For the next nine months that had passed within the Bubble of the Lost, Jaina Solo lounged more or less comfortably in her quarters aboard the Qrephs' Base Prime and wherever else she went throughout the structure. No one who worked in the base dared to bother her, although every now and then, she did get some suspicious looks from the Nargons and various other employees who had business there; the fact that neither Marvid nor Craitheus had received any powers after accessing the monolith atop which Base Prime was placed was certainly a curiosity, and Jaina could sense those employees' incredulity that the Columi brothers allowed her to continue to essentially mooch off of them for no apparent gain on their part. Still, throughout all of the time that had passed between her gaining control of the Qrephs to the point that she would give birth, Jaina sensed no imminent danger as her pregnancy progressed.

Unfortunately, as her belly grew larger in congruence with her child's fetal development, she still sensed the lives that were being lost out in the rest of the galaxy. It was a sensation that was as disturbing as it was strange, because the time dilation effects of the Bubble of the Lost seemed to slow her perception of those deaths down, as if it were a holovid whose speed was reduced to more than half of its running length. Naturally, it was a sensation that she did her best to shield her child from with the Force; she could only hope that when he was born, the sensations that were no doubt caused by Abeloth would not be imprinted onto Jaina's son.

But aside from enduring the occasional sensation of mass death through the Force, Jaina found herself mostly wrestling with another emotion with which she was all too familiar at this point in her life and which she hoped that her child would never have to endure as he grew up: loneliness. Once again, she had completely isolated herself from her entire family and had no one to call on as a friend, which made it all the more heartbreaking with the reminder that nearly everyone she had once called a friend was now dead.

Of course, that didn't mean that Jaina didn't try to do something to stave off that loneliness. Sometimes, she would ask to be part of a sabacc game that would be played between some of the non-Nargon GET employees in one of their lounges during one of their down-times. Whenever this happened, they would let her join, and it was clear to Jaina that they did that out of fear based on the knowledge of who she was and what she could do with her Force-powers if they didn't let her play with them. To her credit, she promised to keep her Force-senses out of the game and kept to that promise; thus, she had her fair share of losses as well as her wins.

Still, even with her attempts at social interaction, she could tell even without having to use her Force-senses that she was not truly welcome among those employees. As such, she would receive some polite but empty remarks and superficially friendly facades that only sank her own spirits; had it not been for the fact that she was here just to see to her child's safe development, she might have killed all these people around her just out of spite.

In a way, Jaina felt as if she might as well have been in prison; at least there, she would have had some genuine social interactions with the other prisoners, even if those interactions wouldn't always be positive. While she would have been in significant amount of danger from the more dangerous inmates, and she would have doubtlessly been deprived of the Force in some way, a part of her couldn't help but wonder if she would have been better off just turning herself in and spending the rest of her days back in prison or, better yet, actually helping the Jedi Order in defeating Abeloth and the Lost Tribe of the Sith.

But the other part of her, the dominant part that had brought her to this point, was at least reasonably content to know that she still technically had enough freedom to determine even a portion of her own destiny and not be ordered around by stuffy, self-righteous wardens, guards, or Jedi. And as such, she could raise her child in peace and tranquility that she knew that those people would say she was undeserving of having for the crimes that she committed.

And within that time of peace and tranquility, Jaina would read children's holostories aloud for her son to hear; he may yet have been too young even for that, but a part of her hoped that something would seep through and somehow be ingrained within him once he could start speaking. She would also do some light exercises every now and then, which, admittedly, didn't do well for her bouts of morning sickness, but still, she didn't regret those actions.

Then the day finally came when her water broke; and when that happened, she called for help via commlink, and two Nargons carried her out of her quarters on a stretcher toward the nearest medbay. From there, she endured exactly eight hours of intense, painful labor surrounded by anonymous masked doctors and nurses before her sweaty, heaving body sagged with relief when she eventually heard the sound of a baby crying.

