Ancient ice, shattered to gleaming particles, drifted through the vacuum and shone white in the light of distant stars. A narrow channel of open space cut through the ice, creating the lone passable route by which a ship could slip through the Hapan Spine to the isolated world of Shedu Maad. Like the rest of the Transitory Mists that cloaked Hapan space from the rest of the galaxy and made tangled labyrinths of its interior transit routes, the ice-clouds were countless millennia old, and the channel between them had passed nearly all that time unnoticed by human navi-gators, free to continue its peaceful timeless passage through the cosmos.
It had certainly never seen a moment like this, not in all its millennia.
The attacking fleet still hovered outside the channel's choke point, as though still undecided whether to push through toward its target: Uroro Station, where a hand-ful of Jedi Knights had gathered to act as bait for the combined Alliance/Imperial fleet to distract it from the real Jedi hideaway on Shedu Maad. If the enemy were willing to cross the pass it was certain they could: at the head of the formation was the black-hulled Imperial-class star destroyer Anakin Solo, personal command ship of the Galactic Alliance's Chief of State. Right on its shoulder, nearly twelve times as long, was the pale sword-shaped Vengeance-class super star destroyer Megador, largest vessel in the Imperial Remnant navy and mightiest serving warship in the entire galaxy. Behind Megador and Anakin Solo, waiting like scavenger birds, were another half-dozen wedge-shaped star destroyers captained by power-hungry Imperial Moffs eager to claim some credit for the slaughter.
As she stood on the deck of her command ship, the Dragon Queen, Queen Mother Tenel Ka thought how sadly appropriate it was that nearly all the warships coming to attack the hidden Jedi base were from the Imperial Navy. That the sole exception was the Anakin Solo, commanded by a man who'd willingly remade himself in the image of his grandfather Darth Vader, made it even worse.
That Tenel Ka had once loved that man more than anything in the galaxy made the scene more awful than words could describe.
On the other end of the passage that had come to be called the Throat, the double-disc shape of the Dragon Queen sat paired with the Deserving Gem, two defenders to Uroro Station that would sweeten the bait while the rest of the Hapan Home Fleet waited in the icy gasses of the Throat to spring their ambush. Tenel Ka had brought every ship she could to defend the Jedi base from the man who'd once been Jacen Solo, but so far the enemy fleet seemed content to sit at the far side of the Throat, waiting.
Tenel Ka closed her eyes and allowed herself to reach out with the Force across the gap. She didn't search for the man who called himself Darth Caedus; she couldn't bear to, and had been trying so hard to block every memory of him she'd ever had, knowing she'd fail. Instead, she tried to find her father in the Force. Her father was no Jedi, but sometimes, when he was close enough, she could sense his unique presence nonethe-less.
When her cousins had brought the news that Prince Isolder's ship had been intercepted and captured by the Anakin Solo, Tenel Ka's first reaction had been a desperate disbelief, almost a prayer, that Caedus would not kill her father. After watching him burn Kashyyyk and kidnap their own child she knew he was capable of anything, but she prayed that he was at least still sane enough to know the value of a hostage.
With her eyes closed, she took in a deep breath, then breathed out. In and out, as she'd learned at the Jedi Academy on Yavin 4 so long ago. With Jacen.
In and out. She sensed a dim but familiar presence, anxious but not, it seemed, in pain. Her father was not Force-sensitive so even if she tried to touch him he couldn't touch her back. Still, she found some comfort in his presence, as distant as it was.
It meant their plan still had a chance of working.
A voice behind her asked, "My Queen, are you all right?"
Tenel Ka opened her eyes and looked over her shoulder. The commander of the Hapan Fleet, Lenola Baas, was a tall black-haired woman who managed to look glamorous even in her gray admiral's uniform. Her blue eyes narrowed in concern as she asked, "Your Majesty, is something wrong?"
"No," Tenel Ka said. "I only sensed my father is still alive."
There was a long history of animosity toward Jedi in Hapes, but best Tenel Ka could see, Admiral Baas was not put off by her mention of the Force. The admiral instead gave a curt nod and said, "Then the plan still stands a small chance of success."
