Entry Thirty-Seven – Days after Geonosis, Two Hundred Two
The Council has read my report and heard my testimony, but there has been no significant action. Nor does it seem likely there will be. I cannot blame them overmuch. General Grievous has launched a major offensive across a huge swath of the Outer Rim, and so far his success is stunning. No resources can be spared to seek out distant, largely theoretical threats in the face of this immediate emergency. Worse, there is a growing greater problem: casualties. The scope of the Clone Wars expands day by day while our numbers shrink apace. While numerous Initiates have been pushed forward into Padawan status at an accelerated rate there is only so much such measures can achieve. For every crisis the Council dispatches a Jedi knight to address, many others must be left to fester. Even the Force cannot allow us to be in two places at once.
It appears that the Supreme Chancellor, by contrast, has a considerably larger asset pool to draw upon, but I question the utility of such resources. The GAR has formed a Joint Task Force with the Underworld Police to address the issue and brought in a group of Special Operations Clones. Those men are a curious group indeed. They make me nervous and seem more like their bounty hunter model than actual soldiers. They interviewed me, Morne, and Lia at length, and their questions were smart enough, but it seems clear they are treating this as a Separatist bioterrorism operation. That is at best only part of it, I know there is something more, something deeper. The thing that controls these biots, this master of an alternate path of life, it goes beyond Republic or Separatist, perhaps before even. I believe, no, I know, this conflict is not simply a component of the Clone Wars. It is tied to something fundamental.
This task force may flush out some hidden cells and even recovered new biot forms, but I do not have confidence that it shall pierce the heart of this threat. They are earnest and skilled, but they do not have the correct skills. I am not truly certain what those skills might be. Certainly I cannot say that I possess them. It worries me more than anything that those who do might all be on the Separatist side of this war.
Absent further assistance I can only continue to investigate on my own. The analysis program, at least, will be helpful. For the first time I have a software suite designed to compare systems from different trees of life. Even with the limited samples recovered to date this enables vast progress. If only YH-life could be cultured, then I could run real experiments, perhaps even develop specified countermeasures. At least then if the task force managed to find anything I could say I'd be ready.
On a somewhat unrelated note, I have been oddly deluged with messages of sympathy following this incident and people keep coming to the clinic despite Isoxya prowling about outside. The Stoneweb Runner is incensed at missing the most recent struggle, though in truth I cannot see how her presence would have helped. The swarm was clearly designed to overwhelm lone warriors, and it is extraordinarily fearsome in that regard. I despair to think on what might have occurred had those water tanks not been present.
I have no idea how to react to this expression of public praise. I am not some kind of hero, just a doctor, and how does barely surviving an assassination attempt qualify as a great deed?
The people of the Bucket seem to think I can do the impossible. It beckons to me a frightful harbinger. If the black and wavy thing that stalks me cannot be stopped, the failure will only redouble their hopes. So much invested in the Jedi, and worse such a fragile and limited vessel as I.
Notes
The offensive launched here is canonical. It refers to the actions launched by Grievous in connection with the construction of the Skytop Station listening post.