Disclaimer: I own none of this. This all belongs to the George Lucas and
other folks/companies who are not me.
Author's note: Well we're getting near to the end of this fic folks, not to many more chapters left now. Just thought ya'll'd like to know.
Movielover03: I'm glad you liked that. I always like to see the more human, caring side of Jag personally.
Garnet Turner: Well this wasn't really soon, but it was better than last time. ;)
Sticks! It's my favorite reviewer and as for that ending well it was supposed to be chopped off right there. It would have revealed my whole plot and I couldn't that yet. That's why you have to read this chapter.
Aaron: Thank you very much! And as for taking so long, well like I said above this is almost over. Now about the sequel that I'm already sort thinking about...
Princess Blai: Yeah, this time I actually have already thought of a name for the kid, but I'm not sure if I'll use it. It's not very Star warsy, at least I don't think it is.
Tahiri Veila: Well you'll just have to wait and see if anyone dies *grins evilly*
jedimaster-jaina-solo: Thanks! I'm glad you liked it.
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Wedge Antilles looked around the wide docking bay where thousands of soldiers and support personnel were gathered. Scattered throughout the crowd were people he had fought with against the Empire and the younger veterans of this war. Old friends like Han and Leia Solo stood next to him. Out in the crowd Luke and Mara Jade Skywalker stood with a group of Jedi while Saba Sebatyne and other new faces mingled with the rest of the crowd. In Wedge's opinion it was likely that this was one of the best fighting forces that the galaxy had ever seen and he, Wedge Antilles was in charge of it. He struggled not to smile as he thought what his wife would say if she ever heard him say that.
Moments left, only moments.
Easily he located Iella near the back of the crowd and was pleased, but unsurprised to see Tycho Celchu, Wes Janson, Hobbie Klivian, Corran Horn and Mirax Terrik Horn flanking her. His former Rogues were nothing if not loyal to him and by extension his family.
And now, he had to find the words, the inspiration and the genius to talk to these people one last time, to lead them into battle.
"Soldiers of the galaxy," he addressed them, "You've fought long and hard against the Yuuzhan Vong. They have embroiled our galaxy in war for a decade. They have conquered and raped our worlds. They have slaughtered the races of our galaxy, and now we have an opportunity to strike back, to drive the Yuuzhan Vong out of our galaxy. This is our chance to make them regret their actions. Fight, survive, and make this a fight that the Yuuzhan Vong will regret for centuries to come." He paused and despite the deathly quiet of the crowd he could feel their growing determination. "I can't guarantee you that we will win, but I can promise you that I will fight until my last breath. People said the Emperor couldn't be defeated and he has been a mere memory for over a quarter of a century now. Let's go make the Vong a memory."
Wedge thought he could feel the Star Destroyer shaking as the mass of beings cheered wildly and scrambled towards their posts. As Han and Leia hurried past, she paused for a moment and hugged him quickly. Lightly she said, "May the force be with you." As she was almost out of sight she turned around and added quickly, "That was a good speech, Wedge," and despite the situation he had to chuckle. His pilots had always teased him about his speech making abilities. Now they would have to rethink their position. Maybe everything in the galaxy really was changing.
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The situation in the control center of Wedge Antilles's Star Destroyer was tense as everyone waited. The members of Twin Suns Squadron had been absent from Wedge's speech. They and the Wraiths had taken off hours earlier to begin their missions.
Wedge had participated in the battle of both the first and second Death Stars and he couldn't even imagine what Jaina's squadron would be facing. They wouldn't know anything until the fleet jumped in at the earliest or most likely well after the battle. They would only know when to jump in when they received the signal from the Wraiths.
It was a risk they had to take not to reveal this as an ambush. Now all they had to do was wait, wait to see whether he would have to tell his sister that her son was dead, or two of his best friends that their daughter was dead. It had been his greatest nightmare for years. Today though, he was Corellian enough to hope that the pilots of Twin Suns would all make it out alive.
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Her hands hung loosely at her sides, but her mind was sharp and focused with the precision of a vibroblade. She was meditating, pushing out extraneous thoughts, locking them all in a little box in the back of her mind to examine later. It was a process of purification. She was using everything she had experienced in her life, the good, the bad, the joy, the pain, to transform her into the ultimate weapon, the Sword of the Jedi.
It was her destiny, her life or her death. But she didn't even have time to think about it now, philosophy was irrelevant. All that mattered now, was something that she had been doing more than half of her life, flying and fighting.
