Coruscant; Jedi Temple; Jysella Horn's Quarters
Sitting with her daughter on the latter's sleeping mat, Mirax Terrik Horn consoled Jysella in an intimate hug in their shared grief over Booster's death. Neither of them spoke a word; the women simply sat quietly, their cheeks flushed red from the crying that they went through just half an hour before.
Just when Mirax was about to fall asleep, she was startled back into complete alertness as Jysella suddenly screamed in pain.
"Valin!" she cried. "Valin! No!"
Jysella began to wordlessly cry again as she settled back into her mother's embrace, and it soon dawned upon Mirax's confused mind as she realized that her son was gone forever. She, too, held onto her daughter in their renewed grief over another lost family member.
.
Over Dromund Kaas
Since Corran, Katarn, and Relane had captured Fett around the same time that Valin neared the end of his killing spree on Commenor, the ripple through the Force that Valin's death was felt almost instantly by his father.
Corran doubled over from the pain in his gut. Katarn kept his blade leveled near Fett's right armpit, where the Mandalorian's armor was most vulnerable, not taking his concentration off of the aged bounty hunter as Relane went to see what was wrong with Corran.
"Corran, what's wrong?" Relane asked.
Corran didn't speak for a moment. And then tears began to stream down his cheeks before he started to sob.
Relane looked to Katarn, who still didn't take his eyes off Fett. When she returned her gaze at Corran, the old Jedi Master's sobbing stopped almost as instantly as it had started, and his expression was now set in complete and utter hatred as he stared at Fett.
Relane knew, without even needing the Force, that, given their mere proximity to Dromund Kaas, Corran had fallen to the dark side.
Corran then thrust his lightsaber to a vulnerable spot at Fett's neck. But Katarn expertly blocked off the attack with his own blazing sword before using his free hand to punch Corran across the face, sending the latter stumbling back against the bulkhead behind him.
But that was all Fett needed. He lunged at Katarn, trying to wrestle the lightsaber out of the Jedi Master's hands. But Katarn managed to send a small Force-wave that knocked Fett back to the Blastboat's console, which then sent the ship hurtling toward Dromund Kaas at an uncontrolled angle; not that anyone in the cockpit noticed, given that the intertial compensator did away with any gravitational effects that they would have felt.
As soon as Fett had been blasted back to the console, Corran came at Katarn. The two of them then locked blades and stared each other down.
"Corran, listen to me!" Katarn called over the sound of their sizzling blades pressed against each other. "You have to fight the dark side! You can't let it dominate you right-"
"Shut up!" Corran interrupted angrily before pushing Katarn back against the bulkhead behind him.
As the Jedi Masters began to duel, Relane backed out of the cockpit to stay away from the clashing blades. But when she turned back around to observe the duel - and, hopefully, find a way to end it with no one getting hurt - she found Fett rushing out of the cockpit. The Mandalorian then punched the Twi'lek straight in the face, sending her right on her back, before he ran past her down the hall.
It didn't take Relane long to recover from the blow before she saw where Fett was headed; to an escape pod.
But the old bounty hunter wasn't simply escaping; he was hurriedly inputting the launch codes for all of the escape pods to launch; no doubt to make sure that neither Relane nor either of the dueling Jedi Masters could escape. With that, Relane quickly pushed herself up to her feet and hobbled down along the corridor, unsure as to how she could stop a fully armored - if unarmed - Mandalorian, even if she herself was trained by the Galactic Alliance military.
Then again, she was going up against a Mandalorian, so...
Relane put those doubts out of her mind as she rushed up to Fett. She ducked beneath the right-cross he threw, allowing her to grab both her hands along his punching arm before throwing him to the deck. She then moved to snatch his helmet off, but she was then knocked back by the kick to her face that sent her reeling.
Fett then pushed himself back to his feet in time to meet the recovered Relane. The two combatants fell into battle stances before Fett attacked first. Relane pivoted out of the way and tripped her opponent with her artificial leg, sending him to the bulkhead. Now behind him, Relane fell on top of the Mandalorian with all her weight, pinning him to the deck before she wrestled his helmet off.
But even as Fett became a lot more vulnerable with that advanced bucket off, he managed to send an elbow behind him, smacking Relane across the cheek. She fell off him, but she took the helmet with her. The Twi'lek then rolled the helmet away before she commenced a backward roll that brought her back up to her feet even as Fett was already rushing in.
The old bounty hunter made a double-fist and tried to punch Relane up her jaw. But the latter moved her head out of the way of the attack before throwing the rest of her weight in that direction, sending her real leg up to kick Fett in the side of the head.
