The datapad Sareh had pulled out turned out to be older than it initially looked... and, well, far more disappointing than I'd expected. At first glance, it seemed to promise everything. I made C-3PO get us a secure reader that was not linked to anything within the library or the temple, and only then did I let her use it.
What welcomed us after she had slotted it in was a dense Sith script, filled with archaic annotations, next to diagrams of half-corrupted data. Apparently, Sareh has been doing her best to decode it since she found it, which was, by her words, three years ago.
"Anything you are seeing in here... These aren't primary sources," She explained as we were scrolling through another block of broken-looking text. At the same time, C-3PO hovered nearby, projecting translations at a pace only he could maintain, trying to be helpful. Which also meant he many times just started to speak, only to be stopped by Sareh scrolling past what he was looking at, "They're, for the most part, commentaries from an unknown Dark Side user who tried to work with the original, Sith Holocron, the data is derived from."
"Yes, that does make sense. Quite so," C-3PO agreed at once. "Marginal theories are noticeable within the deciphered parts, along with comparative analyses, and... oh dear... There is quite a lot of speculation in here. Honestly, Sith scholars were dreadfully fond of pretending certainty where none should be."
"Khm," Sareh didn't look annoyed, but I could tell she was... a little bit frustrated, making me smile. "I told you," she said quietly, seated cross-legged before the terminal, "These were already worked on by me for the past years... those are... um... my speculations. Khm... Anyway... What is originally inside, you may ask? Translation attempts. And those were written long after the apex period of the old Sith Empire. Well into the Old Republic era... mostly. So, I am translating a translation that may have also been translated... That's why it's messy. Whoever found the texts, even they noted that they were mostly chasing ghosts."
That kind of tracked. What we had were notes from Sith who lived thousands of years after their original empire had fallen, and they were trying to reconstruct techniques they no longer understood or knew how to bring those tricks back to their present. Even by then, their Sith Alchemy was reduced to nothing more than a tale, and their manufacturing processes were described only as secondhand rumors. I had noticed that there were references to 'living metals,' whatever that meant, along with some rituals, self-sustaining constructs... but there was never an actual 'how to do it' section within the data.
"It's almost tragic," Vila said, leaning back in her chair, arms folded, slowly losing her interest. "All that cruelty, all that ambition… and they still couldn't get it back. Not that I will shed a tear for them, as the whole species died out for a reason."
"I agree with you," Sareh replied with a nod. "Longing for the gone, glory days of the past... It motivates someone to do something, yes, but it's an unhealthy obsession that will go nowhere. Knowing the past is good, but it's not the future. You can't bring back the good old days, as you can't bring back the dead. It's the law of entropy..."
At that, C-3PO cleared his throat, even if he didn't have one; it was his polite, artificial way to interject.
"If I may," he said, "this pattern is not unique to Sith traditions." He highlighted one section in the untranslated part, "The Jedi, too, lost a considerable amount of knowledge over the millennia. Rebuilding often involves, how shall I put this, educated guesswork. I can recognize this part to use the same sources as some of the texts Master Luke had also collected. I can tell that there is a possibility of matching their sources."
"Really?" Vila perked up, "Can you bring those up? I mean the sources, not the books."
"That is… a possibility," C-3PO conceded, "They aren't in the restricted catalogue."
Apparently, this was also something Sareh had hoped would happen, and soon we were looking through thousand-year-old texts, trying to find an actual clue, so just like that, hours passed without us noticing. We cross-referenced Sareh's fragments against the archives C-3PO had provided, recovered journals, and then the Old Republic and even Republic intelligence summaries from centuries ago. Most of it went nowhere, of course. Sometimes we noticed identical names that led us on a wild goose chase because they were just the same names, not the same persons.
I was just leaning back, rubbing my eyes that started to feel strained, staring at the library screens for hours, right until C-3PO paused mid-sentence.
"Oh my," he said, "That's… curious."
"Huh?" Vila looked up immediately, wiping her mouth because of the boredom she was feeling within, "What is?"
"Well," the golden droid began in a happy voice, rotating one of the hovering text panels toward us, "this marginal note appears to reference a conflict outside the usual Sith–Jedi framework. By my very precise and cross-examined opinion, there is a similar mention here of a prolonged war involving an empire that was not aligned with either tradition. After narrowing it down and measuring the dates and style, there is a possible match. There is a 92% possibility that the original fragments Lady Sareh was studying and what I found are from the same era."
"Data, please," I leaned forward, refocusing. "Less fluff. How far back are we talking about?"
"Approximately 3,600 years ago," C-3PO replied, looking at me.
"That narrows it down to practically nothing," Vila muttered, pinching the ridge of her nose.
"No, it doesn't narrow it down." Sareh quipped, flipping through the data, "Do you have something else matching?"
"Yes, of course," C-3PO brightened. "A name is preserved both in my findings and yours, Lady Sareh." He then highlighted the word: Zakuul.
"Mine doesn't have that..." Sareh murmured, furrowing her brows.
