Chapter

4

CORELLIAN GLORY;STATIONARY POSITION BEHIND ASTEROID DESIGNATED A-23/Z

Zak darted out of the Glory's hangar the instant his feet touched the deck plates. Jaina was left behind, frowning at his mad rush to get to the treacherous Allina's bedside.

Jacen hadn't said much else after he'd told them of the girl's condition. Their uncle hadn't told him much, it seemed, as Jacen himself didn't seem to know much more than what he'd relayed. But when Luke Skywalker greeted them on the flight deck after Zak dashed past him without even a glance, he seemed grim indeed.

With a nod and a careful look to her, Jaina's twin slipped his arms under Tash's arms and knees and picked her up before departing himself to take her to the ship's medical wing for detox.

That still left Jaina on the deck with her uncle, and a prisoner to turn over.

Frustrated, she shoved him down the Phantom's ramp hard enough that he stumbled and fell to his knees in front of the Jedi Grand Master. Luke glanced over him once before nodding to the nearest marine. The stocky, uniformed man slung his rifle over his shoulder, came forward, and took the poisoner by the arm and drew him to his feet roughly.

"Take him to the brig," Luke commanded; all the usual kindness gone from his voice. The man's intent had already been seen by the older man, and he was none too impressed.

"Sir," the marine said with a nod. He pulled hard on the prisoner's arm, almost dragging him along as he left the flight deck. Jaina watched them go; frowning and thinking to herself that she would much rather escort the unruly man to keep herself busy.

Her uncle, it seemed, had other plans. "Walk with me, Jaina," he said suddenly, snapping her from her unwarranted thoughts of punishing the prisoner for what he'd planned to do to Tash.

Despite her training, there were still things that galled her to the very core of her being. Being human, and a woman herself, she found it hard to fight against those impulses at times.

She followed Luke as he led her from the flight deck, ignoring the technicians and petty officers of the deck crew that dashed over to the Phantom with fuel hoses, toolboxes and other equipment. It was all standard procedure when a shuttle, fighter or transport powered down after returning to a mother ship. Jaina found the reprieve from having to do it herself rather convenient.

They walked down the corridor towards the lift in silence. Jaina waited for her uncle to open the dialogue, as she knew he would eventually. "You are clearly distressed," he said when they approached the lift banks. He pressed lightly on the summons button next to the door and they waited. "Is there something in particular you care to discuss?"

Jaina frowned, sorting out her feelings to best articulate what was on her mind. "Zak's response to the news about Allina."

She maintained the frown, even as the lift opened to permit them entry into the capsule. They stepped inside and turned around to the sound of the door hissing shut. Luke pressed another button, this time inside the capsule, and the lift began to rise at a steady pace.

"It disturbs you?" her uncle asked casually.

"Frankly" Jaina replied, "yes."

"Why?"

"Again, to be frank, she has yet to demonstrate her trustworthiness." Her reply came quickly and without need of thought. She watched as patches of light from illumination panels inside the tube between decks flashed by. It was a somewhat successful distraction during the lull between her replies and her uncle's.

Despite what Zak and Talesa and Luke thought of the strange young girl that had been living the Corellian Glory's brig for the past several months, Jaina was still unable to find even the smallest reason to trust her. Zak had tried to explain to her that Allina hadn't been wholly responsible for her actions, and that she genuinely was ashamed of herself.

Before departing for Coruscant with her mentor, Talesa Valara had told Jaina of how Allina had flung herself fully into a deadly duel with her own mother just to keep the older woman from killing the Jedi that she herself had taken prisoner. She also mentioned how, during their flight away from the Star Destroyer they had been held aboard, it had been Allina's quick thinking that had turned the fighters of one destroyer against another in the hopes of distracting both ships from the Corellian Glory as it came out from Yavin's cloud decks.

Luke Skywalker tried to reason that Allina had turned herself in to them in the end, rather than using her fighter's hyperspace engines to escape the Imperium and the Republic. She had followed Zak aboard the Glory, handed over her weapons, and demanded that she be locked up for her actions—despite Luke and Keyan's assurances of their trust in her.

Once, Jaina had even gone to the brig herself just to see the girl. It was a short visit. Allina had tried to instigate conversations that Jaina hadn't wanted to hear. She had somehow instantly recognised how close Jaina was to Zak, and had wanted to apologise for what she'd done to him. Jaina hadn't said a word the entire time; only glared. Then she'd turned on her heel and left.

That visit had been three weeks ago. And in all the time that Allina had been locked in her cell aboard the Republic cruiser, without the Force-dampening measures Brakiss had employed against Jaina and Zak during their imprisonment, she hadn't once tried to escape.

"You are, of course, entitled to your opinion," Luke said softly. "But have you considered that perhaps the reason she does not trust herself is because she realises that others don't."

