Abeloth

Abeloth, self-styled as the Beloved Queen of the Stars and also known as the Bringer of Chaos and the Destructor, was an extremely powerful Force entity. Her dark side powers and immortality derived from her being corrupted by drinking from the Font of Power and bathing in the Pool of Knowledge. She first lived as the Servant, a mortal woman who served the powerful Ones on a jungle planet over a hundred thousand years before the Battle of Yavin. She eventually became the Mother, keeping the peace between the Father's warring Son and Daughter as a part of the family. However, she grew old while the Father and their children did not, and she feared she would lose her precious family. In a desperate attempt to hold onto the life she so loved, she drank from the Font of Power and bathed in the Pool of Knowledge. Her actions corrupted her, transforming the Mother into the twisted, immortal entity known as Abeloth.
When the Father discovered her crime, he departed the planet with his children and left Abeloth stranded. The Son and the Daughter enlisted the help of the Killiks to create massive technological artifacts, such as Centerpoint Station and Sinkhole Station, to imprison Abeloth in the Maw. According to the Thuruht Killiks, Abeloth managed to escape her prison whenever the Current of the Force was altered and the flow of time changed. Each time she escaped, the Son and the Daughter would return to the Killiks and defeat Abeloth, locking her back in her prison. This cycle repeated itself for thousands of years, though the Ones died during the Clone Wars after the Jedi Anakin Skywalker refused to take the Father's place as the Keeper of the Balance.
When Jacen Solo fell to the dark side in 40 ABY and became the Sith Lord Darth Caedus in an attempt to change his vision of a future where the Sith ruled over the Throne of Balance beside his daughter, Allana, he unintentionally unleashed Abeloth; she began to escape from her prison with the destruction of Centerpoint Station during Caedus' war against the Jedi, which threw the galaxy into turmoil. In 43 ABY, Abeloth used psychosis to remotely turn young Jedi into renegade agents, creating havoc on the galactic capital of Coruscant and pitting Galactic Alliance Chief of State Natasi Daala against the Jedi Order. Abeloth was then discovered and hunted down by the Jedi Grand Master Luke Skywalker and his son, Ben, as well as the Lost Tribe of Sith. A young Sith, Vestara Khai, saw Abeloth's true form and eventually joined the Skywalkers as part of an alliance.
Both the Jedi and the Sith fought and killed Abeloth in the Maw despite her exploiting their divisions, but the entity was also able to possess other beings by sharing her Force essence among multiple bodies, and she used the Sith Meditation Sphere Ship to travel to Pydyr and hide among the Fallanassi. She possessed their leader, Akanah, who was a former lover of Luke Skywalker's, and battled the Jedi and the Sith. Abeloth made High Lord Sarasu Taalon her pawn, only for Khai to kill the Sith and flee with the Skywalkers, falling increasingly in love with Ben. Abeloth subsequently fled to Nam Chorios, where she manipulated the Theran Listeners against the Skywalkers and Khai, but Master Skywalker defeated the entity by freeing Callista Ming, another former lover of his, from Abeloth's possession.
Abeloth nevertheless escaped and allied with the Sith Tribe, though her failure to dispose of Grand Lord Darish Vol prompted her to annihilate the Sith's capital city. Forces loyal to her, led by Gavar Khai, continued harrying the Jedi on Dromund Kaas and Upekzar, while Grand Lord Vol took advantage of the Galactic Alliance's political turmoil and sent his Sith to infiltrate Coruscant. However, Abeloth also had the same idea, possessing the beloved Senator Rokari Kem and working with High Lord Ivaar Workan to navigate the Alliance's political conspiracies and becoming elected as the new Chief of State. Wishing to be the "Beloved Queen of the Stars," Abeloth also possessed the Imperial Lydea Pagorski to help Admiral Daala realize her ambitions usurping the Imperial Head of State, Jagged Fel.
While Tahiri Veila and Boba Fett killed Abeloth's Pagorski avatar on Hagamoor 3, the entity had replaced Grand Lord Vol to control the Sith Tribe forces on Coruscant, concentrating them in the Jedi Temple. The attacking Jedi and Alliance forces were ambushed due to Abeloth's foresight and control of the Jedi Temple's computer core, and the entity also possessed the Sith Lady Korelei. Abeloth was enraged by the persistence of the Jedi and replenished and bolstered her power by feeding on the terror and anguish of those around her. To that end, she unleashed her wrath on Coruscant, creating groundquakes that produced volcanoes to inflict casualties upon billions of civilians.
Abeloth was desperate to re-create a family for herself on her own terms, and she abducted Ben Skywalker and Vestara Khai in an effort to force them to drink from the Font of Power on her world. They resisted her while Luke Skywalker and Darth Krayt, the Sith in the late Jacen Solo's vision, battled Abeloth in the astral realm beyond shadows. Jedi Master Saba Sebatyne also fought Abeloth at the Jedi Temple's computer core, and the struggles depleted Abeloth's Force essence, destroying the entity. Afterward, Luke Skywalker and the Jedi Council were convinced that Abeloth would recover and return, though not in their lifetimes. Heeding Raynar Thul and other Jedi Knights' findings from the Thuruht Killiks as well as the Jedi Masters Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi's reports of Anakin Skywalker's encounter with the Ones from long ago, Luke Skywalker intended to search for the realm of Mortis and obtain its dagger to ensure that Abeloth could be permanently killed.
==Biography==
===Once upon a time===
====Older but just never wiser====
The individual who would become Abeloth once lived as a mortal woman sometime before 100,000 BBY, as documented and remembered by the ancient Killik species' Thuruht hive, who served beings in the all-encompassing energy field of the Force known as the Celestials. She was created to serve the Ones—immortal manifestations of the Celestials consisting of the Father, the Son, and the Daughter, who coalesced in the vapor of a geyser on a mountainous forest world. The Son drank from the Font of Power while the Daughter swam in the Pool of Knowledge, and the two struggled against each other to claim areas of a forest; the Father had the burden of keeping the peace between the Son's darkness and the Daughter's luminescence. One day, a young woman appeared in the courtyard to serve the Son and the Daughter, compared to whom the woman looked barely older. With a wide smile and twinkling eyes, the woman held a ewer to fill the Son and Daughter's glasses, and the Father warmly returned her smile. The Servant kept the siblings distracted with games and chores, doted on the Father, and even channeled the Son's destructive energies into useful tools, with him creating cozy little rooms in the sides of a gorge with Force lightning.
Growing older, the Servant became a Mother to the siblings, working with the Son to create a long arcade through the gorge. With the Mother becoming elderly, the unaging Son and Daughter argued with the Father near the Font of Power, destroying parts of the world around them in the heat of debate. Meanwhile, the Mother snuck a drink from the Font, restoring her youthful appearance, and completed her transgression by swimming in the Pool of Knowledge. While a sorrowful and angry Father discovered her in the act at the basin's edge and was too late to pull her out, she smiled up at him, sly and defiant. The Son took the opportunity to attack the Father, but was stopped in the process by the Daughter.
====Marooned====
Nevertheless, far from transforming into a Celestial, Abeloth had emerged twisted by the power beyond her grasp, granting her immense power at the cost of corrupting her spirit into evil and her appearance into a demonic figure. According to Thuruht, Abeloth used her new powers to subdue the Son and the Daughter, but they were protected by a furious Father, who departed the planet with his children and left Abeloth stranded, fulfilling her deepest fear—abandonment by her family. This drove her to madness, fueling her desire to be loved and adored, with her anger corrupting her world into one where plants grew wild, the animals lived in terror, the rivers ran crimson, and lightning plagued the skies. Abeloth was able to control her planet, allowing the overgrown vegetation to prey on animals—which relied on photosynthesis to survive—unless she wanted otherwise.Fate of the Jedi: Abyss
===Prices and vices===
====Tale as old as time====
Abeloth, who thrived on the feeling of terror and was fearful of loneliness, escaped solitude for the first time following centuries of a massive war between six-armed cephalopods and saurians—whose biology corresponded with the Gree and the Kwa, who along with the Killiks were ancient client species of the Celestials.The Essential Guide to Warfare Abeloth took pleasure in watching three saurians being paraded by a group of cephalopods toward the Font of Power. The Gree originated from the Outer Rim Veragi sector's world of the same name, whereas the Kwa were native to the Outer Rim Quelii sector world Dathomir, and the two species respectively developed the hypergate and Infinity Gate travel technology.The Essential Atlas
Similar bouts of destruction, caused by Abeloth's chaos, occurred at least three more times as documented by Thuruht—three-eyed bipeds fled tentacled felines in a ruined city; woodland creatures succumbed to fangvines in a forest flattened by a blast; seabirds flew over islands of moldy flesh on an ocean world. The Killiks believed that Abeloth was freed following periods of great strife when the Current was turned, which happened when individuals wished to go where the Current would otherwise be unable to carry them and changed the Force, usurping the Celestials' dominion over the energy field. Turns of the Current meant the Force suffered as Abeloth, the Bringer of Chaos, shattered the status quo for a new order to take its place, changing the future. Typically, Abeloth escaped only after thousands of years of war.
At some point, sinuous carvings—reliefs similar to the ancient ophidian grotesques on the Core World Coruscant—resembling serpents, vines, tentacles, ropes, and entrails, were made in Abeloth's ruins as well as the Pool of Knowledge on her world, and the same reliefs existed on at least half a dozen planets that suffered cataclysms and rendered uninhabitable long before recorded history. Such worlds includedFate of the Jedi: Vortex the Inner Rim's – Based on corresponding data for Caulus Tertius system Caulus Tertius and the Kathol Outback's Shatuun. The latter world had no recorded signs of life for hundreds of thousands of years and was located in the Outer Rim's Kathol sector. — Based on corresponding data for Shatuun system In 1 BBY, academic Dr. Insmot Bowen and his researchers believed that the appearance of such reliefs in ancient civilizations' art corresponded with their contact with the Celestials and subsequent destruction. The relief's symbols corresponded with those of the "Destructors" in the legends of the Wild Space – Based on corresponding data for Kesh system world Kesh.
====Dream of getting out====
Each time Abeloth escaped, she was stopped by the joint efforts of the Son and the Daughter, who were only ever brought together by their resentment of Abeloth's chaos destroying the civilizations that they cultivated. Forced to contain Abeloth in order to protect the galaxy, the Brother and the Sister emerged from hiding and formed a pact with each other before calling upon the Killiks of Alderaan, a Core Worlds planet. Appearing as Architects of their species, the Force wielders extended their power to the Killiks and tasked them, among them Thuruht, to build wonders such as the Still Curtain, the Chasm of Forever, and "Qolaraloq," the World Puller, also named Centerpoint Station. It was a powerful tractor beam that firstly assembled the Core Worlds' Corellian system, and around 100,000 BBY, it exiled Abeloth from the wider galaxy by the precise arrangement of supermassive celestial bodies that included dozens of black holes around her, which became known as the Maw in the Outer Rim Territories' Kessel sector. Her planet was perfectly situated between a pair of black holes and blockaded by Sinkhole Station, a space station similar to Centerpoint that kept Abeloth's planet hidden.
In the next tens of thousands of years, the Architects faded from power and the Gree and the Kwa's dominance of the galaxy was usurped around 30,000 BBY by the Rakata species, who developed the first hyperdrives for sentient hyperspace travel that were passed down to other species such as Humans, and the Killiks and the Celestials subsequently disappeared throughout the galaxy.
In 3639 BBY, the Gree were concerned with old evil nemeses that they termed "green perpendicular" which were unleashed from the Gree Enclave planet Asation's Grand Hypergate—which was constructed by the Gree's progenitors for instantaneous one-way travel from an unknown origin point—and threatened to doom the entire galaxy in an endless cycle of destruction. The hypergate had been unsealed by the Sith Dread Masters to end the banishment of the "Terror from Beyond," an enormous tentacled beast also named Lotek'k, and sow fear across the stars. However, a hero of the Galactic Republic working with the Gree sent it back into the hypergate and re-sealed the device.
====All alone?====
Upon visiting the Maw, Force-sensitives felt the calling of Abeloth and developed bonds with the cluster that grew stronger over time, eventually drawing them to Sinkhole Station, where the beings meditated as Mind Walkers, infamously known as Mind Drinkers. Assembled from former members of dozens of Force traditions across time, they communed with Abeloth in the central chamber of the space station, which was bathed in a purple light.
The Father, the Son, and the Daughter later resided in the ethereal realm of Mortis until the time of the Clone Wars, which was part of a series of conflicts that had raged for over five thousand years between the Jedi—who aimed to serve the Force—and the Sith—who aimed to make the Force serve themselves— starting from the Great Hyperspace War of 5000 BBY.Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force The Father was dying in the time of the Clone Wars, and his role as Keeper of the Balance was intended to be passed on to the Chosen One, a Human Jedi Knight named Anakin Skywalker who was destined to bring balance to the Force. The Father lured Skywalker and his fellow Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ahsoka Tano on a mission to the Mortis Monolith in 21 BBY, when the monolith was found in the Chrelythiumn system in Wild Space.
While Skywalker refused to remain on Mortis, the conflict between the Ones came to a head during his visit, and all three of the Ones were slain with the use of the Dagger of Mortis, which was the only weapon against their immortality—as well as Abeloth's. The Dagger, along with the entire world, vanished afterward, but Anakin Skywalker nevertheless fulfilled the Chosen One prophecy by ending the Sith rule over the galaxy in the subsequent Galactic Civil War, killing Emperor Palpatine in 4 ABY to restore balance for a while. Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi had filed a report on Mortis in the Jedi Archives following his mission, and Master Yoda had told the legend of Mortis from Clone Wars to Jedi-in-training Luke Skywalker, Anakin's son, while training him on the planet Dagobah in 3 ABY, although the trainee thought the tale to be a parable.
===Covert narcissism===
====Incipient tendrils====
The former Jedi Callista Ming embarked on a quest to rediscover her connection to the Force after she and her lover Luke Skywalker foiled the Death Seed plague and parted ways on the planet Nam Chorios in the Outer Rim's Meridian sectorPlanet of Twilight in 13 ABY. Ming's odyssey brought her into the Maw, where she encountered Abeloth, who absorbed her being, as she had done to other victims. The entity was then able to appear as both Ming's body at the time of possession—which was previously donated by the Jedi Dr. Cray Mingla—as well as Ming's original body.
During the Yuuzhan Vong War, Jedi Grand Master Luke Skywalker and Master Mara Jade Skywalker's son, Ben Skywalker, was placed in the care of a Jedi base in the Maw named Shelter, near Abeloth's prison planet, in 27 ABY. Shelter had been set up in 26 ABY as a refuge for the Jedi Order's younglings under the supervision of Masters Kam and Tionne Solusar. As a two-year-old, Ben felt Abeloth's dark tentacle of need luring him and attempting to take the place of his parents after they had left him at Shelter. The alien sense of immense loneliness that Ben felt scared the young boy, who withdrew from the Force and remained afraid of the energy field for years afterward. Nevertheless, Abeloth successfully connected with the vulnerable minds of other infant Jedi.
====Enter the anti-hero====
Following the Yuuzhan Vong War's endFate of the Jedi: Omen in 29 ABY, the Jedi Jacen Solo embarked on a five-year journey in which he visited the Aing-Tii people on their homeworld in the Kathol Rift, a region of nebulae in the Kathol sector. The Rift had formed following a hyperspace launch gate disaster caused by the struggle between several Jedi and a Dark Jedi seeking the Kathol species' Codex and subsequently became considered to be a creation of the Celestials. Solo came across the Codex relic, which had been kept by the Aing-Tii and automatically detected galactic-scale disturbances in the Force,Star Wars Gamemaster Handbook and it gave him a sense of unease occurring in the Maw. Solo therefore traveled there against the advice of Aing-Tii Tadar'Ro. As the Mind Walkers of Sinkhole Station later recalled, Solo went with them to "beyond shadows," an astral realm in the Force of individuals' spiritual Force essences that mirrored the physical appearance of Abeloth's world and was reachable by separating oneself from one's physical body.
Solo was not tempted by the Font of Power and refused to bathe in the Pool of Knowledge; however he saw a vision of a dark man—Darth Krayt—surrounded by his One Sith acolytes, including his Force-sensitive daughter, Allana Djo Solo, on the Throne of Balance, controlling the fate of the Force. The vision at the Pool of Knowledge haunted Solo. Instead of working together with Master Luke Skywalker, who was his uncle, Solo turned to the dark side in his quest to prevent the envisioned future and became the Sith Lord Darth Caedus, starting the Second Galactic Civil War in 40 ABY.
That year, the civil war led to the destruction of Centerpoint Station. The loss of Centerpoint destabilized Sinkhole Station, which began to fall apart and fail to contain Abeloth's power; Abeloth gravitated toward Luke Skywalker, the brightest spot in the Force that she sensed, and a crescent-shaped gap adjacent to the star system containing Abeloth's world developed as the black holes began to shift. The Mind Walkers were also able to travel beyond shadows as they started to see life as an illusion, and that the only true form of existence was in the Force itself, beyond shadows. 
Around the same time, Force-sensitive spies who served former Imperial Admiral Natasi Daala's Maw colony, such as siblings Rhondi and Rolund Tremaine, felt a calling through the Force that beckoned them to desert en masse and travel to Sinkhole Station, where they joined the Mind Walkers. The war ended a year later when the Jedi killed Caedus.
====Emerging enigma====
In 43 ABY, several Jedi who had spent time at Shelter during the Yuuzhan Vong War began to become psychotic as a result of Abeloth stretching influence toward Luke Skywalker. These Jedi unwittingly served as spies for Abeloth, and they suddenly believed that impostors had replaced everyone around them except for their fellow psychotic beings. They additionally exhibited esoteric Force abilities that were far beyond their skillset.
Jedi Leia Organa Solo, who confronted the rogue Jedi Seff Hellin with her husband Han and their granddaughter, Allana, found that Hellin had contacted Tendrando Arms co-owner Lando Calrissian. Hellin inquired about manufacturing YVH combat droids that could hunt Mandalorians, who comprised the mercenaries hired by Galactic Alliance Chief of State Daala, and the afflicted Jedi brutally maimed and killed opponents while helping Leia Organa Solo rescue Allana from a kidnapping on the planet TarisMillennium Falcon in the Outer Rim's Ojoster sector.
She also witnessed Hellin disarming multiple soldiers via the Force, paralyzing them, and running at great speed, which were Force abilities that Hellin could not have learned himself—they were instead abilities that only Darth Caedus was known to have used. Allana also claimed that she was reminded of him through the Force when she met Seff Hellin. A concerned Luke Skywalker thus recalled all members of his Jedi Order to the galactic capital world of Coruscant.
In 43.5 ABY, establishes that Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi begins in 43.5 ABY, indicating that the events of Fate of the Jedi: Omen begin at that time. Jedi Valin Horn had succumbed to the psychosis and was detained in the Jedi Temple for a time, placed under the care and study of Master Cilghal. Horn then escaped and attempted to travel off-world, but was captured by Galactic Alliance forces, despite the Jedi Order's wishes to handle the matter internally. Seff Hellin subsequently tried to break Horn out of prison, but was stopped by a clandestine group led by Jedi Knight Jaina Solo, and the afflicted Jedi was secretly detained in the Temple for Cilghal and Jedi Knight Tekli to study.Fate of the Jedi: Outcast
Even prior to Seff Hellin's raid on the prison, Chief Daala had sought to crack down on an Order that she felt became increasingly out of control, and took advantage of the political climate to prosecute Grand Master Skywalker, who was exiled from Coruscant. Along with Jedi Knight Ben Skywalker, the Grand Master embarked on an odyssey to trace the steps that Jacen Solo had taken across the galaxy following the Yuuzhan Vong War.
====A stare directly at the Maw…====
Meanwhile, Han, Leia, and Allana Solo traveled to the planet Kessel in the Maw to investigate irregular seismic activities at their friends Lando Calrissian, Tendra Risant Calrissian, and Nien Nunb's holdings there, which incidentally threatened the whole of Tendrando Arms. During her stay on Kessel, when she was left alone, Allana felt a calling in the Force from the direction of Kessel's garrison moon; while the girl could not identify the individual, it was the call of Abeloth, frightening the girl. Abeloth quietly communicated thoughts to Allana's mind, asking about the girl's identity, prompting a fearful sensation—though Allana wished to reply and reassure her mysterious caller's sense of yearning and hunger, her fear and caution kept her in check. When Abeloth explicitly asked for the girl's name, Allana felt as though if she offered her name—which she and her family had always kept secret to protect the girl's status as Jacen Solo's daughter and heir to the Hapes Consortium, using "Amelia" as her public name—would be taken from her forever. Abeloth's presence subsided after a couple minutes, leaving Allana scared.
Sometime later, when the Solos had learned that ancient technology—believed by Leia to be linked to Centerpoint Station—had been sparking a series of detonations that was intended to destroy the entirety of Kessel, they enlisted veteran pilots on a mission to save the world. Although Han and Leia intended to keep Allana on the garrison moon to protect her during the mission, the girl insisted otherwise, explaining that she had encountered a "sad but scary" presence from space. Worried that harm could come after Allana on the garrison moon, Han and Leia decided to take her with them on their mission, which was successful. Although Allana did not report any further contact with the specter, the notion made her anxious and costed her sleep, which convinced the Solos to return home on Coruscant afterward.
Anti-Jedi sentiment grew on Coruscant due to sensationalist holojournalists such as Javis Tyrr capitalizing on Jedi Jysella Horn, Natua Wan, Yaqeel Saav'etu, and Bazel Warv's rampages in the capital after becoming afflicted with Abeloth's psychosis. The Galactic Alliance further arrested Darth Caedus' former apprentice Tahiri Veila for murder of Imperial leader Gilad Pellaeon during the Second Galactic Civil War and brought her to trial. Additionally, Jedi Leia Organa Solo learned from Jedi Raynar Thul that Bazel Warv's ability to pass through beskar metal was similar to the Killiks' ability to change the state of matter at Centerpoint Station, using the power of the Force granted to them by the Celestials.
===Tentative allies===
====…but never clearer====
When Luke Skywalker followed Jacen Solo's steps and came into contact with the Aing-Tii Codex in the Kathol Rift, the relic made his light side presence ripple through the Force, alerting the Lost Tribe of Sith, an isolated civilization of Sith on the nearby planet Kesh. Skywalker also felt a disturbance in the Force emanating from the Maw, just as Jacen Solo did years prior. Soon afterward, Abeloth also sent out a call through the Force that reached the entire Tribe, evoking feelings of desire so powerful in the dark side it caused pain. The call also reached Ship, a sentient Sith Meditation Sphere programmed to serve the Sith and to obey a strong will. Ship had been helping the Lost Tribe build a Sith conquest armada for two years, and despite being under the command of Sith learner Vestara Khai at the time, Ship followed Abeloth's call immediately, leaving the Tribe to travel to her planet in the Maw. Desperate to reclaim Ship and eager to take the opportunity to kill the Jedi Grand Master, the Tribe sent a recovery team led by Khai's master, Lady Olaris Rhea, that followed Ship to the Maw.
Along with Ben Skywalker, Luke Skywalker also traveled to the Maw aboard their vessel, Jade Shadow, and heeded the Aing-Tii Tadar'Ro's advice, which was the same that had been given to Jacen Solo when he left the Kathol Rift in search of the infamous Mind Drinkers—that "the Path of True Enlightenment runs through the Chasm of Perfect Darkness." The Grand Master drew the parallel between those words and an ancient proverb of Ashla, which was the light side of the Je'daii Order that preceded the Jedi,Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi 0 and determined that their destination was directly between two celestial bodies—the only such phenomenon they found in the Maw was Stable Zone One.
