Somewhere on the Hydian Way, 44.6 ABY

The Falcon lurched as it dropped out of hyperspace. This was not altogether unusual, given both the ship's age and the number of 'aftermarket' components it was fitted with. What was more unusual was the wedge shaped ship visible out of the cockpit.

"An Interdictor cruiser." Han commented, glancing at his wife. "What the hell is it doing switched on halfway down the Hydian Way? Must be some weird training exercise."

"Han, it's not imperial."

"Then who... who the hell has a karking interdictor, and would set it up here?"

"I... don't know. The crew feel like imperials, but... I think some are dark-siders."

"How do you... never mind. Strap in."

With that, he he pushed forward the throttles for the main engines, before throwing the Falcon through a series of high-speed, extremely impressive acrobatic manoeuvres that an un-informed observer wouldn't have belived possible from a YT-1300 freighter, manovering the light freighter like it was putting on a show at an aerobatic display.

The crew of the interdictor responded by launching the vessel's starfighter complement, consisting of a several dozen strong force of odd looking starfighters, and opening up with the interdictor's turbolasers. Leia could feel the hatred of both the opposing pilots and gunners for their targets, and knew that this would be bad.

When he saw the fighters, which Leia inserted into his HUD in order for him to be able to identify them. "Nothing I've seen or heard of before." He muttered, before continuing louder "An ETA-2, one of the interceptors the Jedi used in the clone wars, would be my guess, but honestly, it could be anything."

Reaching for the two touchballs used to aim the falcon's cannons; Leia waited for the first starfighter to come into range, and then opened fire with with the quad cannons. Han, in his element, was throwing the Falcon around like it was a X-Wing, performing barrel rolls, wingovers and the other assorted manoeuvres he had learnt over a lifetime of evading everyone from imperial customs and bounty hunters to other smugglers. Leia was using the force to guide her cannon bolts onto target, with her targets countering her.

"Han, I love you."

"I know." He responded in their ancient ritual. And we are getting out of this, aren't we?"

"I think so." she replied, as the Sith flyers finally found their target, sending cannon bolts hammering into the rear shield, and igniting the first warning lamps on the Falcon's system boards.

Pivoting the quad cannons, she returned fire, catching one Sith filter with a dozen bolts, vaporising both the fighter and its pilot, and clipping his wingman's craft, sending a second fighter spinning away with one engine and the top of the cockpit blown off. The pilot was still alive, but he was not going to be able to return to action without a new fighter, assuming he could regain control before the craft ran out of atmosphere to vent, and he froze to death.

Despite all of Han's flying skills, and Leia's force-enhanced gunnery, inevitably, the falcon's shields failed, and the pings and thuds of laser cannon bolts connecting with the falcon's hull began to resonate through the ancient light freighter, and so, with the quad cannons still thundering defiance, Han verbally activated the cockpit holo-recorder, and made what he knew would almost certainly be his last recording, addressed to Luke Skywalker.

"Kid," he said. "I've had a good run of the cards, but it looks like I'm about to play my final hand. We've been pulled out of hyperspace by a Sith interdictor, according to Leia, and are under heavy attack. We've come a long way together, since Yavin, but you're going to have to travel the rest of your path without me or Leia. She sends her love and her best wishes for Ben. Han Solo, out."

As he pressed the send button, mounted on the console, the end came.

A well-placed volley from a turbolaser hammered into the falcon, destroying the engines, then the cannons, before driving a seam of bolts up through the hull to the cockpit, superheating the atmosphere inside the craft, killing both Han and Leia before they knew they were hit. C-3PO, who was also on board, was hit directly, and vaporised. Then the Falcon snapped into two halves, along the line of strikes, and went spiralling on through space, carrying nearly all of its momentum and cargo into the void, without decelerating.

In his office on Ossus, Luke Skywalker felt a split second of burning heat engulf his body, and abruptly knew what had happened.

"Han." he croaked out, feeling the depth of the loss. "Leia. No…"

As he sat there, feeling completely alone, his datapad chimed with the new mail tone.

Feeling the weight of the loss, Luke slowly opened the file, and saw Han's face, and the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon, and sagged further in his seat. Finally, he selected the play command, and watched Han's final message, which was punctuated by both the sound of laser fire driving into the unprotected hull of the falcon, and the steady sound of the falcon's cannons firing back.

