Awaiting her friend's arrival at the appointed meeting place, Tenel Ka sat in the pilot's chair of the Rancor Tooth, a new ship that her parents had presented her with upon the graduation ceremony a week ago. They insisted that she needed up to date ships with the most advanced weaponry and shielding to keep her safe in her travels as a Jedi Knight. This was partly because Tenel Ka was heir to the throne of the entire Hapes Consortium, but also because she was their only child, and in her own opinion, they were a bit overprotective.
Still, the Rancor Tooth was definitely impressive, with a sleek, isosceles triangle shape, with a dorsal fin near the back end that curved wickedly and housed a turbolaser cannon. The bottom had some belly guns and proton torpedo launchers, and on the top, near the cockpit were concussion missile launchers. The hyperdrive was Class One, and her sublight engines made quick takeoffs.
As she finished up running preflight checks, Tenel Ka felt the presence of Jacen but she didn't turn around as he walked into the cockpit and slid into the co-pilot's seat.
"I just dropped off my luggage in the cabin. I grabbed the room on the left if you don't mind," he said casually, putting on a headset that attached to the communications unit and strapping himself into his seat.
Tenel Ka nodded, completing her last check, and followed his example.
"All set?" she asked, looking at him for acknowledgement.
Jacen gave a lopsided grin and replied, "As I'll ever be."
Tenel Ka smiled, because the effect of the trademark Solo grin could hardly have any less effect than to make her feel as if she'd just downed a glass of something with a high alcohol content.
Forcing herself to focus, Tenel Ka turned back to the controls and closed the boarding ramp. She initiated the repulsor lifts and gripped the control stick with her one good arm.
The Rancor Tooth rose smoothly into the air and Tenel Ka guided it easily out into the open atmosphere, before igniting the sublight drives and bursting out of the moon's gravity well.
"Time to haul jet," she said, when all they could see was the vast darkness and emptiness of space, and they cruised speedily out of the Yavin system. She programmed the coordinates that Jacen brought up from the navi-computer and then punched the hyper-drive.
Both teenagers leaned back in their seats as the space around them converged into white starlines, and then the chaotic, shifting patterns of hyperspace.
"Next stop Hapes, then on to Dathomir," Jacen said cheerfully, taking off his headset, and Tenel Ka did the same. They were quite certain no trouble would befall them before they reached the hidden Hapes cluster.
Or so they thought.
At first, Tenel Ka wondered what they should do for the rest of the flight, nearly six standard hours in duration. She soon discovered, she didn't have to worry, Jacen could provide hours and hours of highly amusing entertainment by not trying to be entertaining at all.
"Alright, alright! Easy girl, don't bite now…" Jacen said trying to coax an injured female stintaril from a cage. The srin-tail had been the only pet he'd brought, as the animal had desperately required medical attention that Jacen wasn't going to trust to anyone else.
Tenel Ka sat in a chair at a table in the kitchen part of the ship, holding her one hand over her mouth in a failing attempt to keep from laughing, as Jacen doggedly tried to convince the animal out of the cage so he could tend to the deep scratch down one leg.
The stintaril hissed, recoiling, and promptly bit down hard on Jacen's finger.
"OUCH!" Jacen yelled.
"Some of those are poisonous, are they not?" asked Tenel Ka innocently, as Jacen yelped and stuck his finger in his mouth, trying to relieve the pain.
Jacen shot her a death glare, sticking out his tongue as he took his finger out of his mouth and wrapped it in a bacta bandage from the med-kit.
"Actually this kind is usually pretty docile," Jacen explained, shrugging, and seeming somewhat at a loss. "The information I had on them said that they were playful and energetic. However, I've never really taken care of an injured one before."
"In that case, it's behaviour is probably because of the gash," Tenel Ka said, "Use the Force my friend, there are limits to your natural talents."
Jacen nodded and closed his eyes briefly before reaching into the cage once more, speaking softly in a soothing voice to the stintaril.
The stintaril appeared to relax, with it's tail hanging limply, it's eyes beginning to droop and it's body leaning towards his hand slightly. Jacen grinned slightly, his plan was working, and at that moment the stintaril snapped out of it's daze and went wild again, this time biting the skin between Jacen's thumb and first finger.
Jacen swore, quickly exiting his hand from the cage and shook it gingerly from the pain.