The Jedi had discussed Ben Skywalker having felt a dark tentacle during his time at Shelter, and the younger Jedi was able to sense a familiar dark presence that tried to push him away in anger. However, the Jedi opened himself up in the Force and, grasping the presence, pulled at it. Although the specter jerked back and attempted to shrink, Ben Skywalker firmly held on and tracked it to Stable Zone One, where he and his father found Sinkhole Station. Aboard, the Skywalkers felt the dark presence with a hunger longing for their touch, and it not only permeated the place and was concentrated in the facility's center, but also writhed up inside them, which Luke thought meant the presence had been waiting for them. Luke specifically felt the tentacle urging him to come closer with a familiar presence that recognized and cared for him, desiring his eternal companionship.
At the central chamber of the station, the Skywalkers found the Mind Walkers—among them was Jedi Qwallo Mode, who had succumbed to Abeloth's psychosis and believed that all those around him were imposters, but who explained that he no longer thought so after he went beyond shadows; instead, he believed that those in the physical world were not real, for the Mind Walkers went by the proverb that there was no life, only the Force. At the pressing of Ben Skywalker, the Mind Walkers confirmed that the alarms on Sinkhole Station were activated twenty-seven months ago—shortly after Centerpoint Station's destruction.
====Monster on a hill====
Around the same time, Ship communicated with Khai in an attempt to make her understand that he was obeying a stronger will; one far more ancient and powerful. He then let her track him into the Maw's crescent-shaped gap, and as her group of Sith approached Sinkhole Station and Abeloth aboard the Eternal Crusader, they sensed a dark tentacle of need that wanted Khai, as well as the other Sith, to join it in the abyss so that it could keep them safe for eternity. The sensation became physical, dragging them toward the abyss to the Sith's terror. The Sith subsequently landed on Abeloth's planet to track Ship on foot, with Khai privately discussing with Rhea the possibility that the world was home to the "Destructors," who were described in Keshiri myth to be the ones whom the Sith "Protectors" would save Kesh from.
The Sith Master Yuvar Xal had found a cave in the volcano the group had landed beside and was constrained upside-down by a purple cocoon with gray tentacles at the back wall. Upon finding Xal, Khai and apprentice Ahri Raas slashed at the cocoon with their lightsabers to free him as Lady Rhea watched from outside the cave. Although the tentacles vanished, Khai noticed a slurping sound from a dark tunnel, and when she turned to it with her glow rod in hand, she met a svelt woman with gray eyes and honey-colored hair that reached her shoulders.
Raas slashed through the woman with his lightsaber but became incapacitated himself the next instant as he was thrown into the cavern wall. Khai moved to attack the woman too, yet she was suspended in the air—realizing in the moment that perhaps Ship had led the Sith to free the Destructors—before slamming into the ground when the entity dropped her hand. The Force user apologized as she did so, saying that she had been unsure as to whether Khai was real.
====Bad omen====
In order to discover how Jacen Solo had fallen to the dark side, Luke Skywalker let himself be guided by the Mind Walkers to reach the realm beyond shadows. At the Font of Power, a curious Skywalker directly approached a cloud of darkness that gathered in the Font's steam, which coalesced into draping, golden hair, small silver eyes sank deep into the eye sockets, and a mouth that stretched from ear to ear. The feminine figure had short arms that ended in long tentacles, and as she materialised, Skywalker felt a tentacle of cold and wet nothingness that slithered around and into one of his legs, moving up within his body.
A step backward in surprise simply moved the figure with the Jedi, who found Abeloth's cold voice uttering his name and telling him to come familiar, like a half-remembered dream-lover's whisper. She smiled and extended a tentacle to Skywalker, but he withdrew, and Abeloth vanished. Mind Walkers Feryl and Seek Ryontarr informed the Jedi that Jacen Solo had not even been tempted and that Skywalker had done the right thing.
====Foe on the beach====
Instead of her true form, as she had appeared beyond shadows, Abeloth sometimes changed her appearance slightly but seemed largely Human to the Sith, whom she befriended; they were ignorant of the fact that it was she who commanded Ship. She shared her name and claimed to have been stranded on the planet for the past thirty years, expressing her desire to depart to Kesh with the Sith, and that she lived in the volcano cave as the plants were less aggressive there. Still, none of the plants on the planet attacked whenever Abeloth was near, and the castaway brought the Sith to enjoy swimming for several hours in the nearby river each morning of their stay. They would then lounge on the beach alongside drendek lizards before Lady Rhea's summons at a riverbank to continue their search for Ship. Due to the horrors experienced by such patrols, the Sith were unconcerned with the reason for their safety while in Abeloth's vicinity.
After weeks, Rhea summoned the Sith earlier than usual, before midday, and Abeloth stood inspecting the Sith from Rhea's boulder as though she was in command of the search party. Rhea announced that the Sith had failed in their search for Ship and that they were to return at once to the Eternal Crusader. However, Abeloth exclaimed that the Sith could not leave without Ship, arousing Rhea's suspicions given Abeloth's claim to have been stranded on her world. When challenged by Rhea, Abeloth said that she was simply concerned for their searching party; Khai watched and saw that Rhea was wishing to use Abeloth to make up for their loss of Ship, and the apprentice grew more skeptical of the entity as she analyzed their situation. Khai's thoughts were interrupted by Ship, who stated that the Sith should not have arrived as they could never leave.
Although Khai was wary of Abeloth and how another useless hunt for Ship would frustrate Lady Rhea, Abeloth watched and eavesdropped on her as the apprentice saw Ship approaching from down the river, and demanded she speak of what she saw. The entire search party then heard from the Eternal Crusader that they sighted and were tracking Ship, prompting Rhea to issue orders and then rush after the meditation sphere herself. Abeloth tailed the Sith Lady, and Khai followed suit, taking advantage of Abeloth's presence to attempt to will Ship back to her. However, she sensed Ship's sense of resignation and fear over the being that had been forcing him to obey, and hoped that once the Sith had caught up to him, Lady Rhea would be able to overcome the being and in turn demand that Ship obey her.
====Addicted to betrayal====
It was then that Rhea was seized by a siphon reed, and Abeloth caught Khai's arm, warning her that she could be next if she failed to move on. Nevertheless, the defiant apprentice jumped into the river and rescued her master, and as she did so, Khai realized that Abeloth had betrayed them. She and Rhea then found Master Xal and Ahri Raas with Abeloth in their company; though the others were oblivious, Khai was able to see Abeloth in her true form, and was shaken by the revelation, which she kept to herself. Lady Rhea was worried by Khai's apparent fear and exasperation, but the apprentice took newfound resolve in her belief that the Sith could defeat anything if she understood it.
As Ship flew past the group, he explained to Khai that her will, though strong, was silly, for Abeloth was almighty and thus his master. Despite Ship's disagreement, Khai affirmed her resolve that Sith would never lose. Abeloth then touched Khai's shoulder with her tentacles, telling her that she would be seen "safely across the river."
====Terrified to look down====
Beyond shadows, Feryl and Ryontarr led Luke Skywalker to the Pool of Knowledge, where the Jedi felt Abeloth's demanding presence reaching out as if a desperate lover. Despite Skywalker's worry that to answer her call was to be consumed by it, he speculated that the demanding presence could have been a remnant of his late wife, Mara Jade, due to its familiarity, and approached the pool. While he initially saw an aged version of himself in the pool's reflection, he then saw the phantom of Abeloth, as he had seen her at the Font of Power. Despite the temptations of the Pool of Knowledge, Skywalker knew that even if the figure was a part of Mara Jade, it was not a worthwhile form, and backed away.
Abeloth beckoned Skywalker to her with a voice in his mind, but he refused. Before he could leave, Feryl and Ryontarr suggested that he should stay and seek Jacen Solo's vision at the pool, and that perhaps "the lady in the mists" had been hiding the vision as she did not want Skywalker to suffer as Solo did. Skywalker thus looked again and saw, instead of Abeloth, a vision in which an older Allana Solo was sitting on the Throne of Balance, surrounded by friends from throughout the galaxy. Addressing Skywalker's resultant confusion, Feryl and Ryontarr explained that Jacen Solo had seen another vision in which a dark man sat on a golden throne, surrounded by his acolytes, and that had prompted Solo to rush out of the Maw in a bid to prevent the vision from becoming reality.
In the weeks during his father's visit beyond shadows, Ben Skywalker learned of the Mind Walkers' history from the Tremaine siblings, and prevented them from depriving the Jade Shadow supplies and cutting off the Grand Master's life support—the Mind Walkers wanted to keep the Jedi with them beyond shadows. After watching the Mind Walker guides Feryl and Ryontarr die and realizing that he was growing paranoid himself, Ben Skywalker decided to go beyond shadows to retrieve his father.
Accompanied by Rhondi Tremaine, Ben Skywalker went beyond shadows and heard a voice utter "come" upon his arrival at the Lake of Apparitions. The pair joined Luke Skywalker, Feryl, and Ryontarr as they looked toward Abeloth, who was half-hidden about fifty paces away in the Mists of Forgetfulness at the lake's edge—Ben Skywalker recognized that she was the same presence that reached out to him at Shelter. With their arrival and Ben's insistence that they leave, Luke confronted Ryontarr as to the Mind Walker's reason for stalling his departure, and Ryontarr revealed that he had been doing so at the demand of "the lady in the mist." Although Luke resolved to confront the lady, Tremaine attempted to tell the Jedi that doing so was not a good idea, but she was stopped by Feryl. A reluctant Tremaine thus led the group across the lake's surface, the Mirror of Remembrance, where the Skywalkers met the deceased Anakin Solo and Mara Jade Skywalker of their family.
After the dead had imparted their advice to the living Skywalkers, Mara Jade urged them to turn back, warning them against approaching Abeloth, whom she described as "one of the old ones." The Skywalkers continued nevertheless and spoke with the deceased Darth Caedus, formerly Jacen Solo; before disappearing, he stated that he did not know who was the figure standing in the Mists of Forgetfulness but said that the Skywalkers had all the time to reach the mists and learn for themselves. Distrusting the fallen Jedi, the Skywalkers turned and left the realm beyond shadows. Before they did, Luke pushed away Feryl, who objected to their sudden decision to leave and reiterated that they could learn the identity of the lady in the mists.
====Tired of her scheming====
For weeks, the Sith crew of the Eternal Crusader continued in pursuit of Ship, and they dwindled in number to fifteen beings. Master Xal and apprentice Ahri Raas had been planning to usurp Lady Rhea's leadership due to her injuries, and Abeloth had spoken with Xal about his ambitions to become a lord. On the day that the Eternal Crusader was left with only one shuttle, Abeloth despaired at night that they would never capture Ship, prompting Rhea to call for the final shuttle to retrieve the search party, but the shuttle was destroyed upon landing. Later, when Ahri Raas alerted her that Ship had reappeared and was approaching the Sith group, a surprised and mistrustful Vestara Khai nearly attacked Raas before withdrawing, claiming that she was simply wary of Abeloth and her plants.
The Sith gathered around the boulder on which Abeloth stood, and although a surprised but resolved Xal was counting on Khai's failure to command Ship, Khai was committed to forestalling the power struggle, and Ship complied with her commands to retrieve the Sith; Abeloth looked at Khai grimly as she did so, making her shudder, and when Ship landed, his viewport faced Abeloth. Khai remained suspicious of Abeloth, and though Rhea promised Abeloth that only the ride to the Eternal Crusader would be crowded, the entity insisted on capturing Luke and Ben Skywalker first, playing on both Rhea and Master Xal's ambitions to be greeted with promotions by Kesh's Circle of Lords.
In response to Rhea's objections, Abeloth angrily pointed out that the Sith had succeeded in retaking Ship, leaving them free to capture the Skywalkers, and reassured the Sith Lady that she wished to leave her planet and would be on Kesh to contain the Jedi. While Rhea was deceived, Vestara Khai became certain that only she herself saw Abeloth's true nature, and that Abeloth was letting her live simply because Khai's struggle amused her; Abeloth gazed at the girl at that moment. The entity then held a private conversation with Xal and Raas on the other side of Ship, while Khai convinced Lady Rhea that Abeloth had been playing them over the course of the hunt, and that she had complete control of Ship. Khai and Rhea thus resolved to kill the Skywalkers upon finding them and stealing the Jedi's ship for themselves.
====Watch your back, kid====
After Ship allowed only Xal and Raas to retrieve supplies from the Eternal Crusader, which they then left abandoned in a decaying orbit, the Sith force agreed to kill Luke and Ben Skywalker and return to Kesh with news of Abeloth's power, which they believed would grant them glory from the Circle of Lords. Khai and Rhea in particular were perplexed by Abeloth's willingness to sacrifice her Sith crew simply to capture the two Jedi. Nevertheless, the Sith boarded Sinkhole Station and attacked the Jedi, who had just woken up from beyond shadows—Luke had been there for weeks while Ben had only ventured there for a few days. In the midst of ambushing the Skywalkers, Xal's attempt to betray Khai mid-battle backfired; both Xal and Raas were killed in the ambush, and the Sith failed to capture the Jedi.
Instead, the Jedi, wishing to unravel the mystery of the station, resolved to take one of the assailants prisoner—Luke Skywalker briefly captured Vestara Khai and left a blood trail on her. While Khai was able to escape, the other Sith, including Lady Rhea, were killed by the Jedi, who fled Sinkhole Station aboard the Jade Shadow. The Jedi then tracked Khai's movements through her blood trail, leaving the Maw via Kessel and to the Outer Rim world of DathomirFate of the Jedi: Backlash in the Quelii sector. En route, Ben Skywalker simply informed the Jedi leadership on Coruscant that a Sith threat had been gathering in the Maw Cluster, while Khai alerted the Sith Tribe to her encounters with the Jedi and Abeloth. Unbeknownst to either her or the Jedi, the Tribe tasked High Lord Sarasu Taalon and his portion of the Sith armada with gaining Abeloth's cooperation after the Sith had killed the Skywalkers.
Having joined Luke Skywalker on Dathomir in 43 ABY, Leia Organa Solo relayed Allana's experiences on Kessel to the Grand Master, who became convinced that the presence that reached out to the girl was Abeloth. Days later, in 44 ABY, High Lord Taalon's fleet intercepted the Jade Shadow leaving Dathomir carrying the two Skywalkers, Vestara Khai, and Jedi ally Dyon Stadd aboard. Khai's father, Sith Saber Gavar Khai, was among the forces led by Taalon, who lied that the Tribe's apprentices had been suffering from the same psychosis inflicted on the Jedi by Abeloth, and he proposed that the Jedi and Sith stand together against Abeloth; as part of the alliance, Vestara was allowed to remain in the custody and care of the Jedi.
===Crisis of faith===
====Passing by unbeknownst====
Determined that they could defeat Abeloth together, Luke Skywalker agreed to ally with the Sith. In preparation for their joint mission to the Maw, the Jedi arranged a rendezvous with Lando Calrissian over the Hutt Space planet Klatooine to hire Calrissian's asteroid tug, the Rockhound, for protecting the Sith vessels on the perilous journey through the black hole cluster.
While venturing together, Vestara Khai and Ben Skywalker developed a budding romantic attraction to each other, and each wanted to turn the other toward their side of the Force and join their affiliation. When Abeloth's psychosis struck Dyon Stadd on Klatooine, Khai expressed compassion for him while she and Skywalker were in pursuit, and added that capturing victims alive was crucial as the Sith's apprentices were being harmed by Abeloth as well; however, Skywalker felt almost as though her concern for Abeloth's influence was an excuse that seemingly revealed Khai's embarrassment for her own compassion—a key aspect of adhering to the light side and the Jedi path. They subsequently stopped Stadd before he could intrude on the sacred grounds surrounding the Fountain of Ancients, but Skywalker and his father later confirmed that the alleged psychosis inflicted by Abeloth on young Sith was a lie on the Tribe's part.
While sleeping aboard the Jade Shadow in wait of Calrissian in the Klatooine system, Luke dreamed of a feminine presence that he registered as his beloved Mara Jade's—the Shadow had been her personal transport in the years prior. Ben also felt the presence, believing that his mother's spirit was caring for them. The familiar presence alleviated Luke's loneliness, and they exchanged their mutual sadness of losing each other, promising to be together again one day. She further rested against his back and offered words of support, urging him to return to the Maw; the Grand Master had been expressing his concerns with his son's relationship with Vestara Khai and his eagerness to break his uneasy alliance with the Sith. The dreams made his sleep restful, and prompted him to request that the Sith flotilla depart for the Maw early, planning to allow Calrissian and the Rockhound to catch up with them mid-journey.
====Another guiding light====
However, in pushing for the flotilla's journey into the Maw, Luke Skywalker allowed the Tribe to leave two Sith vessels in the Klatooine system at High Lord Taalon's request. Taalon dispatched a group of Sith to retrieve a portion of the Fountain of the Ancients for its aesthetic appeal, desecrating the sacred Fountain and triggering an uprising on Klatooine that quickly abolished the Klatooinians' and Niktos' enslavement to the Hutts; coupled with the efforts of the Freedom Flight slavery abolitionist organization, the event went on to inspire a wave of uprisings by enslaved people across the galaxy. Grand Master Skywalker confronted Taalon about the desecration of the Fountain, which also lost their anti-Abeloth force one frigate, but proceeded to suggest that they investigate Sinkhole Station before they made a landing on Abeloth's planet—the Skywalkers were convinced that the station played a key role in containing Abeloth's power and were hoping to repair it.
As the group ventured into the Maw under the Rockhound protection, Ben Skywalker could not find the same tentacle presence of Abeloth that he had used to reach Sinkhole Station the first time. However, Vestara Khai provided her star map of the Maw to navigate the fleet, and she and the Skywalkers were surprised to find that the crescent-shaped gap surrounding Abeloth's world had enlarged into a semi-circle. Closing in, they found that Sinkhole Station had been utterly wrecked, with all of the hundreds of Mind Walkers aboard killed.
A Sith frigate flew crashing into the debris field, but the Rockhound saved another from such a fate and cleared the way toward Abeloth's planet for the flotilla. Contemplating the scene, Luke Skywalker suspected that Abeloth may be too powerful for even he and his companions to counter, and the Skywalkers asked that Khai speak more about the entity. She revealed how Abeloth manipulated one's emotions and described her true form, which Luke confirmed was how he saw her while Mind Walking.
On the approach to Abeloth's world, the group sensed Ship and his sense of conflictedness and despair; he did not wish to harm the Sith. Meanwhile, Dyon Stadd heard Abeloth's call in his thoughts despite being drugged and shackled aboard the Jade Shadow. Confused, he was manipulated by Vestara Khai into thinking that the alleged imposters who replaced the real Sith were secretly on Abeloth's side, acting against the alleged imposter Skywalkers, and agreed to lead the Sith to Abeloth.
====Seemed like the right thing at the time====
Recognizing the planet's features, the Skywalkers realized that beyond shadows was a counterpart of physical reality, and set the Jade Shadow down at the original Sith landing site at Khai's direction. They regrouped with the Sith, who took atmospheric vessels that descended from their frigates. With Luke Skywalker's guidance, the Sith High Lord Taalon, Saber Gavar Khai, and Captain Leeha Faal then went beyond shadows alongside the Grand Master in order to find Abeloth's location. They traversed the Lake of Apparitions, but as they did so, Captain Faal was seized by several pale purple hands and dragged into the Depths of Eternity; she had made many an enemy. Before the group headed much further into the Mists of Forgetfulness, Skywalker summoned Mara Jade and asked her for guidance.
Knowing that she could not dissuade her husband from the danger of Abeloth, the late Jedi Master told him that she could not be found beyond shadows if she did not desire it. When Skywalker thanked Mara Jade for her presence in his rest aboard the Jade Shadow, she told him that the presence he had felt was not her, shocking the Grand Master—it had been Abeloth. Cautioning her husband again and reaffirming her love for him, Mara Jade withdrew, and Luke Skywalker promptly had his group return from beyond shadows.
As they did so, Dyon Stadd escaped with Khai's help, having been asked to find Abeloth and tell her of the Sith's plan against the Skywalkers; as Stadd ran toward Abeloth through the carnivorous plant life, none harmed him, which he took as a sign of fortune. Sensing Abeloth waiting on the volcano before him, Stadd was careful to avoid being tracked by the Jedi, and moved half-walking, half-sliding—however, the escapee was oblivious of the fact that Khai had planted a tracking device on him. Abeloth welcomed him, holding his hands and touching his cheeks, explaining that Stadd's kind had once been with her in the Maw and were waking up throughout the galaxy, heeding her call and fulfilling their purpose to her.
Assuring Stadd that he would be with them and her forever, she suddenly transformed from a loving appearance to her true, monstrous form. Freezing a terrified Stadd in place, Abeloth thrusted her tentacles into his skull and brain, seemingly sucking at and burning his innards. Placing her wide mouth upon his, Abeloth opened her jaw to reveal a luminous mist that siphoned Stadd's life force. Sensing that the Jedi were approaching, she thanked Stadd for his exceptional service, replenishing her for the first time in a long time, and left him for dead.
====Memories feel like weapons====
On the Jade Shadow, Khai informed the Skywalkers that she was tracking Stadd in the aim of tricking Abeloth. Luke also revealed that the feminine presence he—and his son—had been sensing aboard the Shadow was not Mara Jade, but Abeloth; Luke was determined to use the entity's particular interest in him against her. A group of twenty-two Jedi and Sith then made their way to Abeloth's cave at her volcano, although two Sith were lost to the vicious fauna. They found Stadd, barely alive, who told Ben Skywalker his realization that he had been tricked by Abeloth, and that her influence had made him believe he was surrounded by imposters.
Grand Master Skywalker expressed his thoughts that Abeloth had gone through the cave tunnel, lying in wait to attack the group from a better vantage point beyond. Unable to detect Abeloth via the Force, High Lord Taalon reluctantly agreed with Skywalker to leave three Sith with Dyon Stadd to remain at the cave's entrance while the rest forayed ahead. While the Sith considered the lack of traps in the tunnel a boon, Master Skywalker warned them that perhaps Abeloth was gathering her power to face them directly instead. As they neared the exit, he led the group, lightsabers raised to attack, rushing into the open courtyard before them.
Master Skywalker recognized the courtyard from beyond shadows, when he first encountered Abeloth at the Font of Power. The entity was summoned by him, and she appeared behind the group in the guise of Callista Ming. Appealing to Luke in the aspect of his former lover, she shocked the Jedi so greatly he compared it to the moment long ago when Darth Vader revealed that he was his father—Anakin Skywalker. Dazed by Abeloth's bright features and warm presence as Ming, his love for her gushed back, and the two embraced each other. At the same time, Abeloth invaded Sarasu Taalon's mind, freezing the Sith in place and summoning his deepest fear: retribution by all those who he had wronged, pursuing and painstakingly tearing him apart. The vision rattled the High Lord, who adopted a constantly anxious attitude; in order to prevent his downfall, he must not ever falter.
Communicating with her mind telepathically, Skywalker realized that Ming had been possessed by Abeloth, and her sweet longing turning desperate, with tentacles slipping into his being's core, promising to be together forever. At that, Skywalker became heartbroken, wishing to free Ming from Abeloth's darkness, but stating that he could not help her. In response, the entity wore a shocked face and sobbed at his rejection, falling to her knees, and in three voices she declared that Skywalker was dooming all that he loved.
