The Sword Falls pt. 3 of 3
The sound of lightsabers humming in the room—combined with both of the combatants struggling to bring enough air into their lung—were the only sounds that could be heard inside of the room. The fighters—brother and sister—stood nearly back to back, separated from each other by the span of about two or three meters. Most of their lives they had fought together, but on this dark day they had been fighting each other. One had just killed the other.
It had started a day ago, when the Sith Lord Jacen Solo had attempted to kill Tenel Ka, the woman that he had loved since childhood and who had been the mother of his only child. It ended a few seconds ago.
Then the lightsaber of the fatally injured sibling fell to the ground, its green blade extinguishing before the metallic hilt hit the ground. Jacen Solo could barely comprehend what had just happened. How? He mentally questioned as the original wound on his side opened further and deeper into his body. His strength failed him, causing his knees to buckle under his weight. He then collapsed to the ground, barely feeling the cold floor against his body.
Jaina stood where she was for a second, holding her lightsaber in one hand at her side. She waited for another wound to suddenly make itself known upon her, an agonizing wait that ended a few seconds later. Tears sprung to her eyes as she heard—and felt—Jacen fall to the floor, his life slowly leaking out from him. She removed her thumb from the activation stub on her lightsaber, extinguishing the violet blade that had just done its duty.
Hooking the hilt to her belt, she rushed over to the fallen body of her brother, hoping that maybe he could see the error of his ways in his final moments.
"Jacen," she said, cradling his head in her arms. "Can you hear me?"
His eyes opened slightly, one tear of pain falling out of the nearest eye. He opened his mouth, trying to say something but only non-lingual sound escaped his lips. He kept trying, filling Jaina's heart with hope.
"C…Curse…you…J—Jedi…" he finally managed to spit out with his last breath, causing Jaina's spirits to fall. As she felt her brother die—both physically and through the Force—she knew that he had died unredeemed. The monster that he had become had truly destroyed the good person that he had once been years ago. Tears fell freely from her eyes, the sadness of having been forced to kill him nearly overcoming her. It would be easy, she thought, for the dark side to creep in on her while she was so vulnerable. It would be easy to lash out against her uncle, who had failed to see this happening.
She pushed those dark thoughts away almost as quick as they arrived. She would not fall to the dark side again. Not because of this. It would Jacen's final victory, she grimly thought.
The adrenaline in her bloodstream slowly wore out, increasing the ever present pain that her wound caused, forcing her to stay seated on the ground, unable to walk out of there. Maybe that had been one of Jacen's cruel victories, she wondered as she tried to crawl her way back to the Rock Dragon. It would be entirely possible for her to die on this asteroid, with no one to find out her final location.
"By the Force, Jaina!" she heard a familiar voice say almost instantly later. Her muscles ached as she tried to move them, forcing her to realize that she had probably blacked out. A mind that was completely familiar to her—for they still had their moments when it was completely shared—then touched her own, trying to discern if she was alive or dead.
The intruder wore a simple pilot's jumpsuit, an ignited orange bladed lightsaber in his hand, ready to defend her from Jacen. He wore his long black hair tied at the nape of his neck. "Zekk!" she called out. He rushed to her immediately.
"Are you okay?" he asked, quickly glancing over her wounded side. His green eyes scanned the room for any threats, pausing over the bodies of Jacen and Lumiya for a few additional seconds. Through the Force he probed them, making sure that—like a horror holofilm villain—they wouldn't leap up to attack them. Satisfied that both of the Sith were truly dead, he returned his attention to Jaina. "I've got the Lightning Rod here, I can put you in the medbay and take you back to Ossus."
"How?" Jaina asked as he gently lifted her up, throwing one of her shoulders over his neck.
"Your sabotage to my ship didn't last that long," Zekk replied. "That tracking beacon that the Rock Dragon has on it was a great help as well."
"Had to do it alone," Jaina said as they reached the open boarding ramp of Lightning Rod. "Destroy this place, Zekk," she added. "We can't let anyone else come under their influences."
"I'll tell Master Farlander, he's probably the one that has the most clout with the Alliance military at the moment," Zekk replied. "Don't worry, Jaina. Everything's going to be fine."
It was hard for her to look into the innocent eyes of Allana, knowing what she had done to the toddler's father. It had been three weeks since Jaina had survived her hellish duel with her brother, and the galaxy was slowly beginning to come out of the stupor that the Sith had caused. The Corellian conflict was still going on, but diplomacy was actually beginning to take effect once the schemers had been thrown out of office thanks to a large sweep of the government by Alpha Blue.
Her parents had been devastated by the news, although they had been expecting it ever since Zekk frantically commed them after Jaina had set off after Jacen. Leia had said when she first felt Jacen die it was like a weight crushing down on her, only to increase in mass when she felt Jaina blackout from her injuries. For a moment, she had been certain that all three of her children had been killed, two of them by their own hands. It had been a relief when they found out that Jaina had been only injured, and was being cared for at Ossus' medical center.
Now Allana was sitting inside of a small room in the Hapan palace, her mother a few rooms away finally able to walk again. The young girl—princess of Hapes and first-in-line to the throne—had gone through a lot in the past few weeks, and now this news had to be broken to her.
"Do you remember your father?" Jaina asked.
"He attacked mommy," the little girl replied. "Why did he do that?"
Jaina gestured for her niece to come closer, and then picked up the young girl and placed her on her lap when she complied. "He wasn't himself," Jaina replied, trying to censor the story so it could be understandable to such a young child. "He wasn't thinking about you or your mom at the time."
"Can he get better?" Allana asked, prompting Jaina to begin crying. She can't possibly understand what death means at such a young age, Jaina thought, sniffling slightly. And how can she take the fact that I couldn't save him?
"No, he can't," Jaina finally replied. "You won't see him again, but I want you to know that he loved you." It was lie—possibly—and Jaina knew it, but she couldn't expose Allana to the truth so soon. "Just know that he can never hurt you or your mother ever again."