Herush grimaced as he raced past Judicar and the Keshiri she was dueling while still firing his blaster at the Zabrak and Zeltron who killed his siblings and mother. Right now, even through his grief for his family's deaths, he wished that he had the nausea blaster that he used to subdue Jacen Solo on Drescus before he knocked him unconscious and took off with Judicar. But in the hurry from his family's cabin, he had completely forgotten about it, and now all he had to rely on was his normal blaster, which wasn't doing a damn thing against the aliens who stalked toward him, as the Zabrak batted his shots every which way through the forest with his lightsaber.
Once Herush passed Judicar and her opponent, however, he stopped several meters from them and angled his position so that he could shoot past the mother of his child and the Keshiri, hoping that he could land a lucky shot on either of his family's killers before his blaster pack ran out. But still, the Zabrak continued to block Herush's bolts, and after several shots, one of them was redirected right towards Judicar.
The pregnant Sith, though, used her free hand to redirect the deflected bolt with the Force so that it struck the Keshiri right in the shoulder. The purple-skinned alien reeled in pain from the then-cauterized wound, allowing his human opponent to chop his lightsaber-wielding hand off.
Then, before the Keshiri had a chance to let loose a primal scream from that pain, Judicar bisected him down the middle; she had already turned to face the Zabrak and Zeltron before both pieces of her opponent collapsed to the ground.
However, the two aliens stopped in place, and the Zabrak said to the Zeltron, "Eelos, if you would be so kind as to repeat your little tactic for that man over there?"
Instead of responding verbally, Eelos the Zeltron lifted one hand before him; behind her, Judicar heard gasping sounds. She turned her head far enough and saw Herush hanging in the air, his hands grasping vainly at his neck as he tried to breathe.
And for a moment—an extremely brief moment—Judicar actually felt fear clench her heart for his life.
But that fear was instantly shuffled to the back of her mind as she heard the hum of a lightsaber close in on her from ahead. She brought her blade up into a defensive strike to intercept the Zabrak's crimson blade but was still driven back several steps by his attacks. Still, once she anchored herself into place, she dueled off against Plekos for only a few seconds before she disengaged, flipped two meters off to her left, and sent a brief surge of Force-electricity toward Eelos; she was back to clashing blades with Plekos again as the Zeltron, having released his hold on Herush, leaped off to the side to avoid being hit by the lightning bolts. Judicar's energy attack, meanwhile, ended up scoring a large blackened mark upon a tree.
As Herush coughed while trying to get air back into his lungs, he still had the presence of mind to level his blaster toward Eelos, who was just getting back to his feet, and fired off a shot. The Zeltron, though, erected a Force-shield around himself just in time to dissipate the bolt, and then he telekinetically pulled the human's weapon right out of his hand.
Quickly, Herush pushed himself back to his feet and started to run in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, an invisible hand tripped him to his stomach, and the next thing he knew, he was back in the air again, his windpipe once again being closed off even as his body rotated in the air so that he could see Eelos approach him casually.
But just as Herush started to see spots, he thought he also heard the telltale roar of engines approaching. And once again, he was unceremoniously released from his invisible strangulation and dropped to his haunches, where he was allowed to wheeze on his back.
A few seconds later, a giant searchlight appeared overhead, and from within it, a single giant laser bolt was fired toward Eelos' general direction. When Herush reluctantly looked up, he saw the Zeltron already running in the direction of the camouflaged N3; it wasn't long before he disappeared into the night-shrouded forest, as it seemed that the searchlight had no desire to look for him.
Instead, the light focused itself upon the dueling forms of Judicar and the Zabrak. Slowly, Herush sat himself back up to cough in pain again, and once his attention was focused back upon the mother of his unborn child and her latest opponent, she saw a new figure drop from up above, where the light had been.
Jacen Solo.
Even as he landed next to Judicar, his green blade was out, active, and aiding his sister's violet blade against the Zabrak's red one. In less than a second, the alien was forced to backpedal by several steps from this doubled onslaught.
Herush pushed himself back to his feet and followed the fight, still coughing every now and then as his lungs still tried get great intakes of air again. Had his throat not been sore, he would have cheered the Solo siblings on as they backed the Zabrak up toward the tree that had the scorch mark from Judicar's latest lightning attack.
