The Crisis of Kara Vaalki

[Green Ranger]

'I am Tyrn Lightell, son of Roros Lightell of Serenno...'

It couldn't be. That was impossible. Tyrn was dead - had been dead - for thirty years. Or had he? There were so many questions unanswered...but it was definately him. Jedi Loremaster Kara Vaalki rewound the holorecording, replaying it again. It has been so long, it had to be a lie...but it looks so much like him, she thought. It can't be, but...how could I not have known?

'Jedi Master Kara Vaalki and myself were once wed in our youth, though our time together was unfortunately brief. I humbly request that she is to be the one to deliver the sword to me, that I may lay my eyes on her once more, and remember the bliss of our youthful love. It would...it would mean a great deal to me to see the great woman she has now become.'

Kara shut the holorecording off. No doubt the Council knew of this revelation, but Kara had shut herself away to meditate on the revelation her husband was still alive. They wouldn't be of any use to her anyway - there were few who could understand. A greater fate was calling her, and she knew that her decision to stay or leave was a crucial shatterpoint in the Force. It gave her less comfort to know that, though. The Dark Side seemed to cloud everything, and the future remained a mystery to her. It was...unsettling.

In the dark hours of the morning on Tython, the Jedi Master stole away to the Temple hangar, her single-seat R-25 Rogue starfighter leaving silently. Part of her wondered if she would ever walk the forest paths again. Most of her prayed that the one man that could help her would respond.

'Sandman, this is Ice Queen,' she said softly into the comm mic, her R12 droid patching the hyperwave transmission through to Jhon Cordatus' last known coordinates. As she spoke the next words, a chill ran down her spine. Something told her she would need to say it again before the end.

'You're my only hope.'

 

[Brandon Rhea]

Kara’s message was transmitted, but not to Jhon himself. No, that was too dangerous. There was no lack of trust about her, but he had to remain as hidden as possible. Only through the right codenames and passcodes, that Kara provided, would his newest location be ascertained. A simple message was sent to her R12 unit: Katarn Island, Palanhi.

———————————​

Two days later, Jhon was standing on the shores of Katarn Island, looking out into a distant eruption on one of the many volcanic islands that dotted the oceans of Palanhi. It was a temperate border world, near the Imperial border. No doubt it would be invaded in short order if the Imperium continued their domination over the Alliance in battle. At least for now, before then, and before his incursion into Imperial space where he would likely meet his death, he could enjoy the serenity that the location offered.

Hopefully Kara would feel the same way about this place. It had taken him awhile to remember, but Jhon finally knew why Tyrn Lightell was familiar. Losing her husband at that young an age in such a destructive way was hard for Kara, and he could only imagine what finding out he was still alive, and the Galactic Emperor know less, felt like. She could use rest on the shores of the island.

Truthfully, though her message said he was her only hope, he could not help but reciprocate the feeling. He hadn’t parted with Skhai on the best of terms, and, outside of Skhai, Kara was the only confidant he had left. The rest of the Council he had entrusted with the Skywalker destiny had broken their words and left the leadership. Of them, Kara was the only one he could still trust.

 

[Green Ranger]

Why Jhon had chosen Palanhi as his latest destination, Kara didn't initially understand. Contested worlds would be hotspots for prying eyes, especially so close to the no-man's land between stable Alliance and Imperial space. Still, sometimes the best places to hide were right in the open. But that didn't sound like Jhon. No, he was here for a different reason altogether.

The Jedi Master hopped out of the fighter, adjusting her flightsuit as the triple engines wound down from the flight. The thick air reeked of sulphur, and Kara could already feel the sweat under her collar, barely noting it was odd for a Jedi Master to be so out of tune with their own body. Jedi were masters of control, able to adjust to the harshest of environments within moments, but Kara had seemed less and less in control of her powers of late. The Force came and went like she was an initiate all over again, and she felt unsure in her own skin more often then not. It was an unsettling sensation for a Jedi who had mastered the Force at such a young age. Sitting on the Council by the age of 44 was considered incredibly young - not since the reckless years of the Great Sovereign Crusades was such an achievement considered anything but exceptional.

