Baanu Rass, Monday Fandom time
Previous.
By the time they started making their way through the slave city, the allergic reaction due to the bites had subsided, and the group had all but fully recovered. Considering they had to deal with grenades being launched at them, voxyn attacks, and slaves begging them to get them out of there, it was a good thing they didn't have more injuries to worry about.
Lomi and Welk had put up a fight about going down the alleyways even the slaves wouldn't travel, but Anakin had insisted that if they wouldn't go there, the Jedi had to. There was no failing on this. They had to kill the voxyn queen and destroy the cloning facility, and that was that. Once Anakin had barely made it in, he said, "Stay sharp, everyone. We need to make this work." He turned specifically to Jacen and said, "If you can do something to keep the voxyn quiet, now is the time."
Jacen looked nervous. "I'll do my best, Anakin. But these aren't normal animals. I can't just reach-"
There was a tingling of danger sense in the back of her mind, and then Jaina wasn't able to see what happened, but she heard Anakin yell a warning of "Blorash jelly!" right before blasting whoever threw it. "Watch the crowd!"
Almost at once, the Jedi's lightsabers snapped to life, and then the fight really started. Blorash jelly was flying through the crowd and attacking Jedi and slaves alike, people were screaming and running, and Jaina didn't even get to see who it was that threw the thud bug at her. She'd just turned towards it so that it struck her in the forehead over one eye, and she just barely managed to reach a hand out to hold herself up against the wall of the nearest building instead of falling.
She heard Jacen yelling her name, and a lightsaber buzzing not far from her, slashing another bug just before Tenel Ka called for support. Jaina was trying to focus, but she was having a really hard time not passing out, and when she tried to stand up straight and wipe whatever that was out of her eye, she wasn't too surprised to find that it was blood. And her focus on staying conscious superseded most of the realization that Eryl had just had her face slashed in two by a razor bug, and the feeling that sent through the battle meld.
She did have the misfortune of looking up and focusing her vision in time to see Jovan take a razor bug to the gut, though. Tenel Ka yelled again for assistance, and Jaina had to wonder why she'd gotten concussed and others were getting killed.
That was a good thought. It meant things were getting clearer. And clearer meant having the idea that maybe next time it wouldn't be just a thud bug, and maybe she should get to work on defending herself.
She switched her lightsaber back on, pulling the blade up to slice through another bug headed her way- though which kind, she didn't care to note. If she didn't fight them off, she was probably dead, and she wasnot planning on going out that way. Using the Force to break away some of the dark fog clouding her brain, she found herself not exactly putting up a bad fight against the Vong attack.
"Get Jovan out of here!" Jaina called to Tenel Ka. "Take Tekli!"
"You need to get out of here as well," Tenel Ka reminded her.
"I'll be right behind you, look, don't argue, just go! Get back to Anakin."
Tenel Ka didn't question it. Alema had grabbed Jovan's longblaster and was using it to keep the troops at bay. That was enough for now. She levitated Jovan, who already had Tekli sitting on his legs, working on his wound. And Jaina, for her part, did intend to be right behind them, holding the Vong back so they could get away, but her reaction time wasn't the best when it came to the blorash jelly launched her way.
She was more irritated than anything to find herself half stuck to the wall she'd been using for support earlier, her free arm completely frozen in place against the structure. She knew better than to try pulling herself out of it. That would just waste her time. Besides, it still left her other arm free, and that was the arm with her lightsaber.
Despite the head injury, and despite being plastered to the side of the building with one mobile arm, she was holding her own by the time help came against two of the Vong. She still had no idea why they weren't trying to kill her, but she was beyond caring.
Lowbacca and Zekk were already fighting their way toward her, and then Anakin came somersaulting through the air. Before he'd even landed, Zekk's opponents stopped to hurl their amphistaffs at him, and while Anakin batted the first one away easily, the second one caught him in the abdomen. Jaina felt it as much as she heard his scream of pain.
For the moment, her own fight was forgotten as she screamed for him. Though Jaina couldn't see it from where she was, with the amphistaff's head still lodged in him for the moment, he threw the arsensalts in her direction to dissolve the jelly.
