EXCERPTS FROM THE AUDIO JOURNAL OF QUI-GON JINN, JEDI KNIGHT
Coruscant, Senator Amidala's Apartments, 13:5:8
The previous entry was brusquely interrupted when the alarms went on in the Senator's apartments.
It turned out it had been another attempt on Padmé's life.
Someone used a probe droid to introduce two Kouhun centipedes in her bedroom. The poison of these creatures is deadly, but Force be blessed, Anakin and Obi-Wan sensed and killed them before the worst could happen.
Then my son noticed the probe droid hovering outside the window, and flung himself at it, grabbing it before it could flee.
Anakin ran away to help Obi-Wan, while I stayed here to watch over the senator and to alert Mace about what had just happened.
Obi-Wan and Anakin returned a couple of hours later, unharmed but very tired. They told me the probe droid had led them to a Clawdite bounty hunter later identified as Zam Wesell, but that she had been killed before she could reveal to them who had hired her.
The only clues we have about the assassin, is that he is another bounty hunter and that he used a strange looking poisoned dart to kill his accomplice.
ADDENDUM- Jedi Temple, late morning
The Council has decided it would be best if Senator Amidala leaves Coruscant until the man who is threatening her is caught. Thus she has been convinced to return to Naboo, escorted by Anakin, as Obi-Wan and I work to discover who this bounty hunter is and, more importantly, who hired him.
I am a bit concerned about letting my Padawan go to Naboo alone with the senator.
The young woman is strong willed and given Anakin's feelings for her, I am afraid he might be willing to go after her, should she decide to do something potentially dangerous as, for example, try to contact her aides on Coruscant, thus betraying her location.
Senator Amidala is a dedicated, passionate politician and she is leaving only because Chancellor Palpatine ordered her to. I just hope Anakin will be able to impose his will should she try to do something risky.
ADDENDUM- evening
Obi-Wan and I have been at the spaceport to see Anakin and Senator Amidala leave, then we went to a small diner in the business section of Coco Town, to pay a visit to a friend of Obi-Wan called Dexter Jettster.
Dex, as my son calls him, is a Besalik, an impressive neckless mound of flesh, with a great belly poking out beneath his shirt and breeches. He is bald and though he is not exactly young and moves stiffly, he is not a creature anyone wants to fight—especially since he has four huge arms.
Obi-Wan told me Dex is an insuperable source of information and I cannot but agree with him given the speed with whom he recognized the origins of the dart my son handed him—something that the droids in the Jedi temple had failed to do.
Accordingly to him, the weapon is a saberdart of Kamino, a planet set beyond the Outer Rim, about twelve parsecs outside the Rishi Maze, toward the south.
Since neither of us had ever heard about this planet, Obi-Wan and I marched straight to the Archives in search of more information, but, surprisingly, we found nothing about Kamino or the Kaminoans.
After we ran the searching program for a third time without any result, I started to think Dex had given us a wrong information, but my son refused to consider it, claiming his friend has never given him a wrong indication.
He was not even put off by Master Nu's emphatic declaration that "if an item does not appear in our records, it does not exist!"
Instead he mulled over the maps for a long time and then calmly announced me someone must have erased the planet from the archives.
"How can you be so sure?" I asked him, shocked.
"Do you see this?" he said pointing to the three-dimensional map. I nodded "This is where it ought to be... Gravity is pulling all the stars in this area inward to this spot. There should be a star here... but there is not. It is impossible that the gravity's silhouette remains, but that the star and all its planets have disappeared. Had the planet exploded, not only it would be recorded, but the gravity would no longer exist. The only possible answer is that Kamino is still there, in the middle of that empty area, and that someone has, for whatever reason, erased its position from the maps."
"Yes, you are right," I told my son, patting his shoulder as he smiled up at me.
I am content we resolved this mystery, even if this discovery raises disquieting questions.
