Beyond - Legends Stranded (re-post / edited) - Jag, Kyp, Jacen, and Zekk crash on Tenupe - update 25. August

Title: Stranded
Author: Iverna
Timeframe: 36 ABY (AU – no DNT, and everyone’s still alive and well)
Characters: Jag, Kyp, Zekk, Jaina, Jacen, Anakin, Tahiri, Lowie, and a few more.
Genre: Humour, action, a dash of romance.
Summary: A diplomatic mission fails before it even begins and leaves the guys stranded on a tropical planet, in dire need, and yet fear, of rescue.
Notes: This is a re-post because I can’t be bothered hunting down and editing the original thread, and it’s really beyond time I finished this. So this will be an edited, improved, and completed form of Stranded. Finally. And yes, I took a bit of poetic license with the planet of Tenupe and a few other details.

There'll be a good few chapters to this, so if you want to be tagged, just say the word!

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Chapter 1


“This,” Jag Fel said, wiping his brow with the back of his hand, “is ridiculous.”

He was kneeling in front of the ship they’d just crashed, trying to dig through the soft dirt to get at an access panel. The actual digging wasn’t a problem, since the mud shifted easily, but unfortunately more kept sliding down to replace what he’d just dug out.

It was hot. That was the main problem. He didn’t mind the humidity so much, but he wasn’t used to the heat at all.

“Technically this is your fault,” came a voice from behind him. Jag half-turned to glare. Kyp Durron, Jedi Master and all-around rogue, grinned down at him. His military-style fatigues and the black, short-sleeved shirt that clung to his broad chest in the tropical heat made him look more like a jungle commando than a Jedi. The only evidence to the contrary was the lightsaber dangling from the utility belt around his narrow hips.

His dark hair was already plastered to his head in the jungle heat, and there were splashes of mud on his lean face and bare arms, but he looked like he was in an annoyingly good mood.

Then again, Jag reflected darkly, Kyp didn’t seem to have any other kind of good mood.

But he stayed calm. “You know as well as I do that it isn’t,” he said. “The scopes were completely dead, I couldn’t see anything, and I couldn’t do much either. They shot us down. I have just as much grounds to claim it’s your fault for not shooting them back.”

“The shuttle has one laser cannon,” Kyp countered. “One.”

“And no scopes or thrusters by the time we crashed,” Jag replied calmly. “So the way I see it, either it’s all out fault, or no one’s.”

“Wise words.” That came from above Jag, and moments later a dark shape dropped past him and landed next to Kyp, managing to hit a strategic mud puddle to splash over Kyp’s fatigues.

Kyp yelled.

“Hey!”

Jacen Solo, brown curls mussed and tangled, lop-sided grin on his handsome features, said, “Serenity, Kyp. We need to work together here.”

Kyp raised his eyebrows. “And so you splashed me why, exactly?”

“Help you cool down, of course,” Jacen said, all Solo innocence. “It’s damn hot around here. Didn’t you notice?”

“He might be too far gone already,” Jag said. “At his age...”

“You’re right. Kyp, old man, how are you feeling? How many fingers am I holding up?”

Kyp glared. “One of these days, I’m going to strangle you both.”

Jacen’s brown eyes sparkled, but he shrugged as though entirely unimpressed, and squatted down to examine a patch of blue-ish green leaves, as big as Jag’s hand and about twice as thick. “Hey, do you reckon any of this stuff is edible?”

Jag stared at him. “You want to eat that?”

“I mean just in case we run out of supplies.” Jacen shrugged. “I’ll ask Zekk. He usually knows that kind of thing.”

“It’s a jungle,” Jag said. “If I had to guess, I’d say half of it is edible and half of it is poisonous, and the two halves are virtually undistinguishable.”

“Optimist,” Jacen said, but there was no rebuke in it. “So what do you reckon the chances are of getting the ship going again?”

Jag sighed. “If your sister or brother were here, I’d say slim. As it is, I don’t see any. The most we can hope for is that we’ll get comms back, to call for help.”

Jacen and Kyp both winced at that, and Jag knew exactly why. Calling for help meant telling someone what had happened, and telling someone meant telling Jaina, and Jaina would never ever let them live this down. Which meant that, really, she would never let him live this down, since the others would inevitably blame him... and he had been in the pilot’s chair, after all.

But he knew that he would happily endure days and weeks of taunting and bragging if it took place somewhere dry, and cool, and all the more if it was being done by Jaina, in person. It had been far too long since they’d seen each other face to face.

“Are you sure?” Jacen asked. “I mean, Zekk’s a pretty good mechanic, and you guys are pilots...”

“We fly them, we don’t fix them,” Kyp said. “And Zekk’s got nothing on Jaina or Anakin. No offence.”

“None taken,” Zekk said as he strode into view around the damaged ship. His long dark hair had half-pulled free of his customary ponytail, and there was a small cut on his left cheek. He’d left his cloak inside the ship, but it was beyond Jag how the man could even move in the many layers that made up the traditional Jedi outfit. He knew that they wore layers in the desert, but he was pretty sure that the rules were different for tropical environments.

Zekk was shaking his head. “Doesn’t look good. We have one half-functioning repulsor and maybe half an engine, and the hyperdrive is a complete write-off. You might as well give up on that access panel, Fel, it won’t do any good. That was a crash and a half.”

“I think most of the damage had already been done by the time we hit dirt,” Kyp said, and Jag nodded. He knew perfectly well that without the swamp he’d managed to hit and the others’ Force abilities to absorb much of the impact, they would never have escaped unscathed. In fact, the whole ship would probably have exploded on impact.

“It shouldn’t have been, though,” Zekk said. “The shields were still operative. We just didn’t have readings on them. Or anything else. And there should’ve been no way they could knock out all our sensors like that, when the shields were still up.”

“It’s the planet, I think,” Jag said. “When we got close to Tenupe, the displays started dying.”

“No mention of anything like that in the files,” Zekk said, frowning.

“There wasn’t much of anything about Tenupe in the files,” Jag countered. “It’s entirely possible that we’re the first people to ever come here.”

