The Anakin Solo- late Thursday
Jaina's second- and final- attempt to stop Jacen started out badly and didn't stop there.
In the Transitory Mists just getting to the Anakin Solo, they'd come under fire. Zekk's ship had been hit. With their connection to each other nowhere near what it used to be, Jaina had no idea where he was or if he was even alive, and yet she had to keep going. She had to eject from her now-destroyed X-wing and had to order away Luke and her cover battle, meaning she was completely on her own on the Anakin Solo with no surefire plan of extraction. She'd been able to take down a female security officer and switch clothes to better avoid detection, but that hadn't gone easily and had taken up valuable time. Then when she was looking for Prince Isolder to free him, the security officer had mentioned a certain Mandalorian female that was being held prisoner here. So now Jaina had to find and rescue both Isolder and Mirta, and kill her brother, and do it entirely on her own.
She shouldn't have gone to find Mirta. She didn't have time for it, and she had no idea what state her friend would be in anyway. She did it anyway.
She'd used the security officer as her cover to go where she needed to. When they got to the female cell block, specifically where Mirta was being held, it took a little bit of the Force to get the two other security guards and the woman she'd taken prisoner knocked out and locked up in another cell. If she was going to do this, she was going to have to do it quick.
"The noble jetiise," said a voice from behind her. "Gracious even in victory."
Jaina got the female officer hidden on the floor beside the cell's second empty bed, and turned to see Mirta Gev lying in the first. She'd seen better days. She looked positively unlike herself now. "Hello, Mirta," she said, quickly gathering the weapons and comlinks from all the unconscious guards. "It's good to see you. I'm glad you're alive."
"If you want to call it that," Mirta said, her voice hollow.
With the weapons and comms taken care of, Jaina headed over to Mirta. The Mando's left arm was the only one cuffed to the bed to keep her there, the other one hidden under the thin blanket. Jaina placed the weapons at the foot of the bed, pulling the blanket down to start to undo the cuff. "Look, I'm sorry about what happened on Nickel One," she said, and meant it. If she hadn't, she wouldn't be here. "I thought you were dead."
"It might have been nice if you'd checked," said Mirta. "You could've put a bolt through my head and spared me this."
And it was then that Jaina saw why only one arm was restrained. Mirta seemed partially paralyzed. She had seen her come down on her head...
"Ah... Mirta. I'm so sorry," Jaina said, feeling even worse about everything, which was saying something at this point. "I can't get you out of here."
"I know who you came for," Mirta said. She seemed depressed enough not to care much anyway. "The only thing I can't figure out is what you're doing in here."
"I might have gotten played," she admitted, jerking a thumb towards the unconscious female officer. It was possible that all the helpfulness had just been a ploy to waste Jaina's time, time she most certainly did not have. She reached under Mirta's bed to get the rest of the restraints from the storage bin, and began tying the three guards to the empty bed. "If I make it, I'll try to come back for you."
"If you make it, I'll be so happy I won't care. But there is something you should know. If may help you with Caedus."
"Thanks," she said, still hard at work. "I'll take all the help I can."
Mirta didn't answer right away, not until Jaina looked up at her. "You have to do some things for me. If you survive, I mean. You have to promise."
Somehow Jaina thought she should have expected that. She liked Mirta, considered her a friend. But she knew pretty well now how Mandalorians worked. "Maybe," she said. "What do you have in mind?"
"You have to warn Ba'biur," Mirta said, using the Mando'a word for grandfather. "The Moffs took some of my blood. They're designed a nanokiller for him."
Jaina nodded. "I can do that. If I make it. I promise."
"Good. And the last thing. It's easy."
She followed Mirta's gaze to the blaster rifles on the bed. "No, Mirta, I'm not going to do that," she said. "Even if I don't make it, I don't think-"
"Jaina, it's not for that," Mirta assured her, and nodded towards the three prisoners. "When they wake up, I'm going to need a way to keep them quiet for you."
That was better. That she could do. She sighed in relief and placed the blasters and comlinks where Mirta could reach them. "Good point. Thanks."
"You're welcome. Now the thing you need to know about your brother... he underestimates you."
"That's not really news, Mirta," Jaina said. "Maybe not even true. He's magnitudes stronger than me in the Force."
"I mean, his weakness is more delusional. He's convinced you couldn't have taken his arm- at least not alone. He thinks Luke was with us."
Jaina hadn't known it before she went into things on Nickel One, but Luke really had found a way to direct her through the Force. She wasn't exactly happy about that, and she'd had Things To Say To Him about it, but he'd been trying to protect her, and to improve the odds of killing Jacen. She could put aside her pride for that. "Maybe Luke was there," she said vaguely.
Mirta shook her head. "He wasn't. I was conscious most of the time, and I didn't see him." She waved the blaster towards the door. "Now get out of here. You've only got an hour before my next meds are due- and no offense, but I don't want you as a roommate."
