Disclaimer: See all of the previous chapters
Kyp felt her come up behind him, before he saw her. No matter how much Jaina tried to cut him out of their Force bond, her presence always seemed to stand out to him in the Force. He was undeniably worried about her. Kyp had heard about the incident with the Chimaera several months earlier. He ha wanted to talk to Jaina immediately, to hear what had happened from Jaina's mouth. The reports of the incident that he had heard, worried him.
He couldn't say what he would have done in the same situation, though. The reports that he had read from the surviving members of Twin Susns were barely coherent, but those who did remember it clearly stated in their reports that Jaina had remained almost impossibly calm the entire time. She ha clearly heard Pellaeon's orders and she had just as clearly disobeyed them. Kyp understood some of Jaina's position. If she obeyed Pellaeon then she would have lost her only chance to stop the Vong onboard. If Pellaeon had failed then, billions of beings could have died from an attack by a Star Destroyer that they thought was on their side.
Logically, on paper, Jaina's actions made sense, but Kyp knew of very few commanders who could have made that call. What worried him even more than what she had done was her frame of mind. If she had done it in a fit of vengeful rage to avenge the deaths of her brothers or her squadron mates, it would have been better than an engraved invitation to the Dark side.
"Kyp," Jaina said monosyllabically. She turned towards the man and woman standing next to him. "Talon," she said with a quick nod, "Shada. I didn't think I would see either of you here." The last thing she had heard had suggested that Karrde would be tied up in the Elrood sector for the next few weeks. Karrde might not have the resources to constantly take on the Vong, but he was more than capable of harassing the Peace Brigade to the point that the unofficial bounty on his head was one of the largest in the Galaxy.
Talon smiled smoothly. "I didn't expect to see you back aboard the Chimaera, either, Colonel Solo."
Jaina shrugged, brushing Karrde's knowing comment aside, but Kyp could feel the words hit her, before her emotions were quickly stifled. "Not my choice, Talon, I'm just following orders." She looked at Karrde a moment longer and then she shot a glance at the crowd. No one was particularly close to them or appeared to be eaves dropping. "Pellaeon mentioned a rumor going around about the Vong attacking here. That's why Twin Suns was pulled off of our assignment and reassigned here." She shot a guarded smile at the older man, "I'm sure that this isn't new to you. Can you provide me with anymore information than what I already have?"
Karrde looked at her steadily for a long moment and Jaina had the feeling that somehow he was weighing the situation in his mind, almost testing her. Then suddenly his expression or at least the look in his eyes cleared. Karrde's sabacc face never changed. She could feel him make his decision.
"Is this question coming from you or the Grand Admiral? I'm only asking," he clarified, "So that I know who to bill. I know longer have an agreement with the Empire."
Jaina grinned. "I'm asking strictly on my own behalf. Depending upon what you have to say, I might pass the information onto Pellaeon, but for the moment I simply want to know what, if anything, that you've heard, so that Twin Suns can be as prepared as possible."
Karrde nodded knowingly, "I haven't heard specifically that the Vong or the Peace Brigade are planning to move against Bastion, but I can confirm that the Vong are massing fleets in the Yavin System. There's also been a significant increase in their activity in several sectors deeper into Vong space."
Jaina smirked slightly, "I can confirm that activity," She paused and cocked her head slightly, "but I can't explain the situation. The information about that is on a need to know basis only."
"Yes, most of your missions these days are classified, aren't they Goddess?" Talon asked blandly.
Jaina nodded, but before she could reply her comm. link blared loudly, signaling an incoming call. "Goddess here," Jaina said quickly, half turning away from the group Kyp, Karrde and Shada. Not all, but a significant portion of the information that she dealt with on a daily basis was classified. Only officials with the highest clearance knew the details about most of her missions. It was a strange way to operate, and Jaina had at first hated to operate in the shadows. In the end though, she had realized the benefits of the strategy. It kept her squadron protected from most information leaks and enabled her squadron to take on missions that were necessary to the war effort, but generally frowned upon by the galaxy at large.
"Solo," the voice said sharply, "You need to come back to our quarters. Admiral Pellaeon left a holocube with highly sensitive information for you here. I'm under orders not to leave this room until you come back and view the information," her voice was curt and sharp. Jaina could tell that it was an effort for Miat to even speak to her civilly.
