Chapter 6: Detour to the Archives
The door sealed with a final, airtight hiss.The sound echoed in the sudden, profound silence. The three of them stood frozen, their bare skin prickling in the cool, still air. The only light now came from the shelf of holocrons—geometric crystals that pulsed with a faint, sickly greenish-yellow glow, casting long, dancing shadows up the walls of crumbling datastacks.“Well,” Bultar said, her voice too loud in the enclosed space. “This is… suboptimal.”
Rey’s scavenger eyes were already scanning, adapting to the low light.The chamber was circular, about ten meters across. Towering shelves of ancient flimsiplast scrolls and data-discs rose into darkness above them. The air smelled of ozone, dust, and the peculiar, metallic tang of decaying information. The floor was smooth, polished stone, and apart from the shelf of active holocrons and one dusty, upright console, it was empty. The door they’d come through was now a seamless part of the wall, no visible seam or control.
Barriss took a shaky step forward, her arms wrapped around herself. The loss of the soap bar had been a minor humiliation; this was a genuine problem. “A security archive,” she murmured, her analytical tone a thin veneer over rising anxiety.“Likely keyed to a specific biometric or code. Unauthorized entry triggers a lockdown.”
“Unauthorized?” Bultar scoffed, gesturing at their collective state of undress. “We’re about as authorized as a Hutt in a bathhouse. How do we get out?”
“We find the release mechanism,” Rey said, walking slowly to the central console. She brushed a layer of dust from its surface, revealing a blank, dark screen and a single, worn keypad.“Or we trigger it. These old systems are full of backdoors and fail-safes.”
“Says the woman who got us decontaminated by a horny mop droid,” Bultar muttered, but she joined Rey at the console, peering over her shoulder.Rey ignored her, pressing a sequence of buttons at random. Nothing.The console remained dead.She tried a few basic Jedi override codes she’d learned. The screen flickered once, showing a crackle of static, then died again.
“It’s not receiving power from the main grid,” Barriss observed, kneeling and running her fingers along the base of the console.“Independent cell. Possibly failsafed to drain if breached.” She stood, wiping dust on her thigh. “The holocrons, however, are active.”
They all looked at the glowing crystals. There were five, each a different shape—a pyramid, a cube, a tetrahedron, an orb, a dodecahedron. Their pulsating light was the only thing holding the utter blackness of the chamber at bay.
“Maybe one of them has information on the archive’s systems,” Rey suggested, though her voice lacked conviction.
Bultar, ever impulsive, reached out for the pyramid. The moment her fingertips were within a centimeter, a spark of blue energy snapped at her skin, not painful, but a clear, sharp warning.She yanked her hand back. “Okay. Touchy.”
“They’re likely keyed to a specific Force signature,” Barriss said.“Or a state of being.Calm.Meditative. Clothed.” The last word was a dry, miserable addition.Rey closed her eyes, taking a slow breath. She reached out with her feelings, not toward a specific holocron, but toward the shelf itself. She felt the hum of ancient knowledge, a whisper of countless voices. And beneath that, a… expectation.A test.She opened her eyes. “They’re waiting for something.”
“Great.A pop quiz,” Bultar groaned. “And I’m not wearing pants.”
Barriss stepped forward, studying the patterns of the light pulses.“Look.The sequence. It’s not random.” The holocrons were glowing in turn: pyramid, cube, tetrahedron, orb, dodecahedron.Then a pause.Then again. “It’s a pattern.A key.”
“A key to what?” Bultar asked.
“To them,” Rey said, understanding dawning.She pointed.“The light. It’s not just coming from the crystals. It’s reflecting.” In the faint glow, they could now see the walls weren’t smooth. Intricate patterns were etched into the stone—circuits, pathways, converging lines that all led to a single, darker circular indentation on the wall opposite the door.
Barriss nodded, her mind working.“The holocrons project the key. The key aligns something in the wall. That likely powers the console or opens the door.”
“So we just… move the holocrons into the right spots?” Bultar asked.“They’re shielded. We can’t touch them,” Rey countered.
“We don’t need to touch them,” Barriss said, a faint, determined smile touching her lips.“We need to answer them. The pattern is a question. We provide the answer with the Force.”
The three women looked at each other.Naked, cold, stranded in the dark. The remote for the vibrating underwear was still clutched in Barriss’s hand, a ridiculous contrast to the gravitas of the ancient test before them.“Alright,” Bultar sighed, settling into a ready stance on the cold floor. “Let’s answer the damn question.”
