The Diary of Jaina Solo
Tuesday morning, 0536
I was
sitting on the roof of the Jedi Academy, watching the sun rise, and waiting for
Tenel Ka to get back from her morning run. The day before, we'd been graduated
from the Academy, and I wanted to ask her what she was going to do with her
life. She may be unemotional, but Tenel Ka is the best friend I'll ever have.
My father
calls it 'puppy love' behind our backs, but I think she really loves my
brother. The only time she's ever cried was over him. And I don't have a clue
as to what happened on the cold side of Ryloth two years ago, neither of them
will tell, but whatever it was, it changed their relationship forever.
Then, after
we defeated the Diversity Alliance (With some major help from the New Republic)
she kissed him. And though she says she did it to surprise him, I think it
meant more to both of them than we ever realized. Poor Lowie. Right after Raaba
left, too.
I'm so
confused, but really happy too. I'm free, to live my life my own way. Well, I'm
only sixteen, so there are still some limitations, but for the most part, my
life is my own, and it's thrilling. But scary, too. I have to live with what I
make of it. I only get one chance at this.
Zekk said
to meet him at the landing field this afternoon. I don't know what it's all
about, but I can't wait to find out. My seventeenth birthday's in three days,
maybe he's having something delivered.
Zekk is one
of the best friends I've ever had, and the only boyfriend so far. I wonder what
will happen to us. He's dark-haired and green-eyed and mysterious and wild and
sexy, and my parents abhor him. That's really prejudiced of them, but I can't
seem to change their minds. So far, they haven't said much. Thank god for small
favors. If they can't accept him, they can at least keep quiet about it.
Tenel Ka
rounded the bend just now, her red hair flying in the wind. Her lizard-skin
armor is formfitting and supple, and every move of her body is visible. I hear
a loud wolf whistle, and realize my brother beat me to the path. Silently, I
leave.
Tuesday afternoon, 0447
When I went
to the landing field, a ship was there. It was sleek and beautiful, a Hapan
racer, but I forced myself not to rush up to it, and start examining it.
Instead, I waited patiently by Zekk's side, while it touched down, and then the
ramp lowered.
Three Hapan
women stepped from the ship, all dressed in red bantha-hide catsuits, with
rancor-hide boots like Tenel Ka's on their feet. They jumped from the ramp, and
walked off.
My
impatience reaching the boiling point, I still attempted to be polite. "So?"
Zekk
grinned. His hair was loose, the way he leaves it when he wants to drive me
crazy. He knows it makes me want to run my hands through it, feel it, soft and
silky, and he leaves it that way either when he wants me to play with it, or
when he wants to tease me.
He tossed
his head, and his hair flew around his shoulders. Mom always says he needs a
haircut, but I think it's wonderful, cute and sexy, the way it is. Every time
he talks about getting it cut off, I tell him, "Don't you dare!" Then he grins,
and tells me he just likes to see me fired up about something.
Zekk grabs
my hand, and we walk up the ramp. He stops there, and I look around. "So." He
says. "How do you like it?"
I still
don't get it. "It's wonderful. It's beautiful and trim and it looks like the
latest design." I respond. Why is he teasing me like this?
We walk
back outside. Zekk leads me around the ship, to where the nameplate and
registry rests. There, on the placard, are the words, The Century Falcon.
All right, so what's the big deal? It's called the Century Falcon. I
look at Zekk with a question in my eyes.
"Look
closer," He says. I look at the registry, and suddenly, it hits me. "JD79543,"
I rattle off. "Jaina Solo." My voice is a whisper. "This…amazing…ship is mine?"
I ask softly.
Zekk
smiles. "Yep. From me and Tenel Ka."
The glee in
my mind suddenly registers in my body, and I throw my arms around Zekk and kiss
him. Unfortunately, I neglected to notice that my parents were de-boarding
their Falcon at the same time, and I got some rather heated glares.
Luckily, Lowie and Jacen and Tenel Ka and the crowd showed up then, and got me
and Zekk out a potentially sticky situation.
Tuesday night, 1105
Well, my
parents did stay civil, and my dad was really happy about the ship. But though
Zekk may have scored a few points with my dad, he lost a few with my mom. She
thinks that kids shouldn't have ships, even though Tenel Ka and Lowie and
Raynar have had theirs forever.
Mom and Dad
both managed to congratulate me, and thank Zekk, but then Mom left, with Anakin
in tow. She thinks Zekk's a bad influence on my fifteen-year old brother.