As the jelly began separating itself from Jaina's skin and clothing, one of her attackers turned on Anakin. Now she was trying to pull herself free, and as soon as she was able, she was on the second, attacking the warrior and his amphistaff viciously. Once he was dead, she could check on Anakin. Not before. Otherwise she'd be in the same position. This one just had to die.
Again, Anakin came to help as soon as he'd dispatched of his opponent, slashing his lightsaber across the knees of Jaina's attacker around the time she reached her own blade into the the Vong's chest.
As soon as the Vong hit ground, Jaina grabbed her brother by the elbow. "By the Sith, Anakin! Why'd you do something like that?"
"Like what?"
Jaina glared at him. She couldn't see the injury, but he was standing, he was fighting, and that was what mattered right now. Still, it had been rash and stupid of him and she could have waited for Zekk and Lowie if nothing else. There wasn't a reason for him to be hurt right now.
"We lost two... and I wasn't going to..." He stopped, started again. "You were in trouble."
"And now you are," said Jaina, trying again to wipe the blood from her eyes. Did it matter that she would have done exactly the same thing? Not at all. She was still choking down the fear that came with seeing her little brother take a hit like that, and found her own words sounded more frustrated than worried as they started back towards the alley. "Anakin, this was really... Are you ever going to learn?"
When they got through the alley, the others were waiting, apparently ordered to head back. Zekk immediately came to Jaina's side, but she shrugged him off. She was going to be fine. She'd fought through the worst of it, and she felt much clearer now. Maybe her injury wasn't as bad as she'd initially thought. Tahiri immediately went to Anakin, trying to pull his hand from the wound, but he wouldn't let her. "Call her off," he said, nodding towards Alema, who was still shooting up Vong. "Let's go before someone else gets killed."
"Anakin, how bad is it?" Tahiri pressed, continuing tugging at him. "Let me-"
"Tahiri, stop," Anakin insisted. "It's just a little cut."
*****
They still had Vong trailing them, so there wasn't much time to tend to the wounded. It was impossible getting Raynar to leave Eryl's body behind, and Anakin was pushing them all to just go. He insisted he was fine and allowed himself to be bandaged, and with Tekli taking a very short amount of time to stop the blood pouring out of Jaina's cut and slap a strip of synthflesh over it, they were off again.
The Vong were still after them as they continued to the cloning facility, assailing them with bug attacks anytime they started moving too slowly. Nom Anor was still trying to take some of them alive, which Jaina thought would probably be a worse fate than being outright killed.
She was still irritated with Anakin's rescue, still worried, and glad it wasn't bad enough that he could still soldier on. And even with the battle meld down, she could practically read the thoughts out of his head, questioning how things had been done and whether if he'd done this instead of this, would it be different. And for that, she thumped him behind the ear. "Stop that."
"What?" Anakin asked, rubbing his ear. "And thanks for caring."
"You can feel sorry for yourself," Jaina told him sternly. "You were reckless, Anakin, and you paid the price- and that's not the point. You need to stop blaming yourself."
"Who should I blame?" he asked, though they picked up the pace as the sound of Vong footsteps was heard in the distance behind them.
"The war," she said simply. "Do you think Uncle Luke sent us here to train? This is important. If people die, people die."
"That's a little cold."
"I'll cry at home." She looked over her shoulder, making sure she couldn't see the Vong warriors behind them yet. "Maybe you made a mistake, maybe you didn't. But start focusing on the mission, or people willdie."
There wasn't much time for words, because as the sounds behind them grew louder, they had to concentrate on running. They hadn't gotten that far, though, before Tahiri's alarmed voice was heard saying, "Anakin! What's that?"
And while Anakin again insisted it was nothing, a moment later Tahiri stopped and cried, "Need help!"
They slowed, and Jaina was one of those crowding around to see what was wrong. Tahiri was levitating Anakin, who kept insisting he was all right despite having trouble moving, with her barking back at him that no, he wasn't, and after seeing the fresh blood on Anakin's hand, Jaina was on Tahiri's side.
The Vong were definitely still getting closer, and they could all sense the voxyn with them. "Keep him levitated!" Jaina ordered, and reached down to pluck Tekli off the ground and set her astride Anakin's legs to let her work. And then she took her brother by the wrist to lead him up the passage. "Everyone, move!"