“Well, then, gentlemen.” Jacen struck a heroic pose. “Get out your holorecorders, and let’s get to exploring.”

“We’re not supposed to be exploring,” Kyp said. “We’re supposed to be on a diplomatic mission.”

“Oh yeah. Well, can’t do that now, can we. We got shot. No one’s supposed to get shot on diplomatic missions, that’s the whole point.” Jacen sighed, shaking his head in feigned sadness. “I knew we shouldn’t have taken Kyp along.”

“Hey, you’re the one who talked to them,” Kyp retorted. “I didn’t say a word.”

Jag shook his head and focussed on Zekk before that argument could go any further. “So what about comms? Can we reach anyone?”

“The cockpit’s pretty banged up,” Zekk said. “I doubt anything still works in there. But we can try.”

Jag pushed to his feet, reached down to brush off his pants, saw the state of his hands, and thought better of it. “Let’s go.”

He hadn’t seen the cockpit yet. The crash had knocked him out, and by the time he’d come to, Kyp had already hauled him out of the pilot’s seat and off the ship. Now, he stayed back as Zekk slowly made his way into the ship, testing for balance, following bit by bit as the Jedi waved him on.

The whole ship was tilted so they walked downhill all the way, but aside from that, the damage didn’t look back until they got to the cockpit. It had taken the brunt of the impact; the transparisteel screen was covered in swamp, throwing the area into darkness. Not even the emergency lighting worked.

Zekk lit a glowrod and held it aloft, handing another one back to Jag. The console had been pushed back slightly by the crumpled hull, and Jag could see now that there were cracks in the transparisteel, dripping swamp water onto the instruments. The chairs leaned forward, loose in their sockets.

“Watch it,” Zekk said, and moved aside. “If we both go too far, we might tilt the whole thing farther underwater. I’ll hold the chair back and try to keep things balanced, you try the comm, okay?”

Jag felt more than a little uneasy as he edged forward. The ship creaked around him, and it moved a few times, minutely, but enough to make him freeze. Behind him, Zekk gripped the chair, his eyes half-closed in concentration as he worked to keep the ship steady.

In the end, it didn’t matter. The comm console was half-crushed and dripping water, and Jag only shook his head. “Won’t even turn on,” he said.

Zekk drew a thoughtful breath through his teeth. “I thought as much. Still, if it’s just the console, we’ve got a shot. The comms array itself is inside the hull on top of us. If we can get that out, we might be able to attach a comlink to it and get a signal.”

Jag nodded. “Good plan. Let’s do that.”

* * *​

​

They worked in pairs. Kyp and Jacen began dragging supplies and equipment out of the ship, since it was far too unstable to consider as a camp, while Jag and Zekk climbed up onto the hull and tried to extract the comms array. The impact had crumpled the hull enough to jam the access panels, but Zekk’s lightsaber made short work of that problem. The array itself, once they’d wrenched it out, gave every sign of being intact.

By the time they had gotten back onto the ground, Kyp and Jacen had sorted most of their equipment into more or less neat piles.

“I think we’ve got everything,” Jacen said. He’d stripped off his shirt and rolled up the legs of his cargo pants, and a strip of cloth around his head held back his dripping curls. With the dirt on his muscled chest and face, and the leaves sticking out of his hair, he looked like he’d been living in the jungle for half his life, and had found his element here.

Jag had left his own jacket and shirt in the ship, but his sleeveless undershirt and uniform fatigues clung to him, warm and increasingly damp, like a really uncomfortable second skin. He peeled off the shirt and tossed it aside, surprised at how much better that made him feel.

“We got the comm,” Zekk said, setting it down. “I just need a comlink.”

Jag started digging his out of a pocket, but stopped when he noticed the quiet that suddenly fell over the group.

“Whoah,” Jacen said softly, head cocked to the side as if listening. The intent expression on his face was almost an exact replica of that which Jaina got when she was concentrating. For all their differences, sometimes the Solo twins’ resemblance was uncanny.

“Jacen?” Zekk’s voice was equally soft, but it came between clenched teeth and held a distinct note of alarm.

“What’s wrong?” Jag asked, because he’d seen that particular expression often enough to know that it often heralded trouble. Especially when a Solo was involved.

“That’s a...” Abruptly, Jacen’s head snapped back up and his eyes became sharply focused. “Run. Now.”

 

Yummy description of Kyp at the beginning there. Love the snarking and the cliffie -

 

We are all in for a hard ride, when it starts with such pleasantries between the alpha males!

 

I forgot about this! Fun stuff…well, except for all of the bare-chested guys…holy fan-girl-ing, Iverna!

 

Yay! One of my favorites is back

 

Nyota's Heart - oh yes, there will be snark aplenty. With these four all together, how could it be otherwise?

AzureAngel2 - yes indeed, there will be shenanigans!

SiouxFan - excuse you! It's a jungle planet, ergo it's hot. Ergo, any sane man would take his shirt off. This is all perfectly logical and sensible. How dare you insinuate that this is pure fanservice! (This whole thing may or may not have started as a conversation in which Ceillean and I discussed the boys' taking their kit off. I maintain that it's not my fault. I just wrote it down.)

Durroness - glad to have you aboard again!

 

Great start! I agree with Nyota, love the description and the snark

 

Love the character interactions here! So much fun!

Looking forward to more.

 

Oh Lordy I remember this fic so clearly and I again am drooling at all the images. I am so glad its back. Maybe it will draw me back to SWEU!!! well at least your version of it.

 

serendipityaey - I'm glad you like it so far, there's a lot more where that came from!

Tarsier - I'd forgotten how much fun these boys are to write. More is coming very soon!

Master_Jaina1011 - awww, you remember? That's awesome! I hope it does draw you back in, there's fun to be had. *g*

 

Sorry about the long silence, guys... we've been without power and/or internet over the past week or so, but it's fixed now, so here's an update!

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And, I forgot to mention at the beginning - if you'd like to be tagged in updates, just let me know!

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Chapter 2


No one stopped to ask questions. They snatched up the comms array and whatever equipment was within reach, and followed after Jacen as he led them away from the ship and into the jungle.