Making sure her lightsabers were clipped in place on her belt - along with a hold-out blaster slung from her hip, just in case - Kara ran her fingers through her hair one last time. Not since Tyrn had she cared how she looked in front of a man, but Jhon was the exception, albeit in a different way. Jhon was like a stern but kindly uncle to Kara, and she always did her best to make sure she was at her best around him. The last time they had met, she had been an embarrassment This time, things would be different. She had to be at her best, because she knew what she was asking would crush him.

"I didn't expect you to stray this close to Sith space," she said softly, as she walked up behind Jhon. Gone was the harsh iciness of the Jedi Loremaster. Gone was the arrogant, judgemental tone of the Jedi Master she had become, the persona she had built herself up to be. Instead, she spoke with the soft tenderness of an old friend, re-united after many months of isolation.

"I know what you're looking for," she said, hints of understanding in her voice. It seemed awkward, like it was a sentiment Kara was still learning. "You won't be able to feel her from here, you know. We're still much too far away, and...Jhon, even if she's still alive, she may not want to be found."

 

[Brandon Rhea]

She may have been like a surrogate niece to him, but what was concerning Kara was of little concern to Jhon right now. He didn’t realize it, but perhaps it was his turn to embarrass himself in front of her. Rather than taking the responsible path, the path of being the mentor she needed right now, he was thinking only of himself. The only words he cared to pay attention to were her last ones.

Jhon scoffed at the notion, and not privately either. He let that disgust at her words show itself. He let her see his displeasure, his annoyance, his disappointment—any other descriptor he could think of, he let her see it. Was this the Way? No, but for now, today, it was his way. It was the way of one lost in a sea of remorse, so blinded by the dogmas of the quiet past that he refused to see anything but himself.

“You never cared about Andraste, or Lana,” he scolded. “How convenient that you seem to care now that the future is falling apart,” he paused, letting his next words have time to feel just dramatic enough, “...and now that your past is suddenly tied with Andraste’s disappearance.”

 

[Green Ranger]

The moment of tenderness was shattered in an instant. Kara's pride kicked into overdrive as she narrowed her eyes. For so long she had idolized this Jedi Grandmaster, this Keeper of the Way or whatever he wanted to call himself. But now...now all she saw was just a man, wallowing in self pity. It was shameful.

"Let's not try to pretend either of us are saints, Jhon," she said harshly. As she spoke, the Force bent to her will, jerking his head around to face her, perhaps a little too harshly. She knew he was playing her. Jhon knew Kara better then she knew herself, it was impossible for him not to. Right now, she didn't care. Let him play his little game.

"You're half right, at least. I didn't care about Andraste, I still don't. How could I? I never knew her like you did. I only knew of her as the Empress of the Sith. Just like how you have never cared about Tyrn like I did. Like I still do."

"Best case scenario? She's alive and well somewhere, and maybe on the path back to the Light. Worst case scenario? She's joined with the Force and found the peace she was denied in life. But you sitting around on some far-flung planet wallowing in self pity isn't going to change anything. She's been out of your reach for a long time now, Jhon. Don't pretend like this changes anything - it's a poor excuse, and it won't work on me. Lana deserves a better caretaker then what you're giving her right now."

 

[Brandon Rhea]

Kara finished speaking as Jhon’s hand shot outward, and the energy from it lunged forward towards her. It wrapped around her and strangled her every move, tightening its grip around her body so she could no longer move. The pressure the Force put upon her was but a temporary paralysis, one he controlled so long as he wanted to.

“Don’t show off to me, girl,” Jhon growled. “I can count on one hand the people in this galaxy who rival my power. You’re not one of them.”

He let out a heavy sigh as he released his grip on the Force around her, letting his shoulders slump as she collected herself. He couldn’t believe what he had just done. Even in his reckless youth, when so much of what was happening now was only just beginning, never in his wildest imaginations would he have thought he would do that to a fellow Jedi, especially one he cared for. It just felt right.

