Chapter 12: No Disintegrations
Jaina was tired. She could feel it in every inch of her flesh. She'd been flitting from one part of the galaxy to another for the last few weeks, distracting the few stragglers of the High Council team that had completely missed Ben and had been trailing her and Valin instead. Along with the rest of the Order, she mourned the death of one of her colleagues; this one especially close, for he had been there with her at the Academy that had been on Yavin IV before the Yuuzhan Vong destroyed it. Valin had been a few years younger than her, but she had found comfort in him after Anakin's supposed death. Anakin had risked much to save the children of the Academy, and Valin was one of those he had gone to rescue. Jaina had always seen a reflection of her brother in those children. Now that they had Anakin back, it didn't make it any the less hurtful that Valin had been targeted, and did make it all the more frustrating that it had been used to advance a plan by the Sith Lord that had taken her Uncle's life.
She could feel Jag and their children waiting just outside the Temple's docking bay, patiently waiting for her to gain the energy to exit her X-wing. Even the thought of Aunecah and Tadeo's brilliant faces could not muster the strength she needed. She wasn't sure she could go through another war - she had children to raise, a husband she loved. It was the first time that Jaina had ever realized how much it had cost her mother to leave her and her brothers every time another usurper cropped up. For years she had harbored anger towards her mother; now, she wondered how she could have ever missed the pain.
With a long hissing sigh, Jaina popped the hatch of her X-wing's cockpit and felt the rush of air as the space decompressed. No good would come from her dwelling on the negativity in her life, she had to press forward with the choices she had made, the weight that her uncle had put upon her the day of her knighting, when he had called her 'the Sword of the Jedi'.
She felt that she could sympathize with Ben and Anakin in their desires to refute the title of 'Chosen One'. Once you took that upon yourself, that title defined you. Jaina had to be sharper than a vibroshiv, pointed, unyielding, but at the same time she had to have the gentleness of a leather handle, the duality of sword and pommel. If Anakin or Ben were to declare that they were indeed the 'Chosen One', the weight of that responsibility would follow them for the rest of their lives. That same weight had destroyed their grandfather, a weight of pride and arrogance that had slowly chipped away at the kind boy Jaina had read of in reports from the old Order.
Stripping off her gloves and her helmet, she tossed them into the cockpit before the hatch could close back down, and strode purposefully to the warmth her family provided her.
Aunecah greeted her with a huge smile, running up and engulfing her legs in a stranglehold that threatened to topple them both over, and Jaina was forced to grab her daughter and throw her up into her arms. It was one of the few times her reserved daughter showed any public show of affection, especially if Jaina or Jagged were away for a long while. Finding the energy she had lacked in the X-wing, Jaina smiled adoringly on her daughter.
"I don't think you really missed me," Jaina teased, knowing that Aunecah would take it seriously.
"Yes, I did," Aunecah said, and squeezed Jaina's neck to the point where her breath came shallowly, but she loved the warmth in her daughter's hug.
Looking over at Tadeo, Aunecah's three-year-old brother, Jaina felt her smile turn down into a frown. Tad's baby-fleshed face was sullen, and he leaned on his father's shoulder apathetically, cradled in Jag's arms. Still carrying Auni, Jaina came over and ran a hand through Tad's dark hair. "What's the matter, little guy?" she asked, even as she turned concerned eyes to Jag.
"Did Momma find Benny?" Tad asked.
"No, Uncle Anakin is going to find Ben," Jaina assured her son, admonishing herself for not remembering the unique connection that her son and cousin had. A connection that she often found herself feeling jealous of. A bond that Ben had run away from, terrified that the visions of darkness would destroy them all.
"Bad man is going to hurt Benny?" Tad said.
Not for the first time Jaina wondered if Tad had Ben's ability as a seer. It would certainly explain the empathy they had for one another, or was it because of that empathy that Tad could pick up on the danger that Ben seemed to wear like a flight jacket? Her little boy had seen that Ben had been sick on Linnal before they had even reached the planet. Was he making another prediction?
