"What do you mean you can't spare Shedu Maad anymore Battle Dragons, Allana?" Jacen asked the holographic representation of the Hapan Queen Mother; whatever fatherly relationship he had with her was, for the moment, suspended given the severity of the threat that they were facing. "There's a Sith ChaseMaster fleet that's on our tail! In fact, I'll have to jump out of here at any moment just to stay ahead of them!" He had stopped in the middle of an empty system for a course correction and to call ahead to Allana to warn her about the imminent danger posed to Shedu Maad by the Lost Tribe of the Sith.
"I'm sorry, Jacen," Allana said, "but with the Galactic Alliance fleet making some suspicious movements as of late, I've had to delegate certain resources to protecting key Hapan systems and sectors. And I'm afraid that Shedu Maad is one of the more unlikely systems that the GA might invade, based on their fleet movements. Again, I'm sorry, but you're on your own."
Jacen sighed. "All right; thanks for letting me know at least, Your Majesty. And I hope you won't have to go up against a GA invasion of the Consortium; even I can't imagine Daala being crazy enough to do this just to eliminate the Jedi."
"I hope you're right, Jacen." Allana then signed off, leaving Jacen to try to call ahead to Shedu Maad; even as he waited for someone to respond, he was wary of that ChaseMaster fleet that he was a few hours ahead suddenly dropping out from behind the Jade Shadow's current position.
In the copilot seat, Corran Horn asked in a light tone, "You sure you don't want me to take the helm?"
Jacen shook his head without looking at the Jedi Master; he was too on edge to exchange banter with Corran.
The latter saw that and said seriously, "I'll make sure the ship's weapons are ready."
Finally, a response came through, and a holographic representation of his mother, Leia, showed up above the Shadow's control console.
"Yes, Jacen, what is it?" Leia asked.
"Mom, you and Dad gotta get Uncle Luke off Shedu Maad as soon as possible," Jacen urged. "Warn everyone else at the Temple to leave, too; Allana can't spare us any help right now."
"Where should we rendezvous, Jacen?"
Jacen stopped himself; there weren't too many good alternatives that he could think of. Obviously, with the Hapes Consortium preparing for a potential invasion from a Galactic Alliance run by a power-hungry dictator, and the Imperial Remnant embroiled in a war against guerrilla-fighting Mandalorians, that left few options.
But before he could speak, three ChaseMaster frigates dropped out from behind the Shadow and immediately opened fire on her stern. Jacen quickly took control of the helm and began performing evasive maneuvers even as he scrambled to set some lightspeed coordinates for anywhere but here; Corran, for his part, handled the Shadow's weapons to pepper the ChaseMasters with laserfire.
"I'll have to talk to you later, Mom!" he called out.
Leia signed off for him without another word, leaving him to concentrate on getting out of there.
"Any ideas on where we're going, Jacen?" Corran asked.
"Unknown Regions!" Jacen practically shouted. "We can contact Mom and the others from there if we don't make it too far!"
With that, he had coordinates set for the nearest system to the Unknown Regions and launched ahead of the assaulting ChaseMasters.
. . .
To make sure she wasn't recognized as the daughter of Han and Leia Solo, even if she wasn't known for her own deeds during the Yuuzhan Vong invasion and Second Galactic Civil War, Jaina was given a set of facial prostheses and a significant amount of makeup to disguise her well-known features. Once she was satisfied that she couldn't recognize herself in the mirror that Partner provided for her, she nodded at him and said, "Let's go."
They then disembarked from the Firespray and set foot on the deck of the anonymous space station where Partner tended to hang out with his friends. Jaina followed the Mandalorian to the cantina, which wasn't too far from the port where the Firespray was parked; during the brief walk, she was the object of several stares from both helmeted and unhelmeted Mandos alike, but they regarded her with nothing more than casual curiosity, so Jaina knew she was safe... for now.
Soon, Jaina and Partner entered the cantina and found the group of Mandos they were looking for already at the bar counter drinking and cavorting with each other. Among them, however, was a new member—a pale male with dark hair and raised cheekbones—who seemed to be far more handsome than his buddies.
