So far, it was a miracle that both Kyle Katarn and Octa Ramis still had all of their Jedi Knights alive as they soared for their respective targets. While Octa and her Knights were taking Admiral Ulaska's Star Destroyer Klasseu and Kyle and his bunch were heading for Admiral Iosha's Elash, both Jedi StealthX squadrons were being harried from every which way by Chiss clawcraft that knew they were there because of both enemy admirals' Sith battle meditation. Indeed, they and their subordinate Knights had been diverted several times from their targets, whether it was to finish off some particularly vicious clawcraft pilots or even just to help some other harried Galactic Alliance fighters.
And because of the Jedi groups' concentration in not getting killed in the lethal light show directed at them with their wild maneuvers and return fire at the enemy craft, even the Masters couldn't afford to try to cloak their Force-presences at the moment. Their circumstances were further highlighted by the various dings and scratches from the near-misses that their StealthXs had suffered from the clawcraft and more than a few instances of stray friendly fire.
But for all of the concentration that Kyle was putting into not dying, he still had the wherewithal to note that, as he and his squad were finally beginning to close the distance to the Elash, they were still over a thousand kilometers away from it when his squad finally took a loss once Jedi Knight Thann Mithric's StealthX blew up. The Jedi Master shifted his shock and grief for this first loss to the back of his mind as he threw his fighter into a tight bank to port and blew away another clawcraft that was then tracing a series of charric bolts for him.
He banked to starboard when his rear sensors told him that a clawcraft was now trying to blow him out of the sky from behind. Currently, the StealthXs piloted by his following Knights were all busy with sudden dogfights of their own to help him out, so Kyle continued his maneuvers every which way in the space ahead of him. Unfortunately, whoever was piloting this clawcraft was good, more so than the other pilots he had faced in this battle so far, as more often than not, they were landing more hits than misses on Kyle's shields, chipping away at them faster than they could replenish.
Finally, after nearly a minute of seemingly futile dodging, the shields surrounding Kyle's uppermost port wing collapsed and said section of the fighter was sheared off. Immediately, as alarms started to blare in the cockpit, the Jedi Master struggled to regain control of his fighter.
"I'm hit!" he called out to anyone who could hear him over the StealthX comm frequency even as his ship continued to buck from the shots from the rear clawcraft.
With great desperation, Kyle threw the Force into his physical effort of wrenching his fighter hard to starboard, which allowed him only a few seconds of breathing room before the proficient clawcraft was firing charrics at his shields again. This time, though, as Kyle found himself with even greater difficulty in piloting his craft, he shunted a great deal of the StealthX's power into rear shields; yet they were still being depleted faster than they could recharge as he continued to try to regain control of the fighter.
Then, all of a sudden, the threat proximity sensors of Kyle's StealthX ceased even as his damage alarms continued to blare for his attention. Looking at his sensors, he saw that the enemy clawcraft that nearly got him was gone, and in its place was another ship, a YT-2400 that his sensors marked as... the Solo Quest II.
"Need some help there, buddy?" Kyp Durron's voice came over the comm.
Kyle ignored the curiosity that sprang to his mind about why Kyp was here when he should have been on Tatooine looking after Candak Hecluse. Instead, he said, "If you can tow me to that Star Destroyer over at these coordinates, I'll buy you all the brandy on Corellia after this, Kyp." He promptly transmitted the coordinates of the Elash over to the Quest.
"I think two bottles will do," Kyp quipped as he swung Jacen's ship over for Kyle's StealthX. "Okay, maybe three."
Once Kyle's fighter was caught in the YT's tractor beam seconds later, the Jedi Master's remaining squadmates, who had all emerged from their dogfights victorious, followed their towed leader the rest of the way to the Elash, which then opened fire on them with its defensive turbolasers.
. . .
Jacen stood his ground as his lightsaber whirled crazily around him against the fire of no less than a full squad of Chiss commandos that advanced upon him in a tightening circle. Their rate of fire increased with intensity as they stepped closer to him, meter by meter, to the point that he couldn't muster the concentration to project a flickering Fallanassi illusion or emit a Force-wave to throw back his would-be killers. Even resorting to dodging and moving from his previous spot only took out two of the commandos, and even they were replaced less than five seconds later from somewhere close in the battlefield surrounding Sal-Solo's public office.
As Jacen began to tire, and feared that this would be it—that he would never see Jaina or even attempt to help redeem her from the dark side of the Force—and that he would die here by these commandos' charric bolts, he heard the sound of one of them screaming something in Cheunh.
Then half of them shifted their fire away from him and began firing in the opposite direction; Jacen was too busy with the other half to take note of who the first six Chiss were now concentrating on. Thankfully, however, with a little bit more breathing room, he was able to project a brief illusion of six of him in front of each of the commandos still focusing on him. And before any of the illusions started flickering, Jacen Force-blasted each commando off of his feet.