"What bad man?" Jaina persisted. She didn't think she could take it if Tad was a seer like Ben. Yes, she wanted her children to be trained as Jedi, but she had already seen what a vision could do to those who were gripped by them. Ben had been convinced of their fruition, and was now even afraid to be with his family. Of course, it didn't help any that Ben Skywalker had been made an orphan at such a young age.
Tad's elfin features scrunched up in concentration and his green eyes fell closed, something Jaina had noted that he also took from Ben. "He's wearing plates and helmet," Tad told them after a moment.
"Plates?" Jag questioned.
It took a while for it to snap into place in Jaina's mind. "Armor."
"Bounty hunter?" Jag speculated. "You think the Sith has put a bounty on Ben?"
Jaina nodded, not wanting to scare her children with any further details. "What's a Skywalker without a large price on their head?" she joked, and reached out a hand to tickle first Auni, then Tad.
Much to her relief, Tad giggled and tried to evade his mother's seeking fingers. "Or a Solo, for that matter?" Jag replied, a wicked glint in his eye.
Jaina knew that glint, it was always there when he had planned something intimate for her welcome home. She hated to disappoint him, but she had to speak with her parents, find out how much information they could gather before the bounty hunter could pounce on Ben; that was if they could find Ben in time to stop it.
"We need to speak to my parents," she said, as he flung an arm over her shoulder and they walked the halls of the Jedi Temple. There was no outward sign of his disappointment, but she felt it nonetheless, and gave his waist a squeeze where she had looped her own arm through.
"Your father isn't here," Jag announced. "He took a Jedi Team to Mon Calamari to discover if there's a leak in the system there. Someone managed to get the transponders on a large number of our ships, ones that were scheduled for battle maneuvers. It's like they know us inside and out."
"The Sith are known for cleverly bringing down their enemies," Jaina remarked, feeling a shudder she couldn't repress run its way up her spine. She had not been an avid scholar of the old Order's archives, but she knew as well as any in the Order how deftly Palpatine had manipulated the Jedi of the Old Order, how he could stand in their midst and even the highest of them all, Master Yoda, could not feel the darkness waiting to be unleashed. "What about Mom?"
"She stayed. Tahiri's pregnancy is drawing to a close, our little niece will be here in no time, and you know your mother. She has always been protective of Tahiri since Anakin's... supposed death," Jag said, shrugging at trying to explain the fifteen-year absence of her brother.
Jaina looked up at him, noting the tiny lines that were beginning to form on his face. They were no longer the young hotshot pilots they had been when they had first met. He was no longer so formal, she a little less likely to blast everything in sight. She cherished their relationship, the way they had rubbed off one another, to make them seem more of a pair. When they had argued about her tearing off to save Ben and Anakin on Linnal, she had feared that it was the first nick in an upcoming rift. His surprising arrival on Bellalt had both filled her with relief and joy, but also with hope for their future.
Jacen had pegged it right when he had claimed that their relationship mimicked her parents'. She and Jag needed to give off ion trails every so often to keep their marriage secure. Tahiri and Jacen's marriage was so much different, but she wouldn't have it any other way with Jag.
Leaning closer to him, she asked, "Do you mind if we go there first? I'd rather just get it over with."
He smiled down at her, giving the half wink she had come to love so much. "I was just about to suggest that."
"You know, Jag, I think you've been spending too much time with my father," she teased, catching the wry Solo tone in her husband's voice.
He just chuckled and led them through the Temple corridors. Although the Jedi had just begun to move into the Temple, it was already beginning to feel like a home for Jaina, a place for respite and peace from the haphazard way the galaxy ran itself. Her uncle had been wise in his decisions when constructing the building, the little touches he had added, from the gardens that represented as many of the worlds of the galaxy to the ancient symbols he had found from the old Jedi records carved into the stone.
