Chapter 2

Of Blasters, Bombs and Losses.

Over all the cheering and shouting, Jaden heard one noise above the rest that immediately changed his mood, one loud, long and high scream coming from the Eagles who stood behind him, Jai'ir had been shot by a bolt from the imperial garrison that was now storming onto the landing pad, dozens of civilians were instantly killed or injured as they burst through the crowd that had amassed in the entry way. Dax, Gurlan and Sou all returned fire while Jaden carried Jai'ir onto the shuttle; he rushed her to the only bench on the shuttle laid her down with his jacket as a pillow. He placed a thermal blanket over her body, adjusted the temperature to her specific body type, he knelt by her side and placed his arms around her, in one hand he held her soft head in the other, he put some pressure on her stomach where the blaster bolt had pierced her skin.

"Jai'ir, Jai'ir can you her me? Please say something!" Jaden cried, tears welling in his eyes. Jai'ir remained motionless he bowed his head over hers and in a whisper spoke to her hoping to get through her unconscious state, he pictured himself reaching into her mind and speaking to her soul directly. If another Jedi had been present they would sense the force radiating from him as he tried to get through to her. Jai'ir's eyes shot open and she gasped for air, coughed and looked into Jaden's face and she wept with the happiness she felt to see his handsome face again, his short brown hair, his soft lips, and his kind blue eyes. She was overcome with Joy and laughed a little.

"Jaden it's okay I'm okay, I'm here, and you don't need to worry anymore." As she said this she placed her small red skinned hand on his cheek and caressed it with her thumb. Then moved her hand to his chin to lift his face to hers. She brushed the tears from his eyes and smiled a big smile full of love and relief that she was alive. Jaden lifted his head at the touch of her hands, tears creeping down his cheeks, smiled back at her and moved his arms to her shoulders as she sat up, and Jai'ir pulled his head to hers and kissed him passionately again, much like she had back in front of Master Ur's funeral pyre. Jaden kissed her back and after a long moment pulled away still holding her in his arms. Then she winced with pain and laid her head back on Jadens' jacket and closed her eyes to rest a moment or two her wound still bothered her but they were healing, now that she was awake.

"I'm going to start the engines up and get us out of here." Jaden said releasing his grip from her shoulders and headed towards the cockpit. He sat in the pilot chair in the shuttle and began priming the engines for take off. The shuttle lifted off the ground a little the boarding ramp still lowered for any of the remaining that wanted to hop on but none did, they just kept pushing back the imperial garrison as it tried to shoot the shuttle down. So he closed the ramp with a sigh and then Jaden looked out the window and tried to catch Dax's eye as the shuttle rotated upwards to take off towards the upper atmosphere. Luckily he did, Dax was crouched behind a pile of crates with Sou and Gurlan on either side of him, Jaden saw Dax raise his hand to his forehead and saluted Jaden with a nod and a look that said; go we will take care of these losers. Jaden saluted back, nodded and then turned his gaze back to the control panel.

Back on the landing pad, Dax, Sou and Gurlan saw the engines blaze a bright blue and as the shuttle took off the roar of the engines was deafening. But it was a comfort to know that their friends were on their way to a safer place. Dax turned to Gurlan and Sou, each were out of breath and had been fighting for not only their lives but the lives of Jaden and Jai'ir as well, now that the later had gone they could stop playing safe and put their all into the battle.

"Alright boys, odds are we aren't coming out of this alive, if we do we are damn lucky but if not then hell lets go down fighting our hearts out." Dax said as the three of them reloaded their weapons, armed their detonators and nodded a silent goodbye to each other fully knowing they would most likely die here and now.

"On the count of three." Dax said to Gurlan and Sou. The others nodded in agreement, and readied their weapons.

"One." Gurlan said, releasing his insect like thumb on the trigger of his thermal detonator, and priming his pistol in the other.

"Two." Sou said, unsheathing the double vibro-sword he kept on his back at all times, he was going out fighting the best way he knew, bringing a knife to a gun fight.

