Instead he was witness to something so unbelievable his initial reaction was one of suspicion. Was it a trick? A trap? His fears were quickly allayed when he recognized the familiar and smiling faces of other Jedi all around him.
As he surveyed the aftermath of the last battle of Ruusan, his own face broke into a smile. There were only a handful of dead, and from their dress it was clear that few of them had served in the Army of Light. Most of the enemy had been taken prisoner: they were sitting calmly on the ground in large groups, surrounded by armed Jedi. Yet even though the Jedi were keeping close watch on their captured foes, they were laughing and joking with one another.
He reached out with the Force, and he felt wave after wave of relief and joy washing out from Farfalla's troops. The soldiers under his command were quick to feel it, too. Seeing the obvious victory, they broke ranks and ran cheering and laughing down to join their fellows in celebration. Hoth resisted the urge to shout out a command to regroup and simply let them go.
The endless war was over!
But as he walked through the milling throngs, accepting the salutes and congratulations of his followers, he realized something was wrong. The battlefield was full of placid, unarmed Sith… but he saw not a single Dark Lord among their numbers.
The sight of Master Farfalla running at full speed toward him from the far side of the field did little to soothe his unease.
"General," Farfalla said, sliding to a stop and gasping for breath. He snapped off a quick salute. The lack of his typical over-the-top bow further fueled Hoth's mounting concern.
"I must have taken longer to assemble my forces than I thought," the general joked, hoping his disquiet was simply misplaced paranoia. "It seems you've already won the war."
Farfalla shook his head. "The war isn't over. Not yet. Kaan and the Brotherhood, the true Sith, have taken refuge in the caves. They're going to unleash some kind of Sith weapon. Something called a thought bomb."
A thought bomb? Hoth had heard mention of such a weapon long ago, studying at the feet of his Master back at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. According to legendary accounts, the ancient Sith had the ability to forge the dark side into a concentrated sphere of power and then unleash its energy in a single, devastating blast. All those sensitive to the Force, Sith and Jedi alike, would be consumed by the explosion, their spirits trapped in the great vacuum created at the epicenter of the detonation.
"Is Kaan mad?" he said aloud, though the very question was answer enough.
"We have to evacuate, General," Farfalla insisted. "Get everyone away as fast as possible."
"No," Hoth answered. "That won't work. If we retreat, Kaan and the Brotherhood will escape. It won't take them long to rally support and begin this war all over again."
"But what about the thought bomb?" Valenthyne demanded.
"If Kaan has such a weapon," the general explained grimly, "then he will use it. If not here, then somewhere else. Maybe in the Core Worlds. Maybe on Coruscant itself. I can't allow that.
"Kaan wants to witness my death. I have to go into the cave to face him. I have to force him to detonate the bomb here on Ruusan. It's the only way to truly end this."
Farfalla dropped to one knee. "Then I will go by your side, General. As will all who follow me."
Reaching out with his strong, weathered hands, General Hoth took Farfalla by the shoulders and hauled him to his feet. "No, my friend," he said with a sigh, "you cannot walk this journey with me."
When the other started to protest he held up a hand for silence and continued. "When Kaan unleashes his weapon, all within that cave will die. The Sith will be wiped out, but I won't let that happen to our entire order. The galaxy will have need of Jedi to rebuild once this war is over. You and the other Masters must live so that you may guide them and defend the Republic as we have done since its foundation."
There was no real argument against the wisdom of his words, and after a moment's deliberation Master Farfalla dropped his head in mute acceptance. When he looked up again there were tears in his eyes.
"Surely you're not going in alone?" he protested.
"I wish I could," Hoth replied. "But if I do the Dark Lords will simply take me down with their lightsabers. That would solve nothing. Kaan has to see that his only choice is to surrender or.." He left the thought unspoken.
"You'll need enough Jedi to convince the Brotherhood that a physical battle would be hopeless. At least a hundred. Any less and he won't detonate the thought bomb."
Hoth nodded. "Nobody will be ordered to go in with me. Ask for volunteers. And make sure they understand none of us will ever be coming out."
Despite the danger, virtually every single member of the Army of Light volunteered for the mission. General Hoth realized that he shouldn't have been surprised. After all, these were Jedi, willing to sacrifice everything, even their lives, for the greater good. In the end he did what he knew he would have to do all along: he himself chose who would accompany him to certain death.
He selected exactly ninety-nine others to go with him. The decision was agonizingly difficult. If he took less, the Sith might be able to fight their way out of the cave and escape, only to detonate their thought bomb somewhere else. But the more he took, the more Jedi lives he might be needlessly throwing away.
Choosing who would go with him was even more difficult. Those Jedi who had served at his side the longest, the ones who had joined the Army of Light at the very beginning of the campaign, were those he knew best. He knew how much they had already given in this war, and these were the ones he least wanted to lead to their doom. Yet these were the ones with the most right to stand by his side when the end finally came, and when all was said and done that was how he made his selection. Those with the most seniority would go with him; the others would fall back with Lord Farfalla.
The hundred Jedi, the ninety-nine chosen plus Hoth himself, stood anxiously at the entrance of the tunnels. The sky above was growing dark as night fell and ominous storm clouds rolled in. Still, the general did not give the command to advance. He wanted to give Farfalla and the others enough time to get clear. If it had been possible, he would have ordered all those not going into the cave to leave Ruusan. But there wasn't time. They would simply have to get as far away as possible, then hope they were beyond the range of Kaan's thought bomb.
As the first drops of rain began to fall, he realized he could wait no longer, and he gave the command to advance. They marched in an orderly fashion into the tunnel, down into the caverns far beneath the planet's surface.
The first thing Hoth noticed as they descended was how cold the tunnel quickly became, as if all the heat had been sucked away. The next thing he felt was the tension in the air. It actually pulsed with vast, unimaginable power just barely held in check; the power of the dark side. He didn't allow himself to think about what would happen when that power was released.