Disclaimer: Not mine. Sadly.
A/N: Elements of this chapter are taken from Edge of Victory II… just be warned, if you see recognized plot points, they aren't mine.
Part VI
Three weeks later, after staging scouting and reconnaissance from a remote sector, General Antilles and Admiral Kre'fey finally felt confident enough to act on their acquired intelligence.
The ready room was chaos as pilots geared up, preparing to launch in under an hour; Rogue Squadron and Kyp's Dozen-and-Two would take the lead, clearing a path for the battleships to follow, taking on the sitting Yuuzhan Vong forces guarding their mysterious weapon.
Jaina slipped her arms through the sleeves of her flightsuit and began fastening it when Kyp strode purposefully towards here and pulled her off to a quiet corner. "Here," he produced a stim-shot from his pocket. "You're going to need it."
She frowned. "You think it's going to be that bad?"
He shrugged but didn't answer as he pulled the shoulder of her flightsuit down and injected the stimulant into the fleshy part of her upper arm. He gently massaged the area for a minute before leaning over and kissing her shoulder as he pulled the sleeve back into place so she could finish fastening it.
The drug quickly took effect, supplementing even her attuned Jedi-awareness. Smiling softly up at Kyp, she suddenly had the tingling sensation of being watched; looking over towards the door, she saw Wedge observing the two of them quietly, a light frown playing on his face. Jaina looked up at Kyp, wondering if he'd known Wedge was watching them all along- but when the general approached, Kyp's wary acknowledgement of his sudden presence drove the suspicion from her mind.
"Jaina, Master Durron," Wedge acknowledged stiffly.
"General," Jaina inclined her head. "What can we do for you?"
He waved his hand dismissively. "Hopefully nothing, besides flying as well as you always do. You're flying with the Dozen, aren't you, Jaina?" She nodded. "Very well; if things start going bad, I may take to an X-wing myself, in which case you'll form up with me again, okay?"
"Yes, sir."
With a last cursory glance and curt nod at them both, Wedge was gone, preparing his final battle briefing before the fighters proceeded to the hangar bay. Jaina listened respectfully, but everything Wedge was saying had already been relayed at the last meeting she'd sat in on. Kyp stood behind her, hands clasping her shoulders, and when Wedge stopped and dismissed the pilots, he held her in place until the room emptied.
"Sorry, Kyp, but I don't think we have enough time right now," she teased gently, turning in his grasp.
He chuckled, but his eyes looked worried, maybe a little anxious. "I'm half-tempted to prove you wrong, but that's not what I wanted." He sighed and cupped her face, stroking her cheek with his thumb. "I just… I don't know what will happen after this battle- you'll probably run off with Darklighter and his crew, and my squad will go about their own thing…"
"Hey, Kyp," she swallowed nervously, "this is just like any other skirmish with the 'skips…"
"I'm not trying to say goodbye," he interrupted quickly. Then, his voice softened. "Don't feel obligated to respond in kind, and for Force's sake, don't think too much on it while you're flying out there, but…" he tilted his head and leaned in close to her ear, "I love you, Jaina Solo."
Her eyes widened at the admission, mind racing far too fast. Not waiting for a response, Kyp kissed her once on the forehead and turned and strode from the room, leaving her alone in surprised silence.
They'd been so light-hearted about the whole affair. Their encounters were masked with jokes, the tone always playful… but she wasn't completely delusional. Something had changed when she wasn't looking, and a bantha could have picked up on the high emotional charge that they so consciously ignored. Sighing her frustration, Jaina hurried from the room, toward the hangar… after Kyp.
She caught him moments before he depressed the lever to open the hangar bay door. "Kyp, wait." He turned and his lips quirked as she put her arms around him, leaning up to look into the much-taller man's face. "I love you too, Kyp Durron. Now go fly well and vape some 'skips."
"That's my girl," he grinned wryly and, giving her a last, fleeting kiss, they stepped through to the hangar and separated, seeking out their own vessels.
Scene. Scene. Scene. Scene. Scene. Scene. Scene. Scene. Scene. Scene. Scene. Scene. Scene. Scene.
"Banking, starboard, fourteen," Jaina snapped into her comlink. Calling Wedge 'fourteen' instead of 'General Antilles' made it slightly easier to forget just whom she flew with. Not to mention it made the comm chatter easier to follow.
