Beyond The End of All Light (Post-NJO AU: Anakin Solo, Jacen, Jaina, L/M, H/L, many more) Updated 9/21/12!

Ah, thanks, man I'm glad you enjoyed it

Lot of different ways things could have gone emotion-wise after something like Halo being destroyed. To me, it felt like Luke should be devastated at losing so many friends and the order he'd spent his life building. If it makes you feel any better, we'll be seeing a very determined Luke from here on out. The vacillating about what to do and how to do it is over

Thanks for reading and replying

How do you know I'm not? Maybe my slow writing over the past couple years has been a result of that grinding Fate of the Jedi schedule and my whole motivation for writing fanfic has been my guilt for killing Anakin Solo? THINK ABOUT IT.

Glad you liked that. I think Anakin got some clarity in purpose after his experience on the Exodus. He really understands what has to be done now.

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I feel the same way

Seriously though, it's good to see you guys too. It's been way too long!

Looks that way

All right, let's do this

Thanks for reading and replying

Thanks and thanks for reading and replying

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Glad you liked the chapter! Thanks for reading and replying

That's awesome! Thanks a lot I'm glad you're enjoying the story so much

I like to think of the Living Force as "Chocolate Pizza." [face_smug]

The Unifying Force was a good one despite my general disappointment with the second half of the NJO. I reread it earlier this year, actually

Thanks, I'm glad you liked the chapter As for Kyle returning now, there's not a lot of "later left." We're going into the end of the whole series now

Thank you, I had some real struggles with Luke's speech and his emotions, trying to hit the right notes. I hope it all came out right.

Yeah, I've been waiting all this time to tell Maichen's backstory because it's most relevant here for the reasons you just listed. We'll be seeing more of Maichen before the end.

I hope so. My plan is to ease back into this thing and hope the boards are fixed soon so it's readable again. Right now I think we'll be doing posts every other week, so chapter 49 will probably be up on the 21st.

Thanks for reading and replying

Alright, a better reply: It's beautiful, man! I missed this thing so much. If the posts weren't truncated I would go back and reread some, because now I'm really wondering if Jacen knew Halo would be destroyed. I want to say he didn't, or that he wouldn't have gone along with it, but I really don't know. He's one twisted up dude right now. But Kyle has returned. The only thing better would be if I grew to 6'4. Which is actually kind of cruel of me considering I patronize one of my RL friends due to him being 5'. Anyway... Wow, that clown is really creepy.

Determined Luke just as good.

You seriously freaked me out with this... Mr Denning.

Nice! Finally something to look forward to this dreary September!

Wow, thanks so much That's very nice of you to say. I'm glad you enjoyed the story so much and thanks for reading and telling me what you thought

I don't know about that. 9 months is an awful long time But I'm glad you liked it.

Thanks for reading and replying

Yes. The Jedi were at a breaking point, I think. Either they were going to pull together for one final fight or fall completely apart. They needed a true leader to unite them again. Thankfully, they have that.

Thanks for reading and replying

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it

Yeah, Luke pretty much single-handedly pulled them all together again. He's devestated, but I think Halo's destruction has also given him some clarity and made him more determined than ever.

Thanks, I missed all of you guys too And thanks for reading and replying

Yeah, I've been looking forward to getting back to this myself.

Yeah, that's exactly the way I felt about it for the reasons you just listed. Luke just lost a lot of friends and watched the order he'd built since RotJ obliterated. He would definitely feel as though he'd lost everything, but in the end he realizes what they have left and that their purpose is more clearly defined than it's ever been. Now he's picked himself and the rest of the Jedi up, dusted themselves off, and is ready to kick some ***

No, Jacen was not involved in Malig learning Halo's location and wasn't aware of the attack until it was happening. It was the spy Hala Rozess (the Zeltron) who gave Malig the space station's location.

lol. Glad I could help you out there

Thank you for reading and replying

If you want to read old posts, PM me your email address and I'll be happy to send them to you

No, Jacen did not know anything about the attack on Halo until it was happening. Malig didn't tell him because he was teaching Jacen a lesson; don't disobey me. In LotD, Jacen was supposed to kidnap Ben, but didn't, facilitating the need for this attack so that they could kidnap Ben and escape with him. Of course, Malig has now resigned himself to killing the Jedi rather than taking them as his prisoners, so two birds.... Jacen was not pleased when he learned of the attack and was just about to attack Malig when the entire bridge of the Exodus ruptured after Tresina Lobi crashed into the command tower in her final act while dying.

