Title: Changing Course
Chapter: Chapter Eight
Author: bactaqueen
Author's e-mail:
Category: New Jedi Order, Alternate Universe
Keywords: Kyp Durron, Jaina Solo, NJO
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: New Jedi Order up to Rebel Stand
Summary: Jaina Solo had a tough road back from the Dark Side after the death of her brother. In the process, according to canon, she earned Colonel Fel. But what if she hadn't? What if Kyp Durron was her redemption?
Disclaimer: "Star Wars" copyright George Lucas. Characters copyright respective owners. No profit is being made and no infringement is intended. Characters and situations inspired by the Enemy Lines duology, written by Aaron Allston, and in some cases, the situations have been modified for the purposes of this story. Again, here, no profit is being made and no infringement is intended.
Changing Course: Chapter Eight
The medical center took up more than half of one floor of the biotics building. The critical care unit was located near the operating room and filled with bacta tanks of all sizes.
She stood alone in the small observation room, separated from the bacta unit by a thick transparisteel wall. Jaina had not changed out of her flight gear; her helmet and gloves rested on the low, square divan near the room's only door. All light came from the bacta unit, and that was a pale pinkish glow filtered through the thick, sticky medicine.
She'd once spent three days bobbing in a bacta tank aboard a medical frigate in Admiral Kre'fey's battle group. Right after the Champion had exploded and she'd been caught in the blast. She'd lost her ship, her droid, her lightsaber, and-temporarily-her eyesight.
She still missed that droid.
In the room beyond the transparisteel, three of the bacta tanks were occupied. Two human males and a Sullustan female floated in the red liquid. They were the only survivors from the day's events. The human female had died in the emergency care unit, despite the best efforts of the doctors.
Jaina had filed her report from the empty pilots' lounge a little over an hour before. She had avoided her pilots, her family, and her superior officers. She didn't want to see any of them. Not with the day's failure so fresh, the memory of the pain of those people so easily accessible. She sighed. She'd felt so helpless.
Standing there, alone in the pink light and staring at the survivors, helplessness surged again. There was nothing she could do for these survivors that had not already been done. Nothing. And because she could not help them, they might die. Even if she could, they still might die. It was out of her control.
Again. More situations she couldn't control. More people dying, and she couldn't save them. More failure. More pain.
She sensed him coming, broadcasting warmth and reassurance she didn't want to feel. Jaina clenched her jaw and slammed her shields down, cutting their connection abruptly. In the transparisteel, she caught a glimpse of his reflection.
Kyp Durron seemed to fill the doorway. He had changed from flight suit to Jedi robes. His hair was down, brushing the shoulders of his black cape. He paused in the doorway and simply watched her.
Finally, he spoke. "You did all you could," he offered quietly.
Jaina said nothing.
"You shouldn't beat yourself up over it, Jaina..."
His attempts were met only with stony silence.
She didn't want to talk to him. She didn't want to see him. She wanted nothing to do with him or anyone else until she'd settled her mind. And Kyp couldn't take a hint.
He entered the observation room. His boots clicked on the tile, loud in the room's silence. He drew to a halt behind her and off to her left. She listened to the rustling of his cloak. Then nothing. If she could see his reflection, he could see hers. She did not meet his eyes.
"I know what you're thinking. You're wrong. You couldn't."
Jaina still said nothing. Kyp pressed on.
"You tried to save them all, Jaina. We all know that. We couldn't, and there was nothing more we could have done. No one blames you. Don't blame yourself."
"How can you possibly know what I'm thinking?" she ground out, still not looking at him.
"I've been there. I know what you're going through."
"No, Kyp." Jaina whirled around. She faced him and glared. "Maybe we've gone through similar things. Maybe you understand the theory of what I'm going through. And maybe I appreciate that. But right now, this moment, no, you don't know. These people-" Jaina gestured at the patients in the bacta tanks. "They were my responsibility. Mine. You and the Twins are my responsibility. And I failed. And it's my fault. And you have no idea. So go away. I don't want to talk to you right now. I don't want to see you."
Kyp's eyes smoldered. "Oh, yes, of course. What the Goddess wishes, the Goddess gets. But remember this, Jaina." Kyp stepped in close and leaned down. His face was centimeters from hers. "I am your best friend right now. I'm not afraid of you. I'm not blinded by family ties to you."
With that, Kyp turned on his heel and left, black cape billowing. Jaina watched him go.
He was right. She hated that.
Jaina turned back to face the bacta unit. She regretted blowing up at Kyp. Part of her wanted to run after him, apologize, make him listen. Make him comfort her. But she didn't. She couldn't apologize. Not yet.
She sighed. Standing here was not helping. Watching these reminders of her own failure was not making her feel better.
So she left. Jaina turned her back on the survivors and gathered up her flight gear on the way out.
