Seated behind his desk, Dur Gejjen wiped the nervous sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief as he waited for the arrival of the two Jedi Knights who were dispatched by Admiral Bwua'tu to speak to him in his office. He had only received the call that they would be meeting him less than an hour ago, and now, after seeing to it that there was nothing that either the Jedi or the Galactic Alliance could find on him that could tie him to Aidel Saxan's death, all he could do was play it cool and hope that neither of the Knights sent to meet him were powerful enough to read his mind.

Of course, given who exactly these Knights were, Gejjen was sure that all he could rely on was the idea that whatever they might sense from him would be found to be inadmissible in a court of law on Corellia.

Only two minutes after his secretary commed him to let him know that his visitors had arrived, Valin and Jysella Horn walked into his office with unreadable facial expressions. In contrast, Gejjen put on his best diplomatic smile and asked congenially, "Jedis Horn, to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?" He couldn't help but note the familiar aroma of Corellian whiskey coming from one of them, and based on Valin's slight wobbly stance, it seemed like a pretty safe bet that he was at least mildly drunk.

"We were hoping that you could answer a few questions for us, Prime Minister Gejjen," Jysella answered militantly.

"May we have a seat?" Valin asked in the same tone but with a noticeable slur; it was obvious that he was asking more for himself as a drunkard than as an investigator. If his sober sister had any problem with his inebriation, she didn't let it show in her outward expression.

"By all means," Gejjen replied, still congenial.

Once the siblings were seated, Jysella stated, "As you no doubt know, for the past several days, my brother and I have been searching through your list of personal contacts and estates with CorSec's full cooperation."

Gejjen nodded. "It must help, too, that your father's legacy still carries significant weight within the police force." His tone made it sound as if he were still being polite, but deep down, he hated that CorSec was giving these two Jedi their full cooperation into investigating their own Prime Minister—the one who freed them of the Killiks' influence—just because their dead daddy had been an upstanding cop.

"Shut up, you," Valin slurred. "You don't get to talk about our father, you lying snake."

"Valin," Jysella cut in harshly. "Not now."

The male Horn grimaced, but he just crossed his arms across his chest and fell silent.

"I apologize for my brother's behavior, Prime Minister Gejjen," Jysella said. "Our father's... passing is still something of a sore spot for the both of us."

"No need for an apology," Gejjen replied evenly; he did, however, have to stifle a grin at hearing one of these self-righteous Jedi apologize to him for anything. If there was an upside to this investigation, it was this moment, minor though it may have been, and he wouldn't spoil it by saying that it was he who owed them an apology for triggering Valin or anything like that. Instead, he asked, "But these questions of yours, they are?"

"I was just getting to that," Jysella said. "You see, among your contacts, we've met a man named Uyiel Komada, a friend of yours from when you both attended the University of Coronet together."

The only thing that gave away Gejjen's anxiety outwardly was when he suddenly breathed out through his nostrils. But just like that, he regained his composure completely before he asked, "What about Uyiel?"

"Oh, cut the crap," Valin chimed in. "He's been helping launder your money, whatever bribe money you've been given, through his own shell companies!" He levelled a finger at Gejjen's face. "Admit it!"

The male Horn fell silent again when his sister grabbed his elbow tightly and growled, "Get it together, keep quiet, or I'll throw you out this room myself if you lose it like that one more time."

"Fine," Valin said before he sat back and crossed his arms across his chest again.

Jysella, though, didn't offer another apology on her brother's behalf. Instead, she said to Gejjen, "What my brother is trying to say, Prime Minister Gejjen, is that after having looked into a number of Mr. Komada's records, we and the cooperating officers at CorSec have found a number of... discrepancies in his monetary record-keeping."

"Discrepancies, you say?" Gejjen asked. "What, as in Uyiel's been cheating on his taxes or something?" He knew better, but he thought it would be smarter to play dumb.

"Not quite," Jysella replied. "More like... money-laundering."

Gejjen's eyebrows lifted in such a way as to make himself seem surprised by this information. "Well, that's unfortunate, especially since he was a good friend of mine, as you pointed out. But I don't see how whatever crimes he may or may not have committed reflect back on me."

"Well, you see, Prime Minister," Jysella began, "we didn't just look into Uyiel's official records. We also found some unofficial ones."