She opened her eyes, casually checked all of the readings on her consoles and made sure everything was ready for her reversion to realspace. She watched the counter tick down to zero with almost disinterest and then casually pulled the lever back to disengage the hyperdrive.
The second she reverted to realspace, she asked quickly, "Everyone here?"
The quick affirmatives she received were filled with determination if nothing else. She had been allowed to pick her pilots and she had gotten exactly who she wanted. There was no one else she would want with her to carry out this mission. Coral ships of all kinds surrounded them and Jaina could already see swarms of coralskippers detaching from the largest ships. She didn't bother with much chatter or instructions. Everyone already knew what to do. She checked her sensors and found Jag and Kyp next to her, right where she had expected to find them. The first long range bursts of molten plasma missed and passed harmlessly by them. They didn't even use the energy to jink away. It wasn't necessary.
Jaina opened her comm. link to the general squadron frequency to give last minute orders. "I know all of you all ready know what to do, but be as safe as you can. Stick with your wingmates and try to catch the Vong in their own crossfire." She paused, knowing at least a few of these people would be dead in the next few minutes, "Good luck and may the force be with you."
The moment she stopped talking, Jaina engaged her engines and flew straight at the nearest coralskippers drilling them with laser fire and dodging the returning bolts of plasma until the skip was turned into hunks of molten plasma. She could feel Kyp reaching back to her through the force and see Jag right beside her. She fell into a unrepeating rhythm of firing, evading, and covering for her wingmates. AS she fought on she was focused so intently on the battle that she couldn't even feel the tension in her muscles as she clutched the controls, the sweat pouring off of her or the exhaustion that slowly started to creep into her as countless coralskippers exploded at her hand simply to be replaced by an endless number of other ships.
It was impossible to determine how long she had been flying and equally impossible to block out the screams of shock and horror as Twin Ten, Twin Seven, Twin Four and Twin Six blinked off of her sensors. As much as a single squadron was capable of though, Twin Suns had made an impossible dent in the Yuuzhan Vong forces, but it wouldn't last. Not if the Wraiths didn't hurry up.
Molten plasma soared through the vacuum and Jaina trained her lasers on the skip following Kyp as he flashed past. She automatically stuttered her lasers and lined the skip up for Jag to finish it up, already searching for their next target. This close to a larger coral ship like this one, it increased the amount of fire coming at them, but it also increased the possibility that the Vong would damage their own ships. But suddenly Jaina was seeing an opportunity here.
"Twin Two, Three," she questioned, "Both you have torpedoes left right?"
"Affirmative, Goddess,"
"Same here." Both replied quickly well able to multitask while they fought.
"I have an idea," she explained and she quickly sketched it out for them. Then she switched back to squadron's frequency. "Twelve, I'm leaving you in charge of the rest of the squadron, if this doesn't work use your own judgment about your next move."
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They dove through the cloud of skips, weaving in and out without even a shout of delight as skips exploded from friendly fire, they were much to veteran of pilots for that.
"Have you found it," Jaina demanded anxiously.
"Affirmative, Goddess," answered Kyp. "Here are your coordinates."
As they approached closer and closer the view from Jaina's cockpit was taken up by the approaching coral ship. It was one of the largest ships Jaina had ever seen. Its mass was near that of a Super Star Destroyer, and that, its size was precisely the vulnerability that they were hoping to exploit. They were impossibly close now, within a dozen meters of the hull and skimming smoothly along it, dodging irregularities in the hull and plasma projectiles.
After several tense moments, they found what Jaina had been looking for, a thin opaque membrane that served the Vong as an airlock.
"Are you sure about this, Great One," Kyp questioned, "What we're trying to do is based on a lot of speculation."
"Fairly certain," she responded. "Neither of you have to do this," she added.
"I'm not leaving you here, Jaina," that of course, was Jag. There was no way he would ever abandon her.
Kyp's response was no less definite, but not quite so enthusiastic.
"All right," she said, "Let's go." She stopped shooting at the membrane, took a deep breath and turned her x-wing nose first into the opening that she had created when she blasted the membrane aside.
Since her first in depth encounter with the Yuuzhan Vong ship, Trickster, after Myrk, Jaina had worked with dozens of coral ships and had become quite familiar with the technology and general designs of many coral skips. It was that familiarity that had hatched the idea for this plan. Most Yuuzhan Vong ships had a small opening running through it. It wasn't a feature bred in by the Shapers but it was a common mutation. Jaina hadn't ever been able to discover what purpose it served, but it didn't appear to be vital to the ships operation.