Jaina's gaze fell down to her side, where Auni was holding her hand tightly, comfortably moving through the corridors. It was the first home for Jaina's daughter as well, a place for the Jedi to finally meet and be called together.
Luke Skywalker had built this Temple with the desire for it to stand throughout the time of not only his son, but the sons and daughters of many generations of Jedi. He had wanted a place for them to meet. Her uncle, who had often been accused of paying far too much attention to the here and now, had shown that he had also looked to the future.
Taking a deep breath, Jaina smelled the sweet fragrance of the nearby gardens, which held many of the now endangered flora of Alderaan, and other worlds that had been destroyed. It was for this reason that her mother had chosen these quarters, to smell the life of what now was dead.
Coming to her parents' quarters, she smiled as Leia instantly engulfed her, Jag, and their children in hugs, respectively. The long years of war had made Leia more appreciative of those loved ones she had left. Alderaan and the Civil war had made her hard, Anakin's supposed death and the Yuuzhan Vong had made her real.
Jaina hid a smile as Jag did his customary straightening of his tunic after such shows of affection. Her husband had come a long way from his Chiss upbringing, but there were still a few things that were as inborn to him as instinct.
With a little coaxing, they got Tad to follow Auni, his older sister grasping his hand gently, into a side room where Leia had kept toys from when the twins and Anakin had been young, the boy's worry about his cousin Benny keeping him hesitant for a moment. Jaina racked her mind to see if she remembered such a hesitancy in Ben, a foreknowledge that went beyond the normal visions of the Force. Yes, even as she recalled her cousin's younger years, incidents stuck out at her.
Ben had always had a proclivity to explore, but it was never in just a random area, his ventures always had a direction. Luke and Mara had nearly gone insane the first few years they lived together as a family. There had always been an aging to Ben, an understanding that went beyond his years. Yet he had developed like any other child, learning a language, despite it being Sullustan instead of Basic, at the normal age of development.
Tadeo had the old Solo charm, and was only three years old, but she could see some similarities between her son and cousin that continued to frighten her.
"Tad's had another dream," Jaina announced, once they had sat down in the living area of the quarters. She refused to call them visions. "He says that a 'bad man' is going to hurt Ben. Jag and I think it might be a bounty hunter. I know our contacts aren't what they were, but do you think Lando might know if there's an open or not-so-open bounty on Ben?"
Leia gnawed at the inside of her check, pulling it visibly inward on her aged thin face. "Lando and Tendra still tend to dab in the less respectable areas of the galaxy. It's a good shot." She sighed, running a hand through the hair she had kept short from the Vong war days. For the first time, Jaina noted the dark age spots that were beginning to show on her mother's porcelain skin, the wrinkles that did nothing to detract from her beauty, striking home that her parents were no longer young, that she was just as likely to lose her mother and father as Ben had.
"This Sith will stop at nothing," Leia said, cutting into Jaina's thoughts. It was always a startling experience to realize that your parents weren't eternal. "I only hope that Anakin can find Ben in time. I've got the feeling it's far from over."
The ship was the shape of an elongated sphere that had been smashed in on one side, where now roosted banks of engines that glowed with the intensity of a miniature sun. It slightly expanded at the head of the ship, the only indication as to where the cockpit was housed, where two stabilizer fins jutted out like miniature arms. With deft precision, it negotiated through the asteroid field that surrounded it, making adjustments that were tiny in the expanse of space.
Archan Slayyer, once Charo Fett, was behind the controls, his dark hair and eyes lit by what little light came from his ship's control panel. He was humanoid, his skin an olive color that he had inherited from his Twi'lek mother. Due to the genetic anomalies of a cloned father and an alien mother, Archan had no lekku dangling from the bush of curly dark hair, but two nubs that were hidden behind the mass of hair.
To have no lekku was to be shamed amongst the Twi'lek, you were a being without a gender, a hunk of flesh lumped together to form an aberration. At the age of twelve, Archan had gone off to seek his absent father, Boba Fett, who had survived the maw of the great pit of Carkoon, and to abandon his shame.
