Due to hurricane Helene this is the second chapter posted this week so don't miss the previous chapter-Ben

Chapter 8 Jade Reluctance

48 ABY

Any person who knew a fraction of galactic history would be stunned by the irony of the moment. The wounded and unconscious Jedi Grandmaster was being protected by a Dark Lord of the Sith. With Krayt's death a few minutes prior, he was likely the most powerful Sith Lord in the galaxy, but he had more important things to be worried about or he wouldn't survive long enough to care. The sight was one to behold. The Grandmaster was being carried over the shoulders of Mara Jade Skywalker. His nephew's wife, Tahiri, used her lightsabers to block blaster bolts that were getting through the screen. Luke's nephew Anakin Solo and the current Dark Lord of the Sith, Lord Gavar Khai, led the retreat. At the back were Kyp Durron's apprentice, Rey Palpatine, and Khai's dark acolyte, Kylo Ren, along with a few lost tribe members and Jedi knights- all that was left of the strike force.

After what felt like hours but was less than ten minutes, the group successfully made their way to their ships. A final blast of Force lightning from Anakin and Khai cleared the way of enemy soldiers. Their pilots had already prepared the ship to launch. Once the last of the vanguard got on the ship, the pilots raced for the safety of hyperspace.

No one said a word as Mara and Tahiri rushed the Jedi Grandmaster to the medical unit. Silence prevailed on the ship until they reached hyperspace. Finally, the silence was broken by a young Sith acolyte who had stayed on the ship to protect it. "What happened?"

Without responding, Khai punched through a box near him. The acolyte took a few steps back at the display of anger.

"That fool Krayt betrayed us all and in the process has left us all to deal with the consequences," Khai said with a quiet fury. "Let this be a lesson for each of you aspiring Sith lords of what happens if a Sith allows the darkness to consume him. Since the day Ben Skywalker crashed onto our planet and fulfilled the prophecy, our people have been striving to reach more for the light than the dark. Today marks the day we rue the time the first Sith ever listened to the darkness because it may just kill us all."

Mustering what courage he had, the acolyte asked, "What did he do?"

Khai growled. "The fool wanted revenge on Skywalker for destroying his misplaced ambition. He tried to kill him just when we had nearly succeeded in defeating Abeloth. A few moments more and we would have been successful. Instead, the fool cost us everything and the monster killed most of us, including Darth Vol. The only good that came of this is that Krayt paid for his treachery with his life. Thankfully, Skywalker was able to wound Abeloth before he collapsed. Otherwise, we wouldn't have escaped."

The acolyte looked towards where Anakin Solo had collapsed from exhaustion. "Could Solo not have kept the fight going?"

"Perhaps, had he been with us, but he and most of our surviving comrades were busy at the door, keeping her thousands of Yuuzhan Vong warriors from overwhelming us," Khai said pointedly. "You should remember your lessons on the uselessness of dwelling on might-have-beens; otherwise, you might consider your fate if you had gone with us."

With that the acolyte gulped, nodded and hurried away from the Darth's view. While the tribe's members were not as murderous as they had been several decades before, accidents still happened.

Khai released the frustrations of annoying pupils into the Force before going to go check on Skywalker. He entered the ship's medbay, where Tahiri and Mara were watching the Jedi healers look after their Grandmaster.

"How is he?" he asked.

"Despite his injuries, a few hours in bacta and a healing trance ought to be enough to get him back on his feet," Mara said. "Do you have any injuries that need looking after?"

Khai nodded in the negative. "I have several cracked ribs from being thrown like a puppet and some lightning burns, along with some negligible cuts and bruises. The creature did not view me as a threat and had her honor guards fighting me. She was mainly focused on Skywalker, Krayt, and Vol. More importantly, what do we do now? The galaxies navies are broken. Coruscant, Bastion, Hapes, Ossus, and Kesh are all burned. And most of our remaining people that could fight we just lost, due to Krayt's treachery."

