Beyond - Legends Dark Paths (Jacen, Tahiri, Anakin, Jaina, Jag - 5 years after "The Unifying Force"!)

Heh. Yep, his quest. Why did that grab you in particular. And does the fic make sense?

And on that note, the fic switches back to Anakin... which should please _Jedi_of_Destiny_, to whose bouncing around I can attribute the beginnings of the plot-bunny...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

Quest I just picked up because whenever I see that word there's usually going to be trouble. And Anakin-ness? Cool.

 

Wow.

Cool.

Excellent!!!

 

[Thank you both! I hope you like this one...]

The Sword of the Jedi hung low in orbit over Avirandel, an armoured arrowhead between the planet's nightside and the endless midnight of the sea of stars. The starboard flank of her hull, turned towards the surface, was dark with shadow, but the running lights and viewports along her brim-trench and in the terraces of her upperworks burned as bright as cities, and on the port side, facing open space, the gleaming white expanse of armour-plating and the glinting carbon-darkness of her battle-scars seemed to glow in the starlight.

More than a generation after her mile-long keel had tasted hard vacuum for the first time, the Imperial Star Destroyer remained instantly recognizable - an icon of power. Even minding her own business in a parking orbit around a lifeless world like Avirandel, the mere sight of her would be enough to send the crews of most ships - military and civilian alike - scrambling to man the guns, raise the deflectors, and find the nearest exit vector from the system.

Standing on the Star Destroyer's bridge, Anakin Solo smiled faintly at the thought. From a certain point of view, the Sword of the Jedi was, of course, exactly what she looked like - an ISD-II, built when the iron grip of the Galactic Empire had still extended from one side of the Galaxy to the other, launched as the Virulence from Slip 327 at the Fondor shipyards some time before the Battle of Endor.

Over the course of a long and varied life - most of it spent as a privately-owned commercial venture under the control of a man passionately opposed to the Empire and everything it stood for - the old Star Destroyer had been rebuilt almost from the keel up, her weaponry, electronics, deckplan and drive systems modified, repaired and redesigned - rebuilt almost beyond recognition. But it wasn't simply sensor masking and a gimmicked ID transponder which hid all that. No, Anakin reflected, it was the simple fact that when most people saw an Imperial Star Destroyer, they didn't stop to ask questions.

Even now. Perhaps especially now.

Behind him, he could hear the quiet chattering of the computer systems and the hushed voices of the officers and technicians. Through the Force, he could recognize most of the bridge crew immediately, knowing their distinct appearances in the Force as well as he did their names and faces. Most of the forty thousand humans and aliens who formed the Star Destroyer's crew weren't nearly as distinct from each other in his mind, but in spite of their methodical training, they remained very definately an aggregate of individuals. On a deeper level, he could feel the power of the ship's unique drive source blazing deep within the hull, and the rumble of the stardrive pulsing through the plating of the deck beneath his feet like a heartbeat.

It was all reassuringly familiar, he reflected. Reassuringly easy on the eye, inasmuch as it was all instantly recognizable, and seemed to carry no sort of hidden subtext. He didn't even need to look round - still less to use the Force - to picture the scene behind him in his mind's eye. The new keypads and repeater-screens had not taken the edge off the familiar functionality of the Kuat Drive Yards bridge module, and in spite of the diffierences in cut and colour - some subtle, some not-so-subtle - the bridge crew's uniforms evoked the memory of the Imperial Starfleet instantly and effortlessly. Black forage caps with boots, breeches and lancer tunics for the officers, flint-grey coveralls for the technicians.

Slowly, Anakin let his eyes focus on his own mirrored image, caught in the clearsteel of the viewport in front of him. With a little imagination, he could see himself as a ghost rising up among the stars, inhumanly huge.

He was taller than he had been, he reflected, clad in power armour and padded leather, a black cloak wrapped around his shoulders. His tousled hair curled free around his scalp, and the tanned skin at the nape of his neck was bare, but his face was hid

 

Cool!

 

Cool. Now I'm even more confused than ever.

So he's got the Errant Venture , hey?

On a deeper level, he could feel the power of the ship's unique drive source blazing deep within the hull, and the rumble of the stardrive pulsing through the plating of the deck beneath his feet like a heartbeat.

Oooh... Thois sounds interesting...

That, of course, was the point. A warrior-clone from the Imperial Remnant, his physical template, and the source of his leadership skills and strategic acumen, had been Grand Admiral Pellaeon himself, but he also had the close-combat abilities of Kir Kanos, and the piloting skills and razor-sharp reflexes of Soontir Fel. The perfect Imperial officer.

Ouch. Devis, hey? I take it you've been reading TUF.

Balmorra? What happened there?

 

Master_Ponta, Blended: Cool

Thanks! Feel free to hit me with any critical comments, though. And anyone else who wants to admit they're in the audience.

Am I vain? Aye, probably. Slightly. Heh.

So he's got the Errant Venture , hey?

Thought you'd pick that up...

Oooh... Thois sounds interesting...

Well, it's not supposed to be boring, is it?

