Disclaimer: See the first chapter.

The Force was guiding Jaina towards her brother, but at the moment the sense that she was getting from the Force was confusing and frustrating. Her frustration wasn't helping her read the Force with any more clarity, either.

Besides, at the moment, Jaina was inside a tiny crawlway, barely big enough for her to slid through, and occasionally the walls of the living coral structure would contract around her until Jaina couldn't move and barely even breathe. It was those moments when Jaina was certain that she would never leave Shimrra's vessel.

It felt as if Jacen was right beside her now, but that was definitely impossible. There wasn't room for a blaster beside her, much less her brother. She groaned in frustration and then let her chin rest on the coral underneath her. Her eyes drifted shut as she focused on pushing everything else out of her mind and concentrated fiercely on finding Jacen. Slowly and then more quickly, images began to flash through her mind. They showed her Shimrra and Jacen. Her twin was in even more danger than before.

Jaina jerked back in surprise as another image coursed through her mind and then she cursed as she realized that she was directly above Jacen. She hissed in a breath and quickly ignited her lightsaber. In her close quarters, the weapon was suddenly transformed from elegant to awkward in her hands. Cutting the right size hole would be at best difficult under the present conditions, especially if she wanted to maintain the element of surprise.

Jaina finally managed to find an angle at which she could sink her lightsaber into the coral. She worked as quickly as she could until she had completed the cut. Then she used the Force to lift it out of its position and place it further along the tiny crawl space. Jaina hesitated for a moment, waiting for any thud bugs, blorlash jelly or any other nasty Vong surprises to come flying up at her before she leaned over the edge and looked down.

What she saw was Shimrra standing over her twin in mid-motion of a death blow. Without wasting a moment, Jaina dove forwards into the opening that she had cut and fell into the open air below her. She rolled and crashed into Shimrra boots first with enough momentum to knock even the large Supreme Overlord off balance.

The blow intended to kill Jacen went mostly wide, but didn't completely miss him. As she rolled away from the Supreme Overlord and sprayed a quick volley of blaster fire at the slayers who had charged at her, Jaina didn't notice the two small puncture wounds in her brother's neck or that way that he still didn't move.

Her lightsaber arced through a quick series of parries, lunges and thrusts as she fought against both Shimrra and his slayers. She wasn't protected by the duels one-against-one rule and the slayers were eager for the blood of the Jedaii who had become the embodiment of Yun Harla. Years of fighting had honed her skills with her lightsaber and she moved with quick ruthless precision. She fought her way through the group of slayers methodically until she reached the last one. He was tall, even for a Vong warrior, and was dwarfed only by Shimrra. He and Jaina had clashed blade to amphistaff or exchanged blows several times during the course of her fight, but he had always turned her attack aside or she had been diverted.

Now he faced her, his amphistaff held pointing down, diagonally across his body.

"Jaina," Jacen's voice was weak, barely a whisper, but it caught her attention almost immediately. She had lost track of her twin during the battle, except for ensuring that he wasn't being attacked. It was only then that she risked a quick glance at him and realized that he was still not moving. His body was covered with pale and covered with sweat. He was shaking.

Jaina started to turn towards him involuntarily, but stopped as the slayer in front of her let out a loud Yuuzhan Vong war cry. She responded purely on instinct, concerned more with seeing Jacen than fighting the slayer in front of her. The hand holding her blaster loosely at her side snapped up and she fired rapidly at him, aiming for a kill shot.

The slayer surged forward, releasing a group of thud bugs. He made it two more steps before Jaina's repeated shots took him down. It took her several more chopping slashes with her lightsaber before she dispatched all of the thud bugs. An instant later as she turned back to Jacen, she found herself face to face with Shimrra instead.

The Supreme Overlord's face was covered in a look of fury. Shimrra pushed her back with wide powerful strikes from his amphistaff, hacking at her defenses, searching for any opening that he could penetrate. Several times the razor sharp crest of his amphistaff would slice across her arms or her thighs, creating painful lacerations, but never truly breaking through her defenses.

Her parries grew wilder and wilder as her forced her defend herself from attacks in several different directions almost simultaneously. As she reached forward to parry one of his amphistaff's away, Shimrra spoke a single quick word.

By the time that Jaina realized what was happening, it was too late—the small tkun had circled one portion of itself around her ankle and constricted, neatly tripping her forwards. She ducked, trying to turn her fall into a roll, but she didn't succeed. Large clawed, pincers and strangely shaped digits clutched Jaina in a painfully tight grip. She barely had time to pull out the small vibroblade tucked into her boot as she was yanked roughly upright.

Shimrra pulled her back against him, one massive hand replacement choking the life out of her. The other hand held a coufee. "Make your peace with the Gods, Jedaii," he bellowed as he raised it to slit her throat.

Jaina, still struggling painfully against his strangle hold, couldn't reply. Instead she activated the small vibroblade that she held in her hand and plunged it behind her as hard as she could. She felt it sink in up to the hilt. For an instant, Shimrra's grip on her neck tightened and then his grip crumbled.

She jerked away from him, staggering towards Jacen as she struggled to get her breath back. She dropped to her knees quickly beside he twin, grabbing his hand tightly as she quickly assessed what had happened to him.

Jacen spared her the trouble by weakly brushing at his neck. "Poison," he whispered bluntly, "Shimrra's amphistaff." He met her eyes with purpose and his grip on her hand tightened. "No chance, Jaya," he whispered, his voice full of regret.

