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Shattered Mirror (Post-NJO AU; A/T, J/J, Valin/Wynssa, Kyle Katarn, Danni, OCs) **CHAP 10 UP 20/09**
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jadesabre75
Registered:
Nov '07
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Date Posted:
6/10 7:54pm
Subject:
RE: Shattered Mirror (Post-NJO AU; A/T, J/J, Valin/Wynssa, Kyle Katarn, Danni, OCs) **CHAP 4 UP 09/0
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Whew. Finally caught up. LOL I'm loving how you changed the story. It was good before but it's great now! Awesome job!
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Stories are in my bio! Have at it!
"Writers block is when your characters get tired of everything you do to them and go on strike."
Lucky Member of the Jagateers: Jagateer of the Imperial Red Swim Trunks
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Draconarius
Registered:
Feb '05
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Date Posted:
6/21 4:39pm
Subject:
RE: Shattered Mirror (Post-NJO AU; A/T, J/J, Valin/Wynssa, Kyle Katarn, Danni, OCs) **CHAP 4 UP 09/0
- Date Edited:
7/27 8:22pm (3 edits total)
Edited By:
Draconarius
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jadesabre75:
Whew. Finally caught up. LOL I'm loving how you changed the story. It was good before but it's great now! Awesome job!
I hope I haven't changed it too much. Thanks, by the way. Enjoy the new chapter!
CHAPTER FIVE: COMPLICATED REUNION
Star Destroyer Alchemist
Hyperspace
Jagged Fel, Colonel; deceased, killed in action. Cause: shot down by unidentified coralskipper during battle at station Wizardry One.
Jaina frowned and tapped the terminal’s controls to bring up the next entry.
Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master; deceased, killed in action. Cause: killed in duel with Warmaster Artran Kharran aboard station Wizardry One.
Jaina tapped the computer terminal’s controls again.
Mara Jade Skywalker, Jedi Master; deceased, murdered. Cause: shot in the chest. Killer unidentified.
Jaina sighed as she read the entry on Aunt Mara. She was running through the ship’s records on the Jedi Order and Alchemist crewmembers to find out what had happened to her friends and family in this universe, in an increasingly futile attempt to make her mind stop running through the whisperkit wheel it was stuck in. Seeing the master list of Jedi knights had been sobering, and had made Jaina realise just how bad things really were in this universe.
When Kyle and Danni had told her that there were only eight Jedi left, Jaina had assumed they meant there were only eight Jedi aboard the Alchemist and that there could be others still out there. The master list proved her wrong; out of several hundred entries, only the nine that were aboard the Alchemist were listed as ‘alive’. Cilghal, Kyle Katarn, and Kyle's old student Jaden Korr were the only surviving masters. The remaining knights were Danni, Zekk, Valin, Anakin, and Tahiri—whose last name was now Veila Solo, Jaina noticed.
Apart from them, everyone else was listed as either missing or dead, and there were only two people listed as missing. The first was Jysella Horn, apparently missing since the battle of Mon Calamari. The other was Tenel Ka, who—unlike Jysella—was listed as ‘missing, presumed dead’ instead of just ‘missing’. She had been missing ever since Myrkr.
Everyone else, including Jaina’s mother, her father, her uncle, her brother, and her old master Kyp Durron, were all dead. The details varied; Kyp, for instance, had died only three months ago, shot down during a battle with a Yuuzhan Vong ship called the Sunslayer. Corran Horn had died trying to rescue his daughter, Jysella. Mara, as Jaina had just read, had been murdered by some two-bit traitor.
It had taken Jaina a while to work up the courage to access her family’s details. She knew that her family was really perfectly safe back in her and Jag’s home reality, but that knowledge didn’t soften the knowledge that they were dead over here as much as Jaina would have thought.
Jaina pressed the terminal’s controls again, accessing the next record: her adorable little cousin, Ben Skywalker.
Ben Skywalker; alive. Current whereabouts: Last Hope and Star Destroyer Magician.
Jaina’s breath escaped her lips in a sigh of relief. She was glad to read that Ben was alive, but at the same time she wasn’t sure how the little four-year-old would have dealt with his parents’ deaths. She remembered Kyle mentioning that the Magician was the Alchemist’s sister ship, commanded by her hold-father, Wedge Antilles. Kyle had also mentioned that they met up with the Magician every month. Jaina was already looking forward to it, now, just to see Ben.
The next record Jaina went to access was that of her mother. She already knew that she was dead, but for some reason she still had to work up the courage to press the button to run the search.
Leia Organa Solo, Jedi Knight; deceased. Cause: killed in action killed during the destruction of the Millennium Falcon.
Jaina knew instantly that the cause of death would be the same for her father, and she was right. If the Falcon was going to be destroyed, Han Solo would have been on it. Jaina let out another sigh and pressed the button again.
Jaina Solo, Jedi Knight; deceased. Cause: tortured to death by Artran Kharran during strike on Myrkr.
Jaina’s hand hovered over the terminal controls for a moment as she stared at her picture in the record, her eyes drawn to the big red DECEASED shown just beneath it. It was disconcerting seeing proof of her own death. The record also said that Jaina’s body had to be abandoned on Myrkr. With only Anakin, Tahiri, and Zekk surviving the rescue attempt, Jaina imagined that they would have had their hands full defending themselves against Yuuzhan Vong warriors, stealing a ship, and carrying Wynssa. She didn’t blame them for leaving her body behind; the living took precedence over the dead.
She took one last look at her picture and the red letters beneath it and pressed the controls again, and the next record came up.
Jacen Solo, Jedi Knight; deceased. Cause: unknown.
Jaina’s brow furrowed. She had yet to see a record that didn’t have a cause listed. At the very least, all of the records of the deceased had a last known location and a speculated cause of death. She read the rest of the file in detail, but found nothing. Jacen had been captured by the Yuuzhan Vong on Myrkr, and according to this hadn’t been seen or heard from since.
Another search yielded nothing, and Jaina caught herself thinking that perhaps the record was wrong. That perhaps Jacen was alive in this universe.
Before she had a chance to take those thoughts further, she heard the door chime ring. She pushed her chair away from the console and turned to the door. “Yeah, who is it?”
Nothing.
Jaina stood and walked to the door, already feeling herself becoming annoyed. “Who is it?” she repeated as she pressed the controls to open the door.
She froze as she saw who was standing there.
“Anakin?”
The last syllable turned into a high-pitched squeak as Anakin suddenly hugged her. It took a moment for Jaina to put her arms around her little brother’s back, and then she was pressing her baby brother against her. Well, she was really only pressing herself against him; Anakin had grown a little more since Myrkr, and Jaina only reached up to his shoulders now. She hardly noticed, and before she knew it Anakin had let her go. She let go of him after one last squeeze and stepped back, spotting tears welling up in her brother’s ice blue eyes.
She said the first thing that came to mind. “Hi, Anakin.”
“Hi?” he blurted, voice choked with emotion. “You come back from the dead and all you can say is, ‘Hi, Anakin’?”
Jaina swiped at her eyes, trying to make Anakin stop looking so blurry. “From where I’m standing, Anakin, you’re the one who’s come back from the dead.”
Anakin looked away for a moment, and his hand came up to swipe at the tears filling his eyes. “Jaina, about that… I know what happened. I know about the hyperspace accident that you and your fiancé had, and—.”
“And it doesn’t matter,” Jaina said loudly to drown him out. “You’re still Anakin Solo, and I’m still your big sister. It doesn’t matter how different this—ah!”
Jaina suddenly found herself compressed inside Anakin’s arms again.
“I’m so happy to hear you say that,” Anakin sobbed. “I was afraid you’d… I don’t know, resent me or something for not being your Anakin.”
Jaina hugged him back. “You’re close enough.”
Anakin laughed lightly and let his sister go again. “Do you mind if we talk inside?” he asked. “I’m not really supposed to be talking to you.”
“What? Why not?”