One of the Barabels dropped a flechette mine to delay the Vong, and the team started into a full-on run. Tekli was already working, throwing blood-soaked bandages away as they moved, and finally insisting, "We must stop."
"No," Anakin managed, barely. "Can't let..."
"He has internal bleeding," Tekli went on. "I need to see what's happening."
It was terrifying to hear, especially now when stopping would probably get them all killed or captured. "How much time?" Jaina asked.
"That depends on what I find. Fifteen minutes, maybe twice that."
Alema stared down the passage, toward the sound of the Vong getting closer. "I can buy us fifteen minutes," she said. "I need half a dozen concussion grenades."
"Do it," Ganner said immediately, flipping a pack over to Alema. Then she and the Barabels took off up the passage to hold the Vong at bay.
Tahiri wouldn't be separated from Anakin while Tekli worked, but Jaina was glad for her attention to be divided. She wanted to be with her brother, but it was a lot harder than she would have thought. Besides, she'd automatically assumed command when he was unable, so she felt she had to keep an eye out on everything. It kept her from worrying too much, or thinking about how much blood there really was.
When they passed their distraction, Alema was sitting atop Tesar's shoulders, cutting into the ceiling with her lightsaber. Bela was in the same position on Krasov's shoulders, using the longblaster to wad cloth into an already-cut hole. Alema took a grenade from Tesar, shoving it into the hole she'd made, and they continued this in a couple different areas even after the rest of the strike team passed them.
They turned around a corner, Tahiri taking over guiding Anakin, and one of the Barabels called, "Six seconds!" The four came barreling down the passageway after the others, and the sound of Vong footsteps was so much closer now. Close enough, in fact, that when they started throwing thud bugs, they got Alema twice in the back. Without even blinking, Tesar grabbed her, picking her up and continuing along.
The sound of explosion and ensuing shock wave rocked the passage, sending dust up all around them. They didn't run much further, able to stop now that they'd gotten their fifteen minutes. "On the ground," Tekli ordered, and Tahiri obeyed, setting Anakin on the floor. The Chadra Fan pulled a tube of stinksalts from her pack and handed it to Jaina, saying, "For Alema."
Whether it was to get Jaina away from having to watch Tekli work on Anakin or not, she didn't know, and she didn't question it. Jacen took her place at his side anyway. She just went to Alema, opening the tube and waving them under her nose till she woke with a, "Ow."
"Nice job. It worked," Jaina told her, though her attention was drawn by the sound of Anakin screaming. When she looked back, she saw Tekli's hands inside the wound up to her elbows. Jaina swallowed and buried the fear as best she could.
"Good," Alema said, pulling herself to her feet stiffly, and pulling the longblaster from Bela's hands with the Force in order to head back down the passage to fire back at the Vong who were blasting through the cave-in already.
Jaina stood, and ordered, "Form a line. Keep them back," and those who weren't dealing with Anakin stepped forward in a battle line atop the rubble pile with Alema, shooting back with their blasters and trying to kill as many as they could before they could break through. The single voxyn the Vong had with them was a big target for them, and automatically, half of the line closest to Lowbacca was firing at it, clear of the toxic cloud. It probably should have been startling that there were cheers from the Jedi at that, but it wasn't. Jaina didn't feel anything about it, she just kept firing.
The Vong had been using their own weapons to fire back at them, but then they broke out the thud bugs. When one narrowly avoided one of the Barabel sisters, it was time to put away the blasters and get the lightsabers out. There wasn't much they could do with them from this distance, but the point was to hold them off now. This was the point they didn't want to get to. The Vong were charging up the rubble pile, forcing hand to hand combat, and yet Jaina was just happy to hear Anakin's voice over the comlink again, issuing orders. "Prepare to break off. Buy some space."
This came in the form of Tenel Ka levitating a grenade behind the Vong, still using her one arm to parry with her lightsaber, and after the explosion and the flash of light, things went much quieter.
"Lowbacca, Alema, Ganner, Lomi, Raynar, you first," Anakin ordered, and the five leapt off the rubble pile to land on the ground, where Anakin continued issuing commands.