"No problem. We'd probably kill each other," Jaina agreed. "May the Force be with you, Mirta."
"Yeah, sure, Jedi," Mirta said. "Shoot straight and run fast."
Jaina slipped into the hall, using her thumbnail to scratch up the security console thumbprint, impeding whoever was due with Mirta's meds for at least a little while. And then she'd walked only a few steps when she heard a blaster discharge from inside the cell. And then another. And another.
Kriffing Mandalorians.
*****
It wasn't especially easy, trying to sense Jacen's location while keeping herself hidden in the Force so the blood trail wouldn't tip him off to hers. It meant that she was somewhat vaguely making her way through the infirmary, trying not to watch when she came upon the Falleen medic tending to a Bothan missing both arms and a leg. She'd seen limbs removed by lightsabers. She knew what it looked like.
"Another assassin," said a guard who was keeping an eye on the Bothan. He didn't question Jaina's presence. She was operating under a low level Force suggestion that everyone who saw her had a vague idea that they'd seen her before, and it was enough to let her move unnoticed. "Don't know why the Bothans keep sending them. Caedus just cuts 'em up and sends them down here."
"Something we can do for you, Captain?" the other guard asked Jaina.
"Yes, thanks," said Jaina, trying not to wonder if she was going to end up anything like that Bothan. "Can you tell me why everything is getting so quiet? Is the Anakin Solo in trouble?"
"The Anakin Solo's doing fine, ma'am," said the second guard. "The last I heard, the Megador had those Hapan scolds on the run, and we were getting ready to jump with the rest of the fleet."
"You must not do much duty in the infirmary," said the first. "It always gets like this when Darth Maniac is around."
"Darth Maniac?" Jaina repeated. That was what his crew thought of him. When Jacen had been leading missions Jaina was on, his subordinates had sort of loved him. And now he was Darth Maniac, because he did things like slice apart assassins that had to be sent for him repeatedly. The Jacen she had known would never do anything like that. She couldn't imagine what it must be like inside his head for this to seem okay to him. "Caedus is here- in the infirmary?"
"Yes, ma'am," said the second. "Word is, he's in the scanning booth."
"Coming up here? In the middle of battle?" This was not where she wanted to be for that. He'd see through her suggestion too easily, and there were far too many people here who could become casualties.
"Maybe not this time. They say he's got a body with him, so he could be headed to the disposal pit."
A body. In the prison hold.
She'd been too late to save Isolder, and she knew it. She could add him to the impressive list she was putting together.
So, Jacen was here. He'd killed the prince, and was going to dispose of him, and the fleet was going to jump to Shedu Maad, where they'd attack the Jedi base. She backed out of the infirmary without another word, and headed towards the disposal pit. She knew ships, and she didn't have to question where it was, even if she'd never been down to one herself. It was a horrible, smelly, durasteel hole where all the used medical equipment, bodies, and hazardous waste were disposed of. She'd never had reason to go there, but she knew the schematics well enough to get there.
First it was down the turbolift, and when it stopped, she already had her lightsaber semihidden behind her forearm. It was going to stay out from now on. To her relief, the only thing waiting was an MD droid about to step into the tube. "Lord Caedus and his escorts," Jaina said, "did you see them going toward the disposal pit?"
"Why yes, Captain," the droid replied. "They had a body with them, Prisoner Ay-Ess-Two-Three-Oh-Fifty-two-Ar, I believe."
So Jacen had guards that she was also going to have to take care of. "Would that be Prince Isolder?" she asked, just to be sure.
"I believe that was his name, yes. The poor man- it looked like Lord Caedus had snapped three of his cervical vertebrae."
It wasn't that Jaina hadn't snapped a neck or two in her life. That wasn't the point. The point was that Isolder was dead, and he'd died quickly, and it was Jacen-
She stopped halfway across the deck and turned back to the droid. "The prisoner's neck- how do you know it was Lord Caedus who snapped it?"
The droid stopped inside the lift. "It always is, Captain," the droid said, and the lift doors closed.
As she started toward the morgue lift, a female voice rang out across the main deck. "Your attention: all Prison Hold surveillance and communications systems have been restored. Maintain Lockdown Level Two. We'll be jumping to final objective in five minutes. Repeat, five minutes. This will be your final announcement."
Five minutes till they jumped to Shedu Maad. Jaina was probably too late to stop any sort of attack on the Jedi, but maybe she could at least confuse things a bit. She wondered if she'd be able to reach out to Luke when the fight began, if he'd been able to do all the real damage to Jacen at Nickel One through her. But then she remembered Mirta telling her how Jacen underestimated her, and she knew she had to do this herself. Luke was stronger than her, yes. But Jacen was prepared for him. They'd almost killed each other. Jacen knew Luke, knew how he fought.
