Jedi Temple and elsewhere- Coruscant-
Jaina was sitting in the courtroom for Tahiri's trial when she got the summons. She didn't want to leave, but knew they wouldn't call her if it wasn't important, so she headed back to the Temple to meet with the Masters. Again.
Most of the others had arrived but nothing had started yet, so Jaina stood next to Kyp's chair. "We have to stop seeing each other like this."
"I know," Kyp said, looking up at her. "It's just so wrong, but I can't help it."
Hey, remember a time when Jaina hated his guts?
Normally she'd keep up the banter, but she had a bad feeling about today. "What's wrong is that I keep being asked to attend these meetings. I'm not a Master, I'm the Sword of the Jedi, and the fact that I keep getting invited means that someone thinks the Sword of the Jedi might be needed. Also wrong is that this is an emergency meeting when a regular one was scheduled in just a couple of hours."
Kyp nodded and sighed. "I know. K.P. wasn't much help at all when I asked what was going on."
"You shouldn't keep calling Kani that, she's a good kid," Jaina said, glaring at him. Kenth's assistant- because he'd gotten himself an assistant- was unfortunately on the receiving end of a lot of eyerolls and derision behind her back just because of her job title.
"Doesn't mean she's not Kenth's Pet," Kyp countered. "And don't look at me like that. Your dad was the one who came up with the nickname, you know."
"Yeah, I know," Jaina sighed.
Kenth drew himself up in a sign that he was ready to begin. He was doing his best to hide his agitation but it could still be felt in the Force. Since she was closest, Jaina went to close the door and stood close, since not being a Master meant she didn't have a chair anyway, and everyone took their seats.
"A little while ago, I was contacted by the Chief of State," Kenth began. "Based upon our conversations, I suggest we brace ourselves for another attack. Most likely, again from the Mandalorians."
Everyone looked straight at Jaina. "Then we should be fine, judging by how we handled them last time," she said bluntly. "We didn't lose a single Jedi, but they lost quite a few against us. Let's face it, the biggest consequence of that whole incident was forcing us to delay the launch. The StealthX's are still trapped here, but I can't think of anything worse the Mandos could do that they haven't already done."
"There was something new this time," said Kenth. "Right before she ended the conversation- and, I might add, neither she nor Wynn Dorvan has responded to my repeated efforts to contact her- she said that I had a chance to end this little game we were playing with each other. Before things, and I quote, 'get so bad I'd give a great deal to be having this conversation again.'"
"That's a nicely ominous but completely vague threat," Kyle Katarn said. "Did she honestly think such a thing would make you surrender Saar and Altamik?"
"I can't be sure. I told her I spoke for the Masters, and we are deeply mistrustful of her right now. That she would have to prove herself to us before any negotiations would resume. Her response was that she hoped I spoke for the families of the Jedi as well."
Things had come a long way since the days of the Old Republic. Namely, nowadays, almost everyone in this room either belonged to a family or had one of their own. Threatening those people did not go over well, and the room erupted into loud voices, among other things. Saba even accidentally cracked one of the chairs with her tail. Personally, Jaina wished she had a tail so she could do that, too.
"She goes too far! Threatening our familiez!" Saba cried.
Kyle was at least still calm...ish. "What kind of threat? Wait, quiet, what kind of threat?"
While Jaina had been among those yelling, she stopped when she looked over at Corran and saw that he was still quiet. Of course he was. There wasn't much else Daala could do to his family.
Kenth had finally had it, using the Force to amplify his own voice with a "Quiet!"
Between that and a Force suggestion for calm, the room did fall quiet again, even if the worry was still there. "The threat was deliberately vague," Kenth went on. "It could even be empty."
"We must launch!" growled Saba. "We should have done so before we were trapped. Now, we must launch before Daala doez something to cripple the Order even more."
"She's right," Jaina said.
"Come on, Jaina, think," Kyp said. "We've had this conversation before. The second we launch, we'll be heard and shot down like game birds."
"Not if we've got help," Jaina said.
Kenth glared at her. "Not again, Jaina. No more Darkmeld, or any other scheme you've come up with," he said, like he hadn't given implicit permission for Darkmeld in the first place. "We don't need the bad public response right now. It's a delicate juncture and I will not have you jeopardizing it."
"I wasn't going to-"
"I don't care!"
The yelling began again, but Jaina didn't participate. She listened, though she could hardly make out any words with all the voices, and slowly realized that this was going to be their reaction. No one was going to do anything.
Except her.
