Ralroost to Mon Calamari- Wednesday Fandom time
The battle at Selvaris had gone horribly wrong, and even more worse for Jaina than the number of people lost from Twin Suns and several other squadrons was the fact that there was still no word from her parents. The Falcon had taken some nasty hits in the fight, and been forced to make the jump to hyperspace in a mad dash to escape, and that was the last anyone knew. She wasn't even bothering to hide her worry on this, either. She'd gone out to look for them herself after the battle had ended. She checked every four hours to see if anyone had heard anything, and then would spend an hour at a time in the observation areas looking and searching herself. She quizzed newcomers to the ship on the situation and whether they had information, and every time she heard that there was nothing, the worry grew. There was really no point in hiding it. She was beginning to understand what it had to be like for her parents to watch her and her brothers head off into dangerous situations all the time, and she didn't like it one bit.
The latest newcomer she'd tried to shake down, a lieutenant, hadn't had the information she wanted, but he did share that Caluula was likely to fall to the Vong. And that had put things right into a horrible perspective. She had her own issues to worry about, sure, but on top of that, the war didn't stop. Luke, Mara and Jacen had dropped out of contact before she'd even arrived, another planet was about to be lost, and it just kept coming. She didn't know whether she was under too much pressure personally, or if she really was just finally burning out on all of this, but it was just getting to be too much to be able to suck it up and move on to the newest crisis.
She'd just let the lieutenant go off to deliver his message, leaning against a bulkhead in the corridor for a moment while she processed the latest news, when Jag found her. "Are you all right?" he asked, looking concerned. It wasn't a look a lot of people saw from him. "Did something happen?"
Jaina figured she must have looked worse than she thought for that reaction. "I'm fine," she said automatically, and shook her head at herself. She didn't know why she bothered lying like that anymore. No one ever believed 'fine'. "No, actually, I'm not fine. I'm scared to death."
Ordinarily the look of surprise on his face would actually cheer her up. Not today. "Of what?"
"Possibilities."
"No message from your parents," he assumed, reaching for her hand.
It was a friendly gesture and she knew it. He was trying to be comforting, and it wasn't something he did very often, or for many people. Jaina still dropped his hand just as quickly as he'd taken it. She knew that reaction wasn't fair to him, but there was a very large part of her that still felt raw and stinging from the last weekend in Fandom, and she wasn't up for that sort of gesture from someone she knew had feelings for her right now. She'd give him honesty, but that was all she could handle at the moment. "Nothing. And no word of Jacen."
"I'm certain that all of them are fine."
If she was being perfectly honest with herself, Jaina was getting tired of empty reassurances. She was hearing a lot of them lately, and on top of the fear and worry she was experiencing right now, it was just annoying her. "How are you certain? Or is that just something people say when they don't know what else to say?"
Jag blinked, apparently not having expected to be questioned on that. The poor guy, he couldn't have known what he'd walked into. "I... well, perhaps it's something of both. Do I know for a fact that Jacen and your parents are all right? No. Does my heart tell me that they're all right? It seems to."
She gave him a tightlipped smile. "No medicine like logic, is there?"
"I-"
"No, you're right. I'm driving myself mad. Thanks."
"What does the Force tell you?" Jag wondered, trying a different tack.
Jaina returned with a sigh. "Let's just say that the Force isn't painting as cheerful a picture as the one you just did."
"You could be mistaken," he said. Another one of those empty reassurances.
"You mean, the Force might be throwing me a curve?" She shook her head. "It doesn't work that way."
By the sound of his voice, she was beginning to piss him off. "How does it work? Is it so different from intuition? Is there a stronger link between you and your parents than between me and my parents, simply because of the Force?"
She wasn't meaning to make him mad, but this was so beyond what she wanted to deal with right now. "Jag, please. This isn't a good time to be arguing."
Apparently agreeing with her, he excused himself to report to Bel Iblis, leaving her feeling badly about this, too. Maybe later she'd find a way to explain why an automatic 'It's all okay' bothered her so much, because she knew the answer: she knew from experience that it was never, ever that simple.
Since it was almost time for her to take that hour to watch for Han and Leia, Jaina started off that way, but was derailed when Kyp found her. He didn't say anything at first, just draped an arm around her, and that she didn't mind. She even wrapped an arm around him to hug him back. He was allowed that. There was nothing going to happen with Kyp, and they both knew it. Well, now they did. Once upon a time he'd seemed a little slow on this. "If it's any consolation, kid, I'm worried, too."
Yeah, if he was calling her 'kid' like he was her dad, he had no ulterior motives. Despite her mood, she smiled and said, "I don't have to say a thing, do I?"