Anakin is like this little goody-two-shoes, though. He's never done a thing
wrong and he never will, as far as my parents are concerned.
Tenel Ka
and Jacen excused themselves about 1030, both with the excuse that they needed
to sleep, but they left about 5 minutes apart, and when I checked on them later
with the Force, they were distant and faint again.
Every once
in a while, a bunch of camping supplies and Jacen and Tenel Ka will disappear.
A few days later, they'll all show up again, usually in the middle of the
night, and pretend like nothing has happened. But they'll both be in wonderful
moods for a few days. I wonder what they do.
Zekk once
suggested that maybe they fill their time with rather naughty activities, and I
don't know, as far as guy gossip goes, he's the one with the in track. But I
don't think Tenel Ka would do that, she's been raised Hapan, and they're pretty
into marriage and all that stuff. For that matter, I don't know that Jacen
would, either. I mean, he's a guy, so I don't really have any reference point.
But it seems to me Jacen's not that kind of a person.
Sometimes I
feel funny about keeping Zekk with me. He's an adult, and by keeping him with
me, I know I'm holding him back. I mean, I'm still a kid. I still come to my
parents' every call, and if I left without their permission, it would legally
be a crime. He says he wants to stay, that if he didn't want to, he wouldn't,
but sometimes I still wonder what Zekk would be doing with his life, if I
weren't a part of it.
Friday morning, 0456
Jacen and
Tenel Ka are back. They snuck in about 0100 this morning, and as far as I know,
I'm the only one who knows. They came in though the window to Jacen's bedroom,
so that's why I heard them. How they could be that happy at one in the morning
beats me.
Mom and Dad
have been going crazy. Honestly Jacen and Tenel Ka could have picked a better
time to leave. It's been a fulltime job reassuring my parents that they do this
a lot, and that uncle Luke isn't being negligent, and that aunt Mara is
doing her job as student officer. I'm
going to make my twin pay.
See, the
two of them have never left while Mom and Dad were here, so it was rather a
rude shock for my parents. Especially since after the first couple of times, the
rest of us just go 'They're gone again.' Sigh. So it was quite a surprise to
Mom and Dad when they went looking for Jacen, and he wasn't there, and on top
of that, no one else was concerned.
Of course,
they're not the only ones sneaking around. I'm up at this ungodly hour because
Zekk says we can take my ship for a test flight before anyone wakes up. I think
Mom's on the verge of confiscating it, and I want to at least fly it before she
takes it away.
Friday evening, 0627
When Mom
and Dad found him, the typical big fuss was made over Jacen, and then
everything settled down again. Our party was this afternoon, the all-ages
admitted one, and I'm just getting ready to go to the real party now. We're
having it out at the Mycanco Temple, with about 30 other trainees, and we've
been caching the drinks and the stereos and the music out there for weeks, now.
Jacen and I
got four bottles of Correlian brandy from our dad, and four bottles of various
other liquors from our uncle Luke's stash. Neither of them noticed anything.
Aren't adults dense sometimes?
Sunday morning, 0714
Well, we
came back from the Mycanco Temple about two in the morning yesterday, and man,
were we smashed. Jace and me and Tenel Ka and Zekk and Lowie and Raynar and
Lusa all fell into mine and Jacen's rooms, (They're adjoining), and we were all
asleep in seconds. Poor Lowie. The floor couldn't have been too comfortable.
Em-Teedee
found out about our rather wild escapade, and threatened to tell uncle Luke. He
forced me to retaliate with the threat of reprogramming him. And he knows I'd
do it, too. So, for now, he's going to keep quiet.
Boy, did we
have trouble explaining things yesterday! We managed to get away with 'we went
to a party. We stayed out late. We were tired. We came back and crashed.'
Luckily, uncle Luke didn't ask us about the missing liquor until after my
parents left. Thank the Force. And uncle Luke's judgment.
* * *
I looked
down at the battered diary in my hands, and thought about the child I had once
been. It had only been eight years. I'm only 24. The thought is genuinely
weird. I don't seem young to me. Anyway, those were some packed full eight
years, though. It feels like so long.
The diary
didn't end there, not by a long shot. There were entries, as I grew older. I
only did sleep with Zekk once, the night before he was killed battling the
Yuuzhan Vong, and as I re-read that entry, I can feel my eyes tear up. I
remember that night all too well. A little better than I would like, if I had a
choice.