"I'll be right there," she said simply. Both women flicked off their comm. links without pausing to say good bye to one another. "I have to go," she said shortly to Karrde and Kyp. The last thing that she wanted to do was have a conversation with Miat.
Karrde accepted her statement without surprise, "Of course, Great One." He paused, "I'll send you a data card with all of the information that I have about the Vong's latest movements."
"Thank you, Karrde," she said genuinely. She might be upset, but there was no need to impolite to Karrde. The old smuggler and information broker was famous for the quality of his information
She turned to leave, but stopped abruptly a hand closed firmly around her arm. Jaina looked up in surprise and found herself looking up at Kyp. The Jedi Master's eyes were filled with worry and she thought that she saw a tinge of anger in them. "We need to talk, Goddess," he said forcefully.
"Not now," she said bitingly, and not ever, she added silently. Years ago she had been close to Kyp, close enough to confide in him. Those days were long gone. Kyp hadn't been her confidant in years and she wasn't about to start confiding in him again. She didn't have time for it. Confiding in Kyp wouldn't help her fly better or kill Vong more efficiently, it would only distract her from what she needed to be focusing on, the war. Jaina snatched her arm roughly out of his grip and walked away.
"We will talk, Jaina," he called after her. She bit back the urge to throw a scathing reply at him and walked away without a backwards glance.
=========================================================================
Jaina keyed the door to her shared quarters open and took a deep breath. There is no emotion; There is peace. The thought surprised her so much that she almost froze mid-step as she entered the room. She ended up taking an awkward half-step forward. It was the first line of the Jedi Code.
At some points in her life, that code had been as familiar to her as her own name, as familiar to her as the vague but constant mental touch of her twin brother's Force presence. So much had changed since then. Now she was more likely to hear people call her Goddess, Great One, or Colonel, than her actual name. Her brother's- both of them- despite whatever her Mother claimed, were dead. And now the Jedi Code was totally unfamiliar to her, like a very alien thought.
"If you're done taking your own sweet time, Colonel Solo, I'm already late for my weekly Sabacc game."
Jaina actually smiled genuinely at the woman's last statement. Miat was one of the best Imperial Sabacc players aboard the Chimaera, even without her Force skills. Miat and Jaina had at one time, been well renowned for their Sabacc games. Neither held an advantage over the other because of their Force skills. Their games had always been........memorable events that drew large portions of the ships off duty personnel. Jaina and Miat had been friendly rivals in those games. By the time that Twin Suns had begun to frequently base their operations off of the Chimaera, a smaller group of the braver sabacc players aboard the Star Destroyer had joined them.
"Has Brance gotten any better?" Jaina asked with another smile. They had both taken the young native of ?Yaga Minor? under their wing at least as far as sabacc had been concerned. He had been young, practically a fresh recruit from one of Yaga Minor's isolated farming communities. Before her last mission aboard the Chimaera, they had been teaching him all of the inns and outs of sabacc. His innocent looks had already provided him with an excellent sabacc face that took many unsuspecting people by surprise.
Miat's reply made her blood run cold. "At sabacc, you mean?" She shrugged coldly, "I wouldn't know." She met Jaina's eyes for the first time with a cold glare, "Brance was so badly injured in you-a friendly fire incident that he was discharged and sent back to Yaga Minor."
She refused to look away, but she visibly flinched as Miat added, "Even if you destroyed his life, at Brance is still alive."
"Miat," Jaina said softly, "I'm sorry for what happened to Raat-" The Force blow hit her squarely across the face before Jaina even felt it coming.
"Don't even talk about him, Jaina. What happened wasn't an accident. You purposefully fired on the Chimaera, knowing that beings would die, and not just the Vong. You knew it and did it anyway. You murdered the one man who had grown up like me in the Empire and accepted the fact that I had Force powers. He loved me." Her voice had lost some of its anger, and now it was almost pitying, or at least as pitying as someone could be when they despised the person that they were speaking to. "You crossed the line, Jaina and one day you will have to pay for that."
"Is that a threat, Miat," Jaina asked with almost curiosity. She would be surprised if Miat was threatening her. Jaina had almost been expecting it, really, if not from Miat then from someone else. She just wished Miat would do something though, instead of just stand there. People Jaina knew had died. She had lost friends, siblings, and a surrogate parent to the Vong, but she couldn't understand Miat's reaction. With the exception of this one moment, Miat had been indifferent towards Jaina. She couldn't understand Miat's reaction.