It was hell. Jag considered himself to be in good shape, both as a prerequisite for fighter pilots in general and a matter of personal preference. He could run for miles in sub-zero temperatures, he could keep up with Zekk and Kyp in the gym as long as they didn’t rely too heavily on the Force, he could even give Jaina and her brothers a good challenge in the sparring circle. But running full-tilt and uphill through a tropical jungle, with vines and leaves and who knew what else slashing at his legs, and the ground trying to hold onto his boots, and the heat so laden with moisture that it was almost like a wall in front of him... that was a whole new level of tough.

He struggled to keep pace with the others, but he didn’t fall behind. Part of it was the desire to get away from whatever had managed to spook three Jedi, two of them among the Order’s most powerful, into running; the other part was simple, stubborn competitiveness. Crashing a mostly weaponless shuttle after being shot at by several well-armed, unidentified ships was one thing. Being carried through the jungle by Kyp Durron because he couldn’t keep up was something else entirely.

Unacceptable.

Jag’s legs burned, but he gritted his teeth and focused on keeping his feet moving and his arms pumping. He leaped over a low bush and almost stumbled as the ground behind it gave way beneath his foot. But he kept his balance.

He could barely feel the air in his lungs because it was so hot. Even the wind, which he could feel rushing through his hair and over his skin, didn’t cool him down any.

Ahead, Jacen finally came to a halt. Jag estimated that they’d made it perhaps half a kilometre up the hill or mountain or whatever this was, and the jungle around them had thickened. The trees were taller and thicker, and Jacen was now pointing up at the nearest one.

“Up!” he yelled. “Come on!”

The huge tree had plenty of branches, none of them within reach. This posed no problem for Jacen and Kyp, who jumped the three meters easily, as if pulled up by invisible ropes.

Zekk waited, his back to the tree and his fingers interlinked in front of his torso. “Come on.”

Still fired up on adrenaline from the mad chase through the jungle, Jag didn’t even think twice. Even Zekk’s two-meter frame wasn’t enough to let him reach the lowest branch, but as soon as Jag had placed his foot onto Zekk’s hands, the Jedi catapulted him upwards, to where Jacen and Kyp were waiting.

Jag managed to catch hold of a branch on his own, and pulled himself up. He edged over onto a thicker branch, almost wider than he was, and slid along it until he reached the point where it joined the trunk. Turning, he let his legs dangle down on either side while he leaned back against the blessedly cool, damp bark and tried to get his breathing back under control.

The branch shook as Zekk landed on it, graceful as an avian despite his size. Jag would have cursed, if he’d had any breath left with which to do so. Jedi and their tricks.

“Hey, you okay?” Jacen was perched on a branch up and to Jag’s left, and was peering down at him with concern.

“Fine,” Jag said, which wasn’t exactly true. He was on fire inside, his blood rushing through his ears, and he hardly even felt the air in his lungs because it was so warm. It was ridiculous, but he felt like he was glowing with the heat.

But then, suddenly, the air around him grew cooler, and his heart stopped hammering as his blood seemed to get better at picking up oxygen and cooling down again. Surprised, he looked up at Jacen. The younger man had an apologetic expression on his face. “Sorry, but... you looked like you could use that.”

Jedi and their tricks. There was something to be said for them, of course. And that was aside from the fact that he wouldn’t even be up here without Zekk’s help... Jag nodded. “Thanks. So, what is this emergency, anyway?”

“I’m not sure what they are.” Jacen’s brown eyes searched the jungle below. “But there’s a lot of them, and they’re dangerous. We might’ve been able to hold them off, but...”

Kyp groaned. “But Jacen Solo would rather make us all race through the jungle for a few hours than risk killing a few predators.”

“Aren’t we supposed to preserve life?” Jacen argued, immediately defensive. “All life?”

“Not when it chases us through a jungle,” Kyp muttered.

“They don’t know any better,” Jacen said, looking almost as earnest as his brother now. There were few things that could get Jacen Solo to turn truly serious, but his love for everything that breathed, crawled, and in Jag’s experience, poisoned and clawed its way through life—that was one of them. Usually, he understood it, even admired it. And he probably would this time, too, once he got his wind back and his legs stopped shaking and stinging.

That had been one hell of a run.

The foliage beneath them began to rustle and tremble, and Jag’s breath caught as their pursuers came into view. They were small, only about as long as his underarm, but they pushed and struggled and swarmed over each other in droves, covering the forest floor. His first impression was of dark grey and purple scales and a wicked-looking tip at the end of their tails, but after a while he saw that their mouths, too, featured sharp pincers. He was far from an expert on wildlife, but his first thought was poison. They swarmed past the tree, around it, and about a meter up it, and for a moment he thought that they would actually make it all the way up to where he perched with the others.

“They’re using their momentum,” Jacen said, his voice pure wildlife-loving awe. “Look. They’re not made for climbing vertically, but they’re fast enough to run more than a meter upwards. Probably poisonous, too. I wonder what they’re called.”

“You’re not keeping one as a pet,” Zekk said immediately. “Seriously. Jaina will never build you a cage for one and I won’t help you either.”

Jacen scoffed. “Fine. Wow, did you see that? Look at the pincers. I wonder what they eat.”

“If I had to guess, I would say anything that holds still for long enough,” Jag said.

Below, the swarm slowly ebbed, until the last few stragglers had shot past and disappeared into the foliage.

“Well,” Kyp said. “This is officially the most ridiculous thing that’s happened to me all year.”

“Just wait until you get to tell everyone back home about it,” Jacen said, and Kyp grimaced.

“Speaking of which, we might as well give this a try now,” Zekk said, producing the comms array. “Tell me one of you brought a comlink.”

“Hold on,” Jag said. “Let’s think about this for a minute. Broadcasting might well give away our position here. Whoever shot us down seems to think we crashed and died, but if they catch a transmission, they’ll know better.”

Zekk gave him a look. “You want to get out of here, Fel?”

“Of course I do—alive, if possible,” Jag retorted.

