When consciousness returned Jade still thought she was dreaming. Scattered images of her husband, her sons, her father and grandfather and the shifting face of a Chiss moved around her, blurred as though by fog, and when they dissolved to nothing they were replaced by the flashing, shapeless flow of light and color, white and blue, like the view of hyperspace from inside a ship. After some time she realized she was looking at hyperspace with the blurred, confused eyes of someone emerging from a deep sleep. She felt the tingling return of sensation to her body, down her arms and legs, and realized it hadn't been sleep but a stun blast.
Then she remembered the fight with Darth Terrid beneath the planet's surface, the violence and the slaughter. She realized she was laying on a hard flat metal deck, and stun cuffs were around her wrists. She shifted; the view of hyperspace panned away and she saw the white ceiling of whatever cabin she was in. It was gently curved, like the interior of a Mon Calamari vessel.
Two figures suddenly loomed over her, one on either side, and she thought she was dreaming again. One was Darth Terrid, Ran'wharn'csapla, and she could feel him in the Force: cold anger, ruthless intent, and beneath that confusion and fear. Her eyes shifted to the other person. She didn't believe it. She blinked focus to her vision but he saw still there: her husband Jodram, watching her without expression.
She couldn't feel him in the Force at all.
She wished she was dreaming, because the awful reality she'd tried so hard to deny down on the planet was finally taking shape. She stared up at Jodram's so-familiar face, into the eyes that had watched hers since they were children. The light in them was gone; blue irises ringed dark pupils and the pupils themselves, though tiny, seemed wide and black as space. She stared at them until she saw the faint twinkle of distant stars and then, horribly, she knew.
"Welcome back, Jedi Skywalker," Abeloth said. It was Jodram's voice, even Jodram's intonation. That made it so much worse.
She forced herself upright and stared at the thing in anger. She couldn't help herself; this was not just mockery, this was abuse and vile degradation of the man she'd loved, the best man she'd ever known. Abeloth sensed that rage and smiled. She watched Jodram's face, familiar in every inch, distort somehow, so his smile grew wider and wider, revealing a mouth lined with small sharp teeth.
"Jodram is gone," Darth Terrid spoke at last. "There's only her now."
"What are you, her slave?" Jade snapped. "How could you? You know what she is, what she'll do!"
The Chiss didn't deny it. He didn't even look at Abeloth, though Jade could feel he wanted to be as far from that abomination as he could. Stiffly he said, "We are all her slaves now."
Jade looked around the entire room now. It was the personal cabin of Mon Remora's captain. She, Lowbacca, Ohali, and Colonel Horn had spoken with the woman after leaving Karn'erath. She recognized the broad forward viewport through which hyperspace flashed, the desk and chair, the broad sofa, the captain's personal communications console.
"You've taken over the whole ship. How did you-" She stopped herself. There was no point in asking. Abeloth took what Abeloth wanted. She'd taken a shuttle, probably the Alliance troop carrier. Posing as Jodram she'd gained clearance to land. With the help of Terrid and her Erath slaves she'd seized control of the mighty warship and flung it into hyperspace.
Jade forced herself to look at Abeloth's face. "What did you do to Lowbacca and the others?"
"Once I brought you aboard," Terrid said, "She initiated a jump to hyperspace and left them behind."
Jade had been afraid she'd used Mon Melora's guns to vaporize the entire planet's surface. "How merciful," she muttered.
"Not mercy," Abeloth said, with Jodram's voice. "They'll make their way back to the rest of their kind. They'll spread stories about what happened to them. The entire Jedi Order will be stricken with fear."
"You don't know Jedi," Jade said, trying for confidence she didn't feel.
"I know you, Jade Skywalker, just like I knew your father and grandfather."
Abeloth crouched and reached out. Jade turned her face away but felt a soft touch from her husband's hands, so gentle on her cheek. She shuddered uncontrollably; she wanted to strike it, scream loud, and break down crying all at once.
"He lives in me, you know," Abeloth hissed. "All his memories of you. He doesn't feel grateful but he should. In becoming a part of me he's joined a power greater than anything he could have ever reached as a second-rate Jedi."