"What if I am, Solo?" Miat demanded. "Why shouldn't I threaten you? My boyfriend, my friends, Sith, some of the people that you claimed as friends are dead now, because of you. The thing that sickens me the most is that you seem indifferent to it all, indifferent to everything but killing Vong. Well, this time it wasn't the Vong that paid the price it was the people you were supposed to fighting side by side with, the people that you were supposed to be protecting. I thought that Jedi were supposed to protect the people; you just kill them." Miat sucked in a deep breath for the first time since she had started talking.
Jaina's comm. link broke the silence with a loud blare. "You're wrong, Miat," she said sharply, "I was protecting lives. I was protecting the lives of all of the billions of people who would have died if the Vong had captured the Chimaera."
Her comm. link chimed again. Both women continued to ignore it as Miat slowly walked closer to Jaina. When she was only about half of a meter away from Jaina, she suddenly seemed to understand something and Miat let you a short back of unhumorous laughter. "You weren't trying to save lives. You were scared, Jaina. You were scared to be blamed for the massacre of billions rather than as the poor young Jedi warrior who made a hard decision. If you had half of the attitude the founders of the Rebellion had, then you would have waited. You would have taken a chance on the long odds. You are Half-Corellian, after all. Instead you used ruthless tactics, that haven't been suggested or endorsed since Palpatine's rule. The Emperor would be proud of your start, Jaina."
"No." Jaina's response was cold, hard and definitive.
Miat could feel the anger, the pain, that was roiling with Jaina. The very feel of the air was changing with it. The air crackled with tension and neither woman even noticed as the familiar thuds of hurried footfalls neared their quarters. The resounding and quickly pounded blows on their door did catch their attention. With a quick gesture from Jaina, the door slid quickly open to reveal a red faced crewman.
"Grand Admiral Pellaeon-" The young man, frozen by the equally hostile looks directed at him, seemed to forget what he had been ordered to say.
Jaina's patience ran out first. "Is there a reason for you to be here," she said sharply. She didn't have time for any of this.
"Y-you weren't answering you comm. link, G-goddess." He spat it out quickly.
She looked at him in irritation. She had ignored her comm. link before and crewmen usually didn't run up to her to inform her of that fact. "And why are you informing me of the obvious, crewmen?"
His face turned and uncomfortable shade of red and Jaina could sense the mortification drifting off of him, not for himself, but for her. "Ma'am, Admiral Pellaeon's orders, Twin Suns was sent up for special escort duty. They've been waiting......" He trailed off, deciding that it might not be wise to further upset the already volatile goddess.
Jaina's attention, however, was no longer on him. "Sithspawn," she swore furiously. Pellaeon had to be upset at the delay and if her tardiness caused and intergalactic incident- She pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind as she called her blaster and lightsaber to her, before she began a flat out run towards her x-wing.
============================================================================ ===
Jaina didn't even bother with a preflight check. Her x-wing was always maintained at its peak condition, always ready for a sudden takeoff. If it wasn't in top condition, heads would roll. She didn't wait for clearance from the traffic controller, either. Instead she launched her x-wing out of the Star Destroyer with as much speed behind her as she could manage in that space. Jaina immediately punched the power to her engines as she cleared the top of the Star Destroyer. She heard a muffled squawk of protest as she put her x-wing into a steep curving climb to avoid a small support craft. She rolled her x-wing away from two shuttle bearing diplomatic symbols as the shuttles approached the Chimaera. Jaina dove towards deep space and the coordinates for the rendevous with the party that they were escorting.
If she was lucky and she tested all of the modifications that she had ever added to her x-wing to their limits, then maybe she would reach her squadron before the incoming group of ships had a chance to regroup from the hyperspace jump.
Jaina quickly switched to a private comm. chanel. "Twin 5, report," she snapped. She knew that she shouldn't take how she was feeling out on the members of her squadron, but Esmen could take it. She had been flying with Jaina for a long time, for longer than the rest of Twin Suns current roster. Esmen was also Jaina's second-in-command, should anything happen to her during a fight.
"Nothing's going on yet, Great One. We've been sitting out here for about half of an hour and we haven't heard anything from them yet."
"Tried all of the frequencies," Jaina suggested perfunctorily, with a quick glance down at her threat boards to ascertain the size of the force in front of them. Little dots and big dots mingled as the task force reformed. The one thing Jaina did notice, even in her current state of mind, was the orderly, precise way that the ships all slipped back into the appropriate positions. This was a well trained and very capable fighting force.
