Disclaimer: I own none of this. Star Wars belongs to George Lucas and
Company.
Xwoman1: I'm glad that you liked the fight scene between Jacen and Jaina. I tried hard to get that part right.
Nike's Zero: Wow, I almost made someone cry. No guarantees though about everything.
Roonie: Thank you and I don't mind the rant, but I have no problem with Zetta's review. I actually enjoyed it. It was a very well thought out and concise review of my story. I actually agree with everything that she said and when I finish this I'm considering rewriting this story based on some of the things that she had suggested and somethings that I had noticed myself.
Zetta: Thank you, I've always had problems working with fight scenes, so I just try to see how they flow in my head. Sorry I haven't replied to your other e-mail yet, I'll get to it soon.
Jag's weakened limbs stumbled and he dropped down next to Jaina without his usual precision and economy of motion. His arms trembled with a mixture of muscle fatigue, adrenaline and the effects of Callista's Force lightening as he scooped Jaina into his arms. He held her unconscious form to him tightly, desperately.
It had been mere seconds ago when he thought that he would loose Jaina forever. He couldn't stand the thought of loosing her again. That thought sent another determined charge of energy through his battered body. Somehow he had to get Jaina and Mara to medical help and off of the planet soon. That meant rejoining the strike team that Jaina had led in. The clawcraft that he had used to fly down to the surface couldn't carry all of them.
Jag pulled Jaina closer to him, not just to reassure himself that she was still alive, but so that he could reach the comm. link hooked on her belt. He pulled it off easily enough, but then uttered several furious curses as it took several tries for his fingers to activate the comm. link.
"Lieutenant Teara here. Report." The woman's voice was harried but commanding.
"This is Colonel Jag Fel," he responded quickly, "I'm in the chamber where the prisoners were being held with Colonel Solo and Jedi Jade Skywalker, who are both severly injured, as well as Jacen Solo."
"Sithspawn!" The young woman's voice was full of worry and frustration. "There's no way that we can get to you, Spike Lead. We're barely managing to keep the Vong off of us here. We don't have anyone to send back for you, Sir." She hesitated for a bare second. "To be honest, Sir, I don't know how much longer we can hold our position."
Jag grimaced, "Acknowledged." He didn't hesitate, although he desperately wished there was another option as he made the decision that Jaina would have wanted. "Hold the position for as long as you can, Lieutenant," he ordered her quickly, "However if we can't join you before you are forced to fall back, you will leave without us. That is an order," he added sharply. "Fel out." He snapped before the Lieutenant had a chance to argue.
He glanced back down at Jaina's still unconscious form and gently trailed a finger down her cheek. This would not end here. It couldn't. He wouldn't allow it. Ignoring Jacen's crumpled and unmoving body, Jag half-carried and half-dragged Jaina towards Mara. Jaina's injuries, while serious, were no where as life threatening as Mara's. For one wild moment Jag felt his well trained and almost habitual sense of calm, grim certainty slip away. Panic gripped him.
"Fel," the sound was barely a whisper, but it caught his attention almost instantly. Mara was looking up at him through eyes that were barely conscious slivers of emerald. "Give me your hand." Her voice was so faint that he could barely hear it, but it was firm with icy determination.
Automatically Jag held his hand out to the Jedi Master. Slowly her hand rose from her side and reached up to clasp his. He could feel the conscious effort with which her fingers tightened around his hand. With fierce concentration and his help, Mara managed first to attain a sitting position and then shakily, to stand.
She looked down at the lightsaber hanging on her belt and then tilted her head up to meet his eyes. Her lips were twisted into a tight, grim smile. "The one great failing of the Jedi: A weapon that can cut through anything." She grunted and her hand momentarily clenched around his as a surge of pain ripped through her body. She blinked the pain away and focused on him again. "What I wouldn't give right now, for the Jedi weapon to have been a staff."
Jag wasn't sure how to respond to the woman's dark humor. Fortunatly he didn't have to. Mara was already back to the matter at hand. "Can you carry Jaina," she asked, jerking her head slightly towards her former apprentice.
