Chapter 11: Leaving the Past
"Do you think I want this any more than you do? Do you actually think I want to marry you? I haven't any more choice in this than you do. And I think I've been a whole lot more courteous about the whole damned situation than you have."
The way the Csillian sky met the snow covered plains made the distinction between the cloudy atmosphere impossible, a beautiful cascade of whites and blues that mirrored and blended with each other into a mural of ice chips that paralleled the short spans of time Jaina had spent there. It was at once pacifying and unsympathetic, the calm appearance belying the lethal potency. The most tragic heartbreaks in her life had bent spent on the frigid globe of crystal, and she knew somewhere out there her tears were preserved by the glacial temperatures, an everlasting testament to her grievances. At the same time there were too many joys and memories for her to condemn the place. Reassuring and merciless.
"Anyone who can fly like that deserves to have a place in this military."
The wind that blew through her hair was intense with its frosted quality. It was ethereal in form, worming through even the smallest of cracks between her skin and her clothes. Hairs all over her body stood on end and shivers traced her spine like the kindest and most vicious of lovers. The blood moving through her veins was thin and constricted in its flow and she could feel the beat of her heart in the surface of her skin. Her whole body pulsed. Whether that was due to the cold or the dread or a combination of both she wasn't sure, but her mind was fixated on something else entirely.
On the hundreds of memories this place held for her.
"You do if you don't want us fighting every second for the rest of our lives. There has to be a modicum of deference from each of us, Jaina. You expect to be able to take advantage of my rank because we're married but don't want to treat me with even a little compliance. That's hypocritical."
She had scaled the side of the hangar bay, clutching its smooth surface fiercely against the whipping wind and snow, and had only then reached it zenith where she could look down at the point of her destination as it appeared before her. Her limbs trembled with relief. She hated this, the waiting, the sneaking. She hated leaving her childrens' fate to other people's hands, however capable they may be. They just weren't her, and so they could never be good enough. She hated the fact that she just might be destroying the lives of people that she loved, and who loved her when she knew they shouldn't.
She was a selfish being, always had been. The knowledge didn't upset her, because the truth of it couldn't be denied and it seemed she didn't have the time to try and change it. She was balanced by a strange combination of the irremovable desire to martyr herself to everyone's cause and the tendency to do and be whatever she wanted. And even in the midst of that she ached for a sense of normality, to provide for her family in a way that a woman with the galaxy on her shoulders couldn't do. So she was caught in the middle, and that selfish desire to strive for all those things and give up none was what had brought her to the place she was now in.
"That doesn't even compare to what you've done to me. I trusted you with so much, gave you so much. But it seems I was never more than a replacement for your family until you could reunite with them again. It didn't take long to forget you had 'loved' me did it, Jaina?"
Her blue-tinged fingers that were half-frozen from the cold slipped inside her coat and touched the comlink there. "I'm ready," she whispered, noting the slight tremor in her voice as her teeth chattered together.
She had purposefully placed herself in the most unenviable position of the three, mainly because it was her ship, her fault, and quite possibly the end of her in-law's careers. If sitting in the cold for a half hour was the price she had to pay for that, then that would just have to be okay.
"Me too," Wyn's voice crackled back.
"And me," Cem replied.
"I'm so sorry. I'm sorry for everything. For yelling at you, for being so judgmental, but especially for letting myself be influenced into keeping you from what you deserve. I had no right to do that. There's nowhere I'd rather have you, Jaina, than right by my side. I love you. I'm so sorry."
There was a silence in which Jaina hung with bated breath for the last reply. When it didn't come in three seconds she snapped, "Soontir? Syal? Chak?"
"Sorry, Jaina, we were trying to calm Davin," Syal explained a second later.
"It's okay. All you have to do is stay put until I give you the signal," Jaina explained.
"We know," Soontir replied icily. "Just get on with it. We don't have much time."
