Part 3 - Consequences Chapter 18 – Truth of Character

Jacen attacked Mara and Eriana, driving them back away from both Zara and Krayt with the lethal efficiency of Vaapad. While Eriana fell into their old dance, Mara fought against Jacen with increasing anger, desperate to land a blow on her traitorous nephew. An expert parry from Eriana sent his lightsaber tumbling away, forcing him to switch to a double-handed grip on his brother's lightsaber against three opposing blades. Unable to keep up, Jacen began losing ground and retreated towards Krayt.

"Help me, Krayt!" Jacen shouted between blows. "I can't fight them alone!"

Jacen could sense the conflict in Krayt. For one, he wanted to test his prospective apprentice's skill against two Master level Jedi; on the other hand, he also knew Jacen's death would mean his own. He ignited his red lightsaber and stepped in toward the battle to assist Jacen.

As soon as he was close enough, Jacen disengaged with Eriana and redoubled his attack on Mara, catching her off guard with his sudden aggression and drove her back a couple paces. Before Mara could centre herself and strike against him, Jacen winked at her, turned around, yanked his lost lightsaber to his hand from across the room, and joined Eriana's Vaapad onslaught against Krayt. Mara watched in awe as Jacen and Eriana combined to fight in perfect deadly unison to tear through Krayt's defense in mere seconds, driving him back against a wall where he was disarmed and pinned with Eriana's two yellow lightsabers crossed at his neck.

By the time Mara had blinked twice to confirm that she had seen what she thought she had seen, Jacen had deactivated his lightsabers and called Krayt's own lightsaber hilt to his hand.

"So you want me as your apprentice, eh?" Jacen mocked. "Why don't you go shove your head up an exhaust pipe and breathe deep?"

He pressed Krayt's own lightsaber hilt to the Sith Lord's chest and activated it, electing a scream of agony from the old warrior.

"I know your minions are on their way," Jacen said conversationally, twisting the angle of the blade slightly to keep up the pain. Krayt growled through his grit teeth and his eyes blazed with hatred. "But we'll get away. I do have a present for you before I go, for helping me find out the truth about the Black Sun. I hope you enjoy it."

"Are you...going to...kill me?"

"No," Jacen said with a vicious smile. "But let's just say I'm a big fan of some old school Jedi justice."

Jacen put a hand against Krayt's chest and concentrated for a moment. About ten seconds later, a team of Bogan warriors sprinted into the room to see Zara clutching her injured leg and their Dark Lord unconscious on the ground.

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One thing Jaina absolutely hated about life on a starship was the inability to slam a door. Instead, she punched the wall of her office and bit back a curse as pain shot from her knuckles up her wrist. Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, she pressed the button to open her office door and entered the bridge.

As usual, her executive officer was immediately at her side with a report for her to look at.

"Admiral, we need…"

"Shut up, Aton," Jaina barked. "I know, we need everything. I just got off the line with Admiral Antilles. Our request for line time on the main shipyard to produce parts was denied. Again."

"I understand that, Admiral," Aton said without even a hint of surprise or concern about his Admiral's frustration. "I have some ideas…"

"I have an idea," Jaina interrupted him again. "Find me two of our best programmers. Have them report to my office."

Jaina turned to re-enter her office when Aton spoke up.

"Admiral, you could get court-marshalled for hacking into the shipyard databases."

"Not if nobody finds out about it," Jaina growled, turning back to her XO. Part of her was annoyed that he figured out her plan so quickly, but she was also quite proud to have a sharp officer in her command. "We'll sneak in a few extra work orders here and there, and when they find out they have excess parts, we'll get them. Nothing too big, just a few components that take a long time for the Ol'Faithful to make that are holding up important repairs."

Aton stared at her for a moment as if he was questioning her sanity, but he nodded and saluted.

"Yes, sir."

"Dismissed."

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Eriana, Jacen and Mara leapt onto the Squawking Mynock's darkened boarding ramp as it flew by the Sith compound with running lights deactivated and engines in stealth mode. Against Umbara's dark sky the ship went unnoticed by the Bogan sentries.

Jacen and Mara followed Eriana to the cockpit of the Mynock, a semi-circular room with a panoramic 180-degree view. Around the outside of the room was a bank of terminals that used HUD technology in conjunction with the sweeping view to provide an impressive array of features, and in the centre was the command chair. The chair spun around to reveal the greying and scarred, but smiling, face of Lanos, the leader of Jacen's Mandalorian team.