The former Grand Master’s head turned back away from her, back to where it was before she yanked it in her direction, and he looked back out towards the distant mountains and beyond, towards the sun that were preparing to set below the blue horizon. In truth, though, he looked beyond it, into a great infinity where time meant nothing and he was still in a time and place long since gone, where everything began for him—and for Kara. For Tyrn. For Andraste. For Lana. All of them. Jhon and Kara's first meeting was anything but serendipitous, but he thought something good had at least come from it. Until now.

“You’re wrong, you know,” he told her. “I may not have been married to him, but the idea that I don’t care about Tyrn is insulting. If I know you, you probably hate yourself right now. You probably think what happened to him is your fault. You’re wrong. I screwed up, and I've carried that every day since it happened. You may have lost him in the most intimate of ways, but you’re not the one responsible for losing him. I am.”

He turned towards her again, “I always am.”

 

[Green Ranger]

Kara could do little more then let out a muffled grunt as her whole body froze up on her momentarily, though her eyes betrayed the shock the Jhon would do such a thing to her. Beneath that, however, there was fear.

Then the moment passed, and the Jedi Master felt her body relax again. Suddenly released, she slumped to the ground with a gasp, her lungs suddenly refilling with the air the paralysis had starved her of. As she rose back to her feet, Kara internally berated herself for letting her guard down, even around Jhon. She wouldn't make that mistake again.

"You really don't know me at all, do you?" she said hoarsely. "I don't hate myself. I don't hate you. I don't think what happened is anyone's fault but the Sith who attacked us. And I don't even hate them like I probably should. It was 30 years ago, Jhon. I was a fourteen year old girl smitten by a handsome young man I barely knew. The meek little idiot that you saved is nothing like the person I am now, and that's due to your influence. What happened on that ship changed everything for me, and made me a better person. It made me the Jedi I am today.

"But you...you haven't changed at all, have you?," she said sharply. "Look beyond yourself for just one second, Jhon. The Force led you here for a reason - so you would stop focusing on the past in Andraste, beyond your own selfish self-loathing, and look to the future in Lana. Have you fallen so far into self-pity you can't see that?"

 

[Brandon Rhea]

Jhon let out a faint chuckle, not that he found anything humorous in what was happening. She didn’t understand. She couldn’t. Jhon couldn’t even make her. How could he? How do you explain the burdens of destiny to someone who was not shouldered with it, at least not the way he was?

Kara said the future was in Lana. She listened to nothing he said. She understood nothing he said. She understood nothing happening around them. That future was dead. If Andraste was dead and Exodeus was gone, then there was no destiny left for Lana. Everything that happened, everything that Jhon caused, was for naught, including what happened to Kara. All it left behind was an intolerable emptiness that he could fill with nothing else than regret and pain.

“Which Kara Vaalki did I influence?” Jhon asked. “The Kara Vaalki who thought it was wise to seek a mentorship with the same Jedi who led to what she thought was her husband’s death? The Kara Vaalki who wouldn’t set foot into the Council chambers until I had to give her a spanking? The Kara Vaalki who stood by and watched that same Council fall apart after I entrusted it with the future? Or was it the Kara Vaalki who is undoubtedly going to run into Imperial space now towards Tyrn? Heaven only knows what happens after that.”

He approached her, quickly, almost violently, looking her right in the eye. “I failed every one of those Kara Vaalkis, and I don’t deserve their forgiveness or understanding.”

 

[Green Ranger]

Kara matched Jhon's gaze only briefly, before casting her eyes downward. When she spoke it was little more then a whisper.

"No. The Kara Vaalki that swore to make it up to her saviour one day. The Kara Vaalki that forsook friends and family to study the Jedi ways obsessively. The Kara Vaalki that practiced with the lightsaber until she passed out, who meditated for weeks on end with nothing to nourish her but the Force to prove she was worth saving. The Kara Vaalki who climbed the ranks of the Order, just to earn your approval.

"The Kara Vaalki that swore she would be as much a success as Andraste was a failure. The Kara Vaalki who only wanted to make you proud."