Uh-oh, Gejjen thought worriedly, though he kept that anxiety off of his face.

"And among those records," Valin chimed in with a surprisingly civil tone, "were some calls that he made via an unlisted number that he was using. And one of those numbers was your office comm number."

Damn Uyiel, Gejjen thought bitterly. No doubt he had been keeping records for CorSec as bargain plea material so that he could get a reduced sentence in case he was ever caught. Some friend he turned out to be.

And just like that, as if on cue—and in that moment, Gejjen was pretty sure that it was—four CorSec officers entered his office and surrounded him; one of them held a pair of stuncuffs in his hand.

"Prime Minister Gejjen," Jysella said with a satisfied smirk, "you are under ar..."

She trailed off as both she and her brother stiffened in their seats, and whatever anger and panic Gejjen had for his circumstances was suddenly replaced by a confusion that was shared with the cops around him.

"Who are all of you?" Valin asked fearfully; there was no trace of inebriation in his tone then.

"Jedi Horn?" the officer holding the stuncuffs asked.

The Jedi siblings spared each other a wordless and unreadable glance before they suddenly launched to their feet with their lightsabers brandished. In a few swift seconds, and before any of the CorSec officers could respond, they had cut down all four of the cops with their weapons.

Gejjen, meanwhile, had backed his chair to his office's window as he gazed at the rogue Jedi fearfully. When they locked gazes with him, he hurriedly fell to his knees, interlocked his fingers as if in prayer, and cried out, "Please, don't kill me!" and variations of that sentiment several times over in quick succession.

His begging was cut short when the Horn siblings suddenly lifted their free hands and sent out a Force-wave that blew out the glass behind Gejjen; he collapsed to his front and began sobbing for his life while his would-be attackers ran past him and jumped out the window.

It took him less than a minute to realize that the two Jedi were gone before he carefully lifted his head from the floor and stood up, mindful of the glass surrounding him. He turned and saw the distant specks of the Horn siblings leaping from rooftop to rooftop with their lightsabers still in hand and ablaze, as if they didn't think that that would attract attention to themselves. Only after the siblings disappeared from his sight did Gejjen look around himself and regard the dead CorSec officers.

His first thought then was that he had to run before the police learned of what happened here and hope that he didn't get blamed for this on top of the proof that they already had of his involvement with Saxan's death. So he turned, stepped around the glass shards and corpses, and then sprinted for the door.

. . .

Fighting beyond shadows, like virtually everything else in this realm, was not like fighting in physical reality. Here, in place of flesh and bone taking punishment from hits, kicks, and other blows, the Force-essences of the combatants were wounded as if they were physical injuries. And it was for this reason alone why, early on in the fight against Abeloth—whether it was only less than a minute ago or a century previous—that Jaina had to lie on her back amidst the Lake of Apparitions and nurse herself with the Force. Various areas of her body had already been siphoned of her essence thanks to Abeloth's tentacle and energy-based attacks, and for what felt like years in this realm, Jaina could feel her baby's life-force ebbing away.

She couldn't let this happen. Even as she periodically lifted her head to see Luke and Jacen grappling with Abeloth—with all three of their life energies bleeding out in what appeared to be black blood into the Lake around them—Jaina knew that she would be no good to them if she lost her baby. If that were to happen... she would lose herself, she knew. She would be back to being Darth Judicar; she would once again be a woman with nothing to lose, a vindictive monster who wanted nothing more than to kill and hurt those around her so that maybe, just maybe, they could understand her pain in their own ways. And all of her attempts at trying to redeem herself in the eyes of those she loved—whether they still loved her in turn, like Jacen, or only used to love her, like Luke—would be all for naught.

Indeed, her uncle was right. Deep down, Judicar was still there, even after that name was sworn off by Jaina. And all it would take was for her to lose that one faint presence of innocence within her, which, even now, grew impossibly fainter with each passing second/minute/year/century/millennium/eon that passed beyond shadows, to make her into the petty, spiteful, and selfish Sith that she had become. And it was that Sith-like selfishness, she thought, that prioritized her baby's life over helping her twin brother and uncle in stopping the eldritch entity that they had been battling for the past eternity.