It had been a logical conclusion to draw that with a ship of this size the tunnel would be wide enough to accommodate fighters. She punched her engines and flew through.
Saying that it was tight flying was a monumental understatement. Several times, Jaina wasn't sure that she could make it through as the opening got smaller and a few times she had to use her lasers to blast through a piece of coral that was in her way.
Minutes of tight flying begin to drag on and Jaina started to worry. If she was wrong, if this had been for nothing, it would mean she had fled to relative safety and left her pilots to an almost certain death. Just as she was about to give the order to abandon the search and return to whatever remained of her squadron, Kyp let out a very unJedi Master like whoop of triumph. "We found it, Goddess."
It only took a moment to locate it once she heard Kyp's shout of triumph. It was a straight hollow shaft that intersected their tunnel. It was large, but smaller than the tunnel they were in. The distinctive coloring of the shaft told Jaina that it was what they had been searching for. The Yuuzhan Vong Shaper's often used color coding to signify the different types of passages on their ships and this was no exception.
This was the primary access to the coralship's brain and while the Ship's commander and pilot's might be the actual ones in charge of the ship's operation; they could do nothing with a dead ship.
"Launch all torpedoes," Jaina said quickly, "and let's get out of here."
"Agreed," added Jag enthusiastically. None of them acknowledged the fact that they didn't know how long it would take for the torpedoes to reach their destination or if they would have enough time to get out of the tunnel before the blast caught up with them. There was still enough atmosphere in there to allow for a fiery explosion and get them quickly killed.
Seconds later they got their answer as a small shiver ran through the tunnel around them. The shock wave from the explosion jarred all three fighters, bouncing Jaina's x-wing off of the wall and damaging her engines, slightly. Flying as fast as she could in the sharp confines of the ship, they watched as the fiery explosion rushed towards them. All Jaina could hope was that the fiery inferno would run out of oxygen before it reached her. She had been the first in and now she would be the last out.
"Jaina," Jag said sharply, obviously worried as the billowing clouds of fire got closer and closer to her.
She experienced a brief pang of sadness. She had long grown accustomed to the thought of her own death, it was her daughter's life she would mourn for. Still all she could say to Jag was, "I love you."
They were already flying as fast as they could. There was nothing else she could do. No, now, it was only a matter of whether luck and the force was with her today. The fire was practically singeing her engines, when she saw open space ahead of Jag, who was in the lead. She flashed forward right behind Kyp and Jag and rolled sharply to the left as she exited the tunnel only to find herself in an even greater whirl of chaos.
The space all around them was lit up with laser fire, the bright glow of streaking torpedoes and molten plasma. The bulk of the Galactic Alliance fleet seemed to have arrived. Other than the relatively small explosion that had almost killed her the large ship showed no sign of combustion, instead it shuddered in great convulsions and seemed to simply stop functioning. Jaina didn't have time to consider the tens of thousands of Vong most likely dieing on that great ship as it ceased to support life. She didn't have time as her squadron members, commanding officers, fellow squadron leaders as well as the battle itself began to clamber for her attention.
In seconds, Jaina was lost back into the thick of the fighting. On the whole her squadron members that had been alive when they entered the coral ship had fared well enough. The task force had jumped in moments later, sparing them from total destruction. Now, occasionally she or Jag or Kyp would be called upon for their tactical knowledge, but mostly they put their years of fighting experience into reeking the maximum amount of havoc possible on the Vong. The gloves were off now, this was for real.
The moment Jaina had been dreading since she was nineteen came late in the battle. The Galactic Alliance forces had suffered tremendous losses. The disturbance in the force was of galactic proportions, but they had forced the Vong slowly and painfully into a disadvantage. Pushing forward when it had the opportunity was the decades old, Rebel Dream. It had taken an incredible pounding during the battle, but it still pushed forward. It sent blinding barrages of fire at two smaller Yuuzhan Vong cruisers and hundreds of coral skippers, x-wings, and e-wings danced around it in deadly duels.
Kyp, Jag, Jaina and the remaining Twin Suns had joined the effort to protect and support the Rebel Dream from the ships surrounding it. As her lasers stuttered through the vacuum towards a skip a flash of movement in her peripheral vision caught her attention. The same moment, her danger sense began screaming through the force, but it wasn't personal. The danger was on a larger scale.
