After getting the shuttle through Hlest's atmosphere without burning up, Corran asked, "Jacen, how are those clawcraft behind us!"
"All gone!" the Knight reported as he sat down in the copilot seat. "If they launch another squad or two for us, I'll have 'em kill each other, too. But until then, I'm gonna try to look for Jaina through the Force. Hopefully, she isn't making herself small right now."
Jacen closed his eyes and concentrated; Corran, meanwhile, kept his eyes on the sensors for anymore enemy aircraft coming from behind as he soared down from Hlest's skies. Soon, he began flying over its various towns and initiated a search pattern over the particular town where he last knew Jaina to be.
Within minutes, after Corran made a pass around that town, he saw the Chiss shuttles that he spotted leaving the Guardian earlier rise up from a distant spot in the desert, well outside any of the towns, and soar for the sky above. His eyes widened as realization dawned on him.
"Jacen!" Corran exclaimed.
"Yes, Master Horn?"
"I think the Guardian is going to start an orbital bombardment for us."
When Jacen looked through the viewport and saw the Chiss shuttles receding into the sky, it clicked in his mind; by now, Jag would have realized that it would have been stupid to send anymore clawcraft after the Jedi because Jacen would have just made them kill each other with Fallanassi illusions. And since Jag had no problem dispatching a pair of fighters to attack a spaceport just to try to kill Jaina, he and Corran had to assume that he and his crew wouldn't have any problem launching an all-out orbital assault on the planet just to kill them and Jaina.
"Jacen," Corran said, "please tell me you can deactivate the Guardian's turbolasers from down here."
"Let me try," Jacen said before he closed his eyes again. Moments later, his eyes flashed open and he said, "I'm sorry, Master Horn. The Star Destroyer's too far for my powers to work." He half-expected Corran to berate him for letting a menial element such as distance affect his ability to use the Force by drawing a comparison to Yoda's lecture to Luke about how size mattered not. Jacen also figured that Corran would stress it with the circumstances that they were presently faced with.
"Well, let's hope we can find Jaina before they start shooting," Corran said instead.
"Right," Jacen said before he shut his eyes to concentrate on finding his sister.
He knew better than to try to call out through their twin bond now; if Jaina was making herself small through the Force, it would be a waste of time to call out for her. But that didn't stop Jacen from trying to detect anyplace where the Force ought to be; the way he was searching for Jaina, it was akin to looking for a Yuuzhan Vong before he received his Vongsense.
About a minute after he and Corran last spoke, his eyes flashed open and he pointed to a set of low buildings not far from where Jaina was last seen by them.
"There!" Jacen exclaimed. "She's somewhere in the sewers beneath those buildings there!"
And it was right then that both their danger-senses spiked. Corran veered the shuttle off to port just as a giant green laser struck down through where they just were and impacted upon a parked speeder, reducing it to a flaming wreck. The Jedi Master then flew straight forward and over the buildings that Jacen had indicated as a line of turbolasers began following them, pounding upon the pavement, buildings, and even people as they went.
After half a minute of dodging the lasers that rained from above, Corran pulled the shuttle into a diagonal climb. Seconds after that, he found himself having to slalom every which way once the lasers began to focus in on their location.
"Tell me when we're close enough, Jacen!" Corran exclaimed.
The Knight didn't even have to ask; though he wondered what the plan would be after the Guardian's turbolaser cannons were disabled, he kept himself focused once they got close enough to the Star Destroyer.
By the time the blue in the sky faded into the blackness of space and the attacking capital vessel was in plain view for both Jedi, Jacen said, "I got it!"
The turbolaser cannons fell silent, allowing Corran to settle the shuttle into a straight run for the Guardian.
"Alright, now what's the plan, Master Horn?" Jacen asked as he kept focusing through the Force on making sure the enemy's turbolasers didn't start up again.
"Just watch," Corran said with a cocky grin.
Within moments, once they were within firing distance of the Guardian's turbolasers, Corran fired off the shuttle's guns, blasting away through the shields to eventually get at the Star Destroyer's cannons. Gradually, he made his way from left to right, as if this was a regular day of work for him.
Then a squad of clawcraft launched from one of the Star Destroyer's hangar bays.
"Uh, Jacen?" Corran asked. "Are you able to disable the turbolasers and make the clawcraft kill each other at the same time?"
"Sadly, that's one of the limits of my abilities, Master Horn. I can't do two different Force-tricks at once."
"Alright, then. Let's see if you can make those clawcraft take out those guns for us."
"I'll do my best."
Corran then veered off to starboard as the Guardian's turbolasers came alive again; but within seconds, the Jedi Master made a daring run toward the weapons even as the shuttle was chased by the clawcraft squad.
Along the way, though, a swarm of Yuuzhan Vong coralskippers suddenly manifested out of darkspace from the Destroyer's starboard and began spewing their plasma projectiles at the clawcraft.