Rey and Barriss followed suit, forming a loose triangle facing the shelf.They closed their eyes, synchronizing their breathing. In the silence, the soft hum of the holocrons grew louder in their minds.The pyramid glowed brightest. They felt its query: Foundation.Stability.A push of pure, unwavering strength was required. Bultar, without hesitation, extended a hand. A surge of powerful, confident Force energy flowed from her, enveloping the pyramid. Its light solidified, beaming a steady, unchanging ray toward the wall pattern, where it lit up the first segment of the circuit.The cube pulsed next.Logic. Order.Barriss’s turn.Her influence was a precise, mathematical thing. She didn’t push energy; she arranged it, a grid of pure thought settling over the cube. Its light became a series of sharp, perfect squares, clicking into the next part of the pattern on the wall.
The tetrahedron: Balance.Interconnection.This one was trickier. It required not one, but a harmonious input from two sources.Rey and Bultar glanced at each other, nodded. Rey offered a flow of raw, instinctual energy; Bultar shaped it with disciplined control. Together, their combined Force signature—wild Jakku resilience meeting Corellian competitive fire—caused the tetrahedron to spin slowly, its light weaving into the wall etching.
The orb: Empathy.Unity.This was for all three. They joined hands, a circuit of bare skin in the cool dark.Rey felt Barriss’s calm precision and Bultar’s fierce loyalty. Bultar felt Rey’s relentless hope and Barriss’s hidden warmth. Barriss felt the chaotic, vibrant life force of her friends. The orb’s light softened, expanded, filling the chamber with a gentle, golden radiance that erased their shadows. The pattern on the wall glowed nearly complete.Only the dodecahedron remained.It pulsed slowly, expectantly. Its question hung in the air, unspoken but felt by all of them.Humility.
A beat of silence.Bultar snorted a laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
The dodecahedron dimmed slightly, as if disappointed.
Rey bit her lip, looking down at her near-naked body, at the stupid podracer shorts. She thought of the decontamination, the running, the soap.The sheer, ridiculous humility of the last hour. It wasn’t the humility of bowing before a master. It was the humility of friendship, of shared absurdity, of being seen at your most vulnerable and laughing about it.She didn’t push any energy. She let go. She allowed herself to feel the full, embarrassing, ridiculous truth of their situation and, instead of fighting it, she accepted it. She embraced the humiliation not as a defeat, but as a shared joke.
A wave of warmth, tinged with self-deprecating humor, flowed from her. Barriss followed, releasing her own acute embarrassment, her prim dignity, offering it up with a soft sigh.Bultar, ever last, finally unclenched her competitive pride. She allowed the feeling of being outsmarted, outmaneuvered, and thoroughly cleaned to wash over her.She even grinned in the dark.
The dodecahedron shone with a pure, white light.It didn’t beam at the wall. Instead, the light expanded, engulfing them, warm and forgiving.They heard a series of deep, mechanical clunks within the walls.
They heard a series of deep, mechanical clunks within the walls.
The white light from the dodecahedron faded, leaving the chamber bathed in the restored, steady glow of the five holocrons. The intricate pattern on the far wall now shone with a complete, soft blue luminescence. With a grinding of ancient stone, the circular indentation slid inward, then sideways, revealing a shallow alcove. Inside, resting on a pedestal of polished obsidian, was a single, unadorned kyber crystal. It pulsed with a clean, quiet light.
“A key,” Rey whispered, stepping forward. Her hand hovered over it. “Not for a door. For us.”
Barriss approached, her eyes reflecting the crystal’s gleam. “An attunement crystal. Ancient texts mention them. They respond to harmony within a group. To shared purpose.” She glanced at their disheveled, nearly nude forms. “Or shared humiliation, apparently.”
Bultar reached for it first, her movement swift. “Let’s just grab it and find the exit.” Her fingers closed around the crystal.
It did not react.
She shook it, tapped it against the pedestal. Nothing. The crystal remained inert in her palm, its light dimming to a faint glimmer. “Broken,” she grumbled, tossing it to Rey. “Typical. Ancient Jedi and their crap gadgets.”
Rey caught it, holding it up. She focused, trying to pour a sense of peace, of gratitude for their escape, into the stone. Its light brightened for a second, then faltered, flickering uncertainly. “It’s not broken,” she said, feeling a faint, discordant vibration in the Force. “It’s… waiting for something specific.”