She quickly sent a thought to Kyp, through the force, and signaled him to exchange positions with her in their formation. With Kyp in the lead and Jag behind her, she was able to follow them, and contribute marginally to the fight, but turn the majority of her attention to the bigger picture. She frantically searched the surrounding area for whatever had set off her danger sense.
She located parents and her Aunt and Uncle in various positions throughout the battle area, but nothing around them or anywhere else caught her attention for a moment. Then she was quickly flipping channels until she found Wedge.
"Wedge, order the Rebel Dream out of there, now," she said frantically, "and get these fighters out of here."
"What's the matter, Jaina," Wedge asked, but he was already ordering the 'Dream to pull back. It was too late.
Most tactical droids and commanders discounted damaged ships. In this case when two damaged, out of control coral ships, collided they did what none of the Vong commanders had yet been able to do. Like a projectile so impossibly large that it couldn't miss its target, the tow fiery hulks careened towards the 'Dream. Weighed down by its considerable mass and hindered by its size, there was no way the 'Dream could escape.
Fighters fled wildly as the warning spread quickly and for the moment the fighting had been widely abandoned when a stray bolt of plasma clipped Jag's clawcraft. The shot couldn't have been more precise if it had been aimed. It passed through Jag's shields as if they didn't even exist, which Jaina knew, at this point they might not and clipped his engines. His clawcraft erupted into a fiery explosion and Jaina heard herself scream, "No!" before her view of him was obscured by the 'Dream's far larger explosion.
But there was no time to grieve, not now, in this battle he was just one among the many beings that were now gone. Tears blurred her eyes and her hands shook on her controls. It took her a moment to realize that the worried voice screaming in her ear belonged to Kyp before she mumbled an incoherent response at him.
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An indeterminate amount of time later Jaina hung in silence above the scene of the fighting. In the end, at an impossibly high cost, the Galactic Alliance forces had triumphed, if this ending so full of death and sadness could be called a triumph. She watched the beginnings of the battle clean up through eyes that didn't see it. She watched through tears as rescuers did their jobs and retrived pilots that had gone EV, and tried not to think about the pilots that they would never retrieve.
She listened as pilots she didn't know, friends and colleagues she had met during the war and people she had known all of her life, checked in, but she didn't respond. All she could see was Jag's face as he had last spoken to her in their quarters.
"Jaina, you have to promise me that if we make it out of this fight that we'll get out, just leave. We're two of the best pilots in the galaxy. There are plenty of things that we can do that don't involve fighting for out lives everyday. I want to start a new life together, just the three of us."
Her first instinct at the time had been to protest. She had agreed quickly after her initial surprise at the idea. It wasn't something that she had ever considered before, or ever had the option of considering before, but surprisingly enough it was something that appealed to her greatly.
She remembered the last thing he had said to her before they had left their quarters. "Jaina, I love you, no matter what we do or what happens you have to remember that. I love you, Darling."
Now, she just wished that she had insisted on leaving immediately. Nothing, not even the government that her family had sacrificed so much for was worth Jag's life. She loved him more than life itself. He had been her life in every way that mattered. The only reason she was still alive now was her unborn child. Her daughter was her last connection to Jag and she would protect her child at all costs.
The crackle of static was the first thing to break her out of her inactive trance. It wasn't at all unusual at this point in the battle and it usually meant there was a damaged ship trying to check in. She wasn't prepared though, when the mangled clawcraft floated up beside her.
"Did you really think I was dead, Darling?"
For a moment, Jaina thought she was hallucinating. "Jag," she asked cautiously.
"I'm here, Darling," he said with soft understanding, "I told you years ago that I'd never leave you and I meant it."
That was when she believed him and broke down into tears, tears of joy and unimaginable relief this time. "You Sith-spawned bastard, don't ever do that to me again. I thought you were dead." Her burst of anger was spent and all she was left with was exhaustion, exhaustion and a tired flicker of hope. "I love you so much, Jag," she said with all of the energy she could muster. Later she would wonder how he was still alive, but for the moment it was enough just to know that he was alive.
"I know, Darling," he said softly, hearing the exhaustion in her voice. "Here," he added, "I'm sending you coordinates, now. Let's go I think we both need some rest."
It was all Jaina could manage to do, to get her x-wing in to hyperspace before she fell into an exhausted slumber, content at last in the knowledge that Jag was alive and would be there when she woke and for the rest of her life.
