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Author Topic: Shattered Mirror (Post-TUF, Major AU, J/J, A/T, Kyle, Danni) SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT 5/7/08
rebel_cheese 
Registered: Jul '06
42800_Anakin Solo
Date Posted: 7/31/06 6:33pm Subject: Shattered Mirror (Post-TUF, Major AU, J/J, A/T, Kyle, Danni) SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT 5/7/08 - Date Edited: 5/7 10:22pm (47 edits total) Edited By: rebel_cheese
Title: Shattered Mirror
Author: Draconarius/rebel_cheese
Genre: action/alternate universe
Timeframe: a little under a year after TUF
Characters: Jaina, Jag, Kyle Katarn, Anakin, Tahiri, Wynssa, Valin, Zekk, OCs
Summary: Jaina and Jag are hurled into an alternate universe where the Vong won the war.
Link to old thread: Previous Shattered Mirror Thread

Disclaimer: I own nothing! GL owns Star Wars, and Draconarius owns not only the first nineteen chapters, but this story as well. I am merely continuing and finishing it for him. Any changes and additions I have made have been with his permission.

This is Draconarius' extended summary from the old thread:
Jaina and Jag have just gotten engaged on Csilla and are now on their way back to Denon to break the news to Jaina's extended family. They are just about to arrive at Denon when, durnig a routine course correction, the fiances run into an ion mine. Since their ships are seemingly unaffected, they decide to jump to hyperspace. When they come out, they find themselves in an alternate universe where the unthinkable has happened: the Yuuzhan Vong won the war!

Anyway, I don’t want to give too much away here (and, trust me, the alternate universe thing is the LEAST of the surprises I have!), so I’ll stop rambling and let you all get down to the reading. Enjoy!

CURRENT PM LIST (Just ask if you wish to be added/removed):

voxynking
zettazofia
The_Silent_One
skywalker64089
oldjedinurse
Lola64
Chilla
Stickster
RevaDurron
Fiana_Novarr
Inara
SilSolo
SpiritofEowyn
princess_of_naboo
ChissGoddess
Danni_Quee_Solo
alanna_mara
jaina_clan_solo
goddess45
G__Anakin
nikjo88
jasa
DARTH_MU
ikarit
Jek_Windu
Ultima_1
for a grand total of 26 pms every update tired

Dramatis Personae

Anakin Solo; Jedi knight (male human)
Artran Kharran; Warmaster (male Yuuzhan Vong)
Azias Sharn; Jedi apprentice (male human)
Ben Skywalker; child (male human)
Blaine Harris: Prime Minister of Bakura (male human)
Cirila Keryln; Jedi apprentice (female Chiss)
Danni Quee Durron; Jedi knight (female human)
Denn Jerrevick; Bakuran military officer (male human)
Derek 'Hobbie' Klivian: Halo squadron leader (male human)
Grell Panib: Deputy Prime Minister of Bakura (male human)
Inyri Forge: fighter pilot (female human)
Jagged Fel; CEDF officer (male human)
Jaina Solo; Jedi knight (female human)
Johnarath Ducaris; Bakuran admiral (male human)
Jysella Horn; child (female human)
Kittasallia "Kitty" Charlas; captain, Requiem (female human)
Kyle Katarn; Jedi master (male human)
Malinza Thanas; Bakuran military officer (female human)
Myri Antilles; child (female human)
Nas Choka: Yuuzhan Vong warlord (male Yuuzhan Vong)
Nek Bwua'tu: captain, Challenger (male Bothan)
Nom Anor; prefect (male Yuuzhan Vong)
Omini; Shamed One (male Yuuzhan Vong)
Riina Kharran; warrior (female Yuuzhan Vong)
Sharrvon Kharran; captain, Sunslayer (male Yuuzhan Vong)
Shimrra; Supreme Overlord (male Yuuzhan Vong)
Tahiri Veila Solo; Jedi knight (female human)
Valin Horn; Jedi knight (male human)
Wedge Antilles; captain, Lusankya (male human)
Wynssa Fel; fighter pilot (female human)
Yannik; captain, Archangel (male from Yoda’s species)
Yakown Reth: fighter pilot (male human)
Zekk; Jedi knight (male human)

Again, the first nineteen chapters were written by Draconarius. I hope, whether you are one of the original 21 PMers or a complete newbie to Shattered Mirror, that you will enjoy reading his writing, whether for the first time or the hundredth.

I also hope that you will enjoy my additions to Draco's fantastic saga.

-RC

 

-----signature-----
Padawan of princess_of_naboo
E-married to the amazing padawanlost love
Member of Charon_Force
Beginning's End: http://boards.theforce.net/Message.aspx?topic=28450077&brd=10477&replies=1
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rebel_cheese 
Registered: Jul '06
42800_Anakin Solo
Date Posted: 7/31/06 6:35pm Subject: RE: Shattered Mirror (Post-TUF, Major AU, J/J, A/T, Kyle, Danni )*RE-POST IN PROGRESS*
CHAPTER ONE


“You know, Jaina, I still think we should have taken a shuttle,” Jag said into the comm after he had successfully reverted to realspace.

“Only because you want to use me as a way to keep yourself occupied,” Jaina replied from her X-wing.

“No!” Jag snapped. “Do you have any idea how uncomfortable it is to sleep in a Clawcraft?”

“About as uncomfortable as it is to sleep in a X-wing?”

“You’re a Jedi, I’m not!”

“Stop complaining,” Jaina told him. “We’ll be at Ossus soon enough, my dear fiancé.”

Jag smiled as she said that. “I love hearing that.”

“What? We’ll be at Ossus soon enough?”

“No, the word fiancé. Spoken by you. In reference to me,” Jag corrected. “I’m so glad you changed your mind about us.”

“It’s been eight months since what I said on Sekot, Jag. And I never said I didn’t want to be with you!” Jaina replied. “I guess I was just more lonely than I expected I would be.”

“Are you saying you missed me?”

“Of course I missed you!” Jaina replied. “I love you, Jag. I think I always wanted to marry you. I’m going to do whatever it takes to make this work. I don’t care if I have to resign from—.”

“I won’t let you resign, Jaina,” Jag stated.

“We’ll figure it out later,” Jaina sighed. “Right now, I just want to get to Ossus and tell everyone. I can’t wait to see the looks on their faces.”

“Neither can I, Jaina,” Jag sighed, but more to himself. “Neither can I.”

“Ready to jump yet?”

“Just about—.”

Suddenly, Jag’s eyes were hit with a massive burst of pure white light directly in front of him, and he felt his Clawcraft get knocked hard to the left at the same instant. Over the comm he heard a cry of surprise from Jaina, just as he looked away from the Clawcraft’s canopy and covered his eyes with his hand.

“What in the name of the Force was that?” Jaina demanded. “Are you alright, Jag?”

“Yeah,” Jag replied, blinking to try and get the white spots out of his eyesight. “Oh, damn it…that’s better.”

“Is your ship okay?”

“Haven’t checked,” Jag sighed as he reached for the main console and started a diagnostic. Jag watched as each of the systems came up green. He thought he saw the hyperdrive safeties come up red, but as soon as he blinked it turned green. Jag dismissed it as his nearly blinded eyes playing up. He rubbed at them, trying to make them focus, before looking at the display again. Everything came up green.

“I’m fine,” Jag said.

“Same here,” Jaina replied. “Looks like that was an energy discharge. No source for it, though.”

“Oh well,” Jag said. “Weird things happen in space. Let’s get going to Denon, we can get a survey ship to check this out.”

“Right,” Jaina replied. “Jump in three…two…one…now.”

--------------------------------------

“What in the name of…? Sir! Two fighters just—!”

Everyone on the Archangel’s bridge, including Jedi Master Kyle Katarn, ducked as two fighters flew over their heads, mere metres from the ship’s hull.

“What the?” Kyle sighed to himself as he stood again, watching the two fighters fly away. Kyle took one look around the ship’s bridge, which was identical to all of the other Star Destroyers in the now-wiped-out Imperial fleet, spotted the ship’s captain standing halfway down the walkway, and started walking towards him.

“Identify those ships!” Captain Yannik ordered as Kyle approached. The green, two-foot-tall alien didn’t take his eyes away from the two fighters as he ordered his crew. “Where did they come from?”

“They just…appeared right on top of us,” A crewman from the left crew-pit replied. “One looks like a XJ, the other looks like a Chiss Clawcraft.”

“Clawcraft?” Kyle repeated in surprise. “That can’t be right. There’s none in existence anymore.”

“Yet, one seems to have just flown past our bridge,” Yannik commented, looking up at Kyle.

“You don’t think I noticed?” Kyle replied.

“No, I am sure you noticed. I was just grabbing an opportunity to point out one of the few ignorant comments that come out of you,” Yannik replied. “Where did they come from?”

“You expect me to know?”

“You are the Jedi Master here, correct?”

“Doesn’t make me all-knowing, Yannik,” Kyle stated. “Comm, try and tap their comm system!”

“Yes, sir!”

“Are you sure that is wise?” Yannik asked. “They might not like us spying on them.”

“They have two fighters, we have a Star Destroyer,” Kyle said. “They have no say in the matter,” Kyle took a deep breath before he continued. “Might be a good idea to double check the cloak. Make sure the field wasn’t disrupted by that little flyby.”

“Yes,” Yannik replied, and then began ordering the crew again. “Perform a diagnostic on the cloaking systems! Get the Black Knights ready for launch!”

Kyle took one last look at the two fighters before leaving Yannik to his job and heading for the comm station at the back of the bridge. The officer there was already busy tapping the fighters’ comm systems. Kyle took a quick look at her progress before taking his commlink from his belt and activating it.

“Danni.”

“Yes, Kyle?”

“Get up to bridge at once,” Kyle ordered. “We have a little problem.”

“Sir,” The communications officer interrupted. “Got it…”

-------------------------------------

“What in the name of the Force…” Jaina breathed as soon as the reversion to realspace was complete. She was staring at her destination, but at the same time, she knew it couldn’t be her destination. It couldn’t be Denon.

The planet slowly spinning in front of her ship looked more like Serpindal than Denon. What parts of the planet that weren’t burning were covered with city-size craters. Jaina couldn’t sense anything alive down there. The whole thing was dead. Beyond dead. There was nothing. No people, animals, not even plant life. The whole thing was just…empty.

“Jaina…what happened?” Jag stammered from his Clawcraft.

“Denon…” Jaina sighed. There was only one explanation for what the planet looked like; bombardment. “This isn’t possible. It would take weeks to do this much damage…we’ve been only been gone for two.”

“Coordinates are right,” Jag said. “This is Denon.”

“It can’t be,” Jaina sighed in astonishment. “Uncle Luke…mom…dad…”

“They’re alright, Jaina,” Jag said in his very-effective reassuring voice. “They would have made it off planet in time.”

“Jag…” Jaina whimpered. “Jag, they didn’t. I can’t sense them through the Force. Any of them! Mom, dad, Uncle Luke, Jacen, Aunt Mara…no one!”

“Calm down, Jaina—.”

“Calm down?” Jaina screamed. “My family is dead, Jag—!”

“Jaya, you said yourself that this can’t be Denon! It isn’t possible!” Jag interrupted. “It’s probably the Force playing tricks on you.”

“Jag—!”

“Jaya, stop it!” Jag snapped. “This won’t help anyone!” Something on his side of the comm suddenly got his attention. “Jaina…I’m picking up a ship. Bearing three-five-five mark four-seven.”

Jaina tore her eyes away from the burning sphere that used to be Denon to look at her sensors. Sure enough, there was a ship sitting there.

“Cappie, ID that ship,” Jaina instructed her Astromech.

[Class is unknown, but, judging by size, it’s a frigate] Cappie answered. [Its design is definitely Yuuzhan Vong in origin]

“A Vong ship?” Jaina asked in shock. “Here? Now?”

“But…” Jag stammered. “But…the peace treaty. The Vong should be…oh no.”

“What is it?” Jaina asked.

“I think it’s seen us,” Jag replied. “It’s coming at us, picking up speed.”

Jaina checked her sensors to confirm that. The Vong ship was flying straight towards them, and launching Coralskippers.

“Oh no…” Jaina sighed. “Not again.”

-------------------------------------------

“This can’t be a trap,” Danni stated quietly. “Not even the Vong would underestimate us like this.”

Kyle nodded, acknowledging that he had heard Danni, but he didn’t say anything. The Vong escort frigate was rapidly approaching the two starfighters, as was its force of Coralskippers. That kind of force would annihilate the X-wing and Clawcraft.

“We could help them, Kyle,” Danni whispered. “De-cloak, blast the frigate, and get the Black Knights to take out those skippers.”

“We don’t know if there are more Vong out there or not, Danni,” Kyle replied. “I don’t want to risk the Archangel like that.”

“You’d rather lose a chance like this?” Danni asked. “Those are two perfect-condition fighters out there, and, by the looks of things, they have experienced pilots. We could use them!”

“Danni…” Kyle sighed. She was right; opportunities like this were far too rare to be passed up. But the last time something like this had happened it had turned out to be a trap. Kyle didn’t want to make another mistake that would cost him ten Jedi knights. He didn’t even have ten Jedi knights, himself included. “It’s too risky, Danni. We can’t.”

“Kyle!” Danni said hurriedly. “Luke would agree with me! You know that! This is too small scale to be a trap. We should help them!”

Kyle folded his arms across his chest, deliberating on what to do. They were so close to Coruscant…if this was a trap, fifty Vong ships would be on them in a heartbeat. And, even if it wasn’t a trap, if they took too long to kill the enemy, just as many ships in would arrive just as quickly.

“Kyle, those Coralskippers will be on them in a few seconds!” Danni stated, almost pleadingly. “That frigate is in weapons range. We can kill it before they know we’re even here!”

Kyle didn’t reply.

“Kyle!”

“Captain Yannik!” Kyle shouted.

“Master Katarn?”

“Lock all guns on that escort frigate and open fire!”

-------------------------------------

“Damn it, they’re too fast!” Jaina snapped. “Since when can coralskippers move that fast?”

“They can’t!” Jag corrected. “Jaina, there’s only six of them. We can take them!”

“We can’t handle six Coralskippers by ourselves, Jag!”

“Why not? Uncle Wedge beat twelve by himself, and he wasn’t even a Jedi!” Jaina’s console beeped loudly, warning her that the Coralskippers were almost within weapons range. Jag’s console must have done the same thing, judging by the hurried tone he suddenly began using. “Jaina, we don’t have a choice! We either turn and fight now or get shot in the back!”

“Argh…fine!” Jaina snarled, hauling back hard on her control stick. “Stay close, Jag!”

“Right with you, Jaya,” Jag replied.

The two fighters looped around and aimed themselves straight back at their pursuers—six fully armed and operational Coralskippers. The chunks of coral began to hurl plasma at the X-wing and Clawcraft, all of which Jaina had little trouble dodging. Jag was a little less fortunate; several blasts scraped along his shields. Both pilots began returning the plasma with energy, all of which was absorbed by the skip’s dovan basals. The skips broke away at the last second, letting Jaina and Jag fly straight past them, right towards the escort frigate’s cannon-covered bow. Jaina tensed, ready to start jinking through a hail of orange lava.

She didn’t need to. She and Jag weren’t even within weapons range when massive bright green hyphens on energy appeared out of nowhere from behind the Vong frigate. Caught utterly by surprise, the dovin basals hadn’t even begun to devote themselves to absorbing the incoming fire when the heavy turbolaser blasts slammed into the frigate’s stern, vaporising yorik coral and sending the ship into a lazy tumble. Blast after blast hammered the frigate, sending chunks of coral off into space and leaving gaping wounds in the ship’s back and belly. Behind it, space seemed to shimmer as the green hyphens appeared from out of nowhere, until finally the shimmering stopped and a massive, pure-white warship appeared in its place, starfighters already pouring out of its belly.

“What in the name of…” Jag sighed.

“This is Captain Yannik of the Archangel to the X-wing’s pilot,” Whoever was calling had a peculiar accent. Jaina had no idea what species he was. “Three Scorcher fighters will form up alongside you and your wingman and escort you both to our docking bay.”

“But what about the coralskippers?” Jaina demanded.

“They are already dead. Please follow the escort ships to the hangar, young lady. They are under specific orders to destroy you if you deviate from that course.”

Already dead? Jaina thought, looking back towards the coralskippers. There was no way that it could be that easy to deal with six supped up coralskippers!

As she watched and began to realise that she was wrong, the space around the enemy ships suddenly became full of burst of red laser fire. It was only then that Jaina spotted the pure-black starfighters that were ripping the coralskipper force to shreds. The black starfighters darted around the coralskippers, seemingly aiming for one skip before darting right and letting off a quick round at a different one. To the untrained eye, they seemed to have no discernable formation or coordination, but to Jaina…she could easily pick up the Force-bond between all twelve pilots as they darted around like a swarm of excited insects. Each pilot knew exactly what the other five were going to do before they did it, allowing them to coordinate and attack from three or four angles in just a split second. Jaina had never seen any squadron—including Jedi ones—fly like that!

“Attention, X-wing and Clawcraft!” That was one of Jaina and Jag’s three escorts, who were only know forming up around their fighters in a triangle. “You will follow me into the Archangel’s hangar bay, understood?”

“Wait a minute!” Jag replied. “Wyn? What the hell are you—how—what?”

“How the hell do you know my name?” Jag’s little sister replied.

“Wyn…it’s me!” Jag said, shocked that his own sister didn’t recognise his voice. “Your brother!”

“My brother’s been dead for four years, you impostor!” Wyn snapped angrily. “Now follow me to the Archangel before I decide to blow you both back to Coruscant!” The channel closed.

“Jaina…” Jag stammered. “Jaina…that’s not possible. Wyn can’t be here! She’s at Csilla! I saw her three kriffing days ago!”

“Jag, get a grip!” Jaina snapped. “In case you haven’t noticed, Denon is gone, there’s a cloaking Star Destroyer in front of us, and that squadron that just wiped out the coralskippers is full of Jedi! Considering all that, is your sister being here so shocking?”

“Jaina, none of this can be happening!” Jag replied. “We…I…they…Jaina, what the hell is going on?”

Jaina took a deep breath before she answered. Now was not the time to be trying to figure things out. Not when they had an entire Star Destroyer threatening to destroy them if they didn’t cooperate. “Look, Jag, the captain of that thing was serious when he said that he’d shoot us down if we didn’t do as he said. Maybe he can tell us what’s going on around here.”

“Jaina—.”

“Jag, what choice do we have? If we don’t land, we get blasted. If we do land, we might just get some answers.”

Jaina heard Jag take a breath himself. “Alright…alright, we’ll land. That’ll give me a chance to talk to Wyn, anyway. What the hell was she talking about? I’m not dead!”

“Ask her once we’re on the deck,” Jaina replied, following Wyn’s fighter underneath the Star Destroyer. “I’ve got a few questions for her, myself.”

-------------------------------

“We have them, Kyle,” Wynssa reported over the comm.

“Is something wrong, Wynssa?” Danni asked before Kyle could. He had also picked up the tidal wave of emotion surging through the girl. Wyn wasn’t the easiest person to read, especially over a comm channel, but when something really upset her it was as obvious as a charging reek.

“He…the clawcraft’s pilot…he said he was…was my brother! Jag!” Wyn stammered. “He can’t be my brother! Jag’s been dead for—.”

“Settle down, Wyn,” Danni said softly. “Just get back onto the Archangel, and then we can see if it is your brother or not.”

“But it can’t be—!”

“Listen to Danni, Wyn,” Kyle ordered. “She and I will meet you on the deck, alright?”

“Right,” Wyn said, finally getting her composure back. “Right. I’m sorry.”

“Just get back onto the Archangel,” Kyle repeated before closing the channel and turning to Danni. “I watched Jagged Fel die at Borleias. There was no way that he could have ejected in time. And even if he did, the Vong would have tortured him to death within a week!”

“The Vong frigate has been completely destroyed. Once the Black Knights land, we will cloak and jump to hyperspace,” Yannik reported as he approached the two Jedi standing at the comm station. He only then seemed to notice the look of puzzlement on Kyle’s face. “Is something wrong?”

“Wynssa—Lieutenant Fel just told us that the clawcraft’s pilot is claiming to be her brother,” Kyle announced. “He’s been dead for almost four years.”

“And the X-wing’s pilot?” Yannik asked.

“She didn’t say anything,” Kyle sighed. “But she’s a Jedi. Anakin told me that just before Wyn called.”

“Could any of the other knights tell?” Yannik inquired.

“No,” Kyle admitted. “Which is puzzling.”

“As puzzling as Wyn’s dead brother flying a fully-operational Clawcraft?” Danni asked.

Kyle nodded in agreement. “I’ll be in the hangar, Yannik.”

Yannik nodded and turned back to his crew as Kyle and Danni headed for the turbolift, hell bent on finding out who these two pilots were.

 

-----signature-----
Padawan of princess_of_naboo
E-married to the amazing padawanlost love
Member of Charon_Force
Beginning's End: http://boards.theforce.net/Message.aspx?topic=28450077&brd=10477&replies=1
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rebel_cheese 
Registered: Jul '06
42800_Anakin Solo
Date Posted: 7/31/06 6:36pm Subject: RE: Shattered Mirror (Post-TUF, Major AU, J/J, A/T, Kyle, Danni )*RE-POST IN PROGRESS*
CHAPTER TWO


Jaina didn’t even wait for her X-wing to shut down properly before she tore off her crash restraints and pushed her canopy open and all but vaulted out of her X-wing.

The first thing that struck her about the Archangel’s hangar was that it looked more like a freighter’s cargo hold than a warship’s hangar deck. There were four fighters on the floor, all in various stages of maintenance and repair and all without tech crews. Equipment and parts lay scattered around the ships. Up in the racks that would, Jaina guessed, have supported TIE fighter craft at one stage, were dozens of the pitch-black fighters that had just wiped out the coralskipper squadron outside the ship. Jaina had never seen anything like them—Scorchers, Captain Yannik had called them. She instantly recognised that the main hull was that of an X-wing, but the wings were gone, replaced by blocky engine pods, one on each side. Each pod had two laser cannons installed in the front, in addition to what looked like two more built into the nose, above the torpedo launchers, for a total of six laser cannons.

Nice upgrade, Jaina thought. At the same time, she wondered how she could never have been told about a ship like that. Why would the Alliance keep a new fighter craft secret from their single best pilot?

Yet another thing that didn’t make sense. That made well over a dozen in the past five minutes. Denon blasted…cloaking Star Destroyers…amazingly good coralskippers…the war still on…Jag’s baby sister flying one of those Scorchers…she was already getting a headache trying to think all of those things through.

“Jaina!” Jag called as he jumped down from atop his Clawcraft and raced over to his fiancé. “Jaya, are you okay?”

Jaina let Jag wrap his arms around her. “I’m fine, Jag. My X-wing didn’t even take a scratch,” Jaina wriggled out of Jag’s arms and looked around the hangar, fixing her eyes on the three Scorcher fighters that had escorted her and Jag into the hangar. The lead one’s cockpit was already opening, and the pilot scrambled out before her cockpit had even opened halfway. Wyn, Jaina realised. She was about to point her out to Jag when she heard the unmistakable sound of a dozen blaster rifles loading.

Jaina turned to face the loaded rifles, and wasn’t too surprised to see a dozen stormtroopers advancing towards her and Jag, ordering them not to move. Wynssa saw the stormtroopers walking towards her brother and raced over, discarding her flight helmet like an empty blaster cartridge.

“Back off!” She yelled. “Lower your weapons, damn it! Back off!”

“Sorry, Lieutenant Fel, but Captain Yannik—.”

“I don’t care what Captain Yannik told you to do!” Wyn howled at the officer, shoving him back as she rushed past him and straight towards Jag. She stopped a few metres away from Jag, face covered in shock.

“Wyn,” Jag sighed, finally glad to see someone he recognised. He walked up to her and put his hands on her shoulders. “Wyn, what’s going on?” he demanded.

“Jag…?” Wyn asked softly. “Jag…it…can’t…you’re dead…”

“Wyn, what are you talking about?” Jag asked. “I’m not dead! I left you and mom and dad at Csilla three days ago! How the hell did you—?”

“Csilla?” Wyn repeated in shock.

“Yes, Csilla,” Jag said. “You know, where our family’s been living for the past couple of decades!”

“J-Jag…” Wyn stammered. “Jag, Csilla doesn’t…doesn’t exist anymore! The Vong, they…they…”

“Csilla’s gone?” Jag snapped. “That’s not possible! I saw you and mom and dad there a week ago!”

“Jag, that can’t be right,” Wyn stammered. “Csilla’s been gone for almost three years! Mom and dad are dead. And so are you!”

Jag’s face screamed confusion. “Wyn—what—I—.”

Jaina was just as confused as Jag was, which was part of the reason why she hadn’t spoken up yet. As Jag and his sister talked, Jaina became increasingly aware of a large number of Jedi in the hangar. She glanced at the space near Wyn’s fighter and saw six more Scorchers landing near it. The pilot of one of them was out of his ship before it even touched down, flipping in the air with the ease that the Force granted and deftly landing, already sprinting over to Jaina and Jag, calling out Wyn’s name. Wyn pulled away from Jag and let the pilot enwrap her in his arms.

“Valin…” She whimpered into his shoulder.

“Valin?” Jaina demanded, finally recognising the young man. She had seen him less than a month ago, on Ossus, but the young man who was holding Jag’s sister looked a lot different. He seemed…darker. His left hand was gloved, and Jaina could clearly see a pronounced scar running from his right eyebrow back up into the hairline of his pure-white hair. “Valin…what the heck happened to you? What happened to your hair? Where’d you get that scar?”

“Wyn, who the hell are these two?” Valin demanded, intently examining Jag.

“That’s my…brother,” Wyn answered.

“What?” Valin snapped, studying Jag all the more. “That’s not possible, you’re dead,” Valin glanced at Jaina. “And who the hell are—Oh. My. Force. You…that’s not…oh Force…”

“Valin, what are you going about?” Jaina demanded.

“You…you’re…” Valin’s eyes darted frantically from Jaina to Jag and back again. “You’re both dead!”

“Do I look dead to you?” Jaina demanded.

Valin just stared at Jaina and Jag in disbelief. “You…” He said to Jaina. “You’ve been dead for just under three years. And you…” he looked at Jag. “You died just over a month after she did. There’s no way you two can be alive!”

“Valin, what’s going on?” Yet another pilot pushed his way past the group of very confused stormtroopers. Jaina took one look at him—

And froze.

As did he.

Both their looks were identical; they were both staring at a loved member of their family who had died in front of their eyes.

“I think you already know her, Anakin,” Valin remarked.

Anakin didn’t even acknowledge the younger Jedi’s presence. The only thing he and Jaina could focus on was each other. Anakin was the first to move, taking the final few steps towards Jaina very slowly and laying a wary hand on her shoulder, as if trying to prove to himself that he wasn’t staring at a ghost or a hallucination. Seeing her long-dead little brother standing before her was enough to put Jaina into shock; feeling his hand on her shoulder was enough to make her mind just stop. Jaina didn’t even notice her vision begin to narrow or her legs begin to collapse.

By the time she did notice, Jag and Anakin were already trying to catch her as she fainted.

------------------------------------------

Kyle shook his head as he stared through the glass at Jag Fel and his unconscious fiancé. “This isn’t possible,” He sighed. “Those two are dead. I watched Jagged Fel’s fighter get turned into a supernova at Borleias.”

“Jaina died in that torture chamber on Myrkr,” Anakin added from his seat. “She died in my arms, for heaven’s sake.” The young Jedi’s voice was getting increasingly choked by the tears he was fighting back. The only thing that was keeping Anakin from collapsing and breaking down completely was the loving embrace of his wife.

“It’s alright, Anakin,” Tahiri said softly.

“Tahiri, stop it!” Anakin snapped, a little too angrily. “Just…that’s my sister in there, damn it! That’s Jaina…but…she’s…she’s dead. The Vong tortured her to death.”

“And I watched them do it,” Wynssa sobbed from her place in her boyfriend’s arms. Kyle saw her flinch as she remembered the nightmarish torture session she and Jaina Solo had been put through on Myrkr. Both Wyn and Jaina had been horribly tortured; the only reason that Wyn was alive while Jaina wasn’t was because the Vong had used the former girl as a test subject for their torture methods, so they were reluctant to kill her. With Jaina, however, they hadn’t been as restrained.

“Shhh, Wyn,” Valin whispered into his girlfriend’s ear. “Stop talking about it.”

“I’m open to suggestions,” Kyle announced, looking around the observation room at the eight Jedi and two officers gathered there. “If anyone can think of a way this is possible, I’d like to hear it.”

“Clones?” Zekk suggested from where he was leaning against the wall.

“Why would the Vong go to so much trouble?” Captain Yannik asked. The green alien was standing atop the centre table so that he could look through the observation window at Jaina and Jag.

“Shimrra has been obsessed with destroying the Archangel ever since we…took it,” Danni added. “One of them might have a tracking device on them.”

“No,” Cirila Keryln said. The young Chiss woman was standing near Kyle, not paying much attention to Jaina and Jag. “The Vong had absolutely no idea we were going to be at Denon. They couldn’t have set this up. And, even if they did, why just pull out an escort frigate? Why not hide an interdictor and a few battleships around somewhere and jump them in when they lost contact with the frigate?”

“Cirila’s right,” Zekk said. “It wasn’t a Vong trap. Besides, them using a X-wing and Clawcraft is a little out of character.”

Kyle nodded in agreement. “The Vong wouldn’t break their hatred of technology, not even to kill us off.”

“Still, clones are a possibility,” Tahiri said. “They might have wanted to try to turn Jaina into a Vong warrior, or something.”

“But why clone Jag?” Azias Sharn said, putting an end to Tahiri’s argument.

“Let’s go through what we’ve ruled out,” Kyle said. “We know they can’t be clones, and we also know that they can’t be Jaina Solo and Jagged Fel. Jagged Fel was shot down at Borleias, and Jaina died on Myrkr. What does that leave us with?”

“Not much,” Yannik commented.

“Perhaps we should ask them,” Danni suggested.

“I’ll do it,” Anakin said.

“No,” Kyle ordered. “If Jaina has another reaction to seeing you like she did in the hangar, I doubt you’ll get very much out of her,” the Jedi master turned to Valin and Wynssa. “Wyn, you’re Jagged’s brother. You and Valin might be able to get something out of them.”

“I…I’ll try,” Wynssa said. Anyone could tell that the girl was shaken by seeing her long dead brother. Kyle had never seen her so emotionally stressed before. Well, he thought, except for when they brought her back from Myrkr. I’ve never seen another person that traumatised.

“We’ll give it a shot,” Valin agreed.

“Good,” Kyle sighed, turning to Cirila and Azias. “Cirila, take Azias and look at the X-wing and Clawcraft. Get some of the technicians to help you.”

“Yes, Master,” Cirila nodded.

“Anakin, Tahiri, you two can stay here and monitor Valin and Wyn, if you want,” Kyle suggested.

Anakin shook his head. “No, I…I need to work on…finish the MJS-01. I…”

Kyle nodded in understanding. Anakin needed a little time to work through the huge shock of finding a clone—or whatever this girl was—of his dead sister.

“Danni, Zekk, the three of us need to consult the archives and try to find anything that could explain this,” Kyle said as he pointed at Jaina and Jag.

“I will get us as far away from the core worlds as possible,” Yannik stated. “After our attack here, the systems will be littered with Yuuzhan Vong battleships within a few days. And if we run into Warmaster Rvarren’s ship again we won’t have any chance of escaping a second time.”

“We all know what we have to do, then,” Kyle announced. “Get to it.”

-------------------------------------

Jag glanced back at the mirror behind him. He knew that someone was watching him and Jaina. He didn’t particularly care, though; from Wyn’s reaction to seeing him and Jaina, to hearing her talk about Csilla being gone, to seeing Jaina’s little brother alive, he was pretty well beyond caring about little stuff like that.

Jaina still hadn’t woken up yet; the medics here on the Archangel had said that she had just fainted in shock. Jag hadn’t seen Wyn since he had walked into the med lab. He hadn’t seen Valin either. The boy had seemed a little too close to Wyn for Jag’s liking. I swear, if he’s slept with her, I’ll break his neck, Jedi or not! He thought.

The door hissed open behind Jag. He turned, and wasn’t surprised to see Wyn walk in, her face still blanched, as if she was staring at a ghost. Jag could only see the left side of her face; she had the right covered by her hair. It looked…weird. Not altogether unattractive, but still weird.

“Wyn,” Jag sighed in relief. Finally, he thought, someone I can talk to!

Wyn reached up and touched Jag’s cheek as he put his hand on her shoulder, trying to see if she was indeed looking at a ghost or not. Once she confirmed that Jag wasn’t a spectre, she leapt into his arms, wrapping hers around his neck. “Jag…” She whimpered, sobbing onto his shoulder.

“Wyn, what is going on?” Jag demanded, giving Valin a distinctly evil look as the Jedi walked in and shut the door behind him.

“Colonel,” Valin began. “You might have figured this out by now, but you and Jaina there have both been dead for getting near three years now.”

“Yes, I gathered that much,” Jag replied. “And, if you hadn’t noticed, we’re not dead! What the hell made you think that?”

“You got shot down at Borleias,” Valin explained. “You tried to take on the Warmaster’s coralskipper. You lost. Badly.”

“What?” Jag demanded. “We won at Borleias! We killed that Vong worldship, and Czulkang Lah! Jaina saved my life there! That’s how—.”

Valin let out a long sigh. “Colonel, Jaina was already dead by the time we tried to hold Borleias. She…she died at Myrkr.”

“No. No! Jaina didn’t die at Myrkr!” Jag tried to correct. “Anakin did.”

Valin opened his mouth to say something, but didn’t bother. “Colonel, I don’t know where you’ve been for the past couple of years, but you seem to have a lot of things mixed up.”

“What’s to mix up?” Jag snapped.

“Colonel, calm down,” Valin said. “Look, just sit down, and we’ll see if Wyn and I can bring you up to speed.”

Jag let out a long sigh and released his little sister and took the seat he had been in before Valin and Wyn walked in. Valin leant against the wall behind the chair that Wyn took.

“Alright, Jag, what’s the last thing you remember?” Wyn asked.

“Leaving you and mom and dad at Csilla three days ago,” Jag answered.

Wyn shook her head and brought her hand to her eyes. “That’s…not possible, Jag. Csilla’s been gone for years.”

“And I’m telling you, that’s not possible,” Jag replied. “Eight months ago, we won the war and—.”

“Won?” Valin looked at Jag like the colonel was crazy. “Colonel, eight months ago we lost the war! The Vong took Mon Calamari and wiped out most of the galaxy in less than a week. The only reason any of us are alive is because Kyle and Luke stole the Archangel from the Empire!”

“We lost?” Jag demanded. Why was everything so screwed up all of a sudden? “That’s…I…damn!”

Jag’s outburst made Wyn flinch. “Jag, calm down!” She ordered. “Look, you said you left me and mom and dad at Csilla, right? Did anything happen between then and when you arrived at Denon?”

“No, nothing,” Jag replied. “No, wait! There was that…thing Jaina and I hit. An energy blast, or something. Then we arrive at Denon and find this!”

“Energy blast?” Valin asked. “What energy blast?”

“We dropped out of hyperspace to make a course correction, and we both ran into an energy blast,” Jag said. “It didn’t do anything to our ships. Except for…”

“Except for…what?” Wyn asked.

“I thought I saw the hyperdrive safeties come up damaged for a second, but they turned green again, so I didn’t think about it,” Jag explained. “Could that have done something?”

“Maybe,” Valin ran a hand through his hair. “I need to go talk to Kyle,” He reached down and put a warm, loving hand on Wyn’s shoulder. “Will you be okay, Wyn?”

Jag glared at Valin as he heard the Jedi use Wynssa’s nickname. Neither Valin nor Wyn noticed. “I’ll be fine, Valin,” She reached up and kissed him. “Thanks, sweetie.”

Jag waited for Valin to leave before he started talking again. “So…you and Valin.”

“Yeah, me and Valin,” Wyn replied. “You don’t like him?”

“The guy’s dating my little sister,” Jag said. “That means I automatically hate him.”

Wyn smiled briefly. “Jag, look…I…I know you think that all of this is impossible, but…I’m so happy o see you again. I really am. After Csilla got invaded and I got captured, I—.”

“Captured?” Jag snapped. “The Vong captured you?”

Wyn nodded, slowly. Painfully.

“Wyn, did they torture you?” Jag asked carefully.

Wyn nodded again. The one eye that Jag could see closed as a tear forced its way out of it.

“Oh, Wyn,” Jag said softly, reaching over to his sister and putting his arms around her. “What happened?”

“The Vong attacked Csilla just before they took out Coruscant,” Wyn said, resting her head on Jag’s shoulder. “We never stood a chance. They had only half our numbers, but their admiral was incredible. As good as Thrawn, if not better. Our fleet was wiped out, and then they attacked the planet. Mom and dad and I tried to get off the planet, but we didn’t even reach our ship. Mom and dad were killed, and I was captured. The admiral…he made a special point of torturing me himself. I only escaped because—.”

Jaina let out a soft moan, interrupting Wyn and grabbing Jag’s attention. He turned to look back at his fiancé, then turned back to Wyn, and then back to Jaina. “Wyn, do you mind if—?”

“No, it’s fine,” Wyn sobbed. “Just go make sure she’s okay.”

Jag squeezed his sister one last time before he let go and went over to his fiancé. Jaina’s eyes fluttered open slowly, locking on the ceiling first before she looked at Jag. “Jag, where are we?”

“In a med lab,” He answered.

“Where?” Jaina repeated.

“On the…Archangel,” Jag said.

“How my Force,” Jaina sighed. “It wasn’t a dream, was it?”

