After setting the New Purpose down on the landing platform Thiss, Darth Judicar took a few moments to herself to look out upon her surroundings. She was on the Wookiee homeworld of Kashyyyk, which she had previously visited back when she was Jaina Solo. The last time she had been here was on a night like this, when she was with her family—her parents, her surviving brother, the Skywalkers—after the Yuuzhan Vong War had ended
They had all come here then, along with many of their friends, to commemorate the sacrifice of Chewbacca, Han Solo's first mate for many years before Jaina had been born, at the beginning of that war. Thinking back on that day, Judicar couldn't help but feel a great sadness within the depths of her blackened soul; even back then, even after everything she had gone through in fighting the invaders—losing Chewie, her younger brother Anakin, so many friends like Anni Capstan, Ulaha Kore, and Eryl Besa just to name a few—things somehow seemed simpler. Because by then, Jaina had been with her family; yes, it had been reduced because of Chewie and Anakin's deaths, but they were altogether again after so many years of fighting. And since that day when they had all sat down and feasted after that commemoration, Jaina had never felt that complete.
Judicar shook her head out of her reverie. None of that meant anything to her; not anymore. She was a Sith now, with a new outlook on life, a new purpose, as her own ship was called. And for the moment, that purpose, of destroying the Jedi, was to be served only in claiming something from here that could help her.
There were only a few vessels around the Purpose and no one was present either in sight or by Judicar's Force-senses. She supposed she should feel grateful that the Wookiees, by and large, weren't as bureaucratic or as overly cautious when it came to their own customs as humans or other species in the Galactic Alliance. Still, her paranoia couldn't be helped; she somehow felt more insecure in her solitude now than if she had to be grilled by some Wookiee customs official about who she was and what her reason for being here was. At least then she could find a way to take control of that situation, whether with her powers or through some other means she could have thought of.
As it was, she didn't encounter another soul, Wookiee or otherwise, as she trekked to a giant fallen stump of a tree, which had collapsed untold centuries, if not millennia, before. There, Judicar used the Force to rip away the cover of leaves and vines that had been placed there by the commemorating attendants all those years ago, scattering them all away into the soft wind. And when she was done, Judicar stilled her heart as she looked up at an artistic depiction of Chewbacca that was carved into the stump. Just seeing the image of the long-dead friend of Jaina Solo's father brought the Sith back to times she had playing with the Wookiee when she was only a child.
Gritting her teeth in frustration, Judicar had to once again silently convince herself that none of this meant anything anymore to her; and to reinforce that, she unleashed a torrent of Force-lightning upon the image.
Just like that, the depiction of Chewbacca went up in a brief but fiery explosion of splinters; in its wake was only a patch of smoke that almost immediately cleared out to reveal a blackened gap of where the carving had been cut.
Yet a sigh of longing for the past still escaped from Judicar's lips.
She closed her eyes and composed herself. She thought it must have been an eternity when it was only about two minutes before she opened her eyes again and looked down beneath the destroyed remnants of the carving.
There lay her objective: the pommel of the lightsaber that belonged to Jaina's dead brother, Anakin.
When it had last been used, Han Solo had been the one to activate it and plunge its blade into the tree. Judicar could still remember the smell of the wood burning before Jaina's father buried the weapon partway into that hole as a final farewell to both Chewie and Anakin.
Now Judicar felt a tear stream from her left eye when she recalled Luke Skywalker saying, "Should the need ever arise, it can be withdrawn by someone as virtuous as yourself, Chewbacca."
As if to counter that tear, Judicar smirked. "Looks like the need's arisen, Uncle Luke," she found herself saying aloud. "So here's to my virtue." Her words dripped with sarcasm and disdain against the words spoken by the man whose wife Judicar had killed.
She then unhooked her lightsaber from her belt, activated its red blade, and then stuck it partway in just above Anakin's pommel. With a slow, deliberate clockwise motion, Judicar cut a circular hole around the area where the Jedi lightsaber had been lodged; it took her all of five minutes to cut through the thick, unrefined wood. When she pulled her lightsaber out, she reached out with her free hand and, with great effort, used the Force to rip out the area in which the Jedi weapon was embedded.
And once she had that chunk of wood levitating in the air, Judicar slashed away at it with her own lightsaber until the pommel of Jaina Solo's dead brother was completely free of its entrapment. The Sith allowed the Jedi weapon to float into her free hand before she regarded it wordlessly.
Before she could even process the emotions going through her then, Judicar simply thought back to the Jedi to whom this lightsaber had belonged. Anakin Solo, for someone who died so young, had still been a great Jedi nevertheless; like Jaina and Jacen, he had fought against the Yuuzhan Vong on numerous occasions with this blade up to the point of his death on the Vong worldship Baanu Raas over Myrkr. As a Sith, Judicar should feel nothing but revulsion, if not pity, for the Jedi who fought to protect the weak and defenseless.