“Children, children.” Kyp held up his hands, managing to keep an admirable balance on his branch regardless. “Jag has a point. But I don’t really see an alternative. Unless... Jacen?”

Jacen shook his head. “I can’t exactly send Jaina co-ordinates through the Force,” he said. “It doesn’t work like that. She might be able to find me, but it could take a while.”

Another thought occurred to Jag then, one which he didn’t like at all. “And we wouldn’t be able to warn her about the pursuers,” he said. “Or the planet’s interference.”

“And we don’t know that they won’t decide to do a search regardless,” Kyp said, nodding. “All depends on why they shot us down.”

“What makes you think the comm will work, though?” Jacen asked. “If the planet interferes with electronics like Jag said, won’t it mess with a comm signal, too?”

“Doesn’t have to be electronics,” Zekk said. “As far as I could tell, it messed with the sensors. They were working, but couldn’t get any proper readings.”

“Until the crash, when they stopped working,” Kyp said. “I say try it.”

Zekk nodded. “We still need a comlink.”

Jag dug his out and handed it over. It was odd, perching in a tree while trying to rig together a working comm unit, holding tools and equipment while Zekk twisted wires together and invented curse words. But it meant safety from the critters below. There was almost a familiar comfort to it, really: Jacen on the lookout for more creatures, Kyp and Zekk yelling at each other, Jag trying to keep the peace and prevent them from dropping anything important... just like the rest of the journey so far.

“We don’t want a general emergency broadcast,” Kyp insisted. “The tighter you make it, the less leakage, the less chance of someone overhearing it.”

“We probably shouldn’t call any official channels, either,” Jacen put in. “Not until we know what happened.”

“Sure,” Zekk ground out, wrestling with the array innards. “Any other special requests? Some nice background music, maybe, or voice recognition? You got any colour preferences for the comlink while we’re at it? It’s not like I’m already busy trying to get it to work at all.”

“I’m quite partial to blue,” Jag said.

Zekk glared at him. “Watch it. I got you up here, I can shove you back down.”

“Children,” Kyp sighed, every fibre seeming to relish being the mature one for a change.

For the sake of his own tree-borne safety, Zekk’s temper, Kyp’s ego and the keeping in check thereof, and general peace and quiet, Jag shut up.

After several tense minutes, Zekk’s efforts were rewarded with a semi-confident beep.

“Yessss,” Zekk hissed, and pressed another few buttons on the comlink while adjusting a wire. “I think that’s it. Gimme a frequency.”

Kyp rattled one off, and Jag looked up in surprise. “Isn’t that the Falcon’s code?”

Jacen gave Jag an equally surprised look. “You know that off by heart?”

Kyp, in turn, feigned surprise at Jacen. “You’re surprised that he knows that?”

Jacen was, of course, game as usual. “You’re surprised that I’m surprised that he knows that?”

“Will you shut up!” Zekk exclaimed, and moments later a voice sounded from Jag’s comlink.

“Hey, you called me. Don’t tell me to shut up.”

Jag couldn’t recall ever being so relieved at hearing Han Solo’s voice.

“Dad!” Jacen shouted, all enthusiasm.

Han Solo’s voice, sounding absurdly tinny and out of place in the verdant jungle, grew concerned. “Jacen? What’s going on?”

Wordless, Zekk handed the comlink over to Jacen, keeping a careful hand on the wires connecting it to the comms array.

“Uh, is Mom there?” Jacen asked. “Look, you don’t have to freak out, no one’s hurt. We just crashed.”

“You crashed?” It took Han a remarkably short time to sort that one out in his head. “Fel crashed?”

Kyp grinned. Jag groaned. Perfect.

“It wasn’t his fault,” Jacen said, which was unexpectedly fair. “They shot at us. Look, we’re on Tenupe, I have no idea where—”

“They shot you? Why?” Han demanded. Another voice, this one female, sounded in the background, and Han repeated what Jacen had said.

“Who shot at you?” came Leia Organa Solo’s voice moments later. “Jacen?”

“We don’t know,” Jacen said. “We were just getting ready for the final jump to Dravess when they appeared. I tried to talk to them, but they attacked before we could even identify them. The ship’s a complete mess. Zekk jury-rigged the comm together, but that’s all we’ve got.”

“Are you safe?” Leia asked. “What about supplies?”

Jacen rolled his eyes, a good-natured grin on his face. “Hey, all I really know is, we’re sitting on a tree in a jungle and we’d really like to go home.”

Han burst out laughing in the background, then his voice came closer to the comm again. “No chance of fixing the ship?”

Jacen raised his eyebrows at Zekk, who leaned over towards the comlink. “No chance, sir. We might be able to repair the engines, but we’re down to one repulsor and the hull’s breached in a few places. Actually, I’m not sure if there’s even any way left to pilot it.”

“Is that right?” There was a note of smugness in Han’s voice; Jag could picture his expression perfectly. “Well, relay my congratulations to Colonel Fel, won’t you?”

Zekk grinned. “Yessir.”

Jag made a face at him and leaned over, raising his voice. “Careful on the approach, sir,” he said. “My scopes were dead by the time we hit atmosphere, and I believe there might be planetary interference.”

“Sure, kid, sure.” Jag could hear the man’s smug grin. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

“Han,” Leia’s voice cut in. “Any chance you can leave the bragging until after...?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don’t worry, Junior. Give us a day or two. Hang in there.”

“Will do. See you, Dad.” Jacen cut the connection and looked up at the others. “Well,” he said. “I guess now we just wait.”

Zekk blew out a sigh. “Wonderful.” He looked around, swiping a hand over his brow. Loose strands of hair streaked across his forehead, damp and curling at the end. “I don’t mind waiting, but... Force, it’s hot.”

Jag gave him an incredulous glance. “You mean under all those layers of Jedi robes?”

Zekk looked surprised and glanced down at himself. Then he started tearing at the fastenings on his tunic. “You’d think I’d notice this stuff.”

Jacen burst into laughter, and Jag had to grin as well. Trust Zekk to be so preoccupied with whatever was going on inside his head to overlook such trivial things as what he was wearing.

