I have to say, my purpose in visiting the Archives was initially quite different.
The Temple, like any other social structure, was full of rumors. There was nothing supernatural about it — Jedi were sentient beings too, and they tended to discuss internal and external affairs.
Including the Council's decisions.
My recovery was nearing its end, which meant my deployment to the front was coming too.
Phaerost under siege by the GAR. The battle on Tune's moon. The battle at Atracken… The war was expanding its borders. The mechanism of destruction was gaining momentum.
Even though the rumors didn't assign me a clear posting — rear or front line — I was leaning toward experiencing the hardships of war firsthand. Most of those who survived Geonosis were sent to the front; I was no better than them. No exception.
I had a choice: act like a typical Jedi of this time and gain command experience through losses and failures, or follow the moral of the saying — "A fool learns from his own mistakes, a wise man from the mistakes of others."
I chose the latter.
This galaxy had seen more war than peace. Not always global, but conflicts in Heavenly River were an inherent part of existence.
So it would be simply stupid not to use the information about the tactical and strategic moves employed by commanders, Jedi, and Sith in the past.
And there was no more accurate and complete (though after Dooku's manipulations, I'd question the latter) data repository than the Temple Archives.
Like any Jedi, I could use the information stored here for my own benefit at any available time. But, like everyone else, I wasn't allowed to take data storage devices out of here. At most, I could copy the information I needed onto a holodisc.
I walked steadily (Jedi don't hurry) through the third of the four Archive halls to the terminal farthest from the entrance. Two dozen bronze busts of the Lost Twenty — the last of which was the infamous Dooku — looked at me.
Officially, the Order claimed only twenty Jedi Masters had voluntarily left their ranks. But even my rather superficial knowledge was enough to doubt the truth of that statement. However, I hadn't come here to debate the Order's path.
I settled in at the terminal and started entering keywords into the search bar one by one. The Mandalorian Wars. The Revanchists. The Old Sith Wars. The New Sith Wars. Dreadnoughts. Battleships. Space and ground combat tactics…
Thousands and thousands of pages of text in Aurebesh…
I had no intention of reading them in full right now, obviously. Skimming the key snippets of text in each article, I filtered out the unnecessary ones and decided to save the rest. I inserted one of the holodiscs into the drive and marked the selected articles and essays for copying.
I decided to pass the time by working on the HoloNet.
Strangely enough, there was a big demand in the galaxy for Jedi lightsaber crystals. The price for ordinary Adegan crystals could reach several tens of thousands of credits. I did some quick math on how many I had and realized I could become indecently rich. And if I counted how many ownerless, unwanted ones were lying around on that storage…
Stop. It couldn't be that simple, could it? If even the simplest crystals weren't sold for peanuts, then why hadn't Gree sold them all off yet? He was a Jedi merchant. He hadn't decided to help me with the ship for nothing — he was clearly pursuing his own interest. He could tell me he just wanted to help, but he was sure to ask for some favor later.
Still, that didn't negate the fact that, having crystals worth a couple of dozen million in his possession, he hadn't tried to sell them… Of course, he couldn't unload them all at once — who the hell needed hundreds of crystals — but by selling them piece by piece, he could live quite comfortably.
It was clear that trading ordinary crystals couldn't bring fantastic profits. On the market, as with the Jedi, only the rarest crystals were valuable.
For example, an anonymous buyer was willing to shell out up to fifty MILLION credits for a "rainbow gem."
Another buyer offered a small planet in the Outer Rim for a crystal from the planet Erai.
There were also offers for profitable trades. A handful of Hurrikane crystals promised their owner half of a lucrative business on Mustafar…
Sellers and buyers operated on anonymous trading platforms that charged a certain percentage of each transaction. The platform acted as an intermediary between sellers and buyers, taking from one and delivering to the other. Client confidentiality, full legal and security support for transactions. No risk. The platform took full responsibility for the cargo or money delivered to the client. And, as the ad assured, they had no dissatisfied customers.
Well, very tempting.
