From his office down on Corellia, Prime Minister Gejjen gritted his teeth in anger as soon as the hologram of Admiral Prest told him about the arrival of the Galactic Alliance fleet in the Corellian system. After nearly two days of fighting the Killiks, which had seen to the losses of several of their own nestships and hundreds—if not thousands—of their dartships, the last of those bugs and their Joiners had all but managed to destroy enough Corellian Interdictors to escape from the system.

Of course, those cruisers' losses were mere pittances compared to their destruction of Centerpoint Station. If Gejjen had more forces, and if his power extended beyond his home system, there would be nowhere for the Colony to run from him. But as it was, mere hours after the mop-up operation had commenced to begin clearing out the debris from both the Corellian and Colony sides of the system, a GA fleet led by Nek Bwua'tu himself came to no doubt add to Gejjen's growing headache.

Still, despite himself, Gejjen knew he had a duty to see what that hairy alien had to say, what with all the guns he could bring to bear on his system's weakened fleet.

After Gejjen commanded Prest to let him speak to the Bothan, the Prime Minister put on his best smile and said in his most pleasant tone, "Admiral Bwua'tu, what can the Corellian system do for you today?"

"You can start, Prime Minister Gejjen," the alien began sternly, "by explaining what in all nine of your people's hells you think you were doing by instigating a war with the Killiks."

Just like that, Gejjen's smile evaporated to that of an expression of what he really felt for Bwua'tu: contempt. With a matching tone, he said, "You know as well as I do that it was the Killiks who instigated this war by killing my predecessor! We have proof! We had every right to-"

"We will see about that, Gejjen," Bwua'tu interrupted. "Because the Killiks are affiliated with the Galactic Alliance by way of the Jedi Order, that makes it this government's responsibility to investigate your government's claims as to what happened to Aidel Saxan. And, please, don't give me any spiel about the sovereignty of your system, Prime Minister; we've heard it all before, and right now, we have every right to either confirm or deny whether or not what happened to Saxan is the truth."

The anger that grew on Gejjen's face became mixed with the fear that he tried to repress. Sure, there was no way that the GA would know whether or not the Killiks who were framed to have killed Saxan had actually died by the effects of old age instead of blaster bolts as the media reported; those carcasses had already been incinerated. And there was nothing on the bodies of Saxan or any of her guards that would lead anyone working for Bwua'tu to determine if they were fired by Killiks or humans; a blaster bolt wound was a blaster bolt wound, no matter who made it.

But if the Alliance ever learned anything about the bribe money that was given by that mysterious contact that allowed him to take the position he had now, he'd be locked in the deepest, darkest prison of Corellia and never see the light of his home system's sun, or any sun for that matter, ever again.

And that would be a lenient sentence for assassinating his predecessor as Prime Minister of the Five Worlds.

"Are you suggesting something, Bwua'tu?" Gejjen found the nerve to ask.

"I'm not suggesting anything, Gejjen," the Bothan replied with a suspicious tone, "except that you order your government to cooperate with the Galactic Alliance. Otherwise... well, I'll let your people's hatred of their time with the Empire do the rest of your thinking."

"This is outrageous!" Gejjen exclaimed. "You should be investigating the Killiks, not the people of the Five Worlds!"

"Oh, the Killiks will be looked into, I assure you of that, Prime Minister. In fact, we already have a fleet looking for them; no doubt they would be fleeing back to the Utegetu Nebula. But that doesn't concern you right now, does it?"

Gejjen fumed silently. He knew he had no cards to play here; Bwua'tu's forces significantly outnumbered his own, and what forces Gejjen had left were no doubt tired after all the fighting with the Killiks. Indeed, he knew he had no other options.

So, with an uncharacteristically calm tone, Gejjen said, "Very well, Admiral Bwua'tu. I will order Admiral Prest to stand down from engaging with your forces and to have them give their full cooperation to you."

"Thank you, Prime Minister Gejjen," Bwua'tu said in a civil tone. "I hope you have a nice day."

Without hesitation, Gejjen switched frequencies back to Prest's holographic form and, with great reluctance, carried out his promise to Bwua'tu.

Once his order to Prest was done, Gejjen brought up his personal commlink to his mouth, activated it, and said, "Uyiel? Yeah, it's me. I'm gonna need you to move some dirty laundry for me."

"How dirty is it, Dur?" the voice on the other end asked.

"Very dirty," Gejjen emphasized. "Like, I really don't want anyone new looking at it, because it'd be, you know, seeing Palpatine in his underwear disgusting. And that laundry better be washed quick; I'm having guests over soon."

"I'll get it cleaned out ASAP, Dur," Uyiel replied.