Baas was not a woman to surgarcoat things. Tenel Ka didn't mind at all. The Home Fleet could never match Megador and five star destroyers in a pitched fight, but the hope was to act as a lure so that the Jedi in their StealthX fighters could ambush and board Anakin Solo, freeing Isolder and killing Jacen.
No, she told herself. Darth Caedus was what he called himself now. She had to keep telling herself that, even after all he'd done. It was the only way to keep from going mad. The Jacen she'd loved, the Jacen she'd had a child with, was already dead.
She had a feeling she'd spend the rest of her life telling herself that, and still not believe it.
There was a call from the other side of the bridge. Admiral Baas's dark brows drew together as she announced, "The Jedi have begun to move."
Tenel Ka greeted the news with a nod. Clearly, they hoped to end the enemy's indecision and draw them into the ambush. Though it was impossible to see with her naked eyes, she could sense them in the Force: Master Skywalker, Lowbacca, Kyp and Corran and all the other Jedi she'd known for more than half her life.
Jaina and Zekk were at the forefront, flying wing-to-wing into Caedus' maw.
"The Jedi are engaging Anakin Solo's fighter screen," an officer reported. "The Wookiee fighters are moving in as well."
"Megador is still holding position," another reported.
At the far end of the Throat, Tenel Ka saw tiny flashes of light. She opened herself further to the Force, to everyone except Jacen, dreading the loss of yet another person dear to her yet, deep down, already half-resigned to it.
The battle continued and the loss didn't come, but she knew it would. It was only a matter of time.
-{}-
Zekk swore as he bent low inside the cockpit of his StealthX, trying to bring his navigational computer back online. After too-long minutes of fierce fighting, he and Jaina had cut power to their engines and allowed their battered black fighters to drift through space while the battle still raged around Anakin Solo beneath them. On the far side of Jacen's star destroyer, the giant Megador began to open fire with its long-rage batteries and batter the Hapan fleet at the far side of the Throat.
He crossed one more set of wires and the green light of his navicomp came back online. He checked to see whether power had come back to his comm systems, but there was no such luck. He hadn't expected it to come back either; his fighter had taken so much damage already it was a miracle the engines still worked. Hardly anything else did; three of his four wingtip laser cannons had been torn up and life support was gone, leaving him to breathe through the sealed respiration system of his vac suit.
But the engines still worked, and he still had two shadow bombs left in his launch tubes. That was all he needed.
He looked out his cockpit to see Jaina's ship drifting alongside him. He could barely make out the shape of her helmet, seemingly unmoving. He gave her a nudge with the Force and she looked in his direction. He threw her a simple thumbs-up signal, denoting he was ready for an attack run.
Jaina returned it. He felt her reach out with the Force to touch him again, to hold on to him, to share a little bit of his senses as they both carefully warmed their engines back up again and prepared for an attack run on Anakin Solo's bridge.
Even as combat flared around them he couldn't stop himself from thinking of the time when Jaina's touch had meant so much more. It had been five years since their experience with the Killiks, when as Joiners they'd found themselves sharing thought and physical sensation in a way even Jedi rarely accomplished. He'd been shocked by how reluctant he was to let go of that link; during the Yuuzhan Vong War he'd let Jaina drift away from him, or maybe he'd drifted away from her, but when they'd found themselves working together again he'd found all his old feelings from their teenage years come alive again. It had made him feel alive in a way that he hadn't thought possible after the Vong War had beaten so much out of him, out of everyone.
But even as he'd pressed for her affections he'd known, deep down, that she hadn't shared them in a long, long time. He'd finally gotten himself to accept that fact while Jaina had been away, training on Mandalore for the grim, awful purpose of hunting down and killing her own brother. There were a few times before her return when he'd honestly thought he might not ever see her again, and the possibility had filled him with relief.
He felt something like a soft slap in the Force. Jaina had felt a bit of his wandering thoughts and was trying to tell him this wasn't the time.
She was damned right about that.