"We have to wait for the right moment," Jaina explained, eyeing the Always. Her ship, the one given to her on her wedding by a man who had been more influential in her life than any mere superior officer should be. Pellaeon had done so much for her family. She wondered if she would ever be able to thank him properly.
"You've seen everything about my home and my life, and I know relatively nothing of yours. I want to go to Coruscant, meet your family, see your home."
The moment came when the Chiss guards that had taken post around her ship changed shifts. Jaina's thumb depressed the button on her comlink automatically. "Go!"
She moved, sliding down the sloped roof of the docking bay where she had been perched in waiting and back into the heat shield. She broke out immediately in a sweat, the change in temperature enough to make a normal person ill. Fortunately, she was far from normal.
The slick surface of the roof was slanted at such an angle that she was close to a free fall. Rolling onto her back she braced the heels of her boots, causing an awful screeching sound and leaving two brown skid marks in its path. At the same time she counted down in her head, watching the reactions of the Chiss guards as they turned and aimed their charrics in her direction. At the precise moment their shots would have struck her she leaped, moving almost laterally across the hangar to land hard on the top of the Always.
By the time her feet touched its hull new shots had rang out, both Wyn and Cem moving from their positions and taking out the guards she had distracted. Jaina didn't take time to ponder it but yanked her lightsaber of her belt and felt the violet flame leap to life in her hand. She jumped again, falling into their midsts swinging. She tried her best not to even injure, just knock them out with a Force punch or disable their charrics, but that only lasted so long. Eventually she nicked a hand here or an elbow there. It wasn't pleasant, but she did manage to keep from killing any of them.
And that was more than she could say for Wyn and Cem. Their precision was almost eerie, and not once did any of their shots come towards her. It was hard on her, fighting Chiss, so she could only imagine how it was for them. For Cem, it might not be so hard, he had almost nothing to do with them. But for Wyn, who was already employed in their armed forces... it must be killing her. Just another reason to feel guilty.
When the smoke cleared and her family by marriage appeared it was all Jaina could do to hold back her tears. She looked up at the sky, the wash of memories she had experienced the whole time concentrating into that moment. So many important moments in her life had happened here. And even more than that, moments that had seemed inconsequential at the time but were now so precious to her. The foundations of her love for Jag had been built here.
Syal, Soontir, and Chak appeared out of the shadows, little Davin in Syal's arms and Hanna snuggled against her grandfather—whom she had formed a peculiar attachment to the past few weeks and especially the days Jaina had been unconscious. "There's so much to say that can't be said," Jaina told her mother-in-law, realizing she didn't have the time or words. Carefully she pulled her son into her arms. He was still small and fragile, but she had checked the medical records and it seemed they would have released him from the MedCenter soon anyway.
"I know," Syal said, but her eyes were on the child Jaina had taken from her. "Take care of yourself, and my son. And these wonderful little gifts."
"I will," Jaina promised. She looked to the others. "I'd love to say goodbye to all of you individually, but I have to hurry if I want that fake transponder code to still work."
She extended one hand to Hanna, who came to her instantly, burying her face in Jaina's leg. She started to turn, then stopped and looked straight at Cem and Wyn. "Thank both of you, for the sacrifices you made here to day that you didn't have to. I hope you have a career to go back to," she added to Wyn.
Her sister in law nodded, then added with a grin, "Just have a place back at Bastion ready for me after my court-martial."
Jaina smiled. "Count on it."
The hatch closed behind her with a final thud, leaving her alone with the two most precious things in the galaxy. She kissed her son's small brown head and then lead them to the hold at a fast walk. She carefully laid the baby in his carrier safety seat, strapping him in and thanking the Force he had chosen that moment to take a nap. She moved to Hanna, latching the four-year-old in beside her brother. "Stay here, and tell me if he wakes up. I'll be back in a minute," Jaina ordered softly.
Hanna nodded in acknowledgment with a sniffle. "Are we going home?"
Jaina ran a hand over the small round face. "Yes, we are. Be good until I get back."
