Author's Note: This one was very fun to write! I think it's endearing and shows Jana's character more so than the others. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: Jana's my child but nothing else from Star Wars is. :(
Jana woke up in her quarters an hour earlier than when the ship was scheduled to reach the Abregado system. Since they weren't quite sure how close or far they would be in relation to Grievous and his ship once coming out of hyperspace, everyone needed to be ready early on. High alert from here on out.
Although she didn't know how she was going to be of much help in this phase of the mission, she still prepared as if she were going to a typical grounded battle. She redid her buns, as they had become messy during her sleep, and tidied her braid. It was then that her hologram receiver started beeping. I wasn't expecting a call... And Master Plo Koon is on this ship. She turned with slight puzzlement to it and accepted the message.
An image of Anakin's Padawan appeared. Oh Mustafar, what's wrong now? Jana wondered if something had gone wrong on their rescue. But upon further inspection Ahsoka seemed calm and collected. Jana tilted her head in confusion.
"Sorry to call you without any warning, Jana. I asked my Master about meditation, and since he's so busy talking to Rex while we're sitting in the Bith system doing nothing, he redirected me to you." She said with layers of sass, just like Anakin would when he used to call Jana during some of his training with Obi-Wan. Jana couldn't help but crack a smile at that and nodded for her to ask the question.
"Sometimes, especially on ships, I have trouble clearing my head when trying to meditate. Master Plo Koon taught me a grounding technique, but it doesn't quite do the trick while in motion in space." She explained her problem. Ah, a common problem.
"Very common, Ahsoka." She first comforted. "Challenge: think of nothing. No colors or sounds or anything." Jana answered. Ahsoka hummed in thought for a minute before seeming to grasp the concept somewhat.
"I... think I understand. Thank you, Jana. You know how Skyguy can be." Jana chuckled at this and smiled as if to say Anytime. "I hope to see you soon- good luck on your mission. May the Force be with you." Jana bowed her head in the same and ended the call. She's on the right track by prioritizing her connection with the Force. I'll have to smack Anakin upside the head when he returns for not guiding her well, though.
With that concluded she hurried to the bridge- walking in, it was like no time had passed since she had last been in. Every station was still manned, and her master, the pilot, as well as Commander Wolffe were talking about a plan of action. What? Am I late or something?
"Ah, Jana. You seem well rested." Master Plo Koon welcomed to which she nodded. "Good. The next part of this mission will be daunting."
"We can take it, General. We have the element of surprise if it is in this system, and we have some of the newest tech the Republic has discovered." Commander Wolffe said as if resuming an argument, which Jana assumed he was.
"I understand, Commander, but so was the last cruiser that fell victim to The Malevolence. And there's a chance this isn't going to come as a surprise. Grievous is too smart to not expect Jedi to come after him eventually, that is if it is him heading the weapon." Plo Koon defended. In hindsight this wasn't a great set up for a mission. They should have sent us in bigger groups.
"We could call for reinforcements, possibly." The pilot suggested.
"From who? We have no idea who's out there, and it may be too late by the time we get there." Commander Wolffe nearly growled. Jana thought back to her call with Ahsoka a few minutes beforehand. While we're sitting in the Bith system doing nothing... She hummed aloud in thought.
"What is it, Padawan?" Master Plo Koon asked upon noticing her pondering.
"I took a call with General Skywalker's apprentice this morning." She cleared her throat to get rid of some of the raspiness. "They're unengaged in the Bith system." Plo Koon hummed in thought as well at the revelation.
"The Bith system is quite close- this may be a good chance to call for reinforcements." The pilot reiterated his point from before.
"Aid from Master Skywalker would be quite helpful, General Plo Koon." Commander Wolffe finally agreed.
"Then it is decided. The moment our scanners run the system we will contact General Skywalker and request support." Plo Koon decided. Jana was pleased with this and stared at the map ahead of them.
After the decision they began to analyze what they knew about the Malevolence. To Jana's disappointment it wasn't much, meaning their plan of attack wouldn't be solid or reliable at all. The Jedi Council was very reckless assigning this mission, though I understand why they responded with haste. Before they knew it their crew informed them they were minutes to pulling into the Abregado system. Everyone jumped into action, bracing for what possibly may come.
