Summary: Jacen makes a startling discovery on a mission into the Unknown Regions. As he has demonstrated before, Jacen will do anything he must to protect the ones he loves. Where will this path lead him when he carries it too far.

Star Wars: New Jedi Order

A Hero's Demise

Five years have passed since the defeat of the Killiks and the restoration of peace in the galaxy. However, peace is something that does not reign in the life of Jacen Solo. Haunted by the possible discovery of his daughter by the Hapans or the Jedi, Jacen lives in constant fear, wandering the galaxy, and spending very little time with his daughter and her mother, Tenel Ka. But other darker troubles are looming.

The Jedi Order, under the leadership of the Jedi Council and High Master Skywalker, has replaced its wartime losses and is ushering in a new golden age for the Order. The academy on Ossus and the newly built enclave on Coruscant are filling rapidly as it becomes easier to discover those with Force potential due to advances in technology. Against the will of many Jedi, Kyp Durron chiefly, the Order has officially tied itself to the Galactic Alliance, and retaken their place as peacekeepers in the galaxy.

Meanwhile, the Galactic Alliance has been crumbling like the Republics before it. The assassination of Chief of State Cal Omas has led to a power vacuum at the top, which is unlikely to be filled capably by anyone. And a new threat is emerging from the unknown regions. Once again the Chiss are engaged in battle against an unseen foe, a foe more deadly than the Yuuzhan Vong. Jedi Knight Jacen Solo and his apprentice Des Arryn have been dispatched to investigate…

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"What do you think of this, Jacen?"

Jacen Solo looked up from his mediation to the young Jedi before him. Barely nineteen, she was remarkably advanced in her studies. Jacen himself had taken her on as his apprentice three years ago, partly to throw off those who believed in the romantic attachment he had with Tenel Ka, but also because of her great ability. Of all the padawans he had seen since the end of the Dark Nest crisis, the only one more talented was Ben. Despite her obvious talent, though, Jacen knew she was untested. She was too young to truly remember the Yuuzhan Vong and the terror they brought the way some of the apprentices did. However, she claimed to have felt the fear of the people as they swept across the galaxy, and to remember the terrible death on Ithor.

In fact, Jacen actually knew very little about his apprentice's history. Her story was rather unique. Fifteen years ago, a shuttle had crashed just outside the academy on Yavin IV. Uncle Luke had gone to investigate, and simply returned with the young child in his arms. Des had revealed nothing about her past, asserting that she couldn't remember anything before she arrived on the academy. Jacen didn't know what to make of this, whether she was simply lying, or Des actually couldn't remember anything about her early life. Either way, something terrible had happened to drive her to the academy at such a young age, and by herself. She would have to come to grips with whatever that was sooner or later. Jacen hoped it was the former.

"Well?" Des persisted, hands on her hips, "Whaddya think?"

Jacen snapped back to reality and actually looked at his student. "About what?" he shrugged.

"This," Des told him, doing a little twirl. She was wearing a leafy green dress that reached down to her knees. The dress paralleled the color of her eyes, and amplified her beauty even more, as such. The young woman was a head shorter than him, with lightly tanned skin and long, dark brown hair that reached towards the small of her back. Her lithe build belied the impressive combat skills that Jacen knew she possessed.

"The dress?" Jacen questioned, receiving an affirmative nod. The smiling Jedi gave her the OK sign. "Not bad."

"Really," she asked, regarding herself, "I think it's a little too loose."

"Maybe," Jacen suggested, "But is that really important. You should be preparing for our mission, not focusing on how to flatten your admirers."

"Please. Are you going to get all introspective on me, Master?"

Jacen shook his head softly. "No, but you've got to be prepared for anything." Des sighed and went off to change into her Jedi clothing. She still had much to learn, and her force abilities made her arrogant. Much like a trio of youths he knew of before the great war… But now was not the time to reflect. Jacen could feel the ship begin to revert to real space. They were exiting prematurely and he believed he knew the reason.

Jacen strode to the bridge of the small freighter, which he and Des had taken by themselves, and watched as the stars suddenly came into focus. He sat down in the pilot seat and stared at the large wedge-shaped ship in front of him.

"Interdictor," Jacen muttered as Des stumbled onto the bridge, her clothes in various states of disarray. She slid down into the seat next to him and took in their situation.

"Why would they be here?" she asked quickly, trying to arrange her robe and tunic.

"Judging by that mass of ships over there," Jacen noted, pointing out the transparisteel to the cluster of ships to their right, "I'd say they were laying an ambush for whatever it is they're dealing with out here. If they were simply mining the hyperspace routes, they wouldn't need an entire fleet."

The comm crackled to life. This ship had been specially made without video displays as to keep its inhabitants secret. "Unidentified freighter, you are trespassing in a military zone. Reverse your course immediately and return to where you came from. We will not warn you again."

"Touchy, aren't they?" Des stated, switching off the comm, "What's the verdict."

"They aren't bluffing," Jacen stated, "The Chiss don't bluff. They will fire if we don't listen to them. Even if I told them who I was, they wouldn't care, as the Chiss hate it when the Alliance meddles in their business, especially Jedi, but I couldn't do that without compromising our mission, so it doesn't really matter. Whatever we do, we've got to make it past them." Des nodded and then Jacen threw her a curveball. "What do you think we should do, apprentice?"

