Wookieepedia:April Fools' Day 2012/Apocalypse

Apocalypse by Troy Denning is the ninth and final novel in the Fate of the Jedi series. It was released on March 13, 2012. At the end of the book, it has an introduction to X-wing: Mercy Kill and Scourge. The audio version is narrated by Marc Thompson.

Back cover
There can be no surrender.

There will be no mercy.

It’s not just the future of the galaxy at stake—

It’s the destiny of the Force.

Internal flap
''In the stunning finale of the epic Fate of the Jedi series, Jedi and Sith face off—with Coruscant as their battlefield. For the Sith, it’s the chance to restore their dominance over the galaxy that forgot them for so long. For Abeloth, it’s a giant step in her quest to conquer all life everywhere. For Luke Skywalker, it’s a call to arms to eradicate the Sith and their monstrous new master once and for all.'' ''In a planetwide strike, teams of Jedi Knights take the Sith infiltrators by swift and lethal surprise. But victory against the cunning and savage Abeloth, and the terrifying endgame she has planned, is anything but certain. And as Luke, Ben, Han, Leia, Jaina, Jag, and their allies close in, the devastating truth about the dark side incarnate will be exposed—and send shock waves through the Jedi Order, the galaxy, and the Force itself.''

Plot summary
The novel begins on Coruscant where the Jedi begin their secret invasion of the planet in order to free it from the covert control of the Lost Tribe of the Sith. They enter the planet, with the likes of Jaina Solo and the Horn siblings, Valin and Jysella, getting past the security checks, which are led by undercover Sith. However, Yaqeel Saav'etu and Yantahar Bwua'tu get into a bit of trouble when they are sniffed out by a Sith, Captain Suhale, forcing one of their colleagues, Bazel Warv, who had arrived with Seff Hellin and Vaala Razelle, to pretend to be a spicer in order to save their lives, and then escape later. Nevertheless, in spite of the fact that there is no actual evidence that any of them were Jedi, BAMR News cites this as the operations of a Jedi drug cartel.

Elsewhere on Coruscant, Luke Skywalker, his son Ben, and recently-defected Sith Tyro, and now current Jedi apprentice, Vestara Khai also run into a Galactic Alliance Security patrol, led by the Sith named Ruku Myal. But Luke manages to outwit Myal by dimming the lights of the plaza they're in and forcing him to unleash his lightsaber. This allows Vestara to kill the Sith by using the Force to plunge his own shikkar into his body. Luke uses the Force to make sure the shikkar kills Myal quickly before he, Ben, and Vestara leave during the confusion.

Since his capture by the Sith, Wynn Dorvan had been tortured for weeks by Abeloth, who, as a disguise, is leading the Galactic Alliance as the latest Chief of State, Rokari Kem, and who has so far been unable to coax any information from him regarding the Jedi Order's whereabouts. Regardless, she manages to slowly coerce him over to her side as she also looks to him on advice on matters such as bringing Imperial Lieutenant Lydea Pagorski back into Imperial space. When Abeloth elects to do so, she absorbs Pagorski's being into herself.

Prior to their upcoming attack on Coruscant, the Jedi send out a widespread message over the HoloNet, asking all Sith to surrender or die. Many Sith elect to fight, but are quickly killed in the process. Meanwhile, as Ben and Vestara are sent to distract Sith High Lord Ivaar Workan, posing as Senator Kameron Suldar, Vestara secretly gives out her identity to her fellow Sith just so she and Ben can get closer to Workan. As a result, Ben and Vestara are held hostage while Luke and the other two Jedi in the strike team against Workan, Seha Dorvald and Doran Sarkin-Tainer, invade his office. In the ensuing battle, Vestara, not wanting Workan to be captured alive&mdash;since his continued existence would lead to an interrogation where he would reveal how he figured out that Ben and Vestara were spies, and thus reveal Vestara's true intentions&mdash;tricks the other Jedi to simply shoot Workan dead as he duels Luke. Ben is the one who kills Workan by shooting him in the head.

Elsewhere, at Ossus, Hapan Queen Mother Tenel Ka Djo participates in a Hapan flotilla to help in the evacuation of Jedi from the planet from preying Sith. With Tenel Ka is her daughter, Allana, who was left in her care aboard the Dragon Queen II since her grandparents, Han and Leia, are now participating in the Jedi evacuation as well. Allana has a vision of the nests of the Barabel Jedi in the bowels of the New Jedi Temple being attacked, and she panics, wanting to save the Barabels' hatchlings but without compromising her promise to Tesar Sebatyne and the other Barabel Jedi to her mother. Tenel Ka reminds her daughter that, in her desperate haste to act upon the visions she receives, she must remember that how she takes it is more important than the actions she actually takes, which reminds Allana of how her late father, Jacen Solo, failed to realize that.

