Because of the Fallanassi illusions that he cast to stave off any police speeders that would have approached the Chiss shuttle, Jacen managed to set the ship down in the middle of one of the streets that had been bombarded by the Guardian earlier. After cycling the shuttle down, he left the cockpit and helped Lowbacca stand up on his remaining leg so that they could disembark together.
Once they stepped off the landing ramp, Jacen hobbled Lowie over to an ambulatory speeder, where two paramedics—one an Ebruchi, the other a Tarro—were already busying themselves with a pair of patients themselves. Nevertheless, Jacen set Lowie down several meters away so that he was propped up against the side of a building.
"I'm sorry, my friend," Jacen said, "but I have to save Jaina."
Still drugged, Lowie nodded. "Do... what... you... have to do," the Wookiee groaned.
Jacen returned the nod, then turned in the direction of where he sensed Corran and Jaina's Force-presences, which he felt to be in the midst of combat. He ignored the sound of someone—probably a disgruntled paramedic—trying to call him back and chiding him for leaving his wounded friend unattended. Jacen would have agreed; after all, out here in the Unknown Regions, even on a planet as well-settled as Hlest, he doubted that Lowie could be treated properly since his species was probably not very well-known out here, if at all.
But as bad as he felt about leaving Lowie like that, even with the Wookiee understanding in his drug-addled state, Jacen would have felt worse for not coming after his sister.
. . .
As she screamed like a maniac, Jaina dueled Corran more aggressively than in their previous fight aboard the Guardian; her attacks were a lot more vicious, wild, and unpredictable with seemingly no discernible pattern or form to her fighting style. And her attacks were made all the more deadly as she bounced along the ceiling, floor, and walls of the sewer as if she were a professional grav-ball player. The occasional kick of muck toward Corran seemed to be something that she was heavily relying on, too, but the Jedi Master was able to erect Force-shields every now and then to keep the filth from splashing upon his face.
Even ignoring the fact that he wouldn't want to accidentally ingest any of this waste to begin with, he certainly didn't need any of it as a distraction right now. Because while conventional wisdom stated that a combatant who fought with less self-control and discipline was more prone to defeat by an opponent who had those things—especially when the composed combatant was generally more experienced and skilled—the fact was that Corran was doing everything he could to keep himself alive right now. His blocks and strikes had gradually become more desperate as he was forced to backpedal away from Jaina; he didn't even have time to think about how she could be beating him right now when he should have more of an advantage over her here than he had aboard the Guardian.
After several minutes of walking backwards without breaking his concentration on dueling Jaina, Corran's danger-sense spiked. Unfortunately, due to the ferocity of his opponent's attacks, he didn't have a chance to react before he tumbled over the ledge behind him and plummeted toward the basin that was several meters below. He used the Force to cushion his impact, though it couldn't prevent him from being drenched in the stuff, and when he looked back up at the ledge from which he fell, he saw Jaina glaring down upon him menacingly.
After deactivating her lightsaber and hooking it back to her belt, Jaina held both hands out and used the Force to churn the sweage in which Corran was.
"Jaina, what're you doing?" the Jedi Master asked as he tread the dirty water.
Instead of answering, Jaina lifted her arms up, and in response, so did the rest of the water. Corran rose up a few meters with it before Jaina plunged the water back to its previous level; it took the Jedi Master with it and pulled him under.
Jaina then rose more water up and managed to keep Corran submerged as she did so; when she let it crash back down again, the Master was plunged even deeper. Desperately, he tried to swim his way back up to the surface, only for his efforts to be thwarted when Jaina repeated the process with the water yet again.
"Jaina, stop it!" an all-too familiar voice said meters behind her. "You're killing him!"
She lowered her arms back to her sides, allowing the sewage to settle, before she turned and saw Jacen standing there with a pleading expression on his face.
"Don't try to stop me, Jacen!" Jaina exclaimed. "I'll give you one chance to turn around and walk away."
"Or do what? Kill me?" Jacen asked incredulously.
"If I do that," Jaina said darkly, "it'll only be one more thing that I'll hold against Uncle Luke and Corran."
By then, the water had settled enough for Corran to emerge and take a deep gasp of air through his mouth, rancid though it may have tasted given his surroundings. After getting his bearings, he spotted a ringed ladder that would take him directly back to Jaina; he only hoped that Jacen, whose presence he sensed now, could distract her long enough for him to get the drop on her.
