Chapter 23

Jag did a flyover, and as he passed over the Yuuzhan Vong landing sight he saw an onslaught of light and laserfire pour from the surrounding jungle into the enemy's midst. Vong were blown off their feet in groups, torn asunder by the combined force of so many heavy artillery weapons fired in the same instant. Jag allowed himself a tight smile.

Such was the work of Jaina Solo-Fel.

If only she could see the destruction she was causing from his angle. He wished she knew how proud he was of her. She had no military training, no formal military instruction whatsoever. And yet she was successfully leading an offensive ground assault on an enemy the likes of which the galaxy had never seen. Sometimes her resourcefulness awed him. Along with all the other qualities about her he adored of course.

Tearing his mind from the introspection and placing firmly back in the moment, Jag pulled his clawcraft in a tight turn, passing over the perimeter of the kill zone the Vong had created for themselves. As he did so he saw three huge, lumbering creatures with spikes on their backs being offloaded from one of the transports, despite the chaos around them. Experimentally, he fired three short bursts at one of them. As expected, all three were swallowed by gravity wells. He was also met with a bombardment of their own, plasma cannons soaring the distance towards his craft. Jag swerved nimbly out of the way.

Well, this was new. And he was pretty sure it wasn't a good thing. Just one of those could wreak havoc on a city. Jag clicked his comm unit. "TIE Leader to Ground Leader, over."

A few seconds' pause, then, "Ground Leader here. Enjoying the show, Colonel?" Jaina's voice said, mocking but with an edge of fatigue.

"Lovely. But there's a problem about...," Jag checked his scopes, "thirty degrees south. You might want to check it out."

There was another interval, in which the whirring of microbinoculars could be clearly heard. Finally, a low shrill whistle. "What in all nine Corellian hells is that?"

"I have no idea. But it's shielded and equipped with plasma cannons. You need to take them out before they reach your position.

Hesitation. "I'm not sure we have the equipment. If you can't take them out in a clawcraft..."

"Who said I couldn't take them out?" The moment the words left his mouth he knew she was baiting him. And he was powerless against it.

"Well," she said casually, "I just assumed. But if you can, any assistance would be appreciated."

Jag chewed thoughtfully on the inside of his cheek. He would rather be in space, but Jaina needed him here. But did she need him here more than Pallaeon needed him up there? It didn't matter. Jaina was first priority. "Roger, Ground Leader." He started to cut the connection, but was cut off by her softly spoken reply.

"Take care of yourself, Jag."

Jag smiled fondly at the comm. "You just keep yourself alive, I'll take care of me."

"Roger, TIE Leader."

Jag switched frequencies. "Razors Two, Three, and Five, form up on me."

Three TIES peeled away from the main flight group and executed a perfect maneuver into a diamond formation, Jag taking point. "We need to take out those reptile creatures, One Flight. Fire laser cannons on my mark." Jag armed his own proton torpedo as he spoke. "Three, two, one, mark." Three sets of beams shot from their unit, along with one proton torpedo. Unfortunately, the only thing that found its mark was one single laser bolt, which only managed to elicit a painful bellow and a spurt of bluish blood from the creature. Jag cursed softly and pulled the flight around for another pass.

After that and two more such runs he began to realize the futility of their attempt. Four fighters weren't enough to take out a creature of that size. Jag hit the comm again. "Razor Squadron, all fighters report to my coordinates."

There was a chorus of acknowledgments and a round of double-clicks. Jag noted painfully that it was short two however. Already, two casualties. "All fighters, fire on my target at will."

All while dodging return fire, Jag pelted the creature with laserfire, and occasionally alternating to torpedoes. The beast slowed and bellowed at the random shots that managed to overload its dovin basals, but it plodded on towards the Imperial defensive line. Frustrated, Jag instructed his flight to increase their fire. The dovin basals' shielding began to slip, and they gained more and more hits on the beast. Just as Jag thought victory was near one of his pilots disintegrated on his wing.

Jag winced at the loss, but didn't let his despair take him. It wouldn't do anyone any good to grieve right then. He would be remembered later. After their victory.

And a victory it was. The animal let out a final groan of pain before toppling onto its side. It convulsed and moaned in its death throes, but the TIES were unrelenting. They only stopped their attack when its voice silenced and the body stopped moving, the mammoth head tilted at an odd angle. The ground around it was covered in gore and drenched in the beast's blood. It was a terrible sight, the huge belly opened by the continuing affliction. Jag didn't shy from it. It was the view of his victory.