Yeah it is. I'm not sure I understand the height thing. Why do you want to be 6'4"? How tall are you now?

Let's hope.

*strokes beard*





Thanks again, guys It's really great seeing everyone here again. Missed you guys.

As I said earlier, we're going to start off with posts every other week for the time being. I'm hoping the boards will be fixed relatively soon so former posts will be readable again, but I'm not sure how likely that is to happen.

Next post will pick up right where we left off: with Kyle Freakin' Katarn, the 13th Jedi.

Oh, the 6'4" thing is because I kept telling my friends when I was younger that I would be Thor when I grew up. Chris Hemsworth is Thor and is 6'4". So if I'm 6'4" then I am Thor. Roundabout and wishful thinking, maybe. Hey, if Malig can be Namtar, then I can have a growth-spurt at 20-24. For the record, I'll also settle for ending up in the GFFA and becoming a real Jedi.

You know, nine months and a board change wasn't enough to shake off even the lurkers to your incredible epic. It was truly a pleasure to read a new chapter after so long, particularly one that managed to capture the depths of despair the survivors are struggling with as well as their determination and hope to overcome such a staggering tragedy. To sum it up briefly, that's what makes our heroes heroes.

Now, why do I have a bad feeling about that remaining vial of Omega Red?

Because if you did a more blatant case of foreshadowing, you'd have to stick a rotating ambulance light and an air horn to that vial? ^^

Just gotta say, after all those months, the waiting paid of big time . Can't wait to see what's next, especially what the Sith have been up to since the batlle...

Yeah, I'm in very good company. No one that I've talked to personally says that actually liked the ending. The most positive I've heard anyone say about it was more like "meh".

Yeah... I get the feeling it involves a fair bit of nighmare fuel. Especially if Malig has been taking notes from Umbrella or the Reapers...

Well, I'm going to need people who've done at least one high-risk mission before. Perferably ones that have infiltrated an enemy base in an uncharted area of space. Maybe a stealth operative or two. And considering that Malig can bring back the dead (sort of...), I'll probably need a few zombie slaying experts as well.

Knowing luck, I'll end up with more than twelve.

I'm glad to see you're considering other options.

Great to see you again

Yeah, I totally agree. I'm glad you liked the post so much and thought it was worth all the waiting.

It could be over, just a plot line meant to define Jag as a human rather than a Chiss in the end, or there could be more to it. We'll have to wait and see. I will say, I rarely introduce things for no reason though

Thanks for reading and replying

Nice to meet you Glad you enjoyed the post. It will be a few chapters before we get to see what Malig, Jacen, and the Sith are up to, but we'll get there eventually. We're going to be sticking with the Jedi survivors for a few chapters, as well as doing something completely new...

Thanks for reading and replying

I actually saw someone in a lit thread about "unpopular opinions" say they like the ending

We'll be getting to it soon enough

That's probably for the best too






New post on Friday. It's a relatively short one that is mostly set-up for the chapter that follows, but it picks right up where we left off with Kyle Katarn's face-plant.

Chapter 49: The Thirteenth Jedi

"Get a medkit!"

The call seemed to come from a great distance, sound suddenly as murky as the orange glow of flames bleared in the backdrop of their now abandoned camp, but something in Mara's voice—a honed edge to her urgent rhythms or tone of command ringing in its strident inflections—shot through the crowd of dazed spectators to jolt them from their shocked trances, bringing the smeared firelight and the world it illuminated back into focus, and forcing sound climbing back to its full, distinct register with the swiftness one experiences when breaking an ocean's lapping surface after rising from the garbled isolation of the gurgling depths below. Jag sprang into action. He dashed past Luke, Mara, and the motionless heap silhouetted in the darkness, then sprinted up the Raven Claw's open landing ramp. Before he was out of sight, Mara had retreated the two steps needed to close the distance between her and Luke, who was kneeling over the very still form of Kyle Katarn lying face-down in the shadow-cloaked sand.