He knew nothing about what Jaina could do anymore.
When she reached the morgue level, the lift doors opened on a rectangular corridor, where Jacen's four guards were standing in front of a single hatch. If Jacen wasn't there, then presumably he was beyond that hatch. She took care of all four guards with a single lightsaber stroke. That was easy. Then she walked towards the hatch, not allowing herself any fear, any anger, any anything. This couldn't be anything more than another battle, and if she wanted to make it through this, she wasn't even going to be able to flinch.
She had to be ruthless.
When she opened the hatch door, Jacen was in front of it, just about to open it himself.
"Jaina?"
She thumbed her lightsaber on with a snap-hiss, and plunged the blade into his stomach.
It didn't even knock him down, and she knew to expect that after Nickel One. Jacen reacted with a Force push aimed squarely at her chest, sending her flying backwards. She tucked her chin before she hit the far wall, knowing that she could not risk another head injury right now when her concussion was still healing. Instead of a head injury, she received a lot of pain as her spine took the impact, and the synthmesh supporting her half-healed ribs came apart in a single agonizing pop. When she hit the ground, she knew she couldn't take even a moment to deal with the pain.
She was right. She'd barely begun to gasp for breath when his hand shot out, and she only barely brought her lightsaber up in time to absorb the Force lightning he directed at her. He stepped forward, still shooting lightning from his fingertips, and Jaina couldn't believe what she was seeing. He'd taken a lightsaber through the gut and he was still coming after her. She feinted an attempt to roll to her knees, and when he moved to try and block her, she gestured with her free hand to send him flying through the back door with a Force push of her own.
Jaina sprang to her feet and ran through the door. Her own injuries had to wait if she didn't want to be incredibly dead very soon. Jacen was just as fast, crimson lightsaber humming to life, and she ran towards it, blocking and kicking in the same move. He grunted as her boot caught him somewhere above the waist, but in the darkness of the disposal pit, with the lightsabers and the absolutely glaring fire from the incinerator to light them, she couldn't see where she got him.
She felt his boot come up and land under her guard, smacking into her ribs. She stifled a cry and kept going, trying to adjust her sight to the darkness because it was impossible to sense him in the Force. He kept going, too, and every step she took was met with a blow. She took half a second to look for something she could Force-hurl, and in that second the pommel of his lightsaber smashed into her face, splitting her cheek open and breaking the bone. She met that with a driving knee to his thigh, and a downward slash that he barely turned in time to save the only hand he had left.
A flimsiplast crate emerged from the conveyor belt chute beside them. It wasn't much, but Jaina let it get just past them before grabbing onto it with the Force and hurling it at Jacen's back. Then the pit droid came clanking out of the shadows, oblivious to what it was interrupting. "Excuse me, please," it said, "I must inspect-"
Jaina grasped it in the Force and sent it flying towards Jacen. It was heavy enough to send him staggering, and by the time he recovered Jaina was lunging forward from the shadows again, her shoulders back but her boot heel driving in under his lightsaber.
He anticipated her. He spun, leaning away to protect his midsection from another blow after she'd already stabbed him, and brought his leg up to counterkick. She Force-launched herself into him anyway, whipping her lightsaber around to block his. His kick landed first, driving into her stomach, though her own kick caught him on the hip and had him falling onto the conveyor belt. The flimiscrate burst when he fell onto it with his head and shoulders. She leapt in to keep at him, but again, he popped up immediately. He had more than a dozen used syringes hanging from his face and shoulder, but he didn't seem to even notice. He deactivated his lightsaber and dropped it, instead making a twisting motion towards her with his hand.
She felt her chin twisting, and in a split second she realized this must have been what he did to Isolder. Rather than resist and let her neck get snapped, she turned into it, letting the Force accelerate her into a spin even while she leapt toward him. She brought her lightsaber down as she did this, though mainly what she did was sever the pit droid's head. Then she was on Jacen, slashing at his head with her lightsaber, bringing her boot toe up under his chin when he grew predictable and ducked. The kick snapped his head back and sent him tumbling over the conveyor belt.
Jaina thought for a moment that she might have some kind of an advantage, but once again he was up too quickly, his lightsaber reactivated and spinning just past her arm. Jacen's hand shot out and he caught the weapon by the hilt, and now she saw him clearly. His flesh was bulging around the scorch hole in his abdomen, and he was in obvious pain- and he was feeding on it.
She brought her lightsaber to high guard and braced herself for the attack she knew had to be coming.
Instead, he decativated his blade.
"Jaina, listen to me," he said, but it barely sounded like him. She realized now that the only thing keeping him on his feet was Force energy- a lot of it. "You need to get out of my way. I'm trying to save Tenel Ka and Allana."