Despite her earlier injuries, Jaina wasn't letting any of it bother her, cutting down any Vong she could if it prevented them from getting through. Six Jedi weren't enough to keep them all back, though, and Vong were clambering through the gaps between them.
Anakin ordered them to break off, and without any other provocation, the remaining Jedi aboard the rubble pile stepped off to the ground below. Bela made the mistake of turning her back, though, which was when one of the Vong planted an amphistaff in her back.
Jaina could hear Anakin scream, a sound which bothered her much more than she wanted to admit. He'd held up under torture and hadn't made a sound. There wasn't any question that Bela was already dead, and Krasov and Tesar levitated their sister between them as they started to run again, Jacen and Tahiri holding Anakin.
The Vong were throwing thud bugs again, which hit some of them, Jaina included. The jumpsuit's light armor protected her from any injury, and as long as she didn't take one to the head again, she didn't care. Didn't mean she wasn't cursing when it happened. The bug attack ended a moment later anyway, when either Alema or one of the surviving Barabels set off the mines over the rubble pile, the blast shrapnel embedding itself in flesh or armor before detonating again. It put an end to the Vong attack pretty quickly.
From the other side of the pile, Nom Anor was heard issuing an order, and the Vong continued crawling over the bodies of their comrades in order to get through. So the next set of mines was triggered, and everything went quiet again. By the time they'd gotten a good lead, Anakin was running on his own, insisting that he could do it and he'd been the one to force them to stop.
And they could already hear the Vong behind them again.
When the stench filled the passageway, everyone but Krasov and Tesar donned their breath masks, a practice they had become very used to. Around the corner they saw Eryl's hair disappear into a low tunnel, and until then Jaina hadn't realized that they were no longer levitating Jovan and Eryl's bodies with them. Raynar started to go after Eryl, but someone pulled him back with the Force just before the voxyn that had grabbed her shot acid into the passage.
"Um, thanks," said Raynar, looking relieved. "Anakin, you can put me down. I'm not going in there."
"Are you certain?" Alema asked, cautiously stepping in front of the tunnel to look inside. "This is exactly where we need to go."
"You've gone space happy," Welk accused.
"Twi'leks do not go space happy." In fact, they tended to be better with direction than most species. She placed her palm over the tunnel entrance, Vong footsteps in the background, and asked, "Has anyone else noticed that we have been circling around something?"
Everyone shook their heads, and Anakin said, "We'll have to trust your instincts on that. What are you thinking?"
"This hole is breathing," she said, taking Anakin's hand and placing it over the hole. "It goes somewhere big, and it bisects whatever we've been circling around. It could be a shortcut."
"Not one we can use," said Jacen. "The voxyn are protecting something down there. I've been trying to make them think they need to stay with it."
Everyone glanced over their shoulders at the louder sounds behind them.
"Then you make the voxyn leave instead," Ganner told him. "We've got to do something."
Jacen was shaking his head, but Anakin turned to Lomi. "What's down there?"
"Voxyn, I am sure- but the snakehead may be right," Lomi said with a shrug. "It could be a shortcut. There are more tunnels like this one near the gate."
"Gate?" Anakin asked. "A guarded gate?"
"You can be certain."
If they were going up against a protected gate with Nom Anor coming up on them, it wasn't going to go well, and they all knew it. Meanwhile the Vong were closing in. "Anakin?" Ganner pressed.
Jaina stepped between them. "There's no choice. We need time for your healing trance."
"We are unlikely to buy much time in a cavern full of voxyn," said Tenel Ka. "Quit the opposite, I am sure."
Anakin paused, looking back towards Bela's body, dangling in the air between her hatchmates.
"Young Solo?" said Lomi. "We are waiting."
This time Anakin turned to Jacen. "What do-"
Jacen looked completely surprised to be asked his opinion for once. "Thanks for asking," he said, and pulled a thermal detonator from his pack before dropping to his knees in front of the tunnel. "But you know what we need to do. I think we all do."
Next.
[Yes I put this up early. NFB, NFI, OOC okay. Dialogue taken from Star by Star by freaking Troy Denning. Ah, nostalgia for the good old days when a lost hand was the physical worst of your problems.]
