On the Solo Quest's first stop over Nam Chorios, from which Jacen and Nelani traveled down to the planet itself via shuttle, the two Jedi had failed to find Garis and his rescuers, either by the Force or otherwise, in their subsequent three-day search across the world.
And it was tough for Jacen to visit Theran Master Taru Durn to see if he had an inkling to Garis's whereabouts.
"If I did," Durn said when Jacen and Nelani visited his convent, "I would help you without hesitation. But as it is, all I can tell you is this: You should have given Garis to us when you had the chance."
Jacen didn't bother to repress his annoyed groan before turning and leaving with Nelani.
Hours later, they were back aboard the Quest and traveling through hyperspace for their next destination: Coruscant.
"Why do you think Garis would be there, Jacen?" Nelani asked as Jacen input the system coordinates on the Quest's navicomp beforehand.
"Just a hunch," Jacen said. "Given how obsessed Garis was with me when we first met, I'm guessing that if his rescuers were compliant with him, then maybe he would go to the place where I received my new view of the Force."
However, by the time the Quest reached Coruscant two days later, Jacen and Nelani received no leads on Garis or whoever was with him when they broke him out of the Jedi Temple. They had searched for over a week through the decrepit Vongformed ruins of Coruscant, which, in many areas, was still being worked on by Galactic Alliance repair crews assisted by several dozen Yuuzhan Vong Shapers.
"This place is horrifying," Nelani said at one point during their search. She and Jacen were traveling on foot through one of the underworld areas, where yorik coral and Vong plant-life flourished in their terrifying beauty at various places. "I could see how someone could go mad down here."
Jacen sighed. "Apprentice Dinn, if I had gone mad, I wouldn't be a Jedi Master today."
"I envy your fortitude for not breaking in this place, Master Solo," Nelani said. "Had I been here-"
"I had been broken here, Nelani," Jacen interrupted. "Vergere saw that I had to be broken if I were to understand the true nature of the Force."
Nelani was silent for a moment before she said, "This place feels dead. I see life all around me, but... it's so scary. As if the Force itself is telling me that the life itself has no life; that it just somehow is, that it exists without the Force. Is this what the Yuuzhan Vong felt like, Jacen?"
"Yes," Jacen confirmed without hesitation. "It's one of the most horrifying things I experienced in my life; right before I was captured and imprisoned by Vergere and the Yuuzhan Vong. Realizing on Belkadan that they lived, that they existed, without the Force was absolutely astounding; to me, there could be no life without the Force, as so many Jedi in the past had believed. Yet here the Yuuzhan Vong were, conquering and invading the worlds and systems of the New Republic, and they simply weren't there for the Jedi to comprehend in our trust in the Force. It was one of the first awakening experiences for me, that the Force was less than we thought it was, yet somehow so much more."
"Master Solo," Nelani said, "...would you ever put anyone through what you were put through by Vergere?"
"No; because I can't, in good conscience, torture anyone else as Vergere and the Yuuzhan Vong had tortured me. I don't even know if other Jedi would have the fortitude as I have; hell, I'm not even sure that Master Luke could stand up to what I felt, in all honesty."
"Then how can anyone understand the Unifying Force as well as you do?" Nelani asked.
Jacen had no answer for her.
Though he understood that each individual Jedi must learn his or her own way to find their best connection to the Force through the Unifying Force, Jacen also understood that there was no way that any other person could understand it as he did. He figured that even if someone were to go through the same experiences as he had and came out sane, whatever that person understood of the Unifying Force would be different from how he understood it. Hence, he could not answer Nelani's question; as Luke told her before, she had to understand the Force as best as she could through her own way.
Following their eventual departure from Coruscant, and their next destination to Nar Shaddaa, the formerly titled Smugglers' Moon, Jacen answered Nelani's question before she could even ask it: "Even after the changes it went through following the Yuuzhan Vong War, there are still a few cells here and there on the moon that smugglers and other criminals can rely on."
Jacen was referring to the fact that, after the Hutts had lost so much power in the war against the Vong, Nar Shaddaa, along with its accompanying planet of Nal Hutta, had received an uptake in official security and administrative authority, thanks mainly to the actions of the Galactic Alliance. It was a hard pill for the Hutts to swallow, but it was an agreement that they had to adhere to if they wanted any power back over the territory that the Vong had devastated in their wake.
Still, Hutts were as slippery and flexible in dodging GA regulations as they were in moving with their slug-like bodies. So it was no surprise that throughout the Y'Toub system, smugglers would manage to outrun Alliance patrols to deliver their cargoes of spice elsewhere; cargoes that no Hutt individual or clan had any official affiliation to.
During the trip to the Y'Toub system, Nelani, seated in the copilot seat, asked, "Master Solo... is it possible that you can teach me some of what you learned in your postwar sojourn?"
Jacen, from the pilot seat, looked at her inquisitively. "Are you more willing to accept the Unifying Force?"
"I think I am," Nelani affirmed with some hesitation.
"If you think so," Jacen said, "then that means you're off to a good start."