====Dance with the devil====
Partly reverting to her true form, Abeloth prepared to battle Skywalker, but realized all too late that the hundreds of Sith in the area had begun weaving a dark side control web overhead. The Tribe had learned the technique from the Nightsisters that they had captured on Dathomir. Enraged, Abeloth targeted Ben Skywalker. The Jedi and the Sith charged at Abeloth, who with a flick of her tentacles used the Force to seize Vestara Khai and strike her with lightning; the attack was deflected by Khai back at Abeloth, but spiky plant roots stabbed Khai before she was dropped onto the ground, her injuries distracting Ben.
The young Jedi raced from the mayhem of the battle and briefly tended to Khai, but made to leave her after ascertaining that her wounds were non-fatal. However, the Sith lied to Skywalker, claiming that she had been poisoned. Luke Skywalker was thus left only with Taalon, Gavar Khai, and two other Sith to combat Abeloth; she disappeared mid-fight, and Taalon killed one of his Sith and nearly seared the Jedi Master. Abeloth's mocking laughter seemingly echoed from every direction as she reappeared at the courtyard's far end, whirling in a dance as she fended off the four remaining combatants. They began to wear her down, and Gavar Khai surged toward Abeloth, but instead of bringing his blade down on her, it swung at Luke Skywalker.
Ben discovered that Vestara Khai had deceived him. He dueled her father while his own father pressed the attack on Abeloth, who struggled against a Grand Master determined to destroy her. The other Sith tightened their control web in an attempt to trap her, stifling her powers in the process, to the entity's terror. Meanwhile, in the planet's orbit, Jaina Solo and her astromech droid, Rowdy, engaged Ship in starfighter combat—Abeloth had instructed the meditation sphere to remain in the atmosphere to potentially support her.
Gathering her strength, Abeloth suddenly repulsed all of her assailants with a massive Force wave and fled. Back at the cave, she killed the three Sith aiding Dyon Stadd, whose faces were left twisted in terror. Luke Skywalker rushed after her through the tunnel, and the rest of the group followed. Skywalker found her straddling Stadd, and Abeloth hissed at the Jedi's presence, taking the form of Callista Ming again. The figure pleaded with Skywalker once more, but he sensed that it was a ruse—that Abeloth was projecting the figure of Ming as a deception—and cut through the body of Dyon Stadd. His body transformed into Abeloth's true form and the entity attempted a final attack with another wave of dark side energy, but she died halfway, her Force presence quietly winking out. Beside Abeloth's body was Abeloth herself, disguised as Dyon Stadd again, unconscious but alive.
===End up in crisis===
====Looks can kill====
All of the beings who had been affected by her influence were freed, and Ship stopped attacking Jaina Solo and flew away from Abeloth's world. The Jedi and the Sith continued their uneasy alliance, with Dyon Stadd—a disguised Abeloth—placed under the care of Ben Skywalker and Vestara Khai on the Jade Shadow, while at the courtyard, Luke and Taalon investigated the ruins. Abeloth's body, covered by a blood-soaked robe, had been brought there for Gavar Khai to keep watch while he tended to a funeral pyre for the dead Sith bodies. The other Sith departed the Maw, and Lando Calrissian and Jaina Solo likewise left to relay the news of Abeloth and the Sith to Coruscant.
After two days, Ship returned to Abeloth's homeworld, prompting Vestara Khai and Ben Skywalker to leave Dyon Stadd on the Jade Shadow in order to inform their respective masters at the ruined courtyard about Ship—conflicted by their compassion for each other, the teenagers failed to kill each other en route, and a frustrated Taalon nearly murdered Ben when he tried to spirit away Abeloth's body. The Jedi was saved by Vestara Khai's outburst of surprise when she discovered that Abeloth's body, upon closer inspection, was actually Dyon Stadd's.
Abeloth successfully made the group frustrated, uncertain, and mutually distrustful. After a three-hour standoff with the Jedi, the Sith agreed to return to the Jade Shadow and verify the identity of the Dyon Stadd held aboard the ship, but Abeloth had already fled. Following trails through the jungle, the group found only drendeks and wyvarls for two days, but no sign of their quarry, and returned to their landing site, where Ship had joined them after they started the search for Abeloth.
Ben Skywalker suggested that Abeloth still controlled Ship, but could not use him due to the severe damage that he had sustained fighting Jaina Solo. While the skeptical Sith maintained their theory that the Jedi had hidden Abeloth's body in order to hoard knowledge about the entity, Luke Skywalker intended to focus on his connection with Callista Ming to locate Abeloth. At an impasse, Taalon demanded answers from Ship, who indicated that Luke knew where to look for the entity—the Pool of Knowledge. At that point, a dark tentacle of longing grew within Luke, confirming that Ship was still serving Abeloth, and he reluctantly allowed Ship to transport the group to the pool.
====The worst of them====
As they approached the pool, the Sith grew more uncertain about Abeloth's fate, and Vestara Khai shared her previous fearful experience living with the entity with Ben Skywalker. Unlike earlier, the Jedi did not feel threatened by Abeloth's need to draw others into her corrupting darkness, but rather—Skywalker felt—that Abeloth was simply wanting to kill them. He concluded that Ship had brought the Sith and the Jedi to the Pool of Knowledge—which granted immeasurable knowledge of all things past and future—in order to force a conflict between them; the Jedi could not allow the Sith to access such a dangerous power. However, the group reached the pool, where Ben Skywalker saw a reflection of Abeloth rippling across their original landing site—with her pursuers distracted at the pool, the ancient entity stole the Jade Shadow to depart her world. Its ground tremors, volcanic rumblings, and the carnivorousness of its fauna subsequently ceased.
Just as Skywalker urged the group to return to their ships given that the journey would take half a day, the group witnessed a reflection of the Sith Tribe's secret homeworld of Kesh. The reflection then shifted to that of an older Allana Solo on the Throne of Balance, flanked by Jedi that included Ben Skywalker. The visions caught both the Sith and the Jedi by surprise, and High Lord Taalon dived into the Pool of Knowledge—his eyes resembled those of Abeloth's. The two sworn enemies thus battled each other, though Taalon also attacked Vestara Khai, and the Skywalkers promptly escaped toward the Sith's ship at their joint landing site, the Emiax: the alliance had been broken. Taalon then tasked the young Khai to take advantage of the love between her and Ben Skywalker and infiltrate the Skywalkers again in order to investigate the "Jedi queen" he had seen at the pool.
====Good faith treaties?====
While the Jedi on Coruscant took advantage of the immediate recovery of the students who had been afflicted by Abeloth's psychosis to focus on reconciling with the Galactic Alliance government, Jaina Solo and Lando Calrissian met with Leia Organa Solo and Han Solo to discuss Abeloth's actions, appraising that they had also inadvertently led to the reveal of the Sith threat before the Tribe was ready with a greater war fleet. Presuming Abeloth to be dead, they wished to strengthen the Jedi's position by asking Senator Luewet Wuul to ensure the passage of a Galactic Alliance Senate bill that would cement the Jedi Order's current status and guarantee military and financial support from the government. Before committing to the plan, Wuul firstly confirmed with his acquaintances that Abeloth was no longer a threat to the Alliance's citizens.
Abeloth traveled aboard the Jade Shadow to the Fallanassi temple on the Almanian system's moon Pydyr, in the Outer Rim's Mortex sector. — Based on corresponding data for Almanian system She sought to possess Akanah, leader of the pacifist Force-sensitive Fallanassi adepts and a former lover of Luke Skywalker's. The White Current, a form of the Force, was twisted into a Fallanassi illusion of a deadly disease spreading throughout Pydyr, allowing Abeloth to feed on the fear that permeated the population to heal herself and prompting its authorities to quarantine the entire moon. Najee and Sanar of Pydyr Control had tracked the Jade Shadow landing at the Fallanassi site, but were instructed by a "High Lady" not to speak of it.
Although Luke Skywalker had seen through the Sith Tribe's ruse, he allowed Vestara Khai to join he and his son aboard the Emiax, which they used to track the Jade Shadow to the Almanian system. The Grand Master realized that Abeloth had gone to the Fallanassi on Pydyr despite his son initially suggesting that they search for her on the other Almanian moons of Auyemesh or Drewwa. Before they joined the entity on the moon, the Jedi made an encrypted communication with the Order on Coruscant, relaying the events in the Maw and requesting reinforcements to Pydyr. They then made landing in the city Corocus, where the Grand Master immersed himself in the White Current, taking advantage of the illusory plague to confirm with Sanar that the Jedi hoped to remove the plague and in turn received Sanar's help to reach the Fallanassi refuge. Meanwhile, Khai secretly informed the Sith Tribe that the Jedi were hunting for Abeloth on Pydyr.
====Dressing for revenge====
In the cave where Abeloth left the Jade Shadow, Luke Skywalker alone met who he was convinced was Akanah, despite initially suspecting that she might have been possessed by Abeloth. Akanah admitted that the Fallanassi were sheltering Abeloth, but voiced her disagreement about the Jedi's destructive continuing involvement in galactic affairs. She firstly cited the Hapes Consortium's status under the reign of former Jedi and Queen Mother Tenel Ka Djo—which was similar to both the planet Almania under the Dark Jedi Kueller decades ago and the Killik Colony under Jedi Raynar Thul during the Swarm War eight years prior—and secondly, the Jedi's war against the Yuuzhan Vong, thirdly, Jacen Solo's attempt to alter the Current and the future, and fourthly, the Jedi's latest alliance with the Sith. Akanah wanted the Grand Master to believe in letting go of his Jedi principles and desire to save the galaxy; the Jedi should trust in changes in the Current and allow Abeloth to undo the actions of Jacen Solo. On the cliff above the cave, Ben Skywalker and Khai began making their way to the pair as they continued to debate.
Astounded, Luke Skywalker had no intention to allow Abeloth to revert the Current from his vision of Allana on the Throne of Balance to Jacen Solo's dark vision. Skywalker recalled the teachings of the ancient Jedi Master Yoda that the future was always in motion, and pointed out that to allow Abeloth to change back the Current would be to let her fix her own course. Akanah expressed confusion, and her aura in the Force receded, asserting that Abeloth was beyond his understanding. Refusing to elaborate, she pulled his son and Khai down from the cliff, forcing Luke to lift them into the cave to safety. Before the Jedi Master could confront her with his blade, Akanah backed away with a mad and gentle smile, gesturing toward the Jade Shadow and reiterating that Abeloth was inscrutable to all.
====Meet the band====
High Lord Taalon and Gavar Khai had departed the Maw aboard Ship, and, desperate to investigate the painful transformation that he had been experiencing since bathing in the Pool of Knowledge, Taalon subsequently arrived on Pydyr with Khai and a group of Sith and found Luke Skywalker—he had been waiting for his Jedi reinforcements for days, but their launch of the StealthX wing was delayed by restrictions imposed by Galactic Alliance forces. Taalon demanded him to lead them to Abeloth, and further promised to kill her after finding out about his transformation. Wary of Taalon's ability to sense the predictable future, Skywalker resorted to acting and reacting in the present without any plan, leading them to the hidden Fallanassi village, which Gavar Khai pointed out resembled Abeloth's planet. Indeed, the place had the fetid smell of her world, and was filled with anguish and fear in the Force of the band of Fallanassi there, concentrated as raw power in the gathering hall. From its entrance came Akanah, her appearance corrupted by Abeloth, who had possessed her. She told the group that they should not have come.
While the small group of Sith searched for Abeloth in the village, their reinforcements had been confused by the Fallanassi illusion that shielded the settlement, and Sarasu Taalon grew weaker as the transformation took hold of him. Abeloth, having possessed Akanah, floated cross-legged facing Luke Skywalker, who wished to assess whether Akanah's transformation into Abeloth was merely an illusion, a complete replication, or an actual transference of mind and spirit. Taalon failed to see through Abeloth's guise, however, and threatened to slaughter the Fallanassi in order to gain an answer as to Abeloth's whereabouts.
As Lady Akanah, Abeloth claimed that the ancient entity they were pursuing was Fallanassi, given its traditions dated long before the dawn of the Jedi. Hoping for her to reveal Abeloth's hiding place, Luke Skywalker further questioned whether she had always been Fallanassi, or if she had joined more recently, but was refused an answer. Gavar Khai then murdered a Fallanassi elder; in response, Akanah floated higher above Taalon, and an illusion of horror haunted Khai. Taalon drew Akanah back to eye level and threatened her village again, but the rest of the Sith group were suddenly gripped by panic and mania, though Ben Skywalker and Vestara Khai were spared from the illusion.
====Playing with fire====
Green phantasms attacked the Sith by belching debilitating brown vapor that aged them by a dozen years and thin tentacles extending from their fingertips into the eyes, noses, and ears of their victims. Dark side Force energy then pulsed through the tentacles, making the phantasms seem more tangible and opaque. They then spewed flames instead of fumes, forcing the fearful Sith to flee the fiery vista, some of them plunging to their deaths off the village island. The Fallanassi themselves stood pressed against the walls of their huts, and Skywalker was clear of any doubt that Akanah had been lost to Abeloth. Although Taalon jutted his saber at Abeloth, she drifted out of reach and led him into the gathering hall, promising to explain everything to the High Lord.
Aware that Abeloth would be aware of his suspicion that she had possessed Akanah, Luke Skywalker continued to seem as though he was susceptible to her manipulation: the Skywalkers and the young Khai followed the entity and Taalon into the hall, moving closer toward the magma pit of concentrated red hot dark energy that Abeloth had been feeding on. Abeloth had the memories of Akanah, including Luke's involvement with garnering the preceding Fallanassi leader's support at the Battle of N'zoth against the Yuuzhan Vong despite their pacifism, which furthered Luke's concern that she could better exploit his own vulnerabilities.
The entity further hinted at the Jedi queen that would take the Throne of Balance from the Sith, prompting Taalon to offer—neither requesting not ordering—Abeloth his loyalty. While the conflict between a cautious Luke and inquisitive Taalon regarding the Jedi queen indicated Abeloth's insufficient power to battle both Jedi and Sith at the time, it further forced the Jedi to silence any Sith should they discover the Jedi queen's identity.
Preparing to battle both Taalon and Abeloth, Luke Skywalker repositioned himself away from the pit and asked if Abeloth had traded bodies with Akanah as she had done with Dyon Stadd. As Skywalker expected, Taalon moved to attack him first to prevent being pinned in a corner, allowing the Jedi to fling the Sith Lord away while his son battled at his weakened defenses. Luke thus focused on Abeloth, landing a thrust kick at her but to no effect, and her arm was severed by his blade when she tried to strike his eyes. Feigning a terrified Akanah, Abeloth attempted to manipulate the Grand Master futilely as his blade cut into her leg; she spun away and cried in a dozen voices, yet the Jedi pushed her down into the luminous pit and lost sight of her.
====Desperate prayers====
While Luke focused on saving his son from Vestara Khai and Taalon's attacks, Abeloth tugged his ankles and pulled him to the stone floor. The Jedi managed not to be surprised by her survival and caught the fall on his back, but the entity came atop him, smoking and sizzling, her remaining leg entwining both of his legs and her remaining full arm holding the back of his neck. She then drove her amputated arm, hot with her fall into the pit, into Skywalker's throat and pressed against his larynx, stopping his breathing. The Jedi could merely prevent her overwhelming strength in the Force from crushing his cartilage, and despite resistance, the assailant straightened her leg, bending his knee against a joint with a pop. Skywalker further snapped three of her ribs with his knuckles and activated his lightsaber against and through her stomach to no avail, while Abeloth remained on him and dug her nails into the root of his ear and twisted.
The Grand Master thus reached out to surrounding objects in the Force: half a dozen cushions bounced past, followed by a glob of lava splashing across Abeloth's back, prompting an inhuman wail of a hundred voices and forcing her to sustain her body through the Force, slightly lessening the pressure on his throat. Although Skywalker began to lift both himself and Abeloth up for space to fight, she pulled in the opposite direction and forced them back on the floor. It took the Jedi opening more fully to the Force using his love for his family and his Order to gain a rush of the light side, spreading through his body like fire; despite the miasma of darkness that flowed from Abeloth, the Force gave Skywalker a golden glow.
The act incensed Abeloth, who prevented them from rising significantly away from the floor. However, Skywalker had been pulling at a beam in the hall's ceiling, which collapsed due to the pressure and crushed Abeloth, who was pressed against the Jedi due to the beam's weight, motionless and cheek-to-cheek. In that moment of calm, Akanah fought against Abeloth's possession and asked for Skywalker's forgiveness for her ignorance, easing his conscience. Akanah then transformed back into Abeloth, in her true form, with her mouth wide open. The Jedi's saber then cut through her flank up the length of her body, slaying Abeloth.
====Bruised like violets====
Luke Skywalker returned his attention to the ongoing battle between his son and Vestara Khai and High Lord Taalon, but found himself impaired by the injuries Abeloth had dealt him. Abeloth then returned to the four combatants, firstly in the form of the Callista Ming that they had previously fought in the Maw, then in her true form to distract Skywalker; he was attacked by Taalon and subsequently disarmed and incapacitated by Abeloth's tentacles. However, the entity prevented Taalon from killing Skywalker and moved toward the pit, demanding that the Jedi be made to suffer as both the Sith Lord and herself had suffered. While Ben Skywalker dueled Khai, Abeloth further hissed to Skywalker in Ming's voice that she would deny both him and his son from escape.
Master Skywalker lapsed into unconsciousness for a time as he remained in Abeloth's grasp, while Taalon, Vestara Khai, and an unconscious Gavar Khai gathered beside Abeloth and her pit with Ben Skywalker trapped in a Force net. As Abeloth began teaching Taalon to replenish his power, Ben reassured his father that he had a "good plan," which prompted the High Lord to threaten killing the young Jedi but was stopped by Abeloth; she stepped close to the Sith, their shoulders touching, and a tentacle fed Taalon pulsating dark energy. Abeloth encouraged the hungry Taalon's fear as he drank deeply and greedily, becoming stronger while his master declared fear to be the food of gods.
Luke Skywalker realized that such horror would have dominated his destiny had he drank from the Font of Power or bathed in the Pool of Knowledge. Counting on Abeloth being distracted, he pulled at the ceiling, its tiles and cross-supports falling on everyone in the room. At the same time, Vestara Khai killed Taalon with her saber but was promptly struck by a tentacle; freed, Ben Skywalker dodged one of Abeloth's tentacles and kicked her heel, sending both her and Luke across the floor. As they landed, the Jedi Master slammed his head back into Abeloth's face and drove his elbows into her ribs before rolling away; the entity let him go in order to face Ben, attacking and seizing him before he could summon the fallen Taalon's lightsaber. Instead, Luke took the saber and aimed for Abeloth's collarbone, but diverted his attack and cleaved her shoulder when she swung his son into him, sending the pair tumbling toward the pit, but they found their footing.
Utterly enraged, the monster was uneager to continue the engagement, but her attention was divided between the Skywalkers as they distanced themselves facing her, with Ben holding Taalon's saber. However, Vestara Khai sent her lightsaber to Luke and attacked Abeloth with Force lightning, and the Skywalkers leaped at the entity—only to be held back by the Force as she stumbled out the hall's front door. Abeloth then boarded Ship and fled Pydyr, leaving her Fallanassi protectors and allowing the illusions to cease.
===Skywalker went away; still the yearning stays===
====Nearly lost====
After the battle, the young Khai threatened to keep the Skywalkers in Sith custody, and so the Jedi goaded her into stating—in her father's presence—that she had killed High Lord Taalon as a matter of necessity, given that he had become Abeloth's pet. Vestara was thus offered the choice of facing Sith justice or willingly helping the Skywalkers—who wished to continue the hunt so as to keep her weak and unable to affect the Shelter Jedi. The trio thus departed together aboard the Jade Shadow, aiming to track Abeloth via either blood trail or analyzing her hyperspace jumps.
The Jedi StealthX wing and their supporting Star Destroyer, Booster Terrik's Errant Venture, engaged the Sith forces in the system. The Skywalkers were thus able to search for Ship and relay via comm their intentions to Lando Calrissian, along with Abeloth's survival and her plan to recruit Force user supporters. Comparing the Yuuzhan Vong in the light of the news as "second-rate party crashers," Calrissian confirmed that the Skywalkers had the backing of the rest of the Jedi Order and the Errant Venture, and urged them to remain in contact in their hunt. Aboard Ship, Abeloth reached the far side of Almania and entered hyperspace.
Abeloth arrived at Meliflar Station, in the Mortex sector's — Based on corresponding data for Mendenbatt system Mendenbatt system near Almania. She briefly approached the space station's crew leader, Hallaf, intimidating his crew. As she asked Hallaf for wine in his offices, Abeloth secretly imbued his daughter, Fala, with some of her dark energy for use as bait, rendering her sickly and unconscious. She then convinced Hallaf to kill her pursuers, "three Jedi," telling him that his daughter would die if they did not. Abeloth then traveled to the world Nam Chorios, on which Luke Skywalker had last met Callista Ming decades ago, at Bleak Point Station in 13 ABY. Ship arrived near Bleak Point while minimizing scanning by the planet's space stations, and Abeloth sought the local Force-sensitive Theran Listeners. On the same day, the scientist Dr. Cagaran Wei disappeared; he died by a rock ivory processing plant in rural Nam Chorios.
Rather than follow Hallaf's orders and instantly destroying the Jade Shadow with an automated detonator on the boarding tube, Meliflar Station's crew imprisoned their leader and, under the smuggler Cardya's leadership, decided to attempt capturing the vessel. They were no match for its Force users, who defeated the ambush and pieced together Abeloth's workings. Master Skywalker then cleared Fala of Abeloth's influence. In the process, he found fragments of the entity's memory, sensing that she was calling to the Shelter Jedi again to renew her psychosis and identifying the next part of her plan as the world Nam Chorios.
====Records and regret====
Arriving at Nam Chorios via Koval Station in orbit two days after Abeloth had, Luke Skywalker received no indication that a vessel resembling Abeloth's Ship had landed on the planet. Nevertheless, he remained cautious and visited the Jedi–turned–Theran Listener Taselda in the city Hweg Shul, urging her to leave the planet; he suspected that the Theran Listeners' techniques of opening themselves to voices in the Force left them particularly vulnerable to Abeloth's influence. Taselda insisted on staying on the world, and even offered to sacrifice herself in order for him to better understand the entity and recognize her influence. Skywalker refused, but asked that she help him find Ship using records from the planet's old weapons emplacements in the case that Abeloth had bypassed Koval Station's scanners; indeed, she confirmed that Ship had passed near Bleak Point, triggering Skywalker's memories of Callista Ming and doubts as to whether he should have left Ming there three decades ago, which eventually led to her fate with Abeloth in the Maw.
Skywalker then learned mnemotherapy, a method of selectively removing a person's memories via the Force, from Theran Listener Taru Durn. Soon after, elsewhere, Abeloth made a significant use of the Force on Nam Chorios, resulting in a volatile Force storm—the first to strike the planet for the first time in three decades. Undaunted by Abeloth's threat, Taselda asked Skywalker to trigger a mesmeric trance in her using her mnemonic key—an ancient Alderaanian lullaby—should she come under Abeloth's sway.
