**Chapter 483
Jedi Temple Arc – Part 4**
**Scene 1**
**Jedi Temple – Archives Corridor**
**Dagon POV**
The Council had finally stopped questioning me directly. That was something, at least. They had kept Nox and Ashara behind to finish recounting the events surrounding the ancient hit squad that had tried to kill them thousands of years ago. I suspected Yoda and Windu wanted every detail — not just for historical accuracy, but to gauge how much of Nox's old Sith identity still lingered.
The girls had been sent to the Padawan selection area. Apparently, Master Windu had decided that since I had a habit of "picking up valuable Knights and turning them stronger," the Jedi under my command should have Padawans of their own. Kayla, Flare, and Stella were to receive theirs, and Shin was supposed to get a second apprentice. The idea of formalizing their roles within the Order felt both right and deeply strange.
As I walked the long archive halls with my old Balance Corps Master, Nhon Arto, the weight of the Temple pressed down on me. The ancient stone walls, the soft glow of kyber-lit sconces, the distant echoes of training sessions — it was all so familiar, yet I felt like an outsider in my own skin.
"So how does it feel to be the most famous Jedi here?" Nhon asked, his voice carrying that familiar mix of amusement and dry wisdom.
I didn't know how to answer. The apprentice he had trained was merely a shadow of the current Dagon Marek. I carried his memories, but the man who had returned from the unknown was something else entirely.
"It feels odd," I replied honestly. "Coming here to deposit holocrons — and so many of them. Only ancient Jedi who studied various techniques over the years could deposit them, and now I'm dropping off a ton of ancient holocrons like it was a bunch of food."
Nhon chuckled. "Hmmph. Well, it is the basic of it. The Temple holocron archives are only reserved for certain Masters, Knights, and High Council members. Speaking of which — you're on the High Council, but you haven't even taken your seat yet. Why?"
"I only requested the High Jedi General position for the 12th Sector so I could win this war," I said, a trace of anger slipping into my voice. "They sent me to Jabiim with only 65,000 troops, and I came back with 50,000 after destroying basically twice the amount of droids the entire Republic army destroyed on Geonosis when the war started — and I claimed a world full of rare minerals."
Nhon nodded slowly. "Yeah, I can see that. Even though Yoda made you Vice Supreme Commander, you still follow orders from the Council."
"Is there something you're trying to say?" I asked, sensing the undercurrent in his tone.
Before he could answer, I felt it — a twitch. A disturbance in the Force. Not loud, not violent, but wrong. Like a shadow slipping through the cracks of light.
"Something is wrong," I said sharply, stopping in the middle of the corridor.
Nhon's expression sobered instantly. "I feel it too. The archives… they're too quiet."
**Scene 2**
**Security Center, Jedi Temple, Coruscant**
"Master Skywalker, I caught the impostor. She says that the target is the holocron vault."
Anakin's voice crackled over the comm, tense and sharp. "That makes no sense! The holocrons are protected. You need a genuine Jedi to retrieve the information."
*Or a Sith who knew what he was doing,* Obi-Wan thought but didn't say aloud. If they believed the holocrons could only be accessed by Jedi, that was a delusion he was glad to let them keep.
"You can reach the communications tower from the vicinity of the vault if you cut through a few walls," one of the clones said, examining the Temple schematics on a display.
"The vault is a decoy. We are going to the communications tower!" Anakin's distorted voice rumbled through the comm speaker.
A moment later, they all heard a subdued rumble.
"That was an explosion at the Vault!" one of the clones shouted.
"Is this a diversion?" Master Aayla Secura wondered aloud.
"Perhaps. Cloak the future, the Dark Side does…" Yoda murmured. "See the truth, I cannot."
"Sirs, we just lost the sensor grid over the comm tower!" another clone reported.
"I'm detecting a jamming field there too!" a third added.
Anakin and Obi-Wan, patched through to the Security Center, could hear it all.
"The Vault is a diversion! We are heading towards the tower!"
"Seal that section of the Temple at once!" Master Shaak Ti ordered. "No one leaves it without being cleared by a Jedi Master first!"
**Scene 3**
**Lower Levels – Jedi Temple, Coruscant**
It didn't look like much. Just a plain metal door, one among many, in a long, dusty corridor deep beneath the Temple's foundations.
The infiltrator took a deep breath, tasting the heavy, stale air. Her body tingled with anticipation.
She wiped the dust and grime covering a panel on the wall next to the door and began typing a long sequence of numbers. It took her thirty seconds to enter the entire code.
Then she paused, waited five seconds, and did it again.
To an impartial observer, her actions might have looked pointless. After all, the panel appeared to be out of power, dead like everything in the deep warrens under the Jedi Temple. This part of the maze had been cut off from the main power grid for a very, very long time.
However, her actions were rewarded by a mechanical clicking from the door. It slid into the walls, revealing a short corridor lit by a soft blue light.
The infiltrator stepped inside and waited for the door to close behind her. Moments later, she heard quiet buzzing and felt the beams of ancient scanners mapping every inch of her body.
A quiet ping sounded. The machines concentrated their attention on her head.
The buzzing grew louder. She felt a tingling sensation within her cranium, where one of her implants came to life. A blinding lance of power slammed into her mind. An ancient computer uplinked with her implants. It touched her mind, probing, watching. Judging.
For an endless moment, she felt like ice picks were stabbing her brain. She stumbled, nearly falling.
She knew if it found her lacking, her life was forfeit. If the security system had been set up by ordinary Jedi, she might have hoped for non-lethal protections. But she knew better. This place had been created by the Old Republic's Special Operations Command and Jedi who weren't afraid to get their hands dirty when necessary. Its contents needed absolute protection.
The machines around her chimed in contentment, almost as if the AI was happy.
After all those countless years, it finally had purpose again.
The presence of the Old Republic AI became a soft buzz in the back of her head. Her codes and implant signatures checked out, matching what was stored in three-thousand-six-hundred-year-old databanks.
The door in front of her slowly opened with a quiet grinding noise.
The infiltrator looked at the large room revealed to her and smiled. Her prize was at hand.