"We both know you won't do that, Jaina!" Jacen said in response to his sister's last statement. "I can feel it through our bond! It would destroy you to do something like that! You'd be a monster to kill your own brother otherwise!"
"Why would it destroy me?" she countered. "You were dead before; I lived. And I became stronger for it, just like you."
As she said that, Corran made it to the ladder, hooked his lightsaber back to his belt, and began to slowly and silently climb up to where Jaina was.
"Just because I was cut off from the Force by Vergere doesn't mean I was dead, and you know that," Jacen pointed out.
"You might as well have been!" Jaina cried.
"And what if I actually die, huh?" Jacen asked. "And you're the one who delivers the killing blow? Think about it, Jaina, really think about it! As bad as killing Saba was, we both know that you wouldn't dare go as far as to kill me."
"No, you just think that, Jacen! I can cut you off like a rotted limb! Because it was you who held me back from doing what needed to be done!"
"What needed to be done?" Jacen asked angrily.
Jaina nodded. "To rid the galaxy of Jagged Fel as much as it needs to be rid of Gorog! Your presence kept me from killing that bastard just as mine let you vent your anger at him for what he did! If I have to kill you, then I can only become stronger afterwards!"
Once Jaina finished that sentence, Corran had made it to the top of the ladder with his lightsaber in his right hand and he activated it; he aimed his blade for Jaina's left calf.
But the rogue Knight had used a burst of Force-speed to twirl around, swing her leg out of the blade's way, and activate her own blade. Less than a second later, she sliced Corran's weapon-wielding hand off at the wrist.
As the Jedi Master instinctively released his remaining hand's grip on the rung that he held, he fell back into the basin below; he screamed in pain as he grasped at the cauterized stump of his right arm.
"No!" Jacen screamed as he rushed forward.
Jaina pivoted out of his way and allowed him to dive into the basin for Corran; they both knew that if he didn't receive medical attention immediately, especially when he was presently wallowing in sewage that could exacerbate whatever infections he might get afterwards, he would more than likely die of shock before he died of drowning or of a slow infection.
After using the Force to enhance his swimming speed toward Corran, Jacen reached the wounded Master and grabbed both arms around him in a bear-hug. The Knight then used the Force again to propel them to the surface; there, as Jacen brought them toward the ladder, he could feel Corran shaking even as he was now whimpering in pain.
But even before they reached the ladder, Jacen saw that Jaina was already gone; she had used the distraction of Corran's present state to escape.
Part of Jacen was relieved; though he regretted the allowance of his sister's escape, at least he wouldn't be conflicted in having to confront her. It would happen again in the future, he knew, but right now, he just had to worry about getting Corran some help.
. . .
After sensing where the Guardian had stopped in its hyperspace route, Plekos had plotted a different route to Hlest that allowed the Decent Chance to arrive a few hours after the Star Destroyer made it there. That route also placed the ship on the opposite side of the planet from where the Chiss capital vessel would have arrived from hyperspace; that way, the Guardian would be far less likely to spot the Chance than if the latter had followed the Chiss and their Jedi allies more directly.
Upon arriving in Hlest's orbit, Plekos sensed that there had been great use of the dark side of the Force that occurred where the Guardian had been shadowing the world. He expanded his senses further outward to try to isolate the dark side user.
After several minutes, Plekos found her; he didn't quite know who she was, but he felt the rage and hatred that matched the Force-signature of the power that he had sensed. And once she sensed him, the Zabrak used his own Force-abilities to initiate a telepathic connection with the other dark side user.
I will come for you, he told her.
Whoever you are, she returned, hurry. I'm not sure how long I have before my brother finds me.
Plekos then piloted the Chance down toward Hlest; once he cleared the atmosphere, he rocketed toward a bare patch of desert well outside any of the towns or the jurisdiction of their respective police departments. Within less than two minutes, he was only meters above the barren ground, which prompted him to slow his speed down as he approached the dark side user, who stood nearby a speeder which she no doubt had stolen.
He soon stopped and hovered mere meters away from the person whom he felt; and when he got a good look at her face through his cockpit's viewport, his eyes lit up from recognition.
It was the legendary Jedi Knight Jaina Solo; and her presence was, indeed, brimming with the dark side of the Force.
