Of the Forgotten
Chapter 4
39 ABY: Zonama Sekot
The Jade Shadow had set down on the living world in order for Mara Jade Skywalker and Jacen Solo in order for Sekot to determine the fate of Nom Anor, their Yuuzhan Vong prisoner who was believed to be dead by the end of the war against them, but who had really been living on the backwater world of Marfa for the past ten years. Nom Anor had been judged to have his fate determined by Sekot, just as all other surviving Vong in the war had been judged.
After Mara, Jacen, and Nom Anor disembarked the boarding ramp, they were met by Jacen's ex-wife. The two Jedi were aware that Danni was the new Magister of Zonama Sekot when she was the one to speak to them over the comm when they informed her of bringing down Nom Anor.
Through Danni, Sekot determined that Nom Anor, like all other Yuuzhan Vong on Zonama's surface, would live among the rest of his kind in their new society. The Bothans who had managed to track the Jade Shadow through hyperspace had no choice but to be stranded on the world in an isolated area away from any Yuuzhan Vong, on account of the fact that they, of the True Victory Party, wanted nothing more than the total annihilation of the Vong species in their vow of ar'krai.
Sekot was about to relieve Mara and Jacen custody over Nom Anor when Jacen interjected with, "Sekot, wait. Before you take him, I want to speak to Danni."
Sekot closed Danni's eyes and was silent for a moment before she opened them again and said, "Danni does not want to speak to you, Jacen. There is nothing that needs to be said between the two of you, she says."
Jacen opened his mouth again, but Mara laid a hand on his shoulder, wordlessly letting him know to back off from his futile attempts in reconciling with Danni. He sighed, but asked anyway, "Well, can I at least ask you, Sekot, how my daughter, Jorielle, is doing?"
"She is doing well," Sekot answered. "She is learning to use her Force abilities in her own way, and is making much progress in seeing to the Yuuzhan Vong's re-connection to the Force." She looked to the Vong with them. "You will be no exception to this, Nom Anor, although you of all the Yuuzhan Vong may very well be the last to reconnect to the Force, considering that you've only just arrived."
"Oh, what a pity for me," Nom Anor said sarcastically–a statement that had Mara shove him hard in the ribs.
"Come, Nom Anor," Sekot said, finally relieving Mara and Jacen of their charge. The former Prefect of Yuuzhan'tar reluctantly joined Danni's side and walked with her to the Yuuzhan Vong village two klicks away.
Mara gently pulled Jacen by the shoulder back up the ramp of the Jade Shadow, where, less than a minute later, it was primed and took off for space.
When the Shadow made its jump into hyperspace, with Mara as the pilot and Jacen as her copilot, she turned to him and asked, "You okay?"
Jacen looked at his aunt and replied with, "There's just no hiding it, is there? My lingering feelings for Danni can be sensed that easily in the Force, huh?"
"Jacen, I don't even need to use the Force to gauge that you still have feelings for Danni," Mara said. "You're just that much of an open book. So I know how badly you want to rejoin her and Jorielle. I do feel sorry for you, my nephew, even though I'm still disappointed in what caused Danni to divorce you."
Jacen sat back in his seat and sighed. "At least I know that Jorielle is doing all right," he said. "I just wish that I could've seen her, too."
Mara patted his hand. "You will, Jacen," she said. "I know it. Whatever she'll turn out to be, whether it'll be the next Magister of Zonama Sekot or a Jedi, you'll see her again."
Jacen raised an eyebrow. "Does the Force tell you that, Aunt Mara?"
"Again, I don't need the Force to know that," she replied, "even if it could tell me so."
~o~
40 ABY
The negotiations between the Galactic Alliance and Corellia at Toryaz Station, located in Kuati space, went relatively smooth as Supreme Commander Gilad Pellaeon of the GA and Prime Minister Aidel Saxan of the Five Worlds of Corellia worked out a mutually beneficial deal. As a result, the GA called off its occupying fleet from Tralus, agreeing to accept Corellia and is neighboring worlds as trading partners. Saxan, meanwhile, agreed for her government not to sell weapons illegally throughout the galaxy.
