Chapter 19: The Force will Guide Us
Han and Harmon followed a safe distance away from Athaliah, the Alderaanian descended Jedi, who was using the Force to keep the still-unconscious Head of Security Feld upright in an imitation of walking. They had already rummaged through Feld's flight suit, and had found the keycard to his quarters. Han knew, from living with Leia, that high-ranking officials in the New Republic had full access to their office records from home offices, and a scenario was beginning to play in Han's mind.
What if this had not been the first time that Gyser Feld had been seduced by a woman seeking information? She might have even given the Head of Security what he had wanted, and then taken whatever information Lord Nefarion had sent her to gather while Feld slept. He couldn't really prove this yet, not without going into Feld's home office and inspecting the station terminal.
He exchanged a look with Harmon as Athaliah slipped the keycard into the door feed and mind-lifted Feld through the door as it spurted open. They would wait a casual amount of time before coming to the door and slipping in the duplicate keycard that Han had made, drawing on the skills of his old smuggling days. Hopefully, whoever had noticed Athaliah go in with Feld, wouldn't be paying attention at the time Harmon and Han made their entrance.
Han hid a smile as he watched Harmon study Athaliah. The two lovers thought they had everyone fooled about their relationship. Han had to admit that the rest of the Jedi team had no clue as to the deep feelings coursing between the two Jedi, the love that for some reason unknowable to Han, they hid as deeply as they felt. The aging smuggler, who was not used to reading people through some energy field that all his family could touch but remained a mystery to him, had gained a gift of his own.
Jedi tended not to relay their feelings through neither emotion nor gesture, yet living around many of them for as long as Han had, it was no surprise that he could read their thoughts and feelings in the most deadpan of expressions. Everyone betrayed themselves in different ways - a good sabacc player found these ways and exploited them, and Han had always thought of himself as more than a good player.
Looking over at the secretly worried Jedi, Han gave him a crooked smile. "It looks like we're on, Junior."
The young Jedi gave him a weird expression, his eyes pinching in the corners to scrutinize the one-time smuggler. "After you, Captain."
Morphing out of the shadows, Han and Harmon approached Feld's quarters. Han slipped the duplicate keycard in, and he and Harmon slipped through the door. Athaliah waited on the other side, her hands planted on her hips, and a mocking smile on her lips. "What were you waiting for? Boonta Eve?"
Han tossed her a sardonic look. "Funny." He jerked his head towards where he guessed Athaliah had dropped Feld off. "He still out?"
"Into another galaxy," she assured him. She motioned the one-time smuggler and the young Jedi to follow her, and led them deeper into the quarters, down a hall, and to the right. The hall brought them into a small office. "The computer terminal is already open, but I can't access the mainframe."
Inwardly Han groaned, as the three of them hunched over the computer terminal. He suddenly wished that Anakin didn't have Threepio or that Ben had left Artoo behind, someone who could jack in past the NRI security codes embedded in the system. Nor could he hotwire the terminal to do what he wished; he just hoped that a little of that Solo luck would kick in and he could fumble his way through the terminal. But that posed a problem: if he could not get past the security shield, how could anyone who hadn't the prior information?
"This is not good," he murmured, slumping into the terminal's conforming chair and sticking his fingers into his hair in frustration.
Harmon and Athaliah rested their elbows on the edge of the chair, leaning over Han. "What's that, Captain?" Harmon asked.
"This whole ruse was to prove that someone could get in under the same pretenses that Athaliah did and access the fleet's transponder codes, even download them to a datapad. That theory pretty much gets devoured in the afterburners, now that we've seen the system security mainframe," Han said.
The room went silent for a long moment, the two Jedi and Han each lost in their own thoughts, each knowing that Feld was not going to stay unconscious forever and the longer they stayed here in the open they were in the open. And Han was pretty sure that Feld would not take kindly to learning that he, the Head of Security in the NRI, had been under the scrutiny of the Jedi, especially when Han and his Jedi team had no proof as to the man's guilt, or even why they had suspected Feld in the first place. The only defense Han would have was that Feld had acted as any other bureaucrat might have, full of procedure and inefficiency.
