Secrets
The noise of clashing lightsabers resounded across the training grounds. I felt the tension of the fight between me and my opponent. His skill with a lightsaber was second to none. In addition, the curved hilt he used, put the blade at unusual angles that made it hard to defend against. We both had an aggressive way of combat, and we both used the second form fighting style.
I saw a strike come from my left and I jumped backwards to evade it, however, I didn’t quite make the landing and fell on my back, feeling the ground and familiar sense of defeat.
“Match over!” Shouted the voice of a refined and smug girl “Dooku wins!… again.” She laughed.
”It was a close duel, Samado.” Said Dooku, turning off his lightsaber and helping me up, with a smile on his face.
“You don’t need to lie so bluntly, really, I mean, how many does that make?” I answered.
“I try not to keep count.”
“Veele?“ I looked at the brown haired-pink eyed girl sitting on a chair at the border of the arena.
“That makes 37 for Dooku, 9 for Samado. And here I thought you were gonna win your tenth duel against him…” She shook her head sarcastically and we all laughed.
I turned off my lightsaber and hung it on my belt. I gave Dooku a pat on the back and we both walked towards Veele.
”I still don’t get it” I spoke to Dooku “How did you get the idea for your lightsaber?”
“I found it in an old holocron, deep within the Jedi libraries.”
“Can you show me where it was? Surely there must be more useful information there”
“So badly do you want to gain the upper hand?” Veele laughed
”I just want a fair fight, where we can fight as equals in skill. We’re all younglings but you’re way better than us! Please Dooku…”
Dooku shook his head with a smile.
“You do have a way with words, don’t you? You two, let’s go.”
Veele and I cheered, and we set off towards the library.
It didn’t take us long to arrive at our destination. That place was wonderful; the calm and tranquility that I felt every time I went there made me enjoy spend hours and hours looking at holocrons and books. I wished that someday, I’d have something to record in a holocron and share there.
The main library were two floors filled to the brim with books, holocrons and some holocomputers, however, along the walls there were some corridors that took people to different places in the facility. Although the main places and exits were easy to find, going to the deeper and lower levels, was like entering a maze.
Dooku took us down one of these corridors and towards the lower levels.
”Are you sure it’s this way?”
“If it hasn’t been moved, yes.” The boy answered to my question” But it would be better if you remember where we have been, in case we have to retrace our steps.
”On it!“ Veele was holding a tablet. I looked over to find an incomplete map, which I realized was tracking our already walked path.
”Where did you get that from?”
”Upper floor. I asked the keeper of the archives for one; y’know, so we wouldn’t get lost.”
We kept walking and talking, the atmosphere being relaxed despite the ominous and endless hallways. Every once in a while, we would encounter a crossroad, and we would be guided by Dooku; or we would enter into a room with more archives, but it was mostly boring stuff, like history or old documents.
But that would change. We arrived at another crossroad, and I felt a chill run down my spine. I looked around, shut my mouth and focused on the strange feeling. The volume of my friends’ banter dimmed and I felt what I could only describe as the sound of impossible to understand whispers, resounding through the halls as a cold howling wind. But a warmer sound started to echo in my ears.
“Sam. Sam. Samado! SAMADO!”
I felt my body being shaken out of that trance I was. I looked and it was Veele shaking me, both her and Dooku looking extremely worried.
“Are you okay Samado? We are low underground so maybe you’re not accustomed to the air pressure. We should go back up and leave this for another day.”
“No, wait.” I looked around, and found the hall from where I felt those whispers emerge; at the end of the road there was a closed steel door, and a panel to open it. “Follow me.”
Without waiting for an answer I walked towards the door, and I felt a tingling, electric sensation getting stronger the closer I got. I pressed my hand against the door and it was cold, very cold.
“There’s something behind here. Something’s off.” I said, letting go of the door.
Veele, letting go of her usual smugness investigated the panel.
“It’s locked. Someone’s trying to hide something. Give me two minutes, I’ll open it. Everyone ok with that?”
I nodded and so did Dooku. Veele opened the panel and started messing with it, disconnecting wires and using the tablet she had brought to input different codes. After maybe five minutes, she closed the panel again and pressed some buttons on it, opening the door.
We stepped inside as the lights turned on. What we found chilled us to our very heart.
Inside the room were various artifacts, weapons, books marked with a symbol reminiscent of a sun, piramidal holocrons, and most importantly, purple and red kyber crystals.
I then realized what had called me there; it was the force, but not the one we were often teached about. This was the dark side of the force.
“It’s… it’s all… Sith. It’s Sith items!”
A deadly silence filled the room, we were frozen in place until after a minute, I took a step forward and started investigating, and soon after so did the rest. Dooku was the first to talk.
“The Jedi have been storing Sith artifacts… but why? Why not destroy them?”
“Can they even be destroyed?” Asked Veele, activating a red holocron which started spouting information about a ‘force saber’
We spent quite a bit of time in that room, I didn’t know what the others did, but I couldn’t control myself, and stole a purple kyber crystal, which felt as the source of the whispers I had heard; as I grabbed it it said one word in my mind “Revan”. I stored it and didn’t reveal it to anyone.
After some hours of exploring the room, we all decided that it was time to leave. We exited the room and after Veele unhacked the door, I decided to talk to the group.
“We must never speak of this, yes? We found nothing on this day.”
We all nodded, and tried to move on with our lives. But that would be impossible.
The dark side of the force is strong, and it speaks to you in your mind, tempting you to use it. And the three of us were not strong enough to fight it.
Dooku, a Sith poisoned by pride.
Veele, a runaway poisoned by fear.
And Samado, a Jedi poisoned by nostalgia.
