CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Jaina sprinted to the hyperdrive core, then skidded to a stop.
Ba-bweep.
She only heard the tone of one detonator this time, and it was the one right in front of her. Jag's turned his off already.
Considering the speed of his success, she assumed the devices must be simply armed. While their attackers were efficient and knowledgeable enough to attempt to disable the ship, they most certainly had made a mistake in assuming she and Jag would not predict this move. Without giving it a second thought, Jaina tapped the button on the timer.
The green countdown light darkened instantly, and Jaina heaved a sigh –
Until a yellow light, blinking much faster, erupted in the green one's place.
Ba-bweep-eep.
"Jaina?" Jag asked before she could utter an appropriate curse.
"Kinda busy here."
Ba-bweep-eep.
Even without the Force, an eerie calm draped across Jaina like a comforting cloak. An EMP detonator wouldn't kill her – hurt like there was no tomorrow, sure, but not kill her. It would all but kill their chances of escape. Which meant the possibility of her death, and Jag's, was intimately linked with her success or failure in the next few seconds.
Without the benefit of her trusty multitool – Jacen or Jag, one of dynamic duo, had remembered to take that too – Jaina was forced to improvise. With the butt end of her lightsaber she smacked the corner of the detonator housing, causing it to pop off and drop to the floor.
"Most impressive."
The deep male voice startled her so much she swung around. She assessed the situation even before she finished assuming a battle stance. The cyborg stood in the open portal to the engine room. She couldn't see Jag, but it was obvious the cyborg was addressing him.
Ba-bweep-eep.
"Sonofasith," Jaina spat while dropping down to face the open detonator. With a pang of regret, she admitted to herself that she could only deal with one problem at a time. Besides, Jag would protect her at all costs. She'd just have to make that window as short as possible.
Ba-bweep-eep. Ba-bweep-eep.
The bothersome device continued to announce its imminent detonation, and Jaina retaliated by ripping the faceplate off the internal components to expose the wires. Green, blue, yellow, brown, white, black. The assortment of protectively shielded wires looped from one side to the next, sending signals and connecting each element in a confusing array.
Ba-bwee-ooo-eep.
Tracing the wires with her finger she found only two that wound into the trigger. Red and blue.
Clang!
Jaina glanced over her shoulder toward the metallic impact. Jag stood sprawl-legged, looking as if he had just tried to fell a tree – and failed.
"Oh, not good," he muttered.
The cyborg lunged, and Jag sprang to the side. Still, the cyborg's boot met Jag's chest with an intense thud and sent him flying into the sublight drive cylinder.
Ba-bwee-ooo-eep.
Frantic, Jaina pivoted back to the detonator and attempted to retrace those two critical lines.
The cyborg laughed. "You're running out of time, Knight Solo."
Jaina was inclined to agree, yet having that truth pointed out only fired her up.
Ba-bwee-ooo-eep.
"It's a shame," the cyborg continued, "that you won't live to find out if you'd have deactivated it in time."
Even as she exposed and isolated the red and blue wires, Jaina could hear the clomp of his shoes on the floor, drawing closer.
Ba-bwee-ooo-eee-wooo-eep.
Her fingers almost shook trying to separate the coiled mess. She really could have used the Force about now, for a whole number of reasons. Jaina stilled and breathed.
Ba-bwee-ooo-eee-wooo-eep.
That quick moment was all the time she could spare, and the blasted noise persisted in its announcement of their impending doom.
Ba-bwee-ooo-eee-wooo-eep.
Reciting one of her dad's favorite lines, "Red, you're dead," she yanked out the blue wire.
Ba-bwhooooooooo…
Everything happened fast after the dying gasp of the detonator's timer.
Jaina twisted around. A red-hot plasma bolt whizzed past. Jag, who had gotten himself entangled with the cyborg, rolled over, then slumped to the floor.
Red consumed Jaina's consciousness as she charged forward. Blinding crimson filling her vision. Vibrant red dripping off the vibroblade in the cyborg's hand. Deep scarlet spreading across the fabric of Jag's flightsuit.
Her primal yell echoed off the walls. Jaina dropped her head and executed a roundoff. In a one-on-one fight, without the Force, Jaina hadn't a chance, and she knew it. The cyborg had reach and mass on her, by quite a bit. If she ignited her lightsaber, he might simply cut her down with a blaster shot, and she wasn't confident that in close quarters she could anticipate the shot. Her only hope was that this metallic demon was enough of a sadist to enjoy the thought of administering a good pummeling with his hands.
