Firstly, I would like to apologize for the lack of comic this weekend, between computer troubles and having to go out of town, things have gotten a little crazy.
So instead, today I bring you a story I wrote this last Christmas that further explores Kader Novar’s future and past. I bring you: Kader’s Sith-mas Vacation
(3653-3652 BBY, Unknown Ice Planet)
Grey Master Kader Novar reached out and hit the shutoff for the portable holocom he had been speaking into. He reached up and removed the ornamental Mandalorian helm, letting his mahogany hair ripple out and down his back.
Kader let out a sigh and slumped, momentarily defeated. Another friend lost, another funeral witnessed. Isaac of Clan Zakegg had been too young, but Kader knew they had all died too young. Death was just another beginning in the Force, Kader knew this, but that knowledge didn’t make accepting the truth any easier. And now he had lost another one.
A gust of wind sent a flurry of snow swirling around him and Kader pulled his dark cloak around him, reminding himself that he had a job to get done. He could have been wearing full armor to protect him from the forces of nature, but Master Kader Novar preferred to have nothing impeding his use of the force. The drawbacks were far outweighed by the potential.
Focusing on himself, he let the Force flow through him and suddenly he was standing in the middle of a solitary sphere of calm amid the raging blizzard.
Stowing the holocom in his pack on a nearby snow-crawler, Kader checked his data pad and re-aligned himself with the beacon he had been following for several weeks.
The signal first came in over Master Novar’s intelligence receiver on Tython, deep in the galactic core, and the signal was just a series of coordinates repeating on loop. Normally Kader would have dispatched one of his agents or maybe a Padawan from the temple, but something about this piqued Kader’s interest and after some checking he discovered the anomaly.
Hidden under a subliminal layer of background static was an old Jedi tap code repeating a single word: Exodus.
And so Kader had started tracking the elusive signal. Once he arrived at the set of coordinates, a run down Tatooine town, the signal abruptly changed and a new set of coordinates started coming in.
Master Novar had been to seven planets across the galaxy now, and was starting to regret not letting one of his agents handle this one. Oh well, if he didn’t turn up anything in this frozen wasteland he would return to Endor and accept never knowing.
Master Novar straddled the snow-crawler and gunned its engines to life. The tread beneath him jumped into motion, propelling him over the snow, and kader focused the Force to allow the swirling air to flow smoothly around him.
Several hours later, Master Kader Novar pulled the snow-crawler into a wide tunnel of ice and snow, carved into the side of a sheer cliff face rising several dozen kilometers up.
Kader could feel the force ahead of him strongly, more strongly than he had felt it since leaving Tython, birthplace of the Force, and he shuddered with anticipation. Kader checked his data pad once more to make sure he was still on target and gunned the snow-crawlers engines.
The tunnel opened up into a cavern and Master Novar looked around in wonder.
Here, on this un-named and unpopulated planet, was an ancient Temple like the ones on Tython. A quick study discovered carvings on the stone like those of the Je’daii.
Was this a hitherto undiscovered planet of the Je’daii? Were there more temples like this out there? Who had been sending the signal Kader was following? Why Exodus? Something was going on here, and Kader was starting to get a bad feeling about this.
Entering the Temple, Kader was struck by a feeling of claustrophobia despite the massive size and scale of the building. Carved statues of alien races stood lining the walls of the entrance chamber, tall and proud, all unrecognizable. Were these the ancient races who built this temple? Where had they gone? Kader would find some answers, one way or the other.
At the end of the entrance chamber was a massive ornately carved door depicting aliens of all races bowing in subservience to a complex star formation. Master Novar carefully recorded images in his data pad of both the statues and the door, then he reached out and pushed.
The heavy doors refused to move.
Kader extended his senses, feeling out to the door and the mechanism barring his way. The door was designed to only be opened by a Force user, like those on Tython. Kader reached out in the Force and, gripping the locking mechanism, wrenched his arm and the lock around into a new formation.
The heavy door smoothly swung open revealing the heart of the temple beyond, and Kader stared in amazement.