She slipped through the door, went down to get her speeder, and headed back to Jag's office.
There, Ashik wasn't nearly as friendly as he'd been last time, and she'd ended up just stepping past him to go into the office despite his protests. Which had to continue as Jaina stepped in. "Sir- I tried to stop her-"
"As soon stop time as Jaina," Jag muttered.
"It's important," Jaina turned to Ashik. "Can you leave us alone for a few moments? I need to talk to Jag in private."
Ashik looked at Jag, who nodded. And with that, he stepped back out, closing the door behind him.
"So what's so important that you had to practically hit Ashik in the nose?" Jag asked, leaning back in his chair.
"I need your help."
"With what this time?"
Yeah, this wasn't going to go great. She'd already pissed him off by the tone of his voice. "I know… It seems like recently the only time I come to see you is when I need something. I'm sorry, but this time- Jag, this is huge."
Jag sighed, but held out his hand for her. She took it, moving to sit on the edge of his desk, and he said, "All right. What's going on."
Jaina bit her lip. "Vault time."
She could almost see him bracing himself. "...Okay."
"I can't tell you everything. Not yet. But…" She took a deep breath. "Luke's run into something really, really big. Something that's a threat to the entire galaxy. He needs help. The Jedi were going to provide it to him. We have a small fleet of StealthXs ready to go inside the Temple, but since the Mandos attacked, the GA is watching us like a vyrhawk. There's no way we can launch. And today, Daala contacted Kenth Hamner with this very nasty, very obscure threat to our families if she didn't get Saar. Jag- we've got to launch, and soon. We've got to get these ships to Luke or-"
"Whoa, whoa, slow down," Jag cut her off, dropping her hand and putting both of his up like he was already defending himself. "First of all, Luke isn't supposed to have any aid. Those were the terms of his agreement."
"He doesn't know we're coming. That way he won't get into trouble," she explained. "And once the threat is ended, everyone, even Daala, will realize that it was absolutely necessary."
"And what is it exactly you would like me to do?" Yeah, he wasn't happy.
"Distract Daala. Get her to quit watching us. Or else-" She stopped as an idea hit her, but immediately it seemed like too much. She was sorry she'd even stopped talking for that second. "No, I can't ask that of you."
"Spit it out."
Ugh, Jaina hated everything about this whole situation. "You've got to believe me, I wouldn't ask this of you unless I felt it was absolutely necessary," she said slowly. "Maybe… you can give us some of your ships. Some Imperial ships. That way we don't have to launch the StealthXs. We can just-"
"Let me get this straight," Jag interrupted. "You want me to either lie to Daala to get her off your back, or else provide you with Imperial ships without informing the Galactic Alliance, to go off chasing some unnamed threat to the galaxy? Jaina, the repercussions from this-" He actually seemed to be at a loss for words, which was rare. "You realize you could be asking me to help start a war? In order to fight some enemy you won't even tell me about?"
Jaina looked away, wishing she hadn't said anything. Or maybe hadn't even come here. "Okay, so... when you put it like that, it doesn't sound very good. But Jag, this is real. And it's dangerous. It's- it involves the Sith, okay? Please, just trust me!"
When Jag spoke after a moment, she could tell just from his voice that he didn't want to be saying any of it. "I understand why you are asking this. But... you have to know I can't possibly do it. I can't ask my people to go out and commit crimes that would cause the sort of gigantic diplomatic incident that could possibly start a war. I can't do this for any of a thousand reasons. You see that, don't you?"
"Jag, this is me. Jaina. Just trust me. It will all work out, I swear it to you. But we've got to get some kind of fleet to Luke or it's going to be too late!"
"For me, Jaina, I would believe you. I would follow you anywhere just on your word. And you know what that means to me."
She did know. They'd spent a year working together as friends and building that trust back up after she accidentally ruined his life, and sometimes lately it seemed like it might still be a bit of an issue.
Before either one of them could say more, the door opened, and Ashik grabbed the controller to turn on the viewscreen. They both were ready to say something about him barging in on this, but those words vanished from their heads when they saw what he wanted them to watch.
The camera was on the Jedi Temple, which was completely surrounded by Mandalorians and their vehicles, which could do quite a bit of damage to it if they wanted them to.
"-is under siege," came the too-familiar voice of Javis Tyrr. "A siege, right here on Coruscant. One might think that Chief of State Daala has run out of ideas, or reverted to the days of the past, where one ruled with an iron fist."
"That was fast," Jaina said quietly.