"Sure you are," she said, extending her Force senses to try and get a read on what he was really doing. "Just like you saved Isolder."
"Isolder would have made the same choice. In fact, he did," he said. He clipped his lightsaber to his belt, and Jaina might have trusted him if he'd done a single trustworthy thing in the last year. He was a Sith. She couldn't trust anything he did now. "We don't have time for this."
"So die already."
She didn't wait for him to attack her. She launched herself into a flip with the aid of the Force, coming up over the conveyor belt head-down to try and strike before he could ignite his lightsaber. But Jacen didn't even try. He glanced toward the open mouth of the incinerator, and Jaina felt herself suddenly rushing towards the white heat. It took all her Force strength to pull herself aside the half meter that saved her life.
It didn't mean she didn't hit the scorching durasteel, though. Even quick contact with the exterior of the furnace was enough to set her back ablaze. There was no stifling the scream, trying not to breathe in the stench of her hair and skin burning, and she managed to roll onto her back to try and stop it, no matter how much it hurt to do so.
She didn't know what made her do it, except that she just knew she should. Jaina opened herself fully to the Force, drawing it in through the power of her emotions- not through her anger or pain, as a Sith might, or as she would have done even a few months ago, but through the love of what her brother had been... the teenage jokester who could always find hope in a desperate situation, the questioning warrior who had bested the Yuuzhan Vong warmaster in personal combat, the reluctant champion who had shown a galaxy the way to compassionate victory.
The Force came pouring in from all sides, saturating Jaina and devouring her, filling her with a roaring maelstrom of power, carrying away her pain and leaving in its place the strength not only to survive, but to rise and fight.
Jacen was already on the far side of the conveyor belt, pulling syringes from himself while he staggered toward the exit. He'd set her on fire and left her to die. He'd expected she just would.
He really had underestimated her.
That was going to be his downfall.
He got to the door, only to have Jaina depress the control pad from across the room using the Force, causing the door to unexpectedly close in his face.
By the time he whirled towards her, Jaina was already up and bounding toward him, her hair still trailing smoke. He splayed his fingers to try and hit her with a burst of Force lightning, but she caught it on her lightsaber and whirled past. She brought her blade down where he'd been only an instant before and left a long gouge in the door.
He ignited his lightsaber again, the blade striking towards her shoulders. She dropped down and used her free arm to block the Force-driven snap-kick she anticipated would come at her throat.
Ankle met arm with a sharp crack. Jaina felt the initial burst of pain and the throbbing that followed as her arm suddenly developed what looked like an extra joint that hadn't been there a second ago, and suddenly that arm was useless. It didn't matter. She couldn't stop. She was a dead woman if she didn't win this- maybe even if she did win. She whipped her lightsaber around one-handed in a high block and deflected the reverse flash he sent towards her neck.
She dove forward, whipping her lightsaber at his other foot. He sprang backwards, trying to draw both feet out of harm's way at once, and countered by flipping his own weapon around, bringing it up beneath her belly.
Neither blade cut deep, but both did damage. She felt the lightsaber slice open her abdomen, felt something inside her pop into the void left by the slashed muscle. She refused to think about it. Meanwhile her blade caught him behind the boot, touching just long enough to sever the crucial tendon running up the back of the ankle. He almost fell when he landed, his leg no longer able to support him.
Jaina came to a knee facing him and knew Jacen was about to die. He had one arm and one good leg, and they were not even on the same side of the body. He couldn't pivot and he couldn't retreat. All she needed to do was get past his lightsaber and attack the armless side of his body- before she collapsed herself, or he recovered enough to kill her with one last Force blast.
She sprang.
He tried to turn towards her, but wasn't able to do it on one usable foot. Momentum kept him stumbling back toward the bright side of the pit, his eyes filled with rage and exhaustion and despair. Jaina feinted at his head, and brought her lightsaber around to his armless side in a slash she knew he wouldn't be able to block. It was a sure kill, one that would land even if she died first. Which she thought she might, since the attack would leave her completely open to an avenging counterstrike.
But Jacen gave up. He seemed to know he was already dead, and whatever he had in mind wasn't vengeance. When her blade came around, his lightsaber was hanging at his side. He was staring up at the ceiling, and the only attempt he made to save himself was to take a step back into the light from the furnace.
She closed her eyes, feeling the lightsaber sink into his chest through his ribs. She felt something in the Force, too- something that made her pulse stop and her chest sink and her blood freeze in her veins. Her brother was reaching out to Tenel Ka, screaming at her through the Force, warning her there was danger, urging her to take Allana and...
Then the blade reached his heart, and he dropped at her feet, and Jaina felt nothing at all.
[Warning for lots of violence and character death. NFI, NFB, OOC so okay you can't even believe it because ASIFHASFHADEHSWFHWGVBCVWER I NEED HUGS. Dialogue and a few bits taken from Invincible by Troy Denning.]
