Star Wars: Episode X - The Rescue Mission

Chapter Seven: Treasures

Ben concentrated and reached out to Rey. Rey reached back to him and the bond opened. They looked at each other and nodded.

Stepping through the portal, Rey found herself inside a large structure. Ambient light came from fixtures around the room that were apparently always on at a low level, but it was dim inside, so Rey dug the glow stick out of her shoulder bag, turned it on, and held it up. There were many Jedi images, including paintings, statues, and holograms, displayed throughout the room, and rows of shelves filled with artifacts and texts lined the walls. There were benches near the front where the students could sit while Luke instructed them, and around the sides, niches had been made where students could meditate on the Force and the concepts they were being taught. It felt to her like a wonderful place of learning and discovery.

"This place is amazing!" Rey exclaimed softly.

"Remember to always speak to me with your thoughts through the bond," Ben replied. "We must be as silent as possible."

"Right." Rey nodded. "Hope I can remember that." She turned around in a circle. "How much of this do you intend to take?"

"As much as possible. I know you can stop a transport ship in flight; you can do incredible things. We need to put our strength together and use the Force to carry as much out of here as we can."

Ben pointed to an empty spot on one shelf. "I managed to carry out a statue of guidance that was resting here. I probably carried it out of here only five or ten minutes ago, local time. We need to be quick. The destruction won't happen until much later tonight, and I don't think anyone will be roaming the grounds or awake to hear us or sense us, but I don't know for sure."

Ben turned and pointed at a side door. "That's the holocron vault. The holocrons are so powerful and valuable that the students could only use whatever holocrons were selected by Luke, and you had to be with him to use them." He pointed in another direction. "That's the artifact storage room, where Luke kept weapons and items we didn't use, as well as artifacts which had powers Luke didn't understand yet."

Ben pointed in yet another direction. "That's the restricted archives, where Luke kept things which contained dangerous knowledge. A student had to be advanced in his or her studies in order to be ready to hear it, and some of the items were actually Sith artifacts that Luke didn't let anyone look at. He said he kept them because a person had to be able to understand one's enemies and their capabilities in order to be best prepared to guard against them, or fight them if necessary. I don't know if he would ever have let us look at them, but I wanted to. We're going to save that room for last. If we don't have time to get everything, these should be the items that get destroyed."

"All right, let's take what we can from this room first," Rey responded. "I have a compact sack that we can use to carry the smallest items. The bigger ones we'll have to levitate with the Force." She fished the slimly-folded sack from her shoulder bag and opened it up, then she began picking up crystals, data chips and data pads, figurines, and other artifacts, and carefully stowing them away. When she had filled the bag as much as she could and put it over her shoulder, she turned to Ben. "Let's use our bond to pick up the rest of these things and go to the cave." She held out her glow stick. "You take this, and I will follow you to the cave."

Both of them became still and concentrated on joining forces to pick up the remaining items, some quite large. Rey noticed with alarm that it wasn't just Ben's power that was less here in the past; it was hers too. She gasped, then covered her mouth. "Ben, I have less strength here too! It's not just you!"

"I feel it." His echoing voice in her head sounded grim. "We're far outside our time and neither of us is supposed to be here. But together, I'm sure we can do it. Let's go."