He sent her a let's do this through the Force and started up his engines.
The two fighters plunged down toward the black wedge of Jacen's star destroyer. The gunners were so busy trying to find off the other Jedi and Wookiee fighters that were swarming over its hull that they didn't notice the two matte-black X-wings falling onto their command tower.
The targeting system on Zekk's fighter was also down, but that didn't matter. He wasn't going to use it anyway, not for this. The torpedoes in his tubes had had their propulsion systems stripped out and replaced with additional charges. Using the Force to throw projectiles, robbing enemy targeting computers of thrust-trails to track, was a trick they'd picked up in the Yuuzhan Vong War, but Zekk had long ago lost com-punction about using them in this conflict too.
He sent Jaina another nudge in the Force, telling her to fire on the spherical shield projector to the right of Anakin Solo's bridge tower. They cut their engines and let inertia glide them across the destroyer's hull, right toward the tower. The shield projector loomed so close it almost filled Zekk's view.
Now, Jaina sent. Now now now now now!
In one instant, Zekk fired his engines up against and pulled the trigger on his control stick. His last two torps were ejected from the fighter's nose, and even as he soared upward in a steep climb he grabbed them both with the Force and hurled them against the command tower's shields.
He couldn't tell if his torpedoes hit the target first or Jaina's, but it didn't really matter. The explosion ripped through the shields and exploded the generators, spilling mechanical entrails into space and sending a shuddering collapse rippling through the rest of Anakin Solo's defensive systems.
Before Zekk could send out a declaration of triumph through the Force, something clipped his bottom-port S-foil and sent him spinning.
Zekk swore and tried to wrestle his ship back under control. That was when his engines finally burst.
Starlight and explosions and laserfire and gnarled debris swirled on all sides. His hand found the ejection lever beneath his seat and he pulled it.
His pock-marked cockpit windshield burst overhead. Zekk fell out into endless space, spinning so fast he lost all sense of direction. He called on the Force to slow his spin, to stabilize himself, until he finally could make sense of what lay beyond his breath-fogged vac suit goggles.
He saw Anakin Solo ringed by debris, much of it from the destroyer itself. He saw Megador's pale sword spearing lasers blasts toward the Hapan fleet. He saw the vast spread of ice sparkling particles that boxed them all into this narrow desolate piece of space. He seemed to be falling toward them.
Then something hard slammed into him and he saw nothing, felt nothing, knew nothing at all.
-{}-
The assault shuttle shuddered as it entered the friction of Shedu Maad's upper atmosphere, jarring Tahiri Veila in her crash webbing and knocking her black plasteel armor shoulder-plates with the white ones of the stormtroopers who were jammed into this craft with her. Not for the first time since climbing into this boat, she tried to figure out how she'd gotten here.
Causality seemed a simple enough chain. An hour before she'd been in a StealthX fighter over Shedu Maad, scanning for signs of Jedi or Hapan activity. An hour before that, she'd been getting her orders to scout this place by Darth Caedus, or Jacen Solo, or whatever he was or had become. And further back the causation chain went, all trailing back from this current moment, where she stood prepared to help a bunch of Imperial stormtroopers slaughter the Jedi she'd known almost all her life.
But no, she wasn't prepared. Ever since she'd apprenticed herself to Caedus, or Jacen, whatever he'd been when he started taking her on flow-walking trips back to see Anakin again, she'd been suspicious of his motives and unsure what path to take. When he'd started asking her to betray the Jedi Order- the only real family she'd had since leaving her Tusken clan as a small child- she'd found ways to justify it.
It had been sickeningly easy. The galaxy was in chaos and needed order. Someone had to keep the Alliance from fracturing and Luke Skywalker was too broken-up by his wife's assassination to hold things together. Sometimes hard decisions had to be made and awful responsibility had to shouldered for the good of others. Moralizing was a luxury a soldier couldn't afford.
Maybe that was what Caedus told himself. She didn't even know anymore, because beneath all those ration-alizations had been the simple desperate need to see Anakin again, to give him the kiss she'd promised at Myrkr and never been able to give. To pretend she could undo half her life.
