VII

juyo


En Route to the Chancellor's Office
Senate Administrative Center
Republic City, Coruscant


Jaina trailed behind the four Jedi Masters as they marched through the halls and corridors of the Senate. Her right arm dangled, swinging in pace with her strides, while the left rested uneasily upon her blaster. She glanced around and almost felt alarmed at how little changed in the decades between the fall of the Old Republic and the New Republic of her childhood. Perhaps Mon Mothma remembered enough to recreate the world she had once known.

She watched Master Fisto step up so he was side by side with Master Windu. The Nautolan Jedi whispered something to the bald Jedi, too quiet for Jaina to overhear.

He glanced back at her and responded, louder than Master Fisto. "The Sword of the Jedi?"

"It's what she told me," Fisto replied, glancing at the emotionless clone troopers patrolling. "She mentioned the Grand Master, yet it doesn't sound like a title Master Yoda would bestow upon knighting."

"Given what she has said of her time, it's safe to assume this Grand Master is another Jedi, and not Master Yoda."

The other Jedi Masters glanced back at her, but said nothing in response. She merely frowned, more worried about the impending conflict than their opinions of her.

After several minutes of weaving their way through the building, they entered the Office of the Chancellor. It was comprised of red carpets and old art, likely stolen by long dead Sith Lords. They passed through the entry and followed a brief hallway, lined with esoteric stone decorations, into the office proper. The five Jedi took up positions before the desk as a red holographic projection disappeared.

The Chancellor swiveled to face them.

Jaina frowned, swearing that she had seen a model of the Death Star. Even so, there was no time to reflect upon such a possibility. She stood between Masters Windu and Fisto, with the other two upon Mace's far side.

"Master Windu," said Palpatine, calm and collected behind his desk. He ignored Jaina's presence. "I take it that General Grievous has been destroyed, then. I must say that you are here sooner than I expected."

Master Windu ignited his lightsaber, followed shortly by the other masters. "In the name of the Galactic Senate"—Jaina finally ignited her own blade, a darker shade of purple than Mace Windu's—"you are under arrest."

The five blades hummed with violent potential.

"Are you threatening me, Master Jedi?"

"The Senate shall decide your fate."

Palpatine snarled, his voice taking on a dark timbre. "I am the Senate."

"Not yet."

Jaina stiffened as Palpatine rose. He summoned a lightsaber into his hand, slapping against his palm. "It's treason then."

Palpatine ignited his weapon with a snap-hiss. The crimson blade of a Sith Lord hummed dangerously as he raised the blade. And then with a battle roar, he leapt over his desk in a spiraling attack.

Unlike the other Jedi who all drew back into defensive stances, Jaina stepped forward, before them. The Sith Lord stabbed out of his landing, a stab that she met with a deflecting move she had learned during her tutelage under Boba Fett. She followed it up with a punch, earning a pained snarl.

Palpatine stumbled back a step. He growled at her, weapon held close to the body. The other Jedi moved, and suddenly he grinning manically. He moved in the span of a blink. With two swift thrusts, he slew the Jedi Masters Jaina didn't know. He had weaved through their meager, unprepared defenses, as if he could read their intent with the dark side.

And thus it was three Jedi against one Sith.

Palpatine, growling and twirling his weapon in ferocious patterns, was able to step into the guard of Master Fisto, upon Jaina's right, and put his lightsaber through the Nautolan. She struck out with a kick and nailed the Sith Lord in the hip, sending him backwards in an awkward stumble. His crimson saber rose just as he regained his stance, and blocked Mace Windu's voracious overhead slash.

She waited a few seconds for space to open up between Sith and Jedi before plunging back into the fray. After a hectic exchange of several cuts and blocks, she stepped back from the dueling pair.

Jaina frowned as Mace Windu guided his duel with Palpatine into the greeting hall beyond the office, through which they entered. A moment passed before she smiled, feeling relief upon realizing what the Jedi Master planned.

He's increasing the space in which to fight. Palpatine took advantage of how close the others were to kill them swiftly.

Jaina brought up her humming violet blade as she strode towards the dueling pair. As Master Windu dodged a wild slash from the Sith, arms to his side as if mocking the failed blow, she lunged forward with a single handed jab.

Palpatine reacted faster than she thought the old man was capable of, leaping back from her jab while bringing his lightsaber up. His weapon flicked about and blocked Windu as he tried to strike at where the old man's back had been. Jaina followed up on her jab with three tight swings, once more falling back upon her training with Boba Fett. He might have handled a lightsaber like it was a hammer, but what she had learned from the Mand'alor was effective in working and manipulating Palpatine's defense.