Jag stared at her. "You knew about this?"
"I was trying to tell you," Jaina said quietly. "Daala contacted Master Hamner-"
"-about the families, right, but-"
And now she just had to hope that Daala hadn't made good on her other threats about their families.
Jaina took a deep breath to stamp down the anger she was feeling, because that wasn't going to help her right now. "Jag. She's laying siege to the Temple. Using Mandalorians. It's too late to get the StealthXs out. She acted too fast. She's not about to listen to us. But you can still help me. Please."
Jag looked back at the footage of the Mandalorians for a long moment, and Jaina had a sinking feeling she knew how this was going to go. "I will talk to Daala, and try to get her to end the siege," he said finally. "More than that- I cannot do."
And there it was. Any Jedi still in the Temple- which was just about everyone in the area- was stuck in there now, and that meant Jaina was on her own. There wouldn't be any help from them, she wasn't going to be able to get help from Jag… It was just her.
The thing was, she couldn't even be mad at Jag about this. If he could do anything to help her, he would. He'd never leave her hanging at a time like this unless there was no other choice. And she recognized that she'd been taking advantage of that. She didn't mean to, but circumstances kept getting worse, and maybe she depended on his support too much. Either way, they couldn't keep going on like this.
"I shouldn't have asked this of you," she said. "I shouldn't have asked you to bend so far you'd break, and that's exactly what I did."
"Jaina, I'm sure there's some other-"
"We're not going to be able to make this work, Jag. No matter how much we want to. Ou duties are always going to come between us. This is something I have to do… just like your refusing to help is something you have to do. I'm sorry."
Tears stinging her eyes, she reached to take the engagement ring off her finger- and stopped when he grasped her hands with his.
"This conversation never happened," Jag said quietly, looking up at her. "We'll revisit this later."
She wasn't sure there would really be anything to fix later; their jobs were still their jobs. Their problems wouldn't magically go away. "I have to go," she said, and he could probably guess that she was going to do something potentially stupid that might make the situation worse.
"Then we 'll talk when you get back," Jag said, letting go of her.
Jaina pulled her hands back, readjusted the ring on her finger, and hopped off the desk to leave. She was really not looking forward to that conversation, but for now, she had to Sword it up.
[Oh look what I changed because it serves absolutely zero purpose in canon! NFB, NFI, OOC makes me happy. Most of the dialogue taken from < I>Allies by Christie Golden.]
Most of the others had arrived but nothing had started yet, so Jaina stood next to Kyp's chair. "We have to stop seeing each other like this."
"I know," Kyp said, looking up at her. "It's just so wrong, but I can't help it."
Hey, remember a time when Jaina hated his guts?
Normally she'd keep up the banter, but she had a bad feeling about today. "What's wrong is that I keep being asked to attend these meetings. I'm not a Master, I'm the Sword of the Jedi, and the fact that I keep getting invited means that someone thinks the Sword of the Jedi might be needed. Also wrong is that this is an emergency meeting when a regular one was scheduled in just a couple of hours."
Kyp nodded and sighed. "I know. K.P. wasn't much help at all when I asked what was going on."
"You shouldn't keep calling Kani that, she's a good kid," Jaina said, glaring at him. Kenth's assistant- because he'd gotten himself an assistant- was unfortunately on the receiving end of a lot of eyerolls and derision behind her back just because of her job title.
"Doesn't mean she's not Kenth's Pet," Kyp countered. "And don't look at me like that. Your dad was the one who came up with the nickname, you know."
"Yeah, I know," Jaina sighed.
Kenth drew himself up in a sign that he was ready to begin. He was doing his best to hide his agitation but it could still be felt in the Force. Since she was closest, Jaina went to close the door and stood close, since not being a Master meant she didn't have a chair anyway, and everyone took their seats.
"A little while ago, I was contacted by the Chief of State," Kenth began. "Based upon our conversations, I suggest we brace ourselves for another attack. Most likely, again from the Mandalorians."
Everyone looked straight at Jaina. "Then we should be fine, judging by how we handled them last time," she said bluntly. "We didn't lose a single Jedi, but they lost quite a few against us. Let's face it, the biggest consequence of that whole incident was forcing us to delay the launch. The StealthX's are still trapped here, but I can't think of anything worse the Mandos could do that they haven't already done."
"There was something new this time," said Kenth. "Right before she ended the conversation- and, I might add, neither she nor Wynn Dorvan has responded to my repeated efforts to contact her- she said that I had a chance to end this little game we were playing with each other. Before things, and I quote, 'get so bad I'd give a great deal to be having this conversation again.'"
