A Life Not His Own: Chapter 23

“What are you?”

Jacen opens his eyes, to find himself staring once more into the black pools which server as Vergere’s eyes.

“I am a Jedi.”

A flash of beak and fur. A twist of crest feathers. “No, we have been over this. You are not a Jedi. You must be alive to be a Jedi.”

Jacen drops his head, not wanting to look at her any more. “But I have the Force!”

A cawing sound assaults his ears. “Ah, but the Force does not a Jedi make.’

A feathery finger touches his chin, and he allows his chin to be lifted up, her beak is opened wide, her approximation of a human smile. “And if the Force is keeping you from realizing that, then let us see what we can do about that.”

Confused, he reaches out with the Force, touching her and finding a wellspring of it within her. Deep, powerful, controlled. Trained.

His eyes widen, and his mouth drops for a moment. “You. You’re a Jedi.”

Her head shakes. “You will find no Jedi here, young Solo.”

Her hand touches his head for a second, and a blinding flash of pain rips through him, a silent explosion of pain which drowns out even the White. He gasps aloud, a sharp intake of breath as the room closes in around him.

He has been raised with the Force his entire life. It has always been there for him, a comforting, calming breath of life and laughter, washing through him at all times.

With that flash of pain, that explosion of self, it is gone.

The river of life has dried up.

The world is now all grey, leeched of the colors that he has always seen.

The world is silent now; the sounds he has always heard have been stilled.

It lacks substance and depth. The nothingness within his head and heart scream at him, echoing the fact that he no longer has the Force. He reaches for his twin sister through their bond, slamming his self against that spot where she has always been.

And he is met with silence, with lack, and with an overwhelming emptiness. Even his bond with Jaina has become a void.

He is alone.

He is dead.

His lungs scream for air, and he finally remembers to breathe again.

“Why? What did you do?”

Her head cocks to the side. The crest of feathers on her head raises, shifting, catching the light, reflecting the yellow of surprise. “The Force is life,” she spreads her hands wide, takes up a questioning stance, “and what does life have to do with the dead?”

Jacen sobs, his entire body shaking. “But I’m not dead.”

“I have told this to you already, you are dead. Just because you are still moving does not change that. The galaxy thinks you are dead, your family and friends cry over your memory; they mourn you and believe you have become dust. Your mother and sister weep, your father rages, and your brother? Your brother rushes to his own doom. They are as lost to you, as you are to them. Gone are the bright fields of day.”

Jacen looks up at her, the tear tracks shining slightly on his face.

Her hands flap away in front of her. “Your life has been terminated. A line of division has been drawn between you and everything you have ever known.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Choose and act.”

“What?”

“Choose and act.”

He shakes his head slightly. “I don’t-”

“You must choose and act. Will you stay here, and live out your entire life in pain, or will you choose to learn the True Way? Choose and act.”

“I trusted you.”

“Yes you did. Why?”

The simplicity of the question astounds him, draws him back, and his mouth opens in surprise. Why indeed? Could it be because he was raised on Coruscant, among the multitude of species and beings? Could it be an instinctive aspect of his Jedi training, of the empathy which allows him to handle the deadly animals in his menagerie without fear of danger?

He looks at her, his thoughts collapsing and sluggish in the void which exists in his mind.

“But, you healed Aunt Mara.”

“Did I? And what significance did you attach to that?

His body shudders, and tears drip from his eyes, shattering on the floor beside Vergere.

“But…” Jacen’s breathe shudders in his body as he wonders how the universe could be so fragile, how his life could be so futile. “But I’m a Jedi.”

“You were a Jedi. Have you not been paying attention? You are dead, what about that do you fail to understand?”

Another sob hitches Jacen’s body. “I don’t understand anything. Nothing makes sense to me anymore…”

The sound of whistling chimes comes from her again. She leans up and forward, her beaked mouth near her ear, her whiskers tickling it. “Jacen Solo, Listen well.” Her voice is filled with warmth and kindess and her breath smells of alien spices and meats. “Everything I tell you is a lie. Every question I ask is a trick. You will find no truth in me.”

She pulls back so Jacen can see into her blank, black eyes. “Though you believe nothing else, you may rest your faith on this.”

“What are you?”

“I am Vergere, what are you?”