By the time she reached the cockpit her extended family was gone, and in their place was a troupe of Chiss soldiers, already hauling out the heavy guns to demolish her ship. "Not any time soon," Jaina muttered, lowering the blaster cannon on the under belly of the ship. It reminded her of the same mechanism on the Millennium Falcon, which had perished five years before over Ithor. Only on the Always there was no groan of protest and creaking of rust. Jaina smiled at the memory. They hadn't been close while he had lived, but Jaina often thought his sacrifice had brought her together with her father. She could almost feel him there with her, watching over her. "You're always there," she whispered to him, knowing somehow that he could hear her. At the same time she fired, leaving a smoking crater where the Chiss had been.
Toggling the repulsorlifts she raised slowly out of the hangar, swinging the long prow of the IDY-1000 a hundred and eighty degrees as she moved straight up and out of the heat shield into the buffeting Csillian winds.
"I won't either. Never. Whatever else happens to us, Jaina, I want to know that I can always count on you, on us."
She angled away from the ground and forced herself not to look back. That part of her life was over and she could never go back to it. It was time to live in the moment and not the past. Be who she was and love herself and those around her. Repair the damage she had done to the people she loved and hope that they could embrace what they had. Because she did love Jag. Maybe she hadn't shown or let herself feel that love like she should, but it was there. All she had to do was close her eyes and let his phantom arms envelop her and chill bumps would raise on her skin as she ached for him. That spark may have dwindled but it would never die. It just needed a little fuel.
What had started on Csilla years before was unconquerable. What would follow would be even better, she swore silently.
With a glance into the hold at her children she broke atmosphere and pushed hard for deep space. The quality engines ripe off the Imperial Drive Yards revved pleasingly, sending a thrill of adrenaline through her veins. This was where she had always belonged, at the controls of a ship soaring between the sweet void around the stars.
It wasn't long before the capital ships that always encircled Csilla turned their lumbering forms towards her and released their squadrons of clawcraft. The Always wasn't slow by any means, but against the smaller and more agile single man fighters there really wasn't much of a chance that she could leave the system's gravity well before they caught her.
Belatedly she wished she had just brought Wyn with her right then instead of just joking about it. Then she would have someone to man the gunners turrets.
The first shots peppered her shields, sending mild jolts through the space yacht. Jaina's grip on the controls remained firm as she closed her eyes and let the Force take her. She pushed down, hard, yanking the ship in various and random directions, but the ones that she knew instinctively were safe paths. Occasionally she fired a shot back, but mostly she put all her power into the aft shield and engines.
The timer beeped, and excitedly her eyes flew open. Trembling, she took hold of the hyperspace lever and pulled it back slowly, watching the stars elongated and contort then finally disappear. The result was a vortex of blue glass like chips that danced in rhythm with the hum of her hyperspace drives.
Slowly she unhooked herself and stood, going back to where her children waited for her.
The Force sometimes came upon Luke Skywalker at the most unlikely of moments, or inconvenient. But that's what happens when you give yourself over to it fully. It becomes your priority, its all knowing Will guides its vessel of choice wherever it needs to go. Sometimes that became irritating, such as when it woke him up in the middle of the night with an impending sense of dread, but more often than not he was thankful afterwards.
So he tried not to be angry as he threw off the sheets to his bed, wanting just another few moments of holding his wife in his arms. Morning would come soon enough and they would have to stay relatively professional until the next night, when they did their best to make up for it. Mara was halfway between sleep and awareness, but he knew that she sensed him leaving her in their bed. But she didn't rise to follow or even speak. When the Force called to him there was little anyone could do. His connection was deep, and there were some places in the reaches of his mind that even she could not follow.