"That guy new?" Jaina asked.
"Yeah," Partner replied. "Let's see if they'll introduce us to him."
Once Jaina and Partner were a few meters away from their targets, the latter all looked to the arriving pair and they all cheered, "Partner!"
"Even your pals call you that?" Jaina asked with a whisper. "If that's the level of trust you have in your friends, I wonder how mean you'd be to your enemies."
Partner ignored her as he addressed the group. "Hey, guys. Who's the new recruit?"
"Oh, yeah!" the guy whom Jaina recognized as the leader of the pack said, "Partner, meet Kendros! Kendros, meet Partner!"
Partner and Kendros shook hands. "Pleasure to meet the legendary and mysterious Partner," the latter said. "Is it true you don't even take off your helmet even when you're drinking?"
"It is," Partner replied curtly. He then opened a little port in his helmet near his mouth, which didn't show anything of his features, before he just as promptly closed it up.
"Ha! You were right, Sakla!" Kendros called to the leader. "He does act like a badass holovid character! But you know, man, you make that osik work; normally, that'd come off as douchey, but it works for ya!"
"Hmm," was all Partner said in response.
Kendros and his pals all drunkenly laughed at that.
"So, Sakla, when did Kendros here join?" Partner asked.
"Well, it happened about a couple months back when we-"
"Hey, wait a minute," Kendros said, cutting off Sakla. "Don't I know you?" He addressed this question to Jaina.
"I don't think we've met," she replied.
"Yeah, me neither, but..." Kendros tilted his head one way as he studied Jaina. "You still look familiar."
"Oh, you know," she said with a dismissive shrug, "I just have one of those... faces... that..."
Jaina trailed off as she started to sense something from Kendros.
Something... through the Force.
Kendros was a dark sider, Jaina quickly realized as she easily pierced through whatever he had to disguise his essence because of his inebriation.
As if in realization of that thought, Kendros pointed right at Jaina and screamed, "Jedi!"
Everyone in the bar looked confusedly at Kendros even as he brought up a lightsaber—not a blaster, but a lightsaber—from within his chestplate and ignited its red Sith blade.
But before Jaina could even activate her own weapon, not caring that that would make her a target for everyone in this room except for Partner, another lightsaber ignited elsewhere in the cantina.
All eyes then turned to a nearby booth where a brunette with tanned skin was wielding a blue-bladed lightsaber. This individual then leaped from her booth and soared in a Force-assisted jump toward Kendros, where they proceeded to briefly clash blades with one another.
But because of Kendros's intoxication, whatever Force technique he could have used to purge the inebriating effects from his system didn't help him as he was quickly disarmed and knocked out with a single punch by the blue-bladed woman.
It was then that every Mando who wasn't Partner finally caught up mentally with the situation and raised their blasters at the brunette to open fire. However, the woman ducked beneath a nearby vacant table, and Jaina and Partner followed suit.
"Partner, get Kendros and let's get outta here!" the brunette said.
Both Jaina and Partner looked at the woman in askance as they recognized her voice and got a good look at her face.
"Tahiri?" Jaina asked.
"Veila?" Partner asked.
"I'll explain later! Right now, we gotta leave with Kendros!" the disguised Tahiri said as blaster bolts continued to soar above the surface of the table that the three of them hid under; apparently, all the drunken mercs still didn't realize that they had to shoot under the table if they wanted to hit their targets.
After only a couple of seconds of confusion, Partner nodded and turned to leap toward Kendros's unconscious body, which he grabbed by the ankles and stayed low as he began dragging him to the cantina's exit. By then, Jaina, whose lightsaber was up and active, and Tahiri already emerged from beneath the table to redirect all of the Mandalorians' blasterfire back toward them or elsewhere.
Naturally, several shots hit the racks of alcohol behind the bar, which immediately started a fire that would soon consume the bar if it wasn't doused in time. Still, that didn't distract the drunken Mandos from firing at the two lightsaber-wielders as they gradually backed out of the cantina.
