Fate of the Force

by lordtrayus

The death of Jacen Solo and the last war was a disaster. A new force has undone what happened in LotF and given the galaxy a fighting chance against a great evil. By doing so however, the galaxy becomes even more perilous than it was before as the rising power of the dark side and the Sith threatens to snuff out the light of the Jedi, and of the galaxy once and for all...AU

19. Episode III: Chapter I

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars (or we would not be getting episode vii, everything would still be canon, and the mouse wouldnt be in charge)

Fate of the Force

Deep within the Maw, Abeloth suddenly became distracted from her endless war with whoever the hell it was who was trying to stop her destroying Kessel. It wasn't as if she was doing it just for the sake of it, though the fact that it was the closest planet did have some significance, but that wasn't the point. Someone was interfering with her divine will for the galaxy, and that was something that she simply could not broach.

But that was nothing compared to what she now felt. Through the endless tangle of the Force, she could feel them, those who would defy the will of their goddess, those who wished to thwart her and her plans for the galaxy. And, as their goddess, that was something that she simply could not allow.

She could see them, burning lights in the Force, several of them, along with a couple of dark stars. A most curious alliance, but ultimately, it would be futile, she wouldn't allow them to threaten her in any way. She was a goddess and she would not be threatened by this rabble. But there was the fact that they had all banded together in an attempt to destroy her.

It was time to teach these little insects their place.

She was a merciful goddess, but she would not broach outright rebellion. And besides, they planned to hurt her. She hadn't endured millennia of loneliness and pain only for a small group to try and defy her will now.

She would be free and nothing would stop her.

Peering into the Force, she saw the planet they were headed to, a cold rock with…ah that could be useful. But as she perceived the planet, her immense connection to the Force branched out, and her mind's eye sped through the galaxy, eventually coming to an abandoned ship floating out in the wilderness. On the contrary, that was even better.

They would learn that their goddess would not be defied.

Stretching through the Force, her immense power being brought to bear, her long tendril like fingers, despite being trapped on her prison planet, wrapped across time and space, ensnaring the long abandoned weapon of war in their grasp. And with a sickly sweet smile, Abeloth ripped a hole in the Force, rending a crackling, violent Force wormhole in the fabric of space, and with that, she sent the ship in her grasp hurtling through the portal which slammed shut as the ship passed through, sending the ship thousands of lightyears to where the goddess of the galaxy wished it to go.

She allowed herself a shallow, simpering smile.

They would learn that their goddess was not to be defied.

XX

"Is it just me or do Lumiya and K'kruhk seem a bit off to you?" Mara asked as the snow drove against them as they trudged through it, heading towards the decimated ruins of the academy that had once marked the surface of Odacer-Faustin.

Luke frowned as he consisered the question. Truth be told, K'kruhk did seem a bit skittish, like he was hyper alert for some reason or other. Lumiya on the other hand had been in a foul mood, which he had put down to the fact that she had had to coax Alema down from the gunwell turret where she had taken it on herself to tinker with a thermal detonator. Eventually getting bored and threatening to stick her out the airlock complete with the detonator, Lumiya had finally succeeded but dealing with Alema pouting since Lumiya had confiscated the detonator hadn't endeared the Dark Jedi to the Sith Lord in any way.

"Maybe but let's face it, we're all kind of off now. If the kids are right, and we've got no reason to think they aren't, Abeloth could very well be the dark side incarnate, and even more powerful and dangerous than the Emperor was." He reasoned, and Mara nodded, her green eyes narrowed.

"True, but K'kruhk's known about her for longer than all of us, and knew about her in the other timeline too. And Lumiya, well, she's Lumiya. It just seems weird." She said as they trudged through the sleet and snow on their way to the academy.

Ben was walking with Vestara, who seemed to be struggling in the onslaught of cold weather, and she was swearing fluently in both Basic and Sith beneath the balaclava that she had fashioned out of the scarf that Ben had so generously lent her (to Jacen's look of amusement, pride and resignation).

"You ok? Have you not had to deal with snow like this before?" he asked as she stomped through the snow, and she sent him an exasperated glance.

"Of course but back then I had my uvak to travel through it, I wasn't trudging through the snow like this, people actually live on planets like this?" she demanded and Ben nodded.

"Yep, bizarre as it seems. Look on the bright side, you could be helping Lumiya with Alema." He said brightly, and the Sith girl couldn't help but grin as she turned her gaze to where Lumiya was struggling and clearly failing to get Alema to move through the snowdrifts that they were traversing.

In Alema's defence, maimed as she was, it was very difficult for her to travel through the snow, but realising that her problems were further exasperating Lumiya, she seemed determined to milk it for all it was worth, enjoying the effect on the Sith Lord as she did so.

"Oh come on Alema, I'm freezing out here!" she yelled angrily, and Alema shrugged her solitary shoulder.

"It's not our fault that we're out of balance." She said innocently, clearly enjoying Lumiya's impotence in this situation, and the Sith glared.

"I swear, if it wasn't so much hassle to find another Dark Jedi, I'd kill you here and now and leave your corpse to rot!" she screeched, pulling at Alema's remaining arm in an effort to make her move faster, and Jaina, finally taking pity on her, interceded and took over babysitting Alema, who pouted that her newest pastime was now being denied to her as she stomped to join Han.

"You know, Luke's right, you have been off today, what is it, or is it just a bad tempered Sith day?" he asked, scowling as the wind whipped into their faces and Lumiya looked around untrustingly.

"It's this place, I don't like being here, it's one thing K'kruhk and I agree on." She explained, and Han looked around, waving his hand carelessly.

"See that's the problem with you Imp agents, you should have been with us on Hoth, it was worse than this." He explained off and Lumiya arced her eyebrow at him.

"It isn't the snow that bothers me, even though I'm going to be limbless for a while tonight while I get rid of all the rust that I'm accumulating in this blizzard. I would have thought you would face this world with greater trepidation, since the product of this planet very nearly destroyed you." She remarked, and he looked at her curiously as they continued through the snow.

"What do you mean?" he asked, and Lumiya shot him a bemused look.

"Have you forgotten your adventure on the Star Destroyer Vector?" she asked, and his face went as white as the snow they were trekking though.

All these years and everything else they had seen, the losses of Chewie and Anakin were one of the few things that gave him nightmares, but even now, all these years later, there was still one other of his adventures that could have him waking up in terror as he remembered being stalked through pitch black corridors by mindless zombies.

"Wait, what, that plague came from here?" he demanded, and she nodded grimly, her eyes clouded.

"Yes. During the Great Galactic War, a fool by the name of Darth Scarbrous was after the key to immortal life, just like many other Sith. He used the research of Darth Drear to accomplish it, and his experiments helped create the very zombies you once encountered. You see, this planet was considered for an Imperial base not long after Vader escaped Rebel custody following the Battle of Kamino, but when the researchers discovered the bodies and holocrons here, they were ordered to halt construction of the base and everything was transferred to the bioweapons division. Vader felt that an ancient Sith disease could be the key to subduing rebellious planets and so he ordered that the plague be recreated. You can imagine how it looked to monsters like General Derricote, and they were more than willing to work on it. Problem is when the outbreak on the Vector happened, the Emperor ordered the project be cancelled, and Isard was let loose on all the data pertaining to it, in case another breakout should occur so that it didn't come back and bite us on the behind. Some files were left intact though, enough so that higher ups could still access them. Apparently Isard considered using the plague on Coruscant when you lot turned up to take it from her but she went for the Krytos virus instead." Lumiya explained, and Han shuddered, and it had nothing to do with the cold. The thought of those mindless zombies on Coruscant, able to spread across the planet and most likely the galaxy, was terrifying.

"We're here why exactly?" he asked, not at all liking this planet all of a sudden, and for once he could see that Lumiya agreed with him, she was nervous, something about this planet frightened her, and whatever frightened the reigning Dark Lord wasn't anything he wanted to run into.

"To find out stuff on Abeloth with any luck. She may be the dark side incarnate, but there are still fouler and more perverted things that comes from the minds of mere mortals than anything else." She warned, and he looked at her suspiciously.

"Wait, are you telling me those things could still be here?" he demanded, and Lumiya looked nervously around.

"I don't know, I don't think so, the samples Vader found were from a long dead corpse, perfectly preserved by the cold. But this place, it just makes me feel uneasy." She said worriedly, and Han took a tighter grip on his blaster as the group made their way towards the academy's centre.

"Master? I feel…" Vestara began, trailing off and looking nervously at the tower, partially ruined, that marked the centre of the academy.

"Yes. Even now, nearly four thousand years later, you can feel the legacy of the horror, the terror, the violence that happened here. This is a cursed world, we would do well to move quickly. I can't help but feel something is amiss." K'kruhk said gravely, and Han nodded in agreement.

"Alright, what are we looking for? This place is creepy, and now I know what it is, I want to get the hell out of here." He complained, and Leia was about to ask what he meant when Luke pointed towards the building with the dead tendrils of wood growing out of it, most of the building looking like it had been destroyed.