Kyp chuckled. “Hey Jag, how do you know about all the layers of Jedi robes? Did Jaina educate you, or was it Zekk?”

Jacen stopped laughing and held up a hand. “Hey. I don’t think I want to know that.”

“I don’t think you do either.” Zekk peeled his shirt off his tall frame and tossed it over the branch in front of him. Underneath it, his powerful shoulders and chest were sheened with sweat, his pale skin slightly flushed—which, for Zekk, was a lot. Jag had sparred with him often enough to know that Zekk rarely showed any colour, even when he was overheated. Unlike Jaina, who for years had blushed at every opportunity and still tended to turn an adorable rosy colour whenever he...

“What Jag and I do with my robes is our business,” Zekk added, grinning.

Jag sighed as Kyp and Jacen resumed their laughter. “I can’t begin to tell you how glad I am to be stuck on this planet with you guys.”

* * *​

Jaina Solo stared out into space, trying to figure out what was going on. She’d sensed a disturbance from Jacen only an hour ago, something that almost felt like panic, but nothing much since. But he was supposed to be on a diplomatic mission, some kind of trade dispute on a planet near Chiss territory. And it didn’t feel like danger, exactly, but it was frustrating. Especially because he was apparently ignoring her efforts to reach out to him.

The comm chimed and tore her back to reality, to her cockpit. She slapped a switch. “Solo.”

“Here, too,” her father’s voice replied. “You busy, sweetie?”

“Uh,” she said. “No. Not really. Why?”

“Jacen just called,” Han said, and Jaina’s heartbeat picked up.

“And?”

“Apparently they’re stranded on some planet called Tenupe,” Han said. “Locals shot them down.” A hint of smugness entered his voice. “Fel crashed the ship. They can’t take off again.”

Jaina’s heart almost leapt out of her chest. “Crashed? Is he okay?”

“Is who okay?”

Jaina glared at the comm, even though her father wouldn’t be able to see that. “All of them.”

She heard a dull thump, crackling, and a brief burst of static, as if someone had just been hit and then had the comm taken off him, then her mother’s voice reassured her, “No one’s hurt. Don’t worry. But the ship is apparently ruined.”

“Ruined? Jag ruined a ship?” Jaina shook her head to try and clear it. “Right. You want us to go check it out?”

“You’re much closer,” Leia said. “And until we know exactly what the situation is, I’d much rather keep it quiet, get them out, and then figure out what’s going on. So be careful. Jacen said they were shot down, so you’d better come in—”

“Under the sensors,” Jaina finished. “Got it.”

“Jacen doesn’t know where they are, exactly,” Leia told her. “But you should be able to find him, right?”

Jaina nodded. If Jacen, Kyp, Zekk, and Jag were all in one spot together, it would be all but impossible to miss them once she was in-system. “I’ll find him.”

She finished the call, then tapped the intercom switch while her other hand was already busying itself with the navicomputer. “Slight change of plans, guys. Calculating a jump to hyperspace now; meet me in the crew lounge.”

She shook her head again for good measure as she waited for the navicomputer to finish its calculations. Jag had crashed a ship. On some backwater planet. With her brother and two of her best friends aboard. And no one knew why, how, or even where exactly. She blew out a breath.

This was definitely going to be interesting.

 

LOL! More cute and fun! And the ladies will so not let the dudes live this down

 

Jag and Jacen are both completely awesome in this…totally competitive, but totally able to give and receive help when needed. Well played.

"...Crashed? Is he okay?"---"Is who okay?" I so-o-o love this exchange!

So…what are the odds of seeing Jaina in a similar state of un-clothed-ness? I mean, turn about is fair play, right? Unless you've got Danni stashed in this story somewhere…not that I have a thing for the blonde scientist…nope, not me.

 

Nyota's Heart - oh yes, the guys are in for a fun time there, especially now that Jaina knows about their predicament!

SiouxFan - thanks! I know Jacen, especially, isn't exactly canon!Jacen here; no darkside Jacen for me. But I'm glad it works. And yeah, I don't think it's giving too much away when I say that Jaina & Co will be showing up on Tenupe as well. And wearing a lot of clothes on a jungle planet just isn't practical, so yeah.

 

No, no…he is: we just forget about 'fun' Jacen, what with all of the DNT and LotF denning-ness--even in NJO he was still 'Jacen'.

 

Great update! I love that Jacen didn't want to hurt the critters.

 

You had me laughing. The banter between the guys was great, and Han's smug reaction to learning that Jag crashed the ship was exactly what I'd imagine his reaction would be. And ha, the way Kyp keeps calling then "children" had me grinning. Can't wait for Jaina to show up.

Also, I'll take an update tag

 

I remember reading this a while ago but ummm can you pm Falcon and not JediFalcon. I switched my name a while back thanks....

 

Love how they all interact! Very fun to read

 

SiouxFan - true enough. All the more reason for fanfic to bring him back!

Tarsier - yep, Jacen "bleeding heart" Solo. I miss him.

Durroness - thank you! That's exactly what I like to hear. Awesome. I'm glad you like it so far!

Falcon - sure thing, sorry about that! I just took the names from my old PM list, so that's why that happened. I'll tag you under this name from now on.

serendipityaey - thank you very much!

Thanks everyone! New update will be up in a few!

 

Tags: Durroness, Falcon

* * *​

Chapter 3


“So now what?” Zekk asked, still crouched on a branch. “We stay up here all day?”

“I’d say we keep going,” Jacen said. “Keep going uphill, maybe we can see what’s going on, find a safe place for the night. Tenupe’s a mountainous planet, right?”

Jag nodded. “Sounds good. Hopefully that’ll make us easier to find, too.”

Kyp had to hand it to him: he barely sounded weary at all. He had to be, of course, after the run through this steam-cooker of a jungle, and his Force presence confirmed it. Kyp was about to call him out on it when he remembered that without the Force, making it this far this fast was actually a fairly impressive feat. Especially coming as it did on the heels of a spectacular crash. And come to think of it, the descent leading up—or rather, down—to that crash had been quite harrowing, too.