Driven by the lust for profit, I pulled a dozen simple crystals from my cloak pocket and scanned them one by one on the portable device built into the terminal.
Then I created an anonymous seller account and added the scanned crystal files to the goods registry…
"Could you use my help, Knight…?" A tall, slightly wrinkled but proud and unbending as a rod, Jocasta Nu approached me.
The Temple's chief archivist, keeper of all Jedi knowledge. And a very personable lady.
If not for the fact that she'd crept up like a cat.
Thank the Force, she'd approached from the opposite end of the table and couldn't see what I was doing.
"Knight Rick Dougan," I introduced myself, rising slightly from my chair. "Forgive my discourtesy — I didn't notice your presence."
"I just walked up," the archivist smiled. "I was passing by and couldn't help noticing your puzzled face, Knight Dougan. I haven't seen you in the Temple before," she added meaningfully.
I had to explain.
"I was in the Unknown Regions for a long time with my former master, Abhira. I only arrived at the Temple just before Geonosis and was knighted. That's why you don't recognize my puzzled face."
I allowed myself a smile, showing that my last words were a joke. Jocasta's gaze warmed by a couple of degrees.
"Well, Master Abhira was a dear friend of mine," she said. "His death is a heavy loss for the Order."
"Beyond any doubt," I nodded. "I feel the pain of that loss too. As if some part of me was torn out by the roots."
Strangely, lying came as easily to me as the truth. Not a single muscle in my body twitched as I spoke those words, even though memories of the torture the Zabrak had put me through swirled in my head. And there was no happier moment than the minute when Valkorion had turned him inside out.
But the archivist didn't need to know that. So with a clear conscience, I masked the burning hatred and contempt I felt for my former mentor behind an aura of goodwill and Light. A little Sith spell Valkorion had shown to Dougan…
"Perhaps I can help you, then," the old woman offered. "It seems you're at a hopeless dead end."
"The thing is…" On the table in front of the terminal lay a scatter of crystals I'd scanned but hadn't managed to put back in my pocket. While Jocasta and I stood on opposite sides of the terminal, she couldn't see them. Or the fact that the screen showed a trading platform for selling those very crystals. "I'm downloading information about past wars. I want to arm myself with my predecessors' experience to act more effectively."
"Well," the archivist stroked her chin. "Since the war began, you're not the first Jedi to visit the Archives for this. But not all, not all… You definitely won't need my help here," she smiled. "Although, I will give you some advice. Pay attention to the New Sith Wars. Those were the last military campaigns of the Jedi Generals. One of the Order's most magnificent histories."
"Thank you for the guidance, Master Nu," I bowed to the archivist again. Suddenly an idea struck me. "Master Nu, could you help me with something?"
"For an old friend Abhira's former padawan," Jocasta smiled. "I'll help. With more than one thing. What's troubling you, Rick?"
Carefully choosing my words, I continued:
"I have an old navigation computer. It contains information about the location of a planet I need. But the galactic coordinates are outdated. If I update the computer's database, that information will disappear."
"Is that so…" The archivist looked at me thoughtfully. "Is that planet not in the modern database? Even in the Archives?"
"It's a very small planet," I began to improvise. "It's far out in the Unknown Regions and doesn't have any valuable minerals. So practically nothing is known about it now. But before I go to war, I'd like to visit that world… again."
Jocasta looked at me with narrowed eyes.
"You won't tell me the reason for your attachment to this planet, will you, Knight Dougan?"
"Why not?" I feigned surprise. "My past is on that planet."
The Jedi nodded knowingly.
"You're looking for a way home," she said affirmatively. "But is that navicomputer really so old that you need to account for cosmic drift?"
"The planet's coordinates disappeared along with Master Abhira," I lied again. In reality, I'd destroyed the navigation computer of the ship I'd returned to the Order in myself. Lightning — that's what it is. "So the only chance to find the planet is a computer from an ancient ship — it's over a thousand years old."