She waits, motionless, patient, as if expecting an answer. When he doesn’t provide one, she turns away, the door way opening with a wet smacking sound. She hops through it without a backward glance. The door slides shut with a slight sucking sound, as the Embrace of Pain pulls on him once more.

Drawing him up and into the White.

Only now he lacks the Force, and as the White consumes him once more, he can feel the beginnings of despair.

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She stalks through Bast Castle, wondering what could have called her here. What icon of the Dark Side could have awakened? Her form-fitting silver armor gleams in the soft lights. A burqa covers her face, save for her eyes, which glitter with madness and power. A whip is curled, and attached to her belt, a steelweave cape flapping behind her.

She has walked the halls for hours, hunting for whatever presence she felt calling her. She savors the pain and misery found through out the building. It is a pain that flickers a memory into existence. Luke. A name from another time and place. Vader’s son. Vader himself. Her old master was here. No, someone of his lineage. She looks around Vader’s private chambers, and leaves. Her final stop is the infirmary.

She walks into the clean room, with its slight tangy smell of antiseptic. She sees the numerous droids lining one of the walls, but that is not what has her attention. They are not what is calling her. She follows the trail of despair and pain to a single, lone door and opens it. And finds something that draws her attention.

What has her attention is the lifeless husk which floats in the bacta tank before her. She walks close to the tank, and presses her hand against it. She smiles even as she wonders who would have placed someone who is dead into a bacta tank.

She drains the tank, as the medical droids around her come alive.

The muscles on her cheek move, the scar next to her eye twisting subtly. Amusement dances in her eyes.

She looks between the nearest droid and the being in the bacta tank. As the green fluid flows out, the body within thumps to the side, her blonde hair lying damp and limp around her scarred face. The twist of the scars, a crinkling of the flesh around the eyes. Amusement gives way to madness in her eyes. “I will have an apprentice, if I have to assemble one from scratch.”

Lumiya, Dark Lady of the Sith beckons one of her guards to come forward. “Take her to the Corruption, and tell the helm that as soon as I’m onboard we are to set course for the Kalakar system.”

The trooper salutes, and turns to obey; he drags the girl’s still body away and down the hall.

Lumiya watches for a moment, and then laughs out loud, a crazed, dangerous laugh. She looks around the still medical room, humor still shining in her eyes. “Yes, I shall soon have my apprentice, and then I shall have my revenge.”

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Jaina is in the midst of battle. Her self an extension of her fighter. In the Force she can once more feel the seepage of agony which her twin brother is in. A pain so intense that even though he keeps it from their bond, it still trickles through to her, keeps her awake and with a headache all through the night.

Her X-Wing twists and tumbles through and around the thousands of fighters and coral skippers which surround her. There are so many, that she spends most of her time dodging things rather than actually firing her lasers.

Her wing is tucked tightly beside her, her moves echoing Jaina’s own in a wonderful precision which comes about only after hours of sim time together.

Suddenly a white light goes off in her head, a supernova of pain and emptiness. For a second she can feel everything, and then she feels nothing.

Her eyes slowly open as her body contorts from the strength of the cough from the smoke in her cockpit causes. She can hear Illisa screaming her name.

And twists on the com. “I’m here.”

“Are you all right Sticks?”

Jaina nods her head before remembering that there is no visual feed. “Sorry, I, I don’t know what happened, but I need to return to the Ralroost.”

A click answers in reply, and she peels off, heading towards the Ralroost. She dodges plasma balls and grutchins, and gasps as she sees another of the slave ships slam into Coruscant’s shields, plowing through them, and crashing towards the planet below. She yanks her eyes away, as the Force floods with the pain of shared, fear-filled death.

She continues to the Ralroost, her fighter, listing to port. She is halfway there, when a message comes over the system, a wide-band broadcast. “This is Admiral Kre’fey. This is the Omega Signal. Repeat, New Republice Forces are going Omega. Coruscant, I’m sorry.”

She lands her fighter, and crawls out, falling more than jumping to the floor. She kneels there, and tries to reach for her twin brother, meeting only an empty void. An anguished cry of grief and sorrow rips through her, causing technicians and flight crews to stop what they’re doing and stare.

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The Millennium Falcon flips and dives. Dodging plasma balls and grutchins, and even turbolaser fire as if she was a starfighter rather than a light freighter.

Han Solo sits within the cockpit, with Leia Organa there beside him. Two of the Senate security personnel man the quad lasers, the steady beats of their sustained fire an indicator of just how many enemy targets surround them.