As this feeling of helplessness began to overcome Jaina, her thoughts drifted back to another time, another place, to when she had committed to her most ultimate action as a Sith: the slaughter of all of the adults on the Errant Venture, with her Aunt Mara being the last victim. And in her mind's eye, Jaina recalled when she had watched the blind woman above her die by her blade and the satisfaction that she took not only in that action alone, but the twisted, perverse pleasure she had in seeing Mara's son, Ben—her own cousin—weep over his mother's corpse.

Looking back at it now, only then did Jaina feel as if she now understood the depths of the fear that her aunt had felt over her son's well-being before she died. And it was with that understanding that she whispered, "Mara."

And then Luke, Jacen, and Abeloth all seemed to disappear into a white fade in the distance as Mara Jade Skywalker's spirit rose up from the Lake of Apparitions and looked down upon Jaina. And though her eyes appeared to be as useless as they were in the closing days of her life, it was readily apparent to Jaina that her dead aunt could see her just fine... if not more so.

"So," Mara said bitterly, "now you know what this fear is."

"Mara," Jaina whispered even as she struggled to keep her baby's life alive within her, "I'm... so... sor-"

"I don't wanna hear it," Mara interrupted harshly. "We're way past that now."

"I understand," Jaina replied solemnly. She supposed she couldn't expect forgiveness from the woman she murdered; she was strangely fine with that, even through her attempt at saving her own baby.

"Do you now?" Mara retorted. "Do you have any idea what you did to me, when you killed me? Because it wasn't really my life I cared for. It was Ben's."

"I knew that then, I know that now," Jaina responded. "And while I know you can never forgive me, I just want you to know that I know that what I did was wrong."

Mara scoffed. "I'd think you woulda learned that back when you were a kid. Something as simple as 'don't kill innocent people for no good reason' would be intuitive for a Jedi raised from childhood."

Jaina had no response to that. She knew she had no defense for it, and saying that she acted purely out of her own emotions—to feel powerful, to avenge herself on those she perceived to have wronged her or whom she thought were in her way—was far from any acceptable excuse. So she said nothing and refocused her energies on making sure that her baby didn't fade into nothingness from her being.

Mara continued to level that wordless gaze down at the struggling and helpless Jaina for what seemed like a hundred years before she said, "I know Luke and Jacen are in danger. You wanna help them, or are you just gonna lay there and care only for yourself?"

Whatever remorse she had for killing Mara vaporized in less than a second as she gritted her teeth angrily and exclaimed, "It isn't for me! It's for my child!"

"Same difference," Mara replied as bitterly as before.

"You wouldn't say that if it were Ben!" Jaina countered.

"You don't get to say his name!" Mara exclaimed.

"Or what?" Jaina asked threateningly. The vestiges of Judicar, the ones she knew were rooted deep in her soul, returned to the forefront of her personality; and it still didn't interfere one bit in trying to save her baby. "You can't do anything here, and you know it."

"I can still taunt you, for all that's worth," Mara replied with a slightly deflated tone.

"Yeah, but that wouldn't be helpful to Luke and Jacen, would it?" Jaina countered with a slight grin; it didn't help to offset her internal anxiety, though.

"You're right, it wouldn't. So why don't you go find out and... to hell with your baby."

Jaina grimaced in a mixture of shock and anger at what her aunt just said.

"Yeah, that's right," Mara said contemptuously. "I said it. Let it die and go back and help Luke and Jacen kill that thing. It'll probably be the best thing you've done since you became a Sith. Hope you die fighting that monster, too."

Jaina seethed angrily, but said nothing for an eternally long time.

"Well, if you're not going to do anything," Mara finally said, "I might as well go back to rest." She started to sink back into the Lake of Apparitions.

"Wait," Jaina called.

Mara stopped and rose back up to her full height again. "What is it?" she asked impatiently.

"Don't you wanna know about Ben?"

It was Mara's turn to grimace at the mention of her son's name. "Not from you, I don't."

"Fair enough," Jaina replied evenly. "I suppose it's a bad idea to let you know that another faction of Sith has him in their clutches right now; and not the one I left him with after I killed you."

Mara's gaze narrowed in fear. "You don't know where he is?"

Jaina shook her head. "Just thought I should let you know before you went back to sleep or whatever it is you dead people do here."

Mara growled. "You really are a petty, spiteful bitch, you know that?"

"I'm very well aware of that fact," Jaina replied with a poodoo-eating grin.

