A/N: Future ADA- *hands tissue* :-/

Part XI

Luke met Han, Leia, and Kyp outside the med center. "Have you contacted Ossus yet?" he asked the younger Jedi Master. Kyp shook his head, sorrowful eyes raised to meet the cool blue ones steadily. "How is she?" he directed the question to all three of them.

"Well as to be expected," Han muttered bitterly. "When the drugs wear off…" he shrugged helplessly.

"Sedative?" Luke queried distractedly, still trying to think.

Kyp beckoned them into a nearby, empty room. "In here," he bit tersely. Luke eyed him curiously as he shut the door behind them and turned around. "Master Skywalker, we have a problem- Jaina's pregnant."

Luke hissed a breath and let it out as a sigh. "How far along?" he asked, raising a hand to his brow and rubbing at his eyes.

"According to Jacen, she only realized herself while they were on their mission to Reecee; a month, at most. Cilghal should have a more accurate idea soon."

Leia held up a hand. "I'm not sure I understand the concern…?"

"Bloodlines are very important," Kyp muttered, echoing the Aristocra's earlier words. "Any child of Jag will be a target, the Aristocra inadvertently said as much; he just thought he was negating our concern for Leyla. In an aristocratic, clan-based culture like that, a blood descendant could reclaim lost titles and the like upon reaching the age of maturity- and that age is decidedly low for the Chiss."

Han looked ready to punch a wall, and Leia's eyes were watering again. "Look," Luke sighed, "this is at least something we don't have to worry about tonight. If no one knows besides us, the twins, and Cilghal…" he trailed away, eyeing Kyp for confirmation, who nodded, "then the obvious thing is to keep it that way for as long as possible."

"What about Leyla?" Kyp asked quietly.

Luke pursed his lips. "You'll have to judge what kind of state she's in to keep the secret," he looked apologetic. "I've asked Kam and Tionne to tell Mara to find a way to get Leyla here as soon as possible, but I still need to contact her. Kyp, if you'd like to join me?"

Kyp followed him wordlessly from the room, leaving Han and Leia behind. They looked at each other for a long moment, shock and worry and sadness etched across their features. Then, Han folded his wife into a tight embrace, resting his cheek atop her head while they tried to get their own emotions under control before returning to the room where Jacen sat with Jaina.

Jacen pressed a finger to his lips. "I think she finally cried herself to sleep," he murmured lowly as he carefully extracted his hand from his sister's grasp, wriggling the fingers to regain circulation. Standing stiffly, he retreated to the far side of the room where their hushed voices would be less likely to disturb the sleeping young woman.

"So… now what?"

X-X-X-X

There were no loving greetings, pleasantries of any sort… "We'll be en route within the hour," Mara said quickly and distractedly. "I'm bringing her myself, Ben will come with us. He's already helping get some of her stuff together for the trip."

"How is she?" Kyp quickly asked.

A shadow passed over Mara's face. "I don't think I've ever seen a reaction like that, Kyp," she said softly. "I made the call to sedate her, she was going to make herself sick and… Tionne is still calming a few of the other more perceptive- and affected- students."

"Leyla has always been attuned to others' emotions," Luke commented hollowly, thinking back to years ago when he had seen the not-quite-two-year-old register a brief melancholy from Kyp and, in turn, rush over to him to find out what the matter was, despite the fact that she had just met him the night before, that she didn't really even understand the emotions she was registering in the Force…

Jaina's pain would have been too much for her to handle, and once she had gathered enough to understand why her mother was numbingly devastated…

"It was probably the only thing you could do," Kyp acknowledged wearily.

Mara looked uncharacteristically uncertain as her eyes shifted back over to her husband. "Luke, what do I tell her when she wakes up?"

Luke shook his head. "The truth, I suppose."

"What is the truth?" Kyp demanded. "Do any of us seriously think that this was an accident? That the legendary Soontir Fel would let his ship be compromised by mechanical difficulties?"

"I'm not going to definitively tell an eleven-year-old girl that her father was murdered unless I know it to be true, without any doubt whatsoever," Mara snapped.

Luke held up his hand, eyes closed in frustration. "Then tell her what we know; that the Chiss have reported an accident, that at the moment, that is all that we know. And try to be gentle as possible when telling her about Soontir, I doubt she picked up on that much detail in her state."

