The Jedi Temple- Saturday
Ever since the days leading up to Myrkr, Jaina had specifically trained for endurance in situations where she'd be on the go and fighting for an extended time. What she was learning now was that sometimes all the preparation in the world didn't help.
They'd been fighting Sith for two full days. Straight. Even Myrkr had been less than a full day. Even when she was in the trenches with the Killiks for two weeks she'd gotten breaks. They had sent Ben, Valin and Jysella ahead to get to the computer core and hadn't heard back from them in a worrying amount of time. Jaina was with Luke and Corran, and none of them were doing too great. Luke had taken a bad blow to the head and had a serious lightsaber burn down his side, Corran had a swollen knee and had lost two fingers to a stray blaster bolt, and Jaina had a broken arm now to go along with her broken ribs. All three of them were drawing heavily on the Force just to keep going, and it wasn't going to last much longer.
They had one chance now. It was 11:52 GST. In eight minutes, a brigade of Void Jumpers would hit the exhaust port. If the Jedi in the Temple could take out shield generator to the deflector shield that protected it, it'd allow Bwua'tu's space marines to get in and then the Jedi and their allies could finish off the Sith. The problem was that between two very injured Jedi Masters and a very injured Jaina were still a lot of Sith.
They were currently hiding out behind the ducts that would lead them to the deflector shield, about ready to go when Corran tapped Luke's arm and croaked, "Company."
There had been one Keshiri woman, Korelei, who'd been giving them real trouble this whole time. She'd been herding them away from the computer core this entire time and was the reason they hadn't been able to get to the younger Jedi. If she was around, they were in for yet another fight.
"Time to go," Luke said, drawing his blaster.
"No, we have to wait," Jaina protested. "It's still five minutes before midday."
“I know,” Luke said. “But we can’t wait.”
“But if we blow the generator early, every gunner on this side of the Temple will be taking aim up the assault corridor."
"Jaina, they are now," Corran said, his voice showing off just what kind of bad mood he was in. “When have we done anything to surprise that she-voork chasing us?”
“We haven’t.” Luke watched Korelei pause in the duct. Perhaps sensing the blaster in his hand, she waved several of her followers ahead of her. “She’s the first Sith who actually worries me.”
“Thanks,” Jaina said. “Didn’t need to hear that.”
“Sorry. I thought you would have noticed," he said, and that still wasn't helpful. Luke was pretty over this whole thing, too. "But we can’t wait, not with her behind us.”
“Better to blow the shields early than not at all,” Corran said. “I’ll take out the generator.”
Luke nodded. "Good. Take Jaina with you. I’ll handle rear guard.”
“Alone?” Jaina said. “How can you stop them alone?”
“I only need to slow them, Jaina,” Luke said patiently. “Taking out the shield generator is the important thing here- the only important thing.”
Jaina started to nod, and then realized what he was telling her and started shaking her head instead. "I’m not leaving you to die. Not-"
"Jaina!" Corran said sharply, grabbing her good arm. “We’re all going to die, most likely. Let’s just get this done first, okay?”
There was a very real downside to relying on the Force as heavily as Jaina was, and that was that it didn't last forever. It couldn't. The body couldn't handle it, and apparently her body decided to stop handling it now. Stupid body.
And she was going to have to do this feeling every injury, without being able to depend on the Force to get her through. Yeah, this wasn't going to go well.
Jaina looked down at her splinted arm, tried to make a fist, and decided that wasn't something she was going to be able to do. "Right. Looks like I should take the lead."
Both men looked at her, clearly understanding her meaning. She wasn't going to be able to do a ton of good at this point, and Corran at least had use of both his hands for when he had to deal with the Sith at the generator. She could play human shield. It was a suicide mission, but pretty much everything was now.
And then she saw Luke slowly nod his okay, and she wondered if it ever got easier, letting her volunteer to go off to her own death.
Jaina didn't say anything, but she stood and unclipped her lightsaber, trying not to dwell on the fact that she wasn't getting to say goodbye to Jag or her parents or her grandfather. She'd known this was a possibility for so long that she had systems in place so that everyone would at least know what happened to her. If she was going to have to go out, it might as well be fighting a bunch of Sith.