But Anakin had also been Jaina's brother. She had loved him, just as he loved her, and her mind couldn't help but go back to all those times in the past when she, Jacen, and Anakin had played with each other, and all they had gone through even before the Vong ever started their invasion.
And when Jaina had lost him all those years ago, she realized that that was when she had begun her path to the dark side of the Force. Even after she, her friends, and her family had believed that she had been past that in her time in the Hapes Consortium following Coruscant's fall to the Vong, Jaina had never been the same since. Oh, sure, she still loved the family that she continued to have, and she had even started a relationship with Jagged Fel (never mind how that ended). But she had nevertheless begun secluding herself for fear of experiencing that same pain she felt when Anakin died and when she and everyone else around her, barring her mother, believed that Jacen had died under the Vong's captivity. So she had mired herself as a fighter against the invaders, ever entrapping her own soul into a pit of darkness from which she would not truly emerge even after the remnants of the extragalactic enemy were ferried off to the Unknown Regions.
Now here she was, Darth Judicar, next Lord of the Sith, taking after her own grandfather, Darth Vader. She may never know what had prompted Anakin Skywalker to fall to the dark side; but if she did, she imagined, for no particular reason, that it would have had something to do with fear of losing someone he cared for.
"Would you really like to know, Jaina?"
Judicar nearly jumped at the sound of a male teenage voice from behind her. She spun around and instinctively dropped into a defensive stance, her lightsaber reactivating to counter the voice's owner.
But her stance stiffened in shock when she saw who it was.
The glowing blue form of Anakin Solo.
"Throw that lightsaber away, Jaina," the apparition said in a saddened tone. "It's not you."
Judicar regarded the blazing red-bladed weapon for a moment before she sneered. "Of course it is. This is the same lightsaber I used to kill Aunt Mara. And let me tell you, Little Brother... it was exquisite."
"You really think that?"
Judicar nodded certainly. "Yes, I do."
"And yet you can't help but feel what you feel right now, Jaina. I can sense your thoughts, Big Sister. They betray just how much you miss the days when we were carefree and innocent children. Before the Yuuzhan Vong. Before the Sith."
"They're merely childish musings," Judicar countered bitterly. "Nothing more."
"Are they? Are they really? I'll tell you what's really childish, Jaina; you believing that you have any chance of taking over Centerpoint Station thinking that lightsaber has any of my DNA left."
"Ha!" Judicar barked venomously. "So you would say."
"You'll be wasting your time, just as you're wasting your life. Don't say I didn't tell you."
"Wasting my life?! I've never felt more fulfilled, more free now, than I had ever before! If anything, my life was wasting away as a Jedi!"
"Jaina, please." Anakin's voice was pleading. "You don't have to do any of this. I beg of you, turn yourself in. Do this while you still have family in this life who care for you."
"Care for me?!" Judicar guffawed, though she felt that it was forced. "They don't care for me anymore, Anakin! I made sure of that! I burned that bridge when I killed Mara! I made Jacen want to kill me when he saw what I did to his precious World Brain! If Mom and Dad were to see me now, they would disown me!"
"You say that like you're proud of what you've done. But deep down, we both know you don't mean that, Jaya."
"Of course I do! I wouldn't have done any of this if I didn't want to!"
"Now you sound desperate."
"Oh, please, don't try to get into my head, Anakin!" Judicar made it sound as if she could metaphorically brush away her dead brother's words like they were dust motes on her shoulder. "You couldn't do that if your life depended on it! What makes you think you can do it from the afterlife?"
"Because I can sense it within you, Jaina; and you and I both know that they're far from childish musings."
Judicar was silent for a moment before she deactivated her lightsaber, put it back upon her belt, and asked, "And even if they're not... what makes you think I can just turn myself in?"
"That's for you to decide, Big Sis. Tahiri is too far gone now; I felt it; I saw it. Her destiny lies firmly with the Sith. You, on the other hand, after everything you've done... well, you are still far from fulfilling your own destiny, Jaina."
"What makes you think I'm not 'far gone' like Tahiri, Anakin?" Judicar may not have known what exactly was going on with Tahiri Veila-indeed, she thought she was still with the Dark Nest in the Unknown Regions-but she was nevertheless intrigued to hear what her dead brother had to say about his former girlfriend.
"When you killed Aunt Mara, you were defending yourself. Oh, sure, you had intended to kill her from the get-go, but that doesn't change the fact that what you committed was more of an act of self-defense than murder. Tahiri, on the other hand, killed Corran Horn when she had him at her mercy. You still have a chance, Jaina. I hope you take it."
And just like that, Anakin's ghostly form faded away, as if it was never there at all.
But before Judicar could fully allow herself to digest her dead brother's parting words, her Force-senses alerted her to the arrival of another Jedi in the Kashyyyk system. She looked up in the sky as she narrowed her focus upon that presence.
And for a moment, Judicar's outward aura met with the new arrival's; and the Sith recognized it as belonging to Jedi Knight Jaden Korr.
Come and get me, was all she sent before she closed her presence off from him. Then, without missing a beat, she hurried back to the New Purpose.