He nodded.
"Good." She eyed him shrewdly. "We'll meet you at the exit."
Jag wanted to protest that Jacen was too much of a risk- just one more dangerous factor weighing their already handicapped group down- but he remained silent. He gave Mara a curt nod and then pulled Jaina up into his arms. He carried her towards the entrance. Jaina had very nearly died because of her twin. She had risked [u]everything[/u] to save Jacen. He didn't have to like Jacen or even trust him, but he would try to stop Mara from bringing Jacen either. Not when it was so clearly important to Jaina.
As Jag paused in front of the gaping entrance, he glanced back at Jacen and Mara. The man didn't seem to be fully in tune with his surroundings, but he followed Mara easily. Jag merely hoped that his dazed look was just what it appeared to be. While it wasn't the most helpful state for Jacen to be in, it was preferable to cold, murderous intent.
Jag turned back sharply to face the entrance, as he heard a slight whisper of noise, but he was far too late. The thud bug had been aimed with excellent accuracy. Jag barely had a chance to see it before it slammed into his head with concussive force. He dropped to the ground instantly with Jaina still unconscious in his arms.
[hr]
Kyp Durron paced the bridge of his Star Destroyer as he watched the battle continue to rage. The giant holographic images that represented the large space brawl were complemented by his own sense of how the Force flowed within that area of space.
At the moment, however, Kyp's mind wasn't focused on the gigantic push and pull chaos of the destructive melee unfolding around him. He was concerned about Jaina. He had sensed her earlier in the conflict, already in danger. That was to be expected, of course, but it had simply felt right to [i]advise[/i] Jag that Jaina could probably use some help. The emotions that Kyp had sensed from Jaina through the Force were not encouraging, however, and the way her presence had been slipping in and out of the Force, brought a cold sweat to Kyp's face. The scattered and mostly incomprehensible reports that Kyp had been receiving about the condition on the planet's surface had only confirmed his bad feeling.
He had waited, remaining patien as a Jedi Master should, while he coordinated the large sprawling battle. He had sent Fel to Jaina. Now it was time- time for him to act himself. He wouldn't allow Jaina to die here. The Force was telling him that Jaina was just as important to the success of the mission as the prisoners that were being retrieved. If she failed or if she fell, the mission would go with her.
Kyp was already dashing towards the turbolift as he yelled at the nearest crewman. "Give orders to prep my x-wing. Now!" He grimaced and spared one more glance at the holographic representation of the battle. Jaina had left him in charge of this and he had not intention of failing her, but things had changed. His part in this had changed. His part now was to save the mission by save Jaina and that was something that he had quite a bit of experience with. "And tell General Slarne to meet me down at the flight deck!"
[hr]
Mara ducked back, pressing herself up against the wall, as far back from the mouth of the opening as she could get. She steadied herself against the wall with one hand and turned even more of her concentration on the Force. It was taking a great deal of concentration and energy both to keep herself alive and to stand and move. Pulling Jaina and Jag out of the entrance and away from the Vong warriors outside, would usually be a relatively easy thing. Now it required deep concentration. The muscles in her body tensed painfully with her effort. Through her half closed eyes, Mara could see Jaina and Jag begin to tremble slightly. With a sudden fierce determination, she lifted them quickly into the air and drew them towards her.
They landed hard on the floor at her feet, sprawled in a tangled mass of limbs. Mara sagged against the rough wall.
As soon as she had regained enough of her control of the Force to stand again, Mara used the Force to perform a quick check on Jaina's injuries. She could sense the damage done to her niece's body with little effort. Jaina had suffered broken bones, deep lacerations and a poision flowed weakly through her blood stream. She was still unconscious, but she seemed to have somehow slipped herself into a healing trance.
There was nothing Mara could do for her at the moment, so she simply left Jaina in that state. Jag was another matter entirely, however. He was injured, as well, but it had been the blow to the head from the thud bug that had knocked him unconscious and that Mara could change. She layed a hand briefly on his head and used the Force to sense and correct the damage that had been done by the thud bug.