As she turned to leave, she could feel Luke reach out to her in the Force, and then said, "Master Solo?"
Her first thought was that she hadn't heard him right. Her second was that of course this would happen right before she went off to die, when it didn't really matter.
Her third thought was that yes, it actually did matter.
She didn't turn around. "Yes, Grand Master Skywalker?"
“I just wanted you to hear me say it,” Luke said. “May the Force be with you.”
Jaina nodded. “Thanks. That means a lot right now.”
“Glad you feel ready, Master Solo,” Corran added. “The Order needs you like it never has before.”
"You’re just saying that because I’m going first," she said, and took off down the main duct in a sprint. Corran followed, moving pretty quick for an older guy with a too-swollen knee. The Sith gunner opened fire, but almost as soon as it had started Jaina raised her broken arm to shove the weapon back into the main exhaust port behind it with the Force.
That was the Sith's cue. Except that Jaina hadn't exactly let them get the jump on her, and was already leaping across the two-meter pit in the floor to continue on her way. The Sith fired their blasters in addition to Force lightning, and while the blaster bolts hit the ducts and ricocheted safely away from Jaina, both forks of lightning caught her mid-jump. Because getting hit by one person at once wasn't bad enough.
Aside from the pain that came with that, and she was vaguely aware that she was falling, but Corran made the jump in time to catch her by her robe. They hit the ground and rolled till they were free of the lightning, and finally Jaina was able to catch a breath. Not an easy thing to do with broken ribs that had just been rolled on.
There wasn't any time to do anything about it, though. Corran was already struggling to his feet on a knee that didn't want to work, and Jaina had to deal with the lack of breath and the wobbly limbs to get up and fight some more Sith while Luke went off to do his job. And once she got her focus, fighting was easier than it had any real right to be. Jaina had to take the heat off of Corran to let him get through, and if there was one thing she was good at, it was stabbing people with lightsabers.
At the last stackhead, they had four Sith on them who were more determined than usual to kill them. Jaina couldn't check her chrono, but she knew time was running out, and when she thought they didn't really have a chance to take out four in time, she yelled to Corran, "Go now!"
Corran didn't hesitate, leaping over the pit with his lightsaber twirling to deflect blaster bolts. Reaching the other side, it looked like he was going to land into a Sith, his boot coming up for a thrust-kick, which could very well end in him losing a leg. So Jaina extended her hands and hit the Sith with a Force blast stronger than she probably should have been able to manage, sending everyone but Corran tumbling.
That was all he needed to make a run for the shield generators. At least they had a chance now.
With that, Jaina half-fell to her knees on the deck. Every part of her body felt like it was trying to pull itself apart, and she completely recognized that she was out of the fight. It was amazing she'd been able to do all she had. And while part of her really wanted to pass out, she forced herself to remain upright, and focused. She stayed aware of what was happening around her, including Corran getting hit with another bolt of lightning, and Luke struggling with Korelei, whose cheek had been torn apart and her torso cut up and was still fighting like nothing was wrong. Korelei wasn't any ordinary Sith.
Jaina was aware that Luke was driving Korelei towards her, yelling at her to stand and fight, and that Corran was up again and limping towards the exhaust port to toss in their last thermal detonator. Mostly, she was aware of the time. They had two and a half minutes till midday. If they acted now, that gave them too much time, and the Sith gunnery commander would be cued in to the fact that there was another attack coming. He would order all of his gunners to break off their battles with the blastboats and assault cars that had been trying to breach the Temple’s impregnable defenses for days now. He would order them to turn their attention to the exhaust port. He would order them to fill the sky above the port with cannon bolts and missiles. Then, in two and a half minutes, the Void Jumpers would find themselves dropping into hell.
So Jaina stayed where she was, willing Corran to slow down no matter what he feared would happen.