Author's note: Well we're getting near to the end of this fic folks, not to many more chapters left now. Just thought ya'll'd like to know.
Movielover03: I'm glad you liked that. I always like to see the more human, caring side of Jag personally.
Garnet Turner: Well this wasn't really soon, but it was better than last time. ;)
Sticks! It's my favorite reviewer and as for that ending well it was supposed to be chopped off right there. It would have revealed my whole plot and I couldn't that yet. That's why you have to read this chapter.
Aaron: Thank you very much! And as for taking so long, well like I said above this is almost over. Now about the sequel that I'm already sort thinking about...
Princess Blai: Yeah, this time I actually have already thought of a name for the kid, but I'm not sure if I'll use it. It's not very Star warsy, at least I don't think it is.
Tahiri Veila: Well you'll just have to wait and see if anyone dies *grins evilly*
jedimaster-jaina-solo: Thanks! I'm glad you liked it.
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Wedge Antilles looked around the wide docking bay where thousands of soldiers and support personnel were gathered. Scattered throughout the crowd were people he had fought with against the Empire and the younger veterans of this war. Old friends like Han and Leia Solo stood next to him. Out in the crowd Luke and Mara Jade Skywalker stood with a group of Jedi while Saba Sebatyne and other new faces mingled with the rest of the crowd. In Wedge's opinion it was likely that this was one of the best fighting forces that the galaxy had ever seen and he, Wedge Antilles was in charge of it. He struggled not to smile as he thought what his wife would say if she ever heard him say that.
Moments left, only moments.
Easily he located Iella near the back of the crowd and was pleased, but unsurprised to see Tycho Celchu, Wes Janson, Hobbie Klivian, Corran Horn and Mirax Terrik Horn flanking her. His former Rogues were nothing if not loyal to him and by extension his family.
And now, he had to find the words, the inspiration and the genius to talk to these people one last time, to lead them into battle.
"Soldiers of the galaxy," he addressed them, "You've fought long and hard against the Yuuzhan Vong. They have embroiled our galaxy in war for a decade. They have conquered and raped our worlds. They have slaughtered the races of our galaxy, and now we have an opportunity to strike back, to drive the Yuuzhan Vong out of our galaxy. This is our chance to make them regret their actions. Fight, survive, and make this a fight that the Yuuzhan Vong will regret for centuries to come." He paused and despite the deathly quiet of the crowd he could feel their growing determination. "I can't guarantee you that we will win, but I can promise you that I will fight until my last breath. People said the Emperor couldn't be defeated and he has been a mere memory for over a quarter of a century now. Let's go make the Vong a memory."
Wedge thought he could feel the Star Destroyer shaking as the mass of beings cheered wildly and scrambled towards their posts. As Han and Leia hurried past, she paused for a moment and hugged him quickly. Lightly she said, "May the force be with you." As she was almost out of sight she turned around and added quickly, "That was a good speech, Wedge," and despite the situation he had to chuckle. His pilots had always teased him about his speech making abilities. Now they would have to rethink their position. Maybe everything in the galaxy really was changing.
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The situation in the control center of Wedge Antilles's Star Destroyer was tense as everyone waited. The members of Twin Suns Squadron had been absent from Wedge's speech. They and the Wraiths had taken off hours earlier to begin their missions.
Wedge had participated in the battle of both the first and second Death Stars and he couldn't even imagine what Jaina's squadron would be facing. They wouldn't know anything until the fleet jumped in at the earliest or most likely well after the battle. They would only know when to jump in when they received the signal from the Wraiths.
It was a risk they had to take not to reveal this as an ambush. Now all they had to do was wait, wait to see whether he would have to tell his sister that her son was dead, or two of his best friends that their daughter was dead. It had been his greatest nightmare for years. Today though, he was Corellian enough to hope that the pilots of Twin Suns would all make it out alive.
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Her hands hung loosely at her sides, but her mind was sharp and focused with the precision of a vibroblade. She was meditating, pushing out extraneous thoughts, locking them all in a little box in the back of her mind to examine later. It was a process of purification. She was using everything she had experienced in her life, the good, the bad, the joy, the pain, to transform her into the ultimate weapon, the Sword of the Jedi.
It was her destiny, her life or her death. But she didn't even have time to think about it now, philosophy was irrelevant. All that mattered now, was something that she had been doing more than half of her life, flying and fighting.