Mara looked grim. The Jedi had lost all but 250 members, most of whom had either been on individual missions across the galaxy or in the Jedi Praxeum on Yavin IV, which they had evacuated before it could be destroyed. Luke had left his old friend Master Kyp Durron in charge of the survivors along with Master Tano in case they failed the mission. In retrospect, they had done better than the Old Jedi had before the fall of the Republic when 98% of the Order had been wiped out in hours. This time, most of the Jedi had fallen in a lost battle with the re-invading Yuuzhan Vong, alongside the combined fleets of the Empire and Galactic Alliance. They had not realized a Darksider would rip the fleet apart. With the fleets lost in a single knockout and no survivors to warn of the impending doom, the Darksider then led the assaults to destroy Ossus and Kesh, sending her armies to level the capitals of the Galactic Alliance, the Empire, and the Hapes Consortium. It had been a heartbreaking week.

Jaina had not survived the fall of Bastion, and Jacen, her twin, had sacrificed himself to save his wife, Queen Tenel Ka Solo, and his daughter, Amelia, when Hapes fell. Anakin was the final Solo child left alive. They had barely restrained Han from going on a one-man mission to deal with the invaders by giving him the responsibility of getting his granddaughter and the other Jedi children safely to Ach-to. Mara's son, Ben, and his wife, Vestara, had been on Ach-to when the disaster hit, overseeing the reconstruction of the ancient Jedi facility. Thankfully, the council had listened to Ben's excited scholarly spiels after the discovery of the Jedi home world and had decided it would be prudent to reestablish it as a site for archaeological research and a potential safe spot. The decision had been made not a moment too soon and construction on the site was almost complete when the Order had to evacuate to their beta location.

Mara looked at her son's father-in-law. "We may soon be left without a viable alternative. Even were we to kill Abeloth now, we do not possess the numbers to drive back the YuuzhanVong and keep them from conducting galactic wide genocide."

"What are you proposing- pulling back to the unknown regions and hiding forever?" Khai asked.

"Something far more radical. The Order believes we may be able to send two of our members back through time," Mara said.

Khai looked at her. "You know both of our orders rarely agreed on anything, but even attempting time travel was forbidden by both of our ancient ancestors, though perhaps for different reasons."

The Jedi order forbade time travel since they believed it would cause chaos throughout the galaxy. Even with the fall of the Jedi, Master Yoda would never dream of using the World between Worlds to change time. The Sith forbade even experimentation, not because they didn't want the power, but because they feared their rivals getting their hands on the ability and possibly erasing them from existence. If Palpatine had gotten his grubby hands on the power, he would have grabbed it with both of them. What he would seek to use it for was a mystery- other than to see futures and their outcomes. But in the face not of Jedi extinction but of galactic genocide, Luke Skywalker told the council to give it some thought.

"Neither side has ever faced Galactic destruction before," Mara said.

Khai was still not satisfied. "How would I know whoever you send wouldn't lead the ancient Jedi against my ancestors?"

"By sending our children," Mara said quietly.

Khai paused. "You would send Vestara and Ben."

Mara watched as the Sith sat down, visibly holding back tears. "We would likely never see them again," he whispered.

"No, but you know neither Ves nor Ben would bring harm to your people and it may be the only way we can save their futures," Mara said. "It hasn't been decided yet. Of course, we will attempt to find another solution before we do anything of that nature."

"Except we both know we won't find one," Darth Khai said grimly. "As I am now leader of my people, I will agree to the suspending of the ancient compact between the Jedi and Sith in this matter only if my daughter goes."

With that statement he stood and walked towards his quarters.

Mara sighed. She was no happier than the Sith was- well, not really Sith. Since Ben had crashed on their planet and showed off the power of the light and overwhelmed those who opposed him, the Sith, in their typical desire to gain more power, had all jumped on the light side bandwagon. It was still a rocky road that they were on, but Ben had discovered that these Sith genuinely loved their families and had already unconsciously been tapping into the light for centuries. Ben's report mused that this fact had prevented the Kesh Sith Order from wiping itself out like most Sith.

Mara turned back at the unconscious Luke who was suspended in a bacta tank. "Farmboy, you had better be right about this." Not that she had any better solutions.

Jedi Council Chamber, Coruscant; Final days of the Clone War

Yoda did not show the alarm that he felt over the meeting's topics. He was seeing the Sith Lord tie the final nooses around the galaxy. This morning, the Chancellor had sent a courier, informing the council that GAR intelligence had located General Grievous. This report came within hours of the news that Kyshyyk had been invaded by the droid army. And all of this on top the Senate authorization of intervention into the Mandalore system just yesterday.

