Part VIII
"Are you sure you want me to stay behind, sir?" Ashik's concern was mildly touching, and remarkably uncharacteristic among the Chiss who generally took things in stride with a stoic acceptance. It was one of the many things that Jag liked about him though, and was why he had heightened him to the position of assistant and body guard- he wasn't afraid to speak his mind and voice his concerns.
He nodded curtly, a headache beginning to build at his temples as he prepared to depart with his father and Aristocra Formbi. "Yes, Ashik- you know I can take care of myself, and I need you to monitor the situation here- with my father and the Aristocra gone from Csilla, I need you to keep an eye on whoever tries to make a move in the government. And…"
"You await a message from your wife?"
"Yes," he sighed. "She is supposed to attempt to contact me within the next day or two, please see that I get any forwarded messages as fast as possible." Ashik simply nodded, too professional to pry into a personal matter, though Jag almost wished he would; in the Chiss society, there was no room for personal problems in the public setting, and even in Jag's family's house, such things were rarely spoken of, now that his prying younger sister was grown up and moved away. To suddenly express his melancholy over the way the last conversation with Jaina had ended would be… frowned upon. Attempting a slight smile towards Ashik, he finished fastening his travel case and stood. "You do good work, Ashik; remind me to give you a raise when I'm back."
His purplish lips twitched. "As ordered, Colonel." He hesitated a moment. "If I may…"
"Go ahead."
"I… be careful, sir."
Jag stared at him a moment, wondering what Ashik possibly saw that he didn't; then again, he was paid to ensure his protection, so it was hardly unreasonable that the chiss male be concerned, given the situation of things. "I always am, Ashik." He took two steps towards the door and stopped with his hand poised above the release button. "Keep your eyes open in my absence, and if you do receive a transmission from Jaina personally, tell her…" he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Never mind; just try to patch it through to me and have her leave a recorded message otherwise, and I'll get back to her as soon as possible."
"Yes, sir."
Stiffly, he depressed the release and exited the room, heading to join his father and Aristocra Formbi at the landing pad attached to the estate.
X-X-X-X
Standing and stretching after a long session with Tionne- a pleasant combination of history, meditation, and music- Leyla decided that the time spent with the silver-haired woman was probably her favorite in terms of her lessons. Tionne Solusar had a captivating voice and her lessons always contained an element of adventure, mystery, or heroism which kept them interesting, regardless of the subject matter.
Today's lecture had been about a female duros Jedi in the ancient days before the Old Republic who had devoted years of her life to halting the slavery of her people, and Leyla continued to reflect on the tale of her struggles and the heart wrenching sacrifices she had made on behalf of the anonymous masses of her home world; she was still thinking about it as she absently chose some suitable food for her lunch and took up a seat at an empty table, after scanning to see that Ben was nowhere around yet, nor were his friends Battek and Tivan.
Consequently, she was more absent-minded than usual and was surprised when a human male- young, but a good few years older than she was- slid in the seat across from her and smiled, and he was soon joined by a willowy humanoid female who might have been omwati, she thought.
"Welcome to Ossus," the boy said.
She cocked a brow wryly. "I've been here a couple weeks," she pointed out good-naturedly. "But thanks."
"Oh, we know," he smiled again. "We saw you come in, but we left early the next morning for a sort of camping-exploration trip… you'll do it when you've been here awhile too," he nodded sagely. "So we never got the chance to introduce ourselves." He seemed awfully excited to be meeting an eleven-year-old girl, she thought, but maybe they were just really friendly. "I'm Abei and this is Ziv."
"Leyla," she nodded politely, eyes narrowing marginally as she tried to figure out what Abei wanted. "How long have you been students here?"
He thought back. "I've been here for about three years, since I was twelve," Abei said thoughtfully. "Ziv, for about four, right?" The female nodded, eyes friendly, but remained silent. "Is there anything we can help you out with?"
"No," she replied evenly, "but I'm beginning to think that there's something I can help you out with…"
Abei blinked once in surprise, going slightly pink in the cheeks as his friendly, diverting ploy met an untimely end. "No," he hastened to assure her, "not help. I just wanted to ask… we saw you come in with Master Kyp Durron," his tone became slightly awed. "Were you apprenticing with him or something?"
The last part came out in a rush and Leyla stared at him, surprised. "I- no," she stumbled. "He was just bringing me to start my training here at the academy. Why?" she was legitimately confused by their interest.
"Oh, he's fascinating," the omwati, Ziv, broke in. "He usually comes by once a year or so to give a lecture to some of the older students."
"Really?" she asked curiously. Kyp hadn't mentioned that to her, though she supposed that she had been aware of him traveling to Ossus once in a while….
"Sure," Abei breathed. "I mean, he is like, the best living authority on the dark side of the Force, isn't he? At least, the best who doesn't use the dark side anymore…"
"Well of course he doesn't," she snapped, suddenly feeling a little sensitive towards this line of conversation. "He's on the Masters' Council back on Coruscant."
