User:Jonjedigrandmaster/Hunt for Valin Horn

The hunt for Valin Horn was the attempt to capture Jedi Knight Valin Horn, who was suffering from Force Psychosis and had gone off on a destructive rampage.

Psychosis
In 43.5 ABY, the Horn family was staying in Kallad's Dream Vacation Hostel, a hostel in the Vacationer's district on Coruscant, when Valin Horn came down with Force Psychosis. As his mother, Mirax Terrik Horn, served him breakfast, Valin suddenly believed her to be an imposter. After trying to decide what to do, he activated his lightsaber and ordered Mirax to tell him what she'd done with his mother. Before he could do her any harm, however, Valin's father, Corran Horn, appeared. Valin, believing Corran to be an imposter as well, attacked him. Corran ordered Mirax to get to safety as he dueled his insane son. Valin believed that his mother's imposter was calling for help, and he realized that his father's imposter was at least as good a swordsman as he, so he decided to try and escape. He broke through a transparisteel door and went into a free-fall, which he broke by landing on a speeder. He tried to get a comlink from one of the speeder's passengers, but his father&mdash;whom he still believed was an imposter of his father&mdash;landed beside him. Valin attacked Corran again, and they dueled again. Corran kept Valin distracted as Mirax pulled up in a speeder behind them and shot Valin in the back with a stun bolt from a pistol, knocking him out.

Valin was taken to the Jedi Temple, where he was put in the neurology lab to be studied by the Mon Calamari healer, Jedi Master Cilghal. Valin was diagnosed with irrationality, high blood pressure, and high levels of stress hormones. There also seemed to be no neurological damage, although Valin was blocking out the brain scan&mdash;a Force technique demonstrated by Jedi Knight-turned Sith Lord Jacen Solo during the Dark Nest crisis. How Valin learned the technique was a mystery.

The hunt begins
Meanwhile, Valin used the Force to influence insects to consume a portion of one of the straps holding him down. That night he was left under the guard of Padawan Romor. He escaped in the middle of the night, having freed himself from his bed and taken the nurse by surprise, leaving Romor with a concussion. Cilghal, however, had planted a tracking device on Valin, along with an anesthetic around the injection so that he would not feel the device. Valin was going through the undercity, however, so the signal was intermittent.

Meanwhile, Jedi Master Octa Ramis and her Padawan, Seha Dorvald, set up an ambush for Valin at the Senate Building. Nearby, Valin ambushed and knocked out Enneth Holkin, aide to Corellian co-Chief of State Denjax Teppler. He took Holkin's clothes so that he could get into secure areas of the Senate Building. Valin then called Special Operations office of the Chief of State.

Ramis and Dorvald attempted to enter the building, but were not allowed inside because it had been locked down. Seha felt in the Force that Valin was on the move; looking for something, and Ramis realized that he would be searching for a vehicle. Moments later a large shuttle with Kuati markings on it fell from the building's hangar, hundreds of meters above the ground. An old X-wing starfighter emerged from the hangar behind the shuttle, and Octa Ramis&mdash;with a giant Force Jump assisted by a Force push from Dorvald&mdash;hit the fuselage of the escaping X-wing. The shuttle slammed into the plaza and continued moving forward, propelled by its thrusters and causing a lot of damage. Meanwhile, Ramis drew her lightsaber, knowing that Valin didn't have the room yet to maneuver to shake her off. She thrusted the blade into the starfighter's canopy twice. The second time, Valin hit the thrusters as she stabbed, causing her to lose her balance. She managed to hold on, but her blade pierced through the other side of the canopy. At last the X-wing completely cleared the hangar, and Valinshot ahead at full speed, veering upwards. Ramis began to slide off the fuselage, and her next lightsaber strike was wild and unsuccessful. Ramis realized that Valin was taking her so high that she would die when she hit the ground. He twitched the yoke, and she fell. She was saved, however, by the efforts of her apprentice, who slowed her fall enough that she was only unconscous for moments.