When they hit two minutes, Korelei wailed in pain. It was a loud scream of agony that seemed to echo through the Force in a way that Jaina had never heard before. Korelei staggered, and then tried to go after Corran, and Jaina knew she had to act again. She pulled her lightsaber to her hand and got to her feet-
-and then the woman stopped between her and Luke. The woman's mouth, where it had not been blown away by Luke’s blaster bolt, was a hideous wide thing that stretched from ear to ear, and the eyes were sunken wells of darkness, at the bottom of which burned two tiny points of light.
So this was Abeloth.
And Jaina realized that yeah, she was definitely dead soon.
Despite this, she ignited her blade and struck at Abeloth with more strength than she should have actually had, but Abeloth flicked a hand and sent Jaina tumbling backwards hard. When she stopped, she looked up to see Abeloth leaping towards her. Jaina brought her lightsaber up to guard herself-
-and Abeloth dropped down and disappeared from sight.
Jaina didn't get up. She almost wasn't sure she'd just seen what she thought she'd seen. Maybe the exhaustion had finally gotten to her.
Luke walked over, lightsaber in one hand and his blaster in the other, fired more than a few shots down the stackhead after Abeloth, and looked confused when he looked over the side. "What happened?" he asked Jaina.
“I was about to ask you the same thing,” she said. “I thought you-"
“Not me,” Luke said, shaking his head. “It was something else- something we don’t understand yet, I think.”
“Something else we don’t understand about her?” Jaina replied, but she was too tired to sound too snarky. “Great.”
Then she remembered that she hadn't heard the thermal detonator go off, and she looked around for Corran. He was standing at the edge of the exhaust port, detonator in hand, looking to them. “Now?” he called. “My chrono is acting up.”
Jaina checked her own chrono. They had about a minute and a half left, and she figured it'd take a good minute for her to get over there. Seriously, killing a Yuuzhan Vong warmaster while glued to the floor running on pure exhaustion was nothing after this. But at least she'd live to have an "after this."
"Not yet," she called, and forced herself to her feet, motioning for Luke to join her as she started making her way to the shield generator. "Let's do it together."
“Good thinking,” Luke said. “The med-evac team will be faster if we all collapse in one place.”
[This book is very focused on time. Idk. NFB, NFI, OOC okay. Dialogue and a bit or two from Apocalypse by Troy Denning.]
They'd been fighting Sith for two full days. Straight. Even Myrkr had been less than a full day. Even when she was in the trenches with the Killiks for two weeks she'd gotten breaks. They had sent Ben, Valin and Jysella ahead to get to the computer core and hadn't heard back from them in a worrying amount of time. Jaina was with Luke and Corran, and none of them were doing too great. Luke had taken a bad blow to the head and had a serious lightsaber burn down his side, Corran had a swollen knee and had lost two fingers to a stray blaster bolt, and Jaina had a broken arm now to go along with her broken ribs. All three of them were drawing heavily on the Force just to keep going, and it wasn't going to last much longer.
They had one chance now. It was 11:52 GST. In eight minutes, a brigade of Void Jumpers would hit the exhaust port. If the Jedi in the Temple could take out shield generator to the deflector shield that protected it, it'd allow Bwua'tu's space marines to get in and then the Jedi and their allies could finish off the Sith. The problem was that between two very injured Jedi Masters and a very injured Jaina were still a lot of Sith.
They were currently hiding out behind the ducts that would lead them to the deflector shield, about ready to go when Corran tapped Luke's arm and croaked, "Company."
There had been one Keshiri woman, Korelei, who'd been giving them real trouble this whole time. She'd been herding them away from the computer core this entire time and was the reason they hadn't been able to get to the younger Jedi. If she was around, they were in for yet another fight.
"Time to go," Luke said, drawing his blaster.
"No, we have to wait," Jaina protested. "It's still five minutes before midday."
“I know,” Luke said. “But we can’t wait.”
“But if we blow the generator early, every gunner on this side of the Temple will be taking aim up the assault corridor."
"Jaina, they are now," Corran said, his voice showing off just what kind of bad mood he was in. “When have we done anything to surprise that she-voork chasing us?”
“We haven’t.” Luke watched Korelei pause in the duct. Perhaps sensing the blaster in his hand, she waved several of her followers ahead of her. “She’s the first Sith who actually worries me.”