The GA put into effect immediate action on all other worlds, like Adumar, who were trying to emulate Corellia's actions of rebellion prior to the Alliance's botched effort of Operation Roundabout. Many illegal weapons sellers throughout these worlds were formally charged and arrested for their crimes by either small peacekeeping fleets of the GA, or by members of the Jedi Order. Corellia did the same with its own Thrackan Sal-Solo, who had once again tried to reactivate Centerpoint Station to use against the Galactic Alliance, allegedly without Prime Minister Saxan's permission.
And more than likely, the Skywalker and Solo families had went back into their happy, cozy lives together, Alema Rar thought, while she had been trapped on the world of Tenupe in the Unknown Regions. For two years, following the end of the Swarm War, she had roamed the jungle planet, trying to find a way to escape, while her body had been horribly deformed for her last fight with Leia Organa Solo; the last time Leia saw Alema, the Twi'lek had been ensnared in the jaws of a vicious spidersloth, and was dragged into the depths of Tenupe's wild.
Alema survived that event by the skin of her teeth, and for the next 48 standard galactic months, she survived all the other horrors of the wild that Tenupe could throw at her. By the end of those two years, she managed to hijack a Chiss rescue shuttle, whose previous occupants she had since properly dispatched with. Alema was curious as to what a Chiss rescue shuttle could have been doing on Tenupe two years after the Swam War, but it didn't matter to her. All that mattered to her was avenging the death of Lomi Plo and the nest of the Gorog, and she would do that by killing the entire Skywalker and Solo clans. Alema wanted to kill Leia in particular for the wounds she gave her in their fights.
Right now, Alema was a stowaway on board a cruise shuttle headed for Coruscant, returning from the beach world of Barga in the Outer Rim. She was hiding in the auxiliary storage closet–if anyone found her in here, if, say, one of the ship's custodians came down here because the primary closet was out of service for some reason, it was no problem to Alema for her to simply dispatch that unlucky custodian.
Apparently, that was the case, she thought, when the door to the closet slid open. Alema pounced up to her feet and ignited her lightsaber, briefly noting that her charge wasn't a custodian, but a darkly veiled woman. The Twi'lek didn't care as she charged in, ready to impale the veiled woman on the hot blade of her lightsaber.
But the veiled woman quickly pivoted out of the way in time, causing Alema to unintentionally rush past thanks to her momentum, and she was easily tripped by her opponent. The Dark Jedi feel to her front, at least having the sense to deactivate her blade in the precious two seconds she had before she hit the floor, so that she wouldn't have hurt herself at least. Alema then turned to her back and jumped to her feet, landing in an odd fashion thanks to the instep Leia gave to her back in their duel aboard the Admiral Ackbar, right at the start of the Swarm War.
Alema's opponent backed away from the Twi'lek as the latter tried to slash her opponent in two, and then the veiled woman pulled out a handle from her belt that ignited a laser-like lash; the whip equivalent of a lightsaber, Alema noted.
"Who are you?" Alema asked before charging angrily.
The two woman then duelled in the quiet, nearly-unused hallway of the shuttle that led to the auxiliary storage closet. The veiled woman was evidently skilled with the lightwhip–Alema decided that was what it was called, considering how much it was like a lightsaber, only as, well, a whip instead of a humming blade. The duel lasted for a good half minute before it ended with the veiled woman getting her lightwhip past Alema's defences and slashing the hilt of her weapon in two. Both pieces of Alema's lightsaber clattered to the floor at her feet.
The Twi'lek looked up from the remnants of her lightsaber back up to her opponent in a panic.
"Do you want me to answer your question?" the veiled woman asked. "Or are you going to force me to kill you?"