"Oh, but it does," C-3PO explained, highlighting another part that Sareh translated, "It is an easy mistake to make, because the dialect used here has the same writing style for different vowels. It can be mistranslated. Here! This is the correct translation..." He added, retranslating Sareh's works, and to my surprise, the girl wasn't even angry... instead, I could feel a bit of fear coming from her... Huh... that's... not good.
"Oh..." Sareh went very still in the end, taking a deep breath. "…You're sure?" she asked, looking at her.
"Why of course!" C-3PO nodded, pleased to be useful. "Quite. The spelling matches multiple independent sources I helped Master Luke translate from around this era, because there was a surprising hole in Old Republic and Old Jedi history. Somehow... the Jedi records here are… sparse, almost deliberately so."
"Zakuul," Sareh repeated softly, then exhaled. "So it did happen... I hoped that wouldn't be the case."
"Um..." Vila frowned at her, "So you know that name... You see... We don't. Care to explain to these two, stupid little Jedi, what the hell that means?"
"Yes," Sareh said, turning to us. "It means trouble."
"..." That didn't sit well with me, because now I could tell that the girl was indeed afraid. "Start explaining," I said, narrowing my eyes, but I wasn't speaking to her, but to our dear droid friend.
Of course, C-3PO obliged, projecting additional context as he spoke.
"Zakuul was the capital world of what became known as the Eternal Empire," he began. "Of what Master Luke had managed to rediscover, it was a civilization that rose rapidly from Wild Space and, most unusually, did so while suppressing both Sith and Jedi forces, waging wars against both sides."
"Against... both?" Vila asked, surprised.
"Indeed," C-3PO continued, "From the texts that Master Luke had collected, within that empire, Force sensitivity was regulated and weaponized under a single ruling lineage. The Empire's ruler, known publicly as Valkorion, presented himself as a benevolent god-emperor."
"Yeah," Sareh's lips tightened. "Benevolent... He was an ancient Sith in disguise. And when I say ancient, I mean someone from the old... OLD days..."
"That," C-3PO added quickly. "Is in the restricted... section..."
"Not in my restricted section!" Sareh chuckled, "We have writings about that part. They didn't just conquer worlds, for the fun of it; the plan was to absorb them, sometimes, literally." She said as she looked at us. "That so-called god-emperor was a monster."
"Are we now... searching for robots that were made by them?" Vila groaned, rubbing her face.
"No, I don't think so..." Sareh shook her head, chewing on her lips, "They weren't droid users, I mean... This type of interaction and operation... No. This doesn't fit. A droid is not Force-sensitive, and that was a big thing with them. I think we are dealing with something from that period, but from the Sith side of the three-way wars."
"I can't really help with much more," C-3PO's voice started again, sounding ashamed of himself. "The Jedi of the time chose not to preserve extensive records as the conflict was devastating. Entire sectors were destabilized, with the Republic nearly collapsing. Now that I count the times that almost happened or did happen, it's quite interesting."
"Thinking about it," Vila said quietly, ignoring C-3PO, who kept bringing up dates on how many times the Republic had almost fallen, "If the Sith developed weapons to resist this Eternal Empire, that was big on using the force... And we're dealing with droids that resist the Force... That tracks, no?"
"It does make sense. But then again..." I agreed, "This doesn't get us closer to where we should look for them, besides this... Zakuul? Is that planet still around or something?"
"That is behind the restricted parts, I'm so sorry," C-3PO said at once, already giving us an answer that it was indeed around and known.
"We wouldn't be going there anyway," Sareh interjected, her fingers drumming on the table, clearly thinking, "As C-3PO said, the Eternal Empire fought against the Jedi and the Sith. They even decimated the New Sith Empire that existed at the time... If we want to find clues, we must go... there... I think."
"You think?" Vila asked, raising an eyebrow.
"She does." I nodded, gazing at Sareh, "She is pretty sure, but she doesn't know where that is."
"No, I don't." She said, her eyes moving to mine, both smiling and not, "Your perception in the Force is... stronger than I heard."
"You heard of it...?" I asked, surprised.
"Yes, Lady Vestara mentioned it to us... Even warned us about you, to not be alone with you for long, or we may... fall and be preyed upon by your... mind. Lying us bare and naked..."
"Khm! That's enough!" Vila flared up suddenly, making Sareh chuckle and cover her mouth. "Nobody is lying naked, nowhere, not with him, understood?"
"Perfectly." She glanced at Vila slowly, but she kept smiling, "Your partner is indeed... dangerous." She said, but to which of us, I couldn't tell. "Well," She stood up, fixing her robes, "I think we found something that has to be reported to our leaders... Don't you agree?"
"It is something, yes." I nodded, glancing at C-3PO, "We will escort you to the Council, I think both of our leaders are there, as usual, and we can make our reports."
"You do the talking," Vila murmured to me, crossing her arms and still watching Sareh. "I will keep an eye on her in the meantime."
"I'm fine with that," Sareh nodded, recovering her ancient data card, as we left the library, letting C-3PO clean up everything, as it was the best way to prevent him from complaining about misplaced items...
Haaaaah...
Ancient Sith? Eternal Empire? Oh come on... Why can't the dead stay dead?