"That's just a reversal of Master Jace's theory of why Tash wasn't talking to Zak." Jaina scoffed, but her frown slipped some. She arched an eyebrow, sceptical. "That's quite the stretch, even for you. And there's no basis for the assumption in the first place.

"No. She's proven already that anything she tells us cannot be trusted at face value. Her present capitulation is most likely some well-planned and extraordinarily cleverly staged way of getting more out of us that she can pass along to her mother when she finally enacts some brilliant escape plan that ends up crippling the Glory and possibly spilling blood."

Luke shrugged. "I will admit that there is always the possibility," he conceded. The lift opened and they stepped out. They stopped for a moment as the door hissed shut behind them. "But I don't believe that to be the case."

"Uncle," Jaina said peevishly, "you of all people know what the Sith are capable of."

"The girl is not Sith," Luke corrected. He started forward and Jaina followed by his side. "And if you weren't allowing your feelings for Zak to cloud your judgement, you would be able to see that for yourself."

Jaina reeled from such a verbal slap in the face, and shot her uncle an incredulous look. "I have not allowed my feelings for Zak to cloud my judgement!"

"Really?" Luke paused to shoot her a look. "From Zak's recount of the invasion and the events that followed it, this Alitha woman responsible for Allina's existence is most certainly a Sith—the child of Palpatine certainly has that potential. But Zak and Talesa both reported that the girl did not purport herself as Sith, and had been genuinely insulted by the implication. Her reaction to your grandfather's acts during the Jedi Purge seemed genuine enough."

Jaina realised that her uncle had referred to his father as her grandfather deliberately; a method of personalising her own familial connections to past Sith, regardless of the extent.

"Jaina, I say this with all recognition of your accomplishments as a Jedi and knowing how much control you have over your emotions … but you've grown so attached to Zak that anyone who does him even the most infinitesimal amount of harm is automatically added to Jaina Solo's Most Wanted list and filed away for future hunting opportunities.

"Now; I'm not saying that's a bad thing for you—the attachment, that is," he clarified with a sly grin that brought the frown racing back to her face. "I know that you've previously tried to avoid forming such attachments for fear that it will make you weaker in some fashion, or that, like my father, it would serve only as a means of corrupting your goodness."

"I haven't had any such situations before now," she said softly, knowing the lie even as it left her lips.

Luke chuckled at her feeble attempt. "Zekk still speaks quite often, and quite fondly of you. It is still evident that he harbours deep feelings for you, much as you once did for him. While you may not feel that way about him now, I know that there was once the spark of it, and you pushed it aside and ignored it until it withered and eventually died. Are you so willing to allow that to happen again?"

"I'm not," Jaina replied indignantly. "Zak and I have been open about our feelings. We haven't denied most of the rumours."

"You still haven't told him you love him," Luke pointed out.

"He hasn't said it either."

"Child," Luke teased.

They rounded a corner and Jaina dropped behind her uncle for a moment as a group of seven gunnery technicians she recognised in exercise slacks went by on their afternoon run. She reasserted her position beside him once the corridor was clear again.

"Allow this old man to lecture you in the ways of the heart, Jaina." He paused, glanced at her. "He hasn't said it to you because he's afraid you'll rebuff him. You haven't said it to him because of the same reason. You're both very mature for your age—Zak perhaps prematurely due to his own experiences. But you both still have some growing to do, wisdom to attain. You both need to realise that you're adults, Jedi, and capable of interacting with one another professionally and respectfully even if the feelings you currently share dwindle to nothing more than the same friendship you now hold with Zekk."

Jaina, irritated, mumbled to herself about being called a child. But she did nod in affirmation that her wise uncle was most likely right.

"Just the two of us here," Luke said, shooting her a sidelong glance. "Do you love him?"

Jaina glowered at her uncle. It was just like him to tease her by asking the exact same question Zak's sister Tash, and her own twin Jacen, had been bombarding her with since Allina's invasion of the Yavin 4 facility.

In trust, she had reflected much on the possibility that they could see something between them that she hadn't yet been able to. She'd had much time since then to think more on the issue. However, she still wasn't entirely sure."

"You don't have to answer," Luke assured her kindly. "I was just trying to antagonise you a little, that's all."

"I think so," Jaina confessed anyway, overlapping his final words. Her uncle looked at her again as she continued. "I know that I feel very strongly for him; stronger than I have felt about anyone ever before. I wouldn't allege that my feelings for him even begin to approach what you and Aunt Mara feel, or what Mum and Dad feel."

"You wouldn't allege it, no," Luke said with a sigh. "But I've felt as much coming from the both of you. To tell the truth, you are both young and I'm honestly surprised that with the time you spent together in captivity and the past couple of months that you've been almost inseparable that you haven't given in to more … primal desires."