"Fine," Mara looked sideways again and closed her eyes. "I need to go, I want to be en route before Leyla wakes; I think a more contained environment can only help her at this point."

Luke nodded but held up a finger. "Kyp," he murmured, "would you give us a minute?"

"Sure; see you soon, Mara," Kyp stood and backed away from the comm console.

"Likewise, Kyp; take care." When he was gone, she eyed Luke shrewdly through the holoscreen. "Something I should know?" she asked lightly. "Something Kyp shouldn't?"

He shook his head. "Not exactly. But I want you to- quietly- ask Vulcor to start tracking down Zekk and Tahlia, and to put them in contact with me."

"Might be easier said than done," Mara warned. "Last I heard, they were in pretty deep with a smuggling ring out in the Mid Rim…"

"Zekk is close enough with Jaina, he'll have felt something; I suspect that they'll meet Vulcor halfway." Luke bit his lip. "But I don't want them to come in, not yet, so I need Vulcor to try to get to them before they get too worried about what's going on here."

She nodded, not questioning his decisions or his motives. "I'll tell him."

X-X-X-X

"Shouldn't I have felt something?"

Kyp's head snapped up from where it had been resting heavily in his hand as he leaned against the armrest of the chair. Jaina was sitting upright in the bed, her legs drawn in close to her chest, arms wrapped protectively around her small body, eyes squeezed shut. A quick glance across the room showed that Jacen had also dozed off. "I don't know," he murmured, quickly understanding but unable to offer an answer.

"I mean… if something's wrong, I can sense it. How could… how could Jag just be gone," her voice broke, "and I didn't even feel anything?"

"Distance matters," he told her quietly. "Especially with non-Jedi. Do you think your mother could sense your father from across the known galaxy?"

She shrugged listlessly and opened her eyes, tilting her head and lifting her eyes to meet Kyp's green ones. "Why are you here?"

The question was entirely curiosity, but Kyp felt mildly defensive when she asked it. "Where else should I be?"

"Bed?" He just stared. "What time is it, anyway?"

He glanced at his chrono, squinting in the darkened room. "Nearly twenty-three hundred." She displayed no reaction, and he doubted that she'd ever truly cared about the answer, had just wanted something to say. "Your parents went with Luke to try to contact Wedge, and then I think they were going to try to inquire about Syal's status, and try to get her to Galactic Alliance territory, if necessary."

"Leyla?"

"Already en route with Mara and Ben."

A slight measure of relief penetrated the numb outer shell of her emotions. Just a slight one though. "What are we doing?"

He cocked his head slightly, unsure what she meant by the question. "At the moment, not much," he admitted slowly. "The government is already running damage control for the political ramifications of the Ascendancy's secession. With the tie severed already though, we don't have a whole lot of legal grounds for… investigatory purposes…"

Something flickered in her eyes, and her arms dropped to her sides, hands twisting in the sheets of the bed. "Kyp… did they kill him?" she whispered, blinking her eyes quickly.

"I don't know."

"Guess."

"The possibility is being… strongly considered," he cringed.

"But what do you think?"

He sighed and rubbed his eyes. "That it was Mitt'royvr'yni who first used the phrase 'political assassination,' not us." Tears welled in her eyes and she looked away quickly, brushing them away quickly and angrily. "It's okay," he murmured. "You don't have to be strong right now."

She just shook her head and slid her legs over the side of the bed, standing shakily and looking around in an almost confused daze. "We spoke while Jacen and I were on Reecee," she muttered. "And you know what I did? I got snappy with him, I ended the transmission because I didn't want to talk to him anymore, I was so annoyed that he told me that I couldn't come to Chiss space with him…"

Kyp blinked in surprise. "Maybe he foresaw the danger?"

