CHAPTER TWELVE: AGGRESSIVE TENDENCIES
He just didn't understand why she had to go and start a fight with him practically every time he tried to have a normal, peaceful conversation with her. Ganner would have thought that after months of breaking down the walls between them and forming something that resembled a friendship, he would understand Jaina Solo a lot better – but he didn't. Were they even really friends after all? Sure, they spent time together – quite a lot of time in fact – but to Ganner there seemed to be a piece missing from it all. That both he and Jaina were holding something back, and until that something was out in the open things would never be right between them. That was his theory anyways.
He liked her – no, he was crazy about her. He couldn't help it. He had never intended to fall for her, it had just happened.
Originally, when he had set out on his 'quest' to befriend her, he had thought about putting the moves on her now that she was available. Not that availability had ever stopped him before. He soon learned that getting involved with someone was not what she had needed. She had needed someone to be her friend – and she had fought him on that one too.
They had both agreed to never be anything more then friends, and for a while it had worked. He had told her he did not want anything out of her besides friendship, but he would be lying if he said he felt the same way now. Jaina had to know how he felt. How could she not?
They had been spending a great deal of time alone, just talking in recent weeks, and if that wasn't enough he had gone and kissed her when they were by themselves in the ship yesterday. She had come up with the lame excuse that she had needed to pack and had bolted out of there before he had a chance to speak.
He knew he was a lot older then her, but she would be turning eighteen soon and most of the time she acted a lot more mature then people he knew that were older then her. Other times, like now for instance, she could be so – so childish. It was obvious she was avoiding him because he had kissed her, and that fight back in the cockpit she had started was to keep them both from talking about what had – what was happening between them.
He found it exhausting thinking about why she always had to be so difficult. Zekk's return was not making matters any better. Jaina had been quick-tempered and snappy since his return. That probably explained why she was being even more unreasonable then usual lately.
He really hoped Zekk would not be hanging around for too much longer because he could not stand the sight of the guy – and the sooner the better. Jaina had been a mess the last time he had left and he had no intentions of letting a repeat performance happen.
He couldn't wait anymore. He needed to get everything sorted out with Jaina now. He would find her and even if she refused to talk to him or acknowledge what was going on, he would not leave her alone until everything between them was sorted out.
He wasn't paying attention when he rounded a corner and ended up running straight into Zekk.
"Watch where you're going," Ganner growled at him.
"I was," Zekk snarled back.
He hadn't planned on starting anything with Zekk on this trip, but Ganner found that he could not resist the temptation. Besides, he was in the mood for one. "I hope you don't plan on bailing when we reach Anoth, seeing that we only have one ship,"
"You'd like that, wouldn't you," Zekk said, taking a dangerous step closer to him, "so you can go on playing whatever game it is you're playing with Jaina,"
"I don't know what you think you know about – "
"I know that you kissed her. She told me,"
It was not exactly a lie. Though he was sure Jaina would see otherwise, since the only reason he knew was because he had barged in on her private thoughts. But it was worth it just to see the look on Ganner's face.
"Jealous?" Ganner taunted.
"Of you? Someone who's hitting on a teenage girl nearly half his age, I don't think so,"
"At least when you get to be my age you know that running away doesn't solve your problems. It just makes 'em bigger,"
"What do you know about my problems?"
"Plenty,"
Zekk fought to keep his expression neutral even though his mind was whirling. What had Jaina told him exactly? He could not believe she would tell this loser everything about his past, especially when a lot of it he had only confided in her about.
"If you think you can just show up and come back into her life as if nothing's happened, you've got another thing coming," Ganner warned.
"Like you're really perfect, Rhysode,"
"I never said I was, but if you hurt her again –"
"Will the both of you cut it out?" Jaina said in a fed up voice several feet away from them. "I could hear you arguing all the way at the other end of the ship,"
"Tell Rhysode he should mind his own business,"
"Make me,"
"Enough," Jaina said, playing the part of the mediator and stepping in between the two of them before the situation could get out of hand.
"Jaina?" Riley's voice came over the ship's com system. "We're due to come out of hyperspace,"
"You take care of it," she told him.