By the time they started making their way through the slave city, the allergic reaction due to the bites had subsided, and the group had all but fully recovered. Considering they had to deal with grenades being launched at them, voxyn attacks, and slaves begging them to get them out of there, it was a good thing they didn't have more injuries to worry about.
Lomi and Welk had put up a fight about going down the alleyways even the slaves wouldn't travel, but Anakin had insisted that if they wouldn't go there, the Jedi had to. There was no failing on this. They had to kill the voxyn queen and destroy the cloning facility, and that was that. Once Anakin had barely made it in, he said, "Stay sharp, everyone. We need to make this work." He turned specifically to Jacen and said, "If you can do something to keep the voxyn quiet, now is the time."
Jacen looked nervous. "I'll do my best, Anakin. But these aren't normal animals. I can't just reach-"
There was a tingling of danger sense in the back of her mind, and then Jaina wasn't able to see what happened, but she heard Anakin yell a warning of "Blorash jelly!" right before blasting whoever threw it. "Watch the crowd!"
Almost at once, the Jedi's lightsabers snapped to life, and then the fight really started. Blorash jelly was flying through the crowd and attacking Jedi and slaves alike, people were screaming and running, and Jaina didn't even get to see who it was that threw the thud bug at her. She'd just turned towards it so that it struck her in the forehead over one eye, and she just barely managed to reach a hand out to hold herself up against the wall of the nearest building instead of falling.
She heard Jacen yelling her name, and a lightsaber buzzing not far from her, slashing another bug just before Tenel Ka called for support. Jaina was trying to focus, but she was having a really hard time not passing out, and when she tried to stand up straight and wipe whatever that was out of her eye, she wasn't too surprised to find that it was blood. And her focus on staying conscious superseded most of the realization that Eryl had just had her face slashed in two by a razor bug, and the feeling that sent through the battle meld.
She did have the misfortune of looking up and focusing her vision in time to see Jovan take a razor bug to the gut, though. Tenel Ka yelled again for assistance, and Jaina had to wonder why she'd gotten concussed and others were getting killed.
That was a good thought. It meant things were getting clearer. And clearer meant having the idea that maybe next time it wouldn't be just a thud bug, and maybe she should get to work on defending herself.
She switched her lightsaber back on, pulling the blade up to slice through another bug headed her way- though which kind, she didn't care to note. If she didn't fight them off, she was probably dead, and she wasnot planning on going out that way. Using the Force to break away some of the dark fog clouding her brain, she found herself not exactly putting up a bad fight against the Vong attack.
"Get Jovan out of here!" Jaina called to Tenel Ka. "Take Tekli!"
"You need to get out of here as well," Tenel Ka reminded her.
"I'll be right behind you, look, don't argue, just go! Get back to Anakin."
Tenel Ka didn't question it. Alema had grabbed Jovan's longblaster and was using it to keep the troops at bay. That was enough for now. She levitated Jovan, who already had Tekli sitting on his legs, working on his wound. And Jaina, for her part, did intend to be right behind them, holding the Vong back so they could get away, but her reaction time wasn't the best when it came to the blorash jelly launched her way.
She was more irritated than anything to find herself half stuck to the wall she'd been using for support earlier, her free arm completely frozen in place against the structure. She knew better than to try pulling herself out of it. That would just waste her time. Besides, it still left her other arm free, and that was the arm with her lightsaber.
Despite the head injury, and despite being plastered to the side of the building with one mobile arm, she was holding her own by the time help came against two of the Vong. She still had no idea why they weren't trying to kill her, but she was beyond caring.
Lowbacca and Zekk were already fighting their way toward her, and then Anakin came somersaulting through the air. Before he'd even landed, Zekk's opponents stopped to hurl their amphistaffs at him, and while Anakin batted the first one away easily, the second one caught him in the abdomen. Jaina felt it as much as she heard his scream of pain.
For the moment, her own fight was forgotten as she screamed for him. Though Jaina couldn't see it from where she was, with the amphistaff's head still lodged in him for the moment, he threw the arsensalts in her direction to dissolve the jelly.