“Thanks,” Jaina said. “Didn’t need to hear that.”
“Sorry. I thought you would have noticed," he said, and that still wasn't helpful. Luke was pretty over this whole thing, too. "But we can’t wait, not with her behind us.”
“Better to blow the shields early than not at all,” Corran said. “I’ll take out the generator.”
Luke nodded. "Good. Take Jaina with you. I’ll handle rear guard.”
“Alone?” Jaina said. “How can you stop them alone?”
“I only need to slow them, Jaina,” Luke said patiently. “Taking out the shield generator is the important thing here- the only important thing.”
Jaina started to nod, and then realized what he was telling her and started shaking her head instead. "I’m not leaving you to die. Not-"
"Jaina!" Corran said sharply, grabbing her good arm. “We’re all going to die, most likely. Let’s just get this done first, okay?”
There was a very real downside to relying on the Force as heavily as Jaina was, and that was that it didn't last forever. It couldn't. The body couldn't handle it, and apparently her body decided to stop handling it now. Stupid body.
And she was going to have to do this feeling every injury, without being able to depend on the Force to get her through. Yeah, this wasn't going to go well.
Jaina looked down at her splinted arm, tried to make a fist, and decided that wasn't something she was going to be able to do. "Right. Looks like I should take the lead."
Both men looked at her, clearly understanding her meaning. She wasn't going to be able to do a ton of good at this point, and Corran at least had use of both his hands for when he had to deal with the Sith at the generator. She could play human shield. It was a suicide mission, but pretty much everything was now.
And then she saw Luke slowly nod his okay, and she wondered if it ever got easier, letting her volunteer to go off to her own death.
Jaina didn't say anything, but she stood and unclipped her lightsaber, trying not to dwell on the fact that she wasn't getting to say goodbye to Jag or her parents or her grandfather. She'd known this was a possibility for so long that she had systems in place so that everyone would at least know what happened to her. If she was going to have to go out, it might as well be fighting a bunch of Sith.
As she turned to leave, she could feel Luke reach out to her in the Force, and then said, "Master Solo?"
Her first thought was that she hadn't heard him right. Her second was that of course this would happen right before she went off to die, when it didn't really matter.
Her third thought was that yes, it actually did matter.
She didn't turn around. "Yes, Grand Master Skywalker?"
“I just wanted you to hear me say it,” Luke said. “May the Force be with you.”
Jaina nodded. “Thanks. That means a lot right now.”
“Glad you feel ready, Master Solo,” Corran added. “The Order needs you like it never has before.”
"You’re just saying that because I’m going first," she said, and took off down the main duct in a sprint. Corran followed, moving pretty quick for an older guy with a too-swollen knee. The Sith gunner opened fire, but almost as soon as it had started Jaina raised her broken arm to shove the weapon back into the main exhaust port behind it with the Force.
That was the Sith's cue. Except that Jaina hadn't exactly let them get the jump on her, and was already leaping across the two-meter pit in the floor to continue on her way. The Sith fired their blasters in addition to Force lightning, and while the blaster bolts hit the ducts and ricocheted safely away from Jaina, both forks of lightning caught her mid-jump. Because getting hit by one person at once wasn't bad enough.
Aside from the pain that came with that, and she was vaguely aware that she was falling, but Corran made the jump in time to catch her by her robe. They hit the ground and rolled till they were free of the lightning, and finally Jaina was able to catch a breath. Not an easy thing to do with broken ribs that had just been rolled on.
There wasn't any time to do anything about it, though. Corran was already struggling to his feet on a knee that didn't want to work, and Jaina had to deal with the lack of breath and the wobbly limbs to get up and fight some more Sith while Luke went off to do his job. And once she got her focus, fighting was easier than it had any real right to be. Jaina had to take the heat off of Corran to let him get through, and if there was one thing she was good at, it was stabbing people with lightsabers.
At the last stackhead, they had four Sith on them who were more determined than usual to kill them. Jaina couldn't check her chrono, but she knew time was running out, and when she thought they didn't really have a chance to take out four in time, she yelled to Corran, "Go now!"