"Three. Let's go boys!" Dax shouted, jumped up and fired his repeater rifle at the enemy garrison. At the same time Gurlan threw out his detonator from behind the crates, and fired his weapon to cover his friend, the detonator had left his hand, and Sou focused himself jumped up and took off towards the far side of the enemy line away from the explosion and the crossfire of blasters, and bombs. He jumped through the air, twirling and slicing in all the directions he could, severing arms here legs there and ended the mass acrobatic attack with the slicing of the imperial officers head from the rest of his body. Once done, he took off towards the middle of the line again slicing and slashing where and when he could slowly thinning the lines of troopers as he went. However the hack and slash was not to last because as Sou approached the centre point of the troops a blaster bolt hit him square in the forehead violently throwing his head back and his body followed losing all momentum and crashing down backwards onto the cold hard steel of the landing platform.

A little ways away Jaden felt an uneasy feeling in his gut, he knew something was wrong, he knew one of his friends had died, Jai'ir had gained enough strength to join him in the cockpit and as soon as the feeling hit him she knew he was sad, so she placed a caring hand on his back and rubbed gently, and she laid her head on his shoulder from the seat next to him. At this Jaden's spirit calmed and his thoughts returned to their destination.

"Thank you Jai'ir your being here really helps I don't know if I'd be able to do this part alone, fleeing as my friends die. Just thank you." He said looking down at her. Jai'ir said nothing but she slowly rubbed Jadens' back and shoulders easing the tension in his spirit.

Across the pad Gurlan was running forward as he shot, he had to stop and take cover for a moment behind a small storage cone, he had taken fire in the leg, arm and shoulder but he would not give up he had to go out giving his all and a few scorch wounds would not stop him in the least. Then it happened, as he was crouching he went to reload his pistol, and a short ways off he began to hear a beeping and it grew louder and louder with each passing second, and then he saw it soaring through the air in an almost perfect arch, a detonator was headed in the direction of his cover, it landed a few feet away from him and in his mind he knew he could never get clear in time, he had exactly three seconds before the detonator exploded taking his insectoid body with it. Three, two, one

"Carabast!" The Rodian cursed as the beeping ended and then there was blackness accompanied by a loud noise, and Gurlan was gone. His body partially disintegrate, flew through the air and landed a short ways from where Dax was in cover again firing his repeating rifle again at the few dozen troopers left on the landing platform, he managed to take out about six of them leaving only six remaining, but now there was only one of him and he was running low on clips. He had to beat these guys and do it before they beat him.

On the shuttle, Jaden again felt this uneasy feeling and he knew another of his friends had been taken from him. This time he lifted his hands from the controls and held onto his stomach with one hand and the other he tried massaging his forehead, he felt Gurlan's suffering as his friends body was disintegrated by the detonator explosion and then Dax's weakness when he saw Gurlan's lifeless half in tact corpse beside him. Jaden could barely breathe and he fell out of the chair to his knees as he felt Dax's helplessness as he fought the remainder of the garrison. Then it hit him, harder then anything previously, he felt a dark overwhelming presence from Dax and he knew very soon, his good friend would be taken as well.

Dax switched his rifle into precision mode and one by one he shot the remaining six troopers square between the eyes of their helmets knocking each violently backward much like they had done to Sou before his body struck the floor of the landing platform. As the last one fell Dax crouched again behind his cover, rested his head against it as he slid down to a sitting position, thinking his battle was over and then from across the pad he heard loud high pitched clicks, much like the sound we hear when someone wearing high heels approaches alerting us immediately to their closing presence. Dax daren't look at the source of the noise, for even he a non force sensitive person could feel the growing darkness that was heading towards his hiding place, then he felt a strong force close around his neck, lift him off the ground into the air, his hands moved to his throat as he could feel the force squeeze his windpipe tighter and tighter choking the very life out from him, then Dax felt his body turn in mid air and face the master of these powers, and he saw a woman approaching and she was holding her hand out towards him holding him by the throat in mid air slowly choking the life from his body.