Jade remembered how Abeloth had possessed the bodies of one of her grandfather's lost loves. Luke had been able to reach out to his Callista and wrench her soul out from Abeloth's, granting it release and blessed oblivion. Even if Jade had the Force strength of her grandfather she couldn't bring herself to search for any shade of Jodram inside Abeloth now. The Jedi had always called her an abomination but she'd never realized the true horror of what she was until now, when she wore Jodram's face and defiled everything Jade and her husband had shared.
Abeloth withdrew the hand but Jade refused to look back at her. Instead she stared at Darth Terrid's waist and staring saw two sabers dangling from his belt. She knew both. One was her own. The other was the same metal cylinder Wharn had built and used as an apprentice all those years ago, now refashioned with the blood-red blade of a Sith.
Realization hit her. She spun around, looked at Abeloth, and saw the Mortis dagger bound at Jodram's hip. Abeloth placed a hand on its hilt, stroked it.
"You can't kill me," Jodram's voice said. "Nothing can kill me."
"Where are we going?" Jade still refused to look at her face.
"I'm going to deliver a message," Abeloth said. "This galaxy needs to learn to fear me again."
"Why do you need us?"
"After we deliver the message, we three will be going elsewhere."
"Where?" She looked back at Terrid. "Do you know?"
Stiffly, the Chiss shook his head.
"We'll be going to a world like the one we left, but greater," said Abeloth. "And then we three will be joined together. Forever."
That triggered another memory, but Jade couldn't place it exactly. Something her father had told her. She forced herself to look up at Jodram's face. The wide toothy smile had shrunk but the starlight gleam within those eyes had grown brighter.
To go to all this trouble Abeloth needed her. She hadn't figured the specifics exactly, but she knew that much.
She tried very hard not to look at the communications console near the captain's desk. Before going down to the planet she'd recorded an emergency message and left it in Mon Melora's computer. She'd done so on that very console. In case of an emergency the captain had been ordered to send the message, which would route directly to her cousin Allana and also activate a tracker aboard Mon Melora that would broadcast the warship's location to the Jedi on Ossus.
Jade didn't know if the message had been sent. If it hadn't, she needed to send the warning now.
Abeloth was powerful but not all-powerful. Her bodies could be killed; she could be distracted.
Jade started to rise, exaggerating the shakiness of her already-wobbly legs. Neither Abeloth nor Terrid moved to touch her, which was well and good.
She reached out with the Force and found two familiar switches: one on the captain's comm console and one on her own lightsaber.
She pressed both at once. The sudden extension of her violet light-blade burned through part of Terrid's trouser-leg. He gave an un-Sith-like yelp and jumped back. Jade called the lightsaber to her hands, stretching them out to clasp it, but was taken by the hard sudden slap of Abeloth's ghostly tentacle. Pain blossomed in her skull and she collapsed on the floor. It was over as quickly as it started.
"Pathetic," Jodram's voice sneered. "If you're planning to escape from me, you need to choose your timing better."
Jade rolled onto her back and winced to hide her relief. Abeloth said nothing about the comm signal; she hadn't noticed it being sent.
"I'm undamaged," Terrid commented.
"Good. I suggest you keep a close eye on her. I'm going down to the bridge to prepare for our arrival." Jade watched as Abeloth stepped right over her, then rolled to one side and watched Jodram's dirty boots stomp across the deck toward the exit. Before stopping Abeloth turned and gave her one last look.
"Do not let her get the better of you again, or I'll find someone else to suit my purpose."
"Of course," Terrid glowered.
Then she turned and was gone. Jade forced her thoughts away from the comm signal and pushed herself so she sat upright again. When she looked up it was still there, looming over her, promising nothing but pain: a second face, transformed into twisted mockery of what she'd known.
-{}-
Kyrr Esch was normally a model of diplomatic tact, but as she talked to him via the Jedi temple's comm system Allana could tell the goodwill she'd gotten from warning about her Coruscant vision had been totally evaporated.
"Allana, you must not underestimate the severity of this," the chief of state told her. "The Kuati embassy is putting together a legal case against the Jedi Order. They will have you tried in Alliance courts for the murder of their Chief Executive Officer!"
"They can't charge us for murder if they can't find a body."
"The Kuatis can buy lawyers who can charge and win on any grounds. Why didn't the Jedi ask for permission from Balmorran law enforcement? This is exactly the kind of situation we've worked for decades to prevent."
"There was no time. We had to act as quickly as possible. Retor of Kuhvult was a Sith."