Jag shook his head.

“Jaina?” Wyn asked, joining Jag at Jaina’s side. “Are you alright?”

“I think so,” Jaina said as she sat up. “Wait a minute—Anakin! I thought I—!”

“Yes, he’s down in the hangar right now,” Wyn said. “Why?”

“Why?” Jaina yelled. “He’s supposed to be dead, that’s why! He died on Myrkr! We brought his body back and burnt it!”

“Jaina, you’ve got things mixed up,” Wyn interrupted. “Anakin didn’t die at Myrkr,” The young girl took a deep breath. “You did.”

“I did?” Jaina yelled. “What the hell are you—?”

“Settle down, Jaya,” Jag said softly. Calmingly. “Look, I know everything’s a little confusing right now—.”

“Confusing—!”

“But I think Wyn’s telling the truth,” Jag continued, completely ignoring Jaina’s attempt at an interruption. “She told me that Csilla got wiped out, and that she got captured by the Vong. She’s not making it up.”

“Jag, what are you talking about?” Jaina snapped. “This—all of this is impossible! We must have been captured by—.”

“Jaya, we didn’t leave our fighters since we left Csilla,” Jag said. “Look, Valin said that he had an idea just before he left. He’s probably gone to confirm it. We just need to wait for him to get back.”

“Alright,” Jaina relented. “Alright. We’ll wait. But…look, this is really hard for me to…I just…some proof would be good!”

“What about this?” Wyn asked. Jag turned towards his sister, just as she pushed her hair back behind her ear, revealing—

“Oh Force!” Jag sighed as he laid eyes on the scars on Wyn’s face. Her entire right cheek was covered in scars of a dozen different lengths. The longest went from her jaw up to her ear, and it was surrounded by dozens of others. The whole thing looked like an intricately designed pattern, almost like someone had—Oh no.

“Wyn, where did you get those?” Jag asked softly, even though he already knew the answer.

“Myrkr,” Wyn replied. “They’re torture marks.”

“Oh my Force,” Jaina sighed. “You really aren’t making this up.”

“That admiral did that, didn’t he?” Jag asked, putting one hand on Wyn’s shoulder while he touched her scars with the other, just to make sure they weren’t fake. To his horror, they were all too real. Wyn replied with a nod.

“Which admiral?” Jaina demanded. “When did she get tortured? The Vong never even attacked the Chiss! How—?”

“Jaya, I know this doesn’t make sense,” Jag said comfortingly. “But…it does. Somehow. I don’t know how, but everything’s different. We’re the only ones who seem to remember anything otherwise.”

Jaina let out a long sigh. “Wyn, can I see Anakin?”

“Just let me—,” Wyn reached for her commlink, but it beeped before she could pick it up. She grabbed it and answered the caller, turning away from Jaina and Jag to keep them from hearing. A few seconds later, she turned back to Jaina and Jag. “Kyle and Captain Yannik have decided to give you two one of the guest quarters. I can take you right there, if you want.’

“We’re not doing anything sitting around here,” Jaina said. “Whatever.”

 

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rebel_cheese 
Registered: Jul '06
42800_Anakin Solo
Date Posted: 7/31/06 6:42pm Subject: RE: Shattered Mirror (Post-TUF, Major AU, J/J, A/T, Kyle, Danni )*RE-POST IN PROGRESS*
CHAPTER THREE

Valin strode swiftly out of the turbolift the same instant that its doors hissed open. It took him less than a second to spot Kyle, Zekk, and Danni standing over one of the back bridge consoles, studying the information that the officer was bringing up.

“Kyle!” Valin called as he approached them.

“Valin?” Kyle replied. “You’re supposed to be down in the med lab with Wyn and—.”

“They’re fine,” Valin replied. “Wyn needed a chance to talk to her brother privately, anyway. Have you found anything?”

“A few theories, but none of them seem right,” Kyle replied. “Why?”

“Have Cirila and Azias told you anything about the fighters yet?”

“No,” Kyle took his eyes off the screen to look at Valin. “Did our guests say something?”

“Yeah,” Valin replied. “Wyn’s brother said that he and Jaina were on route from Csilla to Denon when they were hit by an energy blast.”

“What kind of energy blast?” Zekk asked.

“He doesn’t know,” Valin replied. “A mine, maybe. In any case, it screwed up his and Jaina’s hyperdrives. Could that be important?”

Kyle shook his head, returning his gaze to the computer screen. “I don’t see how.”

“Actually, it might,” Danni contradicted, getting the attention of the other three Jedi knights.

“How?” Zekk asked.

“Well…” Danni sounded like she was about to say something that would make her look immeasurably stupid. “Hyperspace accidents aren’t unheard of.”

“All of the rumours I’ve heard say that any ship that doesn’t come out of hyperspace gets stuck in there forever,” Zekk said.

“That’s one of the rumours, yes,” Danni continued. “Another one is—.”

“That the unfortunate ship gets thrown into a different dimension,” Valin finished.

Kyle looked at both of them incredulously. “So you’re saying that our two guests down there aren’t from this dimension?” He shook his head. “Sounds like something out of a bad holodrama.”

“It’s ridiculous,” Zekk objected. “It’s not possible.”

“Neither is seeing Jaina alive,” Valin pointed out. “But we all did less than ten minutes ago.”

That comment brought a brief look of sorrow to Zekk’s face, reminding Valin exactly how hard the older Jedi had taken Jaina’s death. Valin glanced away guiltily and moved on.

“Alright, so, if Danni and I are right, how do we prove it?” Valin asked.

Danni, the only real scientist of the group, spoke up. “Well, assuming they are from another universe altogether, their galaxy would be different from ours. People who are dead here are alive over there, and vice versa.”

“Jaina and Jag, for instance,” Kyle pointed out.

“Jag also seems to believe that we should have won the war,” Valin added.

“Won?” Zekk snapped loudly. “How the hell could they have won?”

“What’s stopping them?” Valin snapped right back.

“Don’t be stupid, Valin!” Zekk snarled. “How could they possibly have beat Kharran? Huh?”

“Maybe he never existed,” Valin said. “Died as a child on the way to this galaxy. His parents never met. His parents died as children. His grandparents died as children.”

“We get the idea, Valin,” Kyle interrupted, looking at the three other Jedi gathered around the console. “It is the best explanation we have. The only other reasonable explanation is that the Vong are behind this, and we all know that’s about as likely as Kharran switching sides,” The Jedi master paused for a moment. “I think you’re right.”

After a moment spent in thought, Zekk nodded his agreement.

“Alright then,” Kyle sighed. “My next question is this: who’s going to tell them?”

“What about Wyn?” Zekk asked. “She is Fel’s sister.”

“Wyn’s going to have a hard enough time dealing with this herself!” Valin snapped instantly. “She thought she had gotten one of her family back, and now we’re going to have to tell her that he isn’t her brother at all!”

“That depends on how you look at it, Valin,” Danni said carefully. “He is Jag Fel. Chances are that most of his memories and our Jag’s memories would be the same.”

“The only real difference between them would probably be that that Jag’s still alive,” Zekk added.

“Let’s just let Wyn decide for herself,” Kyle said, cutting off Valin before the young man could utter another argument. “Zekk, I want you to go tell Anakin. Gently,” Kyle looked at Valin. “Valin, you come with Danni and I. I told Wyn to take Jaina and Jag to the guest rooms a few minutes ago; we’ll meet them there. While Danni and I talk to Jaina and Jag, you can take Wyn aside and tell her.”

“Yes, Master,” Valin said with a respectful nod. He would have told Wyn anyway, whether Kyle had told him to or not. In fact, he would have done it whether Kyle had allowed it or not.

But, Valin mused as he, Danni, and Kyle headed towards the bridge turbolift, there was that rather troublesome issue of how to tell Wyn about this. Danni was right; depending on how you looked at it, Jag either was or wasn’t Wyn’s brother. If Valin worded this even slightly wrong, Wyn might break down completely. Valin still remembered how she had been after Jag died at Borleias. He would hate to see her like that again. Absolutely hate it.

------------------------------------------------------

“This is it,” Wyn said as she palmed the controls to open the guest room door, revealing the rather Spartan room beyond.

“Ah, Wyn,” Jag said as he walked in and looked around. “I expected a little more from the ship’s guest quarters.”

“The Archangel’s a warship, Jag, not a hotel,” Wynssa replied, looking around the room herself. There was no carpet; the floor was the same dull metal as the walls and ceiling. The only furniture was the two bunks, couch, table, and two chairs. “Besides, would you rather sleep in your fighters?”

“We’ll take the room,” Jaina said instantly, almost cringing at the thought of spending another night in her X-wing’s cockpit.

“I hope your boyfriend can figure out what’s going on here,” Jag said to Wyn as he sat on the couch.

“Boyfriend?” Jaina snapped, half to Jag and half to his sister. “Her and Valin are dating?”

“For the past month,” Wyn said. “Valin’s been my best friend since Myrkr. Especially after you died, Jag. He nearly died a month ago, and afterwards, we kinda…kissed.”

“Have you slept with him?” Jag demanded.

Wyn nearly laughed. “You know, I’d nearly forgotten just how protective you can be.”

“Well? Have you two had sex yet?” Jag repeated.

“Isn’t that a bit of a private question?” Jaina asked her fiancé quietly.

“It’s fine,” Wyn laughed. “And no, Jag, we haven’t. The last thing I want right now is to get pregnant, and the last thing Valin wants is a pregnant girlfriend. Not when either one of us might not come back from a dogfight.”

“Don’t you have any contraceptives?” Jaina asked.

“Nope,” Wyn said. “We ran out long before Valin and I got together.”

Jaina chose then to jump in and change the subject, much to Wyn’s delight. “Wyn, in the med lab, you said that the Myrkr team scrapped trying to kill the voxyn after we got massacred. Were you saying that the voxyn are still alive?”

Not Myrkr. Why did she have to say Myrkr? Wyn thought, forcing down the horrific memories that name always brought up, and trying to ignore her scars tingling as she remembered how she got them. “Yeah…they’re s-still alive.”

“Wyn, if you don’t want to talk about Myrkr, you don’t have to,” Jag said caringly.

“No, I-I’m fine,” Wyn stammered, still fighting back those horrible memories.

“No, you’re not,” Jag said quietly, turning to his fiancé as he walked over to his sister. “There’s nothing else you wanted to know?” It was not a request.

“Jag, I said I’m fine,” Wyn protested verbally, though she didn’t protest physically as Jag wrapped his arms around her. She let out a short, soft sigh, nestling her head onto her brother’s shoulder. “You have no idea how much I missed you, Jag.”

“No, I don’t,” Jag agreed, squeezing his sister a little tighter.

Wyn lifted her head off Jag’s shoulder and looked at her brother’s fiancé. Jaina was looking away, leaving the siblings to their cuddly moment. “Jaina, I’m sorry I can’t help—.”

“It’s alright,” Jaina said, waving her hand dismissively just for effect. “I’ll ask someone else.”

Wyn nodded and returned her head to Jag’s shoulder. She was really enjoying this. “Is there anything you wanted to know, Jag?”

“Not really,” Jag replied.

Jaina did, though. “Wyn, do you know how many Jedi are left?”

“There’s eight,” Kyle announced from the doorway.

Wyn gasped in surprise and pushed away from Jag, whirling towards the door. Standing there was Kyle, Danni, and—damn it—Valin. Kyle was wearing black trousers, dark grey shirt, and an even darker grey jacket, which concealed the Jedi master’s lightsaber and blaster. Danni wore a white and brown Jedi robe, hiding the slight bulge in her stomach. Valin was wearing his pitch-black Jedi robe, making his white hair stand out like a Krayt dragon on Dantooine.

“Valin,” Wyn said, looking around nervously. “You, ah—.”

“Need to talk to you,” Valin said softly. “Now.”

“Why? What’s wrong?” Wyn asked, shrugging off Jag’s hand when he tried to put it on her shoulder. Jaina walked up beside her fiancé.

“Nothing,” Valin assured her and the two newcomers. “I just need to talk to you. Privately. Now.”

“Alright, alright,” Wyn muttered, looking at Jaina and Jag. “Do you two already know Kyle and Danni—?”

“Wyn, please,” Valin insisted.

“Alright!” Wyn growled, giving Valin her best evil glare. “I’ll be back in a minute, Jag.”

Wyn went to join Valin outside, but was stopped by a concerned hand no her shoulder. She turned to give Jag a quick, what she hoped was reassuring glance, and then shrugged his hand off her shoulder and followed her boyfriend outside.

“Alright, Valin, what is this about?” She demanded as Valin closed the door behind them. “I’ve believed Jag to be dead for three years! You should know how much I want to stay with him!”

“Wyn, settle down,” Valin said quietly. “Look, this is going to sound a little weird…”

-------------------------------------------------------------------

“I thought I sensed you on board,” Jaina said to Danni after the door closed after Wyn. “I didn’t pick you up, though, Master Katarn.”

“Not surprising,” Kyle Katarn replied, using the Force to pull a chair over from the table. “All of the Jedi on the Archangel try to keep a low profile in the Force. Most of us can do it unconsciously by now.”

“By now?” Jaina asked. “You’ve doing it for a while? Why?”

“First things first,” Danni interrupted. “You two might want to take a seat.”

Jaina turned to Jag, just in time to see him drop onto the couch, still staring at the closed door. She knew what was on his mind: Wyn. He was worried about her. She sat down beside her fiancé, slipping her hand into his. That managed to get his attention off Wyn for a moment.

She’ll be fine, Jaina planted her thought into Jag’s mind. They had figured out this little trick a month ago; Jaina would plant a thought into Jag’s mind, and he would think his response and let her read it. It wasn’t the same as a Force bond—nowhere near as efficient—but it did give them a way to communicate like a pair of Jedi. Jag especially liked it.

I don’t think so, Jag thought as Jaina read, why did she get so defensive when they walked in?

“It’s good to see you two,” Kyle said once everyone was seated—Danni sat on the edge of the bed. “I can imagine that you’re both very disorientated right now.”

That’s an understatement, Jag thought.

I heard that, Jaina replied. “Master Katarn, everything’s just screwed up. I don’t want to go through everything—.”

“You might have to,” Danni interrupted. “We do have a theory that explains how you two have returned from the dead, but before we tell you, we want to ask a couple of questions.”

Jaina nodded. “What is it?”

“First of all, what was the outcome of the battle of Mon Calamari?” Kyle asked.

“The Yuuzhan Vong retreated back to Yuuzhan’tar,” Jaina replied. She still refused to call the planet that the Galactic Alliance took from the Vong Coruscant. It wasn’t Coruscant anymore; the Yuuzhan Vong had changed it too much.

“Alright,” Danni sighed, rubbing her eyes. “How many Jedi survived the Myrkr mission?”

“Ten,” Jaina replied instantly.

“Colonel Fel, did the Yuuzhan Vong ever attack Csilla?” Kyle asked.

“According to Wyn—.” Jag started.

“Do you remember it happening?” Danni interrupted.

Jag shook his head. Where is this going? He thought.

I don’t know, Jaina replied. “Danni—.”

“Just two more, Jaina,” Danni interrupted. “Did the Yuuzhan Vong attack Yavin IV?”

Jaina and Jag nodded.

“Who got captured? Tahiri, or Anakin?” Kyle asked.

“Tahiri,” Jaina answered. “That’s your two questions, Danni, now what are you getting at?”

“Just one more question,” Danni said, adding considerably to Jaina’s frustration. “This is the most important one. Have either of you ever heard of a Yuuzhan Vong named Artran Kharran?”

“No, we haven’t!” Jaina snapped. “Now, what is the point of this?”

Kyle was the one who answered. “Valin was the one who suggested this. My first response was that it sounds like something out of a bad holodrama, but we know think that he was right. He suggested that you two might not be from our galaxy, or even our universe.”

“Universe?” Jag asked. “You’re…are you seriously talking about—.”
“You’re saying that we’re—this is an alternate universe,” Jaina stated. Her first instinct was to object simply because of just how ridiculous Kyle’s suggestion sounded, but she decided against it. It was the only explanation that Jaina could think of. “Well…this is certainly a little weird.”
“A little?” Jag snapped. “He’s—.”

“Calm down, Jag,” Jaina said. Unless you have another theory for them.

Jag let out an angry sigh and looked towards Danni and Kyle. “Are you two sure about this?”

“It is the best explanation we have,” Danni explained. “Unless you two can think of another one, that is.”

“Wait a minute!” Jaina snapped, suddenly realising the most important implication of Danni and Kyle’s theory. “If this is an alternate universe, that’s mean that Anakin isn’t my brother.”

“Technically,” Danni sighed. “I had this same discussion with Valin. Except he was talking about Colonel Fel and Wynssa.”

Oh Force, Jaina thought. Poor Wyn. That was why Valin had taken her outside; he was going to tell her—

Clang!

Jag was the only person in the room startled by the sound of someone’s fist hitting the other side of the door. Kyle and Danni had probably been expecting it before they even walked in, and Jaina had just figured out that Wyn was going to do something like that.

“Valin just told her, didn’t he?” Jaina asked.

“I would say so,” Kyle replied.

“Wyn…” Jag sighed, barely able to keep himself from rushing outside.

“This is going to be hard on her,” Danni said. “You have no idea how much she missed you, Colonel. Your death tore her apart. Finding out that you’re not her Jag is going to be a difficult thing for her to work through,” She took a deep breath and moved on. “I wanted to find out how different our galaxies are, as a little extra evidence for our theory. If you two existed in both of our galaxies, then they can’t be too different.”

“Well I’d like to know how different they are, as well,” Jaina said, squeezing Jag’s hand to settle him down. I don’t think that Wyn would want to see you right now. Just give Valin some time to talk to her. He’s a nice kid.

In our galaxy, he’s a nice kid. You’ve got no idea what this Valin’s like!

He hasn’t slept with her yet, so how bad could he be? Jaina replied. “Danni, are you going to tell us, or what?”

“Where do you want to start?” Danni asked.

“How about we start with you losing the war,” Jag suggested.

“That is thanks to the Yuuzhan Vong we mentioned,” Kyle said. “Artran Kharran. He is the single most dangerous man in the galaxy at the moment. He single-handedly destroyed Csilla, wiped out the Myrkr strike team, and conquered Hapes, Borleias, and Mon Calamari.”

“One Yuuzhan Vong did that?” Jaina and Jag demanded together. Jaina asked the next question. “Who the hell is this guy?”

“He showed up just before the Myrkr disaster,” Kyle explained. “The first we ever heard of him was when he led a fleet against Csilla.”

“Wyn told me about that,” Jag replied. “She said that we outnumbered him two-to-one, and he still beat us.”

“While only losing a quarter of his fleet,” Kyle added. “Only a few Chiss warships survived the battle. Yours was one of them, Colonel. Unfortunately, your father’s wasn’t. Your mother and Wyn tried to escape. Tried. Syal was killed when her ship crashed, but Wyn was captured.”

“She told me the rest,” Jag said quickly, before Kyle could explain how Wyn got those scars on her face. He didn’t want to know the details of Wyn’s torture session with this Vong monster.

“Did she tell Jaina what happened at Myrkr?” Danni asked.

“Some of it,” Jaina replied. “She said that I died there, not Anakin.”

“Did Anakin die in your galaxy?” Kyle asked, surprised. “What happened to him?”

“He tried to help me when I got stuck to a wall. He got himself stabbed in the process, and then…Lomi and Welk stole the ship we were going to use to escape in. Gave him a death sentence,” Jaina explained quickly. “What happened here?”

“Kharran ambushed you,” Kyle said. “Half of the team died in the first fight, and you and Raynar were captured. Anakin and the others tried to rescue you. By the time they got to you, they had lost another Jedi, and Kharran had already tortured Raynar to death. Anakin, Zekk, and Tahiri rescued you and Wyn while Tenel Ka, Lowbacca, and Jacen held Kharran off. He killed all three. You died in Anakin’s arms outside the torture chamber.”

“Wyn told me about that, too,” Jaina sighed.

“After Coruscant fell, Kharran somehow became the Yuuzhan Vong Warmaster,” Kyle continued. “We’re not sure what happened, but we can safely assume that Kharran killed Tsavong Lah in an honour duel of some kind, and then usurped Lah’s position. Over the next two years, he took down Hapes and the Empire, and then he led the invasion of Mon Calamari. That pretty much ended the war.”

“Then how come all of you are still here?” Jaina asked.

“A few months before Mon Calamari fell, I was contacted by an Imperial scientist by the name of Caselle Mirion,” Kyle explained. “Have you ever heard of her?”

Jaina shook her head, glancing at Jag to see if he had. He also shook his head.

“Caselle did say something about an accident that nearly killed her as a child,” Danni said to Kyle. “Maybe in their galaxy it did.”

“Whatever the case may be, in this galaxy, she lived,” Kyle continued. “She was an engineer for the Empire, working on a brand new Imperial starship—.”

“The Archangel,” Jag finished.

“At the time, it was called the Night Hammer,” Kyle said. “Caselle was one of a few smart people who could already tell that the war was over. She and the commander of the Night Hammer didn’t want to waste a cloaking Star Destroyer on an already lost war. So they arranged with Luke and myself to…liberate the vessel.”

“And Uncle Luke agreed to that?” Jaina asked.

“Yes, he did. Quite readily, in fact,” Kyle’s bearded face saddened as he mentioned Luke. “He knew as well as our Imperial co-conspirators that the war was over, and we had lost it. The Archangel was just the thing we needed to survive. The Vong couldn’t—and still can’t—detect it while it’s cloaked. After fighting our way out of the Imperial shipyard the Archangel was being built at, Luke moved the entire Jedi Order onto it, and we started our little war against the Yuuzhan Vong.”

“Is anyone else left?” Jag asked.

“Some of what’s left of the Empire, Hapans, and Galactic Alliance has built up at Bakura,” Danni said. “But quite a few task groups have gone into hiding, like we have. We meet up with Wedge’s Lusankya every month—.”

“The Lusankya’s intact?” Jaina interrupted, aghast. “Didn’t you use it as a missile at Borleias?”

“We were planning to, but Kharran was just too damn fast,” Kyle replied. “Did the Borleias campaign work in your galaxy?” When Jaina and Jag nodded and mentioned that Borleias was where they first kissed, Kyle added. “I suppose with no Kharran, it would have been doable. Over here, Borleias was almost as big a disaster as the defence of Coruscant. Colonel Fel, you died in a dogfight with Kharran’s personal coralskipper, and we lost everything except for the Lusankya and two Star Destroyers. Wedge somehow managed to pull the Lusankya through every major battle after that. When Mon Calamari fell, he took a small group of survivors and started hiding. We meet up with his fleet every month.”

Jaina couldn’t stop her mouth dropping once Kyle finished his brief history lesson. She just couldn’t fathom how one Yuuzhan Vong could cause such a huge difference. She was glad that this ‘Kharran’ had never shown up in her and Jag’s universe, or things might be just as bad over there.

Wait a minute! Our universe! “Kyle, Danni, have you two thought of a way to send Jag and I back?” She asked hurriedly.

Kyle didn’t take his eyes away from Jaina and Jag. “There isn’t one. The Archangel’s a warship, not a science lab. We just don’t have the resources to put into finding a way to send you two home.”

“What?” Jaina howled. “But…but our families are back in our galaxy! Our lives are over there! We have to get back! What…what if we just took our ships and jumped again, maybe the hyperdrives—!”

“Jaina, that’s suicide!” Jag interrupted. “We’re lucky we even came out of hyperspace this time! If we try it again—.”

“I don’t care, Jag!” Jaina snapped. “Don’t you want to go home?”

“Yes, but—.”

“There’s just no way to do it,” Danni stressed to Jaina and Jag. “The closest thing we have to a scientist is Caselle, and she knows nothing about hyperdrives. The only thing she studied was shielding technologies, which let her develop the Archangel’s cloaking device.”

“And Colonel Fel is right,” Kyle added. “Letting you jump in your ships is just too risky. For you to have a chance at succeeding, everything would need to be exactly the same as the last time you jumped. Time, location, heading, speed—.”

“Perhaps even the breakfast you two had that morning,” Danni jumped in. “There’s just too many variables; it’s too risky.”

“But—.”

“Jaina, I’m sorry. I really am,” Kyle interrupted. “We just can’t. Maybe, if we had a full science station, we might be able to find a way, but we just don’t have anything to work with. Like I said, the Archangel’s a warship, and nothing but a warship. You have to understand—.”

“Understand?” Jaina screamed. “All I understand is that mine and Jag’s family is back in that galaxy! You have to find a way to send us back! You can’t expect us to just forget about all of our loved ones back there!”

“You think you’re the only person who’s lost family members?” Danni’s voice was so vicious that Jaina almost flinched. “There isn’t a single person on this ship who hasn’t lost someone—.” Danni stopped, her voice wavering. It was only then that Jaina glanced at Danni’s stomach and spotted the slight bulge there. What the—she’s pregnant?

“But...” Jaina stammered. “How…who’s the—.”

“Kyp, if you must know. He died a month ago,” Danni growled, letting all of her anger into her voice to cover the tears threatening to burst through her composure as she stalked towards the door. “At least someday you might see your families again. The rest of us never will.”

With that, Danni opened the door and left, leaving Jaina feeling miserable. Kyle walked over to her and Jag and placed his hand on Jaina’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Jaina. I wish we could send you back. But Danni’s right; one day, we might be able to send you two back. You are the only two people in the universe who even have a chance of seeing your families again.” The Jedi master removed his hand and, after a nod from Jag, left the room.

“Mom…Dad…” Jaina murmured after the door closed behind Kyle. “Jacen…I’ve never going to see them again.”

“Yes, we will,” Jag said softly, pulling his fiancé up against him and wrapping her in a warm, protective hug.

“Jag, we can’t get back!” Jaina whimpered. “They won’t even know what happened to us.”

“We’ll find a way, Jaina, I promise,” Jag said.

“How?” Jaina screamed at him, tossing his empty reassurances aside. “We can’t get back! They won’t help us! We’re never going to be able to go home. We’re stuck here! We’re stuck in this screwed up, Vong-infested universe with no way of getting home!”

Jag stroked her hair softly, trying to calm her down before she started lashing out at something. “Do you think I like the idea of being here?”

“No,” Jaina sobbed. “But at least you have Wyn—.”

“And you have Anakin—.”

“I didn’t want to trade my entire family just to see Anakin again!” Jaina howled.

“Jaya, stop yelling,” Jag soothed. “We’ll find a way back,” After a moment, in which Jag realised how empty that reassurance was, he added, “I hope.”

Jaina looked at her fiancé, her face twisted in frustration and anger and tears welling up in her eyes. Jag looked back with those dark eyes and handsome face, fighting back tears as well. Jaina just looked at him, hovering between crying and screaming, trying in vain to enjoy his nice, warm hold on her, until she finally just let her head drop onto his shoulder and screamed into it. Then she let the tears out.

“We’ll be okay,” Jag said, holding her even tighter. Holding Jaina always made him feel better, no matter what the problem was. It was, at least, a way to get his mind off things. And, damn, did he need to get his mind off this. “Wyn and Kyle and Danni won’t hurt us. We’ve got all the time in the universe to think of a way to get home. Maybe we’ll just get lucky and—.”

Jaina snuggled into Jag’s shoulder. “Jag…”

“Yes?”

“Just shut up and hold me.”

 

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rebel_cheese 
Registered: Jul '06
42800_Anakin Solo
Date Posted: 7/31/06 6:43pm Subject: RE: Shattered Mirror (Post-TUF, Major AU, J/J, A/T, Kyle, Danni )*RE-POST IN PROGRESS*
CHAPTER FOUR


Nom Anor walked quickly up the steps, skipping every second one in his rush to reach the large landing field at the top. This building had once been the headquarters of a galaxy-wide trading company; the flight deck that was the roof had been used to load freighters with hundreds of kinds of cargo. Now, however, it was almost completely eaten away by the shapers’ green, metal-eating algae, and the metal had been replaced by yorik coral. The staircase was the only metal left in the entire building. Some of the more religious shapers—and even some warriors—wouldn’t go anywhere near them. Which suited Nom Anor fine, since it let him get to Kharran that little bit quicker. The landing field was one flat slab of coral, providing the perfect place to land shuttles and transports. At the present moment, there was a fleet of such vessels sitting on the landing field, being loaded with troops, crew, and supplies for Warmaster Artran Kharran’s personal battleship, the Sunslayer. The Warmaster himself was overseeing the loading; he always made a point of watching his ship’s supplies being loaded.

Kharran was easily visible as Nom Anor stepped out of the door at the top of the stairs. To any normal infidel out in what was left of the galaxy, the Warmaster looked like every other Yuuzhan Vong; few people had seen him in person, and most of those that had were long dead. But, to Nom Anor, Artran Kharran looked all too…human. His forehead wasn’t quite as sloped as perhaps it should be, and his fingers weren’t quite as slender as some other Yuuzhan Vong. Even the Warmaster’s hair looked human; he still had a good head of the stuff, scruffily parted in the middle so that it fell either side of his face. Nom Anor doubted if any other Yuuzhan Vong had noticed the Warmaster’s unusual characteristics. His hair partially covered his forehead, and the only time you would get a good look at his fingers was when they and the amphiblade they usually held were hurtling towards your face. And, apart from those two minor details, he did indeed look like every other Yuuzhan Vong; his face displayed many elaborate scars, and the only reason one couldn’t see the other ritual scars that no doubt covered his body was because he was always wearing his signature crimson suit of vonduun crab armour. On his shoulders, the Warmaster wore a cape of dark turquoise, stretching all the way down his six-foot frame to his ankles. His amphiblade—a custom made, sword-like amphistaff—was curled around his right arm, head resting on the back of the Warmaster’s hand.

Kharran made no sign that he had noticed Nom Anor as the prefect approached. This annoyed Nom Anor, considering the importance of his news; Supreme Overlord Shimrra had summoned both Nom Anor and Warmaster Kharran to his throne room. Shimrra had been unable to reach the Warmaster himself, so he had dispatched Nom Anor to inform Kharran of the summons.

“Warmaster!” Nom Anor called as he finally joined the Warmaster at the small raised platform, overlooking the numerous shuttles and transports.

“Prefect Nom Anor,” Kharran replied uncaringly, still looking out at the mass of Yuuzhan Vong warriors loading the Sunslayer’s transports. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Nom Anor narrowed his eyes at the Warmaster in disgust; he hated Kharran’s sarcasm. It was another all-too-human characteristic. “Supreme Overlord Shimrra wants to see us immediately.”

“Us?” Kharran asked, only slightly more interested in Nom Anor than he was a few seconds ago.

“Yes, us,” Nom Anor repeated. “Whatever this is about, the Supreme Overlord believes that both of us should be there to hear it.”

“It’s about the Archangel,” Kharran stated. “Obviously.”

“How do you—.”

“The Archangel has been the only thing in this galaxy that Supreme Overlord Shimrra has been concerned with since the ship launched,” Kharran explained. “And it showed up at Denon yesterday.”

“Yesterday?” Nom Anor spluttered.

Kharran smiled. “Yes. It destroyed a patrol ship, as well, which is interesting. It’s not like Katarn and Yannik to go after such a small target.”

Despite his sheer dislike of the Warmaster, Nom Anor had to agree with him. “Then what were they after?”

“Obviously, something caught their attention,” Kharran replied. “Or something caught the patrol ship’s attention. The patrol ship tried to destroy something that Katarn and Yannik wanted to protect, so they decloacked the Archangel and took the patrol ship out,” Kharran switched his gaze to three individuals standing near the closest shuttle. “It’s rather simple, Prefect.”

Nom Anor looked at the three Yuuzhan Vong that Kharran was staring at. One, he instantly recognised; his name was Sharrvon Kharran, the commander of the Sunslayer and Artran Kharran’s older brother. Sharrvon didn’t have the sheer tactical genius that Artran did, so had stood aside, and even helped his younger brother become Warmaster, for the greater good of the Yuuzhan Vong empire.

The other two people, Nom Anor didn’t know. One of them was quite obviously a subaltern, conversing with Sharrvon Kharran while his men boarded the shuttle. The other person was a female Yuuzhan Vong, standing underneath the shuttle’s wing and staring up at Nom Anor and Warmaster Kharran. Even though he was more than fifty metres away, Nom Anor could plainly tell that she was a strikingly beautiful woman. She wore a dark suit of vonduum crab armour, and Nom Anor was reasonably sure that there was an amphistaff curled around her waist.

“Who is that?” Nom Anor asked Kharran, assuming that, since she was staring at him, the Warmaster knew who he was.

“Who?” Kharran replied, looking at Nom Anor like he was crazy. “Commander Kharran?”

“No, her!” Nom Anor corrected, pointing at the woman—

—who was no longer there.

Where’d she go? Nom Anor thought, scanning the landing field. “Wait a minute—.”

“I don’t think the Supreme Overlord will take too kindly to being kept waiting forever,” Kharran said suddenly, turning and heading towards the stairwell behind him and Nom Anor. Nom Anor spent another moment trying to locate the woman he was certain he had just seen, then decided that the Warmaster was right and keeping Shimrra waiting was not a good idea and turned to follow the Warmaster.

-----------------------------------------------

Warmaster Artran Kharran waited for the membrane to completely open before he stepped through into Supreme Overlord Shimrra’s throne room. It was almost completely empty, at least when compared with the amount of Yuuzhan Vong that would be in the room when Shimrra was conducting an official meeting. Artran’s entrance brought the number of people in the room up to six; himself, Supreme Overlord Shimrra, Nom Anor, Shimrra’s Shamed One pet, Omini, and two Slayers—genetically enhanced Yuuzhan Vong warriors, far superior to any combatant they might come up against.

“Warmaster Kharran! I ordered you to come instantly!” Shimrra bellowed suddenly. The angered call would have made any other Yuuzhan Vong cringe in fright; to Artran, it did nothing at all. Artran had faced down some of the best fighters this galaxy could offer, including several very powerful Jedi masters, and bested every last one of them, and Shimrra was nothing to Artran when compared to some of them.

No sense angering him further, Artran reminded himself. “I beg your forgiveness, Supreme Overlord. I received an urgent report from Bakura—”

“The situation at Bakura is not the most important matter you need to worry about!” Shimrra howled. “You already know of the attack launched by the Archangel yesterday. What do you make of it?”

“Katarn and Yannik were protecting something,” Artran replied instantly, as if it was beyond obvious. “The frigate tried to destroy whatever it was, so they took the frigate out.”

“What was it?”

“I can’t read their minds, Supreme Overlord,” Artran said respectfully. “And they didn’t leave anything behind, except for what was left of the frigate. I have no idea what they were after.”

“So, yet again, the Archangel has slipped you through your fingers,” Shimrra stated. “I am beginning to doubt if you are capable of stopping that ship, Warmaster!”

“Supreme Overlord, I can’t stop that ship!” Artran replied. “No one can! Not until the shapers can find a way to eliminate their cloaking device. Until then, there’s no way to track it.”

“You did manage to corner it once,” Shimrra pointed out. “Why can you not do that again?”

“Katarn and the other Jeedai won’t fall for the same trick twice,” Artran answered. “They may be infidels, but they aren’t fools. Once I have destroyed the infidel fleet at Bakura, I can devote the entire military to destroying the Archangel, Lusankya, and all of the other infidel task groups scattered across the galaxy—.”

“The fleet at Bakura is not an immediate problem!” Shimrra scolded. “They are attempting to negotiate with us! They won’t dare attack. The Archangel is under no restrictions whatsoever! I want that ship tracked down and destroyed!”

“It’s not possible. Not unless the shapers can provide me with a way to read Yannik’s mind,” Artran replied simply, glaring at Omini as he felt the little Shamed One attempt to put some pressure on his mind. You can’t touch me, Shamed One, Artran thought, carefully keeping it away from Omini’s prying Force presence. He was even tempted to use the Force to give Omini a taste of his own medicine, but decided against it. For now.

“Which is why I am sending Prefect Nom Anor here to assist you,” Shimrra continued, regaining Artran’s attention. “He spent years amongst the infidels as an executor. He undoubtedly knows them better than you do. Perhaps together you two can rid the Yuuzhan Vong of that abomination.”

“Supreme Overlord—!” Artran began. He was somewhat surprised to hear Nom Anor join in his protest.

“Silence!” Shimrra bellowed, silencing both.

Artran wasn’t about to let himself be intimidated like that, though. “Supreme Overlord, Nom Anor might know the infidels in general, but he has no idea on how Yannik’s mind works!”

“I agree, My Lord,” Nom Anor joined in. “I only studied certain cultures, not—.”

“I said silence!” Shimrra bellowed again. “Prefect Nom Anor will accompany you, and you two will destroy the Archangel, Katarn, Yannik, and every other living being on that ship! Is that clear?”

Artran’s first impulse was to try to argue his way out of getting stuck with that snivelling coward of a Prefect on his ship, but he forced himself not to. It would only serve to get Shimrra angry, and that was never a good idea. He would just have to deal with this.

“As you wish, My Lord,” Artran growled. “I’ll have to return to Bakura to gather my fleet first.”

“Just destroy that ship and all the Jeedai on it!” Shimrra ordered. “Now go!”

Artran scowled and turned, giving Nom Anor a decidedly disgusted look before he stalked his way back to the entrance and stormed through it. He continued through the Supreme Overlord’s citadel, emanating a powerful aura of ‘do NOT get in my way!’ as he strode past the warriors, shapers, and workers throughout the citadel’s corridors. Hearing Nom Anor’s voice from behind only served to make his mood even worse.

“Warmaster,” The Prefect said as he approached. “Do you really think we can pull this off?”

“Of course we can’t!” Artran snapped in return. “Our only chance of finding that ship is if the gods see fit to hand it to us on a silver platter. So, until the gods see fit to do so, I’m going back to Bakura to oversee the situation there. You’re welcome to come.”