She caught the Sith Lord with a vicious kick and he stumbled away. Palpatine had to let his stumble turn into a fall in order to avoid Windu's flurry of slashes and strikes.

The Sith Lord rolled back onto his feet and brought his lightsaber in close, snarling at them. While Mace brought his weapon up in a low, taunting stance, Jaina drew hers back into a close, high guard.

Her heart hammered, even as she slowly evened out her breathing. The Force thrummed around them, as if aware its balance hung by a thread.

"So who will strike first," sneered Palpatine, switching to the rhetorical skill that must have brought him to power. "Will it be Master Windu, oh so obvious in his efforts to strike me down?" He glanced her way. "Or will it be you, Knight Solo… Ah, so you are Anakin's granddaughter. Such power, such focus, such…potential."

His eyes then turned away towards the entrance, and Jaina felt a familiar presence. Dread came to her, for she had hoped he would remain away. However, she knew he would appear. How else could he have become Darth Vader in her timeline? "Or will it be you, dear boy? I thought saving Padmé was important to you. The Jedi cannot—"

"Enough!" Jaina shouted. "You offer nothing but death." She shifted her stance to lower her blade, even as she kept her gaze fixed upon the Sith Lord before her. If she looked away, she could die. "I will stop you, just as I stopped my own brother when he fell to the dark side."

Palpatine smirked when despair emanated from Anakin Skywalker. It was a horrible, nasty expression worse than anything she had seen from Darth Caedus. This was not a man consumed by the dark side for lofty goals, but one who desired only power for himself.

Jaina shuffled two steps to the right a second as he lunged. She then went left, bringing her lightsaber around to deflect the Sith Lord's strike. She sidled further, taking a few more steps around him, and used his second attempt to run her through to slice through his left hamstring.

The Sith Lord howled from the blow and stumbled away. A hand came up, fingers angled in her direction. With the reflexes only experience could breed, Jaina caught a massive blast of Force lighting upon her lightsaber. The indigo bolts screamed as they pushed against the blade of violet before her. She held on for several seconds, grimacing from the effort, before the bolts broke away with a gasping hiss.

Palpatine backpedaled, limping, into his office. After a moment, Jaina followed, Mace Windu and her grandfather upon her heels. Once upon the Sith Lord, she drove him towards the great window behind his desk with wild strikes. He blocked and defected them until a lucky strike cut through the emitter of his weapon. He fled from her, and her final wild blow shattered the window of the office.

Jaina held her blade at his throat as he scurried into the corner of the window.

Her chest heaved as she fought to regain her breath. After several seconds, Jaina shouted, "It's over, Palpatine! Your Empire will never exist! You have lost!"

"No, no," he denied, sneering and snarling like a cornered kath hound. "You lose, Jedi!" Once more, Palpatine tried to blast Jaina with Force lightning. Once more, she used her lightsaber to stop the attack. This time, however, it was redirected upon him, scarring his face into the hideous deformation she had always known. Now it was clear to her it had not been the dark side's influence, but his powers that warped the Emperor's face.

Eventually the onslaught of lightning came to an end. Palpatine leaned back, his face morphed into the greyed, lined shapes she knew from the holos. His head turned aside and he yelled with false weakness, "Anakin, look how I have been deformed. The Jedi…they are trying to kill me!"

"I am preventing your tyranny," Jaina said, lightsaber held forward.

"He must stand trial," Anakin said, his lightsaber deactivated. "I need him."

"Yes," whispered Palpatine. "Only I can help you save Padmé, to save your wife."

"Do not listen to him, Skywalker," Windu warned. "He lies to trick you."

Jaina held her saber towards the Sith Lord, glancing between him and her grandfather. She couldn't help the small fear in the back of her mind that the man's tendrils were too deep into him. Even if she knew he would one day turn against his master, could he destroy a friend who offered a solution for the price of his soul and conscious?

"Can you trust them, Anakin?" Palpatine asked, a hint of begging plugged into his conspiratorial words. "Can you trust the Jedi who would tear you and Padmé apart? The Jedi who would exile you? Who would steal your children from you?"

Jaina glanced at her grandfather. Her brandy brown eyes locked upon his familiar blues. They were so much like her uncle's that to see them now, so clouded by doubt and fear and panic felt unnatural. Luke had always been the pinnacle of what it meant to be a Jedi. Even when struck by the pain of Mara's murder at the hands of her twin brother, even when struggling in vain against the Yuuzhan Vong, he had resisted the siren call of the dark side.

"Trust me," she whispered, grasping his attention. "You don't need him to save Grandmother. She's strong enough to survive your fears."

