Ebaq 9, Tuesday Fandom time
Some of Jaina's exhaustion was able to be beaten away temporarily with the Force, but she'd take temporary. While she sent John and the rest of Twin Suns away from herself and the rest of the Jedi being hunted, she and Lowie and Tesar waited in a cold, dark, silent shaft, waiting to be found.
She opened herself to the meld, sending a message directed to her uncle: Where are you?
Words weren't possible to get across like this, so what was communicated was mainly pictures, ideas, images. It was a general impression back from Luke of Where are you? Once she'd been able to get a clear picture to him of where they were in the shaft, that no, they couldn't get topside, and what they were up against, he promised to come for her and left her to wait some more.
When the Vong finally came, it was sudden. There was an explosion in the tunnel beneath them, and then the Vong warriors began piling in through their entrance, throwing thud bugs that Jaina and Lowie deflected with their lightsabers while Tesar shot back at them before throwing grenades and running. It didn't stop them for long, but it slowed them down a little. Every little bit had to count.
Then the depressurization came. Jaina didn't know what happened to cause it; none of this had been part of the plan. It happened with an earshattering rush of pressure and heat, and then all the air was gone. She hoped that John and the others were still deep enough in the tunnels not to be affected by anything, and was so glad she'd made everyone put on their body armor over their vac suits. She slapped down the faceplate on her helmet before the oxygen disappeared from the tunnels, holding onto the wall and feeling like the air around her might pull her with it, but it lasted hardly at all.
Tesar was the closest to be able to see how the enemy had fared, peering into the tunnel while bracing himself against the wall with his tail for support. Jaina stepped closer to see what was going on, but he waved her back, basically telling her that she didn't want to see what was happening.
The depressurization also had the bonus of taking out the Vong warriors and the voxyn. It just really wasn't pretty.
*****
Jaina's brain was still too busy fending off tiredness while at the same time racing from all the adrenaline to really comprehend everything that had happened. Jacen had come from Ralroost to find her, and somehow Vergere had sacrificed herself, though the details were sketchy and Jaina wasn't going to be sorry about that particular loss either way. The ion storm that had brought about the depressurization had also set the moon on fire, though they were safe inside the bunkers. However, this meant that they were trapped inside, the shaft being too hot for humans to enter. They sent droids with supplies, and when Jaina and the others hopped down into the tunnel below from which the Vong had been attacking, she got to see all the corpses of the warriors and the voxyn, the aftermath of what Tesar hadn't wanted her to watch. It wasn't even her first time seeing something like that. She wasn't sure if it was a good thing that it could still make her feel nauseous, or if that was the fatigue.
One of the medical droids spoke to Jaina, saying, "I would like to examine you. And your companions."
"We're all right," she told it. "I have a wounded pilot whom you should see first. Walk back the way you came, and take the first left facing out. Keep hailing on these frequencies and they should answer."
"Very well."
"Take one of the loadlifters with you. They'll need supplies as well. And there's a body that will have to be taken care of." In addition to all the other bodies surrounding them.
The MD droid turned to go, but was stopped about the time its head was blasted into the wall.
Jaina reacted immediately, drawing her lightsaber almost automatically. Somehow, though, she found her feet bound to the floor of the mineshaft, which was actually lucky as the way she had to twist to find that out put her just out of the way of a surviving Yuuzhan Vong's baton.
It got Lowbacca in the shoulder instead, but thanks to the blorash jelly also binding him to the floor, he couldn't do much but fall against Tesar. He was howling, which came through loud and clear in Jaina's headset, but she couldn't get to him. Even if she could move, she had bigger problems, in the form of the Vong aiming an amphistaff at her head.
It occurred to her that she really needed to stop getting stuck to structures while fighting bad guys, especially when her helmet cut off some of her vision, and she was half-needing to fight behind her in order to counter his moves. With every blow he delivered, she had to twist almost unnaturally sometimes in order to parry, and depending on her angle the impact could feel like it would tear her arm from the socket. She had to fight to keep her weapon in her hand, and a two-handed grip felt impossible with all the movements she had to make.
The vacuum meant the fight was completely silent, no hiss of lightsabers, no quips, nothing but her own breath, and what she could hear over her comm. When Lowie screamed as Tesar yanked the baton out of his shoulder, Tesar cried, "It's Tsavong Lah!" into the comm.
She was fighting the same Yuuzhan Vong warmaster that had tortured and nearly killed her mother, the one that had been defeated by Jacen and then called for the heads of all the Jedi.
And she really, really did not care right now.
"Shoot him!" she ordered, thinking this should be an obvious course of action because it didn't feel like she was doing so well.
Tesar tried, but Tsavong Lah kept moving so that he couldn't get a clear shot without hitting Jaina, and finally he had to give up on the shooting idea. "This one must patch up Lowie!" he told her. "He's losing air! You've got to hold off the Vong!"