The sound of dozens of razor sharp wings whiring through the air, caught Mara's attention quickly as a hail of thud bugs sailed through the open entrance way. Before Mara could move to intercept them, motion caught her attention. With speed that seemed casual, Jacen stepped up in front of the entrance. He simply stared at the swarm of dangerous bugs diving towards him. They didn't slow.
In one great chitinous cloud they surrounded Jacen, pressing in on him. Instead of slicing him with their wings and devouring him, as Mara had seen them do on more occaisions than she would have liked, they were molding themselves to the contours of his body. They latched onto the living cloak that clothed him and formed a layer of armor to protect him. Their razor sharp wings angled out from Jacen's body acting as scales. They would give anyone who got close enough, a nasty deterent from touching Jacen.
"Jacen." Mara's voice was questioning, not harsh and demanding. Not yet. She was, however, asking what he was doing. Her instincts where Jacen was concerned were unclear. She couldn't leave behind the young man who she had saved when he was a mere infant- the nephew she had later grown to love. But she was also wary of Jacen, she didn't trust him entirely. She hadn't seen the fight between he and Jaina, but she was aware of it and of its outcome. Mara knew that he had almost killed his twin sister and she knew that he had been a captive of the Yuuzhan Vong for years, subject to all of their tortures. It would have been enough to destroy most normal people or even Jedi, both physically and mentally. There was no way to tell what it had done to Jacen.
Jacen turned his head to look at Mara, ignoring the potention threats outside. "Yes, Aunt Mara?"
"Be careful," were the words that Mara finally spoke and they were weighted with double meaning. The power that Jacen had just displayed was awesome and Mara was unaware of its limits. Until she knew those limits and how Jacen intended to use his new powers, she would remain wary.
Jacen nodded slowly, unaware of her mental turmoil, "I will, Mara." His voice seemed disjointed, but there was no time to spare at that moment. A trio of Yuuzhan Vong warriors rushed Jacen.
As his hands came up from his sides, Mara never even saw Jacen draw the lightsabers- his and Jaina's. The blades simply ignited in his hands, purple and blue casting discordant shadows. In the next instant, Jacen was surrounded by a chaotic whirl of motion. Lightsabers flashed, hissing against amphistaffs and coufees as warriors and thud bugs alike whirled violently around him.
Mara spared a glance down at Jag. The young Colonel was already coming quickly back to consciousness. Without hesitation, Mara quickly murmured, "Here," and shoved her holdout blaser against his chest, wrapping one of his arms around the weapon.
She pushed off of the ground, drawing the Force around her to move. Even as she flicked on her own lightsaber, she hung back, watching Jacen, seeing what he was capable of.
With one downward circular sweep of her lightsaber, he drew his blade diagonally through the torso of one Vong warrior and used his other blade to block the already falling blow from the amphistaff of another warrior. With his twin lightsabers, Jacen made quick and brutal work of the warriors. Blood stained his body in splashes, but he didn't seem to have broken a sweat or even begun to breathe heavily as a result of the fight. His eyes glittered with the first sign of animation that Mara had seen in them.
He flicked off both lightsabers at the same time, extinguishing some of the large room's light with the action. "More of them will come," he said quickly, "We need to go. Do we have a way off planet?"
"Yes. It souldn't take us long to get there," Mara added, "Unless we run into too much more trouble."
Jacen nodded, but Mara noticed, he didn't seem to be too concerned. His expression softened for a moment, loosing the distant opaqueness that had characterized it, as he walked back towards Jaina, Jag and Mara. "I'll get Jaina," he added soflty.
He was less than a meter away from Jaina when a blaster bold screamed through the air and bit into the dirt at his feet. Jacen instinctively stopped, sweeping his lightsaber up, and into a defensive position.
The hand that held the blaster didn't waver. "You're not touching her," Jag's voice was colder than winter on Hoth. "One more step and I will vape you where you stand."