He then leaped up into the air, landed near them before they could recover from their hard landing, and swiped his lightsaber in one fell swoop across each of their necks; not one of their decapitated bodies got the chance to fire off their rifles upon him.
Jacen turned and saw that the other six commandos who had shifted their focus away from him were now all lying dead, each of them missing at least one limb, with their killer, who wielded a red-bladed lightsaber, still standing over them.
And as the battle continued to play out around the Jedi and the other 'saber-wielder, they looked into each other's eyes; and Jacen was still horrified to see the yellow in Jaina's.
She lifted up her free hand and gestured at him to follow her; she then turned and headed toward Sal-Solo's office building. Jacen followed without hesitation.
Once they were inside, they hurried up several flights of stairs before Jaina kicked in the door of a vacated office room—one that must have belonged to one of Sal-Solo's subordinates, such as an office worker—before she entered and stood in the room's center. Jacen stopped right at the threshold, his lightsaber still ablaze like his sister's.
"This looks like a nice place for a private duel, don't you think, Jace?" Jaina asked contemptuously. She spared a look out the nearest window where some of the fighting between the Corellians and the Chiss was still occurring. "Less likely to get killed by Chiss fire in here." She adopted a defensive stance and waved him over with her fingers. "So let's finally end this."
"Yes, let's," Jacen said determinedly.
He then deactivated his lightsaber and placed it back upon his belt as he adopted an upright neutral stance.
Jaina smirked. "Oh, you're gonna try to save me, aren't ya? How sweet." Her tone still dripped with contempt even as she maintained her defensive stance.
"You've done a lot of terrible things, Jaina," Jacen said with a mixture of grief and disgust. "But you can still atone for all of it. It's not too late."
Jaina's eyebrows lifted. "I don't think Uncle Luke or lil' Ben would agree with you, my dear brother."
"Maybe not. But I know that, deep down, there's still the same old Jaina in you. Come back to us; answer for your crimes, serve your time, but come back to us. Please." His plea was punctuated by the sound of a concussive grenade going off several levels below.
Jaina scoffed as she stood back up to her full height and adopted a more carefree posture. "Funny how you didn't take that attitude after I killed your precious World Brain. But I kill Aunt Mara and so many others aboard the Errant Venture and you think I still have a chance? Sounds like you got your priorities mixed up there, Jacen."
"That was devious of you, killing someone very close to me from one of the darkest times of my life and not giving me any room to think through it," Jacen acknowledged with more disgust than grief. His tone levelled out to something more sympathetic again as he continued with, "Face it, Jaina; you wanted me to kill you because you couldn't stand what you've done. I know you were hurting, still are, over what happened to Zekk and-"
"Don't you dare use his name!" Jaina exclaimed; her anger was such that the objects around her and Jacen shook briefly before resuming their normal inanimate placements.
Jacen raised his hands in a placating gesture before he continued. "But I'm ready for you now. I'm ready to take you back, to help you redeem yourself for all the senseless evil you've committed."
The veil of disgust lifted from Jaina's face as she deactivated her own lightsaber and hooked it back to her own belt; her expression was now one of remorse, and Jacen could even sense some sincerity in her now-open Force-presence.
She didn't say a word as she tentatively stepped toward him, the sounds of blaster and charric fire from outside the building being all that filled the silence between them.
And when she stepped up to him, she suddenly grabbed his head in both of her hands and used the Force to pull a memory from him. He resisted her through what he had learned from the Theran Listeners of Nam Chorios as he simultaneously grabbed each of her wrists, trying to stave off whatever she was attempting to do to him.
But when she pulled back from him, and Jacen was still panting from the exertion of resisting her, Jaina grinned as if she just learned a secret from him he didn't want her to know... which was exactly the case.
"So... you hooked up with Tenel Ka finally," she sneered. "And even had a daughter, too, huh? Well... do you think little baby Allana would cry if she saw her aunt... with these eyes?" Jaina's eyes glowed a fiery orange-yellow.
Jacen looked back at his sister in horror. "You wouldn't," he growled, forgetting everything he had said to her previously.
"I have nothing left, Jacen," she whispered. "Zekk is dead; Jag turned out to be nothing more than a common Imperial; all our other friends are gone. You know pain, Jacen; why shouldn't I let you take part in this agony?"
With a scream equal parts hateful and fearful, Jacen reactivated his lightsaber and moved to strike Jaina down; she was there with her Sith lightsaber active. They held their blades against each other for several seconds, each gritting their teeth in resolve, before Jacen's sister said, "And I'm not Jaina anymore. Call me... Darth Judicar."
The Sith Lord Darth Judicar broke out of the lock before flipping further back into the office room; the Jedi Knight Jacen Solo then rushed in and they began to clash blades as soon as his enemy landed on her feet.
. . .
Acheron started to feel woozy and even see double by the time she reached Sal-Solo's private office through the secret tunnel that Rogue Squadron had discovered previously. Still, the Corellian Head of State was there with dutiful guards, and none of them looked too concerned about seeing her clutching a hand upon her stab wound.