"Me?" Riley's voice squeaked.
"Yes, you. I've got my hands full here," she said in an irritated voice. "You know how to fly, don't you?"
"Well, yes,"
"Good. Now do it," when she heard the com click off, she glared at the two bickering Jedi's and said, "I'm in charge here. So you two can either shut up and take a seat, or you can stay here while Riley and I take care of what we came to Anoth for,"
Zekk and Ganner held their ground for a moment longer, but then fixed each other with a glower and backed down.
Jaina shot them both one last warning look before heading back to the cockpit. She could still feel their heated anger as she walked away but knew that neither one would start anything – at least not right away. She had thought that dealing with Zekk on this trip would be hard enough, but having both him and Ganner at each other's throats the entire time was definitely not something she needed nor wanted to have to deal with.
Anoth was the same bleak place it had always been when Jaina had lived there more than fifteen years ago. She had been two-years-old the last time she had visited the chunk of rock that had housed the stronghold where their mother's best friend, Winter, had taken care of her siblings for the first couple of years of their lives.
Anoth was made up of three separate fragments that are held in formation by the weak gravity of space along with crackling bolts of static electricity. The two largest fragments were incapable of supporting life, but the smallest chunk contained a breathable atmosphere. Luke Skywalker, along with Admiral Ackbar chose this place to hide the Solo children because they reasoned that no one would ever think to look for a settlement there.
They had set their ship down on the single landing pad, which had mostly eroded away over the years, and then the team made the short walk to the compound.
The durasteel doors were closed, kept in place by a locking mechanism that had been designed to stay active even if the building was ever abandoned. Luke had given them the code needed to open it, so it was only a matter of seconds after Jaina punched in the correct sequence of numbers that the doors clanked open, allowing them to walk inside.
The air was stale, as if it had been recycled way too many times through the air filters, but the power generators still worked even after all those years. That was the important thing. Illuminated corridors gave them the light they needed to navigate their way to the main control room in the stronghold.
As they passed through the different areas of the base, Jaina saw signs of the damage caused by Ambassador Furgan and his Imperial agents more then a decade before. They had tried to kidnap baby Anakin Solo, but Winter, along with the base's defense mechanisms had bought enough time for the New Republic team to arrive and rescue them. Scorch marks and burnt out machinery were never repaired because the base had been abandoned soon after the attack. With Anoth no longer a secret, her parents had decided that Anakin was no safer there then on Courscant and had brought him home with them to the Imperial Palace.
They reached the control center with ease. Looking around, Jaina saw the damage was not as bad as her Uncle had thought it would be.
When the Imperial agents broke into the stronghold, they had wanted to make sure no distress signal or any other defense systems came on line, but they had been sloppy. They had not taken the time to figure out what system controlled what. They had just started blasting away at different consoles. Yes, some of the damage would be un-repairable, but within a week she figured she could have this place up and running like the formable stronghold it had once been. She would not be able to do it on her own, unless she wanted it to take a month or more. She was going to need Zekk's mechanical skills as well.
Before they got started on the control room, she wanted to check out the rest of the base to make sure there was no serious damage or anything unexpected lurking around.
"The four of us should split up," she said to the rest of them. "We'll search the rest of the base and meet back here in one hour. If you find anything, use your com link and we'll come find you,"
Within moments, each of them set out on their own to explore the rest of the stronghold.
After checking several empty rooms, Jaina could not shake the feeling that she was being followed. She had not sensed any other life forms present when they had arrived, but that did not mean there weren't any.
As she kept walking, the feeling that she was being followed increased, and she was sure it wasn't her imagination.
Deciding to take care of her follower, she stepped around the corner, waiting for whatever was there to follow her. She heard the footsteps getting closer…closer. With a snap-hiss of her lightsaber she turned the corner – and just barely restrained herself from turning Ganner into a smoking corpse.
"Jaina, it's only me," Ganner said, her saber illuminating the startled look on his face, which he quickly erased.