“Well, you haven’t been scanned for slave seeds, yet,” Anakin explained. “Everyone who comes aboard has to be scanned.” His lips twisted into one of his humorous smiles. “Even visitors from an alternate universe.”
“I know that much,” Jaina said. Jag was being scanned as she and her brother spoke, having volunteered to go first. She had been told exactly what Anakin had just said, and that she couldn’t leave her quarters until she’d been scanned. It was, apparently, one of the few issues Captain Kre’fey wouldn’t bend on. “If you’re going to get in trouble for this, Anakin…”
“I’ll only get in trouble if I get caught,” he said with a dismissive wave of the hand, and Jaina stepped back to let him in. “Besides, what are they gonna do? The worst that’ll happen is that I’ll get another lecture from Kyle,” he added, flashing the almost carbon-copied grin their father was famous for. Or, had been famous for, in this universe.
The terminal Jaina had been sitting at was one of the first things Anakin noticed. “You’ve been looking up our family?”
“Since the last three years of my life didn’t happen over here, I needed to catch up,” she explained as Anakin took a closer look. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw a frown cross his face when he saw Jacen’s record on the screen.
“At least I won’t have to give you a history lesson now. I wasn’t looking forward to it,” he confessed. “How many have you seen?”
“Everyone,” Jaina said. “I’m glad to see Ben’s alive. Danni told me he was on the Magician, Wedge’s ship. But he’s also listed as being on ‘Last Hope’, whatever that is.”
“That’s right,” Anakin replied. “Wedge has a small colony called Last Hope hidden on a world in the unknown regions; that’s where they stay most of the time. He brings the Magician out to meet us every month, usually brings Ben with him.”
Jaina nodded and turned her attention to something else. “I also noticed that Tahiri is listed as Tahiri Veila Solo. You wouldn’t have had anything to do with that, would you?”
Anakin blushed. “Um… yeah… I might have married her.”
“You might have married her? When did that happen?”
“About six months ago.”
Jaina crunched some numbers in her head and smiled. “So she would have only been seventeen at the time?”
Anakin groaned loudly. “Oh, not this again. We got enough of that from Aunt Mara!”
Jaina didn’t miss the look that washed over his face as he mentioned their aunt’s name. “The record said she was murdered. Did you ever catch him?”
“Yeah.” Anakin trudged to the couch and all but collapsed onto it. “Yeah, we did.”
“Then why does her record say ‘killer unidentified’?” The words had barely left Jaina’s mouth when a horrible, inconceivable thought occurred to her. With slow, deliberate words she asked, “And why is there no information on Jacen?”
“Because he’s the one who killed her,” Anakin admitted at last, and Jaina was too stunned to respond. “I asked Kyle to list Mara’s killer as unidentified and… not keep anything on Jacen because I don’t want anyone else to know. It wasn’t Jacen’s fault, and I don’t want everyone who reads his record to think of him as a murderer and a traitor.”
Anakin’s eyes were again filled with tears when he looked up at her, and he must have recognised Jaina’s look, because he started explaining even before she sat on the couch beside him.
“You know how bad Myrkr was over here,” he began. “Only I, Tahiri, and Zekk actually made it back; everyone else died. At least… we thought so. Jacen, it turns out, was captured. Kharran tortured him, broke him, and sent him back to us as a double agent. Aunt Mara got suspicious and he killed her before she could expose him. He would have gotten away with it, too, only that Ben saw him do it. Tahiri and I found Ben later, but we were too late to stop Jacen escaping the ship. We tracked him all the way to Endor, and I…” Anakin gulped slowly, trying to suppress tears. “I had to kill him. He wouldn’t surrender, and we couldn’t let the information he had make it to Kharran. I… I didn’t have a choice.”
The news would have hurt a lot more, Jaina realised, had she actually been this universe’s Jaina. The news still shook Jaina to her innermost core, and she had to mind herself repeatedly that her Jacen was still alive, safe and sound in her own universe.
“You sound like you don’t believe that,” Jaina said, breaking the long silence that had fallen over them.
“I, I do!” Anakin’s face snapped towards her and slowly turned away. “It’s just… I can’t believe how stupid I was, thinking it was really Jacen, that he’d actually managed to escape after three years. Aunt Mara’s death is my fault because I believed that.”
Jaina put an arm around his shoulder. “It’s not your fault. You can’t have been the only person he fooled.”
“I know that. He fooled Captain Kre’fey, Kyle, everyone.” Anakin breathed in and out slowly. “It’s worse because I should have seen it coming.”
Jaina shook her head; she hadn’t expected her first talk with Anakin to degenerate into talking him out of one of his ‘I’m-to-blame-for-everything’ moods. “Why? Because you knew him better than the others? Anakin, he fooled Aunt Mara! If he could do that—”
“I should have seen it coming because it wasn’t the first time,” Anakin replied. “When we were stealing the Alchemist, there was an officer… Lieutenant Commander Denn Jerrevickk. He was on the ship that rescued us after Myrkr, and he was a good friend of mine. He gave the Vong the location of Wizardry One—that’s where the Empire was building the Alchemist and the Magician—and then he tried to escape in a Scorcher. I saw him climbing into it, tried to stop him, and he pulled a gun on me. I could have just ripped it out of his hand and then ripped him off the Scorcher, but I didn’t. I let him go. It was his fault that so many Jedi died there—it was his fault that Uncle Luke died there, and I let him go. I…”
He groaned in agony, as if something had finally snapped inside him, and his face fell into his hands. Jaina knew what her baby brother needed almost immediately. Putting her other arm around him, she said, “You thought he was your friend, Anakin. What he did wasn’t your fault, and what Jacen did… and what you had to do to him… that wasn’t your fault, either.” She brushed a stray lock of brown hair away from his face. “I’m still proud of you, little brother.”
He turned to her, lips quivering between a groan and a scream, and suddenly Jaina was wrapped in his arms again, her own arms wrapped around his back as he sobbed onto her shoulder.
For a long time, Jaina’s entire existence was simply holding onto her baby brother. She had wished for this so many times after Myrkr; to be able to give him one last hug. She’d have done anything for a chance at this in her universe. She would even have settled for one last chance to talk to him. Even one more chance to hear his voice.
“I’m proud of you, too, Jaina.” Anakin pulled his face back so he could look at her. “Zekk said that I died on Myrkr in your universe. I want you to know that… I’m glad you’re alive. You’re Anakin would be, too.”
Now Jaina felt her eyes filling with tears. “I… Anakin… thank you. Just… thank you.”
Anakin offered her a smile and swiped at his eyes, his hand coming away damp with tears. “I’m sorry for that.”
“No, don’t be. I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you again.”
“Same here,” Anakin replied. “But… I almost feel guilty about it. I mean, I know you’re happy to see me, but you can’t have wanted to be cut off from everyone else to do it.”
Jaina nodded, slowly, chewing on her lip. “No. No, I didn’t,” she said, swiping tears away from her own eyes. “Let’s not talk about that, okay? It’ll just make both of us feel bad.” Jaina flicked the conversation onto the first subject she could think of. “So how is Tahiri? She pregnant yet? If I remember how often I caught you two kissing…”
Anakin shook his head and groaned in dismay. “I can’t believe I almost missed you teasing me like this.”
“You know you enjoy it.”
“I think I actually might, in a weird way. A very weird way.” He shook his head. “No, she’s not pregnant. We’re both too busy these days for too much of… that.”
Jaina burst out laughing harder than she had in years. “I can’t believe you just confessed that to your big sister!”
Anakin’s cheeks turned bright-red. “Hey, you asked me!”
“I expected a witty comeback, not for you to actually answer!” Jaina managed to tell him between laughs.
“Well, its not just lack of time,” Anakin said. “We don’t want a child, not right now. Not when all we’d be bringing it into was this… hell. We’re actually using the Force as a sort of… contraceptive. I’m not sure Uncle Luke would approve, but we don’t have much choice; the Alchemist wasn’t ever equipped with contraceptives.”