Barriss took it from her, holding it between her thumb and forefinger. She closed her eyes, her breathing slowing. She sought the precise, balanced harmony of a meditative state, the clear and ordered peace of the Jedi Code. The crystal glowed a steady, academic white. It was an echo, a reflection of her discipline, but it lacked warmth. It lacked life. No hidden mechanisms clicked. No door sighed open.
“It wants humility,” Rey repeated, thinking aloud. “But not just admitting we’re in a mess.” She looked at the crystal in Barriss’s hand, then at Bultar’s impatient scowl, then down at her own scant clothing. “It wants us to show it. To prove we haven’t just learned the lesson, but that we can… embody it. Right now.”
Bultar rolled her eyes. “Embody it? We’re naked in a hole. My backside is cleaner than a Coruscanti surgeon’s scalpel. How much more humbled do we need to be?”
The crystal in Barriss’s hand suddenly flared, not with light, but with a sharp, cold pulse that shot up her arm. She gasped, dropping it. It clattered onto the stone floor, rolling in a lazy circle before coming to a stop. The moment it left her hand, the holocrons dimmed. The glowing pattern on the wall began to fade, segment by segment.
“No, no, no!” Rey dove, snatching the crystal just as the last of the wall light winked out, plunging them back into the near-darkness of the holocron glow. “It felt that. Our frustration. Our impatience. That’s not humility. That’s just annoyance.”
A new sound filled the chamber. A faint, metallic hissing, coming from grates they hadn’t noticed near the floor. A fine, glittering mist began to seep into the room. It carried a scent like ozone and crushed herbs.
“What now?” Bultar muttered, waving a hand through the gathering haze.
“The test is ongoing,” Barriss said, her voice tight. “We provided an intellectual answer. The correct emotional state. But we failed the practical application. The crystal required a demonstrative act.” She coughed as the mist reached her. “And now we are being prompted more… directly.”
The mist grew thicker, coiling around their ankles, then their knees. It was cool, tingling where it touched skin. A feeling of languid warmth began to spread through Rey’s limbs, a gentle, insistent pressure in her mind that urged her to relax, to let go.
“It’s a psychotropic aerosol,” Barriss stated, her words starting to slur slightly. “A truth mist. Or a… an inhibitor dampener. It lowers cognitive defenses. Encourages… suggestibility.”
“Great,” Bultar said, her own sarcasm softened by a sudden, unexpected giggle. She slapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide. “Kriff. It’s happy gas.”
Rey felt it too. The sharp edge of her anxiety blurred. The embarrassment of her state felt distant, funny even. The crystal in her hand felt wonderfully smooth. “We have to… do the thing,” she said, her thoughts moving like warm honey. “The humble thing. Before we forget.”
“What is the humble thing?” Barriss asked, leaning against the console for support. A silly, unguarded smile played on her lips. “I feel quite… excellent.”
An idea, absurd and perfect, bubbled up in Rey’s foggy mind. It was born of Jakku’s harsh fairness, where the only way to share extreme scarcity was through absolute, visible equality. “The crystal,” she said, holding it up. Its light seemed to pulse in time with her heartbeat. “It didn’t work for one of us. It needs all of us. Not just our feelings. Our… situation.”
Bultar blinked, the mist making her eyes gleam. “What’s more humbling than this?” she asked, gesturing vaguely at her own naked body.
“Being the same,” Rey whispered, her gaze drifting to the one remaining article of clothing in the room: the pair of podracer shorts she wore. The vibrating underwear remote was still clutched in Barriss’s limp hand. The hierarchy of their scant attire was itself a form of pride. A division. The crystal had shown them that.
With a resolve that cut through the pleasant fog, Rey hooked her thumbs into the waistband of the shorts. She looked at Barriss, then at Bultar. “All of us. Or none of us.”
Bultar stared, then burst out laughing, a genuine, unfettered sound that echoed in the misty chamber. “You’re kidding. Strip in the magic gas? That’s your plan?”
“It’s not a plan,” Rey said, pushing the shorts down her legs and stepping out of them. She stood completely naked, the cool air a sharp contrast to the mist’s warmth. She placed the shorts in the center of the floor. “It’s the answer. No first pick. No winner. No loser. Just us. Here.”