And Caedus had used that need to turn her into his creature, which was why, on his orders, she was on this attack shuttle right now, preparing to take the final step and betray everything and everyone she'd believed in.
Tahiri felt like she was about to throw up.
From the cockpit the pilot announced, "Hitting lower atmo. Prepare for landing cycle."
Tahiri glanced at all the faceless white masks around her. Men like these had slaughtered hundreds of Jedi before she was born, and now she would help them again. Help them against her friends. She didn't know why she'd ever been stupid or desperate or addicted enough to find this anything other than horrifying. She wanted to vomit in her lap. She wanted to push open the airlock and leap and fall and splatter into the jungle bellow.
But none of that would happen. Her stomach jumped into her chest as the shuttle's repulsors kicked in, arresting its fall. There was one last heavy shudder as they set down on the ground.
"Landing zone secure," the pilot announced. "Stand by for deployment."
The stormtroopers began unbuckling their crash webbing. They stood up from their couches and gave their kits one more look-over, checking their rifles and blaster pistols and stun grenades. Tahiri rose on shaky legs and took the lightsaber off her belt.
When she looked up they had all turned to her. Over a dozen faceless white masks stared at her with mirror-black visors, awaiting orders.
She looked at the squad sergeant standing next to her. She saw her reflection in his visor: a small woman in black combat armor, blond hair tied tightly at the back of her neck, face pale and sallow, green eyes sunken. The three scars on her forehead, left behind by a Yuuzhan Vong shaper more than half a life ago, stood out like an accusation. She remembered the vision Anakin had once had of what she'd have been if she'd been successfully created into a Yuuzhan Vong/Jedi hybrid as the mad shaper Meezhan Kwaad had intended. In Anakin's vision she'd been the worst of both cultures, a barbaric, sadistic dark Jedi who destroyed everything she touched.
His dream had come true after all.
The realization shook her. Her knees went weak. The sergeant grabbed her shoulder and asked, "Colonel Veila, are you all right?"
No. She was nothing close to all right and never would be again.
But she swallowed and said, "Yes, I'm fine."
"What are your orders?"
There was only one order she could give. There was only one possibility she'd left herself after selling herself to Caedus in an act of contemptible weakness.
She thumbed her lightsaber into ignition and said, "Follow my lead."
-{}-
Tenel Ka had trained all her life to be a Dathomiri warrior like her mother, a woman who wore the skins of animals are fought with kicks and elbows, spear-thrusts and adrenaline and sweat. That made it all the more frustrating now to be aboard Dragon Queen, watching as the battle continued on. The Jedi and Wookiee starfighter attacks had badly crippled Anakin Solo, but the Jedi had in turn been badly battered in the fight. From the reports relayed to her bridge, the Jedi said that they'd been unable to launch their planned boarding parties to rescue Isolder.
Her father wasn't yet dead. She believed, knew, that she'd feel that death in the Force. Yet the reports also said that Zekk, her friend since their days as teenagers at the Jedi Academy, had gone missing in action, and she hadn't felt that at all.
The reports also said Jaina had boarded Anakin Solo and was hunting her brother right now.
Tenel Ka yearned to be out there, helping them in some way, but instead she remained on Dragon Queen with Admiral Baas, watching as the Imperials finally began to send their star destroyers down the Throat. Several other double-disc battle dragon warships moved out from the ice fields to engage the first two star destroyers through the choke-point, while a few sleek Nova cruisers slipped ahead and began launching Miy'til fighters and bombers to counter the initial wave of TIE Interceptors and Scimitar bombers. The Jedi fighters, meanwhile, had been forced to pull back to defend Uroro Station from Megador, though how Master Skywalker's StealthX fighters could hold off that behemoth, Tenel Ka had no idea.
As she watched from the command deck's forward viewport, the foremost Battle Dragon unleashed a wave of concussion missiles that bombarded the lead star destroyer on its port side while a Nova cruiser and its Miy'til bombers tried to squeeze the ship from the starboard. The enemy was close enough now that she could see its shields shudder under so many explosions and finally die, leaving its hull exposed to continued warhead barrages that began to chew up its nose like a swarm of hungry piranha beetles.