She opened her eyes, casually checked all of the readings on her consoles and made sure everything was ready for her reversion to realspace. She watched the counter tick down to zero with almost disinterest and then casually pulled the lever back to disengage the hyperdrive.
The second she reverted to realspace, she asked quickly, "Everyone here?"
The quick affirmatives she received were filled with determination if nothing else. She had been allowed to pick her pilots and she had gotten exactly who she wanted. There was no one else she would want with her to carry out this mission. Coral ships of all kinds surrounded them and Jaina could already see swarms of coralskippers detaching from the largest ships. She didn't bother with much chatter or instructions. Everyone already knew what to do. She checked her sensors and found Jag and Kyp next to her, right where she had expected to find them. The first long range bursts of molten plasma missed and passed harmlessly by them. They didn't even use the energy to jink away. It wasn't necessary.
Jaina opened her comm. link to the general squadron frequency to give last minute orders. "I know all of you all ready know what to do, but be as safe as you can. Stick with your wingmates and try to catch the Vong in their own crossfire." She paused, knowing at least a few of these people would be dead in the next few minutes, "Good luck and may the force be with you."
The moment she stopped talking, Jaina engaged her engines and flew straight at the nearest coralskippers drilling them with laser fire and dodging the returning bolts of plasma until the skip was turned into hunks of molten plasma. She could feel Kyp reaching back to her through the force and see Jag right beside her. She fell into a unrepeating rhythm of firing, evading, and covering for her wingmates. AS she fought on she was focused so intently on the battle that she couldn't even feel the tension in her muscles as she clutched the controls, the sweat pouring off of her or the exhaustion that slowly started to creep into her as countless coralskippers exploded at her hand simply to be replaced by an endless number of other ships.
It was impossible to determine how long she had been flying and equally impossible to block out the screams of shock and horror as Twin Ten, Twin Seven, Twin Four and Twin Six blinked off of her sensors. As much as a single squadron was capable of though, Twin Suns had made an impossible dent in the Yuuzhan Vong forces, but it wouldn't last. Not if the Wraiths didn't hurry up.
Molten plasma soared through the vacuum and Jaina trained her lasers on the skip following Kyp as he flashed past. She automatically stuttered her lasers and lined the skip up for Jag to finish it up, already searching for their next target. This close to a larger coral ship like this one, it increased the amount of fire coming at them, but it also increased the possibility that the Vong would damage their own ships. But suddenly Jaina was seeing an opportunity here.
"Twin Two, Three," she questioned, "Both you have torpedoes left right?"
"Affirmative, Goddess,"
"Same here." Both replied quickly well able to multitask while they fought.
"I have an idea," she explained and she quickly sketched it out for them. Then she switched back to squadron's frequency. "Twelve, I'm leaving you in charge of the rest of the squadron, if this doesn't work use your own judgment about your next move."
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They dove through the cloud of skips, weaving in and out without even a shout of delight as skips exploded from friendly fire, they were much to veteran of pilots for that.
"Have you found it," Jaina demanded anxiously.
"Affirmative, Goddess," answered Kyp. "Here are your coordinates."
As they approached closer and closer the view from Jaina's cockpit was taken up by the approaching coral ship. It was one of the largest ships Jaina had ever seen. Its mass was near that of a Super Star Destroyer, and that, its size was precisely the vulnerability that they were hoping to exploit. They were impossibly close now, within a dozen meters of the hull and skimming smoothly along it, dodging irregularities in the hull and plasma projectiles.
After several tense moments, they found what Jaina had been looking for, a thin opaque membrane that served the Vong as an airlock.
"Are you sure about this, Great One," Kyp questioned, "What we're trying to do is based on a lot of speculation."
"Fairly certain," she responded. "Neither of you have to do this," she added.
"I'm not leaving you here, Jaina," that of course, was Jag. There was no way he would ever abandon her.
Kyp's response was no less definite, but not quite so enthusiastic.
"All right," she said, "Let's go." She stopped shooting at the membrane, took a deep breath and turned her x-wing nose first into the opening that she had created when she blasted the membrane aside.
Since her first in depth encounter with the Yuuzhan Vong ship, Trickster, after Myrk, Jaina had worked with dozens of coral ships and had become quite familiar with the technology and general designs of many coral skips. It was that familiarity that had hatched the idea for this plan. Most Yuuzhan Vong ships had a small opening running through it. It wasn't a feature bred in by the Shapers but it was a common mutation. Jaina hadn't ever been able to discover what purpose it served, but it didn't appear to be vital to the ships operation.