"I understand," the old woman nodded. I didn't dissuade her from the story she'd invented for herself. Why bother? "Use the Spacelines Bureau algorithm for calculating coordinates before the Great Resynchronization," she advised. "It's fairly accurate. Your computer must be very old if it doesn't have such an algorithm installed. If my memory serves me right, the algorithm has been installed on ships for about three thousand years now…"
"Thank you, Master," I bowed again. Satisfied with herself, the archivist left without another word.
No, I felt no pangs of conscience about lying to the archivist. Not a trace.
As soon as Jocasta's back disappeared from view, I returned to the terminal. With a light motion, I swept the crystals into my pocket and stared at the monitor.
The algorithm I needed was indeed in the Archives. Created a little over four thousand years ago in some Corellian scientific office, the algorithm was handed over to the Spacelines Bureau — a Republic agency responsible for preserving old and developing new hyperspace routes in the galaxy. And the Order, as usual, had appropriated a copy for itself.
I copied the algorithm I was interested in. There was a gap in the plan to find Yavin — I'd need an astromech droid to update the coordinates in the navigation computer. Updating navicomputer databases independently was strictly forbidden by the manufacturer. I'd have to acquire a little bucket on wheels.
The information on the keywords was still transferring, so I returned to browsing the trading platforms.
My anonymous profile had already racked up half a dozen messages.
I dismissed the first two offers immediately — blatant and shameless advertising for intermediary services.
The third — too cheap — 100 credits per crystal.
The fourth — more acceptable. 8,000 per crystal. But only with supporting documents from experts — on purity, origin of the crystals, and so on.
The fifth offer — to exchange a couple of crystals for a spice shipment. No, thanks.
Only the last buyer gave me the fewest complaints.
The price I'd set of 11,000 credits per crystal suited him. But he wasn't interested in individual crystals — the client wanted all ten I'd put up for sale. Payment — a credit chip for 100,000 credits. Another 10,000 went to the platform holders for intermediary services.
Well, 100,000 credits was a very solid sum. Many in the galaxy didn't see that much in a year. And I'd been here less than a month, and that kind of money could already be mine.
I agreed to the offer. The buyer wasn't online at the moment. So I cleared the terminal's "history" and headed back to my room.
* * *
I won't describe the deal itself in detail.
The platform sent a courier droid, which I loaded my crystals onto. A couple of hours passed, and the droid delivered several credit chips to me.
Neither the money movements nor their owner could be traced. A completely clean transaction.
Eleven chips, each with 10,000 credits. I left one of them in the droid as payment for the company's services, and the mechanical courier disappeared.
We'd done the deal in one of the drinking establishments on the lower levels. A man just came in for a drink, and a courier robot visited him twice. Nothing strange.
Also, I now had a partner.
After receiving my money and sending the droid off with its tip, I was getting ready to leave the establishment when I noticed a clunky barrel-shaped automaton on wheels, very reminiscent of R2-D2 on Jabba the Hutt's barge. Surrounded by drink stands, the droid was circling among the few patrons, returning to its owner — a Toydarian bartender — every so often for another round of complaints and alcohol. Hearing the bartender jab at the astromech droid again, I couldn't help myself.
"Sentient being," I gestured for the bartender to come closer. As soon as Watto's kin floated over with a suspicious look on his face and a miniature blaster in his hands, I pointed a finger at the droid.
"What do you need it for? That's an astromech."
"Mmmm… why you asking? My droid," the bartender said with Watto's characteristic intonation. "I do what I want with it."
"Is it okay?" I asked, pointing at the droid, which was spinning its "head" dazedly. One of the patrons — a portly Twi'lek — shoved the droid carelessly, making it wobble with a squeal and roll behind the counter the next moment.
"It's perfectly fine," the bartender snapped. "So what did you want?"
"What's your name?" I smiled.
"Siun Tarr," the Toydarian said, squinting his tiny eyes even more.
"Rick Dougan, farmer from Dantuin," I introduced myself. "How would you feel about selling me your droid?"