"Very well," Alema said as the woman opposite her deactivated her lightwhip.
"Alema Rar," the woman said as she put the handle of her lightwhip back in its previous spot on her belt, "my name is Lumiya. And if you want to kill the Skywalkers and the Solos, you must do everything I tell you to. Do you understand?"
"Yes," Alema said. "Go on."
~o~
Coruscant
In the dead of night in Jacen's apartment, he woke up in a startled fit, when he sensed that the World Brain was in trouble. He quickly changed into his clothes, made sure his lightsaber hung at his belt and at the ready, and he rushed out the door.
Minutes later, he was in his hovercar, speeding as quickly as Coruscant's traffic laws demanded of him to where he sensed the World Brain.
By the time Jacen arrived, setting it down near the former Senate Rotunda of the late New Republic, he rushed through one of the structure's secret entrances, which was also the fastest way he knew to the dhuryam.
Once he was inside the lower levels of the Rotunda, where he knew the World Brain would be, he stopped dead in his tracks when, through the swirling fog in the air, he saw the giant dhuryam breathing loudly and hardly. His heart broke watching his friend in such pain.
Jacen, he heard the dhuryam's voice speak in his head. Look out.
The World Brain's warning did Jacen good, as he managed to jump up and out of the way from a lightwhip attack. He spun through the air, taking out and igniting his lightsaber along the way, before slashing down toward the source of the lightwhip, a darkly-veiled woman. The woman caught the descending blade on the lash of her lightwhip and tugged it firmly out of Jacen's grip.
As the lightsaber flew away from Jacen's hands, the young Jedi Knight at least managed to take advantage of the distraction that the woman had in pulling Jacen's lightsaber away from him. He did this by landing a hard kick into her torso that sent her flying back a few meters and sliding upon the hard yorik coral ground as she landed. But she didn't stop there before she swiftly jumped up to her feet and lashed out her lightwhip again.
Jacen ducked beneath the incoming lash and sent a Force wave to his opponent that had her fly back and crash against the wall behind her, while Jacen just as quickly turned to the direction his lightsaber flew and called it back into his hands. But just as it ignited, he not only took notice of the veiled woman land in a crouch before him, but he was also aware of the activation of a second lightsaber behind him, coinciding with the ignition of his own. Jacen quickly spun around, wary of the woman with the lightwhip behind him, and saw Alema Rar charge in with a fierce battle cry.
Alema swung to decapitate Jacen, but the latter caught the strike on the blade of his weapon, and traded a few more blows against the Dark Jedi before his danger sense warned him of another attack from behind. So he quickly disengaged from Alema and jumped off to the side, and in the aftermath, the lash of the lightwhip headed for the Twi'lek's unguarded form. Alema managed to quickly block the strike that the lash unintentionally had going for her regardless.
"Watch what you're doing with that thing!" Alema called to the veiled woman.
As the Twi'lek exclaimed this, Jacen swung back around to confront the two woman, both of whom were on his broadsides, and where he could see them easily.
"Alema, who's your friend?" Jacen asked.
"I am Lumiya, Dark Lady of the Sith," the woman introduced herself in Alema's place. "And whether it is I or Alema Rar who kills you this day, Jedi Solo, both our grievances with your family will begin their fulfilment with your death." And with that, Lumiya said no more as she once again lashed out the glow of her lightwhip for Jacen while Alema simultaneously charged.
Jacen decided to engage Alema first, so he ducked out of the way of the lightwhip and once again engaged Alema in lightsaber combat. He used the Dark Jedi's form to his advantage, subtly manuevering her amidst the heat of combat to block out any chance Lumiya had of attacking him with her own weapon.
"Move out of the way, Alema!" Lumiya called to her Twi'lek ally as she and Jacen duelled. "I don't have an opening to strike him down!"