Luke reached beneath Kyle's lifeless body and turned him onto his back. A nimbus of pale moonlight outlined the Jedi Master's battered features, illuminating the sand-flecked crust of crimson blood caked to one side of his face and chapped lips like a pair of dried blumfruit rinds. Kyle stirred slightly at the movement, his sunken eyes fluttering open with the slow, open-and-closed motions of an emerging shadowmoth's newly formed wings and a loose-valve hiss of breath escaped his slackened mouth.

"Luke..." he murmured.

"Kyle?"

The other man's eyes began to sag closed.

Luke shook him gently, eliciting a faint groan from the wounded Jedi. "Kyle? Can you hear me? Where is everyone else? Kirana Ti, Lowbacca? What happened to them?"

Kyle's eyes had fallen shut, but anguish etched his brow in the tensed furrows of a restless sleep. Another groan came from somewhere deep inside his parched throat, scarcely more audible than a whisper.

"They didn't make it."

Luke rocked back on his heels, too stunned for a moment to even speak.

"Kyle? Kyle!"

There was no response.

"Stang!" Mara hissed, crouching down beside her husband close enough that her bare shoulder rubbed the thick, homespun cloak covering Luke's own. "Luke...?" His wife reached down with both gloved hands and shook Kyle Katarn's unmoving form, but this time he did not stir—wherever Katarn's consciousness had drifted, it had traveled much too far to be jarred back by such a crude method of coaxing.

"Luke?" she prompted again, glancing back at him once she'd abandoned her own attempt.

Luke wasn't listening. His flesh-and-blood hand was placed upon Kyle's clammy forehead, though it was not his tactile senses Luke was employing in examining the unconscious man. Reaching into the Force, he felt the wounded Jedi Master's pulse throbbing against a rushing tide of fatigue, the labored inflation of starved lungs, and the brilliant light that was Kyle's life still glowing strong beneath the burdens of his torment.

"He's alive," Luke assured. "But hurt, and badly dehydrated."

Mara stared for only a moment at Kyle, then looked back over her shoulder at the crowd of anxious Jedi and friends behind them. "Somebody get some water!"

Tahiri detached herself from the others, the almost soundless rustle of bare feet padding across sand eclipsed by the rattle of her canteen's plastoid cap being hastily unscrewed as she moved. "Oh dear," C-3PO said mournfully to Artoo. The two droids were standing helplessly on the perimeter. "It appears Master Katarn has been deactivated."

Mara turned her eyes back to Kyle. "What do you think happened to him?"

Luke shook his head solemnly. "I don't know."

A missed heartbeat passed before Tahiri appeared beside them in the forbidding silence, thrusting her canteen toward Mara. "Here." She looked pale. "Is he okay?"

Mara didn't answer. She accepted the canteen from Tahiri, then handed it to Luke. The soft patter of trickling water followed as Luke tipped the canteen at a gentle angle and poured a thin stream of its sparkling contents onto Kyle's cracked lips. A few drops fell past the man's swollen tongue and Kyle coughed, a dry, lung-ripping hack that did nothing to raise his consciousness from the murky depths of oblivion.

"Here," said Mara, snatching the canteen back from Luke while unfurling the sand-colored scarf she had wound around her neck to protect from blowing dust. She soaked a patch of the fabric in the canteen's cool water, then dabbed Kyle's lips and face with the damp cloth.

In the next moment, Jag emerged from the Raven Claw with the ship's medkit under one arm. He bounded down the landing ramp and lopped through the night-darkened sand to rejoin them beneath the silver moonlight.

"That's it?" Mara's face fell at the sight of the white plasteel container Jag handed to Luke.

"It's all I could find," Jag explained. "Katarn's supplies appear to be running low."

Luke frowned. It was another question to be asked later. Something horrible had happened to Kyle's team after they left Halo three days earlier, and given Malig's apparent knowledge of their mission and claims that all of them had been killed, Luke could guess who was responsible. If Kyle really was the only survivor, then it was one more Jedi than Luke had believed alive a few minutes ago, and he would do whatever he could to keep his old friend counted among them.