"It's almost new, Rick," a glint of profit sparkled in his eyes. "One of those goes for fifteen thousand…"
"For a new one," I corrected. "Three, and not a credit more."
"Bold robbery," groaned Siun. "Seven…"
Figuring how much a new astromech droid would cost — ten thousand at least, probably fifteen — I decided to buy this little droid, covered in soot, dirt, and paint the color of a Kinder Surprise.
The Force usually doesn't extend to machines, but something inside me insisted this little one was worth its price.
Tarre received five thousand in hand and quickly relieved the R3 of its excess cargo. After a brief procedure transferring ownership, the Toydarian, with a nasty little smile, wished me and my new acquisition a good journey.
I knew the droid wasn't worth its price — at minimum, it needed serious hull repairs. But I wasn't about to argue with the Force.
Rolling along drearily and silently, like a prisoner on death row, the droid moved to my right at a short distance.
And, apparently, showed no particular enthusiasm.
I made my way to the taxi stand, from where I needed to get to the port dock where Kodos Paip and his crew had moved my corvette. For three thousand credits, Paip had done a diagnostic repair and "perked up" the ship. I paid another thousand to have the port droids scrape off the old, peeling red paint from the hull. And although blue was primarily applied to CIS ships," I ordered my ship painted the same way. Not entirely, only in the places where the red paint had been.
The ship was registered in all the necessary Republic registries as belonging to a private individual, Rick Dougan. I didn't advertise my connection to the Order of the Gree. If I had, the Order's security service would have started asking unwanted questions.
So, having spent ten thousand credits that evening — plus nine thousand more, with another thousand for ship supplies — I was still pleased with myself. In less than half a month, I'd gotten back on my feet in this universe, had my own ship, a droid…
"R3," I said to my partner. "Are you familiar with Corellian Defender-class corvettes?"
An affirmative beep. Strange. I didn't know I understood binary.
"My ship is exactly that class. Its navigation computer is old, but all the information on it needs to be updated using the Bureau of Spacelines algorithm for coordinate calculation up to the Great Resynchronization," I showed the droid a disk with that algorithm. "Can you handle it?"
An affirmative beep. The kind of agreement a slave gives when his master sends him to the gladiator pits.
"You're the best, buddy," I praised the bucket of bolts. "We'll make a quick stop on one planet and fix up your lousy appearance," I tapped my knuckles on the dents in his hull.
An amazed exclamation.
"Of course I'll take care of you," I grinned. "You're my battle comrade now."
An alarmed series of beeps.
"No, pal, I'm not a mercenary," I swept open the flaps of my cloak on the move and showed him the lightsaber on my belt. "But shh, don't tell anyone."
An astonished beeping.
"That's right, buddy, a Jedi. And while we're on our way to the ship, how about you tell me what happened to you?"
The robocab I'd hailed a minute earlier set course for the spaceport.
At first reluctantly, then faster and faster, the droid started beeping and squeaking, telling me about its difficult journey.
R3-T7 was born at the Industrial Automaton factory in Rhodis City on Nubia. Created as a replacement for the well-proven R2 series, the new unit and its brethren were developed to serve on large trading and military vessels. My little one managed to serve on a Republic patrol ship. Then fate brought him into the hands of a young and ambitious senator, with whom he spent quite a long time. The company had hoped the R3 series would become even more popular than the previous one. The senator's guard and companion, the droid ended up among the property of a corrupt official, disgracefully expelled from the Senate.
The droid obediently awaited his fate until he was sold for next to nothing to a merchant from the Uscru entertainment district. The buyer wasn't entirely clean-handed, using the droid as a courier. I smirked, remembering the messenger droid and the crystal deal.
The droid had been caught in a firefight where he took a blaster shot at point-blank range. A less-than-successful repair resulted in the R3's hull periodically emitting sparks, and also losing connection with the AI's short-term and long-term memory. As a result, the droid would often forget everything in the world and wander aimlessly through the streets and alleys on his level.
