IN THE SHADOW OF THE MANDALORE

Chapter 5 Part 3 THE TRAIL BEGINS WITH THE PAST

It’s SCI-FI FRIDAY! This is the 3rd part of Chapter 5 of my STAR WARS story. (I really do have to get around to finishing it.) Anyway, our hero Dax is sent to the Jedi Hall of Records to do a little research on the Mandalorian suit of armour that was worn during the Jedi Civil War a thousand years ago…

The Jedi Hall of Records was inside the Archives Building, which was a forty story oval built into the Second and Third Strata of the City. The top ten stories of the complex were on the Third Strata, surrounded by lush parks and spacious lanes behind acres of glass transparisteel walls. The air was fresher there, Dax was certain. The bottom thirty stories were a scar on the landscape—although open and wholly visible—they were built into the jagged arc of the bomb blast’s crater, the architecture looking like a statement of defiance. It had the same endless acres of glass transparisteel walls, but instead of parks and recreational luxury, there was a thriving metropolis, complete with distant buildings that drove through the Stratas and Levels above where they transfixed the golden clouds.

Dax found himself awed at the sight of entering through the Third Strata, where a trace of wan sunlight filtered through stained glass mosaics hanging between the four towers. The colours wrapped themselves around the dome and surrounding manse like a colourful quilt. The building was located in the southeast corner of the Temple Complex and a breeze came funnelling in between the buildings. Dax paused, hesitated, and was tempted to take a deep breath, but then remembered the re-breather.

Once they’d made their way through the Main Entrance, passed under the securoCom droids and drones, Dax removed his re-breather, wiping his face with his sleeve and grateful to be breathing in clean, recirculated air. The Hall of Records stood locked in the shadow of the South Tower, which dwarfed the buildings around it where it thrust up out of the Third Level. Rising straight up almost another fifteen hundred stories, Dax looked, but couldn’t see the top of the Tower where it was lost in the yellow haze of the poisoned sky. There were floodlights on the Towers shining like the curious eyes of tiny insects. Dax looked up at the angled, re-enforced stained-glass skylights spanning the distance between the four Towers—each glass plate angled and held by re-enforced cables. There were auto-walks, turbo-lifts, and sky-lanes connecting the four Towers, and as they approached, he could see beings on the moving walkways, riding the escalators, as well in as the glass elevators and turbo-lifts connecting the Temple Complex to the outlying buildings on both levels of the city.

Why have I never been here before? he asked himself.

There was a full hospital, a museum, and SecuroCom headquarters took up all of the sixth floor. The Temple Complex—the four Towers, the Academy, all the buildings—employed almost one million civilians, as well as housing one of the Republic’s largest contingents of Jedi within the Manse District. Dax read the inscribed quartzite placard just inside the entrance to the Hall of Records. The original building once spanned two city quadrants. There was a holo-feed showing the size of the original Hall of Records, comparing it to the present Hall.

That was almost two thousand years ago, Dax reminded himself.

Rebuilt three hundred years after Darth Malak’s bombing, Dax could see the Academy where it stood on its three acres of land. It resembled an over-sized bug, with flying buttresses that looked like legs, hemmed in with greenery and bordered by parks and water fountains as well as an enclosed mezzanine. He turned off the holo-feed and followed Alyssa across the courtyard.

He could see the three other Towers when he looked up through the plate glass windows where the sky-tram connected to the Towers. He had to remind himself that this was the Second Level of the Third Strata of the City. The sky-tram faded over a horizon dotted with stratoscapers and columns that appeared as solid as behm trees in the distance, each column holding a section of the Level above. Each Strata was one hundred Levels. Sky-lanes criss-crossed the city in a never-ending flow of traffic.

They passed sentients sitting at small tables enjoying lunches they’d purchased from street vendors; some were reading datapads; others texting, or scribing, but most of them enjoying the piped in air that allowed them the luxury of not wearing their re-breathers. Some came to watch the Tarisian sun slanting in through the skylights above, the light striking the stained glass plates some insisted was sculpture, and others called design.

Dax looked up at the stained glass and recognized it as Rogue’s Halo. The different colours that splayed out on the durocrete floor around him reminded him of the moon’s surface; the light hitting the crystals suspended above gave the impression of asteroids. It’s a Jedi symbol only a few would understand, he told himself.