“Jacen. JACEN!”

Leia’s scream catches Han off guard, and he glances at his wife, to see her curling herself up, wrapping herself around the center of her being, a wail of grief ripping from her throat. Leaning over in her seat, pressing her forehead against the co-pilot's station in front of her.

Han pushes the ship down. “Princess, tell me.”

Leia looks at him, her eyes wild, and filled with pain. “He’s gone. I-I can’t feel him, just, just a void.”

Han growls low, an angry, desperate look appearing in his eyes, as he aims the Falcon for the Vong flagship.

Their com crackles to life, receiving a wide-band broadcast from one of the New Republic military ships. “This is Admiral Kre’fey. This is the Omega Signal. Repeat, New Republice Forces are going Omega. Coruscant, I’m sorry.”

Leia looks at Han. “They’re abandoning Coruscant.”

Han nods his head. Leia looks out at the mass of yorik coral they’re aimed at.

“Do you plan on ramming it? Killing us, and all those in the hold?” Han looks at her, his grief mirrored in her eyes. Leia lays her hand on his arm, even as her tears flow freely down her cheeks. “This is not the way. We need to live, for Jaina. For Anakin.”

Han closes his eyes, and yanks the Falcon to port, dodging the fire coming from the Vong flagship. She grips his arm, giving it a gentle squeeze, even as more tears flow down the side of her face.

She watches the first of the Imperial Star Destroyers jump out of the system, and sighs. She feels that same fire burning in her from the rebellion after Yavin. It is the fire that drives her to want to destroy the enemy because they had hurt her. And even as she knows that that feeling is beneath her as a Jedi, she knows that it is a natural emotion and that all those in the system, in the New Republic, feel it.Leia activates the com, setting it to a wide-spectrum broadcast, allowing every com unit in the system to pick it up, including the holonet.

She was raised as a politician. To be able to give rousing speeches at the drop of the moment. And though she has long since given up on the desire to be involved in politics, she knows that she cannot let her life's work fall apart.

Taking a deep breath, she composes herself and then begins to speak.

"This is not the end. Two years ago, the Yuuzhan Vong entered our galaxy. They came not as friends and equals, though we would gladly have welcomed them as such, but as thieves and conquerors. They saw a galaxy at peace and mistook the strength of our convictions for frailty of arms, the wisdom of compromise for the timidity of cowards. They attacked without provocation or mercy, slaying billions of our citizens, enslaving entire worlds, and sacrificing millions of beings to appease the bloodlust of their imaginary gods. They believed we would be easily defeated, because they believed we would yield without a fight.

"They were wrong. We have fought at Dubrillion, Ithor, the Black Bantha, Borleias, and Corellia - we have fought them every leg of the way from the Outer Rim into the Core. We have lost untold numbers of loved ones, my own son Jacen and my husband's dear friend Chewbacca among them, and now we are battling in the skies over Coruscant itself. We are still fighting.

"Soon, the enemy will be on our rooftops, in our homes, roaming the dark underlayers of our city. To those able to evacuate and to those trapped behind, I say the same thing I would tell my children. Keep fighting.

"This is not the end. In the past, Jedi-led forces have decimated Yuuzhan Vong fleets, and we enter each battle with new weapons and better tactics. We have prevailed against ruthless enemies before, against Palpatine, against Thrawn, against the Ssi-ruuk. This is a war we know how to win. Keep fighting until you can fight no longer, then exhaust the enemy chasing you, and turn and fight some more. Keep fighting. I promise you, we will prevail."

A Life Not His Own: Chapter 22

Anakin carries Nelani from the Tachyon Flier into Centerpoint itself. He cradles her body against him, her feverish skin, hot and sticky against his bare chest. He reaches out with the Force, finding the viruses once more multiplying in her body, and pushes against them, suppressing them with the Force, and where he is able, killing them.

A low growl comes from his throat as he stalks through the station, trying to remember where he needs to go. He comes to a passage way, and her body hitches, as she groans in pain.

Anakin closes his eyes, and roughly blows out his breath. He looks left and right, and sees the same featureless doors for as far as the eye can see, and not a single sign. Another growl, and this time he is surprised that it came from him. Which way?

A gentle prompting and he turns right, rushing down the hallway. Then he sees the sign, the simple icon which has become universally recognized as a medic station.

