Ducking instinctively under the high kicked aimed at the back of her head, she whirled around to slap aside the second kick with her strong forearm.

As her attacker staggered back, Tenel Ka advanced, dropping to the floor suddenly and sweeping her right leg out to try and catch the man's foot, but he jumped over her swipe. The moment his feet touched the ground, though, her other leg came around to clip him in the back of the ankle, and he went down hard.

A tingle shot up her neck, and she rolled aside just as a stun baton crashed to the floor where her head had been moments before. Springing to her feet, she turned as yet another attacker charged her, and she leapt into a tight spin, a booted foot slamming into his jaw with a vicious crack that echoed through the entire room, even over the sounds of the fight still taking place around her.

Her left foot shot out and caught him just below the rib cage, knocking the wind out of him, and he reeled back into the wall, head cracking into the durasteel, then slumped to the floor.

Dodging another swipe of a stun baton, Tenel Ka turned to face the last of her attackers, calling her rancor-tooth lightsaber hilt into her hand and igniting it with one fluid movement as she fell into a dueler's crouch. Her turquoise blade leapt towards the armed man, and he stumbled back to avoid having his throat opened upon it.

With fear showing in his eyes, he swiped at her lightsaber with the stun baton desperately, which proved a mistake.

The metal end of the weapon sheared off, and sparks exploded from the severed weapon, sending a jolt of electric shock back into its wielder, causing his blond hair to spike and stand on end.

His hands shaking as the shock went through him, the man dropped his stun baton, and stumbled back into a wall.

Tenel Ka straightened, her lightsaber still in hand, and strode purposefully over to him, grasping him by the front of his shirt. "Who sent you?" she demanded stonily, making sure that his eyes never left her turquoise blade, which hovered close to his throat. "I demand that you tell me."

Just as she had expected, the assassin refused to speak.

Not even when she moved her lightsaber closer to his throat.

Then, he merely closed his eyes tight, swallowing hard, his entire body trembling, and not solely from the shock he'd received through the destroyed stun baton.

But there were other methods of getting the answers she sought.

Some of her ancestors, former queens of the Hapes Consortium, would have resorted to torture, and there were many untold agonies that loyal guards had been trained to inflict in order to extract information, but Tenel Ka did not need to resort to such a thing.

Unlike her ancestors, particularly her great-grandmother who had founded the anti-Jedi Ni'Korish, the Force was with Tenel Ka and it was her ally.

Delving deep into the mind of her attacker, she found what she was looking for.

And she couldn't say that she was all that surprised.

Extinguishing her lightsaber, Tenel Ka brought the blunt end of its hilt down against the man's temple, rendering him unconscious, and let him collapse on the floor.

A single blaster bolt spliced through the air behind her, followed by a thud.

Hooking her lightsaber in its rightful place at her side, Tenel Ka turned to see her father lowering a still-smoking blaster, his tired features set with grim determination.

Sensing a forewarning, she stepped back calmly just as the last remaining Ni'Korish agent went crashing by into the wall, where he promptly landed in a heap atop his comrade, eyes rolling up into the back of his head. He went limp, arms and legs sprawled, but he would live.

Which was more than could be said for some of his companions.

Narrowing her eyes in disapproval at the two dead Ni'Korish across the room, Tenel Ka watched silently as her fellow Jedi likewise extinguished his lightsaber.

"Don't give me that look," Kyp Durron snapped irritably, moving a body aside with his foot. "Would you have preferred I let them throw their vibroblades at your mother?"

Tenel Ka did not bother to answer that.

His blaster still in hand, as if he wasn't willing to risk any more attackers appearing from the shadows, Isolder twisted his body around to look down at his estranged wife as she lay sleeping in her bed.

The tender relief she saw in his eyes drained some of the tension from Tenel Ka's shoulders.

Things had not been well between her parents for some time now, ever since Fondor, but if the expression on her father's face was any indication, there was still hope for them to work things out.

And thanks to Kyp Durron's help in foiling this assassination attempt, there was a future, as well.

"Your speed allowed us to save my mother's life, Master Durron," Tenel Ka told him evenly. "You have my gratitude."

Even if I still do not fully trust you, she added to herself, keeping such thoughts carefully guarded.

"Don't thank me," Kyp retorted. "Jaina's the one who had the vision."

"Ah," Tenel Ka murmured. "Aha."

He must have picked up on the underlying anxiety that mention of her friend brought, because Kyp gave her a hard look, something warning and challenging in his swirling emerald eyes.

After a long moment of meeting his stare head-on, Tenel Ka looked away and sighed.

Despite her concerns about the negative influence that he might have upon Jaina, a part of her had been hoping that the young Jedi Master might prove capable of pulling her back from the course she'd chosen to take after Myrkr, since nothing else seemed to be working.

Now, she realized how terribly mistaken she had been.

It was not Kyp's influence on Jaina that she should have been worrying about, but rather Jaina's influence on him.

Clearly, the relationship between the two had progressed beyond what was acceptable for a Master and his apprentice, but then again, Tenel Ka doubted very much that Jaina was the student any longer.