. . .
"Oh, you're gonna be cute, huh?" Jaden retorted aloud before he pushed the Far Wanderer's throttle forward. Within moments, he was skirting his starfighter down through Kashyyyk's atmosphere, and minutes later, the Wanderer was zooming down through the forest world's skies as it honed in on the source of the tracking beacon that had been placed on what was now no doubt Jaina Solo's ship.
Four minutes into his search, Jaden finally found that the source led him to a ship that he recognized from his time in the Unknown Regions—which was not long after the Yuuzhan Vong War ended—as being of Ebruchi make.
Then, as if to confirm his suspicions and his read of his quarry's presence through the Force, Jaina Solo herself appeared after leaping up onto the top of her vessel. Several dozen meters above her, Jaden could see the mocking wave and sneer plastered on what was clearly a withered and pale face.
From someone as young as Solo, that could only come from severe use of the dark side of the Force.
A part of Jaden wanted to simply open fire on her right then and there; it would be simple, efficient, have little to nothing in the way of collateral damage if he aimed his quad lasers properly, and he would be avenging Masters Sebatyne and Jade Skywalker. After all, if Solo was powerful enough to kill two Jedi Masters, would it really be wise of him, a mere Knight—well, maybe not a mere Knight, as he was pretty powerful and well-trained thanks to his apprenticeship under Kyle Katarn—to confront her in a lightsaber duel?
But then what would he say to Master Katarn, or Masters Skywalker or Hamner, or the other Masters on the Council, or any of his fellow Knights, or the apprentices and students? It was against the Jedi way to kill an opponent like this; it was tantamount to murder, like striking down an unconscious opponent, even when it came to someone as darkened as Jaina Solo.
And besides, he owed it to Master Skywalker to at least try to subdue his niece and attempt to learn why she killed his wife. If nothing else, and even if he thought that he could be let off the hook for resorting to such a cheap way in eliminating a threat like Solo, Jaden knew that he had to try, if not do it as Master Yoda had once said to Master Skywalker.
So, against the feeling in his gut that told him that what he was doing might end up with Kashyyyk being his final resting place, Jaden gently set the Wanderer down next to the Ebruchi ship. Solo continued to wait expectantly, with that sneer still plastered on her prematurely and unnaturally wrinkled face. She looked as if she bore him no ill will as she crossed her arms over her chest.
Jaden stared back at her through his canopy even as he unbuckled his crash-webbing.
"R6?" Jaden asked, not looking away from Solo.
He received a beeping response from his R6 unit, which was housed in its astromech socket at the rear of the starfighter.
"Stay here," Jaden said. R6 responded with an affirmative squeak.
Then, with a reluctant sigh, he popped open his canopy and soared through the air to land in a graceful crouch two meters away from Solo; nothing in either her body language, facial expression, or her curiously muted Force-presence indicated that she was alarmed by Jaden's sudden action.
After he stood up to his full height, his posture indicating that he was ready to spring into action if Solo tried anything, Jaden asked, "Jaina Solo?"
"In the flesh," she replied with an air of arrogance. "And if I remember correctly, you're Jaden Korr, Kyle Katarn's apprentice?"
"Former apprentice."
"Ah, yes. So what can I do for you?"
"Why were you in the MZX32905 system?"
"What's it to ya, Jaden?"
"That's Jedi Korr to you. Now answer my question."
Solo offered an offended frown. "Why the hostility, Jaden? And the formality? You can call me Jaina, after all." She punctuated that last sentence with a casual shrug.
Jaden wanted to remind Solo that she was in no position to be talking to him as if she were still a Jedi on good terms with the Order. But then he realized that Sith or other dark siders like her would use psychological tactics like this to throw off their opponents.
So instead of responding with righteous incredulity over her attitude, he said calmly, "Fine. Jaina. Why were you in the MZX32905 system?"
Solo chuckled. "What makes you think I was there?"
"Because of the tracking beacon that I had magnetized to your ship's hull; I followed you from there."
"Tracking beacon? Oh, you mean this tracking beacon?"
As if by some magic trick, Solo produced said beacon from up her sleeve and presented it quickly to Jaden. Then, with another fast motion, she had the beacon rotated so that there was now a thermal detonator facing the Jedi.
Widening his eyes in surprise, Jaden ducked out of the way and flipped off from Solo's ship just as she chucked the beacon toward him. When he landed, he turned and watched in horror as the thermal detonator, which was somehow attached—maybe by glue or some other kind of adhesive—to the beacon soared to the Far Wanderer.
Jaden reached out through the Force to try to swat the combined devices away, but by then, it was too late; the detonator's internal proximity alert allowed it to fulfill its function and explode.
Jaden was blown off his feet by several meters. When he recovered and looked up, he saw that the Wanderer was now a flaming ruin, and that his R6 was among the fiery debris.
Only when he heard a lightsaber activate did he turn his sight away from the wreckage and up to Solo soaring down from the air, a red-bladed lightsaber ready to strike him down.