Ziv must have sensed a bit of her consternation because she smiled reassuringly. "We know," she soothed. "It's just interesting to hear someone talk about what it's been like to fall to the dark side- twice- and what it's like trying to move on and recover after being redeemed."
"Yeah," Abei nodded somberly, "even the thought of moving on after killing millions of people…" he shuddered. Something of the cold unease settling in Leyla's stomach must have shown in her eyes, because he quickly backtracked. "I mean… they were mostly Imperial military, I guess," he assured her. "Years ago, when the New Republic was still fighting what was left of the old Empire. But you'll hear all about it from him after you've been around for a couple of years."
"He told me about it already," she bit curtly. That was something of a half-truth. She had known about Kyp's dark past, learning about his second fall when she was seven and her mother was explaining why they had hidden her from him, and she was vaguely aware of the fact that many people still found Kyp controversial because of things he had done as a young man not much older than she was now… but millions of people…? "Some, anyway," she muttered. "Millions, you say?"
The other two shrugged uneasily, perhaps realizing that they shouldn't have brought this up in the first place; ironically, for entirely wrong reasons. "Sure; he turned some Imperial superweapon back on their best training academy. And during the Yuuzhan Vong war, there was the whole fiasco with him using Jaina Solo to help him kill enemy civilians…"
"What?" she blurted the question with more feeling than she had intended.
"Yeah, well… he didn't say it was her… but everyone knows about how they were, you know… a couple for a while, until she realized what he had done and left, and that's what made him go dark again…"
Ziv grinned. "It's almost romantic…"
"Oh, here you go again…"
"He was sooo in love that he fell to the dark side when she broke up with him!" Ziv smiled mischievously. "And then years later, he helps rescue her daughter as some sort of redemption to earn her forgiveness finally…"
"Puh-lease… you just have a crush on Master Durron…"
"Do not! I just think he has sort of a tragic story, you know?"
The two seemed to almost forget the wide-eyed adolescent across the table from them. Her knuckles were going white as she gripped the edge of the bench on which she sat perched on the edge, and she stared at a distant point past Abei's head.
What had her mother said, so long ago now? That Kyp had been mad at the Yuuzhan Vong, and that had driven him to do bad things… not that he had done them because her mom had hurt him first by leaving him… not that she had helped him do bad things like kill non-soldier Yuuzhan Vong…
"Leyla?"
She blinked and looked up into the concerned face of her cousin, Ben.
"Are you alright?"
She started and glanced at Abei and Ziv, who had ceased arguing at Ben's approach, or perhaps upon realizing the sudden paleness of Leyla's face, the utter stillness of her body as her mind raced hundreds of kilometers an hour.
"Should I get mom?" Ben leaned close to peer into her face.
"No," she forced herself to say. "No, I'm fine. Just… trying to understand something. Family things," she shrugged apologetically and attempted a half-smile.
Ben chuckled and shook his head ruefully. "Don't even attempt it; I gave up years ago trying to understand most of what goes on around our family."
Surprise emanated from Abei and Ziv. "Our family?" Ziv queried. "You're related?"
"Sure," Ben turned to her in surprise. "Cousins… second cousins, actually."
Abei shot her a piercing look. "That would make you the daughter of…"
"My cousin Jaina," Ben supplied off-handedly.
"I have to go," Leyla said faintly as a calculating apprehension washed over the two who had moments before been arguing playfully. "I need to talk to…" she paused and froze.
Who could she talk to? She had been lied to, that much was obvious. Her mother had told her something completely different about Kyp's fall to the dark side than Kyp had apparently told the students on Ossus. Or were the students wrong? Could some odd combination of both stories occurred… a certain point of view, as her great-uncle Luke liked saying?
There was one person who she knew would be honest and straightforward with her, if she asked a direct question. Her foster father, who she had believed to be her true father until the age of seven, who had immediately acknowledged the truth when she asked it of him…
Without another thought, she headed for the comm center; she needed to speak with her dad.
X-X-X-X
When his father's Corellian Corvette- a testament to his lingering affections for certain elements of his homeworld- dropped out of hyperspace near the edges of Chiss space, the control panel immediately pinged with an awaiting message. "For you," Soontir murmured over his shoulder as Ashik's face appeared on the screen.
"Colonel Fel," his assistant spoke quickly and quietly, "your daughter contacted me from Ossus and requests that you speak with her at your earliest convenience. She seemed well, albeit mildly distraught."
Jag stared at the screen a moment, unsettled. It struck him odd that Leyla would comm him and not Jaina or Kyp, knowing full well that they were better positioned at the moment to be of help to her. Then again, with Jaina flying about with her brother, and perhaps Kyp was busy too…
"Use the private terminal just off the bridge," his father suggested in a surprisingly gentle voice. Nodding jerkily, he stood swiftly and made his way from the navigation station to the indicated station where he could shut himself in and place the transmission, to Csilla first.
