JEDI KNIGHT: JEDI WAR

Chapter 10

Kyle Katarn looked upon the cityscape of Courascant. The jedi had arrived there three days ago, two days after the battle for yavin. He had fullry recovered from his fight with Jaden, at least phsysicly, but not mentally. Mentally he was in a

state vergin on depression, not quite but close. He had known Jaden had fallen to the dark side, but he had never beleived Jaden could have sunken as low as he had. Jaden had been his greatest student, and was now his greatest dissapointment.

He remembered back to when he had first met Jaden, laying unconscious on a massassi temple. He could still remember the way he had been perfectly, young and fll of life. He had been assighned to Kyle along with fellow student Rosh Penin

for training. Jaden had advanced remarkably fast and ad always seemed calm, and collected never once showing even the slightest hint of evil. That had changed on Vjun when they had discovered Rosh's fall to the darkside. Kyle had been hurt by that event, but he still had hoped for the possibility of redeeming his student. But Jaden had been furious, even the joy of being promoted to the rank of Jedi Knight had done little to decrease his anger. Over the next month he had started

relying on his anger, using dark side powers. Kyle had managed to trick himself into beleiving that this would pass, that it just required some patience. He decided he should've known better, Jaden was young and to inexperienced to control such rage. Jaden had truly fallen on Taspir 3 when he had met Rosh again. He had killed Rosh in his anger and used that same rage to slaughter the dark jedi Alora. Then he had gone to Korriban and killed several jedi and dark jedi alike,

including Tavion. Kyle had confronted him, tried to talk some sense into him, but Jaden had not listened. Jaden had lost the following duel, but had summoned the scepter to his hand and used it to escape. Even then, and on Tatooine he had hoped that maybe Jaden could be redeemed. But after Yavin Kyle knew that was impossible.

Now he stood here while Luke and Leia tried to figure out what should be done about Jaden. Kyle supposed he should be there too, but he coldn't bring himself to do it. Could not bring himself to plot against Jaden. He knew that if Jaden were to

enter this room right now and challenge Kyle to a duel that he would let Jaden strike him down rather than fight him again.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Well, i don't see any obvious options. We don't know where his base of operations is or how many ships he has." Leia said with a sigh.

Luke nodded as he said "Thats true. But we can't ignore him either, he has proven himself to be a very real threat. If we don't know where his base is, then we mkust find it before he strikes somewhere else."

"You know i agree Luke, but how do we find him? Our spies have been working round the clock for almost a week now and were not any closer to finding his base than we were before we knew he even had one!" Leia declared throwing her arms

up in frustration.

Luke sighed, then looked up as he said "I think that might change very soon." No sooner had he finished speaking then a man in a perfectly neat uniform entered the office and said "Chancellor, you need to see this." He quickly handed Leia

a folder. She opened it and began reading, and in only a few minutes had gone pale. She reread it twice to make sure she understood.

"What is it?" Luke asked, knowing he would not like the anwser.

Leia looked up and said "A large imperial fleet has begun an invasion of republic space. They hve attacked Dantooine, Tatooine, and Manaan in the last twenty-four hours. They seem to be operating from the worlds of Taspir 3, Hoth, Vjun,

Kejim, and Artus-Prime."

Silence reighned for several moments while the news sank in. Then Luke reached for his commlink and spoke into it. "Kyle, you need to be here in the next fifteen minutes." Then he cut it off.

"An invasion? Why? Were just starting to finally establish peace." Leia said.

"Because Jaden knows that the republic is still young, and vulnerable." Luke said with a grimace.

They waited in near silence until Kyle walked through the door into Leia's office. Upon seeing the large circles under his eyes and his somewhat pale complextion Luke asked "Kyle are you alright?"

"I'm fine." Kyle said tiredly with a dismissive wave of his hand.

Luke nodded but the doubt remained.

"So why am i here?" Kyle asked. Leia tossed him the file which he caught with ease before leafing through it, then his eyes widened and he went back to the start and read it more thouroughly.

"As you can see, things have gotten more serious." Leia said once he had finished.

Kyle nodded, his mouth had suddenly gone dry. He made his way slowly to the nearest chair and silently sat down. He looked up and asked "So what happens now?"

Leia sighed as she said "The senate will be informed, most likely they will call for war and when that happens..." She let her sentence drop off. Kyle slumped down.

"I'm very sorry for this, i should have known this would happen." Kyle said apologeticly.

"Its not your fault, only Jaden is to blame for this." Luke said sternly.

"But i'm the one who trained him!" Kyle said a bit louder than he meant to.

Nobody could think of a good response, so they sat in silence. Kyle finally broke it by asking "So, war is inevitable?"

"I'm afraid so." Leia replied. Thought the sun ws shining brightly outside, for the people in that room, the world seemed to have gone dark.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jaden smiled to himself as he sipped a cup of coffee, he was not tired but he did enjoy the enrgy rush the drink gave him. Right now he was looking over the latest reports, they had succesfully invaded the three planets mentioned earlier, and

a number of less important ones. The shipyards under his command had turned out a new batch of ships, which gave him just over a hundred capital ships along with countless cruisers and support vessels.

Then there was his apprentice, Aerian. He had talked her into going onto Yavin with him in order to lure Kyle to Jaden. He had not expected that another jedi would sense her betrayl and attack, but it worked out perfectly. She had strukc said

jedi down, and now had no choice but to stay with Jaden. The jedi would not take her, and she could not survive on her own in the war that was to come. Even now he could sense that war, looming just ahead. Soon, soon it would begin, and the galaxy would be his.

He looked up suddenly as a shimmering blue light appeared. The light slowly formed itself into the form of Rosh Penin who said "Ah Jaden, took me long enough to find you."

"Rosh? Why don't you go back to the dead where you belong." Jaden sneered.

"How about, no." Rosh countered.

Jaden snarled before asking "What do you want?"

Rosh began pacing as he said "Oh, just you to give up the dark side andturn yourself over to the jedi."

Jaden laughed long and hard at that, before finally he said "Why would i do that? I have power and i am not going to give it up. Besides, even if i did go to them they would kill me, after i killed so many of them."

"I think you underestimate the jedi capacity for forgiveness." Rosh said waggin one finger back and forth.

"Do i? You forget that i used to be a jedi. If i couldn't forgive you then the rest of the jedi certainly can't forgive me." Jaden scoffed.

"Maybe, but deep down there is a part of you however small that wants nothing more than to be a jedi again." Rosh said as he vanished.

Jaden angrily called out "The jedi in me is dead, i am Jaden Korr, ruler of the galaxy and slayer of the jedi!!"

He heard a faint whisper in the force that sounded vaugely like "If you say so." He hurled lightning into the nearest wall imagining that the wall was Rosh.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Luke and Kyle waited nervously outside the senate chamber knowing full well that Leia would tell them the result. Sure enough, an hour after they arrived Leia emerged and said "The senate has decided, to declare war on Jaden."

"Then the jedi shall support the republic as best we can." Luke said.

Kyle nodded his agreement.

"The question is, what is our first move." Said Han as he rounded a corner.

"Han. Good to see you." Luke said.

"Good to be seen." Han replied.

Kyle said "I think our first move should be to take back the planets he's invaded already."

"Agreed." Luke said.

"Then we should sttart eliminating his own bases." Han added. This was met with nods of agreement.

"I'll see to it." Leia said as she walked away. And so it was, that war fell upon the republic.