Kyp shook his head. "Everything tells me that Jacen is okay. But your parents are in trouble. They've been getting into too many tight situations lately, and now they're really in the thick of it."
So she hadn't been the only one to notice that. There was something to hearing someone actually vocalize her fears and be honest rather than just trying to make her feel better that was refreshing. "I was just talking with a courier who arrived from a station in the Tion Hegemony," she said in a rush. "I don't know why, but I think they're there." No, she knew why. Because if there was going to be trouble, Han and Leia were likely in the middle of it.
"If they are, then I guess I'm wrong about them squaring off against the Yuuzhan Vong," he said.
Jaina shook her head. "That's just it, Kyp. Caluula Orbital is under heavy siege. From what the courier said, I think the station might already have been overrun. If I knew for sure, I'd leave right now."
Kyp took her hand, and she didn't drop it immediately. "Let me know if you need a wingmate."
*****
When Jaina and Kyp returned to Mon Calamari some days later without word from Han and Leia, it was time to switch away from military business and on to Jedi business. Kenth Hamner had called a meeting to be held in Tresina Lobi's quarters on Mon Cal, and it was shocking to see how few Jedi there really were. Twelve of them, total. Their numbers had dwindled to half since the war started, the surviving Jedi were all split up, other missions and operations had been going on, and twelve was all they could assemble.
Sobering, that.
Seated between Cilghal and Kyp, Jaina listened as Kenth began the meeting, wondering vaguely who left him in charge in Luke's absence. "Some of you might not be aware that operative Baljos Arnjak didn't return from Wraith Squadron's infiltration mission to Coruscant," Kenth began. "Bhindi Drayson was supposed to have remained onworld, but it was Arnjak who stayed, and has been furnishing the Alliance with intelligence ever since. Arnjak's latest report states that Yu'shaa, the so-called Prophet of the heretics, was recently seen on Coruscant. By recent, I mean within the past local week, since it took that long for a string of couriers to move the information from the Core to Mon Calamari."
From across the table, Kyle asked, "Has his identity been verified?" And while Jaina was entirely focused on the meeting, there was a teeny tiny satisfied part of her brain that was still smug she'd knocked any version of Kyle down.
Kenth nodded in response. "Which means that he either didn't go to Zonama Sekot with Corran and Tahiri-"
"Or that he returned without them," Kyp finished. "Is there some way we can establish whether he arrived back on Coruscant in the same vessel everyone left on?"
"No. And unlike most of the HoloNet transceivers, Esfandia is still functioning- if inconsistently. So, assuming nothing has befallen the Jade Shadow, Luke and Mara should have been able to contact us."
"We've waited long enough," Octa Ramis said. "It's time we sent a ship."
A long silence fell over the table, until Cilghal finally spoke. "I doubt that we'll find Zonama Sekot at the coordinates to which we've been transmitting messages. I suspect that the living world has moved."
"Based on what?" asked Alema.
"On what the Force tells me."
"Do any of you also feel that way?" Kenth asked, looking around the table.
"I do," Jaina spoke up. "Jacen feels farther away than he did when we received Luke and Mara's transmission. I don't feel him as distinctly." And yes, this worried her. At least feeling him at all meant he was still alive.
"That's good enough for me," Kenth decided. "I say we have a talk with the Prophet."
"I agree," Kyp said. "But getting onto Coruscant won't be easy- even with Peace Brigade and trade ships being allowed to land there."
"Could we appeal to Alliance command for help in inserting some of us?" Alema wondered.
"Not without explaining what we're after- or why we didn't inform command that we'd sanctioned Corran and Tahiri's mission to Zonama Sekot," Kenth replied. "If Intelligence learns that we passed on a chance to capture a shaper, a
priest, and the Prophet, of all people..."
"We could go to Wedge," Markre Medjev suggested.
Kenth nodded. "We could, and I'm sure he'd do everything in his power to get us onto Coruscant. But I don't want to put him in the position of having to lie to Sovv and Kre'fey."
"I agree," Cilghal said.
"Likewise," Tresina chimed in.
"This is beginning to sound like Myrkr all over again," Kyp sighed.
To her surprise, Jaina managed to hear that without so much as shifting uncomfortably in her seat. She was honestly surprised she didn't hear more missions compared to Myrkr, and that it'd taken this long for that to start. Coruscant wasn't really Coruscant anymore. While the Myrkr mission had been going horribly wrong, the capitol planet had fallen to the Vong, who'd Vongformed it and changed the name and made it their capitol. It seemed like a big risk to find one person.
"If Anakin hadn't taken on that mission," Zekk reminded him, "all of us might be voxyn fodder by now."