For the next month, as Jacen and Nelani continued to search various regions of space for Garis, going from the Core to the outskirts of the Outer Rim, Jacen began teaching Nelani some of the techniques that he had once taught Garis. In that time, he had to comm Danni to let her know that he was, unfortunately, too busy to visit her; he had a maniac to catch, and it was his duty to do everything in his power to make sure that he was either brought to justice or brought down entirely. Naturally, Danni understood that he had to fulfill this duty as a Jedi Master, though Jacen sensed that she was disappointed that he wouldn't be able to see her.
For the first week or so, he taught Nelani some basic calming techniques and some combat art that was practiced in some of the other sects. In the first few days, Nelani had some trouble, for these new techniques, though not far off from the techniques practiced by the Jedi Order, had just enough differences in them to offset Nelani's stout sensibilities.
But by the end of that week, she had gotten used to them, and mastered them as well as Jacen had.
From then on, he managed to teach her some of the more advanced techniques. He taught her how to use the Aing-Tii teleportation method, how to harness Electric Judgement without embracing any dark parts of herself, and how to use White Current illusions.
When the month had ended, Nelani felt like a much more open person than she had when Jacen first met her all those months before.
"So how do you feel about the Unifying Force now, Apprentice Dinn?" Jacen asked in her quarters. They were sitting cross-legged across from each other from a meditation session in which they had finally forged a personal connection as Master and apprentice.
"I now understand that the Force is so much more than what we thought, Master Solo," Nelani said in an enlightened tone. "That there are so many sides, so many ways, to look at it that aren't simply mired in notions of light or darkness.
"For what I understand of it now, I see that the Unifying Force opens up so many more options to discover about the Force; that it isn't some gateway to darkness, but that for whatever light or darkness someone has in themselves, it is already there. It can sometimes be changed by other ideologies, but the core of someone will always stay the same in some way; and the only thing that has changed about me, after learning about all these different methods, Jacen, is how it has opened up my eyes. The Force, and the galaxy around me, are all connected in a way that goes much deeper than the understanding of light and dark sides could ever make them seemed connected or disconnected; and all I had to do was stop living in fear of any potential destruction that the Unifying Force could bring, and just try to understand it."
"The truth is so much more than what can be expressed in words," Jacen said. "Something that Vergere once taught me in a proverb of hers: Everything I say is a lie. Because lies are only what can be stated; the truth is sometimes not that simple. And now that you see that, Nelani, I can tell that you are far exceeding my expectations in your track to becoming a Jedi Knight."
When Jacen had finished, he looked at his wrist chrono. He saw that it was time to drop out of hyperspace for their next destination. So he stood up and headed to the cockpit with Nelani following suit.
Once they were back in their respective seats, Jacen dropped out to the next world that he and Nelani would visit: a world inhabited by the ancient Sith, which ended when the time of Darth Bane's Rule of Two began. Jacen figured that, here, Garis might be interested in embracing his darker self, and what better way than to visit a world where everyone in the Sith Order embraced that dark part of themselves?
Korriban.
However, after hours of combing the planet, both through physical inspection such as the Valley of the Sith Lords and inside the abandoned Sith Temple, Jacen and Nelani could not find anything.
"Where to then, Master Solo?" Nelani asked once they were back in orbit over the Solo Quest.
Jacen shrugged before he gave his answer.
.
In an abandoned camp once owned by a clan of Tusken Raiders on Tatooine, Darth Krayt received a message from his Defel agent, Darth Mystique, who was the only One Sith remaining on Korriban since the organization's departure from the planet. Sitting in a chair beneath a shaded tent, Krayt listened to Mystique's report while Garis and Darth Wyyrlok stood at either side of their Master.
"My Lord," the Defel reported, "the Solo Quest has departed the Korriban system."
"Are you positive that Jacen Solo has not sensed you, Darth Mystique?" Krayt asked.
"Of course," Mystique responded confidently. "And neither has his new apprentice. I have honed my presence to the point where only you and Lord Wyyrlok can sense me despite my best efforts."
"Excellent," Krayt said. "And do you still have enough food and water to sustain yourself?"
"I could have lasted for the rest of the year, My Lord," Mystique answered. "And neither Solo nor the apprentice have found my supplies; I have hidden them well."
"Very good," Krayt said.
"I beg your pardon, My Lord," Garis chimed in, "but may you ask Lord Mystique who Solo's new apprentice is?"
Krayt looked at Garis with an unreadable look, then returned his attention to the commlink. "Were you able to identify who Solo's apprentice is, Lord Mystique?"
"Only from my eavesdropping on an idle conversation between them," Mystique said. "She would interchange calling him 'Master Solo' and 'Jacen,' and he would interchange calling her 'Apprentice Dinn' or-"
"Nelani," Garis growled just as Mystique finished his sentence.
"Thank you, Lord Mystique," Krayt said. "Lord Wyyrlok, Boric, and I shall return with our contingent, along with the rest of our brethren due back to Korriban." He then signed off and stood up, ready to bark orders to the One Sith in the other tents to begin moving out.
It was time to return home to Korriban, and continue plotting and training for the One Sith's eventual rule of the galaxy.