"That's a nicely ominous but completely vague threat," Kyle Katarn said. "Did she honestly think such a thing would make you surrender Saar and Altamik?"
"I can't be sure. I told her I spoke for the Masters, and we are deeply mistrustful of her right now. That she would have to prove herself to us before any negotiations would resume. Her response was that she hoped I spoke for the families of the Jedi as well."
Things had come a long way since the days of the Old Republic. Namely, nowadays, almost everyone in this room either belonged to a family or had one of their own. Threatening those people did not go over well, and the room erupted into loud voices, among other things. Saba even accidentally cracked one of the chairs with her tail. Personally, Jaina wished she had a tail so she could do that, too.
"She goes too far! Threatening our familiez!" Saba cried.
Kyle was at least still calm...ish. "What kind of threat? Wait, quiet, what kind of threat?"
While Jaina had been among those yelling, she stopped when she looked over at Corran and saw that he was still quiet. Of course he was. There wasn't much else Daala could do to his family.
Kenth had finally had it, using the Force to amplify his own voice with a "Quiet!"
Between that and a Force suggestion for calm, the room did fall quiet again, even if the worry was still there. "The threat was deliberately vague," Kenth went on. "It could even be empty."
"We must launch!" growled Saba. "We should have done so before we were trapped. Now, we must launch before Daala doez something to cripple the Order even more."
"She's right," Jaina said.
"Come on, Jaina, think," Kyp said. "We've had this conversation before. The second we launch, we'll be heard and shot down like game birds."
"Not if we've got help," Jaina said.
Kenth glared at her. "Not again, Jaina. No more Darkmeld, or any other scheme you've come up with," he said, like he hadn't given implicit permission for Darkmeld in the first place. "We don't need the bad public response right now. It's a delicate juncture and I will not have you jeopardizing it."
"I wasn't going to-"
"I don't care!"
The yelling began again, but Jaina didn't participate. She listened, though she could hardly make out any words with all the voices, and slowly realized that this was going to be their reaction. No one was going to do anything.
Except her.
She slipped through the door, went down to get her speeder, and headed back to Jag's office.
There, Ashik wasn't nearly as friendly as he'd been last time, and she'd ended up just stepping past him to go into the office despite his protests. Which had to continue as Jaina stepped in. "Sir- I tried to stop her-"
"As soon stop time as Jaina," Jag muttered.
"It's important," Jaina turned to Ashik. "Can you leave us alone for a few moments? I need to talk to Jag in private."
Ashik looked at Jag, who nodded. And with that, he stepped back out, closing the door behind him.
"So what's so important that you had to practically hit Ashik in the nose?" Jag asked, leaning back in his chair.
"I need your help."
"With what this time?"
Yeah, this wasn't going to go great. She'd already pissed him off by the tone of his voice. "I know… It seems like recently the only time I come to see you is when I need something. I'm sorry, but this time- Jag, this is huge."
Jag sighed, but held out his hand for her. She took it, moving to sit on the edge of his desk, and he said, "All right. What's going on."
Jaina bit her lip. "Vault time."
She could almost see him bracing himself. "...Okay."
"I can't tell you everything. Not yet. But…" She took a deep breath. "Luke's run into something really, really big. Something that's a threat to the entire galaxy. He needs help. The Jedi were going to provide it to him. We have a small fleet of StealthXs ready to go inside the Temple, but since the Mandos attacked, the GA is watching us like a vyrhawk. There's no way we can launch. And today, Daala contacted Kenth Hamner with this very nasty, very obscure threat to our families if she didn't get Saar. Jag- we've got to launch, and soon. We've got to get these ships to Luke or-"
"Whoa, whoa, slow down," Jag cut her off, dropping her hand and putting both of his up like he was already defending himself. "First of all, Luke isn't supposed to have any aid. Those were the terms of his agreement."
"He doesn't know we're coming. That way he won't get into trouble," she explained. "And once the threat is ended, everyone, even Daala, will realize that it was absolutely necessary."
"And what is it exactly you would like me to do?" Yeah, he wasn't happy.
"Distract Daala. Get her to quit watching us. Or else-" She stopped as an idea hit her, but immediately it seemed like too much. She was sorry she'd even stopped talking for that second. "No, I can't ask that of you."
"Spit it out."