Who and why erased Kamino from the charts? Only a Jedi can have done it, but no matter how much I meditated on the matter I could not find an answer.
Obi-Wan and I reported our conclusions to Mace and Yoda, and it has been decided that my son will leave tomorrow for Kamino, to track down the bounty hunter, while I will stay here to discover by who, why and when the Archives were tampered with.
Coruscant, Jedi Temple, 13:5:9
Obi-Wan left for Kamino this morning, leaving behind a very emotional Lianne.
My daughter-in-law is feeling the effects of her pregnancy, and burst in tears when she saw her husband's starfighter take off. She had been hoping to spend some time with Obi-Wan and had not expected to see him leave so soon after our return from Ansion.
I tried to comfort her as best as I could and acting on an impulse, I asked her if she wanted to help me in my search in the Archives. Today it was her rest day from the office and I thought it would not have done her good to stay home all alone.
Lianne accepted at once and she has proved very helpful. As a former ship captain, she not only has an extensive knowledge of the galaxy, but she is also very familiar with how information about planets are inserted – or erased – from maps and charts.
Also she managed to put an end to Master Nu's claim that nobody can have tampered with "her archives" by telling the older woman how she once travelled to Kamino when she was a junior officer.
That silenced Jocasta Nu for good, and from that moment on the Archives Master became a precious help in our search, so set she has been in discovering who dared to mess with "her" records.
Unfortunately, whoever erased the data about Kamino, did a very accurate job, and left no evidence behind. Which leads me to believe it must have been a master, for knights do not have access to the computers codes.
Tomorrow I will try to discover if it is possible to have a list of all the masters that accessed the computers in the past…how many years? We don't know when Kamino was erased from the records. It could have been the past month or ten years ago.
This is so confusing. I have meditated deeply on the matter, but the Force gave no answers to my questions. I just hope things will be clearer once Obi-Wan arrives on Kamino and tells us more about the planet and the expert cloners its inhabitants are said to be.
Coruscant, Jedi Temple, 13:5:10
Anakin has arrived on Naboo and reported that he and Senator Amidala will soon leave Theed to retire in a villa in the lake county.
My Padawan seemed relaxed and in a good mood. I encouraged him to do his job well, and not to hesitate to ask for help or advise should he find himself in some difficulty.
Anakin answered he would do it, but I know him too well not to be aware he will contact me only if he cannot avoid it, especially since this is his first solo mission. I just hope his pride won't lead him into some trouble.
ADDENDUM- afternoon
While I was in a meeting with the Council, reporting my conclusions about the tampering with the Archives, a transmission arrived from Kamino.
It was Obi-Wan, of course, and the news he gave us were very disquieting.
My son reported that the Kaminoans are creating an army of human clones for the Republic. He said the army is enormous, more than a million of unities, and that it was commissioned by Master Sifo-Dyas.
The Council was clearly amazed by this last detail and emphatically denied they ever ordered Sifo-Dyas to commission the army. Also Yoda commented how blind the Council and the Jedi Order in general has been not to sense the creation of an army of these dimensions.
I cannot but agree with him. How is it possible we did not sense it? Why has the Force not alerted us? Is it really true our perceptions are now clouded by the Dark Side as Yoda said?
It is a very disturbing thought, but the evidence cannot be denied. I can feel the Dark Lord's hands at work behind this.
Master Adi Gallia wondered about the opportunity of asking the Sith Council if they are aware of what is going on Kamino, but her suggestion was ruled out, at least until we know more about the matter. Moreover, the Council does not wish the Grey Order might interfere with Obi-Wan's main task, the capture of the bounty hunter who tried to kill Senator Amidala.
My son reported that the original host used to create the clones is a bounty hunter called Jango Fett. He strongly suspects he is the assassin he is looking for, thus the Council ordered him to take Fett in custody and bring him on Coruscant for interrogation.
This Jango Fett is a link between the army and the threats against Senator Amidala, threats that clearly do not come from the spice miners on Naboo.