The evacuation of the Ossan students proceeds successfully, with one exception when one of the evacuation vessels is secretly boarded by Sith infiltrators. Thanks to quick thinking on Han Solo's part, he convinces Tenel Ka to have the ship captured, which eludes the Hapan forces and then destroys itself in a suicidal baradium blast. It becomes clear that it was an assassination attempt not only on Tenel Ka's life, but also on Allana, the Jedi queen. Following this, Allana argues to come to Coruscant in order to talk to her friend, Bazel Warv, so he can tell him to warn the Barabel Knights about the danger posed to their spawn&mdash;she informs her grandparents of this without spoiling the existence of the hatchlings. Regardless, Han and Leia refuse and apparently take off without her. Only when they arrive at Coruscant, as the battle between the Jedi and Sith rage, do they find out that she stowed away to accomplish her mission.

Meanwhile, Jedi Knights Raynar Thul, Lowbacca, Tekli, and their accompanying protocol droid C-3PO visit the Celestial Palace, located on an unnamed world within the Maraqoo sector, specifically in the Reo system. There, the Jedi and C-3PO meet with the Killik hive nest of the Thuruht in order to meet with its queen. They ask the queen what they know about Abeloth, as she seems to be connected with the ancient and mythical beings once known as the Celestials, which the Killiks claimed to have worked for eons earlier; the Thuruht nest had even imprisoned Abeloth on the unknown world themselves. When the Thuruht queen asks why the Jedi want to know about Abeloth, Raynar informs her that Abeloth is on the loose in the galaxy and no one in the Jedi Order knows where to find her. The Thuruht nest begin performing their duties in a rush, and C-3PO translates for the Jedi Knights that they are doing this because, according to the queen, the End of Time has come. Raynar takes advantage of Thuruht's panic to learn what they know about Abeloth even as he inadvertently slips back into the Killik hive mind. The Jedi learn that Abeloth was once part of the Ones, a group of Force entities that represented the elements of the Balance of the Force. When she became one of them, she bathed in the Pool of Knowledge and Font of Power, and she was abandoned by the other Ones on their first home world as a result as a result. Afterwards, Abeloth became the Bringer of Chaos, an entity who promises to rise every time the galaxy falls into strife so that she can cause a pan-galactic apocalypse that will renew the galaxy. The Thuruht's role in stopping Abeloth in preparation for a galaxy-wide apocalypse is a result of their call-to-arms by the Son and the Daughter, both of whom would team up to defeat Abeloth in order to protect what they cherish most. Unfortunately, it is soon discovered that the Ones had died decades earlier because of a visit made by Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi. When this information is relayed to the Masters' Council later on, hope in defeating Abeloth begins to fade even as they all become aware of what is truly at stake.

Wynn Dorvan convinces Abeloth that if she wants to defeat the Jedi, she will have to lure them over to the New Jedi Temple, where the Sith can act as defenders and defeat them in a swift ambush. This, of course, is a ploy for the Jedi to wipe out the Sith in one swift stroke, which they plan to do with the help of Void Jumpers led by Admiral Nek Bwua'tu. A Jedi strike team consisting of the Skywalkers, Vestara, the Jedi Horn family members, and Jaina Solo secretly enter the Temple in order to lower its shields and allow the commandos to storm it and kill as many Sith as possible. However, because of Abeloth, the Sith prepare for this attack and they strike. In the initial assault against the strike team, Vestara is separated from the rest of the team. Fleeing for her life, she finds herself cornered just near the slowly-opening entrance of the Temple's underground evacuation tunnel by Sith who want to take her alive and torture her for information in order to find out what she revealed to the Jedi. Vestara decides to save her own life by revealing that she knows who the Jedi queen is&mdash;Allana Solo, going by the false name of Amelia Solo under Han and Leia's supervision; Vestara had deduced this fact after she recalled her past experiences regarding the Solos. The leading Sith of the pact hunting her, Lady Sashal, gives her the opportunity to prove herself when the Solos, with Bazel Warv, appear in the evacuation tunnel after the entrance to it opens up for Vestara. She is quickly given a thermal detonator that she can use to assassinate Allana, but she misses and it blows off the forward part of the Millennium Falcon instead. In the ensuing conflict, as Vestara leaves, with her treachery now known by the Solos, Bazel is killed defending Allana just as the rest of the Solos run away and regroup with Zekk and other Hapan soldiers who finish off the rest of the pursuing Sith. The Barabel Jedi come along and help, allowing for the existence of their hatchlings to go out in the open, especially after hearing that Bazel died so that he could at least try to tell them that their spawn maybe in danger.

