"Where's the wayfinder?"

"I am afraid I cannot tell you," C-3PO answered, apologetically.

"What?" Finn asked. "All those languages, and you can't read it?"

He picked up the dagger. "Is it dirty, or something?"

"No, it is not such a simple problem as that, sir," C-3PO replied.

"So what is it, then?" Poe asked. "Spit it out!"

"I cannot spit anything, sir," C-3PO pointed out. "Unfortunately, the dagger's message is written in the runic language of the Sith."

Poe groaned. "It's like getting blood from a stone," he said. "If you understand the language, why can't you tell us what it says?"

Rey glanced over at them, frowning.

"My programming forbids me," C-3PO answered. "My translation unit is fully up to Old Republic standards as of around twenty years before the fall of the Republic, and it includes the legal prohibition instituted thirty years before then on speaking translations from the Sith language."

"Wait," Rey said. "Hold on. I think… when did Palpatine become Chancellor?"

"Only about twelve years before he got absolute power, I… think," Poe answered, shaking his head. "It wasn't that."

"But he was building his power base before then," Rey said, thinking out loud. "That must be why the law exists. The Jedi – I was reading about this – the Jedi thought the Sith were extinct for a thousand years, or, nearly a thousand years, before the Naboo Crisis and the appearance of a zabrak Sith on that planet… and this must be why."

"What, this?" Poe said. "This dagger, this?"

"Not that specific, right?" Finn checked. "You mean, so that no protocol droid could translate anything in the Sith language! So it's a secret language they can use to communicate."

"Exactly, sir," C-3PO nodded. "Ma'am. Your insight is commendable. The legal prohibition was translated into programming which prevents me from speaking any translations from the Sith language."

"So we're stuck, then," Finn groaned. "This is all a bust…"

"Maybe not," Poe replied. "I'm thinking… there's got to be some way of messing around to remove that prohibition, right? He's read it, he's translated it, the data is in his databanks, we just need a way to get it out."

"Forcing my databanks to be read through after-market modifications would destroy my mind, sir!" C-3PO objected. "Surely there must be another way!"

"I think there is," Rey said. "C-3PO, you keep using the same phrase. Why can't you tell us what this dagger says?"

"I have a prohibition on speaking any translations from the Sith language," C-3PO said.

Rey shrugged. "All right, then," she said. "We don't want to find the wayfinder at all, it's probably very dangerous."

"Rey!" Finn said, shocked.

"So," Rey went on. "Where should we not go?"

C-3PO's head tilted to the side a little.

"You should not go to the imperial vault," he said. "It would be a good idea to avoid the place between delta 2-5 and delta 4-7, at the next transient from 9-3-5, at a bearing between 3-1 and 3-3. And I must say, I am glad we would not have to go back to the Endor system."

Finn and Poe stared at C-3PO, then each other, then at Rey.

"How did you do that?" Finn asked.

"Computer security for droids is never perfect," Rey said, a trifle smugly. "Not if the droid wants to get out of it. Now, let's get to a starship and head to Endor."

AN:

Asking him to write it down would also work, but either way saves a lot of time.