"How many stormtroopers does it take to change a glowpanel?"
Jaina cringed inwardly. Her brother certainly was brave – or perhaps foolhardy. Nonetheless, she took the bait. "I don't know, how many stormtroopers does it take to change a glowpanel?"
One of the guards stepped ahead of Jaina and stopped at the door to a lecture room in which she could see dozens of people seated. She guessed that they were probably the other Shadow Academy trainees. The guard with the blaster pistol gestured for them to enter.
"It takes two stormtroopers to change a glowpanel," Jacen said in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear. "One stormtrooper to change it, and the other to shoot him and take all the credit for all the work."
Jaina felt the emotion flood her entire body as she ran through the forests of Yavin 4, the rain pounding down mercilessly. She should have been heading back to her X-Wing, but instead she was running further and further away from shelter, and further into the forest. She needed to escape from everything.
All the memories were flooding through her mind, sending wave after wave of pain through her heart. The Shadow Academy, where Jacen and her had been captured by Imperials and in all his stupid bravery, Jacen had joked about the stormtroopers in front of them.
She would give anything to hear his awful jokes again, anything to see his stupid, cocky grin.
Her legs burned from exertion and her eyes started to moisten as she remembered everything that had followed; the Yuuzhan Vong war when she had lost not only her younger brother, Anakin, but also her twin, Jacen. She remembered the pure joy at seeing Jacen appear before her eyes after escaping his captors, alive and with his stupid grin; as if his capture and near death had done nothing to him.
Tears spilled down Jaina's cheeks and her side started to ache where the lightsaber had caught her not two days before on the Star Destroyer known as the Anakin Solo. The bacta had healed her for the most part, but the wound was still raw, but even bacta couldn't heal what she felt in her heart, the utter despair that had been storing within her, that she had kept hidden from everyone. She had been stupid enough to believe that despite his time with the Vong, Jacen had come out mostly unscathed, and she had done nothing to help him, done nothing to stop him from slipping into darkness and becoming Sith.
After she had been found two days before, she had been swiftly taken to be healed. And then she had been forced to tell the leaders of the Galactic Alliance what had happened on board the Anakin Solo, about how she had plunged her lightsaber into her own twin brother's chest. She had barely been able to hold herself together.
She couldn't face any of them, not Luke or Jag, nor even her parents.
Jaina nearly fell as she ran through the forest at breakneck speed, slipping on the mud. Part of her wished she had fallen and broken her neck.
She remembered Jacen swinging a piece of pipe around when they were children, pretending it was a lightsaber. Jaina couldn't hold back the tears any longer and they flooded down her cheeks. Her breathing was growing ragged, but she pushed on, her hair plastered to her face by the rain, making it nearly impossible to see.
Another memory flashed into her mind. When they were four, Jacen had broken one of his toys and had come to her in tears, knowing that his sister would be able to fix it.
Jaina's body trembled and she felt a sob shake her body. She lost sight as a fresh wave of tears flooded her vision, and then she was falling.
She crashed to the ground, mud and water splashing all over her. Pain burned in her side as she tried to rise, half blind from her tears, her uniform soaked through. She shook as she pushed up with her arms, and finally she started to weep, sobs racking her body as the emotion finally erupted from the walls she had built.
Jaina's side trembled in agony from the lightsaber wound Jacen had given her, her breathing grew ragged, tears rolling down her cheeks and splashing to the muddy ground. She was soaked through to the skin, her black military uniform covered in mud. Jaina barely noticed the searing pain in her side, nor the blood running down her cheek where a stray branch had caught her. Jaina slowly pushed herself to her feet, her face wet with tears, and glanced down at her belt, her gaze stopping when it reached the lightsaber. She reached down unclipped her weapon, before looking at it with disgust. Jaina felt herself start to shake, the emotion she had been keeping back for two days finally about to erupt. Looking at the lightsaber hilt was like being stabbed in the chest with a knife. She could almost feel the blood of her twin was on her hands, the weapon she had used to kill him held before her. Sobs wracked her body and anger flooded her entire being, anger at herself. She had murdered her best friend, a person she had spent her entire life fighting beside. A brother who had understood her better than anyone in the galaxy. Everything about him was clear in her eyes, his brown hair and brown eyes, his stupid smile. She remembered every one of his jokes, every moment laughing with him, his stupid bravery and warm laugh.
Every memory was like a stab to the heart.
With a scream she hurled her lightsaber into the mud before her, feeling as if someone had just driven a vibroblade into her gut.
Some Sword of the Jedi she was. She had killed her own brother.
