Ralroost- Wednesday Fandom time
Kre'fey had called Jaina to his office specifically to tell her when the Falcon was on its way to Ralroost, and it was all she could do to not tear off to meet them. Instead, she was a good little colonel and accepted the orders she was given. By the time she reached the docking bay, a crowd had actually gathered, and there was applause when the landing ramp went down and Han and Leia stepped off of it, along with plenty of very important people who'd hitched a ride with them from Caluula. Jaina didn't even bother holding back the smile, thinking it was probably not the first time her parents had gotten that sort of greeting.
It was, however, the first time they'd gotten that greeting with their military officer daughter running to hug them as soon as she was able to get through all the people. In fact, she found that she just didn't want to let go of her dad. Like, at all. "We'd've been here sooner," he explained, "but we had to spend three days at sublight making repairs to the repairs."
"I knew you were at Caluula," Jaina said, arms still wrapped tightly around him. "I should have listened to the Force and gone there."
"I'm glad you didn't," Leia said. "Has there been any further word from the station?"
"A courier arrived from Caluula yesterday," Jaina replied, finally forcing herself to pull back. "The station and the planet fell to the Yuuzhan Vong. Hundreds were taken captive and sent to Coruscant."
"The sacrifice," Han inferred, letting Jaina lead them away from the crowd and toward the conference room she had to escort them to. "Is there news from Coruscant?"
"Good and bad," she said, "but you can hear for yourself. Admiral Kre'fey wants to bring you up to speed personally."
"Give us a hint," Leia said.
Jaina dropped her voice, knowing this sort of thing was not what you wanted to speak of loudly in the halls of a command ship. "The Yuuzhan Vong have amassed an armada. We're expecting them to strike us here."
"That explains all the ships," Han said, exhaling deeply.
"Let's just hope that wasn't the good news," Leia said.
Jaina caught them up to speed as much as she could. Luke, Mara and Jacen were still missing and out of touch, and while she couldn't tell them of the possibility of a Jedi strike team mission to Coruscant here, they'd find out about that soon enough. She gave them whatever details she was allowed, and when there was a moment of silence, Han decided to surprise her by asking, "Did you bring the kid with the hair this time?"
She'd been here almost a couple weeks by now. She still wasn't ready to be dealing with that yet. "He won't be coming back here," she said, a little more shortly than she'd intended.
"Did something happen?" Leia asked, looking at her like she'd caught onto something Jaina was trying really hard not to project.
It wasn't that she'd avoided telling them- Okay, she had. She'd completely avoided telling them, and figured she might as well just get it over with. "We broke up."
"Oh, sweetie," Leia said, right about the same time Han asked, "Should I kill him for you?"
"This might just be a temporary setback," Leia said, ignoring her husband, possibly because she didn't know the circumstances and didn't want to have to be anyone's alibi when it looked like Jaina might say yes.
"Trust me, it's not happening," Jaina said strongly, incredibly relieved to reach the conference room. "Oh, look, let's talk about war now."
They were first greeted by Bothan admiral Kre'fey, who was clearly happy to see them arrive safely. "We were all starting to wonder if you'd decided to take unannounced leave."
"Well, we have our own idea about what constitutes a vacation," Han said, and while it was meant as a joke, it could be argued that there was some truth to that.
There was time allowed for hellos, as Han and Leia knew most, if not all, of the people in the meeting. Somewhere along the line this sort of thing had stopped feeling strange to Jaina. She was in a room full of war heroes, some she'd looked up to her entire life. She was sitting among generals, commanders, legendary military leaders, Imperials... The only person even her age was Tenel Ka, and she was a queen. Jaina was by far the lowest-ranking officer in the room, and yet she had been invited on her own merit. A year ago she would have been here, sure, because a year ago she'd forced her way back into the military by assuming command of a squadron her uncle gave to her to engage in some psychological warfare, and they would have had to allow the Trickster Goddess if she wanted to be here. And a year before that, she'd been half-blind and on forced medical leave that lasted for months because anti-Jedi sentiment had all but gotten her kicked out of Rogue Squadron. Somehow this wasn't mystifying anymore. It was just the way things were.
"Just to catch you up," Kre'fey began once everyone had finally gotten settled, "the sacrifice ceremony took place as scheduled. But our agents report that before anyone had been put to the coufee, there was an uprising by several hundred heretics. The heretics managed not only to interfere with the ceremony, but also to abscond with more than three hundred Alliance prisoners."
"Just to spoil things for Shimrra?" Han asked.
"We're not sure, at this point. But we have learned that an untold number of Shamed Ones have been rounded up in return,and are apparently going to be put to death. No Alliance personnel were among those seized, so presumably our people are being well hidden."
"If they're even alive," Han pointed out. "The Shamed Ones could have staged a sacrifice of their own, in honor of whatever deity they worship. Sorry, but I think it's premature to consider these heretics as allies."
"We agree," Kre'fey said. "The possibility of a secret sacrifice or a hostage scenario cannot be ruled out. However, we have also learned the purpose of the original sacrifice was to ensure victory for the armada Shimrra plans to launch against Mon Calamari."