He enters and a grin twists his lips. There before him is a fully functional bacta tank. He sets Nelani on one of the medical beds, and activates the bacta tank. The he sets about, stripping Nelani, and getting her into the short medical clothes designed for the tanks. He runs a hand down her cheek, wincing at the gaunt, stretched skin which is heat blasted from fever.

He feels a tear trickle down his cheek. He sees the tear as it splashes against her nose.

“Don’t you dare die on me.”

He waits a second, hoping, praying for a reply. When it doesn’t come, he kisses her forehead gently, and then lifts her up, carrying her up the ramp to the second level. He opens the bacta tank, and places the face mask on her, and gently slides her into it, not bothering to put on the rest of the medical monitoring devices. He leaves the top open, and walks down to the front of the tank, and presses his hand against it, even as he feels more tears slipping down his cheeks.

His comunit chirps, and a gravely voice comes from it. “Lord Vader?”

He activates the unit. “Yes, Ghrikma?”

“We have arrived.”

“Good, deploy on level twenty-three, section fifty-five. Then meet me on level forty, section 102.”

“We obey Lord Vader.”

The com dies, and Anakin presses his hand on the tank once again.

Then he walks from the room, heading towards the control center. He arrives at the control center. As soon as he steps into the room screens spring to life, showing him things. He closes his eyes, and walks to a station by instinct. This is the oddest of the gifts he has been given, the one which astounds, and frightens those around him the most. That instinctive understanding of not just machinery, but how things are put together. How they work, how they can be improved.

His sister is a mechanic, she is able to devise, and repair. Restoration is her clarion calling. And she is good at it. His brother is the empath. He feels, and understands, not just people and other sentients, but nonsentient animals as well.

But himself, he is the creator. He knows all there is to know about something, just by focusing upon it. While he may not understand what it is he knows, while he may not comprehend it in its entirety. He knows.

He opens his eyes, and reaches out towards the console, as an interface flows up out of the blank surface in front of him. He grips the handle and grins, feeling the station coming alive around him once more. He knows that his actions will have alerted the populace of Corellia to his presence, but he does not care.

He focuses, and understands. Forty-five totha and he can fire Centerpoint. While he does not know exactly how long a totha is, that does not matter, for Centerpoint wil tell him. He drops into a meditation, waiting for some reply from the station, occasionally touching Nelani through the Force, seeing if she is getting better. His despair grows at every touch, as she seems to be slipping further and further away, slipping deeper and deeper into the healing trance.

A chime sounds in his soul, and he opens his eyes. He glances at one of the monitors scattered randomly around the room. On it is a red star destroyer. He checks to see how long he has left before he can fire. As the timer nears zero, his grin grows bigger. He enters the coordinates from memory, and smiles as a real-time sensor view of Mrykr appears on a monitor, for there around it is a worldship. He makes a request of the system, determining if his plan is feasible.

When he gets the feeling of an affirmative from the machine, he instructs Centerpoint Station to cause Myrkr’s star to go nova.

A wave of satisfaction rolls through him, and he glances at the local sensors, seeing the Jade Shadow on a fast approach. Frowning, Anakin focuses on the second part of his plan, working out the necessary calculations.

Minutes later, he glances into an interior scanner, and sees Luke leaving the med center where he had left Nelanie. He flicks on the intercom.

“Go away Uncle Luke.” He almost chuckles as he watches Luke spin around on the monitor. “Just get off the station, and leave. We don’t need you here.”

Luke looks up at the security cam, almost as if he is staring directly at Anakin. “Well I’m here now, and I’m not going anywhere.”

Anakin pushes a button on his comlink, activating the droids. “Please Uncle Luke? I didn’t want to do this.”

“Then don’t Anakin. Come back with me.”

Anakin frowns, wondering where his uncle gets his unending supply of optimism from. “I can’t. Not until I’ve had my revenge.”

Anakin watches as the droids take up position beyond Luke. Luke laughs. “Do you really think that they’ll stop me?”

Anakin glances back to his calculations, then to the security monitor to see Luke set in an attack stance. “Just leave Uncle Luke. Let me finish what I’ve started.”

“I can’t do that.”

Anakin sighs, and turns off the intercom, and goes back to his calculations. They are finally finished, and Anakin sets into play his second part of the plan. Then he gets up from the control chair, and returns to the main passage way. He stands in the darkness about a hundred meters away from Luke, and he activates his saber, as he watches Luke battle the cortosis covered Phase III Dark Trooper.