Luke disengaged the container's magnetic seal by pressing a pair of green diodes on the slim finger-panel inlay along its top edge, and the lid popped open with a soft click, revealing a flat network of economically packed and packaged medical supplies. As he began unpacking handfuls of hypos, synthskin patches, and bacta salve from the casing's inner pockets, the Jedi Master's gaze crawled back to the unconscious form lying in the dust, scanning him for the injuries Luke would now have to treat. Violet bruising and scabbed abrasions mottled his face, and a maze of little red nicks on his calloused hands and tears and gouges in his sand-colored tunic and leggings resembled those one acquired when traveling through dense foliage, but most of the damage had been done to Kyle's right arm. Blood soaked the sleeve of his shirt from shoulder to wrist, dying the cloth a dark burgundy color in the moonlight interrupted at the bicep by a stretched ring of scorched black flesh and sinew.

"I guess that explains the dehydration," Luke said, gesturing with his chin toward the wound while removing the cap from a small bottle of antiseptic. "A lot of blood for a blaster burn."

"It's not from the burn." Mara gestured above the ovoid streak of singed flesh and fabric. At first, Luke thought she was drawing his attention to the array of toothy splinters sticking out of the back of Kyle's arm like nexu quills, but then he spotted the radial notch chewed through the man's shoulder.

"What is it? Shrapnel?"

This time it was Mara who didn't answer. She reached down and peeled back the blood-soaked layers of tattered fabric to uncover a thumb-sized lump of volcanic glass lodged in Kyle's flesh. Disgust shone in the narrowing of her night-darkened eyes and slight ascent of her stern upper lip at the curve of the alien object jutting starkly from Kyle's shoulder. She hesitated a moment, then grasped the orbicular shard between thumb and forefinger and gave it a forceful tug. It jerked free with the wet crackle of ripping flesh, a black stone smaller than a training drone trailing long strings of gore as Mara lifted it up to eye-level.

Luke stared. "What...?"

Starlight danced across its uneven surface in a weak blue shimmer that revealed not obsidian, but a grooved matrix of dark chitin made reflective by blood. Mara's brow furrowed in bewilderment, her face edging closer to the offending object to scrutinize the organic web veined beneath its semitransluscent exoskeleton.

Then the dim gleam jumped on its chitinous carapace, and from the look of surprise that flashed across Mara's usually unshakable features it was clear she had not twisted the thing in the light again to view another angle—it had twitched in her hand. A wet squelching noise came from the sphere in the next instant, and from its sides emerged a pair of serrated wings that snapped out suddenly, spraying Mara's face with a mist of blood.

"Ecughh," Mara gasped, but managed to hold onto the thing, her shock replaced with an agitated glare almost immediately.

"A Yuuzhan Vong razor bug," Tahiri observed. She hadn't even flinched at the sight of the creature's sharp wings and sounded a little too casual about it for Luke's liking.

Calmly, Mara dropped the razor bug in the sand, then unclipped her lightsaber from her belt, flipped it over easily in one hand, and drove the heavy pommel down on the Yuuzhan Vong biot's hard shell, crushing it instantly. A few stray locks of flame-red hair blew into her face when she looked back up at Luke. "How in the blazes did Kyle get that thing in his arm?"

"I don't know." Luke pulled back the plunger on a stim hypo he was readying to inject their patient with. "I guess we'll have to ask him when he wakes up."




An hour later Kyle Katarn was sitting against a small hunk of fleckrock with a thick green blanket wrapped around his shoulders and a cup of hot coco in his left hand. Bacta numb packed his heavily bandaged right arm to deaden the intense pain, and Mara's torn scarf made a makeshift sling that secured the mangled limb to his body. It would remain almost entirely useless until they could get the Jedi Master proper treatment in a full-sized bacta tank.

But he was conscious, and alert, and sat with the rest of the Jedi Order around what remained of their amber fire, trying to warm his bones against a chill that had settled there like an unwelcome guest. A ribbon of steam curled listlessly from the brim of his mug and vanished on the cold night air almost as quickly as it materialized, wispy threads thinning to mere ghosts in their last, vaporous moments.