Xwoman1: I'm glad that you liked the fight scene between Jacen and Jaina. I tried hard to get that part right.
Nike's Zero: Wow, I almost made someone cry. No guarantees though about everything.
Roonie: Thank you and I don't mind the rant, but I have no problem with Zetta's review. I actually enjoyed it. It was a very well thought out and concise review of my story. I actually agree with everything that she said and when I finish this I'm considering rewriting this story based on some of the things that she had suggested and somethings that I had noticed myself.
Zetta: Thank you, I've always had problems working with fight scenes, so I just try to see how they flow in my head. Sorry I haven't replied to your other e-mail yet, I'll get to it soon.
Jag's weakened limbs stumbled and he dropped down next to Jaina without his usual precision and economy of motion. His arms trembled with a mixture of muscle fatigue, adrenaline and the effects of Callista's Force lightening as he scooped Jaina into his arms. He held her unconscious form to him tightly, desperately.
It had been mere seconds ago when he thought that he would loose Jaina forever. He couldn't stand the thought of loosing her again. That thought sent another determined charge of energy through his battered body. Somehow he had to get Jaina and Mara to medical help and off of the planet soon. That meant rejoining the strike team that Jaina had led in. The clawcraft that he had used to fly down to the surface couldn't carry all of them.
Jag pulled Jaina closer to him, not just to reassure himself that she was still alive, but so that he could reach the comm. link hooked on her belt. He pulled it off easily enough, but then uttered several furious curses as it took several tries for his fingers to activate the comm. link.
"Lieutenant Teara here. Report." The woman's voice was harried but commanding.
"This is Colonel Jag Fel," he responded quickly, "I'm in the chamber where the prisoners were being held with Colonel Solo and Jedi Jade Skywalker, who are both severly injured, as well as Jacen Solo."
"Sithspawn!" The young woman's voice was full of worry and frustration. "There's no way that we can get to you, Spike Lead. We're barely managing to keep the Vong off of us here. We don't have anyone to send back for you, Sir." She hesitated for a bare second. "To be honest, Sir, I don't know how much longer we can hold our position."
Jag grimaced, "Acknowledged." He didn't hesitate, although he desperately wished there was another option as he made the decision that Jaina would have wanted. "Hold the position for as long as you can, Lieutenant," he ordered her quickly, "However if we can't join you before you are forced to fall back, you will leave without us. That is an order," he added sharply. "Fel out." He snapped before the Lieutenant had a chance to argue.
He glanced back down at Jaina's still unconscious form and gently trailed a finger down her cheek. This would not end here. It couldn't. He wouldn't allow it. Ignoring Jacen's crumpled and unmoving body, Jag half-carried and half-dragged Jaina towards Mara. Jaina's injuries, while serious, were no where as life threatening as Mara's. For one wild moment Jag felt his well trained and almost habitual sense of calm, grim certainty slip away. Panic gripped him.
"Fel," the sound was barely a whisper, but it caught his attention almost instantly. Mara was looking up at him through eyes that were barely conscious slivers of emerald. "Give me your hand." Her voice was so faint that he could barely hear it, but it was firm with icy determination.
Automatically Jag held his hand out to the Jedi Master. Slowly her hand rose from her side and reached up to clasp his. He could feel the conscious effort with which her fingers tightened around his hand. With fierce concentration and his help, Mara managed first to attain a sitting position and then shakily, to stand.
She looked down at the lightsaber hanging on her belt and then tilted her head up to meet his eyes. Her lips were twisted into a tight, grim smile. "The one great failing of the Jedi: A weapon that can cut through anything." She grunted and her hand momentarily clenched around his as a surge of pain ripped through her body. She blinked the pain away and focused on him again. "What I wouldn't give right now, for the Jedi weapon to have been a staff."
Jag wasn't sure how to respond to the woman's dark humor. Fortunatly he didn't have to. Mara was already back to the matter at hand. "Can you carry Jaina," she asked, jerking her head slightly towards her former apprentice.
