The droid was not exaggerating when it said the vault was far down. The minutes pass as Jeyna listens to the cranking of the lift, the worry building in her the farther they drop into Nar Shaddaa. She is at least relieved he ordered the Knights to stay behind, at the entrance to the elevator. She'd be even more uncomfortable sharing the small space with them.
They finally shudder to a stop, the door opening to reveal a hall in front of them. She barely catches a glimpse of it before Ben throws an arm out, flinging her with the force behind him. His body crowds her into the corner of the elevator, his saber suddenly igniting in his hand. She attempts to peer around his massive, black-clad shoulders to see what prompted his actions.
"Observation: The defense turrets appear inactive, Master," HK announces.
"What other defensive weaponry is down here?" Ben snarls through his mask. "Is there anything else you neglected to mention?"
"Irritated Explanation: The defense system of the vault should not activate against us, as long as we do not become hostile. Musing: It appears the engine has become dormant. Likely this means the turrets and droids are offline," the droid offers.
"You didn't think to warn us about a defense system?" Jeyna asks, irritated. She manages to push past Ben's arm to see around him. There are indeed two massive laser turrets mounted ahead, flanking a closed door, though both are coated in cobwebs from disuse.
"Repetition: The defensive system does not activate unless hostile actions are taken. I did not think a warning was necessary."
She sighs, fighting the urge to give a sarcastic reply to the droid. Ben steps from the elevator, finally deactivating his lightsaber when the turrets do not move against them. Jeyna follows, taking tentative steps along the hall until she joins him near the large door.
"What engine are you talking about?" she asks HK.
The droid approaches them as it answers. "The infinite engine, Master."
Her eyebrows raise in confusion, but the assassin droid pushes a button on the wall, and the door opens before them. She doesn't have a chance to inquire further about the engine before her breath leaves her at the sight ahead.
The room beyond the doorway is massive, and littered with skeletons. They lay, in no discernable pattern, clustered about the room. Some are near the ancient looking computer systems, coated with a layer of aged grime. Others are near the furniture, seating and tables that makes the great space look like a headquarters for some sort of operation.
Ben is silent as he takes one step, then two into the room. She can't see his face beneath the mask, but she can feel his unease through their faint connection. For every bit of unease he's feeling, she is experiencing horror. HK doesn't seem as bothered, however. The droid marches forward, its metal foot coming down on what looks like a femur of the closest skeleton, snapping the brittle bone in half.
She gasps out, "Can you not step on them, HK?!"
"I assure you, Master, they cannot feel pain. You see, they are already dead," the droid replies, its sarcastic tone making her despise it in the moment.
"These are Ongree," Ben says, from where he's kneeled beside one set of bones, inspecting them. "You can tell from the skull, it looks upside down." She forces herself to look closer, noticing the bizarrely shaped skull he is referring to on the alien skeletons.
"Why are they here? What happened to them?" she asks. "HK?"
"Query: Master, how should I know what happened to them? I was not here after they were closed into the vault to witness their fate," it answers her. "Conjecture: It would appear they died, some time after allowing the engine to become dormant."
"Why were they closed into the vault?!" she demands, before taking a deep breath to try to settle herself. "I need you to tell me everything you know about this place, HK."
"Master, it is such a dreadfully dull story. Wouldn't you rather find something you'd like killed?" The droid's head tilts as its red eyes examine her. Jeyna glares back at it.
"Answer her, or I turn you into scrap metal," Ben threatens as he stands, the mask transforming his voice into a low, reverberating growl.
"Mockery: Oh, no. My chassis is trembling," the droid retorts, before conceding. "Very well, Master. My primary Master closed his loyal servants into the vault, to maintain and guard his infinite engine. Theoretically, if they had followed his directions, they would have been more than able to survive many generations in here. Though it would appear something went wrong."
"What is the infinite engine?" she presses.
"Explanation: The engine distorts physical constants, allowing the manipulation of energy to generate matter. It requires small amounts of input, which it uses to create large amounts of output," the droid says.
"That sounds like it breaks the laws of physics," Ben argues.
"I assure you, the engine works. My Master used it during the Jedi Civil War, to supply his entire fleet. The Republic destroyed the Star Forge the Rakatan Empire left behind, but Master saved the most vital part of the Forge and brought it here, to hide it."
Jeyna's mind is racing as she tries to understand. Revan had used the Star Forge when he was a Sith, against the Republic and Jedi Order. But he had turned sides, assisting in destroying the Star Forge later. Why would he take the engine that ran it? Why save that part, and hide it on Nar Shaddaa, of all places?
"What was Revan's goal in hiding the engine here?" she asks, searching the large space they stand in. She can see corridors leading away, before her eyes fall back to the piles of bones. She winces, looking back to HK as he answers.
"Master, I do not know."
"How were the Ongree servants supposed to maintain it?" Ben asks. The droid surveys him for a moment, before apparently deciding to humor him with a response.
"Explanation: They were instructed to give their children and their dead to the engine. It would in turn provide them with food, water, or anything else they should need for supplies within the vault. It is capable of generating anything required, Master."
Jeyna's mind feels stuck on the words as she understands what the droid is implying. The servants were told to sacrifice their children to the device. Her horror at the discovery only grows. How could Revan order his followers to do such a thing? She realizes, suddenly, how biased her view of him must be. She's been researching him for so long, she's distorted him into something like a fairytale hero. But no hero would shut a group of individuals into a sealed vault, and tell them their only way to survive is to kill their own progeny. The realization turns her stomach.