But just as the alien was less than a meter from that tree, he suddenly twirled around in place even as he dropped to his haunches and Force-pulled several twigs and sticks into a projectile attack against the human twins. Both Jacen and Judicar reeled back as several painful scrapes made it past their defensive slashes, which allowed the Zabrak to thrust his blade toward Judicar's stomach.
Thankfully for her, she weathered the storm of twigs and sticks long enough to deflect that strike down before kicking Plekos right in the midsection. He flew back so that he hit the tree behind him and ended up on his posterior; he fell unconscious almost immediately.
With a growl, Judicar reeled her own blade back, ready to strike the unconscious Zabrak dead.
Naturally, though, her blade was intercepted by Jacen's; and in one quick movement with his other hand—his artificial one—he had reached out so that her lightsaber was deactivated and in that robotic grasp before he whirled her around and pinned her by her wrists against another nearby tree behind her.
"No," he said sternly just after he deactivated his own lightsaber but kept it in hand.
Grimacing, Judicar tried to summon the Force to send Jacen flying back; but he was ready for that, as he used the Force himself to reinforce his hold on her and smack her back slightly against the tree.
"No," he repeated in the same tone.
Desperately, she tried to kick him in the groin with a knee, but he had already used his own knees to pin her legs against the tree.
But just before he could repeat that one word to her, Jacen's danger-sense spiked, and he immediately flung himself backwards as a laser bolt flew past where he stood a bare second before; he had been forced to let Judicar go in the process.
When he landed on his back, his own lightsaber was active again and deflected the next bolt back so that it struck at its firer's left kneecap. Herush let out a slightly raspy scream as he collapsed to his stomach just before Judicar screamed, "No!"
Then the human Sith let loose a torrent of electricity towards her brother that prompted him to activate the violet blade in his other hand; Jacen formed an X before him with both lightsabers to absorb and deflect the incoming attack.
However, Judicar's attack only lasted for a few moments before Plekos, newly recovered from his unconsciousness, appeared at her side and tried to decapitate her with a swift strike. She dodged in time, cutting off her flow of lightning towards Jacen in the process, before she stepped hurriedly back to avoid the wild flurry of attacks that the Zabrak tried to bring upon her; and without her blade, she was that close to helplessness then.
"Oh, the regret I have now in getting you off Hlest, you treacherous bitch!" Plekos exclaimed between his swings.
"Maybe I woulda been better off if you let me into your little Sith club to begin with, you bottom-feeding, Sith-wannabe smuggler trash!" Judicar countered in the midst of her expert but increasingly desperate dodges.
Plekos screamed vindictively; but Judicar could sense it was less from his feeling insulted by her comeback and more to try to fuel his own rage in striking her down. However, she imagined it probably wouldn't help her any if she gave him more motivation to kill her, so she remained silent as she continued to back off and dodge his attacks.
Jacen, meanwhile, leaped back up to his feet, the lightsabers in his hand deactivated for the moment, right before he closed in on Plekos from behind; with his Force-presence made small, and the sound of the Jedi's footsteps masked by the hum of the Zabrak's weapon, it would be a simple matter to close in from behind the alien and stab him with just one lightsaber...
But just before Jacen could do that, he was brought spinning around by a blaster bolt to his shoulder, fired by the downed Herush, that ultimately brought the Jedi Knight to land on his stomach. Bringing his full Force-awareness back into the fray, Jacen reactivated his lightsaber and deflected Herush's next shot into the air.
"Don't aim at me, you idiot!" Jacen shouted. "Shoot the Zabrak!"
"Kriff you!" Herush exclaimed with a pained tone. He fired off another shot, which Jacen—through his pain—had the presence of mind to redirect toward Plekos' back.
The Zabrak, though, turned in time to deflect the bolt into the ground, but that was all Judicar needed to jump him from behind and tackle him to the ground. With the Force behind her, she pinned him there before she looked up and shouted, "Jacen, my 'saber!"
Forgetting about her earlier attack upon him (considering their current circumstances), Jacen threw the violet-bladed lightsaber toward his sister. As her weapon flew through the air, Judicar sent a brief surge of Force-lightning into Plekos to stun him just long enough for her to reach one hand up and telekinetically pull the 'saber back into her grasp.