Jaina shifted slightly in her pilot's seat as she studied the display and noted with irritation something jabbing into her thigh. With a sharp explicative of annoyance, Jaina quickly dug into her pockets and pulled out the offending holocube.
"We have contact, Goddess," Esmen'ts voice crackled in her ear. "They're hailing us on a general frequency."
Jaina double clicked an acknowledgement back at Esmen and switched channels. A dry voice, speaking a standard Basic dialect, poured into her speakers with a standard greeting. Jaina flipped back to the private chanel. "5, think you can handle this?"
Their was a beat of hesitation and a burst of surprise from the other woman, but she answered easily, "Of course, Great One."
"Good," Jaina said sharply. Esmen could handle this and she needed time- time to calm down from her conversation with Miat, to tuck all of the emotions that she couldn't use, carefully away and time to play the holocube of orders that Pellaeon had left for her. She switched her comm. channel back over to the general frequency so that she could keep an ear on what was happening in case Esmen needed help.
Jaina picked up the tiny holocube, turning it over in her hand. She wasn't ready to open it. Jaina could barely focus on what she was supposed to be doing. Miat's words were burning in her ears. What Miat had said was absolutely not true. She took the anger she felt and molded it into a cold, hard shield against any uncertainty. Miat was grieving and she didn't understand that Jaina's actions had been absolutely necessary.
Jaina reached forwards to activate the holocube and took another quick glance at her threat board. A squadron of fighters were taking their places around the larger ships and Jaina automatically calculated the formation that Twin Suns would take for their escort. Jaina relaxed imperceptibly as Esmen called out the same formation that she would have and then goosed her thrusters forward to take the lead position.
She froze as she heard the end of Esmen's reply. "......Heading," Esmen rattled off a string of letters and numbers and then added, "Welcom back, Spike Lead, the Known regions haven't been the same without you, Colonel Fel."
Okay so hopefully starting this Monday, I'll be updating on a Monday/Friday update schedule. Does that sound god to ya'll? Thank you for all of your feedback and encouragement. Please let me know what you think of this chapter, too. (
Kyp felt her come up behind him, before he saw her. No matter how much Jaina tried to cut him out of their Force bond, her presence always seemed to stand out to him in the Force. He was undeniably worried about her. Kyp had heard about the incident with the Chimaera several months earlier. He ha wanted to talk to Jaina immediately, to hear what had happened from Jaina's mouth. The reports of the incident that he had heard, worried him.
He couldn't say what he would have done in the same situation, though. The reports that he had read from the surviving members of Twin Susns were barely coherent, but those who did remember it clearly stated in their reports that Jaina had remained almost impossibly calm the entire time. She ha clearly heard Pellaeon's orders and she had just as clearly disobeyed them. Kyp understood some of Jaina's position. If she obeyed Pellaeon then she would have lost her only chance to stop the Vong onboard. If Pellaeon had failed then, billions of beings could have died from an attack by a Star Destroyer that they thought was on their side.
Logically, on paper, Jaina's actions made sense, but Kyp knew of very few commanders who could have made that call. What worried him even more than what she had done was her frame of mind. If she had done it in a fit of vengeful rage to avenge the deaths of her brothers or her squadron mates, it would have been better than an engraved invitation to the Dark side.
"Kyp," Jaina said monosyllabically. She turned towards the man and woman standing next to him. "Talon," she said with a quick nod, "Shada. I didn't think I would see either of you here." The last thing she had heard had suggested that Karrde would be tied up in the Elrood sector for the next few weeks. Karrde might not have the resources to constantly take on the Vong, but he was more than capable of harassing the Peace Brigade to the point that the unofficial bounty on his head was one of the largest in the Galaxy.
Talon smiled smoothly. "I didn't expect to see you back aboard the Chimaera, either, Colonel Solo."
Jaina shrugged, brushing Karrde's knowing comment aside, but Kyp could feel the words hit her, before her emotions were quickly stifled. "Not my choice, Talon, I'm just following orders." She looked at Karrde a moment longer and then she shot a glance at the crowd. No one was particularly close to them or appeared to be eaves dropping. "Pellaeon mentioned a rumor going around about the Vong attacking here. That's why Twin Suns was pulled off of our assignment and reassigned here." She shot a guarded smile at the older man, "I'm sure that this isn't new to you. Can you provide me with anymore information than what I already have?"
