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Rhinann sighed, his nose tusks vibrating in high C. He’d reluctantly come to the conclusion that he had spent enough time on this quixotic quest for his own mastery of the Force. Better to concentrate on the far more mundane but realizable task at hand. He was supposed to be searching for lightsaber components. Trying to be something he was not was utter foolishness, and unworthy of whatever meager pride he had left.

He gestured at the holoproj, intending to change sources, when he noticed a blinking node signifying a datum of possible interest that fell within his search parameters. It was dated nearly twenty standard years ago, and appeared to be a transmission from one of the outlying planetary fronts during the waning years of the Clone Wars. An odd sort of communication to stumble across.

Intrigued, he investigated further. Careful probing revealed what likely had been an obvious attempt to scour the item from the data banks, because it existed now only as an endstate echo, a digital reverberation of the original. Twenty years of quantum flux had resulted in considerable degradation. But Rhinann was an excellent slicer. With patience and skill he extracted what data he could from the various shells.

Interesting …

What he had found appeared to be a report from the world of Drongar, composed by the Jedi Padawan Barriss Offee to her Master Luminara Unduli concerning a native adaptogenic plant called bota. The Jedi Offee had apparently—whether by accident or design was not clear—taken an injection of the plant’s distillate. The result apparently was a considerable increase in the Force’s potency within her. Offee went on to say that she was sending a vial of bota serum to the Temple for further research. How this was to be accomplished was too corrupted for Rhinann to decipher. Her report went on to note that the plant’s effects were opportunistic and varied widely from species to species. Given the potential ramifications of her discovery she strongly recommended that …

Rhinann’s frustration knew no bounds: despite his best efforts, the rest of the message proved unreadable.

He felt his ear hairs quivering with excitement. While by no means certain, could this forgotten discovery by a now deceased Jedi be the “magic slug” that might enable him to experience the Force?

He had, of course, heard of Bariss Offee and Drongar. Den Dhur and I-Five had spoken often of their sojourn on that pestiferous jungle world, as well as of their comrades in arms there. He could not recall hearing them mention anything about plant derivatives, much less bota distillate, but surely there should be a way to find out more about it.

He would have to be circumspect in his seeking, he knew. He had observed that Jedi were protective of their connection to the Force. If Offee’s finding was authentic, and if Pavan and Tarak were at all familiar with it, they would no doubt be reluctant to share such information, especially with someone not of their clique. Haninum Tyk Rhinann was not a foolish or reckless being. Proof of this lay in his continued survival despite the often threatening circumstances in which he found himself. He would proceed cautiously.

And if it was true—if this reputed botanical enhancement could still be found, and if it could somehow facilitate a connection between him and the Force—well then, those who had taken advantage of his new miserable station in life would have ample cause to regret it.

nine

Night had overtaken much of Imperial Center by the time Typho came to the reluctant conclusion that his search through the ruins of the Jedi Temple had been futile. The vast repositories of the library had been stripped of most archival material, electronic as well as physical. No matter how skillful and experienced a slicer he was, what remained was still far too much for one being to sift through. The library wing had once been the repository for a thousand worlds’ histories, cultures, bestiaries, and countless other data. What was left had been thoroughly disrupted