Corran didn't hesitate, leaping over the pit with his lightsaber twirling to deflect blaster bolts. Reaching the other side, it looked like he was going to land into a Sith, his boot coming up for a thrust-kick, which could very well end in him losing a leg. So Jaina extended her hands and hit the Sith with a Force blast stronger than she probably should have been able to manage, sending everyone but Corran tumbling.
That was all he needed to make a run for the shield generators. At least they had a chance now.
With that, Jaina half-fell to her knees on the deck. Every part of her body felt like it was trying to pull itself apart, and she completely recognized that she was out of the fight. It was amazing she'd been able to do all she had. And while part of her really wanted to pass out, she forced herself to remain upright, and focused. She stayed aware of what was happening around her, including Corran getting hit with another bolt of lightning, and Luke struggling with Korelei, whose cheek had been torn apart and her torso cut up and was still fighting like nothing was wrong. Korelei wasn't any ordinary Sith.
Jaina was aware that Luke was driving Korelei towards her, yelling at her to stand and fight, and that Corran was up again and limping towards the exhaust port to toss in their last thermal detonator. Mostly, she was aware of the time. They had two and a half minutes till midday. If they acted now, that gave them too much time, and the Sith gunnery commander would be cued in to the fact that there was another attack coming. He would order all of his gunners to break off their battles with the blastboats and assault cars that had been trying to breach the Temple’s impregnable defenses for days now. He would order them to turn their attention to the exhaust port. He would order them to fill the sky above the port with cannon bolts and missiles. Then, in two and a half minutes, the Void Jumpers would find themselves dropping into hell.
So Jaina stayed where she was, willing Corran to slow down no matter what he feared would happen.
When they hit two minutes, Korelei wailed in pain. It was a loud scream of agony that seemed to echo through the Force in a way that Jaina had never heard before. Korelei staggered, and then tried to go after Corran, and Jaina knew she had to act again. She pulled her lightsaber to her hand and got to her feet-
-and then the woman stopped between her and Luke. The woman's mouth, where it had not been blown away by Luke’s blaster bolt, was a hideous wide thing that stretched from ear to ear, and the eyes were sunken wells of darkness, at the bottom of which burned two tiny points of light.
So this was Abeloth.
And Jaina realized that yeah, she was definitely dead soon.
Despite this, she ignited her blade and struck at Abeloth with more strength than she should have actually had, but Abeloth flicked a hand and sent Jaina tumbling backwards hard. When she stopped, she looked up to see Abeloth leaping towards her. Jaina brought her lightsaber up to guard herself-
-and Abeloth dropped down and disappeared from sight.
Jaina didn't get up. She almost wasn't sure she'd just seen what she thought she'd seen. Maybe the exhaustion had finally gotten to her.
Luke walked over, lightsaber in one hand and his blaster in the other, fired more than a few shots down the stackhead after Abeloth, and looked confused when he looked over the side. "What happened?" he asked Jaina.
“I was about to ask you the same thing,” she said. “I thought you-"
“Not me,” Luke said, shaking his head. “It was something else- something we don’t understand yet, I think.”
“Something else we don’t understand about her?” Jaina replied, but she was too tired to sound too snarky. “Great.”
Then she remembered that she hadn't heard the thermal detonator go off, and she looked around for Corran. He was standing at the edge of the exhaust port, detonator in hand, looking to them. “Now?” he called. “My chrono is acting up.”
Jaina checked her own chrono. They had about a minute and a half left, and she figured it'd take a good minute for her to get over there. Seriously, killing a Yuuzhan Vong warmaster while glued to the floor running on pure exhaustion was nothing after this. But at least she'd live to have an "after this."
"Not yet," she called, and forced herself to her feet, motioning for Luke to join her as she started making her way to the shield generator. "Let's do it together."
“Good thinking,” Luke said. “The med-evac team will be faster if we all collapse in one place.”
[This book is very focused on time. Idk. NFB, NFI, OOC okay. Dialogue and a bit or two from Apocalypse by Troy Denning.]