Seeing how her avatar in Rokari Kem is dying because it cannot take her Force power, Abeloth tricks Wynn Dorvan into killing her so that she can transfer her consciousness into the Jedi Temple's computer core, where she can control its inner systems against the invading Jedi even as she combats them in one of her other avatars in Lady Korelei. The combat against Abeloth-Korelei elicits a certain amount of hopelessness that allows Luke to promote Jaina to the rank of Master.

With Abeloth arriving in the Imperial Remnant as Lydea Pagorski, she allies with Admiral Natasi Daala to begin the first Imperial democratic electoral campaign against Head of State Jagged Fel. Just as Jag has his loyal Admiral Vitor Reige enter the vote against him, he and his bodyguard, Tahiri Veila, determine through some hard evidence that Pagorski is really Abeloth in disguise. So he sends Tahiri to Hagamoor 3, where Moff Tol Getelles's secret de-aging serum operation was previously in the works, after she finds a lead on Boba Fett there, which both she and Jag hypothesize could lead to Abeloth-Pagorski due to the latter's affiliation with Daala&mdash;since Daala is also affiliated with Fett, a connection between Fett and Abeloth may very well be likely. Sure enough, at Getelles's secret factory, Tahiri meets up with Fett, who is looking for the scientists who concocted the nanovirus that plagued his home world of Mandalore three years earlier, and they confront Abeloth-Pagorski. Though they kill her avatar, it occurs just before the orbital bombardment of the facility that Tahiri had previously ordered in the event that she wouldn't return from her mission in time. The bombardment results in the death of the two scientists, who Fett wanted to use to bring about a cure for his planet. He does manage to get data on the nanovirus itself so that a cure maybe concocted elsewhere.

As Abeloth's avatar in Pagorski dies, it coincides with Abeloth's avatar in Lady Korelei suffering random pain, which has her depart unexpectedly from her fight with the Jedi. Luke, Jaina, and Corran Horn all take note of this. Meanwhile, as Abeloth controls the Jedi computer core, she manages to separate Ben Skywalker from the Horn siblings and brings him aboard the Sith Meditation Sphere known as Ship. There, as Abeloth begins bringing about Coruscant's apocalypse by commencing earthquakes and volcanic activity amidst the battle between the Jedi and the Sith, she abducts Vestara Khai with Ben and takes them back to her own world as Korelei. Elsewhere, as Luke, Jaina, and Corran succeed in their mission, and the Void Jumpers storm the Temple with their Jedi leaders, the members of the strike team are quickly extracted, healed as quickly as possible to minimal shape, and they have a Council meeting with the other Masters on how to defeat Abeloth and the Sith once and for all. The raging apocalypse amidst the roaring battle only leads to a further sense of doubt of victory for the Jedi once Tekli and Lowbacca, absent Raynar Thul now that he's back with the Killiks, reveal what they know of Abeloth from the Histories of Thuruht. And with Ben and Vestara captured by Abeloth and headed over back to her planet, they all determine that Abeloth wants to recreate her family of the Ones, with Ben taking the place of the Daughter's light side of the Force and Vestara taking the Son's position in the dark side.

Because of the events at Hagamoor 3, Jag knows that he will not win the Imperial vote. So he signs out, much to Daala's shock, after he reveals that she was previously sponsoring Moff Getelles's droch de-aging serum. Daala loses the campaign against Vitor Reige, and Reige becomes the Imperial Head of State just as Jag and Tahiri depart for Coruscant to help their allies there. With Saba Sebatyne and several other Void Jumpers, led by Gef Olazon, they move in on the Temple to finish the job and kill Abeloth's computer core avatar just as they rescue the Solos, their surviving Hapan bodyguards, Zekk, the Barabels, and their hatchlings. Saba, Tahiri, and their contingent of Void Jumpers then proceed to carry out their mission just as Tahiri is considered part of the Order again. Meanwhile, Luke and Jaina depart in the Rude Awakening to rescue Ben, and, to a lesser degree, Vestara, since her treachery does make her more of a prisoner to capture than a victim to rescue.