“The Supreme Overlord made it clear that I don’t have a choice,” Nom Anor replied. “I’ll be on your ship in under an hour.”

“See that you are,” Artran said, still making no attempt to disguise his disdain of being stuck with Nom Anor on his flagship as he slowed down to allow the Prefect to walk ahead. Once Nom Anor was a metre or so in front, Artran darted into a side corridor, moving down through a maze of yorik coral corridors into what was left of the old Imperial Palace. Admittedly, it wasn’t very much anymore; the only real room that was left was a small storage room on the lower levels. No other Yuuzhan Vong even knew that it existed, so the chances of Artran being noticed down here was virtually nil. Which was good, since it finally gave him a chance to take off the holo-shroud he was always forced to wear.

“You were saying,” Artran prompted as he walked into the dark room, deactivating his holo-shroud as he did.

“I’m still surprised that you haven’t sensed it,” Riina Kharran replied as she approached the Warmaster and stroked his neck.

“I have been busy trying to keep this accursed empire together,” Artran muttered, brushing her hand away. “Shimrra just ordered me to destroy the Archangel.”

“You have your work cut out for you then,” Riina replied before continuing the discussion she and Artran had been conducting just before his entrance into the Supreme Overlord’s throne room. “As I was saying, there’s a new Jedi aboard the Archangel.”

“Are you certain that this Jedi’s on the Archangel?” Artran asked, finally free of the annoying Yuuzhan Vong pronunciation of the word.

“Where else could it be?” Riina replied.

“The Archangel destroyed a patrol ship yesterday,” Artran explained. “And then, all of a sudden, we can sense a Jedi who isn’t hiding from us. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. Is it someone we know?”

“I don’t think so,” Riina answered, shaking her golden-haired head. “It doesn’t really matter, though. You and I can use him or her to find—.”

Artran shook his head. “Katarn will have her hiding her Force presence within a day. We won’t have enough time.”

“Her?” Riina asked. “How do you know it’s a female?”

“I don’t,” Artran replied after a moment, his eyes darting from side to side as he pondered why he had said that. “I just…never mind. We’re leaving for Bakura in two hours.”

“I’ll meet you up on the ship,” Riina said, heading for the door.

“Wait,” Artran ordered. “Nom Anor saw you back at the landing field. We decided that—.”

“And what if he did see me?” She retorted. “Like he can do anything with the information.”

“Just try to be more careful, Riina,” Artran said. “Nom Anor’s one thing; that idiot’s no threat to anyone but himself. But if someone more loyal to Shimrra realises that you exist, that blows our only wildcard—.”

“I can handle it, Artran!” Riina snapped. “You just play the loyal Warmaster; Sharrvon and I will handle the rest. Whatever happens, though, we need to get rid of the Archangel.”

“I’ll take care of that,” Artran said surely. “If I can find a way to corner that stupid ship again.”

“This new Jedi might give us a way to do that,” Riina said just before she left. “I’ll keep an eye on it.”

Artran let her leave, and, once she was gone, closed his eyes for a moment, reaching out into the Force to get a sense of this new Jedi. It was surprisingly easy to find her—why do I keep thinking that?—but that probably had something to do with the fact that Katarn hadn’t taught her to hide yet. This new Jedi was there, though. And she—curse it, why do I keep doing that?—did seem a little familiar, despite what Riina had just said.

“Warmaster Kharran.”

Artran’s eyes snapped open the millisecond that Omini’s voice reached his ears. He whirled on the intruder, reaching for the holo-emitter on his waist—

“Don’t bother,” Omini said. “I know who you are. Who you really are.”

“Is that so, Shamed One?” Artran growled, activating the holo-shroud anyway. Artran’s amphiblade sensed its master’s danger sense kick up and tensed in reply, ready to spring forward and into Artran’s hand.

Omini noticed the tensing amphiblade and snorted in disdain. “We both know that won’t work, Warmaster. Or, should I call you—.”

“Speak that name, Supreme Overlord, and we’ll give your theory a little test,” Artran warned, letting his amphiblade slide forward a few inches, its head forming a small punching dagger on top of his hand. If it turned out that Omini had overheard him and Riina talking, Artran was intent on using the weapon.

“I was right,” Omini sighed. “So you do know who is really running the empire. Out of curiosity, how long have you known?”

“Since I first walked into Shimrra’s throne room,” Artran replied. “Shimrra’s Shamed One ‘pet’ being Force-sensitive seemed a little too coincidental.”

Omini’s lopsided head cocked to the side as he shrugged. “Another large coincidence was that the newest admiral in my fleet happened to be Force sensitive.”

“You already know why that is,” Artran snapped quickly. “Now, is there a purpose to this?”

“You seem unwilling to destroy the Archangel,” Omini noted.

“I want that ship gone as much as you do!” Artran contradicted. Not for the same reason, though, he thought. “I’m just being realistic. We both know that there are no gods. Even if there were, they wouldn’t fight this war for us, so we can’t count on divine intervention to kill the Archangel, and, until I get something to work with, I can’t kill it, either.”

“So you will destroy Bakura to pass the time, then,” Omini said.

Artran shrugged. “Bakura needs to go as much as the Archangel does. I’ll deal with them both in due time.”

“The Archangel is your priority, don’t forget that,” Omini stated, leaving Artran to his thoughts.

Artran waited for the Shamed One slash Supreme Overlord to leave before he let his very real feeling of disgust creep onto his face. He hated all of these Yuuzhan Vong that he was being forced to serve and work with. Omini especially; that little freak was a blight on the galaxy. Artran was going to enjoy killing him when the time came. Oh yes, he was going to enjoy it.

 

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Padawan of princess_of_naboo
E-married to the amazing padawanlost love
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rebel_cheese 
Registered: Jul '06
42800_Anakin Solo
Date Posted: 7/31/06 6:45pm Subject: RE: Shattered Mirror (Post-TUF, Major AU, J/J, A/T, Kyle, Danni )*RE-POST IN PROGRESS*
CHAPTER FIVE

The Archangel’s main hangar was just as messy as the last time Jaina was in it, when she had fainted after seeing Anakin. She still felt a little stupid because of that, but could anyone blame her? Her little brother had been dead for years. His death had nearly torn her family apart, and had almost sent her to the dark side. Seeing him alive—even an alternate universe version of him—was enough to really rattle Jaina. In fact, she wasn’t so sure that she was going to be able to talk to him without fainting again. That was the entire point of her coming down to the hangar; Kyle had said that was where Anakin was most likely to be, working on a combat transport or a Scorcher fighter or some other ship.

Jaina’s stormtrooper escort followed her out of the turbolift and pointed towards the large maintenance bay. There were seven Scorcher fighters there, all in varying stages of repair, along with another custom ship that looked completely alien to Jaina. She didn’t have time to closely examine it, though. There were a dozen technicians swarming over the fighters, but sensing which ship Anakin was working on was as easy as walking across the room. The ship he was working on was, thankfully, the one closest to the turbolift Jaina came out of it. Jaina took a deep breath and started the walk over to it.

The ship didn’t look like it was in bad shape at all; in fact, Jaina couldn’t see anything wrong with it. Which was probably why Anakin was messing with it. Jaina’s little brother had always been tinkering with whatever machine he could possibly get his hands on. Some things stayed the same even across universes, apparently.

Jaina didn’t have time to reach the Scorcher before the fighter’s cockpit lifted up and Anakin Force-leapt out of it, landing with casual ease between the fighter and Jaina. Jaina stopped, hesitant, without any idea on what to do. Should she run over to him and hug him, or ask if he knew about the whole ‘alternate universe’ bit? Should she talk first, or let him talk first? Should she even be looking at him?

Being reunited with a long-dead brother wasn’t as easy as Jaina had first thought.

Fortunately for her, Anakin seemed to be more on top of the situation—or perhaps he simply didn’t care about all the awkward details? Whatever the case, he was the one who sprinted the gap between them and hugged Jaina like only a little brother who watched his big sister die could. Jaina thought about whether to talk or just hug him for a few moments before deciding on the latter and, sighing happily as she did, wrapping her arms around her little brother.

Anakin was her little brother in name only, now, though. He had been taller than Jaina for years before he had died in her universe, and this Anakin had grown a little more since Myrkr. Jaina only barely reached up to his shoulders now. Anakin didn’t seem to notice, or care. In fact, if what Jaina was sensing through the Force was anything to go on, he was enjoying the fact that he could wrap Jaina in his arms and keep her there.

Jaina lost track of time, and before she knew it Anakin had let her go and stepped back, unshed tears welling up in his ice-blue eyes.

Jaina said the first thing that came to mind. “Hi, Anakin.”

“Hi?” Anakin repeated. “You come back from the dead and all you can say is ‘Hi’?”

“Well, um, I…uh…” Jaina stammered. She had been going to say that she hadn’t actually come back from the dead, that she wasn’t the Jaina who had died in this galaxy, but if no one had told Anakin yet—

Oh, yeah, like Anakin wouldn’t be the first person Kyle would have told? Jaina thought. It was blatantly obvious that Anakin would know by now; she had been on this ship for over a day, after all. Besides, if Kyle hadn’t told him, Danni would have, and if she hadn’t been the one to tell him, Valin or Wynssa would have. All this worrying on Jaina’s part was just a waste of time. Although, if she was wrong and he hadn’t been told…

“Something wrong?” He asked after she had spent a few seconds in thought.

“No, not really,” Jaina replied. “I just…um…has Kyle told you about…uh…how I…I mean, Jag and I—.”

“Got here?” Anakin finished. “Well, it wasn’t Kyle who told me, but yeah…I know about your hyperspace accident.”

“So you know that I’m not your Jaina?”

Anakin nodded slowly. “I’m not sure I agree with that, though. That you’re not my Jaina, I mean.”

“Anakin, I’m not—.”

“Technically, you’re right, but we don’t know how different our two galaxies are, do we? For all we know, everything was the same up until Kharran attacked Csilla.” Anakin’s tone suddenly became a lot more serious. “But, even if you are a lot different from the Jaina I knew, I’m not going to care. You’re the closest thing to her that I’m ever going to get.”

Jaina nodded slowly. “I feel the same way, Anakin; you’re the closest thing to my Anakin that I’m ever going to get.”

Anakin smiled and hugged Jaina again. She hugged him back, tighter this time, the knowledge that Anakin was just as happy to see her as she was to see him making her feel a lot better.

“So,” Anakin said once they had let each other go again. “Is everyone else alive in your universe? Mom, Dad, Jacen?”

“Everyone, except for you and Chewie,” Jaina replied, glad to give Anakin some good news for once. From what she had seen so far, a lot of people on this ship had a good while without hearing anything pleasant.

Anakin didn’t take it as well as Jaina thought that he would have. “Chewie…” he breathed. “Chewie died in your galaxy, too? Sithspawn…I figured that, if you were alive, almost everyone would be, but…I really wanted to hear that Chewie was alright. I still haven’t gotten over his death. Or anyone’s, for that matter.”

Jaina nodded in sincere understanding. “I imagine, with losing the war, you just haven’t had any time to stop and grieve. Right?”

“Right,” Anakin muttered. “It isn’t really as hard as you think, though. I just know that Mom’s dead, and that Dad’s dead, and that Uncle Luke’s dead. I didn’t see all of them die. If I keep myself busy enough, I end up just not thinking about them. But you and Jacen…Force, I still have nightmares about you two. You died in my arms, Sithspawn it! And Jacen…”

Jaina reached out and put her hand on Anakin’s shoulder, before glancing around self-consciously. Half of the techs in the hangar were looking at her and Anakin. It wasn’t helping that Anakin was on the verge of tears. Jaina whispered into Anakin’s ear that it might be an idea to find somewhere more private. He nodded and gestured at the Scorcher he had been working on, wiping a tear off his face with his other hand. Jaina had to lead him over to the ship, and waited until he was leaning against one of the fighter’s landing pads before sitting down next to him.

“Are you alright, Anakin?” She asked quietly, still rubbing his back.

“No,” Anakin shook his head. “I haven’t been in a while, Jaina.”

“The nightmares?”

This time, he nodded. “They’re only ever about you and Jacen.”

“Why Jacen?” Jaina asked. “Did you see him die as well?”

Anakin let out a short, humourless chuckle. “Yeah…I did kill him, after all.”

“You…y-you what?” Jaina’s mouth would have fallen straight through the deck if it had been able to. Anakin and Jacen had always been arguing in her universe, but the very idea that that they could even start fighting each other was just…just…ludicrous, even in an alternate universe. “But Kyle said that Kharran killed him!”

“He did.” Anakin replied quietly. “We both did, in a way.”

“Anakin.” Jaina all but growled. Anakin didn’t need to hear that tone twice to know she wanted an explanation.

“We all thought that Jacen died on Myrkr.” He began. “It turned out that he didn’t, though. At least, not literally. Kharran captured him, tortured him, brainwashed him, and sent him back to us as a double agent. We were all so stupid; we actually thought that he had managed to escape, that he was still himself. We only found out that he was a double agent when he buried his lightsaber in Aunt Mara’s back. I didn’t see him do it—no one did—but we all knew. Tahiri and I found him talking to Kharran through a villip. We tried to talk to him, tried to bring him back, but…we never had a chance. We fought, and he lost. Tahiri took off both of his legs, but not even that stopped him; he blasted us both with Force lightning. He nearly killed us.”

“Why didn’t he?” Jaina asked.

Anakin chuckled again. Jaina couldn’t tell whether he was trying to hide his regret or guilt. Or both. “He stopped because I rammed a broken pipe through his neck.” He forced out. “I murdered him.”

“No, Anakin, you didn’t. You can’t blame yourself for that.” Jaina rubbed his back again. “It wasn’t Jacen—.”

“That’s what Tahiri keeps saying,” Anakin muttered. “But it’s not true. We could have saved him, if I hadn’t killed him.”

“You were fighting for your life, Anakin.” Jaina said kindly. “You didn’t have time to think it through—.”

“You were dead when it happened! How do you know?”

“I don’t need to have been there, Anakin,” Jaina said. She hadn’t used her reassuring-big-sister voice in years, but it still had an effect on Anakin. “You were fighting to keep both yourself and Tahiri alive, right? He might have killed you if you hadn’t stopped him. He might have killed her if you hadn’t stopped him.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that I killed my own brother!” Anakin snarled angrily.

“Kharran killed him, not you!” Jaina countered. “I know it’s probably hard for you to accept that, but it’s the truth, Anakin. You’re never going to get over being forced to kill Jacen if you don’t!”

“Then that’s just one more death to blame on Kharran,” Anakin sighed. “You, Corran, Jysella, Kyp, Uncle Luke, a few billion other people I never met, and Aunt Mara and Jacen, if you look at it like you and Tahiri do.”

Anakin wiped another tear from hi eye mid-sentence. Jaina wiped the other tear away before he could, then wrapped him in a big-sisterly hug. He really needed one. Jaina thought that the months after Anakin’s death in her universe had been a living hell, but what Anakin had been through…that just made her experience look like a walk through a Nubian garden. She felt so sorry for him; losing everyone would have terrible enough, but having Aunt Mara murdered by Jacen…Jaina knew that she wouldn’t have been able to handle that.

After a time, Anakin brushed his sister’s arms off, at least now able to keep the tears at bay. Jaina resisted the urge to give his shoulder a reassuring squeeze, and switched the discussion to a different topic.

“There’s one thing I don’t get, Anakin.” She said. “Did Kharran kill Kyp and Uncle Luke man to man?”

Anakin nodded. “In the same fight, too.”

“How could he possibly be that good?” Jaina asked. “Kyp, I might be able to understand, but Uncle Luke as well? At the same time? How—?”

“Didn’t Kyle and Danni tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“Kharran’s Force sensitive,” Anakin stated.

“What?”

“We only found out on Myrkr, when you went after you and Raynar.” Anakin sighed. “We could all sense that there was someone else on the planet who could use the Force, but we didn’t know who until we actually met Kharran in person. He want after me as soon as he saw us, but Jacen got in the way.”

“But…how? How the hell can Kharran—?” Jaina stopped an instant after the last syllable left her lips. There was one very important event that no one had told her about yet.

Yavin.

“Anakin, who got captured on Yavin IV?”

“Tahiri did,” Anakin answered. He almost literally spat the rest of his explanation out, his tone dripping with disgust and hatred. “The Vong tortured and brainwashed her. Nearly turned her into one of them.”

“Same thing happened in my universe,” Jaina said softly. “Alright, so he isn’t a brainwashed Jedi.”

Anakin looked at her. “Is that what you thought?”

“It was possible.” Jaina said. “Are you certain no one else got captured?”

“Absolutely,” Anakin stated, completely sure of himself. “It isn’t impossible that Kharran was born with Force powers, you know. One Yuuzhan Vong in every few billion doesn’t sound impossible.”

“Actually, Anakin, it is impossible,” Jaina corrected. He wouldn’t know about how Zonama Sekot, or its connection to the Yuuzhan Vong, and it was far too long a story to bore him with. “Just trust me on that one. The only Yuuzhan Vong who ever got the Force back was a shaper named Omini.”

“What happened to him in your universe?” Anakin asked.

“One of his implants went bad, and he became a shamed one,” Jaina explained. “Then he became the Supreme Overlord’s pet. He used the Force to control Shimrra until we killed them both.”

“Maybe he’s Kharran,” Anakin suggested. “He didn’t become a shamed one, changed his name, and became Warmaster.”

Jaina rolled the idea around in her head for a few seconds. No Jedi had been captured and brainwashed in this universe, Tahiri excluded, and Anakin had personally seen that Kharran was a Yuuzhan Vong. And Jaina had no idea what Omini would look like as a normal, un-shamed Yuuzhan Vong; she had only ever seen him as a mutilated shamed one. He would also have needed to change his name to get away from switching from a mere shaper to the Warmaster, but with his ability to influence other Yuuzhan Vong through the Force, that switch would have been quite doable.

“Anakin,” Jaina said.

“Yes?”

“I think you’re right,” Jaina turned towards him. “I think Kharran and Omini are the same person. It makes sense, and explains why Kharran is Force sensitive.”

“Are you serious?” Anakin asked, and waited for Jaina to nod before he continued. “Ah, well. Not like it does us any good. So we know who he is; that won’t help us kill him.”

Jaina couldn’t argue. “Helps me figure out how this mess of a galaxy.”

“Hell.”

“What was that?”

“You said ‘mess’,” Anakin said. “This galaxy’s beyond that. ‘Hell’ is the only word that I can find to describe this.” Anakin glanced around the hangar to make sure no one else was within earshot. “You know, I’m starting to see what was going through Wynssa’s head when she tried to kill herself. Not even the real hell could be this bad.”

“You don’t want to kill yourself, Anakin,” Jaina said kindly.

“I never said I was going to!” Anakin replied. “I just said that I’m starting why Wynssa tried to.”

Jaina wasn’t surprised that Wyn had tried to kill herself; she had seemed very unstable back in the hangar and in Jaina and Jag’s quarters. “Valin stopped her, didn’t he?”

“How’d you guess?”

“It looked that way,” Jaina answered. “Valin’s the only thing keeping Wyn in one piece, right?”

“It works both ways,” Anakin said. “Wynssa’s only reason to keep living is Valin, and his only reason not to go on some suicidal quest for revenge is because Wyn would kill herself if he ever died. Not many people can tell—even Kyle thinks that they’re just using each other for comfort—but they do love each other. As much as you can under the circumstances, at least.”

“What about you and Tahiri?” Jaina asked. “Did you two end up—?”

“Kissing?”

“Yeah.”

That brought a rare smile to Anakin’s face. “Oh yeah. Believe it or not, we’re actually married now.”

“Married?” Jaina spluttered in shocked surprise. “You married her?”

Anakin burst into laughter, which was even rarer than him cracking a smile. “Oh, that’s funny!” He managed to say between laughs. “You never thought we’d get that far, did you?”

“Well, you two never did have a chance in my universe,” Jaina said. “But I thought that her being half-Vong—.”

“She is not half-Vong!” Anakin growled protectively. “I killed that monster the Vong forced into her head years ago!”

“Oh,” was all Jaina could say in reply. “I, uh…sorry, Anakin.”

“It’s alright,” Anakin sighed. “Just don’t ever call her half-Vong again!”

“How’d you do it, anyway?” Jaina asked. “Killing Riina, I mean.”

“Pulled her out of Tahiri’s mind and into mine,” Anakin answered. “She couldn’t hurt Tahiri there, so I crushed her like a bug.”

“You sound like you enjoyed it,” Jaina pointed out, reading her brother’s tone.

“I did,” Anakin answered. Jaina couldn’t tell if that was guilt in his voice, or if he just didn’t care about the ramifications of what he was saying. “And don’t give me that ‘dark side’ speech. I don’t care. Riina would have killed Tahiri, me, everyone if I didn’t stop her. And there was no way in the universe that I was going to let her and Tahiri merge! Tahiri wasn’t to blame for what the Vong did to her! Why should she have to suffer over it?”

Jaina knew better than to argue. The urge was there, granted, but it just wasn’t worth the rift it would open up between her and Anakin. It sounded like Tahiri was a bit of a sensitive issue for him—not surprising, really—so Jaina thought that it would be best to let the argument end before it began.

Unfortunately, that left Jaina with nothing to talk about.

“Wedge should be happy to see you,” Anakin noted after a few seconds of awkward silence. “We’re meeting up with the Lusankya tomorrow. Usually, it’s just Kyle, Tahiri, Wynssa, and I that meet Wedge aboard the Lusankya[.i], but Kyle will probably want to bring you and your fiancé along.”

Anakin’s commlink beeped before Jaina could say anything. He picked it up and answered it after taking a look at the small indicator on its side. “What is it, Yannik? What? Oh, [i]shavit! Yeah, I’ll be right there.”

“Problem?” Jaina asked as Anakin stood.

“Yeah,” Anakin replied. “Jaina, you’re going to have to go back to your quarters for a while, alright?”

“What?” Jaina snapped indignantly, jumping to her feet. “I’m not spending the rest of my life in that—.”

“Just for a few days, Jaina,” Anakin assured her. “I’ll get you and your fiancé a fighter each, alright? You won’t be stuck in that room forever.”

“Alright, Anakin, alright,” Jaina relented, still a little annoyed at being bossed around by her little brother.

“Thanks, Jaina,” Anakin said. He gave her one last hug before rushing towards the nearest turbolift. “Just ask the stormtroopers to take you back to your room.” He called over his shoulder.

“I know my way around a Star Destroyer, Anakin!”

“Not this one, you don’t!” Anakin replied just before he entered the turbolift.

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When he exited it, he walked straight onto the Archangel’s bridge. The bridge crew had gotten used to having Jedi running in and out of the bridge long ago, so only a couple of the younger officers even spared Anakin an uninterested glance. Not that it would have mattered had they been more interested; Anakin would have ignored them anyway. As it was, Anakin just kept going, straight into the briefing room.

Anakin was the only person that everyone was waiting for. All of the other Jedi were already present, all standing around the large table in the centre of the room. Yannik was standing atop the table at its head—it was the only way the two-foot-tall alien could get a good look around the room. Standing on his right where Kyle and Danni, followed by the two youngest Jedi knights aboard the ship. Azias Sharn, a young, dark-skinned human who had only been a Jedi for the past six months. Cirila Keryln was the other one, a young, incredibly attractive Chiss girl of seventeen. She had no idea what her real Chiss name was, only that the name she had adopted sounded something like it. She had lost her memory escaping from Csilla during the Yuuzhan Vong invasion there. Unlike Azias, Cirila had three years of Jedi training beneath her belt—even though the first year had been spent teaching her how to speak Basic.

After Azias and Cirila, Valin and Wynssa were standing hand-in-hand, quietly whispering. It was unusual for Wynssa to be here, unless this meeting was going to have something to do with the squadron she had been given command of a few weeks ago.

The last two Jedi, Zekk and Tahiri, were standing a few steps away from everyone else. Anakin listened to the conversations going on about the room for a moment before joining Tahiri and Zekk.

“What’s happened?” Anakin asked quietly. “Yannik said that—.”

“The Sunslayer’s been spotted with the Vong fleet at Bakura,” Tahiri finished.

“Kharran,” Anakin growled.

“If he’s there, then Bakura can’t have more than a month to live,” Zekk said.

Anakin grimaced. Zekk was right; the only thing that Kharran was good at was killing. If Shimrra had sent him to Bakura, the planet would be a scorched rock within a month.

“What are we all talking about, then?” Anakin whispered into Tahiri’s ear.

“What to do,” Tahiri sighed. “We can’t just let Bakura be obliterated.”

“If we go, we’d only accelerate Kharran’s invasion,” Zekk objected. “He’d leap at the chance to get us caught in an open battle.”

“Then we stay cloaked,” Tahiri countered.

“And risk being rammed by one of the thousand-odd ships at Bakura?” Zekk asked. “Either way, we’re dead.”

Tahiri said something back to Zekk, but Anakin had stopped listening. The same argument was being repeated all around the room, but Anakin wasn’t going to get involved. He already knew what Kyle and Yannik were going to decide. If the Archangel went to Bakura, it’d have to decloak to avoid being rammed by another ship, and if it did that, Kharran would launch his invasion within an hour.

In short, if the Archangel ran to the Bakurans’ aid, it would only reduce the amount of time that they had to evacuate.

“Enough, everyone!” Yannik called suddenly, silencing all of those present. “We aren’t going to Bakura.”

“Captain Yannik, we can’t—,” Azias started.

“It’s too risky, Azias,” Yannik interrupted. Anakin had to resist a smirk as the little green alien went on to recite exactly what he had been thinking.

“But we can’t just—,” Azias objected again, less than a second after Yannik finished.

“He’s right, Azias,” Cirila said. “We’d only cause more deaths.”

“The matter isn’t open for discussion,” Kyle instructed firmly, more to Azias than anyone else. The Jedi master waited for the kid to shut his mouth before continuing. “We’re going to rendezvous with Wedge and the Lusankya, as planned. As all of you know, we’re in desperate need of parts for our Scorchers.”

That brought a murmur of acknowledgment from everyone present. The Archangel’s Scorchers were bred to kill Yuuzhan Vong, but they could only do so if they were in working order. Right now, they were down from seventy-two ships to a measly forty-eight, and seven of those were out of action for one reason or another.

In short, right now, the Scorchers were more valuable than the pilots flying them.

“Do we know if Wedge has that Scorcher factory up and running yet?” Anakin asked.

“We’ll have to wait till we see him tomorrow,” Yannik answered. “But, realistically, I don’t see how he could have gotten it running. All of the resource-rich planets that we know of have been in Vong hands for some time now.”

Anakin nodded grimly. “Then we’re going to need to ask Wedge for a whole new engine.”

“A whole engine?” Wynssa demanded.

“Actually, a whole new pod,” Anakin corrected. “Engine, lasers, casing, the lot.”

“What happened?” Kyle asked.

“Tahiri took a hit during the dogfight over Jaina and Jag,” Anakin answered. “The engine’s useless.”

“Speaking of Jaina and Jag…” Danni interrupted. “What are we going to do about them?”

“I was going to tear apart two of our more screwed up Scorchers and use the parts to get two others working for them,” Anakin said.

“Pre-empting our decision, are you?” Yannik asked.

“Well, yes,” Anakin answered. “We can’t afford to waste two pilots of their calibre. Everyone on this ship knows that.”

Yannik nodded. “We have decided to put them into our fighter squadrons, yes. Jaina Solo will, logically, join your Black Knights, Anakin.”

“What about Jag?” Wynssa asked.

“Well, the Black Knights don’t need him,” Kyle answered. “And Angel, Halo, and Scarlet squadrons are all at full strength. In fact, the only squadron who needs him is…your one, Wynssa. Raven squadron.”

Wynssa shrugged. “I do still only have six ships.”

“Jag will have seven, then,” Kyle said.

“Jag?” Wynssa asked, confused. “What do you mean?”

“Raven squadron needs a more experienced officer to lead them,” Yannik explained. “Right now, your squadron is nothing but a group of talented rookies.”

“Wait,” Wynssa’s eyes widened in horror. “You’re putting him in charge of Raven squadron?”

Yannik nodded. “Yes, we are.”

“No way!” Wynssa objected. “No way, the Ravens are my squadron!”

“They’re a bunch of untrained rookies, who need an experienced pilot to lead them,” Kyle repeated. “You’re a really good pilot Wyn, but you’ve got no experience in leading a squadron. Jag does.”

“But you can’t—!”

Wynssa stopped, very abruptly, when Valin thumped her on the arm. She glared at him, cheeks bright red in outrage. One quick look around the briefing room turned her outrage into embarrassment; everyone was looking at her. Danni even had that look on her face; the one that said without words that she was disappointed and surprised that Wyn could be so immature.

“I, uh…I’m sorry,” Wynssa stammered, and, after realising that Captain Yannik was still glaring at her, added a begrudged “Sir.”

Yannik shook his head. “Don’t do that again, Lieutenant.” He ordered.

“Yes, sir,” Wynssa all but whispered.

Valin squeezed Wynssa’s hand, trying to comfort her, but to no avail. Getting her own squadron had been something that Wynssa had worked for ever since she had first gotten into a Scorcher’s cockpit, and she had only been in charge of Raven squadron for a few weeks. To have it taken from her like that was especially harsh.

“That’s it, then,” Kyle announced. “We’ll reach the rendezvous point in thirty-eight hours. In the meantime, Anakin, I want you to get a pair of Scorchers working, even if you have to cannibalise parts from another ship. Zekk, Tahiri, you two help him. Understood? Good, get to it.”

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The commlink bounced off the wall with a quiet and entirely unsatisfying ding.

Wynssa made up for it by letting out a string of curses that would have made the roughest of spaceport thugs blush.

Valin swiftly closed the door to Wyn’s quarters before some unlucky crewman walked past and heard the girl screaming profanities about their captain.

“Are you alright?” Valin asked tentatively once Wyn had stopped yelling.

“Of course not!” She screamed. “How can they do this to me?”

“Do what?” Valin demanded.

“Take the Ravens away from me!” Wynssa cried, whirling on Valin, fists clenched. For the shortest moment, Valin actually thought she was going to hit him. “I had to fight for a year to get my own squadron, and now they up and give it to someone else! My own brother, too! Why does…I just…I…” Wynssa dropped onto her bed, buried her face in the pillow, and screamed.

Valin sat down next to her. “You’re really upset, aren’t you?”

“Valin!”

“Oh, alright,” Valin sighed, stroking his girlfriend’s back. She shifted her head from the pillow to Valin’s lap and the tears flow.

“Why does the universe hate me?” She whimpered.

“The universe doesn’t hate you,” Valin said.

“Yes, it does!”

“Well, I don’t hate you.” Valin said instead. “Who cares what the rest of the galaxy thinks?”

“I do!” Wyn hissed into Valin’s lap.

“Come on, Wyn, you’re being childish,” Valin said as nicely as possible. “Jag’s not going to flaunt this in your face, you know that. He’s going to hate doing this to you. Besides, you’re going to be spending most of your time with him, right? Isn’t that a good thing?”

“You sound jealous.”

Valin brushed Wyn’s hair aside and—despite her flinch—bent down and kissed her scarred cheek. “Of him, Wyn.”

Wynssa squirmed into a more comfortable position on Valin’s lap and let him trace her scars with his fingers. “I never even got to take the Ravens into a dogfight.”

“Maybe that’s a good thing, too,” Valin said softly. “You’re a good pilot, Wyn, but I don’t think you’d be able to handle training and leading your own fighter squadron.”

“There’s nothing wrong with me!”

“Not physically,” Valin traced the longest scar on Wyn’s cheek, the one that stretched from her ear to her jaw. “These aren’t your only scars, Wyn.”

“I’m not crazy, either!”

“No, you’re not stable,” Valin corrected. “If we weren’t desperate for every last pilot possible, I don’t think you’d even have your own ship, let alone your own squadron.”

Wyn looked up at his face, eyes glistening with unshed tears. “You’re really good at making me feel miserable, you know that?”

“Now that’s not fair!” Valin objected. “If I tried to tell you that you were perfectly okay, that’d just be hurting you. For heaven’s sake, Wyn, you still get nightmares about Myrkr! I don’t think you’ve gone a whole night without being scared to tears by one of them.”

“Except for last night, anyway,” Wyn sobbed.

Valin half-smiled, half-frowned. Wyn had been so emotional after Valin told her about where Jag was really from that he had decided that leaving her alone for the night wasn’t a good idea. It usually wasn’t a good idea on any night, which was why Valin ended up sleeping on Wyn’s couch for often than he did his own bed. Nothing had happened, of course…at least, nothing that would get Valin shot by Jag, anyway. Wyn had ended up crying herself to sleep in Valin’s arms. He had spent the whole night holding her, trying very hard not to wake her up. He had fallen asleep himself, eventually. That morning, Wyn had nearly jumped out of her skin in horror, with no idea whether she and Valin had really slept together or not. Valin would be laughing about that experience for a while yet.

“Are you okay now?” Valin asked after a time.

Wynssa squirmed again. “Yeah. I think…”

“It’ll be fine, Wyn,” Valin assured her, stroking her scars again. “How can you think that anything is bad now? You’ve got Jag back, you’re going to get to introduce him to Wedge tomorrow.

“What could go wrong?”

 

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Padawan of princess_of_naboo
E-married to the amazing padawanlost love
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rebel_cheese 
Registered: Jul '06
42800_Anakin Solo
Date Posted: 7/31/06 6:47pm Subject: RE: Shattered Mirror (Post-TUF, Major AU, J/J, A/T, Kyle, Danni )*RE-POST IN PROGRESS*
CHAPTER SIX


Anakin adjusted the shuttle’s course a fraction, bringing it back into line with the Lusankya’s mammoth docking bay. The twenty-year-old shuttle was the slowest thing Anakin had ever had the displeasure to fly, but in this case, he didn’t really have much of a choice. The faster shuttles were all being used to transport supplies or larger groups of crewmen, and Anakin had wanted to make this particular visit to the Lusankya a little more personal for him and his passengers. He didn’t mind being the last ship into the Lusankya for that. Especially now that he was going to get to introduce Ben to Jaina.

“How are how passengers doing?” Anakin asked suddenly.

“They’re fine,” Tahiri replied, sliding her arms around her husband’s neck. “How are you going? It’s not like you to pick the slowest shuttle. You usually take the fastest one you can get you hands on.”

“I just don’t want to have to introduce Ben to Jaina while two dozen other people are trying to get off the shuttle.” Anakin replied. “This way, we’ve only got us two, Valin, Wynssa, Jaina, and Jag. All we need to do is find Ben and Myri and try to think of a way to introduce them to Jaina and Jag.”

“And how are we supposed to do that?” Tahiri asked. “We can’t just tell them that Jaina and Jag are from an alternate universe. Myri’d completely freak, and Ben—.”

“Wouldn’t understand.” Anakin interrupted. “He’s four years old, Tahiri. There’s no way he’s going to understand the ‘alternate universe’ theory.”

“But Myri could,” Tahiri replied. “She has a right to know.”

“So Wynssa and Valin can explain it to her,” Anakin said. “In private. I don’t know if Wynssa’s gotten over it herself yet, and Myri…she’s only twelve. Who knows how she’s going to take this? At least with Ben, we don’t have to tell him; it’d just confuse the hell out of him. But, like you said, Myri’s got a right to know.”

“And what about Wedge?” Tahiri asked. “Someone has to tell him, as well.”

“Wynssa and Valin could,” Anakin suggested. “Kyle, maybe. Or even Yannik.”

“Oh, yeah, I can see that working,” Tahiri chuckled. “A two-foot-tall green alien telling the great Wedge Antilles that his back-from-the-dead nephew is actually from an alternate universe.”

“It’ll probably end up being Valin and Wynssa.” Anakin sighed. “But, in any case, we should just let them do it. We need to focus on Ben. You know how frightened he is of…heck, he’s been afraid of everything ever since Uncle Luke died. I don’t know how he’s going to take meeting Jaina.”

“Everything will be fine. Ben will like Jaina. We just need to help him.” Tahiri said reassuringly, planting a kiss on Anakin’s cheek before slipping into the co-pilot’s seat. “Anyway, we need to talk about something else. Did you get the MJS working?”

“No way in all hell,” Anakin replied. “We got the lightsabers working a few days ago, but that kriffing inertial compensator…we just can’t get enough power into it.”

“Do you think you’ll get it to work?” Tahiri asked. “Because we could be spending our time trying to get an actual upgrade of the Scorcher working.”

“The MJS will work!” Anakin stressed. “I’ll make it work, even if it kills me!”

“Now, you don’t mean that,” Tahiri said. “If you work yourself to death, who am I going to use for my enjoyment every night?”

Anakin smiled. “Was that an offer?”

“Maybe,” Tahiri replied, returning Anakin’s playful smile. “Ask me again in eight hours.”

“Lusankya deck control to shuttle AA-12. Reply, please.”

Anakin instantly reached to the comm control and hit the ‘reply’ button. “Anakin Solo here, Lusankya.”

“Knight Solo, you’ve been cleared to land in tertiary hangar four.” The control officer continued. “Please change course and proceed to the hangar.”

“Acknowledged,” Anakin replied as he adjusted the shuttle’s course accordingly. The hangar he had been directed to was one of the smallest aboard the Lusankya, hardly even noticeable when one looked at the Super Star Destroyer. It seemed that Kyle had indeed managed to come through with getting Wedge to allow Anakin’s shuttle somewhere private to land.

“Nice work, Kyle,” Anakin said to no one in particular. “This is going to make things a lot easier.”

“You still look agitated,” Tahiri pointed out.

“I’m not agitated!” Anakin objected.