Jaina thumped him hard in the arm in response and gasped indignantly. "Uncle!" she said, surprised by his boldness. Luke only smiled slyly at her as they rounded another corner and approached a second bank of lift tubes.

Gathering her composure enough to formulate an intelligent reply, she wrinkled her nose in what she hoped passed for distaste. "There are more important things to a relationship than 'hooking up a power conduit'!"

Luke chuckled at her clever use of slang. "Right you are, Jaina." Jaina detected the pride in his tone and beamed at him. This time, she pressed the call button beside the nearest lift tube, and again they waited. "But we have allowed ourselves to deviate from the original topic … however necessary to my point it was. If your feelings for Zak are as strong as I sense, and as strong as you admit, then you should really trust his judgement regarding Allina."

"It's not as easy for me to forgive and forget what she did," Jaina said stubbornly. The lift opened and she stepped inside ahead of her uncle. Luke entered the destination and this time the lift descended. "Talesa might insist she's fine after what she went through, but to have been attacked in that manner is still such a despicable act."

"Zak has used the very same ability," Luke reminded her with a knowing gaze.

"After what Brakiss did to him—"

"I wasn't referring to the divergent personality condition."

She blinked. "What do you mean?" she asked. Her uncle hesitated for a moment. "Uncle Luke … what do you mean by that?"

"Remember our little trip through the Torment Nebula Cluster when the primary fusion generators went offline and left us drifting?"

How could Jaina ever forget?

Five weeks ago, while passing through the nebula cluster in the mid-rim territories, the primary power generators aboard the Corellian Glory, its escort Corvettes, the Phantom and the Sentinel-class Recluse had all shut down for no apparent reason. Technicians had pored over the systems on all of the affected ships, with Jaina, Zak and Luke all offering their observations where they could.

No one had been able to explain the reason behind the sudden malfunctions, but they had left the cruiser and its flanking ships drifting without power through the beautiful gasses of the anomaly. In that time, some of the crew had started spreading around the ancient legends of the Torment Cluster.

According to the myths, the Torment Cluster was one of the few charted sectors of space that even the Sith and the ancient Rakata avoided. It was said that of the hundreds of ships that had tried to explore it in the initial days of space travel, not a single one had returned. No debris had ever been found, no distress call ever intercepted.

Jaina easily laughed off the myths as pointless superstition at first. But as those few days crept by at a slow and languid pace, she'd grown more and more edge about the eerie and unexplained darkness. Even lightsabers and glowrods had refused to function, as had pretty much anything else with an electrical charge.

Manual releases had been forced into the life support systems and hatches in order to keep the air flowing and mobility possible. Luke and Mara had used the Force to contain the otherwise highly destructive explosions of a handful of thermal detonators to ignite combustibles for heat and light, though the effort left them tired.

None of the Jedi had been able to explain the strange tingle they and all of the minor Force-sensitive crew members had felt across every last millimetre of their dermis layers.

Then, after almost a week without power, and in total darkness, the lights had inexplicably returned, and they were still only three-quarters the way through the nebula cluster.

Adding to the myth was the fact that while sensors had been functional, not a single cubit of the cluster had been mapped.

"Are you saying that Zak had something to do with that?" Jaina asked. "Torment is a natural phenomenon. It's been there for uncounted millennia. You can't just say that Zak was responsible for it."

"No," Luke clarified. The lift stopped and they stepped out onto another deck and continued to walk. "I'm saying he was responsible for restoring power to all of the systems on board the Glory. He consciously tapped into that Force lightning power he's displayed before and focussed it through sheer will to continuously give the generators a charge until we were clear of the cluster. We were able to tow the escorts along in our wake. Don't you recall how exhausted he was when we cleared it? How he slept for days?"

Jaina did recall how tired and pale Zak had been, and how hot and scorched his hands had looked. "And I'm only just being told this now?" she said crossly.

"He didn't want word of it getting out," Luke explained. "News of a Jedi that chooses to use such highly controversial abilities—abilities that have long been heralded as trademarks of the dark side—would not exactly be received well."

"He could have at least told me!"

"My point, Jaina," Luke said, deflecting her back to the topic yet again, "is that Zak has been able to use that power without touching the dark side."

"Okay; let's accept that he has. At least he's used it for good. Allina didn't. She used it to inflict harm and assert her perceived supremacy."

"She's capable of change, Jaina," Luke insisted gently. "Hasn't she proven it thus far?" Jaina thought about it for a moment, and reluctantly nodded once.

"But as I said, it could be a clever ruse," she responded.

"Trust in Zak's judgement then, Jaina. I doubt he hasn't considered the possibility for himself and made plans in case your suspicions are ever realised. But for now, he's choosing to trust her and to show her the true path of a Jedi, the one she was denied."