Vrook turned away, hiding his tensed hands beneath the sleeves of his robe. It's not anger, he told himself. "I may protest, but I've not denied your favorite students any of their extravagant requests. I protested Revan and Malak's incessant travels to the Coruscant Temple. I protested their embrace of the juyo lightsaber form. I protest, but I never deny, and now I must protest again. Humor me."
Star Wars: Trail of Echoes
Chapter Four - Forgotten Corners
The Temple Archives pulsed with the energy of a thousand generations' worth of history. Holos of ancient architecture and the faces of preeminent members of the Jedi Order, hundreds of years removed from their mortal coils, hovered overhead and phased in and out of existence. Rows upon rows of data cores and physical tomes and scrolls lined shelves that extended up toward the vaulted, skylit ceiling, humming with power, promising a wealth of information and countless lifetimes of enlightenment.
Revan walked the red and gold carpet into the depths of the Archives, passing beneath the statues of Relin Duur and Drev Hassin, Memit Nadill and Jori Daragon. He spotted display cases containing lightsabers from antiquity, the hilts still faithfully tethered to archaic power packs.
Padawans and Knights were scattered about the aisles, searching for things that were not immediately found. A few of them lifted their eyes to watch Revan as he passed, perhaps recognizing that he did not belong but not caring enough to do anything further. Revan knew that wouldn't last; if he wasn't quick with his task here, he'd be the center of attention soon enough.
He moved with purpose down one of the older aisles, where the cases were an amalgam of polished stone and wooden shelves. There was more dust here than was usual, the musty, vanilla smell of aging publications. And beyond those bookcases was a secondary learning room, long forgotten by most of the students and younger Masters.
He had discovered this room during his last visit to the Archives. A more innocent time, when a learner's braid still hung from his dark locks. When Malak had still been around to revel in the joy of the discovery at his side.
Revan noticed he had stopped walking. The sight of the old room raised a few more unbidden memories from the grave. He could hear murmurs in Malak's voice, see a smile from a time when every new achievement was cause for celebration. The galaxy seemed a brighter place then. The room hadn't changed a bit, though it seemed so much else had.
The learning room was dark and completely powered down. The only light source was the runoff from the rest of the Archives, casting a doorway-shaped island of light on the first few terminals within. Revan took up the first seat he could find and powered up the terminal through a series of switches and dials. Power audibly circulated through the interior of the machine, circuits clicked, data readers spun to life. Revan caught a brief whiff of ozone as cooling fans evacuated decades' worth of dust.
He cleaned off the crystal display, allowing light from the screen to push its way into the room. A few red error messages streamed across the top of the readout, but he troubleshot his way through them until the system was finally ready to accept input. The screen continuously flickered and dimmed as the age-old connections struggled to function.
Without wasting any time, Revan accessed the Archive Databank, effortlessly weaving his way through the thick waves of information. Given the limitations of the terminal, he had to call up different articles through a series of hubs and continue on through linked archives. The Great Hyperspace War begot The Battle of Kirrek begot The Great Sith War and so on.
He waded through the hubs until the Dark Reaper Campaign led directly into the Mandalorian Crusade. Revan's name was already appearing throughout the various articles. He couldn't resist reading about his own exploits, realizing just how much seemed like they had happened to someone else.
His charge up the Sky Ramp at Iziz was well-documented, as were the Kashyyyk and Manaan campaigns. Events afterward were chronicled piecemeal until there was nothing at all—that is, until the Battle of Malachor V occurred. He almost couldn't bring himself to read the words, but censoring the battle from his mind now would be a disservice to the countless soldiers he had sacrificed.
To save countless more, a specter in his mind added.
He suppressed the voice and called up the list of commanding officers on the Republic side of the battle. Near the very top: Admiral Saul Karath, Captain Lin Morris, and Generals: Revan Versirath, Malak of Quelii, and Meetra Surik.
Following the hub Meetra's name was connected to, he found a dense list of articles comparable to his own, oftentimes linked directly to him. He sorted them out by date and found the latest article published with her name. It was an official entry by one of the Councilors.
He attempted to access it, but was met by a flashing error message that read: CLASSIFIED.
A reactive program began the process of overriding and locking down his terminal, but the age of the machine ended up working in his favor as incompatible processes fought each other. He exploited this brief window and countered the override; on any other terminal, the lockdown would've been instant.
A few more commands later, he was back at the link into the classified article. It would be tough getting into it, but he'd hacked through worse.
"Somehow I knew I'd find you here." The shadow of a man stood in the doorway. Revan had sensed his old teacher approaching some time ago. "I remember Malak leading me here because you couldn't be pulled away from the terminal. You sat in here for hours and hours."
Master Vrook took a seat at the terminal next to Revan, his head drooping, his gaze distant, like he was finally finished. He ran a hand along the edge of the display. His hand pulled back dust. "I used to come here often when I was still a learner, sift through page after page until I fell asleep on the keyboard." He sat back, took a patient look around the room. "The lights were still on back then."
"So you're not here to pull me away again," Revan said, trying the get to the heart of the matter. "What did you come here for?"
Vrook seemed not to hear the question. "Things move so fast in the galaxy. Maybe I'm just getting slower." He rubbed the dust from his fingers. "Or maybe that's the one lesson that the Order never bothered to learn. Building things to last has never worked, not in this universe; it all gets left behind."
"Why are you doing this, Master?" Revan asked, startled by Vrook's atypical candor. "I know what I sensed in that chamber. It was fear. What did Meetra Surik do to prompt such a reaction?"
Vrook finally made eye contact. "You speak as if you've never heard of Malachor Five."
"Don't hide behind that," Revan said and nodded to the classified link. "What happened in that chamber when Meetra returned?"
Vrook's face contorted, age and stress lines merged into each other. His emotions waxed and waned, manipulating the Force around him, until indifference won out, with that familiar sense of fear thriving in the undercurrent. "She never returned," he said, voice weary. "Not really."
Revan could feel impatience brewing. He didn't speak again until he had stifled it. "What happened in that chamber?" he repeated sharply.
Vrook visibly fought for words until he finally said, "There was nothing in the room with us that day." He shook his head, dwelling on the memory. "There was nothing. She stood before us, but she wasn't really there. She spoke, but nothing was said. The Force did not acknowledge her because it simply wasn't there."
Fear found its way into his voice. "Only echoes remained."
Revan could see that the old Jedi Master was fighting an internal battle. For what reason, he could not tell, but he suspected that he'd already been given the answer in some form. He tried to keep Vrook on topic. "Echoes? I don't understand, Master."
The old Master laughed, despite his weariness, his fear. He wiped something away from his cheek. "Neither do we," he said. "Perhaps that failing belongs to us, as well. We made her an exile before we could even understand why. She was an enigma, a wound in the Force that we just wanted gone."
He reached over and tapped a few keys on Revan's terminal, unlocking the classified file. "She was escorted off Coruscant and placed aboard a Republic cruiser bound for Nar Shaddaa. Where she went from there is anyone's guess."
"I see." Revan stood and bowed to his old teacher. "Thank you, Master Vrook."
Vrook pretended not to hear. "I fail to see how any of this information will help you find her."
"Perhaps anywhere else in the galaxy, finding her would be impossible." Revan shrugged. "But on Nar Shaddaa, you just go where the grime is deepest and keep an eye out for footprints."