Once Gejjen brought his then-deactivated commlink back to his belt, he muttered, "You better."

. . .

Following the successful but costly mission of destroying Centerpoint Station, the three surviving members of the Djalnis family—Sayji, Mayji, and Kolsk—returned to their homeworld of Mandalore and landed each of their ships in the field surrounding their homestead on the edge of Keldabe, the planet's capital city. There, the first thing they did was to head to The Liquid Gaa'tayl, a popular cantina, and sat themselves behind the counter. From there, Kayji was the one to order the bartender to give her, her sister, and their cousin the strongest ale they had and toasted to the losses of Opak, Moulg, Hwendel, and even that idiot Majis because, damn it, they still loved him.

By the time they left The Liquid Gaa'tayl in a unified drunken stupor, night had fallen over Keldabe and the three of them took a hovercab back to their homestead on the edge of town. And because of that stupor, none of them were prepared for what awaited them in their shared home.

After Kolsk turned on the light, the house's living area was revealed to have a male Chadra-Fan sitting on the nearby sofa surrounded by several Killiks. Immediately, and despite their inebriation, the Djalnises reached for their sidearms, only for several Killiks to drop from above the wall behind them and tackle them to the floor. In quick succession, the three drunken and shouting Mandalorians were disarmed and their limbs were tied together by fiberchord, leaving them completely at the intruders' mercy.

Still, the only thing to stop the Mandos from shouting was when each of their mouths was covered up by a gag provided by a separate Killik. And even through the haze of their drunkenness, they knew that it was prudent to stop trying to speak and listen to what their captors had to say.

The Chadra-Fan stood up, walked over the downed Djalnises, and said, "We tracked you after you planted those bombs in Qolaraloq's control room; each of your ships had a bug on it. A figurative one, we should say."

This prompted a series of amused-sounding clicks' that came from the Killiks' mandibles that were added to by some mild chuckling from the Chadra-Fan.

"Thus, it was a simple matter of keeping our distance and following you back here, especially after we finally escaped the Corellian system," the rat-like alien continued after the unified laughter died down. "But enough of that. We just wanted to let you know just how much trouble you and the rest of the galaxy is in because of your actions."

The Chadra-Fan went on to first introduce himself as ThurVahk, a member of the Killik nest of Thuruht and the hive that had imprisoned the powerful Force-entity known as Abeloth in the Maw. As ThurVahk explained all of this, Kayji shared an incredulous look with her sister and cousin in which they all wordlessly said, "Can you believe all this?!"

When the Chadra-Fan had finished speaking, he said, "Whether or not you believe us is irrelevant. What we require is your cooperation and, on a less important note, to give all of you a chance to atone for your actions in unleashing the abomination into our galaxy. And for this, we are willing to pay for your services."

Each of the Djalnises gave a confused and simultaneous "Hmm?" in response.

"Even after all of the losses that we had sustained from the fighting in the Corellian system," ThurVahk elaborated, "we still have certain business ventures, namely in the selling of membroisia on the market, that may compensate for your services. And we understand that you, as Mandalorians, would not hold it against us for the losses that your family had taken in fighting the Colony. So we assume that you would not hold it against us for holding you captive as you are now."

Kayji made a few noises behind her gag. Within a moment, a Killik pincer removed it and allowed her to ask, "Okay, so let me get this straight. All you want from us is cooperation to kill some... monster that may or may not exist, and you're willing to pay for that cooperation. And yet you still come to us like this?" She wagged her bound arms and legs to indicate her current predicament.

"You would have attacked us had we come to you while you were freed," ThurVahk countered.

"Not if you contacted us via holocomm!" Kayji pointed out. "We may have been suspicious after, but we would've heard you out!"

A look of perplexity washed over ThurVahk's face. Then he said, "Oh, yes. We could have just done that." He shrugged, and his motion was imitated by the Killiks. "We apologize."

Kayji couldn't help but sigh and drop her head in annoyance. If she was going to agree to work with these... people, she had a strong feeling that she would have to deal with a lot of idiotic decisions made by them.

"But if our apologies are not enough," ThurVahk said, "would our money be?" He produced a datapad from his pocket, walked up to Kayji, and levelled it to her face, which she had lifted to see.

The number of 200,000 credits had been displayed for her to see. And from the details surrounding that number, she could see that it came from an account that was as legitimate as hers.

"This is what we are willing to offer," ThurVahk said as he pulled the 'pad away and replaced it in his pocket. "Now, when we release you, do you promise not to attack or kill any of us?"

Kayji shared a look with Sayji and Kolsk, and her still-gagged sister and cousin each nodded their compliance. She then looked back to ThurVahk and gave him her own nod.

