Onadax- Sunday evening Fandom time
This particular city on Onadax had become an unruly mob by the time Jaina was attempting to leave it, still unable to find the particular Ryn informant they'd been searching for. She wasn't sure what caused it, didn't really care, but at this point she knew it was just time to get out of there.
With her path to the Falcon cut off, she'd had to turn instead for Pride of Selonia, the frigate accompanying them. She reached the docks, almost out of breath and relieved just to have made it this far... and the two guards at the entrance stopped her there.
"We have orders to detain anyone attempting to enter this vessel," said the Selonian guard.
That was not what she wanted to hear when there was a mob headed this way. "Orders from whom? For what reason?"
"That's not your concern. If you could just step this way-"
Jaina knew that way wasn't leading anywhere good. "You don't need to hold me," she said. "I'm exempt from the orders you've been given."
The Selonian turned to the other guard. "We don't need to hold her. She's exempt."
Sometimes she loved it when that worked. "Perhaps I should move through now;" Jaina said. "I'm sure you have better things to do than stand around chatting."
"Move on through, please. We can't stand around chatting all day."
To be fair, she was supposed to be there. The guards who had stopped her obviously didn't know that when she got aboard, they'd even been waiting for her. "We've been waiting for you," greeted Markota, second in command. He waved her inside. "We're ready to lift off."
As they walked through the halls, Jaina asked, "What about my parents? Did they get away okay?"
"They're in orbit, waiting for you to call."
"Any sign of pursuit?"
"Not so far. My gut feeling is that this was a warning. Someone wanted us out of the way, but didn't necessarily want us dead."
Jaina snorted. "The riots were real enough to me."
"I'm sure they are. Onadax, like most illegal communities, is a tinderbox ready to go up at the slightest spark," Markota said. "In here."
A familiar voice already coming from the room's comm unit. "Dad?" Jaina interrupted. "I hadn't realized there was a line open to you! Is Mom there with you?"
"I'm here, Jaina," came Leia's voice.
"Sorry things didn't go as planned," Jaina said, taking a seat.
"That depends."
"On what?" she asked. "Did you find anything about the Ryn?"
Han paused before answering. "Not exactly."
"What does that mean?"
"Well, we heard from someone, but it wasn't who we expected."
Jaina sighed. People really just needed to start telling her things outright. "Can someone please tell me what's going on?"
"We picked up a passenger as we were leaving Onadax. Someone who said he was trying to escape the riots. We haven't had much chance to talk to him since we took him aboard, but I'm guessing he's not the one we're looking for."
"He's the right species," Leia added, "but doesn't know much about what's going on."
This was not outright. "And who is he, exactly?"
"He's Droma," came a familiar Ryn voice over the comm. "It's nice to speak to you again, Jaina."
Well, that was unexpected. Droma was someone her father had met not long after Chewbacca died, and had been around right up through Duro. She hadn't seen or heard from him since. "It's good to hear your voice," she said.
"Hey, I told you to wait in the hold," Han told him.
"What, you think I'm going to take your secrets and sell them to the Vong or something?" Droma asked. "Don't be so paranoid."
"This has got nothing to do with paranoia! It's to do with privacy."
Jaina heard Leia's sigh. It was a deserved sigh.
As soon as they were in orbit, Jaina left Selonia to board the Falcon, where she got to hear Droma's story. Leia didn't seem to exactly believe him, but Jaina didn't see anything wrong with it. He'd come to assist in an underground network of Ryn, a couple of which they'd met on this trip already, at Galantos and Bakura, which he was trying to join. However, he'd failed in being able to join up, and knew nothing about the particular Ryn they were supposed to be meeting.
Jaina frowned. "So you can't tell us any more about them?"
"I would if I could, believe me. You helped me out, getting me off Onadax like that," said Droma. "It was about to get real ugly down there."
"You don't know anything about that, I suppose," Leia said, a bit dryly. "It looked to us like someone was pulling up stumps and getting rid of the evidence."
"Evidence of what?"
"The network, I presume."
Droma shrugged. "Sorry, but it's no business of mine. I'm just here for the ride. If you could drop me off somewhere in the Juvex sector, though, I'd be extremely grateful. I can work my way back to the others from there."
"If we're going that way, sure," said Han.
"What do you mean, 'if?"
"Truth is, we don't really know where we're heading next," Han admitted. They were here to find out what the next stop was.
Droma stared. "What about Esfandia?" he asked. "You're going there, right? And Juvex is on the way?"
"Esfandia?" Han repeated, frowning.
"Esfandia is one of two small communications centers on the other side of the galaxy," Leia reported. "It services the Outer Rim. There used to be only one, Generis, but another was brought on-line at the beginning of the war."
"Why would we go there?" Jaina asked.
Droma was still staring at them. "You don't know what's happened?"
"No," Jaina said. "What has happened?"