In the Transitory Mists just getting to the Anakin Solo, they'd come under fire. Zekk's ship had been hit. With their connection to each other nowhere near what it used to be, Jaina had no idea where he was or if he was even alive, and yet she had to keep going. She had to eject from her now-destroyed X-wing and had to order away Luke and her cover battle, meaning she was completely on her own on the Anakin Solo with no surefire plan of extraction. She'd been able to take down a female security officer and switch clothes to better avoid detection, but that hadn't gone easily and had taken up valuable time. Then when she was looking for Prince Isolder to free him, the security officer had mentioned a certain Mandalorian female that was being held prisoner here. So now Jaina had to find and rescue both Isolder and Mirta, and kill her brother, and do it entirely on her own.
She shouldn't have gone to find Mirta. She didn't have time for it, and she had no idea what state her friend would be in anyway. She did it anyway.
She'd used the security officer as her cover to go where she needed to. When they got to the female cell block, specifically where Mirta was being held, it took a little bit of the Force to get the two other security guards and the woman she'd taken prisoner knocked out and locked up in another cell. If she was going to do this, she was going to have to do it quick.
"The noble jetiise," said a voice from behind her. "Gracious even in victory."
Jaina got the female officer hidden on the floor beside the cell's second empty bed, and turned to see Mirta Gev lying in the first. She'd seen better days. She looked positively unlike herself now. "Hello, Mirta," she said, quickly gathering the weapons and comlinks from all the unconscious guards. "It's good to see you. I'm glad you're alive."
"If you want to call it that," Mirta said, her voice hollow.
With the weapons and comms taken care of, Jaina headed over to Mirta. The Mando's left arm was the only one cuffed to the bed to keep her there, the other one hidden under the thin blanket. Jaina placed the weapons at the foot of the bed, pulling the blanket down to start to undo the cuff. "Look, I'm sorry about what happened on Nickel One," she said, and meant it. If she hadn't, she wouldn't be here. "I thought you were dead."
"It might have been nice if you'd checked," said Mirta. "You could've put a bolt through my head and spared me this."
And it was then that Jaina saw why only one arm was restrained. Mirta seemed partially paralyzed. She had seen her come down on her head...
"Ah... Mirta. I'm so sorry," Jaina said, feeling even worse about everything, which was saying something at this point. "I can't get you out of here."
"I know who you came for," Mirta said. She seemed depressed enough not to care much anyway. "The only thing I can't figure out is what you're doing in here."
"I might have gotten played," she admitted, jerking a thumb towards the unconscious female officer. It was possible that all the helpfulness had just been a ploy to waste Jaina's time, time she most certainly did not have. She reached under Mirta's bed to get the rest of the restraints from the storage bin, and began tying the three guards to the empty bed. "If I make it, I'll try to come back for you."
"If you make it, I'll be so happy I won't care. But there is something you should know. If may help you with Caedus."
"Thanks," she said, still hard at work. "I'll take all the help I can."
Mirta didn't answer right away, not until Jaina looked up at her. "You have to do some things for me. If you survive, I mean. You have to promise."
Somehow Jaina thought she should have expected that. She liked Mirta, considered her a friend. But she knew pretty well now how Mandalorians worked. "Maybe," she said. "What do you have in mind?"
"You have to warn Ba'biur," Mirta said, using the Mando'a word for grandfather. "The Moffs took some of my blood. They're designed a nanokiller for him."
Jaina nodded. "I can do that. If I make it. I promise."
"Good. And the last thing. It's easy."
She followed Mirta's gaze to the blaster rifles on the bed. "No, Mirta, I'm not going to do that," she said. "Even if I don't make it, I don't think-"
"Jaina, it's not for that," Mirta assured her, and nodded towards the three prisoners. "When they wake up, I'm going to need a way to keep them quiet for you."
That was better. That she could do. She sighed in relief and placed the blasters and comlinks where Mirta could reach them. "Good point. Thanks."
"You're welcome. Now the thing you need to know about your brother... he underestimates you."
"That's not really news, Mirta," Jaina said. "Maybe not even true. He's magnitudes stronger than me in the Force."
"I mean, his weakness is more delusional. He's convinced you couldn't have taken his arm- at least not alone. He thinks Luke was with us."
Jaina hadn't known it before she went into things on Nickel One, but Luke really had found a way to direct her through the Force. She wasn't exactly happy about that, and she'd had Things To Say To Him about it, but he'd been trying to protect her, and to improve the odds of killing Jacen. She could put aside her pride for that. "Maybe Luke was there," she said vaguely.
Mirta shook her head. "He wasn't. I was conscious most of the time, and I didn't see him." She waved the blaster towards the door. "Now get out of here. You've only got an hour before my next meds are due- and no offense, but I don't want you as a roommate."