“Stressed, then,” Tahiri corrected, running her hand along her husband’s leg. “Just calm down. Like you said, Ben won’t understand the alternate universe bit, so we can just skip it and tell him that Jaina’s really Jaina. Which she practically is. It’s so good to have her back.”

“I know,” Anakin smiled. “Even though she isn’t technically Jaina…she’s the closest thing any of us are ever going to get. You, me, Zekk—wait, has he seen her yet?”

Tahiri chuckled. “I don’t think he took the news that she and Jag are engaged too well. Everyone’s been overwhelmed by all of this, and…he and Jaina were always really close. The idea of him getting a chance at a real relationship must have gone through his head, at least.”

“After the amount of time they spent kissing in the Lightning Rod, of course they were close,” Anakin remarked. “He’ll get over it. He’s just as happy as we are to have her back. To have both of them back. They couldn’t have come at a better time; we really need pilots, and those two are two of the best who ever lived.”

“Anakin…” Tahiri began, but trailed off.

“Tahiri?”

“Are you sure we’re doing the right thing, putting them into our fighter squadrons?” Tahiri asked. “We don’t have any right to force this on them. Three days ago, they had just gotten engaged and were about to tell their entire family about it, and now they’re back in a war, and their families probably think that they’re both dead. We can’t just order them to start fighting for us.”

“You want us to just put them on the Lusankya, then?” Anakin retorted. “We need them, Tahiri!”

“No, I’m saying we should ask them!” Tahiri said. “Ask if they want to risk their lives again, not just force them to do it.”

Anakin sighed, knowing that Tahiri was completely right. No one had a right to force Jaina and Jag into this horrible war. Either one of them could die at any moment, like every other living being aboard the Archangel.

“I’ll talk to Wynssa,” Anakin sighed at last. “We’ll probably be able to convince them if we ask together. We are their siblings, after all.”

Tahiri smiled. “I love you, Dummy.”

“I love you too, Chatterbox.” Anakin retorted. Tahiri’s eyes widened in surprise—and, perhaps, a touch of horror—as she turned to look at her husband. Anakin hadn’t called her that ever before, and from the looks of things it was a name that would absolutely infuriate her. Anakin let that classic Solo grin appear on his face. Hopefully, it would dissuade her from socking him full in the mouth.

“Just for that,” She said instead. “you’re sleeping on the couch tonight.”

“Oh, come on!” Anakin objected. “You can’t seriously think that you don’t deserve—.”

“You want to sleep on the couch all week?” Tahiri interrupted, daring him to finish his sentence.

Anakin rolled his eyes and returned to flying the shuttle. Maybe that wasn’t the best pet name he could have thought of…ah, well, at least he had found something to infuriate Tahiri with. That was always a good thing.

By now, the shuttle was in the process of entering the Lusankya’s fourth tertiary hangar. They were the only ship anywhere near the hangar, and the only one inside it. Anakin didn’t even have to look hard to spot the brown haired girl and red haired boy standing just beside where the shuttle was going to end up landing.

“There they are,” Anakin announced. “Just give me a second to put the shuttle down. Go tell Jaina and the others we’re about to land.”

“Yes, sir,” Tahiri muttered sarcastically, but she still obeyed him, leaving Anakin to put the shuttle down in the centre of the small hangar. Once he had powered the shuttle down, Anakin unbuckled his crash restraints and left the cockpit. The passenger section was nearly abandoned, save for Jaina and Jag, who were standing awkwardly at the top of the boarding ramp.

“You two okay?” Anakin asked as he stepped past them.

“Yeah…” Jaina replied. “Look, it might be a good idea for Jag and I to stay out of sight until you and Wynssa are ready to introduce us.”

“Otherwise, Myri will probably faint before Wyn can explain,” Jag added.

“Fair enough,” Anakin nodded. “Just wait till we call you.”

Anakin gave Jaina a reassuring shoulder squeeze and then continued down the ramp. He had barely put his foot on the Lusankya’s deck before a brown blur raced around the shuttle and hit Wynssa full in the chest.

“Wyn!” The blur—which Anakin could now identify as Wynssa’s twelve-year-old cousin, Myri Antilles—cried happily, crushing Wynssa in a bear hug.

“Hi, Myri,” Wynssa replied, ruffling Myri’s hair as she hugged the girl. Valin ruffled Myri’s hair, as well, prompting an indignant “Stop that!” from the girl.

Anakin left those three to their little reunion and turned to Tahiri, who was already holding Ben Skywalker in her arms, talking quietly to the four-year-old boy while he hugged Tahiri’s neck. Anakin quickly made his way over to his last two family members.

“Anakin!” Ben cried as soon as he saw his cousin. He instantly unlatched his arms from Tahiri’s neck and held them out to Anakin. Anakin smiled at his little cousin and took him off Tahiri, hugging him tight.

“Are you alright, Ben?” Anakin asked.

“Yeah,” The boy replied. “I’m okay. Are you okay?”

“I’m better than okay.” Anakin beamed. Stuff it, let’s get this over with, he thought. “Look, Ben, there’s someone I want you to meet.”

Valin heard Anakin and nudged Wynssa, telling her that they were going to have to do this sooner than Wynssa might have wanted. Wynssa scowled and nodded slowly and, together with Valin, turned Myri away from the shuttle and took the twelve-year-old away from the shuttle so they could get some privacy.

“Who is it?” Ben asked.

Anakin smiled and carried his little cousin back to the shuttle’s boarding ramp, Tahiri by his side. “Hey, Jaina!”

“Who’s Jaina?” Ben asked.

“Hi, Ben,” Jaina said from the top of the boarding ramp.

“Ben, this is my sister.” Anakin explained. “Jaina Solo.”

“Your sister?” Ben asked, a little confused. “You never told me that you had a sister!”

“She’s been dead for years, Ben.” Anakin answered. “You were barely a month old when she died.”

Jaina walked slowly down to Anakin and held her hand out to Ben. “Hi.”

Ben tightened his arms around Anakin’s neck. “Anakin…”

“Don’t be afraid of her, Ben.” Tahiri said softly and reassuringly. “She won’t hurt you. She’s family, just like me and Anakin.”

“How do you know she won’t hurt me?” Ben asked.

“I don’t bite, Ben.” Jaina said, inching her hand a little closer to him. “Come on, it’s alright.”

“Yeah, she only bites people that she doesn’t like,” Tahiri said.

“What if she doesn’t like me?” Ben whimpered.

That brought a laugh out of Anakin, Tahiri, and Jaina. Ben seemed absolutely distraught by the fact that everyone was laughing at his fright and discomfort, and very nearly burst into tears. Anakin forced himself to stop laughing and guided Ben’s head down onto his shoulder, rubbing the boy’s back.

“It’s okay, Ben. I’m sorry.” Anakin said softly. “Now, come on. You can trust Jaina. She won’t hurt you, I promise.”

“I promise, as well,” Jaina said, touching Ben’s arm. “I know you’re scared, but I won’t hurt you, Ben. We’re family. Family don’t hurt each other.”

Ben lifted his head up and looked at his cousin and Tahiri. Anakin smiled at his baby cousin and nodded towards Jaina. “Go on, Ben, give her a hug.”

Ben’s face still betrayed the fright he was experiencing, but he decided to trust his only family and nodded. Anakin smiled, kissed him on the cheek, and lifted him over to Jaina. Jaina took the boy in a warm embrace, wiping away his tears with her free hand. Anakin patted his cousin on the back and then turned to go talk to Valin.

“Anakin!” Ben cried suddenly. “Anakin, why are you leaving?”

“I’ve just got to talk to Valin,” Anakin replied. “Tahiri and Jaina will look after you, alright? I’ll be back in a minute.”

Ben nodded slowly, finally relaxing a little in Jaina’s arms. Anakin ruffled the boy’s hair and left him in Jaina’s arms while walked over to Valin, Wynssa, and Myri, who were gathered at a cargo container a few metres away from the shuttle. Wynssa had Myri on her lap, holding the younger girl in her arms as they talked. Valin noticed Anakin approaching and met the other Jedi halfway.

“Has Wynssa told her yet?” Anakin asked.

“Yeah,” Valin sighed. “Myri doesn’t know what to think. Wyn doesn’t know what to think, either, so I’m not really surprised.”

“She doesn’t think Jag’s her brother?” Anakin asked.

“It’s not that,” Valin replied. “She knows that this Jag is so close to her one that it would be impossible to tell the two of them apart, but…but she just can’t decide if she loves him for that, or hates him for it. Myri’s going to have the same problem.”

Anakin nodded in understanding. “Do you think Myri’s up to seeing Jag?”

“It might help,” Valin sighed. “Then again, it might do exactly the opposite. It’s not like any of us have had any prior experience with this little situation.”

“It couldn’t hurt to ask, right?” Anakin said. “Ben took this better than I thought he would have.”

“That’s because he never knew our Jaina!” Valin absent-mindedly ran his hand through his white hair as he thought about what would be best for Myri. It was obvious to anyone how much Valin cared for Myri; she was practically his sister. “Alright, we’ll ask her.” He said at last. “But no arguing! If she doesn’t want to see him, then we leave at that. Okay?”

Anakin nodded.

Valin shook the indecision off his face went back over to Wynssa and Myri, Anakin right behind him. Valin sat on the cargo container next to his girlfriend and coaxed Myri’s face off of Wynssa’s shoulder so he could talk to her.

“Are you alright, Myri?” Valin asked.

“I don’t know,” Myri replied, contradicting her nod. “I just…Wynssa said—.”

“I know, Myri, I know,” Valin interrupted. “Bit of a weird feeling, isn’t it?”

Myri nodded. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to think. I mean, he’s Jag, but…he’s not Jag. It’s just…confusing.”

“You’re not supposed to think anything, Myri,” Wynssa told her. “You have to figure out how you feel about all this.”

“That’s just it, I can’t!” Myri cried. “I don’t know how I feel about this. I don’t know if I’m happy, I don’t know if I hate him, I just don’t know!”

Valin wiped a tear off her cheek. “Calm down, Myri. That’s okay. Look, Anakin and I wanted to know if…if you think meeting Jag might help you a little.”

Wynssa’s eyes flared at her boyfriend. “Valin, there’s no way I’m—.”

“It’s okay, Wyn,” Myri interrupted, and then turned to Valin. “I…I think meeting him would be a good idea.”

Wynssa’s eyes darted between her cousin and her boyfriend, and then between them and Anakin once she figured out who had put the idea in Valin’s head. After giving Anakin a decidedly evil death glare, she turned to Valin and slowly nodded her reluctant approval.

Anakin volunteered to go back and bring Jag over so Valin could try and comfort Wynssa and Myri. Jaina was sitting on the boarding ramp now, holding Ben on her lap. Tahiri was nowhere to be seen.

“You’re really my cousin?” Ben was asking.

“Yeah,” Jaina answered. “Just like Anakin.”

“And who’s he?” Ben asked, pointing at Jag, who was sitting at the top of the shuttle’s boarding ramp.

“My fiancé,” Jaina answered her cousin.

“So you’re going to get married? Just like Anakin and Tahiri?” Ben asked. He seemed to be getting more comfortable with every second that he spent in Jaina’s lap.

“Yeah, just like Anakin and Tahiri,” Jaina said, just before she finally noticed Anakin looking at her and Ben. “Are you after something, Anakin?”

“Your fiancé,” Anakin answered, nodding towards Jag. “Valin and Wynssa have explained the situation to Myri. She wants to see you, Colonel.”

“Of course,” Jag said as he stood.

“They’re just over by that cargo container,” Anakin said, and then turned to Jaina once Jag had left. “Where’d Tahiri go?”

“The cockpit, I think,” Jaina replied. “She sat here with Ben and I for a few minutes, but then she went to the cockpit.”

“Did she say anything?” Anakin asked.

“No,” Jaina answered. “Didn’t say a thing.”

“Weird,” Anakin sighed. “Usually, it takes a gag to stop her talking. Could you look after Ben for a few more minutes?”

“No problem,” Jaina said, giving her cousin a quick tickle. “That’s if Ben doesn’t mind, of course.”

“I’ll be fine, Anakin,” Ben said happily, fighting off Jaina’s prying fingers.

Anakin smiled and left the two of them there. Ben was taking this whole business a million times better than Anakin thought he would have. He really seemed to like Jaina. The boy needed someone else other than Anakin and Tahiri to trust and be looked after by.

Just as Jaina and Ben had said, Tahiri was in the cockpit, seated in the pilot’s seat. She was hunched over the console, face buried in her arms. Anakin was a little confused, and worried. Twice in the last week, Anakin had awoken to find her throwing up in the ‘fresher. She had said that it was just a virus or something else minor, but Anakin was starting to doubt that.

“Tahiri?” Anakin asked from the door.

“Hi, Anakin.”

“Tahiri, are you alright?” Anakin asked. “Jaina said that you just ran back here. Is anything wrong?”.

“I’m fine,” Tahiri murmured.

Anakin walked over to his wife and put his hand on her shoulders. Something was wrong; Anakin could just tell. “Tahiri, are you sure?”

“I said I was fine, Anakin,” Tahiri repeated.

Anakin slid his hand off Tahiri’s shoulder and slipped it in under her chin and gently coaxed her face up so she could look at him. Her emerald eyes glistened with unshed tears and a pair of moist streaks traced their way from her eyes down to her chin.

“Whoa!” Anakin spluttered. “Tahiri, have you been crying?”

She nodded.

“Okay, that’s it; what’s wrong?” Anakin demanded, coaxing Tahiri back off the console and wrapping his arms around her. “Is it Jaina? Jag?”

“No,” Tahiri murmured.

“Then what?” Anakin asked. “You were absolutely fine a minute ago. What happened?”

“I was…looking at Jaina and Ben together,” Tahiri sobbed. “I was thinking about him and…and I was thinking about what would happen if we ever had kids.”

“Tahiri, you know that we can’t have kids,” Anakin said softly. “It wouldn’t be fair to bring them into all of this. We’d probably have to leave them with Wedge here on the Lusankya, and that wouldn’t be fair on them. That’s why we decided to use the Force to stop you getting pregnant, remember?”

“It’s not that, Anakin,” Tahiri interrupted. “I wasn’t thinking about having kids. I was looking at Ben, then, for the smallest moment, I thought about what our kids would be like, and then I…I…”

“What is it, Tahiri?” Anakin asked, completely and utterly confused. “Is something wrong? I mean, you’re just not making any sense.”

“Just let me finish,” Tahiri snapped. “I don’t know why, but I just…kind of looked inside myself. With the Force, and…”

“Tahiri…is something…?” Anakin let out a short sigh. “Tahiri, is something wrong with you?”

“No,” Tahiri sobbed. “Anakin, I’m pregnant!”

Anakin’s eyes widened. “What…?”

Tahiri closed her eyes, as if she was unable to stomach the idea, and forced herself to repeat the horrible statement. “I’m pregnant, Anakin.”

“But…” Anakin released her and collapsed into the co-pilot’s seat. “But…how? We…which one of us screwed up?”

“Who knows?” Tahiri snapped. “Who cares? It doesn’t matter. You might have forgotten, I might have forgotten. It’s irrelevant right now.”

Anakin nodded. “Damn it…”

“Anakin,” Another pair of tears fell out of Tahiri’s eyes. “Anakin, what are we going to do?”

“We can’t get rid of it,” Anakin said instantly. “This might not be the best timing in the universe, but it’s still our baby. I’m not going to kill it.”

“Them.”

“What?”

“Them, Anakin,” Tahiri sighed. “Their twins.”

Anakin just blinked. “Right…right. Twins, then.” He took a deep breath. “There’s no way you can keep flying in—.”

“Anakin, no,” Tahiri growled. “You are not shoving me onto the Lusankya for the rest of eternity!”

“Tahiri, I will not endanger our family like that!” Anakin snapped. “You’ve got our baby—babies inside you! I’m not going to let you keep flying and then have to watch as you and the babies get blasted out of the sky.”

“How do you think I’d feel?” Tahiri cried. “Being stuck on the Lusankya, only ever seeing you once a month, waiting for Kyle to come back and tell me that you got shot down or hacked to pieces! I’m not going to let you torture me like that!”

“Alright, alright!” Anakin objected. “I wasn’t going to suggest that we just leave you on the Lusankya. I’m not going to miss watching our babies grow inside you. What I was saying is that we can’t let you keep flying in the Black Knights. Those hormones are going to wreak havoc on your ability to fly.”

“I can still fly, Anakin,” Tahiri objected. “And you know that we need every pilot we have in a Scorcher! You can’t just take me off the squadron because I’m pregnant!”

“Tahiri—!”

“Anakin—!”

Both of them let out an exasperated growl and fell back into their seats.

“I know you don’t want to feel like you’re useless, Tahiri,” Anakin said at last. “But I don’t want to just have to watch your ship get blown up.”

“I don’t want to watch you get blown up, either,” Tahiri replied. “I love you, Anakin! Our babies are going to need a father!”

“That’s not going to matter if all three of you get vaped!” Anakin snapped in return. Tahiri opened her mouth to retort, but Anakin put his hand up in what he hoped was a placating gesture. “Let’s just stop! Arguing isn’t getting us anywhere.”

Tahiri nodded, accidentally letting out another tear. Anakin left his seat and went back over to his wife, putting his arms around her again. “You’re right; we need you flying a Scorcher. I just…you know why I don’t want you flying, right?”

Tahiri nodded. “It was hard enough going into combat before. Now…Anakin, just promise me that you won’t keep me at the back, or something. That’ll only make the Vong come after me. The best way to keep both of us alive is to just stay together out, like we’ve doing for the past year.”

Anakin kissed her. “I know. I love you, Tahiri.”

“I love you, too, Anakin,” She murmured.

They spent a while there, Tahiri enclosed in Anakin’s arms. Anakin was the first to speak again.

“I don’t believe this,” He said. “I mean, finding out that you’re pregnant should be the happiest moment of our lives, but…here we are, wishing that you weren’t pregnant.”

“Things would be a lot simpler,” Tahiri sighed. “We’d only have Ben to look after. Anakin, what are we going to do when they really start to develop? I’m not going to be able to fly then. And once their born…we can’t keep them on the Archangel, it’s too risky. And we can’t just leave everyone else here to die. What are we going to do?”

“Deal with those problems as we come to them,” Anakin told her, wiping the tears off her face ever so gently. “Knowing Kyle and the others, they’ll probably boot us off the ship rather than let us risk our babies. Besides, for all we know, the war might be over by the time the kids are born.”

“By that, of course, you mean that Kharran will have tracked us down and killed us all,” Tahiri stated.

“Well, yeah…what’s your point?” Anakin asked, trying very hard to make it sound at least a little funny. Tahiri let a brief smile appear on her face, though Anakin thought that the only reason Tahiri did was so that he could entertain the notion that he could still make her laugh. Both of them knew that his ability to do that was nowhere near what it had been, once.

“Don’t think like that, Anakin,” Tahiri said. “The war’s changed everyone; we’re not the only ones. I still love you. That’s all that matters.”

“And I still love you,” Anakin said, kissing her one last time. “Come on, Jaina and the others are probably starting to worry about us by now.”

“Is Ben okay?” Tahiri asked as she stood, wiping away the last few tears that were left.

“Yeah, he’s fine,” Anakin replied. “Now, come on—.”

Anakin stopped, both talking and moving, when Tahiri grabbed his arm. “Anakin, wait,” she said. “Thank you. I was so scared that you were going to be absolutely furious when I told you I was pregnant. I was going to try and hide it from you.”

“Tahiri…” Anakin pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her, gently raising her chin so that they were eye-to-eye. “Tahiri, I could never, ever be angry at you, certainly not for that! And it’s not your fault that you’re pregnant. How could you possibly think that I could be that…that selfish? I love you!”

“I love you too, Anakin,” Tahiri whispered and kissed him. “I love you so much.”



The little villip felt soft in his hand as he took it out of the safe he had kept it in for all of these years. He had kept it here all this time, waiting, biding his time. Before, he had no reason to use it. But now…he had seen those two newcomers. Jaina Solo and Jagged Fel. Everyone seemed to think that they came from an alternate universe, and he had to agree that it was the only possible explanation.

He didn’t want to do this, though. Anakin and Tahiri and the others had taken him in and taught him how to look after himself. They were his friends. He didn’t want to betray them, but…but that hideous little thing the Vong had put in his head wouldn’t leave him alone. Before, he had fought it down, forced it to stay quiet and stop hurting him, but that was before this had happened. Now, he couldn’t use the excuse that anything he did wouldn’t have a point to it, that it just wouldn’t work, that it wasn’t worth blowing his cover over. If he had called anyone in before, the Archangel would have just stayed cloaked and jumped out. But now, they were back…Jaina and Jag. They were too much of a threat to the Vong for him to justify not calling in a fleet of warships. And with the Lusankya here, the Archangel couldn’t just cloak and run, like it would normally. It wouldn’t be like Yannik and Katarn to leave Antilles high and dry.

He carefully placed the villip on the table, trying desperately to ignore the lightsaber lying nearby. He didn’t want to do this…but every time he tried to tell himself not to, that little thing started hurting him again.

All it took was one little stroke to make the villip open up. This one automatically linked in with the nearest fleet-to-fleet villip, but that did take a while. Villips were nowhere near as efficient as a commlink, or the now-destroyed Holo Net. But they got the job done, and they were impossible to trace.

Soon, the inside of the villip began to change into a rough picture of the average Yuuzhan Vong. He instantly grunted a demand for his name in their guttural language.

“My name isn’t important,” He answered the Vong. “What is important is that I can give you the Archangel…”

 

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rebel_cheese 
Registered: Jul '06
42800_Anakin Solo
Date Posted: 7/31/06 6:49pm Subject: RE: Shattered Mirror (Post-TUF, Major AU, J/J, A/T, Kyle, Danni )*RE-POST IN PROGRESS* - Date Edited: 7/31/06 6:49pm (1 edits total) Edited By: rebel_cheese
CHAPTER SEVEN

Jag had yet to lay eyes on a room on either the Archangel or the Lusankya that looked different from all the other ones he had seen. All of them had the same bland, un-painted walls that made the room feel very cold, and they all had so little furniture that they were practically just metal boxes with a chair or two inside. The quarters of what was left of the Antilles family was no different, except that it was five metal boxes connected by doorways. The main room was a combined kitchen, dining, and living room, with the only unnecessary luxury being a small gaming system hooked up to he holo-projector and a small collection of holo-novels. The other four rooms were probably bedrooms and a ‘fresher.

Jag left the main group of people entering the room and made his way over to the holo-projector. Jaina was still stuck with her four-year-old cousin, and she hadn’t said so much as a word to Jag in over half an hour. Frankly, Jag was starting to get a little annoyed…and, though he would only ever admit it to himself, a little jealous. He hadn’t gotten a chance to have Jaina to himself for more than five minutes since arriving in this universe, and he had let himself get his hopes up that he might just be able to get some time alone with his fiancé once they got aboard the Lusankya, but no, Anakin just had to bring little Ben Skywalker into the equation. It was actually quite surprising how easy it was for a four-year-old kid to completely ruin the expectations of a twenty-three year old man without trying at all.

“Do you want to put on a holo-novel, or something?”

“No, I’m fine, Myri,” Jag replied to his cousin. “I’m just…no, I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” Myri asked, sitting down on the tiny, two-seater couch. “You’ve been really quiet.”

Jag joined her on the couch before he answered. “I’m fine, really. I’m just thinking.”

“About?” Myri inquired.

“Jaina, my fiancé,” Jag replied. “You know, it’s amazing how much damage a little four-year-old can do without even trying.”

Myri chuckled. “You don’t like Ben, do you?”

“It’s not that I don’t like him; he’s a really cute kid.” Jag answered her. “It’s just that…argh, I don’t know.”

“You don’t like that he’s getting all of your fiancé’s attention, and you’re stuck over here talking to a little girl,” Myri said for him.

“You make it sound like getting stuck with you is a bad thing,” Jag teased. Myri replied with an irresistibly innocent smile.

“You know what,” she said. “I like you. I didn’t know what to think when Wyn first told me about this whole thing, but…I really like you.”

“I like you, too,” Jag replied.

“Did you know the…me from your universe really well?”

“Not really,” Jag admitted. “I know Uncle Wedge reasonably well, but that’s only because I served under him during the war. I only ever met you, Aunt Iella, and your sister once, a couple of months after the war ended.”

“Oh.”

It took Jag a couple of seconds to notice that Myri had very nearly choked on that one little word. She had turned away, suddenly very still and very quiet.

“Myri?” Jag coaxed her face back around so he could look at her. Her lower lip was wobbling as her eyes slowly leaked tears.

“What…?” Jag asked. “Myri…are you okay?”

She nodded and turned away again, blinking back her tears. “I’m fine,” she murmured.

“Then why are you crying?” Jag asked her. “Did I say something?”

“Mom and…and…and…” Myri choked on her sister’s name.

“Oh no,” Jag sighed, mentally cursing himself for accidentally mentioning Myri’s dead family. He should have known they were dead; he would have seen them by now if they weren’t! “Myri, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“It’s okay, J-Jag,” Myri stammered. It was getting harder and harder for her to keep from shattering into a sobbing mess. “I just…they…”

That was it; she did turn into a sobbing mess. Jag pulled her up against him, letting her cry onto him.

“Come on, Myri, stop crying,” Jag whispered. “Shh. Shh, come on. Come on.” He cupped the girl’s chin and gently raised it so he could look at her. He carefully wiped away the tears streaming down her cheeks, but as soon as he let her chin go, her face dropped back down onto his chest and more tears started flowing down her cheeks. Jag held her close and kept whispering soft reassurances into her ear until she stopped crying.

“Are you two alright?” Wynssa asked suddenly. She had managed to somehow slip away from Valin and the others—who had all spread around the quarters by now—and creep up on Jag and Myri without being noticed. Myri didn’t say anything as she all by leapt out of Jag’s arms and ran straight into Wyn’s.

“What did you do?” Wynssa asked Jag, rubbing her sobbing cousin’s back.

“I brought up Aunt Iella and Syal,” Jag confessed.

“It’s not his fault, Wyn,” Myri whimpered. “He didn’t even know they…they were…” she started shaking and sobbing again.

“Stop crying, Myri,” Wynssa whispered, but to no effect; the little girl kept on sobbing. Wyn sighed and knelt, holding the girl in front of her. “Come on, Myri. I hate seeing you cry.”

“I-I’m sorry, W-Wyn,” Myri stuttered as Wyn wiped away a fresh wave of tears from Myri’s cheeks.

“Don’t be sorry; you’re okay,” Wynssa whispered.

“Look, Wyn, I just…just really want to go to my room for a while. Alright?” Myri stammered. Wyn nodded, and, before anyone could even look at her, Myri dashed into her room and locked the door behind her.

“I’m sorry, Wyn,” Jag said. “I wasn’t trying to make her cry.”

“Aunt Iella and Syal are a really touchy subject for her,” Wynssa explained. “They died about a year ago.”

“Myri watched them died, didn’t she?”

Wynssa shook her head. “She got separated from them during the Vong attack. She ended up tripping over Syal’s body while she was trying to escape. She never has gotten that image out of her head.”

Jag didn’t say anything. He understood now why the mere mention of her mother and sister had made Myri cry like that. Losing both of them would have left a deep enough wound as it was; finding her own sister’s broken and, knowing the Vong, probably mutilated body would have forced the gash all the way through the girl’s heart.

“Well, Anakin and I want you to talk to you and Jaina before we take you two up to the bridge to meet Uncle Wedge,” Wyn announced, breaking the rather awkward quiet that had descended between her and Jag. “If that’s alright?”

Jag nodded and, before she could leave to rejoin the others, asked, “Wyn, is something wrong?”

“What?” She replied.

Jag glanced around the room to make sure no one else could hear them before he explained. “You’ve been ignoring me ever since Valin told you were Jaina and I came from.”

“I haven’t been ignoring you!” Wynssa objected. “This is the first time we’ve had a chance to talk since then!”

“You didn’t say two words to me on the shuttle!” Jag countered, perhaps a bit too harshly. He allowed himself a calming breath before he continued in a softer tone. “Wyn, is there a problem?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about,” Jag said. “Do you have a problem with me being from an alternate universe?”

“I don’t know,” was the reply.

“You don’t know?” Jag asked.

“I don’t know,” Wyn repeated. “I just…this is very weird, Jag. I don’t…I don’t know if…I’m okay with all this. I mean, you’re really, really similar to my Jag, but…I just don’t know if I love you for that, or hate you for it.”

Jag nodded in understanding. “Wyn, the sister I knew back in my universe is absolutely nothing like you. She didn’t even get involved in the war. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to know you. No matter hoe different you are from that Wynssa, you’re still my sister as far as I’m concerned.”

Wyn nodded slowly. “Thank you, Jag. I just…need some time, alright? This is really hard for me to get through.”

“That’s fine, Wyn,” Jag chuckled. “I was just worried that something was wrong. That you hated me for not being your Jag, or something.”

Wyn smiled. “No…I don’t think I’ll end up hating you. Not unless you do something to make me hate you.”

“What, making Myri cry wasn’t enough for you?” Jag muttered.

“Not quite,” Wynssa replied jokingly. Her next sentence was much more serious, “I wouldn’t do that again, though.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t,” Jag sighed before changing the subject. “You said Uncle Wedge wanted to see us?”

“He’ll probably call us up to the bridge in a few minutes,” Wynssa replied. “No one’s warned Jaina, yet.”

“Do you know where she is?”

“In Ben’s room,” Wynssa pointed to the door next to Myri’s room. Jag nodded, sighed, and went over to the room Wyn had pointed out, leaving Wynssa to go after Myri and try to calm the poor girl down. Jag didn’t want to go apologise just yet. He had already made Myri cry; he didn’t want to risk making the situation worse.

Jag found Jaina in Ben’s room after he made his way past Valin, Anakin, and Tahiri. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, smiling and laughing as her four-year-old cousin showed off what few toys he had. Jag stood in the doorway for a few minutes, just watching the two of them. Jaina seemed really happy. He had never, ever seen her like this; just laughing as Ben pulled out one toy after another and forced her to play with him. Jaina was absolutely loving it. You’re going to make an amazing mother, Jag thought.

Really? Was Jaina’s reply.

“Jaina…” Ben whispered, staring at Jag. He seemed really nervous all of sudden.

“Hello, Ben,” Jag replied, hoping to get the kid to loosen up a little. He had been having a ball with Jaina just a few seconds earlier; there was no way that Jag could be that scary! “Been telling him about me, have you?”

“A little,” Jaina replied, giving her little cousin a hug. “We’re getting married, right? I can’t have Ben here knowing absolutely nothing about you.”

Jag let himself smile. “Jaina, I want to talk to you for a minute. Is that okay?”

“Do you mind, Ben?” Jaina asked her cousin. “Jag and I haven’t been able to talk to each other for days. I’d really like to talk to him.”

“Oh…okay,” Ben whispered, a little saddened at being suddenly torn away from Jaina. She smiled at him and hugged him.

“Just a few minutes, alright, Ben?” Jaina said reassuringly. “Why don’t you go find Anakin?”

Ben nodded and, after one last hug, ran out to find his other cousin.

“He’s so adorable,” Jaina sighed.

“Anything like our Ben?”

“A little,” Jaina replied. “He’s four years old, though, so there isn’t much time for a difference to appear. He’s a lot more…frightened than the Ben I know, back in our galaxy.”

“Luke and Mara didn’t die in our galaxy, did they?” Jag asked rhetorically.

Jaina sighed. “So, what did you want to talk about?”

Jag blinked, caught off guard by the question, suddenly realising that he didn’t really want to talk about anything in particular. He just wanted to talk to the woman he was in love with. “I don’t know,” he admitted.

A smile appeared on his fiancé’s face. “How are you holding up?”

“Well, I think I just made what family I have in this universe hate me, but apart from that, I’m fine,” Jag said.

“What did you do?” Jaina asked slowly.

“Made Myri cry,” Jag confessed. “I wasn’t trying to! All I did was bring up Aunt Iella and Syal…turns out they’re both dead. I didn’t even realise that she was going to start crying. Wynssa said she didn’t blame me, but that look she gave me…”

Jaina fought back a laugh and slipped her arms around his neck and kissed him. “She’ll get over it, and so will Myri. You had no idea that Iella and Syal were dead.”

“I should have guessed!” Jag snapped. “We would have met them by now if they were alive.”

Jaina kissed him again, trying to make him stop yelling at himself. It worked. “Jag, it’s not your fault. Besides, you’ve still got me. Or am I not family to you?”

“You’re not technically family until we’re married,” Jag replied teasingly, kissing her back and easing his arms around her. “So unless you want to hurry that up…?”

Jaina leaned into Jag’s arms and looked up at him as they shared a soft kiss. “Don’t get your hopes up, Jag. Not just yet, anyway…”

“Anyway that I might be able to…persuade you?” Jag asked before leaning down for a very sensuous kiss. Jag felt Jaina’s heart start to race against his chest, sparking a smile across his face. “Well?”

Jaina breathed a pleasured sigh and kissed her fiancé back. “If you keep that up, you just might.”

Jag returned her smile, albeit shallowly. A rather…ominous thought had just crossed his mind. “Jaina…can I ask you a question?”

“Of course, stupid,” Jaina replied.

“Jaina…should we get married?”

“What?” Jaina had been trying to yell, but the sheer shock of Jag’s question left her barely able to manage a weak whimper. “You’re joking, right? Jag…” his face stayed perfectly serious. “…Jag, you are joking, aren’t you?”

“Jaina, I don’t want to marry you and then get shot down,” he looked away from her. “And getting shot down seems like something that happens to every second pilot in this galaxy. I don’t want to leave you as a widow two days after marrying you. Who would marry us, anyway? And what about your family? What are they going to think if you leave for Csilla single and come back married?”

“Jag, I don’t care if both of us get shot down the same night we get married!” Jaina hissed. “I’m not going to let a little fear get in the way of us. This is no different than back in our universe; sooner or later, we’d both get pushed into another dogfight, another ground battle, another lightsaber duel…the danger’s always there. You know that.”

“Yes, but it…it’s just more dangerous here than back in our galaxy,” Jag said. He didn’t want to argue this point; he wanted Jaina. Wanted her as his wife, wanted her as the mother of his children, wanted her to be his! But he also wanted her to be happy…that was the one thing he wanted the most. And if he up and got shot down mere weeks after their wedding day, what would that do to her? “Jaina, I’m just trying to think about you here.”

“And yourself.”

“Both of us.”

“Jag…sweetie…” Jaina said slowly, letting her fiancé know full well what was coming. “Stop it!” she hissed. “Haven’t you given a thought to how I’d feel if you died and we weren’t married? I want to be your wife, Jag, no matter what happens! Why the hell do you think I said yes when you proposed to me?”

Jag suddenly felt like a complete and utter idiot. He blinked and looked away nervously, and didn’t look back until Jaina coaxed his face back around.

“Jaina, I’m sorry,” He whispered. “Argh, stang, I’m apologising a lot today. To you, Wyn, Myri…I’m going to have everyone offended before today’s over.”

Jaina smiled, holding back a chuckle. “Don’t ever talk like that again, Jag. I’m going to marry you, whether you like it or not.”

Jag twitched his eye in a fake flinch. “What have I gotten myself into?— ow!”

Jaina uncurled her fist and snuggled back into Jag’s arms, while he rubbed at his chest where she had just thumped him, hard.

“You know,” Jag pointed out. “I was being sarcastic. Although, now I’m seriously starting—ow!”

Jaina’s fist uncurled again. “Want to keep going?” She asked.

“Not particularly,” Jag growled, nursing his bruised ribcage. “Curse it, you hit hard.”

“Fighting?” Anakin asked from the doorway.

“Not at all,” Jaina replied, wriggling out of Jag’s arms. “Just mucking around a little.”

“Well, you’re going to have to put that on hold,” Anakin said. “Wedge just called. Kyle explained everything to him up on the Lusankya’s bridge. He wants Wyn and I to bring the two of you to the bridge to meet him.”

“Fair enough,” Jag said as he joined his fiancé in standing. Only then did Wynssa walk into Ben’s room as well, closing the door behind her. Her left eye—the one that wasn’t hidden behind a curtain of hair—betrayed her apprehension about this little meeting before she or Anakin opened their mouths.

“What’s going on?” Jag asked.

“We need to ask you two a serious question,” Anakin said seriously.

“It’s about what we’re going to end up doing in this galaxy, right?” Jaina asked.

Anakin cocked an eyebrow. “Well…yeah. We were going to just give you two a Scorcher each and start you flying but…”

“But…?” Jag asked.

Wynssa took over. “We realised that we had forgotten to ask you two whether you wanted to fight or not. We can’t just force you two to get into a ship and risk your lives for something that really isn’t your fight—.”

“You think that we’d rather stay on the ship while our little siblings do it?” Jaina asked.

“We think that you two deserve a choice,” Anakin corrected. “You can think about it for a while, if you want.”

I don’t think we need to, Jaina thought to Jag.

Neither do I, Jag replied. “We’re not going to let you two die while we sit here like cowards and watch.”

Anakin beamed. “I knew that’s what you’d say! I’ve already gotten a pair of Scorcher fighters ready for you.”

“Whoa, wait a minute!” Jaina objected. “What about our squadrons?”

“You’re in my squadron,” Anakin answered. “Along with the rest of the Jedi. Jag, you’re…” Even Anakin noticed Wyn turn away. “You’ll be leading Raven squadron. Right now, it’s just seven ships, including yourself, and all of the pilots are rookies.”

“Hey!” Wynssa snapped angrily.

“One veteran pilot and five rookies,” Anakin corrected himself.

Jag looked at Wynssa. “You’re in Raven squadron?”

Wynssa nodded, refusing to make eye-contact. “Yep. It was my squadron. Until Captain Yannik gave it to you, anyway.”

