The Lesson of Malachor

The purple fields of Dantooine stretched for miles around the ruins of the Jedi Enclave. Khoonda lay quiet in the distance, kilometers of velvety weeds, flowers, and grass between it and the ruin. The Enclave was still a heap of crumbling remains but there were noticeable differences since the last time she had come there. The Masters had cleared much of the rubble away and scavenged the droid heaps she had cut down during her previous visit. It would be decades before it would be returned to its former glory, but the first efforts of renewal helped her to see clearly in her mind the compound she had once trained in. If she thought hard enough, she could almost see herself returning home to the Temple she had left behind to fight the war. Only this time, she was returning not as a prisoner, but as an ally.

This time, she was welcome.

"There," Khara said, pointing over Atton's shoulder to the recently cleared landing pad off of the Jedi Enclave, "next to Master Kavar's ship."

"You got it," Atton said and committed the Ebon Hawk to landing. Khara smiled at him, bent to kiss his cheek, and then walked out.

Kreia was at the boarding ramp waiting for her when the engines cut off. "Are you ready?" the old woman asked.

"Yes," Khara replied confidently.

"So be it," was Kreia's cryptic reply.

Too eager to wait for the others, Khara headed out as soon as the ramp touched the ground. She followed the recently swept walkway quickly to a set of blast doors that opened when she approached. Inside was still dark and musty but not as suffocating as it had been. The light at the end of the corridor drew her faster until she was sweeping aside hanging greenery and squinting at the shining openness of the inner courtyard.

"It's…" Kreia murmured behind her, slowly emerging through the vines. "It is different." Her face was mostly masked by the cowl of her robe but her mouth was bent in a frown. Khara could hear the fear and awe in her voice. "It has been some time."

"Kreia!" Khara exclaimed as the old woman doubled over. She rushed to her side to hold her up then helped her to the central dais where she could sit. As Kreia settled down, she sighed tiredly.

"Forgive me," she began breathily, "but I need to rest."

"Are you all right?"

"I am… tired. The journey has been a long one, and I need to center myself."

Khara stared at her for a long moment before kneeling down in front of her. Kreia's blind eyes lifted, the rim of her hood barely concealing them.

"You're afraid," Khara said as a matter-of-fact.

Kreia nodded. "Yes," she replied quietly, "afraid for you. As I always have been." Her bony fingers reached out across her leg so Khara met them, covered Kreia's wrinkled hand with her own. "Know that much may happen here… but above all, do not forget this: you may trust in me. We cradle each other's lives… and what threatens one of us, threatens us both." She paused. "And if you find you cannot trust me, trust in your training." Kreia slipped her hand out from under Khara's and covered it, clutched her fingers tightly. "Trust in yourself."

"What's wrong?" Khara asked, frowning.

"Never doubt what you have done. All your decisions have brought you to this point. And now, perhaps… they shall see what you have become." Kreia withdrew her hand and slipped it beneath the empty sleeve of her robe. "Go on. I will remain here. Whatever answers the Council have are for you alone."

Khara nodded and stood up. She had never seen the old woman so troubled. A dark feeling, anxious and uncertain, momentarily clouded her mind and pressed against her chest like a great weight. But as she walked away, she remembered why she was there. To rejoin with the Jedi and stop the Sith. Now was the time for action. Answers could come later.

As she entered the old council chamber, she saw the backs of Vrook, Kavar, and Zez-Kai Ell and found herself smiling.

"It is not as it was," Vrook mumbled to the others.

"But perhaps that is for the best," Zez-Kai Ell said.

"It can be remade," Khara told them and they all turned. Kavar smiled at her. "It can be something new."

"We were wondering when you would arrive," Kavar began. "It has been some time since we all stood together like this."

"It is good to see you again," she told them. "All of you."

"It is good you have come," Ell said.

"I will help you however I can," she promised. "If we stand together, the Sith will be no match for us."

"No," Vrook growled, his voice hard. It was at that moment that Khara realized how unfriendly his eyes were. She furrowed one brow.