"That looks like the library, we'll have a look there. You lot, head to that tower, there might be information up there too." He ordered Jacen, noticing that both Ben and Vestara had unconsciously edged a little closer to him than normal, and Jaina was looking rather tense.

He didn't blame them. It wasn't as if they were being watched per se, but there was a feeling of tension, an undercurrent that made them all uneasy, and unlike the other places, that had all been creepy enough, but this place, knowing the massacre that had happened here, knowing what had come from this world, and seeing the perfectly preserved ruins of what had happened here, well, it was offputting.

"Ok, come on you pair." Jacen chided, making the two teenagers head onwards while a nervous looking Jaina followed her twin, looking around suspiciously.

"Alright, what is it about this place? Everyone's on edge, and it's making me nervous." Mara said with a scowl, and Han looked around worriedly.

"Remember the story I used to tell the kids to give them nightmares?" he asked, and Mara shot him a bemused expression.

"The one you told Ben and he wouldn't sleep for a week? Yes, I remember…" she said whimsically, remembering the vengeance she had enacted on him for that, and he gulped at the memory.

"The plague was Vader's project. Blackwing." Lumiya told her softly, her face clouded, and Mara looked at her, her eyes widening as the realisation set in.

"Blackwing, wait, this is the world where Vader got the original strain? We're here?" she demanded, and K'kruhk nodded gravely.

"Just so my dear. But that isn't the reason why we're all so on edge, though that certainly isn't helping matters. It's like…something is about to happen, and it's making me uneasy. Quickly now, I think we'll all feel better once we get off this planet." He urged, and the group nodded, following the Whiphid…failing to notice the long frozen eye staring up at them from beneath the snow and ice, following them as they headed towards the library.

XX

The large tower that had been partially destroyed in some long forgotten explosion was where the youngest members of the party now found themselves, with the four of them entering into the broken remains of the entrance to the tower.

"You can feel it, the legacy of terror in here." Vestara said in slight distaste, and Jaina nodded, casting a small grin in her direction.

"Yep, living, well, dead in this case, proof of why the Sith are all crazy." She quipped, and Vestara looked at her curiously.

"Are you saying that if you had the ability, you wouldn't try to make sure you lived forever? If someone you loved was dying, and the other choice was immortality, would you really take death?" she queried, and Jacen and Ben grinned at each other in amusement, she had clearly been spending too much time with Lumiya recently, and Jaina frowned as she pondered the question that Vestara had just given her.

"So what's the skivvy on this place anyway?" Ben asked curiously, looking around, Jacen rolling his eyes as he sensed his cousins morbid eagerness to explore the ruined zombie tower.

"According to Lumiya, it was the lab of Darth Scarbrous where he did his experiments." Vestara said suddenly looking nervously up ahead, and turning, Jacen could well see why.

There were bodies, rotted corpses, all trapped in varying states of decay, all trapped behind walls of ice or locked beneath piles of snow which had trickled in through the damaged and crumbling wall, freezing some of the beings behind walls of ice as a sort of prison or trapping them beneath mounds of snow that had fallen through the millennia. Beings of every description, human, Twi'lek, Nautolan, Rodian and others were all locked under the ice, all of them mutilated versions of themselves. Slightly frightened, Vestara took a step back, unconsciously reaching for Ben's hand, who looked down in shock but grinned a little before holding hers firmly, though he did crane his neck to see the dead bodies.

Jaina exchanged a dark look with her twin, and making sure Ben couldn't reach to touch (all the apprentices in the temple were obsessed with zombies too, she blamed the parents, she and Jacen had been obsessed with machines and animals respectively) and they edged forward, feeling slightly jittery.

"This is impossible, how could they all still be perfectly preserved like this? It was thousands of years ago, and even cold planets like this should have destroyed them by now." Jaina reasoned, and Jacen had to admit his sister was right.

"Well, it was Sith alchemy that made them like this. Maybe that's why they're still intact. Doesn't explain how they came to be like this though, like frozen in time, that just doesn't make sense. Maybe when this Scarbrous bloke copped it, they all froze up? Like battle droids?" Jacen theorised, and Jaina had to admit, it did seem plausible, but all the same, the zombies being frozen in time was doing little to improve the feeling of tension and fear that was plaguing them, in fact, if anything, it was making it worse.

The bodies were dotted all through the room, frozen in pools of ice or trapped behind walls of them, or some were just body parts protruding from piles of snow. Their bodies had been ravaged by the disease the Sith had unwittingly released on the galaxy, their skin ripped off in places. Others had holes ripped in their bodies, exposing their long dormant, blackened organs to the air. Discarded limbs lay around, all of them either snapped off and showing shattered pieces of bone, and the bodies themselves had eruption of broken bones coming from their bodies. Their eyes, frozen open, were lifeless and vacant, and many of their mouths were frozen open, frozen icicles of saliva dropping from their mouths. Many of them had been mutilated, scars ripped into their body and other wounds that had long since festered pockmarking their appearance. Ribbons of blood and muscle covered them, dripping and hanging from the corpses, and their skin had taken on a greyish hue in most cases, and had sagged away from the bodies. Other parts of the body were black, tainted with necrosis, and many of the species with teeth that they could see in this room alone, their mouths had degenerated to give the impression that the victims had fangs rather than teeth. Blood vessels and muscles were all that remained of some of them, making them similar in appearance to the true form of a Gen'Dai. Blisters and fissures had opened in weak parts of the skin, and their faces and hair were where it was most apparent, the slacked jaw, the red shade of the eyes and the lank and lifeless hair.

"We should go, see if we can find anything useful upstairs where the lab was and then get the hell back to the ship and off this damn planet." Jaina decided, and looking slightly forlorn, Ben nodded and, still holding Vestara's hand, led the way towards the stairs up to the next level, still looking around curiously.

Jaina followed them and was about to head up the stairs when Jacen took her hand, his face slightly frightened, and she smiled a little.

"Hey I know this story used to scare the crap out of us when we were kids, and creepy and horrible though it is, we're grown ups now." She chided, and he shook his head.

"That isn't it. Jaina, one of those zombies heads just moved." He said, looking significantly at the frozen prison of ice where several zombies in varying states of decay were trapped behind a sheet of ice.

Jaina looked over at the ice prison, and then shook her head.

"Jacen, we're all jumpy because we're afraid, it's just your mind playing tricks. Come on." She ordered and with that, the twins headed up the stairs…as the zombies trapped behind the ice started to scrape at it, determined to get to their new prey.

XX

"Can I say for the record, I don't like this place, at all. Vader and the Emperor cancelled this sick project for a reason, Isard locked all the data on it away for a reason, and now we're here, at the genesis. And there are dozens of thousand year old bodies lying around, all affected by this plague and it's creepy. And nauseating." Mara complained, her saber in hand, ready to go at a second's notice.

"While I agree, could you stop complaining? The sooner we find out if there's anything interesting in all of this lot, the sooner we can get off of here." Lumiya sniped and Mara scowled but did as she was bid.

Alema was nervous about this, that much was apparent, she was hanging around, looking anxious, always on the lookout for any sign of movement.

"I can feel them, eyes watching." She muttered, and Leia looked around the shattered remnants of the library, where there were several long dead bodies lying around, preserved by the cold in near perfect stasis for all this time.

"They're dead Alema." She assured the Dark Jedi, but she had to admit, crazy she may be but she kind of had to agree with her, she wasn't particularly happy about being here herself.

"That's kind of the point princess, they were dead and kept going. Let's just hope they stay out for the count." Han said darkly, also doing everything one handed as he too didn't trust the zombies.

"Speaking of our undead friends over there, who seem happily asleep if they even still work at all, are we safe from whatever plague they had?" Luke asked, and Han frowned musingly, thinking back.

"Well it was airborne on the Vector." He admitted, and then gave them all a sheepish look as they looked at him in panic, but it was K'kruhk who calmed them.

"It wasn't airborne here, it was the Empire who did that, we should be fine provided they all remain inert. I don't think there's much here of use to us but we can take whatever we find, we can sort through it all later, I'd rather get off of here quickly, I dislike this place." He said, and Luke shot him a questioning look.

"Wait, you feel it as well?" he asked, and Alema looked at them in alarm.

"You told me they were all dead!" she screeched, and Lumiya rolled her eyes, scowling at Luke, it had taken her half her time to calm her down in the first place.

"They are all dead, they've been trapped beneath tons of snow and ice for thousands of years, they aren't a threat anymore. Now, seeing as this part of the library is a dead end, shall we move on? Yes Alema away from the bodies." She said in exasperation as the frightened Dark Jedi stuck close to the Sith Lord.

The library had also been ripped open in whatever events had led to the destruction of the academy. As a result, thousands of years of snow and ice had been allowed into the building, freezing the various zombies that had been left around after the disaster. Species of various sorts, frozen in time as the group traipsed through the ruined building, desperate to find any sign of what they were dealing with.

"Am I the only one who feels like this place in particular is kind of clutching at straws? We've got what, two scrolls so far?" Leia asked, and she had to admit, even she was getting edgy being surrounded by all these long frozen bodies as Luke cleared a path through a mound of snow.

