By the end of the day, the search for Garis and his mysterious rescuers had reached a failed conclusion. The former Jedi apprentice had all but disappeared off the face of the planet and the system it inhabited, and there was no trace of his accomplices to be found anywhere on the world.
And only Jacen had any clue as to how he could have escaped; and it was the only reason that the search didn't simply go on.
"...and then, all of a sudden, I just felt his presence disappear from the system," Jacen said to his uncle. "Where it wasn't there before, it was just suddenly there, and then it was just as quickly gone."
"I see," Luke said. "And you felt nothing of his presence beforehand?"
Jacen shook his head. "But when I sensed him, I got only the vague impression that he was somehow also somebody else. I know it sounds kind of ridiculous and nonsensical, but that's all I could glean. It was as if he had a second presence to him."
"That sounds like Garis to me," Luke remarked dryly.
Jacen didn't rise to the bait.
"I've already contacted Denon Orbital Control," Luke continued. "They told me that, at the time you sensed Garis leaving the system, there had been a total of two hundred and thirty-seven ships that had been outward bound for hyperspace from the planet. I don't think I have to tell you that, at this point, Garis could be anywhere in the galaxy by now."
"Then we'll continue looking for him," Jacen said resolutely.
"Not we, Jacen," Luke said. "While Garis is a Jedi target, I can't continue to dedicate so many Jedi resources to his search. Which is why I can only send a team of two Jedi, a Master and Knight or apprentice, for this manhunt."
"Then send me," Jacen said.
"I intend to," Luke said. "However, for the sake of saving time in this search - the soon, the better, after all - I've already chosen the apprentice who will accompany you on this mission."
Jacen repressed the urge to groan and roll his eyes at his uncle's audacity in choosing someone to join him in finding Garis instead of letting Jacen choose for himself. "Who is it?" he asked.
Before Luke could answer, the doorchime to Luke's office rang. "Come in," he said.
Jacen turned as soon as he heard the door open, and like before, when Eriana had stepped into his office with Sam a while back, he froze.
"Hello, Master Solo," Jedi Apprentice Nelani Dinn said to Jacen with utter respect in her tone. Her form was accompanied by a bow that was just as respectful as her demeanor, and she repeated it all as she addressed Luke. "Greetings, Master Skywalker."
"Jacen, I'm sure you're familiar with Apprentice Dinn by now," Luke said. "She will be the one who will be joining you in this mission; and should she, by your professional judgement, perform well, and you both neutralize Garis Boric as a threat, whether alive or dead, then Apprentice Dinn will be considered to apply in the Trials for Knighthood."
"Very well," Jacen said in a neutral tone before he stood up from one of the office's guest seats. "Goodbye, Master Skywalker, and may the Force be with you."
"As with you and Apprentice Dinn, Master Solo," Luke said.
Jacen then turned and walked out of the office with Nelani in tow.
"So, what will our first destination in our search for Garis Boric be, Master Solo?" Nelani asked as she and Jacen walked down this corridor for the turbolift ahead.
"Nam Chorios," Jacen answered without turning to look at the apprentice.
"Why there?"
"Because, for all I know," Jacen said, "the people who took Garis Boric may have been friends or accomplices who wanted to take him home."
Nelani hesitated in her reply. "But you have no leads that would imply such a thing; pardon me, but for all you know, Nam Chorios could be a dead end."
"Perhaps," Jacen said levelly. He wasn't at all annoyed by Nelani questioning his judgement; he was pretty much playing this one by the ear. Inwardly, he smirked at himself; for a moment, he wondered whether or not it should be Nelani who should judge him as a Master instead of him judging her as a potential Knight. "But we've still got to try."
Without even feeling it in the Force, Jacen could sense Nelani biting off another questioning remark as they arrived at the turbolift.
.
Once the Solo Quest was in hyperspace following her departure from Denon, Nelani, in the copilot seat, turned to Jacen in the pilot seat.
"Master Solo," she said, "I want you to know that, for whatever our differences in the past, and for whatever my feelings toward embracing the Unifying Force are, I am completely willing to follow you over the course of this mission. I don't want to disappoint you or any of the other Masters back on Denon, and I want to stop Garis Boric from being a threat to anyone else... and to stop those who procured him from the Jedi Temple."
"I completely understand that," Jacen replied evenly.
There was an awkward silence between them before Nelani continued with, "And I'm sorry for questioning your judgement back in the Temple."
"You don't have to apologize for that," Jacen said. "Quite frankly, if I were in your position, I would do exactly that."
"Something tells me that you're already questioning your own judgement as we speak," Nelani said.