Anakin glanced between her and the Sith Lord. "I…I don't—"

Were it not for the Force, Jaina didn't know if she could've blocked the third torrent of Force lightning flung her way. She grimaced at how close it was, a few of the bolts crawling around her lightsaber's blade. None touched her, though it was a close thing.

"Grandfather!" she cried out, taking a step back in the wake of the dark side's power. "Reject him! You can't save her with his power!"

"But I can't lose her! I can't lose Padmé!"

"You'll lose her if you fall to the dark side. Do you think she could live, knowing what you would become? Your only chance to save Padmé, to save the woman you love, is to reject the dark side! Please, grandfather!"

Anakin looked away, face twisting to reflect the inner turmoil rippling from him. The moment his turmoil settled into a decision, Jaina felt a sudden, if fragile, burst of peace within him. She grinned, pushing forward. She saw in Palpatine's sickly yellow eyes the same realization that had come upon her.

As the last, desperate bolts of Force lightning dissipated, Jaina swore for a moment she heard Luke Skywalker. The words were faint, echoing from years long past. She remembered her knighting ceremony on Mon Cal, when she was christened as the Sword of the Jedi. But as what had been said to her that day echoed in her mind, the words twisted themselves into her voice, seeking to match this place, this time, this sword.

I was the Sword of the Jedi, facing Caedus. I am the Sword of the Jedi, facing Palpatine. I am tempered steel, purposeful and razor-keen.

I have always been in the front rank, a burning brand to my enemies and a brilliant fire to my friends. My life has been restless and while I may never know peace, I will be blessed by the peace I bring others.

I have found comfort that though I stand tall and alone, others take shelter in the shadow I cast.

Faster than a mynock on power cables, Jaina struck. Once more, her violet blade pierced the dark, beating heart of a Sith Lord. She did not feel anything like the pain of killing her own twin, the pain of experiencing that strange redemption of Jacen Solo. Instead, she felt a thousand years undone, the wrath and fury that ensured the Sith Order persisted for a millennium.

And so passed Sheev Palpatine, Chancellor of the Republic, the Sith Lord Darth Sidious, the man who had plunged the galaxy into war for his own ambition and greed, and to bring about Darth Bane's revenge upon the Jedi Order.

As his body slumped against the windowsill of the Chancellor's office, Jaina deactivated her lightsaber and turned to face the squad of red and white armored clone troopers, their rifles leveled towards her.

:ô:


16:5:26
Naberrie Family Retreat
The Lake Country
Naboo


Jaina woke, as she had the previous morning, to the squalling of babies. She stared blearily at the speckled ceiling above her, considering whether or not she should reach out with the Force and learn whether it was her newborn mother or uncle that was bawling and shrieking. They were barely three days old and already she had several embarrassing tales for her family. Aunt Mara in particular would enjoy—

Her amusement was cut short at the remembrance of recent tragedies. Her eyes watered and she rubbed at her face to fight back any tears. Jaina didn't want to think about what her twin brother had done so that he could embrace the dark side as a Sith Lord. After what she had witnessed in the wake of Palpatine's defeat, all she desired were those days before the Yuuzhan Vong War, when her family had been happy and intact.

It had been her hope, coming with Padmé to Naboo instead of remaining on Coruscant, to find peace. She had thought being around the newborn children that she'd find what she desired, brought back a sense of family she had lost.

Instead, old wounds opened and oozed painfully.

When the screams continued, Jaina sighed and climbed out of bed. She padded out of her room and over to the nursery, two doors down. There was a nurse droid present, but it was overwhelmed having two Force-sensitive children upon its mechanized hands.

Jaina ignored how the droid turned in her direction, photosensors scanning her, and approached the nearest crib. It was a majestic thing of stained wood, worked by a master craftsman, yet it wasn't the crib that drew her attention: it was the child. She reached out and picked up the squalling child, only realizing belatedly that it was her infant mother.

For a moment, Jaina stared at little Leia Skywalker. It was odd to apply the Skywalker name to her mother, yet it was something she would have in this life. She would live a life not as the princess of Alderaan, straining against the dark shadow of the Empire. She would be a Jedi raised in the Nubian culture of her mother.

"She's reacting to your emotions."

Jaina turned, drawing the infant Leia closer to her chest. Ahsoka Tano stood in the doorway, her face somehow unmarred by exhaustion. She had arrived shortly after the birth, peeved by both her lateness and the absence of Anakin.

The former Jedi had fondly called her master, "Skyguy." Jaina resisted the urge to tell her stories of Mara Jade, if only in hope some might once more play out.

"She is?"

Ahsoka smiled before crossing over to where Jaina stood. She held out her arms and accepted the child into her grasp. After several seconds of cooing, baby Leia's cries faded into soft bubbles.