"No?" she echoed, confused.

"Against these Sith, there is nothing we can do," he explained. "We will do as we have done—we will wait."

Khara stared at them, looked from one face to the next, at Vrook's stern façade, Zez-Kai Ell's guilt, Kavar's concern. Was this a joke? She saw no hint of amusement in their expressions.

"You're serious," she muttered in shock. "Why? Why! The Sith are attacking Republic worlds—they must be stopped! Master Kavar, you saw their work on Onderon. They have hounded my footsteps. They are revealed. We can fight them now!"

"No, the true threat has yet to show itself," Vrook insisted. "It is waiting for something—us, perhaps, to enter the war. We have seen their soldiers, the remnants of their fleet, but those are symptoms of a disease. It is more bait to attempt to draw us out."

"Symptoms," she scoffed in disbelief. "You hide in the shadows so as not to give in to the Sith's bait but that is of itself obliging them! Without Jedi to fight them, they will execute their plans and cripple the Republic!" She gazed pleadingly at Kavar. "Please," she said. "Think of Onderon."

"The attack on Onderon..." Kavar began in a puzzled tone. "Something was attempting to use the planet itself, to feed on it, to draw on the power there. You prevented it, but it was a stalling measure. The next time will be critical."

"Then let us dispense with stalling tactics and fight them. If the next moment is so critical, how can we hide and let it happen?"

"The actual battle is being fought through the Force," Kavar told her, "not with weapons of war. It isn't about the Republic anymore."

Khara shook her head. "You're hesitating…" she muttered. "You're all hesitating just like you did in the Mandalorian Wars!"

"If Jedi gather, if we wage war against those… shadows now, then Jedi will die," Vrook barked, "and we will die for nothing."

"Nothing!" she echoed in disbelief. "You will die in defense of the Republic."

Vrook narrowed his gaze on her, patience thinning. "Whatever this thing is, it must be fought by those strong in the Force—it cannot be fought in any other way. It knows this and that is why it is killing us. If we die, then it will win, no matter what fleet or weapons are brought against it."

"If you hide, it will win. Can't you see that?"

"Our choice has been made," Vrook declared. "It is done."

Khara sighed and began pacing back and forth in frustration as disappointment flagged her spirit. "I don't understand you. Master Zez-Kai Ell, you said I was right to do what I did but now you waver as before," she said but he closed his tired eyes to avoid looking at her. She looked at Kavar. "Master, you told me Dantooine would be the staging ground for our counterattack!" He just stared at her in quiet resignation. She stopped pacing as her gaze swept across them. "You said our enemy can only be fought by those strong in the Force. Are you not? Are we not?"

No one said a word.

"If you will not fight, I will," she told them, "I will fight and, if I die, at least you will be rid of me."

"No," Vrook protested as though she was still a padawan he had the authority to give orders to. "That is not your path."

"It is my path!" she snapped. "It has always been my path. Where threats walk, I will meet them. You have seen the futures that fighting bears and you rebuke them. Well I have seen the futures your hiding births and I want nothing of them either!" Khara threw up her hands in exasperation. "Why have you brought me here if your intentions were to do nothing?"

"We met to decide the best course of action," Kavar explained, "and we have determined that facing the Sith threat directly would result in senseless death."

"But that does not mean we do not intend to act," Vrook told her. "There is something we must do and that is why we have brought you here. There is something you must know." His intense gaze focused on her the way it had all those years ago when she stood before them to be judged for her crimes. Khara straightened, sensing something was coming, something she would not like. "We told you we cast you out of the Order because you followed Revan to war," Vrook barked, "but there was another reason."

"You," Zez-Kai Ell finally spoke up, "had become different somehow. Changed." He frowned. "The war had changed you. And if you had stayed, you would have changed us. And that we could not allow."

That got her attention. "What do you mean by that?" she asked and quirked one brow. "That I would have changed you?"

"You already know the answer," Vrook replied cryptically. "You've noticed it in those who travel with you."