"That's why we need to go deeper, there should be more information down there that we can use. At least I hope so." K'kruhk said, casting a suspicious look back the way they had come.

Luke frowned as he considered the problem. Being here surrounded by thousands year old dead bodies wasn't helping anyone's mood certainly, but he couldn't help but feel that Leia was right. They were clutching at straws. Abeloth, whatever she was, if she was indeed the dark side incarnate like the kids had theorised, well there just wouldn't be that much information on her, not really. They were collecting information on the powers they suspected she had, anything that could possibly be used to circumvent them, but there was no guarantee that everything they were doing would even work. Simply put they just didn't know enough.

Luke cleared the way down the corridor, the cold wind whistling through the ruined building, the layers of snow crunching beneath their feet, Han muttering about snow planets as they did so, while K'kruhk seemed quite at home. They were right, there was something that they were missing, Alema, crazy though she was, somehow managed to pick up on things before the rest of them did, but even he was beginning to feel it now, similar yet different from what it had felt like on Kesh before Cyclone had blitzed the planet.

"Why would they stick a tree like this in the middle of the library?" Han asked as they emerged into the downstairs passageway, to observe multiple blackened roots with charred remains beneath them, the fire having scorched the entire area, ducking as they entered to avoid overhanging black roots.

K'kruhk was looking at the roots with an odd expression on his face, and then shook his head slightly.

"This isn't a tree. This was a Neti." He told them, and Leia looked at him in surprise.

"A Neti? Are you sure?" she asked, shocked.

"Quite so. The Sickness must have gotten to this poor fellow too, made him a perversion of himself, look at his bark, it's black, rotten, and he's grown totally out of control, you can see his innards have started leaking everywhere…awful." He said, thinking briefly of T'ra.

Mara looked around at the burnt out husk that had once been the Sith library. It looked as though the fire had started down here, which meant that their chances of finding anything useful were going to be even slimmer than usual. Casting her eye around, ignoring the few bodies that were trapped in the roots of the dead Neti, she saw burned out holobooks and datacards, knowledge that was burned by an insane, disease ridden mind.

"He must have tried to torch the entire library." She muttered to herself, and Han nodded grimly, but Luke then frowned thoughtfully.

"Master Ood protected lightsabers beneath his roots on Ossus, maybe he has stuff that he protected, even unintentionally, just by being on top of it. After all, Ood survived a supernova, if he could protect stuff from that there's no reason this guy couldn't have protected stuff from a normal fire." He reasoned, and Leia looked around, trying to divine where things would have been most protected from the fire that the deranged Neti seemed to have started.

"Look, over there." She said, and started picking her way through the black, mangled roots and the various hanging bodies to an area of the room that seemed vaguely untouched by the fire, mainly due to the Neti's roots having taken hold on the floor there, forming a sort of protective cage for whatever was behind them.

"Sure, let's go picking through the dead tree person." Mara grumbled and followed her sister in law, leaving the others behind them as they slid through the various clumps of rotted bark, the gnarled and mangled roots, trying to ignore the still potent smell of decayed wood.

"Not joining them Lumiya?" Luke challenged with a grin, and she smirked.

"I can think of was I'd rather spend my time than doing gymnastics though a rotting tree carcass thank you." She said tartly as Leia and Mara reached their destination, the cluster of roots that had once been the now malformed Neti's feet, and Leia crouched down as Mara joined her.

"I was right, look, there's some stuff here." Leia said as Mara cast an untrusting look around the dead Neti's roots.

"Let's get it and get out of here then, this planet is creepy, and we don't know if the zombies really are out of commission or just waiting for a group of tasty new recruits into the academy." She mumbled, and Leia nodded, prying apart the wall of roots to discover several books which had been knocked to the floor haphazardly, along with loose pages, a couple of holobooks and a scroll of two, along with a small pile of datapads.

"And my father wanted to recreate this blasted virus?" Leia complained, casting a dark look around the blackened body of the Neti and the various decomposing bodies that had been trapped in its roots.

"You must be so proud." Mara said with a slight sarcastic smile, and Leia scowled at her as she started pulling the datapads towards her.

With the others waiting on the outside of the various roots, Mara and Leia got stuck into the long dormant datapads, not noticing that the long dormant black rotten roots of the Neti were beginning to awaken of their own accord, and that the roots coiled around the dead bodies were beginning to come loose.

"This stuff could be useful, look, Darth Drear wrote about stuff like the Emperor used, transferring consciousness, possession, that sort of thing. He's got stuff mentioned about the ancient Sith too, maybe there'll be stuff in that that we can use." Leia theorised as Mara flicked on a datapad out of curiosity.

"Huh, it still has a charge…Leia…" she whispered as she read the message that came to light on the screen, and she passed it to her curious sister in law.

"What is it, what did you find?" she asked, and Mara showed her the pad.

They appeared to be a set of orders, obviously thousands of years out of date, but the tone and meaning of them was no less significant.

"To the Academies of Odacer-Faustin and Dromund Kaas, immediately research the Maw and all available data on its inhabitants…a powerful Force presence, unlike any I have previously seen, a wielder of the dark side…stretching out and having the audacity to attack my ship…who's Vitiate?" Leia asked, frowning, and Mara turned around.

"Hey, K'kruhk, who was Vitiate?" she called, and he frowned as he heard her call.

"He was the Sith Emperor who took over after the Great Hyperspace War, why?" he queried, the others exchanging mystified glances.

"Great, even an emperor was scared of this thing." Mara complained, and Leia rolled her eyes, the news just got better and better about this damn thing that they were facing.

"Come on, we've got some stuff, let's get out of here." She told Mara, who nodded but then her eyes widened in alarm, reaching for her saber.

"Leia!" she cried as black roots ensnared her and pulled her into the mass of black roots.

XX

"Well they do seem to be rather frightened Artoo." Threepio pointed out as the little droid tinkered with the navicomputer, and Artoo whistled in response.

"I know we've been in danger before, but this time…well Master Luke has seen fit to ally with Mistress Lumiya, and with what Princess Leia said about the other timeline, it seems rather strange that they would be so desperate that they would join forces with her, and Miss Alema." He reasoned, and Artoo tootled as he finished updating the computer.

"It just seems like something more is going on here, that's all…what's that alarm for, what did you do now?" Threepio asked impatiently as something began blaring and the little droid trundled over to the sensors and inserted his interface, before he started wailing in alarm.

"Some sort of hyperspace anomaly?" Threepio demanded, the odds of such a thing happening were almost incalculable, but it was then that Artoo let out a low, despairing wail.

"The last time you saw something like that was…when the Emperor returned, oh my!" Threepio cried as Artoo started powering up the ship all around them, knocking Threepio around as the ship flared to life.

"Force storms? Force storms, I thought they were finished with? Artoo…oh, we're doomed." Threepio stated as a panicking Artoo tried to get the ship out of there.

The Force storm that had erupted in orbit above the planet wasn't just a Force storm. Something had come through it, something which was now toppling towards the planet.

"That's an Imperial class Star Destroyer! Artoo, we need to get out of here, it's going to crash right on top of us, oh we must inform Master Luke!" Threepio cried, going for the comm as the ship lurched into the air.

The Star Destroyer was beginning to enter the atmosphere, under no power or will of its own, but as it became caught in the planets gravity well, the ship began to plummet, fire scorching up its hull as it plunged into the skies of the planet, the ship slowly tumbling through the air as it accelerated towards the ground, the massive warship burning through the sky as it fell.

With a blast of speed, Artoo had the ship into the air, shrieking as he did so while his counterpart tried to alert the others, to no avail.

"Master Luke, Master Jacen, please come in, a Star Destroyer is about to crash onto the planet!" Threepio cried in alarm, desperate to contacts his masters as Artoo sped the ship away from its landing site.

Outside, the steel grey of the Star Destroyer was now plunging down at an ever increasing pace, fires burning up the side of the ship as it fell, the prow of the ship now facing towards the ground as it stabbed through towards the ground. The Falcon sped to safety as the Star Destroyer, surrounded by fiery ripples of burning air, cut through the air as it approached the ground, and to the surprise of the droids, the nose of the ship was brought up, as if to make sure it didn't explode upon impact.

"That's impossible." Threepio whispered and Artoo let out a forlorn groan of agreement as the burning Star Destroyer slammed into the ground with almighty roar, sending up a cascade of snow which melted with the contact and ploughing up snow, dirt and ground as the ship trundled along the ground, digging a massive groove into the planet, obliterating the site the Falcon had been on only minutes before as the ship scraped along the ground, bound right for the ruins of the academy.

The Star Destroyer came to a final shuddering stop, only a kilometre or so away from where it would have crushed the entire academy and Threepio allowed himself a small sigh of relief, all they had to do now was inform the others and pick them up and then all would be well.

Artoo then let out a foreboding hoot, and Threepio looked at him in surprise.

"Are you sure?" he asked, and Artoo whistled an affirmative, dread filling the tone.