And Kyp, for all his power and willful determination, was wrapped around her finger like a coiled wire.

Her personal distaste for Kyp Durron's methods and the discord he sowed among the Jedi aside, she had to admit that it was, perhaps, not entirely his fault. After all, he was not the only one who failed to see what was right in front of him.

On more than one occasion, Tenel Ka had tried to express her fears for Jaina to Lowbacca, but their Wookiee friend was too loyal and his affection for Jaina too strong for him to see the truth. Working side by side with Jaina on the Trickster, he was too close to the situation to see if for what it really was, to realize that he, like everyone else, had become just another pawn in Jaina's dejarik game.

Needless to say, he hadn't appreciated the insinuation that Jaina was dangerous.

A Wookiee's temper was nothing to be trifled with.

And he had made a good point, when he'd defended Jaina by saying that grief and loss made people do crazy, stupid things, that it clouded your judgment. Lowbacca, as he had reminded her, knew firsthand how grief worked, having lost his beloved uncle Chewbacca at the very start of the war.

Sensing that she had been treading on sensitive ground, Tenel Ka had allowed him to get back to his work with the villips, attempting to attune them to display whole scenes, like a holocam would, rather than just the face of the one speaking. It had been a request from Jaina, who apparently had something up her sleeve that she wanted to make sure the Yuuzhan Vong got a good, hard look at, but Lowbacca was not nearly as unsettled by this as Tenel Ka was.

Before leaving, though, she had given him something to consider, hoping it might help him see the truth.

How easily Jaina dismissed the lives of his fellow Wookiee techs, his friends, to further her own agenda in this war.

Lowbacca had simply stared down at the villip in his large, furry hands, for a long time, deeply troubled, and he had not moved for some time after her departure.

I feel your troubles, my friend, she thought wearily.

She did not like being so useless, so helpless, unable to do anything but stand by and watch as a friend, the woman she considered to be her best friend, after Jacen Solo, fell into darkness.

How fiercely she wished that Jacen were here now.

If anyone could have saved his twin sister, it would have been him.

Then again, considering how Jaina had lashed out at Jacen on the worldship, how she had blamed him for Anakin's death, cursing him for dragging her away and leaving their younger brother to die alone, perhaps it would not have made any difference.

And she would not wish that hurt on Jacen, no matter how desperately she ached to see his face just one more time.

To hear him tell one of the poor jokes he'd endlessly cracked off during their youth, to see that kind smile of his, to melt into his embrace and confess all of the fears and insecurities that had taken hold of her as of late.

To get the chance to give him that last kiss, which had been denied to them by Vergere's interruption.

She had loved him since girlhood, and loved him so deeply and so completely that every day was now a struggle for her. A part of her had always known that if she were forced to take the throne, there could never be a real future for them, Jacen was not meant for the insidious court of Hapes and she would never presume to bring him into such a place, even if he were to offer.

But now her mother's strength was beginning to return, and if her parents worked things out, they might try again to conceive another child, another heir, freeing Tenel Ka to follow her destiny as a Jedi.

Only now there was no fleeting hope for a family of her own, for children and the happiness of a marriage like the one Master Skywalker shared with his wife.

Because Jacen was dead.

It had not gotten any easier to say those words, to accept that Jacen, like his younger brother, was gone forever, that he was never coming back. A part of her kept refusing to believe it, despite the fact that she had felt his death, insisting that Jacen couldn't possibly be dead, that he was just missing, but she could not allow such flights of fancy.

They would destroy her.

"It's too bad you couldn't get that one to talk, Princess," Kyp Durron said, nodding towards the assassin who was slumped against the wall behind her. He paused, then arched an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth lifting faintly. "Or did you?"

Isolder looked up sharply.

"I discovered the identity of his employer, yes," Tenel Ka replied evenly.

Her father must have seen something in her eyes, or heard something in her voice, or maybe Isolder was just more intuitive than she gave him credit for.

"Ta'a Chume," he concluded with quiet grimness.

"That is a fact," Tenel Ka confirmed, suppressing her own grim loathing for the woman, for it was unbecoming of a Jedi. "My grandmother wished to dispose of my mother in order to pave the way for a new queen of her choosing."

"She has gone too far," Isolder said, shaking his head sadly. "The woman has no limits."

Tenel Ka suspected her father was remembering his own brother's suspicious death, and the death of her uncle's wife, both of whom had been in Ta'a Chume's way before Tenel Ka was even born.

"She must be detained," Isolder insisted, the set of his eyes narrowing sharply. "Tenel Ka, have guards escort your grandmother to her quarters and lock her in until we can proceed with a trial."

A trial which would lead directly to execution, Tenel Ka knew, for that was the way of things when one threatened a member of the Hapan royal family, much less the ruling queen, and not even Ta'a Chume was above such laws.

"That is not necessary," she told him somberly, and her heart wrenched, but not for her grandmother. "Ta'a Chume is dead."

Both her father and Master Durron started at that, staring at her with blatant shock.

"Dead?" Isolder echoed flatly.

There was a slight twinge of grief for the loss of his traitorous mother, but only slight, and the sense Tenel Ka got from him was mostly one of relief.