Jacen, of course, made sure through the Fallanassi illusion that none of the projectiles actually hit any of the clawcraft or the Guardian; he knew that there were limits to what could be accepted as reality when he was using the Force—or the White Current, as it was called in instances like this—to trick his opponents. And so far, this trick was working like before, because the clawcraft immediately broke off from chasing the stolen Chiss shuttle to engage in dogfights with the illusory coralskippers. As this happened, the false fighters moved in the direction of the Destroyer from their individual trajectories.
It was only a matter of time before the actual projectiles launched by the clawcraft phased through the Fallanassi illusion of organic fighters to strike upon the Guardian, gradually ripping away through its shields and reducing the last of its turbolaser emplacements to slag.
And that was when Jacen turned the illusory coralskippers against the clawcraft, prompting them to commit to maneuvers that destroyed the actual fighters within half a minute.
"Coralskippers this time?" Corran asked.
Jacen shrugged. "Thought I might vary it up, keep 'em on their toes."
Corran nodded before he looked back to the viewport. "I wonder how many they're willing to throw at us now!"
As if in answer to the Jedi Master's statement, the Guardian began a gradual turn away from Hlest. Then the shuttle's comm pinged; Corran answered it.
"If you're thinking about finishing off my Star Destroyer, Horn," Fel's angry voice came through, "I urge you to reconsider. I've already contacted my superiors and let them know of everything that's happened here; you Jedi are already in very deep trouble. If you finish us off, you will officially be declaring war on the Chiss Ascendancy!"
Corran and Jacen both shared a look of incredulity. The former replied with, "As if we're not already at war with each other, Fel?"
"Oh, but you see," Fel said, "my superiors are willing to grant you amnesty if you allow the Guardian to launch for hyperspace. Again, if you destroy us, you lose whatever chance you have of smoothing things over with my government."
Corran muted his end of the transmission. "He's lying about the amnesty; I don't even need the Force to tell me that," he told Jacen. "And as if we have any hope of 'smoothing things over' with the Chiss at this point."
"I agree, Master Horn. But they're virtually defenseless now. As Jedi, we can't just kill them just to reduce the number of enemies we'll have later down the line."
Corran sighed. "You're right; it's not how we do things." He then reactivated the comm. "Tell me, Fel; did you tell your superiors that you fired on an independent planet without provocation?"
"Without provocation?" Fel asked incredulously. "We were trying to destroy you!"
"Yeah, but does that really justify firing on a planet and killing who-knows how many civilians, all in attempts that have failed, by the way?" Corran asked.
After a moment, Fel exploded. "I don't have to answer this! Let us leave, and I promise that no one will attack you here!"
"But anywhere else in the galaxy is fair game, huh?" Corran asked snidely.
Fel didn't respond; he just cut off the connection then and there. For his part, Corran didn't move in to finish off the Guardian; he and Jacen just watched as the Destroyer moved out of Hlest's gravity well before it launched for hyperspace.
"Alright then," Corran said evenly. "Let's go find Jaina." He then redirected the shuttle back at Hlest.
. . .
The feeling of death from above sickened Jaina and only further resolved her drive to kill Jag. Though she remained hidden in the sewers and wasn't completely aware of what was happening on Hlest's surface, she just knew that whatever happened was Jag's doing and that he would pay for it.
Had she not been so angry with her ex-boyfriend, she would have blamed herself for at least part of the carnage he wrought upon this planet, relatively small though it may have been. But like with Jag torturing Zekk, though it may have been for a short time, what the Chiss-raised human did here couldn't go unpunished, either.
Of course, she didn't know why Jag had ceased what was most likely an orbital bombardment of this world, and so soon at that. She sensed that there were still people alive and who were in obvious physical and emotional pain from what just happened. Jaina vowed that when she killed Jag, she would find a way to make him suffer for all the lives that he had taken here on top of hurting Zekk.
Upon finding a ladder that led up to the surface, Jaina climbed up and used the Force to remove the manhole cover above. Even before she poked her head out, she could tell that she was in an alley, and since she didn't sense anyone nearby, she could emerge unseen and merge with the rest of the crowd. With the damage that this town and others nearby had suffered, she doubted that anyone would notice how badly she smelled for spending so much time in the sewers.
When Jaina made it out to the streets, she slowed her progress as she saw the charred remains of some buildings, vehicles, and even the crisped remains of some people. As bad as it was to sense the pain of the living from beneath, seeing it as people of various species were either in physical pain, even among those receiving emergency services, or emotional agony as they surrounded the corpses—or even pieces of corpses in some cases—of their loved ones almost made Jaina want to scream Jag's name in vengeance.
In spite of that, she kept herself in control; she would unleash her anger in the proper time. In the meantime, Jaina knew that she had to find a ship to get offworld; she imagined that that might be difficult since the whole planet was probably on lockdown from having anyone leave until the authorities could figure out what just happened.
She stopped in her tracks and looked up to the sky when she heard the sound of a shuttle flying overhead. The ship hovered in place fifty meters above her; when she used the Force to enhance her vision, she saw who was in the pilot and copilot seats respectively from here.
Corran and Jacen.