"The Vector…that was the story that Captain Solo told the children that would keep them up at night. And now it's here, it can't be…Artoo, we need to save, them, hurry!" he urged, and Artoo beeped indignantly, and Threepio huffed.

"I am trying to contact them you near sighted scrap pile, you just fly the ship. Oh my, I pray we're not too late!" he cried as Arto gunned the engines, heading the ship towards the tower in the centre of the academy ruins, as bodies began to exit the Star Destroyer, sprawling like insects from a nest, all of them bound for the academy where their prey awaited, the voice of their goddess driving their actions from afar.

XX

"You know if it wasn't so creepy, Ben would be right, this place would be kind of cool." Jaina commented as Jacen looked untrustingly back at the way they had come.

"Yeah, a regular fun park. Anakin would have liked it." He mused, and his sister grinned, yeah, their little brother was much akin to the cousin he had hardly known that way.

"Look at all these things, these cages, the instruments…you reckon this was Darth Scarbrous' lab?" Ben asked, and Vestara pondered the question before shaking her head.

"No I don't think so, the dark side is concentrated here sure, but not that much, not if he was as sick and deranged as Lumiya says, more likely this was somewhere else he carried out experiments but not his actual lab." She theorised, picking up a particularly unsavoury looking device and inspecting it.

Jacen was about to tell her not to touch anything, the same as he always told Ben, when the earth shook as something very large and very heavy crashed nearby, throwing them all off balance.

"What the hell was that?" Jaina demanded as she pushed herself up off the wall.

"Threepio? Come in Threepio." Jacen ordered into his comlink, which was only giving him static in response, could something be jamming the transmission?

"Weird. What's going on?" he asked himself, and he suddenly felt a surge of horror from Ben and was spinning to see what was bothering him before he'd even thought about it, and then his mouth dropped open slightly as he saw his cousin push Vestara behind him protectively, his blue saber springing to life in his hand.

The zombies weren't dead. They weren't inactive. In fact they were here, and they were hungry.

Jacen leapt over the room, his green saber igniting as he somersaulted through the air, landing catlike in front of his cousin protectively while Jaina joined him, her violet saber already in hand as the mass of zombies advanced up the stairs, all of them in varying states of decay, all of their glowing red eyes focused on the four in the room as saliva dripped from their mouths and their breath rasped in their throats.

"And you thought this place was cool!" Vestara snapped, her own red saber ready for battle as the horde of zombies surged into the room.

XX

"Leia!" Han cried but before he could go anywhere, the black roots surged in front of him, blocking his path to his wife as the long dead Neti attacked, roots grasping for the intruders as the dead bodies that had been entangled in the roots suddenly dropped down, their sightless red eyes focusing on the group as their rattling breaths began for the first time in thousands of years.

"Mara!" Luke yelled frantically as the small group of zombies surged, but while he and Han with help from Alema set about dealing with the roots and the zombies before them, it was the threat behind them that Lumiya and K'kruhk turned to deal with, and as they had feared, there were more zombies coming down the passageway they had come through.

"Knew we shouldn't have come here!" Han snarled as he shot a zombie in the head, which of course did nothing to deter it, and Luke span to cut the root that had been about to grab his friend.

"Never mind that, we need to get out of here before we're overrun!" Lumiya snarled, her whip making short work of several zombies, if nothing else, that weapon of hers would slow them down more than anything else would considering the greater range and area of the thing.

In the mass of now violent dead roots, Mara's saber cut through the root that had seized Leia, dropping her to the ground and she quickly grabbed her saber and sliced through another cluster of roots as they attempted to crush the two women between them.

"Alright, we need to get out of here, then find the kids, then get the hell away from this planet!" Mara snapped, cutting another cluster down, and Leia gestured, the various things they had found leaping into her pack which she then shoulder while Mara covered her, before she nodded at her companion and the two began chopping through the forest of dead wood which was trying its hardest to crush them in its tendrils.

Luke cleaved a zombie in half lengthwise just as the entire ground shook around them, sending several zombies stumbling which allowed Alema to blast them into the mass of roots that were trying their hardest to kill them all.

"Mara, Leia!" Luke yelled as he sliced through more of the black roots, ignoring the fallen roots that were trying to ensnare his feet, and then two blue tips cut through another cluster of dead roots, revealing an annoyed Leia and Mara.

"We're fine, let's get out of here! And sweetheart, next time you get the creeps about somewhere, remind me to listen to you and not go there!" Leia called as she pushed forward, slashing through a Zelosian that Lumiya had missed.

"Can I get that in writing? Kid, call Goldrenrod, we need to get out of here!" Han ordered, firing at the latest throng of zombies surged into the library.

Luke then sprang to the lead, his saber a whirlwind of green light as he was joined by K'kruhk and Mara, the three of them cutting a swath through the thronging bodies as more and more zombies seemed to be appearing from everywhere, coming from cracks in the floor, holes in the walls, dropping from the ceiling, their terrible rasping and shrieking assaulting their ears as they pushed forwards in their attempt to escape. One jumped to Luke, who yelled out in pain as its teeth plunged into his shoulder, and yelled even louder when Han's blaster bolt just missed his head as he blew the zombie off his friend.

"Luke!" Mara gasped as she saw the bloody wound on his shoulder, and K'kruhk frowned but was more focused on cutting down another zombie attacker.

More zombies were milling into the room as the group made their way from the library death trap, Lumiya using the Force to crush zombified bodies and send them crashing into their allies while the Jedi used Force waves to rip into the milling masses. Body parts were being cut loose left right and centre as the group forced their way out, Alema's loping form of saber combat catching the zombies completely unawares as they progressed.

"No messing about, out of my way Jedi, my weapons better for this than yours." Lumiya ordered and Luke gladly fell back and the Sith Lord took the lead, her whip slicing and dicing the zombies of many varied species as they tried to cut their way out of this death trap.

Han was firing as fast as he could, his worried eyes on Luke's shoulder as he watched his friends slice two more zombies, a Gran and a Rodian in two, the kid needed treatment otherwise…he didn't want to think of what would happen.

K'kruhk was a wave of righteous fury, his massive bulk, his saber, and his Force powers knocking the zombies away from the group like skittles, hacking away, sending body parts spiralling everywhere, the throng of zombies apparently unstoppable as they pressed forward.

"There's no stopping them, there's no way there can be this many here!" Mara snapped as she dissected another one, a Bothan that had been about to kill her.

"Have you got Threepio yet?" Leia called to her brother, using the Force to knock away a group of zombies that had been about to bite Alema, who then repaid the favour by slicing the limbs and head off of a Togruta, one of whom's lekku had fallen off.

"There's something jamming the signal!" Luke replied, deflecting a blaster bolt from Han into the zombie that had been about to rip his head off.

"How is that possible? There was no jamming when we landed!" K'kruhk cried, leaping into the air and smashing two zombies beneath them.

"Could it be stormtroopers?" Alema asked, a head of a Twi'lek that actually looked worse than her coming off as a result of her swing.

"There's no stormtroopers here Alema, the war's over." Lumiya snapped irritably as she cleaved a new throng that had just appeared from the ceiling into pieces, sending their dismembered pieces toppling into the ever increasing crowd of zombies.

"Really? Then where did they come from?" Alema asked, and the faces of the others went white as they saw zombified stormtroopers entering the building, their exposed teeth and organs grasping for them.

"Impossible!" K'kruhk protested, and with Mara he created a massive Force wave that sent the newcomers toppling out of sight, some body parts coming flying loose as a result.

"Where did they come from?" Luke asked, and he looked at his shoulder, an awful burning feeling flowing through his arm.

"Who cares? Let's get out of here then figure it out!" Lumiya snarled, cutting into the stormtroopers like they were wheat as she led the charge out, Mara a perfect second behind her, cutting up all those that her whip had failed to take out.

"Hang on kid, I know someone, we'll get you fixed." Han assured Luke and gently shoved him towards the door as Leia and he performed the rearguard action.

Leia cast a concerned look at her brother before wrenching another stone from the already damaged wall and crushed several zombies beneath it with a gesture, allowing Han to pick off the newly arrived officer zombies that were coming into the hole that she had just made as the front of the group finally broke free of the building.

"Bugger me." K'kruhk gasped as they exited the building.

There were thousands of them, thousands of deformed, decayed beings of various species, and all of them were surging towards them, their glowing red eyes focused on the group as they tried to struggle towards safety, wherever the hell safety was. They were coming out of the snow, crawling out of the ruins, breaking out of prisons of ice, descending from the rooftops, all of them swarming like insects, all of them determined to kill the ones trapped in their midst.

But that wasn't the main threat. The main threat was the vast army of salivating, snarling, decaying, murderous zombies that were approaching from the aflame Star Destroyer that had appeared from nowhere and was continuing to disgorge more and more vicious zombies, scurrying loose from every airlock and hole they could find, swarming towards the trapped group.