"Wolffe, I want all your men at stations and prepared to move into offensive positions. Sound the alarms immediately." Plo Koon ordered with such authority that Jana felt a bit of awe overcome her. "Be prepared to run the scanners. He could be anywhere from right in front of us to paces away." He reminded the crew and turned to Jana. "I need you to relay our coordinates to Coruscant when we pull out of hyperspace. If your senses prove true and we fail by some chance, we need the Council to know where we are if we want a chance at surviving. I will be contacting General Skywalker. Be prepared, and may the Force be with you." The way he said it didn't give Jana a good feeling about what was to come.
"And with you, Master." She moved to a communicator in a different room, sliding on the slick floor from moving so fast. She hastily contacted the Jedi, adrenaline pushing through her veins already. An image of Obi-Wan, Mace Windu, and Yoda appeared.
"What is it, Padawan?" Mace Windu inquired.
"We believe we have discovered the whereabouts of the Male-" She heard yelling across the way while she went into a coughing fit.
"Sir! It's the Malevolence. She's just ahead." A clone voice yelled. Blazes, we're short on time.
"Padawan?" Obi-Wan looked at her in concern.
"We're engaging with The Malevolence. I'm transmitting our coordinates now." She punched in their location and confirmed they had received it with exchanged nods.
"Padawan, should we be-" A hit to the ship shook the entire bridge and threw Jana roughly to the floor. She groaned momentarily and forced herself back up, a trickle of blood falling from the crown of her head.
"I must go." She ended the transmission and slid back onto the main part of the bridge. An image of Anakin and his Padawan appeared in front of Plo Koon. The alarms were blaring in Jana's ears.
"I'm sorry, Master Plo Koon, but I'm on direct orders to not leave this station at the Bith system." Anakin seemed irritated at the fact. His eyes met with Jana's, and she didn't fight to let the bad news settle in her eyes for him to read.
"I'm not sure how much longer we can take this kind of fire, sir. They're charging some other type of weapon, and it doesn't look good!" A clone shouted.
"Escape pods. Now." Jana told her master. He seemed taken aback that she was so demanding, but he understood the circumstances just as well as she.
"Master Plo Koon? What-" The communication cut off Anakin's words as his image disappeared. Comets, we're jammed.
"Everyone to escape pods! Abandon ship!" Plo Koon shouted. The whole bridge raced out toward the escape pods where soldiers from either sides were pouring in. During the run, Jana sprinted and accidentally bumped into a clone.
"Commander! Fancy seeing you here." Blank joked, taking off his helmet so she could see his signature hair.
"Come on, man! How can you joke like that at a time like this?" Blades chastised the twisted humor a he and Chess followed suit. Jana looked up from the conversation to find herself somewhere far behind Plo Koon. Blast! She struggled to watch between soldiers as her master boarded with Commander Wolffe and two other clones that were shoved in the pod roughly.
"Jana! Come on!" Plo Koon yelled to her, but his pod already looked crammed, and to her left Blades, Blank, and Chess couldn't get their pod door to close.
"Close the door, Chess!" Blank screamed.
"I'm trying, man, I'm trying! It won't!" The men looked like they were about to accept their fates. Just like that, they were going allow themselves to die. Jana couldn't accept that.
In a split second Jana had to make her decision, and she did. She glanced apologetically at Master Plo Koon. With all good intentions she force closed her master's pod's door and dove into the other pod, forcing their door closed as well.
"Go, go, go!" She yelled to her throat's dismay.
"Yes ma'am!" Chess deployed the pod frantically. They had escaped and were on their way, but that's when the ion cannons were fired. The power went out in all pods.
"Blazes! What's happening out here?" Blades yelled in fear. Fear. She could sense it everywhere around her. Jana felt she herself held more than just concern at the situation as the fear tried to overwhelm her, but she stopped her illogical emotions there. If she panicked, they would as well. And there's no way Anakin will follow the Council's orders, anyways. Jana breathed calmly, trying to force her adrenaline to slow. Good, I'm gaining a touch of control of the situation. Of course, right on time, that's when their ship was destroyed, and debris went spiraling all around them. Once again, the alarms went off, but this time just inside each of their heads.
"If that stuff hits the windows, we're goners!" Blank yelled, and the other soldiers grunted loudly in agreement. Jana sent the three Clones glares that shut them up rather quickly.
"Calm! Down!" She croaked out and focused on the space around their pod. Using the force in space felt odd to her, weakened almost. But she did her best in pushing the debris away from them. After a few minutes of hell, everything froze, cold and floating.