She shut off her saber. With a scowl, she said, "what's wrong with you? You scared me half to death,"
"I scared you?" He said, remembering how only seconds before she had nearly ended his life with one stroke of her saber. "You're the one who nearly sliced me in half. Didn't you sense me behind you?"
"No," she mumbled, embarrassed at her mistake. "I felt someone following me and I immediately thought there was someone else here,"
"That'll teach you not to jump to conclusions," he scolded. "Or to first reach out with the force to figure our whether you're dealing with a friend or an enemy,"
She didn't like the way he scolding her as if she were nothing more then a little kid. "Stop talking to me like I'm a child,"
"Maybe when you stop acting like one I will,"
She managed to keep a lid on her anger. "Why were you following me?" She said, trying to take the attention off of the near fatal accident she had almost caused. "What part of splitting up didn't you understand?"
"None of it," he answered. "I thought this would be a good opportunity for us to talk,"
Hooking her lightsaber back onto her belt, she said, "we're supposed to be doing our best to make this place defendable for a meeting that could be vital to the survival of the New Republic, and you want to waste time talking?" She shook her head and began walking again. As she had expected, Ganner started after her.
"We need to talk about what's going on between us," he said, increasing his speed to keep up with her.
"This isn't the time or the place," she said without slowing down.
Fed up, Ganner grabbed her arm and shoved her into the nearest room, closing the door behind them. It looked to have been an office at one time with the desk and chairs and a few other furnishings. That was good, because then he would not have to defend himself from too many objects being thrown in his direction.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Jaina exploded.
"Neither of us is leaving this room until we straighten out a few things," he said, blocking the door.
"You're insane,"
"You're entitled to your opinion, but if the only way I can get you to talk to me is to lock us in a room together, so be it,"
"What do you want from me?" Jaina said, starting to cool down.
"I want you to be honest with yourself about how you feel about me, instead of trying to cover it up by starting a fight like you always do,"
"You know how I feel," she said in a quiet voice.
"No I don't. We kiss. You avoid me. And then we fight. That doesn't tell me very much," when Jaina kept silent, he continued. "I know we agreed never to be anything more then friends but this is happening whether you want to admit it or not. I never meant to fall for you, but it still happened no matter how hard I tried to stop it. You have no idea how hard its been for me to just be friends with you these past few months," he confessed, "and to not even know if you feel the same way because you keep sending me all these mixed signals. I don't know what you want, but you have to tell me before things go any further,"
Ganner had said everything that he had wanted to say, and now the ball was in her court. She didn't know why she was afraid to be honest with him. Maybe it was because it had been so long since she had been happy – really happy – that it scared her.
"When you kissed me that first time," she began slowly, "and then you told me it was an accident, that you hadn't meant to do it, I was hurt," she admitted. "I couldn't figure out why but I tried to get over it. We were friends, so it didn't matter. Then, when I think everything's going to be okay, it wasn't. I would see you flirting with other girls at the Academy and it would bother me. I hated feeling jealous, but that wasn't the only feeling I had to worry about. The closer we got, the harder it was for me to normal around you. But I forced myself to get past if because I had made up my mind that we would only be friends,"
"Now what do you think?" Ganner asked.
"I don't know,"
"That's not true," he said, "why can't you just admit you feel?"
"Because it will change everything,"
"Jaina, everything's already changed," he said to her, taking her hands in his. "Just tell me what you want,"
She didn't know how to say the words, so she did the next best thing: she kissed him. Ganner returned the kiss with equal passion and pulled her closer to him. And this time Jaina did not pull away from him – did not even think about pulling away from him, until the com link in her pocket started beeping.
"Ignore it," Ganner murmured.
"I can't," she managed to get out between kisses. Reluctantly, she ended the kiss that she had initiated. She took out her com link and spoke into it. "What is it?"
It was Riley. "You better come back to the control room, Jaina. We've got trouble,"
She and Ganner exchanged worried glances.
"What kind of trouble?"
"A Vong cruiser just entered orbit around Anoth,"
"I'll be right there,"
Together, she and Ganner took of at break neck speed for the control room. Each of them forgetting what had been going on only seconds before, now that their lives were in danger.