 

[Brandon Rhea]

His gaze dropped, his voice becoming somber. “Andraste wasn’t a failure. I was.”

But he had little desire to continue on this subject. There was not much more he wanted to say, if anything. Kara was likely going to be just like Skhai, trying to talk so-called ‘sense’ into him. Her attempt, like the Crystavian’s, would be futile. Why waste the time?

“Why did you come here, Kara?”

 

[Green Ranger]

Kara knew there was no point in continuing the discussion. As much as it pained her to see Jhon so...broken, the only person who could truly help him was himself, but he wasn't ready. Time was all she could give him, but a small part of her mind worried still. How much time would it take, and would he get there in the end at all? Could she even trust the advice of him now? It was all so confusing. For a moment, Kara felt hopelessly lost - and in that instant, she realized Jhon probably felt even worse.

"I think you know why I came. Tyrn...he asked for me to brign him the sword of his forebears, one of the most ancient artifacts of the Order we still have. But, his claim is legitimate. I just....the Force has me at a crossroads, Jhon, and I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Tyrn's a good man, but I don't know how long he'll stay that way with the Sith leering over his shoulder. But if I go, I turn my back on the Jedi. The Alliance would brand me a traitor the moment I crossed the border."

Kara sighed, looking up at the former Grandmaster. "I'm not trying to make this worse for you, but...he's already been left behind once. I don't know if I can do that again."

 

[Brandon Rhea]

Jhon had to wonder if she knew the history of that artifact. Her demeanor suggested she didn’t, or at the very least not much of it. Not that it surprised him. Kara may have been the Lore Master, but that sword was over 14,000 years old. There was only so much knowledge one person could hold. Yet he couldn’t let her leave here without knowing it. It was too important.

“Do you know the story of Sarina Lightell?” Jhon asked her. “Between Xendor and the first fallen Jedi to become Sith and Anakin Skywalker, hers was a betrayal often lost in the annals of history—but it’s also one of the most important. There is no Darth Vader without Sarina Lightell.”

He paused, thinking back to the time he learned of the story in order to best recount it. “Sarina was a troubled Jedi during one of the earliest conflicts between the Old Republic and the Alsakans. She was married to a Jedi Master, Edo Tesu, and it was their line from which Tyrn is descended. By any measure, Sarina was a normal Jedi, but her mind was twisted and corrupted. She had a dark split personality, and it was that split personality that nearly destroyed the old Jedi.

“During a conclave on Ossus, her dark side manipulated the Grand Master, a man called Kelrada, into lashing out at Edo, accusing him of being a traitor. They fought and Tesu’s hand was cut off, in what would later become a signature move of punishment by Kelrada after he too fully fell to the dark side, and Tesu lost his sword. Later that night, Sarina took the sword and killed Edo with it. She hanged him by the neck in the courtyard where he had fought Banik, and she plunged that sword through his heart. The next morning, the Jedi found Edo. Kelrada was implicated, and the Order split in two. The half that left the Jedi became the Bogan, the first dark side empire in the history of this galaxy. Without them, there is no Sith. Without Sarina, there is no Vader. That is the legacy Tyrn inherited. That's why his family lost their honor on Serenno... and why he married you.”

He moved in closer, his eyes carrying an intensity, highlighting the importance of the story but also his genuine concern for you. “The legacy of that sword was forged by the blood of a lover’s betrayal. Never mistake it for an olive branch. A Lightell will only use it to stab you in the heart.”

 

[Green Ranger]

Kara paused for a moment, struck dumbfounded by Jhon's counsel. She had known Sarina to be one of the great betrayers of the Jedi Order, but this...comparing that to Tyrn, though? It didn't seem right.

"You would judge a man based on the actions of his ancestors? Jhon, it was fourteen thousand years ago. You can't possibly be suggesting he's doomed to the same fate as Sarina."

 

[Brandon Rhea]

It would seem that Jhon’s story did not fully take hold. Perhaps that was to be expected. This man was technically still Kara’s husband. Jhon would expect her to let those feelings cloud her better judgment. In spite of everything, he actually seemed...to care.