Okay, so it wouldn’t be very fair to make fun of the non-Jedi who’d done more work than all the Jedi present, for being a bit winded after having to keep up with them all. Especially when he wasn’t even whining about it.

In fact, Kyp thought, he should probably give the kid a break.

“Ugh,” he said, just to make it clear that the heat bothered him, too. “We got any water?”

“Just breathe in,” Zekk said wryly, but he rummaged around in a pack and handed Kyp a canteen. Jag held out a hand wordlessly, and Kyp passed it to him once he’d drunk his fill. The pilot leaned his head back and chugged, throat working, water rivulets running over his jaw from the corners of his mouth, and Kyp chuckled.

“Damn planet’s making Tatooine look like a vacation spot.”

He sat, legs dangling down on either side of the branch, and tugged his soaked shirt over his head, using it to towel his hair. The only effect, as far as he could tell, was that it tousled his hair even more. He grimaced, and tossed the shirt down to the ground.

Jacen punched his arm. “Don’t litter. You taught me that when I was nine.”

“You want to carry it, go ahead,” Kyp said. Jacen only scoffed and dropped, with Jedi grace, down to the jungle floor.

He looked back up at the others expectantly. “Well? Come on. Coast is clear.”

“A coast would be nice right now,” Zekk commented.

Jacen rolled his eyes. “Come on. I thought you didn’t want to sit around there all day.”

Kyp grunted and swung his left leg over the branch beside his right. “I never said that. You youngsters, always in a hurry...”

They laughed at him.

There were a few trails in the forest, as they discovered when they continued their march uphill. They were mostly random and tended to disappear into and appear out of nothing. Grazing trails, Jacen explained, worn through the forest by animals.

Zekk had taken the lead, finding them a reasonably unobstructed path through the jungle, but Jacen was in charge by dint of sheer enthusiasm. He’d stripped down to his shorts, tying his pants around his backpack to secure various pieces of equipment to it, and looked and acted like an explorer who’d gone native. Jag followed behind Jacen, asking the occasional question and listening with his usual intent seriousness.

For once, even Kyp was grateful for the kid’s seemingly never-ending willingness to explain the wilderness to everyone who stood still for long enough. It kept his mind off the heat.

He had to admit that the jungle wasn’t altogether terrible. The myriad of animal cries and birdsong mixed with the dripping water and rustling foliage to create a vibrant soundtrack of life all around them. He didn’t recognise any of the plants, but they varied in shade from a deep turquoise to a green so light it was almost yellow, and the blooms were a rainbow of colours, all of them different shapes. And then there were the smells. Some of the flowers were so sweet they were almost cloying, but for the most part, the moist earth and dripping fauna smelled like life itself. Despite the cacophony all around, it was peaceful beneath the huge, vine-draped trees.

The terrain grew steeper and rockier eventually, although the variety and density of the plants around them didn’t seem to diminish. Eventually, the sounds of flowing water could be heard over the jungle, and without even having to vote, they moved in that direction.

It was more than Kyp had hoped for. The jungle parted before them and revealed a waterfall, plunging a few meters down into a deep pool, which Kyp estimated might have been twenty meters in diameter. Vines and flowers covered the rocks here, too. It looked like a garden or the grounds of an expensive hotel.

Jacen walked past Zekk to the water’s edge, and Kyp felt the kid’s Force presence stretch out as he probed for danger. Kyp didn’t join him; this was Jacen’s area of expertise.

“Looks like a good place to pitch camp,” Jacen said. “Up on the waterfall. We should be safe from those critters there, and it feels pretty defensible.”

“Sounds good to me,” Zekk said.

“Me too.” Kyp eyed the rock face at the other end of the pool. It was steep, about five or six meters of jagged rock, but it looked craggy enough to climb. Exotic plants dangled their leaves down over the edge above.

“But first, I’m going for a swim,” he added. The water looked far too inviting not to, and he didn’t much feel like climbing right now, after that trek through the forest. “You kids make camp if you want.”

“Swimming’s good.” Jag shucked his pack, kicked off his boots, and stripped down to his shorts.

Kyp hurried to do the same. His pants stuck to his skin, but he wrestled out of them and sank into the blessedly cool water. It wasn’t cold, but it was a lot cooler than he was, and it felt like heaven after the hectic run, the climb, everything.

“Okay,” he said, floating in the water with his eyes up towards the sky, “I take it back. This is better than Tatooine.”

“Agreed,” Jacen said. “Hey, I wonder how deep the water is over there, under the waterfall.”

“Dive and find out,” Zekk said.

“Why does it matter?” Jag asked. Kyp smirked when he heard the cautious note in the pilot’s voice. Innocent-sounding questions like that never were, coming from the Solo kids. Apparently Jag, much like Kyp himself, had developed a keen sixth sense for that kind of thing.

“’Cause if it’s deep enough, we can jump down,” Jacen explained.

Zekk sighed. “Typical. Barely out of danger and you want to start playing.”

Jag, on the other hand, cocked a black eyebrow at Jacen. “Dive and find out?”

Jacen grinned. “Let’s go.”

Kyp shook his head as the two of them set off across the pool. Only a few minutes ago, Fel had looked ready to keel over from the heat, but one crazy Solo idea had him brimming with energy again, by the looks of it. “Children.”

But when Jacen clambered up the rock face, took a flying leap, and landed in the water with a yell and a splash, Kyp had to admit that it looked fun. And when Jag had followed, sans yell, he abandoned all pretence of maturity, and raced Zekk over to the wall to climb up himself.

* * *​

Comfortable silence reigned aboard the ship. It wasn’t quite a perfect silence, of course; shipboard silence never was. The hyperdrive hummed steadily in the background, from one of the bunks beside the crew lounge came the muted, regular snores of a sleeping Lowbacca, and in the lounge itself, Tahiri Veila’s light pen scritched softly over the surface of her drawing pad.

Her subject was crouched maybe a meter away from her on the floor, intent on some piece of machinery. Tahiri glanced over at him, then back down to her pad, and a satisfied smile crept into the corners of her mouth. She had him this time.