Jaina had to admit, she wasn’t sure, either. “If you were doing it back in my universe, he probably wouldn’t approve,” she said. “But, considering how things are over here, I think he’d agree with you; it wouldn’t be fair on your child if you had one now, and you don’t have much choice.”
“Well, Aunt Mara agreed with us,” another voice said. “That has to count for something.”
Jaina turned towards the door, which had opened while her laughing had covered the sound, and saw an athletic blonde-haired—and barefooted—young woman standing in the threshold.
“Tahiri?” Anakin leapt to his feet. “What… how?”
“Remember that little Force-bond, Dummy? You know, the little thing that lets me know what you’re thinking before you do?” Tahiri Veila Solo stepped into the room and shut the door behind her. “You’re lucky I’m the one that found you. If Kyle caught you talking to her before she’s been scanned for slave seeds, he’d be furious,” she said as she walked over to the couch. Jaina had barely stood up when Tahiri hugged her. “Hi, Jaina. It’s really great to see you again.”
“It’s great to see you, too, Tahiri,” Jaina replied as she hugged her old friend back. She suddenly that Tahiri felt… different in the Force, somehow. Almost as if something was missing. Jaina only figured out what it could be when she saw the three vertical scars on her friend’s forehead. “Tahiri, are you… just Tahiri?”
Tahiri pulled away. “What’s that supposed to—oh.” She glanced at Anakin. “I guess you were right, Dummy.”
Jaina looked to her brother, and saw that he suddenly looked almost physically sick. “Please don’t tell me Tahiri and Riina… joined… in your universe,” he begged.
“There was no other way,” Jaina replied, astonished it actually hadn’t happened. “How did you stop it? There was no way to get rid of Riina without killing Tahiri.”
“Not quite,” Anakin replied, his voice almost harsh. “Tahiri and I were close enough for me to be able to tell the difference between her and Riina. I managed to rip Riina out of Tahiri’s mind and into mine. She couldn’t hurt Tahiri in there, so I crushed her like a bug.”
“You sound like you enjoyed it,” Jaina noted.
“No! I didn’t… not really. I just…” Anakin breathed in and out and collected his thoughts. “Tahiri would never have been the same again if she joined with that… thing the scarheads forced on her. I wasn’t going to let that happen to her. I don’t regret what I did, and I never will.”
“It’s been kinda weird since it happened,” Tahiri said. “I mean, I remember knowing how to speak Yuuzhan Vong—I even remember what some of Riina’s memories felt like—but I can’t remember any details. It’s like having someone’s name on the tip of your tongue and not for the life of you being able to say it. It gets very annoying sometimes.”
“So there’s nothing left of Riina in you?”
“Well, not quite. I think.” Tahiri crinkled her nose. “Every now and then, I get these dreams. I’m always a Yuuzhan Vong warrior, but it—she doesn’t feel like Riina. At least, I don’t think so. She feels like Riina, but it’s not quite the same. Anyway, sometimes I’m part of the assault force attacking Csilla, other times I’m attacking Mon Calamari, and in the last two I was watching Kharran fight Master Skywalker.”
Jaina’s eyes drifted to Anakin. “What about you? If you pulled her into your mind, then…”
“I get the dreams as well,” he said. “But they’re worse. They’re always about you. In the dreams, I’m Kharran, and I’m torturing you on Myrkr. I even fight myself when I—the me in the dream comes to rescue you.” He couldn’t look at Jaina anymore. “It’s… hard… to deal with.”
Tahiri touch Anakin’s arm, just the slightest brush of her fingers, and Jaina felt herself becoming irrationally jealous of how much effect it had on her baby brother. Something about seeing Tahiri doing the job she used to do, Jaina decided.
“The Captain wanted to see you, after you’ve been scanned. If you’re anything like me, you’ll hate the thing. It feels really weird when it’s scanning you,” Tahiri said once she was sure Anakin was alright. “Your fiancé’s almost finished—I wonder how he liked it?—anyway, if you want, you can stay and talk with Anakin a little longer. I’m not going to tell anyone if you two won’t.”
“No, it’s okay. I don’t want to get Anakin in trouble. Besides, we’ve had enough of a talk. I’ll catch up on everything else over the next few days. Force knows I’m going to be here for a while.”
A guilty look came to Anakin’s eyes again. “Jaina, you know that if there was any way I could send you back home, I would. I wouldn’t wish living in this galaxy on anyone.”
Jaina hugged him again. “It’s okay, Anakin. It’s not your fault.”
“Hey, Jaina… I know I didn’t say this enough while you were still alive, but… I love you, big sis.”
Jaina felt a new wave of tears coming. She squeezed Anakin a little harder, then said, “I love you, too, little brother.”
The trip from Jaina’s quarters to the med lab was pretty uneventful. It was only a few seconds in a turbolift followed by a couple of minutes walking through corridors. Tahiri ended up doing most of the talking, though. It was nice to have the old Tahiri back, and seeing how happy she was compared to the Tahiri Jaina knew made Jaina’s heart hurt. It warmed her heart at the same time, though, knowing that the two former best friends had had a chance, even if only in an alternate universe, to turn their puppy love relationship into a solid and happy marriage.
Jag had only just finished being scanned for slave seeds when Jaina, Anakin, and Tahiri arrived at the med lab. Cilghal gave all four of them the happy news that Jag was slave seed free, then gave Anakin and Tahiri a lecture on following ship’s protocols while she got Jaina ready for her turn in the scanner.
The scanner itself was a rather ominous device; it was as big as an X-wing’s cockpit, and completely solid aside from a small tunnel which held a bed for the patient to lie on. It almost like being sealed into a coffin as the bed slid into the tunnel. Blue lights came on around the tunnel’s inside after Jaina had been sealed inside. According to Anakin, the scanner was a much larger and much more precise version of the Jedi detectors used during the Jedi Purges. It could find pockets of no midi-chlorian activity, finding Force-stripped Yuuzhan Vong biotech without having to operate on the patient.
The scan took over an hour and a half, time which Jaina spent talking with Anakin and Tahiri through the commlink built into the inside. Eventually, once Cilghal was sure there was no Yuuzhan Vong slave seeds or any other coral implants inside her, she let Jaina out and told her she and Jag were now free to move about the ship. Tahiri had already told Jag about Captain Kre’fey’s desire to see both of them, so he was ready to head up to the bridge as soon as Jaina was done.
The trip to the bridge was a bit longer than the one from Jaina’s quarters to the med lab. With Jag present, the conversation did eventually switch onto Wynssa shortly before the turbolift arrived at the bridge.
“I’m pretty sure I know how you feel about Valin,” Tahiri was saying as the turbolift neared the Alchemist’s bridge. “But don’t judge him just because he’s dating your sister. They do love each other. He even managed to get your approval before you died.”
Jag frowned but said nothing, and Jaina sensed him tense slightly.
The door opened before Tahiri could say anything else, and the group moved out onto the Alchemist’s bridge. It was pretty small, which didn’t surprise Jaina; the Alchemist was only eight hundred metres long, half the size of an Imperial-class star destroyer. The turbolift doors opened onto a small platform surrounded by railing which housed a large circular holo-projector, the controls for which were in an alcove off to the right. A staircase on either side led down to the captain’s chair in front of and below the holo-projector, with two crew stations either side and about five more in front, tapering to where the pilot sat—made obvious by the numerous flight controls on the console that wrapped around him, which would force the pilot to push his seat back and turn around before he could stand up.
Before Jaina could take a proper look at the numerous officers, a bright young voice called out from the holo-projector control console. “Hi, Anakin! Tahiri!”
The owner was a young human girl who couldn’t be older than fourteen, sitting idly behind the sensor station controls and waving to the Jedi knights with a sweetly innocent smile on her face. Anakin and Tahiri led Jaina and Jag over for introductions.
“Jaina, Jag, this is Kayti Vlas, former amateur hacker and now our ship’s sensor officer,” Tahiri explained. “Kayti, this is my sister Jaina, and her fiancé, Colonel Jagged Fel.”
