Entry Forty – Days after Geonosis Two Hundred Twenty-Eight
Lia came by today and hauled me out to dinner. I did not expect this, she works almost as many hours as I do and I have it on good authority that she occasionally sleeps amid the clutter of her office. We get along just fine, but all our contact flows digitally. I've only seen her once since the tentacle-swarm incident, when she was decorated for bravery, initiative, and valor as civilian on behalf of the GAR. I didn't even know such awards existed when I suggested she deserved recognition in the after-action report, but Captain Eights made it happen. Morne told me that pinning a medal on a Stegoceps caused a bit of a political dust-up, which only makes me glad I did it. Species does not define allegiance.
As it happens, Lia wanted to talk to me about Morne. Truly, it's really rather embarrassing, how badly I failed to notice. Looking back the signs are blatantly obvious. I suspect I ignored them due to a common blindness regarding inter-species identification, which would be a rather hilarious bit if not so deeply personal.
Romantic holodramas suggest there's a formula for this sort of encounter, but a Jedi and a droid controller don't match up to any sort of template that would appear on the feeds. The result was unbearably awkward, I'm already trying to forget everything that was said. Clearly I lack a future as a romantic gossip.
Ultimately it came down to two things. Lia wanted confirmation that Morne and I were not involved, romantically, and she wanted my permission to pursue an assignation of her own. I'm not sure the latter was actually mine to grant, certainly not formally, but I made vague noises of approval all the same. Lia is a nice, smart woman, closer to Morne in age than I and possesses the shared community background I lack. Nor does she face the prospect of reassignment halfway across the galaxy according to the whim of the Council or the will of the Force. They already get along, so why not?
I would be lying if I said it did not hurt to write that.
I will do my best not to hold Lia's unreasonably stunning figure against her. At least she held off until now, in any sort of contest those curves would have been absolutely infuriating. Whether it was natural courtesy or simply hesitancy on the part of a woman who spends most of her time surrounded by machines, I am grateful that she gave me the chance to speak to Morne first. Everything would have been so much worse otherwise.
We've managed to work together well enough these past two weeks, but it has induced periodically troubling silences. Admittedly there is little Morne can do to help me with medical research, and we jointly struggle to make any progress identifying the true enemy. The source of those horrible twisting swarmers remains unknown, as does whatever means they used to track us for the strike. It is difficult to contextualize an assassination attempt from completely unknown hands.
The software recovered from the lost lab has proven valuable. It helped to parse and sort many otherwise inexplicable molecular processes by discerning equivalents between YH-life and other known pathways. Regrettably we have yet to manage a successful culture of any of the forms. We have discovered that this is not simply ignorance on our part, it seems there is some sort of timed apoptosis mechanism programmed into the biots. They destroy themselves deliberately upon loss of structural integrity. It seems the enemy recognizes that its mysterious nature is among its best weapons.
So far it is winning that contest. The prospect of the next attack terrifies me, but protective measures remain confined to the realm of crazed theorization.
In some ways worrying about love made for a welcome change of pace.