It had been a logical conclusion to draw that with a ship of this size the tunnel would be wide enough to accommodate fighters. She punched her engines and flew through.
Saying that it was tight flying was a monumental understatement. Several times, Jaina wasn't sure that she could make it through as the opening got smaller and a few times she had to use her lasers to blast through a piece of coral that was in her way.
Minutes of tight flying begin to drag on and Jaina started to worry. If she was wrong, if this had been for nothing, it would mean she had fled to relative safety and left her pilots to an almost certain death. Just as she was about to give the order to abandon the search and return to whatever remained of her squadron, Kyp let out a very unJedi Master like whoop of triumph. "We found it, Goddess."
It only took a moment to locate it once she heard Kyp's shout of triumph. It was a straight hollow shaft that intersected their tunnel. It was large, but smaller than the tunnel they were in. The distinctive coloring of the shaft told Jaina that it was what they had been searching for. The Yuuzhan Vong Shaper's often used color coding to signify the different types of passages on their ships and this was no exception.
This was the primary access to the coralship's brain and while the Ship's commander and pilot's might be the actual ones in charge of the ship's operation; they could do nothing with a dead ship.
"Launch all torpedoes," Jaina said quickly, "and let's get out of here."
"Agreed," added Jag enthusiastically. None of them acknowledged the fact that they didn't know how long it would take for the torpedoes to reach their destination or if they would have enough time to get out of the tunnel before the blast caught up with them. There was still enough atmosphere in there to allow for a fiery explosion and get them quickly killed.
Seconds later they got their answer as a small shiver ran through the tunnel around them. The shock wave from the explosion jarred all three fighters, bouncing Jaina's x-wing off of the wall and damaging her engines, slightly. Flying as fast as she could in the sharp confines of the ship, they watched as the fiery explosion rushed towards them. All Jaina could hope was that the fiery inferno would run out of oxygen before it reached her. She had been the first in and now she would be the last out.
"Jaina," Jag said sharply, obviously worried as the billowing clouds of fire got closer and closer to her.
She experienced a brief pang of sadness. She had long grown accustomed to the thought of her own death, it was her daughter's life she would mourn for. Still all she could say to Jag was, "I love you."
They were already flying as fast as they could. There was nothing else she could do. No, now, it was only a matter of whether luck and the force was with her today. The fire was practically singeing her engines, when she saw open space ahead of Jag, who was in the lead. She flashed forward right behind Kyp and Jag and rolled sharply to the left as she exited the tunnel only to find herself in an even greater whirl of chaos.
The space all around them was lit up with laser fire, the bright glow of streaking torpedoes and molten plasma. The bulk of the Galactic Alliance fleet seemed to have arrived. Other than the relatively small explosion that had almost killed her the large ship showed no sign of combustion, instead it shuddered in great convulsions and seemed to simply stop functioning. Jaina didn't have time to consider the tens of thousands of Vong most likely dieing on that great ship as it ceased to support life. She didn't have time as her squadron members, commanding officers, fellow squadron leaders as well as the battle itself began to clamber for her attention.
In seconds, Jaina was lost back into the thick of the fighting. On the whole her squadron members that had been alive when they entered the coral ship had fared well enough. The task force had jumped in moments later, sparing them from total destruction. Now, occasionally she or Jag or Kyp would be called upon for their tactical knowledge, but mostly they put their years of fighting experience into reeking the maximum amount of havoc possible on the Vong. The gloves were off now, this was for real.
The moment Jaina had been dreading since she was nineteen came late in the battle. The Galactic Alliance forces had suffered tremendous losses. The disturbance in the force was of galactic proportions, but they had forced the Vong slowly and painfully into a disadvantage. Pushing forward when it had the opportunity was the decades old, Rebel Dream. It had taken an incredible pounding during the battle, but it still pushed forward. It sent blinding barrages of fire at two smaller Yuuzhan Vong cruisers and hundreds of coral skippers, x-wings, and e-wings danced around it in deadly duels.
Kyp, Jag, Jaina and the remaining Twin Suns had joined the effort to protect and support the Rebel Dream from the ships surrounding it. As her lasers stuttered through the vacuum towards a skip a flash of movement in her peripheral vision caught her attention. The same moment, her danger sense began screaming through the force, but it wasn't personal. The danger was on a larger scale.