"When you act, others follow," Zez-Kai Ell continued. "Those that travel with you follow you without question. Without hesitation."

"Against their instincts," Vrook added, "and sometimes against their sense. You draw others to you, especially those strong in the Force. Your feelings, your desires are projected onto them. You are a leader but not in the way it was meant to be. You have always done this, even when you were a child. You influenced the other students—older students—sometimes against their masters wishes."

Khara shook her head, wanting to deny what they were telling her. She had been influencing those around her all this time? She had moved countless troops through untold dangers and into gruesome deaths… by her will? Against his conscience, Bao-Dur had destroyed a planet for her because she made her? And the others—a bounty hunter fighting Sith for what reason? A scholar throwing away his work to be a Jedi? A Sith miraculously turned from the dark side to serve a Jedi? Why hadn't she seen it before? Mira and Mical, Visas and Atton—Atton!

"You make connections through the Force, connections as strong as Force bonds," Kavar told her as she took a shaky step back. "You do it so easily when similar bonds take years to form, and usually only between master and apprentice."

Suddenly, she couldn't breathe. How could she have been so blind? At the time, she had thought it was unbelievable he wanted to stay with her but she accepted his words. I was stalling until I could think of a better excuse to tag along. But in the beginning, he had wanted to leave. He had wanted nothing to do with her and her trouble. Yet he had stayed. He had no reason, he just remained. Because of her, because she forced him to in her desperation for help, because she had wanted him to stay, because she loved—no. No! What if his feelings weren't real at all? What if he only embraced her because of the feelings she had for him?

"When you suffer, their spirit echoes," Vrook growled. "And when they are in pain, their pain becomes yours."

"And that is why the Mandalorian Wars echo within you still," Zez-Kai Ell finished softly.

Khara put her hands to her temples in alarm as pain swept through her. She tried to digest what they were telling her but it hurt too much. What did it mean? What did any of it mean? That she had formed a Force bond with Atton, that she had turned him into a puppet? That she had enslaved his will and made him her lover? That she formed Force bonds with all of her companions? With Mical and Mira and Bao-Dur? With the people she fought alongside in the war? With…

She went rigid. Her hands slipped down to her sides. If she had formed bonds in the Mandalorian Wars, then she had formed hundreds—thousands of bonds. Their pain… was her pain? Khara's chest constricted.

"All of those deaths at Malachor…" she mumbled, a numb sensation sweeping across her.

"The screams of countless thousands, Jedi and Mandalorians, crushed by the planet's gravity, annihilated," Zez-Kai Ell said and shook his head sadly. "It is not possible to hear the Force over such pain."

Khara closed her eyes, feeling tears bubbling up under her cheeks. She was falling again, people all around her were screaming, the ground was shaking, and a thunderous roar was burrowing into her. And then she was staring up at a graveyard of ships. A green aurora cut the sky in half. Revan was picking her up, holding her, and she heard nothing but his voice—not Malak or the planet or the Force.

Kavar approached her cautiously. He put one hand on her shoulder, pulling her out of the past and back into the present.

"It was too much for any Jedi to endure," he murmured gently. "You cut yourself off. Because you had to. To survive."

"When you returned to us, we saw what had happened," Vrook continued. "You carry all those deaths at Malachor within you, and it has left a hole, a hunger that cannot be filled. In you, we saw a wound in the Force."

Zez-Kai Ell shook his head. "In you, we saw the end of the Force."

Khara looked at each one in turn, tried to understand what they were saying but it made no sense. "But I feel the Force again," she said desperately.

"Yes, you can feel the Force," Vrook agreed, "but you cannot feel yourself. You are a cipher, forming bonds, leeching the life of others, siphoning their will and dominating them." Just like these new Sith. He didn't say it… but he didn't have to. Suddenly, he looked at her very sympathetically, as though he were filled with deep regret. And then his expression hardened once more. "What you carry may mean the death of the Force… and the death of the Jedi. You are a breach that must be closed."