“Wyn…” Jag sighed in shock. “Oh, Wyn, I’m sorry…I, ah…is there anyway I can get Captain—?”

“Don’t even think about it,” Wyn ordered. “You’re the better person for the job. I just…was really looking forward to leading my own squadron, that’s all. I’ll…I’ll get over it.”

Jag doubted that. At least you’ll be in the same squadron as her, Jag reminded himself. She should like being second-in-command.

Anakin was the one who broke the silence. “Well, we better get you too up to the bridge. Wedge really wants to meet you both.”

As all four of them left, Jag whispered to Wynssa. “Could we avoid mentioning that little incident with Myri?”

[end of chapter]

 

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rebel_cheese 
Registered: Jul '06
42800_Anakin Solo
Date Posted: 7/31/06 6:52pm Subject: RE: Shattered Mirror (Post-TUF, Major AU, J/J, A/T, Kyle, Danni )*RE-POST IN PROGRESS*
CHAPTER EIGHT


The meeting of the two most famous ships in the galaxy, the Archangel and the Lusankya, was always a joyous occasion for their respective crews. Families were reunited for a few precious days, supplies were exchanged, and both ships left ready for another month of endless running and, potentially, fighting with the Yuuzhan Vong armada that stalked most of the known galaxy. No rendezvous had ever been fouled up. The Vong had yet to manage getting the location of a future rendezvous point.

But this time is different.

Because the ambush will be launched after the ships have met. Because, aboard one of the two vessels, someone is working, not for them, but for the Yuuzhan Vong, and that person has just informed the nearest fleet commander that the two ships are sitting here, in the open, just begging to be jumped and destroyed. Only the traitor knows what is about to happen.

Everyone else is only going to figure it out when the magma starts flying.



Jaina fidgeted nervously as the turbolift move closer and closer to the Lusankya’s bridge, and the ship’s captain who was waiting there for them. This was going to be an interesting meeting; Wedge had always been close to Jaina back in her and Jag’s universe. But this Wedge was, like every other person that Jaina and Jag had met, technically a different person from their Wedge. Jaina and Jag’s Wedge hadn’t all but two members of his family, and hadn’t watched the Yuuzhan Vong conquer and destroy the entire galaxy. Jaina was half-expecting this Wedge to be little more than a cold shell of the man she knew.

“He’s not that bad.” Anakin whispered into Jaina’s ear suddenly. “Do you think he’d let himself turn to stone while he still had Myri to look after?”

Jaina shook her head. “I’m just nervous. Both of us are.” She squeezed Jag’s hand, showing Anakin which us she was talking about. Jag squeezed her hand, but remained silent.

“Uncle Wedge is the closest thing I have to a father, now.” Wynssa added to Anakin’s reassurance. “He’s the best man I know. He’ll be just as happy as the rest of us are to have you back.”

Jaina nodded, just as the turbolift slid quietly to a halt. The doors hissed open, revealing a battered and under-manned bridge. Several duty consoles in the crew pits had no one operating them, and a couple of those consoles were severely damaged; blown-out display screens, fried and half-melted consoles, and damaged and dented panels. Standing between the crew pits, gazing out of the forward viewports, was the unmistakable figure of Wedge Antilles.

“Uncle Wedge!” Wynssa called as she dashed past everyone else and ran straight up to Wedge. He barely had time to turn around before Wynssa hugged him.

“Hi, Wynssa,” Wedge said happily as he hugged his niece. His dark hair had dozens of grey streaks through it, far more than the Wedge Jaina knew from her universe, and several more wrinkles lined his face. As a whole, he looked older than Jaina and Jag’s Wedge Antilles. The side-effects of fighting a never-ending war all your life, Jaina decided.

“Where are Jaina and Jag?” Wedge asked Wynssa suddenly. “Did you bring them up with you?”

Jag spoke up. “Uncle Wedge.”

“Oh. My. Force.” Wedge sighed, letting Wynssa go slowly. He wasn’t quite as shocked as Jaina would have thought he’d been, but she quickly realised why he was only slightly surprised when she spotted Kyle Katarn talking quietly with an officer in the starboard crew pit. He must have explained to Wedge what was going on.

“You really do look exactly like him,” Wedge breathed suddenly.

“Yeah, I’ve been told that,” Jag sighed nervously, rubbing the back of his neck. Wedge’s eyes glanced to Jag’s left and fell on Jaina. “And Jaina…” his eyes travelled down and spotted the ring on her finger. “What the heck? You’re engaged?”

Jaina slipped her hand into Jag’s.

“To Jag?” Wedge spluttered, mouth agape. Wynssa glanced at the floor, trying to hide her smile, but Anakin made so such attempt.

“No one told you?” Jaina asked.

“Kyle just explained who you two were,” Wedge replied. “He didn’t tell me you two were engaged to each other! How in space did that happen?”

“We got together during the war,” Jaina explained. “I did call our romance off when it ended, but Jag talked me into marrying him.”

Wedge gave Jag a quizzical look. “You must have been very forceful to talk her into marriage.”

“Not really,” Jag replied, giving Jaina’s hand an affectionate squeeze. “Just had to know her really well.”

“Look, if you three don’t mind,” Anakin interrupted. “I’m going to go talk to Kyle and leave you to your reunion.”

“And I think I’m going to go back down to Myri’s room and try to… ah… talk to her,” Wynssa added, clumsily avoiding mentioning Jag and Myri’s rather ill-fated talk. She glanced away from Wedge’s prying gaze and quickly walked back to the turbolift.

“What was that about?” Wedge asked quietly once Wynssa had left and Anakin was out of earshot.

“Nothing,” Jag said instantly. “Myri was just a little… ah… overwhelmed by all this.”

“You brought up Iella and Syal, didn’t you?”

Even Jaina was caught off guard by how quickly Wedge had cut straight to the reason Wynssa had wanted to ‘talk’ to Myri.

“It’s alright,” Wedge said to his nephew. “Myri hasn’t been able to talk about them without breaking into tears ever since they died.”

Jaina didn’t need the Force to know that the wound of Iella and Syal’s death was just as fresh in Wedge’s heart as it was in poor Myri’s. She thought about changing the subject, but Wedge beat her to it.

“So, have you two decided what you’re going to do with yourselves here in this screwed up galaxy?” Wedge asked.

“We’re joining the Archangel’s fighter squadrons,” Jag answered.

“I was afraid you’d say that,” Wedge said sadly, turning away. “I can’t tell you both how much I didn’t want Wynssa to become a pilot. Apart from Myri, she’s the only family I have left, and Myri… Myri wouldn’t be able to take losing her. And now that she’s finally gotten a chance to meet you, Jag...”

“You’re not going to ask us to stay on the Lusankya, are you?” Jag asked.

“No, not at all,” Wedge said, instantly losing the sad glint on his face. “The Archangel will need a pair of pilots like you two. And I don’t think I would be able to talk you out of it, even if I wanted to. You’re both just too damn stubborn. And, besides, you both wouldn’t let your siblings risk their lives on their own.”

Jaina couldn’t help smiling as Wedge called her and her fiancé stubborn. Wedge turned and walked up to the forward view port, gesturing for Jaina and Jag to follow.

“Have they given you your own squadrons?” He asked.

“Jag got Raven Squadron—.”

“Raven?” Wedge snapped, turning to look at her. “They gave Raven squadron to Jag? What about Wyn?”

“She’s my first officer,” Jag said. “Once I officially ask her, anyway. And I still have to see how much of a mess this squadron’s in. Anakin said that it’s just Wyn and six rookies.”

“Wyn told me the same thing,” Wedge admitted. “They haven’t even been in a real fight yet. They need an experienced officer to lead them.”

“Wyn’s experienced,” Jag protested. “She told me she’s been flying for over a year!”

“Yes, but…” Wedge turned to make sure Wyn hadn’t returned. “Wyn isn’t exactly stable enough to lead her own squadron. Not that anyone blames her; she was tortured by Kharran for three full months. Valin’s helped her a lot, but she still isn’t anywhere near stable enough to be trusted with an entire squadron. The only reason she got the squadron in the first place was because there was no one else for the job. Now that you two have come back from the dead, though…ah, the poor girl.

“I didn’t call you two up here to talk about Wyn, though,” Wedge turned, now standing just in front of the forward view port. “Are Iella and Syal alive in your universe?”

“Yeah, they’re both alive. All four of you have been on holiday at Naboo for a couple of months now.” Jaina replied, smiling when she saw the smile that brought to Wedge’s face.

“And your families?” Wedge asked expectantly.

“Anakin died,” Jaina said sadly. “And so did Chewie.”

Wedge grimaced for a moment, but did not seem overly disturbed; he had seen so many people lose family over the past years that the news just didn’t shock him anymore. “I’m sorry. Everyone else made it through alright?”

Jaina nodded.

“Most of my family’s alive, as well.” Jag said. “Mom, Dad, and Wynssa.”

“Did anything happen to Wynssa?” Wedge asked.

Jag shook his head, bringing another smile to Wedge’s face. “The Vong never attacked Csilla in our universe. Jaina and I stopped there on our way back to Denon just before we got… stuck over here. She’s perfectly fine.”

“She enjoyed finally meeting me,” Jaina remarked.

“Sounds like you two had a pretty good life setup,” Wedge said. “I’m sorry you got torn away from it and into this. How are you finding life over here, anyway?”

“Weird,” Jaina and her fiancé said together. Jaina said the next sentence herself, though. “Everything’s similar, but just different enough to throw you off. Like Anakin; he acts like my Anakin, looks like my Anakin, but he’s still different.”

“Darker,” Wedge specified. “I’ve noticed that myself. Ever since he had to kill Jacen and Riina, he’s been more serious, more focused. Colder. A few years ago, he would have at least looked for a way to end a fight without killing his opponent, but now he won’t think twice about it. None of the other Jedi do, either, granted; they’ve given up trying to preserve enemy lives just for the sake of being merciful. When they fight, they fight to kill.”

“Isn’t that what any soldier does?” Jag asked.

“You’ll find out what I’m talking about if you ever watch Anakin or Valin in a sparring match,” Wedge told him. “But, until then, we need something else to talk about; does Wyn seem weird to you like Anakin does to Jaina?”

Jag seemed guilty about answering. “Well… yeah. She’s completely different from my Wynssa. For one thing, my Wyn’s really, really innocent. Not quite naive—she’s a smart girl—but just innocent.”

Wedge nodded, smiling. “Understandable, considering she never got involved in the war. But, as you can tell, our Wyn’s had every last scrap of the innocence she once had tortured out of her by Kharran. What was Wyn like before that happened? I’ve only known her since Anakin, Tahiri, and Zekk brought her back from Myrkr.”

Before Jag could begin, Wedge glanced out the view port and suddenly brought up his hand in a gesture that anyone would know meant be quiet. He was suddenly looking out the view port, into the empty space beyond the Lusankya’s hull. No, Jaina realised, he wasn’t staring into space; he was staring at something. Trying to identify if he was actually seeing it or if it was just his eyes or the light playing tricks on him.

“Uncle Wedge?” Jag asked tentatively, gazing out the view port himself. Jaina opened herself to the Force, trying to pick out what Wedge was looking at that way. She closed her eyes and extended her senses beyond the Lusankya’s hull and out into space beyond, searching for that familiar gap in the Force—

There!

“Jaina, no!”

Her eyes snapped open as Anakin bellowed for her to stop, but too late. Jaina looked out the viewport and instantly spotted the black piece of yorik coral that, until now, had been sneaking closer and closer to the Lusankya’s bridge. Now, though, it no longer cared about stealth; as Jaina watched, it spun around and charged straight towards the view port she was standing behind.

“Triple-S!” Wedge called back into the bridge.

And then there was commotion everywhere as that phrase brought every last member of the bridge crew to full attention, and a half-second later the combat alert klaxons started ringing throughout the bridge. Everyone started shouting, and then Wedge barged past Jaina and Jag, leaving the two of them rather confused and staring at the rapidly closing black coralskipper. Jaina didn’t realise that it was trying to ram the bridge until it was only a few seconds away from hitting. A sudden intuition told her to strengthen the view port with the Force, even though it wouldn’t do very much.

Just as the coralskipper was about to slam into the Lusankya’s bridge and wipe out everyone on it, a bright green hyphen of energy came up from below the skip and took it in the belly, reducing it to so much floating coral. What didn’t get incinerated flew into the Force-protected view port and bounced off.

Jaina let out a short gasp of relief before she turned on her brother. “What the hell was that?”

“Triple-S,” Anakin explained. “Suicide Stealth-Skipper. Yuuzhan Vong scout fighters. They started throwing them at us about six months ago. Their pilots are bred to be able to pick up Jedi the same way a voxyn does. One of those monsters killed Corran and Mirax.”

“Why didn’t the sensors pick them up?” Jag demanded, more to Wedge than either of the two Jedi. “It’s just a chunk of coral!”

“That’s made of smoothed coral that’s resistant to sensors,” Wedge explained, as he received reports from five different crewmen. “Our sensors just roll over it like water over a polished rock.” Wedge heard the last crewman out and then turned to Jag and the three Jedi. “You all need to get ready for battle, right now. Triple-Ss are linked to their command ships by a villip; as soon as they get taken out, the command ship jumps in,” he pointed to the rapidly dispersing fragments of black coral floating away from the bridge. “Which gives us about five minutes before we get jumped by a Vong battleship, interdictor, and a dozen support ships.”

Anakin was already walking towards the turbolift. “Jaina, Jag, we’ll have to get you two suited up in the hangar. Our fighters have already been brought over from the Archangel, so all we need to do is launch and join up with the others.”

Kyle grabbed Jag’s shoulder to stop him for a moment. “Jag, it’s only going to be you and Wynssa for Raven Squadron. The other pilots’ are still rookies; they’d only get in the way in a pitched battle.”

“Sir!”

Wedge, Jag, and all three Jedi stopped in their tracks as soon as they heard the startled officer’s cry. Wedge was the only one who spoke. “What is it, Lieutenant?”

“Enemy contacts coming in behind us, sir!” The officer announced. “One battleship, one interdictor, three cruisers, three destroyers. Estimate twenty-two minutes to weapons range!”

“Oh, sithspit! There’s no way that skipper was an advance scout! They were already coming!” Wedge let out a curse that even Han Solo would have been hesitant to repeat. “Someone sold us out!”

“The Vong couldn’t have gotten the location themselves?” Jag asked hurriedly. “They usually have spies everywhere. One of them probably got on board, got the location, and got out—.”

“Jag, the only people who know the rendezvous location in advance are myself, Kyle, and Captain Yannik!” Wedge said hurriedly. “Someone betrayed us after we arrived.” He paused for a moment, and when he next spoke, Wedge Antilles’s voice was dripping with hatred. “We’ve got a traitor on one of the ships.”

“That’s not important now, Wedge, we’ve got to fight these guys off now.” Kyle turned to the Jaina, Anakin, and Jag. “You three grab Tahiri, Valin, and Wyn and get in the air! Move!”



[end of chapter]

 

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rebel_cheese 
Registered: Jul '06
42800_Anakin Solo
Date Posted: 7/31/06 7:00pm Subject: RE: Shattered Mirror (Post-TUF, Major AU, J/J, A/T, Kyle, Danni )*RE-POST IN PROGRESS* - Date Edited: 8/1/06 11:18am (4 edits total) Edited By: rebel_cheese
All right, finally got it the way it's supposed to be. Back in business.



CHAPTER NINE

As Anakin’s Scorcher accelerated out of the Lusankya’s hangar, the only thought going through the young Jedi knights’ mind was ‘This one’s going to be nasty’. And it was true; the Archangel and the Lusankya had a combined fighter force of only one-hundred and sixty-seven Scorchers, while the Yuuzhan Vong fleet already had one-hundred and fifty coralskippers in play, and the battleship hadn’t finished launching its fifteen squadrons. Including the coralskipper compliments of the three cruisers, three destroyers, and the interdictor, Anakin expected to be fighting about two hundred to two hundred and fifty coralskippers. So Anakin’s side was already outnumbered, and that was before adding the warships to the mix. The Vong battleship was just as big and just as heavily armed as the Lusankya, and three Yuuzhan Vong cruisers were going to at least give the Archangel a serious pounding before they went down. But the Yuuzhan Vong had an additional three destroyers and an interdictor on their side, giving them a significant edge over the Lusankya and Archangel.

Oh yes, this battle was going to be very nasty.

Anakin brought his fighter out if its dive and aimed it towards the Lusankya’s bow and the Yuuzhan Vong fleet beyond, checking his sensor board as he did. Tahiri, Valin, and Jaina were right behind him, forming up beside his fighter. The remaining three pilots from Black Knight squadron—Zekk, Cirila, and Azias—were out of the Archangel’s hangar and were racing over to join Anakin and the others. The other squadrons of Scorcher fighters were pouring out of the hangar bays of both the Archangel and the Lusankya, filling the space beneath the two monstrous starships with a swarm of fighters, flying around like a nest of agitated wasps.

“Black Knight leader to all Black Knights, report in!” Anakin ordered once his squadron had formed up around him. His six pilots replied with a click each, announcing they were ready for action. Anakin wasn’t worried about any of them—aside from Jaina. Not only was this the first time she had ever flown a Scorcher fighter, but this was also going to be the first time she had flown under the influence of a Black Knights battle-meld. Anakin just hoped she’d be able to keep up.

Anakin switched his comm over to the Archangel’s starfighter control centre after he was sure everyone was formed up. No sooner had he done so than a rushed order came through from the female officer assigned to Anakin’s squadron.

“Incoming skips! Repeat, incoming skips! All fighters engage!”

“Already?” Valin demanded as Anakin checked his sensor board to get a look at where the incoming coralskippers were. One-hundred and forty-four coralskippers were closing fast on the Archangel and the Lusankya, intending to hammer the combined starfighter screen protecting the side-by-side Star Destroyers. The remaining eighty-four were flying cover for the Vong’s eight capital ships, just in case the one-hundred and sixty-seven strong force of Scorcher fighters managed to break through the incoming wave and mount an attack against the capital ships.

Which was exactly what Anakin was planning.

“Alright, people, we’re going to break through the incoming skips and go after the capital ships!” Anakin called into his commlink.

“What?” Jaina demanded. “Anakin, there’s eighty coralskippers around those capital ships! We won’t stand a chance!”

“Yes, we will.” Anakin replied. “Prepare to switch to velocity mode, everyone!”

The other six Black Knights replied with clicks, while the other Scorcher squadrons all formed up behind them. Anakin understood Jaina’s concerns, but she didn’t know about the little tricks that the other six Black Knights had developed over their time flying together. Anakin had already told all of his fellow Jedi to make sure to give Jaina a lot of help through the Force during this battle; Anakin’s sister was going to need all of it just to keep up.

“Lusankya fighter control to all starfighters!” Anakin instantly recognised the voice; Kyle Katarn. “General Antilles is taking command of all fighter squadrons. Transfer your command channel to Lusankya control.”

Anakin obeyed the order at once, confident that every other Scorcher in the wing was doing the same. Although many of the pilots had never been in the military, they had all been well trained aboard their respective command ships. They knew how to follow orders.

“Alright, pilots, the incoming coralskippers will be on top of you in under a minute.” Kyle announced. “Blow through their formation and take them from behind. Black Knights, take out a squadron or two, but keep yourselves ready to go after that interdictor.”

“As if you needed to tell us.” Anakin remarked. “You heard him, everyone! Attack pattern alpha!”

The other Scorchers slowed down slightly as Anakin’s squadron sped up to full throttle, speeding ahead of the rest of the wing. The yammosk coordinating the coralskippers—presumably from aboard the battleship—saw that and ordered a pair of skip squadrons to take the idiotic Scorchers out. Unwittingly, the yammosk was playing right into its enemies’ hands.

The coralskippers raced in with twin magma cannons blazing like erupting volcanoes on Mustafar, sending boiling hot streaks of lava into the Scorcher wing. Anakin’s wing didn’t take a single hit, but several pilots took a number of hits, nearly dropping their forward shields. The Scorchers’ return fire only succeeded in lightly damaging a couple of skips, and then the two forces were flying past each other, desperately trying to avoid colliding. Anakin felt the thuds of death through the Force as several brave pilots failed to maneuver through the coralskipper armada and collided with an enemy fighter.

But now the Scorchers were behind the coralskippers, and while the enemy tried to turn around, they killed their engines and switched into glide mode, which pumped power to their inertial compensators and manoeuvring thrusters. In a heartbeat, over a hundred and fifty Scorchers pulled off an end over end turn and floored their engines, putting them right behind the coralskippers’ tails.

Recently, the tried and tested stutter-fire lasers had been rendered useless by Yuuzhan Vong scientists. Now, the dovin basals could tell the difference between a full-power laser blast and a low-power stutter shot. Since then, success or failure depended on timing and teamwork. A single Scorcher could overwhelm a skip’s defences in a reasonable timeframe, but that time was more than halved if there were two Scorchers. A single Scorcher could lay down fire almost as quick as a X-wing using stutter-fire, and, now that stutter-fire was useless, the secondary trigger had been reconfigured to fire all six laser cannons at once, which meant that Scorcher pilots didn’t have to waste time flicking their firing settings around and could land deathblows on Vong ships that much quicker.

One command from the squadron leaders, and the Scorcher wing split into pairs and each went after a coralskipper. Laser bolts raced in from one Scorcher, while the other slipped aside, lined up a shot, and sent a solid blast from all six cannons into the target coralskipper. The unfortunate skip was already occupied trying to defend against the first Scorcher’s six laser cannons, and couldn’t move its dovin basal to defend against the second Scorcher. Six laser bolts burned into its bow and reduced its front half to half-melted coral.

With Anakin’s Black Knights, the tactic worked even better. It was difficult—but not impossible—for the ordinary pilots to coordinate their attacks against the skips, but for the Jedi it was as easy as swinging a lightsaber. Using the Force, Anakin and Tahiri scored the first kill; Anakin drew the skip’s dovin basal with a flurry of laser blasts to its tail, and a millisecond later twitched the nose of his Scorcher up and squeezed the secondary trigger and sent a full burst into its bow, just as Tahiri sent a further six bolts into its belly. The skip disintegrated.

The other five Jedi moved in next, each scoring a kill within seconds. The Jedi moved with inhuman speed and coordination; one would distract one skip’s dovin basal, another would put three or four rail-gun slugs into its belly, and then the first one would break off and put send a few slugs into the skip that a third Jedi was busy shooting. Within ten seconds, the Jedi had destroyed more than three times their numbers, and the coralskippers had lost almost three squadrons overall.

Anakin smiled as he watched the coralskippers finally turn around. The two wings of fighters lost almost all sense of formation as they engaged each other in a lethal dogfight, with the Jedi right in the middle of it. By the time the coralskippers had figured out which Scorchers were the Jedi piloted ones, another squadron of coralskippers was down. But the Vong were fighting back, and again and again startled cries and death screams came through Anakin’s comm as shields failed and magma bursts burned through Scorcher hulls.

Anakin scowled at each scream that hit his ears, but he pushed them aside and focused on killing the next skip. He hated doing this; fighting through battle after battle as dozens of brave men and women died around him. It was so… pointless. It had been ever since Mon Calamari fell, and now that Tahiri was carrying their children, risking all three of their lives in this vicious dogfight—

Focus, Dummy!

Tahiri’s call was so forceful that Anakin nearly jumped. He and his wife were in the process of shooting down another coralskipper, and he had nearly missed his opportunity to laser the skip because he had been worrying about Tahiri. Anakin quickly sent a note of thanks and reassurance to his wife, and then followed her towards another bunch of skips that were picking on Citadel squadron.

Not for much longer, Anakin thought as he squeezed the trigger.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


This is almost too easy, Valin thought as he single-handedly took out a pair of coralskippers by jumping his Scorcher around and sending laser blasts all over both skips. Neither one stood a chance at stopping all of them, and soon enough Valin was able to send a solid six-gun burst into each coralskipper’s cockpit. Valin’s smirk turned into a soft chuckle as the skips’ bows fell apart.

“Nice work, Valin,” Cirila told him as she finally caught up with him.

“What took you so long?” Valin demanded. “I had to deal with four skips myself!”

“Oh, poor bubby,” Cirila teased. “I just had five of them jump me back there. I think they’ve figured out which Scorchers are which now.”

“Which means they’ll be coming after us full-pelt,” Valin replied, just before his astromech announced that a whole squadron of coralskippers were heading straight for Valin and his wingman. “Hello… Cirila, we’ve got incoming!”

“I see them,” Cirila replied. “A whole squadron? Is that all?”

“Shut up and fly, Cirila!” Valin ordered as he swung his Scorcher around, reaching out to Cirila through the Force. Try to keep up this time, Ice Queen.

Shut up, mocetan teal!

Valin shook his head at the rather lame insult against his white hair and squeezed his Scorcher’s main trigger, spraying laser fire along all of the incoming coralskippers. Cirila joined him, and the two of them waited for the right moment to split and take out a pair of skips, dodging incoming lava. A few moments before they passed the incoming Vong fighters, Valin and Cirila each picked a different target and fired all six of their guns at once, then switched targets and squeezed their secondary triggers again at the skip’s other end. Both skips were blown to pieces.

Two down, ten to go.

Valin and Cirila flew past the skips, restarting their shields instinctively when a few coralskippers tried to use their dovin basals to down them. The two pilots whipped their Scorchers around as only Jedi could, and concentrated their lasers on a single coralskipper. The skip didn’t endure the experience of having firepower equal to three X-wings concentrated onto it, and within seconds it was little more than molten slag.

With a third kill on their list, Valin and Cirila split up and each went after a separate coralskipper. Valin slipped in behind one skip, sending a non-stop stream of red bolts into its tail. The skip decelerated as it devoted more and more effort to defending itself, and soon the skip’s jinking was the only thing keeping it from being vaporised.

And then Valin’s hands moved by themselves, killing his Scorcher’s throttle and whipping it up into an amazing backwards flip. His brain couldn’t keep up with his actions, and he only realised that it was the Force guiding his hands when he saw that his Scorcher was aimed down at the coralskipper that had been about to shoot Valin in the back. Valin’s finger twitched and six streaks of red energy raced ‘down’ towards the skip. The pilot thought that Valin had just climbed out of the way of his guns, and so didn’t realise that Valin was on top of him and shooting down at him until six superheated lines of energy burned into his skip and blew it in half.

Valin sighed in surprise and shock; he had never experienced anything like that before. He shook the shock out of his head and tried to lock onto the skip he had been chasing, but his astromech—Circuit—told him that it was already dead; the skip that had tried to sneak up on Valin had instead wound up accidentally shooting its comrade. Valin allowed himself a brief smile at the situation before picking another skip and racing after it. The skip was busy defending itself against Cirila, so it was very easy for Valin to come at it from the other side and nail it with a flurry of laser blasts.

That’s six; half of them, Cirila thought to her wingman as she and Valin started shooting at two more skips, a few seconds before Anakin and Tahiri raced in and blew both targets apart.

Who asked you two to intervene? Valin demanded.

Since when do you we need an invitation? Tahiri retorted as she and Anakin went after another coralskipper. Valin scowled and convinced the coralskipper that was trying to take a shot a Cirila’s starfighter that it was better off not taking that shot. He was just about to finish the kriffing thing off when Jaina, Azias, and Zekk leapt into the dogfight. Azias drilled Valin’s target while Jaina and Zekk killed another skip.

Oh, boy, this is seriously going to start hurting my kill ratio, Valin thought, a few moments before Circuit announced the destruction of the last two coralskippers in the squadron that had originally come after Valin and Cirila.

Momentarily out of targets, Valin scanned the battle. The other Scorcher squadrons were doing quite well—especially the two-pilot team of Jag and Wyn—but they were losing ships every now and then. Valin flinched every time another fighter blew up—each lost Scorcher took months to replace. The Vong capital ships had begun to move in, as well; the battleship was already involved in a vicious slugging match with the Lusankya, and the Archangel was fending off two Vong cruisers. The third enemy cruiser was attempting to outflank the Archangel and come up against its poorly-defended tail, but Valin knew that Captain Yannik would find a way to not only counter the Vong ship’s move, but also use it against them.

The remaining Vong ships—the interdictor and the trio of destroyers—were all holding back. The destroyers, and their five squadron strong skip escort, were taking up defensive positions around the interdictor. But what was strange was that two of the coral squadrons were flying very close to the interdictor, also being protected by the three destroyers. Valin pursed his lips and focused his Scorcher’s sensors on one of the suspicious skips.

What Valin saw looked like two coralskippers joined together by a thick coral strut, with magma cannons all over the front of the starboard hull—Valin counted at least eight. That kind of firepower could drop a Scorcher in moments, but with such a bulky design, the only thing the new skips would be able to keep up with would be a capital ship—

Oh. Right.

A capital ship like the Archangel.

That third cruiser wasn’t trying to outflank the Archangel; it was getting in position to ram it! Three cruiser-sized missiles colliding into three different sides of the ship at once would be enough to overload the Archangel’s shields, and then the destroyers would keep the Scorchers away while those new strike corals turned the Archangel into so much molten scrap.

Valin didn’t even need to warn his fellow pilots; they had already sensed what he had discovered through the Force. Without a word, the seven Jedi decided that those strike corals had to die. Anakin quickly sent a Force message to Kyle, and by the time he was finished everyone else was formed up on Anakin’s tail, ready to destroy those corals with extreme prejudice. Anakin counted down through the Force, and as soon as he reached zero, everyone switched their Scorchers from combat mode to cruising mode and pushed their throttles to full. Fire erupted from their engines as the seven Scorchers rocketed to two and a half times their normal top speed, and he Jedi guided their ships towards the interdictor and the soon-to-be-dead strike corals.

The lead destroyer saw them coming and moved forward to engage them, confident that a single destroyer and twelve coralskippers would be enough to deal with the Jedi. The destroyer’s commander kept his coralskippers close, intending to let the Jedi immolate themselves upon the combined firepower of his destroyer and his coral escorts. The Jedi, however, had different ideas. They all killed their throttles before switching back to combat mode, maintaining their cruise speeds while regaining the use of their weapons. A few seconds later, the Jedi had dealt with half of the coralskipper squadron, and then six of the Jedi drew away the destroyer’s dovin basals while Zekk raced in to point-blank range and fired a pair of torpedoes.

The torpedoes hit dead-center in the destroyer’s side, blowing out a massive portion of hull and sending a fireball screaming out of the other side. Half-incinerated debris tore the remaining corals to shreds as debris and crew were sucked out of the massive breach in the destroyer’s sides, mere moments before secondary explosions broke the ship in two.

The other two destroyers saw the first one break apart and panicked, acceralating and charging the incoming Jedi. This time, the Jedi tried a different tactic; five of them flew up and over the nearest destroyer, focusing all of their Force energy on grabbing a pair of dovin basals and preventing them from moving. The remaining two Jedi raced in towards the undefended bow and sent four torpedoes into it.

Leaving what was left of the second destroyer to burn in space, the Jedi barrel-rolled towards their real targets; the strike corals. The Vong strike fighters turned and fled while the interdictor moved to cover them, ready to sacrifice itself if necessary. The Jedi were more than happy to oblige that wish.

Valin was just about to join his wingmen in blowing the interdictor in two when the enemy ship began to launch coralskipper after coralskipper after coralskipper. Valin’s eyes widened in surprise, shock, and sheer horror as the space between him and the rest of the Jedi Scorhcers began to fill with an entire wing of coralskippers.

“Ah… Anakin…” Tahiri breathed, suddenly too surprised to concentrate enough to send her husband a Force message. “I don’t think that thing’s an interdictor…”

“Ya think?” Valin demanded, scanning his eyes over the massive force of coralskippers that was about to tear him and his fellow Jedi to pieces. “Oh, boy, we are so dead…”

 

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Padawan of princess_of_naboo
E-married to the amazing padawanlost love
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rebel_cheese 
Registered: Jul '06
42800_Anakin Solo
Date Posted: 8/1/06 11:28am Subject: RE: Shattered Mirror (Post-TUF, Major AU, J/J, A/T, Kyle, Danni )*RE-POST IN PROGRESS*
CHAPTER TEN


If Wedge hadn’t been used to being in situations this bad, he would have cried at the situation erupting before his eyes. A moment ago, things had been almost perfect; the combined fighter force of the Archangel and the Lusankya was easily holding back the relentless coralskippers, the Lusankya was busy engaging the Vong battleship in a slugging match, the Archangel was moving in to take on the three Vong heavy cruisers, and Anakin’s squadron of Jedi had just smashed hard into the Vong interdictor’s escorts. One destroyer had been blown in two, a second had been left burning in space after having four proton torpedoes rammed down its throat, and the interdictor itself seemed powerless beneath the fury of seven Jedi-piloted Scorcher fighters.

But, a moment ago, Wedge had been lacking one absolutely tiny, yet absolutely vital piece of information.

They had all just been played for fools.

The Vong admiral had just made Wedge Antilles, Kyle Katarn, and Anakin Solo look like first-year cadets. He had left the new strike corals where they could be easily spotted, and then he had patiently waited for Anakin and the other Jedi to walk right into his little trap. Refitting that interdictor to be able to hold that many ready-to-launch coralskippers was an ingenious strategy; in fact, if Wedge hadn’t just been screwed by said tactic, he’d be applauding the Vong admiral’s work.

Instead, what Wedge had to focus on was figuring out a way to reverse the Vong admiral’s work. The Jedi were trapped, desperately fighting off eighty-seven coralskippers. There was no way that Anakin and the others could survive for much more than a few minutes, and once they were dead… Wedge shuddered and pushed that thought out of his mind. Wedge was not going to let some up-start Vong destroy his ship as long as Myri was aboard it. He also wasn’t going to let Anakin and the other Jedi die, and neither was he going to watch as Wyn and Jag and the rest of the non-Jedi Scorcher pilots died. But determination was pointless without a plan of some kind, and, right now, Wedge had absolutely nothing!

“Sir!” One of the comm officers called suddenly, diverting Wedge’s attention away from trying to think about a way out of this mess for a few short, vital seconds. “Transmission from Captain Yannik! He wants us to keep those cruisers off his back for a few moments!”

Wedge thought, What is he up to? Yannik obviously had a plan, but Wedge didn’t like not being in on it. Still, since he didn’t have anything even approaching a plan of his own…

“Helm! Turn hard to starboard! Put us between the battleship and the cruisers!” Wedge ordered. “Slug all of them! And keep me apprised of our shield status!”

“Yes, sir!” Five different officers replied at once.

Wedge had to steady his footing to avoid falling into the starboard crew pit as the Lusankya banked right, turning far faster than any sane pilot would have force it to, whil the Archangel, under the expert control of Captain Yannik and its military-trained helmsman, pulled off an amazing escape move, slipping out of the cruiser delta formation and leaving one with a line of turbolaser craters along its side. The star destroyer then glided over the Lusankya and left the larger warship to hammer the three pursuing cruisers. All three seemed a little too over-zealous to pursue the Archangel. Even though it was probably number on Supreme Overlord Shimrra’s ‘To Kill’ list, there was no reason for all three cruisers to run straight into the Lusankya’s broadside in an insane effort to chase down the Archangel. What were they trying to do, ram it?

Uh oh…

Wedge suddenly felt a whole new appreciation for just how good the commander of the enemy fleet was. He had managed to get all seven of the Archangel’s Jedi trapped, and he was still going to be able to pull off his original plan. He was going to have the cruisers sacrifice themselves to take down the Archangel’s shields, leaving it helpless against those armed-to-the-teeth strike corals.

Wedge spent another second doing one more quick assessment of the battlefield, and suddenly he also had a plan. This Vong admiral was good—even Grand Admiral Thrawn himself would have been impressed by this little strategy—but he was also arrogant. The cruisers were trying to ram the Archangel, but their admiral had them holding back, trying to conceal what they were doing. Their admiral hadn’t even considered the possibility that one of his infidel targets might figure out what his cruiser force was doing. The only reason Wedge had noticed was because Artran Kharran himself had pulled this move to take out the Errant Virtue—except, of course, that instead of strike corals, Kharran had used his personal battleship to take out the Virtue. But the principal was the same, and if Wedge didn’t do something soon, the Archangel was going to be little more than a memory within moments.

Wedge frowned and yelled, “All guns, focus on those cruisers! Do not let them get through to the Archangel!”



Jaina had been in some very bad situations during her twenty-one years of life—many of them during the Yuuzhan Vong war—but the one she was in the middle of right now was well and truly the worst ever. She and her fellow Jedi were up against eighty-seven coralskippers. That meant that, to get out of this, each Jedi had to kill an entire squadron of coralskippers while trying to avoid being roasted by the rest of the Vong fighter force. On top of that, whichever way the Jedi tried to run, they would have to deal with either the interdictor or the destroyer, both of which were more than capable of taking out the Jedi with the assistance of the coralskipper wing.

Impossible.

What made matters even worse was the fact that, at the rate the coralskippers were closing, the seven Jedi had around ten seconds to think of a way to run that didn’t involve being shot in the back by eighty-seven coralskippers.

Also impossible.

In fact, the only Jedi to say anything was Cirila, and she was just as dumbfounded at the sudden turn of events as everyone.

“You know what,” the Chiss Jedi said. “I’m going to agree with Valin, for once. We’re dead.”

The coralskippers raced in, twin magma cannons stuttering and unleashing so much lava that all Jaina could see was orange and red. Jaina twirled up and over the incoming fire from four skips, but wound up putting her fighter in the crosshairs of eight more. Only a desperate series of jinks and dives saved her from being impaled upon a wall of burning lava.

Amazingly, she discovered she was still flying alongside her wingman, Zekk, who had only just managed to survive the lava maelstrom with his shields intact. But the third member of their team, Azias Sharn, was stuck, surrounded by nine coralskippers and taking hit after hit. Jaina didn’t even have time to tell Zekk what to do through the Force before Azias’s shields failed. The skips drilled so many lava bursts into his hull that Jaina couldn’t distinguish them from the explosion that reduced the young Jedi’s ship and life to little more than a memory.