“Hi,” the red-head chirped.
Jag frowned slightly. “I don’t mean any offence, Miss Vlas, but—.”
“Kayti. Please,” she all but begged.
“Kayti,” Jag corrected. “Aren’t you a little young to be a warship’s bridge officer?”
“We don’t have much choice these days,” she explained with a shrug. “We’re running on only two thirds of the crew we should have. I spent a bit of time around a sensor station like this on my mom’s old ship, so when I came aboard Captain Kre’fey asked me to take over here.” She bobbed her head towards the captain’s chair. “Speaking of which, they’re still talking about you over there. I think they’re expecting you.”
Jaina glanced to where Kayti had nodded and instantly recognised the white-furred Bothan that was Traest Kre’fey. The captain’s fur stood out in stark contrast to the dark uniform he wore, a uniform that Jaina recognised as an Imperial outfit. The captain was conversing with a human man who had his back turned to Jaina, while a young woman that Jaina recognised as Wynssa Fel stood with her hands clasped behind her back. Valin Horn was standing beside her.
Jaina and the others gave Kayti a quick goodbye and headed over to join the captain, looking down at him from behind the railing around the platform. Wynssa interrupted the captain’s conversation with the other officer with a curt cough, drawing their attention up to the railing.
“Colonel Fel. Jaina Solo,” Kre’fey said after he had turned to look at them. “Thank you for coming.”
“It is your ship, Admiral Kre’fey,” Jag said.
“I go by Captain Kre’fey now, Colonel. There’s not much point being an Admiral with only the one ship to command, and it made it easier for our non-military crewmembers to adjust,” the ghost-white Bothan explained. “Colonel Darklighter and I wanted to talk to the both of you.”
“Colonel Darklighter?” Jaina blurted, finally examining the other officer. It was Colonel Gavin Darklighter, all right, but he looked different. He wore a dark Imperial uniform like Captain Kre’fey, and he had a nasty burn scar on the side of his face, as if something inside his fighter’s cockpit had exploded a bit too close to him for comfort.
“It’s good to see you again, Sticks,” he said.
“What did you want to talk to us about, Captain?” Jag asked.
The Bothan took a deep breath. “First, I wanted to start by saying that I am very sorry for what has happened to the two of you. To be thrown back into a war you had already fought and won must be… difficult. I want you to know that I take no pleasure in asking you this.”
“Asking us what, Captain?” Jaina asked.
“I know you’ve been in this… universe for only a day, but I want you two to consider joining the Alchemist’s starfighter pilots,” the Captain said. “We could certainly use two pilots of your calibre.”
“But we’re not going to force you into it,” Darklighter said. “General Antilles has set up a small colony on a planet in the Unknown Regions, and you can go back with him after we meet the Magician tomorrow if that’s what you want. But the Captain’s right; we could use two pilots like you. We don’t have enough as it is.”
For Jaina, it wasn’t really a choice at all, but she still cast a look at Jag to make sure he was of the same mind as her. His look mirrored her own, and she smiled at him before they both turned back to the Captain and Colonel Darklighter.
“We’d be honoured, Captain,” Jag said.
“Besides, you can’t expect us to leave our little siblings here to do all the fighting,” Jaina added.
Both Kre’fey and Colonel Darklighter seemed very much relieved. “I’m glad to hear that, though I did expect as much,” the Captain confessed. “You won’t have to start your duties until after we’ve met the Magician, so you will have a couple of days to adjust to life aboard the Alchemist. As far as your assignments go, I’ll leave you at the mercy of Colonel Darklighter.”
“Thank you, Captain.” Darklighter smiled. “Jaina, since you’re a Jedi, we’ll have you join Anakin’s Black Knights squadron. As for you, Jag, I feel your talents will be best used as a squadron leader. Unfortunately, most of our squadrons already have good leaders. I’m leading Rogue Squadron, Hobbie is leading Halo Squadron, and Major Forge is leading Fury Squadron. The only squadron we have without an experience leader is Raven Squadron, so you’ll be put in command of them.”
“Wh-wh… what?” Wynssa’s voice suddenly chimed in. “You… you’re what?”
“Wynssa, don’t.” Valin reached out to touch her shoulder, but she recoiled from him.
“No… no, you can’t do this!” she moaned. “The Ravens are my squadron. I… I made them from scratch. You can’t do this to me! Captain?”
Her agonised cry only got her the slightest shake of the head from Captain Kre’fey. “Lieutenant, we allowed you to make your own squadron because you were the only military-trained pilot we had left. Now that Colonel Fel is here—.”
“You don’t think I can do it.” Wynssa’s voice dripped acid. “You’d rather have him in charge than the ‘crazy Fel girl’.”
“Lieutenant, that’s enough!” Gavin barked. “With an attitude like that, I’m starting to question why I put in command of that squadron in the first place. The decision is final; Jag will be in command, you will act as his first officer. Is that clear?”
Wynssa hitched and forced a murmured, “Yes sir,” through her teeth. Jaina saw Jag’s fingers curling and uncurling, and she instantly knew that he wanted to go to his sister’s side. His Chiss military training stopped him from doing it, leaving Valin to again try to put his hands on Wyn’s shoulders. She shrugged him off again and just stood there, her bottom lip quivering as tears built up in her eyes and the rest of her smouldered like a volcano.
“Well,” Kre’fey said in an attempt to break the awkward silence and direct everyone else’s attention off Wynssa. “Knight Solo, Colonel Fel, welcome to the Alchemist. You can settle in during our meeting with the Magician. General Antilles and his family will be very happy to meet you both.” He looked around the gathered officers, and for a moment his gaze rested on Wynssa and he let out a short, very disappointed sigh. “Alright, we’ve got a lot of work to do before we meet up with the Magician. Knight Solo, Colonel, you can ask Anakin and Colonel Darklighter for ways to help if you want. Dismissed, everyone.”
The commlink bounced off the wall with a quiet and entirely unsatisfying ding, a useless noise that Wynssa made up for by unleashing a torrent of insults against Captain Kre’fey and Colonel Darklighter, more than enough to get her expelled from the military if either officer heard her. Valin closed the door to her quarters with haste before some officer walked past and heard her and felt compelled to tell the Captain or the Colonel.
He waited until she’d stopped screaming before he tried to get a word in. “Are you alright?”
She exploded again. “Of course I’m not!” she shrieked, whirling on Valin and pressing her nails so hard into the palm of her hands that Valin was sure she’d draw blood. “How can they do this to me? How dare they do this to me! I had to work for over two years to even be allowed into a Scorcher’s cockpit, then I finally convince that kriffing useless Captain that I can handle my own squadron, and the first chance he gets he takes it all from me!”
“Wynssa, don’t be so melodramatic—hey!”
Her hand flashed towards his face faster than a blaster bolt and Valin’s own hand snapped up to catch hers at the wrist before it smashed into his cheek.
“What the hell did I do?” he demanded.
Wynssa stared at his grip on her wrist and her eyes flared. She fought against his hand, screaming for him to “Let go of me!” and then her hand tore itself free of his and she finished his swipe on his face.
Valin let his whole body turn with the blow and rubbed at his cheek as he straightened back up. His hand came away with blood on it, blood he quickly realised was Wynssa’s when he saw that her nails had drawn blood from her palm.
She was staring at him, her face expressionless. “Did I… did I just…? Valin, I’m, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it…”
Valin just rubbed at his cheek—Force, she hits hard—and for a moment he caught himself wondering why he took this from her. It had started when their relationship had turned from friendship to romance; she’d just lose control for half a second and lash out at him, and sometimes he caught her and sometimes he didn’t, but it hurt whether he did or not. Whether or not he stopped her, she’d still tried to hit him. The woman he loved had still tried to hurt him.
If it wasn’t his fault, and if he didn’t deserve every last bit of it, he would have hated her for it. As it was, he hated himself and felt sorry for her, not the other way around.
