Octa, having left the underground caverns of the Celestial Palace, was now painfully stumbling through the ruins of the ancient Killik building with a dying Kyp still on her shoulders; considering the wounds they suffered from nearly ending up as chow for Thuruht members, they both needed severe medical attention, especially Kyp, whose wounds would prove fatal if not given treated sufficiently in the proper amount of time. But at least neither of them had to fly their StealthXs or of the starfighters left over from the now-dead Jedi Knights who came with them; that would be left to the reinforcements who were coming down to pick them up and tow their vessels back into space.
However, upon seeing the exit of the destroyed palace before her, an adult, male Cerean, who Octa recognized was Jedi Marr Id-Shael, dropped in from out of nowhere and faced her. He made no further moves, not even reaching for the lightsaber hooked on his belt, before he said, "Surrender, Master Ramis, and we may tend to your and Master Durron's wounds." His voice was predictably stilted and stiff, typically characteristic to a being of a collective consciousness.
Octa snorted in response. "In exchange for submitting the both of us to your hive mind? I don't think so."
"You really have no choice," Idi-Shael droned. "Even if you can escape our grasp, neither of you will be able to return to any suitable medical facility among the Jedi to save your lives in time. And you are in no condition to fight. Please, we beg of you for your sake, turn yourselves over."
"I'd rather die," Octa replied without hesitation. "And I know Master Durron would, too. There's no way we'd contribute our own knowledge and skills over to the Killiks in exchange for our lives."
Idi-Shael sighed in defeat. "Then you leave us no choice." He casually unhooked and activated his purple-bladed lightsaber and simply strolled toward Octa, as if he was only going to shake her hand instead of murder her and Kyp.
Predictably, Octa began moving back and away, struggling to hold Kyp up on her shoulders, from the approaching Idi-Shael, who didn't even quicken his pace. "Even if you kill us, you still have to contend with the Jedi who are picking up Kyp and I."
"We're aware of them, Master Ramis," Idi-Shael said. "And we have no reason to contend with them."
.
As before, six StealthXs, two of which were piloted by Jedi Masters Corran Horn and Kyle Katarn, flew through the atmosphere of Reonoq and soared for the remnants of the Celestial Palace, where the starfighters of the previous Jedi team had landed. In less than a minute, they neared the resting StealthXs and each currently-flying vessel simultaneously fired out a tow cable toward their downed counterparts, picking them up immediately.
The Killiks who had just burrowed themselves back through the sandy earth of Reonoq went unnoticed by any of the Jedi.
Not only that, but all of those Jedi thought that they felt, through the Force, that Kyp and Octa were already in their respective StealthXs. And to top it all, they also failed to see the bombs stuck to the bottoms of the towed starfighters.
Those bombs not only blew up the StealthXs that they were attached to, but they also sent, in their fiery deaths, electrical charges that traveled up the cables that led to the StealthXs that were just carrying them. All of the Jedi who were piloting were too distracted by the sudden burst of momentum caused by the explosions that sent all of them off course, which was why they didn't have time to react from what their danger senses told them in the mere two seconds they were abuzz.
It took twice that time for those electrical charges to travel up those cables to blow those StealthXs up.
.
Octa suddenly tripped back from the feeling that resulted from the deaths of two of her fellow Masters, Corran and Kyle, along with four other Knights within Reonoq's atmosphere. She collapsed on top of Kyp, who lost all the control that he could muster to calm the pain he was in to give a primal shout of pain that reverberated powerfully through the Force, akin to the wave of pain that Jaina Solo Fel felt upon her own death.
Yet that shout of agony did not even slow Idi-Shael down for a second. He continued to approach the distracted Masters and, without hesitation, plunged his lightsaber through Octa's torso. He then pulled his blazing blade out to put Kyp out of his misery by decapitating him.
But it wasn't the wave of death brought upon by Octa and Kyp's deaths that staggered Idi-Shael away from their maimed corpses.
.
After all he went through - the death of his wife half a decade ago, Kenth Hamner's loss a little more than a year ago, the more recent deaths of his family in the Solos, Ben's turn to the dark side - it was the combined pain brought upon by four of his subordinate Masters' deaths that simply put too much on Grand Master Luke Skywalker. Granted, it would be something that he could handle, given all that he had suffered before, but in the heat of space combat, there was no way he could properly delegate his mind away from minding the deaths of four of his friends and not end up crashing into the shielded hull of a Chiss Star Destroyer.