She shook her head miserably. "He was worried about the political retaliation, nothing more. I got angry. And then when we got back, he had…" a soft sob escaped her throat, and Kyp was on his feet, unsure whether he should encourage her to get back in bed or not. "He left me a message, Kyp; he said he was sorry, after the way I got mad… that he was coming home as soon as they made it back to Csilla…"

"Jaina…"

"I never told him I was pregnant!" she exclaimed, and Jacen started upright in the far corner. Kyp touched a light hand to Jaina's shoulder and she practically fell back against him, crying. "I didn't tell him," she sobbed, starting to shake once more. Jacen got to his feet, eyes widened in alarm, but Kyp waved him off, sensing that too much attention would just further upset her. "It was stupid, I wanted to be with him…"

"Shh," he sat down in the chair again and pulled her down with him. "It wasn't stupid, Jaina," he rubbed soothing circles on her back as she buried her face in his robes, curling up against him as she cried inconsolably. His arms encircled her, and he rested his chin atop her head, stroking her hair with a free hand. "It wasn't stupid…"

That was how Han, Leia, and Luke found them five or ten minutes later. Jaina had calmed somewhat, but her eyes were still red and wet, and she looked at her parents bleakly with her cheek still pressed against Kyp's chest. Kyp's eyes were wide and helpless, unsure of what to do, afraid to even speak for fear of setting her off again.

"Sweetheart?" Han approached slowly and refrained from attempting to place a comforting hand on her shoulder when Jaina seemed to shrink further up against Kyp. "Why don't you come home with us? You'd be a lot more comfortable…"

Jaina twisted her face around and shuddered as she breathed heavily; Kyp suspected she couldn't have cared less about her own comfort, at that point. "Come on," he murmured, loosening his grip around her shoulders. She didn't move at first, but he applied gentle pressure to her back, encouraging her to stand. When she was on her feet, she drew her cloak in tight around her, and a coldness emanated from her, challenging anyone to touch her, lest she shatter.

X-X-X-X

Wynssa Myntox- formerly Wynssa Fel- closed down the transmission link with her mother and sat back heavily in her chair, eyes flickering periodically to the silent HoloNet broadcast in which she suspected the various political experts and media types were still discussing the not-wholly-unanticipated, but sudden secession of the Chiss Ascendancy from the Galactic Alliance.

And periodically, they would make a somber note about the shocking deaths of three leading advocates for the continuing association and alliance between the two entities- Aristocra Chaf'orm'bintrano, her father, and her brother.

She had been trained from an early age to accept death, to suppress sentimentality and other useless emotions; she had seen her brothers Davin and Chak leave for their last mission, as well as her sister Cherith. Jag though- he had been a survivor, perhaps even touched with a hand of that infamous Solo luck. And paired with the demise of their father…

Her mother was retaining an impressive level of composure, Wyn thought.

Distantly, she heard the door of the apartment hiss open and she stood quickly, turning off the HoloNet and taking a moment to compose herself before her husband found her. She had been expecting Syd since the first announcement of the turmoil an hour previously. Quick footsteps suggested that she was right, that he was home early because he had heard the news, and his eyes were wide and concerned when he found her, still standing there stoically.

"Wyn," he rushed over, and she allowed him to pull her close. "I came as soon as I heard… I'm so sorry about your father and Jagged."

She mumbled some acknowledgement to his consolation and closed her eyes, leaning heavily against her husband of eighteen months.

"If there's anything you need…" Syd let the offer trail away as Wyn pulled back and swept her hair out of her face.

"I'm alright," she assured him through stiff lips. "More concerned about my mother than anything else, but she has already been in contact with her brother on Corellia as well as some of the Jedi regarding the prospect of leaving Chiss space quickly and quietly."

"Your sister-in-law?"

Wyn shook her head. "Mother inquired after her, it seems she was indisposed- apparently the news was delivered in a less-than-gentle fashion, and she is taking it quite hard."

"Understandable." He studied her face a moment and then smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry if the timing is bad… but Major Antell is in the sitting room and waiting to speak with you."

She frowned. "Who?"

"Major Davik Antell?" he tilted his head slightly. "He said he knows you; he leads our best fighter squadron, the Bloodfins."

She shook her head. "We've never met."

"Well he was quite adamant when I was leaving that you grant him a few minutes of your time."

Shrugging, she trudged out the door, Syd close behind. When she reached the sitting room moments later, a tall, dark-haired figure was standing straight, hands clasped behind his back, staring out a window. "Major?" she spoke evenly.

He turned smoothly at the sound of her voice; she stopped in shock, and her husband nearly collided against her back.

"What- what are you doing here?"

"My duty, Wynssa," the man responded lowly, looking her over quickly as though assuring himself of her wellbeing. "And I require your assistance."