She couldn't hold back the pent up emotion anymore, tears flooded down her cheeks and anger rose inside her. Why hadn't she been able to save Jacen? Why hadn't he killed her in his final moments? She knew that in the instant she had swung her blade one final time, he could have taken her with him.
But he hadn't. He had let her live.
Jaina strode over to a tree and balled her hands into fists.
Why the hell hadn't he killed her? Why had he left her like this?
With a scream she lashed out, slamming her right fist into the tree.
She barely felt the pain in her hand as she remembered fixing a broken TIE fighter with Jacen. More sobs shook her boy as she wept.
Thud.
Her left fist connected with the tree. What gave her the right to live?
Thud.
She felt disgust at herself. She deserved to be dead.
Thud.
Jaina didn't feel her left hand break, nor the blood that now covered her hands.
Thud.
She felt whatever was left of her heart crumble and a searing pain erupted inside her. With a cry of despair and lashed out at the tree with her full strength. The Force washed over her as she struck, and the tree trunk exploded with a crack, the fragments flying through the air all about her.
Jaina collapsed to her knees with a pain filled scream, her body trembling with emotion as she held her broken hand before her. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she shook, hardly able to breathe.
She had failed the Jedi and her parents. She was not fit to call herself Han and Leia's daughter.
She knelt in the mud for an eternity, trembling, barely able to do anything without seeing Jacen clear as day before her.
A feeling of emptiness came over her as she looked her ruined fingers, watching as the blood dripped from her hands onto the mud beneath her, mixing with the rain water. Her hair was plastered to her face and shoulders as the rain continued to pour down, its icy chill freezing her to the bone. Jaina's eyes ran up her arm where she could almost feel the burns that had covered it when Jacen had thrown her toward the incinerator two days before. She could still feel where his crimson blade had pierced her side.
He had stopped fighting her and tried to reason, he had told her that Tenel Ka and Allana were in danger and that he needed to save them. But she did not listen, instead she had charged back at Jacen, forcing him to fight her. She had seen the look in his eyes when he had chosen not to take her with him.
In the end he had chosen to spare her.
Jaina took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She could see Jacen clearly, his untidy brown hair blowing gently in a breeze, his brown eyes flashing and a grin upon his face, as if he were about to tell her another of his stupid jokes.
"Hey, Jaina – you know why TIE fighters scream in space?"
She felt the corners of her lips lift slightly as she remembered the moment. Because they miss their mothership, he'd told her.
And then she smiled, for the first time in months, Jaina smiled.
She opened her eyes and wiped away her tears with her non-broken hand. Jaina took a deep breath, before standing.
She walked over to her lightsaber hilt, picked it up from the mud and held it before her with both her hands.
A new feeling of hope came to life within her as she turned the hilt in her hands.
Maybe Jacen had been right after all.
The civil war was over and the Alliance had made peace with the last of the Imperial Remnant.
Perhaps Jacen had succeeded in his quest, to bring peace to the galaxy, even if it meant sacrificing his own life.
Jaina felt the spark of hope grow.
She would continue the fight. For Jacen and his daughter, for her family and friends. She was not the only one to have lost something during the war, and she was damned if she was going to let it destroy them. So many had fallen because of the Yuuzhan Vong and the civil war that followed; Mara, Anakin, Jacen, Zekk, and countless others. Mandalore had been hit with the nanokiller, meaning that neither Fett nor Mirta could ever return home. Jaina took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
So many had suffered, and it was time for that to end. In the name of her brother she would continue to help others and serve the Jedi.
She held her lightsaber before her with her right hand and gripped the hilt tightly. She had a new purpose, a new reason to live.
A question sprung into her mind, a question that she had to find the answer for, what had made Jacen turn?
She looked deep within herself, and in that moment, Jaina knew exactly what she would do. She would
follow the path that her brother had taken during the Vong war, and discover what had turned him from the Jedi.
With her eyes tightly shut, Jaina ran her thumb over the activation switch and her purple blade hummed as it flickered to life.
She felt the heat of the lightsaber on her face, even as she felt the bright spark of hope burned brightly within her.
One thought burned like a flaming brand in her mind, and she made a promise to herself. My name is Jaina Solo, sister to Jacen and Anakin, daughter to Han and Leia. I have been tortured, deceived and betrayed by those I called friend. I've fought the Imperials, Sith and the Yuuzhan Vong, and I will not be beaten. I am the Sword of the Jedi, and I vow to bring hope to those who have lost it, to save those who need to be saved, and to protect those who are unable to protect themselves.
In the name of Jacen Solo, I will never give up the fight.