After all these years, after fighting in some of the greatest wars that the galaxy had ever seen, losing so many comrades, friends, and family, Luke Skywalker thought, in his final moments, that his earlier fear in the battle - that of dying of a heart attack - was coming true as his vessel spun wildly out of his nonexistent control; undergoing the pressure and pain in his being would cause that in even the most experienced of Jedi, who flailed around like an idiot in his cockpit. A Sith would find this to be an amusing close to the life of a Jedi Grand Master.
In the end, Luke met his demise as his near-invisible StealthX soundlessly hit and exploded against the shields of Admiral Ar'alani's flagship, and was no more.
The resultant shock wave that Luke left in his wake resounded so powerfully through the Force that it halted the entire battle in the Reo system, psychically attacking even the non-Force-sensitive Chiss. Needless to say, many more Jedi Knights and Chiss pilots died from uncontrollable crashes and projectiles that either weren't meant for them or were projectiles that they could have otherwise easily avoided.
But no more Jedi Masters died. It was as if the Force itself would not allow for the complete downfall of the Jedi Order.
Utter silence permeated the battlefield that was the Reo system, as the remaining Jedi could do nothing more but contemplate the loss of not only four regular Masters in the span of moments, but also the unexpected death of the most powerful of them, their very own Grand Master. The Chiss were confused and baffled at what just happened, for they could not fathom the enormity of what transpired; and even when many of them were ready to engage in battle, they made not a single move for the sake of their fellows, and for curiosity as to why the Jedi didn't continue to fight on for themselves.
Admiral Ar'alani was one of the relatively few Chiss who didn't follow up from the event of Luke Skywalker's death as she remained silent.
"Admiral," one of her subordinates at one of the comm piped in as the rest of the bridge remained silent. "Shall we continue firing?"
Ar'alani looked to the Chiss who asked her that question. "I don't believe that will be necessary," she said.
The male Chiss raised an eyebrow in curiosity. "Why not?"
"Because the Jedi have just suffered a blow that I doubt they can recover from," she replied as she turned back to the viewport where, moments earlier, an intense battle had been raging. "Obliterating what remains would be unnecessary."
"Then... what's our next course of action?" the other Chiss inquired.
It took a while for Ar'alani to respond before she turned back to her subordinate and said, "Ensure the elimination of the Killiks."
.
"Master Sebatyne," Master Barratk'l said sullenly over the Barabel Jedi's comm. "What do we do now?"
"We have lost, Barratk'l," Saba answered, her tone conveying her species' typical practicality even with the loss of one of her own. But even with her tone, Saba could not hide the fact in her voice that she had not felt any loss so profound in her life, even when her Master Eelysa died during the Yuuzhan Vong War, or even when Bela and Krasov Hara died during the Mission to Myrkr within that very same war. Kenth Hamner's loss at her own hands also paled in comparison to what just occurred.
"We must return back to Shedu Maad now," Saba concluded.
"We hear you... Grand Master Sebatyne," Barratk'l said.
Saba suppressed a growl. She hated the sound of that, and never thought that she would ever take up the title again in her life; it was bad enough that the first time around, it had been forced upon her when she killed Kenth Hamner. Now, with Luke Skywalker's devastating loss, there was no choice for the Jedi but to run home with their tails tucked between their legs.
And so, as the near-unseen StealthXs that remained in the battle turned to leave the Reo system via hyperspace, nothing stopped the remaining Chiss Ascendancy vessels that turned back to Reonoq to first find out what happened to the troops they sent down and then exterminate the Killiks there.
.
As Ben, Captain Ford, and Five-U approached Hego Damask's library, Ben collapsed to his knees, clutching at his chest in pain before he simply flopped to the floor on his back, his face completely emotionless and expressionless now.
Ford and Five-U both looked at each other in silent askance before returning their attention to the downed Jedi Knight at their feet. Five-U bent down and shook Ben's shoulder. "Hey, Ben, you okay?" Even to humans, who didn't have complex sensor readings that could tell if a being was living or dead, it was obvious that Ben was still alive given that he was still breathing regularly.
"My dad..." Ben said in a completely emotionless, blank voice. "My dad... My dad... He... He's... He's gone."
Again, Ford and Five-U looked at each other. Given all they knew of Ben - having been born during the Yuuzhan Vong War, not knowing his parents while he was in Shelter, suppressing his Force abilities because of Abeloth, being trained early in his life to kill as a member of the Galactic Alliance Guard, suffering on Ziost to summon the Sith Meditation Sphere known as Ship, being betrayed by his late cousin who then killed his mother, realizing that he couldn't save his cousin from the dark side, realizing that he could never have a girlfriend who was born a Sith, being raped by said ex-girlfriend, killing her and turning to the dark side, and losing everyone in his family except for Allana Djo Solo - there was only one conclusion that Ford could make from Ben's emotionless state.
"His life really sucks."