As always, I don't own Star Wars or anything to do with it, except the characters I created of course. And even those are joint ownership. Please take pity on me and review and tell me what you think.

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CHAPTER 11

Jaina tried to lean against the glass to ease the ache in the back of her neck caused by being vertical for so long. She couldn't tilt that far with her feet locked in place.

She needed to sleep, but she was afraid Kanyen would come back. She hadn't been very successful at defending herself, but she would be completely helpless if he came while she was sleeping.

Jaina closed her eyes. If she could just rest a moment…

She woke to the feeling of one finger tracing a line across the curve of her stomach. With a gasp, she jerked away. She was on the floor, and Kanyen was bending over her.

"You're pregnant." His voice was so gentle she immediately expected a trap.

"What's it to you?" she asked, her voice hoarse. Kanyen stood, looking down at her with an expression she couldn't interpret.

"You've lost the twins for me," he said. "Now I need an heir."

"No!" Jaina gasped, trying to cover her stomach…but she couldn't move her arms.

"Will you be my Lady Misery again?" The unspoken end to that question was, 'or do I have to kill you?'

Jaina looked up at him, trying to control her shaking.

"Again?" she whispered. "Who else would I be?"

Smiling, Kanyen raised his hand, and she was lifted to her feet. He pulled her close against him, his hands on her shoulders, hers trapped against his stomach. As his lips met hers, Jaina dug her fingers into the center of his bandage. Kanyen cried out in pain, letting her go. She fell, but kept her fingers in the hole she had found, ignoring the blood that began to run through the bandage and down her hands. He grabbed her wrists, which were numb, and tried to pull her hands away. Something snapped, but Jaina didn't feel it. Using something she had learned from Tenel Ka, she used her stomach muscles to propel herself upward, hitting Kanyen's chin with her forehead.

She managed to twist her body so that he fell with her on top of him. She dug her fingers deeper into his wound and, using her only other weapon, bit his cheek as hard as she could.

"Bitch!" he shouted, and she was lifted into the air and dropped ungently several feet away. Kanyen stood, one hand clutching his stomach, the other on his cheek. "Bitch!" he repeated, kicked her, knocking the breath out of her.

She laughed harshly.

"I thought you were the manipulator, not the gullible one."

He kicked her again, sending her sliding a few inches across the floor.

"I am in control here," he said. He lifted her up and flung her back into the glass cage. She hung suspended for a moment, then he snapped his fingers and she fell to her knees, cracking her forehead against the glass before she could catch herself. "I'm afraid I haven't been a very good host. You haven't had anything to eat or drink since you got here. Are you thirsty?"

As he spoke, a stream of cold water trickled down from somewhere above her, splashing her boots. Jaina managed to turn herself around, then leaned forward as far as she could, her legs bending farther than they were used to. As the first drop of water touched her parched lips, the stream cut off. Jaina leaned back, breathing heavily, while Kanyen laughed.

"See?" he said. "I'm in control."

"You're nothing but a little boy," said Jaina. "Grow up."

"You've made a good toy, Jaina, but if you're no fun to play with anymore I can always get another one. Your sister-in-law is very pretty. I especially like the way her tears moved down her face after I killed Anakin." Jaina hurled a table at him, and he deflected it. She threw it at herself, trying to break the glass. It dropped to the floor as he sent a shock of pain through her head. "There's that old feisty spirit," he said, using a tone she had often heard from Jacen when she didn't laugh at one of his jokes. "I don't want your friends. You know I only love you."

"You sure have a great way of showing it," Jaina said, closing her eyes. Distantly, an alarm started blaring. Kanyen snapped his fingers, and Jaina felt herself lifted into the air again.

"I have to take care of this," he said. "I'll be back. Don't go anywhere."

"Proximity alert," said Leia. "We're about to be pulled out of hyperspace."

"That's what happens when you put random numbers in the navicomputer," Han teased. The Falcon shuddered as it pulled back into realspace, the Jade Shadow close by. The object that had pulled them out of hyperspace was a star destroyer, Imperial class.

"It wasn't random…" Leia murmured, her eyes going unfocused.

Luke's voice came over the comm. "Do you feel it?"

Leia's eyes refocused, and she looked at her husband.

"Land. Inside. Now."

"What is it?" Han asked, already bringing the ship into the open docking bay.

"Jaina."

"Jaina? She's here?"

"Yes," Leia said, her voice tight. "She's in pain. Where's my lightsaber?"

Luke and Mara ran down the Shadow's landing ramp just as Han and Leia left the Falcon, holding a blaster and a lightsaber, respectively. All the Jedi felt the reverberations of pain with only one possible source—Jaina.

"You're her mother," Mara told Leia. "Your connection is strongest. You lead the way." Leia hesitated, then nodded.

"This way," she said.

The four of them walked, Jaina's presence—and pain—getting stronger with every step. There was something else, not far from her, something familiar and yet not. It was dark, and it was coming to them.