Despite the fact that she required no oxygen to breathe, Mara nevertheless exhaled in frustration. "Fine. You may not make it up for killing me and taking Ben from me, but if you can do any good, I might as well tell you how you can save him."

Jaina's brows lifted in surprise. "What?"

"Shut up and listen," Mara commanded. "Now, there's a place called the Pool of Knowledge here. You find this Pool of Knowledge, look into it, and you can find the answers you seek. You can find Ben with this, and, hell, you might even find a way to kill this thing that Luke and Jacen are fighting."

Jaina was perplexed despite her anxiety. "Why didn't my grandfather tell me that?"

"What?" Mara asked.

"Anakin Skywalker," Jaina clarified.

"Yes, I know who your grandfather is, you evil dumbass," Mara replied spitefully. "What did he say to you?"

"He told us he didn't know where the Dagger of Mortis, the weapon that can kill Abeloth, was," Jaina answered. "He didn't mention anything about this Pool of Knowledge."

Mara shrugged. "Maybe he didn't know about it."

"Then how did you?" Jaina asked.

Mara grimaced. "Maybe you're not as dumb as I thought. I don't think I owe you an explanation... but maybe I do if Ben's life is on the line. So, fine. If your grandfather didn't tell you about the Pool of Knowledge, it's probably because he's looked into you and seen how truly evil you are deep down. That if someone like you got the knowledge provided by that Pool, you might turn into something like Abeloth. If you didn't tell me about Ben, I might not have let you know about it."

"But... Luke and Jacen were there. Surely, they could have been trusted to know about this Pool of Knowledge, even with me being with them?"

Now Mara looked as perplexed as her niece and killer. "Then maybe he knew that no one should use it," she said darkly.

"But it's Abeloth!" Jaina exclaimed. "She could destroy the galaxy! If she can't be stopped-"

"Just tell Luke and Jacen about it," Mara interrupted again. "And don't look into it yourself. It might not be a good idea for them to look into it, let alone you."

Jaina's lips thinned with anger. "Fine," she said after a time that felt too long. "I will."

Mara said nothing else; instead, she finally sank back into the Lake of Apparitions and resumed her death-like slumber. And in no time at all afterwards, the scene of Luke and Jacen grappling with Abeloth returned from the faded white that had come over Jaina when she was talking to Mara.

Against the struggle of keeping her child alive—though even now, she could feel that she healed enough of her own Force-essence to the point that her baby was no longer in immediate danger—Jaina pushed herself to her feet and reluctantly trotted forward to help her brother and uncle kill Abeloth.

But she stopped after only a few short seconds. And she looked around within the timeless white around her. Where was this Pool of Knowledge? In the realm beyond shadows, everything was so indefinite, and she maybe she wouldn't-

As if cutting into her thoughts, off in the distance, away from the fight going on between Luke, Jacen, and Abeloth, a pool had appeared.

And as if by instinct alone, Jaina knew that it was the Pool of Knowledge

She looked between the fight and the Pool several times, indecisive as to what to do. She knew that it was the right thing to do to help her brother and uncle fight Abeloth, and even smarter still to inform them about the thing that could not only help them find a way to kill this creature, but maybe even save Ben and the other Jedi children that were taken by the Sith from Shedu Maad. Indeed, that thought was enhanced in Jaina's mind when Jacen shouted her name and cried for her to, "Help us!"

But the Judicar part of her, the one that both Luke and Mara knew were still deep down within her, said that it was most likely the wisest decision to not risk herself and her child while Abeloth was so preoccupied by the Grand Master of the Jedi Order and Jacen. Instead, despite Mara's warning, and her vow—no, more like a promise, really, which was not so sacred as a vow—Jaina thought that it would be a safer bet to go to the Pool of Knowledge herself and find out where they could find the Dagger of Mortis and where Ben was. It seemed like the best decision that could produce the most good with the circumstances that she and her family faced.

And it was, after all, the best decision that she could make for her baby.

"Help us, Jaina!" Luke called out.

Jaina didn't respond. Instead, she branched away from the fight ahead, stepped between the spots in the Lake of Apparitions that housed the dead, and directed herself on a sure course for the Pool of Knowledge.

And as she did, she couldn't help but level a hateful gaze down at the image of her grandfather who wouldn't tell her, her brother, or uncle about this method that could help them kill probably the worst foe they had ever faced.