"Captain, what if Feld knew he had screwed up," Harmon mused. "Knew that he had been duped, and wanted to cover it up? He would make sure he had the security blocks on his computer on at all times..."
"Would have taken the antidote to the hypospray in advance," came Feld's voice behind them. As one unit, Han and the two Jedi spun around to face Feld. The elderly man looked drugged and haggard, but he was definitely awake. "Oh, and I have called my security force, they should be here any minute to arrest you for breaking and entering the personal quarters of the Head of Security."
Han leaned back in the conforming chair, affecting a pose of nonchalance. "So it was you who let the transponder codes be compromised."
A sinister smile twisted the large face of the Head of Security, crooked teeth gleaming in the light of illumination banks overhead. "Come now, Captain Solo, we both know the answer to that question."
Very clever, Han thought. Feld suspected that they might have a wire on one of them, in case he uttered anything incriminating, modifying his answers to ambiguous sentences that would not have given them anything to work with- if Han had thought of wiring them with a comlink set to record.
"You understand that Jedi are not easily taken?" Harmon asked from Han's right. "We are agents of the New Republic, I think they will see that we do not act prematurely."
Oh, to be that naive, Han thought sarcastically. Harmon had that same high idealism that Luke had carried with him up until the time of his death - that eventually things all straightened themselves out, that truth, light and justice would eventually win. The thing was, Han had been infected with the same naivety.
Feld laughed mockingly, apparently he had a very different view of the way the galaxy worked. "I think you grossly underestimate the severity of your position here, Jedi Amodt. Although the Jedi may be more accepted in the galaxy than they were a decade ago, among the Senate you are highly suspicious." A busy grey eyebrow cocked on the otherwise hairless forehead. "How easy it would be for me to explain that I have found the traitors to the New Republic, and sadly, it is those who have pledged their lives to defending the galaxy." The man's face drooped into an exaggeration of regret. "A pity, really, that you'll have to spend the rest of your young lives in prison."
Han felt the two Jedi leaning over him stiffen. "Relax, kids," he uttered to them. "It's not over yet."
The pounding of booted feet marked Han's words but the sound had come to betray him. "I'm afraid it is, Captain Solo. That should be the security force to take you to your prison cell."
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The door shut quietly behind Jag as he went to join Leia's daughter at the ship. Slowly she spun on her heel to face her two adventurous grandchildren. The two of them looked up at her with wide eyes: Aunecah on a chair where she waited for her legs to be bound, and Tadeo standing next to her shifting from foot to foot in nervous empathy. The two of them together reminded her so much of her own children at their age, when they had gone off on their own little adventures, getting themselves into large amounts of trouble.
She planted hands on her hips and narrowed her brown-eyed gaze onto them, making them suffer the worry of possible punishment for their disobedience. Of course, Leia wasn't really planning anything, the fright the children had received in the forest was enough, but she hoped this little suspense would keep them from trying anything so foolish again.
On the way back to the Temple, Auni had explained that she had wanted to learn how to sense the Yuuzhan Vong in the Force like Uncle Anakin and Benny, and that she had convinced Tad to come along with her. It had been an incredibly dangerous stunt, even without the threat of the spy looming over them, and Leia's breath caught in her chest every time she pondered the fact that her grandchildren might have been kidnapped by the Temple's intruder.
"Well, I hope you two have learned your lesson?" she said, feeling that she had let them sweat it out long enough. "Now, let's look at your legs and get them taken care of."
Dropping to a crouch, Leia grasped her granddaughter's stick-like ankle in her gentle fingers, and with just as much tenderness she pushed Auni's pant leg. It was difficult, for parts of the cloth had been glued to her flesh by the blood, and Leia had to peel the clothing off slowly to keep from opening more of the scabs than necessary. Tears traced down Auni's rounded cheeks, her jaw muscles clenching as she tried not to cry out in pain. Tad held his sister's hand faithfully, his tiny fingers being crushed in Auni's grip as the girl unconsciously strengthened it as the pain increased.