“It’s not your fault, Wynssa,” he said at last, finally unable to bear watching her fear-frozen form trembling in front of him. “It’s okay.”
Her mouth moved but failed to form words, and she half-staggered, half-fell towards her bed until she collapsed onto its edge and put her face into her hands and started to sob. Valin poked at his throbbing cheek, already feeling it tingling as a hand-shaped red mark formed on it, and he trudged over to the bed and plunked himself down beside her. He slipped his arms around her and cradled him against her side and just let her cry.
“I, I’m sorry, Valin,” she managed to moan as her tears soaked into his shirt. “I… I don’t know what’s going on. The nightmares have been getting worse, and I… I can’t take it.” She lifted her head off his chest and looked up at him. “I never mean it, Valin. I’d never want to hurt you, never. I just… I just… I’m sorry!”
Valin looked down at her beautifully heartrending face and for a few seconds couldn’t quite phrase what he wanted to say. Wynssa’s face turned even more distraught at his silence—and Valin wondered for a moment how that was even possible—and then with a groan of emotional agony she pushed away from him and collapsed onto her bed, burying her face into the pillow.
She might not have been Force sensitive, but Valin could still sense Wynssa’s tornado of emotions as though she were—one of the advantages of being in love with her—and at the moment the strongest emotion coursing off her was an almost overwhelming sense of loneliness. He knew immediately what she needed to hear, and moved closer to her side.
“I’m here, Wyn,” he said as he rubbed her back. “I know how bad your nightmares are getting.” It is all my fault, he wanted to add but couldn’t. “I don’t hate you. I could never hate you.”
She shifted her head from the pillow to Valin’s lap. “I’m so sorry I hit you, Valin. I didn’t mean it.”
“I know, Wyn. You can stop apologising,” Valin told her. He pulled her hair away from her scarred cheek and started tracing the scars with his fingers. He was the only person she’d let do this; it was the most intimate thing he could think of doing to her.
Well, the most intimate thing he could think of doing that she’d let him do, anyway.
“Why does the universe hate me?” she groaned.
“The universe doesn’t hate you.”
“Yes, it does!”
“Well, I don’t hate you,” Valin said instead, leaning down to place a kiss on his girlfriend’s scarred cheek. “Who cares what the rest of the universe thinks?”
“I do!”
“Oh, come on, Wyn. You’re acting childish,” he said, though he knew he was tempting fate by saying it. “Things can’t be that bad. You’re not being removed from active duty, and you’re still going to be the Ravens’ first officer. And you’ll be spending a lot of time with your brother. That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
She grumbled something unintelligible.
“Wyn?”
“I said, ‘I don’t know’,” she repeated. “I still haven’t figured out how I feel about him. I mean, he’s not Jag. He’s close, but… I don’t know if that’s enough. He doesn’t remember helping you and Uncle Wedge look after me after Myrkr, and… he’s not my Jag if he doesn’t remember that.”
“If our Jag had come back but had just lost his memory, would you need to think about whether you loved him or not?”
“No.”
“How is this any different?”
“Because he isn’t our Jag, Valin. I just…” She growled at herself again. “Can we talk about something else?”
“I’m not sure there’s much else to talk about,” Valin said. “Listen, it’s the Captain’s decision who leads the squadrons, and it’s not like he’s replacing you with someone less qualified than you are. We just found someone who’s more qualified and higher ranked than you; that’s what happens on this ship. You didn’t here Major Klivian complaining when we rescued Colonel Darklighter, did you?”
“No,” she admitted begrudgingly, almost too low for Valin to hear her.
“It’ll be okay, Wyn, you’ll see,” Valin assured her. “You can take some time to get to know Jag, and you get to help him meet Wedge and the girls tomorrow. They might even be able to help you figure out how you feel about him.
“What could go wrong?”
Night was a relative term aboard the Alchemist. Duty shifts were arranged so that the ship always had enough crew active to tackle any emergency, so the ship never really quietened down. This meant that, even as the traitor pulled the soft little villip out of the hiding place he had kept it in all these months, he could still hear the sounds of other crewmembers bustling around outside.
He didn’t want to do this. His friends and even his family were aboard this ship. He didn’t want to betray him, but that hideous thing the scarheads had forced on him just wouldn’t leave him alone. It felt like it was constantly whispering in his ear, telling him in horrifically graphic detail just how it would hurt not only him but also those he loved if he didn’t do what it wanted. Before, he had been able to outthink it; the last two meetings with the Magician had been cancelled, and he had managed to convince the monster inside him that it made no sense blowing his cover to sell out just the Alchemist. But the meeting was going through this time, and now those two were back. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t convince the monster that it didn’t really want him selling the ship out… and he couldn’t let it hurt the beautiful woman sleeping behind him.
He placed the villip on the table, desperately trying to ignore both her breathing and the lightsaber lying nearby. All it took to activate the little villip was a simple stroke down its middle. This one was designed to link in with the nearest villip it could find, but that did take a while. Nowhere near as efficient as a commink, but they got the job done… and were impossible to trace.
Soon, the inside began to change into a rough picture of a Yuuzhan Vong. The traitor didn’t know enough about the scarheads to gauge his rank by his scars, and he doubted it would have even been possible with the simple image the villip presented.
The scarhead issued a demanding challenge in their guttural language.
“My name isn’t important,” he answered. “What is important is that I can give you the Alchemist and the Magician.”
[end of chapter]
EDIT #1: Forgot to include Cilghal in the list of surviving Jedi.
EDIT #2: Slight continuity error: Alema Rar, as one of the members of the Myrkr strike team and not one of the three survivors, should be dead. I've removed any reference to her being alive, and she's been removed from the Dramatis Personae.
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Shattered Mirror - http://boards.theforce.net/beyond_the_saga/b10477/28487856/p1/?1 Proudly A/T and J/J Knighted by the wonderful SilSolo  "Damned if I'm gonna lose to you!" "Then damned you shall be!" - my brother and I playing Smash Bros.
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Kidan
Title: TFN EU Staff
Registered:
Jul '03
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Date Posted:
6/21 5:30pm
Subject:
RE: Shattered Mirror (Post-NJO AU; A/T, J/J, Valin/Wynssa, Kyle Katarn, Danni, OCs) **CHAP 5 UP 22/0
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another great post here! can't wait for the next one.
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You sadistic Yank!! - McEwok No Krakana - http://nokrakana.wrighton.org Believe in the Constitution? Ron Paul '08
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jadesabre75
Registered:
Nov '07
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Date Posted:
6/21 6:55pm
Subject:
RE: Shattered Mirror (Post-NJO AU; A/T, J/J, Valin/Wynssa, Kyle Katarn, Danni, OCs) **CHAP 5 UP 22/0
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Yeah baby. We're getting to the good stuff. LOL Loved the part with Anakin and Jaina. Beautiful!
Great job!
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Stories are in my bio! Have at it!
"Writers block is when your characters get tired of everything you do to them and go on strike."
Lucky Member of the Jagateers: Jagateer of the Imperial Red Swim Trunks
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Jainasolo101
Registered:
Dec '07
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Date Posted:
6/21 7:45pm
Subject:
RE: Shattered Mirror (Post-NJO AU; A/T, J/J, Valin/Wynssa, Kyle Katarn, Danni, OCs) **CHAP 5 UP 22/0
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Great post.
I'm glad Ani and Jaina are on the same page and love each other no matter what.
I still feel sorry for Wyn. Even in the old one she gave up her squad for Jag.
Can't wait till next post.
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" Do or do not. There is no try."
Jagged Fel ROCKS!
I love Twilight.
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rebel_cheese
Registered:
Jul '06
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Date Posted:
6/21 10:57pm
Subject:
RE: Shattered Mirror (Post-NJO AU; A/T, J/J, Valin/Wynssa, Kyle Katarn, Danni, OCs) **CHAP 5 UP 22/0
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Yike! Gotta play catch up!
I hope to be caught up by Monday.