"A Star Destroyer…how the hell did a Stat Destroyer get here?" Leia demanded, shrieking in pain as a Wookiee zombie reared out of nowhere, his savage claws ripping into her arm before Alema cut the hulking mass of rotten flesh down.

Han looked at his bleeding wife in alarm, blood staining the sleeve of her white robes. No, this couldn't be happening, he couldn't be trapped in this nightmare again, especially not when his wife and best friend were involved. His eyes focused on the burning Star Destroyer up ahead, and in his heart he knew what ship it was.

It was the Vector, which had apparently travelled lightyears under its own steam to get here just in time to reunite all the long dormant zombies inside the ship with all their ancestors in the academy.

There was just no way.

And now they were surrounded on all sides by murderous zombies, Luke and Leia were both wounded, and they had nowhere else to run.

"How many people are on a Star Destroyer?" K'kruhk asked, letting loose a Force wave that disintegrated another cluster of zombies.

"Thirty seven thousand give or take, and we seem to have all of them! Farmboy, this is the reason no one liked your father!" Mara snapped, wielding her hold out blaster in one hand and her saber in the other, firing into the chest of one zombie as she threw her saber to cleave several more apart.

Luke however wasn't paying attention, his blood was boiling, he could feel the virus spreading through him, and his skin was already going grey. Leia was already starting to sweat as she battled to try and avoid being overcome.

Maybe, this time, they really were doomed.

XX

Force lightning arced from Vestara's hands in a vain effort to try and stop the inexorable march of the zombies that were surging up the stairs, trapping the four younger Jedi in the labs below the destroyed lab of Darth Scarbrous, and Jacen was fairly sure that every time there was a brief lull in the fighting he could hear movement from above, as some ancient and unspeakable Sith evil was trying to break through to kill them all.

"Jacen, this isn't working!" Jaina cried, rolling her eyes in exasperation as a zombie bit on her prosthetic hand, which she then punched upwards through its jaw, scowling as she did so

"Yeah I can see that, we need a way out of here." Jacen muttered to himself as he used his saber to create a virtual storm of flying body parts as he savagely cut through the latest crowd that were attempting to crush him under the sheer force of numbers.

Ben was using the Force, throwing discarded bits of rubble and crushing the vicious and murderous zombies beneath them, but he was rapidly running out of ammo and Vestara couldn't keep using Force lightning, between that and both of their efforts with their lightsabers, the two teenagers were clearly faltering and they weren't going to get out of here. Though that wasn't for lack of trying as Ben danced and weaved between the throng of zombies while Vestara cut those down that surged past him, and used lightning to blast those that kept swarming towards Ben, which gave him only a second's respite, which he nonetheless appreciated.

Jacen smiled to himself slightly, vowing that if they got out of this alive he would just happen to mention to his aunt how good a team Ben and Vestara were…nearly as good as Luke and Mara were themselves.

But for that to happen they needed to get out of here, which was looking increasingly unlikely by the second, the hordes of dead kept coming, nothing was deterring them and they were trapped several stories up with no way out but down, which they also couldn't do as any slight gap in the hordes of the undead merely led to a replacement by double the number of dead bodies. Seriously, how many zombies had there been in this damned academy when it had all gone down the drain?

They had to get out of here, otherwise this ruined partially destroyed tower would be their grave. Wait, that was it!

"This way!" Jacen yelled, using a Force wave to disintegrate a new legion of zombies.

Vestara cast another handful of lightning at the throng of zombies, giving Ben the time he needed to fall back, and the two teenagers leapt Jacen's side, slicing through the zombies that had been closing in on him from behind, while Jaina, who weaved her saber through the air creating a tapestry of light before she sent her twin a vexed look.

"You have an expression on your face like you have some hare-brained scheme to get us all killed!" she shouted and Jacen, who had just blasted aside another cluster of zombies, rolled his eyes.

"We're being swarmed by the undead, get your ass over here!" he snapped, and scowling, she flipped through the air, using a Force push to scatter a bunch of zombies away from her landing zone as she clustered with the others.

"And your plan is?" Vestara asked, casting another blast of lightning as Jacen raised his hands to the ceiling.

"You're mad!" Ben yelped, and with a gargantuan effort, Jacen wrenched the upper level masonry loose with the Force, and Jaina and the kids barely had time to create a protective bubble around themselves as chunks of stone cascaded down all around them, destroying the floor they were standing on and sending them all, crying out in alarm, hurtling down the length of the tower as the screeching zombies fell around them in an avalanche of rubble.

XX

Leia heard the almighty roar and looked around in alarm to see the tower that the kids had been in collapsing into little more than a massive mound of rubble.

"The kids…" she breathed in alarm, and Mara led the charge, slicing, shooting and scattering zombies as they made their way towards the tower where the kids had been, determined to check if they were alright, the two former Emperor's Hands cutting a swath of destruction through the press of zombies.

Han blasted another one in the head, worry for the kids filling him, he wasn't like the others, he didn't have the Force (though on a side note, it was Force users who'd been bitten or just had a tower collapse on him, and he was still fine, just saying) and he had no idea if the kids were alright.

A second later he realised he needn't have worried as the fallen pile of rubble suddenly shifted, making Alema and Lumiya shriek in alarm as they suddenly had to deflect two chunks of stone as Jacen, his saber glowing and looking a bit worse for wear, blew apart the pile of stones and sent a hail of rubble falling into the ranks of the zombies as the dirty and exhausted looking kids blew out of the pile of rubble, Jacen looking quite pleased with his work, at least until he saw the swarm of zombies the others were fighting.

"I was hoping we'd missed this party." He claimed as he leapt and stabbed through a zombie that was giving K'kruhk trouble.

"It appears you brought one of your own. But even the lot of us, prodigious though we are, can't face off an entire Star Destroyer and academy worth of zombies." He said, swinging his blade to cut another group in two.

Jaina Force pushed another group away as she went back to back with her father, and deflected a bolt Mara had sent wide into a zombie creeping up on them.

"You ok kid?" he asked, shooting another in the head.

"Yeah, just a bit dusty. Dad, is that the same Star Destroyer you told us about?" she demanded, and Han nodded.

"Yeah. Great news isn't it?" he asked, as Ben noticed his father's injury, his eyes widening in alarm.

"Dad!" he cried, cutting a zombie out of his way and Luke forced a smile, even though he could feel his body burning.

"I'm fine. We just need to get out of here, which would help if we knew where the ship was." He panted, and no sooner had the words left his mouth, the Falcon roared overhead, its laser cannons flashing, blasting zombies apart and scattering them everywhere.

"You know, he may be a thorn in the side of the Sith but you cant deny the droid has good timing." Lumiya said as the ship hovered right above them, the ramp extending to reveal Artoo whistling at them urgently.

"Wait, Artoo? Threepio's flying my ship!" Han exclaimed and Mara rolled her eyes before gesturing, sending him into the air and up into the hold with a yell of alarm.

The zombies weren't about to let them escape so easily. While the lasers continued to pound and scatter and disintegrate many of them, they were already climbing on top of each other in a desperate attempt to reach the ship.

"Oh not good, come young Luke!" K'kruhk said, and he heaved Luke, who was looking like death warmed up, onto his shoulder and sprang the distance as the zombies continued to pile on top of one another, gasping and grasping while the others pressed their advantage.

It was then that the ship turned to the zombie tower and fired right into the base, making Alema screech in fright as the bolts barely missed her.

"Solos! They all want me dead!" she cried, and Leia managed a snigger as she and Jaina made their escape onto the ship.

Alema and Lumiya then escaped just as the zombies seemed to realise that there was enough of them to make more than one pile of zombies, and as such, four towers of them began forming, determined to reach the landing ramp and get onto the ship.

"Jacen!" Ben cried as a zombie bit into his cousin's shoulder and Jacen yelled in pain while Mara dissected it.

"Up you go sweetie, Ben, go with him!" Mara ordered, as she and Vestara stood side to side, battling the zombies as Lumiya used her whip to perform a rear guard, the three remaining women making for the base of the zombie towers, which were beginning to reach the bottom of the ship there were so many, and they were climbing so fast.

Alema cut into some zombies at the foot of a tower but it did little to help, and she retreated, backflipping onto the ship and proceeding to the cockpit to yell abuse at Han while the three women tried to hold off the zombies.

"We need to go!" Vestara cried, using lightning to blast apart the base of a tower, creating a cascade of zombies, which Mara gave her an approving nod for.

"She's right. Exit stage right!" she quipped, and vaulted into the air, Force pushing a tower as she did so, Lumiya and Vestara close behind, just as some zombies reached the landing pad.

"Fly Han!" Mara ordered, cutting the zombies that had grabbed on away and watched them fall with satisfaction as Han flared the ship into life, blaring for space.

K'kruhk and Lumiya Force pushed the last of them away as the ramp slammed shut, the Falcon fleeing the planet, the towers of zombies still grasping and glaring, their glowing red eyes dimming as the ship, now mercifully free of all zombies, made for space, the snarling and drooling towers of zombies looking at them wistfully as they made their escape.