The following day, alongside Taselda and Durn, the Skywalkers and Khai visited the Listeners' leader, Nenn, in Nam Chorios' wilderness, to warn the group of Abeloth's powers. Master Skywalker further warned that Abeloth could learn of the planet's sentient crystalline tsils and emulate their voices to manipulate the Listeners. Master Nenn agreed that his group needed to learn to close themselves off from the Force, and went on to share the news of the adept Cura's death, whose tortured body was found in the morning, and Dr. Wei's disappearance.
In Hweg Shul, the Skywalkers and Khai followed falsified evidence indicating that Dr. Wei traveled to an abandoned rock ivory processing plant, and borrowed Mayor Snaplaunce's personal ship to reach it. However, the shuttle had been sabotaged and was attacked by Ship en route; the group evaded him during a skirmish that resulted in their ship crashing and the death of a tsil that created a disturbance in the Force, dazzling Ship and Abeloth. The Skywalkers and Khai were stranded, and they then found Dr. Wei's body by the plant. Master Skywalker communed with the tsils there, warning them about Abeloth; in turn, the tsils told him that she had absorbed Master Nenn.
====If it feels like a trap…====
Through Nenn, Abeloth manipulated the Theran Listeners, who spread word to Nam Chorios' sizeable Oldtimer population that the Skywalkers and Khai were enemies to them and their "Lady." While Ship searched for the trio in the processing plant's vicinity, they secretly made their way back into Hweg Shul by land. As Nenn, Abeloth also drew the Listeners to an underground pumping station filled with the deadly droch parasites—which had caused the Death Seed plague decades ago—in the town of Crystal Valley, where she fed on their fear. Additionally, Abeloth influenced Taselda to delay her pursuers and alert other Listeners upon their return to Hweg Shul, and Mayor Snaplaunce had been assaulted and his memories meddled with, unable to recall whether the attack occurred before or after his shuttle's departure.
Careful to evade law enforcement, the Skywalkers and Khai reached Taselda, and Luke sang the lullaby that she had given him to invoke her mesmeric trance before questioning her: Taselda revealed that Abeloth was at a pumping station somewhere on the planet. Luke then used mnemotherapy on Taselda to ensure that she did not remember their encounter, but did not try to free her from Abeloth's influence lest the entity detected them. Khai and Ben asked the Grand Master to call in Jedi reinforcements, but he refused, simply stating that they were required elsewhere. Khai, conflicted but concerned, sent a dispatch to inform her father of their ongoing hunt for Abeloth. The group left the city to investigate various pumping stations the next morning.
====The luxury of secrets====
By that day, Abeloth had reached out to Jedi Knights Valin and Jysella Horn, resuming the psychosis that she had previously inflicted upon them to draw them from Coruscant to Nam Chorios: Valin arrived with journalists Kandra Nilitz and Beurth Ogh and promptly abandoned them upon arrival; Jysella worked on gaining access to the planet's Herkan Base, in orbit directly over Crystal Valley, in order to help Abeloth, whom she believed to be the true mistress of the Jedi Order. Abeloth posed as "Grand Master" Callista Ming, convincing them that other Jedi were not imposters, but simply severed from the true Force by an alien intelligence, and that they could be cured by undergoing the suffering inflicted by Abeloth.
In the afternoon, the Skywalkers and Khai were confronted by a group of Sith led by Saber Tola Annax—tasked by Gavar Khai to help capture or destroy Abeloth, kill Grand Master Skywalker, and retrieve his daughter—at one of the pumping stations, where they demanded if the trio had found Abeloth before ambushing them. Although the Sith were defeated, they returned for a second attack, which was also repelled, as the trio met Nilitz and Ogh; having overheard a mention of Crystal Valley, the group headed to the settlement while Luke relayed his story of Abeloth and the Lost Tribe to the journalists.
Around the same time, Gavar Khai tasked a group of Sith led by Saber Querdan Dei with assassinating Hapan Queen Mother Tenel Ka Djo, whom he suspected could give birth to the future Jedi queen in the late Taalon's vision. Before Dei could kill the Hapan ruler, he discovered that she did have a daughter: Allana Solo. Allana was on Klatooine with her mother, her guardian droid C-3PO, and her grandparents Han and Leia Organa Solo. Leia eliminated the Sith when they made an attempt on Allana's life, protecting her identity.
====Storm coming====
In the morning Luke Skywalker and his crew arrived at Crystal Valley, the Jedi Master communed with the tsils and felt their sorrow—Abeloth was there. He initially urged the journalists to turn back without attempting to obtain recordings of the being, but then offered to take images of her and remotely relay them to the journalists if they could install a shielded data cable to do so; the Grand Master had his own plans for the new relay setup. The Skywalkers and Khai then made for the underground pumping station, with Luke asking Khai to inform the Sith of their and Abeloth's location; he told his companion that he had been counting on the Sith to arrive.
The trio decided against waking the Oldtimers who laid suffering in the station to prevent alerting Abeloth, but they were confronted by Valin Horn, who told them that Callista Ming would renounce her title of Jedi Grand Master once the three were "cured," and that Abeloth—a separate being—was nearby maintaining the cure. As they stalled for the Sith attack and transmitted live footage to the journalists on the surface, Abeloth approached in the guise of Ming, with no sign of the injuries she had sustained previously.
====Lit from within====
Callista Ming claimed that she was herself, but was also Abeloth and other beings simultaneously, and that she had a limited degree of influence over Abeloth; she speculated that her spirit remained intact due to her previous experiences moving between physical bodies; Luke Skywalker sensed that the true Ming was indeed present. However, Ming urged Skywalker to join her, explaining that she was the reason for Abeloth's affection for the Jedi—always reaching out to the Shelter Jedi and the Grand Master himself—despite their devotion to the light side being the antithesis of her being, and that Skywalker's cooperation would allow Abeloth to understand the Jedi way.
Skywalker expressed his doubt as to whether he and Ming were meant to be together, and allowed his former lover to revisit her past memories with him, their Force presences emanating through the chamber; Skywalker felt her love for him, as well as the pain and loneliness she felt in the decades of being consumed by Abeloth, whose presence he also sensed in the fringes of Ming's mind. Embracing Ming, Skywalker then used a perversion of the mnemotherapy technique to tear her away from Abeloth and the physical world with all of his strength in the Force. A shriek of pain that was part Abeloth and part someone else poured out of Ming, who glowed from within and finally became one with the Force.
====Take the battle overground====
At the same time, Valin Horn—who had started dueling Ben Skywalker and Vestara Khai when Tola Annax's Sith strike team began battling Abeloth—stumbled. Footage had stopped transmitting to Nilitz and Ogh, who left disappointed with the lack of Abeloth featuring yet alive, fearful of the raging battle. The illusion of Callista Ming that Abeloth used on Nenn's body faded, and Nenn promptly stabbed himself with the lightsaber he had with him, greatly weakening Abeloth; Horn collapsed, and Abeloth herself screamed nearby.
The Sith attacked both her and Luke's group at once, and around them, the Theran Listeners went from their agonizing dreams into actual sleep. Gavar Khai led his Sith flotilla above Nam Chorios in order to cover all of Abeloth's potential exits, and his forces had infiltrated the planet's orbital defense platforms, but failed to control Herkan Base. The fleet was then ambushed by the Jedi StealthX wing, which had been hiding in the Chorios system for days.
In order to allow herself and the Skywalkers to escape the Sith and have the chance to destroy Abeloth, Vestara Khai murdered a tsil during the battle, which sent a death convulsion that violently affected all combatants, including debilitating Abeloth herself. The entity escaped the pumping station inside Ship, but Luke gave chase leading Gray and Gold Squadrons of StealthX starfighters.
Herkan Base's automatic programming had been set to target the Jedi but not Ship, forcing the Jedi to evade the station's fire. Following Master Skywalker's command, Jedi Raynar Thul launched a shadow bomb—designed to evade detection in the Force—in order to debilitate Ship so that the Jedi could then eliminate Abeloth at a closer range. Due to Abeloth's detection of either the bomb or the sense of expectation from one of the Jedi, Ship suddenly moved away from the explosive, yet it still detonated and caused pain to ripple through the Force. Taking advantage of Abeloth's distraction, Skywalker successfully fired upon Ship, but the Jedi's X-wing was quickly shot down by Herkan Base. Jaina Solo and Zekk scrambled to protect the Grand Master, and Abeloth fled the system with Ship.
In the battle's aftermath, Valin and Jysella Horn had been freed of Abeloth's influence, as were the Theran Listeners, and Abeloth was rendered weaker than ever. In isolated space light years away from Nam Chorios, she reached out to the remnants of Gavar Khai's Sith flotilla, which had withdrawn in defeat, and they discussed an alliance with the Sith to overcome the powerful Jedi. 
===Chart the constellations===
====They say the end is coming====
Saber Khai arranged for Abeloth to visit the Sith Tribe's homeworld, Kesh. As Ship began taking her there, Abeloth planned to strike the Sith's leader, Grand Lord Darish Vol, on Kesh to demonstrate her superiority over him and others. Vol allowed his Sith to accompany Abeloth, and he also convened Kesh's Circle of Lords to discuss Abeloth's impending visit.
High Lord Ivaar Workan insisted that their Tribe alone should rule the galaxy and not rely on an outsider such as Abeloth, particularly given her unpredictability and the running cost on Sith lives. Although Vol compared learning about her to learning from a rukaro that may kill the observer in the process, High Lord Takaris Yur maintained that the Sith stood to gain from learning knowledge and skill from an ancient and immensely powerful being such as Abeloth before disposing of her. Lady Sashal further spoke in favor of Abeloth and Ship as saviors, and urged the Tribe to make use of the entity.
Although realizing how much the Sith had sacrificed for Abeloth and reluctant to continue working closely with her, Vol felt that the Sith were not at the appropriate juncture to sever ties and decided to host a day of celebration for Abeloth's arrival before the Circle of Lords negotiated the alliance with her in the Circle Chambers the following morning. A parade and a masquerade, including a play written for Abeloth, would be an opportunity to observe, assess, and plot ahead before deciding the best course of action for the Tribe.
Vol made contact with Khai's frigate, the Black Wave, expecting to speak with Abeloth via hologram; instead, Khai informed him that she was on Ship to prepare a good first impression. Vol thus tested Khai's loyalties, requesting that Abeloth wait three days for Kesh to prepare the event. Abeloth was monitoring the conversation, and while Khai realized that his loyalties were conflicted, he was careful to diplomatically agree to relaying the message to Abeloth.
Immediately afterward, an irritated Abeloth requested a private conversation with Khai, who received the transmission in his quarters. Abeloth opted to communicate via audio only, seeking Khai's reassurance that her reception on Kesh was not taking the time to plot, and expressing her great expectations for being honored and respected in the festivities, particularly the masquerade after the parade. She also advised Khai to visit his homeworld prior to the celebrations, along with any potential crew members he would like, as she did not intend to stay on Kesh for long. Although curious as to what Abeloth intended, Khai did return to his family at his estate on Kesh.
====The whole place shimmers====
All artisans, merchants, politicians, and other citizens of Kesh's "City of Glass"—the capital Tahv—made preparations for a grand celebration in honor of the Friend of the Lost Tribe, and Abeloth was met with great fanfare upon arriving in Ship at Tahv's spaceport. After making the Sith wait for a time, Abeloth finally revealed herself, floating out of Ship onto the ground. She waved to the crowd and greeted Grand Lord Vol, who promised to the Tribe that the galaxy would be theirs and Abeloth's as birds dropped Sith Victory flowers onto the crowds. Abeloth caught a blossom and was perplexed by the lack of scent, prompting Lord Vol to explain that its scent was released when destroyed; Abeloth dramatically pinched the Sith Victory with a slow smile, which made Gavar Khai apprehensive.
Along with all the returning Sith, Abeloth was part of a southerly procession through the streets of Tahv at dusk. She sat with Vol on his highly valued and decorated hoversleigh in the design of a bird of prey, and cheerfully expressed her desire to have it as a souvenir, and to take it from Vol if necessary. After enchanting the crowds with her changing appearances, Abeloth ascended with Vol on a dais to view Tahv and the parade's concluding fireworks display, clapping her hands as if she was a little girl, a scene that unsettled Vol.
Abeloth then attended the lavish masquerade along with high ranking Sith who had been selected by the Grand Lord—as either a reward or a way of observing them—in the great hall of the Kesh Sith Temple. Gavar Khai dressed as the Dark Tuash of Alanciar of Keshiri mythology—Vol mused whether that Harbinger's foreboding news of the Destructors' Return was intended for the Tribe or Abeloth. The guest then made her regal entrance with Fallanassi illusions, floating down to the stone floor after a minute of applause.
====Tonight feels impossible====
Grand Lord Vol deliberately appeared after her entrance, dressed as a Jedi to the others' applause and cheering as he greeted Abeloth, who jested that no one would mistake him as a Jedi; Vol thought that no one would mistake Abeloth as an ally, but hid his thoughts. When they discussed Khai's costume, Vol passed goblets to both him and Abeloth and brought up Vestara Khai's killing of High Lord Taalon; Abeloth expressed her pity while Saber Khai asserted Abeloth's superiority to the Jedi as an ally of the Tribe and that his daughter would capture the Skywalkers. Vol then introduced Abeloth to other Sith: Lady Sashal, High Lord Workan, and High Lord Yur.
Abeloth smiled at them, but Vol detected something unnervingly alien for a moment. When she made conversation with Yur about Vestara Khai, who had been a pupil of his, she observed that seeing a pupil excel and hold steadfast to their principles must make one happy even in death, and another flash of foreboding struck both Vol and Yur. Abeloth was quickly led by the Grand Lord to a theatre box for the commencing play alongside selected Sith.
As Abeloth watched the play, which recounted the Sith's history of their arrival on Kesh over 5000 years ago, Lord Vol explained the Keshiri myth of the Protectors—whom the Sith deemed themselves to be—and the Destructors that were fabled to periodically destroy civilizations and return all beings to their primitive state. Although Vol cited research that suggested Kesh had indeed been a victim of such a catastrophe—which had actually been caused by fighting between Jedi and Dark Jedi who departed the other exiled Dark JediLost Tribe of the Sith—Spiral 2 that founded the Sith Order in 6900 BBY—Abeloth dismissed the notion as superstition in face of natural disasters. Nevertheless, she concurred with Vol's assessment that the Sith were wise to exploit the opportunity to subjugate the native Keshiri, and told Lady Sashal, who was Keshiri, that she had been taken advantage of.
Sashal responded that her ancestors had been, but the Tribe was a meritocracy of both Humans and Keshiri, destined to rule the galaxy; ignorant of Abeloth's brief comment that she had worked with Sarasu Taalon, a Keshiri, Sashal also told the entity that she could join the Sith. Abeloth expressed her amusement, and Lord Vol realized that Sashal was oblivious to her own condescending tone to Abeloth despite being her staunchest advocate in the Circle. Nevertheless, Vol used Abeloth's distraction in toying with Sashal to further observe his guest.
Four hours later, Grand Lord Vol held a virtual meeting with his inner circle in his home: High Lords Workan and Yur, as well as Jesko Umarn, Ysadria Kaladris, and Sammul Sharsha. Vol had gained insight and information on Abeloth from several of the Sith who returned with the entity over the past days, and was wary of her power and influence. They discussed Gavar Khai's close connection with Abeloth, and Vol tasked Kaladris with observing Khai.
====Turned into ashes====
Abeloth wandered through Tahv and contemplated whether it should become her base of power for ruling the galaxy or be gifted to a deserving servant. She then made her move against Vol during his sleep, in something more than a dream: Abeloth faced him on a hot lavender beach, her Keshiri visage disintegrating to reveal her monstrous form. Vol's terror made Abeloth laugh, and she extended her tendrils physically and in the Force, announcing that she could neither be contained nor stopped by the Sith, and would take dominion of Kesh as Protector and Destructor both.
The entity's tentacles then entered Vol through his mouth, ears, and nose and caressed the Grand Lord, but he fought back; emulating the uprooting technique that Luke Skywalker had employed, Vol opened his mind, allowing Abeloth to recklessly enter it so that he may enter hers in turn. Vol found Abeloth's anguish and sense of betrayal and loss, as well as her overwhelming need for anything to adore and remain with her forever.
Shocked and furious at the violation, Abeloth brutally invaded Vol's body, leading him to strike at her deepest hurt, directing abusive thoughts at the entity. Desiring to escape Vol's onslaught, Abeloth exploded in pain and threw the Sith back and out of the dream. The weakened Vol anticipated Abeloth's revenge and took to his ship with Saber Revar, calling for the lords to be woken up and the city defenses readied.
Enraged by Vol's deception, Abeloth was unable to even notice that she had lost control of her own form and her anguish channeled through the Force, unleashing energy that annihilated Tahv and millions of its inhabitants. Unharmed, Abeloth barely noticed being picked up by Ship, who told Gavar Khai—safely aboard the Black Wave over Kesh—that they must leave. Initially hesitant, Khai chose to lead the Black Wave and its surrounding frigates to side with Abeloth and follow Ship, trading fire with pursuing Sith Tribe vessels and destroying the stationary Dark Dancer before making for Ship's rendezvous point.
===Lurching toward Galactic City===
====The kind senator====
To Abeloth's approval, Gavar Khai stated that Lord Vol had chosen to attack Abeloth alone and reaffirmed his frigates' irreversible betrayal of the Sith Tribe, but also claimed that they maintained the Tribe's true essence. Glad to follow a pure leader rather than the elaborate masques and traditions of the Tribe, he led Abeloth's fleet, albeit with the insincere and scheming Tola Annax as his second-in-command.
Hiding the fact that she was badly wounded, Abeloth spoke with Khai, realizing his ambition and willingness to serve her and expressing her view that he was smarter than Sarasu Taalon, whose loyalty she gained only after he had been "altered." Requiring time to recover and wishing to prevent the Jedi from allying with the Sith Tribe again, Abeloth instructed Khai to lead their enemies on "a merry chase"—she was unsure of her next course of action, and suspicious that Vestara Khai might betray Kesh's location to the Skywalkers. Khai was allured by his new mistress' promise of great power, and was encouraged by Abeloth that he would rule beside her with the thought that he was superior to the "narrow-minded" Sith Tribe who "blindly" followed Grand Lord Vol simply because he had always done so.
Gavar Khai also asked Abeloth about the Jedi queen, but the entity sternly told him to abandon the chase, dismissing it as Taalon's fantasy and fear. Abeloth also self-assuredly spoke of her power and plans, which she was wary of being disrupted by having the attempt on Tenel Ka Djo's life traced back to her, and that the Sith destiny of conquest remained along with her.
Aboard Ship, Abeloth gathered and learned from news videos, holodramas, and interviews from throughout the galaxy as she made her recovery. She was drawn to the female Jessar Rokari Kem's interview on The Perre Needmo Newshour—Kem had guided the successful Jessars' revolution on the Mid Rim — Based on corresponding data for Qaras system planet Qaras that overthrew its millennia-old institution of slavery and formed its new liberal government. Abeloth was enraptured by Kem's performance and learned that she was to travel from Qaras to Coruscant's planet-wide Galactic City and join the Galactic Alliance Senate there. Abeloth further watched footage of Qaras' celebrations, where people danced and sang a Jessaran song of peace, of praising Kem as the movement's "mother," and of children returning home while the venue approached twilight—Abeloth found that Rokari Kem was genuinely loved.
====Chasing that fame====
Represented by Kem and approved by the interim Alliance government that deposed and replaced Chief of State Daala, Qaras joined the Galactic Alliance alongside over a dozen other worlds that were involved in a wave of anti-slavery uprisings throughout the galaxy, including B'nish—represented by Sith High Lord Ivaar Workan in the guise of Senator Kameron Suldar—and Klatooine—represented by freedom fighter–turned–senator Padnel Ovin.
The Jade Shadow crew discussed the whereabouts of their quarry—the Sith strike team at Nam Chorios and Abeloth—together with Jaina Solo. To Solo and his father's agreement, Ben Skywalker reasoned that Abeloth would be drawn toward the greatest concentration of either power or those whom she could take advantage of. While Vestara Khai refused to share the location of Kesh for fear that the Jedi would decimate her homeworld, Solo worked with the Jedi Natua Wan, who wished to atone for her actions while under Abeloth's psychosis, in researching about the Sith and Ship to narrow their search. The Jedi compiled a list of Sith worlds and visited them, including Korriban in the Sith Worlds region of the Outer Rim, but found no sign of either Abeloth or the Lost Tribe, leading Luke Skywalker to conclude that they were both hiding as they were both planning something.
When the Skywalkers, Vestara Khai, and Jaina Solo investigated Dromund Kaas among the Outer Rim's Sith Worlds — Based on corresponding data for Dromund system and were ambushed by Gavar Khai and an elite team of nine other former Sith Sabers, Vestara sensed that her father's loyalty had changed from the Tribe to Abeloth, and was forced to kill him; she believed that she had only been able to do so due to his loss of focus and commitment to the Sith in blindly following the entity. Suspecting that the rest of his Sith flotilla had joined Abeloth too, the Jade Shadow crew returned to Coruscant to assist the Jedi Order there and seek further insight from their historians; Ben Skywalker thought that the return seemed to be the will of the Force.
In light of Gavar Khai's failure, Abeloth granted command of the Black Wave to Captain Tola Annax via audio transmission, stating that she had other plans and minions. Meanwhile, Abeloth reconfigured her body and watched further holonews on the anti-slavery uprisings, the interim Galactic Alliance government, the Jedi, the Imperial Remnant, and the influx of new senators.
====Mastermind====
Luke Skywalker persuaded the Jedi Order to depart Coruscant and leave the internal affairs of the Galactic Alliance to the Chief of State hopeful, Wynn Dorvan, with Leia Organa Solo as the only Jedi presence on Coruscant to help and liaise with the new Alliance government. Skywalker had made the departure a public event to effectively invite the Sith to take advantage of Coruscant's vulnerability and infiltrate the galactic capital so as to draw them out. The Grand Master intended to handle Ship and Abeloth before returning to Coruscant to handle the Sith; Natua Wan had reported that a Sith training vessel similar to Ship was docked on — Based on corresponding data for Upekzar system the Sith World Upekzar. Hoping to catch Ship and Abeloth, Skywalker led nearly the entirety of the Jedi Order, over a hundred Jedi Knights and Masters, to Upekzar—where Abeloth had torturously constrained Tola Annax, stripping away her powers and filling her with nearly all the dark side energy of Upekzar as bait.
Following Rokari Kem's successful interview on The Perre Needmo Newshour, she agreed to grant another exclusive interview with it once she had settled on Coruscant as senator. However, Abeloth took possession of the senator before she could debut on Coruscant. Meanwhile, the Sith High Lord Ivaar Workan, masqueraded as Senator Kameron Suldar, infiltrated the capital along with thousands of other Sith Tribe members. Workan's career in high politics involved launching a Senate committee to persecute the Jedi and joining the secretive pro-Imperial Lecersen Conspiracy, in the process influencing the election of Senator Padnel Ovin as the interim Chief of State.
Abeloth arrived on Coruscant at such a time of political intrigue as Senator Kem, and at the Senate Building reception hall during the welcoming event for the new senators that was held days after the Jedi Order had departed Coruscant, she attracted a crowd of unusually enthused politicians. The senator expressed her humility and shook hands with every being who offered to do so before excusing herself to meet the nearby Wynn Dorvan, who had been chosen by Padnel Ovin as his Chief of Staff.