"Zekk's right," Octa Ramis added. "If it sounds like Myrkr, it's because we have no choice but to go."
When he straightened, it was clear that Kenth had made up his mind on this. "We'll give Master Skywalker a week. If we don't hear from him by then, I'll assemble a strike team."
[NFB, NFI, OOC okay. Dialogue taken from The Unifying Force by James Luceno, who other than this book seems to have realized he just doesn't know how to write Jaina. So... sorry in advance, readers!]
The latest newcomer she'd tried to shake down, a lieutenant, hadn't had the information she wanted, but he did share that Caluula was likely to fall to the Vong. And that had put things right into a horrible perspective. She had her own issues to worry about, sure, but on top of that, the war didn't stop. Luke, Mara and Jacen had dropped out of contact before she'd even arrived, another planet was about to be lost, and it just kept coming. She didn't know whether she was under too much pressure personally, or if she really was just finally burning out on all of this, but it was just getting to be too much to be able to suck it up and move on to the newest crisis.
She'd just let the lieutenant go off to deliver his message, leaning against a bulkhead in the corridor for a moment while she processed the latest news, when Jag found her. "Are you all right?" he asked, looking concerned. It wasn't a look a lot of people saw from him. "Did something happen?"
Jaina figured she must have looked worse than she thought for that reaction. "I'm fine," she said automatically, and shook her head at herself. She didn't know why she bothered lying like that anymore. No one ever believed 'fine'. "No, actually, I'm not fine. I'm scared to death."
Ordinarily the look of surprise on his face would actually cheer her up. Not today. "Of what?"
"Possibilities."
"No message from your parents," he assumed, reaching for her hand.
It was a friendly gesture and she knew it. He was trying to be comforting, and it wasn't something he did very often, or for many people. Jaina still dropped his hand just as quickly as he'd taken it. She knew that reaction wasn't fair to him, but there was a very large part of her that still felt raw and stinging from the last weekend in Fandom, and she wasn't up for that sort of gesture from someone she knew had feelings for her right now. She'd give him honesty, but that was all she could handle at the moment. "Nothing. And no word of Jacen."
"I'm certain that all of them are fine."
If she was being perfectly honest with herself, Jaina was getting tired of empty reassurances. She was hearing a lot of them lately, and on top of the fear and worry she was experiencing right now, it was just annoying her. "How are you certain? Or is that just something people say when they don't know what else to say?"
Jag blinked, apparently not having expected to be questioned on that. The poor guy, he couldn't have known what he'd walked into. "I... well, perhaps it's something of both. Do I know for a fact that Jacen and your parents are all right? No. Does my heart tell me that they're all right? It seems to."
She gave him a tightlipped smile. "No medicine like logic, is there?"
"I-"
"No, you're right. I'm driving myself mad. Thanks."
"What does the Force tell you?" Jag wondered, trying a different tack.
Jaina returned with a sigh. "Let's just say that the Force isn't painting as cheerful a picture as the one you just did."
"You could be mistaken," he said. Another one of those empty reassurances.
"You mean, the Force might be throwing me a curve?" She shook her head. "It doesn't work that way."
By the sound of his voice, she was beginning to piss him off. "How does it work? Is it so different from intuition? Is there a stronger link between you and your parents than between me and my parents, simply because of the Force?"
She wasn't meaning to make him mad, but this was so beyond what she wanted to deal with right now. "Jag, please. This isn't a good time to be arguing."
Apparently agreeing with her, he excused himself to report to Bel Iblis, leaving her feeling badly about this, too. Maybe later she'd find a way to explain why an automatic 'It's all okay' bothered her so much, because she knew the answer: she knew from experience that it was never, ever that simple.
Since it was almost time for her to take that hour to watch for Han and Leia, Jaina started off that way, but was derailed when Kyp found her. He didn't say anything at first, just draped an arm around her, and that she didn't mind. She even wrapped an arm around him to hug him back. He was allowed that. There was nothing going to happen with Kyp, and they both knew it. Well, now they did. Once upon a time he'd seemed a little slow on this. "If it's any consolation, kid, I'm worried, too."
Yeah, if he was calling her 'kid' like he was her dad, he had no ulterior motives. Despite her mood, she smiled and said, "I don't have to say a thing, do I?"
Kyp shook his head. "Everything tells me that Jacen is okay. But your parents are in trouble. They've been getting into too many tight situations lately, and now they're really in the thick of it."
So she hadn't been the only one to notice that. There was something to hearing someone actually vocalize her fears and be honest rather than just trying to make her feel better that was refreshing. "I was just talking with a courier who arrived from a station in the Tion Hegemony," she said in a rush. "I don't know why, but I think they're there." No, she knew why. Because if there was going to be trouble, Han and Leia were likely in the middle of it.