“I judge a man based on his own actions,” Jhon told her. “He was once on his way to becoming a Jedi, and now he’s the Emperor. He’s already made the same dark choice Sarina did. Now he asks for the sword she used? Nothing good has ever come of it. Nothing good ever will. If you let him, he will destroy you. Just as she destroyed him​."

 

[Green Ranger]

"And what if you're wrong?" Kara responded, frowning slightly. "What if Tyrn isn't anything like that, and this is his last chance at being rescued? What if we turn him into the monster you think he already is?"

Kara turned away, taking a few paces back as she walked towards her ship. She gestured for Jhon to follow. There was something he needed to see.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

Jhon didn’t reply. He had nothing left to say. Kara would make her choice no matter what he said, like she always did. He could still remember when she was younger, still a Padawan soon after being rescued from that burning vessel. He could remember the Kara Vaalki who always went against what her masters told her, what he told her. Nothing malicious or dangerous, of course. She just always had a stubborn need to prove herself right. This time, though... This time she wouldn’t.

As he followed her, he could think of only one thing he would’ve said. We’ve already turned him into that.

 

[Green Ranger]

As Kara walked over to her Rogue starfighter, her head was awash with questions and uncertainty. Before she had come, she was almost already resolute in her decision...and yet she had felt compelled to find Jhon. Was she looking for some sort of validation? She hadn't found it. Even worse, her resolve had crumbled, and her future seemed so unclear.

Silently she opened the cockpit of the fighter, reaching inside to withdraw a package, bundled in rough-spun cloth. She turned back to Jhon and passed the package to him. For a man who knew so much about the history of the Lightells, he would know what was inside...and he would know both what Kara had done to obtain it, and what it meant she had originally planned.

If she was still resolute, she would have never handed him the reforged sword of Edo Tesu.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

There was power in this blade, reforged from its damage eons ago. Jhon could feel it. It seared through him like a plague. He had no desire to be touching this damned piece of metal, yet here it was in his hands. The power, though, wasn’t of the Force or anything else that could be used in battle. Its power was its history.

“You have no reason to honor Tyrn’s request and bring him this sword,” Jhon told her. “Throughout its history, it has meant only one thing and can mean only one thing.”

He slid his hand gently down the smooth blade, feeling all of its weight against his hand. The metal he touched, at least parts of it, were once thrust into the chest of Edo Tesu. This very metal exiled Banik Kelrada. This metal gave rise of the Bogan Empire… gave rise to the Sith. It represented nothing other than that which it was famous for.

“You’re going to kill him, aren’t you?” he asked. “You’re going to take the Lightell legacy and deliver it back unto them. At least, I assume you are—but if you’re not, if you intend to try to reform him, then know this. The ones who made this same mistake during the Alsakan wars are the ones directly responsible for the conversation we are having right now and the war being waged around us.”

Passing the sword back to her, he said, “For your sake, and for that of all the Jedi, I hope history judges you more kindly than the fools who followed Sarina from Ossus.”

 

[Green Ranger]

Sarina looked at the sword as Jhon passed his hands over the blade, her eyebrows knitted in thought as she mused over his words. There was so much history to the blade, a legacy of pain and suffering and darkness all stemming from what had once been a beacon of light and hope. The blade, along with its sister, wielded by the Dark Jedi Sarina Lightell herself, had once brough hope to thousands of being across the galaxy, the symbols of the seemingly infallible Jedi that wielded them - Tesu, a sage of such astounding wisdom and pragmatism for his time, and Lightell, the righteous fury of the Order and the flagbearer to innumerable dark and distant worlds. Such was the tragedy of their demise, that they had climbed so high only to fall and fade into disrepute and evil.

"I was so set on going to him I packed in advance," Kara said with a wry smile, though the sadness lingered in her eyes. Emotion rarely reached her face so deeply, and somehow her cold gaze was softened by the tears that welled up and caused her eyes to glisten and sparkle.