"No problem. We'd probably kill each other," Jaina agreed. "May the Force be with you, Mirta."
"Yeah, sure, Jedi," Mirta said. "Shoot straight and run fast."
Jaina slipped into the hall, using her thumbnail to scratch up the security console thumbprint, impeding whoever was due with Mirta's meds for at least a little while. And then she'd walked only a few steps when she heard a blaster discharge from inside the cell. And then another. And another.
Kriffing Mandalorians.
*****
It wasn't especially easy, trying to sense Jacen's location while keeping herself hidden in the Force so the blood trail wouldn't tip him off to hers. It meant that she was somewhat vaguely making her way through the infirmary, trying not to watch when she came upon the Falleen medic tending to a Bothan missing both arms and a leg. She'd seen limbs removed by lightsabers. She knew what it looked like.
"Another assassin," said a guard who was keeping an eye on the Bothan. He didn't question Jaina's presence. She was operating under a low level Force suggestion that everyone who saw her had a vague idea that they'd seen her before, and it was enough to let her move unnoticed. "Don't know why the Bothans keep sending them. Caedus just cuts 'em up and sends them down here."
"Something we can do for you, Captain?" the other guard asked Jaina.
"Yes, thanks," said Jaina, trying not to wonder if she was going to end up anything like that Bothan. "Can you tell me why everything is getting so quiet? Is the Anakin Solo in trouble?"
"The Anakin Solo's doing fine, ma'am," said the second guard. "The last I heard, the Megador had those Hapan scolds on the run, and we were getting ready to jump with the rest of the fleet."
"You must not do much duty in the infirmary," said the first. "It always gets like this when Darth Maniac is around."
"Darth Maniac?" Jaina repeated. That was what his crew thought of him. When Jacen had been leading missions Jaina was on, his subordinates had sort of loved him. And now he was Darth Maniac, because he did things like slice apart assassins that had to be sent for him repeatedly. The Jacen she had known would never do anything like that. She couldn't imagine what it must be like inside his head for this to seem okay to him. "Caedus is here- in the infirmary?"
"Yes, ma'am," said the second. "Word is, he's in the scanning booth."
"Coming up here? In the middle of battle?" This was not where she wanted to be for that. He'd see through her suggestion too easily, and there were far too many people here who could become casualties.
"Maybe not this time. They say he's got a body with him, so he could be headed to the disposal pit."
A body. In the prison hold.
She'd been too late to save Isolder, and she knew it. She could add him to the impressive list she was putting together.
So, Jacen was here. He'd killed the prince, and was going to dispose of him, and the fleet was going to jump to Shedu Maad, where they'd attack the Jedi base. She backed out of the infirmary without another word, and headed towards the disposal pit. She knew ships, and she didn't have to question where it was, even if she'd never been down to one herself. It was a horrible, smelly, durasteel hole where all the used medical equipment, bodies, and hazardous waste were disposed of. She'd never had reason to go there, but she knew the schematics well enough to get there.
First it was down the turbolift, and when it stopped, she already had her lightsaber semihidden behind her forearm. It was going to stay out from now on. To her relief, the only thing waiting was an MD droid about to step into the tube. "Lord Caedus and his escorts," Jaina said, "did you see them going toward the disposal pit?"
"Why yes, Captain," the droid replied. "They had a body with them, Prisoner Ay-Ess-Two-Three-Oh-Fifty-two-Ar, I believe."
So Jacen had guards that she was also going to have to take care of. "Would that be Prince Isolder?" she asked, just to be sure.
"I believe that was his name, yes. The poor man- it looked like Lord Caedus had snapped three of his cervical vertebrae."
It wasn't that Jaina hadn't snapped a neck or two in her life. That wasn't the point. The point was that Isolder was dead, and he'd died quickly, and it was Jacen-
She stopped halfway across the deck and turned back to the droid. "The prisoner's neck- how do you know it was Lord Caedus who snapped it?"
The droid stopped inside the lift. "It always is, Captain," the droid said, and the lift doors closed.
As she started toward the morgue lift, a female voice rang out across the main deck. "Your attention: all Prison Hold surveillance and communications systems have been restored. Maintain Lockdown Level Two. We'll be jumping to final objective in five minutes. Repeat, five minutes. This will be your final announcement."
Five minutes till they jumped to Shedu Maad. Jaina was probably too late to stop any sort of attack on the Jedi, but maybe she could at least confuse things a bit. She wondered if she'd be able to reach out to Luke when the fight began, if he'd been able to do all the real damage to Jacen at Nickel One through her. But then she remembered Mirta telling her how Jacen underestimated her, and she knew she had to do this herself. Luke was stronger than her, yes. But Jacen was prepared for him. They'd almost killed each other. Jacen knew Luke, knew how he fought.