The crew of the royal flagship was too professional to start cheering, but Tenel Ka could feel newfound confidence radiate off everyone through the Force. That confidence suddenly evaporated when, less than a minute later, the Nova cruiser was snapped in two by a double-wave of concussion missiles launched from a group of Scimitar bombers. The bombers and TIEs continued to pummel the broken halves of the cruiser and Tenel Ka knew Hapan sailors were dying by the hundreds, in hot fire or freezing space.
Then it hit her.
Tenel Ka's knees went weak beneath her. It was impossible to draw breath. She nearly fell onto the deck, in front of all her subjects, when Admiral Baas hooked her arm around Tenel Ka's and sharply drew her upright.
In a hushed voice she asked, "Your Majesty, what has happened?"
For a moment it seemed like she couldn't speak, that a black hole had opened inside her and was sucking her entire being into nothing. Then she found the breath somewhere and rasped, "My father. My father is dead."
Against the black hole left by her own grief she felt Baas' hot anger. "They will pay for the death of the Prince. They will pay dearly."
Tenel Ka barely heard. She didn't know if Jacen himself had killed her father, but she couldn't disbelieve it. For him it would have been one more crime, one more murder, just like his aunt and so many others, done without hesitation or regret.
It would have been one more way he'd found to hurt her. Even kidnapping their child had not been as awful as this.
Allana.
She straighted. "I must go to my daughter. Admiral, the battle is yours."
"Of course, Your Majesty. Guards!"
Two of Tenel Ka's bodyguards appeared at her side and began escorting her to the chamber where they'd kept Allana. Even knowing Dragon Queen would be heading into terrible battle, Tenel Ka hadn't hesitated to bring her daughter aboard. There was no other place the girl would be safe; between Jacen, the scheming nobles on Hapes, and now their new Imperial enemies, the girl had threats on all sides and Tenel Ka knew she'd never have peace of mind unless Allana was close by.
She had no idea if Allana had felt her grandfather's death in the Force. If she had, Tenel Ka knew there was no way she could spare her daughter that pain.
Her guards led her into a bed-chamber as well appointed as anything in the Fountain Palace. She found Allana there, sitting on the plush mattress with her bare feet dangling over the edge. Almost six years old now, she was starting to thin out and stretch out, leaving the last bits of the little girl she'd been behind, but she was still clasping it in her lap: the plush tauntaun doll that Jacen had brought her as a gift one year ago.
Tenel Ka stopped in the doorway. Allana looked up at her mother and asked innocently, "Mama, what's wrong?"
"Leave us," Tenel Ka rasped to her guards. They obeyed without question, leaving Tenel Ka alone in the room with her daughter.
"Mama, I feel… cold." Allana hugged the tauntaun toy tighter. "I don't know why. Did something happen, Mama?"
Tenel Ka lowered herself onto the bed and wrapped her one arm around Allana's shoulders, holding the child tight against her breast.
"Mama!" the girl sounded alarmed, muffled as her voice was in Tenel Ka's clothes. "What's wrong?"
She rested her cheek against the red crown of Allana's head. "It's your grandfather, Allana. He's dead."
Allana didn't say anything, didn't cry, didn't even shake. She just clawed her little hands into Tenel Ka's clothes and pressed her face a little harder against her chest.
As she clung to her daughter and her daughter clung to her Tenel Ka's mind staggered, trying to make sense of it all, trying to reconcile the earnest teenage boy the the brandybrown eyes and messy hair and animal collection and stupid jokes with the monster who'd kidnapped the child and murdered the father of the woman he was supposed to have loved. It felt like the universe itself had twisted into some awful nightmare from which there would be waking, not for her, not for Allana, not for anyone else ever again.
The cabin around them shuddered; first lightly, then heavily enough to nearly knock them off balance. It was only then that Tenel Ka pulled away from Allana and grabbed her comlink.