"Yeah," she said. "We'll comply."

"Good," the Chadra-Fan said.

Within moments, the fiberchord and gags were removed from the Mandalorians' persons and the Djalnises stood up warily.

"So," Kayji said, "the Maw, huh?"

. . .

Mere moments after the Solo Quest II docked between the Millennium Falcon and a Blastboat in the hangar bay of Shedu Maad's Jedi Temple, Jacen and Jaina hurried down the Quest's landing ramp and to the door that led out of the hangar and into the Temple proper. From there, they headed straight for the office of the Grand Master of the Jedi Order, along the way, however, they could feel the Force-echoes, the tinge, of death that reverberated throughout the Temple. Jedi and Sith alike had fallen in battle here just as they did in the space above this planet, with one concentrated area of the Temple—somewhere far from where Jacen and Jaina were travelling through—being where most of the Jedi had died.

As she and her brother hurried their pace, Jaina instinctively calmed the growing consciousness that resided in her womb. Had she still been Judicar, she would relished the feeling of death around her; now she could sense it as the caustic influence that it really was, and she wanted her child to have no part in it.

When the Solo twins finally reached the office, they found that it was locked. Quickly, Jacen knocked on the door.

"Master Hamner?" he asked. "Hello? Are you in there?"

"I don't sense anyone in there," Jaina said.

After a moment of hesitation, Jacen sighed and said, "Yeah, me neither. But where could he be right now?"

"Master Hamner is gone, Jacen."

Both twins spun around at the sound of the brittle and broken-sounding yet all-too familiar voice that came from behind them. Jacen and Jaina's uncle, Luke Skywalker, stood there with heavy grief framing both his facial expression and body language; his Force-presence, however, was hidden from them.

"I have no choice," Luke continued grimly, "but to once again assume the duties of Grand Master."

"Uncle Luke," Jacen spoke up, "what happened here?" Though he and Jaina got the gist that there was a Sith invasion from what Leia told them, he was hoping that maybe there was more to it that his uncle could tell him and his sister.

"The Sith sneaked past the Hapans through the Transitory Mists and got here to invade the Temple," Luke explained. "Many Jedi died, including Masters Hamner and Cilghal, and many of the younglings were taken." He swallowed visibly and his voice broke as he said, "Including Ben."

So many emotions, all of them distressful and negative, flooded through Jaina's heart right then. Now that she herself would one day be a parent—though she highly doubted she would get to raise her child—the idea that her unborn baby could ever be taken from her by the Sith was one that both disgusted and horrified her. So she couldn't imagine what her uncle must be going through right now.

Then again, she couldn't imagine what she must have put him through when she had taken his son from him and brought him to Lumiya to undergo the trauma he went through aboard the Home and especially on Ziost. And that was to say nothing of the fact that that all happened after she herself killed Luke's wife.

As if reading her thoughts, Luke finally focused his gaze on Jaina. And when she finally looked back at him, a sense of abject fear that she had never felt before—not when she was a child being abducted by Imperials, not when she fought the Yuuzhan Vong, not ever—overcame her in that moment. And for that moment, Jaina irrationally believed that Luke would repay her for what she had done to him by reaching out through the Force and killing her fetus of a child.

But instead, he said, as calmly as he could, yet with a constant undercurrent of anger, "Your parents told me about your personal reformation, Jaina. And of your pregnancy. For this... you will remain in the custody of the Temple until you have come to term."

Jaina's eyes widened in shock and she couldn't help but ask, "What?" A bare second afterwards, she felt monumentally stupid that that was the first thing she said to him since... well, since before she set off to find the remnant of Gorog well over a year ago.

Luke stepped forward so that his face was mere inches from Jaina's. Somehow, she found the fortitude to not back away from him, even though every fiber in her being screamed at her to do so.

"The child that grows within you does not deserve to suffer whatever would befall you under the law," Luke said. "So I will let you have your baby, Jaina. After that..." He trailed off, stepped away, and regarded Jacen. "You will look after her until then."

A question formed on Jacen's face.

"I trust no one else to look after her," Luke explained. "And while we have suffered and lost much, and while we still have much to do, I will not endanger an innocent soul, even if that soul is in the body of one who is so very guilty." He levelled a stern and almost hateful gaze back at Jaina as he said those last few words.

A tense moment passed before Luke returned a more even gaze at his nephew. "This will be your task, Jacen." He turned and began walking away.

"But, Uncle Luke," Jacen said, "what will you do now? I know you said you're back to being the Grand Master, but, really, what're you going to do?"

The Grand Master stopped in his tracks, looked over his shoulder, and said, "I will do what I must." Then he looked forward and resumed walking.