"It's only something I overheard while I was being interviewed," he said uncomfortably. "A message came through while I was there. They mentioned something about the head Ryn not wanting to do anything about it, though, because he figured you guys would have already heard about it through official channels. You seriously don't know what I'm talking about?"
Jaina sighed, taking a step towards him. She liked Droma. But she would hit him. "No, we don't-and if you're so good at reading what people are going to say, then you'll know that I'm about to-"
"Jaina," said Leia, warning.
Droma, for his part, just seemed amused, looking to Han. "I see she's inherited the Solo temper."
"You can't even begin to imagine," Han said, and Jaina glared at him.
Droma sobered, getting to the point finally. "Generis has been destroyed by the Yuuzhan Vong, and Esfandia is under attack."
"When? "Jaina asked,
"Yesterday, I think."
"What has this got to do with us?" Han asked. "I know these sort of stations. If it's Outer Rim, it's probably automated, maybe staffed by a token crew to keep things maintained. If the Yuuzhan Vong have attacked it, it's already lost."
"Cal Omas beefed up the defenses there before we left. It might still be holding on," Leia told him, shaking her head.
"And what if it isn't?" Han asked. "Does it really matter if we lose contact with part of the Outer Rim?"
"It's not just any part of the Outer Rim," insisted Leia. "Generis and Esfandia are the only relay centers we have servicing the Unknown Regions. Every communications signal to and from the Chiss goes through there. Take them out and you effectively put the Unknown Regions out of contact."
Which would be where the other half of their group was.
"Guess this means we're going to Esfandia," Han decided.
*****
Jaina had just ended the call with Jag, still over on the Selonia, to discuss the situation and get Twin Suns prepped for what they were going to head into, and hit the controls to open the door to the little room she'd claimed as her own aboard the Falcon. When she did so, she found her mother standing there, about to knock. 'Good timing," Jaina noted.
Leia invited herself into the room after her, and whatever she'd come to talk about was pushed aside. "You look upset."
"Not upset," said Jaina, waving a hand vaguely as she took a seat on the bunk. "Just too much to do and I can't be in two places at once."
"I told you you could have stayed on the Selonia," Leia pointed out, sitting next to her.
"That's not what I mean."
She went quiet for a moment, and when Jaina didn't go on, she said, "Tell me?"
Jaina sighed. "I think I've already missed a week of classes," she explained. She hadn't. She didn't know that. "I can never seem to find time to call John with everything going on. I was planning to go back once we found the Ryn and could clear out our next stop, but..."
"Jaina, you're allowed to go," said Leia. "You're not being forced to stay here."
"But I should stay here," she said. "Since I've been here, the Yevetha were wiped out, the Bakurans were nearly enteched, and now somewhere new is under attack..."
"And what's happened to you since you've been here?"
The answer to that question was a long one. She'd lost one of her pilots, been in more than a few battles, aided an underground rebellion, been stunned and kidnapped, been an unwitting aide in an act of terrorism, ended up needing medical treatment for a chest injury, and then nearly been blown up.
Leia took the silence as the answer. "No one can say you're not working," she said.
"But then I leave," Jaina said flatly. "And-"
"And you still work far too much." Her mother slipped an arm around her, and said, "You do what you ned to do. Everyone understands. It's part of why you've got Jag's help with Twin Suns now. He even sees it." And oh, the thought of her parents getting along too well with Jag worried her sometimes. Because it meant Leia could say things like that. "If you need to go, go. We were fine for years before you could start bossing people around."
And then it was back to Fandom, where she'd get hit with more stuff... not that that was too different from here. It was just a different type of stuff to get hit by.
"I've told you before, I want you to stay there," Leia continued. "You've got to do what you've got to do, but just remember that we do know you'll be back here in a second if you think you can be of any help. But you're covered when you need to be elsewhere."
Jaina groaned slightly. "I'm going to regret it if I go, aren't I?"
"Honey, you're going to find a way to regret any decision you make somehow," Leia told her.
And now she was frowning. "You had to pick now to get honest with me?"
*****
Jaina had changed her mind no less than four times before deciding she'd go back to Fandom before they reached Esfandia, and even then the only reason she left was because Jag had finally started snapping when he got a new update on what she was going to do. At that point she realized that when she was pissing off her co-leader, she needed to at the very least step back to let him do his job.
She'd been back in her X-wing for half a day or so, leaving her galaxy behind again and feeling increasingly uneasy about it. It wasn't so much that she was being indecisive, but she ust had a very bad feeling and wasn't sure why, exactly. Which was when she stared bugging for updates. At first she was met with annoyance, and then silence, and then words like, "Maybe you should come back here."
The second she got that, she was changing her course vector back to Esfandia, cursing the fact that things had gotten that much worse, and hoping things didn't continue to do so before she got there.