Within moments Luke wins, and starts walking towards him once more. Anakin stands and waits, the thrum of his saber sounding deafening in his ears. He closes his eyes, wondering why it has come to this.

“Anakin.”

He opens them, and finds himself staring into a pair of eyes which has always reminded him of his own. “Hello Uncle Luke.”

“It’s time to come home, Anakin.”

Anakin’s eyes narrow. “There are still Vong out there to kill uncle. They don’t deserve to live.”

“That’s not your call to make.”

“Yes it is! They killed Tahiri! Now I get to kill them all!” Anakin pulls his saber up slightly.

“I know Tahiri’s death hurt you Anakin, but is this how you deal with it? Do you think she would have wanted you to fall because of her?”

“I loved her!”

Luke holds his free hand out to Anakin. “I know. Believe me I know. But giving into your hate is not the way to honor her.”

“How do you know? You don’t understand what I’m going through!”

Luke lets out a short brittle laugh. “You know better than that Anakin. I know you do. I felt you trying to give Mara strength after Ben was born, when she was dying. I felt that surge of grief when she did.”

Anakin’s saber lifts slightly higher. “That’s just another debt the Vong have to pay for.”

Luke sighs as he raises his saber into a mid-guard. “I’m sorry it has come to this Anakin. But I will stop you.”

Anakin raises his saber as well, hate filling his face. “You will try.” They stare at each other, neither quite willing to move first, both knowing that it has to be them that does so.

They are Master and Apprentice.

Family in ways above and beyond the mere blood which connects them.

They have both fought, and bled for the galaxy.

Each has lost the woman he loves to the Yuuzhan Vong.

In another time, another place, they would fight side-by-side. But here and now where one is consumed by his pain, and the other unable to help him due to his own, they fight one another.

Unable to stop the anger, the hate, Anakin moves.

Their sabers collide, a crashing sound, harsh and electric. As the sabers hum against one another, Anakin feels his anger pulsing, while Luke feels sorrow growing.

Anakin pulls back, and sends his saber in low, slicing at Luke’s feet. Luke jumps, Force pushing himself up and over Anakin. Luke lands behind him, and Anakin twists around, slicing at the midline.

Luke’s blade is there, stopping Anakin’s and then flips around and twists, coming in towards the young man’s head.

Anakin parries, and kicks his foot out, catching Luke’s knee. He pulls back before the knee breaks, and swings his sword in a powerful two-handed slice. Luke catches Anakin’s blade, and then slams a Force wall into the young Knight.

Anakin flies through the air, landing and skidding to a stop. He lets out a grunt of pain as he collides with the bulkhead of the passageway.

He stands, his anger flowing out of control, and then jumps towards Luke once more. He lands two meters shy of the Jedi Master, and runs the rest of the way in. His saber flickers to the left and right, staying tsill for mere moments before going to the next attack.

For minutes, his blade continues to flicker back and forth in that fashion. Luke’s blade is always there to stop Anakin’s attack.

Call it luck, call it the Force, it makes little difference to either of the combatants, but Luke’s saber misses one of Anakin’s strikes. The smell of burned flesh fills the passageway, as a wound appears on Luke’s arm.

Anakin gives a feral grin, as his attacks increase, as they become harder and faster. As he gives into his anger and hate more and more.

Luke makes a second mistake, and Anakin slices across Luke’s legs, and then twists his saber up and through Luke’s saber. Slicing through the emitter array, causing the weapon to sputter and die in an explosive array of sparks. The Jedi Master falls to the ground a groan of pain coming from him. Anakin steps forward, his saber lifting. “Why couldn’t you have just left?”

He brings his saber further up, preparing for a killing blow. His uncle stares up at him impassively, accepting. “I had to bring you home.”

Then there is a scuffle from behind him. He hears a voice, one that almost sounds like an angel.

“Anakin, this isn’t the way.”

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Green.

Everything is green.

As she slowly regains consciousness, that single overriding fact flicks through her mind over and over again.

Her eyelids flutter, sluggish in the fluid which surrounds her. Her hands go up, and touch the mask covering her face. The cloying scent still in her nose.

Bacta.