Because of this, the merchant first tried to sell him, but no one wanted a droid with memory loss. So the merchant just didn't bother looking for him one day, and the droid ended up at that very greasy spoon looking for a charging port. And he stayed with the Toydarian, who, by the way, managed to patch him up somehow, but the robot still needed a dealership repair, not a backyard job.
The corvette greeted us with the coolness of recycled air and the low hum of warmed-up engines.
"Where did you find this grubby little thing?" Paip said with a laugh, pointing a finger at my droid. "He's about to fall apart."
"Oh, come on," I grinned. "This droid is a lot tougher than he looks. Is the ship ready for flight?" I changed the subject.
"Of course. All systems are working. Though, if you ask me — you should contact the Corellians to get an upgrade."
"I'll keep that in mind," I promised.
"There's a bunch of old junk in the hold and storage," Paip scratched behind his ear. "We didn't go in there, like you asked. Other than that, it's surprising this tin can even flies."
"He may not be a beauty, but he's a tough one," I quoted a smuggler from some trailer. "Anything else?"
"Yeah," the foreman scratched the back of his head again. "Time to settle up…"
Chuckling, I handed him a chip with the payment, after which the foreman and his workers left my ship.
"R3," I addressed the droid. "Inspect the bridge and update the navigation computer."
An affirmative beeping.
"And I'll take a look around," I muttered out loud.
Besides the upgrade, the ship needed a thorough cleaning. Dust, trash, machine and droid parts, grime accumulated over ages. All of that had to go.
I crawled over the ship from top to bottom, making sure the supplies were indeed purchased and delivered on board.
My things, retrieved from the warehouses, were in the captain's quarters, carefully stacked near the entrance. I glanced through them to make sure everything was delivered. Then I continued the inspection.
In reality, the ship was practically no different from how I remembered it in the game. Only in minor details. For example, there actually was a galley on board. An unremarkable door next to the mess hall, behind which there was no additional room in the game, turned out to be a small galley with outdated food storage and preparation equipment. Non-functional. Sighing, I realized I'd be eating the dry rations I'd bought in bulk for the entire upcoming mission to Yavin 4.
The door marked "Escape Pod" led to the crew quarters — a small compartment designed for 4-5 people, with a pair of bunk beds, lockers, and chests for each crew member. And the escape pod itself was right there, through the wall from the berthing compartment, which was quite clever — in case of emergency, the crew could grab their personal effects and evacuate almost instantly.
To the right of the berthing entrance was a short corridor leading to the captain's quarters. There was also a second door — leading to a separate bathroom with a shower. Nothing fancy — two closed shower stalls, two closed toilets. Strict functionality.
In the captain's quarters, besides a luxurious bed, a personal wardrobe with the previous owner's everyday clothes in special vacuum-sealed plastic containers that I didn't bother examining closely, and a pair of bronze Jedi statues, I found the items I'd ordered from the warehouse. Scanning them quickly, I confirmed everything was there.
On my previous visit to the ship, I'd checked out the armory. That's where, in the central locker, I'd found Tex's sword… In the chests were lots of parts and repair kits for armor — fragments of fabric armor, armor plates, wires, microchips…
Now, looking around more carefully, whistling in surprise, I discovered what was in the other four wall lockers, separated by the ship's bulkheads.
The lockers were stuffed with armor. A good dozen sets in each.
Seeing the specimens before me, I gave an admiring whistle.
The armor I'd picked up in the Temple probably didn't possess even a fraction of such legendary status, compared to the specimens I saw before me.
Packed in airtight containers no more than ten centimeters thick, with transparent fronts, the sets — like museum exhibits, polished and shined — stood before me. Built into the ends of the lockers, the containers slid out on rails and could then be removed.
Armor I knew perfectly well from the SWTOR trailers — Jedi Knight armor, Sith Warrior armor, Republic Commando armor. Two or three variants of Mandalorian armor from the time of the Great Galactic War… I'd seen them all while playing SWTOR, and had even worn some of them on my character, playing different classes.