Using the momentum of her flip, Jaina slammed feet first into the cyborg's massive chest. She had put every ounce of her being into collision, but she felt as though she had hit a brick wall. She smacked to the floor, her breath leaving in a whoosh, images of fighting Cundertol on Bakura flashing through her mind. Her gut reaction was to retreat and regroup, but while attempting to push off the floor, she caught sight of Jag hoisting his body upright.
She knew then that retreat was an impossibility.
"Quite the fighter you are, Fel," the cyborg drawled.
Jaina heaved in a quick breath, then focused on climbing to her feet. She took care to keep her hand away from her lightsaber, still clipped to her belt. Their opponent most definitely meant business, deadly business. She wanted to avoid that part, if at all possible. Jag swayed unsteadily between her and the cyborg, his body trying to maintain a battle stance. When she started forward, Jag held a bloodied palm back to her.
"Jaina, stop."
"Fool," the cyborg crowed. "I'll kill you, then the Jedi princess. She's defenseless as a newborn with the ysalamiri you've helpfully provided."
Jaina was about to snap a retort when Jag spoke. "No. You won't." He brought a hand up to his side and probed the wound. "You could have killed me before now. You want us alive."
The cyborg laughed a deep menacing chuckle. "You're right. Partially." He pointed at Jag. "You get to stay alive." Then waved the blaster in Jaina's general direction. "She doesn't."
The moment of clarity hit Jaina almost as fast as Jag dropped and rolled. It wasn't much, but it was enough. Jaina's hand flew to her belt, and in a single swift motion detached the lightsaber and ignited it. The cyborg, who had fallen prey to Jag's diversion, brought his eyes back to her from their momentary distraction. He leveled the blaster just as Jaina hurled the blazing sword in a thrumming whirl.
It took only two rotations for the blade to strike its mark. Sparks and screeching metal coupled with a dying howl announced the killing blow.
The monster had been gone from her thoughts the instant the lightsaber had left her hand. Jaina scrambled to where Jag still lay on the floor, motionless. She could barely breathe as she tugged him into her lap.
"Jag?"
His skin was ashen. His eyes closed. His body utterly limp.
With a trembling finger she smoothed away a bead of sweat on his brow. "Jag?"
Green eyes and a moan. "I'm all…right."
Jaina pushed his hand away from where it protectively covered the gash in his side. With delicate care she examined the wound. The slice was clean and seemingly shallow, but something was wrong. She didn't have her usual almost subconscious perceptions of his well being, but she still knew it.
She managed a smile. "Okay."
Without the Force she had no way to confirm her fears, or to do anything to help heal Jag. Already he was trying to rise from her lap. All she could do was help. Soon he was sitting, she kneeling, and a plan for what to do next was formulating in her mind.
"We can't fight them like this."
Jag climbed to his knees, and groaned. "No."
Crawling a short distance to her right, Jaina eyed the engine room floor. It was easier to perceive the details with the Force…
"What… are you… doing?"
Jaina spotted the almost invisible seam in the floor, and smiled. She began running her hand along its length, feeling for an impression. "Mara may like to fight –" she found the almost imperceptible dip and pushed "– but she always knows how to make a stellar retreat."
A small tile in the floor moved aside to reveal a keypad. Jaina punched a code, then pulled back just in time for the floor to retract and reveal a hidden access tunnel. She grinned at Jag. "In the chute, flyboy."
He didn't argue, and dragged himself to the edge before tumbling in. Jaina flinched when she heard him yelp. Ducking her head inside the narrow, dark tunnel, she couldn't really see his face.
"You okay?"
He coughed. "Landed funny."
Jaina shut her eyes and tried to deny the panic rising in her gut. She couldn't tell how grave his injuries were. She couldn't tell his physical state. She couldn't tell where her enemy was. She couldn't carry Jag or help him to safety.
"Stop it," she whispered, then louder and with a positive air. "Hand over hand…" She hesitated. "As best you can. Okay?"
He grunted and started to move off. Quickly Jaina rose and sprinted to where the cyborg's corpse lay sprawled on the floor. She snatched her lightsaber, then rushed to the engine room's open portal. A quick code on the door controls caused it to shut and lock. Satisfied, she ran to the hole in the floor and dove in. Rolling on her back, she found the interior controls and sealed the secret passage's entrance.
The tunnel plunged into darkness. Jaina began the laborious task of pulling herself along the shaft using a narrow conduit built in overhead. Available light was infrequent, so she was left to use her other senses. Ahead she could hear Jag. His breathing was labored, and on a few occasions he cursed or groaned or just exhaled sharply.
Jaina felt something on the slender metal pipe; it was slimy and wet. She recognized the sensation easily, by feel and smell. Blood.
The thought only caused her to pick up the pace. She practically gave herself a concussion smacking into Jag's feet.
"Ow!"
"Uh."
"Sorry," she said softly. "What's wrong?"