"Where is the engine?" Jeyna vaguely registers the sound of Ben asking the question, distracted as she is.
"In the core of the vault. I can take you there now, Master?" the droid suggests. When a minute passes and she still has failed to answer it, it repeats, "Master?"
"Yes," she spits out, forcing herself to focus. "Yes, let's go there." She is in a hurry to get what they need, and get away from this terrible place. The longer she stands there, the longer she imagines being one of the Ongree. Locked into a prison, and given an impossible mission. It is no wonder they failed.
Core of Revan's Vault
They passed many more skeletons on their way to the core, and Jeyna grits her teeth as she steps over one to enter the center of the hidden base. There is a star map, a holocron, and a large device she can only assume is the infinite engine.
Ben's helmet stays turned towards it longer than necessary, and she guesses he is intrigued by it. "Please don't tell me you want to use that thing," she says quietly.
The mask looks to her before shaking once. "Not necessarily. I wouldn't mind understanding how it works, however…"
"We should destroy it," she says definitively. Revan should have allowed it to be destroyed with the rest of the Star Forge, millennia ago. The fact that he saved it, and hid it here, infuriates her. In the wrong hands, it's power could be catastrophic. It could be used to power an endless supply of weaponry and ships, fueling never ending war and destruction.
"Perhaps," he says offhandedly. She levels the metal part of his mask with a glare.
"You can't let the First Order know it is here," she insists. "Please, Ben."
He is silent for a long moment. "I understand your fears. We will leave it here, for now," he says finally. She sighs, not content with the response. She would like to set explosives on the thing and blow it into pieces, if that were even possible. She hears a sigh filter through his helmet. "I do not want to destroy it without understanding it. This is an ancient technology," he explains.
"Promise me. Promise you won't let the First Order use it," she demands. He had said he only wanted to use the First Order for the time being to further his own goals. Surely he wouldn't hand something as powerful as the engine over to them?
"I have no intentions of allowing them to have it," he confirms. His words don't abate her nervousness however, as she is imagining the potential it has to be used against anyone.
He must hear her thoughts, as he finally looks away from the engine, the mask fixating on her. "Do you still trust me?" he asks.
She nods slowly. "Then let's get what we've come for. We can decide what to do with the engine later," he suggests.
She sighs, turning from him to approach the holocron. She kneels beside it, laying her hand on its side. It opens, like the others before it, projecting a planet that rotates slowly in the air.
Jeyna furrows her brow, at a complete loss for which world she is looking at. It is covered in muddy colored swirls, looking barren and lifeless. The surface has some great craters, but is otherwise featureless.
"I do not know this world," Ben admits. "Do you?"
She shakes her head. "It's not one I've ever seen before," she says slowly, curious.
He scans it with his datapad, before copying the star map as well. "The map is nearly complete," he says. "One more section, and we should be able to use it."
"Assuming we figure out what planet the next section is on…" Jeyna replies. "I don't suppose you know, HK?"
"The image did not match anything in my memories, Master," the droid answers.
Leaving the Vault
The ride back to the surface of Nar Shaddaa is silent, and Jeyna doesn't attempt to fill the quiet. Her mind is imagining the planet that had spun above the holocron, struggling to place it. It must be very remote for her to have never seen it in any of her research. But if it is so remote, why would Revan choose it for the final map location?
The elevator door grinds open when they arrive back at the alleyway. The Knights are waiting there, and Jeyna steps out after Ben to follow them back through the cantina, HK bringing up the rear of the group. They've barely exited the building when the feeling hits her.
She passes through the doorway, back onto the streets of Nar Shaddaa, when it feels like all of the blood from her head has suddenly dropped. Her brain is left dizzy, starved for oxygen, as her vision begins to swirl. She feels as though her body is spinning counter to the world as she tries to focus her eyesight, the ground tilting up towards her.
She staggers sideways, and the only thing that saves her from a harsh collision with a ferrocrete wall is Ben's reflexes. He grabs her, the helmet transforming his noise of alarm into a buzz of static.
"Jeyna? What's happening?" he demands, even as she lets her knees collapse in an attempt to sit down. He guides her to a gentler landing than she'd have managed alone, half holding her upright to sit with her back against the wall. She doesn't answer him, fighting to clear her head even as her skull protests a sudden, crushing pressure. "Jeyna!?"
She feels the presence in her mind suddenly, without warning. It doesn't gradually build, the way Ben's presence does. This intrusion is rapid, slamming into her full force. Her ears buzz painfully, as if someone is yelling too loudly and deeply for them to register actual sound.
Jeyna flinches, attempting to cover her ears against the pain as her stomach flips, threatening nausea.
"Jeyna!? Who is it? I can't block them!" The frantic, urgent quality to his voice leaks through, but she ignores it. Her head is in a vice grip, tightening every second. Her vision fades, the black around the edges blurring in to smear with the black of his cloak, mingling until her eyes are met with a wall of darkness.
She can dimly feel Ben's hands digging into her shoulders as he is speaking to her, but she can't register the words. Only the mechanical tone of the mask, making nonsense noises that her brain can't decipher. The presence in her mind demands her attention, and threatens to destroy her now flimsy grip on consciousness.
Her lips part, her tongue feels thick as her brain attempts to forge one last connection to the rest of her body. She has to say it, even as she has no idea what sound is trying to force itself from her lips.
"Nathema." The word is only a whisper, and she barely recognizes her own voice gasping it out. Her senses are completely disconnected, leaving only her panic at the presence that fills her skull, pushing her own existence into the edges of reality.
When it finally, mercifully, withdraws, she disappears with it into the void.