"I don't really know where to start," he said grimly, staring into the slowly swirling contents of his mug.

News of Halo's destruction and the near obliteration of the Jedi Order had not come as the shock to the recovering Master that Luke feared it might. Despite his apparent shielding, Kyle had felt the wave of trauma that spread through the Force when the space station detonated, and accepted Luke's words on the tragedy with a few solemn nods, asking only if Jan Ors had still been away on her intelligence errand when the end came and growing silent again when Luke assured him that she had.

"Start at the beginning," Leia offered, taking her seat between Han and Jaina on the other side of the crackling flames.

"Perhaps our friend should rest first," Tenel Ka said. She was still standing in the moonlight, a statuesque figure of ivory dappled by glimmers of copper.

Luke and Iella Antilles moved to agree, but Kyle cut them off before a single word could be uttered by either. "No, I'm fine," he said gruffly. He sipped his drink and grimaced as it scalded his inflamed throat. "and you all need to hear this..." Kyle trailed off, the hard cast to his narrowed eyes growing distant and haunted. "Force, you need to."

Hands folded in front of him, Anakin spoke in the same even tone he had during the camp's earlier deliberations. "Tell us what happened."

The words seemed to bring Katarn back to himself. He nodded, and paused, as though gathering courage and his thoughts for what would be a long and trying story.

"We were a day out from Halo when we found it—the system where Zonama Sekot was supposed to be." Kyle's eyes flicked over to where Kyp was huddled with the Horns. "It was just like Durron said: absolute chaos. No sign of the planet anywhere. Just a giant, swirling emptiness where it should have been, filled with rubble, solar flares, and orbital stresses that could turn a warship into confetti.

"And there was plenty of that in the storm: ship wreckage and flotsam tumbling among the rest of the slag."

Luke's brow shot up in interest. "Did you find out what kind of ships they were?"

Katarn shook his head. "Sorry, Luke. We were just in that modified CEC transport we took from Halo—the Seeker—no way in hell we were going to get close enough to identify the wreckage. At the time, I assumed it was the remains of the GA flotilla assigned to protect Sekot, if that means anything."

"And now?"

Kyle's frown deepened beneath his graying beard.

"Let's just say I have some more complex theories on that..."

A heavy silence fell over the camp again in which the cold grew bitter and the snap of embers seemed an anxious thing, twisting knots of tension in the shoulders of those huddled about the flames for their elusive warmth.

It was Leia who found her voice amid the chill. "Please, continue, Kyle."

The somber Jedi Master nodded and took another sip from his steaming mug before proceeding, seeming to wish he had something stronger in his cup to guide him forward. "We spent hours looking for some trace of Sekot, some clue as to where it might have vanished. Jaden had the ship's computer running estimates on the planet's exiting vector based on the motion of the debris, Kirana Ti and I tried our hands at meditating to see if the Force had anything to say on the matter—it didn't—and that Iktotchi girl Necil Krace wasn't having any of her species' flashes of clairvoyance either. We had hit a complete dead-end.

"That is, until Lowie started rawwling, trying to tell us something horrible we'd overlooked..."

"What?" asked Mara

"That we weren't alone."

A prickle of fear crawled up Luke's spine at the man's words.

"There was another ship in the system, waiting on the rim of the debris field like us," Kyle went on.

Jaina's brow furrowed at the news, her mechanic's mind disassembling it immediately. "The Seeker's sensors didn't catch it? Was there that much disruption?"

Katarn shook his head. "No, it was one of the Raithians' stealth scoutships—daggers, or whatever they call them. Lowie felt the pilot out there in the Force before the rest of us."

"What was this pilot doing there?" Luke questioned.

"Waiting to see who showed up, I think, but I'm still not sure. I had Jaden put us in a drift toward the stealth fighter, but it must have spooked the pilot and he bolted. Jumped to hyperspace just as we were getting a fix on his vector. It didn't take long for us to figure things out."

Kyle grimaced. "If the Raithians were there, it meant they knew Zonama Sekot's location—and if they knew that, I was willing to bet they were the reason it left. My hope was that our nervous stealth pilot would lead us to wherever the living planet had gone... Unfortunately, I was right."