"Copy, thirteen- drop thirty degrees… almost… got him!"
She let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. Whether by chance or premonition, Kyp had been right- this was certainly a fight to test their skills and endurance. Shortly after the bothan cruiser and star destroyer had arrived in-system, Wedge had taken to his snubfighter and joined the fray; not that one man made much difference, even if it was Wedge Antilles- but morale skyrocketed and pilots gained a new surge of energy, seeing their general, the Rebel hero, fight right alongside them.
"Admiral Kre'fey," she heard Gavin Darklighter across the comm network, "you're clear to start your run."
"Copy, Colonel," the Ralroost replied, beginning to maneuver into position, slowly flanking the mass that had once been the planet Sernpidal and its moon, and avoiding the line of dovin basals that were drawing materiel from the system's star. The sight gave Jaina a chill; she couldn't begin to imagine what type of super-weapon the enemy was trying to create using raw stellar material.
"Watch it, Rogue," one of Kyp's pilots broke into her thoughts, "you have more company fast-approaching…"
A tingle shot through Jaina. "Break!" she called, not entirely aware of the source of her sudden panic. The squadron followed, despite her informal status as a member, let alone its leader. "Something's not…" a strange sense filled her. "Suicide run!"
Sure enough, the coralskippers were hurling themselves at high velocities towards the fleet of X-wings, abandoning the use of weapons in favor of speed. "On me, thirteen," Wedge's voice snapped in her ear, and she twisted around, matching his precise movements as they dodged the oncoming living projectiles. Spinning about, Wedge and Jaina chose a target and tore it apart; moments later, a pair of simultaneous eruptions filled the darkness with bright light that tinted Jaina's shield screen.
"Three and eleven down," Darklighter broke in, wasting no time, "four and twelve, form up."
"Ralroost is approaching on your vector," Kyp sounded over the open channel. "Rogues, get out of there."
"Jaina, on me," Wedge muttered, pursuing some of the escaping coralskippers towards the line of gravity wells and the ruins of the planet. Darklighter dispatched half of the squadron with them and ordered damaged fighters back to the Mon Mothma.
Kyp spoke again. "Rogue, when that thing blows…"
"Manage your squadron, Durron," Darklighter snapped, "I'll manage mine."
Jaina winced at the power struggle between the two commanders. Wedge said nothing, leading them deeper towards the gravitic weapon as they blasted the coralskippers apart one-by-one. Jaina had to admit, Wedge still had it in him after all these years.
The Ralroost was coming up fast; Jaina and Wedge still had point, the other six fighters forming up around the cruiser as a protective guard against further coralskipper attack. "I think we've done all we can, thirteen," Wedge's voice sounded, "let's form up on Ralroost."
The two X-wings were approaching the far side of the planet remnants. Just a little further and they might be able to get a better view of what exactly the Vong were trying to do here.
"Rogue thirteen and fourteen, get out of there," Admiral Kre'fey's voice rang out, clear and crisp. "Ralroost, prepare to fire turbolasers…"
"Jaina," Wedge snapped, "this is no time for heroics…"
A green flash lit the empty space around them. Wedge veered his craft port and tore away as the first of the dovin basals, overwhelmed with energy, exploded; the resulting eruption of matter started a chain reaction down the line of gravity wells.
He saw Jaina's snubfighter turning towards him, having veered to starboard at the first firing of the batteries. "Jaina," Wedge said, "you're too close to the…" his voice died in his throat when a well erupted behind her craft, silhouetting it and then sending it into an uncontrolled spin towards what was left of Sernpidal.
"Jaina!" Kyp Durron was back on the comm.
Feeling immensely stupid, Jaina commed in. "I'm crippled here," she said through gritted teeth. "Life support and communications are just about the only intact systems, limited steering, but I think enough to pull me out of the spin here…"
She righted herself, tried to turn and hobble towards the Ralroost- nothing. She sighed. "Fourteen, go on ahead," she said. "I'm going to have to wait for a tow."
Settling back and concentrating on keeping an even distance between the planetary mass and her crippled vessel, she oriented the ship in what she hoped would put it in an orbital pattern, having no power to accelerate. "Thirteen, a tow-ship is approaching, hold your present course."
"Like I'm going anywhere," she muttered to the empty space around her.