As the jelly began separating itself from Jaina's skin and clothing, one of her attackers turned on Anakin. Now she was trying to pull herself free, and as soon as she was able, she was on the second, attacking the warrior and his amphistaff viciously. Once he was dead, she could check on Anakin. Not before. Otherwise she'd be in the same position. This one just had to die.
Again, Anakin came to help as soon as he'd dispatched of his opponent, slashing his lightsaber across the knees of Jaina's attacker around the time she reached her own blade into the the Vong's chest.
As soon as the Vong hit ground, Jaina grabbed her brother by the elbow. "By the Sith, Anakin! Why'd you do something like that?"
"Like what?"
Jaina glared at him. She couldn't see the injury, but he was standing, he was fighting, and that was what mattered right now. Still, it had been rash and stupid of him and she could have waited for Zekk and Lowie if nothing else. There wasn't a reason for him to be hurt right now.
"We lost two... and I wasn't going to..." He stopped, started again. "You were in trouble."
"And now you are," said Jaina, trying again to wipe the blood from her eyes. Did it matter that she would have done exactly the same thing? Not at all. She was still choking down the fear that came with seeing her little brother take a hit like that, and found her own words sounded more frustrated than worried as they started back towards the alley. "Anakin, this was really... Are you ever going to learn?"
When they got through the alley, the others were waiting, apparently ordered to head back. Zekk immediately came to Jaina's side, but she shrugged him off. She was going to be fine. She'd fought through the worst of it, and she felt much clearer now. Maybe her injury wasn't as bad as she'd initially thought. Tahiri immediately went to Anakin, trying to pull his hand from the wound, but he wouldn't let her. "Call her off," he said, nodding towards Alema, who was still shooting up Vong. "Let's go before someone else gets killed."
"Anakin, how bad is it?" Tahiri pressed, continuing tugging at him. "Let me-"
"Tahiri, stop," Anakin insisted. "It's just a little cut."
*****
They still had Vong trailing them, so there wasn't much time to tend to the wounded. It was impossible getting Raynar to leave Eryl's body behind, and Anakin was pushing them all to just go. He insisted he was fine and allowed himself to be bandaged, and with Tekli taking a very short amount of time to stop the blood pouring out of Jaina's cut and slap a strip of synthflesh over it, they were off again.
The Vong were still after them as they continued to the cloning facility, assailing them with bug attacks anytime they started moving too slowly. Nom Anor was still trying to take some of them alive, which Jaina thought would probably be a worse fate than being outright killed.
She was still irritated with Anakin's rescue, still worried, and glad it wasn't bad enough that he could still soldier on. And even with the battle meld down, she could practically read the thoughts out of his head, questioning how things had been done and whether if he'd done this instead of this, would it be different. And for that, she thumped him behind the ear. "Stop that."
"What?" Anakin asked, rubbing his ear. "And thanks for caring."
"You can feel sorry for yourself," Jaina told him sternly. "You were reckless, Anakin, and you paid the price- and that's not the point. You need to stop blaming yourself."
"Who should I blame?" he asked, though they picked up the pace as the sound of Vong footsteps was heard in the distance behind them.
"The war," she said simply. "Do you think Uncle Luke sent us here to train? This is important. If people die, people die."
"That's a little cold."
"I'll cry at home." She looked over her shoulder, making sure she couldn't see the Vong warriors behind them yet. "Maybe you made a mistake, maybe you didn't. But start focusing on the mission, or people willdie."
There wasn't much time for words, because as the sounds behind them grew louder, they had to concentrate on running. They hadn't gotten that far, though, before Tahiri's alarmed voice was heard saying, "Anakin! What's that?"
And while Anakin again insisted it was nothing, a moment later Tahiri stopped and cried, "Need help!"
They slowed, and Jaina was one of those crowding around to see what was wrong. Tahiri was levitating Anakin, who kept insisting he was all right despite having trouble moving, with her barking back at him that no, he wasn't, and after seeing the fresh blood on Anakin's hand, Jaina was on Tahiri's side.
The Vong were definitely still getting closer, and they could all sense the voxyn with them. "Keep him levitated!" Jaina ordered, and reached down to pluck Tekli off the ground and set her astride Anakin's legs to let her work. And then she took her brother by the wrist to lead him up the passage. "Everyone, move!"