They came to a place where the corridors branched. Leia couldn't tell her daughter's exact location; her senses were blunted by the shared pain and Jaina's disorientation. As for the darkness, it was everywhere.

"Which way do we go?" Leia asked, deferring to those who knew the Force better than she did.

"I think we should split up," Mara said. "That way we'll have a better chance of finding Jaina, and if…something happens…" She didn't know how to put her feelings into words, but Leia nodded.

"We'll keep in contact." She led Han down the right corridor, while Luke and Mara took the left.

Leia stopped suddenly. Han almost ran into her.

"What is it?" he asked, keeping his voice low. Leia's eyes closed in concentration.

"She's on the other side of the wall," she said, placing her fingers against the steel. "There's no door on this side."

"Then how do we get in?" Before he finished the sentence, she had her lightsaber on and plunged into the wall.

"It's too thick," she said. "My lightsaber doesn't go all the way through." She let go of the handle, and the saber didn't fall. "I don't know what kind of metal this is, but it's resisting the blade. Help me make a hole." The two of them together pulled her lightsaber through the wall in a rough circle. Then Leia took her blade back. "Stand clear."

She blasted the edges of the circle as hard as she could, sending the chunk of metal crashing to the floor. Leia climbed into the room beyond, followed by Han.

It was dark. The only sources of light came from the open door on the other side of the room, and a glass tube in the center in which their daughter hung, unmoving. Her head was down, her hair spilling across her face. She didn't seem to notice that they were there.

Leia looked for a way to open the tube and, not finding one, slashed a hole with her lightsaber.

As the blade touched the glass, Jaina looked up. Her expression was first frightened, then shocked.

"Mom?"

Leia stepped back. A circle of glass fell at her feet, not breaking. Han stepped on it and reached in to his daughter. She was weightless at first, but once outside of the tube she collapsed against him. He laid her gently on the floor, supporting her head against his knees. She didn't seem to be able to sit up on her own. Leia knelt on the other side of her, gently touching the corner of her mouth, where there was a bit of dried blood.

"You came for me," Jaina whispered. Leia activated her lightsaber again, cutting away the cords that bound her daughter's hands and feet. Jaina choked back a cry of pain, finally feeling the wrist that had been broken.

"Who did this to you?" Leia asked furiously. Jaina's answer was barely a whisper.

"Kanyen."

Luke entered a room at the end of the corridor, followed by Mara. Their lightsabers were the only illumination. Chained to the opposite wall was a dark-haired young man, his head down, apparently unconscious. It took Luke a moment to recognise him as his niece's friend, Kanyen. They had disappeared together. Was he alive? Luke knelt and extended his hand, reaching—

LukeKanyenJaina!

At his sister's mental touch, Luke jerked back, rocking back on his heels and then to his feet, his lightsaber swinging down in time with Mara's. At the same instant, Kanyen's hands slipped out of the chains that hadn't really held him. Lightning arced from his right, striking Mara and knocking her back, while a lightsaber leapt from the floor into his left and came up under Luke's blade.

"You're slipping," Kanyen said, attacking before Luke had a chance to regain his balance.

"Get her back to the Falcon," Leia told her husband. "Luke and Mara need help." She stayed just long enough to make sure that Han would be able to get their daughter to safety, then disappeared, the ruby light of her lightsaber bouncing off the walls and fading out as she ran.

"Can you walk?" Han asked his daughter, who was leaning heavily against him. She nodded, but didn't let go. One arm around her waist, Han helped her as much as he could.

Kanyen had not overestimated his own abilities. Ordinarily, he would not have been a match for either of them, but he was drawing heavily on the Dark Side. He was holding them off, and might even have a chance of winning if they weren't careful.

And then Leia arrived.

Han sat his daughter down in the pilot's seat of the Millennium Falcon and left her for a moment. He returned with a glass of water and some of the fruit Leia insisted on stocking the Falcon with; it was the only fresh food they had. Jaina took it gratefully, draining the glass in a single gulp. Her arms and legs were working better now.

"Are Uncle Luke and Aunt Mara here?" she asked around a mouthful of fruit.

"Yes," her father said, taking a seat beside her. "We left together, when they felt Anakin…This time they could follow Jacen to get to the right place…Jaina, tell me, is he…?"

"I don't know, Dad," she said. "I wasn't there. I think so." She glanced away from him and her eyes focused on something outside. "Who else is here?" she asked.

"No one," said Han.

"Then whose ship is that?" He looked out the viewport. There was another ship, a small one that blended into the wall on the far side of the bay. It was easy to overlook, hidden in the shadows.

A beeping sound started, making Jaina sit straight up.

"Sithspit!" she said, knowing what it meant. "That Hutt's tail set the star destroyer to explode!"

They were beating him.

Then the beeping started and, smiling, Kanyen stepped back to the other side of the doorway just as it slammed shut, automatically.