Ouch. Devis, hey? I take it you've been reading TUF

Yep. A 'brother' of the late Mynar Devis, basically. I almost added something like "And the emotional complexity of a stormtrooper" at the end... but although Devis reads slightly like a superman without it, that felt oddly unfair. Stormtroopers can be complex... they're just... repressed, I guess?

Balmorra? What happened there?

Nothing really that remarkable. It's just the name on the screen that Anakin's eyes happened to settle on....

- The Imperial Ewok

 

Jag Fel climbed slowly up the last few steps of the spiral stair, and stepped out of the tower and onto the battlements of the ancient fortress known as the Hand of Thrawn. There was still the best part of an hour before reville, and the cold wind whipped his unruly hair back into his face like an admonition. But he could not sleep. A light snow was falling, and overnight, the hard, parade-flat surface of the huge landing-pad which roofed the space within the fortress' curtain-walls had been covered with a crust of icy white, more than an inch deep underfoot.

He walked slowly out along the rampart-walk towards the ruined corner tower, snow crunching beneath his heels, and pulled his father's greatcoat close around him for an illusion of warmth. The icy wind seemed to have lanced straight from the distant mountains, and blew needles of cold into the bare skin of his face and hands. Half-way out along the wall, he turned, and leaned on the ancient black stone of the merlons, letting the chill wind numb him as he stared out across the jungle to the east, feeling a few snowflakes settle softly in his hair. A few Qom Qae were gliding across the tops of the trees, and in the distance, he could see the still, sparkling surface of the Lake of Small Fish, and wondered for a moment if it had finally frozen over.

Beyond the tarn, the forest blurred into the horizon, and beyond that lay the sunrise. The unbroken blanket of cloud-cover overhead was high and feather-textured, turned a soft peachy pink in the red-shifted light of Nirauan's small sun - almost the colour of human skin. But where the sun was rising, its disk invisible behind the cloud, a spill of dark red light discoloured the pale winter sky, seeping along the line of the horizon and blotting the sky high up into the vault overhead.

It looked like a wound, a bloodstain spreading across the belly of the morning.

In his mind's eye, he seemed to look beyond the sunrise, and saw only an infinite darkness, as deep as space itself. The dream had come to him more times than he could remember over the years since his return to the Hand of Thrawn, and it was always the same - a vision of a blackness as profound as death itself, unrelieved by any light, but somehow so immeasurably vast that time and space became meaningless.

But this time, it had been different. This time, for the first time in five years, he had woken up abruptly, with a sense of something in the darkness of his dream. Without really thinking, he had hauled himself out of his bed, pulled on his boots and his father's greatcoat over his sleeping-clothes, and climbed the stairs up to the battlement. Slowly, as he stared at the horizon, he seemed to sink back into his dream, and as he looked into the darkness he seemed to see a girl's face, slowly recognizing contour and tone, defined by the subtle shading of the endless night.

As he watched, her features grew familiar, and at the same time, heartachingly strange.

Jaina.

Not Jaina as he had last seen her, five years earlier, but Jaina as he knew she would be now - older, less consumed by her own burning passion, but at the same time, somehow, less spontaneous, less free. Somehow, he knew that the things he associated most with her, the things he thought about most when he remembered her, were only distant memories for her now as well - the flashes of anger, the reluctant smile that sometimes quirked the corner of her mouth, the red flight coveralls of a New Republic pilot, and her battle-scarred X-wing with the squadron-leader's stripes on the strike-foils and the faded silhouette of a voxyn stencilled on the hull beneath the cockpit.

She seemed to look straight at him, in a way that left him in no doubt that it was him she was looking at, but as though he was so far away that she couldn't see him. As though she no longer believed that he was there.

Her lips were moving, he realised. She was mouthing words, words meant for him. And even though the infinite silence was as absolute and empty as the darkness itself, he

 

Oh wow... Nice update.

Quick Question(s):

When did Jag grow his hair out long enough for it to get whipped around by the wind?

Why's he using his padre's greatcoat instead of his own?

 

Brett!

The number of people prepared to admit they're following this 'fic just increased by a third!



When did Jag grow his hair out long enough for it to get whipped around by the wind?

After The Unifying Force. Call it character-development... also, there aren't that many pairs of scissors on Nirauan...

Why's he using his padre's greatcoat instead of his own?

It's the warmest coat on Nirauan. And it comforts him in ways that have nothing to do with the effectiveness of the fabric in keeping the wind and cold and dampness out.

- The Imperial Ewok

 

Is this thing constant with regards to TUF?

 

Is this thing constant with regards to TUF?

Aye... aye, it is...

Am I doing that thing again where I don't explain what the heck is going on? ?

Yeah, probably...

Hmm. Feedback on that sort of thing would be helpful, I think... I may give unhelpful answers, but it does let me know what people are making of the 'fic...

Does the idea of a difference between following the story and understanding the motivations that are driving the characters and thus the plot? And are y'all following the story?

But trust me - the story's about following the story to find out what the plot's about... if that makes any sense... or at least, it's supposed to be...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

I see. So, General Fel is on Nirauan in addition to the good Colonel?