"No," she exclaimed. "No, that can't be. I feel the Force again—" Kavar's hand on her shoulder squeezed comfortingly "—more strongly than I've ever felt!"

"So you think," Vrook grunted. "It is not the strength of a Jedi you feel."

His words slapped her across the face.

"He's right," Zez-Kai Ell said. "It's all the death you've caused to get here. You feed on it and you grow stronger. You're like Malachor…" Another slap. "It's in you. It's what you are now." Slap. "And what's worse is that bonding you have. It hasn't gone away. It's gotten stronger… and the more attachments you form, the more you draw others to you."

"And that is why you are a threat to us all," Vrook grumbled.

Khara's legs felt as though they were about to give out from under her. If not for Kavar's firm grip on her shoulder, she might've fallen over. She stumbled back but he held her, his hand moving from her shoulder to her arm. She looked at him, silently begged him to tell her it wasn't true. He looked at her with such sorrow that she knew there was no hope, no chance they could be wrong.

"What if other Jedi went to war as you did, suffered the same events, and emerged as you did?" Vrook asked. "What if there was a crucible that trained such Jedi to consume and kill? For you, Malachor was that Crucible. And now these Sith we face have learned the lesson of Malachor as well, learned to prey on Force users, learned their hunger… from you. And so you have brought about the end of the Jedi and," he paused, "perhaps all the knowledge of the Force."

Her enemy… was her doing? These Sith that had destroyed Katarr had done so with power they had learned from her? Going to war had caused—this was her fault, all of it—her fault—she was a void, a breach—she had destroyed the Jedi. She was at Malachor. She was falling. All around her, people were screaming. She was Malachor, and she was falling and she was screaming.

"Your ability to make such connections, such bonds, so easily is why you cannot remain. You are a threat to all living creatures, to all who feel the Force. Our judgment before remains." Vrook folded his hands in front of him. "Exile."

Everything she had lost at Malachor… was lost forever. Khara felt a few tears slip down her cheeks. Everything she had thought she had regained had been a lie. Her connection to the Force was leached from those around her, her strength borrowed, her companions mere Force puppets, the Council's acceptance and trust nothing more than fear and condemnation, her identity remained stripped, her home a cold way station, and her love… Atton's love…

How could she had believed for one moment that the happiness she had felt… had been real? If the Force had given her such joy, it was only to take it away. To punish her for her crimes, her sins. For Malachor. But she couldn't have known. None of them could have known. All of the Jedi who preached caution and warned against fighting—none of them could have known! Was watching the Mandalorians burn the galaxy preferable to this? Would the genocide of thousands of worlds have built a better future? Was it their hubris that blamed her or was it her hubris that tried to deny it?

It didn't matter. It was all of their sins. And they had been punished. Reduced to ruin, scattered, and near destroyed. Now it was her turn. She had not known happiness as a Jedi and therefore had not known sorrow. The Mandalorian Wars had changed that—had taken her contentment and given her loneliness. But the price had not been fully paid. So the Force had taught her the meaning of joy so that she would know what it felt like to be utterly broken.

"You must leave," Vrook said sternly, each word hammering at her heart, "and you must leave without your tie to the Force."

Khara's gaze snapped up in alarm.

"It is a punishment reserved for only a few—and only when necessary," Zez-Kai Ell explained, "but we have the power to cut you off from the Force… and it must be done."

Her eyes went wide. She looked at Kavar, once more tried to read him, to find some hint that it wasn't true. His mouth was set in a hard line. It's a lie. It had to be a lie.

"Forgive us," he said, "but it must be done."

More tears slipped down her cheeks. "You called me here… to cut me off from the Force," she began weakly. "The staging ground for the counterattack… was to strip me of the Force?" She jerked out of his grasp, tears falling more quickly. "You can't do that. You can't do that to me."

"Khara," Kavar began. "Please, understand—" Suddenly, she was held in Force stasis and lifted off of the ground. Kavar looked at the others, frustration evident in his expression, then back at her. "It wasn't meant to be this way. We want it no more than you do, but you are what you are and we cannot ignore that."