At last, both the pant legs were off, and the cuts in varying depths were revealed. Leia suppressed a wince of her own as she looked at the fleshy mess Auni had made of her calves. The skin had been sliced and stripped, blood was caked on the skin, but a lot of the cuts were still oozing trickles of blood.
"Oh, Auni," Leia moaned. "How did you run like this?"
The little girls face was squinched up in pain, and it was with an effort of will that she cracked her eyes open to scrutinize her grandmother. "I just did what Uncle Luke taught us," she answered through pain-clenched teeth.
"I help," Tad said, untangling his fingers from his sister's vice-like grip and coming around the chair to gently trace the cuts on his sister's legs. As he went, the puckered skin began to form around itself, not fully closing but easing Auni's pain enough that the girl's face relaxed as the pain diminished.
"Tad," Leia gasped. "Who taught you how to do that?"
Her grandson tossed her a toothy grin. "Benny did."
Leia had thought she was past feeling surprised about the amazing feats that her children and her children's children could do. And Ben Skywalker brought out the best in each of them - he was like a conduit to their power, bringing them to ultimate fruition. Leia had seen it before, with Luke and Mara, Jaina and Jacen, and even Anakin in the short time of his return. Ben made the Force more reachable, somehow more understandable, yet the boy feared his own power.
She could hardly fault her nephew, however; his destiny had thrown him a lot no child should be called to bear, and as Leia looked at her grandson, she wondered if Tad was not bound to follow in Ben's footsteps.
Softly she caressed the baby-fat cheek. "Good job, Tad," she praised him, then pulled his hand away from his mostly-healed sister's legs. So grand a use of the Force would only tire him out more than he already was. "Now, let's get you two to bed."
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They did not make a sound, nor did they disturb the ground under their feet. These were Devotee Yuuzhan Vong warriors, warriors that had been trained to near perfection, warriors that had given the Jedi hardship at the beginning of the Yuuzhan Vong war almost two decades ago. On Devotee held worlds they had been hiding in the shadows, gathering skill and might, a force that could not be stopped if and when their Separatist brethren joined them.
There were two hundred such Yuuzhan Vong warriors under the command of Tarsvin Shraq, the Devotee Warmaster, under the charge of the Sith Lord Nefarion. Shraq's task force had come to the planet disguised under the abomination of a cloaking device, and now approached the Jedi Temple with the natural shielding the Yuuzhan Vong had for most Jedi in the Force. The only two that could possibly feel their approach were both off planet, running away from a ghost. If Solo and Skywalker only knew how perfectly they were playing into the hands of the demigod...
Shraq's task Force was connected by a new form of the tizo worm, a cross between the worm and a villip, a communication device that allowed them to be in contact at all times. Just one of the main items of biotechnology that the Devotee Yuuzhan Vong had been breeding inside the confines of their held worlds. The amphistaff clutched in his clawed hand was one of those improved inventions.
The Jedi had worked to make sure their dreaded mechanical weapons could cleave through the Yuuzhan Vong amphistaff, the Separatists even aiding them in their attempt - but now the Devotees had found a solution. The Jedi would be helpless against their might.
From the Lady Sarlana they had learned just how many real Jedi there were in the Temple at any time. It had surprised Shraq how few trained Jedi were kept inside the Temple, less than Shraq's task force, the majority of them teachers for the many children still learning their infidel ways. Still, Tarsvin Shraq had a respect for the Jedi, had been a young warrior in the Yuuzhan Vong war to claim the galaxy as theirs.
A handful of his warriors had encircled a ship lying waiting in the middle, and was waiting for his signal to move in, just as were the rest of his task force as they perched just outside of the Jedi Temple. Shraq took the moment to revel in the power the gods had bestowed him with, almost the ecstasy he received inside the embrace of pain. He sucked it in as if drinking sustenance from the air. It was a palpable essence, nearly shimmering around him as his team crouched like expectant birds of prey, waiting for their pounce.
He sensed their anticipation and found it mirrored in his own soul. The path to taking the endowment of the gods was at hand. With his clawed finger, he pressed the tizo worm in his ear, activating the sonic resonance that would rebound to the other Yuuzhan Vong biotechnology and interpret it in the ears of his team. "Advance."