Here in the depths of a frozen world in a sealed temple, stood twenty aliens circled around a large crystal emitting a faint purple light.
The aliens were saurian with cobalt scales showing beneath their coarse purple robes. All were still and held their hands raised to the purple crystal. None of them were moving or making noise of any sort, and as Kader approached he could see that none of them were even breathing.
A similarity, a connection, Kader Novar looked around the room again, taking note of the exact positioning of each being and the crystal in the center. It was like one of the Sith rituals he had learned and taken part in as a student of the Dark side. He carefully measured and counted and made notes in his data pad.
The ritual had something to do with the odd crystal in the center of the room. It was this crystal and its faintly pulsing purple glow that the feeling of the Force was emanating from. This single crystal held in it the power of many Force users somehow.
Kader felt unable to stop himself as he reached forward and laid his palm against the surface of the crystal. He was surprised at how warm the crystal was, deep in this ice cavern, and the way he could feel it throbbing under his hand.
“You shouldn’t be here.” A female voice spoke up from right behind Kader’s ear, causing him to spin around in surprise.
Standing before him was the lithe figure of a woman in her late twenties with lapis colored hair. She was dressed in the robes of a jedi and she had a smoking hole in her forehead where many years earlier she had been slain by a lightsaber.
“Mileena?” Kader gaped at the woman before him. “You’re not here, you’re dead!”
“Of course I’m dead.” She said with a smile, “You did kill me, after all. You shouldn’t be here.”
“Where are we?” Kader asked, looking back at the crystal once more, “What is this place?”
“The closest translation is: The Temple of the Undying.” The ghost of Mileena Osroc slowy circled the crystal. “This was a temple built by the followers of Bogan and the Dark side of the balanced Force. They discovered here a crystal that could be used to commune with the flow of the Force. They could use rituals to gaze forward or back along the great current”
“If they had only stopped there.” A second voice spoke from behind Kader and he found himself spinning around again for the second time in as many minutes.
There were two figures approaching from the shadows that now surrounded the central ritual circle. They were both female, both athletic, and both horrifyingly familiar. The first had strawberry blonde hair that cascaded down to her shapely hips, her hand clasped the second figures arm and led it after her.
The second figure was missing her head.
“Erinæ. Seranna.” Kader groaned and covered his eyes. “I should have expected you two after Mileena showed up.”
“Yes, the woman you replaced me with.” Erinæ sneered as she walked over to Mileena, reaching up to brush her lapis colored hair back from her face. “She was pretty enough I suppose, if a bit young.”
“She never replaced you, Erinæ.” Kader growled. “She was a friend and a partner, nothing more!”
“Hush, Kader,” Mileena said softly, batting Erinæ’s hand away. “This specter doesn’t bother me. She is just a reflection of your own memories and emotions, just like I am, brought to life through the Force and the ancient rituals. She could have left her harpy of a sister behind though.”
Kader looked over at the third figure, the headless body of Seranna Khai, and grimaced.
“Why don’t you look dead?” Kader asked Erinæ.
“It’s because of how I died.” Erinæ looked mournfully at her sister. “Seranna was beheaded, your jedi friend was stabbed, and my Force essence was ripped from my body in an instant in a Sith ritual. I look like this because this is how you last saw me, flawless and undamaged. If you were to summon Konnor, he too would be undamaged.”
“Okay, well this is great and all, catching up with you, but why am I here? It’s a bit farfetched to think that ghosts sent me that signal.” Kader snorted.
In response, all three figures silently pointed. Turning to look, Kader felt his stomach drop at the sight of the figure entering the ritual circle. It was Kader’s height and dressed in dark Mandalorian armor. The mask was removed and Kader could see burns and scars adorning the face of his student, Isaac clan Zakegg.
“Feirfek!” Kader swore. He was getting fed up with this stupid circle and the way it threw his failures in his face. How many more dead friends would he be forced to see?
The figure of Isaac slowly looked up and started in surprise.
“Master Kader?!” The young man exclaimed in shock. “Wow, you told me what to expect, but still….”
“What are you talking about Isaac?”