He nodded.
"Good." She eyed him shrewdly. "We'll meet you at the exit."
Jag wanted to protest that Jacen was too much of a risk- just one more dangerous factor weighing their already handicapped group down- but he remained silent. He gave Mara a curt nod and then pulled Jaina up into his arms. He carried her towards the entrance. Jaina had very nearly died because of her twin. She had risked [u]everything[/u] to save Jacen. He didn't have to like Jacen or even trust him, but he would try to stop Mara from bringing Jacen either. Not when it was so clearly important to Jaina.
As Jag paused in front of the gaping entrance, he glanced back at Jacen and Mara. The man didn't seem to be fully in tune with his surroundings, but he followed Mara easily. Jag merely hoped that his dazed look was just what it appeared to be. While it wasn't the most helpful state for Jacen to be in, it was preferable to cold, murderous intent.
Jag turned back sharply to face the entrance, as he heard a slight whisper of noise, but he was far too late. The thud bug had been aimed with excellent accuracy. Jag barely had a chance to see it before it slammed into his head with concussive force. He dropped to the ground instantly with Jaina still unconscious in his arms.
[hr]
Kyp Durron paced the bridge of his Star Destroyer as he watched the battle continue to rage. The giant holographic images that represented the large space brawl were complemented by his own sense of how the Force flowed within that area of space.
At the moment, however, Kyp's mind wasn't focused on the gigantic push and pull chaos of the destructive melee unfolding around him. He was concerned about Jaina. He had sensed her earlier in the conflict, already in danger. That was to be expected, of course, but it had simply felt right to [i]advise[/i] Jag that Jaina could probably use some help. The emotions that Kyp had sensed from Jaina through the Force were not encouraging, however, and the way her presence had been slipping in and out of the Force, brought a cold sweat to Kyp's face. The scattered and mostly incomprehensible reports that Kyp had been receiving about the condition on the planet's surface had only confirmed his bad feeling.
He had waited, remaining patien as a Jedi Master should, while he coordinated the large sprawling battle. He had sent Fel to Jaina. Now it was time- time for him to act himself. He wouldn't allow Jaina to die here. The Force was telling him that Jaina was just as important to the success of the mission as the prisoners that were being retrieved. If she failed or if she fell, the mission would go with her.
Kyp was already dashing towards the turbolift as he yelled at the nearest crewman. "Give orders to prep my x-wing. Now!" He grimaced and spared one more glance at the holographic representation of the battle. Jaina had left him in charge of this and he had not intention of failing her, but things had changed. His part in this had changed. His part now was to save the mission by save Jaina and that was something that he had quite a bit of experience with. "And tell General Slarne to meet me down at the flight deck!"
[hr]
Mara ducked back, pressing herself up against the wall, as far back from the mouth of the opening as she could get. She steadied herself against the wall with one hand and turned even more of her concentration on the Force. It was taking a great deal of concentration and energy both to keep herself alive and to stand and move. Pulling Jaina and Jag out of the entrance and away from the Vong warriors outside, would usually be a relatively easy thing. Now it required deep concentration. The muscles in her body tensed painfully with her effort. Through her half closed eyes, Mara could see Jaina and Jag begin to tremble slightly. With a sudden fierce determination, she lifted them quickly into the air and drew them towards her.
They landed hard on the floor at her feet, sprawled in a tangled mass of limbs. Mara sagged against the rough wall.
As soon as she had regained enough of her control of the Force to stand again, Mara used the Force to perform a quick check on Jaina's injuries. She could sense the damage done to her niece's body with little effort. Jaina had suffered broken bones, deep lacerations and a poision flowed weakly through her blood stream. She was still unconscious, but she seemed to have somehow slipped herself into a healing trance.
There was nothing Mara could do for her at the moment, so she simply left Jaina in that state. Jag was another matter entirely, however. He was injured, as well, but it had been the blow to the head from the thud bug that had knocked him unconscious and that Mara could change. She layed a hand briefly on his head and used the Force to sense and correct the damage that had been done by the thud bug.