Inside, the Hall was open and cavernous, spiralling upwards where each floor had its own directory. Dax realized a person could spend months inside before he even scratched the surface of whatever he was looking for.

A thousand years of history occupied the first ten floors alone, after that, pre-Invasion history: the Galactic War, the Hyperspace War, the Jedi Wars; purges and schisms. There were subcategories for Jedi Masters, Council members, Knights and Padawans. Birth records, death certificates, marriages, and annulments—every document ever written out or printed up on flimsi-plast was in the Hall of Records.

An elderly Rodian female, her grey snout and loose hanging antennae convincing Dax she was older than any Rodian he’d met before, came out of the shadows. She held a cane, tapping the hard floor as she moved along.

“Alyssa, is that you? Such a pleasant surprise. I thought I smelled that beautiful scent as soon as you walked in. I said to myself, ‘I’ve got to see if it’s her.’ And look, it is.”

Alyssa bowed low; pressing her palms together, elbows out, her fingers touching her lips in a Rodian salute.

“Biht Tobba, Dyatha-Lun” she smiled. “I’ve missed you, old friend.”

“And now who’s lying?” the old Rodian cackled, placing an arm in the crook of Alyssa’s elbow and walking her toward a desk in a dark corner. The lights above them lit up as they passed under unseen sensors. “You haven’t come by in years and you have the nerve to tell me that you’ve missed me?”

The old Rodian looked at Dax.

“And you brought a friend? I thought I told you your lovers should never be of an age your own children would be,” she chided her.

“He’s my padawan—an Apprenticed Knight after tonight’s Ceremony, that is. This is Dax.”

“Dax?” The old Rodian looked from Dax back to Alyssa and smiled. “A padawan? And human, no less? Knowing your partiality toward humans, I’m surprised Setti agreed to letting your first padawan be one. I thought he’d be certain to assign you a Zabrek, or maybe a Trandoshan. That would’ve made more sense.”

“Humans are cleaner.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that,” Dax laughed.

“Twi’leki females get like that at times, and can you blame her really? Have you ever smelled a Trandoshan? That’s why she’s always wearing a different scent. I told her it’s going to get her killed one day. It’s not good to let your enemy smell you before you approach. I suppose you’re looking forward to the Ceremonies tonight?”

“To be honest, I’d forgotten all about it,” Dax said looking at Master P’oh. “What am I supposed to do now?”

“We’ll get you there on time.”

The Rodian smiled. “I was never partial to the martial aspects of being a Jedi. I was always somewhat bookish even as a Youngling. But we each have our role to play in life. Besides, it’s safer here,” she added with a laugh.

“Dax, this irascible old creature, is Dyatha-Lun,” Alyssa said with a smile. “She knows every archive category here. If you need to find anything on Taris, she’s the one you want to ask.”

“You do me a disservice,” Dyatha-Lun laughed. “You forgot to tell him I also know where to find them.”

She looked up at the concentric floors where they appeared to meet at the top of the dome. Dax followed her gaze. There were walkways criss-crossing high above and he wondered if they went all the way to the top floors.

“In a place like this, the most important thing is knowing where to find it.”

“I’m sure it is,” Dax agreed.

“We have a bit of a mystery on our hands, Dye,” Alyssa said, helping the old Rodian into her chair beside the desk.

“A mystery? Oh, I do like a good mystery.” She smiled, and there was a twinkle to her eyes as she turned to look first at Alyssa, and then at Dax.

“It’s going to take all of your Jedi senses to get to the bottom of this one, I’m afraid.”

“Then it’s a good thing I still have them!” She laughed again, rocking back and forth in her chair as she did. “What is it?”

“We believe we’re on the trail of a Mandalorian Sith.”

“A Sith? On Taris?”

“Dax can fill you in on the details. It’s an exciting story.”

“Me? But I can’t. I have to prepare for the Ceremonies, remember—or at least pretend to get ready.”

“The Grand Master’s waiting for his report.”

“You can’t leave.” He shook his head; there was a note of disappointment in his voice that brought a smile to Alyssa’s lips.

“I’m almost certain he’ll want to talk over old times—just like Dye will if I stay here too long. I’m too much of a distraction to do us any good.”

“I’m afraid she’s right. I do tend to get side-tracked.”