"Tsi?" Esch sucked in breath. "How do you know this?"
"We have a video recording of Retor with a flashy red lightsaber, slaughtering a roomful of Mandalorians."
"You Jedi work with Mandalorians now?"
She sighed. "It's a long story."
"The Kuati lawyers want to hear all of it so they can pick it apart. Or they'll claim your video is a fraud, or irrelevant." The Mrlssi gave another whistling sigh. "Please, Allana, the entire Jedi Order must act very carefully. If popular opinion decides that the Jedi assassinated one of the most important businessmen in the galaxy it would ruin the goodwill the Order has been building for decades."
"I know," she said heavily. So much of her years as Chief of State had been aimed at building that bridge and strengthening it. The events on Balmorra were a crack, a major one, but she believed the damage could be contained.
She tried to force the conversation on a different track by asking, "Has the Alliance decided whether to recognize Davek Fel as the Empire's leader?"
"Tsi, that is uncertain. My advisors say to wait at least until the situation at Yaga Minor had been resolved. I'm included to agree."
That didn't surprise Allana. In Esch's position she'd have done much the same. The situation in Imperial space was too volatile for anyone to guess whether Davek or Veers would come out on top. The one certain thing was that whoever won, the democratic Empire that Jagged Fel had spent decades building was done for. Allana would much rather deal with Davek as emperor than Veers, but it broke her heart to have to make that choice. Davek might be thinking he was safeguarding his father's legacy but the Jag she'd known all her life would never have seen it that way.
Esch opened his mouth to say something else, but a red beacon lit up on Allana's console, marking an emergency call. From Lowbacca and Jade's expedition, she thought, and probably nothing good. Bracing herself, she said, "One minute, Kyrr, please," and switched the channel.
The Mrlssi's holo-image winked out and was replaced by a head-and-shoulders shot of Jade, but a small light at the bottom of the display marked this as a recording instead of a live transmission so Allana resigned herself to merely watching.
"Allana, this record is being sent by Mon Melora's captain," said Jade. "We told him only to send this if he lost contact with all Jedi on the strike team. Allana, we left Tekli and her healers on Karn'erath and followed a lead to where we think Abeloth is. In sending this message we've activated a tracer beacon on Mon Melora so you'll know where to reach us. I wish I could tell you more, but I can't.
"Do what you think is right, Allana."
And with that, the holo winked out. Another light blinked on the console, asking if she wanted to open the data package attached to the transmission. Allana did just that; a spatial map of the galaxy sprung up in front of her, with a red light tracking Mon Melora. To her surprise, the ship was no longer in the heart of the Unknown Regions. It was actually closer to the Core, and when she checked the readout she saw that it was moving inbound at maximum lightspeed.
From its location Mon Melora could reach a thousand different star systems, but, with horrible certainty, Allana knew exactly which one. She switched back to her link with the chief of state and asked, "Kyrr, when did you last hear from Mon Melora?"
Esch twitched his head. "Over a day ago. They were leaving Karn'erath with your Jedi aboard."
"This ship is heading for Coruscant. You need to intercept and stop it."
"Allana, I-"
"My vision, Kyrr. Abeloth is on that ship and she's coming for Coruscant."
"But how can you-"
"Please, be ready to stop that ship. Do not let it close to the planet!"
"But Allana..." Esch's big black eyes blinked in confusion as he fumbled for something to say. "Allana… What will you do?"
Her mind fell back almost fifty years, when visions of one disaster had driven her determined seven-year-old self to stow away on the Millennium Falcon and ride it from Ossus to Coruscant in an attempt to stop it.
At least now she could do it with better style.
"I'm coming to help," she told Esch, "As fast as I can."
-{}-
For a long time they sat across from each other, neither speaking. Jade moved over to the sofa and sat with her back to the flash of hyperspace. Darth Terrid pulled a chair in the middle of the cabin and faced her. He unhooked the two lightsabers from his belt and knelt forward with one firmly in either hand. He shifted them in his grip, felt their hard surfaces slide across his palms. This was the same lightsaber she'd built as an apprentice. He was still using the shell from all those years ago too, though with a new red focusing crystal. They both looked familiar, felt familiar in his hands.
"Do you remember?" Jade asked, voice very soft. "That one time we swapped sabers and sparred with each other's weapons?"