His gaze was torn quickly from the dead threat to one of the others as it roared frenziedly, raising itself onto its back legs before collapsing to the forest floor next to its compatriot. A huge rent could be seen in its armored underbelly. Jag frowned and hit the comm unit. "Who got in the lucky shot?"

"Not us, Colonel," Razor Two replied.

Jag squinted at the sight and slowly dropped altitude for a better look. Finally he sat back and shook his head. "Razor Squadron, we're going back topside. Ground Leader has this one covered."

Jaina looked up as the screaming clawcraft passed overhead. He would do his best, she knew, but he couldn't do it all. She had to come up with a plan. Her hand fingered the hilt of her lightsaber affectionately, and she smiled. Quickly she turned to Commander Abel. "Commander, give me four of your best platoons." He pulled his comlink to his helmeted face and began to bark orders immediately.

Jaina armed herself as he spoke. She clipped a blaster—traded out from her charric—on each hip, slung a bag of grenades across her shoulder. By then Abel was done. "Company ten is awaiting you, Ground Leader."

"Thank you," she said, and hurried across the soft to turf to where the ranks of troopers awaited her.

"Okay," she breathed. "You all are going to serve one purpose. Keep the Vong warriors occupied so I can get to that...thing." Jaina frowned. It needed a name. "Those ranges. I don't want this to be a suicide mission. I just need them out of my hair. Watch my back, and follow my lead. That's all I ask." Her speech was met with professional silence, a tacit acknowledgment. Jaina nodded curtly. "Good. Then let's go."

She turned and ignited her violet blade. Then she marched out of the cover of the jungle into the open area of the Vong landing zone. It was a sight to be seen, rank after rank of white armor marching in perfect synchronization behind a seemingly unprotected figure, a blazing brand of light held in one hand, tip pointed at the ground. Jaina raised it in confidence, flourishing it in a mock gesture of greeting. It was a signal, and as she did so the first line of stormtroopers dropped to one knee, and it and the next line opened fire. Thud bugs and razor bugs entered the mix. Jaina's lightsaber flitted back and forth like it had a life of its own, clearing a path for her headlong charge. The stormtroopers abandoned their straight files and followed her, firing madly into the Yuuzhan Vong lines.

Jaina ducked easily under the first amphistaff and gutted its owner, just before she pivoted on her left foot and placed a high kick underneath the chin of another. She let the momentum from her rotation twirl her around as she dropped into a crouch and cut the legs out from under another at the knees. As she stood she realized most of the warriors had abandoned her for the seemingly greater fight of beating back the stormtroopers.

Just how she wanted it.

Wiping the blood that had splattered from her opponent off her face, Jaina jogged towards the rapidly progressing range. She pulled a blaster from its holster and aimed at the few unarmed and disfigured Vong who led it. They were easy pickings, and she was soon running alongside the great beast unhindered.

Above and in front of her Jag and his squadron were slowly but surely destroying the second range. She allowed herself a quick moment of pride and satisfaction, then returned to concentrating on her task. She had watched the handlers touch and even climb the spikes on the creature's back, and so she assumed it would be safe for her.

She assumed.

There was only one way to find out.

Taking the plunge, Jaina grabbed one of the many spikes and swung herself up onto one of the rear haunches. She hung there, suspended for a moment in time, allowing herself a instant of relief that she had not been swallowed by a miniature black hole. Then she pulled her lightsaber off her belt and ignited it. She closed her eyes, envisioned the many lessons in telekinesis she had had in her tutelage as a Jedi apprentice, and flung it.

It twirled in a beautiful arc, finding its target in the unprotected stomach of the animal. She used the Force to jerk, raking the flame across the abdomen and opening it wide. Entrails and blood issued forth along with the painful wail of the beast. It raised onto its back legs, lost balance, and toppled onto its back. Jaina jumped, leaping from her perch and rolling across the ground. She called her lightsaber back to her hand as she did so, but its electric hum was droned away by the tremendous thud as the animal hit the ground.

Jaina just lay in the mud, unignited hilt grasped in one hand. She breathed deeply, looking at the cloud-covered gray sky. It had seemed so much more beautiful earlier, on the beach with her husband. And now it swam with death.

Slowly she stood and examined her handiwork. It was dying a slow death. Jaina felt a pang of guilt, but quenched it. She had only done what had to be done. She looked to the sky. Jag and his squadron were retreating back into the vacuum. That is where I should be.

She shook her head and removed her comlink. "Commander Abel?"

