Author's note:

Falcona, Yni's spit isn't quite that adaptable, but you have the right idea. The other Jade will probably show up, sometime...

Thanks, Plokoon. I like Barriss, myself; but I'm not familiar with Plo Koon, beyond knowing his status. I understand the girl will be in Episode III, as well…

Next chapter is incomplete. Sorry. Do keep reviewing, though! :)

Enjoy!

TWENTY-SIX

Jedi Knight Jacen Solo was frozen in place. The Queen, her handmaiden, and Tira had been engaged in some mysterious conversation in which Her Majesty collapsed; and as soon as the hangar bay door began opening Tira had fled. As if something was majorly wrong.

The Force wasn't warning him, though. So there was absolutely no reason, no reason at all, that his hair should be standing on end as that hangar door opened. Or for him to be chilled. He had an irrational fear of what was in that hangar...

Beside him, Handmaiden Clee Rhara abruptly burst out cursing.

...Something about traitors, hypocritical 'masters', illicit relationships and those produced in them, with a few extraordinarily colorful ones directed towards Darth Vader, Palpatine, and a 'Dooku'...

"Don't say that about my grandfather. He redeemed himself," quietly protested Jacen.

She turned her gutter vocabulary on him. Amongst the swearing, Rhara snapped, "And what do you know of Darth Vader, kid? Or Anakin Skywalker? Of what he did? He murdered your—"

"Knight Rhara!" interruped the regal man who stepped through the hangar bay door. "Such language! And to such a renowned Knight—"

Yadmi stepped between himself and the man, her characteristic disinterest replaced by grimness. Her voice now sounded low and strained... old, even. "What you do to him is not my affair. However—" she resumed, cutting off Rhara's shocked protests. "Jacen Solo is guarded by dead."

Guarded by dead? Dead what? How can dead guard? The Jedi Knight tried to make sense from the handmaiden's statement. ...What would 'dead' be interested in me, for?

Merely humored by her warnings, the man replied, "You are among the dead, my dear Master Chayunda—or might as well be, at any rate!" He came forward and took Jacen's hand, smiling. "I am honored to make your acquain—"

Rhara yanked him away from the man. "Just kill me and get it over with, Dooku."

Dooku? Jacen idly wondered why everyone was behaving so oddly, and why the redheaded handmaiden had previously grouped 'Dooku' with Darth Vader and Palpatine.

Dooku looked shocked. "Kill you? Clee! Such ideas! What would Qui-Gon say to you thinking such things of his old master, pray tell?"

"Qui-Gon wouldn't give a—" Jacen noticed Wiala wince as Rhara cursed yet again.

Figuring he'd better be careful, he sidestepped to a guarding position beside the Queen. He lay a hand on Wiala's shoulder.

The as yet immature young teen shook him off, steel muscles taut as she scrutinized Dooku. Jacen wasn't sure, but he thought he heard her mutter, "Humans."

Fleeing her father and his contingent, Kiacha suddenly gasped as fire tore through her chest. She stumbled, falling hard on the stone of the oddly empty main square. She heard, rather than felt, the crack.

"Sithspit!" was the least vile of the words she let loose. Then, after she'd finished her furious growling and hissing, she quietly moaned, "...Pooja."

She pulled herself into a sitting position, staring blankly at the ground in front of her. She fought to find the older girl's Force-presence.

...Nothing.

Her second best friend was dead.

A small part of Kiacha's mind realized that she'd better find somewhere to hide and heal before she began feeling that injury. That tiny portion happened to be in control at the moment.

She dragged herself into a side alley. Using a wall for leverage, she pulled to a stand. She walked the rest of the way to the secret passages Queen Amidala had used in the Battle of Naboo, intensely keen for any Force use aimed in her general direction. It would not take much for her father to find her.

And her mental oddities didn't help.

She slammed her right palm into the wall, sensing the break in her wrist nanoseconds before the blinding pain shot up her arm.

Pain. Good. She deserved it, blast it. Ramallia may have called the Jedi help, but had the woman any choice? Kiacha hadn't done the best job at keeping her father from Naboo, herself.

...She supposed she should have been grateful that her father had been the one sent, as he was the most politic of... Ramallia's father's... servants. Jacen Solo would probably be so clueless that Father would have him tied like a string puppet.

She stopped. Waterfalls thundered further down the tunnels, but they barely registered. The Commander wouldn't be pleased about Jacen's capture. Maybe even panic, depending on how the Force had been treating her, lately.

Not that it ever had treated that woman particularly well...

Kiacha groaned, her first fracture now making itself felt. Force, why did it have to be her hip? That would take so much more work to set, especially without anyone picking up her Force use...

She cursed herself.

This. Is. Bad.

This. Is. Very. Bad.

I Hate. "Humans."

She shuddered, hastily taking control of that last thought. She didn't hate them, truly; they were just so exhasperating!

Many of her cousins were mostly Human, anyway. She'd spent most of her life with Humans. So one would think the eight-year-old would have adapted rather easily.

Any such one would be ignorant of Fallanassi. She had spent her first year immersed with her mother's Current. That had seared her mind.

Mother had made things easier for her, using the Force to 'upload' chunks of necessary information into her brain. It was hard to access, particularly at first; and sometimes it wasn't until she was in a situation that needed it that she realized she had it; but it had been her people's way for generations; and it worked.

And she majorly needed to think more simply if she ever wanted Mother to hear her.

She cringed as Knight Rhara swore, again. So you're livid—we get that, already!

Wiala edged towards Knight Solo. He really wasn't all that bad. His obliviousness was nothing compared to her second cousin.

Deceased second cousin, she corrected herself, though there was no reason she should have gotten that one wrong. That particular cousin had been dead for years prior to the Battle of Naboo, so she had died over half a century before Wiala had been born.

And that was one of her less convoluted familial ties.

Mixing blood with other species really did mess things up.