The sound of dozens of razor sharp wings whiring through the air, caught Mara's attention quickly as a hail of thud bugs sailed through the open entrance way. Before Mara could move to intercept them, motion caught her attention. With speed that seemed casual, Jacen stepped up in front of the entrance. He simply stared at the swarm of dangerous bugs diving towards him. They didn't slow.
In one great chitinous cloud they surrounded Jacen, pressing in on him. Instead of slicing him with their wings and devouring him, as Mara had seen them do on more occaisions than she would have liked, they were molding themselves to the contours of his body. They latched onto the living cloak that clothed him and formed a layer of armor to protect him. Their razor sharp wings angled out from Jacen's body acting as scales. They would give anyone who got close enough, a nasty deterent from touching Jacen.
"Jacen." Mara's voice was questioning, not harsh and demanding. Not yet. She was, however, asking what he was doing. Her instincts where Jacen was concerned were unclear. She couldn't leave behind the young man who she had saved when he was a mere infant- the nephew she had later grown to love. But she was also wary of Jacen, she didn't trust him entirely. She hadn't seen the fight between he and Jaina, but she was aware of it and of its outcome. Mara knew that he had almost killed his twin sister and she knew that he had been a captive of the Yuuzhan Vong for years, subject to all of their tortures. It would have been enough to destroy most normal people or even Jedi, both physically and mentally. There was no way to tell what it had done to Jacen.
Jacen turned his head to look at Mara, ignoring the potention threats outside. "Yes, Aunt Mara?"
"Be careful," were the words that Mara finally spoke and they were weighted with double meaning. The power that Jacen had just displayed was awesome and Mara was unaware of its limits. Until she knew those limits and how Jacen intended to use his new powers, she would remain wary.
Jacen nodded slowly, unaware of her mental turmoil, "I will, Mara." His voice seemed disjointed, but there was no time to spare at that moment. A trio of Yuuzhan Vong warriors rushed Jacen.
As his hands came up from his sides, Mara never even saw Jacen draw the lightsabers- his and Jaina's. The blades simply ignited in his hands, purple and blue casting discordant shadows. In the next instant, Jacen was surrounded by a chaotic whirl of motion. Lightsabers flashed, hissing against amphistaffs and coufees as warriors and thud bugs alike whirled violently around him.
Mara spared a glance down at Jag. The young Colonel was already coming quickly back to consciousness. Without hesitation, Mara quickly murmured, "Here," and shoved her holdout blaser against his chest, wrapping one of his arms around the weapon.
She pushed off of the ground, drawing the Force around her to move. Even as she flicked on her own lightsaber, she hung back, watching Jacen, seeing what he was capable of.
With one downward circular sweep of her lightsaber, he drew his blade diagonally through the torso of one Vong warrior and used his other blade to block the already falling blow from the amphistaff of another warrior. With his twin lightsabers, Jacen made quick and brutal work of the warriors. Blood stained his body in splashes, but he didn't seem to have broken a sweat or even begun to breathe heavily as a result of the fight. His eyes glittered with the first sign of animation that Mara had seen in them.
He flicked off both lightsabers at the same time, extinguishing some of the large room's light with the action. "More of them will come," he said quickly, "We need to go. Do we have a way off planet?"
"Yes. It souldn't take us long to get there," Mara added, "Unless we run into too much more trouble."
Jacen nodded, but Mara noticed, he didn't seem to be too concerned. His expression softened for a moment, loosing the distant opaqueness that had characterized it, as he walked back towards Jaina, Jag and Mara. "I'll get Jaina," he added soflty.
He was less than a meter away from Jaina when a blaster bold screamed through the air and bit into the dirt at his feet. Jacen instinctively stopped, sweeping his lightsaber up, and into a defensive position.
The hand that held the blaster didn't waver. "You're not touching her," Jag's voice was colder than winter on Hoth. "One more step and I will vape you where you stand."