She is floating in Bacta. She looks around, wondering where Anakin found a Bacta Tank on the worldship. She thinks back, trying to remember, but the last thing she does remember is cresting the hill on the worldship and looking down upon the slave city. She looks up, and sees that the top is opened. She kicks off, and finds herself at the top of the tank in seconds. She grabs a hold of the edge of the platform, and pulls herself out. She grabs a towel and wipes away the excess bacta, and carefully walks down the ramp. She finds her clothes in a pile by the bed, and picks them up. She sighs when she sees that they are ruined, and looks down to see that she is wearing what amounts to something in between exercise clothes and underwear.

Feeling distinctly underdressed; she snaps her utility belt into place, the heft of her saber comforting on her hip. She presses her palm against the activator plate, happy at the sound of a metallic door opening.

She steps out of the room, and looks left and right. Her eyebrow quirks as she sees green and purple lightsaber blades. Cautiously she walks that way, staying to the shadows, her movements slow and precise as her wounded back still hurts.

She gasps, as she sees who it is Anakin is fighting, her brow creases as she wonders why Anakin would fight against his own uncle.

There is a bright flash, and Nelani glances that way again to see Luke on the ground, groaning in pain, grasping one of his legs tightly. She studies Luke lying there on the ground, wondering if she should intervene. If this fight is something to get involved in.

She wonders if she cares.

Movement catches her eye, and she watches as Anakin raises his blade. His voice is cold and dangerous as he says, “Why couldn’t you have just left?”

She looks back down at Luke. The Jedi Master. The hero of the Republic, of the galaxy. Nearly every sentient in Known Space has heard of this man. He is the embodiment of the Jedi, what it means to be a humble man and a good person. Even the sludge news reports good things about him.

Little boys want to grow up to be him.

And fathers want their daughters to marry men like him.

Luke speaks. “I had to bring you home.”

Then she looks at Anakin. Her Master. Her mentor. The person who has shown her the Force and the power she commands. Taught her to use it, taught her to fight. The man who taught her how to truly live. To her, he is everything his Uncle is and more. Yet here he is, broken. A hero darkened by war and death. Her cheek twitches as she considers him.

It would be so simple to just ignore the fight, to let Anakin kill as he sees fit. Yet what would that say about him? What would it say about her? Can she let the man she loves, kill his unarmed uncle?

Her thoughts pause for a second, as she considers the ramifications of that last thought. Then she nods her head. Yes she loves him. And no she cannot allow him to do this.

Nelani walks out of the shadows and towards Anakin, her feet scuffle over pieces of exploded droids.

Her voice is soft, but cuts through the air around them. Slicing through the tension and anger. “Anakin this isn’t the way.”

Anakin turns towards her, his face twisted in anger. “What are you talking about?”

“Killing your Uncle. This isn’t the way to do things. You’re a hero and a Jedi.”

“Maybe I don’t want to be!”

Nelani shakes her head. “That doesn’t matter, it’s who you are.”

Anakin shakes his head violently, and then turns back to Luke, raising his blade once more.

“If you kill him, then what? Who’s next? Your brother? Your sister? The cousin you have never met? Me?” Anakin hesitates, his arms quivering slightly. He bows his head. Nelani continues talking. “You once told me that you were fighting because the Vong killed someone you loved. If you kill Master Skywalker, who will you be fighting then?”

Anakin’s saber drops to the ground and its blade sputters and dies. The echo of the metal hilt as it comes to a rest rings in the passage way.

Nelani walks closer to him, as he turns towards her. “I’m so sorry Nelani, it wasn’t supposed to be like this. I was supposed to be better than this.” Her drops to his knees and buries his face in his hands. “I’m so sorry.”

Kneeling in front of him, she reaches out and touches his cheek. “Anakin, you are better than this. I know it. Master Skywalker knows it. I can feel the good inside of you.”

He looks up at her, the tears streaming down his face. “How can you say that?”

She leans closer, her lips almost brushing his. “Because if you weren’t I wouldn’t have fallen in love with you, even while you tried to be Lord Vader.”

Then she kisses him.

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Prefect Ch’roka Toh stares at the display that appears in his mind’s eyes. He is trying to figure out what the symbols and signs means. Well he knows, but he cannot believe it.

For according to the worldship’s calculations, the system’s star is in the process of going nova. He slips the head-mask off, and looks up at the Master Shaper.

“It appears the system has suddenly become unstable.”