Karrde looked at her steadily for a long moment and Jaina had the feeling that somehow he was weighing the situation in his mind, almost testing her. Then suddenly his expression or at least the look in his eyes cleared. Karrde's sabacc face never changed. She could feel him make his decision.
"Is this question coming from you or the Grand Admiral? I'm only asking," he clarified, "So that I know who to bill. I know longer have an agreement with the Empire."
Jaina grinned. "I'm asking strictly on my own behalf. Depending upon what you have to say, I might pass the information onto Pellaeon, but for the moment I simply want to know what, if anything, that you've heard, so that Twin Suns can be as prepared as possible."
Karrde nodded knowingly, "I haven't heard specifically that the Vong or the Peace Brigade are planning to move against Bastion, but I can confirm that the Vong are massing fleets in the Yavin System. There's also been a significant increase in their activity in several sectors deeper into Vong space."
Jaina smirked slightly, "I can confirm that activity," She paused and cocked her head slightly, "but I can't explain the situation. The information about that is on a need to know basis only."
"Yes, most of your missions these days are classified, aren't they Goddess?" Talon asked blandly.
Jaina nodded, but before she could reply her comm. link blared loudly, signaling an incoming call. "Goddess here," Jaina said quickly, half turning away from the group Kyp, Karrde and Shada. Not all, but a significant portion of the information that she dealt with on a daily basis was classified. Only officials with the highest clearance knew the details about most of her missions. It was a strange way to operate, and Jaina had at first hated to operate in the shadows. In the end though, she had realized the benefits of the strategy. It kept her squadron protected from most information leaks and enabled her squadron to take on missions that were necessary to the war effort, but generally frowned upon by the galaxy at large.
"Solo," the voice said sharply, "You need to come back to our quarters. Admiral Pellaeon left a holocube with highly sensitive information for you here. I'm under orders not to leave this room until you come back and view the information," her voice was curt and sharp. Jaina could tell that it was an effort for Miat to even speak to her civilly.
"I'll be right there," she said simply. Both women flicked off their comm. links without pausing to say good bye to one another. "I have to go," she said shortly to Karrde and Kyp. The last thing that she wanted to do was have a conversation with Miat.
Karrde accepted her statement without surprise, "Of course, Great One." He paused, "I'll send you a data card with all of the information that I have about the Vong's latest movements."
"Thank you, Karrde," she said genuinely. She might be upset, but there was no need to impolite to Karrde. The old smuggler and information broker was famous for the quality of his information
She turned to leave, but stopped abruptly a hand closed firmly around her arm. Jaina looked up in surprise and found herself looking up at Kyp. The Jedi Master's eyes were filled with worry and she thought that she saw a tinge of anger in them. "We need to talk, Goddess," he said forcefully.
"Not now," she said bitingly, and not ever, she added silently. Years ago she had been close to Kyp, close enough to confide in him. Those days were long gone. Kyp hadn't been her confidant in years and she wasn't about to start confiding in him again. She didn't have time for it. Confiding in Kyp wouldn't help her fly better or kill Vong more efficiently, it would only distract her from what she needed to be focusing on, the war. Jaina snatched her arm roughly out of his grip and walked away.
"We will talk, Jaina," he called after her. She bit back the urge to throw a scathing reply at him and walked away without a backwards glance.
=========================================================================
Jaina keyed the door to her shared quarters open and took a deep breath. There is no emotion; There is peace. The thought surprised her so much that she almost froze mid-step as she entered the room. She ended up taking an awkward half-step forward. It was the first line of the Jedi Code.
At some points in her life, that code had been as familiar to her as her own name, as familiar to her as the vague but constant mental touch of her twin brother's Force presence. So much had changed since then. Now she was more likely to hear people call her Goddess, Great One, or Colonel, than her actual name. Her brother's- both of them- despite whatever her Mother claimed, were dead. And now the Jedi Code was totally unfamiliar to her, like a very alien thought.
"If you're done taking your own sweet time, Colonel Solo, I'm already late for my weekly Sabacc game."