"That was too close. Oh come on, I didn't actually get you!" Han wheedled Alema, who was in the co-pilot seat, and her response was simply a huff of irritation.

Luke was leaning against the wall as he tried everything he could to heal himself, but before he could try and figure out his next move, he was suddenly flying back onto the ramp, and as he clattered to the ground, Leia and Jacen joined him with cries of surprise just before the door slammed shut, sealing them inside.

"Lumiya!" Ben yelled angrily, pulling at her extended arm, but while she grabbed his wrist, her eyes were surprisingly kind as she forced him away from her.

"Ben…they've been bitten. It's the only way." She told him softly, and K'kruhk let out a reluctant sigh and nodded.

"She's right Ben. They are contaminated. They need to be separate from the rest of us because if they do turn, we need to be ready to take action." He told him grimly, and Jaina looked at the Whiphid as if he was crazy.

"Are you kidding me? You want to kill them? Mom, Jacen and uncle Luke?" she stormed, and Lumiya scowled at her in annoyance.

"They were bitten which means they are now infected. Unless we can figure some way of saving them, they will become zombies and quite frankly, none of you other than me, K'kruhk or Alema will be capable of stopping them simply because you love them. Am I wrong Mara?" she snapped, and Jaina and Ben looked pleadingly at her, and Mara closed her eyes, she couldn't bear the betrayed expression on Ben's face.

"She's right. We need to protect ourselves. Luke, how are you three doing?" she called through the bulkhead, but to her surprise it was Jacen who answered.

"Uncle Luke isn't doing so good, and mom's getting slightly worse too. I feel fine though." He said brightly, and Leia gave a shuddering gasp.

"He's right, he's fine, it's Luke and I, Luke…he looks really bad Mara." She gasped, and they heard Jacen growl in annoyance.

"I can't heal it, it's like it's fighting me…" he complained from inside, and Jaina and Ben both pressed their hands to the door, both of them looking terrified.

"We need to do something." Jaina whispered, and Mara laid a hand on her niece's wrist, looking scared.

"Jaina…" she said, but Jaina and Ben shook their heads in unison, Ben looking at his mother pleadingly.

"Mom…" Ben pleaded, but when she said nothing, he turned angrily to Lumiya.

"You're enjoying this aren't you?" he demanded, and the Sith Lord fit him with a pitying glance.

"Ben…I take no pleasure in this. If I want your father to die after all we've been through together, I'd like that single pleasure myself, not like this." She told him, but when he opened his mouth to argue, Vestara appeared and slid her hand into his, giving him a significant look.

"Ben…I know you're scared." She said softly and that for some reason seemed to calm him.

"Mara…" Luke called, sounding weak and ill.

"Luke?" Mara asked breathlessly, while K'kruhk and Lumiya exchanged dark glances.

"You need to make sure…make sure that nothing ever gets off that planet. If it does, it could destroy the entire galaxy. We can't let that happen." He panted from the other side of the door, and Mara looked at the door worriedly.

"Luke, you're more important than that right now, we need to find a way to save you." She protested, but as he gave a shuddering gasp which turned Mara's face white when she heard it, and he eventually got his breath back enough to make a protest.

"No Mara, you need to promise me that you'll make sure that world is never a threat." He gasped and Mara hung her head before nodding grimly.

"Course I will. But we're going to save you Luke, I promise." She whispered, as Jacen tried once again to heal his uncle, to no avail.

"Mom…" Jaina whispered softly, and Leia tried to send reassuring thoughts to her daughter through the Force, which was becoming a lot more difficult as the sickness spread through her.

"Go. We shall call you if there's change." K'kruhk counselled, and the family left, determined to find some way to cure them, leaving K'kruhk and Lumiya outside the door.

"Do you think we can take out Luke if he becomes a zombie?" Lumiya asked, an odd quality to her voice, and K'kruhk sighed and laid a hand reassuringly on her shoulder.

"I hope we don't have to find out." He whispered, and to his surprise, he felt Lumiya's emotions signal the fact that she agreed with him.

XX

In the Maw, Abeloth felt the flickering light of the Grand Master. With him gone, the light would be unable to stop her as she returned to the adulation of the galaxy. His nephew, while immensely powerful in the Force, wasn't nearly as strong in the light as his uncle.

By killing Luke, she had already won.

The galaxy would soon forget that false idol, and then they would worship the only one deserving of their love…her.

As that pleasing thought occurred to her, she threw her head back, her horrible, lip smacking cackling laughter echoing across the stars as she sensed her victory at hand.

XX

The laughter sent a chill through the Force, which echoed through the galaxy, and as Jacen tried valiantly to heal his mother and his uncle, he felt it, that cold, dark mocking laughter, belonging to the thing that had caused this in the first place.

"Abeloth." Jacen spat, as Luke gave a weak nod as he closed his eyes, trying to fight the infection while Jacen returned to trying to save them, trying to ignore the silent implication in Abeloth's laughter: that he had already failed.

XX

The ship was quiet. Mara and the others were in the hold, valiantly trying to find out how to save Luke and Leia, while Jacen, who was strangely still unaffected, was trying himself to save them using the Force. K'kruhk and Lumiya were guarding the door in grim silence, while Alema sat and fumed about nearly getting blasted by the cannon. But it was Han, who had Artoo helping him to make a connection, that was the spark that still held hope for Threepio.

"You really think this doctor will help us to save master Luke and mistress Leia?" he asked hopefully, and looking grim but determined, Han nodded.

"Hope so, after all, she saved me and Chewie, so hopefully she can save Leia and the kid as well." He said, silently praying as Artoo connected to a clinic on Chandrila.

At long last, the reception droid finally accepted the call.

"Kale Clinic, how can I help you?" the reception droid asked, and Han took a breath.

"Put me on to Dr Zahara Cody. Tell her it's Han Solo." He said, and the droid relayed the information, and to his surprise, it was Cody's husband, Trig Longo, who first took the call.

"Han Solo? Wow, I didn't believe it when the droid said, it's been a long time, you're a hero now." He said, sounding impressed, and Han smiled.

The last time he had seen him, he had been a fellow escapee from the nightmare on the Vector who had stuck with Zahara, the doctor who had made the anti-virus, after the escape. Several years later the two had started dating and he had become the business manager of the practice, and then chain of practices, named in honour of his dead brother, that she had opened up on Chandrila.

Han was about to beg him to get his wife when she came into view, smiling as she did so.

"Han Solo. What in the worlds could I possibly do for you?" she asked, and he gave her a hopeful look.

"You can save my family with a bit of luck. You up to it?" he asked, and the two on Chandrila exchanged a surprised look as he explained the situation.

XX

Luke woke groggily in the small medical bay that the Falcon had, to see K'kruhk snoozing in the chair beside him. Quickly stretching out with his feelings, Luke was relieved to feel that everyone was present and accounted for, and in fact, he could hear Lumiya berating Alema for inadvertently trying to poison them all by not cooking the dinner properly.

"What did I miss?" Luke asked, and K'kruhk jerked awake, looking around blearily before he favoured Luke with a smile once his eyes focused.

"It's good to see you awake my boy, we feared it may be too late. Jacen put you in a hibernation trance but we were afraid that the virus had gotten too far into your system. How do you feel?" he asked, and Luke shrugged as he ran a silent check on himself, with the Force and physically.

"I feel fine strangely. What about Leia and Jacen?" he asked, and K'kruhk smiled reassuringly.

"They're both just fine. It turns out that Han, as he had the anti-virus inside of him, was the one who saved you all. He contacted the doctor who created the original antivirus and she taught us through how to use that to save both you and Leia, we used the antivirus inherent in his blood to manufacture a cure for you and Leia. Jacen on the other hand was naturally inoculated as it came from Han, he was born with the immunity to it which it why he wasn't affected. We've been waiting for you to wake up. And yes, as per your instructions, Mara has tried to summon Alliance forces to deal with the planet but so far she's had no luck. Shall we go through? We shouldn't deny Mara the chance to lament the worry you caused her any more than we should." He advised kindly and Luke grinned as he followed the older Jedi through to join the others.

As the sounds of Lumiya berating Alema filtered through the ship, Vestara sat cross legged on the floor, meditating, a slight smirk on her lips as she could feel the occasional glances that Ben was firing her way. Subtlety clearly wasn't his strong suit. But as she centred herself in the Force, using the anger inside her, she was suddenly disturbed from her musings, her eyes widening in alarm as she sensed an approaching, furious, malevolence.

Her father was coming here, and he was out for blood.

"Ves, what is it?" Jaina asked, seeing the girl startle herself out of her meditative trance, and Vestara looked at her worriedly.

"We need to leave, like, now!" she insisted, getting to her feet, and Jaina shook her head, raising her hands to try and calm the girl.

"Vestara we can't leave until uncle Luke's better, besides, there's a planet full of zombies down there that we need to find some way to deal with." She told her, but Vestara shook her head.

"You don't understand, my father, he's coming here! And he's furious, I can tell, and if he finds me here, with so many Jedi, serving Lumiya after I deliberately disobeyed him, there's no telling what he might do!" she exclaimed, and Jacen looked at her in disbelief.