As the Rude Awakening approaches Abeloth's world, Jaina engages Ship in combat while Luke enters beyond shadows to find help from his late wife, Mara. But Mara tells him that she cannot help him, and his late, treacherous nephew, Jacen Solo, reminds him of this even as Luke scolds him on account of the fact that his actions in the Second Galactic Civil War were what allowed Abeloth to roam free in the galaxy. Luke is soon joined by a mysterious stranger who agrees to help him defeat Abeloth, and they soon engage in combat against her. Meanwhile, Ben and Vestara are tempted by Abeloth to immerse themselves in the Font of Power in order to slake their physical thirst for water, but they manage to overcome the temptation and fight her off.

As the three battles against Abeloth commence&mdash;at the Jedi Temple, on her own world, and beyond shadows&mdash;Abeloth is steadily weakened and killed in each conflict. In beyond shadows, Luke and the mysterious Sith manage to drain Abeloth of her power, and she dies off. Meanwhile, Saba is able to lure Abeloth out of her computer core avatar and then kill her by chopping her head off with her fangs. And Ben and Vestara finish off her Korelei avatar after Ben uses the Sith's own shikkar against her, similar to what Vestara did to Ruku Myal.

In beyond shadows, Mara tells Luke that, in spite of the literal spiritual wounds that he and the Sith stranger have incurred in their fight against Abeloth, he must go on in order to lead the Jedi Order toward their future. Luke turns to Jacen and tells him that because of him and his attempts at changing the future, Abeloth was set free just so he could prevent the Sith stranger, who both Luke and Jacen recognize in their dreams nearly half a decade earlier, from sitting on the Throne of Balance. The stranger tells Luke not to be so confident in his theory that Jacen merely changed the future, for he could have only delayed it, and the stranger may yet sit on the Throne of Balance yet. He departs with that, and Jacen finally tells Luke why he didn't simply come to him in order to prevent his vision&mdash;Jacen's goal wasn't to stop the Sith from sitting on the Throne of Balance; he merely wanted to make sure Allana wouldn't stand next to him, as he saw.

On Abeloth's world, with Vestara's treachery well known to the Jedi Order, Jaina prevents her from boarding the Rude Awakening and only allows Ben to see Luke. Jaina informs Ben of Vestara's assassination attempt on Allana, and Ben completely renounces his trust in her before he and Jaina debark to confront her. Meanwhile, because of Jaina refusing to let her aboard, Vestara deduces that the Jedi have found out that she is still a Sith, and Jaina has told Ben of her attempt on Allana's life. She is soon assured by the approaching presence of Ship, no longer in Abeloth's control since her demise, that she will be accepted by other Sith who will find use in her because of what she knows of the Skywalkers. As Ship deigns Vestara a Sith Lord, she stalls off Ben and Jaina from capturing her long enough for Ship to rescue her and take her to the other Sith. She is saddened by what became of her relationship to Ben, but Ship reminds her that her love will only fuel her power in the dark side, making her a stronger Sith for it.

Three months after Abeloth's deaths, the apocalypse of Coruscant has ceased, but the casualties for civilians alone range in the billions. Because of what happened, the majority of the populace blame the Jedi for what has occurred and they have voted for them to leave against their will. Luke agrees for the Order to leave voluntarily anyway, especially after they learn that, because of what the Histories of Thuruht have determined, there may yet come a time when Abeloth returns in a time of great chaos. This is further proven after Sothais Saar and Avinoam Arelis were attacked by a random tentacle that could only have belonged to Abeloth that had appeared spontaneously from the Force, and had disappeared just as quickly. Luke concludes that with the galaxy slipping into darkness and Abeloth's return all too likely, the Jedi and the Sith must become the Ones in order to ensure Balance to the Force.

With the Sith survivors knowing full well who the Jedi queen is, Allana decides that it's time to drop the charade of her moniker of Amelia and fully embrace her role as heir to the Hapan throne, letting the galaxy know full well who she is. The Millennium Falcon's forward hull is soon patched up with replacement parts. Wynn Dorvan is left as the temporary Chief of State before a new candidate can be properly elected.

But in spite of the Jedi's knowledge that the galaxy is leaning to the side of darkness, with Jedi teams dispatched to find the Mortis monolith, and in particular the Dagger of Mortis, which is apparently the only weapon that could kill Abeloth for sure, the novel, and the series, ends on a lighter note as its final scene depicts Jaina Solo walking across the hangar deck of the Dragon Queen II, ready to marry Jagged Fel in their wedding. The final few lines depict an unknown woman, who may very well be the woman depicted in the first few lines of the series' opener, Outcast, lighting a candle against an all-encompassing darkness, symbolizing the glimmer of hope that the Jedi have for the future.

Continuity
This novel marks the return of the Killiks since their previous appearance in Troy Denning's Dark Nest Trilogy.

Apocalypse also marks the first large-scale mention of the Mortis story arc, and the return of the Ones.