When her son was finally placed within her arms, she couldn't help but beam down at his peaceful, sleeping face: here he was, a newborn angel who had come from someone so despicable and who many would say didn't deserve to have him, but here he was in her arms, and she was so glad to have him that nothing else in the galaxy mattered. She just held onto him, cooing at him, and saying so many things that she wouldn't be able to recall that basically conveyed nothing more than her absolute love for what she had brought into this galaxy.

After what seemed to be an infinitely perfect amount of time to pass, one of the doctors asked, "What are you going to name him?"

Jaina tilted her head down at her son in thought. She would have felt stupid at this moment, having never considered, in all the time that she was pregnant, that she didn't think to give her son a name; she had even known his gender since she looked into the Pool of Knowledge about three quarters of a year before, and yet, she had never thought about what to name him. It was even more ridiculous because it wasn't even something that she had to talk to anyone about, and none of the GET employees she played sabacc with even asked.

A part of her wondered if she should just name her baby after his father, Herush Klass. But after a moment's consideration, Jaina thought otherwise, even if it was callous even for her to disregard using his name to christen her child. Instead, she thought that it was better to name her son after the man who had tried to, at one point, be her better half and steer her clear of the dark side of the Force to the point that he had lost his life to her darkness.

"Zekk," she said without taking her now-tearing eyes off of her child. "His name is Zekk Solo."

Then Jaina looked up; and in that moment, she wished that everyone she had ever called her friends and family had been here, even the ones she had killed: she wished that her mother and father were here; she wished that both her brothers were here; she wished that Uncle Luke and Aunt Mara and little Ben were here; she wished that everyone who had been her to the Mission to Myrkr, both those who lived through it and died, were here.

But in that moment, which didn't tinge the utter happiness that she felt one bit, all she had were the doctors and nurses who were just here doing their job.

Well, not really, she thought; She wasn't quite sure if what she was seeing then was just a hallucination or if it was somehow real, but behind the doctors and nurses, Jaina couldn't help but see an incorporeal version of Jacen standing behind them, looking down at her with a bittersweet smile. It faded after only a few moments.

When those moments ended, one of the nurses reached over and gingerly took Zekk from Jaina's arms; even if she hadn't been so damn tired, she wouldn't have resisted, as he was going to be taken for whatever they had to do to ensure that he didn't have any health problems. So, after everyone else had filed out of the medbay, Jaina laid her head back on the pillow, closed her eyes, and allowed herself to drift off to sleep.

. . .

For all of the peace that Jaina had felt as she and her baby were safely isolated in the Bubble of the Lost, a great number of other worlds—namely in the Core and the Inner and Outer Rims—had fallen into chaos by none other than its primary agent: Abeloth.

In the two and a half months since Luke Skywalker and his party had located the Dagger of Mortis, the Jedi Order and the Galactic Alliance had done everything they could to kill Abeloth. Star by star, planet by planet, moon by moon, station by station, avatars of Abeloth were wiped out, with GA Star Destroyers being the ones to occasionally raze whole cities just to keep the entity from broadening her mission of assimilating every sentient being in the galaxy; but more often than not, at least one avatar would escape to claim several more lives and add to her own existence and power. At least a few thousand lives were lost in each instance, and each death only imparted a massive weight to the seemingly unbearable guilt that Luke found himself facing.

Of course, even on worlds where there was no GA presence, Luke and a party of Jedi—which had always included Jacen, the remaining Masters, and at least a few other Knights—would be there with the Dagger of Mortis ready to strike Abeloth down. But in more instances than one, an avatar would fall under a strike from the Dagger of Mortis, as wielded by Luke himself, only for other nearby avatars to shriek in pain and protest, but otherwise remain alive.

At this point, Luke truly was getting frustrated by this lack of progress and the loss of life. Not since the Yuuzhan Vong War did he feel this powerless to really do anything solid, even with his son Ben having returned to his life.