Supreme Commander Sovv went into some detail about the attack plan Intelligence had figured out, to which Han asked, "How many Yuuzhan Vong vessels are we talking about?"
"On the order of five thousand," Bel Iblis replied, his voice flat.
It wasn't often that Han looked that surprised. "Then we haven't a chance."
Jaina's lips formed a thin line. Her father had once run toward a group of stormtroopers armed with one weapon and made them run away. If he said they didn't have a chance, that was a little worrisome to her. It wasn't that they didn't know what they were up against. She knew her squadron was in for a beating, and that was putting it lightly. Jag had left Twin Suns in her sole command when she didn't return to Fandom right away, and gone back to his own Vanguard Squadron. Jaina had just barely gotten her roster back to full after Selvaris. She just didn't have the time to get them trained again, especially losing Lowie and Alema to their own squadrons, meaning they couldn't count on the meld.
"Not force against force," Sovv said. "But we have high confidence that the enemy has made a strategic blunder by opting to stage from remote worlds like Toong'l and Caluula."
"More important, we think we take advantage of the fact the Yuuzhan Vong are expecting us to turn tail and scatter," Bel Iblis added.
"Why wouldn't we be better off scattering our fleets?" Han asked slowly. "We've enough ships to open dozens of new fronts."
"And wage a war of rebel actions for the next ten years, while the enemy grows stronger?" Kre'fey said. "No. By scattering we would leave Mon Calamari open to assault, and we certainly don't want to see happen here what happened on Coruscant." Meaning the loss and total destruction of it. They'd already lost one capitol, thanks. "There is no more dangerous species than one that views killing as cleansing. This must be our decisive step."
"Without going into detail at this time," Sovv said, "let me just add that we plan to give all appearances of being caught unawares by the armada, and of engaging it head-on. This alone will give the enemy pause. In fact, half our forces will have already relocated to Contruum, which has agreed to serve as our staging area-thanks to the efforts of General Cracken. We're counting on Captain Page to prevail on the leaders of Corulag to do the same."
"Staging areas for what?" Han pressed. "The farther from Mon Calamari you place those fleets, the more trouble we'll have communicating with them. And if you're thinking of jumping them back to Mon Calamari by surprise, then maybe you need to be reminded of what happened to the Hapans at Fondor."
And that was Hapan queen Tenel Ka nodding slightly in agreement there. For some strange reason.
"Fondor was a special circumstance," Commodore Brand said. "In any case, it isn't our intention to jump the fleets back to Mon Calamari."
"What is your intention?" Leia wondered.
"By devoting only half our battle groups to the defense of Mon Calamari," Kre'fey said, "the remainder will be free to move against our primary target- Coruscant."
And thus began the plan to take back the capitol and end the war.
[You so know the drill by now. Most dialogue from The Unifying Force by James Luceno.
It was, however, the first time they'd gotten that greeting with their military officer daughter running to hug them as soon as she was able to get through all the people. In fact, she found that she just didn't want to let go of her dad. Like, at all. "We'd've been here sooner," he explained, "but we had to spend three days at sublight making repairs to the repairs."
"I knew you were at Caluula," Jaina said, arms still wrapped tightly around him. "I should have listened to the Force and gone there."
"I'm glad you didn't," Leia said. "Has there been any further word from the station?"
"A courier arrived from Caluula yesterday," Jaina replied, finally forcing herself to pull back. "The station and the planet fell to the Yuuzhan Vong. Hundreds were taken captive and sent to Coruscant."
"The sacrifice," Han inferred, letting Jaina lead them away from the crowd and toward the conference room she had to escort them to. "Is there news from Coruscant?"
"Good and bad," she said, "but you can hear for yourself. Admiral Kre'fey wants to bring you up to speed personally."
"Give us a hint," Leia said.
Jaina dropped her voice, knowing this sort of thing was not what you wanted to speak of loudly in the halls of a command ship. "The Yuuzhan Vong have amassed an armada. We're expecting them to strike us here."
"That explains all the ships," Han said, exhaling deeply.
"Let's just hope that wasn't the good news," Leia said.
Jaina caught them up to speed as much as she could. Luke, Mara and Jacen were still missing and out of touch, and while she couldn't tell them of the possibility of a Jedi strike team mission to Coruscant here, they'd find out about that soon enough. She gave them whatever details she was allowed, and when there was a moment of silence, Han decided to surprise her by asking, "Did you bring the kid with the hair this time?"
She'd been here almost a couple weeks by now. She still wasn't ready to be dealing with that yet. "He won't be coming back here," she said, a little more shortly than she'd intended.
"Did something happen?" Leia asked, looking at her like she'd caught onto something Jaina was trying really hard not to project.
It wasn't that she'd avoided telling them- Okay, she had. She'd completely avoided telling them, and figured she might as well just get it over with. "We broke up."
"Oh, sweetie," Leia said, right about the same time Han asked, "Should I kill him for you?"
"This might just be a temporary setback," Leia said, ignoring her husband, possibly because she didn't know the circumstances and didn't want to have to be anyone's alibi when it looked like Jaina might say yes.