Jaina actually smiled genuinely at the woman's last statement. Miat was one of the best Imperial Sabacc players aboard the Chimaera, even without her Force skills. Miat and Jaina had at one time, been well renowned for their Sabacc games. Neither held an advantage over the other because of their Force skills. Their games had always been........memorable events that drew large portions of the ships off duty personnel. Jaina and Miat had been friendly rivals in those games. By the time that Twin Suns had begun to frequently base their operations off of the Chimaera, a smaller group of the braver sabacc players aboard the Star Destroyer had joined them.
"Has Brance gotten any better?" Jaina asked with another smile. They had both taken the young native of ?Yaga Minor? under their wing at least as far as sabacc had been concerned. He had been young, practically a fresh recruit from one of Yaga Minor's isolated farming communities. Before her last mission aboard the Chimaera, they had been teaching him all of the inns and outs of sabacc. His innocent looks had already provided him with an excellent sabacc face that took many unsuspecting people by surprise.
Miat's reply made her blood run cold. "At sabacc, you mean?" She shrugged coldly, "I wouldn't know." She met Jaina's eyes for the first time with a cold glare, "Brance was so badly injured in you-a friendly fire incident that he was discharged and sent back to Yaga Minor."
She refused to look away, but she visibly flinched as Miat added, "Even if you destroyed his life, at Brance is still alive."
"Miat," Jaina said softly, "I'm sorry for what happened to Raat-" The Force blow hit her squarely across the face before Jaina even felt it coming.
"Don't even talk about him, Jaina. What happened wasn't an accident. You purposefully fired on the Chimaera, knowing that beings would die, and not just the Vong. You knew it and did it anyway. You murdered the one man who had grown up like me in the Empire and accepted the fact that I had Force powers. He loved me." Her voice had lost some of its anger, and now it was almost pitying, or at least as pitying as someone could be when they despised the person that they were speaking to. "You crossed the line, Jaina and one day you will have to pay for that."
"Is that a threat, Miat," Jaina asked with almost curiosity. She would be surprised if Miat was threatening her. Jaina had almost been expecting it, really, if not from Miat then from someone else. She just wished Miat would do something though, instead of just stand there. People Jaina knew had died. She had lost friends, siblings, and a surrogate parent to the Vong, but she couldn't understand Miat's reaction. With the exception of this one moment, Miat had been indifferent towards Jaina. She couldn't understand Miat's reaction.
"What if I am, Solo?" Miat demanded. "Why shouldn't I threaten you? My boyfriend, my friends, Sith, some of the people that you claimed as friends are dead now, because of you. The thing that sickens me the most is that you seem indifferent to it all, indifferent to everything but killing Vong. Well, this time it wasn't the Vong that paid the price it was the people you were supposed to fighting side by side with, the people that you were supposed to be protecting. I thought that Jedi were supposed to protect the people; you just kill them." Miat sucked in a deep breath for the first time since she had started talking.
Jaina's comm. link broke the silence with a loud blare. "You're wrong, Miat," she said sharply, "I was protecting lives. I was protecting the lives of all of the billions of people who would have died if the Vong had captured the Chimaera."
Her comm. link chimed again. Both women continued to ignore it as Miat slowly walked closer to Jaina. When she was only about half of a meter away from Jaina, she suddenly seemed to understand something and Miat let you a short back of unhumorous laughter. "You weren't trying to save lives. You were scared, Jaina. You were scared to be blamed for the massacre of billions rather than as the poor young Jedi warrior who made a hard decision. If you had half of the attitude the founders of the Rebellion had, then you would have waited. You would have taken a chance on the long odds. You are Half-Corellian, after all. Instead you used ruthless tactics, that haven't been suggested or endorsed since Palpatine's rule. The Emperor would be proud of your start, Jaina."
"No." Jaina's response was cold, hard and definitive.
Miat could feel the anger, the pain, that was roiling with Jaina. The very feel of the air was changing with it. The air crackled with tension and neither woman even noticed as the familiar thuds of hurried footfalls neared their quarters. The resounding and quickly pounded blows on their door did catch their attention. With a quick gesture from Jaina, the door slid quickly open to reveal a red faced crewman.
"Grand Admiral Pellaeon-" The young man, frozen by the equally hostile looks directed at him, seemed to forget what he had been ordered to say.
Jaina's patience ran out first. "Is there a reason for you to be here," she said sharply. She didn't have time for any of this.
"Y-you weren't answering you comm. link, G-goddess." He spat it out quickly.
She looked at him in irritation. She had ignored her comm. link before and crewmen usually didn't run up to her to inform her of that fact. "And why are you informing me of the obvious, crewmen?"