He moved out onto their balcony, taking a seat on the ledge with his feet swinging out in the open between the bars. It was moments like these that he felt like the simple farmboy on Tatooine again, watching the setting sun and pining for a life that was just out of his grasp. If only that boy had known what awaited him just on the other side of the sun. Maybe he would have appreciated Owen and Beru Lars more. Maybe he would have cherished the time he had to be just Luke, not Grand Jedi Master Luke Skywalker, Hero of the Galaxy and Slayer of Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine. That last bit was technically not true, but most people still saw him as all those things and more. The moment he had sat foot on the Death Star he could never be just Luke again.
Closing his eyes he opened himself to the matchless living waters, feeling his skin tingle and heat, his torso go cold with a chill that was beautiful to his soul. The power that filled him was one so indescribable that he could spend years searching every language in the galaxy for the right words and still not come close to an utterance that did it justice. Feelings settled inside him that weren't his own, small nigglings in his mind that tugged him in a thousand different directions. Strange faces looked out at him from behind his eyelids, some familiar tossed into the mix.
He saw a pair of foggy blue eyes staring directly into his heart. They were bleak and raw, so devoid of feeling that Luke recoiled from them. His heart started to beat faster as the Force revealed to him things he would just as soon never see. He winced, struggling with himself, hating the tide of images and impressions that bode of things he wished would never come to pass.
Finally it was over and he was left gasping in the cool Coruscant night. "Luke?"
He sighed, feeling Mara's concern for him. "I'm fine."
He sensed rather than heard the bed move under her weight as she rose and came to stand in the doorway. "What was it?" she whispered, and immediately Luke felt better just being in her presence and hearing the love in her voice.
"There is someone out there with the intent of hurting a person we love," he told her bluntly. There was no use in hiding anything from her.
"Who?" she demanded and he could almost see her jade eyes roving across the apartment for her blaster.
"I don't know," he admitted.
"Sith?" she asked, the one word spoken with such venom he wondered how the Emperor had ever recruited her to his service.
"No," he answered immediately. A hand calloused from hours gripping a lightsaber caressed his brow. "I don't know who it is though. Just...something's about to blow. Or maybe it already has."
"Not another war, Luke," she moaned, and he returned her sentiment. But something about that didn't ring true to him.
"I don't think this is a galaxy wide problem. But it has the potential to destroy someone close to us."
"Who?"
"I have no idea. I need to meditate."
She shook her head, tussled red hair flying. "Not tonight. Tonight you rest. The galaxy can go a few hours without you running to its aid. Especially when you don't know where you're running."
He smiled at her, an affection that was born of trust and respect and years of commitment blooming inside of him. "I'm glad I have you to take care of me. Force knows I would never do it for myself."
She cocked one red eyebrow suggestively. "Is that all I'm good for, Skywalker?"
He grinned from one ear to the other. "Well, that's certainly not all..."
She smiled back, but almost as soon as she did her face contorted back into a scowl. "Do you feel that?"
"No. What is it?"
She breathed heavily through her nose. "Jaina's back."
Luke reached inside himself and touched the Jaina-place, and knew immediately that his wife was right. "Good. Jag needs her here."
Mara looked thoughtful. "Do you think this foreboding sense could have something to do with her?"
He shrugged, unsure. "I don't know. I certainly hope not." After a moment's consideration he added, "Maybe I'm sensing the same thing she did, whatever it was that made her think there was more to Jag's charges than met the eye."
She extended her hand to him, offering help as he climbed to his feet. "I should talk to her in the morning then."
He nodded in agreement. "We both do. Besides, I'm eager to see that baby of hers."
"Jaina's back," Anakin voiced, but Jacen already knew. He was relieved and worried at the same time. She shouldn't have been released from a medical facility so soon, and certainly shouldn't be traveling. But having her home did assuage some of his fears for her. He could at least do something about her circumstances now.
Anakin had made a practice of keeping him company at least one night a week since Danni had left him. Sometimes it was a shockball game or a sabacc tournament or something else equally frivolous, but it never failed. And no matter how he tried Jacen couldn't get rid of him. It was an occasional headache, but a good headache, he had decided. It did serve its purpose. Life wasn't as bland when he was wasting his time in an enjoyable way.