Once Jaina and Tahiri were out of the bar, they turned away and began to redirect blasterfire from the other Mandos in this corridor of the space station. Yet still they kept up with their defenses as they continued to cover for Partner, who was still dragging Kendros along the grimy deck.
Halfway back to Partner's Firespray, Jaina and Tahiri took cover behind a thick durasteel column just as Partner also took cover behind one that was slightly closer to the docking port. Jaina then used that opportunity to use the Force to rip some girders that lined the roof of the corridor and sent them soaring down for the Mandos that were now closing in on their location. In response, the mercs scattered to avoid getting crushed, though a few of them did end up collapsing dead from the weight that dropped upon them.
Jaina, Tahiri, and Partner then emerged from their cover and continued on their way back to the Firespray. This time, though, Jaina was able to swing the fallen girders around, bashing more Mandos around as Tahiri continued to deflect shots fired by mercs that didn't have to contend with the flying objects.
Eventually, the three of them finally made it to the Firespray and boarded it. Once the landing ramp was back up, Partner had his ship up, running, and soaring out of the docking bay for space, where he then had them all plunging into hyperspace within moments.
Now that they were safe, both Jaina and Partner turned to Tahiri, who was minding Kendros's unconscious form.
"How'd you escape?" Partner asked.
"I didn't escape," Tahiri said. "Jag let me out."
"Jag let you out?!" Jaina asked in disbelief. "Wow; I don't know whether or not I should be angry he didn't tell me or kiss him for finally regrowing his spine and standing up against the Moff Council!"
"Officially, I'm still a prisoner," Tahiri explained. "Jag managed to get a pretty convincing lookalike to fill in for me in my cell."
"How the hell did you convince him to let you out?" Partner asked. "And how'd you get here ahead of us?"
"I told him that I remembered the coordinates that we were heading to before you knocked me out," Tahiri said with some contempt in her voice for the Mando. "You see, before I began the conversation that ultimately led you to bringing me back to Bastion, I had a gut feeling that it wouldn't end well. So I took a little bit of time to remember from your sensors where our final destination's coordinates would be, and I took a faster route ahead of you two to surprise you; Jag also gave me a pretty fast ship and I'm sure he's not gonna be happy when I tell him I left behind back at that station."
"That doesn't explain how you convinced him to let you out," Partner pointed out. "You're unstable, Veila; we can't trust you, not after your little outburst over Velias."
Tahiri smirked. "Oh, please; you're not even mad about that. You're just mad that I tried to kill you. Then again, I guess I can understand why you wouldn't be too happy about that."
"Tahiri, answer the question," Jaina urged. "How'd you convince Jag to let you out? And why didn't he tell me about this?"
"Fine," Tahiri said as she rolled her eyes in annoyance. "I convinced him by reminding him that he needed every resource he had at his disposal, and that included me. Because, let's face it, Jaina, I may have overreacted with Partner here, and Velias was a bit messy, I'll admit, but so far, what have I done that's really that bad? It's not like I massacred a buncha innocent children for giggles."
"So Jag thought it'd be a good idea to let you out so that you can get an opportunity to actually do something like that?" Jaina asked in disbelief.
"He figured you could keep me in check, Jaina," Tahiri said. "He said it was a mistake leaving me alone with someone as apathetic to my needs as Partner over here. Oh, yeah, I almost forgot, the reason Jag didn't tell you about it over a holocomm discussion; he's too busy with the war right now to spare any time."
Jaina raised an eyebrow at that. "Is that so?"
Tahiri nodded. "Yeah, it is."
Jaina regarded Tahiri for a long moment before looking down at the moaning form of a recovering Kendros.
"Now shall we get to work on interrogating this bastard or do you wanna ask me anymore questions?" Tahiri asked.
Jaina sighed. She'll question Tahiri more later; because while she had her doubts about her story, she was right about focusing on the present with this Sith disguised as a Mandalorian.
"Let's get to business," Jaina said.