"No," she sad firmly, her jaw set with the stubbornness characteristic of her family. She shook her head in a denial and rose to her feet. She grabbed Jacen's arm and pulled him up as well. She slung one of her arms around his waist and put his other arm across her shoulders. She started to drag him across the room, but she barely made it two steps before he sagged next to her, sliding back to the ground, and dragging her with him.

They landed in a tangled and exhausted heap. With characteristic determination, Jaina rose and started to lift him up again. Jacen's hand reached up with more speed than she would have expected and wrapped tightly around her wrist.

"Jaya," she could feel his fingers trembling against her skin. He shook his head slightly.

She stared at him, almost at a loss for everything. The defiant set of her face trembled and a single tear slid down it. "Not you, Jasa, not after Kyp..." She couldn't finish her thought.

Jacen reached out to her through the Force, seeking her familiar, comforting mental presence. Jaina immediately reached out to him, clutching him in a tight mental embrace. Nothing could make her let go of him as the tears began to slide down her face. She hardly even noticed as they fell off of her face and began to mingle with the cold sweat beaded on Jacen's partially bare chest.

A look of sudden surprise in Jacen's eyes sent a flash of warning through Jaina. As her danger sense blared with a sharp warning, Jaina simultaneously heard a sharp warning from Jacen through their twin bond. Jaina, behind you!

The quick sucession of warnings was more than Jaina needed to spur her into action. She rolled aside instantly, reaching to her side for her holstered blaster as she got clear of Jacen. She found her target and began spraying blaster fire almost before she was flat on her back again. It took her an instant longer to recognize that the bulky, looming figure coming at Jacen was Shimrra.

He still clutched the coufee that he had held at her throat as he dove towards Jacen. Jaina continued to fire at Shimrra and he kept coming towards Jacen. At the last instant, Jaina reached for her lightsaber, clipped at her belt and caught only air. It was enough to make her freeze in shock. That hadn't happened to her since she was a very young apprentice.

The familiar snap-hiss and the sudden cast of purple light caught her attention immediately. Her gaze snapped over to Jacen. In a surprisingly fast move, Jacen had drawn her lightsaber from her belt as she had rolled away from him and ignited it, drawing it through the air in a quick arc.

The upper fourth of the lightsaber in Jacen's hand found the gap in Shimrra's armor at the base of Shimrra's neck and slid through it. Shimrra's lifeless body hit the floor partially on top of Jacen.

The twins lay frozen for one silent instant and then Jaina used the Force to roll Shimrra off of Jacen. She crawled the few steps back to Jacen's side. His vacant eyes stared and the way that he clutched at his neck with his free hand scared her.

"Jasa," she demanded his attention, worried, as she absentmindedly grabbed her lightsaber from his hand and flicked it off. She felt a sense of wonderment pouring off of him. "Jacen," she asked again, fear and uncertainly filling her voice. "Talk to me, brother."

"It's gone," he said simply, finally meeting her eyes. "The poison, the wound," he added quickly, "They're both gone."

"What," she demanded in disbelief, pushing his hand aside to get a better look, but Jacen was right. They were gone and she could tell that he was already beginning to look better. "But what? How?" Jaina's voice was full of bewilderment, disbelief and wonder.

Jacen seemed to consider it for a moment and then looked at her in amazement. "The tears, our tears," he corrected himself. "You cried for me and you wanted me to heal. You wanted it enough that you changed your tears." He smiled at her then, one of the first and only real smiles that Jaina had seen from him since he had been captured. A large shudder jerked through the vessel throwing Jaina to her knees.

"Sithspawn!" Jaina snapped, "What was that?"

Smaller tremors began to shudder through the coral almost continually. Jacen cocked his head to the side as if he was listening for an instant and then shook his head. "I don't know. I can't tell. The brain of the vessel is in too much pain to be coherent. All I can feel from it is a sense of intense heat and pain. It would probably be a good time to leave," Jacen added, almost as an afterthought as he called his own lightsaber back to him.

"It would indeed," a voce agreed from the entrance.

"And we came to provide the ride," a second, decidedly female voice added.

The twins looked over in surprise and asked in perfect chorus.

"Jag?"

"Mara?"

As the Jade Shadow slipped quickly away from its position on the forward hull of Shimrra's vessel several minutes later, there were several tense moments- not the least of which was breaking free of the sun's gravity, but there true problem wasn't apparent until they were in free space again.

With Shimrra's vessel out of the battle, the Insiders and the Imperials had attacked the rest of the Yuuzhan Vong fleet with fervor, but a small group of the Vong vessels had broken off to target the 'Shadow. Even Jaina and Mara working together couldn't keep the Vong off of the 'Shadow. It was through gritted teeth and staccato bursts of laser fire that Jaina turned to Jacen.

"Can you tell them that you won the duel?"

It was as if a memory had suddenly connected for Jacen. A cocky Solo grin covered his face. "I can do better than that, sister dear." He took the transmitter from Jaina and a long Vong phrase rolled fluently off of his tongue.

Jaina stared in surprise as the Vong attacking them slowly stopped firing and reformed around the 'Shadow in the pattern of an escort. Jaina looked at him in disbelief.

"What did you say to them?"

Jacen just shook his head. "When I challenged Shimrra, I used the most formal phrasing that I could think of to ensure that Shimrra would be forced to accept the challenge." He met Jaina's eyes. "I didn't think I would win. I was just supposed to be a diversion for you. When Shimrra accepted my challenge, it was a challenge for his position as well as his life. They think that I'm their new Supreme Overlord."

Well folks, there it is. This is the next to last update. Coming up next: The Epilogue! Please leave a review to let me know what you think.