Tavion, mistress of the empire he knew her face from the wanted ads in numerous republic hideouts still left in the galaxy. Were it not for his imminent looming death he would almost think her attractive, she had a tall slender body, tight leather pants, a short brown leather jacket that exposed her toned, bare midriff, the jacket also covered a short distance past her shoulders, his eyes traced the shoulders back to a thin neck, then down her chest where a low cut cloth shirt covered her upper torso to just above her stomach and back up to her face which was covered in a dark purple war paint, short brown hair pulled back into a bun behind her head, where two different feathers from some exotic creatures of some kind. Tavion's lips were also covered in a dark purple lipstick a small nose and bright brown eyes with what looked to Dax as yellow coloured irises and tiny black pupils.

Still kneeling on the shuttle Jaden closed his hand loosely around his throat, he could feel everything Dax was going through, undoubtedly due to the fact that for the past number of years, aside from Jai'ir Jaden was good friends with Dax and some would say he was his closest male friend. Jaden began gasping for air, and Jai'ir fell to her knees as well hands on Jaden's shoulders trying to shake him from this terrible experience telling him over and over that it wasn't actually happening to him he wasn't choking on anything, but she could not get through to him.

Dax began gasping for air, coughing and choking and fast. His hands struggled around his neck trying to rip the invisible hand from his throat. All of a sudden it was all gone the choking, the pain all of it and Dax fell to his knees in front of the woman, he looked up slowly and suddenly she was there standing over him looking down with what seemed like curiosity.

On the shuttle as soon as it had come the pain was gone and Jaden could breathe again, he coughed a little and looked up to see a very concerned Jai'ir kneeling beside him, looking him directly in his eyes, he noticed her lips moving but couldn't hear the words right away, then slowly his hearing returned and heard he worried voice, but he had never been happier to hear her as he was then, but as soon as the pain was gone sheer and deep sadness rushed through him body and soul, he knew that he would never see Dax again.

"Its Dax I'm sure… he, he's dead, choked by the force, he's dead" Jaden said coughing in between his words.

"Jaden, its okay your not choking, your alright please listen, your alright there's no one choking you, it wasn't real it was just a feeling please listen." Jai'ir had been saying over and over again trying to get through to him.

"Jai'ir I'm so glad you're here thank you." He smiled and hugged her tightly, but he still couldn't shake the feeling of sadness that came over him. His friends all of them were dead. Wiped out by the Empire, and he was running off to some monastery a hundred light years away from where he should be going, where the Empire was he had to stop them, but he needed to be stronger and maybe just maybe becoming a Jedi could give him that. He would soon find out, the shuttle made the hyperspace jump to the coordinates Jaden had imputed Yavin or more specifically one of Yavin's moons, Yavin 4.

Tavion had spared Dax's life for one reason and one alone, she needed an assassin, and by eliminating a garrison of twenty-five almost by himself, she was a little impressed, and maybe she would have use of this traitorous rebel. Not to mention he knew a Jedi or at the very least a force sensitive that maybe if persuaded enough she could take on as an apprentice, but that was yet to been seen, for now she needed to offer this whelp an opportunity.

"Why… spare… me?" Dax coughed and gasped as the words left his mouth, he looked up and the woman was still above him.

"You may be of use to me yet, Rebel." The woman spat as she said the last word. Dax was smart enough to know that if he wanted to live he had one right answer here everything else would get him killed, was he willing to do that to Jaden, to Jai'ir. By now they had already jumped to hyperspace and were far enough away that this choice would not get them killed, if anything perhaps even by them extra time for Jaden to start his training, and then if he saw him again get him to bring this woman down. Dax made his choice.

"How can I serve you, mistress?" Dax said lowering his head in a bow. A look of amusement crossed the woman's face, Dax looked up slowly.

"Come, hear my words." The woman said turning and began walking out of the landing pad, the garrison followed, as the last trooper turned his back. Under his breath Dax spoke praying Jaden would hear him through the force.

"I'm sorry Jaden forgive me please, but I'm protecting you pal, Eagles look after their own, and we always will." Dax stood and followed the garrison back to their shuttle on the opposite side of what now were the ruins of this once great, ancient Jedi academy.