Alema caught one of Jacen's attacking blows and cancelled it out in a swift parry before kicking her opponent in the abdomen, sending him five meters back before calling back to Lumiya, without turning to her, of course, "I thought you said it didn't matter which one of us killed him!" Alema that charged for Jacen's downed form and swung her lightsaber forward to cut off his legs by the knees.
But Jacen managed to roll back over his shoulder in time, springing up to his full height in a crouch, and once again engaged Alema in lightsaber combat. However, despite the fact that Jacen was the more experienced Jedi, and arguably a better swordsman than his Twi'lek opponent, Alema's dark side-fuelled rage was what was driving her to apparently best Jacen in this duel as she backed him up to a wall behind him. As that happened, Jacen managed to realize that he would forced to flip over Alema, and possibly take her down with a backward stab through her gut. But in the off chance that failed, he thought, he would not only have the Twi'lek behind him to contend with, but also Lumiya and her deadly lightwhip in front of him.
So, seeing no other choice, he decided to jump over Alema after all, twirling through the air in a graceful, acrobatic flip, and came down in a crouch while he also stabbed back to hopefully impale Alema. Unfortunately for him, the Dark Jedi must've been expecting that move, because Jacen, without looking behind to face his opponent, felt their blades interlock just as he watched Lumiya's lightwhip lash out of him. In order to avoid being rendered in two by that glowing whip, he managed to quickly disengage his blade from Alema's and jump forward, the whip barely grazing his hair and the clothing on his back as he landed roughly on the yorik coral ground.
After the lightwhip passed harmlessly overhead, he quickly pushed himself back to his feet and twirled around to face Alema's onslaught once again, ready to dodge any attack made by that lightwhip when his danger sense warned him again. He managed to block off two of Alema's lightsaber blows before his danger sense warned him to drop to his belly instantly, which he did, and Alema took a quick step back to avoid the lightwhip before swinging her lightsaber down to cleave Jacen in half. But he managed to block off that strike before he used his free hand to push himself back up to his feet that allowed him to kick Alema right in the kneecap.
The Dark Jedi collapsed to her knee just as Jacen flipped back and twirled through the air to face Lumiya again. The lightwhip came at his blade, probably to tug it out his grasp like before, but Jacen knew what to expect, and by the time the whip wrapped around his blade again, he yanked hard with both hands, and it was the lightwhip that flew out of Lumiya's hands this time. But the Dark Lady of the Sith rolled out of the way from the incoming attack of the downswing of Jacen's lightsaber. The humming blade struck near-impenetrable yorik coral while Lumiya landed in a crouch and used the Force to call the handle of her deactivated lightwhip back into her hand.
While she did this, Jacen rushed her without a second's waste after he landed, and was fully aware of Alema flying towards him, despite her wounded knee, on a trajectory that promised that they would meet. So, when they did, Jacen fully stopped in his tracks and turned to the Twi'lek Dark Jedi, blocking her attack with his blade, but his blue-skinned opponent's forward momentum drove him back two meters. He collapsed on his back just as the handle of Lumiya's lightwhip smacked into her hand and the lash was out and glowing again, promising Jacen death just as Alema herself did.
Now on his back, Jacen instinctively lifted up his lightsaber and caught the simultaneous attacks made by Lumiya's lightwhip and Alema's blade. But both women countered that move as Lumiya yanked Jacen's lightsaber out of his hand again, and Alema just kicked his (temporarily) former weapon hand in the second's aftermath of Lumiya pulling it out of his hand once more. However, Jacen didn't skip a beat, and he rolled himself to his side so that he could trip Alema down onto her back before flipping backwards a few meters to get a safe distance between himself and the lightwhip.
As Lumiya reeled her lightwhip for another attack, one of the World Brain's tentacles behind her rocketed for her body. She twirled around to face the attack, but she was too late as it smacked her head-on and sent her flying back, though she didn't lose the grip on her lightwhip this time. But the attack wasn't just meant to knock Lumiya off her feet, Jacen quickly saw, as that tentacle also contained the handle of Jacen's lightsaber. After Lumiya had been punched out by the tentacle, the deactivated lightsaber it held flung toward Jacen.