Her heart was pounding, fear overwhelming her. All around her, people were screaming and she was falling, falling hard, and a graveyard of ships floated above her. She tried to fight the stasis but they were too strong. She closed her eyes, desperately summoned her strength, and managed to lash out. Their field wavered and she nearly kicked free but then Kavar joined their efforts and she was restrained once more.

"Do not be afraid," Vrook said gently. It was the first kind thing he had said to her. "You shall feel no pain, but this must be done."

"Afraid?" she cried. "How can you tell me not to be afraid? You reek of fear! You looked at me at my trial and trembled at the absence of the Force! The very thought of it terrifies you! And you tell me not to be afraid? I have felt what you can only imagine!" She screamed in her vain struggle to free herself. "It nearly destroyed me! Please. Please don't do this to me again!"

"As long as you feel the Force, you are a danger to those around you!" Vrook exclaimed. "There is no other way."

Suddenly, she felt her mind start to tear. The strangled cry that escaped her throat caused Kavar's face to wrench in pain—caused them all to flinch. They had told her there would be no pain… but they could not know what they had never felt. It seared her like a brand a thousand times hotter than the sun. A black void appeared inside of her and began to grow, to suck out her connection to everything. Her soul was shredding, nerves unraveling. She couldn't breathe, couldn't see. She could only scream.

"Enough!" someone yelled and then she was falling to the ground. The void inside of her disappeared, fracturing mind restored. Disoriented and drained, she reached out through the Force… and could feel them. Vrook and Zez-Kai Ell and Kavar and… Kreia. "Step away from her."

Her vision was blurry but in the haze she saw the three huddled forms of the masters as they rolled on the ground and slowly got to their feet. Someone ran toward her.

"Step away!" Kreia growled and the master was knocked back again. He hit the wall with a loud crack. "She has brought truth, and you condemn it? The arrogance! You will not harm her. You will not harm her ever again."

"I thought you had died in the Mandalorian Wars..." a man said. It was Kavar's voice, low and angry. She tried to lift her head but she could barely move. What was happening? Why was Kreia here?

"Die?" the old woman balked. "No! Became stronger, yes."

"Stronger?" Zez-Kai Ell echoed. "You are like a shadow of the exile." Suddenly, lightsabers were drawn, three vibrating beams activating one after another. "We sought to lure the Sith out… and now they have come to us."

In the haze of borderline consciousness, Khara sought her companion. Kreia, Khara reached out with her mind. What is this? But the old woman did not answer her. What are you doing?

"How could you ever hope to know the threat you face when you have never walked in the dark places of the galaxy?" Kreia exclaimed. "When you have never faced war and death on such a scale? If you had traveled far enough, rather than waiting for the echo to reach you, perhaps you would have seen it for what it was. Did you not hear its call on Dantooine, Vrook? On its scarred surface and in the minds of the settlers?" There was so much disappointment in her voice. She was looking down on them, judging them as they had judged Khara all those years ago. "And you, Kavar, so close to the call of Dxun. Tell me! Did you not feel what poured from the moon, what had taken place there?" Disgust was thick in her tone. "And Zez-Kai Ell, to hide upon Nar Shaddaa yet blind yourself to all that happens there. So close to understanding the Force… so close to giving it up. You are all of you… unworthy. I have endured your corruption of my other students," she growled. "You shall not have this one."

"Is this your new Master, exile?" Vrook barked with a hint of pain. He had been wounded, she realized. Khara wanted to answer him no but she couldn't speak. She closed her eyes tightly, focused on gathering as much strength as she could. "Then you follow Revan's path more than you know. Her teachings will cause you to fall as surely as he did."