Azias! Anakin’s cry in the Force was so loud that Jaina thought he was screaming into her ear. But that cry was all the grief that anyone could afford to shed on their friend’s death; with one Jedi down, the remaining six now had to take on fifteen coralskippers each.

At this rate, Jaina thought as she and Zekk barrel-rolled through another wall of lava, we’re going to last about fifteen seconds.

And then Jaina and Zekk got caught between two full squadrons of corals, and not even a pair of Jedi could dodge the incoming fire forever. Jaina heard her shield generator overload and shut down, and then she stared in horror as a pair of lava blasts came in and blew her Scorcher’s nose in half. She rolled right, barely avoiding another flurry of burning magma shots, and then her eyes widened in shock and she let out a short sigh of resignation as she found herself looking straight down the glowing barrel of a coralskipper’s magma cannon.

Just as the magma cannon fired, Zekk’s Scorcher raced in front of Jaina and took the hits for her. The coral veered after Jaina’s saviour, opening itself to Jaina’s remaining four laser cannons, which she used to full effect, leaving what was left of the skip to hurtle uncontrollably through the space.

One down, eighty-six to go.

Jaina sensed another bunch of skips—five, maybe six of them—on her tail, and she hauled back hard on her stick before switching to glide mode and flipping her fighter end-over-end, winding up behind the skips that had just tried to shoot her. She focused her four remaining cannons on a single skip, but not a single shot got through before a narrow miss from another group of skips forced her to break off. With no shields, a single hit from a single skip would be all that was needed to destroy Jaina’s Scorcher, and, with her sensors blown off along with the rest of her nose, she had nothing but the Force to tell her where the enemy skips were coming from.

In short, this wasn’t good.

Jaina barely managed to evade another pair of skips, but her evasive maneuvers put her right in front of another one. Before she could turn out of its way, bursts of lava burned through her right engine pod, and what was left of the engine tore itself free of Jaina’s fighter and twisted off into the side of a nearby coralskipper. Jaina didn’t see the impact rupture the coralskipper’s cockpit and leave the unfortunate pilot to be sucked out of his ship and into space, nor did she see what was left of her Scorcher collide with two enemy skips before finally disintegrating.

By then, she had already ejected and was floating helplessly through the maelstrom of coralskippers and lava bursts.



Jag depressed his secondary trigger and sent a six-gun burst into the coralskipper in his crosshair, blowing the skip’s back half to shreds. What was left of the skip was nailed by the fury of Wynssa’s Scorcher, reducing it to flotsam that was smashed against Wynssa’s shields as she barrel-rolled through the wreckage.

“You’re taking this a bit personally, Wyn!” Jag scolded, frowning at his sister’s lack of discipline. One would think that, after being raised according to the moral values of the Chiss Ascendancy, the girl would be able to focus enough to keep herself from letting the fight get personal.

“You try being tortured by a scarhead for three months, and let’s see how you deal with it!” Wynssa snarled in return, voice dripping with anger. Jag decided not to approach the subject again, at least not until after this battle was over. Instead, Jag ordered his sister to follow him as he swung his Scorcher around after another couple of skips that were trying to pick on two members of Citadel squadron.

Jag was just about to pull his trigger when he heard someone scream his name so loud that, had he not been locked into his crash webbing, he would have jumped out of his seat.

“W-what?” Jag stammered, shocked by the force of the scream. “Wyn, did you—?”

“Did I what?” Wyn asked. “Jag, what’s wrong with you?”

Oh no… Jag thought. If Wyn hadn’t just screamed at him, then that only left…

Jaina.

“Oh Force… Jaina’s in trouble…” Jag sighed as he reached for the comm controls. “Raven one to Black Knight one! Anakin, respond!”

“Shut up, Jag, I’m kinda busy—Sithspawn, this skip just won’t die!”

“Anakin? Anakin! Kriff!” Jag switched his comm over to Jaina’s Scorcher. “Jaina! Jaina, can you hear me?”

Nothing.

Oh, Force, no… Jag thought. Either Jaina was too busy fighting to respond, or she had been shot down… and that meant that she was either floating in space or already dead. Jag adjusted his Scorcher’s sensors, locking onto Black Knights squadron. The Jedi had detached from the main engagement and had raced over to the Vong interdictor in what Jag assumed was an attempt to kill it. Two of the interdictor’s destroyer escorts were burning in space, and the third was blocking Black Knight squadron’s route back to the Archangel, forcing the Jedi to dogfight with—

Jag double-checked the reading.

He thought, How many coralskippers?

“Oh no…” Jag breathed. “Wyn—!”

“I see it, Jag.” Wyn whimpered. “Oh no, Valin… Jag, what are we going to do?”

“Stay on my wing and wait for a minute,” Jag ordered. “Raven one to Lusankya. Master Katarn, Black Knight squadron—.”

“We know, Raven one. The Archangel’s working on it,” Kyle replied. “Just keep killing the other corals.”

Jag cast an anxious glance towards the Archangel, which was gracefully flying over the Lusankya, leaving the larger ship to hold off the cruisers and battleship while it manoeuvred into position. As Jag watched, the pure-white star destroyer began to turn, bringing its starboard side to bear on the interdictor and the coralskippers surrounding the Jedi.

For a moment, Jag thought that Captain Yannik—whoever he was—had completely lost his mind. Generally, it was almost impossible to hit fighter craft of any kind with turbolaser batteries. However, when the fighters were grouped as close together as say, that coralskipper wing, then it was almost not to wipe out a few squadrons. And, while the coralskipper force was scattered by the Archangel’s broadside, the Jedi pilots would be able to easily weave their way through it and back to their command ship.

The only problem that Jag had was that he couldn’t see Jaina’s Scorcher anywhere.

“Master Katarn, I think Jaina’s gone EV.” Jag stated.

“The Vong have never bothered with EV pilots before, Raven one.” Kyle replied. “Assuming she’s not dead already, we’ll pick her up after this battle’s over. Right now, we need to make sure the five Jedi we have left get back here alive.”

Jag racked his mind for some reason why that wasn’t enough, why they had to make sure that Jaina was going to survive right now, but deep down he knew there was nothing he could do. Kyle was right; the Vong wouldn’t even be able to locate Jaina now that she was floating freely in space, and it would be a simple matter to locate and pick her up after the battle was over. Jag’s only problem, he knew, was that that plan of action rested on the assumption that Jaina had survived ejecting from her fighter without being roasted by a stray lava blast or sucked into a dovin basal’s quantum singularity or impaled upon a coralskipper’s nose. And Jag, like all Chiss Ascendancy officers, did not like making assumptions, especially ones of this magnitude.

“Jag, what’s going on? Why aren’t they letting us help them?” Wyn pleaded.

“The Archangel’s on it, Wynssa.” Jag replied. “Valin’s still in his ship, so if he can survive until the Archangel open’s fire—.”

“Open’s fire?” Wynssa screamed. “They’re going to fire on them? They’ll vaporise all of them—Valin and Jaina included!”

“The Jedi can fly through the barrage easily, Wyn!” Jag made sure he kept his voice calm and level; even though he had only known this Wyn for a few days, he was already beginning to understand how unstable she was. She was an amazing pilot—which was the only reason she was flying at all—but Jag already understood that it was vital to always be calm with her.

“But… Jag, they can’t dodge eighty coralskippers and a broadside from the Archangel! They’re going to kill them, Jag!” Wynssa cried emotionally. “We have to do something!”

“We can’t, Wyn—.”

“Do you want Jaina to die?” Wynssa screamed.

Jag felt like someone had just twisted a knife into his heart. Of course he wanted to help Jaina, but he wasn’t going to be able to help anyone if he got himself killed trying to run into that coralskipper maelstrom to save her.

“Do not ever say that again, Wyn.” Jag snarled. “Of course I don’t want Jaina to die!”

“Then why aren’t you trying to help her, you heartless jerk?”

“Because neither of us are going to do Jaina or Valin any good if we get ourselves killed!” Jag replied.

“I’m not going to stand here and watch the Vong take Valin away from me!” Wynssa cried.

“Wyn… don’t do anything stupid!” Jag warned.

He was far too late; Wynssa had already whipped her Scorcher around and was racing off to rescue her boyfriend.



Danni put her hand on the officer’s shoulder and leant in closer to the console and stared in horror at the sensor display there. Azias was dead, Jaina was EV, and the remaining five Jedi were desperately trying to fend off a full wing of coralskippers. They weren’t doing so good, either; both Tahiri and Cirila had lost their shields and taken at least one hit each, Anakin and Zekk’s shields were failing, and Valin was stranded, separated from the rest of his squadron and fighting off fifteen enemy ships.

They weren’t going to last much longer.

“Yannik!” Danni cried. “What’s taking so long? Anakin and the others can’t take much more of this!”

“This is a star destroyer, Knight Durron.” Yannik replied in his infuriatingly calm voice. “It does take some time to turn it around.”

“Just hurry it up!” Danni all but screamed at him. Come on, guys, hold on. We’ll get you out of there in a minute, just hold on.

The Vong were making no attempt to slip back out of the Archangel’s range, but in this situation, Danni didn’t expect them to. If the Vong fell back to avoid getting hammered by the rapidly closing star destroyer, they’d let the Jedi escape. Hence, they were more than willing to take a full broadside from a star destroyer if it meant getting a chance at taking down six Jedi.

Suddenly, Danni sensed Cirila’s panic as her shields failed and a dozen coralskippers fired on her at once.

“Oh no, Cirila!” Danni cried, watching in horror as the young Jedi’s ship disappeared from the sensor board at the same instant that her life disappeared from the Force. “Yannik, move this damn ship!”

“Sir, we’re in position!” an officer cried an instant later.

“All guns, open fire!” Yannik bellowed in a voice so loud that it didn’t seem to fit in his three-foot frame.

“About time.” Danni growled in very real anger as she Force-leapt back up to the command floor and watched as countless green hyphens of turbolaser energy erupted from the Archangel’s batteries and raced towards the coralskippers that were annihilating the Black Knights. Several agonisingly long seconds later, explosions erupted all around the interdictor. The sole surviving destroyer tried to dive out of the way of the barrage, but several heavy turbolaser blasts caught it in the side and blew straight through. A few short moments later, the final explosion that completely annihilated the destroyer joined the explosions of dozens of coralskippers as the Vong fighters were impaled upon unstoppable lances of supercharged energy. The interdictor was the only ship that emerged relatively unscathed, only taking two minor turbolaser hits.

“The Black Knights?” Yannik asked.

Danni closed her eyes and reached into the Force, brushing past the gaps where Azias and Cirila had been mere moments before and focusing on the Jedi who were still alive; Anakin, Tahiri, Zekk, Valin, and, most importantly, Jaina. Danni couldn’t resist sighing in joy when she sensed that all five were still alive. Jaina had miraculously floated free of the massive dogfight without being pulled into a black hole or being fried by a stray magma burst. Anakin and the other three had managed to use the Archangel’s barrage to slip away from the coralskippers and were now trying to run back to their command ship, and once the Archangel unleashed broadside number two, their would be no way for the coralskippers to catch the Jedi in time. Danni sent all four a note of reassurance through the Force before focusing on Jaina.

The young Jedi was alive and, thankfully, unhurt, but she was also very worried about something. Since she was well away from any Vong ship, Danni doubted that she was concerned about being shot. That only left the possibility that something was wrong with her EV equipment.

“They’re fine,” Danni breathed. “But something’s wrong with Jaina. We have to pick her up soon.”

“Captain Yannik, those cruisers have managed to get past the Lusankya, and the battleship’s gotten between us and her!”

Yannik and Danni glanced to the Archangel’s port and saw the three Vong cruisers splitting up and moving to outflank the star destroyer. One was heading for the Archangel’s bow, another for her stern, and the third was trying to fly above her.

“Hmm… this might just prove to be a problem.” Yannik murmured, still as calm as ever. The little green alien’s ears twitched as he thought about the best way to deal with the current situation. “Did the first barrage take out those strike corals?”

“I can’t see them…” one of the sensor controllers replied. “Wait… affirmative lock on those corals! All twenty-four of them are still alive, sir!”

“Then this is definitely a problem.” Yannik sighed. “Is anyone in position to take those things out?”

“Negative, sir, all of our fighters are busy fighting this coralskipper force!” Another crewman reported. “And, sir, we just got a comm from the Lusankya. General Antilles believes that those cruisers are going to try to ram us.”

“Sounds about right,” Yannik muttered. “All port guns, focus on that centre cruiser! Take it out! All starboard batteries, prepare to fire barrage number two! Helm, prepare for emergency evasive maneuvers. Starfighter control, somebody needs to kill those strike corals.”

A few moments later, an officer replied, “Sir, Fury squadron reports that they might just be able to pull away from the dogfight near the Lusankya and attack the strike corals, but they’ll take over half a minute to reach them!”

“Tell Fury leader to move!” Yannik ordered before turning to look up at Danni. “We can’t outmaneuver those cruisers for long, and we also won’t be able to deal enough damage to stop at least two of them ramming us. If those strike corals get a run at our hull, they’ll cause too much damage.”

Danni didn’t even need the Force to know what Yannik was going to say. “You cannot order the Black Knights back towards that interdictor! There are still over thirty coralskippers there, and the second barrage will be lucky to kill any of them.”

“I know, but—.”

“Ah, sir…” A young officer at starfighter control called.

“Yes, ensign?” Yannik replied.

“You’re not going to believe this, but our two Raven pilots just might be able to get at those strike corals for us. They’re halfway there already!”

“What?” Yannik demanded while Danni Force-jumped down to the crewpit to take a look at the young crewman’s console. “What are they doing there?”

“Wynssa’s going to rescue Valin, and Jag doesn’t want to let her die trying.” Danni said after a second looking over the crewman’s shoulder.

“Ah… how do you know that?” The crewman asked.

Danni pointed at his screen. “Raven two is in front.”

“That girl’s talent for disobeying orders—.” Yannik began.

“Might have just saved our lives,” Danni replied before he could finish. “If the Black Knights can hold off those coralskippers for a few seconds, then Jag and Wyn will be able to slow those strike corals down enough to let Fury squadron catch them in time.”

Yannik let out a short sigh. “Tactical, are those cruisers in range yet?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Then fire at will,” Yannik ordered. “And fire barrage number two past the Black Knights! Knight Durron… you need to give Anakin and Colonel Fel their orders.”

Danni nodded and stole the earpiece off the nearest starfighter control crewman before ordering him to put her through to Anakin. “Anakin, I’m sorry about this, but you have to turn around and take on those coralskippers.”

“What?” Anakin screeched. “We barely get away from them, and then you want us to go back? We can’t, Danni! Tahiri’s ship won’t even survive landing, it’s got that many holes in it!”

“Anakin, those strike corals need to die!” Danni stressed. “We just need you, Valin, and Zekk to keep those coralskippers busy while Jag and Wyn do the same with the strike corals. Fury squadron’s on its way to help you all out, but if someone doesn’t keep those strikes busy—.”

“I know, Danni, I know…” Anakin sighed. “What about Jaina? Something’s wrong—.”

“Jag can pick her up after Fury squadron bails you all out,” Danni interrupted. “Anakin, we don’t have time to argue.”

There was a short pause, and then, “Danni, I hate you.”

On the sensor board, Danni watched as four of the five remaining Black Knight Scorchers dodged through the Archangel’s second broadside and then swung around and went straight back into the deathtrap they had just escaped from.

Danni thought, I’m sorry, Anakin.

 

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rebel_cheese 
Registered: Jul '06
42800_Anakin Solo
Date Posted: 8/1/06 11:30am Subject: RE: Shattered Mirror (Post-TUF, Major AU, J/J, A/T, Kyle, Danni )*RE-POST IN PROGRESS* - Date Edited: 8/1/06 11:31am (1 edits total) Edited By: rebel_cheese
CHAPTER TWELVE

Wynssa was holding the throttle control so tight that her knuckles had gone white and her whole hand was starting to shake as she tried to force the blasted control to go further, tried to force her Scorcher to move faster, faster, faster! The Vong had already murdered her parents, taken her brother, tortured and violated her, and left her almost crazy. Wyn was going to die before she let the Vong kill her Valin, take away the only thing she had left to live for.

“Wynssa, stop!”

Wynssa gritted her teeth and tried to force herself not to listen to Jag’s pleadings for her to slow down and listen to him. Valin was going to die if she didn’t do something! Why couldn’t Jag understand that?

Oh yeah, that’s right, Wyn thought, he’s a heartless jerk who’d sacrifice his own fiancé rather than disobey orders.

“Wyn, please!” Jag begged again. “You’re going to get us both killed! Stop already!”

“Why are you even following me?” Wynssa screamed. “What do you care if Valin and Jaina—?”

“Finish that sentence, Wynssa Fel, and I swear on Chak’s grave that I will shoot you down myself!” Jag screamed, his voice so forceful that it left no room in Wyn’s mind that he’d go through with his threat. He’d get away with it, too; no one on the Archangel would care if one of their own was forced to kill the crazy, scar-covered Fel girl. No one expect Valin, anyway…

“Wyn, please!” Jag begged. “Just slow down for a minute and think about what you’re doing! What good are you going to be to Valin if you get yourself killed like this? What will you dying do to him?”

Wynssa’s eye twitched as soon as Jag’s last question reached her ears, and for the first time she actually thought about what she was doing. Even after two barrages from the Archangel, there were still thirty-five coralskippers attacking the remaining Jedi fighters. The Vong would easily be able to spare a dozen ships to take out Wynssa and Jag, and then the Jedi would have to cover them as well as themselves.

In short, Wyn wasn’t going to be helping Valin by coming to his rescue; she’d be helping the Vong kill him. And Jag was right; Valin was the one person aboard the Archangel who truly cared about Wyn. Her death would rip his heart to shreds.

While a pair of tears forced their way out of Wynssa’s eyes, her hand slowly and deliberately eased her Scorcher’s throttle back.

Over the comm, she heard Jag sigh in relief. “Good girl, Wyn.”

Wyn didn’t say anything in return. All she could do was stare out her cockpit at the furious dogfight that her Valin was right in the middle of. She still wanted to do nothing more than run in there with all guns blazing, but what was left of the rational side of her mind was working again, and she wasn’t going to be stupid and get herself killed like that.

“Everything’s going to be fine, Wyn,” Jag assured her from his Scorcher, which was now formed up alongside her. “Let’s just go back, alright; we can’t do—.”

“Raven squadron, this is the Archangel,” Danni’s worried and tired voice interrupted Jag just as he was about to start saying anything. “Are you two alright?”

“Raven one okay,” Jag reported, his voice the epitome of a perfect, crisp military tone.

Wynssa’s report, on the other hand, was barely more than the small squeak of a terrified girl. “I’m fine.”

“Good.” Danni said. “Can you two get a lock on the corals that are still flying around that interdictor?”

Wynssa forced herself to stop looking at the dogfight-where-Valin’s-going-to-die ahead of her and quickly worked her Scorcher’s sensors. She almost instantly managed to get a lock on the corals Danni was talking about.

“What are they?” Jag asked slowly.

“We think they’re capital ship killers,” Danni explained. “The enemy cruisers are attempting to ram the Archangel and knock her shields out so those things can walk in and destroy her. You can’t let that happen.”

Wynssa felt a sudden surge of joy at the prospect of killing some more Vong, but even that prospect wasn’t enough to get her mind off the fact that Valin was in trouble! She shook her head and repeated what Jag had told her inside her mind—I’m not going to be any use to Valin if I’m dead. “Danni, we’re not going to be able to stop them with t-two S-Scorchers.”

“Wyn?”

“I’m f-fine,” Wynssa said. She just couldn’t stop worrying about Valin, and it was taking all the self-control she had not to go running into that dogfight to save him. “Now are you going to tell us how in all hell we’re going to k-kill twenty-four of those things with two fighters?”

“Fury squadron’s heading out to help you, but if someone doesn’t slow those strike corals down, they’ll rip the Archangel to pieces before the Furies get them.” Danni explained. “Anakin, Valin, and Zekk will cover you; all you have to do is force those corals to take a little longer getting to the Archangel, alright?”

“Right,” Jag replied crisply.

“Oh, and, Wyn!” Danni said quickly.

“Yeah?”

“Valin’s going to be fine. I promise.” Danni said reassuringly. “The sooner you kill those corals, the sooner you and he can get back to the ship.”

“Right.” Wynssa sighed, repeating the statement over and over again in her head to force herself to focus. “Jag, let’s go.”

“Are you sure you’re okay, Wyn?” Jag asked, but he kept his Scorcher beside hers as she started speeding up towards the strike corals and their interdictor guardian. “If you’re going to snap—.”

“I am not going to snap! I’m not insane, Jag!” Wynssa cried angrily before melting back into being worried sick about her boyfriend. “I’m just worried about Valin, that’s all.”

“He’ll—.”

“Be fine, I know,” Wynssa interrupted. “Can we just shut up and kill those corals, please?”

Wyn just knew that Jag was going to have a rather disapproving look on his face, but she didn’t care. She wanted to get rid of these strike corals as quickly as possible and then get back to the Archangel and kiss Valin so hard that he’d lose a couple of teeth.

Focusing on that prospect, Wynssa locked onto the nearest strike coral and took a look at it. The TIE bomber-like design was rather strange, but Wyn didn’t care about how the ship looked; it was going to be dead in a few seconds, whether she thought it looked nice or not. And, personally, Wyn believed that anything to do with the Vong was automatically hideous and evil and absolutely deserved to die.

Preferably by her hand, of course.

“Wyn, if they’ve got two hulls, they’ll probably have two dovin basals, too,” Jag theorised. “They’ll be able to block our shots with one and keep using the other to move.”

“So we both go for the same one,” Wynssa said. “Ready?”

Jag replied with a click, and then they were within weapons range. The dual-hulled strike corals were flying in close formation on the opposite side of the interdictor from Jag and Wynssa. The interdictor was determined to protect the strike corals, and its commander knew that two Scorchers were no serious threat to his ship. Wynssa weaved her way through the interdictor’s magma shots, and then barrel-rolled underneath the ship, not taking so much as a single direct hit. Once on the other side, she switched to cruise mode for half a second and raced past the strike corals. The interdictor instantly ceased firing at her, for fear of hitting the strike corals by mistake.

Wynssa smiled and started firing at the nearest strike. The corals fell into a double-layered box formation, with four rows of three corals each. None of her shots made it past the dovin basal, and even after Jag joined her the strike still didn’t take a single hit. Once its dovin basals started to tire, the next strike across used its second dovin basal to cover it, and all the while the strikes kept moving.

“How the hell are they doing that?” Wynssa demanded.

“The centre corals are using their dovin basals to move and drag the other along,” Jag said. “The outside ones are free to focus on protecting themselves from us. We’re not going to be able to kill any of them!”

“Until the Archangel loses its shields and they attack her,” Wynssa said. At this rate, they weren’t going to be able to slow these monsters down enough to let Fury squadron arrive in time to save the Archangel. There had to be some way to get past the dovin basals—

Wynssa’s smile widened, and she said, “Jag, I’ve got an idea…”

“Which is?”

“We need to take out the centre corals!” Wynssa said, talking so fast that even she had trouble understanding what she was saying. “The other ones will be distracted for a few seconds, and we use that to force them apart and pick them off one by one!”

“And how are we supposed to take out the centre ones?” Jag asked.

“The Furies and the Archangel can lay down a missile barrage at them, and while they’re busy blocking the missiles, we move in for the kill!” Wynssa finished. “Look, Jag, unless you have a better idea—!”

“I don’t, Wyn,” Jag sighed. “Alright, I’ll tell the Furies and the Archangel to get ready for a missile run. You just better hope that this works, because, if it doesn’t, we’re not going to have enough time to come up with another plan.”

“It’ll work, Jag!” Wynssa snapped. “Just tell the Archangel to—.”

“Wyn, what’s taking so long?” Danni screamed over the comm. Wynssa didn’t need the Force to pick up the pain in the older woman’s voice.

“Danni, are you—?”

“I’m fine,” Danni interrupted. “But those cruisers just rammed us. We’ve got no shields, and the generators have overloaded. We’re not getting them back any time soon.”

Halfway through the Jedi knight’s report, Wynssa banked away from the strike corals and took a look at the Archangel. The massive arrowhead shaped warship was veering away from the floating wrecks of the three dead Yuuzhan Vong cruisers, trying desperately to avoid the Vong battleship. The immense battleship was turning away from its slugging match with the Lusankya, forcing the Archangel to run straight towards the interdictor and the strike corals.

The strike corals which were even now starting their attack run.

“Oh, kriff!” Wynssa cursed. “Danni, you have to tell Fury squadron to hold back for a minute! Jag and I need a missile barrage from them and the Archangel’s missile bays the same second the strikes get in range!”

“Why?” Danni asked.

“Just do it!” Wynssa screamed. “Jag—.”

“Wyn, we have incoming!” Jag cried. “Twelve coralskippers just broke away from the Black Knights. They’re heading straight for us.”

Wynssa glanced at her sensor board and grimaced. “Oh… damn it…”



Another twitch of the finger, and another coralskipper fell apart underneath the fury of Valin’s guns. He mentally notched another mark on his kill list, bringing the total for this battle up to about thirty and leaving only thirteen coralskippers to kill.

Wait… Valin thought, double-checking his sensors. Thirteen? Where’d the other twelve go?

And then he saw them.

Headed straight for Wynssa.

Oh.

“Anakin, Zekk, you guys are going to have to handle these guys yourself!” Valin cried as he whipped his Scorcher up into a vicious back flip, aimed its nose at the coral squadron going after Wyn and Jag, and punched the throttle to full. Anakin and Zekk’s only reply was to send him a rather powerful surge of utter dislike through the Force, which Valin didn’t even notice. He didn’t really care what they thought of his reckless attempt to save his girlfriend. Someone had to save her and Jag, and, apart from Valin, the only pilot in range was Tahiri, and Valin was sure that Anakin wouldn’t appreciate her swinging her wrecked Scorcher around to fight a whole squadron of corals.

Thus, it was up to Valin.

Even after switching to cruise mode, it took Valin several seconds to catch up to the corals. Each second seemed like an hour, and once the coralskippers started firing on Jag and Wyn, time slowed even further and each passing second suddenly felt like a week.

“Come on, you heap of junk, move!” Valin snarled in frustration. His Scorcher just wasn’t fast enough! At this rate, Jag and Wyn would be dead before Valin got within weapons range of those kriffing—

His crosshair suddenly lit up, interrupting him mid-thought and prompting his finger to slam down upon the trigger. Red fire erupted from his Scorcher’s engine pods and nose, raining hell onto the closest coralskipper. The Vong pilot decided that trying to survive Valin’s sudden and rather violent entrance into the fight was slightly more important than lining up his magma cannons on Jag’s Scorcher, and tried to jink away from Valin’s guns. Valin stuck to him like a hungry Nubian tusk cat, refusing to let the skip get away. Within moments, the dovin basals tired and supercharged laser blasts tore apart the coral’s tail.

The rest of the coral’s squadron were quite surprised at Valin’s sudden appearance, and they allowed themselves to be distracted for the smallest moment. Against pilots of Jag and Wyn’s calibre, that wasted moment proved fatal. In the blink of an eye, two more skips were blasted out of existence by the Fel siblings, and a heartbeat later Valin added another one to the rapidly growing list of dead Vong.

Valin whipped his Scorcher around and his thumb twitched on its own, sending six burst of red fire into the coralskippers that were under attack by Jag and Wyn, annihilating them both. A moment later, Anakin and Zekk raced in, laser cannons stuttering. Four more corals were sent into oblivion, mere seconds before Jag and Wynssa sent the last two on their fiery path to whatever afterlife the Vong believed in.

“Valin, are you alright?” Wynssa cried.

“Yeah, Wyn, I’m fine,” Valin replied. “What about you?”

“Couldn’t be better. I’m really glad you’re okay!”

“Valin, Wyn, cut it out!” Jag ordered. “The strikes are nearly inside the Archangel’s missile range!”

“Why is that so—?” Anakin began, but he stopped, rather abruptly, when the Archangel and all fourteen members of Fury squadron unleashed a massive missile barrage onto the strike corals.

“Oh… right…” Anakin said slowly.

“Anakin, listen!” Wyn cried. “Those missiles are going to distract the strikes’ dovin basals for us! When the missiles hit, we have to take out the centre strikes! After that, we just have to keep them apart until Fury squadron gets over here.”

“Wyn—.” Valin began.

“Just do it, guys!” Wyn screamed.

Valin scowled at his commlink and slipped his Scorcher into position with Anakin and Zekk and then waited for the missiles to reach their targets. The strikes didn’t even flinch as well over four dozen concussion missiles streaked in far too quickly for the human eye to follow. The strike corals’ dovin basals moved to intercept the missiles, which began exploding moments before being sucked into a singularity. The strikes flew straight into the explosions undeterred, detonating more missiles with their singularities as they did. Some missiles began to slip through, and some strikes detonated in brilliant balls of fire, scattering debris everywhere. Due to their close formation, the debris hurtled straight into other strikes, damaging or destroying them as well. By the time the Ravens and Black Knights got involved, eight strikes were already dead, and the remaining were either disorientated, damaged, or both. The three Jedi hammered the centre strikes, killing three of the most heavily damaged ones outright and leaving two more trailing fire. The strike formation began to break apart, and when Jag and Wynssa unleashed their barrage upon them, it well and truly disintegrated. The strikes, under coordination by the battleship’s yammosk, tried to get back into formation, but every attempt was thwarted by either the Black Knights or the two Ravens. When Fury squadron arrived, the fourteen surviving strikes were in total disarray.

Fury squadron’s first run took out the only strikes that had managed to get back into formation, and then all three Scorcher squadrons began a mercilessly mopping up operation. The fight—if it could be called that—didn’t even last half a minute.

Valin couldn’t resist a sigh of relief when the Furies took down the last pair of strikes. The battle was over now; the Vong battleship’s attempt to chase down the Archangel had exposed its poorly defended stern to a full broadside from the Lusankya, and the massive chunk of coral was leaking flotsam and fire from numerous hull breaches all across its surface. The Lusankya, on the other hand, hadn’t even lost shields yet. What few coralskippers were left were too busy fighting Scorchers to move to protect either the battleship or the interdictor-carrier hybrid. It was only going to be a matter of time before the two capital ships got picked off by dozens of Scorcher fighters.

“Boys, are you okay?” Danni asked.

“We’re fine,” Zekk replied. “Can we go after that interdictor-carrier thing now?”

On the other end of the comm, Danni chuckled. “It’s all yours. Take that thing out, and then we can get the hell out of here.”

“Master Durron—.”

“After picking up our EV pilots,” Danni stated before Jag could finish his protest. “Now get to work.”

The pilots didn’t need to be told twice. Within fifteen minutes, the interdictor was little more than floating debris, and, fifteen minutes after that, so was the battleship.



 

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E-married to the amazing padawanlost love
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rebel_cheese 
Registered: Jul '06
42800_Anakin Solo
Date Posted: 8/1/06 11:34am Subject: RE: Shattered Mirror (Post-TUF, Major AU, J/J, A/T, Kyle, Danni )*RE-POST IN PROGRESS*
CHAPTER TWELVE(B)


The Archangel’s hangar was even more of a mess than it usually was. Tahiri’s Scorcher had fallen apart as it touched down, and was now little more than a mess of smouldering metal, leaking fuel and coolant all over the hangar deck. Half a dozen technicians were already scurrying over the wreck, trying to stop the explosive fuel and coolant from leaking or igniting. More Scorchers were landing every second, most damaged in one way or another. But they were always the wrong Scorchers; Tahiri had been waiting for her husband to land for coming up on half an hour now, and she was getting well and truly sick of it. What in the universe could be taking him and the others so long? What was so hard about mopping up a bunch of poorly trained scarheads?

Another trio of Scorchers—all that was left of Halo squadron—entered the hangar and gently touched down towards one corner, further infuriating Tahiri. Had Anakin volunteered to land last, or something? Why was he letting anything get between him and his wife? Especially now that he had, not just a wife, but an entire family to come back too?

Tahiri suddenly realised that she was absentmindedly rubbing her stomach, and she instantly whipped her hands behind her back and clasped her fingers together to make sure she didn’t do that again. She didn’t want anyone thinking she was pregnant until she and Anakin decided to tell them. Which, Tahiri had been thinking, had better be sooner rather than later. She was never going to tell anyone this—other than Anakin, anyway—but she had shook the whole way back from that near-lethal dogfight. From the moment her shields failed to getting out of her ruined fighter’s smoke-filled cockpit, Tahiri had been scared almost to death. And she hadn’t just been scared for herself. The thought that one last magma burst might end, not only her life, but also those of her unborn children had scared her right down to her core. She had come to the realisation that Anakin had been right in trying to make her leave the Black Knights. He had barely been able to concentrate, constantly worrying about Tahiri and the twins growing inside her womb. Tahiri knew that, sooner or later, those momentarily lapses of concentration were going to earn her husband a magma burst to the cockpit. As much as she wanted to help win the war and ensure that Anakin was safe by flying alongside him, the safety of her children and her husband had to come first.

“Tahiri!”

Tahiri turned, and was overjoyed to see Anakin bounding over to her. She was so surprised that she barely managed to stumble two steps towards him before he reached her and wrapped her in his arms, pressing his soft lips against her hair. Tahiri pushed him back and then reached up to wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him hard.

“Are you okay?” Anakin demanded once he and Tahiri finally stopped kissing.

“I’m fine,” Tahiri replied, snuggling her face against his chest and trying, unsuccessfully, to suppress a cough.

“Are you sure?” Anakin asked protectively.

“Yeah,” Tahiri sighed. “It’s only a bit of smoke inhalation, that’s all.”

“That’s all?” Anakin snapped. “Tahiri—.”

“I’ll go up to the med bay in a minute, Anakin,” Tahiri sighed softly. “I just wanted to make sure that you were okay first. I was so worried about you.”

“Forget about me!” Anakin insisted. “What about you and the babies?”

“Shh!” Tahiri hissed, glancing around the hangar to make sure no one had heard Anakin’s outburst. “We’re all—ah-ahck—we’re all fine. I’ve just got a bit of a cough, Anakin, that’s all. I… I was just so worried. I had to leave you, Zekk, and Valin out there by yourselves against almost three squadrons of coralskippers. I mean, no one really cares about you two, but if Valin got hurt, Wyn would never forgive me.”

Anakin laughed and kissed his wife. “I love you, Tahiri.”

“I love you, too, Anakin,” Tahiri said happily, pressing herself against his chest and sighing in pleasure. “And, I want you to know that—.”

“Tahiri, you’re not getting back inside a Scorcher!” Anakin quite rudely interrupted. “I don’t care how you feel about it! It’s only going to get us both killed. Knowing that you and the babies were all in danger just… all I wanted to do out there was protect you. Protect all three of you. But… if I tried to, I’d probably get myself killed, get you killed, maybe even get Valin and Zekk killed!”

“I know that, Anakin,” Tahiri sighed. “That’s why I think we should tell everyone at the debriefing.”

“Ah… what?”

Tahiri chuckled. “You were right; it’s not fair to risk the lives of our children like that. If I keep flying, you’re going to do something really stupid and get yourself killed and leave our children without a father. And then I’d be responsible for that. I’m not going to risk losing you, and I’m not ever going to risk the lives of my children. Not ever again.”

Anakin was completely dumbfounded. “Ah… okay, who are you and what have you done with my wife?”

Tahiri smiled. “I haven’t done anything to her… she just became a mom, that’s all.”

Anakin breathed a sigh of relief and kissed Tahiri again. “Oh… thank you, Tahiri. To tell you the truth, I… I was going to tell Kyle and the others whether or not you agreed to it. Heck, I’d tie you to our bed if it would keep you and the babies out of danger.”

“Let’s see you try it,” Tahiri warned, reaching up for another kiss. “Where the hell were you, anyway?”

“Talking with Kyle and Yannik.”

Tahiri was shocked. “You put off making sure I was okay to talk to Kyle and Yannik? Anakin!”

“Wedge was taking the Lusankya into hyperspace, Tahiri,” Anakin explained. “I wanted to say goodbye to Ben.”

“What? Wedge left?” Tahiri spluttered. “No one told me?”

“Well, your Scorcher’s comm system is buried in that pile of scrap over there,” Anakin pointed at what was left of Tahiri’s Scorcher. “And you’re not carrying a commlink. Besides, I said goodbye for you.”

“That’s not the point, Anakin!” Tahiri said in annoyance. “I love Ben as much as you do. I would have liked to say goodbye myself.”

“I know, Tahiri, I know,” Anakin sighed. “But Wedge wanted to leave straight away, before any more Vong show up. We can just cloak if any more show up, and there’s almost ten thousand children aboard the Lusankya.”

Tahiri nodded. “Where’s Valin and Zekk?”

“On the bridge still.” Anakin replied. “I don’t think it’s really hit them that Azias and Cirila are gone. I don’t think it’s really hit me, either.”

“What about Jaina?” Tahiri asked. “Do you know if she’s okay?”

To Tahiri’s relief, Anakin nodded. “They’ve got her beacon. The rescue shuttles should pick her up.”

“How far away is she?” Tahiri demanded. “Are the shuttles going to be able to get to her if any more Vong show up?”

Anakin closed his eyes and squeaked “I hope so.”

“Why don’t we grab the Jade Shadow and go after her ourselves?” Tahiri asked. “Just to make sure that—.”

“The Shadow’s already out there, Tahiri,” Anakin sighed. “One of the shuttles was malfunctioning; they needed something.”

“The Raven’s Claw?”

Anakin shook his head. “We still haven’t repaired it yet.”