One of the Barabels dropped a flechette mine to delay the Vong, and the team started into a full-on run. Tekli was already working, throwing blood-soaked bandages away as they moved, and finally insisting, "We must stop."
"No," Anakin managed, barely. "Can't let..."
"He has internal bleeding," Tekli went on. "I need to see what's happening."
It was terrifying to hear, especially now when stopping would probably get them all killed or captured. "How much time?" Jaina asked.
"That depends on what I find. Fifteen minutes, maybe twice that."
Alema stared down the passage, toward the sound of the Vong getting closer. "I can buy us fifteen minutes," she said. "I need half a dozen concussion grenades."
"Do it," Ganner said immediately, flipping a pack over to Alema. Then she and the Barabels took off up the passage to hold the Vong at bay.
Tahiri wouldn't be separated from Anakin while Tekli worked, but Jaina was glad for her attention to be divided. She wanted to be with her brother, but it was a lot harder than she would have thought. Besides, she'd automatically assumed command when he was unable, so she felt she had to keep an eye out on everything. It kept her from worrying too much, or thinking about how much blood there really was.
When they passed their distraction, Alema was sitting atop Tesar's shoulders, cutting into the ceiling with her lightsaber. Bela was in the same position on Krasov's shoulders, using the longblaster to wad cloth into an already-cut hole. Alema took a grenade from Tesar, shoving it into the hole she'd made, and they continued this in a couple different areas even after the rest of the strike team passed them.
They turned around a corner, Tahiri taking over guiding Anakin, and one of the Barabels called, "Six seconds!" The four came barreling down the passageway after the others, and the sound of Vong footsteps was so much closer now. Close enough, in fact, that when they started throwing thud bugs, they got Alema twice in the back. Without even blinking, Tesar grabbed her, picking her up and continuing along.
The sound of explosion and ensuing shock wave rocked the passage, sending dust up all around them. They didn't run much further, able to stop now that they'd gotten their fifteen minutes. "On the ground," Tekli ordered, and Tahiri obeyed, setting Anakin on the floor. The Chadra Fan pulled a tube of stinksalts from her pack and handed it to Jaina, saying, "For Alema."
Whether it was to get Jaina away from having to watch Tekli work on Anakin or not, she didn't know, and she didn't question it. Jacen took her place at his side anyway. She just went to Alema, opening the tube and waving them under her nose till she woke with a, "Ow."
"Nice job. It worked," Jaina told her, though her attention was drawn by the sound of Anakin screaming. When she looked back, she saw Tekli's hands inside the wound up to her elbows. Jaina swallowed and buried the fear as best she could.
"Good," Alema said, pulling herself to her feet stiffly, and pulling the longblaster from Bela's hands with the Force in order to head back down the passage to fire back at the Vong who were blasting through the cave-in already.
Jaina stood, and ordered, "Form a line. Keep them back," and those who weren't dealing with Anakin stepped forward in a battle line atop the rubble pile with Alema, shooting back with their blasters and trying to kill as many as they could before they could break through. The single voxyn the Vong had with them was a big target for them, and automatically, half of the line closest to Lowbacca was firing at it, clear of the toxic cloud. It probably should have been startling that there were cheers from the Jedi at that, but it wasn't. Jaina didn't feel anything about it, she just kept firing.
The Vong had been using their own weapons to fire back at them, but then they broke out the thud bugs. When one narrowly avoided one of the Barabel sisters, it was time to put away the blasters and get the lightsabers out. There wasn't much they could do with them from this distance, but the point was to hold them off now. This was the point they didn't want to get to. The Vong were charging up the rubble pile, forcing hand to hand combat, and yet Jaina was just happy to hear Anakin's voice over the comlink again, issuing orders. "Prepare to break off. Buy some space."
This came in the form of Tenel Ka levitating a grenade behind the Vong, still using her one arm to parry with her lightsaber, and after the explosion and the flash of light, things went much quieter.
"Lowbacca, Alema, Ganner, Lomi, Raynar, you first," Anakin ordered, and the five leapt off the rubble pile to land on the ground, where Anakin continued issuing commands.