"I'm happy you two are getting along," said a third woman. They both looked over as Padmé joined them, breasts large and heavy with milk. She was resplendent, despite having given birth so recently.

Or, Jaina thought belatedly, because of her pregnancy.

Jaina looked away as her grandmother breastfed her infant mother. Ahsoka giggled at her reaction.

Before she could respond to Ahsoka's reaction, the soft roar of sublight engines echoed through the room. Jaina hurried out, doing her best to ignore the multiplying giggles that followed. She rushed through the retreat home, bare feet upon the mosaics and tiles that covered every floor. She was dearly tempted to run, but she could already feel the Jedi aboard the landing craft. Given what she had occurred a few days ago, it would be comedic if she came running up to her arrestors.

Though with whom she sensed, it was unlikely an arrest would occur.

As she came down the narrow steps, the shuttle stilled upon its grassy knoll landing. The repulsorlifts went silent and the landing feet hissed. As Jaina started up the hill, the boarding ramp descended.

Five Jedi emerged, though none radiated in the Force the way Anakin Skywalker did. Jaina knew why, since his attention was focused upon those she had just been with. He had received nothing since the birth other than confirmation his wife survived and that twins named Luke and Leia Naberrie Skywalker had been born. He was antsy, his blue eyes already looking past her and to the doorway through which she had exited.

"Knight Solo," said Master Windu. Dark bags were under his eyes, visible despite the deep brown shade of his skin. "Due to your particular case, the Senate has agreed to pardon your actions. Some are still furious over what is being called an assassination in particular circles, but for most, it is a relief to know the mastermind of the Clone Wars has been thwarted. Despite our best efforts, news of your deed has spread onto the HoloNet." He glanced at Masters Kenobi and Yoda before adding, "We were hoping you would have a solution."

"For what?"

Master Yoda replied instead. "Return to your own time, you must. No longer remain here you can."

Jaina glanced between the five before her. She didn't recognize the Togruta woman, whose face was red besides the white spots around her eyes, but she doubted they'd bring anyone other than another Master of the Jedi Council.

"I'm afraid I wouldn't know how to do that," she confessed. "The wound that allowed me to come to this time appeared between two different governments in the galactic north. There was a communication disruption, one which could cause trouble for both bodies."

Masters Windu and Kenobi shared a knowing look.

"Has…has something happened?"

"There has been a communications disruption near Mygeeto," confessed Master Kenobi, "though Master Ki-Ad-Mundi has yet to report back. He took his fleet there, once the Separatists onworld surrendered. News that the Lord Sidious controlling them was the Chancellor has left their ruined leadership…displeased."

Jaina nodded. It had been all over the HoloNet the previous day, how the Separatist leaders were found on Mustafar. The information that guided the military there had come from Palpatine's office.

She tuned out most of what had transpired afterward. That was the concern of the people living here and now.

"Give me the coordinates," Jaina requested. "I can meet with the Master Jedi, and if it is a wound, I can return home. That should bring this potential crisis to a close."

None of the Masters appeared comfortable with her suggestion. A few seconds passed with inaction. Her grandfather took that as his cue to cross the final distance to where she stood. He paused before her, and Jaina nearly closed her eyes so that she could sort through his emotions.

Instead, Jaina Solo took the final step forward and hugged him.

"You would have loved," she whispered into his chest. "Jacen, Anakin… They were good Jedi, lost before their time."

"If you're to judge from, then I would have," he whispered back. "I wasn't much of a Chosen One. Thank you, for saving me and my family."

Jaina frowned at that title. Chosen One. It hung around her grandfather's neck like the Sword of the Jedi hung around hers.

"You were able to defeat him in the end. Palpatine may have controlled you for a long time, but it was Uncle Luke who redeemed you. He believed in Anakin Skywalker. His faith in you was rewarded, for you returned from the grasp of the dark side."

"Thank you."

Minutes after Anakin retreated into the house, Jaina held onto the rasp, the strain in his voice in those final two words. She wouldn't call what he felt at the end relief, but it was an ending. Whatever sway the dark side had over him was broken. Not permanently, not completely, but the looming figure of Darth Vader would never come to be.

Jaina smiled at the thought of what this galaxy, far, far away could become without a Darth Vader.


Two months after the end of the Second Galactic Civil War
41 Years after the Battle of Yavin
Seventeen standard hours from Bastion via hyperspace
Near the edge of Imperial Space


Jagged Fel stared out the transparisteel viewport of the Gilad Pellaeon, the hastily christened Star Destroyer he had taken from Bastion's security grid. Almost two weeks had passed since Jaina had vanished, passing through what she had called "a wound in the Force." His conversations with Luke Skywalker had revealed little about what it could have been or where she had ended up. The Jedi Master was disturbed by what he was told and seemed forlorn he could not help.