"Wait, he'll be pissed that you survived?" he demanded, and she arced a pencilled eyebrow at him in disbelief.

"Have you not been paying attention? What show have you been watching? Sith don't tend to be nice people, and Sith fathers are no exception!" she stormed as Jaina scowled.

She had been right, she knew something had been tailing them, and if Vestara was right, and she was more likely to know than anyone, then it was her father who was on their tail, which didn't do them any good at all. After the long fight to safety on the planet and the virus attacking Luke, none of them were in a state to be fighting off Gavar Khai and a legion of Sith, especially homeless Sith who were rightly miffed about their planet being blasted.

"We need to leave, she's right, we're not in any position to fight a group of Sith. And besides, if they show up in a warship, well, we are on the Falcon." She admitted, gaining a grin from her twin as Luke entered the room.

"Dad!" Ben cried as he and Mara rushed over to hug him, and while he held the two of them, he favoured Jacen with a smile.

"Thank you." He said softly, and Jacen shrugged.

"Thank dad, he had the cure, giving me and Jaina natural immunity I might add." He said cheerfully, but as Luke broke from Mara and Ben, he laid his hand on Jacen's shoulder.

"You made sure I lived long enough for it to work though, so thank you." He said, as Lumiya entered, pulling a scowling Alema by her remaining lekku, the Sith looking highly vexed.

"Skywalker. I'm pleased you're not dead, I have far too much fun winding you up to enjoy your death in such a manner." She said, releasing Alema, who made a rude hand gesture at her and hobbled over to a seat, glaring at the room.

"That has to be the nicest thing you've ever said to me Lumiya." Luke said with a small smile, as he led the way through to the cockpit.

"We put out a call for any Alliance forces in the area, but Luke, I don't see how we're going to be able to get anything, the fleet is spread far too thin as it is. On the plus side, the stuff we managed to get out of that death trap library has been slightly useful." Mara said, and he looked at them curiously.

"Oh, like what?" he asked, figuring at least some good had come from their latest near death experience.

"Well while there was some stuff on things like essence transfer, similar to what we got from Andeddu. We also found out that the Sith Emperor during the Cold War had a sort of encounter with Abeloth, she attacked him from the Maw. But there something on the Celestials, looks like our friendly zombie Neti had a thing for them, he had a manuscript on their exodus. It gave us loads of stuff on the Celestials as a whole, including where they're buried." Mara told him, and Luke looked at her in confusion.

"How does that help?" he asked, at a loss.

"The manuscript mentioned that in their desire to purge their society of all that tainted it, they created something even more dangerous, and after they kicked out the entire family that created Abeloth, they left, getting as far away from the Maw as they could. The stress of what happened apparently took its toll, because they needed a planet to bury their dead, and they set up a burial ground on a moon of Bogden." Jacen told him, and Luke had to admit, the information was interesting, but he was still at a loss to see how that helped them.

"So?" he asked, still completely at sea, and K'kruhk chuckled behind him.

"Luke…it's a burial site. And if they were fleeing her and the possibility of a reprisal from Abeloth, well…" he began and it finally clicked.

"There might be something on how to stop her. Brilliant. But aren't we kind of clutching at straws?" he asked feebly, and Lumiya shrugged.

"Nothing more than what we've been doing already. And let's face it, according to the droids she used a Force wormhole to throw a Star Destroyer halfway across the galaxy and attacked us with legions of zombies. We need information, no matter how inconsequential, if we're going to destroy her, preferably before she destroys us." She said wryly as they entered the cockpit and Luke was immediately hugged by Leia in relief.

"Welcome back kid." Han said cheerfully, clasping hands with his brother in law as Lumiya sat at the station beside Artoo, reading what the little droid had on the wormhole, scowling as she did so.

"Thanks to you and Jacen. Imagine, Mara and I wanted to kill you for telling Ben that story, good thing we didn't, or I'd have been goosed." He said in amusement, taking the seat behind his sister.

"Speaking of, are there any other bizarre tales in your past we need to worry about Abeloth throwing at us?" Mara asked waspishly, and Han snickered.

"None that I can think of kid, unless she throws an army of my exes at me." She assured her, though Leia looked less than impressed.

"Kark it all, you were right Artoo. It was a Force wormhole." Lumiya muttered, and Artoo whistled beside her, showing her readouts of the last time he had seen those sorts of readings, during the war with the reborn Emperor.

"Great. So she can create Force wormholes now as well, throw a Star Destroyer across the galaxy, attack us with a legion of zombies, and mock us from her prison. Charming." Jacen commented dryly as Vestara stuck her head into the cockpit.

"This is all very interesting, but my father is getting closer, we need to leave!" she urged, and Luke exchanged a look with K'kruhk, all of them were too tired from the events on the planet to offer much of a challenge to Gavar Khai and however many Sith he might bring with him.

"Ves, calm down, we can outrun your dad…provided the ship doesn't fail again." Ben assured her cheerfully, earning a snigger from his aunt and a glare from his uncle.

"I highly doubt your father will try any form of mischief young one, there seems to be a large vessel coming out of hyperspace." K'kruhk informed them as Artoo whistled at them to inform them of this development, and they all looked up to see an Imperial class Star Destroyer drop out of lightspeed in front of them.

Lumiya made a contented sigh.

"Ah, nothing does you so much good as seeing a Star Destroyer arrive in all its glory…well it would if you weren't all treasonous rebel scum." She lamented, and Mara grinned playfully at her.

"Well after the Emperor died, I shared their sentiments, just because you and Isard were friends didn't mean we all were. But yes, seeing a fully armed warship appear to drastically reduce the zombie population on the planet is rather nice. Which ship is it?" she asked, but she her question was answered as a stern voice barked across the comm system.

"This is Admiral Daala of the Right to Rule. I picked up your transmission, and I have to admit, curiosity got the better of me." She said, and Han groaned slightly under his breath.

"Hello Daala." He said gruffly, and Mara could practically hear Daala's eyebrows raise.

"Solo? You and your family are the ones calling for help?" she asked in disbelief, and Leia, realising whatever diplomatic niceties she might have rubbed onto Han wouldn't last long with Daala, leaned forward.

"Admiral, this is Leia Organa Solo. Thank you for responding. We need your help." She informed her, and Daala snorted.

"I gathered that much, but what I don't see is why princess." She told her curtly, and Luke took over before Leia could say anything, despite Han and Lumiya shaking their heads, after all, Daala had tried to level his academy and had no fondness for Jedi (Kyp Durron least of all).

"Admiral this is Luke Skywalker. We called you here because we need to contain the situation on the planet. Have you ever heard of an Imperial bioweapons project by the name of Blackwing?" he asked, and Han was sure he heard Daala seethe through her teeth at the sound of his voice before responding.

"No, I haven't, what is it?" she asked, and K'kruhk chuckled softly, despite herself, she really was very curious as to why they had called her out here.

"Short version: Vader found an ancient Sith disease and thought to use it to destroy the Rebellion. Problem is, when it kills people it turns them into murderous, cannibalistic zombies which only exist to spread the plague. And now, all the zombies that were originally on this planet as this is where it was originally made, and all the ones the Empire created as the Star Destroyer wound up here, are now swarming all over the planet and we were very nearly added to their ranks. Put simply, we can't risk this plague getting off the planet. If it spreads onto another inhabited planet, there's no telling what damage it could do, it could devastate the galaxy and make the Death Seed Plague seem like a child's class of pox." Luke summed up, expertly avoiding the information on how the Vector had wound up here in the first place.

Daala snarled in frustration on the other end of the line.

"Have any of you ever thought that this galaxy would do a damn sight better if Force users would keep their noses out of business that doesn't concern them?" she snapped, and while Luke glared at her, some of them, Jacen in particular, did look as though they thought she had a point.

"So we get blamed for the actions of a long dead Sith Lord?" Luke demanded, and Daala tutted impatiently.

"No, but all you Force users should be held accountable for all the damage you've caused. Your father was no better. Have you got any proof of this zombie plague? I mean, I'm all for bombarding a planet…a favourite pastime of mine actually…" she admitted with a fond note in her voice, which made Han and Leia exchange uneasy glances, "but how do I know that this isn't all some Alliance trick to give poor A'kla a win seeing as the galaxy's going to hell in a hand basket, yet again?" she demanded, and Lumiya nodded, after all, she could see where Daala was coming from.

"If you'll pardon the intrusion Mistress Daala, my counterpart and I, who you'll remember torturing during the Death Seed epidemic," Threepio began, interjecting himself between the various bodies in the cockpit, "we took several images of these zombies, I shall send them to you now."

There was silence on the other end as Daala waited for the files to transfer, and when they finally did, after a few moments of silence, this time, instead of just her voice, her image flickered to life on the screen between Han and Leia, and K'kruhk, scenting possible danger, shoved down on Lumiya's head, forcing her out of Daala's view as the Sith yelped and cursed him in Huttese.