She could not share in that sentiment.

Neither, apparently, could Kyp Durron, for the Jedi Master turned and slipped silently from the room, a heavy weight closing in upon his shoulders.

He, too, knew the truth.

"How?" Isolder asked.

"My grandmother has been pressuring you to set my mother aside," Tenel Ka said evenly, and her father flinched, guilt in his eyes as he looked at her. "She wished for you to marry Jaina Solo, enabling her to rule through a young, inexperienced queen that she thought she could manipulate."

Isolder's jaw set grimly, but he did not speak, allowing her to continue.

"Ta'a Chume was a fool," Tenel Ka concluded. "If Jaina had consented to this, it would not have been my grandmother pulling the strings. She would have found herself a pawn in Jaina's hands, and she would not have even realized it until it was too late."

"You really think that Jaina is capable of such a thing?" Isolder inquired.

It was a terrible question he asked, but no more terrible than the answer she had to give.

Tenel Ka met her father's gaze evenly. "Ta'a Chume is dead," she reminded him, but this time she did not hold back the truth which was weighing upon her heart. "At Jaina Solo's hand."

His eyes widened, but to his credit, he didn't show a drastic reaction. Growing up among the Hapan court had taught him to keep his emotions close to his chest, lest they be used against him, and it was a lesson he had not learned without a price.

"You're certain about this?" Isolder asked slowly.

Tenel Ka was not offended by his skepticism, if she had not felt it herself, she would have refused to believe it, as well.

"I have come to realize as of late," she replied quietly. "That Jaina is on a path that no one can pull her back from now that her brothers are dead."

A heavy silence fell over the room, thick and oppressive, gloom clinging to the air around them, and it seemed to seep into Tenel Ka's skin, into her bones and her blood, into her very soul.

"I do not know what to do," she confessed in a hushed whisper, and a cloud of tormented despair welled up inside of her, tearing at her heart with relentless hunger and battering the flimsy shields that were barely supporting her fragile composure. "If we try to arrest Jaina, more people will die. She will not allow us to take her into custody."

"She did save your mother's life," Isolder pointed out gently after a long moment of tense silence. "And my mother, despite our blood ties, was a traitor and a murderer. Your mother would not have been the first victim of her treachery, though Ta'a Chume would never sully herself with the task personally, there is much blood on her hands just the same. She would have been executed if Jaina had not taken matters into her own hands."

"You say this to comfort me," Tenel Ka replied sharply. "But it does no such thing. Jaina Solo is a Jedi, she knows that a Jedi should never take a life except when it is in the safekeeping of others. My grandmother's death was not justice, however righteous Jaina thinks it was."

"Then what was it?" Isolder asked.

"The dark side," Tenel Ka said quietly, turning away. "And I fear that Jaina has become lost to us now."

"Perhaps you should contact Princess Leia then?" Isolder suggested with a worried frown. "Or Master Skywalker?"

"Perhaps," Tenel Ka agreed, but she was uncertain if even they could do anything at this point.

Things had progressed too far, too quickly, and the Force was telling her that there was no clear way to undo what had happened, to untangle the jagged knots inside of Jaina Solo.

A shrill alarm spliced through the air and cut through her thoughts as the invasion alert sounded.

The Yuuzhan Vong had arrived at last.

Looking down at her right hand, Tenel Ka's eyes came to rest on the large emerald ring her mother had put there just a few weeks prior, and then sharply curled her fingers into a fist, causing a hologram to flicker to life between them.

A nebulous swirl of darkness and mists filled the air.

Through the Force, she felt her father's confusion turn into surprise, hope swelling in his chest as the hologram showed the mists parting to reveal five enormous starships, with hundreds of smaller ships spilling out of them.

"This is my mother's work," Tenel Ka said quietly, and Isolder's eyes softened. "She foresaw the Yuuzhan Vong threat and prepared. Much of the fleet that was lost at Fondor has been rebuilt, hidden away in the Transitory Mists. I have just given the signal for these ships to come to our aid."

"I had no idea," Isolder murmured, more to himself than to his daughter.

Even without the Force, Tenel Ka would have sensed the guilt he felt for losing faith in his ailing wife, for the distance that had grown between them ever since what he saw as his own failure at Fondor. The destruction of the fleet had hit Teneniel Djo through the Force, causing her to miscarry the child growing in her womb, and her health had been deteriorating ever since.

But you will grow strong again, Mother, she thought, willing some of her strength to the sleeping woman. The Force wills it so. Your time has not yet ended.

Her own, however, was just beginning.

"I need to address the court," she told her father evenly. "As my mother's regent."

Isolder gazed down at her for a moment, then laid a hand on her shoulder. "I am proud of you," he said softly, and then his eyes darted back towards the bed where Teneniel Djo lay sleeping. "And your mother will be proud of you, as well."

Tenel Ka nodded in acknowledgment of his praise. "You will stay with her?" she requested.

"I will," Isolder promised, and leaned forward to kiss her forehead. "May the Force be with you, my daughter."

As she made her way towards the court hall, Tenel Ka dearly hoped that the Force was with her today.

Because she needed its guidance now more than ever.