====Caught in politics====
The senator of Qaras expressed her pleasure at finally meeting Dorvan and serving her world in the Galactic Alliance, and was then introduced by him to Chief Ovin. She then approached Workan, who had been observing her arrival as Senator Suldar and decided that the much-loved senator must be removed from the political scene to pave way for his Sith Tribe's plans on Coruscant. He was unsettled by her Jessar appearance and knew that she was lying when she attributed "Fate" to her fame and said that she did not hunger after it. Furthermore, with other beings out of earshot, the ersatz senator told him to stay out of her way if he wished to live long enough to discover her secret goals. Later in the afternoon, Abeloth was interviewed by the journalist Perre Needmo as Senator Kem, and the footage was aired on The Perre Needmo Newshour in the evening.
Three hours following the Senate reception, the High Lord returned to his office and contacted Grand Lord Vol, who asked of the Sith's progress in infiltrating Coruscant and if there was any sign of Abeloth. Although Workan speculated that she and Ship were wandering the galaxy, he was concerned that "another female," Rokari Kem, posed a potential problem due to her popularity and that she might know of the Sith's arrival. While Vol raised the possibility that the senator was Abeloth, Workan concluded that she was simply a deceitful politician. The Grand Lord therefore declared that he would eliminate such a "keeshar" that "dared to challenge a member of the Lost Tribe" personally, and that he shall announce the Sith's conquest of Coruscant with her head in his hand.
====Hiding in plain sight====
Soon afterward, Grand Lord Vol joined High Lord Workan in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, stating that Abeloth's damage to the Sith had only made them stronger, allowing them to take the galactic capital while she abused weaker worlds to restore her ego. Workan then reported Rokari Kem's history to Vol, certain that she was not Force-sensitive and believing her increasing political influence to be the only obstruction to the Sith's secret conquest of the Galactic Alliance. The Grand Lord later made his attempt on Kem's life.
Very early in the morning of the next day, "Rokari Kem" made a vidcall with "Kameron Suldar" to say that she had found what she believed belong to him—she held the head of Grand Lord Vol, whose face was contorted in an expression of terror and torment. Abeloth told the shocked man that he would help her become "the Beloved Queen of the Stars." When he retorted that she was insane, the entity told "Workan" that she simply had the benefit of foresight, and that he was to meet her "tomorrow" at The Nook, a fashionable breakfast diner near the Senate.
Upon entering The Nook during sunrise, Abeloth was met by applause by its patrons until she asked them to sit down and enjoy their breakfasts. The imposter senator sat in a booth across from Workan and told him of her wish to rule. While the Sith Lord agreed to use his influence to install her as Chief of State, Abeloth stated that she wanted it to happen within two days rather than two months, and that it would be a starting point for her to become the "Beloved Queen of the Stars" and finally "goddess." Workan then instructed all the Sith who answered to him to support Rokari Kem, sending the few who disagreed to scout the depths of the Jedi Temple.
====Blind and hazy====
On Upekzar, Ben Skywalker, Vestara Khai, and Natua Wan searched for Abeloth in the underground tunnels but instead faced the rhak-skuri "Dream Singers" Sithspawn that induced hallucinations and fed on their victims' terror; Khai sacrificed Wan's life to save Skywalker's, leading her to think that the Jedi path was not for a natural Sith like herself. In the city ruins above ground, the other Jedi led by Luke Skywalker found Tola Annax. The Grand Master was cautious of striking the dying woman as he sensed that the dark side energy of the world was compressed into her, and he asked of Abeloth's whereabouts to no avail. Dark energy then rapidly expanded from Annax's body, forcing the Jedi to rush back to their ships as they heard Abeloth's laughter.
Force lightning from the dark cloud above them struck Jedi ships and individual Jedi on the ground, and surrounding buildings crumbled while the ground cracked before an explosion hurled all the Jedi off the ground. It triggered the eruption of magma from a once-dormant volcano nearby, and the resultant pyroclastic flow threatened to incinerate every Jedi within minutes. Although most of the Jedi survived, several were killed on the planet.
====Everybody agrees====
Abeloth attended the Senate chamber's session of the day, which was watched on live broadcast by millions, as Rokari Kem. Citing the political climate of spice smuggling allegations against the Jedi and the recent deaths of acting Chief of Naval Operations Sallinor Parova and Senator Fost Bramsin, as well as the resignation of Senator Haydnat Treen, Senator Suldar nominated Kem to replace the interim Chief of State Padnel Ovin. Senator Kem accepted the nomination before the Chair of the Senate, Nensu Kaatik, saying that she would humbly serve the Alliance as the Senate wished. Senator Luewet Wuul was concerned by the turn of events and proposed that the motion could only pass with a four-fifths majority rather than the usual three-quarters, which the chamber's senators agreed.
Padnel Ovin himself addressed the Senate standing beside Luewet Wuul in his hoverdias, at length explaining the history of his people, the Klatooinians. Ovin was stalling not only to delay the vote, which Workan took advantage of to gather allies needed to secure a majority, but to divert the Senate's attention while Wynn Dorvan secretly helped Han Solo, Lando Calrissian, and the Jedi Zekk to rescue Leia Organa Solo from Galactic Alliance imprisonment. Abeloth continually commed Workan seven times within an hour about how many votes he could obtain until they were enough to pass the four-fifths majority of the chamber. However, Abeloth's patience had run out.
Abeloth strangled Ovin through the Force as she feigned shock, surprising Workan. Despite Senator Wuul's proposal to delay the vote until Ovin had recovered from his collapse, which risked the position of Chief of State to pass onto to Chief of Staff Dorvan, Workan argued that the vote be pushed through, which the chair agreed. The Senate accordingly voted to install Rokari Kem as the new Chief of State. Satisfied, she thanked her voters and stated that her first executive act was to take over the Jedi Temple as her house of operations, subtly persuading senators through the Force to agree with her statements of concern regarding the Jedi even as she suggested that Jedi who broke the law should face execution. She then instructed an assistant to move her dias back to its dock and was contacted via comlink by Workan, who was concerned about her surprising gestures and animosity toward the Jedi.
===Big city, wrong choices===
====Changed like midnight====
Thirty-seven minutes later, Rokari Kem and Kameron Suldar ascended the Jedi Temple steps in front of the press. Abeloth smiled and waved, but did not answer any questions, and she and her Sith ally were greeted by Human Sith upon entering the temple. Abeloth received the news of Padnel Ovin's death from one of her senatorial assistants, who also reported that Leia Organa Solo had escaped from prison before she could be transferred for execution. At Abeloth's urging, the assistant brought a captive who helped with Jedi Solo's escape—Wynn Dorvan. When he failed to respond to her demand that he kneel to "your Beloved Queen of the Stars," the Human guards beside the prisoner hit him into the ground and removed his hood.
Abeloth was surprised that the captive was Dorvan, but was happy of the turn of events as she sought to use his experience and understanding of Galactic Alliance politics to assist her. Abeloth stated that she would gain his knowledge, including whom he had been working with, and transformed into her true form; initially surprised to see Rokari Kem, Dorvan realized that Abeloth and the Lost Tribe of the Sith now ruled the Galactic Alliance. He was then placed in a cell in the temple and interrogated for over a month by the Sith Lady Korelei and her assistants. Meanwhile, Abeloth continued facilitating the Sith's embedment in Coruscant's civic and governance systems, and as Chief Kem, she pressed new recruits to serve in Galactic Alliance Security alongside Sith infiltrators.
====No words====
Several days after Dorvan's last torture sessions by Korelei, who failed to extract information from the man despite using Force probes, Abeloth appeared before him in her true form and threatened that Korelei was ready to use necromancy on him. Having kept secret the existence of the resistance network Club Bwua'tu, Dorvan was defiant enough to further insult Abeloth's appearance, but the entity transformed back to the visage of Rokari Kem and offered to free the prisoner; she removed his cuffs and asked him to run the Galactic Alliance, stating that he would save many lives. Although Dorvan was suspicious, he agreed to be her administrator and adviser in government, wanting to buy time for the Jedi to use Club Bwua'tu's network to liberate Coruscant. As for Abeloth, she promised to keep him safe from Lady Korelei and expressed her disinterest in obtaining further names of individuals who opposed her.
Abeloth had brought Imperial officer Lieutenant Lydea Pagorski to Dorvan's cell, wishing to hear the latter's opinion on whether Pagorski, who had given false testimony at the Galactic Alliance's trial of Tahiri Veila, should be returned to the Imperial Remnant. Given that the Imperials offered nothing in return, Dorvan concluded that it was a routine request and that returning the officer would suit the compassionate persona of Rokari Kem—rather than her as a "greedy and power-hungry Sith overlord," which angered Abeloth. Nevertheless, she understood the advice and told Pagorski that she would be mindwiped; Abeloth's tentacles entered her head and fed dark energy into the increasingly pale woman, whose expression went blank, and the gruesome act horrified Dorvan.
====Flashes of the battle====
Prior to the Jedi's evacuation from their Outer Rim world Ossus in the Auril sector to flee the onslaught of the Lost Tribe, Luke Skywalker sent Jedi Raynar Thul, Tekli, and Lowbacca to investigate the true nature of Abeloth: they were joined by C-3PO, offered by Leia Organa Solo, and aimed to question the Killik Colony that Thul once led about the Celestials that the Killiks had served. On Ossus, Abeloth's Sith attempted and failed to kill Tenel Ka Djo again, believing that she was the Jedi queen that the Pool of Knowledge had shown sittin on the Throne of Balance.
When Master Skywalker and other Jedi regrouped to stage their liberation of Coruscant, the Sith's BAMR News encouraged Coruscant's citizens to report on the "Jedi Spice Cartel" that they and Galactic Alliance Security Superintendent Vhool alleged was infiltrating the capital and subverting the Freedom Flight abolitionists as well as Alliance governments. The Grand Master himself was in an infiltration team with his son, Vestara Khai, and the Jedi Doran Tainer and Seha Dorvald when he detected the presence of a dark side man with permanent tattoos who did not seem to be a Sith Tribe member. As Jedi throughout Coruscant used Club Bwua'tu's intelligence to target Tribe members, Abeloth visited the Coruscant underworld alongside Wynn Dorvan and fed on the fear and suffering there, strengthening the entity and fuelling her hunger.
Looking out at Fellowship Plaza from her temple later that day, Abeloth heard from Lady Korelei that the Jedi had secretly landed on Coruscant and spread throughout Galactic City but remained elusive, having used their element of surprise to kill nearly a thousand Lost Tribe members while the Sith failed to capture even one Jedi. Her new Joint Chief of State, Wynn Dorvan, added that the Jedi numbered little more than a thousand, including the younglings who were evacuated from Ossus. While Abeloth wanted the five thousand remaining Sith to handle the situation by the dawn of the next day, Korelei admitted that it was impossible.
Korelei blamed Dorvan for withholding information that could help contain the Jedi threat and proposed that the Sith must openly oppress the citizenry, whereby the Jedi's resistance would reveal themselves by resisting. Abeloth enjoyed the cruel simplicity of the plan, but Dorvan warned that she would win the battle but lose the war due to the resolve of the Coruscanti and their attitude of being masters of the galaxy; he wanted to convince Abeloth's dark hunger for terror and anguish to dismiss Korelei's brutal plan of massacring the populace. Indeed, the Sith Lady attempted to murder Dorvan with her glass shikkar dagger but the attack was stopped by Abeloth, who wanted to hear Dorvan's idea: keeping in mind Club Bwua'tu's plan to retake Coruscant, he proposed that the battle against the Jedi be confined and kept quiet by forcing them into the temple.
====No reason to be afraid====
Seventy-five percent of the Sith forces, numbering four thousand members, retreated into the temple, which played to the advantage of Club Bwua'tu's Admiral Nek Bwua'tu. The Jedi forces subsequently joined the three volunteer brigades of Galactic Alliance Marine veterans who assembled under the admiral's leadership in an undercity industrial hangar to stage their joint assault on the New Jedi Temple. Aiming to depose Rokari Kem and save the galaxy from Sith dominance, the marines planned to draw the Sith near the temple's exits while Skywalker and his Jedi force deactivated its shields and opened its blast doors so that they may drive the Sith out of the temple, where they would succumb to artillery fire; baradium strikes on the temple were also planned as a last resort, and the soldiers were organized into fifteen battalions, which were each assigned a Jedi Knight as liaison. Focusing on the Sith, the forces did not know that Abeloth was on Coruscant.
Indeed, Abeloth used the Aing-Tii technique of flow-walking to anticipate the Jedi battle plan of infiltrating the temple from the undercity. Combined with Pagorski's murder earlier, the setback frustrated Dorvan as he joined Abeloth and the Sith in Level 351 of the Jedi Temple. From the decontamination chamber of the Jedi Temple's computer core, Abeloth's Rokari Kem manifestation stepped into the protected space beyond and told the gathered Sith to return with Lady Korelei in setting up their ambush. The Sith Master Tsiat protested leaving the Beloved Queen alone with Dorvan, sensing that he posed a threat. Believing that Abeloth could not be stopped, a desperate Dorvan lied before her that he was not capable of betrayal; Korelei stated that anyone was with courage, but allowed the administrator to pass the line of Sith.
Even though he thought he was being tested, Dorvan hoped to die rather than potentially become possessed by Abeloth and thus pretended to trip over Tsiat, secretly stealing his hold-out blaster. Although Tsiat retaliated with violence, Korelei stopped him, stating her confidence that the chief would be more cautious while lifting him over the other Sith via the Force. Looking back at the Sith Lady, Dorvan realized that she too had the eyes and mouth of the Abeloth and despaired.
Abeloth set Dorvan down in front of her Rokari Kem manifestation and pulled him toward her as she dismissed the Sith. Having turned her back on the chief in the computer core, Abeloth led Dorvan to suspect that it was another trap as he patiently kept his blaster up his sleeve. She sat in the middle swiveling chair of a set of three at the primary equpment bank, assuring Dorvan that his advice was needed and he had no reason to be afraid. Dorvan asked of the advice he was to give and whether Abeloth was unaware of what she would need, prompting a hostile warning from her to be silent. The chief therefore concluded that his blaster was not a test, as she seemed to hide every weakness with a threat and was only ever vulnerable when she entered a trance, ignorant of her environment.
Dorvan made certain that Abeloth had indeed entered a trance before firing his blaster at her, burning a hole through the center of her torso. Her slumped body groaned as he pointed his blaster at her head and fired several more shots to be sure that she died. Dorvan screamed in fear and backed away, not daring to believe that he had just killed Abeloth. He heard a familiar voice telling him that he would never escape and ran away before soon turning back, expecting to see Abeloth. Indeed, a large, wispy face emanated from the computer core, radiating her true form; the Beloved Queen of the Stars used the Force to jerk away a defiant Dorvan's blaster as he attempted to shoot himself, keeping the man alive but stunning him with Force energy, announcing that she was never wrong, and there would be no escape for anyone.
====Glitch====
Having possessed Lydea Pagorski, Abeloth traveled as the officer on a Star Ranger scoutship to Exodo II, an Outer Rim world in the Meridian sector — Based on corresponding data for Exodo system that had been completely besieged by Imperial Head of State Jagged Fel and his fleet for a month following a battle over the world against Admiral Daala, who was jostling to become the new Imperial leader. Abeloth ran the blockade undetected until she reached the debris field of the moon Boreleo, when her ship flew past turbolaser fire from Fel's fleet and reached Daala's Star Destroyer, the Chimaera.
On the bridge of the Star Destroyer Bloodfin, Fel suspected that a disloyal part of his task force had allowed the ship to deliver messages of support to Daala and her ally Moff Drikl Lecersen, while his admiral, Vitor Reige, speculated that the ship had a cloaking device. However, the former Jedi and Fel's bodyguard Tahiri Veila said that she had felt a powerful and dark presence in the Force. The trio then inspected data of static among the sensors of Imperial Sienar Sentinel picket ships around Exodo II.
Fel, Reige, and Veila discovered that many of their sensors had been jammed before the static circle shrank, running in a line in the opposite direction of the planet's spin and toward the task force within around forty-five minutes; reconnaissance officers had assumed it was a solar flare, and Veila deduced that a Force user had used Force-flash to blind the sensors. Indeed, given that half of the ships around the remnants of Boreleo—six Star Destroyers and thirty escort ships—remained engulfed in a static field, Veila concluded that the Force user was more powerful than any Jedi or Sith, announcing that they had found Abeloth.
====A brief interruption====
Posing as Pagorski, Abeloth delivered the previous day's Imperial News Network report to Admiral Daala and Moff Lecersen in the admiral's command salon on the Chimaera. They received news of infighting between Imperial Moffs, and the false officer further explained that she had risk her life to reach Daala as she would better lead the disintegrating Empire in light of Fel's failure. The admiral remained openly skeptical of Pagorski's feat and intentions, staring at the officer and asking if she was part of a trap, but she was also impressed by her resourcefulness and level-headedness under duress; the blockade runner claimed that she was given a favor by someone in Fel's fleet. Lecersen then questioned how she intended to leave Fel's blockade, and Abeloth replied that it was impossible and apologized for provoking a continuing barrage of maser toward the Chimaera.
Lecersen asserted that Fel was simply under pressure by the chaos unfolding in the Empire and turned to attempt breaking through the blockade in his own ship, but Daala was wary of starting a civil war that would destroy the Empire. When the Moff insisted on leaving, the admiral glanced commandingly at Pagorski, who very quickly pointed a hold-out blaster at Lecersen. Daala admired Pagorski's speed and persuaded Lecersen to remain by her side, and the trio moved to the Chimaera bridge.
With one of Fel's Chiss Star Destroyer approaching Daala's forces in Boreleo's remnants, the admiral ordered her Interdictor to crush the warship between two large megaliths at the entrance of her redoubt, which also trapped nearly twenty squadrons of TIE fighter opponents. Daala planned to use the heavy losses and the fragmented state of the Empire to force Fel into holding an Imperial leadership election. Despite Lecersen's incredulity, Pagorski further suggested that it be a general election, given that popular perceptions of women were higher compared to Moffs, and that Fel's reformist and democratic tendencies would compel him to agree.
Daala was enthused by the advice, but Lecersen admonished what he considered to be a delusional embarrassment. An angered Abeloth asked for and received Daala's permission to prove that her words were not delusions. Smiling, she placed her hand on Lecersen's shoulder and ordered that he prostrate himself before his new Head of State. When he refused, Abeloth's fingers dug into his skin as he began collapsing to his knees and put his hands at Daala's feet, and the lieutenant promised the admiral that they would win.
====Levitating above all====
A division of space marines attacked the temple's exterior as Admiral Bwua'tu continued keeping other Galactic Alliance forces away from the action. However, as Abeloth had planned, the Sith ambushed the Jedi in the temple's water treatment plant, killing ten Jedi Knights of the first wave of assault and separating the six survivors from Vestara Khai. The entire complex's interface panels had all been rendered inoperable, forcing the Jedi to go to the computer core if they were to lower the temple's shields and open the blast doors. Masters Luke Skywalker and Corran Horn agreed to use Jaina Solo's droid, Rowdy, to ask the central computer there to achieve those goals, and thirty-six hours of further heavy fighting and evasion later, Ben Skywalker, Valin Horn, Jysella Horn, and the droid stealthily reached the corridor leading to the computer core; Masters Skywalker and Horn also hid nearby with Jaina Solo. Two Sith sentries outside the core's entrance constantly used their headset comlinks, and twenty other Sith warriors hid themselves along the corridor, which was lined with antipersonnel mines.
While Jedi Solo and Masters Skywalker and Horn attacked the Sith and lured them away, the other Jedi gained access to the computer core. Skywalker noticed that the Sith were commanded by a Keshiri woman, Korelei, and he triggered a detonite mine when she stood on top of it. Unbeknownst to the Jedi as Abeloth, Korelei dissipated the blast and continued to battle the trio of Jedi, forcing them to retreat further away from the computer core.
Jysella Horn entered the computer core chamber alongside Rowdy, who eagerly searched for a computer interface console. However, Horn felt that the mission had been too easy and was wary of a trap, and she sensed a diffuse, dark presence throughout the core, as well as a weak one floating above the entrance. Despite the Jedi's precautions, Rowdy rushed to the primary console and accessed its droid socket beside the trio of seats, and Horn found a battered and bruised Dorvan hanging upside-down above her, claiming that he had been underestimated. Dorvan also warned that "she" was not dead, and insisted to the surprised Jedi that the Jessar body was not Chief Rokari Kem.
Assuming that Dorvan was telling her that the body was actually a Sith imposter, Horn focused on Rowdy's report that Vestara Khai was alive and fleeing pursuing Sith in the temple's substructure. Dorvan screamed in distress that the Jedi was playing into Rokari Kem's hands, but Horn thought that the bureaucrat was suffering from torture, reiterating her belief that the corpse before her was dead—and had been a Sith High Lord. Dorvan was shocked as he watched Horn learn from Rowdy that the computer core was not cooperating with requests to lower the shields and open the doors of the temple, insisting that it—she—was the master of the temple and the Beloved Queen of the Stars. The interface then overloaded, firing Rowdy away and melting the droid's innards as the computer displayed: "You know who I am."
Stunned and trembling at the realization that it was Abeloth, Jysella Horn prepared to cast her thermal detonator at the core and became confused as she realized she was missing her brother, Valin, and Ben Skywalker, demanding that the air lock to the chamber be opened; surprisingly to her, it did, only to reveal her brother's limp body. Dorvan then shouted that his warning had been vindicated by the entity's vision of the future. Abeloth had captured Ben Skywalker and left the Horns and Dorvan to themselves.
====All that bloodshed====
Meanwhile, High Lady Sashal led over twenty Sith Sabers after Vestara Khai in Level 30 of the temple, which was filled with mold and fungi. Although Khai had assumed Grand Lord Vol and the Circle of Lords wanted her dead, the Sith laughed at her ignorance and said that the Grand Lord who replaced Vol would be eager to meet her. In her attempt to convince the Sith to let her go, Khai told them that she intended on completing her initial mission assigned by High Lord Taalon—to kill the Jedi queen. Khai revealed that the Jedi queen was Allana Solo, raised by the Solos under the name Amelia Solo but in truth the daughter of Hapan Queen Mother Tenel Ka and Jacen Solo, the Jedi who died as the Sith Lord Darth Caedus. Impressed by Khai's findings, Sashal handed her an armed detonator set to a five-second fuse as the security hatch behind Khai opened to the Jedi Temple's secret access tunnel—which contained the Jedi Bazel Warv, the Solo family's freighter, the Millennium Falcon, and Allana Solo herself.
Allana had been instructing Warv to warn the Barabel Jedi hiding in the temple of her vision of them being found while the Falcon was forced to wait for the loading bay's door to reopen. The door had been closed by its security computer despite override commands from the Solos' droid, R2-D2, who also found that security was preventing the door from being opened due to an emergency access request at the tunnel hatch. From there, Khai tossed her detonator at the Falcon, destroying its cockpit. Nevertheless, Allana, Leia Organa, and Han Solo fought the other Sith alongside R2-D2 and Warv. The latter Jedi perishing in battle, while the others made their way up through the Jedi Temple.
====Make-believe campaign====
As Lieutenant Pagorski, Abeloth became Admiral Daala's primary election campaign coordinator against Head of State Fel, who had agreed to hold a democratic general election while continuing his blockade of Daala's forces. Abeloth sought a secret base of operations, wherefore she was brought to the mining moon Hagamoor 3 in the Outer Rim's Antemeridian sector — Based on corresponding data for Antemeridian system by three Imperial contractors—the Squibs Grees, Emala, and Sligh, who had worked at the subsurface mine and secret nanotechnology laboratory Moon Maiden with Moff Tol Getelles, a former ally of Daala's. Under Abeloth's control, the Moon Maiden produced crates of poster flimsiplast and holosign projector pads that were imbued—using tiny amounts of Force energy—with very powerful Force suggestion and promoted Admiral Daala as a noble candidate to lead the Empire.