Without revealing his identity, Archan had become a type of sidekick for his father, learning the tricks of the trade that he now fully embraced. When Boba had finally announced that he was ready to hunt alone, Archan had slipped his vibroshiv through his father's unsuspecting back. Then he had changed his name, becoming a phantom, the one man who had been able to kill the invincible Boba Fett. As his father's life dwindled, the vibrancy in his eyes flickering like banked embers, Archan had uttered the words that he had waited so long to say. "Goodbye, Father."
It was over a standard year ago since Archan had set off on his own as the Slayyer. He never wanted for jobs - assassinations, mainly. He was on such a job at the moment, hired to kidnap Ben Skywalker and bring him to the planet Linnal. Archan had no indication of who his employer was, just that he had large amounts of credits and was giving them freely enough to allow Archan several months of the luxury he had grown accustomed to. The go-between that had negotiated the price had been a hunched over ex-Imperial who had been missing most of his right arm, the limb cut off just above the elbow.
He flexed his muscles in the cramped space of the cockpit, stretching them until he felt the sting of atrophy leave. Skywalker had proven to be elusive; Archan had followed what he had thought to be Skywalker for nearly two weeks before he realized that it was his target's cousin, running off an old transponder. For a while, he had thought to be at a dead end. Remembering the teachings of his father, Archan had sought out the local watering holes on a number of planets. Cantinas, nightclubs, and taverns that he knew he could count on for information leading him to his quarry.
It was only a few days after his discovery of Jaina Solo that Archan had stumbled into the right Cantina. One of the first lessons Boba had taught his secret son was that any informant became cheap when plastered with enough Corellian ale, and once Archan had found his man, an old smuggler by the name of Morado, it became readily obvious that the man would not be able to hold his liquor.
He had been a member of the smuggler's alliance, Morado had been all too willing to explain, working with greats like Talon Karrde as well as Mara Jade. At the mention of Jade's name, Ben Skywalker's mother, Archan had plied the pressure on just enough to keep the bumbling fool talking. It was eighteen Corellian Twists before Morado let slip where Talon Karrde's secret base lay.
The proximity to Naboo, where Skywalker was said to have been identified, was all too revealing to the Bounty Hunter. Sometimes the best place to hide was the obvious one. For whatever reason Skywalker didn't want to be found, and that meant fewer obstacles to get around in snatching the Jedi, such as his family and the rest of the blasted Order.
A smile crossed the olive green face as his lifescan readings picked up large life forms on one of the more craggy asteroids. Talon Karrde had always made his roost in the oddest of places, but always with tactical significance. Five years after the death of the Emperor, the literal destruction of the Empire, and the rise of Jedi Luke Skywalker, Karrde had settled on Myrkr, a planet infested with the snake-like creatures that could repel the Force within a certain amount of space, a standard meter. It had been a failsafe that had proven to be useless; Karrde had soon become connected to the Jedi, his second-in-command eventually marrying the galaxy's most reputable Jedi Master.
Karrde's current base inside the Vorvexan asteroid ring, served the same purpose, if against different beings. The information stored in Karrde's facility could probably make or break a number of systems adjoined to the Republic, and even the higher echelons of the Republic feared the information that Karrde might have. Very few would dare try to navigate the Vorvexan asteroid ring, and to Archan's knowledge only a handful of assassins had managed to get to Karrde's base. However, Archan was above even the highest of those skilled hunters.
He would have his prey.
I'm getting too old for this sort of thing, Han Solo thought as he stepped off the transport that Chief of State Tiv had sent for him and that had brought him and his Jedi team from Coruscant to the new center of the galaxy, Mon Calamari. He was dressed in Yosorian robes of state, and was missing his usual white shirt that buttoned on the sides, his Corellian bloodstripe pants, and the black vest that completed the look he had worn since his smuggling days. When were those days again?
