"I'm sorry about that," Aya said as she applied an ice pack to her head. "I didn't think that would happen."
"Seriously?" Dr. Tharen raised an eyebrow. "That was one of the main protocols we had in place, Aya— that we don't touch Sith objects without having a Force-sensitive person check it over for a residual dark side aura."
Dr. Tharen's frown then deepened. "Stars, Aya, you're Force-sensitive, even if you're no Jedi. You've run checks on that kind of thing before—"
"I couldn't get a read on it," Aya said defensively. "I thought it would be fine— might have been the rest of the temple."
"The scepter itself would be fine, it's just that Ragnos's ghost isn't going anywhere," Tash explained. Her words pointedly emphasized the bit about the Sith ghost. "I guess those are real, after all."
"I concede that the Jedi texts are wrong, although that will make several Jedi historians in the Corellian History Society quite angry." Dr. Tharen sighed. "At least there was no lasting damage and the tomb can still be recovered. We'll figure out how to deal with that later. You got what you were looking for?"
"Yeah." Allana held the square in her hand.
"Well, open it," Tahiri said eagerly. "We've taken too long waiting to find Master Rey as is."
"I guess so." There was a degree of anticipation behind this. This holocron would have the answer to one of the questions that had plagued the entire Skywalker family over the last three years.
Where had Rey gone?
"Alright." Allana let out a quick exhale, her extra shot of courage. "Let's do this, I can do this."
She could feel everyone's eyes on her, feel their emotions in the Force.
Soon they would know. And yet a part of her wanted to hold onto the time before, just a little extra second longer. . .
She lifted her hands over the holocron and focused on opening it with her mind, opening her own heart to whatever secrets it held.
Her heart pounded as her eyes opened. The holocron opened, revealing the translucent blue figure of Rey.
The same freckled face, the same hair pulled partially back, half up and half down, the same fierce hazel eyes. She wore the mother's ring that belonged to Leia and her own, and wore a tunic set underneath a Jedi robe.
Intrinsically, Allana knew the tunic and leggings were green, for her mother wore green as often as possible, it being her favorite color.
Allana swallowed, her breaths becoming shallow. Time seemed to slow down, the chrono ticking that much more slowly. She had to choose her next words carefully. The anticipation around her threatened to drown her.
"Mum?" Allana sounded like a little girl again, begging her mother to slice up the monsters under her bed with a lightsaber, before she truly understood the legend of Rey Skywalker. This wasn't just the savior of the galaxy. It was her mother.
The holocron picked up on her sentimentality. A Jedi could never know what a holocron was programmed to respond to. After all, at the end of the day, it is merely knowledge and a simulation of personality— not the actual person.
And in that distinction came the unpredictability an actual person could carry, or the minute nuances that could add up in to contrary action.
Holocron-Rey smiled warmly. The brightest smile that she only reserved for her children and husband. The one that not even her closest and oldest friends received.
This was it. She was about to speak— tell them where she was, that she missed them—
"Where are you?" Allana whispered urgently.
Rey nodded.
"Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?"
All of the emotion in the room deflated. Air and reality came zooming back in, so fast Allana felt dizzy.
"What in the nine hells—"
"Are you kriffing kidding me—"
"What in the stars is she on—"
It was a joke amongst the Jedi Order, somewhat. How it had started, no one exactly knew, but suspicions lay with Rey. Tionne and Ben had hated it, but it was the speech that was given whenever someone wanted to be annoying.
This holocron was at the center of everything— and all Rey had left for her family was an inside joke.
"I don't understand," Allana confessed. A single tear trickled down her cheek.
Rey stopped, her expression serious. "Allana."
Allana blinked. "You recognize me?"
Rey's holocron nodded. Then a slow smile appeared— like she was saying, trust me.
Then she repeated again, slowly, more emphatically. "Did you ever hear of the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise? It's not a story the Jedi would tell you. It's a Sith legend."
The others in the party looked to Allana with confusion.
