Jacen met Tahiri as she was stepping out of the Prison Center, looking angrily at him as expected.
"Sorry about electrocuting you into unconsciousness and placing you here," Jacen said.
"What do you want?" Tahiri asked, ignoring him.
"Your help," Jacen stated. "Garis framed me for killing Grand Admiral Pellaeon; now the whole Jedi Order is under scrutiny in the Galactic Alliance, which means I can't get any help from them in GA space. Seeing as you how and Tekli are Jedi not officially affiliated with the Alliance, I'll need all the help I can get in finding Garis."
"What do you need us for?" Tahiri asked.
"Basically, just a couple extra sets of hands," Jacen answered. "And with you... I think we can use your hatred of Garis to find him."
"How so?" Tahiri asked.
"If we briefly join our consciousnesses to each other," Jacen explained, "I think I can do something. Specifically, I hope to merge my experience in teaching Garis and the connection we had as Master and apprentice with your anger and hatred, which should coincide more to his own anger and hatred. By doing this, this may pierce through whatever barriers Garis has put up against me and we can locate him and whoever is supporting him."
"You're not worried about me going to the dark side while we do this?" Tahiri inquired. "Or embracing my inner darkness, as you put it?"
"Oh, I'm worried about it," Jacen said. "But hopefully, if you do lose control of yourself, you can still be helped. I already contacted Tekli; she's waiting at the Solo Quest."
Tahiri looked at Jacen with an upraised eyebrow. "How did you get that here?"
"Aing-Tii teleportation method," Jacen said. "Same way I managed to get here."
"Well, that's kind of making starships pretty obsolete, if you ask me," Tahiri commented.
"It may be, if it wouldn't have drained me," Jacen said. "Thankfully, since I can replenish myself by making rejuvenating concoctions, I can still do commence the Aing-Tii teleportation method once every few hours or so."
"Okay, so my next question is why can't we just merge our consciousnesses right here, right now to find Boric?" Tahiri asked.
"I prefer to do that while we're in hyperspace, when we're mobile in space, where we can find him in the galaxy," Jacen said. "While we're on Zonama Sekot and we just happen to locate Garis, it may take a long time before we can find him. And that's assuming he doesn't move throughout the galaxy, or detect us trying to find him. Nevertheless, while we're on the move, we have a better chance of catching him."
"Then let's not waste anymore time," Tahiri said. "Let's catch a rapist."
.
Once the Solo Quest was in hyperspace with Jacen, Tahiri, and Tekli aboard, the Chadra-Fan Jedi, seated in the navigator's chair, asked her human colleagues, "So where exactly are we going, Jacen?"
From the pilot seat, Jacen looked back to the alien Jedi. "Csilla, so we can pick up Jaina; through our twin bond, we've already agreed to it, since she's pretty keen on helping defeat the bastard who ruined her wedding, one way or another. She'll definitely be of use to us in our search for Garis. Now if you'll excuse Tahiri and I, we have to begin the temporary consciousness-meld and see if it can help us find Garis."
"I'll get something to eat then," Tekli replied as she stood up and walked out of the cockpit for the Solo Quest's galley.
Once the Chadra-Fan was gone, Jacen and Tahiri, who was seated in the copilot seat, turned to each other, and Jacen placed his hands on the blonde Jedi's temples.
"Now do the same to me," Jacen instructed.
Tahiri complied, and then she asked, "Where exactly did you learn this technique, Jacen?"
"It's a little modification I made with Garis based on the Theran Listeners' use mnemotherapy," Jacen said. He noticed Tahiri's look of anger at the mention of Garis's name. "I'm not sorry that he actually contributed something here."
Tahiri rolled her eyes. "Let's just get this over with. Now, you want me to actually use my anger, right?"
"That's right, so keep it up," Jacen replied. "But concentrate as well. Focus on intertwining your presence with mine."
With that, Jacen and Tahiri simultaneously closed their eyes and began.
Though Tahiri's anger and hatred was directed at Garis, only the bond that Jacen had established with his former Jedi apprentice, though broken, still had more concrete vestiges through the Force in terms of actually connecting with Garis. So the images of Garis the rapist in Tahiri's head were backed up and given more of a solid foundation with Jacen's time with his former pupil.