His hair had grown from salt and pepper to the white of sea clouds, somehow becoming a physical agreement to his statement. The lines at his eyes had grown deeper as his skin had started to loosen. However, there was still very much the smuggler in Han Solo. You could see it in his stance, hip slightly hitched, with his thumbs stuck inside his pants pockets, it was in the way he walked, a swagger for a retired pirate, and the glint in his eye when he smiled cockily. That old pirate had changed much.
As he looked back at the Jedi team disembarking, he snorted and looked heavenward. Well, some things have changed, he thought wryly. The Han Solo that used to frequent cantinas such as the one where he had met Ben Kenobi and Luke Skywalker would never have dreamed of one day leading a group of Jedi Knights on an investigation, considering his lack of Force-ability.
He looked at his team, the mix of faces that he had become acquainted with during the time at the Temple. Luke had wanted to integrate Jedi and non-Jedi into the Temple, considering that half the High Council was not able to touch the Force, and realizing that the separation between the Jedi and those who could not touch the life-giving and life-generating energy field had been one of the key factors in the destruction of the old Order.
Han had been about to set orders and coordinate the group of eight Jedi Knights when his thoughts turned to his deceased brother-in-law. The pause came with a hitch in his throat. Chewie had been bad, it had taken months for Han to come to some sort of terms with it, and years to finally accept it, but Luke... Luke was never supposed to die.
The old Corellian had always thought that out of him, Leia, and Luke, he would be the first to go. Luke and Leia had survived so many difficult obstacles, had breezed through so many near deaths, that he had almost enshrined them as invincible. When Mara had died, Han had felt guilty with the relief that it hadn't been Leia who had joined the Force, seeing how badly it had rocked Luke and Ben. The guilt continued again with Luke's death.
Han had seen Anakin's revival as a gift from the Force, a gift to set right all the wrongs he had placed on his youngest son. He didn't know if he could have taken it if Anakin had been taken from them again, and yet Han could feel the imbalance that Luke's death had created. Luke had been fond of saying that it wasn't only those strong in the Force who could feel its workings, that it guided everyone, and that it was the beings of the galaxy's choice whether to follow it or not. Just recently Han was beginning to see how it had guided him through his life. He would never have met a princess from Alderaan without it.
"There's our delegation," one of the younger Knights, a tow-haired boy that reminded Han shockingly of Luke, pointed out, his head jerking towards the military aids that Chief Tiv had sent their way.
The transport had taken them to a secluded area of Mon Calamari, the docking bay bobbing up and down as the repulsors below reacted to the ever-shifting sea. Han had never quite got his sea legs, he preferred a sea of stars as opposed to the rocking and bucking he could feel under his feet. He gave his team a cursory look, roving his eyes up and down their bodies to make sure that the concealed lightsabers under the shipsuits were not identifiable, and looking for any signs that might tip off the keen observer that they were Jedi. Satisfied that they had done a good job, Han rubbed a hand over his own disguise.
Synthflesh made to look like the corrugated skin of Yosorians ran down his neck and up his hairline until it reached his forehead, the exposed skin of his arms also donned as such. Colored lenses had changed the brandy color of his eyes to the vivid indigo of the Yosorians. With a little help at changing the patterns of his speech and modifying the tone to a slightly higher octave, with more precise inflection, it wasn't likely that anyone would identify him as Han Solo.
It was to their advantage that he and Leia had shrunk from public observation, otherwise it would have been more difficult to make a believable disguise for him. Luke wouldn't have had that luxury, although Han was aware that his old friend had a Jedi trick or two up his sleeve if he didn't want to go around noticed. But the years of duty and hardship must have taxed Luke, Han mused. At least now Luke could find peace.
As the delegation approached, Han stifled these thoughts and turned his attention to the precise stride of their delegation. Military, Han sighed inwardly. They're going to salute me, they always salute me.