"Thanks," Jaina muttered.
Her next movie managed to take a chunk out of Tsavong Lah's frozen weapon, but she could only stand there as he simply walked to pick up another one from one of the dead warriors. And this time when he struck, she was able to catch him in a circular parry she'd actually been practicing, but her positioning meant she wasn't able to knock his weapon away like she should have been able to. Instead her lightsaber was locked against his amphistaff.
Tsavong Lah had decided he'd won. He half-snarled, half-smiled, lifting his leg and driving his heel into Jaina's thigh, and a moment later her lightsaber was out of her hand.
When she pitched forward, dimly wondering if he'd managed to break her leg while she was forced to stand on it, she saw Tesar frantically trying to patch Lowie. And then saw Lowie's lightsaber. Well, he wasn't using it right now.
She pulled his weapon off his belt and to her hand as she straightened, ignoring the pain and proceeding to slice part of Tsavong Lah's replacement arm with the bronze lightsaber blade when he got close. He looked surprised at that. The warmaster stepped back and fell to the ground as blood poured from his new wound, and Jaina took the couple seconds to ask, "How's Streak?" into her comm.
"He's passed out," Tesar replied. "This one has patched the exit wound, but the wound in front is still venting."
Jaina had not taken her eyes off of Tsavong Lah, who was getting to his feet and gathering his weapon again. Pain didn't exactly keep the Vong down. "Hurry," she advised. "I think I just made him mad."
She had. When he attacked, he attacked hard and fast, and she was once again forced into defensive maneuvers in bad positioning with no mobility. She could see her lightsaber still lit on the ground behind him, and while he was trying to engage her in a series of blows clearly meant to kill her, she yanked her own lightsaber to her free hand, and jabbed it into his throat.
He fell immediately, unceremoniously, and Jaina barely registered that it was over. Lightsabers still ignited, she just looked back to Lowie and Tesar, watching the Wookiee's suit reinflate as he took a breath. "The suit is patched," Tesar reported. "But the shoulder is not."
"Force meld," Jaina said, realizing she was completely out of breath. "Tell Uncle Luke we need another MD droid. And blood to replace what Lowie's lost."
"That is wise." He stood, looking at his feet, watching as the blorash jelly that had glued him to the floor was shattering from the vacuum, rendering him able to move again.
"Now we can move," Jaina said, feeling like that one little detail might just make her that much more bitter. "Great timing, as usual."
[NFB, NFI, OOC okay. Dialogue from Destiny's Way by Walter Jon Williams, who will forever annoy me by not consistently writing the Barabel speech that my spellcheck hates so. Where are all my superfluous S's and Z's?]
She opened herself to the meld, sending a message directed to her uncle: Where are you?
Words weren't possible to get across like this, so what was communicated was mainly pictures, ideas, images. It was a general impression back from Luke of Where are you? Once she'd been able to get a clear picture to him of where they were in the shaft, that no, they couldn't get topside, and what they were up against, he promised to come for her and left her to wait some more.
When the Vong finally came, it was sudden. There was an explosion in the tunnel beneath them, and then the Vong warriors began piling in through their entrance, throwing thud bugs that Jaina and Lowie deflected with their lightsabers while Tesar shot back at them before throwing grenades and running. It didn't stop them for long, but it slowed them down a little. Every little bit had to count.
Then the depressurization came. Jaina didn't know what happened to cause it; none of this had been part of the plan. It happened with an earshattering rush of pressure and heat, and then all the air was gone. She hoped that John and the others were still deep enough in the tunnels not to be affected by anything, and was so glad she'd made everyone put on their body armor over their vac suits. She slapped down the faceplate on her helmet before the oxygen disappeared from the tunnels, holding onto the wall and feeling like the air around her might pull her with it, but it lasted hardly at all.
Tesar was the closest to be able to see how the enemy had fared, peering into the tunnel while bracing himself against the wall with his tail for support. Jaina stepped closer to see what was going on, but he waved her back, basically telling her that she didn't want to see what was happening.
The depressurization also had the bonus of taking out the Vong warriors and the voxyn. It just really wasn't pretty.
*****
Jaina's brain was still too busy fending off tiredness while at the same time racing from all the adrenaline to really comprehend everything that had happened. Jacen had come from Ralroost to find her, and somehow Vergere had sacrificed herself, though the details were sketchy and Jaina wasn't going to be sorry about that particular loss either way. The ion storm that had brought about the depressurization had also set the moon on fire, though they were safe inside the bunkers. However, this meant that they were trapped inside, the shaft being too hot for humans to enter. They sent droids with supplies, and when Jaina and the others hopped down into the tunnel below from which the Vong had been attacking, she got to see all the corpses of the warriors and the voxyn, the aftermath of what Tesar hadn't wanted her to watch. It wasn't even her first time seeing something like that. She wasn't sure if it was a good thing that it could still make her feel nauseous, or if that was the fatigue.