Jag tapped his foot, watching the span of dark space where her last signal had come from. There was nothing present, and as far as several of the moffs were concerned, the problem the wound had been causing was fixed. To even trouble monitoring the area for Jaina Solo was a waste of time and resources, or so they had told him repeatedly.

He rubbed his face, trying to push away his exhaustion. Long gone were the days of the Vong War and his time on Tenupe, when he could easily beat back the need for sleep. Jag could tell he was beginning to get old, and he blamed Jaina for the increase in white hairs that trailed back from the scar across his brow.

A burst of white suddenly appeared a kilometer off the Gilad's bow. It wasn't terribly large, yet it pressed upon the space around it with a great, graviton intensity.

Several members of the bridge crew stood from their stations, even as those very stations flashed and beeped. Jag grinned as a StealthX emerged from the white crack in space. As the snubfighter was pushed away, the wound stitched itself closed.

"Welcome back, Jaina," he whispered to himself.

Jag turned away from the viewport and crossed the bridge. He paused near a comm officer and ordered, "Instruct Solo to dock in my personal hangar. Unless there's a report of moffs gathering their ships or the Millennium Falcon crosses into Remnant space, I want us left undisturbed."

The woman nodded, even as her lips twitched into a coy smirk.

Jag ignored the muttered innuendos as he stepped off of the bridge. He turned right, followed the corridor several paces, and then entered his personal chambers. On the far side of the room was the door into his private hangar, just large enough for his Lambda-class shuttle and Jaina's StealthX.

He paused for a moment, adjusting the grey admiralty uniform that he had pulled on that day. Had he the time, Jag would change into something less Imperial. However, he wanted to be ready for the moment she came through that door.

Eventually, it opened. Jaina entered the room, her black flight helmet under an arm. Her brown hair was messed, plastered to one side. She stood on the threshold for several seconds before smiling.

"Jag," she whispered. "I'm back."

He strode forward and pulled her into a tight embrace. "Next time you disappear, take me with you, goddess," he muttered into her hair.

"Next time you ask me to investigate strange phenomena, I won't give you the option otherwise, Jag." She pushed back enough to look into his eyes. "I suspected you would be here, waiting for me, yet I was afraid you wouldn't. Thank you."

"What happened on the other side?"

She smiled softly. "I don't' know if you'll believe me, but it begins with the last days of the Clone Wars…"


vapaad


66:3:27 GrS
The Jedi Temple
The City of Spires, Coruscant
50 years after the Clone Wars


Two Jedi stood in a turbolift, master and apprentice. Jaina Skywalker glanced at her grandfather, Master Anakin Skywalker, and smiled at his hands flexed, seeking the controls of a freighter or fighter. The type of ship didn't matter to him, though she'd bet he longed to filch her father's pride and joy. Several streaks of grey and silver passed through his dark hair, though his blue eyes remained as strong as they had looked in his prime, during the Clone Wars.

"I'm the one taking the trials, Grandad, not you."

He huffed, grinning slightly as he shook his head. Despite the wrinkles and scars lining his face, the rough handsomeness that had made him a war hero remained. It was also, Jaina knew, what had helped him convince her grandmother to marry him, despite the standards of both the Order and the Senate set against them and their happiness.

"I was your age when the Council decided I had passed my trials. During a time of war, early promotions are expected. But in a time of peace…"

"I have a legacy to live up to," Jaina declared, staring forward at the turbolift's door.

A hand settled softly upon her shoulder. She flinched, and resisted the urge to look over. "You might share her name, but you aren't her. You haven't experienced the tragedies that shaped that Jaina."

Her jaw clenched. Her entire life, Jaina had lived under the shadow of the interloper Jaina Solo. In another world, her grandfather had fallen to the dark side. Nobody knew what Sith name he took up, only that he was redeemed by her Uncle Luke. At some future point, there was a conflict called the Yuuzhan Vong War, and from that conflict emerged Jaina Solo, Sword of the Jedi, a hero she would never live up to.

That her Jacen and Anakin perished before her journey to stop Palpatine was a fact she was more than happy to ignore.

"Everyone looks at me as if I should be. They look at me and don't see Jaina Skywalker, but a failed, broken Jaina Solo. They don't see who I am. They wonder why I'm not the Sword of the Jedi, the great savior."

Her grandfather didn't immediately respond. It was tempting to glance at him, but that would be a victory for him. Despite centuries of Jedi dogma, he was the spearhead of an Order that accepted attachment and fought the evils that led to the dark side. Better to confront fear than to run away from it, was how he viewed the matter.