She wasn't fully aware of what she was doing. Her legs propelled her through the sterile corridors, down emergency stairs, out into the hot, humid evening. Pyria was dipping below the horizon. Unlike that morning, Jaina was not alone on the charred landing field. Several New Republic supply ships were there, attended by crews and support personnel. She paid no attention to them.
There was a desperation driving her, a need to escape. Somewhere, anywhere. Her ship would provide that. She hoped.
She skidded into the special operations docking bay, only then becoming aware that she was running. Her gaze swept over the assembly of ships. X-wings, A- wings, B-wings, E-wings, modified TIE Interceptors, Hapan fighters, freighters... all were present. A few mechanics scurried to and fro, and every now and then, an astromech would roll by. The hangar was comparatively quiet.
Jaina headed for her ship, pressing a series of buttons on her comlink that would call her droid. She just wanted up, away...
A yellow ladder rested against her X-wing's hull. Jaina hauled herself up, and dropped into the padded ejection seat. She glanced over her shoulder, where her astro should have been, and found the socket empty. She considered just forgoing the droid. If she stayed on-planet, she wouldn't need him.
Another familiar presence tickled her senses, and Jaina looked up. Through the tinted visor of her helmet, she saw no one she recognized. She shook her head and went back to her abbreviated pre-flight. Just some time at the edge of a river, she thought. Away from the biotics building. Away from the people.
"Going somewhere, Goddess?"
Jaina started at the voice. She peered over the edge of her cockpit, down the ladder. On the deck stood Zekk, black hair tied back from a friendly face.
"I need to go. I need to get away."
"You won't get far without your droid."
Jaina sighed. "I'm not leaving the planet."
"Oh." Zekk seemed to consider. "I guess you don't want company."
For one long moment, Jaina regarded him. Zekk always seemed sad now, and it was almost a refreshing change from Kyp's hard arrogance. Almost. Because she had enough of her own problems; she didn't need to deal with his, too. Now he stood staring up at her with eyes that held so much, need and warmth and friendship included.
Jaina softened. "I just told Kyp to go away."
"I always knew you were smart." Zekk's grin was quick. For a moment, he looked like the boy she'd known a long time ago.
"I told him he didn't know what I felt or what I was going through. He reminded me that he's my only friend."
"That's not true." Zekk spread his arms. "You still have me. And Lowie, too."
"I think he meant it differently."
"Probably." Zekk looked away. "You do still have me, Jaina. You never really lost me."
She stared down the length of the ladder at him. It hurt to see him so sad. "I know, Zekk. And I'm grateful." 'It's just that you're afraid of me, now. In a way that I was never afraid of you.'
"Where are you going? Just so no one worries." He gave her a sly smile.
Jaina glanced at the flight stick between her knees, then back at him. "I don't know. I didn't really have anywhere in mind."
"Jaina." There was a degree of warning in his voice that made him sound almost paternal.
She laughed. It felt good, and her mood even lifted a little. She smiled down at her old friend, suddenly forgetting everything that had happened between them in the past three years. She remembered what they'd once meant to each other. He seemed willing to go back to that. What was stopping her?
"Come with me. Maybe we'll find a river."
"All right." Zekk started to turn, to head for his own X-wing. He made it three steps.
A thought occurred to Jaina. "Hey, wait..."
Zekk turned back. "What?"
She stood up in her cockpit and gazed down at him. Zekk had never been very large, and he certainly wasn't now. He was several centimeters taller than she, but just as lean. She gestured to her X-wing cockpit. "Why not come with me?"
Zekk shrugged. "Why not?" And up the ladder he came.
He dropped into the padded ejection seat and made room for Jaina. It wasn't even a tight fit when she settled in between his legs. Zekk started to reach for the crash webbing as Jaina hit the button to seal the canopy. She laughed.
"Don't trust my piloting skills, Bounty Hunter?" Jaina fired up the repulsors and the engines.
"Sure I do. It's the trees I don't trust."
Jaina chuckled as she keyed the comm. "Control, this is Goddess. Am I clear?"
"You don't have your droid, Goddess," the voice came back.
"I'm going to stay on-planet, Control." Jaina put an edge in her tone.
"You're clear, Goddess. My apologies."
"Accepted, Control."
With a flick of the throttle control and a nudge of the stick, they were out of the special operations docking bay and into the early Borleian evening.
Jaina used the repulsors to float the X-wing over the trees, then she opened the throttle. Behind her, Zekk settled back into the seat.
"Am I going to get a display?"
"Of what?" Jaina replied absently, eyeing her sensors. She was letting the Force guide her, but she still wanted to be aware of any obstacles.
"Piloting skills. First hand."
"Maybe on the way back," she told him. A movement caught her eye, and she glanced down at it. Zekk's hand rested too close to the emergency hyperdrive button. "Move your hand," she ordered.