"Roger, Ground Leader."

Jaina wiped the sweat and mud tiredly out of her eyes. "Attack when ready."

"Understood, Ground Leader."

It was perhaps ten seconds before the forest came alive with white armor as her troops advanced on the enemy line.

Jaina eased into the chair, still sore from the battle. She winced as her muscled cramped and contracted, but did not complain of her discomfort. Jag took a seat beside her, not in as much pain but just as tired.

Anmicgra had been a tough but outstanding victory, probably the greatest the Empire had accomplished in the war so far. Jaina's ground forces had taken a heavy death toll, but had wiped out the Vong insurgents. Being who they were, the Vong had refused to retreat even under penalty of death, and so it had been little more than a massacre. Jaina had attempted to salvage some of the ships, but they had died before she ever got there. Probably a defense mechanism to prevent just what she had been trying to do.

Pellaeon sat across from the couple, a smile of triumph on his mustachioed lips that seemed to have been pasted there permanently since the end of the battle. "Jagged, Jaina, thank you for forgoing your day off to come see me."

Jaina inclined her head, but let Jag speak for them both. "We could hardly turn down the invitation, Admiral. You've been so go to us since our defection."

Pellaeon's smile grew even broader. "The Empire couldn't have been more pleased to have you. But because of politics I was unable to give you a rank deserving of your skills." His grin became mischievous. "Until now."

Jaina and Jag exchanged a private look.

"This victory is the excuse I've been waiting for to promote the both of you to a rank were I can better use you. Because you don't have the seniority to lead, I have to keep you here on the Chimaera. But if you were generals, I could send you with your own fleet groups to help defend the rest of the Empire, where, by the way, our troops are being decimated and systems are falling without resistance."

Jaina's anxiety spiked. If he sent them with their own fleets, they would be separated. And that was the whole reason they had come to the Empire: to be free and happy together. Jaina wasn't about to let that be torn from them now. She started to speak, but Jag beat her to it.

"We are honored, Admiral, but I would prefer to fly my own fighter, not give orders from the bridge of a Star Destroyer. I'm sure Jaina feels the same."

A bit of Pellaeon's exuberance faded. "But we need you. If you were out on the fringe systems helping with the effort there, we might actually have a chance of keeping the Empire together. The Yuuzhan Vong are ripping us apart. If we don't do so something fast, the Remnant will be broken into a dozen little sub-states, divided by the systems the Vong have already conquered. We can't let that happen."

"But," Jaina began, "I thought we just had a major victory."

"We did: a political one. I now have the justification to put you in the station you deserve, and the one you will serve the Empire best in. You have to understand. We need you both to be leaders. We can't have you hiding in the background."

Jaina started speak, but again Jag cut her off. "Where will you be sending us?"

Jaina's head snapped around like she had been slapped. What is he doing? She didn't want to be separated from him. She was happy doing what they had been doing. The downside was that it kept them so busy they had little time for each other. And now he wanted to part from her completely? It didn't make any sense.

"Jaina I want to send with the Roughshod to the New Republic border. The Vong have set up a base somewhere in the middle of the Remnant, and are striking from that location to the edge of Imperial space. I need you to hunt it down, and destroy it. Jag, I want you to follow the slave trades. They're shipping Imperial citizens to their worldships and implanting them with devices that take control of their will. They then use them against us. We need to rescue as many as possible. Every individual is not only a citizen lost, but one that will be exploited and used to our defeat."

Jaina didn't know what to say. With that kind of schedule, they would never see each other. What was the point of even coming here?

But Jag didn't seem to notice her agony. He stood and shook pellaeon's hand. "When would you like us to depart?"

"As soon as your ready."

"Thank you," he said, then left, motioning Jaina to follow. Slowly she stood, wondering when her opinion on the matter had been discounted. She followed him, but didn't say anything till they were out of earshot.

"What do you think you're doing? Do you not realize that by accepting this you're basically sentencing us to a life apart?"

Jag spun on her. "No. I'm sentencing us to a life. If we don't get rid of the Vong, there will be no future for us, Jaina. We'll be dead, or worse. We have to do everything we can to stop them." He took her by the shoulders, his grip, like his voice, gentle but commanding. "I don't want to leave you. I can't even stand the thought of it. But if parting from you now temporarily will let me spend the rest of my life with you, then I'm willing."

Jaina barely kept herself from bursting into tears. She wanted to tell him so much, explain to him the agony the separation would cause her. But all she could manage was a simple, "I love you."