The turbolift stopped and the door hissed open. With the hand still upon her shoulder, Jaina remained stock-still.

"I don't know what you will encounter in there. It's different for everyone."

"What did you see?"

Grandad was quiet for several seconds before admitting, "I never faced this trial. The war… It was enough."

Jaina nodded, even as her jaw and hands tensed. She wished the roiling feeling in her gut would go away, but it had been there ever since the Council confirmed she was to take the last of her Knighthood trials. Her palms were clammy, her mouth went dry, and the hand upon her shoulder shifted to push her forward. She stumbled forward a few steps, and then finally looked back at him.

"You are a Jedi, Jaina. Your training will serve you well. Plus, I want to finally show up Snips."

She snorted, unable to help her smile. "You should be more worried about Mara than Ahsoka."

Her grandfather had the dignity to look aghast, if only for a second. And then the turbolift door hissed close. She stared at it for several seconds before turning to face the dark threshold before her. Shadows curled behind it, and fear touched her heart.

"I am a Jedi," she whispered to herself. "I am Jaina Skywalker, the Sword of the Jedi."

She repeated the words as she moved forward with small, uncertain steps. The words did not manifest the feeling she wanted to cloak herself in. It didn't amplify her fear and anxiety, but it did not grant her the courage and conviction she had hoped to gain from it.

Jaina stopped right before the threshold. She could feel the dark side beyond it, an oppressive force she could almost describe as death incarnate. She took in a deep, shuddering breath, and released it slowly. Following two repetitions, she crossed over.

The world around her went black for a moment. When she could see again, Jaina found herself in a dark passage. The walls had the look of painted duracrete. She frowned and drew her lightsaber from her belt.

She followed the passage until she reached a larger chamber with a high ceiling. She strained to see across the room, cloaked in shadows. After a few seconds, Jaina ignited her lightsaber. It activated with a snap-hiss. Luminous violet light spread out through the chamber, illuminating most of it.

A cold breathing sound froze her in place. She didn't recognize the sound, yet deep down in her bones, she knew it. The breathing was mechanical and consistent, patient the way the Sith had been before her namesake faced Palpatine. Somehow Jaina knew it was the sound that had foretold doom and damnation for several Jedi.

Jaina turned, keeping her lightsaber in a tight guard, as a tall, looming figure approached. He wore a large helmet and was broad shouldered. His cloak hid most of his features, though judging by the lights upon his chest and belt; the man depended upon a life support system.

Her hand clenched tight around her weapon's hilt.

"You are a brave one, to face me," the man said, low and threatening. He activated his own lightsaber and for the first time, she came face to face with a Sith crimson blade. It illuminated his face, revealing a skull-shaped mask. "The brave die quicker than the cowardly."

He lunged forward with tremendous speed and slashed at her with tremendous power. Jaina's jaw clenched from the force necessary to parry his blow. She was nearly thrown onto her hands and knees for the effort, stumbling on skittish legs as she tried to re-center herself. The Sith Lord gave no reprieve, hammering her with slashes and blows. It was though every strike gave him more power to use against her.

"You are weak," the Sith Lord declared. He faked a stab, twisting his wrists to force a saber lock. Utterly unprepared, her weapon was ripped from her hands. Jaina stumbled backwards, tripped over her feet, and crashed onto her back. Her head slammed against the stone ground and her vision went black for a few seconds. When it cleared, the Sith Lord stood over her, lightsaber pointed right at her throat.

"This is all my granddaughter amounts to?" the Sith Lord asked, chilling her blood. "A weakling? The woman all compare you to could have faced me on even footing. You are a disappointment, Jaina Skywalker."

"I'm more than just her!" Jaina shouted. She reached out and grinned as her lightsaber slapped into her hand. She ignited the blade and slapped his away from her throat. "I'm more than a mere sword!"

She propelled herself up with the Force, sailing above the Sith Lord. She landed behind him, and waited as he lumbered around. The moment those dark, unseeing eyes met her gaze, she swung. Her blade connected with the mask and slashed it apart.

The Sith Lord fell back with a reeling moan and crashed onto the ground. She approached him slowly, blade raised defensively, and then gasped.

It was her grandfather's face, smooth and young, staring up at her. The only difference between this face and the holos was his yellow, sickly eyes.

Is…is this what—

The world shifted, her vision went black, and suddenly she was aboard what looked like an old Venator-class. Her lightsaber still activated, Jaina glanced around. There were no threats nearby, though the Force rang out. She followed its call and strode towards the door before her. It hissed open and revealed one of many small power plants aboard the triangular capital ships.

