade clashing with the cold emptiness of its weight in my hand. "It might look as if it's working, but there's something wrong about it." For all the excitement I'd shared with the research teams when the ancient, broken, almost entirely defunct lightsabers had been found in the dig site, the modern prototype in my grasp didn't respond as I'd imagined.

"Nonsense!" Professor Magrody countered with as much certainty as the ancient Arkanian researcher who'd been experimenting with my abilities in the Force. "We copied the basic design from your findings, young lady, and I personally improved it with modern technology. A device our ancestors got working over four millennia ago should be well within our capabilities to replicate." Yes, the two men were very much alike, from their height, their borderline anorexic build, to their conviction of Arkanian scientific supremacy. Since Nasdra Magrody was the old man's grandson, that wasn't terribly unexpected.

"Professor, as you are a leading authority in micro-electronics and programmable intelligence, I seriously doubt there are errors in your work here or with the ancient droids we recovered." Because it wasn't the technology that made this lightsaber feel dead in my hands. "It's just that a lightsaber without a focusing crystal is like a blaster without Tibanna gas; it seems functional and looks pretty, but it will barely singe wood, let alone cut through armor."

"I suppose you're right. They did fail to cut through more than flimsiplast in all tests." He scratched his head in thought, an absent gesture that made him more genuine and approachable just as much as his acceptance of failure did. "The design didn't include a focusing crystal though, or we could have synthesized one."

"You might not want to do that, Professor. Artificial Khyber crystals are unstable and might explode violently." Unfortunately, the excavation teams had yet to find any natural ones in the ruins of the ancient building. The only one discovered was part of the Holocron, and destroying that priceless treasure to make a lightsaber would be a crime against the Force. "As for the design, this feels like a training lightsaber to me. It only burns skin but can still deflect blaster bolts, a safety feature I'd place into any weapon given to children."

"Then both you and the ancient Jedi are far wiser than modern Arkanian scientists, young lady," the Professor said with a smile that certainly did not make me blush. Nearly forty-year-old women didn't blush at compliments from guys their age, really. "Though one thing about our findings bothers me. If the ruin you found is indeed Arca Jeth's legendary Praxeum, how and why was it lost? The Jedi alone should have kept an eye on it even if our criminally negligent ancestors did not."

"I've always believed the Jedi to be far less wise than people gave them credit for. After all, only a single Jedi temple remains in the Order's control, with dozens of temples and hundreds of other facilities either lost or abandoned, all that history and culture left to vanish in the mists of time." I waved an arm at the rest of the vault's contents, the remains of training droids, ancient computers, training sabers and blasters, data-pads, even books, scrolls, and similar analog archives delivered here for clean-up and examination. "It is why Father called you and a few other Arkanian scientists to examine our findings rather than the Jedi Order." That and every expert we could divert from working on the Death Star in the near future would delay that particular nightmare from becoming reality.

"I suppose you are correct, from a certain point of view." He nodded seriously then looked at all the other artifacts we'd need to examine. "Even better than a force-sensitive young Arkanian such as yourself puts her trust in science and proper research than into an order of mystics growing further and further from reality with each passing year. I have memories of their involvement with our civil war twenty years ago and not fond ones. An up and coming Jedi Knight of the time taking it upon himself to decide that the established government was in the right and that the rebel movements had to be crushed." Professor Magrody shook his head, long silver tresses dancing across his shoulders. It struck me then that for a middle-aged academic he was near the epitome of Arkanian beauty, his more-than-human stature, white mane, high cheekbones, aristocratic nose, and inquisitive eyes making him look like an elf from Tolkien's works than a mortal man. "What the Jedi Order did not see was that both the Dominion with their immoral genetic experimentation and the rebels with their invasive cybernetic technology was in the wrong. What they should have done was end the war, dissolve both sides, and let the population decide on a new government from a zero basis."

"But that would have been unthinkable for the keepers of tradition the Jedi have become," I agreed. "The Jedi Knight who broke the rebellion, they made him Grand-master along with Yoda, didn't they?" I smiled sadly at the events to come, many of which were the Jedi's own fault. They might preach no attachment, but if there was a person more attached to tradition and Jedi shortsightedness than Mace Windu I did not know them.

"Gods, politics are depressing," Professor Magrody suddenly exclaimed. "Let's work on the training drones, shall we?"