Tahiri swore. “We can’t just leave her out there! If anymore Vong show up, Kyle and Yannik will—.”

“I know, Tahiri, I know,” Anakin sighed sadly. Both of them knew which example Tahiri had been about to use: three months ago, the Archangel had accidentally walked into the middle of a Yuuzhan Vong task force. The Archangel had emerged victorious, but in the fight both Valin Horn and Kyp Durron had been shot down and forced to eject from their Scorchers. Valin was picked up without a problem, but before any of the rescue shuttles could get to Kyp, another force of Vong showed up, one that would have easily laid waste to the Archangel. Yannik had no choice other than to cloak the Archangel and jump out, leaving Kyp and three other pilots to slowly suffocate or freeze to death in cold space.

“Anakin… we can’t let her die like that!” Tahiri whimpered. “She hasn’t even been back for a week!”

“Tahiri, if there was any way I could get out there and rescue her, I’d do it! But there are no shuttles left, and most of the Scorchers are too badly damaged to fly! And the ones that aren’t are almost out of fuel.” Anakin said. “Look, I really want to get back up to the bridge and keep an eye on Jaina. Make sure the shuttles get her. Will you be alright?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” Tahiri replied. “I really wanted to find Wyn, anyway. I don’t think she took that battle too well.”

“I still think that she shouldn’t be flying in the first place—.”

“She’s one of the best non-Jedi pilots we have, Anakin!” Tahiri objected. “Now, go on, get up to the bridge. I’ll be fine.”

“Alright,” Anakin said, and then, after giving his wife one last kiss, ran off towards the nearest turbolift. Tahiri watched him leave and then looked around the hangar, searching for Wynssa. She soon spotted her; the young woman was leaning against the nose landing strut of her Scorcher, holding her knees against her chest as she cried into her arms.

“Oh no…” Tahiri sighed before hurrying over to her friend. “Wynssa?”

Wynssa stopped crying for a moment and looked up at Tahiri. As usual, her long blonde hair was covering most of her face, but Tahiri could still see a pair of moist, slimy trails running down Wynssa’s cheeks.

“Wynssa, are you okay?” Tahiri asked, slowly sitting down next to her. “Why are you crying?”

“Because… because… oh…” Wynssa buried her face in her arms and started sobbing again.

“Wynssa, what’s wrong?” Tahiri asked gently, sliding her hand onto Wynssa’s shoulder. “What happened out there?”

“I… I told Jag… I told him that he didn’t care about Jaina… that he wanted her to die!” Wynssa sobbed. “And now he hates me…”

“Wyn, he doesn’t hate you—.”

“Yes, he does! He didn’t say anything to me when we landed. All he did was look at me and then run off.” Wynssa cried. “Everybody hates me! No one on this entire ships gives a damn about me! I’m just the crazy, scar-covered Fel girl! Whenever anyone looks at me, all they see is Kharran’s ex-toy!”

“You know that’s not true, Wynssa,” Tahiri said, rubbing Wynssa’s shoulder blades. “Would I be sitting here if I didn’t care about you?”

Wynssa’s only reply was a sniffle.

“And what about Valin? He loves you.”

“Then where is he? Why wasn’t he here to meet me?”

“Kyle called him up to the bridge before you landed,” Tahiri told her. “He’s probably worried sick about you, though. We all are. Wyn, you’re not just the crazy, former toy of the Warmaster to us. You’re a really special girl—.”

“Special?” Wyn spluttered in disgust. “Because Kharran tortured me? Because I’m insane?”

“You’re not insane!” Tahiri objected. “And how many people do you think could have survived what you’ve been through? I can’t think of anyone who has had to suffer half as much as you have. The Vong took away your home, your parents, tortured you, and then took away your brother, but they still haven’t beaten you.” Tahiri let her words sink in for a few seconds. “Wyn, we all love you. Valin, myself, Anakin, Danni… we all love you. And Jag’s probably just upset, and, if you really told him what you just said you did, I can’t blame him. Now, come on, let me take you up to the bridge. Valin would really like to see you, and apologising to Jag couldn’t hurt.”

Wynssa nodded.

“Come on,” Tahiri said, gently grabbing Wynssa’s shoulders and pulling her to her feet. Wyn vindictively wiped away the tears that were running down her cheeks, but she still looked a total mess. Tahiri was just about to pull her in for a hug when the hangar’s alert sirens went off.

“What the hell? We’re cloaking?” Tahiri demanded, looking around the hangar in confusion. “Oh no… Jaina!”

Wynssa suddenly wrestled out of Tahiri’s grip and clambered up her Scorcher’s boarding ladder. Tahiri cried out “Wait!” and ran after her. Wynssa leapt over the last few rings and dropped into the Scorcher’s open cockpit, already reaching for her commlink’s headpiece.

“Valin!” She cried into it as she worked the comm controls. “Valin, can you hear me?”

Tahiri stopped atop the boarding ladder and looked down into the Scorcher’s cockpit, watching Wynssa as the girl talked to her boyfriend.

“Don’t worry about me! Why are we cloaking? More Vong! How many? Oh Force… Jaina, what about Jaina? Is she okay? Did the shuttles get her? Oh no…”

Tahiri didn’t need to hear what Valin was saying to get the point of the message; more Vong had shown up, and the shuttles were heading back to the Archangel before she cloaked and fled… leaving Jaina to die.

No… Tahiri thought. No… oh no, Jaina!

Her attention was suddenly returned to Wynssa when she heard the girl curse and hurl her commlink aside.

“Tahiri, get off the Scorcher!” Wynssa ordered, reaching for the headband she used to keep her hair away from her face while she was flying.

“No, Wynssa, wait! What are you doing?”

“I’m going after Jaina!” Wynssa snarled, powering up her Scorcher. “I’ve got enough fuel to pick her up and get back here, and I’ll be able to do it before we jump.”

“And what if you don’t get back here in time?”

“Then get Yannik to give me the coordinates you’re jumping too!” Wynssa replied as she reached for her flight helmet. “I have to do this, Tahiri!”

“Wynssa, no, this is crazy!”

“I am crazy, remember!” Wynssa snapped. “Now get off the Scorcher, Tahiri! I’ll launch whether you get off or not!”

Tahiri locked eyes with Wynssa for a moment, and she suddenly realised that there was no talking her out of this. Wynssa was either going to bring Jaina back or die trying, and there was nothing that anyone could do to stop her.

“Just don’t do anything stupid, Wynssa,” Tahiri begged. “I don’t want Jaina to die, but I don’t want you to die, either. You make sure you get back here, okay?”

Wynssa nodded and reached for the canopy control. “Tell Valin I love him.”

“I will,” Tahiri replied, and then she jumped off the Scorcher’s boarding ladder. The ladder receded back into the fighter’s hull and the armour plating closed over it, and then the ship lifted off the deck, spun around towards the hangar entrance.

An instant later, it was back in space.



Wynssa didn’t waste a moment in locking onto Jaina’s emergency beacon once she was outside of the Archangel’s hangar. Jaina’s beacon was still online, and, mercifully, coming from the opposite side of the Archangel from the new force of Yuuzhan Vong cruisers. Wynssa whipped her Scorcher around in a vicious turn and pushed the throttle up to cruise speed, racing past the returning rescue shuttles.

“Lieutenant Fel, what the hell do you think do your doing?”

“Trying to rescue Jaina!” Wyn cried back into her commlink. “Do you want her to die, Master Katarn?”

“No, but I don’t want you to die, either!” Kyle snapped. “Yannik thinks that you’re the traitor! He’s already had the missile launchers lock onto you!”

“What?” Wynssa cried, checking her distance from the Archangel. She was still well within missile range. “Master Katarn, you have to call them off! I’m not the traitor! I’m only trying to rescue Jaina!”

“Wynssa, by the time you get to her and pull her into your cockpit, we’ll have already jumped!”

“So give me the coordinates you’re jumping too!”

“You know what Yannik’s going to say.”

“I’m not the kriffing traitor!” Wynssa screamed. “Now either give me the hyperspace coordinates or leave me and Jaina to die! I’m not coming back without her!”

“Wyn? Wyn, can you hear me?”

“What… Jag?” Wynssa whispered.

“Wyn, listen to me. I want you to turn around, right now.”

“Don’t you want Jaina back?”

“Wyn—.”

“I’m doing this, Jag! Either help me or shut up!”

With that, Wynssa slammed her hand down onto her comm controls, deactivating them. She was only a few seconds away from leaving the range of the Archangel’s missile launchers. If Kyle didn’t convince Yannik to leave Wyn alone, she’d only have a few more seconds before the little green captain sent a barrage of concussion missiles up Wynssa’s tail.

Five seconds later, the Archangel still hadn’t fired.

“Thank you, Kyle!” Wynssa sighed in joy, before brining her Scorcher out of cruise speed and brought it down to little more than a crawl. According to the Scorcher’s sensors, Jaina was only a few metres in front of the fighter. Wyn reached for the cockpit controls and flicked it to open, overriding the safety systems when they tried to prevent it. Her flight suit protected her from the explosive decompression, but she still couldn’t see Jaina anywhere. Wynssa cursed under her breath and double-checked her sensors. They still said that Jaina was right in front of the ship, so Wyn undid her crash webbing, ready to climb out of her Scorcher’s cockpit and find Jaina herself.

And then a gloved hand grabbed onto the edge of the Scorcher’s nose. Wyn smiled as Jaina climbed on top of the fighter’s nose and sprang towards the cockpit. Wyn caught her and pulled her in before closing the canopy over them.

There was hardly enough room for one person inside a Scorcher’s cockpit, and now that there were two people inside Wynssa’s, there was hardly enough room for her to reach for the controls. After a few agonising seconds of fumbling, she finally managed to grab hold of the flight stick and flip her Scorcher over, aiming it back towards the Archangel.

Just as the star destroyer cloaked.

Oh… damn it…

Wynssa frantically reached for her hyperspace controls, and she felt her skin turn pale when she saw that the Archangel hadn’t given her any jump coordinates.

“Oh no…” Wyn sighed. “Raven two to Archangel! Can you hear me? Oh, please, don’t tell me you’ve jumped! Archangel!”

“Hang on, Wynssa, we’re still calculating our jump vector,” Jag’s voice replied. “Just hang on for a few more seconds.”

“Just hurry up, I’ve got about fifty coralskippers coming at me!” Wynssa cried.

“We’re trying, Wyn. Did you get Jaina?”

“Yeah, Jag, she got me,” Jaina sighed.

Both women heard Jag sigh in relief. “Thank the Force. Okay, we’re transmitting the jump coordinates now. See you two soon. I love you, Jaina. And… you too, Wynssa.”

Wynssa was about to reply when an alarm went off, signalling that another Vong force had just dropped in. Wyn cast a quick gaze at her sensor board, and almost cried when she saw that this latest squadron of enemies included an interdictor.

“Oh, damn it!” Wynssa cursed, reaching for the hyperspace controls.

“Wyn, what are you doing?” Jaina demanded. “You haven’t put the coordinates in yet!”

“If we don’t get out of here before that interdictor puts its gravity wells up, we’re both dead!”

“But you can’t blind jump! That’s crazy—.

Wynssa ignited the hyperdrive.

 

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Padawan of princess_of_naboo
E-married to the amazing padawanlost love
Member of Charon_Force
Beginning's End: http://boards.theforce.net/Message.aspx?topic=28450077&brd=10477&replies=1
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rebel_cheese 
Registered: Jul '06
42800_Anakin Solo
Date Posted: 8/1/06 11:42am Subject: RE: Shattered Mirror (Post-TUF, Major AU, J/J, A/T, Kyle, Danni )*RE-POST IN PROGRESS*
CHAPTER THIRTEEN


Wynssa only left her Scorcher in hyperspace for a few seconds before pulling back on the hyperdrive controls and reverting it back to realspace.

“Are we still alive?” She squeaked.

“No thanks to you…” Jaina sighed. “What the hell were you thinking? Jumping into hyperspace blind? Are you crazy?”

“Yeah.” Wynssa replied. “The last time anybody checked, anyway.”

That seemed to make Jaina relax a little. “Well… next time, try not to something that stupid. You could have gotten us both killed.”

“I don’t know about you, but I’d rather jump into a star than be vaporised by coralskippers,” Wynssa said softly. “Where are we, anyway? You’re sitting on the navicomputer.”

Jaina shifted around until she could look down at the controls. “We’re nowhere near the Archangel, that’s for sure. The navicomputer’s still trying to figure out where the hell you’ve sent us. I don’t see any planets around, though.”

“Deep space,” Wynssa sighed, squirming uncomfortably against Jaina’s side. The two women were so close that Wyn could almost hear Jaina’s heart beating. It wasn’t pleasant. “Perfect. Any systems around?”

“No idea. We won’t know till the navicomputer figures out where we are,” Jaina sighed and pulled her flight helmet off, letting it float around the cockpit. Scorchers didn’t have gravity generators; the feature had been removed to cut down on the fighter’s power consumption.

“Are you okay?” Wynssa asked when she noticed that Jaina was just staring blankly out of the fighter’s canopy.

“Yeah… I’m fine.” Jaina turned to look at Wyn. “What about you?”

“Well, I’m really wishing that you were Valin right now, but apart from that…”

Jaina laughed. “I know what you mean. There isn’t really much room in here, is there?”

“No,” Wynssa squeaked. “It’d be a perfect opportunity to get a little cuddly with Valin, though…”

“Or Jag,” Jaina added.

“Oh, please, he’s my brother! Ewww!”

Jaina laughed again. “But he’s my fiancé, and that means that I can dream about making out with him all I want.”

“Fine, just don’t talk to me about it!” Wynssa shivered in disgust at the images that were playing through her head and gazed out of the Scorcher’s canopy, trying to find an asteroid, a speck of dust, anything that she could focus on to get those rather… disgusting images of Jaina and Jag together.

After a few seconds, she gave up and asked. “Has the navicomputer finished yet?”

“Yeah, it has. We’re only a short jump away from the coordinates Jag gave us. Just give me a minute to put these coordinates in… there we go. Ready?”

Wyn squirmed uncomfortably. “Not really, but the sooner we get out of this cockpit, the better.”

“I heard that,” Jaina sighed as she activated the hyperdrive. A few moments later, the Scorcher leapt forward into the swirling cobalt tunnel of hyperspace.

“Hey, Wyn…” Jaina began.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for coming out to get me. When I saw the shuttles turn around, I thought I was dead.”

“I couldn’t let you die,” Wyn sighed. “Jag loves you. The only reason he wasn’t the one who came out to save you was because he was up on the bridge when the Vong arrived.”

“Well, thanks.” Jaina sighed. “I owe you my life.”

“No problem,” Wynssa squirmed again, trying in vain to get away from Jaina’s side. “Although I’m starting to wonder whether this was such a good idea. Taking the Scorcher, I mean. Maybe I should have gone with something a little larger.”

“Was anything else available?”

“Not really… but, then again, I didn’t really check.”

“Ah well.” Jaina shrugged. “I’m glad you came out. As uncomfortable as this is, it beats floating in space waiting for my air to run out.”

“It’s not just the comfort thing… I think I’m going to get another flashback if I stay in here much longer…”

“Flashback?” Jaina cocked an eyebrow. “Oh… right… Myrkr.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you get these flashbacks often?”

“Every now and then,” Wyn moaned. “Usually, they’re just nightmares, but… if I get stuck in a situation I don’t like… especially one involving tight spaces and… someone I don’t know… I usually get one.”

“Think you’ll be able to hold out till we reach the Archangel?”

“Depends…” Wynssa replied. “How long till we reach the Archangel?”

“Five minutes.”

“Probably not,” Wynssa moaned, squirming again. She was getting more and more uncomfortable by the second now—a development that she knew always preceded one of her Myrkr flashbacks. Usually, she could get Valin or Tahiri to fight the accursed flashback off, but without them around… Wyn cringed at the thought of going through another horrific flashback. “Jaina… help me!”

“Alright, hang on,” Jaina said as she wriggled around enough to bring her hands up to Wyn’s face and unfasten the younger women’s flight helmet.

“No, wait! What are you doing?” Wyn demanded. Jaina ignored her completely and carefully pulled Wyn’s flight helmet off before gently laying her palm across Wyn’s forehead.

“Just relax, Wynssa. I’m really not that good at this.” Jaina said as she concentrated.

“Jaina, what are you doing?” Wyn whimpered, horrified by the fact that someone was touching her. She tried to bring the hand that wasn’t stuck beneath Jaina’s body up to protect herself, but Jaina grabbed her wrist and pushed it back down.

“Wynssa, do you want me to help or not?”

“Yes, but do you have to touch me?”

“Not if you’d rather go through another flashback.”

Wynssa gave up and stopped struggling, although she couldn’t help squeaking in protest as Jaina’s hand pressed firmly against her forehead. Soon, though, she felt herself beginning to relax, and slowly she stopped squeaking and squirming.

“See.”

Wynssa slowly opened her eyes and looked at Jaina. “What are you doing?”

“Using the Force,” Jaina sighed. “I’m trying to keep you calm and away from your Myrkr memories.”

“I think it’s working.” Wyn replied. “Can you keep it up?”

“If you don’t try to stop me.”

“I can’t help it. I don’t like being touched.” Wynssa whimpered. Compared to the prospect of going through another flashback, though, putting up with having Jaina touch her was nothing to complain about.

After a while, Wyn noticed that Jaina was looking at her. Jaina’s eyes darted away the moment that Wyn spotted them staring, and Wyn instantly knew what the Jedi had been looking at.

“It’s okay, Jaina,” Wynssa said. “I’ve gotten kinda used to people staring at my scars.”

“I still can’t believe how bad they are,” Jaina breathed. Wynssa understood perfectly; even she had trouble believing how badly Kharran had mutilated her. The scar pattern went from above her right eyebrow, down across her entire right cheek, and even partway down the side of her neck.

“Is there any reason why Kharran gave you those scars?”

“Excuse me?”

“Were they just random torture, or—.”

“Was there a point to it?” Wyn finished. She continued after Jaina nodded. “Yeah, there was a point to it. He’d always give me one before he started torturing me. Basically, each scar represents one torture session.”

“How many do you have?”

“Fifty-three.”

Jaina blinked in shock. “He tortured you fifty-three times?”

“That’s not including the times when he just lengthened the scar he gave me the day before,” Wyn moaned. “I don’t know how many times he did that… I could have gone through sixty to seventy torture sessions for all I know.”

“Oh Force… Wynssa…” Jaina breathed in horror.

“Stop that!” Wyn snarled. “The only reason you care at all is because you feel sorry for me!”

“Of course I feel sorry for you!” Jaina objected. “I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t feel sorry for you.”

Wynssa looked away from Jaina’s caring gaze. “Still… after four years, I’m kinda getting sick of people feeling sorry for what Kharran did to me.”

“He didn’t… he didn’t torture you… well…” Jaina paused for a moment, unable to phrase her question properly. “He didn’t… you know…”

“I think I do,” Wynssa interrupted. “And the answer’s yes; he did hurt me like that. Not as often as he probably could have, but—.”

“That’s not the point,” Jaina said forcefully as she pulled the younger woman into a hug. To Wyn’s surprise, she didn’t even feel like squirming. In fact, she was almost enjoying the embrace.

“No one ever deserves to be tortured,” Jaina continued, “and especially not like that.”

“Yeah, well, you don’t get many rights as a Vong prisoner,” Wynssa muttered, closing her eyes.

“Wyn, if you want to stop talking about it, just say so.”

“No, it’s okay. This is actually the first time I’ve been able to talk about it without having a flashback.” Wyn opened her eyes and looked at Jaina. “Thank you.”

“No problem.” Jaina said softly, relaxing into a slightly more comfortable position. “What do you usually do when you get a flashback?”

“I try to fight it off while Valin or Tahiri use the Force to put me to sleep,” Wynssa sighed. “Then they just let the flashback come through as a nightmare. The nightmares are never as bad.”

“They don’t try to help you fight it off?”

“It doesn’t work most of the time, and when it doesn’t and the flashback hits me it takes me a week to recover. And, even if I do manage to fight it off, it takes months, and by then I’ve gone through two more. If they just let it come through as a nightmare, it’ll only take me a few hours the next day to recover. Personally, I prefer the nightmare.”

“I guess I would, too,” Jaina sighed, releasing Wyn from her arms. She made sure she kept her hand on the younger woman’s forehead, though, just in case she got another flashback.

Wynssa closed her eyes and relaxed. “This is pretty nice, actually. I don’t like the cramped space, but this has been pretty nice. In a weird sort of way.”

“Thanks… I think…”

Wynssa opened her eyes again, just in time to be blinded by the reversion to realspace. “Oh… sithspit, my eyes!”

“You alright?”

“Yeah, but warn me before we drop out of hyperspace next time!” Wynssa rubbed at her eyes.

“Sorry.”

Wyn blinked until the only spots she could see were stars before she asked. “How’d you do it, anyway? Win the war, I mean. Even without Kharran, how could the Vong lose after taking Coruscant?”

Jaina took a deep breath. “Well, that’s one story I don’t really like repeating.”

“We need something to kill the time, and I’ve already told you my deep emotional wounds. It’s only fair you return the favour.”

“I guess so.” Jaina took a second deep breath. “We were going to lose. The only reason we won was because Jacen, Danni, and Uncle Luke—,” Jaina stopped mid-breath. “Oh… I am such an idiot.”

“Excuse me?”

“Why didn’t I think of that earlier?”

“Sorry?”

“Why didn’t Jag think of that earlier?”

“Think of what?”

“It’s been starting us in the face for days, now.”

“What?”

“Zonama Sekot!”

“Zo-what-a-Sekot?”

“Zonama Sekot! It’s a living planet!”

“A living planet?” Wynssa spluttered. “That’s impossible!”

“No, it isn’t,” Jaina replied offhandedly. “And Jag and I already know it’s connection to the Vong… all we’d have to do is explain things to Sekot and then get it to take the Vong away.”

“Take them away?” Wyn demanded, utterly and hopelessly confused. “Don’t you mean kill them?”

“You can’t kill every last Yuuzhan Vong, Wynssa!”

“Why not? We’ve been trying to do that for years now.”

“Alright, aside from the moral issues involved, how long would it take to hunt down and murder every last Yuuzhan Vong in the galaxy?”

“It wouldn’t be murder…”

“Answer the question, Wynssa!”

Wyn flinched; after the amount of times she had heard that coming from Kharran during an especially violent torture session, who could blame her?

“Wyn?”

“A while…” Wyn moaned, wondering for a moment why she wasn’t in the middle of a flashback yet. Then she remembered that Jaina’s hand was still laid across her forehead. She was probably still sending soothing pulses of Force energy into Wyn’s mind, keeping her well away from any memory of Myrkr.

“Are you alright?”

Wyn managed a weak nod. It seemed to be all Jaina needed to figure out what was wrong, though.

“Wyn, I know Kharran tortured you, and I’m not saying that you should just forget about that. But Kharran was the one who violated you. Not the entire Vong species. It took me ages to get used to the idea, but the Vong don’t deserve to be wiped out. And, on a slightly more selfish note, how many more of your friends and family would die if you kept the war going that long?”

Wyn sighed sadly. “Too many.”

Jaina gripped Wyn’s shoulder gently. “Wyn, I know what you’re feeling. After Myrkr in my universe, I hated the Vong so much that I would have vaporised half the galaxy if it meant taking them down.”

“What changed your mind?”

“Let’s just say that there’s not much point winning if there’s no one left to celebrate with,” Jaina sighed. “I never really doubted that I was going to survive. I was afraid that no one else would.”

Wyn looked out of the canopy sadly. She knew exactly what Jaina was talking about; ever since Jag’s death—well, ever since Valin coaxed her close enough to sanity so that she could care about Jag’s death—Valin had been the only thing Wyn had left to live for. She couldn’t even bare the thought of losing him. Wyn wanted revenge on the Vong, but not if it cost Valin his life. She’d much rather just find somewhere where she and Valin could live in peace, well away from the Vong.

“Do you really think you could find it?”

“Depends if there’s any information anywhere,” Jaina sighed. “I know where it is in my universe, but it could be anywhere over here. We’d need to find out if Sekot’s been sighted recently, and then start hunting—.”

“Archangel to Raven Two! Wynssa, can you hear me?”

“Valin?” Wynssa murmured in surprise.

“Wyn! Jaina! One of you, say something!”

Wynssa spent a horrible second fumbling with the comm controls before she finally managed to reply to Valin’s transmission. “Valin!”

“Wyn! Baby, are you okay?”

“Yeah, Valin, I’m fine. What about you? You weren’t even there to meet me when I landed! Where the hell were you?”

“Oh… Baby, I’m sorry. Kyle and Yannik really wanted to talk to us about the… ambush. I’m so sorry, Wyn. Is there anyway I can make it up to you?”

“Well, you can start by decloaking the Archangel so I can get the hell out of this cockpit!” Wynssa snarled angrily. She couldn’t help but cringe when Jaina gave her another rather weird look. I must be switching moods again…

“Just hang on, Wyn. We just wanted to be sure it was you.”

“Of course it’s me!” Wynssa snapped. “Just decloak the ship, already!”

“Just hang on, Wynssa. You’ve lasted this long, Baby. You can handle a few more minutes, can’t you?”

“Just hurry up,” Wynssa moaned, leaning back into her seat.

“I thought you didn’t mind it in here,” Jaina said.

“I still want to get the hell out,” Wynssa said, squirming uncomfortably. “I’m going to think twice next time before I try to rescue someone with a Scorcher fighter.”

Much to Wyn’s displeasure, Jaina laughed. “I’ll make sure I’m not the next person you have to pick up.”

Valin’s voice pierced into the cockpit. “Okay, ladies, we’re decloaking. We’re right behind you, so just swing around and dock. Oh, and, Wyn…”

“Yeah?”

“I love you so much, Baby.”

“I love you too, Valin.” Wynssa slowly and deliberately shut the commlink down and leant back into her seat. “Jaina, can you fly the fighter in, please?”

“Sure,” Jaina replied, squirming around until she could reach the controls. “Are you going to be alright?”

“I’ll be fine, once I get out of here,” Wynssa said. “Now, please hurry up!”



It only took a couple of minutes for Wynssa’s Scorcher to return to the Archangel’s hangar, but for Valin those minutes were amongst the longest of his life. This time around, he was waiting in the hangar for his girlfriend, so eager to get her into his arms that it was taking all of his focus to stop himself from pacing across the deck. He was worried, as well; Wyn didn’t take kindly to being in confined spaces with people. If she hadn’t gone through a flashback already, she was going to get a particularly nasty nightmare tonight. Valin doubted that he was going to be getting much sleep at all. He never did while Wyn was going through one of her worse nightmares. For one thing, he couldn’t stand her screams, but he also couldn’t bare the fact that he couldn’t do anything for her. Her normal nightmares were one thing; Valin could simply sit beside her and stroke her hair and whisper quietly to her, and that was usually all it took to stop the nightmare. But her bad nightmares would leave her crying and screaming all night, and there was nothing that Valin could do to even lessen her torment.

In short, tonight was not going to be fun.

Valin’s eyes drifted from the floor to Wynssa’s Scorcher as the starfighter gracefully entered the Archangel’s hangar. Valin nearly leapt towards where it was landing, but stopped when someone’s hand clapped him firmly on the shoulder, and the young Jedi nearly jumped in surprise.

“She’ll be okay,” Anakin said softly enough so that no one aside from the two of them could hear.

“I sure as hell hope so,” Valin sighed. “Argh, sithspit, I should’ve been here before! I wasn’t even here to meet her when she landed! It’s my fault that she’s going to go through another nightmare tonight.”

“No, it’s her fault.” Anakin corrected. “Or, rather, it was her choice. She’s the one that went after Jaina. And I’m going to thank her for that.” The older Jedi glanced over his shoulder at Jag and Tahiri. “We all are.”

“After I’m done kissing her,” Valin locked his eyes onto the Scorcher’s cockpit as the fighter finally set itself down. The cockpit seemed to take twice as long to open as normal, and it seemed like an eternity before Jaina Force-leapt out and Wynssa started climbing down the Scorcher’s boarding ramp.

Valin had no idea what Anakin and the others did for their reunion with Jaina, and, frankly, he couldn’t care less. All he cared about was getting to Wyn, gathering her up in his arms, and giving her the most passionate kiss the two of them had ever shared. The rest of the hangar seemed to just black out, leaving just him and the beautiful girl in his arms.

When they were finally forced to break the kiss so they could breathe, there were tears running down Wynssa’s cheeks. It took Valin a few moments to realise that she had forgotten to remove her headband, and her horribly mutilated right cheek was in plain sight. Valin carefully brought his hand up and stroked his fingers down several of her scars. Wynssa’s eyes doubled in width and she tried to push away from her boyfriend and rip the headband off.

“No, Wyn, don’t!” Valin whispered, holding her tight enough to stop her from pulling her headband off. “It’s okay, baby, it’s okay. Don’t panic. I thought you liked having me touch your scars.”

“Not in public!” Wyn whimpered. “Valin, please stop!”

“Oh, alright,” Valin whispered, pulling his girlfriend’s headband out for her and pulling her hair around to cover her scars. “Is that better, Wyn?”

“Much…” Wyn whimpered, reaching up for another kiss. “I love you. I’m so sorry I ran off like that! You must have been worried sick about me!”

“More than you’ll ever now…” Valin sighed. “Don’t ever scare me like that again, okay?”

“Oh, like you know anything about keeping promises like that!” Wynssa hissed. “You promised me last time you nearly died that you wouldn’t scare me like that ever again! And then you go and nearly get vaped in the middle of that crazy dogfight!”

“I know, Wyn. I’m so sorry I got myself—argh!” Valin pressed two fingers against his forehead in a vain attempt to combat his very sudden headache. I’m not going to tell her that! he screamed inside his head. I was just going to say I was sorry for getting stuck in that dogfight! Leave me the hell alone!

“Are you okay?” Wyn whimpered.

“I’m… I’m fine…” Valin growled. Just go away, damn you! I’m not going to tell her anything!

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah…” Valin sighed as the headache started to abate. “Yeah, I’m alright. It’s just… it’s nothing.”

“And you’re sure about that?”

“Stop worrying about me!” Valin leant down for another kiss. “You’re the one who’s going to go through one hell of a nightmare tonight.”

“I know,” Wynssa moaned, already horrified by the thought. “Rescuing Jaina was worth it, though. All I’m going to go through is one night of terror… she could have died if I hadn’t done something.”

Valin smiled but, before he could reach down for another kiss, felt a decidedly feminine hand touch his shoulder. He turned to find Tahiri trying to gently pry him away from his girlfriend. He stepped back and allowed Wyn and Tahiri to share a warm hug, unsuccessfully trying to overhear the two women.

“I’m so proud of you, Wynssa!” Tahiri whispered. “You did really well!”

“Thanks, Tahiri.” Wyn replied before pushing Tahiri away. “Has Jaina said anything to anyone yet?”

“About what?” Tahiri asked. “Right now, she’s too busy kissing Jag to worry about talking to anyone.”

“Wanna bet?” Jaina asked as she ducked underneath the nose of Wyn’s Scorcher and leapt into a hug with the girl. “Thanks a million, Wynssa. I owe you one.”

“You bet you do,” Wyn sighed. “Have you told them yet?”

“Told us what?” Jag asked as he and Anakin ducked under the Scorcher to join Wyn and the others.

“Yeah, I’d like to know, too,” Anakin added.

Jaina went back to her fiancé’s arms and gave him another kiss before turning to the others. “Alright, I’m going to sound a little crazy, but I think I have a way to pull this galaxy back. Has anyone ever heard of Zonama Sekot?”


[end of chapter]

 

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rebel_cheese 
Registered: Jul '06
42800_Anakin Solo
Date Posted: 8/1/06 11:43am Subject: RE: Shattered Mirror (Post-TUF, Major AU, J/J, A/T, Kyle, Danni )*RE-POST IN PROGRESS*
CHAPTER FOURTEEN


Two days later, Jaina awoke in her quarters aboard the Archangel. A quick glance at the chronometer told her that it was still far too early to be getting up, even for a Jedi fighter pilot, but, at the same time, she knew that there was no way she was going to be able to go back to sleep, all thanks to her guilty conscience. She hadn’t seen Wynssa since their rather joyous return to the Archangel two days previously; the young woman had spent all day in her quarters. According to Valin, her nightmare had been so bad that it had taken hours for her to calm down, and she had been so tired that morning that, once she had calmed down enough to sleep, that was all she did for the remainder of the day, interrupted only by the occasional mild Myrkr nightmare. Valin had assured everyone that Wynssa would be alright, but Jaina still couldn’t help but feel guilty. Even though it wasn’t directly Jaina’s fault that Wyn had gone through the horrible nightmare, she couldn’t help but feel somewhat responsible for it. At the very least, Jaina decided, she needed to check on Wyn and personally make sure that she was okay.

Keeping that firmly in mind so she could convince her still sleepy body that she needed to get up, Jaina rose from her bunk and quickly dressed before leaving her room for the nearest turbolift. She sent it up two decks and then spent a few minutes walking through the corridors as she tracked down Wynssa’s room.

She paused outside for a moment, reaching into the room with the Force. To her surprise, she sensed two people inside. One was asleep, agitated, terrified, angry… had to be Wynssa, almost definitely in the middle of another nightmare. The other was awake and alert, and in very close proximity to Wyn. Valin.

For the slightest moment, Jaina found herself thinking about exactly why Valin was so close to Wyn. She almost instantly pushed the thought out of her head; after her little experience with Wynssa in the Scorcher’s cockpit, Jaina was pretty sure that avoiding an unwanted pregnancy wasn’t the only reason Wyn wasn’t sleeping with Valin. Kharran had probably left some pretty deep emotional scars over the three months he had tortured her.

Jaina took a deep breath before finally pressing the door controls. Unsurprisingly, it was Valin who opened the door. He looked as if he had gotten barely a few hours sleep over the past two days.

“Jaina?” he asked. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to check on Wynssa,” Jaina told him. “Is she okay?”

“She’s still asleep,” Valin said. “You might as well come in, though. I could use a hand settling her down.”

“Nightmare?”

Valin nodded as he stepped aside to let Jaina in. The room was even more Spartan than Jaina’s; the only furniture was a small couch, the bed, and a tiny table with two simple metal chairs. Jaina looked towards the bed immediately, and her conscience stabbed her again when she saw Wynssa. She was curled into a foetal position, softly moaning and crying, clutching her pillow as if it was the only comfort she had and digging her nails into it so hard that Jaina wouldn’t be surprised if she ripped it open. Every now and then, her whole body twitched and shuddered as she went through a particularly nasty part of her nightmare.

“Oh Force…” Jaina breathed. “Is she always like that?”

“This one’s not that bad, actually,” Valin replied as he sat down on the bed next to his girlfriend. She immediately rolled over so she was facing him, as if she could sense that he was sitting next to her. Valin gently brushed her hair away from her cheek—her left one, thank the Force—and tucked it behind her ear before he started gently stroking her cheek.

“Shh, Wyn. It’s okay, it’s just a nightmare. Relax.” Valin sent brief, calming pulses of Force energy into his girlfriend’s tormented mind as he soothed her. “Come on, Wyn, settle down. It’s okay.”

Jaina sat down on the bed as well and adding her own calming Force energy to Valin’s.

“Don’t try too hard.” Valin warned. “You don’t want to wake her up, just stop the nightmare and put her back to sleep.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier just to waker her up?”

“If I did that every time she had a nightmare, neither of us would ever get any sleep. She doesn’t get enough at is.” Valin replied before turning his attention back to his girlfriend. “Shh, Wyn, shh. Come on, settle down. Be quiet. Come on.”

Jaina stopped listening to Valin’s quiet comforts and again reached out to Wynssa through the Force. She was careful not to be too intrusive as she reached into Wyn’s mind; she didn’t want to wake the poor girl up, and she also didn’t want to accidentally stumble into a graphic memory of Myrkr. The nightmare was horrible, Jaina could tell that much. Wyn’s mind was darting randomly from the memory of one torture session to the next, almost blending every session she endured into one horrific memory of unbelievable pain and suffering.

Valin and Jaina’s attempts to make Wyn relax were helping, and soon she was calm enough for Valin to reach deeper inside her mind without fear of bumping into one of her Myrkr memories. He quickly picked out a more pleasant memory and then gently guided her towards it. Soon, the nightmare had all but abated.

“That wasn’t too hard,” Jaina noted.

“That wasn’t one of her bad ones,” Valin replied, rising and moving towards the kitchen built into the wall on the opposite end of the room. “The one she had the night after she rescued you was the worst one she’s ever had.”

Jaina’s conscience stabbed her even harder. “Valin, I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Valin replied as he gulped down a glass of water. “She’s the one who went after you. Besides, it might have been the worst nightmare she’s ever had, but it was also the one she’s taken the best. A nightmare as bad as that one was usually leaves her traumatised for hours, but… that one didn’t. I guess what made that one easier was because she knew why she was going through it, and she thought it was worth it.”

“Well…” Jaina said as she gently squeezed Wynssa’s shoulder. “I still can’t help but feel guilty.”

Jaina rose and let Wyn sleep. She joined Valin at the kitchen and made a cup of caf while he grabbed a ration bar and dropped onto the tiny couch.

“Are you alright?” Jaina asked.

“Yeah… well… no, not really,” Valin sighed, staring at the ration bar as if he was deeply meditating on it. “I just… I hate it when Wyn has a nightmare. I mean, I’m her boyfriend! I should be able to protect her from something that… that… simple!”

“Simple?”

“Well… alright, for Wyn, a nightmare is anything but simple, but still! I’ve saved her from scarhead warriors, coralskippers, the odd cruiser, and even from herself once! But I still have trouble helping her with a blasted nightmare!”

“You’re going to wake her up if you keep talking that loud.”