"Ner vod Jacen, welcome back," Lanos stood up and offered a hand which Jacen shook enthusiastically.

"Great to be back, Alor," Jacen said with a broad smile and handed his friend a lightsaber. "Got you a souvenir from Darth Krayt. Status?"

Lanos examined the Sith Lord's lightsaber for a moment before gesturing to the view outside. Parmis was in the pilot seat, flanked by Squeak, Blade, and Trigger, each intently monitoring the skies for pursuit. The black sky of Umbara was broken only by the HUD graphics that brought insight to the weather patterns and distantly detected obstacles. Based on what Jacen could see, only a few flocks of birds were being identified well below them.

"They didn't even see us," Lanos said. "We have a rendez-vous with a Vornskr fleet in orbit. They're holding off one of those big capital ships as we speak."

"My ship is still here," Mara said. "I need to contact Ben and Ami."

"I already issued the order," Eriana spoke up as she removed her helmet. "Once I found you, I sent a message to Lanos to look for the Jade Shadow."

"They're coming up right beside us," Lanos said, pointing to the left. Everyone looked out the window and saw the distinctive shape of the Jade Shadow coming into view, with Ben waving his hand at them from the pilot's seat. They were close enough that they could see a big grin plastered across his face, obviously excited about flying his mom's ship.

"We'll be breakin' atmo in thirty seconds," Trigger reported. "Still no signs of pursuit."

"How are the Vornskrs holding off one of those big ships?" Jacen asked. "Nobody has had a chance against them."

"Well, aren't you out of touch?" Eriana asked with a teasing tone. "I blew one up a couple days ago. It took a lot of firepower. But we're not trying to take it out this time, just mess with it. They're really slow, so if you stay in the back quarter of the ship they can't turn their superlaser on you. The ships we brought are fast enough to keep up with their turning speed."

"Still plenty of weapons at the back."

Eriana face broke into a wide grin.

"Yeah, sometimes weapons aren't enough."

The Mynock and Shadow broke through the atmosphere of Umbara and Jacen and Mara took a few steps toward the front viewport to see what Eriana had been elusively talking about. A fleet of several hundred Black Vornskr ships were moving sideways on thrusters keeping track with the back end of the Obsidian-class Destroyer, each one holding an asteroid with its tractor beam between it and the turbolasers that were hammering away at them. Small explosions were also going off in what appeared to be a growing silver nebula between the asteroids and the ships.

"How are they still intact?" Jacen asked in awe. "That much firepower..."

"Would shatter any normal asteroids, yes," Eriana said, stepping up and putting an arm around his shoulder. "But these ones were constructed using an ablative design. We put layers of superconductive metal between layers of duracrete and durasteel. When the superconductive layers melt off, they create a dust cloud that reduces the strength of the turbolaser bolts passing through it. Of course, we can't shoot through it any better than they can, but it's a hell of a shield."

"It would also set off the impact sensors on the proton torpedoes," Mara said approvingly. "'Fluffy shield' is right."

"That's what you called it?" Jacen asked in disbelief. "That name sucks."

"The technology was General Cooper's idea," Eriana admitted. "I wasn't too happy with him when he started ignoring my orders, so I renamed the project to annoy him. Unfortunately these are almost all of the fluffy shield asteroids we have."

The Black Vornskr ships grew in the view screen as they made a straight line for the Victory-class Star Destroyer Hunter IV that was hovering at the edge of the fleet, aiming for the executive hanger bay near the bridge section.

"Are both ships cleared to land?" Eriana asked.

"Yes," Squeak replied, smiling up at her, but his attempt at charming her went unnoticed. "Same hanger bay. ETA is one minute."

"Blade, please signal General Cooper to commence with the retreat and detonate the asteroids," Eriana ordered. "I don't want to leave them anything useful. The dust cloud will give our ships enough protection to make the jump."

As the two freighters entered the hanger bay, Jacen could sense the asteroids exploding across the battlefield. By the time the Mynock was powered down and the boarding ramp dropped, the fleet had already jumped to hyperspace. A tug on Jacen's arm brought his attention to look at the panicked eyes of his aunt.

"Luke needs your help."

Jacen pulled a phial of clear liquid out of his breast pocket and held it up. "I know."

A\N Welcome back :) I'm almost done, and I figured out my integrated plot points for the next story, so I thought I'd celebrate by posting the first chapter of part 3. Hope you enjoyed it.