"Amazing, Commander." Blank breathed. Jana collapsed in the side of the pod. Her breathing was heavy. Everything had gone from zero to a hundred in such a short amount of time.
"Well, what do we do now?" Chess asked the Commander. She rubbed the bridge of her nose.
"Wait for Skywalker. Pray the Pod hunters away." I need to find Plo Koon. Force, this was a bad mission. What in the galaxies were they thinking sending us on this with such a small fleet? Blast.
"The pod hunters, ma'am?" Blades asked. They didn't tell them? Jana looked at them with surprise.
"I don't think we want to know, Blades." Chess said with a crest fallen face. Jana sighed. What a ruddy mission. The Commander rubbed her face in frustration. I need to find Master Plo, but I don't have nearly enough energy or focus right now.
"Anything we can do to help, Commander Kinall?" Blades asked the young girl. He picked up on how much stress and pressure she was under.
"Try and see if anything runs." She directed. Chess got to work on the panels in hopes of anything turning on- maybe they could send a distress signal. But nothing was working. The blonde coughed into her elbow hard, blood splattering slightly. Of course, just my luck.
"You've used your voice an awful lot today. I'm sure it hurts." Blades tried to comfort. Jana nodded at his words and rolled her head around. She needed to open her mind, rest or not- maybe Master Plo was trying to contact her.
At that point the men were arguing with one another about how to hot wire the panel- issue being there was not a spark that could get anything to wire.
"Gentlemen." She said sharply but lightly in attempts to not harm her throat anymore than necessary. The three clones looked to her. "Meditation." They looked at her with skeptical faces but stopped what they had been doing.
"Relax. Close your eyes." She whispered. The Clones looked oddly at one another but followed orders. "Think of nothing." Blank let out a bit of a snigger that made Blades hit him in the chest lightly. The boys stopped fighting after noticing the level of concentration Jana was putting into the session and joined her.
Having the boys quiet helped Jana immensely. Many distractions ran through her mind, but she was swift to push them out. She was on a time crunch. Finally somewhat focused, she reached out around her.
The initial senses hurt her heart and spirit- so much pain and loss. It was just like her session from in the ship the day prior, but all the more real. She could feel the purple. And it hurt her. Pushing through she searched for white or yellow. Typically yellow would signify another Jedi presence. Her angry elevens appeared as she pushed farther out.
A few hundred feet away Master Plo Koon felt a conscience brush his. He was hopeful it was Jana, though he proceeded with caution in case it was a trick of the dark side.
Jana felt her master's yellow appear, warm and familiar. She wanted to sigh in relief but knew if she broke concentration now she would lose contact until they were killed or rescued. She hoped it was the latter.
Master Plo Koon sensed his apprentice's stress when their connections melded, and he knew she was reaching out to him on borrowed time. The pain and suffering that surrounded them was immense. He also knew that the other pods were already being hunted and the Clones in them killed, forcing brothers to watch brothers die. The Clones' emotions never escaped the Jedi whether they said so or not. Luckily with his more matured force in a smaller range he could feel where she was and forced the pods to face each other. They weren't close, separated by pieces of debris, but they could see each other at the least.
The moment Jana heard Blank say they could see Commander Wolffe and his pod Jana disengaged. Her head pounded slightly, but she was glad she had been able to reach her master for the temporary time.
Across from them were Commander Wolffe, Master Plo Koon, and two clones under the names of Sinker and Boost. Jana's pod let out sighs of relief and waved at them. Both were attempting to fix their pods to no avail.
"I don't know what kinda meditation you were doing, Commander, but I sure am glad you did it." Chess said, making Jana smile proudly.
"There's gotta be more survivors out there." Blades muttered, crawling to where Jana sat by the window to look around. "There! Look! Another pod!" Jana turned to where he pointed and saw the pod, but a bad feeling stirred in her gut. What she had heard in meditation didn't sound or feel like happy survivors. Nevertheless she gestured to her master to point out the pod, and he turned it around. Inside were dead clones, the top of the window having been shattered.
"Blast it! The hunters are here." Jana began feeling adrenaline again. Every time we calm down we spiral back up again. Blazes! I want a break.
"What are they looking at?" Blades asked, referring to Plo Koon's pod. Inside Commander Wolffe aggressively pointed to something behind Jana's pod. A cruel feeling in her gut told Jana it was nothing good.