And not a moment too soon, as Alema had just leapt to her feet and was charging Jacen, her lightsaber aimed for his heart in a threatening impale. Jacen moved out of the way of that stab and, even though he was weaponless at the moment, he managed to get past the Dark Jedi's defences, grabbed both her arms, locked them in place with his firm grasp, and then head-butted Alema right in the teeth. He shoved her down to her back just as the lightsaber still flew towards him, its momentum unhindered so far. Jacen quickly relieved his weapon of any further reliance of normal physics as he used the Force to call it to his hand and just as quickly activate it.
He then swung the blade down for Alema's form, but she blocked it, twirled their blades around in a brief lock, and then aimed a punch with her free hand for Jacen's groin. The Jedi Knight was too slow to avoid the attack and had the wind knocked out of him in one of the most unbearable pains a man could suffer short of dismemberment or having any of his innards roughly removed. Despite his pain, he still had the sense to quickly step back from Alema so that he had slightly more leeway trying to nurse his pain before he would have to continue fighting for his life.
Jacen received perhaps about two seconds of that before Alema had jumped up and charged again. He blocked off the attack once more, but in Alema's riposte, she managed to get past her opponent's defences, ducked beneath his attempted decapitating strike, and then grazed her lightsaber against his thigh. He went down on his side in a painful heap, his lightsaber deactivating and rolling out of his hands in the process, and she looked down upon him with a maniac grin as she playfully twirled her own blade around before readying it to finally end Jacen's life.
But in spite of the searing pain in his leg, Jacen used one of his hands to emit the Force against Alema's blade, stopping it from fully descending upon its target. Jacen then quickly used his other hand to push himself up, his Force-using hand grasping against both of Alema's as they futilely tried to press down against her suspended weapon. Jacen's forward momentum caused the blade to swing back against its owner and cleave her in two down the middle.
As Alema literally fell apart, Jacen leaned heavily on his good leg, and appeared too wounded and helpless to Lumiya as she pressed herself to her feet, casually activated her lightwhip, and lashed it out to her Jedi opponent. The World Brain didn't have any energy left to help its friend like it did before when it had knocked the Dark Lady off her feet, so Jacen was on his own this time.
But that was no problem for him. As the lightwhip flung toward him, he simultaneously used the Force to reach out to his own lightsaber, activate it, and then throw its activated blade toward Lumiya like an arrow. It took both the lightsaber and the lightwhip to reach for their respective targets, but only one actually made to hit it true.
As Jacen collapsed, so did Lumiya. For the former, the lightwhip lashed him against the shoulder, sending him down onto his back, now having a burn wound on his arm as well as his leg. For Lumiya, it took Jacen's blade the fraction of a second to impale through for torso, causing her to misdirect the aim of her own weapon to hit Jacen only in the shoulder as she did. In the midst of his collapse, Jacen had lost control of his lightsaber as well and it deactivated once it was no longer in his Force grip. But that didn't matter now that Lumiya was dead.
Jacen laid there on the hard yorik coral floor for a few moments, trying to compose himself as best he could in spite of the searing pain his arm and leg, before he forcefully pushed himself up to his feet and limped over to the dying World Brain. Once he was at the rim of the basin that the dhuryam was floating in, the Jedi collapsed on his belly, breathing as hard because of his injuries just as his Vongformed friend was.
What happened to you? Jacen telepathically asked it.
Poison dart, the dhuryam answered. From the Twi'lek.
I'm sorry I couldn't help you, my friend, Jacen said.
No need to apologize. You at least managed to avenge me. Thank you, Jacen. For everything.
And with that, the World Brain was no more.
Jacen lowered his head along the rim of the basin and sobbed uncontrollably.