One of the medical droids spoke to Jaina, saying, "I would like to examine you. And your companions."
"We're all right," she told it. "I have a wounded pilot whom you should see first. Walk back the way you came, and take the first left facing out. Keep hailing on these frequencies and they should answer."
"Very well."
"Take one of the loadlifters with you. They'll need supplies as well. And there's a body that will have to be taken care of." In addition to all the other bodies surrounding them.
The MD droid turned to go, but was stopped about the time its head was blasted into the wall.
Jaina reacted immediately, drawing her lightsaber almost automatically. Somehow, though, she found her feet bound to the floor of the mineshaft, which was actually lucky as the way she had to twist to find that out put her just out of the way of a surviving Yuuzhan Vong's baton.
It got Lowbacca in the shoulder instead, but thanks to the blorash jelly also binding him to the floor, he couldn't do much but fall against Tesar. He was howling, which came through loud and clear in Jaina's headset, but she couldn't get to him. Even if she could move, she had bigger problems, in the form of the Vong aiming an amphistaff at her head.
It occurred to her that she really needed to stop getting stuck to structures while fighting bad guys, especially when her helmet cut off some of her vision, and she was half-needing to fight behind her in order to counter his moves. With every blow he delivered, she had to twist almost unnaturally sometimes in order to parry, and depending on her angle the impact could feel like it would tear her arm from the socket. She had to fight to keep her weapon in her hand, and a two-handed grip felt impossible with all the movements she had to make.
The vacuum meant the fight was completely silent, no hiss of lightsabers, no quips, nothing but her own breath, and what she could hear over her comm. When Lowie screamed as Tesar yanked the baton out of his shoulder, Tesar cried, "It's Tsavong Lah!" into the comm.
She was fighting the same Yuuzhan Vong warmaster that had tortured and nearly killed her mother, the one that had been defeated by Jacen and then called for the heads of all the Jedi.
And she really, really did not care right now.
"Shoot him!" she ordered, thinking this should be an obvious course of action because it didn't feel like she was doing so well.
Tesar tried, but Tsavong Lah kept moving so that he couldn't get a clear shot without hitting Jaina, and finally he had to give up on the shooting idea. "This one must patch up Lowie!" he told her. "He's losing air! You've got to hold off the Vong!"
"Thanks," Jaina muttered.
Her next movie managed to take a chunk out of Tsavong Lah's frozen weapon, but she could only stand there as he simply walked to pick up another one from one of the dead warriors. And this time when he struck, she was able to catch him in a circular parry she'd actually been practicing, but her positioning meant she wasn't able to knock his weapon away like she should have been able to. Instead her lightsaber was locked against his amphistaff.
Tsavong Lah had decided he'd won. He half-snarled, half-smiled, lifting his leg and driving his heel into Jaina's thigh, and a moment later her lightsaber was out of her hand.
When she pitched forward, dimly wondering if he'd managed to break her leg while she was forced to stand on it, she saw Tesar frantically trying to patch Lowie. And then saw Lowie's lightsaber. Well, he wasn't using it right now.
She pulled his weapon off his belt and to her hand as she straightened, ignoring the pain and proceeding to slice part of Tsavong Lah's replacement arm with the bronze lightsaber blade when he got close. He looked surprised at that. The warmaster stepped back and fell to the ground as blood poured from his new wound, and Jaina took the couple seconds to ask, "How's Streak?" into her comm.
"He's passed out," Tesar replied. "This one has patched the exit wound, but the wound in front is still venting."
Jaina had not taken her eyes off of Tsavong Lah, who was getting to his feet and gathering his weapon again. Pain didn't exactly keep the Vong down. "Hurry," she advised. "I think I just made him mad."
She had. When he attacked, he attacked hard and fast, and she was once again forced into defensive maneuvers in bad positioning with no mobility. She could see her lightsaber still lit on the ground behind him, and while he was trying to engage her in a series of blows clearly meant to kill her, she yanked her own lightsaber to her free hand, and jabbed it into his throat.
He fell immediately, unceremoniously, and Jaina barely registered that it was over. Lightsabers still ignited, she just looked back to Lowie and Tesar, watching the Wookiee's suit reinflate as he took a breath. "The suit is patched," Tesar reported. "But the shoulder is not."
"Force meld," Jaina said, realizing she was completely out of breath. "Tell Uncle Luke we need another MD droid. And blood to replace what Lowie's lost."
"That is wise." He stood, looking at his feet, watching as the blorash jelly that had glued him to the floor was shattering from the vacuum, rendering him able to move again.
"Now we can move," Jaina said, feeling like that one little detail might just make her that much more bitter. "Great timing, as usual."
[NFB, NFI, OOC okay. Dialogue from Destiny's Way by Walter Jon Williams, who will forever annoy me by not consistently writing the Barabel speech that my spellcheck hates so. Where are all my superfluous S's and Z's?]