[First bit taken from Force Heretic III: Reunion by Sean Williams and Shane Dix. You know, you take out the emocoma, all the fun slashiness goes away. :(]
With her path to the Falcon cut off, she'd had to turn instead for Pride of Selonia, the frigate accompanying them. She reached the docks, almost out of breath and relieved just to have made it this far... and the two guards at the entrance stopped her there.
"We have orders to detain anyone attempting to enter this vessel," said the Selonian guard.
That was not what she wanted to hear when there was a mob headed this way. "Orders from whom? For what reason?"
"That's not your concern. If you could just step this way-"
Jaina knew that way wasn't leading anywhere good. "You don't need to hold me," she said. "I'm exempt from the orders you've been given."
The Selonian turned to the other guard. "We don't need to hold her. She's exempt."
Sometimes she loved it when that worked. "Perhaps I should move through now;" Jaina said. "I'm sure you have better things to do than stand around chatting."
"Move on through, please. We can't stand around chatting all day."
To be fair, she was supposed to be there. The guards who had stopped her obviously didn't know that when she got aboard, they'd even been waiting for her. "We've been waiting for you," greeted Markota, second in command. He waved her inside. "We're ready to lift off."
As they walked through the halls, Jaina asked, "What about my parents? Did they get away okay?"
"They're in orbit, waiting for you to call."
"Any sign of pursuit?"
"Not so far. My gut feeling is that this was a warning. Someone wanted us out of the way, but didn't necessarily want us dead."
Jaina snorted. "The riots were real enough to me."
"I'm sure they are. Onadax, like most illegal communities, is a tinderbox ready to go up at the slightest spark," Markota said. "In here."
A familiar voice already coming from the room's comm unit. "Dad?" Jaina interrupted. "I hadn't realized there was a line open to you! Is Mom there with you?"
"I'm here, Jaina," came Leia's voice.
"Sorry things didn't go as planned," Jaina said, taking a seat.
"That depends."
"On what?" she asked. "Did you find anything about the Ryn?"
Han paused before answering. "Not exactly."
"What does that mean?"
"Well, we heard from someone, but it wasn't who we expected."
Jaina sighed. People really just needed to start telling her things outright. "Can someone please tell me what's going on?"
"We picked up a passenger as we were leaving Onadax. Someone who said he was trying to escape the riots. We haven't had much chance to talk to him since we took him aboard, but I'm guessing he's not the one we're looking for."
"He's the right species," Leia added, "but doesn't know much about what's going on."
This was not outright. "And who is he, exactly?"
"He's Droma," came a familiar Ryn voice over the comm. "It's nice to speak to you again, Jaina."
Well, that was unexpected. Droma was someone her father had met not long after Chewbacca died, and had been around right up through Duro. She hadn't seen or heard from him since. "It's good to hear your voice," she said.
"Hey, I told you to wait in the hold," Han told him.
"What, you think I'm going to take your secrets and sell them to the Vong or something?" Droma asked. "Don't be so paranoid."
"This has got nothing to do with paranoia! It's to do with privacy."
Jaina heard Leia's sigh. It was a deserved sigh.
As soon as they were in orbit, Jaina left Selonia to board the Falcon, where she got to hear Droma's story. Leia didn't seem to exactly believe him, but Jaina didn't see anything wrong with it. He'd come to assist in an underground network of Ryn, a couple of which they'd met on this trip already, at Galantos and Bakura, which he was trying to join. However, he'd failed in being able to join up, and knew nothing about the particular Ryn they were supposed to be meeting.
Jaina frowned. "So you can't tell us any more about them?"
"I would if I could, believe me. You helped me out, getting me off Onadax like that," said Droma. "It was about to get real ugly down there."
"You don't know anything about that, I suppose," Leia said, a bit dryly. "It looked to us like someone was pulling up stumps and getting rid of the evidence."
"Evidence of what?"
"The network, I presume."
Droma shrugged. "Sorry, but it's no business of mine. I'm just here for the ride. If you could drop me off somewhere in the Juvex sector, though, I'd be extremely grateful. I can work my way back to the others from there."
"If we're going that way, sure," said Han.
"What do you mean, 'if?"
"Truth is, we don't really know where we're heading next," Han admitted. They were here to find out what the next stop was.
Droma stared. "What about Esfandia?" he asked. "You're going there, right? And Juvex is on the way?"
"Esfandia?" Han repeated, frowning.
"Esfandia is one of two small communications centers on the other side of the galaxy," Leia reported. "It services the Outer Rim. There used to be only one, Generis, but another was brought on-line at the beginning of the war."
"Why would we go there?" Jaina asked.
Droma was still staring at them. "You don't know what's happened?"
"No," Jaina said. "What has happened?"
