Epilogue – "Triumph at Woostri"
Chapter One - A Return to the TempleIn reference to [X]
Jedi Temple, Coruscant
Jedi Archives, Evening
Ilaria sat in the dim glow of the Temple's archive chamber, the flickering holonews display reflecting in her emerald gaze. The Mors Mon loomed over Woostri's corpse, a monolithic omen of what was to come. Darth Meritum's voice echoed in her ears, unfiltered, raw, arrogant—yet beneath it lay something worse than arrogance.
Conviction.
Her hands clenched into fists on the table before her, her knuckles white beneath the weight of realization. The Galactic Alliance and by extension, the New Jedi Order, had lost another world. Not just another battle, not just another system of strategic importance—but another test of their will. And they had failed.
Her breath was steady, but she could feel the storm beneath her skin, a cold weight pressing at the edge of her discipline. She hadn't been at Woostri. She had not stood with those who fought and died there. Instead, she had been transferred from her Enclave to Coruscant, shuffled into a new role just before the galaxy convulsed from yet another Sith victory. And she hated it.
Not because she thought she would have changed the outcome—but because she knew the outcome would not have been different no matter how many Jedi had stood their ground. The Order was losing this war, and it wasn't because they lacked warriors. It was because they lacked resolve.
The Jedi at her Enclave had been prepared for war. Disciplined. Unyielding. They did not shy away from duty, did not tremble at the idea that the Force, in all its vast wisdom, could beat back the Sith through discipline and mastery of the self. And yet, instead of embracing those teachings, the New Jedi Order treated them like an anomaly—an exception rather than the rule.
She exhaled sharply and reached for the holonews interface, fingers tapping through the restricted data streams. Blackouts across entire sectors, communications severed, government censors scrambling to contain the Sith's message.
It was too late.
The words had already taken root. Not just in the frightened whispers of civilians, not just in the uneasy silences of planetary leaders wondering if surrender might be preferable to annihilation—but in the very core of what the Sith wanted to foster.
Doubt.
It had been building for months. Ever since the Hapes Crisis, when the Alliance had been split, divided in action and in belief, unable to present a united front against the chaos unraveling across the stars. And then there were the rumors. Jedi leaving for Crait, vanishing into the void, abandoning their posts, their purpose. Some had left out of disillusionment. Others had simply stopped believing.
She swallowed against the bitterness rising in her throat. How many more would have to die before the Jedi stopped hesitating? How many more worlds had to burn before the Order stopped pretending compassion alone would be enough?
The Sith did not hesitate.
The Sith did not falter.
And the galaxy knew it.
Ilaria leaned back, staring at the ceiling, jaw tight as she considered the weight of it all.
The Sith were winning because they understood the truth that the Jedi refused to acknowledge: a war is not won by mercy. A war is not won by patience. A war is won by the will to break your enemy before they break you.
She could already hear the counterarguments in her mind. Jedi Masters preaching restraint, wisdom, patience. Their insistence that the Force would guide them, that there was a greater path to victory.
But what if the Force had already spoken?
What if it was waiting for them to listen?
She thought of the message, the raw certainty in Darth Meritum's voice.
"The Sith do not yield, they do not tire, and we will not stop."
Her grip on the table's edge tightened.
Ilaria exhaled slowly, her fingers releasing their grip on the table's edge. It was foolish, she knew, to sit here and think as if she alone could change the tide of war. She was just a Padawan, not yet even chosen by a Master. She had barely set foot in the hallowed halls of the Coruscant Temple before the weight of the galaxy's failures had come crashing down upon her.
What could she do?
Many Jedi had fallen. The names of Knights and Padawans lost at Woostri were still being cataloged, their legacies reduced to records in the archives. And she? She had trained in an enclave far from the frontlines, sharpening her mind and her technique while others bled and died. The Temple on Coruscant felt stagnant, locked in endless deliberations while the Sith marched forward unchallenged.
No Master had claimed her yet. Perhaps they never would. Perhaps they saw something in her they did not trust.
Or perhaps she did not trust them.
Her breath was steady, but her mind swirled with doubt. It was a bitter thing, to know she was just another nameless student in a war that would outlast her. She could spar in the training halls, meditate in the gardens, study holocrons until her eyes blurred—but what would it change? Would she be anything more than another name, another loss in a war that did not forgive hesitation?
The Jedi had lost their way. And she—what was she even fighting for?
Her gaze flicked to the holodisplay, the Sith's message looping in her mind like an echo that refused to fade. Darth Meritum had spoken with certainty, a kind of conviction she had rarely heard in the Order.
"We have burned your worlds, killed your people, and pushed your greatest warriors from planet after planet."
Cold certainty settled into her bones. She had heard this before—not in her lifetime, but in the past. A past written in the blood of the Republic, in the ashes of worlds turned to cinders.
And then, as though the thought had been waiting for her all along, the name surfaced in her mind.
Saul Karath.
She had never known him, of course. He was long dead, his legacy carved into history as one of the greatest naval commanders of the Mandalorian Wars. His victories had been legendary. His betrayal, even more so.
To the Republic, he had been a hero. Then he had become a traitor.
To the Sith, he had been an architect of war, a man who understood what it took to win.
Ilaria pressed her fingers to her temples, letting the weight of it settle. What would he have done?
Not hesitate, surely. Not linger in the halls of Coruscant waiting for permission to act.
He had seen the Mandalorians for what they were—an enemy that would not stop. And when the Republic had refused to act, he had followed the only man who would fight: Revan.
And when Revan had turned to the Sith, so had Saul.
She didn't know what had gone through his mind in those final years. If he had believed in Revan's cause, or if he had simply done what was necessary to survive.
But what she did know, what she could never ignore, was that he had won battles. That he had commanded fleets. That he had not waited.
Ilaria swallowed, her throat dry.
Had the Jedi learned nothing from history?
She was no commander. She was no tactician. She had no fleets, no armies, no soldiers at her command.
But Saul Karath had once been just an officer in a broken navy, serving in every single role to build respect and the base knowledge needed. And he had risen because he had recognized that conviction was more powerful than any single battle.
She could not change the course of this war.
Not yet.
But she could learn. She could prepare.
She could become something more.
The Jedi were losing because they still clung to the belief that their ideals alone would win the day. But Saul Karath had taught the Republic, long ago, that idealism was a luxury that war did not afford.
And if history was repeating itself—if the Sith were rising as they had before—then she could not afford it either.
Her hands steadied.