A man stood before her, watching as a body was consumed by fire. Only once it was done did he turn to face her. He might have been older, but she would always recognize her twin brother. They were two halves of a whole, bonded so close she knew when he arrived in the Coruscant system.

Yet what stilled her heart was his dark, putrid gaze. Jacen had the same poisoned eyes Grandad's face bore, staring at her. It wasn't hatred that he regarded her with, but she could sense his ill intent.

"So you have come to stop me, Jaina. I'm surprised Grandfather and Uncle Luke have become such cowards in their old age."

"I volunteered," Jaina said, knowing deep down that she couldn't allow either of her brothers to fall to the dark side without trying to stop them. "It's my duty."

"Yes," Jacen sneered. "The vaunted Sword of the Jedi. I heard that she defeated the Sith Lord I became." He smirked, igniting his lightsaber. Once more she was faced with Sith crimson. "But can you stop me?"

Unlike against Sith-Grandad, Jaina immediately took the offensive. While it was traditional for all Skywalkers to train in Form V, she had bullied and harassed the Battlemaster into teaching her every form possible. Her progress with Niiman and Vapaad wasn't where she wanted it to be, but she was certain in her mastery of the other forms.

Jacen held his ground, even as she transitioned forms. He was solid and firm against the onslaught of her attacks. Even when she left an opening, hoping for him to strike, he remained on the defensive. It was bizarre, counter to everything she knew of the dark side and its practitioners.

She pulled back after several minutes of fruitless dueling. Jaina panted, grimacing at how calm and at ease Jacen was. They should be the other way, her in the midst of her calm as a Jedi and him overcome with passion.

"You cannot defeat me, Jaina."

"I'm the only one who can, Jacen."

He chuckled. "Jacen Skywalker was weak, so I destroyed him. I am Darth Caedus."

For a moment, fear gripped her heart. She froze, stiff and still like prey before the predator. And then she remembered what her grandfather had said.

"You are a Jedi, Jaina."

She relaxed and when Darth Caedus, the fiend wearing her brother's face, attacked, she was ready. Jaina took a half step back when he charged and accepted his slash with a plain block. She stepped back again, shifting leftward, and allowed him to spill past her. Before he could come around, she flicked the activation trigger of her weapon. The blade deactivated, then reignited so she could plunge her lightsaber into his back. The purple blade jutted out of his chest. A moment later, he collapsed to the ground, dead.

Jaina swallowed thickly, staring down at the body of who had once been her twin. How? she wondered fruitlessly.

The world turned black again. Jaina held up her lightsaber, waving the light around her as the strange testing chamber changed again.

The next place it landed her was a plain durasteel chamber. She turned and turned until she came upon a woman with brown hair and red armor, sitting on the ground in a meditative state. A brown cloak descended from her shoulders and beneath her armor was a black body suit. Her lightsaber was set before her, covered in a plain sheen of chromium.

The woman's eyes were closed, yet the lids weren't pinched.

"Come join me."

Jaina flinched. The woman's voice was familiar and different. She didn't have the Nubian accent of her grandmother Padmé, or the variants of Coruscanti accents she was surrounded by within the Temple. Yet somehow she knew whom this woman was.

"You're Jaina Solo, the Sword of the Jedi."

Her eyes opened and the same brandy-brown shade Jaina saw in the mirror glanced at her.

"I've gained a few more titles and a new surname since I came to your world," said Jaina Solo. She waved Jaina Skywalker over. "Please, join me."

After a moment of hesitation, Jaina approached her namesake. She deactivated her lightsaber, clipped it onto her belt, and kneeled before the older Jedi. She couldn't help but notice the difference in their garb.

Jaina Solo was not dressed as a Jedi, but as a warrior.

"I sense your confusion, and can feel what you have been through. I imagine you have questions."

"That breathing…monstrosity. That was Grandad?"

Jaina Solo glanced down at her gauntleted hands. "In my time, Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader. He was redeemed by Uncle Luke, but only after causing great misery and devastation.

"When I was a child, Jacen and I were kidnapped by dark siders for their Shadow Academy. We were forced to fight each other, thinking we were facing our grandfather."

Jaina Skywalker shivered. She couldn't fathom fighting Jacen, even though she had been pitted against the worst he could become.

"We learned, before it was too late, that we were the ones fighting." She sighed before rubbing her brow. "If only we had known then what would happen in the future."

"Caedus."

Jaina Solo flinched. Jaina Skywalker frowned, wondering how much worse it had been for the counterpart across from her.

"Jacen's fall began long before Lumiya, one of Vader's pupils, twisted his beliefs about the Force. During our war against the Yuuzhan Vong, Jacen was captured. He was tortured at the hands of a fallen Jedi named Vergere."