* * *
In the
middle of the night, all was quiet, and though a war was going on not a
light-year away, it was easy to forget about it, curled up with my head on
Zekk's chest, his breath gently moving my hair. I had his hair wrapped around
my fingers, and I could feel his hand on my hair, stroking it gently.
We were in a tent, on a cot. But it didn't matter. I was
happy even though the bed felt like wood. Since the Yuuzhan Vong had attacked
Coruscant, almost everyone was a refugee. The New Republic had kept Coruscant,
but it wasn't worth much to anyone now, a barren planet with a near-permanent
dust cloud from the orbital bombardment.
Then came
the call. "We are under attack! Repeat, we are under attack! Rogue Squadron to
hanger bay three. Jedi, to pre-assigned positions. Rock Squadron to hanger bay
five. Doctor Bali to the medical center…"
I was out
of bed in a flash, Zekk by my side. Jedi robes are clumsy things, so, since the
war began, uncle Luke started issuing catsuits instead. Formfitting and
stretchable, they're made for war, to never hinder a move, no matter what.
Grabbing our lightsabers, we left.
The battle
was brief, but many warriors were down on both sides. When it was all over, we
were held at alert for three more hours. Once the Jedi were finally released, I
ran, and I mean ran, to the medical ward.
Jacen was
there, holding his arm. He'd be all right. I barely spared him a glance. Anakin
had been on the front lines, but his presence in the Force was strong, he was
uninjured. It was Zekk I was looking for.
I ran up to
a nearby doctor. "Excuse me, but I really need to see a friend of mine. He's a
Jedi, his name's Zekk."
The
doctor's face went cloudy. "I'm sorry, no entrance to that room."
I was about
to explode. "Please! I've got to see him!"
Uncle Luke
walked up then, Jacen at his side. "Listen." He was using that no-nonsense tone
that he only used when he was really upset. "This young lady is Jedi. And she
needs to see that man."
The doctor
tried to argue, and uncle Luke got fed up and did the mind-thing on her. Then
he waved me through. I tried to thank him, but my tongue was in my stomach, and
my intestines were tied up in knots, and I couldn't speak, so I just nodded.
I entered
the room quietly, and gasped at what I saw. Zekk was pale and quiet, and that
hair that I loved so much was loose and wild. He had a blanket over him, and it
looked as though pain medication was being pumped into him through an IV.
Incredibly ancient technology, but it would do, for that purpose.
I picked up
the datapad beside the bed, and looked at it. Zekk, Jedi Knight, it read.
Human, male, native to Ennth…I knew all those things. Then I looked at the note
under prognosis. Five to seven hours. And it was dated today, five hours ago.
At first it didn't register, then,
when it did, I threw the datapad across the room. "No!"
Zekk's eyes
opened. "Jaina?"
I
immediately dropped into the chair beside the bed. "I'm here."
It seemed
to strain him to talk, but he did anyway. "You…alright?"
I smiled a
little. "Just like you, Zekk. The first words out of your mouth, no matter what
the situation, are about me." I shook my head a little. "You should really try
to break that habit."
The corners
of Zekk's mouth turned up a little, and he locked his gaze on mine. "Jaina…"
"Yeah?"
"I'm dying.
I know."
I looked at
my lap. "No." I refused to accept it.
"Jaina,
there's nothing to do. I'll die knowing that my cause was right. You
know how much that means to me."
I buried my
fists in my eyes. "No! NO! Not you, Zekk!" What I didn't say was that this
bloody war had already killed Chewie, Anni, and Mara. This was just getting to
be too many people.
Zekk
stretched a hand from under the covers. "Promise me something, Jaina."
With
difficulty, I stopped my tears. "Alright."
"Don't give
up on life. It can give you a raw deal, but it pulls through. If you let it.
Look at me. I'm an orphan turned Jedi turned boyfriend of the most wonderful
woman in the galaxy." He paused, and coughed. Bloody phlegm ran from his nose
and mouth. I passed him a tissue.
"Jaina,
life will straighten itself out for you. Just let it, and it will be good to
you. Live, Jaina, please. Live for both of us."
Then Zekk's
head lolled, and his eyes, still locked with mine, went glassy. His body jerked
once, then lay still, that silky soft black hair fanned around his face. I
couldn't hold it anymore, and with a wail of mourning, I threw myself across
the bed, and pulled Zekk's still body to me.