His face turned and uncomfortable shade of red and Jaina could sense the mortification drifting off of him, not for himself, but for her. "Ma'am, Admiral Pellaeon's orders, Twin Suns was sent up for special escort duty. They've been waiting......" He trailed off, deciding that it might not be wise to further upset the already volatile goddess.
Jaina's attention, however, was no longer on him. "Sithspawn," she swore furiously. Pellaeon had to be upset at the delay and if her tardiness caused and intergalactic incident- She pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind as she called her blaster and lightsaber to her, before she began a flat out run towards her x-wing.
============================================================================ ===
Jaina didn't even bother with a preflight check. Her x-wing was always maintained at its peak condition, always ready for a sudden takeoff. If it wasn't in top condition, heads would roll. She didn't wait for clearance from the traffic controller, either. Instead she launched her x-wing out of the Star Destroyer with as much speed behind her as she could manage in that space. Jaina immediately punched the power to her engines as she cleared the top of the Star Destroyer. She heard a muffled squawk of protest as she put her x-wing into a steep curving climb to avoid a small support craft. She rolled her x-wing away from two shuttle bearing diplomatic symbols as the shuttles approached the Chimaera. Jaina dove towards deep space and the coordinates for the rendevous with the party that they were escorting.
If she was lucky and she tested all of the modifications that she had ever added to her x-wing to their limits, then maybe she would reach her squadron before the incoming group of ships had a chance to regroup from the hyperspace jump.
Jaina quickly switched to a private comm. chanel. "Twin 5, report," she snapped. She knew that she shouldn't take how she was feeling out on the members of her squadron, but Esmen could take it. She had been flying with Jaina for a long time, for longer than the rest of Twin Suns current roster. Esmen was also Jaina's second-in-command, should anything happen to her during a fight.
"Nothing's going on yet, Great One. We've been sitting out here for about half of an hour and we haven't heard anything from them yet."
"Tried all of the frequencies," Jaina suggested perfunctorily, with a quick glance down at her threat boards to ascertain the size of the force in front of them. Little dots and big dots mingled as the task force reformed. The one thing Jaina did notice, even in her current state of mind, was the orderly, precise way that the ships all slipped back into the appropriate positions. This was a well trained and very capable fighting force.
Jaina shifted slightly in her pilot's seat as she studied the display and noted with irritation something jabbing into her thigh. With a sharp explicative of annoyance, Jaina quickly dug into her pockets and pulled out the offending holocube.
"We have contact, Goddess," Esmen'ts voice crackled in her ear. "They're hailing us on a general frequency."
Jaina double clicked an acknowledgement back at Esmen and switched channels. A dry voice, speaking a standard Basic dialect, poured into her speakers with a standard greeting. Jaina flipped back to the private chanel. "5, think you can handle this?"
Their was a beat of hesitation and a burst of surprise from the other woman, but she answered easily, "Of course, Great One."
"Good," Jaina said sharply. Esmen could handle this and she needed time- time to calm down from her conversation with Miat, to tuck all of the emotions that she couldn't use, carefully away and time to play the holocube of orders that Pellaeon had left for her. She switched her comm. channel back over to the general frequency so that she could keep an ear on what was happening in case Esmen needed help.
Jaina picked up the tiny holocube, turning it over in her hand. She wasn't ready to open it. Jaina could barely focus on what she was supposed to be doing. Miat's words were burning in her ears. What Miat had said was absolutely not true. She took the anger she felt and molded it into a cold, hard shield against any uncertainty. Miat was grieving and she didn't understand that Jaina's actions had been absolutely necessary.
Jaina reached forwards to activate the holocube and took another quick glance at her threat board. A squadron of fighters were taking their places around the larger ships and Jaina automatically calculated the formation that Twin Suns would take for their escort. Jaina relaxed imperceptibly as Esmen called out the same formation that she would have and then goosed her thrusters forward to take the lead position.
She froze as she heard the end of Esmen's reply. "......Heading," Esmen rattled off a string of letters and numbers and then added, "Welcom back, Spike Lead, the Known regions haven't been the same without you, Colonel Fel."
Okay so hopefully starting this Monday, I'll be updating on a Monday/Friday update schedule. Does that sound god to ya'll? Thank you for all of your feedback and encouragement. Please let me know what you think of this chapter, too. (