Jaina's eyes narrowed as she allowed her presence to become readable to them through the Force, if only so that she could get a read on them, too. She sensed that their intentions were non-hostile at least, and through their twin bond in particular, Jacen conveyed that he, Corran, and Lowie were no longer with Jag and the Chiss; Jacen and Corran just wanted to talk to Jaina.
However, just before Jaina could give an answer through the twin bond, the Chiss shuttle was surrounded by a trio of police speeders.
From the loudspeaker of one of those speeders, a masculine voice called out, "JAPD!" Jaina figured that was the acronym of the police force for whatever this town's name was. "Set the shuttle down slowly and step out!"
. . .
"Jacen?" Corran asked.
"Got it," the Knight said.
Immediately, the sounds of Chiss clawcraft sounded in the air, and the police speeders surrounding the shuttle broke off. Jacen maintained the illusion of six clawcraft chasing them for several dozen meters, right up until the speeders became distant specks to his and Corran's vision.
"Take the helm," Corran said as he vacated the pilot seat.
"What?" Jacen asked even as he did as the Jedi Master told him to do. "Why?"
"You can fly and keep up the illusions, as you did above," Corran said as he stood between the pilot and copilot seats. "I'll go get Jaina."
"But, Master Horn-"
"No arguments," Corran interrupted tersely. "Just get us close to Jaina."
Jacen abruptly shut his mouth and dove the shuttle down toward where his sister was. Swiftly, she turned away and began running away even as she made herself small in the Force again.
"When I'm out," Corran said, "you pull out. I'll signal you over the comm to let you know where we are; failing that for whatever reason, I'll reach out to you through the Force. Understood?"
"Understood," Jacen said. He kept whatever resentment he felt at the Jedi Master to himself, or at least tried to when it came to his Force-presence; Corran could feel that all Jacen wanted to do at the moment was to simply talk to his sister.
A part of Corran would have agreed to let Jacen go after her. But he knew how Jaina could influence her brother's emotions through their twin bond; the Jedi Master couldn't afford to let the other Solo twin get drawn into whatever dark emotions were affecting his sister should they be left alone together.
Corran then headed to the shuttle's rear and opened up its landing ramp. He jumped out, Force-cushioned his landing, and then turned and began chasing after Jaina on foot. Above, the shuttle banked off and disappeared over the horizon of buildings that surrounded Corran and his quarry.
As they rushed past pedestrians who were too traumatized by the recent orbital bombardment to question what was going on, Jaina gave one brief look over her shoulder back at Corran before she turned back and used the Force to rip a nearby manhole cover out of its placement. Without breaking stride, she hurried to it and plummeted down its depths.
Corran followed, but even as he still descended in a free-fall, he had to whip out and active his lightsaber to block Jaina's blade, which had swung at him from below.
From the block, Corran used it as leverage to twist himself in the air before landing in a crouch behind Jaina. The two stood off against each other; both of them had adopted defensive stances.
Corran realized what she had just tried to do; she had tried to kill him without provocation. Jaina really was on a dark path now; if she had any hope of being pulled back, he had to be very careful with what he said next.
"I mean you no harm, Jaina!" Corran exclaimed. "We can still end this peacefully!"
"Can we now?" Jaina retorted.
It was then that she opened her presence up through the Force again, and Corran felt what he had already deduced before his feet hit the muck of this sewer: the anger, the hatred, the rage, all directed at Jagged Fel.
"You know what all that mans, Corran," Jaina said as she made her Force-presence small again, "and why I can't go back with you, Jacen, and Lowie."
"Fel isn't worth it, Jaina! He's not worth falling to the dark side!"
"Then who is?" Jaina asked bitterly.
"No one!" Corran replied. "You don't have to resort to the dark side of the Force to resolve any of your problems, or to use justice as an excuse to try to justify your behavior! Because I sense that you're using the death and pain that Fel just caused to fuel your desire for vengeance upon him, Jaina!"
She cocked her head at him. "Tell me, Master Horn. How does it feel to know that you didn't have to be the one to kill Saba?"
"What? That's not what this is about, Jaina!"
"Oh, but it is! You were ready to kill her, and I did what you had to do! And you think I'm some heartless monster that needs to be stopped because of it?"
"You used the dark side to burn out her eyes, Jaina! That was bad enough on its own. But then you killed her when she was no longer a threat! She could have been taken in at that point, badly maimed though she was, and then we could-"
"Could what, Master Horn? Maintain that precious alliance with the Chiss to hunt down and kill Tahiri, Tesar, and Alema? No thanks."
"This is not what we Jedi do, Jaina, and you know that!"
"No, what we Jedi do is we do everything in our power to keep a mother away from trying to save her son! And when she tries to do just that, she cuts off one of my best friend's legs and forces me to kill her!"
Corran looked gobsmacked. "No one forced you to kill Saba!"
"You and Uncle Luke forced me to kill her, Corran," Jaina growled. "Just as you force me to do this!"
She then launched herself forward to begin her duel to the death against Corran.