With the Solo Quest II having effectively become a moving base of operations for him as the hunt to find a way to truly kill Abeloth went on, Luke sat in front of one of the ship's holoterminals to speak with GA Supreme Commander Cha Niathal.

"After all of this time, Master Skywalker," the Mon Calamari said with a notable tinge of impatience, "can you at least posit a theory as to why this Dagger of Mortis has not worked on Abeloth as you had expected?"

Luke stifled a frustrated sigh. "A theory that Jedi Solo has come up with is that Abeloth may have something called a 'lynch-pin avatar,' which is basically an avatar who, if killed by the Dagger of Mortis, may be able to kill all of her other avatars. Ideally, all at once."

"What is this theory based under?" Niathal asked.

"It is based under the fact that none of the avatars that were killed have had any substantial effect on any of the others," Luke replied patiently. "But the fact that they all seem to at least be somewhat affected, in that they all suffer from some mild pain, points to the idea that maybe there's an avatar that, if killed, could possibly do more than what's being done right now."

"Have you had any luck in locating this so-called lynch-pin avatar, Master Skywalker?" Niathal inquired.

"Unfortunately, no, Admiral Niathal. But the Jedi Order is doing everything it can to find out who this avatar can possibly be."

"Have you any ideas yourself?"

"I'm afraid not, Admiral."

"Well, you'd better find out soon," Niathal intoned. "After what happened to my predecessor, let's just say that I'm not looking forward to having my mind scrambled, especially with the Horn siblings and those other rogue Jedi Knights still unaccounted for."

Luke knew that the Mon Calamari was referring to Nek Bwua'tu as her predecessor; though his mind had been successfully purged of the mental infection caused by a rogue Valin Horn when he and his sister Jysella escaped from the Corellian system, he and so many others who had been freed by Jedi Hoil and his fellow Knights were still reduced to various levels of schizophrenia and paranoia and were now institutionalized throughout the GA territories that, so far, had remained outside of Abeloth's influence. And the aforementioned fact that the Horns and the other Jedi were still potentially loose on the galaxy didn't comfort Luke's mind, either.

"We have every intention of exterminating Abeloth as soon as possible, Admiral," Luke said confidently.

"Just get it done," Niathal practically growled. "I don't want to have this conversation again." She signed off, which left Luke to slump back in his seat with a feeling of defeat.

When he inhaled and brought himself back to a stronger posture befitting the Grand Master of the Jedi Order, he stood up, turned around, and halted when he saw Jacen standing at the threshold of the Quest's holoterminal room with an unreadable expression.

"What is it, Jedi Solo?" Luke asked.

"It's Jaina," Jacen answered with a bewildered tone.

"What about her?" Luke inquired evenly. If Jacen was about to announce that Jaina had died, he was unsure if he could feel bad about that after she killed Mara.

"She's given birth," Jacen stated. "I felt it through the Force."

Luke looked at his nephew in askance. "But how can that be? She would still have several months left."

"I don't know, Unc- Master Skywalker. But it's happened already."

Luke looked puzzled. "Then I want you to find out how it's possible; it may lead to a clue of her whereabouts."

Jacen nodded. "At once." He turned to leave.

"And Jacen."

The Knight stopped and turned back. "Yes, Uncle Luke?"

The Grand Master took a moment to himself before he spoke. "I want you to know... that even after everything that's happened... I hope Jaina's alright."

Again, Luke was unsure of whether or not he really believed that himself. But still, he thought that it was the right thing to say to Jacen right now; it might even make him more agreeable and compliant in looking for Jaina, even with the ongoing hunt for Abeloth's lynch-pin avatar.

"Thanks, Uncle Luke," Jacen whispered with a small smile. Then he left.

And that left Luke feeling slightly guilty at having to lie to Jacen like that just to raise his spirits, especially since that didn't change the fact that there would be no stopping Jaina from receiving her death sentence. He wasn't even really sure if Jacen himself honestly bought that lie, but regardless, Luke found himself feeling no less guilty for telling it.