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Padawan of princess_of_naboo E-married to the amazing padawanlost  Member of Charon_Force Beginning's End: http://boards.theforce.net/Message.aspx?topic=28450077&brd=10477&replies=1
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SilSolo
Registered:
Mar '04
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Date Posted:
6/21 11:18pm
Subject:
RE: Shattered Mirror (Post-NJO AU; A/T, J/J, Valin/Wynssa, Kyle Katarn, Danni, OCs) **CHAP 5 UP 22/0
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yup definitely getting into the good stuff  and I can imagine Wyn's shrill voice piercing my skull
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VhenRa
Registered:
May '08
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Date Posted:
6/22 6:13am
Subject:
RE: Shattered Mirror (Post-NJO AU; A/T, J/J, Valin/Wynssa, Kyle Katarn, Danni, OCs) **CHAP 5 UP 22/0
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Why do I get the feeling they WILL Find a way back and then return with a fleet of reinforcements...?
Still, Good Chapter.
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Draconarius
Registered:
Feb '05
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Date Posted:
6/22 8:28pm
Subject:
RE: Shattered Mirror (Post-NJO AU; A/T, J/J, Valin/Wynssa, Kyle Katarn, Danni, OCs) **CHAP 5 UP 22/0
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jadesabre75:
Yeah baby. We're getting to the good stuff. LOL
Oh, definitely. Though the fight's going to be different from last time, since the Magician is a fair bit smaller than the Lusankya
LOL Loved the part with Anakin and Jaina. Beautiful!
Thanks for saying so. I'm glad you liked it.
Great job!
Thanks!
Jainsolo101:
Great post.
Thank you.
I'm glad Ani and Jaina are on the same page and love each other no matter what.
They both saw each other die, so they're both just as happy to have a second chance.
I still feel sorry for Wyn. Even in the old one she gave up her squad for Jag.
Well, as Valin said, Jag's a lot more experienced--and emotionally stable--than Wyn is.
Can't wait till next post.
Soon, I promise. I already have the first half completed.
rebel_cheese:
Yike! Gotta play catch up!
Yeah, just a bit... 
I hope to be caught up by Monday.
Looking forward to it.
SilSolo:
yup definitely getting into the good stuff
Time for some blowie-uppy, huh?
and I can imagine Wyn's shrill voice piercing my skull
Thanks... I think...
VhenRa:
Why do I get the feeling they WILL Find a way back and then return with a fleet of reinforcements...?
No idea... no idea at all... 
Still, Good Chapter.
Thanks
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Shattered Mirror - http://boards.theforce.net/beyond_the_saga/b10477/28487856/p1/?1 Proudly A/T and J/J Knighted by the wonderful SilSolo "Damned if I'm gonna lose to you!" "Then damned you shall be!" - my brother and I playing Smash Bros.
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Draconarius
Registered:
Feb '05
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Date Posted:
6/29 8:13pm
Subject:
RE: Shattered Mirror (Post-NJO AU; A/T, J/J, Valin/Wynssa, Kyle Katarn, Danni, OCs) **CHAP 5 UP 22/0
- Date Edited:
6/30 2:42am (2 edits total)
Edited By:
Draconarius
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[RESERVED UNTIL I GET THE WHOLE POST UP. CURRENTLY UNABLE TO DO SO DUE TO BOARD ERROR]
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Shattered Mirror - http://boards.theforce.net/beyond_the_saga/b10477/28487856/p1/?1 Proudly A/T and J/J Knighted by the wonderful SilSolo "Damned if I'm gonna lose to you!" "Then damned you shall be!" - my brother and I playing Smash Bros.
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dancinut1080
Registered:
May '08
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Date Posted:
6/30 7:47am
Subject:
RE: Shattered Mirror (Post-NJO AU; A/T, J/J, Valin/Wynssa, Kyle Katarn, Danni, OCs) **CHAP 6 UP SOON
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Hi! I just found this amazing story and I'm catching up as fast as I can, could you please add me to the PM list though so I don't miss the next post? Thanks!
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Why do I have the feeling you'll be the death of me? ~Obi-wan to Anakin Skywalker
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Draconarius
Registered:
Feb '05
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Date Posted:
6/30 7:52pm
Subject:
RE: Shattered Mirror (Post-NJO AU; A/T, J/J, Valin/Wynssa, Kyle Katarn, Danni, OCs) **CHAP 6 UP SOON
- Date Edited:
7/9 1:34am (2 edits total)
Edited By:
Draconarius
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SIX: THE MAGICIAN
Battleship Sunslayer
Yuuzhan’tar System
Artran Kharran stood wide-legged at the head of the Sunslayer’s command deck, hands clasped behind his back as he stared out through the transparent yorik coral in front of him. Behind him, numerous Yuuzhan Vong warriors sat at their stations, and he could hear and sense some of them grumbling about how infidel the new command deck was.
Artran could not argue that the command deck did have an ‘infidel’ feel to it, now. The ship’s commander sat in the centre, about halfway between the transparent coral viewports and the large membrane that led into the rest of the ship. The design change had been necessitated by the cognition hood disruptors the Alchemist’s crew had spread throughout the galaxy a few weeks after their launch. The weapon could fit into a standard missile or torpedo along with the standard warhead, and, once it hit, sent a powerful shock through a Yuuzhan Vong ship’s neural networks. It didn’t have any negative effects on the actual ship, but the surge would travel from the ship through the cognition hood and into the pilot… and the surge was more than powerful enough to kill the unfortunate pilot.
Since the weapon’s introduction, the shapers on Yuuzhan’tar and elsewhere had been trying to come up with a countermeasure, but they had yet to make any progress. The actual disruptor was destroyed after it fired by the missile that carried it, so it was impossible to recover a weapon for the shapers to examine. The only options the useless shapers had been able to come up with were to either redesign the fleet so that cognition hoods were no longer necessary in the larger ships (a coralskipper was dead anyway if it got hit by a missile, so the cognition disruptor was a moot point), or increase the armour until the missile no longer had any effect. Since the latter option would have made the ships in Artran’s fleet so slow and clumsy that they would have been utterly useless in combat, he had ordered that the cognition hoods be phased out of all new ships being grown.
The new ships—of which the new Sunslayer was the first—had command decks similar to those on infidel warships. Yuuzhan Vong warriors worked numerous stations that used colour, shapes, and even smell to communicate information. It wasn’t quite as efficient as the direct cognition hood, but Artran had taken the opportunity to have the shapers correct some of the minor design flaws that had crept into the old Sunslayer. The new vessel was now the premier warship in the galaxy, Yuuzhan Vong or otherwise. The rest of the Vong fleet had been retrofitted—a messy but necessary process—or replaced with new ships.
Artran suddenly sensed the presence of the Sunslayer’s commander approaching the membrane at the back of the command deck. He turned and walked back towards it so that he was standing directly in front of it when his ‘brother’ walked through it.
“What is it?” Artran demanded as the surprise was still registering on Sharrvon’s face.
“Warmaster,” he greeted instinctively, forcing his face back to a neutral expression. “The Sunslayer is ready to depart, and the bulk of the Yuuzhan’tar defence forces are ready to leave along with us.”
“Then why do you want to talk to me privately?” Artran demanded, and he relished the fresh look of surprise that washed over Sharrvon’s face.
“I need to report something, Warmaster. Something I do not believe the regular warriors need to hear,” the Sunslayer’s commander explained.
Artran probed the scarhead’s mind briefly and found that Sharrvon did indeed feel his news was of the utmost urgency, so he called for Tanyra over his shoulder and waited for her to catch up before leading both her and Sharrvon into his private tactical chamber beside the bridge. He sealed the membrane once Tanyra and Sharrvon were inside.
“What is it?” Artran demanded as he sat down in the seat he used to direct the Sunslayer’s battles. He refrained from activating the blaze bugs lying dormant on the table in front of him.
“I was contacted earlier this morning by one of your fleet commanders, brother,” Sharrvon explained. “He received a villip communiqué from an infidel he believes has been implanted with a slave seed.”