Despite her earlier injuries, Jaina wasn't letting any of it bother her, cutting down any Vong she could if it prevented them from getting through. Six Jedi weren't enough to keep them all back, though, and Vong were clambering through the gaps between them.
Anakin ordered them to break off, and without any other provocation, the remaining Jedi aboard the rubble pile stepped off to the ground below. Bela made the mistake of turning her back, though, which was when one of the Vong planted an amphistaff in her back.
Jaina could hear Anakin scream, a sound which bothered her much more than she wanted to admit. He'd held up under torture and hadn't made a sound. There wasn't any question that Bela was already dead, and Krasov and Tesar levitated their sister between them as they started to run again, Jacen and Tahiri holding Anakin.
The Vong were throwing thud bugs again, which hit some of them, Jaina included. The jumpsuit's light armor protected her from any injury, and as long as she didn't take one to the head again, she didn't care. Didn't mean she wasn't cursing when it happened. The bug attack ended a moment later anyway, when either Alema or one of the surviving Barabels set off the mines over the rubble pile, the blast shrapnel embedding itself in flesh or armor before detonating again. It put an end to the Vong attack pretty quickly.
From the other side of the pile, Nom Anor was heard issuing an order, and the Vong continued crawling over the bodies of their comrades in order to get through. So the next set of mines was triggered, and everything went quiet again. By the time they'd gotten a good lead, Anakin was running on his own, insisting that he could do it and he'd been the one to force them to stop.
And they could already hear the Vong behind them again.
When the stench filled the passageway, everyone but Krasov and Tesar donned their breath masks, a practice they had become very used to. Around the corner they saw Eryl's hair disappear into a low tunnel, and until then Jaina hadn't realized that they were no longer levitating Jovan and Eryl's bodies with them. Raynar started to go after Eryl, but someone pulled him back with the Force just before the voxyn that had grabbed her shot acid into the passage.
"Um, thanks," said Raynar, looking relieved. "Anakin, you can put me down. I'm not going in there."
"Are you certain?" Alema asked, cautiously stepping in front of the tunnel to look inside. "This is exactly where we need to go."
"You've gone space happy," Welk accused.
"Twi'leks do not go space happy." In fact, they tended to be better with direction than most species. She placed her palm over the tunnel entrance, Vong footsteps in the background, and asked, "Has anyone else noticed that we have been circling around something?"
Everyone shook their heads, and Anakin said, "We'll have to trust your instincts on that. What are you thinking?"
"This hole is breathing," she said, taking Anakin's hand and placing it over the hole. "It goes somewhere big, and it bisects whatever we've been circling around. It could be a shortcut."
"Not one we can use," said Jacen. "The voxyn are protecting something down there. I've been trying to make them think they need to stay with it."
Everyone glanced over their shoulders at the louder sounds behind them.
"Then you make the voxyn leave instead," Ganner told him. "We've got to do something."
Jacen was shaking his head, but Anakin turned to Lomi. "What's down there?"
"Voxyn, I am sure- but the snakehead may be right," Lomi said with a shrug. "It could be a shortcut. There are more tunnels like this one near the gate."
"Gate?" Anakin asked. "A guarded gate?"
"You can be certain."
If they were going up against a protected gate with Nom Anor coming up on them, it wasn't going to go well, and they all knew it. Meanwhile the Vong were closing in. "Anakin?" Ganner pressed.
Jaina stepped between them. "There's no choice. We need time for your healing trance."
"We are unlikely to buy much time in a cavern full of voxyn," said Tenel Ka. "Quit the opposite, I am sure."
Anakin paused, looking back towards Bela's body, dangling in the air between her hatchmates.
"Young Solo?" said Lomi. "We are waiting."
This time Anakin turned to Jacen. "What do-"
Jacen looked completely surprised to be asked his opinion for once. "Thanks for asking," he said, and pulled a thermal detonator from his pack before dropping to his knees in front of the tunnel. "But you know what we need to do. I think we all do."
Next.
[Yes I put this up early. NFB, NFI, OOC okay. Dialogue taken from Star by Star by freaking Troy Denning. Ah, nostalgia for the good old days when a lost hand was the physical worst of your problems.]