And sure enough, as the group of five - one human and four Mon Cal - military leaders came to a halt in front of him, all four of their webbed hands, plus one human hand, came up to touch their bulbous foreheads. Repressing the urge to mock them, Han saluted back. These people were their allies. If they were going to stop the threat of war from coming to the Republic once again, they would all need to work together. Inwardly, Han winced as he realized this was something that Leia had drilled into him.
"Captain Forgan?" the human asked, using the alias Han had adopted. "I'm Gyser Feld, Chief Tiv sent me to coordinate with you. I'm head of security on Mon Calamari," Feld said. He was a large man, dwarfing Han by at least half a handspan. Bald, with bushy grey eyebrows under startling orange eyes, and skin that was moistened by the high humidity on Mon Calamari.
Han pointed to Luke's lookalike. "This is Harman Amodt." His thumb jumped to the rest of the Jedi team. "Kardon Troakn," a Dresselian. "Vsal Suoal," one of the two Barabels that had accompanied Han, the other, "Sect Suoal." Han patted a large Dornaral on his hairy shoulder, "This guy's name isn't pronounceable by humans, but we call him Dorn." Feld roved intimidated eyes over the large Dornaral. The three others were human, two women and one man. "Alynn Resvi," he introduced the first woman, from his own home planet of Corellia, a dark-haired beauty with green eyes.
The other woman was a descendent of one of the survivors of the destroyed Alderaan, her skin dark, as well as her eyes and hair. Leia had often remarked that the woman reminded her of her foster father, Bail Organa, and had wondered if she had been a distant relation to the prince of Alderaan. "Athaliah Torran." And, lastly, an older Jedi, one of Luke's initial students, a redhead whose age had yet to diminish the freckles that dotted his still-boyish face. "Lant Duffin."
"We are grateful for your help in this matter," Feld said, in such a way that told Han that the Head of Security would rather have Han back on Coruscant than here.
Han didn't comment on it, but his suspicions were instantly aroused by Feld's reaction. He knew generally that military didn't like outsiders in their operation, and although the Jedi were no longer shunned by the government, it still hadn't become enamored with them, either. Still, Feld seemed more upset about Han's arrival than the fact that he had brought Jedi in.
"Why do you think that the leak is here on Mon Cal?" Han asked, as the delegation led him and his team into the relative dryness of the shelter. The irony of a leak on this water world did not escape Han.
Feld did not hesitate in his answer. "It's possible that it's not so close to home, but we have to start somewhere and branch out. All the records from all our stations are duplicated and transmitted here every standard day."
"You think we'll be able to trace any breaches in security through records?" Han asked, trying to hold back his incredulity, and not sure if he succeeded.
Feld shrugged, "It's a long shot, but at the moment it's our only hope."
To Han's way of thinking, they should have already traced any of the signs that a possible slicer might leave when hacking into the mainframe. Something was up, and it was giving Han a very bad feeling. Standard military procedure was to check all those records before a disaster like the one they were sitting in developed, that was why they were copied to Mon Calamari in the first place.
"I'd also like to work some of my team into your officers. You can explain that we're a delegation from Yosor learning the inner workings of Republic security," Han said, making it sound as though it were an order. He knew these military types: say what you want in just the right tone of voice, and they would jump like toads on a skittle.
Glancing back at Han's Jedi team, Feld asked, "Which ones?"
"Alynn, Athaliah, and Lant," Han rattled their names off without hesitation. During the trip from Coruscant to Mon Calamari Han had prepared contingency plans for any eventuality. A far cry from the smuggler who preferred a straight fight to all this sneaking around. "They'll fit well, and can be disguised as I am."
"I'll see that it is done," Feld assured him.
Until they reached the quarters Feld had prepared for the team, Han continued to toss conversation into the air. Talking about everything from the current market on squid fish to who Feld though would win the shockball tournament. Once inside the quarters, and after the team began to inspect it for listening devices, Han pulled Harmon aside. "I want you watching Feld. There's something fishy about that guy, and I don't mean the squid fish."