“This concerns us… why?” Tanyra asked from Artran’s side.
“Because the infidel claimed to be aboard the Alchemist,” Sharrvon explained, showing none of the rage he would normally have shown had a normal warrior interrupted him. He understood Artran and Tanyra’s plan—the version they had led him to believe, anyway—well enough for him to consider both of them equals. “He also claimed to be able to sabotage the Alchemist’s stealth systems during their meeting with the Magician tomorrow. Our commander will be able to destroy the Alchemist, and might be able to destroy the Magician, as well.”
Artran allowed a smile to creep onto his lips; this was indeed good news. “Well,” he said more to himself than Tanyra or Sharrvon. “I thought he’d been exposed. This is the first time he’s contacted us since we let him go.”
“Artran?” Sharrvon inquired.
Artran brought his hand up to his chin. “Has the commander prepared a plan for his ambush?”
“Yes. It is sound.”
Sharrvon’s tactical judgement was more than adequate to review a basic ambush, Artran knew, so he decided not to bother looking it over himself. Commanders—even Yuuhan Vong ones—usually worked better with plans of their own design, he had found.
“Very good,” he said. “Tell him to proceed. I would like to be rid of both ships, but make it clear that his primary target is the Alchemist, not the Magician. He is to destroy it at all costs.”
Sharrvon dipped his head and left the chamber to issue the Warmaster’s instructions, leaving him alone with Tanyra.
“I expected you to plan the attack yourself,” Tanyra pointed out as soon as the membrane closed.
“It wouldn’t make a difference,” Artran said. “Anakin Solo and the other Jedi have a habit of screwing up even my plans. I would actually prefer to be there myself, but Sharrvon would have told me if the Sunslayer could make it to the ambush point in time.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Now that our… contact… is working, we should have regular reports on the Alchemist’s whereabouts. We’ll get them soon.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Artran counselled. “It wouldn’t be hard for him to outthink the second personality we forced on him. We kept it stupid for a reason, remember?”
“The last thing we need is a third conspirator,” Tanyra recited. “I remember. So what do we do?”
Artran pressed his fingertips to his forehead as he thought. “Contact Nen Yim and ask her if she can contact the villip our traitor used and set it up to contact me directly the next time he activates it. I’ll get an idea of just what we’re dealing with and take things from there.”
“Yim will probably need that commander’s villip; it’s the last one our traitor contacted,” Tanyra pointed out.
“Then contact the commander and have him send it to us,” Artran instructed. Tanyra nodded and dashed off to carry out his instructions, and Artran spent a few more moments sitting in his tactical command chair, contemplating what he would do with the traitor once he made contact. The Alchemist had a habit of picking up stragglers, so a slave seed collaborator might have gotten aboard and it might not be the person Artran was thinking of.
If it was him, though…
A broad smile spread across Artran’s face as he began imagining just how much fun that conversation would be.
[refer to next post for continuation]
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Shattered Mirror - http://boards.theforce.net/beyond_the_saga/b10477/28487856/p1/?1 Proudly A/T and J/J Knighted by the wonderful SilSolo "Damned if I'm gonna lose to you!" "Then damned you shall be!" - my brother and I playing Smash Bros.
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Draconarius
Registered:
Feb '05
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Date Posted:
6/30 8:09pm
Subject:
RE: Shattered Mirror (Post-NJO AU; A/T, J/J, Valin/Wynssa, Kyle Katarn, Danni, OCs) **CHAP 6 UP SOON
- Date Edited:
7/9 1:37am (2 edits total)
Edited By:
Draconarius
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Deep Space near the Unknown Regions
Anakin adjusted the shuttle’s course a fraction, bringing it in line with the Magician’s underside hangar bay. Wedge Antilles’s vessel was sitting a few hundred metres away from its sister ship, the Alchemist. Both ships had their sophisticated stealth systems offline, but their midnight black dagger-shaped hulls were still almost invisible. Anakin was forced to use he shuttle’s instruments a lot more than he was used to.
During a usual meeting with the Magician, Anakin would be on the ship by now, having jumped aboard the Jade Shadow the moment the Magician decloacked and rushed over. Unfortunately, he would have only been one of dozens of people aboard the Shadow, all of whom would have been rushing off the ship at the same time as he was trying to introduce his little cousin Ben to his sister.
Anakin had decided that he did not want to go through that, so he had chosen one of the Alchemist’s smallest shuttlecraft. It was the slowest, ugliest piece of junk that Anakin had ever had the displeasure to fly, but it did have one advantage over the larger and faster ships; it had only enough room for six people: two pilots (Anakin and Tahiri) and four passengers (Valin, Wynssa, Jaina, and Jag). Not having anyone else aboard would let the six of them have a far more personnel meeting with Ben and the Antilles family.
Anakin hoped that meeting Jaina would encourage Ben to start opening up to the Force again. Every last Jedi aboard the Alchemist had felt the full force of Luke Skywalker’s death aboard Wizardry One a year ago, and poor Ben had felt it more keenly than anyone else. The raw agony of the experience had been enough to make Ben completely shut himself off from the Force, and there was nothing anyone could do to make him open up to it again.
Aunt Mara’s murder at the hands of the not-Jacen Kharran had sent back to the Alchemist hadn’t helped matters, either. Anakin hadn’t actually seen Ben since the murder; he and Tahiri had left almost immediately for their final confrontation with Jacen, and Ben had been transferred to the Magician by the time they got back. That had been almost three months ago, now.
“If you hold that control stick any tighter, you’re going to break it,” Tahiri warned as she entered the cockpit.
“No, I’m not,” Anakin lied. In truth, he had been subconsciously holding the control stick rather tight. He flexed his gloved mechanical left hand and grimaced briefly when he saw the imprints it had left in the control stick. Sometimes[i], he thought, [i]I really do wish I’d gotten a prosthetic.
He’d completely forgotten to mention his missing hand to Jaina when he’d first seen her; he’d figured that her Anakin had lost it rescuing Tahiri the same as he had. It turned out, though, that her Anakin had come back from Yavin IV completely whole. The reason she hadn’t noticed Anakin’s missing part was because of the padded glove Anakin wore to make the droid hand feel more natural. Anakin had been forced to explain about how he had tried to touch Tahiri as her internal fight with Riina Kwaad reached a painful climax, and about how she had panicked and taken his hand off by accident. He’d built the replacement hand later with the help of a very apologetic Tahiri.
“Anakin?”
Tahiri’s inquisitive voice was enough to make Anakin jump. “I’m, I’m sorry,” he said, returning his attention to flying the shuttle. “I was just… lost in my thoughts.”
“I’ll say.” He felt her hand gingerly touch his leg. “What’s up? We haven’t seen Ben for a while. I thought you’d be ecstatic to see him again.”
“That’s just it, Tahiri; we haven’t seen him in a while.” Anakin forced himself to breathe in and out. “The last time we saw him…”
“Was when we found him beside Aunt Mara’s body. I was there, too, Anakin.” Tahiri’s voice had gone just as cold and distant as Anakin felt. “You don’t think we should have run off to fight Jacen like we did.”
It wasn’t a question, but Anakin felt compelled to answer it anyway. “We had to stop him. We couldn’t let the information he had reach Kharran,” he recited.
“Kyle and Jaden could have gone. They might have even have had an easier time beating him.” Tahiri turned to look at her husband. “They might have even been able to bring him back alive.”
“Doesn’t matter now, does it?” Anakin muttered.
By now, their shuttle had reached the Magician’s hangar and Anakin manoeuvred it inside. He could have done this blindfolded; the Magician’s hangar was identical to that of the Alchemist, and he had docked a dozen different ships a hundred times in its hangar.
[continued next post]
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Shattered Mirror - http://boards.theforce.net/beyond_the_saga/b10477/28487856/p1/?1 Proudly A/T and J/J Knighted by the wonderful SilSolo "Damned if I'm gonna lose to you!" "Then damned you shall be!" - my brother and I playing Smash Bros.