"It's only something I overheard while I was being interviewed," he said uncomfortably. "A message came through while I was there. They mentioned something about the head Ryn not wanting to do anything about it, though, because he figured you guys would have already heard about it through official channels. You seriously don't know what I'm talking about?"
Jaina sighed, taking a step towards him. She liked Droma. But she would hit him. "No, we don't-and if you're so good at reading what people are going to say, then you'll know that I'm about to-"
"Jaina," said Leia, warning.
Droma, for his part, just seemed amused, looking to Han. "I see she's inherited the Solo temper."
"You can't even begin to imagine," Han said, and Jaina glared at him.
Droma sobered, getting to the point finally. "Generis has been destroyed by the Yuuzhan Vong, and Esfandia is under attack."
"When? "Jaina asked,
"Yesterday, I think."
"What has this got to do with us?" Han asked. "I know these sort of stations. If it's Outer Rim, it's probably automated, maybe staffed by a token crew to keep things maintained. If the Yuuzhan Vong have attacked it, it's already lost."
"Cal Omas beefed up the defenses there before we left. It might still be holding on," Leia told him, shaking her head.
"And what if it isn't?" Han asked. "Does it really matter if we lose contact with part of the Outer Rim?"
"It's not just any part of the Outer Rim," insisted Leia. "Generis and Esfandia are the only relay centers we have servicing the Unknown Regions. Every communications signal to and from the Chiss goes through there. Take them out and you effectively put the Unknown Regions out of contact."
Which would be where the other half of their group was.
"Guess this means we're going to Esfandia," Han decided.
*****
Jaina had just ended the call with Jag, still over on the Selonia, to discuss the situation and get Twin Suns prepped for what they were going to head into, and hit the controls to open the door to the little room she'd claimed as her own aboard the Falcon. When she did so, she found her mother standing there, about to knock. 'Good timing," Jaina noted.
Leia invited herself into the room after her, and whatever she'd come to talk about was pushed aside. "You look upset."
"Not upset," said Jaina, waving a hand vaguely as she took a seat on the bunk. "Just too much to do and I can't be in two places at once."
"I told you you could have stayed on the Selonia," Leia pointed out, sitting next to her.
"That's not what I mean."
She went quiet for a moment, and when Jaina didn't go on, she said, "Tell me?"
Jaina sighed. "I think I've already missed a week of classes," she explained. She hadn't. She didn't know that. "I can never seem to find time to call John with everything going on. I was planning to go back once we found the Ryn and could clear out our next stop, but..."
"Jaina, you're allowed to go," said Leia. "You're not being forced to stay here."
"But I should stay here," she said. "Since I've been here, the Yevetha were wiped out, the Bakurans were nearly enteched, and now somewhere new is under attack..."
"And what's happened to you since you've been here?"
The answer to that question was a long one. She'd lost one of her pilots, been in more than a few battles, aided an underground rebellion, been stunned and kidnapped, been an unwitting aide in an act of terrorism, ended up needing medical treatment for a chest injury, and then nearly been blown up.
Leia took the silence as the answer. "No one can say you're not working," she said.
"But then I leave," Jaina said flatly. "And-"
"And you still work far too much." Her mother slipped an arm around her, and said, "You do what you ned to do. Everyone understands. It's part of why you've got Jag's help with Twin Suns now. He even sees it." And oh, the thought of her parents getting along too well with Jag worried her sometimes. Because it meant Leia could say things like that. "If you need to go, go. We were fine for years before you could start bossing people around."
And then it was back to Fandom, where she'd get hit with more stuff... not that that was too different from here. It was just a different type of stuff to get hit by.
"I've told you before, I want you to stay there," Leia continued. "You've got to do what you've got to do, but just remember that we do know you'll be back here in a second if you think you can be of any help. But you're covered when you need to be elsewhere."
Jaina groaned slightly. "I'm going to regret it if I go, aren't I?"
"Honey, you're going to find a way to regret any decision you make somehow," Leia told her.
And now she was frowning. "You had to pick now to get honest with me?"
*****
Jaina had changed her mind no less than four times before deciding she'd go back to Fandom before they reached Esfandia, and even then the only reason she left was because Jag had finally started snapping when he got a new update on what she was going to do. At that point she realized that when she was pissing off her co-leader, she needed to at the very least step back to let him do his job.
She'd been back in her X-wing for half a day or so, leaving her galaxy behind again and feeling increasingly uneasy about it. It wasn't so much that she was being indecisive, but she ust had a very bad feeling and wasn't sure why, exactly. Which was when she stared bugging for updates. At first she was met with annoyance, and then silence, and then words like, "Maybe you should come back here."
The second she got that, she was changing her course vector back to Esfandia, cursing the fact that things had gotten that much worse, and hoping things didn't continue to do so before she got there.
[First bit taken from Force Heretic III: Reunion by Sean Williams and Shane Dix. You know, you take out the emocoma, all the fun slashiness goes away. :(]