Valin glanced guiltily towards his girlfriend, double-checking that she was still fast asleep before he continued in a considerably quieter tone. “You wouldn’t understand, Jaina. I want her to be happy and safe, but I can’t even fight off a stupid nightmare for her! It’s just… really frustrating.” Valin suddenly remembered the ration bar in his hands and took another bite out of it. “The fact that she’s the only family I have left doesn’t make it any easier.”

“What happened to your parents?” Jaina asked.

Valin smiled. “Don’t you find that annoying? Having to ask everyone what their deep and dark secrets are, because you’ve only been in this universe for a week?”

“A little…” Jaina shrugged. “Anakin told me that they got hit by a Triple-S. Is that true?”

Valin nodded painfully. “It’s not quite that simple. When the battle of Mon Calamari turned against us, the evacuation was so disorganised that there wasn’t a single family that didn’t lose someone in the crowds. For my family, that person was Jysella. I still don’t know what happened… one minute, she was holding onto my hand tight enough to cause a fusion weld, and the next, she was gone. We never did find her… until three months ago.”

“Just before you and Wyn started dating.”

“Yeah…” Valin self-consciously ran his thumb over the ration bar. “An old friend of my Dad’s contacted us, saying that he’d found Jys. We were so eager to get her back, we didn’t even wait for permission from Yannik before we grabbed the Pulsar Skate and went after her. Unfortunately, we arrived at the rendezvous point five minutes ahead of a Vong fleet. The Triple-S that was scouting for the scarheads spotted us, and we were as good as dead. Mom died in the collision, and the Skate was totalled. We barely managed to limp to a nearby planet. It took two weeks for Kyle and Yannik to find us, and by then the scarheads had killed dad. I was nearly dead when they found me.”

“Did you ever find Jys?”

Valin shook his head. “I’m almost certain she’s dead. I can’t sense her in the Force anymore. I haven’t been able too since our botched rescue attempt.”

“Valin, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Valin said, almost choking on his words. “So… now you know why I’m so against this Zonama Sekot thing. The Vong don’t deserve whatever Sekot’s going to do with them. They deserve to be exterminated.”

“Do you really want to keep the war going that long? Do you really want Wyn to go through that?”

Valin almost flinched at Jaina’s question. “No, but…” the young Jedi breathed a sigh or annoyance at his own confusion. “It’s just… sometimes, it’s hard to tell if I love Wyn more than I hate the Vong. They took my entire family from me! Wyn’s all I have left, thanks to them!”

“Which is why it’s so hard,” Jaina said. “You want revenge for your parents and Jys, but you don’t want to lose Wynssa, either.”

Valin didn’t need to reply; they both knew she had just cut straight into the heart of the matter.

“Valin, I know what you’re going through,” Jaina said. “But, your family’s gone. Wynssa is all you have left. Don’t you want to keep her?”

“You make her sound like some kind of market purchase.” Valin chuckled. “Look, I’m not going to try to stand in the way of finding Sekot just because I’m still angry about my parents and Jys. Wyn’d kill me, for one thing. It’s just really, really hard to believe and accept that we’re going to win the war by putting the scarheads in therapy, of all things.”

Jaina laughed. “Well, I’ve never heard it said like that before, but… yeah, that sums up what Sekot’s going to do with them. I didn’t care, really; as long as they were as far away from me as possible and weren’t ever going to hurt someone again, I couldn’t give a damn what happened to them.”

“I wish I could feel the same way…” Valin murmured.

“You will,” Jaina assured him. “Just wait till you’ve spent a while without having to worry about your home being jumped by a bunch of coral warships.”

“Yeah, well… we’ll see.”

Sensing that Valin didn’t really want to take the discussion any further, Jaina switched topics. “Do you think Wynssa’s going to wake up soon?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Valin replied with a shrug for added effect.

Jaina sighed; she had really wanted to actually talk to Wyn. But, she reasoned, the girl might not be that up to talking after a Myrkr nightmare, and there was no guarantee that she was even going to wake up between now and the briefing Kyle had organised for the Jedi later in the morning. Besides, now that Jaina knew that Wynssa was more or less okay—and, even if she wasn’t, Valin was here to look after her—Jaina’s conscience had settled down somewhat.

“Hey, Valin, when Wyn wakes up, can you tell that I stopped by?” Jaina asked as she stood.

“Not going to stick around?”

“Well, I should probably try to get some more sleep between now and that briefing. Besides, she’d probably be more willing to talk after that than just after a nightmare, right?”

“Right.” Valin chomped off another piece of his ration bar. “I’ll tell her. She’ll appreciate it. There aren’t that many people aboard who truly care about her. She needs someone else.”

Jaina smiled, more at Wynssa than Valin, and left.



The door hadn’t even closed before the monster inside Valin started attacking him again. Valin bit his lip to hold back his scream as it drove an imaginary amphistaff through his head, all the while willing him to retrieve his little villip and contact the nearest Vong warship to report this new Jedi plot.

I can’t! Valin screamed at it, clutching at his temples as the blinding agony washed over him. If… if Wynssa woke up, she’d see me! I’m no good to you if I get found out!

The little monster was kind enough to point out that he did have a loaded blaster on his hip. A good stun blast would keep Wyn out for a few more hours, at least, and he could just say that she’d slept in.

Jag and Kyle want her at the briefing! Jag’d come looking for her, and he’d probably bring Jaina along, too! They’d know if I put her in a stun blast into her!

The monster reminded him that this Zonama Sekot was a major threat to the interests of its masters. They needed to know about it.

Just to make sure he got the point, the monster increased the pain.

No, they don’t need to know! Valin screamed inside his head. Right now, I don’t know anything… if I wait till they find out where it is, you can the whole kriffing planet out in one hit! If I use the villip now, you’ll just stop the Archangel from finding it. Someone else will!

The monster replied by telling him that no one else knew about it.

Okay, fine, I’ll tell them. Not that the scarheads will be able to actually destroy the Archangel. You morons still can’t see through the cloak!

The monster again told him that the ‘scarheads’ needed to know, so they could make arrangements to combat this living planet. They might not be able to destroy the Archangel, true, but they still needed advance warning that the Jeedai were searching for Zonama Sekot.

I don’t care! I already handed over the Archangel once! It’s not my fault you scarheads are so kriffing incompetent!

The pain tripled as the monster tried again to convince Valin that he needed to contact its masters and warn them of the Jeedai’s plot. Valin bit down on his lip to restrain his agonised scream until blood began to trickle down his chin and slowly drip onto his shirt, and still the pain continued. The little monster replied to Valin’s attempts at endurance by taking the pain up another notch, and this time Valin couldn’t hold his scream back.

I won’t do it! I won’t let you hurt Wyn! I… oh, stop it, please! Please, stop! No… no, I won’t let you… I can’t hurt her… no, I… I… I-I’d be better off waiting for… for more info… I could tell you… tell you exactly where… oh, stop it[/i]! Please! Leave me alone… I c-could tell those k-kri-kriffing scarheads exactly where Sekot is! You could wipe it out in one hit! Just leave me ALONE! [/i]

The monster agreed; but, still, its masters needed advance warning. Thus, it only lessened the pain. Valin was on the right line of thought, but he needed to do better if he wanted any relief.

No! No, I won’t! Valin screamed at it. He needed another reason—

“Argh!”

Was that his scream? He couldn’t tell anymore.

The same instant he even thought about trying to find another reason to put off betraying his friends, the monster redoubled its efforts. Those infidels weren’t Valin’s friends; the Vong were the real rulers of the galaxy. The only way he could ever find relief from this pain was to serve them.

Valin tried to ignore the pain, tried to focus on anything other than the imaginary turbolaser that was drilling into his skull. Wyn… Wyn, he needed to wake up Wyn. Once she was awake, there was no way he’d be able to… to get out the… the v-v-villip…

Valin’s entire world was nothing but pain for… for… he didn’t know how long it went on for. All he knew was that he was in so much agony that all it was all he could focus on, until a pair of soft, delicate fingers touched his broken bottom lip.

“Valin…?” A small, frightened female voice asked.

The monster backed off instantly, leaving Valin to deal with only the dull pain emanating from his headache. His head was throbbing so badly that he believed it would be entirely possible for someone to see it doing so.

“Valin, what’s wrong?” The voice asked again. “Valin… you’re scaring me…”

Valin finally managed to open his eyes, and he finally managed to remember that he was in Wynssa’s room, collapsed on the tiny couch. Wynssa herself was kneeling in front of him, terrified eyes glistening with unshed tears as she examined Valin’s blood on her fingers.

“Valin…” she whimpered. “Valin, what happened? Why… why are you bleeding?”

Valin gingerly brought the tips of his fingers up to his lip, and wasn’t surprised—in fact, he didn’t even know if he cared—when they came away covered in blood. He deserved to bleed, and much more than this. He had already betrayed his friends and family… betrayed Wynssa… and he knew that he was going to do it again. That little monster wasn’t going to back down till either one of two things happened.

One was the destruction of the Archangel and all aboard.

The other was Valin’s death.

“Valin, answer me!” Wynssa demanded, the single tear running down her cheek adding to her confused and deeply worried look. “What’s wrong?”

“N-nothing,” Valin stammered. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“Then why are you bleeding?”

“It’s not bad, Wynssa,” Valin said with a forced laugh. “It’s a busted lip. It’s nothing.”

“Answer me, Valin! What’s wrong?”

“Nothing!” Valin assured her, wiping away the blood on his chin. “It was just another headache. I… I must have busted my lip when I bit on it.”

“Valin, it was more than a headache,” Wyn said almost contemptuously. “You were screaming!”

“Screaming? Come on, I wasn’t screaming. You sure it wasn’t you in a nightmare?”

Wyn’s tear-filled eyes suddenly flared with pure anger, creating a rather interesting contrast in the emotions they gave out.

“Valin, you son of a bantha!” She screamed. “How dare you! How dare you! I… I… you…”

Wynssa suddenly couldn’t care less about Valin’s pain. She snarled her fury through gritted teeth before launching to her feet and stalking back to her bed, where she dropped onto the pillow and started screaming and crying.

Valin pushed the monster as far away from his conscious thought as possible and forced himself to think about Wynssa and only Wynssa as he slowly made his way to her bed and sat down next to where she was screaming and crying into her pillow.

“Wyn—.”

“Shut up! I hate you!”

Valin pressed his finger against his bleeding lip and wiped away the blood there before he said anything else. “Wynssa, baby—.”

“Don’t ‘baby’ me, you jerk! I hate you, you hear me? I hate you!”

“Wynssa, I’m sorry,” Valin blurted out. “I didn’t mean it. I wasn’t thinking—.”

“Damn right, you weren’t!”

Valin kept going undaunted. “—and I’m sorry for hurting your feelings.” He gently laid a hand on Wyn’s shoulder blades. “Forgive me?”

Wyn lifted her face out of her pillow and looked at her boyfriend with eyes full of tears. “You should know better than that, Valin. Myrkr—.”

“Is beyond a touchy subject, I know,” Valin finished for her as he gently rubbed her back. “I just wasn’t thinking. I’m so sorry.”

Wyn buried her face in the pillow again and mumbled “You better be.”

“I am, I am,” Valin said quickly, again pressing his finger against his bleeding lip in an attempt to stem the blood flow. The sight of his blood on his fingers reminded him of how much pain he had been in before… and also reminded him of how much pain he was going to be in from now on. Every chance it got, it would try to make him betray everyone again. It was only a matter of time before Valin finally caved in.

“What is wrong, Valin?” Wynssa whimpered. She again turned her head so she could look at him. “Why were you screaming? What hurt you so much?”

The monster started up another dull headache; not overly painful, but a reminder of what Valin was and wasn’t allowed to tell her.

“It…” Valin rubbed his temples, trying to think of a reasonable explanation, if only to keep the monster away… he had blacked out for a while there… maybe… “I’m not sure, to tell you the truth. I had a huge headache, so I tried to get some sleep. I must have had a nightmare, or something.”

“Since when do you have nightmares?”

“Every now and then,” Valin replied, hoping she’d buy it. If someone was going to find him out and be forced to kill him, he would rather it not be Wynssa. “I can’t remember much of that one.”

“It must have been bad if it made you bite your lip like that…” Wynssa moaned as she sat up.

Valin nodded and wiped another fresh wave of blood from his lip. “I better go get cleaned up, I think. I’ll give you a kiss once I stop the bleeding.”

“No, I’ll do it,” Wynssa insisted protectively, dashing for the basic medipac she kept in the drawer of her wardrobe. Valin couldn’t resist a chuckle; Wynssa could be so protective at times. Valin guessed that it stemmed from the fact that she was the older one in the relationship, by almost two years.

“You’re so funny when you’re like this,” Valin smiled as Wynssa began wiping the blood off his chin.

“Like what?”

“This,” Valin replied. “I love it when you get all protective. You’re so funny.”

Wynssa gently put a tiny bacta patch on Valin’s lip. “Funny, huh?”

“Hilarious, actually.”

“Valin…” Wynssa warned, climbing onto the couch and her boyfriend’s legs.

“What?” Valin smiled cheekily, watching as Wynssa climbed on top of him. “You are.”

“Think this is funny?” Wynssa grabbed hold of Valin’s shirt and then sealed his lips with hers. Every other thought was banished from his mind as Wynssa’s lips played over his. Valin brought his arms up and wrapped them around her back as he savoured every millisecond of the kiss; his girlfriend was rarely this playful.

Valin let Wynssa decide when to end the kiss—he sure as hell wasn’t going to—and they each let out a pleasured sigh as their lips parted.

“Like it?” Wynssa asked.

Valin sighed again. “Wow… I’m never going to get tired of that.”

Wynssa smiled, staring down at him while her long blonde hair fell onto his cheek, filling his nostrils with the sweet smell of her shampoo. Valin closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, and then opened his eyes again to gaze up at his girlfriend. Her hair had fallen either side of her face so that only he would be able to see it and the scars on her cheek. Gently he reached up to run his fingers down the longest scar on her face. He was the only person alive who was able to touch Wynssa’s scars without inducing a flinch or whimper from her. In fact, there were very few people who could even touch her without inducing a flinch or whimper.

He viewed it as a sign of how much she loved him; she trusted him enough to not only allow him to touch her, but to also touch the most traumatic and horrible reminder of what she had gone through on Myrkr.

He also viewed it as a sign of how badly Wyn was going to get hurt when he was discovered as the traitor who had caused the deaths of so many pilots in that last battle.

Valin quickly glanced towards the chronometer next to Wyn’s bed, and was horrified to see that they only had an hour before the briefing was due to start—the monster must have knocked him out for longer than he first thought. He didn’t want to go to that briefing. The more he knew about Sekot, the more the little monster would want him to tell the Vong about it.

But, the monster didn’t like even attempts at resistance. Merely thinking about not attending a potentially valuable meeting earned Valin another dull headache.

Alright, I’ll go! I’ll go! Valin screamed at it. Just leave me alone with Wyn for a while… please…

The headache disappeared.

But not quickly enough. Wynssa had already noticed the pained expression that had momentarily washed over Valin’s face.

“Valin, what is it?” She asked.

“Nothing. Just another headache.” Valin insisted.

“You get those a lot, lately.” Wynssa pointed out.

Valin refused to meet her gaze. “Yeah… I’ve noticed.”

“Maybe you should talk to the medics—.”

“No!” Valin cried. The last thing he needed now was to give the monster another reason to torture him. “No, I’m fine. I’ll be alright, Wyn, I promise.”

“Alright…” Wynssa murmured, not entirely convinced. Even so, she dropped the subject, glancing at her chronometer quickly. “We should probably think about getting ready for that briefing soon.”

“Well…” Valin let a playful smile appear on his face. “We should have time for one more kiss…”

Wynssa returned his grin and lent down for the requested kiss, gently teasing Valin’s lips with her own. Valin closed his eyes and let himself be carried along by the sensation.

Valin only realised that he was crying when Wynssa pulled back suddenly, touching the spot on her nose where Valin’s tear had flowed onto it.

“Valin… what…?” she whispered.

Valin looked away and swiped away the other tear on his face. “Wynssa… baby, no matter what happens, I’ll always love you. You believe that, don’t you?”

“Of course…” Wynssa replied, confused. “Why—?”

“Don’t worry,” Valin said, gently guiding her off his legs and onto the couch. “You’ll know what I’m talking about soon enough.”

Wynssa just stared at him, confused and frightened. Valin reached over and kissed her cheek before he stood and headed for the door. “I… I better go get changed before the briefing. I’ll see you there.”

“Valin…” Wynssa said, stopping her boyfriend in his tracks faster than if he had run into a solid wall. “Valin, if something was wrong, you’d tell me… right?”

The monster made Valin turn to look at her. “Of course I would.”


[end of chapter]

 

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rebel_cheese 
Registered: Jul '06
42800_Anakin Solo
Date Posted: 8/1/06 11:45am Subject: RE: Shattered Mirror (Post-TUF, Major AU, J/J, A/T, Kyle, Danni )*RE-POST IN PROGRESS*
CHAPTER FIFTEEN


The Archangel’s briefing room was already full when Jaina and Jag walked in. There were around two dozen officers of varying species in the room, though their ages were far less varied. Many looked far too young to be officers, which Jag took as a sign of how badly the Archangel needed a way to end this war, and do it quickly. If the officers were this young, how young was the crew? If the ages of some of the officers were any indication, Jag would guess that a good portion of the crew would barely be in their teens.

Never a good situation.

Jag and Jaina both stopped and found themselves staring at the head of the table, where a small green alien was sitting in the captain’s chair, dressed in a white uniform with a commander’s rank insignia prominently displayed on his chest. His ears were almost as long as his arms, and stuck out from beneath his greyish-brown hair like a pair of green spikes.

“Is that Captain Yannik?” Jaina whispered to her fiancé.

“I guess so,” Jag replied, disentangling his fingers from Jaina’s and heading over to the empty seat next to Wynssa before someone caught him staring. Jaina spent an extra half second staring before she caught herself and headed over to join the other six remaining Jedi Knights.

The little green alien waited for Jaina and Jag to take their seats before he sat up in his chair so that the officers and Jedi present could see more than just his head.

“Well,” he began. “I don’t need to tell all of you that our last battle hurt, especially the fighter squadrons. We’re down seventeen fighters; ten were destroyed outright, and seven more are too badly damaged to fly. Have the technicians had a chance to look at them?”

A middle-aged Devaronian whom Jag assumed was the ground crew chief spoke up. “We could get four of them operational if we stripped parts from the other three, but those three are going to be useless hulks until we can get some new parts.”

“Wedge and the Lusankya don’t have enough parts as it is,” Anakin reminded everyone present. “He could barely spare that engine we took from him at the last rendezvous.”

“How long will it take you to get those four Scorchers repaired and ready to fly?” Yannik asked.

“Two, maybe three weeks,” The crew chief said simply. “Four at the most.”

Yannik nodded thoughtfully. “Very well. The Scorcher losses during that last skirmish were bad enough, but the pilot losses were even worse. All three squadron leaders were shot down. Thus, we now only have four officers capable of leading their own squadron, and our highest ranked officer is now Colonel Jagged Fel. As such, Colonel, you will now be in command of the Archangel’s entire fighter corps.”

Jag’s eyebrows shot up in surprise; being given his own squadron after only being onboard the Archangel for a few days was surprising enough, but now he was being given command of every single fighter aboard?

Unconventional, to say the least.

“Yes, sir,” Jag said.

“In combat, you’ll be leading Angel squadron,” Yannik continued. “Scarlet and Halo squadrons will be lead by Captain Traf Kirrel and Lieutenant Commander Yarzak Jarlen, respectively.”

“Sir, what about Raven squadron?” Wynssa blurted out.

“We don’t have enough Scorchers, Lieutenant,” Yannik replied without even the slightest hint of compassion or regret. Jag expected no less from a good captain. “It’s going to be up to Colonel Fel as to which squadron you’ll be flying in.”

Wynssa opened her mouth to protest, but, to her credit, stopped herself by biting her lip. She sighed sadly before leaning back into her chair. Jag gently put his hand on her shoulder and offered her a big-brotherly smile when she turned to look at him for a second.

“Colonel Fel, you’ll need to reassign all of the pilots.” Yannik said. “I’d prefer at least three squadrons.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Aside from that, there is little other news,” Yannik continued. “The shield generators should be back online within the next couple of days, so until then we will remain cloaked at all times. So, if there is nothing else…”

No one spoke up.

“Alright, then. For the next few days, we will be jumping through the nearby systems. After that last ambush, we will remain on standby alert, in case we run into a Vong search party or another fleet. Dismissed.”

The officers quickly filed from the room, all except for Jag, Wynssa, Captain Yannik, and the Jedi. Captain Yannik was, as Jag expected, the first to speak.

“When Kyle first told me about this Zonama Sekot plan, I was… incredulous,” he said.

“With all due respect, sir,” Anakin said seriously. “It’s the best—no, wait, it’s the only possible shot at victory we’ve had since the start of the war. It would be stupid not to take it.”

“Did I say that, Anakin?” Yannik asked, turning his solid green eyes towards the young Jedi. His eyes turned a few more centimetres to the left, aiming themselves straight at Jaina. “Jedi Solo, are you sure that you would be able to find it?”

“I don’t know,” Jaina replied, leaning her elbows on the briefing table. “I wasn’t part of the expedition that found it.”

“Who was?” Zekk asked.

“Uncle Luke, Aunt Mara, Jacen, and Danni.”

“Interesting,” Kyle said as if he had just been told a not-so-amusing joke. “We’ve only got Danni left.”

“I don’t know how much I’ll be,” Danni said quickly. “I don’t know anything about it.”

“I don’t think you knew anything in our universe, either,” Jaina said. “Not until you and the others left to find it, anyway.”

“How did Master Skywalker find it?” Valin asked.

“Apparently, the Chiss were a great help.”

“They won’t be in this galaxy,” Wynssa muttered.

“Without the Chiss and their knowledge of the unknown regions, we’re going to need some other way to find it,” Jaina sighed. “What’s left in this galaxy?”

“Bakura…” Tahiri sighed. “There’s thousands of ships hiding there, and most of them have been running around the unknown regions for months. If someone’s spotted a strange planet jumping from system to system, chances are they’re now at Bakura.”

“We’ve already discussed that, Tahiri!” Kyle said. “We can’t take the Archangel into Bakura. There’s too many ships; we’d have to take the cloak offline, and Kharran would rush in and wipe out everything.”

“We could always take the Jade Shadow…” Anakin suggested.

“Kharran’s probably got a few hundred spies in-system, most of them Peace Brigadiers.” Zekk said. “One of them would see us coming in and tell him.”

“There are a couple of other… illegitimate ways to get in…” Yannik suggested.

“Captain, you cannot ask Kitty to help us again!” Valin objected. “We owe her a dozen favours already!”

“You were keeping count?” Anakin laughed.

“It’s a rough guess,” Valin replied. “The point is that we owe her, not the other way around.”

“Hang on a minute,” Jaina interrupted. “Who’s Kitty?”

“Commander Kittasallia Charlas, Bakuran Defence Forces,” Kyle replied. “We met her about half a year ago. As Valin said, she’s helped us well over a dozen times; providing weapons, parts, supplies, information. We’ve never asked her to help us sneak into Bakura before, though.”

“Will she do it?” Jag asked.

“We might have to bribe her this time round, but I think she will,” Anakin sighed. Jag got the distinct feeling that he was the one who usually got stuck with the task of talking to Commander Charlas. “Tahiri and I will call her once we get within comm range.”

“It’s a four day trip from here,” Yannik said. “At least you’ll have some time to think up a way to convince her.”

“Am I allowed to offer whatever I want?” Anakin asked.

Yannik thought about it for a moment. “Yes, you are. Provided, of course, that Miss Solo is confident she could find Zonama Sekot.”

Jaina nodded slowly, and Jag watched as the determination he loved so much crept into her eyes.

“Yeah,” she said. “I’ll find it.”

“You can’t go in by yourself,” Kyle stated. “Anakin, Zekk, you two can go with her.”

“I think Danni should come as well,” Jaina said quickly. “We’ll need someone with some knowledge of astronomy.”

“Maybe I should go as well,” Jag suggested. “Jaina and I are the only ones who know anything about Sekot. It would make things easier if both of us went along.”

“We can’t spare our highest-ranked fighter pilot, Colonel,” Yannik said. “And we also can’t afford to lose both you and Miss Solo at once. As you said, you’re the only ones with any knowledge about Sekot.”

“I-I’ll go as well,” Valin said suddenly. Jag thought he caught a brief flicker of pain in the young Jedi’s eyes, but it disappeared before Jag could be sure.

“Five Jedi knights should be enough to get the info we need,” Valin continued. “And we’ll have a better chance of fighting our way out if it comes to it.”

“But, if you don’t make it out, Tahiri and I will be the only Jedi left alive,” Kyle pointed out.

“Frankly, Kyle, if we don’t make it out, it won’t make much of a difference,” Anakin said quickly. “This is our only shot at winning the war. If it doesn’t work, we’re all as good as dead.”

“I agree with him,” Jag added. “I know Jaina and I have only been here a week, but it is still painfully obvious that you—we can’t keep this up forever.”

Yannik nodded. “Then it’s decided; Anakin, Danni, Jaina, Valin, and Zekk will head into Bakura to retrieve as much information on Zonama Sekot as possible. We’ll wait for you outside of Bakuran space.”

Yannik was a millisecond away from sending everyone back to their duties when Anakin spoke up. “Before we all get lost throughout the ship, there’s something I—I mean, we need to say.” He took a deep breath, steeling himself for what he was about to say. “Tahiri—.”

“Is pregnant, we know,” Kyle interrupted. “We’ve known for months.”

“What?” Tahiri spluttered. Jag leant back in his chair in an attempt to discreetly put as much distance between him and the insulted—and rather angered—Jedi. “You knew?” Tahiri’s cheeks had by now gone bright red and her eyes were starting to look as though they had enough firepower to burn a hole through Kyle’s face. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“We assumed you knew,” Danni replied.

“You knew as well?” Anakin cried.

“So did I,” Zekk said softly, almost as if he was afraid to admit it—understandable, in Jag’s opinion, considering the death glare Tahiri was wielding at the moment.

“Okay, why don’t we shorten this list?” Tahiri snarled. “Who didn’t know?”

The fact that Jaina and Jag were the only ones to give her an affirmative answer did little to help Tahiri’s mood.

“Even you knew?” Tahiri demanded of Wynssa. “I can understand the others sensing it through the Force, but how did you—?” She stopped mid-sentence as the blatantly obvious answer hit her and turned her death glare towards Valin.

“What?” Valin asked sheepishly. “You expected me to keep news like that to myself? Besides, Danni’s the one who told me!”

“It was an accident!” Danni protested. “I let one hint slip, and he pounced on it.”

“Everyone, quiet!” Kyle commanded. “Anakin, Tahiri, are you saying that you only just found out?”

“Just before the battle,” Anakin said. “Now why didn’t any of you tell us?”

“Hey, don’t drag us into this!” Jaina protested. “We’ve only been here a week.”

“We thought that you didn’t want to talk about it,” Danni said.

“Danni! You think that we’d keep something like that to ourselves?”

“You did,” Zekk pointed out. “The only reason you’re telling us is because you don’t want Tahiri flying anymore and putting the baby’s life in danger.”

“Babies.”

“What?”

“Babies,” Tahiri and Anakin repeated together. Tahiri finished the sentence off. “Their twins.”

“Interesting…” Kyle murmured. “Following the family tradition, I see.”

“Shut up, Kyle.” Tahiri snapped in a tone that dripped with enough irritation, anger, and wounded pride that it would have made Darth Vader think twice about crossing her.

“I am right, though, aren’t I?” Zekk asked, folding his arms on the table in the perfect imitation of a serene Jedi master. “The only reason you’re telling us is because you don’t want Tahiri flying anymore. Otherwise, you’d have tried to keep it to yourselves.”

“A lot of good that would have done,” Tahiri muttered under her breath.

“Tahiri, we’re sorry we ruined your little moment,” Danni said. “Although, I think Kyle should get the most blame for that. If you hadn’t of said anything…”

Kyle merely rolled his eyes and ignored her.

“Would you guys answer my question already?” Zekk demanded. “Would you have told us if Tahiri decided to stay in the Black Knights?”

Anakin glanced at the table and sighed. “Probably not.”

“It doesn’t matter, Zekk!” Wynssa said quickly. “It’s their choice! If they’re comfortable with Tahiri going into combat, then you can’t do anything about it!”

“They obviously aren’t comfortable with it, Wynssa,” Jag pointed out.

“I know that! I was just stating a point!”

“In any case,” Kyle said loudly, silencing everyone. “Tahiri, Anakin, it is your choice.”

Both Solos nodded thoughtfully, though Tahiri was the only one to speak.

“We know that,” she said. “And I don’t want to risk my babies like that again. I couldn’t stop worrying about them, and… well, neither could Anakin. Distractions like that would only get us both shot down.”

“We all understand,” Kyle said in the softest voice the Jedi master had at his disposal. “And don’t look so depressed. How else do you think we’re going to rebuild the Order? Now, we’ve got four days before we’ll be able to comm Kitty and ask her for her help, so get as much done as you can. Wynssa, you’ll have to help Colonel Fel with the fighter squadrons.”

“Yes… M-Ma-Master Katarn,” Wynssa replied. Jag wasn’t oblivious to the difficulty she had with saying ‘Master’. Another side-effect of Myrkr, no doubt.

“Alright, then, get to it,” Kyle instructed. Everyone left almost immediately, with Danni and Kyle whispering to each other on the way out. Jag guessed that it had something to do with Anakin and Tahiri and their not-so-shocking revelation. Did it even count as a revelation?

Jaina cornered her brother and sister-in-law before either of them could even leave their seats. Jag expected that she’d be reprimanding the two of them for risking the lives of her nephews or nieces and at the same time offering her congratulations to the expectant couple. Jag allowed himself a few seconds to stare at his fiancé, examining how she and Anakin talked. Neither could care less about the complicated alternate-universe issue. They acted as any loving brother and sister would after being reunited after living for years believing each other to be dead.

Jag and Wynssa, on the other hand, were quite different. Jag wanted to treat her as he would his sister back in his home universe, but this Wynssa was just so different. She had so much anger and hatred built up inside her after her torture sessions with Kharran, emotions that were rarely, if ever found in Jag’s Wyn. He knew that it would take some time for him to get used to this Wynssa. It looked like he was going to get that time, too; as Kyle and Danni had said when they told Jag and his fiancé about their alternate universe theory, the Archangel was a warship, not a science vessel. Besides, even if it had been a science vessel, they were far too low on resources to be able to spare any on finding a way to send Jag and Jaina home. Finding Sekot and winning the war might not help that much, either; rebuilding this ruined galaxy would take a long time and every last resource at the Jedi’s disposal. Even in a best case scenario, Jaina and Jag were going to be living in this galaxy for quite some time.

“Jag?”

Jag almost jumped. “Wynssa! I… ah… yes?”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine. I was just thinking,” Jag said hurriedly. “Did you want something?”

Wynssa folded her arms across her chest and sunk back into her seat. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course, Wyn.”

Wynssa was quiet for some time before she mustered the courage to blurt out her question.

“Would Jaina ever lie to you?”

“What?”

“Would she lie to you?” Wynssa repeated, staring vaguely at the briefing table in front of her.

Jag decided to humour her. “I hope not.”

“So you don’t know?”

“I didn’t say that!”

“Jag, if she came up to you and told you something, would you believe her?” Wynssa demanded.

Jag didn’t hesitate to answer. “Of course I would. Why… why are you asking me—ah… you think Valin’s lying to you, don’t you?”

“I don’t know,” Wynssa half-sighed, half-sobbed. “I don’t have any reason to think that he is.”

“Why do you think that he is?”

“He’s just been acting so weird lately,” Wynssa sighed. “No… no, I should be talking to him about this.”

“If you think he’s lying to you, are you really going to believe anything he says?”

“No, but…”

“But…?”

“I love him, Jag!” Wynssa spluttered, carefully keeping her voice low enough so that only she and Jag could hear it. “I keep thinking that if I really loved him, I’d be able to believe him, but…”

“Alright, let’s start over,” Jag said. “What do you think he’s lying to you about?”

Wynssa buried her face in her hands. “He’s been getting headaches lately.”

“How is that weird?”

“Because he won’t admit that he’s having them half the time!” Wynssa sobbed. “And, even when I can make him admit it, he always refuses to go talk to the medics about it! And… and, this morning, when I woke up, he was lying on my couch, screaming. He tried to dodge around it when I asked him why.”

Jag glanced around the room to make sure no one could hear him. “Did you get an answer out of him?”

“He said it was a nightmare.”

“And you don’t believe him.”

Wynssa shook her head, ashamed to admit it. “No, I don’t. Something’s wrong with him. I know something’s wrong with him, but he won’t talk to me!”

“When did these headaches start?”

“A couple of months ago,” Wynssa sobbed. “Jag, I don’t care about the headaches! I care about the fact that he doesn’t feel he can talk to me about them. At least, I want to know why he won’t talk to me. I just want to know that he’s okay.”

“Wynssa, he’s been the only family you’ve had for a few years now, right?”

“Yeah… until you showed up, anyway.” Wynssa wiped her tears away and looked at Jag. “Why?”

“Maybe he just doesn’t want you worrying about him,” Jag said. “If these headaches of his get much worse, you might want to mention it to someone yourself. Until then, talking to him couldn’t hurt.”

“I’ve tried talking to him.”

“Tie him to a chair, if you have to.”

Wynssa’s smiled. “It might work…” she leaned over and gave Jag a brief hug. “Thank you, Jag. I’ll talk to him. You don’t think the headaches could be more than just headaches?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know,” Wyn pressed her lips together in thought. “He needs to see the medics, I know that much.”

“Then shoot him with a stun blast and drag him down to the med bay.”

Wynssa’s smile widened slightly. “Hopefully, it won’t come to that. I’d have to steal his lightsaber in advance, and I don’t think he’d like that.” Wyn glanced towards Jaina, who had finished with her brother and sister-in-law and was slipping around the briefing table.

“Hey, Wyn,” Jaina said as she took the seat next to the younger woman. “You look a lot better than this morning.”

“Excuse me?”

“Didn’t Valin tell you that I visited your quarters this morning?”

Wynssa’s gaze returned to the table. “No… not really.”

Jaina’s jaw tightened as she ground her teeth in annoyance. “I asked him to…” she snarled to herself.

“I gather you saw me in the middle of a nightmare, then,” Wynssa mumbled.

“I helped Valin settle you down, yes,” Jaina said. “Are you okay?”

“I guess so,” Wynssa replied ambiguously. “Look, I… ah… I better go get started on those squadron assignments. I’ll do up a list of all the pilots for you, Jag.”

“Thanks, Wynssa,” Jag said as he watched his sister leave.

“What was up with her?” Jaina asked.

“Nothing.” Jag replied. If Wynssa wanted to tell Jaina about her concerns with Valin, she’d have done so herself. His sister’s personal life was only Jag’s business as far as Wynssa wanted it to be. “How are Anakin and Tahiri?”

“Tahiri’s in a foul mood now that she’s officially off the Black Knights, but apart from that, their fine,” Jaina slipped an arm around Jag’s shoulders and reached over to kiss his cheek. “And how are you going? That was a rather sudden promotion.”

“I’ve commanded a fighter wing before,” Jag quickly remembered that the Archangel was down to only thirty-one fighters. “Well, half a wing.”

“Hopefully, you won’t need to command it for too long,” Jaina said. “Once Anakin gets this Kitty to agree to help us, it shouldn’t take too long to find Sekot. Unlike Uncle Luke and Jacen, I’ll know what I’m supposed to be looking for.”

“Just be careful, though,” Jag said. “If Anakin and the others are right about how many Peace Brigadiers are in that system…”

“I’ll keep my head down,” Jaina replied. “But someone has to look after Anakin and Danni.”

“That is usually my job.”

“Zekk!” Jaina cried, startled by the other Jedi’s sudden appearance.

“Sorry about that,” he replied. “Jaina, I wanted to know if you’d be up to letting me… well… update your combat techniques between now and Bakura.”

“You don’t think I can look after myself?”

“I didn’t say that!” Zekk’s hands jumped in a gesture of surrender. “We’ve been fighting the Vong for a lot longer than you did. I’m just saying that there are a number of things you could learn. Now that there’s so few Jedi, all of us have had to learn how to take on a half-dozen Vong warriors at once. And, you also need to learn how to hide in the Force without thinking about it.”

“Well, I suppose a few sparring matches couldn’t hurt,” Jaina shrugged. “Thanks, Zekk.”

“No problem. Just come find me when you want to start,” Zekk cast a quick glance at Jag. “And don’t worry, Colonel. You’ve got nothing to worry about. I don’t think I could make Jaina leave you even if I tried.” He caught Jaina’s look and quickly added “And I’m not going to try!”

“See that you don’t,” Jaina said decisively, and then mercifully let the embarrassed Jedi leave. “He’s got some nerve, suggesting that he’s some sort of competition for you. He didn’t notice the ring on my finger?”

“I think he was just making sure that I know that he knows that he isn’t any sort of competition.” Jag said. “He was probably just trying to be nice.” A broad smile crept onto Jag’s face. “Besides, you can get him back during this sparring practice he seems rather intent on.”

“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Jaina leaned in to kiss her fiancé’s lips.

“And that was for…?” Jag asked after she pulled away.

“Just making sure that you’re sure that Zekk’s no threat to you,” Jaina told him.

Jag touched his lip, savouring the aftertaste of Jaina’s lips. “Well, I’m not sure I’m convinced.”

Jaina’s mischievous smile mirrored Jag’s perfectly as the two of them slid effortlessly into each other’s arms.

 

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