Chase
As Ramis recovered, Han and Leia Solo took after Valin in the Millennium Falcon. They were joined by Luke Skywalker and his son, Ben, in Ben's airspeeder. They followed Valin to a spaceport on the edge of the government district. They found, however, that many others had joined the chase as well, including the press and bounty hunters. Ben pulled his speeder up behind the X-wing, and Luke Force jumped all the way to the fighter's nose, landing facing the cockpit. Valin instantly ejected from the starfighter, leaving Luke on the now-unflyable X-wing. Seeing this, Han and Leia decided to help Luke, letting Valin go for now.

Meanwhile, Jaina Solo and Kyle Katarn had joined in the hunt, and they planned to maneuver underneath Valin and catch him. Also planning this maneuver was a cargo hauler with three bounty hunters&mdash;cyborg Vrannin Vaxx, Quarren Dhidal Nyz, and a blond woman. The bounty hunters got there first, and caught him in the cargo bed. As Jaina jumped from her speeder down to the cargo hauler, Valin grabbed his ejection seat and jumped off the back of the hauler. Jaina landed right where Valin had stood moments before. Dhidal Nyz shot an electrical net at her. The net wrapped around her, sending paralyzing jolts of electricity through her body. She sailed off of the edge of the cargo hauler and fell through the air. Katarn flew his speeder after her.

In the meantime, Valin rode his ejection seat down to a speeder belonging to the Galaxy 9 News. He offered the reporter the greatest scoop she'd ever heard if she could get him away, and she accepted. Valin asked how she knew who he was, and she revealed that Chief of State Natasi Daala had put an arrest bulletin up for him. Meanwhile Luke had jumped into the cockpit of the X-wing&mdash;which luckily had a working R2 unit in it. He got the R2 unit to shut off the thrusters but leave the reppulsors on so that the fighter would not crash, and then jumped back into Ben's speeder, which he had been piloting skillfully alongside the X-wing. They shot off after the speeder carrying Valin.

Han and Leia, who had seen the bounty hunter attack Jaina, decided that they were now the most imminent threat, and moved to prepare the Falcon's belly lasers as Katarn caught Jaina in his speeder and removed the paralyzing net from her.

Capture
The Galaxy 9 News speeder flew into the business district, followed closely by the bounty hunters, Jaina and Kyle, the Falcon, and then Luke and Ben. Behind them all was a mass of Jedi, spaceport security, press, and bounty hunters.

Vrannin Vaxx opened fire on Kyle and Jaina, which they barely managed to dodge. Suddenly the Falcon opened fire on Vaxx, destroying his YVH-1 body. Then a black and white racer speeder flew by, piloted by Galactic Alliance bounty hunters Zilaash Kuh the Rodian, Kaddit. The Rodian pulled out a gun and shot the news speeder. The vehicle suddenly slowed down, pouring out smoke. Ben and Luke shot forward, and Luke jumped onto the speeder's roof. Valin activated a lightsaber&mdash;which he had stolen from Romor&mdash;and Luke quickly sliced through Valin's lightsaber hilt, and then slammed the hilt of his lightsaber into Valin's head, knocking him out.

Aftermath
The news speeder's pilot landed at the nearest spot, and all of the pursuing vehicles landed around it. Jaina, Kyle, and Ben quickly gathered around Luke, along with Kyp Durron and Doran Tainer. The area was swamped with Jedi, bounty hunters, and Galactic Alliance Security. GA Security captain Savar wished for the Jedi to hand Valin over. Luke refused, and Han offered an alternative&mdash;he suggested that they should place Valin in the Mon Mothma Memorial Medical Center, which was pretty much equidistant between the Senate Building and the Jedi Temple. They would allow six Jedi and six security agents around Valin, and no bounty hunters or press.

Later, after Luke was exiled from Coruscant and the Jedi Order, Valin was returned to Jedi custody, although he would later be taken back by the Galactic Alliance, imprisoned in carbonite, and placed in the Armand Isard Correctional Facility.

Appearances

 * Outcast