Ugh, Jaina hated everything about this whole situation. "You've got to believe me, I wouldn't ask this of you unless I felt it was absolutely necessary," she said slowly. "Maybe… you can give us some of your ships. Some Imperial ships. That way we don't have to launch the StealthXs. We can just-"
"Let me get this straight," Jag interrupted. "You want me to either lie to Daala to get her off your back, or else provide you with Imperial ships without informing the Galactic Alliance, to go off chasing some unnamed threat to the galaxy? Jaina, the repercussions from this-" He actually seemed to be at a loss for words, which was rare. "You realize you could be asking me to help start a war? In order to fight some enemy you won't even tell me about?"
Jaina looked away, wishing she hadn't said anything. Or maybe hadn't even come here. "Okay, so... when you put it like that, it doesn't sound very good. But Jag, this is real. And it's dangerous. It's- it involves the Sith, okay? Please, just trust me!"
When Jag spoke after a moment, she could tell just from his voice that he didn't want to be saying any of it. "I understand why you are asking this. But... you have to know I can't possibly do it. I can't ask my people to go out and commit crimes that would cause the sort of gigantic diplomatic incident that could possibly start a war. I can't do this for any of a thousand reasons. You see that, don't you?"
"Jag, this is me. Jaina. Just trust me. It will all work out, I swear it to you. But we've got to get some kind of fleet to Luke or it's going to be too late!"
"For me, Jaina, I would believe you. I would follow you anywhere just on your word. And you know what that means to me."
She did know. They'd spent a year working together as friends and building that trust back up after she accidentally ruined his life, and sometimes lately it seemed like it might still be a bit of an issue.
Before either one of them could say more, the door opened, and Ashik grabbed the controller to turn on the viewscreen. They both were ready to say something about him barging in on this, but those words vanished from their heads when they saw what he wanted them to watch.
The camera was on the Jedi Temple, which was completely surrounded by Mandalorians and their vehicles, which could do quite a bit of damage to it if they wanted them to.
"-is under siege," came the too-familiar voice of Javis Tyrr. "A siege, right here on Coruscant. One might think that Chief of State Daala has run out of ideas, or reverted to the days of the past, where one ruled with an iron fist."
"That was fast," Jaina said quietly.
Jag stared at her. "You knew about this?"
"I was trying to tell you," Jaina said quietly. "Daala contacted Master Hamner-"
"-about the families, right, but-"
And now she just had to hope that Daala hadn't made good on her other threats about their families.
Jaina took a deep breath to stamp down the anger she was feeling, because that wasn't going to help her right now. "Jag. She's laying siege to the Temple. Using Mandalorians. It's too late to get the StealthXs out. She acted too fast. She's not about to listen to us. But you can still help me. Please."
Jag looked back at the footage of the Mandalorians for a long moment, and Jaina had a sinking feeling she knew how this was going to go. "I will talk to Daala, and try to get her to end the siege," he said finally. "More than that- I cannot do."
And there it was. Any Jedi still in the Temple- which was just about everyone in the area- was stuck in there now, and that meant Jaina was on her own. There wouldn't be any help from them, she wasn't going to be able to get help from Jag… It was just her.
The thing was, she couldn't even be mad at Jag about this. If he could do anything to help her, he would. He'd never leave her hanging at a time like this unless there was no other choice. And she recognized that she'd been taking advantage of that. She didn't mean to, but circumstances kept getting worse, and maybe she depended on his support too much. Either way, they couldn't keep going on like this.
"I shouldn't have asked this of you," she said. "I shouldn't have asked you to bend so far you'd break, and that's exactly what I did."
"Jaina, I'm sure there's some other-"
"We're not going to be able to make this work, Jag. No matter how much we want to. Ou duties are always going to come between us. This is something I have to do… just like your refusing to help is something you have to do. I'm sorry."
Tears stinging her eyes, she reached to take the engagement ring off her finger- and stopped when he grasped her hands with his.
"This conversation never happened," Jag said quietly, looking up at her. "We'll revisit this later."
She wasn't sure there would really be anything to fix later; their jobs were still their jobs. Their problems wouldn't magically go away. "I have to go," she said, and he could probably guess that she was going to do something potentially stupid that might make the situation worse.
"Then we 'll talk when you get back," Jag said, letting go of her.
Jaina pulled her hands back, readjusted the ring on her finger, and hopped off the desk to leave. She was really not looking forward to that conversation, but for now, she had to Sword it up.
[Oh look what I changed because it serves absolutely zero purpose in canon! NFB, NFI, OOC makes me happy. Most of the dialogue taken from < I>Allies by Christie Golden.]