"Which way?"
Jaina practically cried at the realization they were at the junction already. "Straight."
"Good."
Jag coughed and grunted, then began to shift and reposition himself to begin the last leg of their trek.
"Wait," Jaina said, thinking ahead in their fight. "Let me go first."
"Copy," Jag answered, adjusting himself to one side.
The squeeze was tight and Jaina moved cautiously, fearful of hurting him further. "This passage leads directly to the cockpit. Right the quarters. Left the hold."
When she was even with him, the two of them scrunched in the tiny horizontal shaft, Jaina paused. "We're almost there. I promise."
"I'm…" A haggard breath. "Fine." In the dim light she could make out the white of his smile, and she could tell it was half-hearted.
"A kiss for luck?"
Jag blinked his response.
Jaina leaned forward and claimed his lips. The kiss was tender and desperate, passionate and pure, all at once. "I love you, Jagged Fel."
He moved his hand, the back of his knuckles brushing her cheeks. "I will always love you, Jaina."
It felt like a goodbye. Jaina's stomach flipped a somersault and her heart pounded. But not with panic. Instead steely resolve had taken root. She flashed a half-cocked Solo grin. "You know, I was really looking forward to you taking me out to the Grishan Glacier. Although I'm not sure it could live up to the stories you tell."
Jaina started down the tunnel, talking softly as she went. "Maybe you could ask your mom to make that Endwa stew you're always raving about. I hope she doesn't think me too much a flitty fan if I ask her to autograph something."
She paused and glanced back. Jag was following, albeit slowly; he already had fallen some distance behind. In her best commander voice she barked, "Move it, Feh-el."
The trick worked. Jag's military instinct took over, and his pace quickened. Grinning despite herself, Jaina resumed the exhausting hand-over-hand drag down the shaft. He must have been in agony, her injured arm throbbed mercilessly. To keep them both distracted she talked about random events that might take place if – no, when – they got to Csilla. She babbled all the way to the end of the shaft.
She lay there panting for a few seconds. She knew, though, that there wasn't much time. Their attackers were surely looking for them, feverishly by now. The locked door to the engine room would only have held them out for so long, and then it would have been only a matter of time before they figured her ruse out. Jaina knew she would have to take the cockpit quickly and decisively before the invaders could devise a way to locate them or gather too many reinforcements.
Reaching down, Jaina pulled the vibroblade from her boot. A lightsaber had its advantages, but stealth was not one of them.
"Stay here," she whispered to Jag. He barely managed a reply.
She adjusted her position so she was face down, looking at the controls. She tapped in the code, then triggered the manual override button and steadied her hand on the release. Slowly Jaina slid the hidden access up. She could see most of the cockpit's floor, and hear everything. By sound and sight she determined there was no one positioned behind her in the seats and only two guards at the door – the only other way in and out.
Inhaling a long deliberate breath, Jaina braced herself and rushed into the cockpit. She burst out of the opening with predatory speed. Both guards heard her, but only one could get through the narrow access. Surprise was her ally; the man was slow to get his weapon up. A vibroblade piercing his chest armor caused his blaster to fall. Jaina's kick to the gut flung him back into the second guard. Before either one knew what hit them, Jaina had the door shut and locked.
"Jag," she called back into the hole in the floor.
He said nothing, but emerged, pale-faced and clammy, from the darkness. She grabbed him under the arms, and using her legs hauled him out. Somehow between the two of them, they managed to wrestle him into the co-pilot's chair.
The pounding had already begun at the door. Ignoring it, Jaina buckled Jag's restraints. Her hand paused when she noticed the tear in his shirt. Somewhere along their trip from the engine room, the hole in the material sliced by the cyborg's blade had gotten caught and torn more. Now much of Jag's side was exposed, and so was the blooming discoloration that spread across his ribs in a telltale sign of internal bleeding.
"Jag?" she asked shakily.
He glanced down to where her hand rested, and blanched. What resolve had been on his face vanished at the sight of the truth. Jaina too felt the truest form of fear, one she had felt only once before in her life.
On Myrkyr.
She shook her head. "Oh no. No, no, no." Dropping into Mara's seat, she strapped on her restraints. The banging on the door became more insistent. She punched systems to life all over the console. Engines. Shields. Weapons.
The pounding stopped. They were going to blow the door.
Jaina double-checked the door locking mechanism; it glowed red. "Hold on. This could get rough."
Jag rolled his head and stared at her through glazed eyes. "Jay…"
She turned away, slamming the throttle forward. The Shadow bucked and slammed to a halt. Undaunted, she rocked the throttle forward and back. Accelerate. Pitch. Reverse thrust. Forward again.
"Jaina?"