"Don't freak out, but I'm pretty sure it's the pod hunters." Jana said quietly.
"Don't freak out?! We'll suffocate out there." Blank yelled. The boys started fighting again, but Jana just looked to her master for direction. There was nothing anyone could do.
Plo Koon was trying to think quickly. He hoped Anakin was on his way to aid them- funny how he suddenly hoped the General would keep disobeying orders. Jana could possibly force push the droids away, but only for so long. In space the Force could feel odd, and he assumed she felt unaccustomed to it. In the end they could only stall the inevitable. He watched as he assumed his Padawan instructed the clones to put their helmets on and looked back to him. He couldn't think of directions to give this quickly in this tight of a situation.
"General, we could possibly go outside to help them. That is, if you could push us over there." Commander Wolffe said. Plo Koon pondered this suggestion. The men in Jana's cabin may survive if Jana killed the droids, but Jana had no helmet. She would suffocate, and Plo Koon knew she would not hesitate to make that sacrifice.
"Commander Kinall, has Plo Koon talked to you in your brain or anything with the Force?" Blank asked.
"I don't think that's how the Force works, Blank." Blades deadpanned. Jana inhaled deeply.
"Plan." She obtained their attention with that singular word. "Once they get to us I'll take care of the droids. Since you guys have helmets you'll be fine." She briefed. It wasn't a good plan, but it was a plan. "I can put them off with the Force for a bit." She added.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Commander. You're human." Chess said, and Jana nodded with a duh look on her face. "You'll suffocate." Jana hesitated before nodding.
"Alright, then that's not the plan. Let's get a new plan." Blades said.
"We could handle the droids, or you could take one of our helmets." Blank suggested, and Jana shook her head vigorously. Not to be rude, but they'd probably shatter the glass instantly with their blaster shots, and it'll be easier to keep people inside if the top is popped open rather than missing an entire front window.
"Not fair." She said simply and coughed again.
"Take it easy, Commander, but no soldier gets left behind. We can't just let you die knowingly." Blades argued.
"It's an order." Jana insisted. The clones sighed at her persistence, but they didn't get much longer to argue as the pod hunter arrived. Blast it! She mentally cursed.
"Oh bloody blazes! That's a pod hunter?!" Blank yelled out.
As it began to attach, Master Plo Koon disappeared from her sight. Jana felt a bit of fear try to bubble up, but she shoved it down. A Jedi does not fear death.
"Commander! Take my helmet." Blades began taking his helmet off, but Jana shoved it back on him.
"Keep that cursed thing on, bucket head. I told you your orders." She rasped out. Her focus turned back to the task at hand. She drew her shoto blade but didn't ignite it and positioned herself pressed up against the center of the window. She wouldn't have much time once it was popped open, but she could kill the droids before losing air and probably imploding. Her heart rate crept up, but she was determined. Behind her the men kept trying to convince her of a new course of action. The first time the clamps tried to pull the pod open she used the Force to pull it back. She yelled out as she felt the weight of it in her mind.
"Come on!" She yelled and kept pulling. She knew she was running out of time. Her blade was already tilted up and in front of her, ready to ignite. May the Force be with us.
Suddenly a different saber sliced through the droids. Jana looked up gratefully to see her master and his soldiers destroying the pod hunters. She didn't know how they had gotten over there, but she knew she and her men were alive. She just hoped Master Plo and his own men would be, too. Now that the droids will fail to report in, Grievous will be back to kill us. Unless- Right as Plo Koon began struggling to keep his men with him due to space, Anakin and Ahsoka appeared in their ship. Quickly, Plo Koon and his men entered the ship and Jana's pod was taken into the cargo area. Jana let out a sigh of relief yet again while her men cheered.
"Commander! We did it." Blades smiled at her after they got out of the pod. With the relief of the successful rescue Commander Wolffe had the clones regroup and greet one another. On the other side of the room Master Plo Koon approached Jana.
"Well done, Young One. Although it was very noble of you to prepare for death for those clones, I am grateful you made it out alive." Jana dipped her head.
"Thank you, Master." She coughed heavily after that with blood on her lips, and Ashoka rushed to her side.
"Jana! Come on. I can get you to the med bay. We'll treat it however we can and get you some tea." Ahsoka assured her and helped her new friend along. Master Plo Koon smiled at his apprentice as well as the small girl he had found not so long ago. He knew good things, though difficult, laid ahead for them.