Anakin was one of her favourite subjects to draw, partially because he had a wonderful tendency to sit still without complaining, and partially because his dark good looks just begged to be explored and captured with a pen. She didn’t get a lot of time for it either way, but she loved drawing, and she loved moments like this, where they could just share time and space, each of them doing their own thing, but together.

Anakin looked up just then, ice-blue eyes piercing her peripheral vision, and she raised her eyes to meet his. “Going well?”

“Pretty well,” she said. “I’m not colouring it, though.”

The corner of his mouth quirked as he looked down at himself. “Yeah. I’m wearing the wrong jacket again.”

She grinned at his immediate understanding. “Yeah. It’s impossible to get that shade right.” She shook her head, squinted. “I don’t even know what it’s supposed to be. Grey, purple, blue?”

He made a face. “It’s not purple.”

She couldn’t resist goading him. “Sometimes it looks purple. Sometimes it even looks pink.”

He pretended to glare. “In pink light, maybe.”

She giggled. “Well, somebody’s defensive about his jacket colour!”

“I’m not defensive, I just think people should get it right,” Anakin said, the barest hint of a smirk wiping away his glare. “You of all people, Blue Eyes.”

Now it was her turn to make a face. A few weeks ago, some guy in a tapcaf had decided to try to chat her up, and gotten several things very wrong, one of them her eye colour. “That guy was an idiot.”

Anakin’s smirk was in full swing now. “I don’t know, are you sure? Maybe you’ve been wrong all this time. I mean, if you think this—” he tugged at his jacket collar “—is pink, then...”

“You’re pink,” she growled good-naturedly. Once upon a time, Anakin Solo had hoarded his words as if they were precious metals, but then he’d discovered the joy of arguing—first with Jacen, but increasingly with anyone who gave him an opening. “Now be quiet or I’ll give you pimples and an extra-large nose.”

He chuckled. “Oh Force, not again.” He dropped the thing he’d been tinkering with and scooted over to where she sat on one of the lounge’s sofas. He propped his elbow up on the seat beside her and raised his head to peer over at her drawing pad. “Can I see?”

She tilted it so he could. “It’s not finished.”

“Looks good so far, though. Please leave the nose as it is, huh?”

She grinned down at him. “Well...”

He cocked his head to the side and gave her a wide-eyed look of appeal. “Please?”

She pretended to consider, looking from him to the sketch and back, then she leaned down to kiss him on the tip of his nose. “Fine.”

He tilted his head and stretched, catching her lips with his. She let her eyes drift closed and felt his hand at the back of her neck, thumb stroking over her skin. His lips brushed over hers, gentle and soft, and she smiled into the kiss.

A voice sounded from somewhere to Tahiri’s left. “Sorry to interrupt, guys.”

Anakin’s hand slid down onto Tahiri’s shoulder, and she pulled away to look over at the lounge’s entrance. Jaina stood there, a wry smile on her features. “I have phenomenal timing.”

Tahiri smiled. She’d long since stopped feeling embarrassed about these things; when you shared a small space like a ship, they inevitably happened. She didn’t know how many times she’d interrupted Jaina and Jag. Overall, she reckoned, it about balanced out.

“Nah,” she told Jaina now, grinning. “If it was phenomenal, you’d have waited another ten minutes. We were just getting started.”

Jaina laughed. “Noted,” she said, and reached out to rap on Lowie’s bunk door. “Lowie! Hey! Wake up!”

“What’s so important?” Anakin asked.

“Tell you in a minute,” Jaina said. “Lowie!”

An answering growl, sounding impatient, preceded the Wookiee out of the bunk room. Lowbacca’s fur stood on end all down his right side. He was busy smoothing it down as he barked an inquiry at Jaina.

“Dad called,” Jaina said. “Change of plans. We have to go rescue the boys.”

Tahiri’s eyebrows shot up. “The—you mean Jacen? Rescue? What happened?”

Jaina sighed. “They crashed on Tenupe.”

Lowbacca growled, worried, but Tahiri quickly discarded the initial shock of the words. It wasn’t serious, otherwise Jaina would have called them all to the cockpit while she was busy trying to coax more speed from the hyperdrive. Still, it didn’t sound all that good. Crashing was never good, and—

Tahiri frowned. “But I thought Jag’s with them.”

Jaina’s expression said it all.

“Fel crashed a ship?” Anakin’s handsome features contorted into an expression of amused disbelief. “Jagged Fel crashed a ship?”

“Yeah.” Jaina grinned, and Tahiri felt briefly sorry for the guys. A ship with Jagged Fel, Kyp Durron, and Zekk aboard crashing? They would never live it down. Not if Jaina had anything to say about it. Which, of course, she did. “Jacen called Dad from a tree, apparently. They ruined the ship so they’re stuck on-planet. And we have to rescue him. Them.”

Tahiri heaved a dramatic sigh. “That figures. Wasn’t it supposed to be a simple diplomatic mission? I’m glad you didn’t go along, Anakin.”

Anakin feigned outrage. “We wouldn’t have crashed if I’d been there.”

Lowbacca chuffed, laughing in agreement. His worry had apparently evaporated, too.

Tahiri laughed and patted Anakin’s shoulder. “Of course not. Seriously, though, I wonder what they did. I wonder what they’re doing now. Actually, I really want to know what Jacen was doing sitting in a tree...” She burst into giggles.

Jaina had to laugh, too. “Enjoying the view with the others, I guess. Oh, they are never going to live this down.”

* * *​

Jacen didn’t know what the local time was, but after about an hour in the water, he was ready to get back to work, and reckoned that they probably should. He didn’t know how quickly night would fall, and it was probably better to set up the camp while it was still bright. For a miracle, the others agreed.

It took a while to get the tents pitched; Jacen had been camping several times as a kid, with his family, and he would have thought that the others would know their way around building a camp site, too. But then, the problem wasn’t really that no one knew what to do. Everyone knew what to do. The problem was that they didn’t agree with each other on it.