Des stared at her master. Jacen had put her in this type of position before, but never with their lives on the line. But a Jedi's life was tough decisions, and now was a perfect time to illustrate this point. It would be interesting to see what she chose to do.

"I say we blow through," she answered.

"What is your reasoning for this momentous plan?" Jacen asked, emphasizing the word 'momentous'.

"We can't turn around, because this is the only known way to the 'destination'," she mimed the quotes, as Jacen still hadn't told her where they were going, "And if we let them catch us, then we compromise the mission. So it really seems that all we can do is fight through the blockade. Besides, we're two Jedi in one of the Alliance's best ships. We should be able to break through no problem."

Jacen sighed. Fighting was always the easiest decision. It's harder to find other, alternate ways around problems, then to just attack the problem itself. That was the essence of life, of the Force. The decision was not what mattered; it was the path you took. While fighting was probably the only way out of this, the approach she took to her decision was wrong. The way Des had outlined it, by running the blockade, would lead to suspicion of the Alliance's activities with whatever enemy the Chiss fought. Questions would be asked, and answers would have to be given. This could seriously hurt relations with the Ascendancy.

"Shields up," Jacen stated softly, setting the plan in motion. Des's fingers slid to the power slides, amplifying the shields. The Chiss noticed the ship continue along its path, and deployed their clawcraft.

"Looks like you were right," Des noted, as she brought the weapons online, "They definitely aren't bluffing. That's a whole squadron behind us."

The comm came to life again, as the clawcraft hailed them. "Freighter, you are now under arrest by order of the Chiss Ascendancy. Reduce your speed immediately and dock with frigate Moon Ray. Comply in 10 seconds or we will fire."

Jacen slapped the comm off and turned to Des. "Increase speed. Go to the dorsal turret and give them something to think about. Fire erratically, make them think we're pirates and we're afraid." Des leapt to her feet and rushed down the hall to the turret controls.

The ship accelerated immediately. That was the good thing about these new Jedi freighters. Designed based upon the old, heavily armored YT-2000 freighters, they sported a single dorsal turret and the familiar disk shape, with the cockpit nestled inside the front brim of the disk. The ship did not have the familiar Corellian style barred cockpit, instead sporting a clean transparisteel view port that gave the pilot a one hundred and eighty degree view of the battlefield. They also came with incredible sub-light engines, making them as maneuverable as you could get without using chewstim and paper clips to build them.

Jacen spun the freighter in a nosedive, and the clawcraft quickly followed. The ship shook as their shots hammered the rear shields. Then the rear cannon thundered to life as Des decided to fight back.

"Nice," Jacen noted as one of the blips disappeared from the display. It wasn't nice, however, that two more groups of twelve appeared behind them. "This could get ugly." There was only one thing he could do. This crate wouldn't be able to take the additional fire of two more squads, no matter how new and advanced it was. Jacen flipped the ship and dove towards the Chiss fleet.

"What's going on, boss?" Des yelled from the turret, "We givin' up, gonna lay down."

"Shut up and shoot!" Jacen called back. The fleet grew larger in window as Jacen increased the speed of the craft. This would result in one of two things. Either the fleet would fire on them-well the fleet would fire on them no matter what. But either they would be hit by a couple turbolaser blasts and disintegrate, or they would lose the fighters by flying into the crossfire at breakneck speed, something only an idiot would do.

The first blasts flew from the fleet. "What in the hell are you doing, Jacen?"

"Des, get up here, now!" In seconds, she was jumping down on the chair next to him.

"Are you crazy!" she yelled, "That is a fleet right there. Why are we flying at it?"

"You know any other way to lose 30 something fighters? We can't shoot 'em all, so I offered an ultimatum. Don't shoot at us and let us run straight through your fleet, or shoot at us and possibly kill your own men. They chose the latter, which I was kinda banking on. We just have to poor all the energy from the cannons into our engines and hope we don't get hit too much."

"That's really reassuring," Des noted as the ship shook from another hit on the shields. Jacen began to sink into a trance. "I've got news for you, Master. Our shields are down to 40, the fighters are still chasing us, and you're flying with your eyes closed. So, since everything is going so well, could I please go back and sh-"

"Silence! Fly, now!" Jacen roared, his eyes never opening. Des switched the controls over to the co-pilot console and Jacen concentrated. He needed to focus everything on this. He'd heard of his uncle doing it a few times, but never had he tried it himself. There was also a small tidbit about the toll it took on Luke, but Jacen couldn't think of that now. Slowly, Jacen traced the image of the ship in his mind, seeing it, every nook, cranny, contour, and burn mark; every single sheet of durasteel, transparisteel… everything. He nudged it up a degree, and masked the real ship in darkness.

"They stopped shooting at us!" Des cried in astonishment. But Jacen didn't hear. He maintained the illusion, pushing it further up and up until it was almost on a forty-five degree angle from their previous course. He put more and more into it as laser blasts struck home, creating explosions all along the hull. But the image held on. It needed to. Just long enough for them to clear the fleet. The ship struggled and then began to spin out of control. They were so close, almost there, just one more…

Then it exploded, and Jacen pushed as hard as he could. A bright explosion flared behind them and activated the ships glare guard. It was gone. And now they needed to be.

"Punch it," Jacen barely whispered, before falling asleep from exhaustion.