She quickly sent a thought to Kyp, through the force, and signaled him to exchange positions with her in their formation. With Kyp in the lead and Jag behind her, she was able to follow them, and contribute marginally to the fight, but turn the majority of her attention to the bigger picture. She frantically searched the surrounding area for whatever had set off her danger sense.
She located parents and her Aunt and Uncle in various positions throughout the battle area, but nothing around them or anywhere else caught her attention for a moment. Then she was quickly flipping channels until she found Wedge.
"Wedge, order the Rebel Dream out of there, now," she said frantically, "and get these fighters out of here."
"What's the matter, Jaina," Wedge asked, but he was already ordering the 'Dream to pull back. It was too late.
Most tactical droids and commanders discounted damaged ships. In this case when two damaged, out of control coral ships, collided they did what none of the Vong commanders had yet been able to do. Like a projectile so impossibly large that it couldn't miss its target, the tow fiery hulks careened towards the 'Dream. Weighed down by its considerable mass and hindered by its size, there was no way the 'Dream could escape.
Fighters fled wildly as the warning spread quickly and for the moment the fighting had been widely abandoned when a stray bolt of plasma clipped Jag's clawcraft. The shot couldn't have been more precise if it had been aimed. It passed through Jag's shields as if they didn't even exist, which Jaina knew, at this point they might not and clipped his engines. His clawcraft erupted into a fiery explosion and Jaina heard herself scream, "No!" before her view of him was obscured by the 'Dream's far larger explosion.
But there was no time to grieve, not now, in this battle he was just one among the many beings that were now gone. Tears blurred her eyes and her hands shook on her controls. It took her a moment to realize that the worried voice screaming in her ear belonged to Kyp before she mumbled an incoherent response at him.
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An indeterminate amount of time later Jaina hung in silence above the scene of the fighting. In the end, at an impossibly high cost, the Galactic Alliance forces had triumphed, if this ending so full of death and sadness could be called a triumph. She watched the beginnings of the battle clean up through eyes that didn't see it. She watched through tears as rescuers did their jobs and retrived pilots that had gone EV, and tried not to think about the pilots that they would never retrieve.
She listened as pilots she didn't know, friends and colleagues she had met during the war and people she had known all of her life, checked in, but she didn't respond. All she could see was Jag's face as he had last spoken to her in their quarters.
"Jaina, you have to promise me that if we make it out of this fight that we'll get out, just leave. We're two of the best pilots in the galaxy. There are plenty of things that we can do that don't involve fighting for out lives everyday. I want to start a new life together, just the three of us."
Her first instinct at the time had been to protest. She had agreed quickly after her initial surprise at the idea. It wasn't something that she had ever considered before, or ever had the option of considering before, but surprisingly enough it was something that appealed to her greatly.
She remembered the last thing he had said to her before they had left their quarters. "Jaina, I love you, no matter what we do or what happens you have to remember that. I love you, Darling."
Now, she just wished that she had insisted on leaving immediately. Nothing, not even the government that her family had sacrificed so much for was worth Jag's life. She loved him more than life itself. He had been her life in every way that mattered. The only reason she was still alive now was her unborn child. Her daughter was her last connection to Jag and she would protect her child at all costs.
The crackle of static was the first thing to break her out of her inactive trance. It wasn't at all unusual at this point in the battle and it usually meant there was a damaged ship trying to check in. She wasn't prepared though, when the mangled clawcraft floated up beside her.
"Did you really think I was dead, Darling?"
For a moment, Jaina thought she was hallucinating. "Jag," she asked cautiously.
"I'm here, Darling," he said with soft understanding, "I told you years ago that I'd never leave you and I meant it."
That was when she believed him and broke down into tears, tears of joy and unimaginable relief this time. "You Sith-spawned bastard, don't ever do that to me again. I thought you were dead." Her burst of anger was spent and all she was left with was exhaustion, exhaustion and a tired flicker of hope. "I love you so much, Jag," she said with all of the energy she could muster. Later she would wonder how he was still alive, but for the moment it was enough just to know that he was alive.
"I know, Darling," he said softly, hearing the exhaustion in her voice. "Here," he added, "I'm sending you coordinates, now. Let's go I think we both need some rest."
It was all Jaina could manage to do, to get her x-wing in to hyperspace before she fell into an exhausted slumber, content at last in the knowledge that Jag was alive and would be there when she woke and for the rest of her life.