But further in were armor sets I'd only seen in cinematic trailers about the Eternal Empire…
Armor of the Knights of Zakuul. Armor in yellow, white, black, silver… Like cards of the same rank but different suits, they stood out from the whole collection with their uniformity.
As far as I knew, the Knights were a Force-sensitive warrior caste of the Eternal Empire, sworn to Valkorion. In the trailers, they used light pikes with blue blades (probably what I saw in the small storage) and shields — at least one was in the stand with the yellow Knight armor.
Armor of the Scions of Zakuul. I knew little about those guys. Only that in the Zakuul Empire, they played the same role as the Prophets did under Palpatine.
Armor of the Nathema Zealots. Looking at it, I remembered the video about the Emperor's daughter, Vaylin, who was raised by a group of Nathema Zealots — some religious order in the Zakuul Empire. I didn't remember the details, but the armor looked perfect.
And other unfamiliar specimens, which though I dimly remembered from the game, I wouldn't risk naming.
About fifty armor sets… The owner of this ship was quite the collector and trophy hunter.
Oddly enough, I didn't find any holocrons or artifacts of either side of the Force, aside from the crystals and the weapon, on the ship. But I was quite surprised to learn that the niche glowing with blue informational crystal light in the holoterminal room contained a wealth of information copied from the Jedi Archives. Force techniques, hyperspace routes, texts of ancient Jedi… Something to read at night.
Going down to the engineering deck, I looked into the engine room, where a pair of powerful Corellian engines hummed steadily, surrounding a medium-sized reactor along with a class-two hyperdrive. In the game, you could find T7 here.
To the left of engineering was the medical bay. One bed, control terminals on the walls. If they could get a small bacta tank in here, that would be great.
Opposite the medcenter was the main hold, where I found a workbench for armor and weapons. Lots of containers around the perimeter had a more modern look — those were the ones I'd bought. But the bulk were still leftovers from the past, yet to be sorted. In the far wall of the hold was a separate door for transporting cargo directly into the hold, rather than through the main entrance.
Already leaving the hold, I noticed a locked armored door next to the stairs. According to the ship's layout, it led to a small service room, but the mechanism refused to unlock it, citing a fault in the electrical circuit inside. Seems someone had once locked the non-working door, and the utility room hadn't seen the light of day since.
That ended my tour of the ship. Overall, I was satisfied with my choice. With an astromech droid, ship control came down to simply selecting a route on the holographic map…
A binary summons came over the intercom, calling me back to the bridge.
Smiling, I went up to the cockpit, where my R3, plugged into the instruments, let out a trill of beeps and whistles.
"Very good that you finished, friend," I praised the droid. "Well, let's see what we've got."
If discovering Tex's sword had only made me start suspecting who this sword had belonged to before, then after reviewing the holomap and navigation base addresses, I only confirmed my guess about the previous owner of the Defender.
Tython, Coruscant, Ort-Mantell, Taris, Nar Shaddaa, Scerka station, Tatooine, Alderaan, Afraid, Balmorra, Quesh, Corellia, Dromund Kaas, Ziost, Rishi, Yavin 4, Zakuul, Ezalium, Odessen, Voss, Nathema, Iokath… Hundreds of coordinates of space stations not on official navigation charts, secret hyperspace routes.
My confidence grew with each new planet I marked in the navigation computer. Of course, hundreds and thousands of Jedi had participated in the First and Second Great Galactic Wars and the Cold War, who might have visited these planets, but I knew only one who had been to most of these worlds.
The Hero of Tython. Jedi. General. Huttbane. Dread Master Vanquisher. Revan's Bane. Longtime enemy of Vitiate, his killer.
Whatever the Force was planning, it definitely had a sense of humor.
A cautious whistle from R3 interrupted my thoughts.
"Yes, buddy, you did great. Updated everything correctly."
Why praise a droid, you ask?
But still. He's like a little kid — the more you praise him, the more loyal he becomes.
An affirmative beeping.
"Plot a course to Yavin 4," I ordered. "We leave tomorrow morning."