"Sorry," he mumbled almost sheepishly. She felt a weight disappear from her thigh.
Jaina laughed. "No." One hand on the stick, she reached for his fingers that were straying too close to the hyperdrive. She settled them at her side. "I don't mind if you touch me, Zekk. Just don't kill us."
Zekk sniffed as if insulted. "I'm a pilot, too, you know," he mumbled.
"I know." Jaina was smiling. "But I still don't trust you."
"I should be insulted, but I'm not. You don't trust anybody." He paused. "You never have."
"That's not true," she countered mildly. "I trust my dad."
"Exactly." He breathed in, and seemed to relax even more. "Feel better?"
"Much." Something on her scanners caught her attention, and Jaina tapped the screen. "There," she said. "A clearing. Stable. No dangerous life forms. And, there's a-"
"Waterfall," Zekk interrupted. "Looks good to me."
Jaina nudged the ship to starboard. She located the clearing on visuals and activated the repulsors to ease the X-wing into a smooth landing. Once it had settled on its skids, she popped the hatch and pushed herself up, hauling herself out of the cockpit. She balanced on the snub nose and turned to offer Zekk a hand to help him out.
"So, chivalry isn't dead," he quipped, as he accepted her help.
Jaina gave him a grin. "Not at all. It just... changed hands."
Zekk chuckled. He kept her hand in his as he walked from the nose of the X-wing to the S-foil in a blatant display of Force usage. Uncle Luke wouldn't approve, Jaina was sure. Her smile widened.
"Have you been practicing?"
"When I have the time," he answered with a shrug. He dropped down to sit on the edge of the starboard S-foil, feet dangling over the edge.
Jaina sank down beside him. Their legs brushed. "When is that?"
"Mmm. You know, I'm not sure."
They let the silence wrap around them. She'd parked the X-wing at the edge of a wide, rushing river. The faint light from the dim stars and the fighter's safety yellow running lights illuminated it. The New Republic base was nearly half a world away. For one moment, Jaina felt as if she were back home, on Yavin Four, before the war. The night was thick, maybe with the promise of rain. Zekk was beside her. And things were only as complicated as she wanted them to be.
"When did you come back?" Her voice was soft. And it surprised her. She hadn't realized she wanted to ask the question.
Zekk's answer was a long time coming. "Right after you lost your eyesight, I think," he said slowly. "It was selfish of me to stay away. I'd heard what you were doing. You stopped sending messages. So I came back." He gave a self-deprecating chuckle. "I never really made a very good bounty hunter."
Jaina smiled. "Why not?"
"Not sure," he murmured thoughtfully. He shrugged. "Maybe I took too many charity cases."
She elbowed him gently in the side. "Bleeding heart."
Zekk sighed. "I know." He nudged her leg. "But what about you? You never could stand to see someone without a functional hyperdrive."
Jaina winced. "I hated the Trickster for that reason exactly."
After a moment, Zekk cleared his throat. "So what about this goddess thing?"
"What about it?" Jaina kicked her legs and gripped the S-foil on either side of her. She didn't look at Zekk.
"I don't know." He shrugged restlessly. "How's it going?"
The absurdity of the question-of the whole situation-almost amused her. Jaina stole a quick glance at the man beside her. "Do you remember when we used to be able to talk about anything and not worry about what to say?"
He laughed, and leaned back, bracing himself on his arms. "Yeah."
"What happened to that?" Jaina glanced up at the sky. She could feel the smooth metal of the S-foil under her palms, cool against the night's heat. She was aware of Zekk beside her. "We were friends once," she added quietly.
"I think we grew up," he ventured, after several long moments.
"And apart."
"Yes."
Jaina sighed. "I've missed you, you know."
Zekk pushed himself up and slid an arm around her shoulders in a half hug. He squeezed gently. "I missed you, too."
"Friends, then?" she asked, slipping arms around his waist to return his hug.
He propped his chin on the top of her head, his other arm coming around her. "Always."
They sat in silence for long moments, just like that. She'd forgotten how comforting it was just to be held. She'd forgotten what having a friend really meant.
"I couldn't save them, Zekk."
"But you did all you could."
"I was desperate."
"I know."
"And they still died."
He said nothing. He just smoothed her hair down and let her cry. It was all he could do.
It was late when they got back. Zekk left her to go to his quarters-she'd planned another early morning for the Twins, another day of practices. He gave her a hug and told her to try and get some sleep.
Jaina went back to the observation room first. She had unfinished business. She stalked across the tile and drew to a halt less than five centimeters from the transparisteel wall.
"You are the last," she said quietly, surveying the three damaged survivors. "I will not lose anybody else. No one else dies because I failed. I won't fail."
She turned on her heel and left. The oath was made. She had every intention of keeping the promise.