Still a handsome woman for her age, she was clad in a deep green Imperial tunic with her admiral's insignia in place on her breast. Her once vibrant copper coloured hair had faded and was now interspersed with grey, giving her a refined, statesman like look, with the red having faded to auburn. Her eyes were still a piercing green as she ran them over the inhabitants of the cockpit, before turning to Leia, who she clearly preferred dealing with over the rest of her so obviously Jedi family (there was a little bitterness between her and Han after all).

"That's impossible, these images…" she said, and Luke saw with satisfaction that she was frightened, her face was tense, her eyes clouded with worry.

"They're very real admiral. Nothing will stop them if they get off this planet. Nothing. They will spread across the galaxy like wildfire, a legion of murderous, flesh eating necrotic zombies, capable of annihilating everything that stands in their way…and then being joined by everything they destroy to boot. You see why we put out a call." Leia explained, and Daala nodded, looking grave.

"It's hard to believe. But, if there's no innocents on the planet, and all that it would need is some idiot to land there and spread the disease to an inhabited world, well, we'd best get started. Very well, I'll do it." She said, and she barked orders into her internal comm unit, and Lumiya peered up from her position on the floor (only partly through choice, she was having trouble getting up, there were too many people in here for her to pull herself up) and she looked outside the viewport to see a sight that did her old Imperial soul good.

The Right to Rule opened fire with all its weapons, green turbolaser blasts falling from the ship and plunging into the planet. They all watched in satisfaction as green rain thundered down on the ruins of the Sith academy, shattering stones and melting buildings. Far below the zombies were screeching in pain as they were wiped off the face of the planet, boiled into nothing by the high powered blasts as green rain continued to cascade down onto the planet. The blasts set loose avalanches and landslides and stones began to run like glass as the green fire continued to plunge into the area. Snow and ice melted into a violent sea, sending more of the zombies to their destruction as the superheated water burned them to ashes.

And then, the blasts found the ruins of the Vector, puncturing the unshielded Star Destroyer, and with that a massive cataclysmic explosion ripped apart the Star Destroyer, incinerating much of the surrounding area as a mushroom cloud of fire and ash billowed into the air.

Five minutes later, the guns of the Right to Rule finally went quiet as the last of the green turbolaser blasts fell onto the planet, and then, Daala (most likely just to check how good a bit of destruction she had caused) beamed images of the planet's surface to them.

There was nothing left. Nothing stirred in the blackened landmass that had once held the academy, and the small ocean that had been created had sucked down any remaining zombies and debris. The destruction had been widespread and all encompassing, disintegrating anything it came into contact with, and even the shattered remnants of the Vector had been burned off the face of the planet.

"A job well done wouldn't you say?" Daala asked, a proud and whimsical inflection in her voice, and Han rolled his eyes, mind you it had been a while since she'd bombarded a planet, at least as far as they knew.

"Thank you admiral. We owe you one." Leia said with relief, and Luke and Jacen, who had stretched out with their senses, sensed nothing remained of the zombies or their legacy.

Daala nodded, then frowned, then arced her eyebrow at Leia.

"How about I hold you to that? As you know, I'm currently trying to catch that scumbag slaver Nazarn, it's why I was nearby, I was trying to get Admiral Bwua'tu to lend me some ships to help me run him down, but I couldn't get to see him. I need help. I have the forces to end Nazarn, I just don't have the resources. I need either marines, more fighters, or hyperspace tugs, or interdictors or something, something that will help me stop him running every time I get close to him. His fleet is growing, and the ships I have aren't enough to stop him, and even with the Interdictor Pellaeon is sending me, I need more if I hope to finish him. Can you try and rustle me up something, with either a gravity well or a legion of marines so I can at least try and take one of his ships so I can stop him running every time I'm about to finish him?" she asked, and Leia nodded.

"We'll see what we can do Admiral, don't worry, we'll get you some help, even if it's just an escort carrier, we will get you something." She promised, and Daala nodded, her face softening slightly.

"Well thank you princess. Good luck with whatever it is you're doing, and getting me reinforcements. Now, back to the battlefront with me then, I've got one butt ugly slaver who's asking for a kicking." She said, and with a final curt nod, her holo flickered out, and a second later, her Star Destroyer vanished into hyperspace.

As the kids left the cockpit, Lumiya was finally able to extract herself from the position K'kruhk had put her in, and she glared at him.

"I did not appreciate that." She sniffed with as much dignity as she could muster.

"I had little choice my dear, Daala was less than thrilled to be working with Jedi, never mind a Sith, especially when the Sith did nothing to help the Empire she held dear. After all, your former apprentice made rather a pigs ear of the Empire did he not?" he asked, and she opened her mouth to argue, then scowled.

"See, this is why Vader wanted you dead. Away and boil your head." She snarled, and stomped off, making Luke snigger.

Han looked musingly at where the Right to Rule had vanished, his expression unreadable.

"Han?" Leia asked, and he chuckled.

"Huh, just wondering if I ever thought I'd find myself sympathising with Daala. Weird thing is, I do. I remember chasing Zsinj, complete nightmare, we had the firepower, but we didn't have what we really needed. I can relate." He said, as though surprised to hear himself say it.

Mara looked at where the Star Destroyer had left, and smiled slightly.

"Don't worry, something makes me think Daala will get him in the end. Now, as Vestara's dad is getting closer, should we get out of here?" she asked, and Han gave her a mock salute before engaging the hyperdrive while Leia and Luke headed aft.

"Off to Kohlma then my boy." K'kruhk said as he too headed back as Han piloted the ship towards its next destination, where they would hopefully find information on how to stop Abeloth before she did anything worse than she had already.

Mara emerged into the hold to see Lumiya and Jacen exchanging an amused look, and deciding that whatever they both found amusing really couldn't be, she scanned the room until she found the source.

Ben and Vestara, sitting together, Vestara snuggled into Ben's side as they watched a holovid, Ben stroking Vestara's hair slightly as she rested her head on his shoulder.

Suppressing a snarl, and admirably resisting the urge to separate them (though she so wanted to, but then, after all, they'd all had a rough time on the planet, hordes of undead and all that, scary zombies, Luke, Leia and Jacen trying to get themselves killed and all), she settled for sending the two of them a withering look, which neither noticed, and she instead contented herself sending a withering look at Lumiya and Jacen, not that it bothered either of them either.

Giving it up as a bad job, she headed over to where Alema was sulking and sat down, her eyes alert for any monkey business, while Lumiya, Jacen, Jaina, K'kruhk and Leia all tried to keep their amused grins from their faces as the ship shot to lightspeed.

Well it has been a very long time since I updated this hasnt it? Apologies, but I will hopefully update more frequently this year than I did last year as we're now beginning episode 3 of the tale

So story stuff first, Abeloth is clearly getting more dangerous and powerful, and is able to throw a Star Destroyer halfway across the galaxy to try and stop Luke and the others. And now, the Sickness is well and truly destroyed as far as we know (I bet Daala loved shooting the planet, she seems the sort) and we hae a bit more info as we now head to Kohlma, but who knows what the group will find there?

Next time we're back with the Hapan civil war, Lecersen is scheming once again, the Vong get more adventurous and we see what's going on at Bakura!

Now, as you can imagine from the disclaimer, I am not happy about episode vii. If ever there was a case of the unnecessary sequel, this is it. The franchise was fine with the six, and George Lucas, who had already caused enough damage, sold out for the cash. We do not need episove vii, viii or ix. I wouldnt mind quite so much if it was just focusing on the next generation and only having the droids as the link between films like they were last time, but no, we have to have a final hurrah with the original three (and considering the damage Harrison Ford has done to himself and the fact that Carrie Fisher thinks the film is cursed, maybe you should have stayed retired?). Dont get me wrong, im not entirely opposed to the spinoffs, but i am to the sequel trilogy

And also, why did they need to render everything non canon? It was canon for 24 years if not longer (Heir to the Empire came out the year I was born) and it was always perfectly fine. They didnt need to keep everything, they could have just kept till the end of the Galactic Civil War and ignored the rest (god knows when Denning took over it became very bleak) but no. What bugs me more is these people who are all now crawling out the woodwork saying that theyre glad its all non canon, it was too messy, it was never canon etc...

It suited you for the last god knows how many years! And most of the mess only started occuring because of two things, one the focus on money more than the story (Dark Nest onwards) and Clone Wars pissing all over a canon that was perfectly good to start with and a damn sight better in some places (Adi Gallia should not have been killed by that beast Oppress, Even Piell should not have been killed by a rabid badger, Grievous was not a weak imbecile, Ventress was not a Nightsister, and Barriss Offee was never a Dark Jedi)

Anyway...as you can imagine im not entirely impressed, and the less said about Rebels the better, the only thing Ive seen that looks good was the finale (ignoring that stupid lightsaber of the Inquisitors and the brats) and Ahsoka returning.

Thats my two cents on the matter, and obviously this story will continue to incorporate actual canon not the literal Mickey Mouse canon thats been forced on us by George Lucas being a money grabbing...

Anyway, glad to be back, please review and I hope to be back soon!