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Draconarius
Registered:
Feb '05
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Date Posted:
6/30 8:13pm
Subject:
RE: Shattered Mirror (Post-NJO AU; A/T, J/J, Valin/Wynssa, Kyle Katarn, Danni, OCs) **CHAP 6 UP SOON
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Inside, the hangar looked decidedly chaotic. The Alchemist’s two cargo transports sat off to the right while numerous supply crates were loaded into their holds. The Jade Shadow sat near the brand-new Scorchers that Wedge had brought, their new pilots already busily inspecting them. In the middle of the hangar sat the Alchemist’s other four shuttles, offloading crewmembers meeting their families or refugees the Alchemist had picked up over the past few months. The hectic scene was completed by the addition of a few tech crews, working loudly on the Magician’s own Scorcher fighters inside the two layers of garages built into the left and right walls.
Spotting the four people he was after standing near an empty patch of hangar floor, Anakin manoeuvred the shuttle over and set it down in front of them. Anakin powered down the shuttle and unstrapped himself from the pilot’s seat and joined his wife in heading for the passenger section. Valin had already activated the controls for the boarding ramp, and the Solos joined the other four passengers in waiting with barely restrained enthusiasm for the ramp to finish lowering.
The moment it touched the ground, a pair of blonde-topped blurs dashed up it with matching cries of “Wynssa!” and almost crushed the older girl in a double hug.
Anakin saw Wynssa hug her two younger cousins back, and he saw Valin ruffle younger Myri’s hair, but after that he was too busy focusing on the other blur that was coming up the ramp towards him with a loud cry of “Ankin!”
Anakin stooped low to pick up his baby cousin as Ben reached him, hefting him onto one side as the boy latched his arms around his neck. Anakin squeezed him tight with his free arm and, for the first time since finding the boy near Aunt Mara’s body, Anakin felt himself grinning in joy.
“Hi, Ben,” he said. He tried to touch the young boy in the Force, and he had to force himself not to frown when he felt Ben still shutting himself off.
“Hi, Ankin,” the boy replied, and Anakin only just noticed how saw Ben’s face had suddenly become. “Why did you leave me here, Ankin? You didn’t even say goodbye.”
“I’m sorry, Ben. The Alchemist was too dangerous; we didn’t have a choice.” Anakin squeezed his little cousin again. “I’m so sorry I didn’t say goodbye.”
Ben’s head bobbed and he whispered, “It’s okay, Ankin. I missed you.”
“I missed you too, Ben,” Anakin said.
Tahiri chose to interrupt then, and Ben almost instantly unlatched his arms from Anakin’s neck and held them out to Tahiri with a loud cry of “Tahree!” Tahiri took the boy from Anakin and started talking with him while Anakin turned to the man who had looked after the child for the last three months.
“Thank you so much, General Antilles,” Anakin said as he shook the older man’s hand. “I can’t thank you enough for looking after him.”
“Considering I just spent the last few months looking after your only surviving relative, I think you should start calling me ‘Wedge’,” Wedge Antilles insisted. “And it was a pleasure. I didn’t even need to do much; Syal and Myri were all too happy to do most of the work.”
“Isn’t that child exploitation, or something?”
“Not when they wanted to do most of the work,” Wedge said with a smile. He went to say something further, but he and Anakin were both distracted by the sound of Syal gasping in surprise.
“By the stars,” Wedge breathed when he saw what his daughter was looking at. “They really do look just like them.”
“Tahree, who’s that?” Ben asked in confusion.
“Wow…” young Myri managed to say as her sister only stared. The twelve-year-old walked up the ramp towards where Jag and Jaina were standing until she was right in front of them and peered up at Jag’s face. “You’ve even got that scar.”
“Danni checked their history against ours,” Valin explained from where he, Wynssa, and Syal were standing. “The only real difference is that Kharran never showed up in their universe.”
“So that’s how you won the war,” Myri said. “So you’re the same as our Jag up until he showed up?”
“That’s right,” Jag replied.
A small smile appeared on Myri’s face, and then she suddenly leapt at Jag and wrapped her arms around his middle. Anakin and not a few of the other people gathered around had to suppress laughs as Jag grimaced and then finally put his hands around Myri’s back in a decidedly awkward hug. Myri squeezed him a little tighter and then released him, all the while blissfully ignorant of how uncomfortable she’d made him.
“It’s good to have you back, Jag,” Myri said with a broad grin. “Syal and I really missed you after you died.”
Jag still looked uncomfortable as he tried to say something in return, and his fiancé chose that moment to abandon him to the tender mercies of Myri and her approaching sister. Jaina walked up to Tahiri and the boy she was holding in her arms.
“Ben, this is my sister,” Anakin explained as Jaina smiled at her little cousin. “Jaina, you already know Ben.”
“You’re sister?” Ben asked, a little confused. “You don’t have a sister, Ankin.”
“We thought she was dead, Ben. You were barely a month old when she disappeared,” Anakin tried to explain.
Jaina held her hand out to Ben. “Hi, Ben.”
The little boy seemed a bit overwhelmed, and he tightened his grip on Tahiri’s neck. “Tahree…”
“It’s okay, Ben,” Tahiri assured him. “She won’t hurt you. She’s your cousin, just like Anakin and I.”
“I don’t bite, Ben,” Jaina said. She inched her hand a little closer to her cousin. “Come on, it’s alright.”
“Yeah, she only bites people she doesn’t like,” Tahiri jested.
Ben didn’t take it quite the way she intended. “What if she doesn’t like me?” he whimpered.
Anakin, Tahiri, and Jaina laughed, and Ben was suddenly very distraught at the fact that everyone was laughing at his fright and discomfort. Tears welled up in his big blue eyes and he very nearly burst into sobs. The adults forced themselves to stop laughing and Tahiri guided Ben’s head down onto her shoulder.
“It’s okay, Ben. We’re sorry for laughing at you,” she said. “Now, come on. You can trust Jaina.”
“I won’t hurt you, Ben. I promise,” Jaina said. “We’re family, right?”
Anakin patted his baby cousin on the back. “Go on, Ben,” he said. “Give her a hug.”
Ben still looked frightened, but he decided to trust his only remaining family and unlatched his arms from Tahiri’s neck and held them out to Jaina. Jaina took him from Tahiri and hefted him in her own arms. Ben relaxed almost immediately and Jaina wiped at the tears beneath his eyes before hugging him tightly.
Anakin watched Jaina and Tahiri talking with Ben and decided to leave them alone for a moment. He spotted Wynssa standing away from where Jag, Syal, Myri, and Valin were happily talking. The one eye that wasn’t hidden beneath her blonde hair was almost stone hard and staring at her cousin, brother, and boyfriend in an almost unblinking stare. The tumultuous wave of emotions that was constantly broiling off her in the Force made it impossible for Anakin to determine exactly what kind of mood she was in, but he was fairly obvious that it wasn’t a good one.
He hesitated before he actually approached her. Ever since her rescue from Myrkr, Wynssa had found something about Anakin’s appearance, voice, even his presence disturbing. She had an easier time tolerating Vergere’s presence, even though Vergere had been the one to simply stand by and watch Wynssa being tortured almost to death time after time on Myrkr. Wynssa had told Anakin many times that it was nothing personal, that not even she understood why she didn’t like him. He had eventually just chalked it up as one of many slightly strange things about the poor girl.
She managed to hide her dislike pretty well after he summoned the courage to approach her. “Anakin, I really don’t want to talk right now,” she said before he could get a word in. “Especially not to you.”
Her voice was more pleading than hurtful, so Anakin forced himself not to take offence. It’s just Wynssa being Wynssa, he reminded himself. “I just wanted to be sure you’re okay. I do care about you, ya’ know.”
“I know.” Her force presence spiked angrily. “Just leave me alone. You know I don’t like having you around.”
Anakin decided to press his luck. “Wynssa, you just look… well, I d | |