He didn't have to wait long, despite the fact that a quick calculation told him that it was late on the icy planet. "Ashik," he nodded in greeting as the blue face appeared before him. "Leyla contacted you?"
"Yes, sir," he confirmed. "Just over two hours ago."
"And she didn't say what she wanted?"
"No, sir," his assistant shook his head. "But she was remarkably adamant that I pass along the message for you to get into contact with her."
He sighed, worried. "Any word from Jaina?"
"Not yet."
Perhaps she was still in transit then. "Can you get me through to Ossus?" Ashik nodded and he sat back to wait for the transmission link to establish itself, and then anticipated another lengthy wait while Leyla was tracked down.
It surprised him, therefore, when it only took ten minutes for both tasks to be accomplished. For a long moment, he took in his daughter's wide brown eyes, the terse set of her mouth, her stiff composure… "Hi, sweetheart," he said softly. "What's wrong?"
Her eyes flashed once in nervous consternation, and he was alarmed to see tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. "You would never lie to me, would you?" she spoke so quietly that the sound was barely picked up over the transmission. "I mean, if I asked you a direct question…?"
He studied her, an uncomfortable feeling beginning to settle in his stomach. "I would never lie to you," he acknowledged. "Though I won't deny that there are times when we are not ready for the full truth."
Nodding, the first tears escaping on her cheeks, she glanced to the side before resolutely meeting his gaze once more. "Why did Kyp turn to the dark side during the Yuuzhan Vong war?"
For a moment, he closed his eyes, wondering how they could have been so stupid as to assume that she wouldn't hear things about Kyp's past when she made the journey to the academy. "We've talked about this, Leyla," he murmured. "Kyp… he was too angry, too upset with what they were doing to the galaxy, it made him aggressive and violent."
"So that's it?" she quirked her head slightly to the side. "He was mad, and just like that, he fell to the dark side again?"
Alarm bells were ringing in his head. "Nothing is that simple," he stated evenly. "Leyla, maybe this would be easier if you told me what you're trying to get at…"
"Was it mom's fault?"
He blinked twice, slowly. "Was it her fault that… Kyp got mad and turned to the dark side?" he asked carefully.
"He loved her, didn't he?" she pressed on. "I mean like… like you love her, not like family…"
"Leyla, you know that your mother and Kyp dated before she and I did, a long time ago…"
"But it was more than that, wasn't it?" she exclaimed. "He was in love with her, and she was pregnant, and she left him, and it made him sad and angry, didn't it? He turned to the dark side because mom hurt him, didn't she?"
"No," Jag stressed. "Don't you blame your mother for something like that." Leyla sat back, eyes wide, tirade ceased. "Kyp was already skirting the dark side, and he used her to do a bad thing-"
"To kill civilians?"
"Yes. He lied to her and she was upset, so she left him. It did hurt him, and maybe it was the final push that sent him over the edge, but you cannot blame her for the decision she made to do so."
"But she was pregnant!"
Jag sat back and ran a hand over his eyes. "No," he said softly, "she wasn't."
X-X-X-X
When he walked numbly back to the bridge half an hour later, Jag was in something of a daze, his eyes glassy and distant. "Son?" Soontir peered at him. "Are you okay?"
Jag looked up at him and blinked. "Am I okay?" he laughed bitterly. "Father… I just had to tell my daughter from hundreds of light-years away that she was born because her biological father raped her mother and used the Force to ensure that she conceived his child- all while said father was deeply enthralled with the dark side and her mother was all of eighteen years old. No, father; I'm not okay."
A glimmer of horrified understanding flashed in Soontir's eyes. "Jagged…"
He held up a hand and closed his eyes, resting his forehead against a bulkhead. "I'm sorry, father; I can't do it. I would never want to do something that could reflect poorly on you, on your time among the Chiss, on my own upbringing… but I cannot put my duty to the Ascendancy ahead of my family while it falls apart across the galaxy. Leyla needs me, Jaina needs me… I will see this mission through, and when we return to Csilla, I will be resigning my post and leaving the Ascendancy for good. If the Chiss will not approve of my family and all of the ensuing connections there entailed, then there is nothing left for me here."
"I'm sorry to hear that, young master Fel," he whirled to face Aristocra Formbi, who had approached silently. "But we all must draw a line somewhere," he murmured, peering out the forward viewport. As they looked, a glimmer of space signaled the reversion of a half-dozen ships to real space. He frowned and turned towards one of the stations on the bridge, gesturing silently as a slight flurry of activity accompanied the arrival of unexpected vessels. "Pirates?" he queried softly, to anyone and no one.
"Ours," Soontir shook his head.
Formbi pursed his lips and sighed as the small fleet made steady progress towards them.
"My only concern is that you will not find it so easy."