Unfortunately for her, Plekos recovered sooner than she expected, as he rolled to his back and brought Judicar down upon her side before she could activate her lightsaber. He then stomped his leg upon her chest and arms, which kept her from using the blade that she then brought back to life, even as he got his own weapon back into hand and swiped it toward her.
But even as he did, Herush shifted his arm to fire upon the Zabrak; the alien, however, instantly pulled out of his attack toward Judicar so that he could redirect that bolt right back at Herush.
Judicar didn't know what happened then; she simply took advantage of the distraction that her lover provided by flicking her weapon-wielding wrist and Force-flinging her lightsaber right toward Plekos' chest; the top part of his torso was severed from the rest of his body and he dropped into two pieces on the ground.
Judicar lay in place for a few seconds as it registered in her brain that the pressure on her chest from Plekos' leg had been lessened by his death. So she simply pushed it aside, turned to her stomach, and looked toward Herush.
He was lying face-down on the forest floor; and right now, Judicar couldn't sense any life from him.
With great worry, and forgetting completely about Jacen for the moment, Judicar pushed herself to her feet and raced over to Herush's body. She gently, hesitantly, rolled him to his back.
A cauterized burn on his chest, from the last bolt that Plekos deflected from him, marked the point of his death.
For several heartbeats, Judicar's eyes swelled with tears. And as her vision blurred, the features that made Herush Klass resemble Jagged Fel to the Sith's eyes began to warp in the Sith's mind so that he now looked more like Zekk to her.
Like he did on the day he died; when Jaina Solo had killed him in her darkly-driven goal to kill Lomi Plo and Welk on Yoggoy well over a year ago.
"Jaina," Jacen's voice whispered from behind her, "I'm so sorry."
Growling angrily, Judicar shot up from Herush's corpse and slugged Jacen across the face; he didn't even try to dodge it. She punched him again; and again; and again. He allowed her to punch him, to bruise him, to hurt him, like he did when he almost killed her on Centerpoint Station all those months ago. At several points, he even let her punch the blaster wound in his shoulder; those were the only times, though, when he grunted in pain.
When Judicar was finally done, she collapsed to her knees and finally cried. Jacen, even through his blurred vision, still knelt down before his sister and offered his shoulder for her to cry on as they hugged.
. . .
When Luke came to, his vision came back gradually from a blur until it finally resolved to the point that he could make out that he was in the passenger compartment of a Corellian civilian shuttle. But instead of Corellians surrounding him, he found that there were maybe more than two dozen Killiks and a male Mon Calamari gathered around and looking at him with fear in their expressions.
"Master Skywalker," the fish-like alien said, "do not be alarmed. We made sure that you would be saved, for now, we fear that the time will come when-"
"Where are we?" Luke asked as he sat up; he winced in pain as he felt the burns that wracked his body.
The Mon Calamari gently settled Luke back upon the row of three seats upon which he laid; the armrests were raised to accommodate his position.
"We are Taat, though you may call this one FealaTaat, if you would like, Master Skywalker," the alien said. "We are racing back to the Prime Unu's nestship as we speak."
"But... Centerpoint..." Luke said weakly. "Mandalorians... with... bombs..."
FealaTaat shook his head worriedly as Luke trailed off with a groan of pain. "It is too late, we are afraid, Master Skywalker. Some in Alaala and Thuruht are trying to disarm the bombs in the control room, but-"
The Mon Calamari Joiner's words were cut off as a bright flash shone through the shuttle's starboard windows; he and the Killiks around him looked at those windows, and Luke only looked once the flash had passed.
And in the flash's place were what had to be several thousand pieces of debris of various sizes sailing toward them.
As the shuttle began to slalom and dodge every which way it could to avoid the debris, there was still a sense of dread and fear emanating from the Killiks and the one Joiner present in the ship that had nothing to do with the immediate danger that they faced.
"That was Centerpoint," Luke whispered to himself in fear.
"It is only a matter of time now," FealaTaat said with a mirrored tone; and somehow, even without the Force to tell him, he knew that UnuThul had said those very words.
"Abeloth will return," the Mon Calamari concluded darkly.
His words were punctuated by a horrified set of clicks and thrumming from the Killiks around him and Luke. And the Grand Master of the Jedi Order couldn't help but feel as if the hits and strikes that the shuttle was then enduring from the Centerpoint Station's remnants served as just the beginning of Abeloth's path of destruction.