Understanding, slow and hazy, dawned on Barriss’s face. With a graceful, almost drunken motion, she placed the small black remote on top of the fabric pile. A symbol of forfeited power. Bultar watched them, her competitive spirit wrestling with the mist and the simple, undeniable logic. With a grunt that was half-exasperation, half-amusement, she knelt and placed her own symbolic offering beside the others: the half-melted, discarded soap bar, retrieved from the floor.
Three items. Three women. No distinctions.
Rey took Barriss’s hand. Barriss, after a moment’s hesitation, took Bultar’s. Bultar completed the circle, her grip firm. They stood around their meager pile of possessions, naked and exposed, the mist curling around their joined arms. There was no ceremony. No grand pronouncement. Just a silent, shared admission of their ridiculous, equal state.
Rey, in the center, closed her fist around the kyber crystal.
It ignited.
A wave of pure, harmonious energy, cool and bright, erupted from her hand, washing through the chamber and through them. The mist dissipated instantly, sucked into the vents with a final hiss. The holocrons blazed with triumphant, golden light. The wall pattern reappeared, more brilliant than before, and with a sound like a deep sigh, the entire far wall of the archive shimmered and dissolved into a swirling, blue-tinted energy field.
Beyond it was not another chamber, but a familiar corridor—the clean, well-lit hallway leading back to the Temple’s main residential wing. The exit hummed softly, an invitation.
The crystal’s light died down, now just a warm, ordinary stone in Rey’s palm. The pile of clothes and the remote sat between them, suddenly looking just like what they were: laundry and a joke.
Bultar was the first to move. She snatched up the podracer shorts. “Okay, humility achieved. Can we please go put on some godsdamned robes now?”
Rey laughed, the sound clear and free in the open air of the corridor ahead. Barriss simply smoothed a hand over her hair, collected the remote with a wry smile, and left the soap bar lying forgotten on the archive floor.
They stepped through the energy field together, leaving the test, and their last scraps of modesty, behind.
They stepped through the energy field together, leaving the test, and their last scraps of modesty, behind. The familiar corridor air was cool and dry against their skin, a relief after the archive’s charged atmosphere. They’d taken only three paces toward the promise of robes and normalcy when the voice stopped them.
It was a melody woven from static and light. “Please,” it sighed, the sound emanating from the shimmering energy field at their backs. “Don’t go. Not yet.”
They turned as one. The field had solidified back into the ancient wall, but the holocrons behind it now blazed with a unified, pleading azure glow. A holographic figure resolved above the shelf, translucent and shimmering. She was young, perhaps their own age, with flowing hair and kind eyes that held a profound, lonely weariness.
“Who are you?” Rey asked, stepping closer, her defensiveness melted by the palpable sadness in the voice.
“I am Kilea Vex,” the figure said, her form flickering slightly. “A Jedi of the Convocation of… well, it doesn’t matter now. I have been a guest in these crystals for a very long time.” Her smile was bittersweet. “A permanent guest.”
Bultar crossed her arms over her chest, a starkly practical gesture given her nakedness. “Imprisoned, you mean. In the Temple?Why? What’d you do, lose the key to the speeder garage?”
Kilea’s laugh was a soft, chiming sound. “Nothing so mundane. My master, a most revered and… stiff-necked philosopher, discovered my personal holodiaries.” Her translucent cheeks tinted a faint blue. “They contained rather detailed appreciations of the corporeal form. Specifically, those of several handsome Padawans from the agricultural corps. And a rather lyrical treatise on the sensory pleasures of the Naboolean steam baths.”
A stunned silence hung in the corridor.
Barriss blinked. “You were entombed for… writing erotic literature?”
“For ‘corrupting the pure focus of the Jedi mind with base physicality,’” Kilea quoted, her tone turning dry. “My master believed my thoughts were a greater contagion than any Sith plague. So he bound my consciousness here, a lesson in perpetual purity.” Her image gestured vaguely at their state. “Watching generations of Jedi strive for austere perfection. It has been… tedious. Until now.”
Rey’s lips quirked. “Until you saw three knights running around naked and getting spanked by a cleaning droid.”
“It was the most entertaining thing to happen in seven centuries,” Kilea confessed, her light brightening. “And the most… authentic. You achieved the crystal’s harmony not through denial, but through acceptance. You embodied what I merely wrote about. It’s glorious.”
Bultar shook her head, a grin spreading. “So you’re the Temple’s original pervert. Good to know the tradition has deep roots.”
“I prefer ‘sensualist,’” Kilea corrected, her form drifting closer to the energy barrier. “And I have a proposition for you.”