Yoda listened as the Council mused that Kenobi would have been the perfect person to send after Grievous if he were here. Since Yoda was duty-bound to go help the Wookies, he realized just how well the events had been orchestrated.

The Sith would have left Anakin without any support or his friends in the Order. His mentor would have been sent to kill Grievous and while Yoda went to Kyshyyk, leaving Anakin alone to face a Sith Lord who had been playing games with him. Yoda was starting to suspect he may have been wrong about Sidious's plan for Anakin. Perhaps he had planned to blackmail Anakin into being his apprentice rather than kill him. Luke had been vague on that part and the young Skywalkers were in a noticeably big hurry to get off the planet. Not that he blamed them. No, he had the all the pieces together and was still stuck. He marveled at how well the trap had been laid. Just as when they discovered the Sith had been involved in the creation of the Clone army, this was not the wisest path, but it was the only path forward. Now his enemy was prepared to strike and only wanted a pretext. So, Yoda would play this game to the end and hope he could pull the rug partially out from under Sidious. It was the only thing he could hope for.

He sighed when the meeting closed. He had not informed the Council that the holocron vault had been emptied by Jocasta and taken away from the Temple. He had kept back a few holocrons for himself; everything else had gone with the archivist. He hobbled away from the chambers, pausing for one last look, unsure when or if he would ever see it again.

Chancellor's Office

Palpatine gritted his teeth. He could not shake the feeling that something was seriously wrong. Even with confirmation that the little green troll was on his way halfway across the galaxy, he could not shake the feeling. His spies had reported no sighting of Skywalker or his crew. They had also reported that neither Gunray nor his aides were doing anything other than what Grievous was telling them. Perhaps he had gotten this wrong. With Dooku gone, Amidala may have decided this was time for another plea to the CIS Senate body. Still, taking along the killer of their leader was hardly a way to start a negotiation, and Padme was no novice. Perhaps he had misjudged the member of the Separatist high council that was wanting to engage in negotiations. Uncertainty wasn't something he was used to facing. Only once in the Clone Wars had Palpatine been truly concerned his future apprentice would get killed and that was when he disobeyed orders and went looking for the Malevolence without a fleet. No, this was as infuriating as the time Kenobi and Skywalker had boarded Outbound Flight and Doriana hadn't told him until after the ship had departed on its ill-fated voyage. That time he had been forced to personally intervene as Chancellor; otherwise, his ambush would have had to been canceled.

It was a strange fortune that had recently crossed Skywalker's path with that of the Chiss commander who had destroyed Outbound Flight. Unfortunately, between them, the rash young Jedi and the Chiss commander had successfully ruined one of his contingencies to Order 66. Of course, in a worst-case scenario, having enemies with cortosis armor could have backfired, so he was not overtly upset when they had succeeded in destroying the cortosis armor facility. Still, incidents like these showed that not everything went to plan and now it felt as if that was happening again. He gritted his teeth again. He could not afford to leave Coruscant to check up on his minions and see if they were backstabbing him. If Maul was still kicking after everything went down, he might have to pay him a personal visit. This was the first time he rued losing his most recent apprentice. Skywalker had refused to kill him outright, but having to choose between carrying the Count and Kenobi, he had easily left the Count to his demise. Palpatine stared into the Coruscant sky, hoping nothing more went wrong with his plans.

Author's Note

Alright so we are caught up from the hurricane leaving me without the means to post last week's chapter. Eagle eye readers will note the addition of some EU additions over the last two chapter not including the old favorites from this chapter which are very critical to the stories overall plot. With this chapter I feel like even though there's been a wipeout of the order in the future everyone has their dignity intact unlike current canon and without the character assassination that LOTF added in. The story is still revolving in large part around the events of revenge of the Sith but as soon as order 66 is done the story will be free to deviate quite radically. Next week's chapter was my favorite to write of the first 10 chapters were going to get away from the pilot's of the Sith and the countermeasure of Yoda and do some world building next week I hope you enjoy. Thanks for the reviews favorites and follows.

Ben