"I've never heard of him."

"You never would have heard of her. She never existed in your time.

"Still, she wore away my brother's beliefs about the Force and rebuilt it. He rejected ideas of light and dark, the Living and the Cosmic. He became convinced of a…Unifying Force. I witnessed it once, when the Vong were defeated. I don't know how he achieved it, and I feared he spent the rest of his life chasing it."

"And yet he became a Sith Lord."

"He did," Jaina Solo admitted. "I was the one who faced him and defeated him. In the end, though, I realized he fell for the same reason our grandfather fell: fear of loss. He was so afraid of a threat against his daughter and her mother, a dear friend of mine, that he warped himself into a monster. Just to protect them."

Jaina Skywalker felt a cold pit of something in her gut. It wasn't fear, but it came from that same sense of dread. "Have…have you ever been tempted? By the dark side?"

"Once. It was a near thing, but I was guided away from the darkness by a friend."

"What happened?"

"Anakin, our Anakin, died," Jaina Solo said, eyes watering. "He was a blazing sun in the Force, so bright and good. He died to save us, to ensure the new Jedi Order wouldn't be destroyed. My heart was torn in two, and the dark side nearly enthralled me. While I learned a great deal about our enemy following his death, I would rather learn those lessons another way than suffered his death."

"After all this time?"

"Pain like that doesn't go away. It fades, but you never lose the scars."

Jaina Skywalker wished she could say that she understood, but her family had never been visited by tragedy as Jaina Solo's had been. There had been no falls to the dark side, no deaths, nothing worse than the time her Uncle Chewbacca and Dad got captured by Hutts for aiding Aunt Ahsoka escape one of their slave rings, exposing it to the Republic.

She glanced down at the chromium lightsaber.

"It's a design Jag and I agreed upon," Jaina Solo said. "We're using it for our Imperial Knights."

"Imperial Knights?" asked Jaina Skywalker, looking back up. "What happened to the Republic?"

"Not all of the galaxy is served by the Senate, yet the Jedi are called to protect life everywhere. It was a difficult decision to make, but it was the right one."

"Does everyone think of you as the Sword of the Jedi?"

Jaina Solo blinked before breaking out in laughter. Several seconds passed before she regained her composure, though her lips were firmly carved into a smile. "Most days I am called Empress Fel, and not Jedi Solo." She sighed before adding, "I'm sorry my legacy was placed upon your shoulders. I had wanted everything with Palpatine to remain a secret, but my name was released slipped to the public."

"And I've suffered under expectations because of it! Ever since my mother named me Jaina because that's what your Leia Skywalker did!"

"And as I said, I am sorry that my actions have hurt you."

Jaina Skywalker's hands clenched. She wanted dearly to ignite her lightsaber and cross blades with her namesake, the mythical Sword of the Jedi. Yet she knew, deep down, that doing so would come from a place too close to the dark side to risk.

So she sighed, released her tension, and said, "I want to forgive you, but I can't. Not yet."

"I don't need it. All I want from you, Jaina Skywalker, is to be a great Jedi. Once you accomplish that, all will be well between us."

A moment passed before Jaina Skywalker whispered, "I can do that."

The world around Jaina shifted again, and suddenly she was upon her feet, stumbling through a doorway. She looked around, frantic and wondering what encounter she would be thrown into next. Instead of some dark figure or a reflection of her self, as she had feared to face, she was back in the small antechamber where Grandad had left her.

"The kriff was that?" she whispered, staring back at the dark threshold. Only a few seconds later, her attention was drawn away by the hiss of the turbolift doors opening. Her Grandad was there.

Jaina barreled into him, throwing her arms around his torso.

"Whoa, Jaya! What did you see?"

She didn't answer him immediately. Most of a minute passed before she mumbled, "Ask me another time."

Anakin Skywalker flicked a finger towards the lift controls. The door closed, locking away the chamber beyond. For now, he would provide Jaina what comfort she desired. Perhaps a month with Padmé on Naboo or with her mother Leia, off with her husband on vacation across the Inner Rim would be better than remaining in the Temple, troubled with meditation and training.

But for now, he would do what he could. It had taken him years to fully learn, but he accepted there was only so much he could do. Padmé surviving his dreams of her death had proven that to him, and Jaina Solo had been the vessel for that lesson. He had nearly sided with Palpatine.

It was only due to Jaina's certainty that the dark side would lead to the prophesized death of his wife that held him back. He was thankful he had made that choice. Perhaps he wasn't the Chosen One, but it no longer mattered. The Sith had been destroyed, and a new generation of Jedi would rise to face the threats and dangers of the future.

Chief among them, he knew, would be their once and future sword.