Jacen quickly gave up on trying to co-ordinate efforts. Jaina would have had them all dancing to her tune within about five minutes, but Jacen didn’t share his sister’s drive for getting things done. He also lacked her influence with the three men—she could scoff at the idea of feminine wiles all she wanted, she still used them, and not just occasionally—and didn’t much feel like yelling and asserting an authority he didn’t even want. Instead, he used the Jacen Solo approach to the situation, which was to lean back and watch and interject occasional comments in the vain, but very amusing, attempt of getting them all to lighten up a little.

He could see why his sister enjoyed spending time around them. Kyp and Zekk argued because they were polar opposites and never agreed on anything, Jagged contributed his calm, matter-of-fact expertise which only annoyed the other two more, and occasionally, a tent collapsed.

Jacen wished that he’d thought to bring a holorecorder.

After another while, Jag gave the two still-arguing Jedi an incredulous look, shook his head, and came over to join Jacen.

“Guardians of peace and justice, there is no passion, there is serenity, was it?”

Jacen grinned. “That’s right.”

“I’ve wondered about that. It seems like the Force has an astute sense of irony.”

“Because most of us are very much lacking in the peace and serenity department?”

The corner of Jag’s mouth lifted in a wry smile. “Something like that. No offence.”

“None taken,” Jacen assured him, grinning back. “I’ve never had any particular delusions in that regard. I guess the Force just likes to make things difficult. Or it likes a good challenge.”

“You seem to be doing okay. You’re not over there arguing,” Jag pointed out.

Jacen shrugged. “That’s because it’s funnier to watch. It’s not like we’re under any serious time constraints here.”

Jag gave him a surprised look. “That’s a pretty laid-back attitude.”

“I’m on a tropical planet with no way off it,” Jacen said with a shrug. “It’s not like I can hurry anywhere.”

“True enough.” Jag reached over to break open a ration pack. He offered a bar to Jacen, and they ate in silence while they watched Kyp and Zekk continue to argue.

Kyp broke off abruptly and sent a glare their way. “Hey, you two. Care to help, maybe, or are you just gonna sit there and eat?”

Jag raised his eyebrows in one of those infuriatingly polite gestures that Jacen’s mother had also mastered. “We were just waiting for you to finalise the plans.”

“What plans? It’s just tents. You don’t need a plan!”

“Then why have you taken,” Jag glanced at his wrist chrono, “fifteen minutes to discuss and agree on one?”

Kyp dropped a tent pole to the ground. “Fine. Since you seem to have it all figured out, Fel, why don’t you pitch the damned tent?”

To Jag’s credit, he didn’t antagonise Kyp further by making the obvious remark. Jacen lacked such restraint, and possibly also the fear of Force-powered consequences. “I think that’s what he was trying to tell you fifteen minutes ago.”

“Kid, I swear sometimes you’re worse than your sister.” Kyp dropped to the ground and snatched up a ration bar, tearing the wrapping off with unnecessary force. “And yes, you’re going to tell her I said that.”

Jacen grinned. “You know me so well.”

It took him and Jag another ten minutes to get the two tents pitched, and then they sat around outside them, on top of the ledge overlooking their pool, as darkness fell around them. Jacen lay down on his back, looking up at the stars which were blinking into existence beyond the treetops. The jungle lived around him, as some animals got ready for the night’s sleep and others began to wake up. He stretched out and sank into the flow of it for a while, feeling the Force energies swirl around and through him.

This was serenity. Not the absence of emotion or passion or worry, but the mix of it, the flow of it all around him.

“Stang.” Zekk’s voice cut into his thoughts. The tall Jedi had just emerged from the tent that he was supposed to share with Jacen, and Jacen saw that he was dragging not just the pack he’d gone to retrieve, but also his sleeping pad. “I’m sleeping outside,” he explained in reaction to the others’ bemused expressions. “It’s way too warm in there.”

“It’s warmer in there?” Jag asked.

“Kriff that,” Kyp said, going to retrieve his own sleeping pad. His voice sounded, muffled, from within. “Damn it, you’re right, kid.” He crawled back out, swiping his hair out of his eyes. “That figures. Why did we spend all this time on the tents again?”

“Because you and Zekk couldn’t read the instruction manual,” Jacen quipped.

“There was no instruction manual,” Zekk retorted.

Jacen cocked an eyebrow. “Sure there was. Jagged Fel, walking, talking instruction manual for most things you can name and some you can’t.”

Zekk narrowed his eyes at Jacen. “He doesn’t hold still long enough for me to turn the page.”

“I don’t even want to know what that’s youngster talk for,” Kyp said. “I’m going for another swim before bed. It’s too hot to sleep.”

“Good idea,” Jag said immediately, and Jacen got to his feet as well, intrigued at the thought.

It was a different kind of thrill, jumping into the dark water from the ledge, without knowing exactly when you would hit it. Jacen left the others to it, though, floating on his back at the other end of the pool. He could see the stars from here, too. And all the way out there, beyond the atmosphere, light years across space, he felt a familiar presence, drawing slowly closer.

He reached out, just a bit, and his sister reached back. It was a small touch like the twining of hands, done without a second thought, almost without noticing. She knew he was here, and she was on her way.

He waited until they were back in the camp, drying themselves with the tiny towels from the equipment packs, to tell the others.

“Rescue is on its way,” he said, munching on another ration bar. “Probably be here by tomorrow. Day after, at the latest.”

“Good.” Relief coloured Kyp’s voice.

Jacen smiled. “It’s Jaina.”

Three pairs of green eyes widened, stared at him, and three expressions turned from shock to various degrees of chagrin.

Kyp sighed. “Well, at least we’ll get off this rock.”

 

Really enjoy your writing. Its very fun and I love the banter! I look forward to the next chapter.

I was also wondering if you could upload the last chapter of Intuition on your Fanfiction profile as it sadly has been cut-off on this board?

 

Loved the waterfall and the A/T. Superb to have that.

Jaina and the others are never gonna stop the teasing are they?

 

Love all the character portrayals here.

Keep up the excellent work!!

 

Rescue on the way! I agree, love the dialogue and banter. Loved the waterfall! the scene with her drawing Anakin was also so nice, and the kiss, mmm... Great!