Chapter 17 Bitter Sweet Victory

Kyle rushed into the med center. In the bed at the far end was Mara. She was still in her favorite leather boots and dressed in Jedi clothes. Kyle immediately noticed the charred hole in her stomach the med droid was stitching up. Luke sat by her, his face was as pale as the snow on Hoth. His normally color filled eyes looked gray with sorrow. Kyle walked up next to him.

" How is she?" Asked Kyle.

" Not good at all."

" She isn't dead is she?"

" No but she is close." At that minute at least fifteen different alarms chimed.

" What's happening!" Luke asked the droid in alarm.

" Her breathing is slowing. We are losing her."

" What! NO!" Luke cried. There was the sound of another alarm.

" What now?"

" Her heart rate is slowing." Luke looked towards the screen that displayed her pulse signs. In slowly rose up and fell making little hills. Then each hill got further apart, then lower. Luke sensed it before it came, the last hill and then nothing but a line. He looked down at his dead wife in grief.

" We have lost her…" The droid stated slowly. Luke looked at it.

" Get her a casket, we shall bury her on Yavin IV in the gardens of the academy." Luke said, pain choked up his voice. Then he left brushing past Kyle who had many tears in his eyes. Mara had been his friend, and his best friends wife and he didn't even know who killed her. Wedge stepped in then. Kyle assumed he had been waiting out there the whole time and he had just failed to notice.

" Is she…" He trailed off.

" Dead." Kyle said walking past him grimly as the med droid put a white sheet over Mara.

A Day Later On Yavin

In the garden of the Jedi academy was a grave. A head stone put in place already. Luke had defiantly insisted on burial instead of cremation. He sensed his mother had been laid to rest that way. The casket was suspended above the hole on two leather straps hooked onto a fork lift. Jedi master, Knights, and Padawans gathered round. Leia stood to the right of the lift Luke to the left. Han and the three Solo children in front of the hole. Luke walked to the edge past Kyle.

" Mara Jade Skywalker, was a good woman and Jedi. She was my wife and she was brutally cut down yesterday aboard the Star Forge by Darth Sidious." Luke paused as several gasps of the elder people in the crowd escaped. Padawans looked at their masters in confusion." Today we lay her to rest."

And with that the closed purple tinged chrome casket was lowered. Mara was inside her lightsaber magnetized to the top, softly glowing at medium power. The casket landed with a thud and the straps came up. In a flash the dirt was thrown in and the saber's buzzing could be heard no more. It would stay on for at least a year softly glowing until it died like its wielder. Luke walked past Kyle and dozens of other Jedi who wanted an explanation, he gave no one anything. He was going to meditate to search for Mara's force presence and say goodbye.

Leia looked at her brother in sadness. She had been told what had happened and only her. She walked up on top of the lift and told the story. All and all it was a bitter sweet victory. The cleansing of the galaxy for the death of a beloved Jedi. She did not die in vain, Sidious or Revan or Grevious would never again return. And to think this whole thing started out with just a simple cult attack led by Darth Maul. He too would forever rot in Echo Base with his stupid apprentice Tavion. The galaxy was thrown into a time of peace from then on. Up until the dying days of Leia, Kyle, Han, Anakin, Jania, Jacen, and Luke Skywalker. He went to join his parents and wife eternally in the force.

Its done its over. I didn't want Mara to die but that is part of the reason she did, a price had to be paid in order for the galaxy to be cleansed.- Sithmaster 2019.