"Why are you doing that?" Jacen asked. "It's a joke, a decoy, Mum must have left the real one elsewhere—"
"Sh." Allana frowned and Rey picked up again.
"Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the Sith, so powerful and so wise he could use the Force to influence the midichlorians to create life. . . " Rey trailed off, looking meaningfully at Allana. "He had such a knowledge of the dark side, he could even keep the ones he cared about from dying."
"Wait a minute." Allana looked to Dr. Tharen. "Is there a tomb for Darth Plagueis?"
"Yes, but it was already ransacked by tomb raiders long before we ever got here," Dr. Tharen said. "It's useless to us. We took a look around, but weren't able to find anything."
"Mum, are you in the Plagueis tomb?" Allana asked. "Or did you leave something there?"
Rey smiled and nodded enthusiastically. "The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural!"
Allana nodded sagely. "Thanks Mum."
Rey stopped, and disappeared, the Holocron closing itself.
"We're not really going to go after a guess from a joke holocron?" Nellith asked, although she stood with Allana.
"Mum did get a sense of humor the longer she was married to Dad."
Like Dr. Tharen said, the one-room tomb appeared to be empty.
But Allana believed that appeared was the key word.
"I bet anything there's a hidden passageway into a basement," Allana said. "Or a cellar."
"Look at these carvings," Tash said, touching the stone wall. "They're not indented, like most of the writing kind. It's the Sith code, in the ancient Sith language. I wonder if—"
She pressed the symbol for "passion."
The carving sank into the wall, and the cracks glowed an ominous red.
"Peace is a lie, there is only passion," Tash murmured.
"Through passion, I gain—" she then reached for a rune above her, having to jump to get it. "Strength!"
Tash's eyes were bright, filled with the passion a scholar would get from solving a particularly difficult problem. Her golden-blonde braid was already disheveled. She smoothed her flyaway hairs and pushed her bangs up and out of her eyes.
"Through strength, I gain power." Tash looked around. "Power, where's—" She was quick to find and press down the next rune. The ground rumbled beneath them.
"Is this supposed to happen?" Kyp asked.
"It's fine, just hang on." Tash dismissed their concerns with a wave of their hand. "Through power I gain victory— there— and then, through victory my chains are broken— what rune does that mean—"
The temple rumbled more.
"Um, Tash—" Jysella looked nervous.
"It would be multiple words, but those are different runes and I don't want to mess this up, who knows what happens if you get it wrong—"
"Tash." Jacen approached, a colder look in his eye. "Which one is 'chains'?"
"Over there, but wait, I don't know for sure—"
Jacen pressed in the rune, and the temple settled. In the center, a staircase formed.
"That one," Jacen said dully.
"How did you know?" Allana asked.
Jacen stared at the wall a moment. "People who do things. . . Things like what Thea did to me, and to Nellith— to so many people. . . They aren't free, no matter what they might thing. They just don't know that they've made their own chains."
"Are you alright?" Tahiri asked, carefully approaching.
"I'm fine." Jacen sighed. "Let's just get what we came for."
There were only two things in the dark cellar— the lightsaber pike that once belonged to Darth Plagueis, and another light-side holocron.
Allana opened it without hesitation this time.
It was Rey again. But there was a smudge of dirt on her face, and she looked much sadder.
"Jacen. Allana. Nellith." The holocron bit her lip. "I'm so sorry. Thea was here. She went here during her Trial of Heart, for New Alderaan."
"Mum, what's going on?" Allana wanted to be more clever than last time. Catch onto the trick right away.
"Thea came to the originator of the Skywalker family, the one who manipulated the midichlorians to create Anakin Skywalker all those years ago." Rey was crying now. "I didn't know. . . I didn't know that his ghost. . . That his ghost possessed her. That he's why she is the way she is now. That it's not her."
"Mum, we have to stop her." Allana said. "We need your help. We need you."
"Hoth," Rey said. "Echo Base. Hurry."
Then the light died.