He knew nothing about what Jaina could do anymore.
When she reached the morgue level, the lift doors opened on a rectangular corridor, where Jacen's four guards were standing in front of a single hatch. If Jacen wasn't there, then presumably he was beyond that hatch. She took care of all four guards with a single lightsaber stroke. That was easy. Then she walked towards the hatch, not allowing herself any fear, any anger, any anything. This couldn't be anything more than another battle, and if she wanted to make it through this, she wasn't even going to be able to flinch.
She had to be ruthless.
When she opened the hatch door, Jacen was in front of it, just about to open it himself.
"Jaina?"
She thumbed her lightsaber on with a snap-hiss, and plunged the blade into his stomach.
It didn't even knock him down, and she knew to expect that after Nickel One. Jacen reacted with a Force push aimed squarely at her chest, sending her flying backwards. She tucked her chin before she hit the far wall, knowing that she could not risk another head injury right now when her concussion was still healing. Instead of a head injury, she received a lot of pain as her spine took the impact, and the synthmesh supporting her half-healed ribs came apart in a single agonizing pop. When she hit the ground, she knew she couldn't take even a moment to deal with the pain.
She was right. She'd barely begun to gasp for breath when his hand shot out, and she only barely brought her lightsaber up in time to absorb the Force lightning he directed at her. He stepped forward, still shooting lightning from his fingertips, and Jaina couldn't believe what she was seeing. He'd taken a lightsaber through the gut and he was still coming after her. She feinted an attempt to roll to her knees, and when he moved to try and block her, she gestured with her free hand to send him flying through the back door with a Force push of her own.
Jaina sprang to her feet and ran through the door. Her own injuries had to wait if she didn't want to be incredibly dead very soon. Jacen was just as fast, crimson lightsaber humming to life, and she ran towards it, blocking and kicking in the same move. He grunted as her boot caught him somewhere above the waist, but in the darkness of the disposal pit, with the lightsabers and the absolutely glaring fire from the incinerator to light them, she couldn't see where she got him.
She felt his boot come up and land under her guard, smacking into her ribs. She stifled a cry and kept going, trying to adjust her sight to the darkness because it was impossible to sense him in the Force. He kept going, too, and every step she took was met with a blow. She took half a second to look for something she could Force-hurl, and in that second the pommel of his lightsaber smashed into her face, splitting her cheek open and breaking the bone. She met that with a driving knee to his thigh, and a downward slash that he barely turned in time to save the only hand he had left.
A flimsiplast crate emerged from the conveyor belt chute beside them. It wasn't much, but Jaina let it get just past them before grabbing onto it with the Force and hurling it at Jacen's back. Then the pit droid came clanking out of the shadows, oblivious to what it was interrupting. "Excuse me, please," it said, "I must inspect-"
Jaina grasped it in the Force and sent it flying towards Jacen. It was heavy enough to send him staggering, and by the time he recovered Jaina was lunging forward from the shadows again, her shoulders back but her boot heel driving in under his lightsaber.
He anticipated her. He spun, leaning away to protect his midsection from another blow after she'd already stabbed him, and brought his leg up to counterkick. She Force-launched herself into him anyway, whipping her lightsaber around to block his. His kick landed first, driving into her stomach, though her own kick caught him on the hip and had him falling onto the conveyor belt. The flimiscrate burst when he fell onto it with his head and shoulders. She leapt in to keep at him, but again, he popped up immediately. He had more than a dozen used syringes hanging from his face and shoulder, but he didn't seem to even notice. He deactivated his lightsaber and dropped it, instead making a twisting motion towards her with his hand.
She felt her chin twisting, and in a split second she realized this must have been what he did to Isolder. Rather than resist and let her neck get snapped, she turned into it, letting the Force accelerate her into a spin even while she leapt toward him. She brought her lightsaber down as she did this, though mainly what she did was sever the pit droid's head. Then she was on Jacen, slashing at his head with her lightsaber, bringing her boot toe up under his chin when he grew predictable and ducked. The kick snapped his head back and sent him tumbling over the conveyor belt.
Jaina thought for a moment that she might have some kind of an advantage, but once again he was up too quickly, his lightsaber reactivated and spinning just past her arm. Jacen's hand shot out and he caught the weapon by the hilt, and now she saw him clearly. His flesh was bulging around the scorch hole in his abdomen, and he was in obvious pain- and he was feeding on it.
She brought her lightsaber to high guard and braced herself for the attack she knew had to be coming.
Instead, he decativated his blade.
"Jaina, listen to me," he said, but it barely sounded like him. She realized now that the only thing keeping him on his feet was Force energy- a lot of it. "You need to get out of my way. I'm trying to save Tenel Ka and Allana."
"Sure you are," she said, extending her Force senses to try and get a read on what he was really doing. "Just like you saved Isolder."