A mob attack on Fel's supporters during the Imperial election campaign did not faze the leader, who asserted that Abeloth was responsible for instigating the chaos after speaking with his lover, Jaina Solo, about the mysterious entity. Solo had spoken with Fel following the initial ambush in the Jedi Temple and arranged for a fully armed Jedi StealthX fighter to be sent to Tahiri Veila for use in killing Abeloth. Alongside his aide Kthira'shi'ktarloo "Ashik," Admiral Reige, and Veila, Fel suggested that Abeloth could be found on Hagamoor 3—the bounty hunter who had abetted Daala to escape from Galactic Alliance detention, Boba Fett, was sighted there by Imperial Intelligence. The agency's report added that Hagamoor 3 was the hiding place of Moff Getelles' nano-scientists who had developed the nanovirus targeting the Hapan royals and another strain targeting the Fett genome.
The group therefore agreed to send Veila after Fett and Abeloth, with Fel granting her the frigate Consolidator for the mission and offering to pardon all of her crimes if she succeeded. They also asked Reige to stand as the third candidate in the general election, intending for the admiral to split the military vote with Daala and increase Fel's chances of victory.
====Confessing her truth====
Accompanied by C-3PO, Jedi Knights Raynar Thul, Tekli, and Lowbacca searched for Killiks hives that had a direct association with Abeloth, inspecting their symbols, which included ophidian grotesques. A month into their mission with the scoutship Long Trek, they eventually found the Celestial Palace of the ancient Thuruht hive on the only civilized world in the Maraqoo sector's Reo system, located in Wild Space. — Based on corresponding data for Reo system The palace seemed deserted, with its external pillars featuring sinuous carvings wrapped around the feet of winged beasts and horned fiends—symbols unfamiliar to neither the Jedi, who had studied ophidian grotesques as connections to Abeloth, nor C-3PO's data banks.
The group was invited into the Celestial Palace by the Thuruht hive mind, who were eager to receive and recruit Raynar Thul as he was the former Killik Joiner named UnuThul. En route to the chamber of the queen of the hive, the Jedi saw panels inside the palace that depicted interstellar phenomena, including the Corellian system. When Thul asked for information on the Celestials and Abeloth—pronounced ruur ub in Killik—and explained that the latter had escaped to parts unknown, the queen spurred her nearly dormant hive into action to prepare for the destruction of the galaxy and the end of time.
While the Jedi's Killik guide believed the group to be unready for information about Abeloth, the hive prepared to nurture new eggs in its nursery combs and started farming five square kilometers of the fields outside the palace within days, expecting to be called to service by the Ones. Although the field was not fit for planting, Thuruht told Thul that the Force would help with growth and that it would "come again soon," when the Jedi would start to "share the Force with the hive." Thul and Thuruht therefore agreed that the former would remain to help the hive reestablish itself after the Killiks explain their Histories with Abeloth to Thul and his friends.
Thuruht claimed that when Thul understood Abeloth, he would understand the importance of the hive and wish to help it become strong, and that even the Chiss who waged the Swarm War against the Killiks would accept the fact. Thuruht showed the Jedi and a recording C-3PO Bururru religious panels depicting the Ones materializing from Celestials in the Force at the Font of Power, with the Father struggling to keep the balance between the Son and the Daughter before being aided by the Servant. The Jedi were initially confused as to how they had any relation to Abeloth, but Thuruht clarified that the Servant became the Mother and then—after sneaking a drink from the Font of Power and bathing in the Pool of Knowledge—Abeloth, the Bringer of Chaos, as it was her nature to seek what was beyond her grasp. The Killik further stated that whether Abeloth became the Bringer of Chaos because the Celestials wished it to occur or because she defied the Celestials' wish was a matter that was beyond mortal comprehension.
The guide further explained Abeloth's escapes and their relation to changes in the Current, and how the Architects—the Son and the Daughter—called upon the Thuruht Killiks to contain the Bringer of Chaos, dismissing the Jedi's aim to destroy Abeloth as impossible. Although Thul reasoned that the five thousand years of war between the Jedi and the Sith led to the destruction of Centerpoint Station, allowing Abeloth to escape, Thuruht asserted that the event was merely one of many "in a chain full of snapping links" rather than the cause. As Thuruht informed the Jedi, Thul was assimilated into the hive mind, becoming ThurThul and remaining with the Killiks while bidding the other Jedi farewell.
====Sense of a bounty hunter====
In search of Abeloth, Tahiri Veila was promoted to the high rank Imperial Hand by Fel and followed in Boba Fett's footsteps on Hagamoor 3 four days after the bounty hunter appeared there. Veila was assisted by Lieutenant Dorch Vangur in tracking down the hunter to the Moon Maiden, approximately under half a day behind Fett. Upon arriving at the mine covertly, Veila sensed a hint of bewilderment from Fett and an outporing of fear and grief seething darkly in the Force. Initially expecting Fett's link with Abeloth via their mutual association with Daala to be tenuous, the Hand proceeded with a suspicion that she had the fortune to be achieving her primary goal but also dread. Veila deduced that the Moon Maiden's advertising for more workers was inconsistent with the facility's capacity, and she speculated that Abeloth wanted more individuals to feed on. She then stumbled into the Squib Sligh upon entering the mine.
Veila confronted Sligh and quickly learned how he had helped "Lydea Pagorski" and regretted due to the dangerous nature of the entity, who disappeared many people within the base, while Fett had just arrived not due to Abeloth but because he was targeting the scientists who developed the nanokiller against his genome. Veila pressed on into the decontaminating primary access tunnel of the base, finding Abeloth's propaganda material and growing more concerned that the entity intended to take over the Empire via Daala's election. She then found increasing amounts of club moss and pillars of fungi that spread throughout the facility, and later, dead security guards and Boba Fett, hanging motionless.
At 11:00 Galactic Standard Time (GST), Veila alerted Lieutenant Vangur, who had been waiting on a transport outside the Moon Maiden, to inform Jagged Fel that "she's here" and to "act soonest, regardless," and for Vangur to leave without her if she did not return within an hour; the Hand expected to lower the facility's shield for Fel to bombard Abeloth's location at 12:00 GST. Veila subsequently freed Fett after they agreed to face Abeloth in return for the bounty hunter claiming the nanoscientists Dr. Jessal Yu and Dr. Frela Tarm and staying out of Imperial politics.
After explaining to Fett the true nature of Abeloth as a dangerous "living Force volcano," feeding on the feelings of suffering and far surpassing the powers of Darth Vader and Palpatine, Veila moved to check the Moon Maiden's security bunker but Fett assured her that it had nothing functional, and all being inside died of fright when they had heard he was approaching. Assuming that any shield generators there were gone, Veila used the Force while Fett used his flamethrower to clear the vegetation deeper into the facility's tunnel, where they found more bodies and scared, dying people. The duo reached a bulkhead that contained terrified and pained Force presences spread about a thousand square meters at around 11:40 GST.
====Nothing has ever felt so wrong====
Abeloth was some distance above Tahiri Veila, near the Squibs, and the entity sensed Veila reaching out to her in the Force; Abeloth reached back and sunk her tentacles into her being until Veila closed off herself completely. Abeloth stayed behind the main laboratory, which had two large sealed doors, when Veila and Fett burst into the wider chamber and fought and incapacitated the Squibs. While Fett interrogated the Squib trio, Veila found the laboratory of Dr. Yu and Dr. Tarm, who were chained to their workplaces. Nevertheless, Veila intructed them to develop a counteragent for Fett and asked the frightened pair if they could help her get live vidcam footage of Abeloth—known to them as Lieutenant Pagorski next door.
Intending to keep Abeloth occupied for the next eight minutes until Fel's expected bombardment, Veila set up a vidcam and uplink to Abeloth's chamber and ensure that she could confirm the entity's destruction. She then peered into Abeloth's chamber via the transparisteel panel connecting from the scientists' workroom, spotting meter-wide heads of eight Moffs: Jowar, Quillan, Poliff, and five more of Daala's strongest supporters. Their necks were tentacles linked to the stubby arms of a tattered Lydea Pagorski, feeding on a river of Force energy from the entrance of the laboratory, which was filled with heat. Abeloth greeted Veila with a voice inside the latter's head.
Abeloth flung the oversized head of Moff Quillan through the transparisteel at Tahiri Veila. The head exploded in purple energy; while Veila pushed against the Force blast, Abeloth levitated the human toward herself, clutching her with a tentacle while grabbing her hand, which held an unarmed detonator, with another tentacle. Gazing at Veila with a voice in her mind, Abeloth squeezed the human's wrist until the detonator dropped and assured her that there was no need for explosives, as they would be together for "a long time." When Veila ignited her lightsaber through Abeloth's torso and attempted to drag the blade through her body, the entity grabbed Veila's hand to the extent that she could no longer feel it. Abeloth proclaimed that Veila could not "help it" and that her body, open to the Force, was much stronger than Pagorski's.
===Falling apart===
====Just run?====
Also at 11:52 GST, Luke Skywalker and his team of Jedi were in a ventilation duct 150 meters from a small deflector shield generator protecting their corner of the Jedi Temple's main exhaust port. Admiral Bwua'tu's plan had changed to sending in several thousand Void Jumpers to simply blast their way into the temple inside via the exhaust port at precisely 12:00 GST, which risked the lives of many troopers—and the Jedi in the vicinity, if they failed to lower the shield in time. Meanwhile, blastboats and assault cars continued attacking the Sith gunnery at the temple's exterior. As Korelei, Abeloth followed about 200 meters from behind the Jedi alongside her followers and sent the Sith across the duct's stackheads toward Skywalker; Jaina Solo and Corran Horn proceeded toward the shield generator. Skywalker promoted his niece to the rank of Jedi Master, expecting that the three of them might die in the ensuing encounter.
Although Skywalker's blaster struck some of the Sith ahead of Korelei as they charged toward him, the leader urged the remaining half a dozen of Sith to press on while she joined the charge in the second rank. Skywalker hurled three Sith into the stackhead as they leaped toward him and sent another back to the other side while Korelei and a Keshiri male ignited their lightsabers and jumped across. The Grand Master's Force blast only pushed back the latter; Korelei blocked Skywalker's saber and kicked him in the chest, preparing to launch Force lightning at the downed Jedi. He then aimed his lightsaber at Korelei's midsection and pulled her toward himself; the blade seared her, but she pressed her palm at Skywalker with lightning.
The Jedi was paralyzed, and Korelei hurled him into a wall, twisting away for his lightsaber to cut through her torso sideways before racing down the duct toward Corran Horn. Her wound vented a dark, greasy fume that spread across the duct's ceiling as she virtually floated over the stackheads, leading Skywalker to wonder what kind of creature she was. Abeloth then sent a bolt of lightning into a surprised Master Horn, incapacitating him just after he had killed the Sith who guarded the generator. After similarly dispatching the two remaining Sith near himself, Skywalker blasted several bolts into her to little effect, refusing to even think of her true name.
As Abeloth ran, Master Skywalker opened himself fully to the Force and blasted one of her legs to the extent that it caught fire. The entity only stumbled when he blasted a part of her brain, and she turned around to deflect a second bolt while Skywalker called on Master Solo, who had collapsed of exhaustion, to keep fighting. When Skywalker fired a third shot, Abeloth held the burning bolt in her hand and stared at the Jedi, her pupils contracting and her mouth widening into a smile before sending the bolt back at the Grand Master's eyes; he no longer denied the truth.
====Burn all the lab====
When a tentacle slithered up Veila's chin, Boba Fett launched a mini rocket into the laboratory. Abeloth twisted away, slicing herself through Veila's blade as the rocket hit the floor—the rocket was unarmed, and Abeloth, her wound pouring an oily dark fume, chased Fett as he flew back into the workroom with his jetpack. Abeloth received the bounty hunter's full arsenal of blasterfire, flamethrower, and mini rockets, launched from the middle of the room in front of the scientists. The entity endured the bolts, shielded herself against the flames, and knocked the rockets off-course as she walked on the table toward Fett.
When Veila sent a detonator at her, Abeloth pivoted to see both her enemies and redirected the weapon at the bounty hunter, forcing Veila to slash at Abeloth, cutting off three tentacles. Meanwhile, Fett grabbed the detonator and flew toward the entity, jamming the weapon into Abeloth's wound and then grabbing Veila as he crashed into a corner of the room. The result was a five-meter hole in the floor. Veila also sent another detonator into the main genetics laboratory. After it was engulfed in an explosion, the entire facility shook from the Consolidator bombardment, which occurred two minutes early—11:58 GST.
====Just like clockwork====
At around 11:57:30 GST, Jaina Solo had checked her chronometer and continued to ignore Skywalker's order to stand up and fight; she had realized that if the exhaust port shield was lowered ahead of midday GST, then the Sith would adjust their gun emplacements at the sky above the port. She had touched Master Horn in the Force, urging him to delay detonating the shield generator, although he was concerned that he would waste Master Skywalker's sacrifice, wanting to destroy the generator as soon as their enemy went past Solo. Solo herself feared that she would not last more than a minute against the oncoming woman.
At 11:58 GST, she wailed, which echoed through the Force in the duct around her. When Skywalker blasted her again, she prepared to go after Horn, but Solo summoned her blade to face the entity. She stopped and surprised Solo, who realized that it was Abeloth. Nevertheless, Solo attempted a midbody strike, but Abeloth sent the Jedi tumbling back over a stackhead. When Abeloth leaped over it to reach Solo, the entity suddenly disappeared into the stack's abyss.
A confused Master Solo half-expected a hand to shoot out of the floor and grab her ankle toward the abyss; Master Skywalker blindly fired several shots into the stackhead and peered over the edge in confusion as well. Neither of them understanding what had happened and with a minute and a half to spare, they made their way to Master Horn to destroy the generator together.
====Laid the groundwork====
On Hagamoor 3, decompression sickness killed the pair of scientists while Veila and Fett benefited from their vac suits. Before they left, they agreed that they had helped save each other's life and Veila additionally gave Fett a datachip of the nanokiller files that she had told the scientists to gather; the Force user wanted to make up for being Darth Caedus' apprentice at the time when the nanovirus was deployed. The Consolidator subsequently annihilated the site into a glass crater, and news of the supposed mine's destruction reached the Imperial News Network.
At the Great Election Day Debate later on, Head of State Fel did not mention Abeloth but clarified to Imperial citizens watching the Imperial News Network that he had ordered the destruction of the Moon Maiden for two reasons: it was Admiral Daala's campaign headquarters, and it was used for illegal droch experiments. After pardoning Moff Getelles for his experiments on Hagamoor 3 and thus tarnishing Daala's chance of success, Fel was happy to announce that he would not continue to serve as the leader of the Empire, instead endorsing Vitor Reige, who was elected Head of State.
====Step by step====
Abeloth nevertheless still had Ben Skywalker captive, having isolated him from the other Jedi at the computer core and imprisoned him inside Ship, perched in the reception hall just off the Jedi Temple's Pinnacle Platform. Three days after the Void Jumpers had entered the temple, Abeloth herself stood in the hall's wrecked entrance as the battle raged on; the citizens of Coruscant simply hid from the conflict while at least three hundred Sith escaped the assault in the temple, spreading chaos by launching over three thousand attacks that demolished seven hundred skytowers and killed over three million civilians and thousands of security force personnel.
Skywalker watched as Abeloth gazed across Fellowship Plaza at the Galactic Justice Center even as a trio of blastboats attacked her platform; the laser cannons beside Abeloth shot down one ship, but the remaining two destroyed the emplacements and fired upon the entity. When a bolt struck her right shoulder, Abeloth spun around to deflect the shots back at the blastboats and, before they could deploy space marines, she moved the rear ship into the exhaust stream of the leader, blowing up both craft due to the ordance aboard.
While shielding herself from the flames and shrapnel, Abeloth let the marines dropping out of the blastboats cook in their armor, fall to the platform, and be crushed by the wreckage. Ben Skywalker believed that she fed on the fear and pain of the chaos of Coruscant, which was inhabited by trillions of beings, and thought that her plan had been to pit the Jedi against the Sith and feast on the fallout. Skywalker also considered why Abeloth wanted him, speculating that she wanted to use him to lure his father, Luke, or otherwise wanted him for his lineage as a grandchild of the Chosen One, Anakin Skywalker. However, Ship deemed the young Jedi narrow in thought.
A Sith Lord and Vestara Khai then approached Abeloth, kneeling to their overlord and kissing her extended knot of tentacles. As Khai did so, Abeloth smirked at an angered Skywalker fot a few moments. She then beckoned the two women before her to rise and led them to Ship, where she motioned the Keshiri to remain outside. Khai was surprised to find Skywalker in the cabin, and the Jedi called her a "sleemo," but the Sith slapped his face in return. Skywalker, wishing that Khai was simply acting along in serving an all-too-delighted Abeloth, then shoved the entity via the Force, which she resisted. Khai subsequently flung the Jedi into the cabin wall, and Abeloth laid her tentacles over Khai's forearm and cautioning her "child" in what seemed to be six voices not to kill Skywalker. Abeloth thus turned to leave, instructing Khai to guard "the boy" in Ship and suggesting that she tell him about her actions in the escape tunnel.
====Rattling the ground====
As Khai told Skywalker that she had been deceiving him and had led an ambush on the Solos and the Millennium Falcon, Abeloth leaned over Pinnacle Platform's balustrade, drawing on the dark side energy of the frightened crowd below as her tentacles gestured toward the plaza below and the base of the Galactic Justice Center. Groundquakes ensued as Khai explained that the Beloved Queen's wrath would deliver the "true punishment" of the "volcano." The dense and heavily urbanized nature of Coruscant meant that billions of lives—and the anguish that could fuel Abeloth into becoming a being with incomprehensibly power—were at stake.
Khai further informed Skywalker that the Jedi and marines were still battling the Sith in the temple and had no idea what they were facing; Skywalker took the information as hints that the Jedi still did not grasp the true scale of destruction that Abeloth would unleash and the power that she would gain, realizing that they must be told about the entity's next act. Attempting not to alert Ship as he could read the top of their minds, Skywalker indicated to Khai to work together, and so they did. However, they were foiled by the Keshiri Sith Lord outside.
The next day, the Jedi Council called a meeting in the office of Senator Luewet Wuul. Jaina Solo left her bacta tank in the Galactic Justice Center, where Admiral Gavin Darklighter of the Galactic Alliance Marines had commandeered its infirmary to treat military casualties, including Masters Skywalker, Horn, and Solo. En route to the Senate Building, Solo spoke via comlink with Jagged Fel and Tahiri Veila, who had just arrived over Coruscant on the yacht Parting Gift, and was informed of the Abeloth they had killed.
The Jedi learned that the Abeloth-possessed Lydea Pagorski had approached Daala at Exodo II, ran the admiral's election campaign, and died on Hagamoor 3 at exactly the same time as the Abeloth-possessed Korelei in the Jedi Temple was weakened and fled the fight. Veila also told her that Abeloth's physical body was weakening and the entity desired her body as a Force user. Before Solo joined the Jedi Council meeting, she told Veila that they would want to debrief her regarding Abeloth, although Veila and Fel would not arrive until a few hours later.
====With horror and truth====
As the Galactic Justice Center swayed outside beyond the office's viewport and was ordered to be evacuated, Luke Skywalker, Kyp Durron, Kyle Katarn, Cilghal, Saba Sebatyne, Octa Ramis, and Barratk'l welcomed Master Solo to the Jedi Council—only Kam and Tionne Solusar were absent to supervise the students on the Jedi planet Shedu Maad in the Hapes Cluster, the Inner Rim region that was ruled by the Hapes Consortium and created by the Celestials. The Masters were joined by Admirals Bwua'tu and Darklighter as well as Brigadier General Mirax Horn and Club Bwua'tu's Eramuth Bwua'tu, Chief Wynn Dorvan, and Senator Wuul himself, among other dignitaries and assistants. The meeting also included four Jedi Knights: Valin and Jysella Horn, Tekli, and Lowbacca, the latter two having just returned from the Killiks and sent C-3PO to upload his videographic account of their discoveries into the Jedi Archives.
Mirax Horn reported the scale of the conflict and Jedi Yaqeel Saav'etu's encounter of a tattoed dark side man near Fellowship Plaza: he told Saav'etu "not yet, Jedi. Abeloth first," and Master Skywalker remembered spotting the man earlier on Coruscant. The meeting nevertheless agreed to focus on other matters, and Darklighter reported that his teams had not yet captured the Pinnacle or the computer core, controlling only the areas below the Pinnacle and above Level Three-seventy; he said that resistance particularly in the upper levels, such as the loss of three blastboats, led him to believe that Abeloth was on Pinnacle Platform, even though Wynn Dorvan continued to reiterate that Abeloth was the computer core.
Jaina Solo and Grand Master Skywalker realized that the Galactic Justice Center was in a direct line of sight from the Pinnacle and assured Dorvan that they believed him—Callista Ming's spirit had similarly occupied a computer in the warship Eye of Palpatine. Skywalker nevertheless ordered an all-Jedi unit to be sent to the platform after the meeting. Solo further realized that Dorvan knew what she had just learned, and she relayed to the rest of the meeting that Abeloth could inhabit multiple bodies at once, based on Veila and Fett's killing of her on Hagamoor 3 at the same time as when Abeloth's Sith avatar was weakened in the Jedi Temple. Master Durron suggested that Abeloth's pattern of death and another body fleeing—in the Maw, on Pydyr, and on Nam Chorios—could be repeated, but Master Katarn believed that Coruscant would be different.
Katarn, Nek Bwua'tu, and Barratk'l discussed how Abeloth could gain more than two bodies, and they knew of her presence in at least Korelei, Pinnacle Platform, and the computer core after her death on Hagamoor 3, but they were all part of one Force entity that was weakened and forced to hide and recuperate upon an avatar's death. Cilghal stated that Abeloth's inability to simply withdraw from a body upon death could not be explained without knowing how she possessed a victim, and Dorvan offered to share his of witnessing Lydea Pagorski being taken.
====The past talking====
Dorvan revealed that Abeloth had been using Rokari Kem's body, which was falling apart, and fed on Pagorski's fear as she entered the human, taking control of her even though Pagorski herself was still in the body, alive. Dorvan also explained that he killed Abeloth, which prompted Master Sebatyne to laugh, and that Abeloth had wanted him to kill her. Despite the Jedi's confusion, they also heard that Abeloth entered the computer core upon Kem's body being shot and had used the core to trap Ben Skywalker—Jedi Valin and Jysella Horn added that Abeloth indeed had worked to isolate Ben Skywalker from them and ignored the twins.
Ben's capture prompted Jaina Solo to deduce that Abeloth, having wanted to possess Tahiri Veila's body as Pagorski's body was deteriorating, much like Rokari Kem's, wanted to take the young Skywalker's body. Luke was more inclined to believe that rather than lineage, it was to do with Ben's withdrawal from Abeloth during his time on Shelter, but Durron persuaded him and the council that Ben was the offspring of both Luke and Mara Jade, another powerful Force user. In comparison, Jaina was also a grandchild of Anakin Skywalker, but only her mother, Leia Organa, was Force-sensitive. As for the reason Abeloth wanted Ben, Jedi Tekli suggested that they listen to the Histories of Thuruht.