Jacen looked at her grimly. "Apprentice Dinn, if there's one thing that we must keep in mind during this search, it's that we cannot allow our own doubts to cloud our focus. So, as you said, for whatever our differences, we cannot let it get in the way of accomplishing our goal."
"Of course," Nelani acknowledged with a respectful nod. She then turned and sat back against the copilot seat.
Though the silence between them was more comfortable now, Jacen still had a nagging question at the back of his mind that he felt he had to bring up.
"Tell me, Apprentice Dinn," he said, "why are you so personally adamant against the Unifying Force as a theory?"
"With all due respect, Master Solo, I prefer not to talk about it."
"Oh, but I think we do," Jacen said. "You see, now that I think about it, I can't have a Jedi apprentice who'll instigate lightsaber duels against fellow Jedi over petty ideological differences; it can make for very poor professional and informal relationships in the Jedi Order."
"And you feel that my behavior with Garis Boric is a sign that I could do something that could be potentially hazardous to the both of us?" Nelani asked.
"It is possible," Jacen confirmed.
Nelani sighed. She took another breath that lasted for several seconds, and Jacen knew that she was mustering up the courage to speak her mind against the ideology that she so opposed.
"I guess it's because it makes things so much more complicated," Nelani said. "When the Old Jedi Order believed in the light and the dark sides of the Force, it showed that there was a line that couldn't be crossed between them. If you were a part of the light side, then that meant that you're a good person. And if you were a part of the dark side, then that meant that you were a bad person. But then, after you came back from your time with the Yuuzhan Vong, you brought in this ideology that stated that the light and dark sides were nothing more than a view that oversimplified something that was so much more complex to grasp intellectually.
"And because of that, I feel that, in time, the Jedi would one day lose their way, and maybe fall completely into ruin, unlike when Palpatine enacted Order Sixty-six."
"And you decided to take your anger and frustration of your misunderstanding to a demented individual?" Jacen asked.
"He was your apprentice," Nelani said. "You were training him. And in my view, he represented the danger that adopting the Unifying Force would herald for the Order."
"Nelani," Jacen said, completely dropping any formal overtones, "you can't take your anger and frustration out like that. Even the Old Jedi Order wouldn't have condoned this; and you certainly can't make one individual represent an entire ideology in your mind. That creates confirmation bias, one of the most practiced methods of close-minded thinking in any organization, whether religious or secular."
"I know all that, Master Solo," Nelani said as she looked away at the star-streaked lines of hyperspace ahead.
"Then why adopt this mentality?" Jacen inquired. "From what I can tell, I'm not sure you're ready to become a Knight at all. In fact, I have to ask: Why didn't you simply quit the Order after the war had ended and we adopted this philosophy, Nelani?"
As he spoke, Nelani shed a tear, and she still didn't turn to face him. "Because I have nowhere else to go, Jacen. The Order is my home; I never had a real family, as far as I can remember." As she spoke, her tone started to choke up with restrained sobs. "I was just a lonely kid raised in an orphanage before I was found by then-Jedi Knight Ramis on Lorrd. I wanted to be a Jedi so bad, to be away from the horrible conditions of that orphanage that Master Ramis thankfully had the headmaster arrested for child abuse charges, and so I could learn the ways of the Force.
"But I never had the time to train, because the Yuuzhan Vong began invading the galaxy. So I was among the younglings in Shelter, and when we came out, and the war was over, I found that I was dealing with something that even some of the Masters had a hard time trying to understand. So if they couldn't truly grasp the concept of the Unifying Force, then how could I?" She trailed off before getting back on track. "But how could I not? The Jedi Order was all I had; but in the end, the Unifying Force just would not make sense to me."
"What is the main thing that doesn't make sense to you, Nelani?"
"That the ends can justify the means now," Nelani said. "What are we, Sith?"
"The Jedi have always done what we could for the good of the galaxy," Jacen said. "We do what we do out of selflessness. The Sith have never done that."
Nelani turned to glare at Jacen for a moment. Then she stood up and started to head out of the cockpit.
"Apprentice Dinn," Jacen said, stopping Nelani in her tracks.
"Yes, Master Solo?" she asked, not turning around to look at him.
"Can I count on you to do what is necessary for this mission?" Jacen asked.
Nelani turned around to face him with a determined look. "You can," she said confidently.
"Then you're dismissed," he said.
With that, she said nothing more as she turned back around and headed out to walk toward the ship's guest cabin. Jacen, meanwhile, simply sat back in exasperation.
Nelani, let's hope you can convince me that I can at least rely on you in the end, he thought.