"Yeah, I figured," Sal-Solo said as he walked around his desk and walked right up to her. He then held up a bacta patch in one hand. "Looks like this'll do it." He removed her blood-stained hand from the wound before slapping the patch over her stabbed stomach, eliciting a pained yelp from Acheron.
"Yeah, I'm sure I'll be good as new soon," she remarked dryly. "I need to sit down for a few minutes, at least."
"What's this?" Sal-Solo asked as he brought up the lightsaber hanging upon Acheron's belt.
"What do you think? It's a lightsaber," Acheron replied even as she snatched the lightsaber out of his hand, despite her wooziness.
"I thought you lost yours and had to resort to those vibroblades," Sal-Solo stated.
"I, uh... I got it repaired," Acheron said as she started to move toward one of the office's guest chairs.
She was stopped in her tracks as Sal-Solo grabbed her wrist, spun her around, reclaimed the lightsaber, and shoved her back a couple steps, eliciting a weak, "Hey!" from her.
"You got this repaired even though you haven't been back to Corellia since you killed Corran Horn?" Sal-Solo asked. "Kinda hard to repair a lightsaber that still has its parts on the planet that you escaped from. You know, for a Sith, Acheron, you're a bad liar." He then activated the lightsaber and observed it for a moment before looking back at her. "Purple, eh? I thought anything that wasn't red as a Jedi color."
"Give that back," Acheron demanded as she stumbled forward; given how weak she felt from the now-healing stab wound, she didn't even try to use telekinesis to rip it from his hand.
And because of her weakened state, Sal-Solo had no problem dodging her attempt to retake the lightsaber. He then used his free hand to smack her in the face, causing her to stumble all the way back to his desk. Acheron steadied herself there while the guards behind the desk continued to stand as still as statues; they clearly saw that their boss didn't need their help.
"Where'd you get this, Acheron?" Sal-Solo asked. "And who'd it belong to? This isn't Jacen's, and I know he's still alive anyway. Was there another Jedi here you took this from? Were they part of this Chiss invasion! Answer me, Acheron, or I'll-"
It was then that Acheron screamed as she finally used the Force to break the necks of the guards in front of her; they dropped dead to the floor before either of them could respond to her outburst.
She turned and telekinetically pulled both the purple-bladed lightsaber and the mechanism from which he used to control her ankle bracelet from his hands. Each device smacked into her own before she swung around the desk and sat herself down in its chair, ignoring the pain in her stomach in the process.
"Get away from there!" Sal-Solo yelled as he tried to rush forward.
Acheron used the Force to trip him to his feet without even looking at him. From there, she pinned him in place telekinetically.
"Just you wait!" he exclaimed. "Once my heart rate goes up-"
"That won't happen," Acheron interrupted as she kept her eyes looking along the desk.
"What?" Sal-Solo asked worriedly. "Wait... why... why don't I...?"
"Why don't you feel what, Thrackan? Anxious? Fearful? Oh, but you do; I'm just using the Force to soothe your nerves. Calm your heart rate. I would have done this earlier if I had better access to your office. Thank you for giving that to me now, by the way. Now where is... ah. Here."
One of the buttons on Thrackan's desk read EMERGENCY RELEASE with a symbol denoting an ankle bracelet and a miniature touchpad next to it displaying both Acheron and Jacen's vitals. She pressed the touchpad for her vitals, localizing them, before pressing the release button.
A second later, her own ankle bracelet deactivated and clattered to the floor at her feet, completely harmless to her now.
But then Acheron looked back at the touchpad for Jacen's vitals; she still had the mechanism that could activate his own ankle bracelet and kill him if she wanted. And she did want it.
However, she supposed it would be fair to give her fellow Sith on the station a warning.
Judicar, Acheron communed telepathically. I just wanted to let you know that-
Acheron was cut off by the vivid feelings of emotion that was conveyed through the communion, combined with intense concentration. Judicar wanted to kill Jacen, and she wouldn't accept anything else. This was something that she had to do for herself, Acheron felt from Judicar.
And Judicar would wreak horrible vengeance on anyone who denied her this.
Fine, Acheron conveyed. I'll let you have it your way; I got my own beef to settle.
She then deactivated and unlocked Jacen's ankle bracelet; now he was all Judicar's.
When Acheron stood back up, she traded the mechanism that would have knocked her out or killed her with the bracelet. She walked back around the desk and held the device that had been Sal-Solo's main source of control over her in the hand that wasn't holding Anakin Solo's lightsaber.
And when she showed the device to the still-downed Sal-Solo, she reveled at the absolute fear that was then present in his eyes.
A minute later, Acheron stumbled out of the office, her wooziness slightly abated thanks to the bacta patch, with a victorious smirk on her face.
Behind her, a fried corpse, as a result of severe Force-lightning, was all that remained of Corellian Head of State Thrackan Sal-Solo.