As Tekli and Lowbacca showed and explained the Histories, the Jedi Masters recognized the depiction of a temple complex on Abeloth's world from their recent visions—Master Solo had dreamed of Ben Skywalker dueling Vestara Khai at the complex. Further on, as the meeting discussed how the Son and the Daughter of the Ones who lived in their original ethereal realm had stopped Abeloth, Luke Skywalker elaborated that he had heard of similar things when he trained under Yoda, realizing that his legend related to the Ones—their deaths during Anakin Skywalker's visit meant that they would not help the Killiks contain Abeloth as in previous cycles of calamities. Sebatyne expressed her certainty that the myths were real, and both Solo and Skywalker came to a dreadful conclusion.
Solo explained that Abeloth must have taken Ben so that she may recreate her family given her sense of loss and loneliness: Ben would be the son, and Vestara Khai would be the daughter. Durron and Katarn agreed that Abeloth had probably wanted Luke to be the father but dropped the idea after the Grand Master continued killing her. Although Senator Wuul questioned the possibily that Abeloth was twenty-five thousand years old, Tekli said that the Histories suggested she was at least a hundred thousand years old; the Jedi knew the Font of Power and the Pool of Knowledge to be real locations, so they feared that the young Skywalker and Khai would use them, creating a family of Abeloths.
====The final blow====
Abeloth's groundquakes opened fissures in Fellowship Plaza that unleashed two hundred meters of white magma as a fountain beside the Galactic Justice Center, which began to melt as the cylinder leaned into the plaza. The disaster prompted Master Sebatyne to declare that Abeloth must be destroyed as soon as possible, derogatively referring to her as a mad and blind "shenbit." Nek Bwua'tu then asked Luke Skywalker whether they should drop a baradium bomb on the Jedi Temple. While the meeting debated sacrificing all the marines and Jedi there so that Abeloth would not be alerted to a strike, Skywalker ruled it out on the basis that the Solos were trapped there—the Jedi were not willing to risk Allana Solo, whom the Grand Master had seen in a vision on the Throne of Balance.
Chief Dorvan further asserted that Abeloth would anticipate a baradium barrage through the Force. The meeting was interrupted again by the Justice Center—which vanished in a kilometer-high pillar of magma. While the group was shocked, Jaina Solo and Luke Skywalker sensed a familiar presence leaving the Jedi Temple and saw Ship flying away from Coruscant, and the two immediately left the office. Abeloth was taking Ben Skywalker and Vestara Khai back to the Maw aboard Ship.
About an hour later, Master Sebatyne and Void Jumpers led by Sergeant Major Gef Olazon met Jagged Fel and Tahiri Veila, and they flew the Parting Gift to the Jedi Temple. Sebatyne had agreed with Master Horn's suggestion that the strike team bring Veila along due to her experience of killing Abeloth. Braving turbolaser fire, the ship dropped off Sebatyne and her "pack" of fifteen—Veila and Olazon's Void Jumpers—and rescued the Solos, who were joined by Allana's pet, Anji, the Jedi Zekk and his Hapan commandos, and a clutch of twenty hatchlings of four Barabel Jedi Knights. Sebatyne's team continued battling the Sith and deactivated the surveillance system 300 meters around them with a blinder, aiming to reach Abeloth in the computer core in several days and prepare for Grand Master Skywalker's signal to eventually attack Abeloth.
===For the last time===
====The family gathers====
Several days after leaving Coruscant with Ship, Abeloth returned to her world in the Maw. Upon disembarking with Ben Skywalker and Vestara Khai, she sent Ship into space, stranding her prisoners in the courtyard of the Font of Power. The pair had not been given any food or water during the trip on Ship and were prevented from leaving the courtyard, where they were tempted to drink from the Font of Power. Although the pair told her that they would rather die than join her insanity, Abeloth intended Skywalker to become the eternal Prince of Light—maintaining justice and forgiveness—and Khai to become the irresistable Daughter of the Night—guarding the Force's forbidden mysteries and filling dreams with beauty and desire. Abeloth told them thus and declared that they would becomes the immortal Ones, shaping the galaxy to their desire forever.
Abeloth appeared as a swirl in the acrid yellow fog around the Font, gloating in multiple voices to Skywalker that Khai could not resist temptation and cannot be trusted; she still kept hidden her betrayal in the attack on the Millennium Falcon. Abeloth also told Khai that it was Skywalker who was holding her back from drinking from the Font, giving them the "choice" to "live with"—or to "die from." Abeloth then retreated, allowing the pair to whisper among themselves that Luke Skywalker was coming as soon as possible; Ben had reached out to his father in desperation, and he asserted that hope would be enough to carry them through the ordeal as long as they stuck together.
Abeloth then suddenly pounced on Khai, her tentacles probing the human's mouth and nose until Skywalker blasted her with Force energy in panic. His powers were augmented by the strong darkness within a few meters of the Font, leading the Jedi to realize that using the Force through the dark side was like poison. Khai disagreed with Skywalker that they should avoid using the Force; she insisted that it would be a necessity until his father arrived. Ben Skywalker then proposed that they attempt to escape by splitting up—reasoning that Abeloth would not be able to catch them both and that they could safely use the Force further away from the Font—and the successful escapee should ensure, by killing if needed, that the other did not become another avatar of Abeloth's.
Khai rejected such a plan of certain death, suggesting that they had been brought together and then taken to the Font by Abeloth due to the will of the Force. Khai proposed that the best thing for the galaxy was if they both drank, becoming stronger than Abeloth and destroying her—Abeloth was the Destroyer of Keshiri myth and they were the Protectors.
====The planets and the fates====
The frigate Redstar took Luke Skywalker and Jaina Solo to the Maw's perimeter. Before the pair departed into the Maw on the infiltrator Rude Awakening, Skywalker received a message from Corran Horn that the Solos were safe, and that Allana had been targeted in a Sith ambush led by Vestara Khai that killed Bazel Warv and nearly destroyed the Millennium Falcon. The Grand Master felt that the betrayal hurt him more than the wounds Abeloth had inflicted upon him, doubting his own judgements, including whether his attempt to rescue his own son followed or defied the will of the Force. He also thought that Abeloth was trying to lure him and Jaina Solo in, given their emotional involvement in the mission.
The Grand Master voiced his concerns to his niece, explaining that he had confirmed with the Jedi Archives that Obi-Wan Kenobi had indeed filed a report on Mortis, having been drawn there alongside Anakin Skywalker as the dying Father wanted the Chosen One to take his place as the Keeper of the Balance. Luke speculated that since his father's "selfish" refusal resulted in the deaths of the Ones, his son could be destined to take the Daughter's place as the embodiment of the light side. The dichotomy Ben had with Vestara Khai, who could take the Son's place as the embodiment of the dark side, and their love for each other—coupled with the dreams that the Jedi Masters all had of the pair fighting in the Font of Power's courtyard—made Luke suspect that the ordeal could be destiny, directed by the will of the Force, to restore balance. Ergo, his attempt to "rescue" his son could likewise be selfish behavior. Jaina Solo countered that believing the will of the Force was being communicated to oneself could be detrimental, given that such an attitude led Jacen Solo to become a destructive Dark Lord of the Sith.
Given her uncle's confusion over his emotional attachment in the mission, Jaina Solo told him to simply act on what he knew was right, in accordance with his values and principles, rather than predict unknowable consequences and take visions in the Force literally or for certain, which would repeat Jacen's mistake of holding himself above the will of the Force. Masters Skywalker and Solo agreed that given the absence of the Father, the balance of the Force depended on the Jedi and the Sith acting on their own natures and to come together if Abeloth was freed again. Ship then attacked the Rude Awakening.
====Sets the scene====
While Master Solo battled Ship, Luke Skywalker's essence went to Lake of Apparitions in the twilight realm beyond shadows and found Mara Jade, asking her to draw out Abeloth despite the spirit warning that she was among the immortal "Old Ones," but Skywalker surprised her by stating that the entity had taken their son, Ben. When Darth Caedus appeared as well, Skywalker relayed Thuruht's explanation that he had set Abeloth free, but both Jade and Caedus said that they could not help with stopping Abeloth. However, the mysterious tattooed man whom the Jedi had previously sighted on Coruscant said that he would help the Grand Master. Jacen identified him as the "dark man" who sat on the Throne of Balance in his vision, but the man declared that since the Ones were dead, Abeloth could only be stopped by the Jedi and the Sith working together.
Without revealing his identity, Darth Krayt also said that "we"—the One Sith—gained knowledge of Abeloth by spying on the Jedi and observing events on Coruscant. The stranger did not entertain Skywalker's attempt to solve his mystery, instead turning to find Abeloth. She revealed herself in the Mists of Forgetfulness and launched Force lightning the went directly through the Sith into the Jedi before he could deliver his own attack, blasting him backward.
Meanwhile, Saba Sebatyne on Coruscant sensed Skywalker's anguish—the hunt had ended. Treating Abeloth as a "prey" to be killed, Master Sebatyne had been waiting by the corridor leading into the Jedi Temple's computer core; the initial assault had killed the Sith in the area, but only herself, Veila, and four Void Jumpers led by Olazon survived. While the injured demolition man Braan remained at the final staging area, the others—including Stomper One with his meter-long EMP bomb set to a five-minute charge and Stomper Two—charged into the corridor and were suddenly countered by Sith shadow-ghouls therein.
At the Font of Power, Vestara Khai decided to brave the dark side nexus against Ben Skywalker's protests, and Abeloth pounced on the Jedi. Her tentacles held him in place and entered his mouth, but Skywalker bit off a tip of her tendrils and spit it along with its oily blood into Abeloth's eyes. The entity drew only closer and a tentacle went around the back of his head and up into his nose despite the resistance of Skywalker, who refused to use the Force due to his proximity to the Font.
====All she did was smile====
Abeloth took his punches and kicks with no reaction other than a smile as her tentacle touched his sinuses, causing great pain to the Jedi as she asserted that he would either drink or serve her in another way. The entity was blasted away by lightning from Khai and hit the ground three meters away, held against the cobblestones until her tentacles and the rest of her true form receded back into the form of Korelei. Khai pressed on with Force lightning, corrupted and reinforced by the dark power of the Font, though she had not drank from it. Skywalker refused to believe that Khai was indulging in her Sith lust for power as he grabbed her, pausing the duel and walking away from the Font.
In the duel beyond shadows, Abeloth faced Force blasts from Luke Skywalker and Darth Krayt, and lightning emanating from her eyes engulfed her entire head as she fought. Luke Skywalker, bearing many wounds and a fist-sized scorch hole in his chest, then sent a Force blast that made the entity sag by the edge of the Lake of Apparitions; she seemed to almost tumble into the Depths of Eternity as Skywalker leaped beside Abeloth and struck her legs, throat, and head, Force essence pushing into Force essence. Abeloth lost a knee as her larynx was constricted by the Jedi, who grappled her as their presences merged in a knot of energy while she struck Skywalker's right eye.
Krayt then drove his fingers into the pit of Abeloth's stomach despite the entity letting off another blast in the Force in pain, her wound spraying black. Skywalker also held tight, and the trio flew across the lake until they were stopped by the Sith Lord, who had been draining Abeloth's power. Feeling betrayed, Skywalker kicked Krayt in the knee and threatened to let Abeloth go. The Sith seemed to draw less energy from the entity, who lashed helplessly and was weakened quicker than Skywalker did.
Krayt screamed in anguish as dark energy poured from his wounds and made the lake simmer, and the Jedi realized that they were all suffering from the Force drain. Abeloth ripped away her energy bond with Skywalker and tried to bite anything she could reach, but he merged his form with Abeloth's again, pulling her throat hard and urging the stranger to pull harder.
Meanwhile, on Coruscant, Sebatyne and her team's battle against the shadow-ghouls progressed as the beings' eyes turned from red to pink and their formation loosened, their attacks slowing down—they could only be defeated by killing them when their eyes were closed. Stomper One was killed in action, during which the team advanced fifteen meters, and Sebatyne felt a wave of terror from Braan before a detonator exploded behind them. As Sebatyne fought on, she reasoned that the shadow-ghouls were animated by Abeloth, and their weakening indicated Skywalker's growing success in the Maw.
====At the same time====
As soon as Ben Skywalker took Vestara Khai, who was shuddering with Force overload, out of the Font's vicinity, Abeloth stood back up and approached the pair, her lightsaber drawn. Skywalker was surprised by her instant return to combat and wished that he was simply facing a Sith Lord, only to be disappointed when she spoke in a thousand voices, giving him and Khai the ultimatum that they either drink from the Font of Power or be destroyed.
Skywalker opened himself fully to the Force, focusing on all that he loved, his trust in the Jedi purpose, and hope for the future rather than taking the darkness of the Font. His Force blast at Abeloth's chest, enough to knock a frigate out of orbit, shifted her shoulders by a couple of centimeters as she neared. Skywalker nearly collapsed, and Khai pulled him back toward the Font of Power until he pointed out that she did not fare better when using its dark power. The Jedi was confident that they simply had to work together rather than surrender to Abeloth.
Abeloth caught Khai's Force lightning in her palm only to be struck in the back of her head by a pillar that Skywalker had lifted from the arcade by the courtyard. Although the diversion cost Abeloth blood, an eye, some skull, and some brain, she staggered and raised her gaze at Skywalker. Khai exclaimed that he had made her mad, and the Jedi moved to bring another pillar into Abeloth when he flew directly into one such pillar, injuring his shoulder blades and skull as he lost consciousness. Abeloth pursued Khai as she ran toward the Font.
Beyond shadows, Abeloth lay on Luke Skywalker's arms while Krayt's hands remained in her chest, and her Force energy exploded, sending the trio tumbling across the Lake of Apparitions until they nearly reached the shore. The Jedi Master was worried that Abeloth would take them to a place unknown to him and gave a kick that sent them back toward the center of the lake. Abeloth then stopped struggling, seemingly shrinking and then disappearing. She left Krayt with a stump of his hand continuing to drain Force energy, seemingly betraying Skywalker. Skywalker thought the betrayal premature and readied to blast the Sith Lord, but Krayt had spotted Abeloth at the lake's far end, with his hand in her chest as she retreated into the Mists of Forgetfulness. Skywalker yelled for the stranger to stop Abeloth.
Darkness erupted as a fountain from Krayt's wrist as Abeloth shrieked with the volume of thunder. The man drew his missing hand back to his stump and Abeloth materialized in front of him, her tentacles digging into both Krayt and Skywalker. As Abeloth tore relentlessly at her enemies, Skywalker's elbow ploughed through her head and she fell away, clutching a handful of Force essence from the Jedi and the Sith. They both collapsed with fist-sized gaping holes in their chest.
====Checkmate====
The eyes of Abeloth's shadow-ghouls paled white as they weakened, allowing Sebatyne's team to reach the computer core entrance. Sebatyne was concerned that she sensed no sign from Master Skywalker and Veila suspected that Abeloth might be laying a trap, but Olazon was careful not to express their plans in case they were eavesdropped. They then blew their way into the computer core chamber, where Abeloth—as a white-hot cloud with a woman's face, a broad mouth, and sinking eyes—extended tendrils of light toward Sebatyne. Veila called for Stomper Two's "Big Blinder" to destroy the core, but Sebatyne ignored her and drew her own lightsaber, counting on Abeloth to anticipate and attempt to change the future.
Reaching the service balcony's front edge, Abeloth began to solidify and prepared to pump her dark Force essence into Sebatyne, requiring the Jedi Master as a new avatar to escape and recover from her wounds. Her tentacles probed the Barabel's head but were cut off at the shoulder by the Jedi's blade; instead of spraying Force essence, the wounds were cauterized. Abeloth shrieked in pain and rage and she and the Jedi slammed into the interface console below within a millisecond. They spun off on opposite sides, with Abeloth landing on her feet by the edge of the balcony. Sebatyne grabbed the entity via the Force to prevent her from entering the computer core.
However, Abeloth extinguished the Jedi's blade and expanded her fang-lined jaws. The Barabel simply jammed her fists into Abeloth's maw, smashing a hole of ten centimeters through her fangs. The gum clamped the Jedi's arms in excruciating pain, but Sebatyne persisted, tearing Abeloth's throat and exposing her neck. She then sank her fangs into Abeloth's skin, cartilage, muscles, and bones, and spinal cord and gnashed until the entity's head popped loose and released the Jedi's broken arms. Abeloth's head flew to Veila and the two Void Jumpers' feet, shocking the trio. Sebatyne announced to Veila that they had both killed an Abeloth.
====Pierced through the heart====
Abeloth wrestled against Vestara Khai and her lightning at the Font of Power, with one set of tentacles holding the human in place and another probing her face as she shouted for Ben Skywalker to help. Skywalker staggered into the fog and lifted the shikkar from Abeloth's belt and plunged the dagger through the middle of her back, her spinal cord, and into her heart. Abeloth collapsed and wailed, reaching behind her back, but Skywalker snapped off the shikkar handle and Khai blasted the being in the face with lightning. Abeloth toppled backward and writhed as the Jedi dragged her away from the fog into the planet's blue sunshine with the Force. Abeloth's tentacles turned back into arms, her entire body went slack, and Skywalker crushed her chest with the pillar fragment he had used against her previously.
Khai poised to burn the body to a crisp with lightning but was dissuaded by Skywalker. In space, Ship retreated from the Rude Awakening as Jaina Solo fired her final missile. At the Lake of Apparitions beyond shadows, Abeloth's body shrank and vanished, and Darth Krayt left Luke Skywalker after saying that the future of Sith dominance was merely delayed by Darth Caedus and Abeloth. Before Skywalker himself left the realm beyond shadows, he spoke with Caedus about how his actions had unleashed Abeloth and asked about the vision that he had initially seen before turning to the dark side; the fallen Jedi, realizing that he bore personal responsibility for Abeloth's release, told Skywalker that he had seen his daughter, Allana, beside the dark man on the Throne of Balance.
As Ben Skywalker approached his father in the medbay of the Rude Awakening, Jaina Solo having landed the ship in the Font of Power's courtyard, he experienced a vision in which Allana sat in front of a white throne while a small number of Jedi fought at the dais' foot. The Jedi were desperately holding off dark figures and occasional gray tentacles, which attempted to slip unnoticed past the steps to the throne until blocked by a lightsaber, flying away to return to the darkness. Afterward, Jaina Solo told Ben the full extent of Vestara Khai's treachery, including how Abeloth had controlled the Jedi Temple's computer systems and worked with Khai to target Allana.
In the jungle outside, Khai took Abeloth's lightsaber and parang and silently called for Ship, heartbroken that her lover surely was being told about her betrayal on Coruscant. Ship communicated via telepathy to Khai that Abeloth was dead "as much as that is possible" and submitted to her command. She questioned Ship over his wording and whether their kind would accept her back, but he simply replied that Abeloth's fate was a mystery of the Force and that the Lost Tribe were not the only Sith in the galaxy.
Taking on the mantle of a Sith Lord with Ship's encouragement, Lady Khai attributed her slaying of Abeloth as one of her many achievements and turned to face the Jedi while Ship descended to her position. Carrying the hurt of leaving Ben Skywalker immediately after they beat Abeloth together, Khai briefly fought Master Solo before flying away from Abeloth's planet with Ship.
===…but never killed===
====Clarity in death?====
Hundreds of kilometers of Coruscant had been cast into darkness by Abeloth; her Sith further made ruins and fires in thousands of places across the surface of Galactic City away from Fellowship Plaza. Volcanic ash and smoke continued to spread in the undercity, inflicting billions of casualties. With the Inner Rim Caucus' persuasion and persisting rumors that the Jedi had been warring a spice war with their rivals, the Galactic Senate held the Jedi responsible for the apocalypse and voted to request their departure from Coruscant.
Indeed, Abeloth's onslaught had immense consequences for the Jedi as they faced a galaxy rife with the dark side. While Luke Skywalker was recovering from his injuries, Jedi Knights Avinoam Arelis and Sothais Saar in the Outer Rim were attacked by a tentacle that suddenly materialized before it disappeared; the Jedi Council believed that it was a remnant of Abeloth that targeted a representation of her hatred for the Jedi. The Jedi Council believed that Abeloth would eventually recover and return, albeit not in their lifetimes.
Master Skywalker sent for Raynar Thul, reasoning that the Ones' deaths and Abeloth's destruction meant that there was no need to help the Killiks rebuild their hives and risk antagonizing the Chiss. Skywalker also convinced the Jedi that removing themselves from Coruscant would be in the best interests of the beleaguered capital, wishing to spare it from being caught in the crossfires of further conflict with the Sith; the Jedi would relocate to the world Shedu Maad, and acting Chief of State Wynn Dorvan would propose a Senate resolution to treat any attempt to infiltrate the Galactic Alliance as an act of open war. The Grand Master himself continued to feel the anguish of Abeloth's balled tentacles in his chest wound, which also cost him a rib and a part of a lung.Crucible
The Holocron of Luke Skywalker documented the Jedi's struggle against Abeloth and the Sith Tribe, and in it, the Grand Master made clear that he had learned that the Jedi must devote wholly to the light side by focusing on the challenges and mysteries of their most important ally, the Force, rather than issues of galactic politics. He was troubled that the imbalance of the Force would continue to plague the galaxy, given the chaos and darkness over the past half a century. He also sought to understand Abeloth's origins and the nature of the Ones so that the Jedi could better follow the will of the Force and restore balance—whether that was to truly destroy Abeloth, constrain her, or to acknowledge her role in the galaxy and create a new order.
To ensure the immortal Abeloth's destruction should she resurface, Skywalker sought to obtain the Dagger of Mortis as described in the Jedi Archives' Mortis report. To that end, ten young Quest Knights were dispatched throughout the galaxy in search of the Mortis Monolith. At the same time, the Hapes Consortium publicly announced Allana Djo Solo as the first heir to the Hapan Throne.
During Jagged and Jaina Solo Fel's honeymoon in the same year of 44 ABY, Jaina persuaded her newlywed husband to hike on Sakuub—an Outer Rim world of the Pelgrin sector — Based on corresponding data for Sakuub system that housed an ancient ruin named the Sky Temple of Karsol—where she hoped to learn whether it was a lost Jedi site or contained any information about Abeloth. The pair uncovered a Jedi holocron at the temple, and though they were attacked by local guide working for an unknown party upon the discovery, they were aided by a Hutt and escaped with the holocron.
====The wound that would not close====
A year into the search for Mortis, in 45 ABY, the Jedi Ohali Soroc found a monolith matching the Mortis Monolith's appearance in Wild Space's — Based on corresponding data for Chiloon Rift Chiloon Rift. The Columi entrepreneurs Craitheus and Marvid Qreph had constructed their base on the monolith itself, which expanded space and time around its vicinity, and wished to exploit its power. While Vestara Khai attempted to take advantage of the Qrephs' operation and enter the monolith herself together with the brothers, they predicted her betrayal and entered the monolith without the Sith, who fled with Ship.
Although the Masters of the Council were worried about the mysterious wound that Abeloth had left in Luke Skywalker's chest, the Grand Master had claimed that pain only occurred when he experienced Force visions and set off for the Chiloon Rift. After dispatching the Qrephs' Mandalorian mercenaries with help from a strike team that included Ben Skywalker, Tahiri Veila, and Lando Calrissian with his latest YVH battle droids, Luke Skywalker and Han and Leia Organa Solo followed the Qreph brothers into the structure, which contained an ethereal realm.