This time, Tenel Ka felt more sympathetic, and she got out disinfectant and another bacta bandage from the medkit. She reached across the table for Jacen's hand, and taking it in hers, she administered the disinfectant gently, rubbing it into the skin around the bite, and trying not to probe the wound itself.
She felt a flicker from Jacen in the Force, and when she looked up at him, he gaze, which had been focusing entirely on his hand and hers, abruptly shifted to a space on the wall.
How she was supposed to react, Tenel Ka didn't know. She decided the best path would be to ignore it, and figure the problem out later, so she carefully applied the bacta bandage and then gave him a small smile, to ease whatever awkwardness he imagined.
"Tenel," he said seriously, using a light nickname, and sat down in the chair beside hers, "When you came in to my room after talking with Luke, I got the sense that there was something else that was bothering you. It felt like you'd been badly shaken up."
Jacen paused for a moment, before adding with a lopsided grin, "And we both know it takes something pretty nasty to scare you."
Tenel Ka smiled, with a slight laugh, before she felt her face grow serious again. How was it that he could always tell what she was feeling? Why did he always know when something was bothering her, or not quite right in her life? They hadn't been like that when they had first met in the early days of the academy. He'd spent all his time making dumb jokes, trying to get her to laugh, trying to make her smile or see humour. She didn't know why he had singled her out of all the other students, maybe he had wanted a challenge, someone who he would have to work to earn a grin from. She supposed that close friends just became in tune to each other over time, and Jacen had shared some of the hardest parts of her life with her. The loss of her arm, the dealing with her Hapian grandmother, and all the life-threatening situations they'd been in over the years.
So now he was able to know things about her that even his uncle, a Jedi Master, undoubtedly one of the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy, did not see. Something was happening, something had been building for a long time, and soon it was all going to come together in one cataclysmic rush, that Tenel Ka was sure of.
She let out a sigh and then turned her chair so that she was facing him.
"I had a terrible premonition," she began, not knowing quite how to describe the horrible things she had seen and felt through the Force at the time of the vision, "… And it was awful Jacen, absolutely awful. I must be crazy. I saw these, well, I guess they were ships, because they moved like starfighters, like spaceships, but… they were shaped like asteroids. They looked like hunks of rock really."
Jacen looked perplexed, and his mouth was set in a thoughtful line as he considered her words. His eyes urged her to go on.
Tenel Ka paused, considering the effect of her next words, "I saw, or felt, something very wrong Jacen. Do you really want to hear it?"
Jacen nodded adamantly, "Absolutely."
Tenel Ka hesitated, "It may hurt you. It may cause you fear."
Jacen shrugged, "I don't think the future can hurt me. The future isn't set in stone, it can change."
Drawing a deep breath, Tenel Ka went on, "It wasn't so much the vision, but the feeling of despair and hopelessness. There was a dark dread. I… I saw Anakin, and he had blood on his face, and he was so pale, but so determined."
The next words were words that Tenel Ka would never want to hear, were she in Jacen's place. The magnitude and the importance of it was so foreboding, however, that she knew she shouldn't hold it back.
"Then there was Jaina. She had an angry, haunted look in her eyes, and something else. Revenge. I…" Tenel Ka, stopped, seeing the fear that passed over Jacen's face, and taking a breath, she moved on, "I saw her throwing Force lightning. White and purple bolts, straight from her finger tips. I nearly collapsed then. Your uncle thought I was in shock because of the news he gave me. He didn't realized that I'd had a premonition."
Jacen ran his fingers through his hair, not looking at her, and Tenel Ka regretted for a moment that she had told him. She almost wouldn't have, knowing how close he was to his sister, as a twin and as friends, except for that she could hardly believe anything like her vision could ever happen. The idea was unthinkable. Jaina? Cocky, good-spirited, even-tempered, stubborn as a nerf Jaina? She was the last person Tenel Ka saw ever going over to the Dark side.
"Jacen, my friend," Tenel Ka said, reaching out and touching his knee, "It won't happen. You won't let it happen."
Jacen looked up from his intense, preoccupied study of the floor and looked hard into her cool grey eyes with his deep brown. He seemed to forget about everything else and just stared at her. Tenel Ka felt that he wasn't really looking at her, but trying to read the future, trying to sort out her vision, her thoughts and feelings, into a way that made sense to him. Then he blinked, and a wistful, genuine smile spread across his face.
"You're right," he said, nodding his head in agreement, "I would never let that happen."