"The thought of me having to kill him never occurred to me until now," she admitted. "I was set in the belief that I could save him, but now I'm not even sure he needs to be saved...or wants it, either...a brief moment of clarity in all this confusion.

"I think now I understand Sarina, oddly enough. It's a strange thing to say, but it's true. I had built myself up so high that I couldn't comprehend the darkness that beckoned, and for the briefest moment I felt...no, I knew that I could protect and save it all with the right actions. In truth, I had fallen - albeit briefly - and hadn't even realized it. And I think that's why Sarina did what she did. After all, some of the greatest evils come from noble intent. And by the time you realize everything's falling apart, it's too late to turn away. And in the end, you are nothing."

Sarina then paused as she took the blade back, wrapping it back up in cloth and repacking it back into the cockpit of her fighter. As she looked back at Jhon, though, her face relaxed, though her eyes seemingly glazed over for the barest moment. The very air around the pair seemed to hold its breathe, and there was the faintest tremor in the Force, though incredibly potent at the same time, as if a landslide were muted. As quickly as it had come, however, it was gone, and Sarina's voice took on an almost incredulous tone.

"But...Tyrn's fate, that choice isn't mind to make. I thought it was, but...it's not in my hands."

Sarina walked up to Jhon slowly, almsot looking through him as she looked into his eyes, and for a moment Jhon would see her not as the young girl he had saved so many years ago, nor the tortured Master he had nurtered. Gone were the doubts and insecurities, and all trace of the woman that had done everything she could to impress him. In that brief moment of clarity, the Force stopped seeming to whirl around her like a maelstrom, calming and flowing through her with not even the barest distortion, as if both energy and woman were finally united as one.

And as she spoke, for that barest moment, Jhon would see her as an equal.

"It's you, Jhon. It's always been you."

 

[Brandon Rhea]

This was a responsibility Jhon neither wanted nor cared for. It was one that belonged to Kara, a responsibility that she was running from. He assumed that she was now thinking that if he could fight Tyrn, if this could somehow be twisted into a destined fight between the abandoner and the abandoned, then she wouldn’t have to deal with it. Perhaps that was true, to a certain extent. Perhaps there was a deep-seated need for revenge against Jhon that Tyrn would someday feel compelled to act upon, but Tyrn didn’t ask for Jhon to bring him the sword. He didn’t ask for Jhon to go to Bastion, into what was likely a trap.

He asked for Kara.

This was her destiny. She was intertwined with the Lightells, with Tyrn himself. Jhon may have been the one to make the choice to leave Tyrn behind, but Jhon had to suspect that there was something more maddening for Tyrn than that. There was something that Tyrn would want revenge for more than Jhon. It was against Kara. She was the one who was saved. If Jhon were Tyrn, he might find himself asking, ‘Why was Kara allowed to be rescued when I fell into the hands of the Sith?’

That was why Jhon could only say one thing to her now. “Very well then.”

Though he was going to say yes if for no other reason than to make her go away and let him continue on his way into Imperial Space, there was something more; something more benign, yet entire cynical. He wasn’t taking this responsibility from her because he wanted to make things easier for her, or because he wanted to help her avoid destiny. He was doing it to keep her safe, because he cared for her wellbeing, and because he simply didn’t believe that she could do what was necessary.

Tyrn represented more than just a ghost from her past who returned to haunt her. Everything about Kara, everything that made her who she was, began on the Serendipity. That battle, losing Tyrn… it all defined her for decades, and Jhon never saw any indication that those feelings of loss were resolved. They still lingered there. They were the true ghosts that would haunt her.

If she went to Bastion, if she went anywhere near Tyrn, she would hesitate. She would want to make things as they were again. He would have the upper hand. She may have been the Battle Master and the Lore Master, but Tyrn was forged in the literal fires of hell and lived to become Emperor. Few in the galaxy could match him, even a Jedi. Tyrn knew that. He wouldn’t have asked for her if it were any other way.

So Jhon would take this responsibility from her because she was weak, and Tyrn was strong.

“If there’s nothing else?”