"Admiral Baas," she called, "Is Dragon Queen under attack?"
"Heavy attack, Your Majesty," Baas confirmed. "I recommend you stay in your cabin. I will send a second set of guards."
"Guards? What's happening?"
"We're facing heavy fighter and bomber attacks, and the Imperials have slipped a few missile boats past our forward line…. Hold on, Your Majesty… Please stand by..."
The comlink shut off. Still keeping it in her hand, Tenel Ka hooked her arm around Allana's shoulders and held her close again.
"Is it Jacen?" the girl whimpered. "Is he coming to kill us too?"
The poor child was deathly afraid of her father; she always would be now. In the scale of Jacen's crimes, Allana's trauma was so minor but it still broke Tenel Ka's heart. "No, Allana. It's the Imperials. But don't worry, we'll be safe here. I promise."
"But Jacen…."
"He's not here." She kissed the tip of Allana's head and tried to send comfort through the Force that she couldn't feel herself.
"Then where is he?"
On Anakin Solo, no doubt. Jaina had managed to board the star destroyer. One sole Jedi against a whole star destroyer and a Sith Lord. If it were anyone but Jaina they wouldn't stand a chance.
Despite everything, the thought of Jaina's success only filled Tenel Ka with deeper dread.
Admiral Baas started speaking through the comlink again, saying, "Your Majesty, the Imperials have managed to land one assault shuttle in our main hangar bay."
"What?"
"I'm sorry, but they broke through our defenses. We have ground teams in the hangar blockading all exits. Their boarding party is outnumbered ten to one, Your Majesty. I assure you they will not get through."
"See to it they don't, Admiral."
"I will. Please remain where you are, Your Majesty."
The comlink shut off again and Tenel Ka held her daughter tighter. In her muffled voice Allana asked, "Are we really safe?"
"The Imperials will not get to us here. We're safe," she said, but even then she found it hard to believe. Despite all her grief, she knew they should be safe in this cabin; it was located on the secure zone directly beneath the bridge in the upper saucer, while Dragon Queen's hangar bays were located in the lower saucer. It would be nigh impossible for an Imperial boarding party to traverse the entire height of the ship just to attack them.
In fact, it made her wonder why the Imperials were even trying that tactic at all.
She turned the comlink back on and called, "Admiral Baas, are you there?"
"We're here, Your Majesty. Rest assured, that landing team is confined to the hangar bay."
"Admiral, what about the other Imperial ships? Are they attacking?"
"They appear to be falling back, though their fighters are still engaged with ours. Do you suggest we-"
Suddenly it overwhelmed her: a voice screaming inside her mind. Tenel Ka dropped the comlink and nearly dropped Allana as she pressed her hand to her temple, gasping for breath, trying to get it out of her head, to get him out of her head.
Jacen. She heard Allana give a pained moan and knew he was trying to connect with both of them and tell them something.
And it felt like Jacen, not Darth Caedus, the monster he'd become. She could feel honest naked concern barely hidden beneath the sheer panic in his thoughts as he screamed at her, screamed at them both, saying-
-go now save Allana save her save her Imperials have nanovirus kill you both nanovirus in the air keep Allana safe save her save her save her-
Even as her mind rattled with Jacen's frantic message she fumbled for the comlink and plucked it from the bedsheets.
"Admiral!" she called, "The Imperials! They're pumping a nanovirus into the atmosphere! You must sever all climate systems from the bottom saucer immediately! Vent the hangar to the vacuum if you have to! And shut down all air coming into this chamber!"
"Your Majesty?" How do you know this?"
"Do it, Admiral! Do it now or the Imperial will kill us all-"
Suddenly the screaming stopped. Silence exploded in her mind. She dropped the comlink again and pulled Allana tight against her as the child started screaming.
"It's all right, Allana," Tenel Ka said, voice cracking. "You're safe now. Don't cry. Your father-" She forced herself to say the awful words: "Jacen is dead. You're safe now."
She lowered her head as tears ran freely down her face and Allana continued to wail.