Part 34
"Stop!" Sil murmured as the roaring of the Force in her head became unbearable. She drew up walls around her mind in an effort to reduce the chaos, but the walls served only to bounce the feelings, making the princess more nauseated than ever before. As the level of the disturbance skyrocketed far beyond the threshold, Sil dropped the shields she raised like an armload of porcelain dishes.
Sil looked for help from the mental walls that surrounded her mind for as long as she could remember, but rather than helping the princess, those walls seemed to make everything worse, as if they're linked to the source of the disturbance.
The impact from landing on the net of veins tore open Sil's leg wound and the blood once again gushed freely as physical pain spiked up her leg and joined the Force-noises in tormenting the Jedi. In a desperate effort to shunt the pain, Sil took a mental leap. Once again, she found herself in the strange world whose beauty rivaled that of Hapes. She glanced up and saw Jysella disappearing into the sky. Out of instinct, Sil leapt up after the older Jedi.
"Jysella?" Sil addressed the older Jedi as the princess floated up behind the other woman.
Jysella seemed to ignore Sil and poked her head into the sky, as if to join the innumerable people there. As she gained altitude, a flight suit and a Jedi cloak began to appear on her body and fit over the Yuuzhan Vong implants that appeared on her this time. She whispered as she extended her arms for a long-awaited hug. "Doneeta."
"Jysella, you're early, but welcome nonetheless." Whispered an aging twi'lek, apparently the one named Doneeta, as he appeared before Jysella. "You use the Force; you're not supposed to be one with it."
"You call yourself heir to the throne and you're back as soon as I send you down? I'm disappointed." A tall, slim woman with a rather angular face, half of which hid under a scarlet veil, appeared before Sil.
The princess wanted to come up with an excuse for being in the realm between the physical world and the Force, but she swallowed her retort and placed a hand on Jysella's shoulder. "Come on, Jysella. We'd better go back."
Jysella barely nodded and followed Sil absentmindedly as she stared longingly at the would-be embrace from which she was torn. Several tears streaked down her glistening cheek, but Sil ignored the tears and dragged the other Jedi down. Thoughts flashed through Sil's gray eyes at lightspeed as the princess changed her heart.
Jysella saw the blurred shape of a Barabbel, most likely one of he Sebatynes, and two beings that she could not identify through her inexplicably blurred vision. It did not matter who was sent down to help her. There was a Barabbel helping her, and he did not deserve to have a mindless shell of a person as a reward for sharing his energy. Jysella's jaw dropped as she watched the helpers, whom Ben commed, treat her blood-soaked body as dead and she quickly dove for the border of the physical plane in order to return to her body and prove herself alive.
Wake up and get down, Sil! The Hapan princess heard a voice in her head, which compelled her to finally follow Jysella back into the physical realm again, and murmured in response. "Daddy?"
The princess stirred slightly, but then stopped. She was warm in her corner of wherever she was and she was free from the pain in the reopened wound on her leg and from the mysterious headaches that had been bouncing around the heavy shields of her mind ever since a few seconds after she was hurled onto the place.
Down beneath the princess, Jacen could feel but not see his daughter. Judging from his Force senses and what he could see, he knew that Sil was perched in a difficult position and almost impossible to remove. The dripping robeskin spoke of serious bleeding, which her pale skin confirmed, and a probe at her shields revealed feelings from the Force.
Jacen recognized the design of the shielding as that of the Queen Mother's and all of a sudden knew why Sil was feeling no comfort from the Force. The mental shields were as old as the one they protected and built to protect the child after the shock of six deaths spread through the Force. Now that the people were alive, the shock was back, except it was in reverse mode and the inversion brought the princess the headaches.
Reaching into the Force, Jacen sought to correct the problem by prying the shields apart slightly and then prodding his daughter's mind until she woke up and showed herself. The Jedi Master heard the noise that followed a clumsy landing and part of Sil appeared before him. Before he could even greet her, he felt a wind rustle and the next thing he knew, he could not see himself.