====Every loss a step====
While there, the mark that Abeloth left in Skywalker's chest remained a dark void while other parts of his body shone in a luminous gold due to the raw strength of the Force. His companions also glowed in gold as they resisted the temptation of the shadows that lingered there, but the Qrephs were corrupted after accepting help from the shadows, becoming dark specks.
As the Jedi, held between life and death, destroyed the Qrephs through the Force, Luke Skywalker realized that darkness and destruction was inseparable from light and life. Skywalker concluded that the monolith was imbalanced and that Mortis was not in it—at least at that time. The trio consisting of himself and Leia Organa and Han Solo subsequently decided to retire from galactic affairs, confident that the rest of the Jedi would be able to grow beyond them. When Darth Krayt, the Sith Lord whose fate had been so linked to the Bringer of Chaos's rise and fall, led the One Sith conquest of the galaxy nearly a century later, individuals such as the Jedi Cade Skywalker,Legacy—War 6 Ania Solo, and Empress Marasiah Fel worked with the Fel Empire, Jedi Order, and later the Galactic Federation Triumvirate to bring an end to the Sith hold over the galaxy.Legacy (2013) 1
==Personality and traits==
Abeloth was an entity antagonized by loneliness; she felt an absolute need to be loved and adored, and was nearly overcome when Vol attacked her with the idea that she was hideous and despised. She fed her craving for adulation by instilling in Force-sensitives a desire to be with her, and in turn catered to their every need and assumed the role as their mother. This stemmed from her original fear of losing her family, who remained ageless while she became old. In an attempt to hold on to the life she had, Abeloth drank from the Font of Power and bathed in the Pool of Knowledge, which corrupted her mind and twisted her love for her family into a craving for companionship. When her family abandoned her on their planet—the very reason she committed her crimes in the first place— she was driven insane by loneliness and despair. An outgrowth of this loneliness was her vulnerability to Force attacks that tore at her identity or mocked her as unlovely and doomed to be hated. 
Similar to the rhak-skuri creatures of Upekzar, she fed on the terror of her victims. She spread mass-terror by creating chaos, in an attempt to gain more power, as her ultimate goal was to recreate her lost family—she wanted Luke Skywalker to take the place of the Father, luring him by possessing Castilla Ming and Akanah, whom Skywalker loved, and tried to force Ben Skywalker and Vestara Khai to drink from the Font of Power, intending them to be the replacements for the Son and Daughter.
While on Pydyr, Abeloth's eyes shone as she told Luke Skywalker that she had more bodies that he could kill, taking pleasure in the Jedi's distress.
====To hide a smile====
When introduced to the Sith at the Kesh masquerade, Abeloth had a sweet smile. Abeloth's capacity for deception affected the Sith Lords of Kesh, the politicians of the Galactic Senate, and even the Jedi Grand Master Luke Skywalker. She subverted the democracy of the Galactic Alliance, which was already strained by the tension between Chief of State Daala and the Jedi Order, both by appealing to senators as a kindly Rokari Kem who represented a people who had long struggled against slavery and by taking advantage of the politicians who were under the payroll or otherwise manipulated by the Sith Tribe led by High Lord Workan on Coruscant.
Abeloth was also a skilled campaign manager, promoting Grand Admiral Daala's candidacy for the Imperial leadership election against the popular reformist incumbent, Jagged Fel. Although Daala was largely supported by Imperial military commanders, Abeloth instigated a mob attack on Fel's supporters and exploited the secretive Moon Maiden facility to create propaganda material supporting Daala that Abeloth had imbued with a persuasive aura via the Force.
===Incarnations and poses===
Abeloth was able to shapeshift at will and possess other beings, making them avatars of her own by sharing her Force essence among multiple bodies—even the Jedi Temple's computer core. Her growing power quickly deteriorated bodies, particularly those who were not Force-sensitive, and Abeloth was weakened when one of her avatars was destroyed. Her Force essence also existed in the realm beyond shadows.
When the Sith Tribe first made contact with her on her world, she appeared as a humanoid female of indeterminate species. When she was aboard Meliflar Station, Abeloth appeared as a slender woman with brown hair and silver eyes, donning a robe.
Aside from fully absorbing other beings and taking complete control of their bodies, overriding the original individual that lived within—with the exception of Callista Ming, who had experienced living as a disembodied spirit herself and resisted Abeloth's grasp thanks to her relationship with Luke Skywalker–Abeloth was able to imbue a small part of her dark essence in another being—she did so to Fala, on Meliflar Station, to divert her Jedi pursuers, as well as Tola Annax on Upekzar.
====Someone sweet and kind and fun?====
Abeloth was able to appear as Callista Ming after absorbing the Jedi. She could transform into both Ming's newer body, which had been donated by Cray Mingla, and Ming's original body. As Ming's original form, she had dark and thick curly hair, high cheeks, a full-lipped mouth, an aquiline nose, and gray eyes. In Mingla's form, Abeloth had short honey-gold locks and slightly silvery gray eyes. Aside from gaining Luke Skywalker's recognition for her appearance as Callista Ming, Abeloth's presence was also felt by Skywalker to be an intimate one; the Jedi believed that it was the presence of the spirit of his late wife, Mara Jade, that was comforting him aboard Jade's ship, the Jade Shadow.
====Standing hollow-eyed====
However, Abeloth's true form was that of a humanoid being with deeply sunken black eye sockets and tiny silver eyes reminiscent of tiny stars at the bottom of a deep well or a black hole. She had a long cascade of straw-like, honey-blond or saffron or pale yellow hair that reached to the ground and a large, full-lipped mouth that stretched from ear-to-ear and contained needle-like teeth. Her arms were stubby, protruding no more than ten centimeters from her shoulders, with hands that had long, writhing tentacles for fingers with suction cup tips. Her body was rigid and straight, and when she walked or ran, her legs rippled forward more than they swung.
When transforming from one appearance to her true form, Abeloth changed progressively, with her mouth widening, her skin paling, her eyes sinking into their sockets, and her hair becoming longer. Abeloth's body was sometimes shrouded in mist, giving her an ethereal aspect to her already frightening appearance. Luke Skywalker saw her true form beyond shadows and Vestara Khai was able to see her true appearance after Khai discovered Abeloth's treachery against the Sith.
====Catastrophic blues====
As the Jessar Rokari Kem, Abeloth maintained a sweet façade that had popular appeal among Coruscant's citizenry, including among its senators and journalists. Her face had green eyes under blue-green brows and her long, flowing hair featured shiny blue-green tresses. She spoke mellifluously and had blue skin and three fingers on each of her two hands. While contemplating the return of the Jedi on Coruscant in their repurposed temple, Abeloth wore a formal white gown.
====Lavender face====
Possessing Lady Korelei, Abeloth was a tall Keshiri who had dark lilac-colored skin that was almost as blue as Rokari Kem's. She had dark hair and lavender lips and her long oval eyes became cold and empty, except for flickers of silver in the darkness. Dorvan felt terror creeping up to him as the lavender face grew a wide smile filled with fangs.
==Powers and abilities==
===Sweet like honey===
While afflicted with Abeloth's psychosis, Dyon Stadd heard the entity speaking to him within his thoughts. He felt that he knew her and did not know her at the same time, but believed that Abeloth was kind and good, a source of understanding and strength.
===Unlimited power===
Abeloth was an astonishingly powerful Force user, such that it was deemed impossible for mortals to understand her dark power. Jaina Solo compared her to being as like a nova. She was described by Tahiri Veila as a living Force volcano. Ship considered Abeloth to be much stronger of will then Vestara Kahi or Jaina Solo, such that no one could command him while Abeloth ruled.
Abeloth could command the native flora of her planet to do her bidding.
She also had the ability to influence the minds of Force-sensitive beings who had spent an extended period of time in the Maw, causing in them a psychosis which made them believe that everyone—except for other such psychotic beings—had been replaced by impostors and instilling in them a desire to find her. The afflicted Jedi, as a result of this, were granted knowledge of many new Force powers varying from person to person, such as Fold Space, Force Deception, Phase, lightning and Flow walking powers, and a technique to paralyze people. Once the influenced being found her, she consumed their life energy, tearing away their vitality with golden light, so killing them and making herself stronger. The strength of her influence was formidable—even when the Jedi learned what symptoms to look for, upon the onset of the psychosis they still believed that everyone they knew was an impostor. Abeloth called Ship to her from across the galaxy, bidding him come to her service, and nearly was able to use her mind to deceive Luke Skywalker into using the Pool of Knowledge, reveled herself in "beautfic" psychic form to Ben Skywalker, and confounded a whole strike force of Sith to the point that all of them failed to notice how she was having them killed off, until Vestara Khai explained the threat.
She was also able to control the Meditation Sphere Ship which was programmed to obey the strongest will; her powers overwhelming those of the Sith's and of the Jedi's attempts to control the Sphere. Moreover, she could mind trick whole rooms of lesser beings into supporting her political statements and craft Force-imbued posters that would inspire those who looked on them to vote for Dalaa.
Abeloth's strength physical augmentation was a dozen times that of Luke Skywalker, who was widely recognized as the most powerful Force user in the galaxy. However, Skywalker was able to defeat in a duel her despite this by raining debris on her. Abeloth was able to boost her walking speed with the dark side, to the point that she could keep up with Sith. Additionally, she could use Tutaminis, usually with ease.
Abeloth wielded exceptional telekinetic powers, using the Force to blast everyone away from her during her battle with the Sith and Jedi, choke Sith, murder the Chief of State with Force Wound, and hurl around aircraft. Abeloth's sheer strength was extensive—after her mental duel with Vol, an utterly enraged Abeloth released waves of Force energy on Tahv that caused the beings in her vicinity to implode, those farther away to be ripped to pieces, the buildings to melt to the ground, and glass and weaponry to fly through the city, looking for someone to hurt so that they could feel the pain she felt--the heat of the burning debris set much of the city on fire. Abeloth was able to move people around with the Force from across star systems and lift them with ease.
She was able to, with great effort, partly resist the powers of a control web, and was also able to teleport herself short distances from one place to another, a power which she also used during her battles with the Sith and Jedi. Abeloth had the most powerful use of Force Healing that Luke Skywalker had ever encountered. Abeloth was able to take on the physical appearances of beings that she had consumed, including Callista Ming and Dyon Stadd, and she was also able to project images of other beings, as she did when projecting an image of Callista while she herself took on the form of Stadd in an attempt to trick Luke Skywalker. Abeloth was able to redirect Vestara Khai's Force lightning back at her. She was also more than capable of using Force lightning herself, using it in multiple fights with the Sith and Luke Skywalker. She was known to feed on fear and death. She was also capable of compressing a huge amount of Dark Side power and using it to detonate a volcano. She was alleged to know Sever Force. Abeloth occasionally used Force Flight. She possessed some skill at a variant of Cryokinesis, chilling living matter (such as Sith) as desired, as well as Pyrokinesis and could deactivate lightsabers from a distance.
Abeloth was also able to possess or switch bodies—before Skywalker could kill her, she switched bodies with Stadd and took on Stadd's appearance, tricking the Jedi and Sith for several days into believing that she was dead. Later, she took over the body of the Fallanassi Akanah Norand Goss Pell, although Pell fought back. When she was again defeated by Skywalker, she left Pell's body and returned in the form of Callista soon after, and told Skywalker that she had more bodies than he could destroy. She was also capable of absorbing the consciousness of beings in order to enhance her power further, as Callista Ming's mind dwelled within Abeloth. However, Luke was able to use a dark side variant of mnemotherapy to rip Callista Ming's soul free from Abeloth and allow her to rest in peace, severely weakening Abeloth in the process. She was later able to use her abilities to impersonate Rokari Kem and gain prominence on Coruscant. When Vol attempted to assassinate Kem, she beheaded the Grand Lord and forced High Lord Ivaar Workan to aide her in becoming Chief of State of the Galactic Alliance. Later, she also possessed Imperial Officer Lydea Pagorski, as part of a plan to help Natasi Daala gain power in the Imperial Remnant for her own purposes. However, her dependency on avatars was ultimately her greatest weakness: killing any amount of avatar bodies in her possession also resulting in her strength weakening rapidly, to the point of "death" should all be destroyed, which Luke ultimately utilized to deliver the finishing blow on Abeloth in their duel. Also, she preferred to inhabit the bodies of Force-sensitives, as non Force-sensitives' bodies failed to last for long before deteriorating, and those born to two Force-Sensitive parents were more to her liking and seemed to last longer than those who had only one parent who could use the Force.
Once feeding on the suffering of Coruscant, her powers grew to the point she caused random lava flows by her mere presence and could have three manifestations at once. It was presumed she would become effectively all-powerful if allowed to feed on the suffering on Coruscant for long enough. She could make monsters appear from the bodies of the dead and could inhabit a computer. She even was able to resist a Force Blast unleashed by Ben Skywalker in a state of Oneness that could have knocked a frigate out of the orbit of a planet, though swiftly she was wounded by a thrown pillar--showing that her Force Barrier's power to block raw manifestations of the Force could be bypassed with thrown objects, much as what Skywalker's father did before to her. Abeloth could used the bodies of slain Sith to summon Sith shadow-ghouls, monsters that could only be defeated by closing the eyelids of the host corpse. She also used Technometry and Flow Walking in this state, though the latter power made her helpless while in the trance to use it. Her Force Scream could stagger Jedi Masters. Abeloth was capable of producing a Force-flash that could affect the visuals of many ships in an entire star system, something that Luke Skywalker was not expected to be able to do.
For all her power, even when boosted by the suffering of a whole world, she was not invincible as one of her manifestations was annihilated by a Thermal detonator and she would suffer wounds from blades, lightsabers, blasters, and Force-thrown objects that made it past her guard, though she was not always harmed as much as a mortal would be by such an attack. Also, she was nearly overcome by Vol when she attacked his dreams and he fought back with Mind Shards and insults. Moreover, Darth Krayt was able to harm her by draining her life force--though this hurt him and Luke just as much, and by recalling his severed hand that had lodged in her body in beyond shadows. This also made her ability to sustain her other acts lesser, such as how her ghouls were severely weakened after Krayt's attack. Despite these weaknesses, and the fact that each time a body died her power was reduced, she could not be truly slain except by the Mortis Dagger. Indeed, after her "destruction" at the hands of the Jedi and Sith, she was yet able to spawn a tentacle out of nowhere to briefly attack some Jedi, though this last known gasp of vengeance soon faded without killing anyone.
According to Vestara Khai, Abeloth may have, via unknown means, destroyed Sith shuttles. Abeloth was a masterful hand-to-hand combatant, surviving duels with some of the greatest warriors ever, often overcoming them with her tentacles.
Given the entity's power, Luke Skywalker was not surprised that Abeloth was able to conceal her Force presence when he led the Sith flotilla through the Maw, but without the tentacle presence that Ben Skywalker had used to pinpoint Sinkhole Station's location when they ventured there the first time. Abeloth was able to endure many injuries. Ben Skywalker considered the Force lightning that Vestara Khai launched at Abeloth by the Font of Power to be enough to take down a Canderous-class assault tank, yet the entity was able to get back on her feet as soon as the attack stopped.
==Equipment==
Abeloth controlled Ship, a sentient Sith Meditation Sphere who she used as a personal transport. In order to delay her pursuers, Abeloth left her world by sending Ship to take them to the Pool of Knowledge while she stole the Jedi's Horizon-class star yacht Jade Shadow.
While on Pydyr as Callista Ming, Abeloth wore the sleeveless robe of a Fallanassi Adept. While on Nam Chorios as Ming, she had a lightsaber and wore somber robes befitting that of a Jedi Master and a pair of boots.
==Behind the scenes==
===Conception and early development===
Abeloth was introduced as the primary antagonist in the nine-part Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi novel series, which was published between 2009 and 2012 and was authored by Aaron Allston, Christie Golden, and Troy Denning, with the character debuting in the first novel, Allston's Outcast. Abeloth was first identified by name in the third installment, 2009's Abyss, by Denning, and she was first pictured in a 2011 Topps Star Wars Galaxy Series 6 trading card by Shea Standefer, who sketched a tentacled figure in an undefined form. The character was not depicted in Ian Keltie's cover art for the novel series, and the following year's reference book The Essential Guide to Warfare includes the only other official illustration of Abeloth, made by Drew Baker, depicting her Callista Ming avatar being attacked by the Jedi and the Sith.
The concept of Abeloth as a mysterious and ancient being originated in a private meeting between Allston, Golden, and Denning at the latter's hotel room during the conceptualization stage of the Fate of the Jedi series, which editors Shelly Shapiro and Sue Rostoni set out as a joint journey of Luke and Ben Skywalker to investigate the cause of Jacen Solo's fall to the dark side—as shown in the preceding 2006–2008 novel series Star Wars: Legacy of the Force—that is inspired by Homer's ancient Greek epic poem The Odyssey. The Mind Walkers drawn to Abeloth were inspired by The Odyssey lotus-eaters, and Callista Ming's return, absorbed by Abeloth, was mentioned in initial story discussions. Denning considers Abeloth as a spiritual monster for a spiritual journey that organically developed from the personal and social journeys in the 2005 novel series Star Wars: The Dark Nest Trilogy and Legacy of the Force, all involving Jacen Solo.
Aaron Allston proposed the idea of young Jedi becoming psychotic due to Abeloth and Chief of State Natasi Daala taking advantage of those troubles to banish Luke Skywalker, setting off his odyssey that is meant to be upbeat in contrast to the dark tone of Legacy of the Force. Allston was also interested in exploring mysteries such as the Maw and the origins of Centerpoint Station. Abeloth was conceived as a nexus of dark side power that would tempt the Sith and provoke major turmoil without starting another war, but the idea that the Sith would be the One Sith featured in the Star Wars: Legacy comic series, published by Dark Horse Comics between 2006 and 2010, was dropped when Dark Horse voiced discomfort with the novel series incorporating them. The Fate of the Jedi team therefore created a new group of Sith, the Lost Tribe of Sith, that worked with Abeloth, but they also included the One Sith in less prominent roles. Although Denning personally considers the Sith Lord who defeats Abeloth alongside Luke Skywalker to be a specific character appearing in subsequent stories, he wanted readers to come to their own interpretations individually; according to the 2012 reference title The Essential Reader's Companion by Pablo Hidalgo, he is Darth Krayt. Apocalypse description of the Sith Lord matches Darth Krayt's features and ideals as shown in the Legacy comics.Legacy (2006) 15
Christie Golden advocated the idea of pairing Ben Skywalker with a Sith—Vestara Khai—in the same vein as William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet; it would be used as a major element for characterization and plot development throughout the series. Similarly, Golden considers Abeloth to not only present a worthy foe to Luke Skywalker, but to attack his vulnerabilities given his characterization as someone who cares very deeply about others, considering the hurt of Callista Ming being used by Abeloth "uniquely villainous." Golden also joked that among the dropped ideas for Fate of the Jedi was Jaina Solo and Abeloth taking over the universe together while Pocket, Wynn Dorvan's pet, becomes a Sith Lord.
===Myths of Mortis===
Denning introduced Abeloth in Abyss in a "Cthuloid" nature, borrowing from the mythology of H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu. When Aaron Allston was asked whether Abeloth was inspired by the similarly named "aboleth" creatures of the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game, he replied that he did not know her inspirations.
When the Fate of the Jedi team discussed tying Abeloth to the Celestials via email around the time of writing the 2010 novels Allies and Vortex, just after the release of Omen in 2009, they were informed by Leland Chee, who maintains the Holocron continuity database, that the upcoming third season of the television series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, aired between 2010 and 2011, would include "some Celestial-stature characters." The Fate of the Jedi team thus coordinated with The Clone Wars showrunner Dave Filoni, and Denning enjoyed listening to Filoni's thoughts on the Mortis episodes and how he generously helped the novelists to tie Abeloth to the Mortis myth.
The authors initial idea was that Abeloth was a corrupted servant to the Celestials inhabiting the planet in the Maw, but the Celestials would not be showed as characters. After being put in contact with Filoni, the authors stopped short of calling the Ones in Mortis "Celestials," with Denning replying to a question about whether Abeloth was a Celestial that she was not, and that the Ones were what Celestials became—if one is to interpret the Killiks' claims that he wrote in March 2012's Apocalypse literally; the ambiguity of the Killiks' accuracy regarding Abeloth's origins and the Celestial suited the purpose of the story to emphasise that they were beyond comprehension and elaborate on Abeloth's backstory while preserving the mystery of her powers and the true nature of her, Mortis, and the Celestials. Denning also collaborated with Jason Fry in the latter's April 2012 reference title, The Essential Guide to Warfare, co-authored with Paul R. Urquhart, exploring the myth of the Celestials in the prologue chapter; it was cut from publication as editor Erich Schoeneweiss felt it did not suit the purpose of the book and instead released on StarWars.com on September 27, 2013 as the first installment of Star Wars: The Essential Guide to Warfare Author's Cut.
Abeloth's influence adapts continuity from the 2008 novel Millennium Falcon, written during the development of Fate of the Jedi by James Luceno, who also contributed to the series' brainstorming sessions, in which the Jedi Seff Hellin becomes psychotic and inquires about using YVH droids against Mandalorians; the cause of his psychosis was revealed to be Abeloth's influence in Abyss, and a battle between YVHs and Mandalorians was incorporated in the 2013 novel Crucible, which was written by Denning for the original trilogy's trio of Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, and Han Solo to "pass the torch" to the next generation of heroes. The author also consulted Dave Filoni via an intermediary about monoliths and the nature of the Force in the heroes' search for Mortis and its dagger, intended by the Jedi for an eventual "final showdown" with Abeloth, which Denning likened to the romantic quest for the Holy Grail.
The author considers the physical and spiritual wound that Abeloth left in Luke Skywalker to be a missing part of his Force-presence and an important weakness for further character development of him beyond Apocalypse. Regarding Abeloth herself after her defeat, Denning personally considers her to be gone for "a couple of dozen millennia." Following Lucasfilm's creation of a new canon continuity in 2014, Crucible became chronologically the last novel of the Star Wars Legends continuity.
==Appearances==
*Fate of the Jedi: Outcast 
*Fate of the Jedi: Omen 
*Fate of the Jedi: Abyss 
*Fate of the Jedi: Backlash 
*Fate of the Jedi: Allies 
*Fate of the Jedi: Vortex 
*Fate of the Jedi: Conviction 
*Fate of the Jedi: Ascension 
*Fate of the Jedi: Apocalypse 
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*Crucible 
==Sources==
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*The Essential Guide to Warfare
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*The Essential Reader's Companion
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==Notes and references==
Category:Beyond shadows
Category:Campaign managers
Category:Celestial culture
Category:Darksiders
Category:Fallanassi
Category:Females
Category:Force entities
Category:Galactic Alliance Chiefs of State
Category:Galactic Alliance Senators
Category:Gardeners
Category:Humans
Category:Imperial Remnant military personnel
Category:Impersonators
Category:Individuals with she/her pronouns
Category:Jessar
Category:Keshiri
Category:Keshiri culture
Category:Killik culture
Category:Pilots
Category:Pre-Republic
Category:Propagandists
Category:Queens
Category:Revived individuals
Category:Saboteurs
Category:Servants
Category:Shape-shifting individuals
Category:Sith in the Lost Tribe of Sith
Category:Terrorists
Category:The Ones
Category:Therans
Category:Torturers and interrogators