"I know." He took a deep breath and added, "She has both children with her."
Anakin's clear and knowing eyes flicked to his older brother's face. "Should we call Kolivin again, tell him to let Jag know?"
"I have a feeling Jaina will take care of that all on her own," Jacen mused, taking a bite of his half-eaten sandwich that had sat on his lap so long it was almost stale. The shockball game still playing softly in front of them blared unusually as the favored team scored the winning goal.
Anakin tossed a fruit snack into the air and kept it hanging above his face, suspended by his the invisible Force grip. Finally he let it go and caught it expertly in his mouth, making a successful grunt of victory as he did so. "You're probably right."
"I'm always right," Jacen smirked.
Anakin snorted derisively. "Yeah, sure. If you're so great, why are you sitting at home with your little brother?"
"Because he's such a clueless nerfherder he can't take a hint and get lost," Jacen drawled. "Besides, I could ask you the same question."
"Well that's easy," Anakin told him matter-of-factly. "Tahiri's still training this semester at the Academy."
Jacen frowned slightly. "I thought you two had decided to put things on hold."
Anakin shrugged. "We did. And now they've started back up again. You got a problem with that?" he smiled teasingly.
Jacen sighed a sigh of the learned and lived, shaking his head. "No. I have a problem with you rushing into something at your age. Even if it is just Tahiri."
"Just Tahiri? What's that supposed to mean?" the younger man demanded, seemingly offended.
Jacen waved him off. "You know what I mean."
"And besides," Anakin continued, "You were younger than me when you met Danni. And Jaina was two years younger than me when she married Jag."
"Now that's not fair," Jacen stated. "Jaina never would have put herself in that situation if she had had a choice. And Danni...well, you see how that turned out."
His brother snorted again, repeating his personal catch game with the fruit snack. "You have no one to blame for that but yourself. Seriously, Jace, you're my brother and I love you, but you can be such an idiot sometimes."
Jacen actually laughed. "Believe me, I don't need you to tell me. I beat myself up for it enough for the both of us."
"Then why don't you go and patch things up with her?" Anakin asked with exasperation.
"Because," he explained slowly, "this doesn't change the fact that I just have no desire to get married. Is that so hard for everyone to understand?"
"For a woman, yeah," the young Jedi replied. "Look, Tahiri is sixteen years old, and she already gets that look in her eye when people talk about having kids. Their biological clock starts ticking early. Danni is, what, twenty six?"
"Twenty seven," Jacen muttered.
"Whatever. The point is, she has a need, and if you can't fill it then you just have to let her go. And that means you have to move on too. You know who was at the Temple the other day?"
Jacen rolled his eyes, not really wanting to know. "I give up. Who?"
Anakin's eyes sparkled. "Tenel Ka."
Jacen's jaw clenched in reflex. "That was a very long time ago, and nothing but a childish crush. I'm a long ways past that."
"Oh, I'm sure you are. But the point is that there are other beautiful women out there that you can make a life with. Or not make a life with, in your case," he added with a smirk.
Jacen remained silent. How long had it been since he had seen Tenel Ka, his old childhood friend? Since the last really big Jedi meeting, he supposed. And that had been after the end of the war, four years ago, before she had given up and taken the Hapan throne as Queen Mother. Even if he had no interest at the moment for a relationship with anyone but Danni, it would be nice to see his friend again. Maybe he would pay her a visit after all.
The Coruscant night filled Jaina's viewport and she smiled as her close family extended their touch in recognition and welcome. It was good to be home.
The problem was, she didn't think she wanted it to be her home. As soon as she got Jag out of this mess he was tangled in, they would return to the Empire that embraced them and raise their children in peace.
As soon as she got him out of prison. That was the trick. Maybe it was time to try something a little less, conventional, Jaina mused. With a smile she pressed the stick forward and pushed towards atmosphere. Yes. Unconventional. That was it.