"If they are, then I guess I'm wrong about them squaring off against the Yuuzhan Vong," he said.
Jaina shook her head. "That's just it, Kyp. Caluula Orbital is under heavy siege. From what the courier said, I think the station might already have been overrun. If I knew for sure, I'd leave right now."
Kyp took her hand, and she didn't drop it immediately. "Let me know if you need a wingmate."
*****
When Jaina and Kyp returned to Mon Calamari some days later without word from Han and Leia, it was time to switch away from military business and on to Jedi business. Kenth Hamner had called a meeting to be held in Tresina Lobi's quarters on Mon Cal, and it was shocking to see how few Jedi there really were. Twelve of them, total. Their numbers had dwindled to half since the war started, the surviving Jedi were all split up, other missions and operations had been going on, and twelve was all they could assemble.
Sobering, that.
Seated between Cilghal and Kyp, Jaina listened as Kenth began the meeting, wondering vaguely who left him in charge in Luke's absence. "Some of you might not be aware that operative Baljos Arnjak didn't return from Wraith Squadron's infiltration mission to Coruscant," Kenth began. "Bhindi Drayson was supposed to have remained onworld, but it was Arnjak who stayed, and has been furnishing the Alliance with intelligence ever since. Arnjak's latest report states that Yu'shaa, the so-called Prophet of the heretics, was recently seen on Coruscant. By recent, I mean within the past local week, since it took that long for a string of couriers to move the information from the Core to Mon Calamari."
From across the table, Kyle asked, "Has his identity been verified?" And while Jaina was entirely focused on the meeting, there was a teeny tiny satisfied part of her brain that was still smug she'd knocked any version of Kyle down.
Kenth nodded in response. "Which means that he either didn't go to Zonama Sekot with Corran and Tahiri-"
"Or that he returned without them," Kyp finished. "Is there some way we can establish whether he arrived back on Coruscant in the same vessel everyone left on?"
"No. And unlike most of the HoloNet transceivers, Esfandia is still functioning- if inconsistently. So, assuming nothing has befallen the Jade Shadow, Luke and Mara should have been able to contact us."
"We've waited long enough," Octa Ramis said. "It's time we sent a ship."
A long silence fell over the table, until Cilghal finally spoke. "I doubt that we'll find Zonama Sekot at the coordinates to which we've been transmitting messages. I suspect that the living world has moved."
"Based on what?" asked Alema.
"On what the Force tells me."
"Do any of you also feel that way?" Kenth asked, looking around the table.
"I do," Jaina spoke up. "Jacen feels farther away than he did when we received Luke and Mara's transmission. I don't feel him as distinctly." And yes, this worried her. At least feeling him at all meant he was still alive.
"That's good enough for me," Kenth decided. "I say we have a talk with the Prophet."
"I agree," Kyp said. "But getting onto Coruscant won't be easy- even with Peace Brigade and trade ships being allowed to land there."
"Could we appeal to Alliance command for help in inserting some of us?" Alema wondered.
"Not without explaining what we're after- or why we didn't inform command that we'd sanctioned Corran and Tahiri's mission to Zonama Sekot," Kenth replied. "If Intelligence learns that we passed on a chance to capture a shaper, a
priest, and the Prophet, of all people..."
"We could go to Wedge," Markre Medjev suggested.
Kenth nodded. "We could, and I'm sure he'd do everything in his power to get us onto Coruscant. But I don't want to put him in the position of having to lie to Sovv and Kre'fey."
"I agree," Cilghal said.
"Likewise," Tresina chimed in.
"This is beginning to sound like Myrkr all over again," Kyp sighed.
To her surprise, Jaina managed to hear that without so much as shifting uncomfortably in her seat. She was honestly surprised she didn't hear more missions compared to Myrkr, and that it'd taken this long for that to start. Coruscant wasn't really Coruscant anymore. While the Myrkr mission had been going horribly wrong, the capitol planet had fallen to the Vong, who'd Vongformed it and changed the name and made it their capitol. It seemed like a big risk to find one person.
"If Anakin hadn't taken on that mission," Zekk reminded him, "all of us might be voxyn fodder by now."
"Zekk's right," Octa Ramis added. "If it sounds like Myrkr, it's because we have no choice but to go."
When he straightened, it was clear that Kenth had made up his mind on this. "We'll give Master Skywalker a week. If we don't hear from him by then, I'll assemble a strike team."
[NFB, NFI, OOC okay. Dialogue taken from The Unifying Force by James Luceno, who other than this book seems to have realized he just doesn't know how to write Jaina. So... sorry in advance, readers!]