Her ship passed through the space where, minutes earlier, a chain of dovin basals had been feeding matter from the star to the ruins of the planet… just a little further, and she'd see this weapon which, hopefully, was incomplete and nonfunctional.
The tow shuttle was almost to her, flanked by a half squadron of bothan scout craft who continued ahead to the planetary ruins. She came across the line of the ecliptic and saw something… strange… at the same moment that she sensed confused consternation from the scout crafts.
"General," she said slowly, "we have a Worldship sitting here… appears non-combative, though what it's doing out here is beyond…" she trailed off, blood freezing in her veins.
The hull of the craft was darker than most Yuuzhan Vong vessels, and entire segments seemed chipped away. The Vong ships were alive, which meant that, like all other living things, they had to die, and this one looked to be… dying.
A Worldship. Civilian craft. It was dying.
And it was sitting directly in the delivery path of the destroyed chain of gravity wells.
This was Kyp's super weapon. What his squadron had stumbled upon shortly before Jaina found them near here over two months ago. A ship full of thousands- maybe millions- of non combat personnel, a dying ship, whose last hope for survival had just been blown out of the sky by extraordinary firepower.
Barely registering the lock of the tow craft, giving automatic responses to queries of her well-being, Jaina just sat stunned in her crash-webbing during the short trip back to the Ralroost. In a daze, she climbed out of the damaged fighter and demanded the location of General Antilles from the nearest deck-hand with a datapad. Looking mildly alarmed at the glint in her eyes, he informed her quickly that the general had joined the admiral on the bridge.
The trip to the bridge took forever and no time at all. All the way there, she wondered one thing- whether Kyp had realized what they would be attacking when he asked Jaina to pass along his data.
Her answer came entirely too quickly- and painfully.
Stepping onto the bridge, she found herself in the middle of a debate among Admiral Kre'fey, General Antilles, Commander Darklighter, and Kyp.
Kyp, who was in the middle of saying, "It's time the Yuuzhan Vong learned the consequences of attacking New Republic civilians! This will have taught them those consequences." Wedge and Darklighter looked angry and chagrined. Kre'fey was silent but contemplative. Jaina stalked towards the group, earning Kyp's attention; he smiled in relief. "Jaina," he exclaimed, "you're alright?" His expression faltered slightly at the deadly look in her eyes.
She marched straight up to him, planted her feet firmly against the deck, and stared. "This is what you used me for? This is why you needed someone with the ear of the military?" she gestured back towards Wedge, her first point of contact in the fiasco. By now, his expression was carefully schooled, but she caught a vague sense of guilt. "This," she hissed, "is your super weapon?" She hauled off and smacked him hard across the face.
There was no reaction; indeed, what could he say? She stared, breathing heavily, waiting for nothing. "You're despicable," she finally spat. "All those civilians… I'll never trust you- ever again." Something in her heart tore before she clamped down, freezing her feelings and emotions, unwilling to let them change anything. "You played me from the start, didn't you? Asking me to apprentice with you… you planned every action… every word…" She turned with effort to Wedge, ignoring Kyp's pleading sense in the Force. "General, I apologize sincerely and take full responsibility for what's happened here today; it was an unforgiveable lapse in judgment to bring this to your attention."
Wedge gently pulled her back away from Kyp, a comforting arm around her shoulders. "Do not be so harsh on yourself, Jaina. I'm sure Master Durron has ways of being very… persuasive."
Kyp's eyes flashed once and Jaina went red with anger and embarrassment at the realization that Wedge had been right all along about his misgivings regarding Kyp. "With your leave, General, I'd like to return to the Mon Mothma and collect my things; I need to report back to my uncle about what has transpired here."
"Of course, Jaina," he said sympathetically. "Gentlemen, I'll be back in ten minutes to continue this… discussion."
As they walked along the eerily silent corridors of the cruiser, two things kept ringing in Jaina's head.
I love you, Jaina Solo.
I love you too, Kyp Durron.
Her first admitted love- and it had lasted a matter of hours. Another twinge tore at her heart, and she silenced it as efficiently as the first.
They were at war- she had been foolish to believe that something as fragile as human affection could survive it.
Fin
A/N: It's not over! Check out chapter one of Betrayal, Forgiveness, Redemption, part 2 of the 3 part series!
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And I'd love to hear your thoughts! Thanks for reading!
*~Lexi~*