"Isolder would have made the same choice. In fact, he did," he said. He clipped his lightsaber to his belt, and Jaina might have trusted him if he'd done a single trustworthy thing in the last year. He was a Sith. She couldn't trust anything he did now. "We don't have time for this."
"So die already."
She didn't wait for him to attack her. She launched herself into a flip with the aid of the Force, coming up over the conveyor belt head-down to try and strike before he could ignite his lightsaber. But Jacen didn't even try. He glanced toward the open mouth of the incinerator, and Jaina felt herself suddenly rushing towards the white heat. It took all her Force strength to pull herself aside the half meter that saved her life.
It didn't mean she didn't hit the scorching durasteel, though. Even quick contact with the exterior of the furnace was enough to set her back ablaze. There was no stifling the scream, trying not to breathe in the stench of her hair and skin burning, and she managed to roll onto her back to try and stop it, no matter how much it hurt to do so.
She didn't know what made her do it, except that she just knew she should. Jaina opened herself fully to the Force, drawing it in through the power of her emotions- not through her anger or pain, as a Sith might, or as she would have done even a few months ago, but through the love of what her brother had been... the teenage jokester who could always find hope in a desperate situation, the questioning warrior who had bested the Yuuzhan Vong warmaster in personal combat, the reluctant champion who had shown a galaxy the way to compassionate victory.
The Force came pouring in from all sides, saturating Jaina and devouring her, filling her with a roaring maelstrom of power, carrying away her pain and leaving in its place the strength not only to survive, but to rise and fight.
Jacen was already on the far side of the conveyor belt, pulling syringes from himself while he staggered toward the exit. He'd set her on fire and left her to die. He'd expected she just would.
He really had underestimated her.
That was going to be his downfall.
He got to the door, only to have Jaina depress the control pad from across the room using the Force, causing the door to unexpectedly close in his face.
By the time he whirled towards her, Jaina was already up and bounding toward him, her hair still trailing smoke. He splayed his fingers to try and hit her with a burst of Force lightning, but she caught it on her lightsaber and whirled past. She brought her blade down where he'd been only an instant before and left a long gouge in the door.
He ignited his lightsaber again, the blade striking towards her shoulders. She dropped down and used her free arm to block the Force-driven snap-kick she anticipated would come at her throat.
Ankle met arm with a sharp crack. Jaina felt the initial burst of pain and the throbbing that followed as her arm suddenly developed what looked like an extra joint that hadn't been there a second ago, and suddenly that arm was useless. It didn't matter. She couldn't stop. She was a dead woman if she didn't win this- maybe even if she did win. She whipped her lightsaber around one-handed in a high block and deflected the reverse flash he sent towards her neck.
She dove forward, whipping her lightsaber at his other foot. He sprang backwards, trying to draw both feet out of harm's way at once, and countered by flipping his own weapon around, bringing it up beneath her belly.
Neither blade cut deep, but both did damage. She felt the lightsaber slice open her abdomen, felt something inside her pop into the void left by the slashed muscle. She refused to think about it. Meanwhile her blade caught him behind the boot, touching just long enough to sever the crucial tendon running up the back of the ankle. He almost fell when he landed, his leg no longer able to support him.
Jaina came to a knee facing him and knew Jacen was about to die. He had one arm and one good leg, and they were not even on the same side of the body. He couldn't pivot and he couldn't retreat. All she needed to do was get past his lightsaber and attack the armless side of his body- before she collapsed herself, or he recovered enough to kill her with one last Force blast.
She sprang.
He tried to turn towards her, but wasn't able to do it on one usable foot. Momentum kept him stumbling back toward the bright side of the pit, his eyes filled with rage and exhaustion and despair. Jaina feinted at his head, and brought her lightsaber around to his armless side in a slash she knew he wouldn't be able to block. It was a sure kill, one that would land even if she died first. Which she thought she might, since the attack would leave her completely open to an avenging counterstrike.
But Jacen gave up. He seemed to know he was already dead, and whatever he had in mind wasn't vengeance. When her blade came around, his lightsaber was hanging at his side. He was staring up at the ceiling, and the only attempt he made to save himself was to take a step back into the light from the furnace.
She closed her eyes, feeling the lightsaber sink into his chest through his ribs. She felt something in the Force, too- something that made her pulse stop and her chest sink and her blood freeze in her veins. Her brother was reaching out to Tenel Ka, screaming at her through the Force, warning her there was danger, urging her to take Allana and...
Then the blade reached his heart, and he dropped at her feet, and Jaina felt nothing at all.
[Warning for lots of violence and character death. NFI, NFB, OOC so okay you can't even believe it because ASIFHASFHADEHSWFHWGVBCVWER I NEED HUGS. Dialogue and a few bits taken from Invincible by Troy Denning.]