As soon as Jacen and Tahiri's perception of Garis was one, they, as a temporary Force-being, proceeded to use that perception and expand it as far as they could through the galaxy. In what was either long hours or mere moments, they finally felt the whole of the galaxy around them, and they used it to try to match the image of Garis in their unified mind with the presence of the man who actually was.
And they found a match on Csilla.
"No!" Jacen cried.
As he shouted, he painfully broke out of the bond that he and Tahiri had just established, and to the both of them, it felt like their brains would have been blown out into vacuum. But for Jacen, it was all the more agonizing as the horrible realization that broke him out of this bond sunk into his aching head.
When he and Tahiri finally recovered, and noticed Tekli standing at the door of the cockpit with a ration bar and looking concerned for her human friends, Jacen broke it to the Chadra-Fan: "Garis is on Csilla. He's going after Jaina!"
.
Having felt what her twin brother had felt, given their renewed Force-connection, Jaina woke up from her sleep with the knowledge that she had to defend herself and Jag.
She nudged her husband awake and told him, "Get dressed. We have unwanted visitors coming."
Going from drowsy to alert in under a second, Jag straightened up from the bed and rushed to get dressed just as his wife was doing the same.
By the time they were in civilian clothing, with Jaina bearing her lightsaber and Jag with his hand blaster, they were still nevertheless caught off-guard when the wall of their apartment with the window looking out over the rest of Cshanalla blew in a shower of flame.
The two Fels were blown back by the blast and fell back to the floor in pain, their faces and bodies scratched and ridden with debris particulates.
When Jaina looked up, she saw the inferno before her and her husband part for a brief moment, as if by an air current. But when Jaina saw that it was a dark-robed being who held his hand outward, she determined that this was a Force-user.
And not just any Force-user; she recognized this individual's presence all too well, mainly by her brother's experience with him.
The figure pulling down the hood of his cloak only confirmed what Jaina already knew: Garis Boric.
Jaina then leaped up to her feet and activated her purple-bladed lightsaber while Jag pressed himself up, leveling his blaster at the rapist.
Garis chuckled. "You think I would come for the Sword of the Jedi without backup, Jaina?"
As if on cue, which Jaina suspected it was, two more dark-robed figures appeared at either side of Garis, having jumped in through the hole behind him. Garis's associates were a male Aqualish and a female Muun.
As one, all three figures unhooked the lightsabers from their belts and activated them, revealing scarlet blades.
Jaina's eyes widened in shock and horror. "You're Sith!" she proclaimed.
Garis sneered. "You didn't already figure that out with our dark, evil robes?" His tone was mocking.
Wordlessly, the three Sith rushed at the Fels.
As Jag backed up and began spraying the incoming Sith with charric bolts - which the Aqualish and Muun had to use more of the Force to deflect - Garis immediately engaged Jaina in a duel.
Both female Jedi and male Sith were on the offensive, neither defending, for they both intended to kill each other, and all the attacks they didn't parry or strike at were simply dodged. Jaina and Garis's duel continued on for about half a minute, neither combatant relenting or giving up to go on the defensive, before Garis suddenly disengaged and began flipping back toward the hole behind him.
But just as he landed in a feline-like crouch, Jaina used a burst of unexpected Force-speed and impaled her lightsaber through his chest.
Jaina regarded Garis with the cold malice that she would with any enemy that she had just fought, and Garis regarded his killer with shock and anger.
But that dying expression turned into one of another sneer grin, which was all but alive with the promise of death.
Garis then literally disappeared into thin air, and Jaina's danger sense warned her too late what was about to happen. She spun around to engage the real Garis - the one who had been using a Fallanassi illusion on Jaina to make her think that she was fighting him all this time - but the Sith rapist had already made his attack and struck at the top of Jaina's lightsaber pommel. Her purple blade quickly flashed out of existence, and then Garis unleashed a current of Electric Judgement that knocked her unconscious in a matter of seconds.
Garis then turned back to find that Jag had also been knocked out and was slung over the Aqualish's shoulder. The Muun was using the Force to hold Jag's blaster into the air, and then she used her lightsaber to chop it in two.
"Let's go," Garis said.
Then he used the Aing-Tii teleportation method to send himself, the Fels, and his fellow Sith out of the Fel apartment and off of Csilla. Seconds later, officers of the Cshanalla police arrived to find no one there and a lot of destruction in the apartment.