“I did it master,” Isaac said, his eyes falling to his feet. “I’ve brought it, just like you wanted.”
Kader watched as Isaac pulled a lightsaber hilt from his pack. Kader did a double take and reached down to pull his own lightsaber hilt from his belt. They were an exact match.
The figure of Isaac turned and walked to a section of wall with a stone brazier. Kader expected him to stop, and so was surprised when Isaac stepped through the wall as if it wasn’t there. Several moments later, Isaac stepped back through the wall and faded into the shadows.
“What was that?” Kader cried, spinning to face the three ghostly woman. “What just happened? I don’t understand!”
But his past had no answers as they too faded into shadows. Then the shadows faded as well, leaving Kader in the room with the faintly pulsing crystal.
Kader turned to the brazier in the wall he had watched the ghostly Isaac walk through and reached down to his impatience and frustration to give him power for the Dark side he was about to use.
With a complex gesture in the air in front of him, Kader gathered lightning into a ball of pulsing flame that ignited the brazier with a crack of thunder. The glowing brazier sent out a pulse of force energy and the section of wall slid sideways creating a doorway, mist spilling out into the crystal room.
Stepping through the knee high mist, Master Novar entered a short corridor that ended in a small circular room with a pedestal at its center.
The pedestal itself was spilling over with the strange mist and at it’s center was a holocron.
Holding his breath, Kader gently reached out with the Force, probing for any defenses or traps that were laid upon the pedestal. Finding none, he carefully reached into the mist and pulled the holocron out.
It had been five weeks and Master Kader Novar was very close to opening the holocron. He had been camped here in the depths of this temple this entire time and had stopped his work only to eat and meditate several hours each night. He was so close!
There! A pathway, a trail, a tendril of force that he had been searching for! Kader followed the strand and found himself swept along with the Force into the heart of the holocron.
The sides of the holocron shifted and took on a new form, sputtering as it activated for the first time in millennia. It emitted a series of beeps and clicks, then a hologram of one of the cobalt scaled saurians appeared in the air over it.
It emitted a series of growls and hisses, then it emitted a series of grunts and squeals, then a set of fluting notes and whistles. It was clear that the alien holocron was attempting to find a language that Kader knew and would respond. Suddenly, the holocron was speaking an ancient dialect of Dathomiri.
“You have activated me.” The holocron spoke. “Tell me your name and I will open to you the knowledge of the Kwaa.”
“I am Kader Novar.” Kader said in modern Dathomiri.
“I acknowledge you, Kader Novar. I was once known as Ag’naan, Master of Bogan and this temple. I will share my knowledge with you.”
Master Kader Novar felt like he hadn’t seen his ship in forever. It had been close to six months since he had landed on this icy barren world, and he had not returned to the Righteous Fury once. Dragging himself up the gangplank, he felt like he was returning home after a long time away.
He staggered to the cockpit and just sat in the pilots chair for a moment. Since his snow crawler had broken down in the icy wastes, he had been hunted by the native life forms, tall shaggy ape-like beasts with tusks and claws. He had stood and fought the first day, but for every beast he slew, two more would appear. Soon he was running for his life across the frozen landscape. He could hear them even now, banging on the hull.
Doing the startup sequence on a cold ship took time, but the beasts wouldn’t get through the hull, so Kader wasn’t worried. Soon he would be on his way back to Tython.
The Righteous Fury floated in orbit over Tython as Master kader Novar spoke to the Jedi Base.
“So they’ve returned to Endor?” Kader asked the hologram of Setale Shan, current Master of the Jedi order. “Thanks, Setale. I won’t waste any more of your time.
“May the force be with you Kader.” She smiled and her hologram winked off.
Kader turned to the nav computer and entered the new string of co-ordinates that would take him back to the Grey Temple on Endor.
“And after landing, I came straight here, to the council chambers.” Kader said, looking around at the other Grey Masters of the Council. “I have brought back the Holocron of Bogan, but I have learned of several other ancient holocrons. The next one is known as the Holocron of Ashla, and it will have more information on the others, scattered throughout the galaxy by the ancient Kwaa empire.”