"I took the liberty of setting my little ship to self-destruct before you arrived," his voice said through a set of speakers. "I hope you enjoy the fireworks."

Together, the three of them drove their lightsabers into the door, cutting a hole. It was slow work; the door was the same material as the wall that had blocked the way to Jaina.

They cut through, only to find another door blocking their way.

Kanyen returned to Jaina's cell, eagerly anticipating the way she would look when he told her the good news.

His smile turned into a glower of rage when he saw the hole in the empty glass tube.

Jaina ripped out the wires connecting the starter of Kanyen's little ship to the engine and stuffed them in her pocket, then walked down the ramp as fast as she could—which wasn't very fast, considering how weak her legs still were.

The Falcon, where her father was waiting with the engine ready to take off as soon as she returned, suddenly looked very far away. She was beginning to wish she hadn't convinced him to let her go instead of him. The Lightning Rod, on the other hand, was much closer.

Jaina climbed the ramp to her own ship—half hers, anyway. She was about to call the Falcon when the comm came to life.

"Are you all right?" her father's voice asked.

"I'm fine," she said, although she wasn't doing quite that well. She tried to turn it into a joke. "Zekk would kill me if I left his ship." Looking out the viewport, she saw her mother and her aunt and uncle heading for their own ships. "See you on the other side, Dad." She started the engine and floated out with the Falcon and Shadow. Glancing back, she saw Kanyen diving for his now-useless personal ship, and smiled.

Her smile faded when she remembered that without hyperdrive, she wasn't much better off than he was.

"I have a problem," she said over the comm frequency that would reach both other ships. "My hyperdrive is blown."

"Can you come over in the escape pod?" Mara asked.

"It's gone," said Jaina. There was a moment of silence.

Then, Han said, "Does the Shadow have tow cables?"

"We do," his brother-in-law affirmed. "Can we pull it off?"

"It'll be tricky," Han said.

"What is it, Dad?" Jaina asked.

"Stabilise the Lightning Rod as much as you can," he said. "We're going to hook you with the cables and pull you into hyperspace behind us."

"Will that work?" Jaina asked skeptically, already moving by habit to pull her ship to a stop.

"I've heard of it working before," Han said, almost guiltily. "Of course I heard it from the same guy who claimed he beat my record for the Kessel Run, so I'm not sure it was true."

Jaina took a deep breath. "Okay, Dad. I'm ready." The Falcon and the Jade's Sabre came about and aligned themselves on either side of her. Han's voice came faintly over the comm, telling Leia to help steady the cable. It was followed by a hollow thud as the cable attached itself on the Lightning Rod's hull. A moment later there was a second thud as the Jade's Sabre attached its own cable. The other two ships began to move very slowly, testing the cables to make sure they had attached right.

"Where are we going?" Luke asked.

"Dathomir," said Jaina. "That's where everyone else is. Even Luc and Nova." There was another moment of silence.

"Dathomir it is."

Leia's hand hovered over the button that would send them into hyperspace. She was linked with her brother, who would be in the same position in the Jade's Sabre. Their timing would have to be perfect. If there was a half second of difference, the Lightning Rod, and possibly the other two ships as well, could be torn apart.

"Ready?" Luke asked.

"Ready," Leia replied.

"Mama, I love you," Jaina said suddenly.

"I love you too, baby." She pressed the button.

The ships began to move. The Lightning Rod gave a jerk as the other two ships pulled it from a cold stop. For a moment, Jaina actually thought they were going to make it.

Then she felt the touch in her head, along with the very clear thought, If I can't have you, no one can!

The star destroyer exploded behind them as the ships entered hyperspace. At the same time, there was a flash of severe pain from Jaina, and then she simply disappeared.

Mara almost reached for the comm, but remembered that it wouldn't work. Instead, she reached out with the Force. They were all right, and she could feel Han and Leia on the Falcon, so they had made it too. But Jaina…

Mara looked at her husband to see a similar expression of worry on his face. He had felt the same thing.

"Jaina!"

"What?" Han put his hands on his wife's shoulders and looked into her eyes. "What happened?"

"Jaina! I felt—she—" Leia closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to stop herself from shaking. "Something happened to Jaina when we jumped. She was afraid, and then she was in pain, and then it just stopped. I can't find her, Han! I can't find her."

Han put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. They couldn't lose their daughter, not when they had just found her again, not so soon after their son…Not ever.

"Don't worry, sweetheart," he told her. "Jaina's tough, she's resourceful, she's smart. Hey, the kid grew up with me as her dad. She'll be okay." His attempt to draw a smile failed.

"We can't call her, can we?"

He shook his head. "We don't have what we need to talk through hyperspace."

"Well, I suppose you're right," Leia said, peering anxiously out the viewport, where all that could be seen was pale blue hyperspace. "She is your daughter."

"She's yours, too."