Entry Twenty-Six – Days after Geonosis, One Hundred Fifty-Six
Force preserve me, but I truly hope the next after-action report does not mandate yet another detailed description of the injuries I incurred. How do the knights manage it? Combat training goes far, no doubt, but lightsabers are poorly suited to block shrapnel or shockwaves. Perhaps they can blanket themselves using the Force, but I have never thought of that technique as sufficient to properly impede the devastation advanced weapons are capable of producing.

Truthfully I do not understand. Perhaps it is merely denial. If the warrior's sentiment is shared between Jedi Knight and Stoneweb Runner then I can begin to grasp the method, and the deception. Isoxya reported herself uninjured following this brutal altercation, despite the obvious evidence of the Yellow's blows in the form of no less than six holes in her armor.

I now suspect many such glancing strikes, minor scratches, and serious soft-tissue bruises go unreported. This seems particularly likely given how few of my fellows seem to compose their own after action reports. Jedi Council debriefings have long been handled informally, with all involved trusting to the Force rather than dry verbiage. The new duty imposed by military rank has apparently been largely co-opted by the clones. Captain Eights offered to write my report, even though he was not present for any portion of the incident and his subordinates only witnessed the closing moments. He seemed almost disappointed when I insisted on producing it myself.

I am glad I insisted. The assembly of that dry, miserable document served to anchor my thoughts at last. It also adjusted my understanding. We did win a victory, one far more substantial than my first impression indicated. They were producing contact biots in bulk, quantities suitable for a possible mass attack, not simply another test. Morne estimates that we set their development back by several months at minimum, and I cannot fault his math. That will help. My report has been appended to a request for enhancements to the underworld surveillance network and utility monitoring structures, including all airflow functions. By the time they are ready to attack again there will be a warning system in place.

Or at least I can tell myself that. It offers some measure of comfort against the warped blackness I see whenever I close my eyes. Something exists on the opposite side of this, and I believe it knows about me now. A Jedi should not retain fear, but I confess I am terrified of this thing. I wish I truly understood what was happening, why this is unfolding.

Morne spoke to Xeril and arranged to allow me to observe the interrogation of the two captured workers and suggest any questions I felt appropriate. Police interrogation is a slow, grim process I would have preferred not to see. Laws were obeyed, but persistent, repeated questioning to break all resistance down and lead to a blubbering confession does not make for pleasant viewing.

Regrettably the workers knew almost nothing, and I do not think they withheld anything in the end. They were committed Separatists, of course, but very low in the power structure. Their recruiter remained anonymous and their on-site superior was a modified protocol droid. They simply followed pre-set instructions and worked to maintain conditions within set boundaries. They had no knowledge of what the overall process actually did. Their droid supervisor self-destructed quite completely. It left no clues behind.

I am beginning to wonder whether the source of the YH-lifeforms, which I suspect is linked to the horrid black-and-yellow thing hiding past the edges of my vision, is even properly part of the CIS. Perhaps it is something far stranger, allied to them to serve a private interest. Certainly the Separatists would not turn down a potential source of devastating bioweapons. Despite the laws of war they have not hesitated to develop and deploy such materials elsewhere, though they have been much more conventional varieties. I wonder if they truly understand the full scope of what they have unleased.

I know I do not.

Progress on the research front remains regrettably limited, and this time I am directly responsible. By blasting apart the central tank I ruined the production environment. Everything died; nothing but small quantities of decaying biots could be recovered. Understanding these lifeforms represents an unsurpassed challenge, one I am ill-equipped to tackle. I fear that it will not be solved in time, or worse that the being on the opposite side will solve us instead. What terrors it could unleash then I can barely conceive, but they will be dreadful.

Notes
I would submit as evidence for both the Jedi Order's denial of injury and their lack of proper after-action reporting, Revenge of the Sith, specifically how Anakin and Obi-Wan just sort of walk off after the big rescue of the Chancellor from Dooku and Grievous like they just got back from a light lunch. Of course, this was yet another weakness of the Jedi Order that Palpatine was able to use against them, because if the clones were writing all the reporting – which seems logical – Palpatine could censor the official record while the war was going on without the Jedi Order even aware of it. Nema writing her own reports fits in with the very existence of this extremely lengthy diary in the first place.

Separatist use of biological weapons in the Clone Wars is well-established in numerous sources in both versions of canon, perhaps most famously in the Blue Shadow Virus plot.