If it weren't for that feeling, Plekos would have never opened his ship's landing ramp for the Jedi. But he did; when all other logic would have told him to do the opposite—to leave her behind and blast away from this planet to follow the Guardian to wherever it was heading right now—he instead allowed her to rush into his ship and join him in the cockpit, where she seated herself in the copilot's chair.
"Let's go," was all she said to him.
Plekos nodded, as if they had been trusted partners for years; once he had the landing ramp up, that was when he took to Hlest's skies.
Minutes after that, they left the system's gravity well behind them and entered hyperspace.
. . .
Once Jacen had left Corran with a different paramedic team than the one that he left Lowie to, he felt Jaina's presence disappear from the Hlest system. He looked up into the sky, which was now settling into dawn, and he couldn't help but wince at the feeling of defeat that overcame him.
But as he stood in the midst of another street that the Guardian had ruined with its turbolasers, wondering what to do now, Jacen soon felt two familiar presences enter the system. Moments after that, his personal commlink rang and he activated it.
"Jacen, it's Master Durron!" Kyp's voice came from the device. "Jedi Wonetun and I have arrived. What's happened?"
Jacen sighed. Now they arrive, he thought bitterly. He hit the reply button and began to explain everything that had happened since they and the Chiss dropped out into the system.
. . .
Several hours after they launched from Hlest, Plekos dropped the Decent Chance out of hyperspace into an empty system.
"Why are we stopping?" Jaina asked anxiously from the copilot seat.
"I need to confirm something with the starcharts," Plekos replied as he brought up said charts on one of his console's screens.
"What's there to confirm?" Jaina inquired. "You told me about the blood-trail that you had on the Guardian, so we should be-"
"Just as I thought," Plekos said. He then looked directly at her. "They're going deep into Chiss space."
"So?" she asked angrily.
"So that means we can't just enter without getting easily caught," he replied testily. "And my ship doesn't have the firepower to take on even a single Chiss Star Destroyer, let alone a fleet of 'em."
"So we just let 'em get away?" Jaina inquired incredulously.
"Well, unless all of Chiss space has been invaded and taken over by Gorog," Plekos replied evenly, "I don't see the need to trace 'em any further. I'll check to see what passes for a HoloNet out here to see if there's been any Dark Nest activity."
As the Zabrak moved to bring up any newsnets within this sector of space, Jaina asked, "You came out here for Gorog, Plekos?"
"Of course," he answered without taking attention away from his work. "I put the blood-trail in the Guardian because I thought it would be the best chance I had of finding Gorog. Funny you didn't ask why I put the trail there to begin with."
"I didn't much care why," Jaina explained. "You tell me we were following the Guardian, it was good enough for me."
At that, Plekos looked away from his console and directed his full attention upon Jaina. "What quarrel do you have with that Star Destroyer?" he asked.
"Its commander, Jagged Fel, must die," Jaina uttered.
"Ah," Plekos said. "Care to tell me why?"
"It wouldn't matter to you," Jaina said. "Though I'm curious, why do you wanna look for Gorog?"
"I don't wanna look for any insects of that nest, if you're wondering," Plekos admitted. "I'm only interested in meeting the Jedi who are part of it."
"You mean Alema, Tahiri, and Tesar?" Jaina asked. "Why are you so interested in them?"
"Well, not them specifically," Plekos said. "I wanna know what they know."
"About what?"
Plekos grinned. "You know I use the Force, yet you still haven't asked what I am."
"If you're a Sith, I honestly don't care anymore."
The Zabrak's eyes widened in surprise. "Tell me, do you still wanna see your friends, Jaina?"
She cocked her head in thought. "You know, after everything that happened on Hlest, I think I do. But now I don't even want to bring them in, much less kill them. Though after what I did to Gorog, I don't think they'll be willing to accept me again."
"Because you killed their queen and king, Lomi Plo and Welk?" Plekos asked.
Jaina's eyes narrowed. "I assume you knew them?"
The Zabrak gave a coy expression. "After everything you've done, you wouldn't be accepted by either the Jedi or the Dark Nest. Where do you think you'll go now, Jaina?"
"I now live to see that Jagged Fel dies by my hand," she said firmly. "If you take me to the closest Chiss planet where I can make my way to him, I will let you go the rest of your way to finding Gorog and its Jedi. Even if you can't get close to a Chiss military base, surely you can find a barely-secure outpost or something where they might not even pat you down for visiting."
Plekos pondered that for a moment. Then he said, "I'll see what I can find," before turning back to his console for information.