"Trust me, it's not happening," Jaina said strongly, incredibly relieved to reach the conference room. "Oh, look, let's talk about war now."
They were first greeted by Bothan admiral Kre'fey, who was clearly happy to see them arrive safely. "We were all starting to wonder if you'd decided to take unannounced leave."
"Well, we have our own idea about what constitutes a vacation," Han said, and while it was meant as a joke, it could be argued that there was some truth to that.
There was time allowed for hellos, as Han and Leia knew most, if not all, of the people in the meeting. Somewhere along the line this sort of thing had stopped feeling strange to Jaina. She was in a room full of war heroes, some she'd looked up to her entire life. She was sitting among generals, commanders, legendary military leaders, Imperials... The only person even her age was Tenel Ka, and she was a queen. Jaina was by far the lowest-ranking officer in the room, and yet she had been invited on her own merit. A year ago she would have been here, sure, because a year ago she'd forced her way back into the military by assuming command of a squadron her uncle gave to her to engage in some psychological warfare, and they would have had to allow the Trickster Goddess if she wanted to be here. And a year before that, she'd been half-blind and on forced medical leave that lasted for months because anti-Jedi sentiment had all but gotten her kicked out of Rogue Squadron. Somehow this wasn't mystifying anymore. It was just the way things were.
"Just to catch you up," Kre'fey began once everyone had finally gotten settled, "the sacrifice ceremony took place as scheduled. But our agents report that before anyone had been put to the coufee, there was an uprising by several hundred heretics. The heretics managed not only to interfere with the ceremony, but also to abscond with more than three hundred Alliance prisoners."
"Just to spoil things for Shimrra?" Han asked.
"We're not sure, at this point. But we have learned that an untold number of Shamed Ones have been rounded up in return,and are apparently going to be put to death. No Alliance personnel were among those seized, so presumably our people are being well hidden."
"If they're even alive," Han pointed out. "The Shamed Ones could have staged a sacrifice of their own, in honor of whatever deity they worship. Sorry, but I think it's premature to consider these heretics as allies."
"We agree," Kre'fey said. "The possibility of a secret sacrifice or a hostage scenario cannot be ruled out. However, we have also learned the purpose of the original sacrifice was to ensure victory for the armada Shimrra plans to launch against Mon Calamari."
Supreme Commander Sovv went into some detail about the attack plan Intelligence had figured out, to which Han asked, "How many Yuuzhan Vong vessels are we talking about?"
"On the order of five thousand," Bel Iblis replied, his voice flat.
It wasn't often that Han looked that surprised. "Then we haven't a chance."
Jaina's lips formed a thin line. Her father had once run toward a group of stormtroopers armed with one weapon and made them run away. If he said they didn't have a chance, that was a little worrisome to her. It wasn't that they didn't know what they were up against. She knew her squadron was in for a beating, and that was putting it lightly. Jag had left Twin Suns in her sole command when she didn't return to Fandom right away, and gone back to his own Vanguard Squadron. Jaina had just barely gotten her roster back to full after Selvaris. She just didn't have the time to get them trained again, especially losing Lowie and Alema to their own squadrons, meaning they couldn't count on the meld.
"Not force against force," Sovv said. "But we have high confidence that the enemy has made a strategic blunder by opting to stage from remote worlds like Toong'l and Caluula."
"More important, we think we take advantage of the fact the Yuuzhan Vong are expecting us to turn tail and scatter," Bel Iblis added.
"Why wouldn't we be better off scattering our fleets?" Han asked slowly. "We've enough ships to open dozens of new fronts."
"And wage a war of rebel actions for the next ten years, while the enemy grows stronger?" Kre'fey said. "No. By scattering we would leave Mon Calamari open to assault, and we certainly don't want to see happen here what happened on Coruscant." Meaning the loss and total destruction of it. They'd already lost one capitol, thanks. "There is no more dangerous species than one that views killing as cleansing. This must be our decisive step."
"Without going into detail at this time," Sovv said, "let me just add that we plan to give all appearances of being caught unawares by the armada, and of engaging it head-on. This alone will give the enemy pause. In fact, half our forces will have already relocated to Contruum, which has agreed to serve as our staging area-thanks to the efforts of General Cracken. We're counting on Captain Page to prevail on the leaders of Corulag to do the same."
"Staging areas for what?" Han pressed. "The farther from Mon Calamari you place those fleets, the more trouble we'll have communicating with them. And if you're thinking of jumping them back to Mon Calamari by surprise, then maybe you need to be reminded of what happened to the Hapans at Fondor."
And that was Hapan queen Tenel Ka nodding slightly in agreement there. For some strange reason.
"Fondor was a special circumstance," Commodore Brand said. "In any case, it isn't our intention to jump the fleets back to Mon Calamari."
"What is your intention?" Leia wondered.
"By devoting only half our battle groups to the defense of Mon Calamari," Kre'fey said, "the remainder will be free to move against our primary target- Coruscant."
And thus began the plan to take back the capitol and end the war.
[You so know the drill by now. Most dialogue from The Unifying Force by James Luceno.