The Mando reeled away from the attack, his head spinning. Relane then brought about another kick to the other side of her opponent's head, this time with her artificial leg. That blow was what knocked Fett out.
Relane then turned to return her attention to the duel in the cockpit. But just as that happened, she watched in horror as Corran managed to literally disarm Katarn by lopping off his lightsaber-wielding arm at the elbow before cutting off the upper half of Katarn's torso from the rest of his body. Corran then looked at Relane in dark side-fueled fury.
"Out of my way," the fallen Jedi growled. "Fett must pay for what he did to my son."
Relane hesitated. She didn't know what to do now. She barely held her own against an aged Mandalorian; she was certain that she wouldn't be able to handle a novice Jedi, never mind an experienced one like Corran. Still, how could she let himself go through this; on a dark path, even if she didn't completely understand it? And even if she didn't buy into this whole Force thing - which she did, on some level - Corran would be making a big mistake in killing Fett simply for the fact that the bounty hunter might be able to tell them what happened to Valin.
Of course, given Corran's attitude, she had a pretty bad feeling that Valin was pretty much dead at this point.
But right now wasn't the time to grieve over Valin, she thought. Right now, she had to find some way to convince a dark side-driven Jedi Master not to kill Fett and, more importantly, her.
In the two seconds that all this ran through Relane's mind, it was enough for Corran to reach out a hand and use the Force to begin choking the Twi'lek to death. Relane grasped vainly at her throat as oxygen was cut off from her.
Just as she began seeing white spots at the edge of her vision, however, the entire Blastboat bucked violently, throwing Corran and Relane to the deck and simultaneously forcing the former to release his hold on the latter.
While Relane landed conscious on the deck, Corran was knocked unconscious, as his head had been smacked against the threshold of the cockpit when the Blastboat bucked. This allowed Relane to (relatively) safely stand up and look out to find that the Blastboat was now entering Dromund Kaas's atmosphere at an uncontrolled angle; an angle that would no doubt render the ship to superheated molecules before it even entered the stratosphere.
Relane took a few steps forward for the cockpit, but once she arrived at the threshold, she found that the control console was in smoking ruins; no doubt as a result of the duel between Corran and Katarn.
Thinking quickly, Relane turned back and headed to the escape pod where Fett continued to lay unconscious. She reached down with both hands to grab him from behind the back to drag him into the portal that would lead into the pod that Fett had opened up before his brief fight with Relane.
Fett would be useful; if he was interrogated successfully, Relane thought, the Jedi Order could learn something about whatever conspiracy was going on right now. But Corran... she had a feeling that Acting Grand Master Hamner would understand after she explained that Master Horn had fallen to the dark side of the Force. Hopefully, Katarn's death had reverberated through the Force, or something like that, for the other Jedi Masters to feel that would confirm Relane's story.
However, just as Relane reached the threshold of the escape pod, Fett's eyes flashed open. He struggled out of Relane's grasp, ending up back on the floor, and then a vibroblade shot out from his wrist. he thrust it at Relane's chest, but again, she pivoted out of the way, grabbing his weapon-wielding arm and instinctively stabbed the vibroblade through his throat.
As Fett died, his corpse falling back onto the deck, Relane realized the mistake she just made. But regardless, she had to get out of here, and she still wasn't taking Corran with her. So she headed into the escape pod, hurriedly sealed it from vacuum, and then had it shoot out from the Blastboat. The pod zoomed away from Dromund Kaas's gravitational field, allowing Relane a melancholy view as the Blastboat gradually burned up through the dark planet's atmosphere.
.
Mirax was the only one to be left inconsolably silent as Jysella fell completely and utterly silent in her arms. After what felt like an eternity to her, Mirax looked back and found that not only was her daughter silent, but she was also limp.
Worriedly, Jysella checked her daughter's pulse. It was there; slow but steady, and it was there, much to Mirax's relief, even in the midst of her grief over Booster and Valin. Was Jysella asleep?
It was then that the door to Jysella's quarters opened up, and Jedi Master Cilghal and Jedi Knight Tekli hurried in.
"What's going on?" Mirax asked.
"We felt what happened to your daughter, Missus Horn," Cilghal explained as Tekli used the Force to levitate Jysella's form away from her mother. "I'm very sorry to say this, but she's fallen into a coma."
"A coma?" Mirax asked. "From what?"
Cilghal hesitated. "From your husband's fall to the dark side and his subsequent death. I'm truly sorry, Missus Horn."
Mirax was then left feeling completely numb and cold on the sleeping mat as Cilghal and Tekli brought Jysella out of the quarters.