* * *
Jacen came
to check on me later, but I wouldn't let go of Zekk. He left me alone for a
while, and then came back with Luke in the morning. I kicked Jacen, and I bit
Luke, I distinctly remember. I would not leave Zekk. But, eventually, I had to,
and for many months after that, all my memories are hazy.
The war was
devastating. We lost Chewie in the attack on Sernpidal, and Anni in the battle
for Ithor. Mara died of her illness, and we lost Zekk on Correlia. Seven months
later, we lost Anakin on Tattoine. Why we fought for that barren desert of a
planet, I have no idea.
Dad died of
a heart attack about a month after that, the doctors said too much stress.
Lowie was paralyzed in the battle for Kashyykk, but Raaba came back, so that
was bittersweet for him.
Mom and
Luke pulled together more often, and Jacen took a job as a bodyguard for Tenel
Ka. I…well, I wandered. With nothing to do and nothing to look forward to, but
still under my promise to Zekk, I wandered the galaxy.
The Century
Falcon was given back to me after I resigned from Rogue, and she became my
constant companion. I programmed a little droid-dog, artificial, but capable of
acting like a dog, and named him R2, after my uncle's beloved R2 droid. We'd
lost R2 in one of those battles along the way, too.
I met Alex
at one of the spaceports along my journey. He's a hotshot mechanic, the kind of
man I usually hate at first site. But, for some reason, for the first time
since Zekk died, he made me feel alive.
At first, I
refused to pay him any mind, but then I realized that Zekk wouldn't have told
me to live if he thought I was going to live like this. So, slowly, I let Alex
in. Originally this was just a stop to tune up the Falcon, and then I
was off, but when I found myself still there in six months, I decided I had to
reconsider my relationship with Alex.
When I
first sprung the words 'leaving' and 'commitment' on him, he took off like a
rocket, and I thought that was it, but in the end, he came back. Apparently
having decided that 'commitment' wasn't such a scary word, he took off with me
in the Falcon, and we wandered the galaxy together for another year and a half.
Only this time, though we still had no destination, it wasn't because I had
nothing better to do. It was because I wanted to see the things that I hadn't
had time to enjoy before.
This all
put us about five years ago. When we won the Vong war two years later, Alex and
I ended up on Hapes, where I found, to my surprise, that Jacen was a father. Of
two year old twins, Anakin and Sara. Both were (and are) adorable, and little
Anakin looks a lot like his deceased uncle by the same name. My brother would
have loved to meet his niece and nephew, he loved kids.
Sara, on
the other hand, was somewhat of a surprise. Neither Jacen's and mine, nor Tenel
Ka's parents come from a part-alien heritage, but Sara sure looks part alien.
She's petite, thin and small-boned, with long, thin, silky silver-white hair
and bright blue eyes. Like really, really, unnaturally blue.
Jacen says
he did some research, and found out that no one really knows who Dad's parents
were. It would be kind of odd for it to crop up three generations later, but
it's possible, he says. If he's right, then Jace, Anakin, and I are, or in
Anakin's case, were, ¼ alien. Weird thought.
I must go
for dark-haired and mysterious, because that describes Alex to the letter. His
hair is long, though not as long as Zekk's, and dark. His eyes are blue, and
he's broad-shouldered and handsome. Unlike Zekk. Zekk was cute, but Alex is
truly handsome.
Well,
that's about the events of the missing time. Alex and I are still together, but
we never got married, and probably never will. Alex had a rough past, and
doesn't commit easily, and I still mourn for Zekk fairly often. Who knows,
though.
Jacen and
Tenel Ka are thoroughly happy, the twins are five, and they now have two
younger siblings. Elizabeth is nearly three, and looks like a miniature replica
of her mother, and Alice is nine months old, brown-haired, and dark-eyed. They
said this is it; they have all the kids they want or need.
Mom still
cries for Dad every once in a while, and uncle Luke spends hours getting
teary-eyed over holopics of aunt Mara. We all miss Anakin, too. But, as Zekk
told me, life will give you the good deal if you just let it. Hold on, and
savor the best times, and most importantly, remember that they'll come again.
Just let life flow by you, and enjoy the fun times.
I remember
Zekk all the time, the way his young face was framed by his dark hair as he
laid so still on that bed. I remember the way he'd kiss me, and play with my
hair. I remember the good times we all had together, before the war. Things
will never be the same, and I can't say that I mean that in a good way. But
things have to change, and this is just how they changed for me. I will try my
very hardest to accept whatever the Force throws at me in life, and I hope to
reflect upon a life well lived when it comes my time to die.
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