"What was that for?" Jacen asked.
"Hides us. I borrowed six of these huun cloaks."
"Borrowed these things?"
"Father? I thought you came with Aunt Jaina, Master Veila, and many other Jedi." When Sil finished explaining the recent events to Jacen, she asked and then gestured. "The Supreme Overlord's lair is this way."
"They found the lair. I'm taking you home."
"Not yet, Prince Consort. Hapes has a score to settle with that scarhead and only we can represent our people."
"It's your duty as heir to keep safe."
"I also need to repay my debt while the debtor is alive. A favor done is a favor owed and the people will discredit the woman who is always in debt." Sil argued as she used the Force to spring her body into a broken fluid vessel of the living structure.
"Very well, you win. Stay with me." Jacen ceded as he followed suit.
"You are a good Prince Consort, worthy of being written into our chronicles alongside the Queen Mothers."
"Coming from a traditional Hapan, I take it as praise." But you will not be knighted until you drop that attitude.
When the pair arrived at the entrance of Shimrra's lair after bypassing several layers of security, including an osmotic membrane, Sil stopped and gestured for Jacen to enter alone. As Prince Consort and as Master, it was Jacen's duty to walk in first.
Inside the lair were two Yuuzhan Vong, one a scared servant and the other the Supreme Overlord, whose massive structure stood taller than even the tallest members of Domain Lah. The lair was dark and the only light sources aside from the Jedi lightsabers were two glaring, maa'it implants that scanned the Jedi challengers.
The large Supreme Overlord heaved himself out of his colossal chair and addressed his opponents in a booming voice. "The Master, the Twins, and the pathetic. You come to die again and it will be my honor to deliver you these deaths."
"You forgot the Hapan." Sil interrupted as she took the cloak off her head and emerged.
"Very well. First, bow to me." The Supreme Overlord grinned as the Jedi began to drop to their knees against their will. Then, suddenly, they all prostrated themselves.
"I don't think so." Answered the old man.
"On behalf of the Hapes Consortium, we refuse to bow." Sil smiled and made a momentary glance at Jacen to clarify whom she meant by 'we'.
"And I thought my Aunt Alema needs a makeover. This guy's her desperation times three and nowhere near as pretty." Commented Tahiri's twi'lek apprentice, who, until the moment, remained a silent observer.
"You will pay for your insolence, brats!" Roared the Supreme Overlord.
"Me and my big mouth." Muttered the twi'lek boy as a swarm of vicious, Vong-formed predators appeared out of nowhere and began to attack him and Sil.
"Warrior priests, finish these Jeedai off!"
Seeing that her cloak did not hide her from the superior auditory and olfactory senses of the wild beasts, Sil tossed the load into the some distance and allowed her lightsaber to hum to life. The two apprentices twirled as they chopped down their numerous enemies until they were fighting back-to-back against a circle of hungry creatures ranging from shaped bats to bipedal predators native to Zonama Sekot.
"I really don't like bats!" Sil shrieked as she chopped down a juvenile rancor with a vonduun crab shell for a torso.
"Then let's bat 'em down!" Replied the twi'lek boy as he brought down two flyers with a wide, overhead swing that ended abruptly at Sil's drenched hair. A feline creature leapt at the two teens, and the twi'lek reversed his move to bisect it.
"Wow, this is good practice." Sil grumbled as she chopped down a row of predators with several frenzied blows that followed no style whatsoever.
"Yeah, forget everything you've ever learned about using a lightsaber and just chop randomly." Agreed the twi'lek.
On the other side of the fence made from frenzied animals, an army of warrior priests blocked the older Jedi from ever reaching the apprentices. Every Jedi had made a run for the cornered apprentices, but each found himself stuck behind at least three amphistaffs.
At the center of the room, Luke Skywalker, the newly unfrozen leader of the Jedi, batted down weapon after weapon. It was not his favorite task, but if it were done, then those Jedi clans, or groups of trainees, would no longer be forced to hide wherever they could and Ben would not be as desperate as he appeared to be.