"Kid, I've had a good run of the cards…" Han began, with green strobes from near misses periodically flashing throughout the message. As he watched the message, Luke began to feel his emotions boiling over, and simply began to sob, silently, but uncontrollably, as the reality of the situation hit home with brutal, horrifying force, feeling like he had as old Ben was cut down by Darth Vader, all the way back on the first death star.

~0~

Varykino, Naboo

From the kitchen, Jagged Fel heard his wife scream once. Then he heard the unmistakable sound, for a career soldier, of a body hitting the ground. Without thinking, he vaulted the counter at which he was preparing a tray of cocktails and a fruit salad, and grabbed at his right hip, before remembering that he was wearing swim shorts and nothing else. Grimacing, he reached up onto the counter for the discarded and large knife he had been using to fillet a pineapple, before moving towards the doorway, using all available cover, and planning whose blaster to use on whom.

After about a minute, which he had spent reviewing his long-ago chiss academy close quarters training, a shadow heralded the approach of a being to the kitchen doorway. Drawing back his knife, he finally remembered where he was supposed to drive it for a combination of a quick takedown and a silent kill.

As soon as the human female came through the doorway, he lunged, before redirecting the blow when he recognised the target as his bodyguard, Tahiri Veila, who had not drawn or ignited her lightsaber.

"Jag," she said, as soon as he'd regained his balance. "Do you know what happened to Jaina?"

"I heard her scream, once. Then I heard her fall, and thought it was an assassination attempt against both of us."

"She was in the hall, coming down the stairs, and then suddenly she screamed and collapsed. I caught her before she hit her head, and then I felt a reverberation, like an echo, coming to me through the force, of heat and death. That's when I came to find you."

"Sorry for the knife attack." Jag called over his shoulder, as he sprinted towards the grand staircase, where he could see his bikini-clad wife laid out in the recovery position on the half landing.

By the time Tahiri caught up with him, he was shaking her, repeating "Jaina, Jaina." as Tahiri arrived with the villa's medpack.

Quickly, she applied the ECG leads to Jaina's chest, before grabbing a stim-shot from the front of the kit, and injecting it into Jaina's left bicep. The screen showed a considerably elevated heart-rate, compared to her resting norm, lower than usual blood pressure and a blood oxygen saturation level of around 99%.

Shortly after the injection, Jaina began to stir, and Jag noticed that her eyes immediately filled with tears, and she began to sob. Gradually, through her tears, jag began to make out a phrase she was repeating over and over again. "Mom, dad. No. you can't be dead. Not now."

When she finally regained full consciousness, she looked up to see Jag kneeling beside her, and threw her arms around him, before pulling him close, and burying her head in his shoulder.

"Mom, Dad. They're gone." She sobbed, her head pressed hard against his body.

"Easy, Jaina, easy. Jag murmured into her ear.

"This is the worst possible time to lose them that I could have possibly imagined."

"Why?"

"I'm pregnant."

~0~

Malcoon Spaceport, Taris

In a small spaceport lounge, an casual observer would have been well within their rights to suspect that the young, red-headed pilot who had suddenly staggered against a wall happened to be drunk. Wearing an olive jumpsuit, he looked somewhat too young to legally purchase alcohol, or even to be shaving. A less casual glance might have noticed the tube hanging from the pilot's belt, and caused the observer to wander if the boy was a Jedi, and if so, where his master happened to be, and how he had allowed his apprentice to get drunk.

For Ben Skywalker, such concerns were only in the back of his mind, and the cause of his near fall had had nothing to do with ingestion of an inappropriate amount of Tarisian ale, and everything to do with a wave of heat and pain radiating through the Force, with multiple sources, and two seeming to be echoes of the first, with lower intensity and duration than the initial pulse.

Ben instantly registered the initial source, and the realisation nearly caused his knees to buckle.

"Aunt Leia. Uncle Han." He whispered to himself, then began a sprint towards the port where he had left his starfighter, hoping it was fuelled for a jump of nearly seven thousand parsecs, which would take him nearly three hours. He hoped his father could cope until he arrived. He also hoped he was going to be able to cope. And that Jaina wasn't going to go through the floor emotionally again, like she had when she'd put down her own twin.

I Calcuated Hyperjump distances and travel times using a ruler, a complete map of the galaxy, and the data that it takes four hours to get from correllia to tatooine, which computed at approx 2700parsec/h.