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Jaina back-pedaled away from the console, her eyes refusing to believe what she had just seen. The truth that they had been so blind to, and yet had been staring them in the face since Bellalt. How deftly Lord Nefarion and his Sith Apprentice had manipulated them, manipulated Anakin. She was well aware of the feelings that her brother had begun to exhibit towards Analsa Vinn, knew that the girl was with him right now, pretending to assist him in his search for Ben.
The Solo daughter turned back to the replay holo of Lord Nefarion, his robes shrouding him in the haziness of the projection, making him appear more the wraith than Ben had described him. This man had killed her uncle, wanted to corrupt her cousin, and toyed with the emotions of her brother. It was difficult not to feel the rise of anger and hatred that came up to squeeze at her throat.
Lord Nefarion and Lady Sarlana. That's what he had called her, 'Lady Sarlana'. Jaina thought of the girl who had stormed off in a huff after Anakin's oblivious rejection of her more than obvious affection. Had Jaina misread her so terribly?
Well, no longer. Analsa Vinn was about to be exposed. Shakily, Jaina returned to the console she had figuratively run away from moments ago, her delicately boned fingers easily manipulating the standard communications operating system that had been inset into the strange Sith, ship. The Falcon's frequency code floated off of her fingers with no effort at all, she did not even have to think of the numbers. They were a part of her, as basic as instinct.
Anakin, spy identity uncovered, she sent, once it was apparent that she could not hail her brother. Don't trust... Jaina trailed off as she heard the sound of Yuuzhan Vong claws on the metallic deck of the Sith ship.
There were Yuuzhan Vong on Coruscant, of course, but seldom did they venture so close to the Jedi Temple without permission, and never did they enter property that was not their own. A coldness settled in her stomach, one that was only intensified when she realized how close the Yuuzhan Vong warrior was.
"Turn around, infidel," she heard a mewling voice behind her, and her hand immediately hovered to her lightsaber at her belt. She was about to move into action when the hiss of an amphistaff slithered into her ear. "I would not be so foolish, infidel."
Slowly, she took her hand away, raising it along with the other to parallel her head. "What clan holds your honor?" she asked, trying to make sense of this sudden attack. Infidel? How long had it been since she had been addressed as such?
With a swift hand, the Yuuzhan Vong warrior disarmed her. "I am outside your jurisdiction, Jeedai. Soon we will all be."
"You are a Devotee?" she asked, making a conscious effort not to squirm as the amphistaff came closer and closer to her ear. Ben could manipulate the things, but she could not, and she silently cursed the fact that she had not learned them before now.
"I am loyal to Yun Yuuzhan," the warrior intoned proudly. "Now, if you fear the gift of the Gods then you had better follow me."
Jaina nodded, and allowed the press of the amphistaff herd her out of the ship. As soon as she came out into the open of the forest she shivered, and it had nothing to do with the chill in the air. Encircling the Sith ship were at least a couple dozen Yuuzhan Vong, all with amphistaffs squirming in their razor-clawed hands. She had hoped to get into a wide open area and take the Yuuzhan Vong Devotee warrior, figuring that he had come alone to destroy the infidel Jeedai, but this was more than she expected, more than she feared the Jedi could handle at the moment.
This was all planned, she realized as they began to move from the ship and encompass her in what might have been a guard position for royalty but was more a cage to keep her from escape. Analsa told Nefarion that the only two Jedi who could sense the Vong were out of the Temple. An ample opportunity for the Devotees to besiege us. But how did they get here?
Jaina's mind was working on overdrive as her legs worked on instinct, taking her towards the Jedi Temple. It was obvious that Nefarion was working with the Devotees to bring the Separatists back into the good graces of their brethren, it would only make sense that Nefarion would provide the cloaking ships that the Devotees would need to land on any planet without detection. How did we not see this coming?
Even without the ability to sense the Yuuzhan Vong in the Force, save for Ben and Anakin, the Jedi should have felt the disturbance in the Force. The trouble was that the disturbance was always there, steadily increasing, until it filled the senses, and it centered on Lord Nefarion. The Jedi had grown lax in their own defense as they worried about saving the Separatist Yuuzhan Vong.