"Revan," Kreia echoed proudly. "Revan knew. There is a place in the galaxy where the Dark Side of the Force runs strong. Fueled by war, it corrupts all that walks on its surface, drowns them in the power of the Dark Side. It corrupts all life and it feeds on death." Her robes brushed the tall weeds as she began to move closer. "The Mandalorian Wars was a series of massacres to fuel these dark places, to saturate the galaxy with the Dark Side, to corrupt all who walked near, culminating in a final atrocity that no Jedi could walk away from." Kreia stopped next to Khara. "Save one," she said in awe. "And that is what I sought to understand. How one could turn away from such power, give up the Force… and still live. But I see what happened now." Kreia knelt next to her, bent low to whisper, "It is because you were afraid."

Khara kept her eyes closed even when she felt tears burn under her eyelids, felt the wetness gathering at the bridge of her nose. Revan was holding her tightly, whispering to her. It's over. You finished it. The war is won. It's over. I'm here. It's all right. And she was staring at the sky. What have we done? What have we done? And she was terrified. Kreia was right. She had been afraid. She had been afraid of what Malachor had become, what she had become. She had been afraid of the Masters doing it to her again, of severing her from the Force as she had done to herself, as she had done to Malachor.

It had been fear that had brought her to this point. It had been fear that had motivated the Jedi Council. Fear had corrupted them all, stayed their hand when they should have acted, moved them like pawns when they should have been still, turned them off course. Fear had been the real threat, and it was fear—not Sith—that would destroy them.

Kreia stood up and took one step forward. "As you would pass judgment on her, I have come to pass judgment on you all." Kreia, stop! "You will feel the teachings born of the Mandalorians Wars—" lightsabers whirred as if gearing up for a fight "—of all wars, of all tragedies that scream across the galaxy!" Kreia, don't! "Let me show you—you, who have forever seen the galaxy through the Force!" Kreia! NO! "See it through the eyes of the exile."

A shock of violent energy ripped through the Force. It was power unlike anything she had felt before, overwhelming and dark and consuming. It clawed and tore at all living things, consumed energy, devoured the Force. Screams filled her, voices heard in the physical and through the Force. It was the Jedi Masters. They were being drained, scraped hollow. Their pain filled her up. Zez-Kai Ell and Vrook, their thoughts and suffering, bombarded her. But Kavar's agony was like a great wave overtaking her.

For a moment, she saw herself as he saw her… and felt the feelings he must have carried for her. Love. How much he loved her. How he had wanted to protect her. How he wished he could have saved her. How his trust in her had never wavered, not once. Was that a product of her power, too? Kavar didn't seem to think so. Did his thoughts mean nothing next to her? He refused to believe her will had broken his. And she had not been as alone as they had tried to make her feel…

And then the clamor of anguish rushed back in, swept his memories away like small things in a flood. As their cries filled her up, she screamed, too. She projected all the energy she had gathered in such a short time, threw it at him, tried to save him—to save all of them. The siphoning energy licked at her, too, as a result of her touching them with the Force. She had felt these lashings before and would not cower again. If she could be a shield for them, for just one of them… it would be worth dying. Finally.

Something shattered and there was silence. More than silence. There was nothing. When Khara opened her eyes, Kreia was walking away.

"It is done," the old woman said as she left the chamber. "She is no more."

Khara groaned and looked at the three bodies lying a few feet from her. She reached out through the Force but could not feel them. They were hollow.

"No," she whimpered, crawling toward them. She had no strength left and her arms kept giving out but she persisted. "No, please…" They were, all three of them, husks—an absence in the Force. They were more than dead—they were oblivion. "No," she wailed, her voice weak and frail. Tears poured out of her as she came upon Kavar's body. There was a tiny pulse of life, so weak she could barely feel it. Whatever she had done to try to shield the Masters had just barely kept him alive. He looked at her with eyes fractured by fear. He reached for her like he would a lifeline, terror warping his face. His knuckles brushed her cheek for a mere second and then his arm dropped jarringly to the ground. "Kavar…" she rasped but the light had left his eyes. She saw her tears drip onto his face before her vision went completely blurry. "Kavar!" Her mind clouded, energy spent.

She collapsed onto his chest and was surrounded by darkness, darkness all-encompassing save for a green aurora that split the sky in half.