Findings Log — 11247
Journal Submission
Dr Mary Au'Rona
The Converso took a long time to recover from my interview with Darth Bane. I was glad for the busy work to distract me from my conversation with the dark lord. He unnerved me, unsettled my stomach and my sense of equilibrium. Even as a ghost of his former self, his presence was palpable, and lingered long after he was gone.
I still see Darth Bane's eyes when a shade goes bump in the night.
While diagnostics ran on the ship's flight systems, I spent hours and hours querying the Great Holocron. The dimensions of the Jedi archives were impossible to fathom as every entry seemed to float in a jumbled, indecipherable order. I could spend my whole life searching for as specific piece of data and never find it amongst the multitude.
To complicate matters, Artie would not wake from low-power mode. The little guy was still ported into the computer, but completely non-responsive. I tried everything I could think of to revive him, but eventually I had to return to the ship's systems. The Intentus worked; but without Artie I could not collate or sort the plunder.
When the work turned tedious, I found my thoughts returning to the journal. Prophecies and saviors, overlords and underdogs, and the cataclysms that spawn them… Such loss, unaccountable suffering and pain, was it all necessary?
Trust in the Force. Pop's words echoed through my head and for the first time I understood why. Trust.
I knew the answer in my heart but my head was not ready to accept it. I busied myself with data logs, and tried to plot out a new course back to Marleyvane. I would need to get Artie repaired and this data in the hands of someone smarter and less emotionally involved.
"I told you I was poison," I said to Artie and hung my head. "All this time chasing down Jedi legends, and here I am writing my own."
The navicomputer took a long time to process my request and when finished it chimed to signal that it was impossible to get home. Not without Artie to run the navi-calculations.
I shouted and banged my hand against the console. "Artie, please help me!"
The tears burned down my cheeks and didn't help me calm down. I tore through the cockpit, upending anything that wasn't bolted down. I screamed and shouted till I was hoarse. When I tried to kick over a waste removal unit, it felt like I broke my big toe. I fell to my butt and laughed at my own antics.
I don't know how long I sat there feeling sorry for myself—and Artie— but I snapped out of it when I realized that the hyperdrive was ramping up all on its own. Sorrow evaporated instantly under the white-hot fear of a death in hyperspace. My hand shot out for the throttle, but too late. The Converso leapt into hyperspace and took me along for a ride.
Travelling through hyperspace is a stressful thing when done under even the most careful of circumstances. At any moment a gravity well could swallow you up and you'd never know it because you'd die instantly. This leap was uncontrolled and by all accounts, completely unguided. It might have been a misfire as a result of Darth Bane's EMP, for all I could tell.
I started running quick numbers to figure out a way to safely stop short, but then a message chimed in the viewport. My instinct was to ignore it, but by a stroke of providence—and a frantic nerves—I accidentally activated its contents anyway.
The message popped open and showed me a technical readout of a system called Ahch-To, credited as the birthplace of the Jedi Religion and the final resting place of Luke Skywalker. The data file had R3-J9's fingerprints on it.
"Thank you Artie," I said, and wiped the tears from my cheeks. I looked over at his little body, still frozen in place, and a smile pulled at my cheeks till they hurt.
White lines elongated in the luminous cockpit view screen. They squiggled and blurred until they righted themselves as individual stars in the great expanse. Before me was a glowing world of blue and white. It did not appear like a great secret, or a mystery lost to the ages. Ahch-To was nothing more than a tiny world of unending oceans and hearty wildlife.
Something about speaking to the ship like Artie was listening made me feel comfortable, like I was never really alone…
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I left Ahch-To with a reinforced faith in my new perspective on the Jedi religion. The Prime learned what I suspected, what Mace Windu feared and what Darth Bane exploited: the unstoppable power of a prophecy.
There was still so much to learn from these relics and the beings who used them. But the Intentus was learning and collating, R3 was still working, even though he couldn't move or speak. The Converso's computer was running what appeared to be an unending decryption dialog with GHC-1. I myself disappeared into a frenzy of data-retrieval and dissemination programs. The Prime, the Chosen One, the One Who Brings Balance, the Son of Suns, the Baalanra, the Immaculate, and there were so many more.
I sought out the most relevant stories and compiled them into this journal.
Thousands of generations of Jedi lessons will soon be accessible. I could spend the rest of my life collating and disseminating the stories; yet never tell one one-thousandth of a percent of its magnitude. But for all my achievement, it never truly felt as though I had reached the potential of this great discovery. A nagging feeling that I was failing to find the endgame, that my work was not done, haunted every step of progress I took.