 

Now look what you've done! I don't want to give any straight answers outside the 'fic itself, but at the same time, I have a sense that I'm just confusing the heck out of people... thoughts and feedback would be appreciated...

It's almost axiomatic that the person in charge at the Hand of Thrawn should be Baron Fel. I mean, it's a castle. It ought to have someone feudal running it.

At the same time, you might notice the fact that all the characters in this 'fic belong to Jacen and Jaina's generation...

Jag's father's coat serves much the same purpose as Anakin's grandfather's armour... from a certain point of view...

If that makes any sense at all? ?

- The Imperial Ewok

 

So, could you be more specific?




Just kidding!

 

*mouth drops open*

Very cool!

 

i love this story and i think jaggies hair longer would make him even sexier(u cant get much more than he already is) so im just saying

UPpies

jaggie loves u

 

Brett_Bass: So, could you be more specific?

Probably...

Master_Ponta: *mouth drops open*

Very cool!



JAGSGURL15: i love this story

Thanks!

More Jag in the post after next...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

As he fell asleep, he realised that he was going to have the dream again. The dream he had dreamed more times than he could remember. The dream that had kept him awake even when he was dead.

He paused, puzzled at that awkward, unsatisfactory little word. Dead. It didn't seem very useful, or very accurate, but he couldn't think of any better term.

He let that particular worry dissolve into the darkness.

Besides, he had a dream to dream.

His dream.

The dream of her.

Tahiri Veila stood with the sun in her hair, her lean body sheathed in bio-metalic armour, her face sculpted by scars. Slowly, she unhooked a living lightsaber from a spur at her hip, making it pulse alive in her hands - the blade bright and dark like a twilight sky, throbbing with power.

The first time - eight years earlier, on Yavin 4 - he had thought that the dream showed what the Yuuzhan Vong would do to her. He had thought that it showed her transformed into a living weapon by the shapers, a warrior to hunt down and destroy the Jedi. But afterwards, after he had rescued her from Mezhan Kwaad's damutek, he had begun to have his doubts.

He wasn't sure how clearly he'd articulated those doubts, how much he'd been able to separate them from the fear that the Yuuzhan Vong viral programming would take over her mind. But he'd definately been unsettled, even though the dream itself had not bothered him for several months.

Then, as the coral-walled chamber aboard the worldship at Myrkr had faded away into darkness around him, and the pain of the deep, fatal wounds in his belly and shoulder had grown numb - as his body became a cold corpse, and the Force began to unravel and consume his very being - he had found himself standing in front of her again, watching her unhook the slug-shaped 'saber from her belt, transfixed and tortured by her heartbreaking beauty.

He had watched the living blade ignite in hopeless incomprehension, giving way to shock and horror as she raised it for the strike.

I'm dead, he had realised But this is still real. This is still going to happen. I haven't changed anything!

His soul had screamed in grief - a howl of unbearable despair and anguish that seemed to last forever.

Even then, she couldn't hear him.

The brilliant blade slashed down.

He still wasn't totally sure how he had found his way back - he didn't really remember that much about being dead - but when he returned, the dream had been seared onto his soul.

Even then, he still hadn't understood. He had expected to find a Galaxy enslaved by the Yuuzhan Vong, with Tahiri transformed into one of them, her memory of who she was - her memory of him - destroyed. His only thought had been to somehow find a way to save her.

Instead, he had found the Vong defeated, the Alliance triumphant, and Tahiri a Jedi Knight, entirely at ease with the Yuuzhan Vong caste-markings on her forehead and the Yuuzhan Vong memories in her mind.

She had changed almost beyond recognition from the girl he had once known.

She had been engaged to his brother.

And he had hurt her. Betrayed her.

Betrayed them all.

His breath sighed slowly through his iron filters of his mask.

That had been almost four years earlier - four years in which the dream had returned with increasing regularity, growing more heartbreaking the more familiar it became.

Only now, he understood.

"The last of your kind," Tahiri whispered, a cruel smile playing about her lips. "The last of my kind...."

Now, he understood how wrong he had been.

"Tahiri," he whispered, his heart filled with sadness and longing. "I should have never have left you. I should have known...."

She couldn't hear him, he knew - not here, in his dream, and not in real life, either.

Not now.

Not after what he had done to her.

Aching with love and grief, he wanted to do something, but he couldn't move. Couldn't even breathe. Instead, he watched, helpless, as she stepped forwards and raised her lightsaber for the kill.

"I l

 

I can assure you that even though vagueness was what you were going for, I think that your last post is/was rife with things that need to be edited... Mayhap the formatting was off or something.

 

Brett: that's why it says "unfinished post". It's in the process of being heavily turned round in terms of characterization, POV, and what happens in it...

Basically, I'm teasing out an annoying knuckle in the plot...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

That's really, really confuzling. Even by your standards.

 

Heck, it wasn't supposed to make sense... just to check if anyone's still paying attention

Anyway, it's finally roled over as a scene into a direction that makes sense to me now... still edges to smooth off, gaps to fill in, and fine detail to apply, but the outline of what the heck's going on might be slightly less confusing now...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

Roger that. I'll check it out.

 

Up!