She could think of only one way to warn the Jedi of the oncoming onslaught, and hope that it didn't come too late. Jacen, I think we're in trouble.
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Leia had just gotten the kids settled when she heard a clicking sound in the hall outside of the small Solo apartment. Thinking that it might be Jag and Jaina coming back to check on the children, Leia rushed to open the door, only to find the corridor empty and dark. A bad feeling beginning to blossom in her stomach, Leia stepped into the hallway, her hand reaching to the lightsaber at her belt.
Her senses were on the alert and she managed to catch a flicker of motion before everything went dark.
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Jacen, I think we're in trouble. That was how he would have translated the terrified feeling in the Force that awakened him, as he bolted upright in the bed he shared with his wife. He caught his breath in a rush, reaching out to his sister to gather more information. What he saw through her mind's eye was even worse than he could have imagined. Yuuzhan Vong Devotees were everywhere, marked by the ritualistic scars and tattoos of their religion.
Next to him, Tahiri stirred, the large bulge of her stomach evident under the bed cover. Jacen's eyes fixed on her stomach; the only protection that their child had was Tahiri, and Jacen's vongsense was telling him that their unborn baby girl would need all the protection she could get. Grasping Tahiri's shoulder, Jacen shook her, gently but insistently. Whatever was coming, he had to get Tahiri to a safe place and warn the rest of the Jedi.
"Tahiri, wake up," he hissed at her insistently.
She moaned in her sleep. She was so close to the birthing of their baby - due any day, the Master Healers had said - and she needed her rest - the Healers had admonished her - but they had to get out of here, and fast, from what Jaina was intoning.
Her eyes fluttered open a few heartbeats later and centered on Jacen. "Love, what is it?"
"Yuuzhan Vong," he whispered, and she immediately reacted, sitting up in their bed just as quickly as Jacen had.
They had both suffered under Yuuzhan Vong captivity, their captors trying to remake each of them in the Yuuzhan Vong image. Where they had tried to physically convert Tahiri, Jacen's trial had been more of a mental one, as the hierarchy of Yuuzhan Vong hoped to bring a Jedi warrior to their side. Jacen was well aware that Tahiri still had nightmares of her torture at their hands, and had long ago struggled with the Yuuzhan Vong side of herself. It was her strength during that time that had attracted him to her in the first place.
"We've got to get out of here," he said, grabbing her hand and helping her out of bed. She cringed as her weight shifted to her swollen bare feet. He cupped her face in his hands. "Will you be alright?"
She gave him a cocky grin that only evidenced her weariness to him, and failed to dispel the fatigue in those emerald green eyes. "The Force is my ally," she answered.
Fear still clung to him - fear for her, fear for their child, but he nodded nonetheless. How had Uncle Luke ever lived through Aunt Mara's death? Just the thought of losing Tahiri caused ice to form over Jacen's heart. He could not imagine never waking up next to her again.
She placed her hands over his and gently pulled them from her face, squeezing them. "What's going on?"
He shook his head, knowing that she had caught his fear for her in his eyes and essence. "I'm not sure, but Devotees are surrounding the Temple," he answered her. He shuddered with a sigh. "They may even be in the Temple."
Spasmodically, her grip tightened on his hands, before one of hers came to rest on her pregnant belly. "The baby..." her voice trailed off as her thoughts turned to the worries that neither of them could have pondered.
He locked her gaze into his. "Will never be in the hands of the Devotees. I promise you this, Tahiri. Remember what Ben told you. She'll be safe."
With an effort of will, she nodded. That's when they began to hear the chaos raging in the lower levels of the Temple. Tiny disturbances cut into the Force, lancing it with each death of their fellow Jedi. Holding her in one hand, and his lightsaber in the other, Jacen pulled her towards the door.
"We've got to go now, before they reach our level," he gasped.
Tahiri pulled him back for a moment. "Where will we go?"
Jacen kissed her quickly, reassuringly. "We'll let the Force guide us."