I found myself writing down everything I could manage, hoping I would find purpose in the effort. Do the Science, I told myself, let the results worry about themselves. I worked day and night on collecting these stories as a proof. I was not even sure what I was trying to prove anymore.
"I don't know what to do without you, little buddy," I said as I leaned back from the terminal. I glanced in Artie's direction but a jolt of guilt made me quickly avert my eyes. I couldn't stand to see him that way, or to think about it being all my fault. I rubbed my eyes and tried to remember the last time I showered.
"If I take you back to Naboo, they'll draw and quarter me for abusing a hero. If I take you back to Marleyvane, they'll almost certainly take all my research away, probably the Converso and most definitely you. I'd be stuck doing tours and lectures while lesser xenopsychs and politicians take over my findings."
I paused to imagine how Artie would have replied and almost chuckled.
"Yes, lesser xenopsychs than me exist. You know what I mean…"
I owed it to myself, to Lor San Tekka, to Moira and her heroic father, to the Diath's, the Korunnai and Basilisk, the legacy of Iridonia and Dathomir, and the tragic young lovers of Jedha: to change the narrative. The Force had chosen them all; and Pop was right, it had chosen me as well.
I got up from my station and crossed the cockpit to check my coordinates.
"Huh, I forgot about that," I said looking at the monitor. In the top-right corner of the screen, there was a suppressed message still flashing red. I had turned off its warning klaxon when I arrived at Ahch-To. I lounged in the conn and looked over the nav-console while I played the message.
But nothing came out, no audio or video. I turned and checked the monitor to find it was a data packet from Artie. He either sent it from the grave or had it prepared as a fail-safe, in case something offlined him again. Whatever the reason: I found out that the ingenious R3-J9 was keeping tabs on an unknown party, crisscrossing the cosmos almost as much as we were.
Artie called it his "Heart Project." Can you believe that?
He left me an up-to-date record of this important project with coordinates in real-time. I would not allow the brave droid's final request to go unfulfilled. Not after all we had been through, and all we stood to lose upon our return. "I wonder if the technicians will even let you remember me?"
The words instantly made me taste battery acid on my tongue. Through a cloud of stinging tears I refused to allow fall, I plugged in the most recent coordinates and the Converso leapt into the blurry highway between space and time. I completed my journal on this final leg of the journey and left a few pages open for whatever end awaited me.
The Converso ducked out of hyperspace and I found we were in the middle of nothingness. It was empty, open space without a system in sight. My hands quickly clicked through the scanners and found that there was another ship out here with me. It was sitting still, waiting for and hailing me.
I brought it up on my side-monitor. A converted YT-1300 that looked like it was pieced together from the skeletons of a dozen other ships, popped into view and showed a litany of upgrades that made the Millennium Falcon so unique.
When we docked, a blue and white astromech with silver trim and a bit of an attitude problem, strolled onto my ship like he owned it.
"Hello there," I said as it beeped and whistled to itself and rolled past me.
"What took you so long?" The R2 droid finally said to me after a long tirade that reminded me of Artie.
I smiled and said, "I came as fast as I could. My name is Mary. Dr Mary Au'Rona and this is the…"
"The Converso, and your droid 00J399NJ0019, was tasked with collecting a record on the Chosen of the Force. The Whills are not patient beings, or don't you know? They've been waiting for almost two full days for you. Where is R3-J9, anyway?"
R2-D2 was upset when I showed him Artie's state, but understood once he heard my tale at length. He told me all about his time with the Skywalkers and their progeny. Artoo was charged with collecting the age of the Galactic Empire, the Great Jedi Purge, and its results for someone he called the "Keepers."
"The Keepers?" I asked.
Artoo beeped and chirped, "The Keepers of the Whills and their disciples collate and disseminate the monumental histories of the galaxy. They do not care about politics, only truth."
The Keepers commanded Artoo to compile the tale of the Chosen One from his time amongst the Skywalkers. But to expand on that, he had to enlist an old friend of his: A hero from their days together in the Naboo Naval Corps, with an impressive reputation for data-processing and an interesting research fellowship opportunity. He told me I had better finish my work so he could finish his.
The Keepers chose Artoo, who chose Artie, and what they got was the granddaughter of Lor San Tekka. I was chosen to deliver and disseminate Artie's findings to Keepers of the Whills themselves. And barely two days late.
How about that absolute in an ever-changing galaxy?
The End and May the Force be with You
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