Chapter 12 – The End Comes Nigh

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"You did what?!" Luke screamed at the younger man.

"I'm sorry Master Luke.  I wasn't thinking straight," he replied.

"Listen Kyp, everything will be alright.  What ship did you tell him to board?"

"Um...I think it was called the...Anduril..."

"Okay, now we find out where it was going, and we head out after it."

"Yeah, I'll have Rouge Squadron prepare for departure."

"No, this is gonna be just you and me Kyp."

"Yes, Master Luke..." Kyp said sullenly.

"Go get ready, we leave in 15 minutes."

Kyp turned around and left the room.  He ran down the corridor to his room and quickly changed into his flight suit and threw his jedi robes on over it.

Meanwhile Luke opened a menu on the computer and found that the ship Anduril was heading to the Rim, some planet called Nargothrond.  Sending the coordinates to Artoo and telling him to prep the Jade's Fire, he began donning his old flight suit.  The orange color was beginning to fade, from a combination of time and wear.

15 minutes later, Kyp and Luke blasted out of the docking bay and jumped into hyperspace.  Luke silently hoped that the hyperspace maps were as accurate as the computer said they were.

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Jacen looked down as the claw dug deeper into his wrist.  His hand was resting in a large pool of his own blood and the edges of the pool were beginning to coagulate.  He looked up at the creature in front of him and tried using the force on it again, and like the four times before, it failed.

"If you are trying to torture me, this won't work, I've been through pain that you could never begin to imagine." Jacen asked in the calmest voice he could muster.

"Oh really?  Then perhaps we must increase the amount of pain we cause," It said as 3 more claws dug into his wrist and 4 very loud clicks were heard. 

Jacen's eyes were thrown wide open as a neurotoxin was injected into his skin.  It felt like the embrace of pain, only centralized in his wrist.  He reached down inside his body and suddenly the creature was flung back against the wall as Jacen threw his arm up and toward it.  Growling in the back of his throat he used the force to rip each of its claws from its many legs and watched it fall helplessly to the ground.  Looking over he saw his lightsaber and pulled it to his hand and ignited it.  Walking over to the Shadow he stabbed straight through its skull and watched it fall limp on the ground.

John Sheridan watched in fear from his chair in the corner.  Jacen turned around and his anger seemed to drift away.  He untied the Captain and helped him out of the chair.  The time Jacen had spent being tortured had allowed John to regain most of strength.

"What happened just now, Jacen?"

"I suddenly felt the force flowing through my body and I took action.  It is dead."

"But why did you suddenly regain your force powers?"

"I don't know..."

"But I do," a familiar female voice said from the ceiling.

"Susan?!"

She pulled the grating back and dropped down into the room.

"I found some weird furry lizard thing and it tried to bite me, so I shot it."

"That sounds like an Ysalamiri."

"Yeah that's what I figured, I heard Luke talking about one missing from its cage on The Rebel Dream, so I figured they must have taken it."

"But why would the Shadows need an Ysalamiri?"

"It would stop any of the Jedi from following it..."

Jacen suddenly turned around and let the force flow through him.  Susan handed John her spare PPG and they both pointed them at the door.  Jacen suddenly relaxed and John and Susan let out long sighs.

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"Did you feel that, that surge in the force?"

"Yes, Kyp I did, we must be close, but who could have caused it?"

"I'm not sure, but it seems familiar."

"Artoo tells me we are almost there; prepare to drop out of hyperspace."

"Yes, Master Luke."

Luke and Kyp pushed forward on the hyperspace levers and a hole in the space-time continuum opened.  From the hole emerged a small craft, and the hole closed up behind it.  The blue swirl of hyperspace turned into star-lines and then individual stars formed.

"There it is, Master, in sector 11 by 38 by 42."

"I see it Kyp, wait up a second, we have to figure out how we are gonna do this...Wait..."

"What is it Luke?"

"Jacen...?  Jacen is on that ship!"

"WHAT?!?!"

Luke sent out a thought through the force.  *Jacen, what the sith are you doing on that transport?*

*Um...It's a long story, guess who we found though?* Jacen sent back.

*Who?  And who exactly is WE?*

*Commander Ivanova and I have found and rescued Captain Sheridan...well sort of, we still need to get out of here.*

*What were you and Comm...Never mind, find a way off that ship, or a way for me and Kyp to get on board.*

*Yes Uncle Luke.*

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"Uncle Luke and Kyp Durron are here.  We need to get out of here.  Can you walk Captain?"

"Yeah Jacen, I'll ask you two what you were doing when we get out of here."

Susan eyed Jacen and clenched her teeth.

Jacen kept his lightsaber ready and opened himself to the force, scanning ahead for enemies.  They manage to get up to the cockpit and find it occupied by Morden and a few other humans.  Jacen scans the rest of the ship and doesn't sense any other Shadows, so he signals for John and Susan to hold back as he puts the 3 humans into a light trance.  Dragging them out; he finds some rope and ties them up and places them in the cargo bay.  John sits down in the pilot's seat and turns it around, and sends a signal to Luke and Kyp.

"We're heading over there Luke, we should..."

"Um, John, we...we have a problem..."

"What is it Susan," he says turning around in the chair. 

Jacen is standing in a battle stance with his lightsaber ignited.

"Um, Luke...It may be a little while, Can you hold for a minute?"

"John, what's wrong, John...John?"

The comm unit explodes in a shower of sparks, a large claw narrowly missing John's arm.