Mara leaned forward. "Where is Zonama Sekot? Tell us, Kyle."

The strangely frail looking Jedi Master took a deep breath. "All right... But you're never going to believe this..."

First

Kyle grimaced. "If the Raithians were there, it meant they knew Zonama Sekot's location—and if they knew that, I was willing to bet they were the reason it left. My hope was that our nervous stealth pilot would lead us to wherever the living planet had gone... Unfortunately, I was right."

Mara leaned forward. "Where is Zonama Sekot? Tell us, Kyle."

The strangely frail looking Jedi Master took a deep breath. "All right... But you're never going to believe this..."

What! Tell us now, dammit

Boy, what a cliffhanger. Thanks the Force Kyle's alive. For now, at least but I'm confident Katarn will pull through and kick some Raithian hide later. And everyone's dead. Wonder in which order and how they were all killed and what could do that much damage to Katarn to make him collapse in exhaustion and loss of blood...

Maybe it's the Reckoner or Yuuzhan Vong working for Malig got to Katarn. I hope not, but you never know.

Can't wait for more. Great as usual, Yobi

Second! Come a long way

"A Yuuzhan Vong razor bug," Tahiri observed. She hadn't even flinched at the sight of the creature's sharp wings and sounded a little too casual about it for Luke's liking.

That's so Tahiri.

Kyle grimaced. "If the Raithians were there, it meant they knew Zonama Sekot's location—and if they knew that, I was willing to bet they were the reason it left. My hope was that our nervous stealth pilot would lead us to wherever the living planet had gone... Unfortunately, I was right."

Mara leaned forward. "Where is Zonama Sekot? Tell us, Kyle."

The strangely frail looking Jedi Master took a deep breath. "All right... But you're never going to believe this..."

You made a BIG mistake. You piqued my curiosity. WHERE IS IT WHERE IS IT WHERE IS IT

One last thing. Where was Anakin in this?????

...

TEASE!

Awesome read! I wonder who is going to take down Jacen and whose going to take down Darth Malig. Kyle vs. Jacen, would be epic, Kyle vs. Malig would also be epic. The mere presence of kyle in a fight makes it epic. I can't believe Jaden's dead I remember playing as him in Jedi Academy, in fact I still play it sometimes. Lucasarts needs to make another Jedi Knight or Jedi Academy game. The last several games have been extremely disappointing including the Old Republic.

Nice job

Kyle uses the universes longest dramatic pauses

We just may get answers to all those questions and more in the next post

Well, the razor bug certainly points to some Yuuzhan Vong involvement, and he at least says they found Sekot, so that makes sense...

Thanks and thanks for reading and replying

Kyle or the story?

Anakin was there with the other Jedi around the fire and waiting with the other Jedi while Luke, Mara, Jag, and Tahiri tended to Kyle.

As for where Sekot is, you'll find out in the next post

Thanks for reading and replying

I know, I know There's good reason why the post ended there though, and it will make sense when you see the next one, which will be something very, very different from previous posts.

Thanks for reading and replying

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I don't think anyone could disagree with you there

LucasArts is pretty much just churning out garbage since KotoR2. Outcast and Academy were great though, would love to see them do something that awesome again. Maybe "1313" will be good. It looks sort of like a SW version of Uncharted, so I'm hopeful. But I'm afraid it's going to be more like the Force Unleashed *vomits*

Thanks for reading and replying





Thanks again, guys

Can't wait to see what's been goin' on with Kyle. It must have taken an army to bring him down.... (and a lucky shot)

There's no lucky shot powerful enough to take down Kyle Katarn in one hit.

Remember the other week when you suggested you might actually be Troy Denning in disguise?

After clicking on the above spoiler, I now theorize that you're Karen Traviss.

Congratulations, @Rew. You're about to be the first person I use the boards' new "ignore" feature on.

That will make it tricky for me to beta your chapters, but I'm sure you have some Mandalorian gadgetry you'll use to get around that problem.

Haar'chak!

You mean, like... really, really long?

Long time don't post, Dude.

Even though it was a short one, I'm happy to have you continuing your story. Too much time had passed that I couldn't keep pondering about when these boards would be back up and running. In any case, it's great to have it back.