"Hush, Jag. I'm getting us out of this mess." And that she was. The Star Destroyer wasn't holding them in a tractor beam while the boarding ship was docked to the Shadow. She was using that fact to her advantage. The trick would be to survive the separation from the other ship. The decompression of ripping away would strain the Shadow incredibly. As long as the cockpit door held…
"Mara's going…to kill…you."
"They're planning to kill us first!" Jaina yawed the ship and kicked the rudders.
The Shadow shuddered, then stilled – then suddenly leapt forward like it had been shot from a cannon. From the howling rush of vacuum-induced winds and the groaning of the ship it was quite evident they had broken free of the freighter's docking clamp.
"Yeah, you're right. Mara's gonna kill us," Jaina whimpered.
Most unexpectedly bright blue laser bolts ripped past the cockpit viewport. Jaina yanked the ship to port and dove. "Oh kriff!"
Instincts kicked in, and she captured the tactical heads-up in one quick glance. Then she did a double take, still juking and turning. She read two Star Destroyers! And eighteen fighters!
"Oh you've got to be kidding –" A thought occurred to her. "Wait! How many fighters in a standard Chiss squadron?"
There was no answer. Jaina spared a second to look at Jag. He was slumped against the restraints, his heading bouncing with each near miss of a laser volley. "Jag? Jag!"
She wanted to go to him, to hold him. To tell him to keep fighting. But fly was all there was time for her to do. Bank. Spiral. Evade.
The skirmish unfolded in a matter of seconds that felt like a lifetime. The newly arrived destroyer was not firing at her but past her. A squadron of clawcraft screamed by. This was their salvation, and it might have come too late.
She had been too late!
Jaina aimed straight for the new destroyer's yawning hangar. An unfamiliar voice in an unfamiliar language barked over the comm. She ignored it. The voice returned, in the familiar clip of broken Basic so common among the Chiss.
"Light freighter, state your intention."
"Landing, you jaknotdome." If nothing else Jaina had gleaned a few Chiss words that were meant to disparage an individual's lineage.
That shut him up, and before anyone – even Jaina – knew what was happening the Shadow was careening into the cavernous hangar. She made out blue-skinned humanoids scrambling and ducking out of the way. Between the existing damage and their speed the landing was far from pretty. The Shadow bounced and skipped to a stop in the dead center of the docking bay.
None of that mattered, though. Jaina sprang free of the restraints and rushed to Jag's side. She unsnapped him too, and he toppled into her arms. "Oh frag."
Balancing his weight, Jaina hoisted Jag's dead-weight body down to the floor. She took one glance at his lifeless face and knew the Force was her only hope. She slapped the ramp controls on the console, then bent over and grabbed Jag under the arms. Heaving and tugging with all her might, she dragged him out of the cockpit. She wasn't sure how far it was until she would reach the end of the void, but she would've carried Jag to Coruscant and back if that's what it took.
"Don't. You. Dare," she said between tugs, "Think about. Leaving me."
Jaina was almost to the same spot in the corridor where she had found the Force during their battle against the boarders when a clipped voice issued a stern warning.
"Step away from the Ambassador."
Refusing to release him, Jaina looked over her shoulder. "He needs medical attention."
A company of Chiss soldiers filled the corridor, stepping over downed boarders as they came. They all aimed their charrics directly at her.
"Step away from the Ambassador," the captain repeated.
Every nerve in Jaina's being screamed fight! but this was about Jag. She lowered him gently to the floor and backed away with her palms forward. "Okay."
A team swarmed past the troops and swooped down on Jag. She tried to listen, but they spoke in Chiss and their equipment was foreign to her. In less than a minute they had Jag attached to any number of tubes and devices and loaded him on a stretcher. When she tried to follow the medical team, every Chiss soldier re-aimed his charric in her direction.
"Not you."
Jaina had raised her palms instinctively, and she left them high. Tipping her head after Jag, she said, "He needs me."
"Your status is undetermined, Jedi," the Chiss captain retorted. "Relinquish your light sword."
"Now wait a minute –"
Every Chiss stiffened. "Drop your weapon," the captain commanded again.
Jaina was at a loss. She just wanted to be with Jag. She needed to be with Jag. Submission was the quickest path to her objective. "Oh-kay."
Slowly she reached down – every pair of beady red Chiss eyes scrutinized her – and unclipped the hilt of her lightsaber. She let it clatter to the floor, then kicked it across the corridor. It ended at the captain's feet. With a flick of the toe of his boot he launched it up into his waiting palm.
"Restrain her," he said, "and take her to the brig."
A pair of Chiss burst through the formation. The one on the right had stuncuffs ready in his hands.
Jaina glowered in disbelief. Not again…