He looked up at her, narrowed his eyes. When faced with Jodram he'd wanted to strike the man down for the memories he drew out, the weakness he made Terrid feel inside. Being with Jade brought only more memories and more weakness, but he found he didn't have the urge to hurt her. He didn't know why.
He hated the confusion. He wished they'd both died on that planet. Now he had a live Jade and a twisted mockery of Jodram, both haunting him. The liberation of Darth Avanc's murder felt further away than his Jedi apprentice days. He was more trapped than ever.
"Do you remember?" Jade asked again.
"No," he lied.
"What about that time we took you out under the stars and two moons. Do you remember that?"
"No!" he snapped, too forceful. His hands clenched hard on the sabers.
"Oh, Wharn... I can't imagine what they did to you." Jade's eyes were so sad.
"It doesn't matter. I can't be what I was then, with you and Jodram. Not again, not ever. Do you understand that?"
"Are you sure? Or is that just what the Sith told you when they broke you?"
"They did not break me. They made me better, stronger than the Jedi ever could have."
"Then why are you trembling?"
He sprung to his feet. The lightsabers in his hands sprung to life and he took two long steps, arms spread, then froze. One more step and he could slash both sabers through her neck and snip off her head. She stared at him, unflinching, with just a hint of hope on her face.
He recoiled. She had, in her subtly gentle way, been begging for him to kill her. Jade Skywalker was more guileful than she looked. He'd forgotten that about her.
"You should do it," she whispered. "Then kill yourself. It's better than what she had planned for us."
He had to ask. "Do you know what she intends?"
"I do. I had to think about it, but I remember what my dad told me."
Terrid stepped back and forced himself to sit on the chair opposite her. "Tell me."
She exhaled, slightly deflated. She really had been readying herself to die. "What do you know about Abeloth? What did Darth Avanc tell you?"
"What do you think I need to know?"
"She was mortal once. She lived with three immortal beings called the Ones on a planet in the Maw. The existed within the Force and had incredible power. There was a son who embodied the dark side and a daughter who embodied the light. The father kept balance. Abeloth drank from something called the Font of Power to make her like them. It did, but it twisted her into… what we see now."
"What happened to the Ones?"
"Killed, by a special dagger. Abeloth has it now. Just one stab and it extinguished the spirit in her Night-queen body. Fifty years ago, Abeloth captured my father and a Sith girl. She took them back to her homeworld in the Maw and tried to get them to drink from something she called the Font of Power."
"To become like her?"
"To recreate her family. A son and a daughter, only that time the son would embody the light side of the Force and the daughter the dark side." She leaned forward a little. "I think she's trying to do that again. With us."
Terrid didn't know what to say. It sounded unreal, fantastical, but everything about Abeloth was that way.
"Well," Jade asked, "Do you want to drink from the Font of Power and become like her?"
"No." He didn't hide his shudder.
"Then kill me," she said simply. "Then kill yourself, while you still have the weapons to do it."
He shifted the lightsabers in his hands. He balked at the thought; suicide was an act of weakness and despair, the last thing a Sith should do. It would be a better fate than what Abeloth had prepared for them, if what Jade said was true, but still, he couldn't do it. Even before becoming a Sith, even before joining the Jedi, he'd always fought to become a better, stronger version of himself. Jedi and Sith and their tricks and tools had been means toward that end. There was a core within him that remained uncharged against everything. He understood that, finally.
"That would be surrender," he told Jade. "And I will not surrender."
She looked sadder still. Instead of trying to change his mind she said, "Do you know where she's taking us?"
"No."
"And you don't know what she plans to do when we get there?"
"No. Only… what she told you. About leaving a message."
They fell into silence; there seemed little more to say. Hyperspace continued to flash by. He looked at the light, at his sabers, then back at Jade, who looked at him still, though she seemed to be staring through him, her thoughts elsewhere. He only had to reach out briefly with the Force to know where.
"Tell me," he said, "From what your father and grandfather told you… How much of Jodram is still in her?"
She closed her eyes, swallowed. She was trying to hold back tears. Jade emanated agony and it brought him no joy.
"Too much," she said at last.
Terrid had thought as much. He shifted in his seat so he no longer had to look at her. Whatever awaited them- death or awful transformation- it was at least a better fate than Jodram's.