The shaper lets out a low snarl. “Systems do not just become unstable.”

“This one has.” Ch’roka turns towards the adjutant in charge of the helm. “We need to break orbit and go to darkspace.”

A sharp nod of the head from the adjutant, and the worldship breaks orbit, slowly leaving Myrkr behind.

“Sir?”

Ch’roka looks down at the adjutant. “What is it?”

“We can’t go to darkspace.”

Horror colors both the Prefect’s and the Master Shaper’s features. “What? Why not?”

“We appear to be in some type of Mass Shadow, as if there is a planet here, but nothing show on our sensors, and every time we try to attune the dovin basils to its gravitic signature, it changes.”

Another adjutant calls out. “Brace for impact.”

All eyes turn towards the transparent view-animal, at the wave of stellar matter flying towards them. The first shock waves, slams into the ship, the energy desperately trying to be absorbed by the dovin basils. They last for twenty-two seconds, before being overwhelmed. Less than a second later, the Baanu Raas has been turned into its composite atoms.

A Life Not His Own: Chapter 21

Luke stands on the bridge of the Errant Venture, Booster and Kam are there beside him staring at the screen in front of them. It is a holomessage from Coruscant, giving details of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion of the Republic’s capital, and requesting assistance from any ships close enough.

Kam Solusar is there, and Luke can feel the desire to help the capital boil in the Jedi Master. Luke turns to his friend. “I know you want to be there Kam, but we can’t. Not with the trainees on board.”

Kam nods his head. “I know Master, but it hurts for us to lose the capital. I don’t know if the Republic can stand it.”

“Does it truly matter?”

Kam takes a step back, his eyes widening as if Luke's words were a physical blow. “Of course it matters Master. How can you say otherwise?”

Luke sighs and lowers his head. “I’m sorry Kam; I just can’t seem to work up the energy. Corran and Tahiri dead, Jacen captured, Anakin Force knows where and…and…”

Luke turns away, shutting down his Force presence, pushing away his grief and pain. Kam drops his hand on Luke’s shoulder. “It’s all right to grieve Luke.”

“I know Kam; I just never really expected that I would have to. I never thought she’d die in childbirth.”

Kam nods his head, giving Luke’s shoulder another gentle squeeze as he turns to look out at the stars. “I can understand that.”

“But I do guess Corran was right.”

“About?”

Luke makes a short sound of almost amusement. “Back before I sent him on the mission to Belkadan, I was standing in the grove where we placed the plinths to commemorate the dead. Corran was there and told me that we wouldn’t be putting one for Mara there.”

“Luke, I think you should watch this.”

Luke and Kam turn back towards Booster, and the new message. It is a news broadcast from the Corellian System.

“To recap our top story, it has been reported that the Centerpoint Station has once more activated itself. The cause of this reactivation is currently a mystery, as Centerpoint has remained inoperable since the New Republic Debacle last year.” The picture changes, displaying a blocky Corellian freighter, as it heads towards Centerpoint. “Our sources in Corellian Defense supplied us with these images of an VT-888 light freighter named the Tachyon Flier, which was reportedly seen entering Centerpoint’s hanger.”

The image changes again to display Coruscant. “Also, we have been receiving reports that the Yuuzhan Vong have finally moved against Coruscant. If the Capital-”

With a wave of his hand, Luke has turned off the transmission. His face is stony and guarded as he looks between Kam and Booster. “We need to go to Centerpoint.”

“What? Why? Besides, if going into Coruscant is too dangerous with the trainees onboard, how much more so is going to Corellia, where there’s a weapon that can destroy us with barely any effort?”

“Because, there’s a reason why Centerpoint has been inoperable since Anakin last visited it, and why it was inoperable between Anakin’s visits.”

Understanding causes Booster’s face to twist into a frown and a scowl. “Anakin controls Centerpoint?”

Luke nods his head. “Anakin is the only one who is able to operate Centerpoint, which is why NRI had him go out there. Which means, if it has suddenly become operable again…”

Kam breaks in. “That means we know where Anakin is at right now.”

“Exactly.”

Booster turns towards the crew pit. “Helm, flank speed to Centerpoint in the Corellian System.”

With a subtle shudder, the giant starship flashes into hyperspace, the stars replaced with the swirling blues. Luke can feel his features hardening, as they drive themselves closer to Centerpoint. He looks between Kam and Booster.

“When we arrive, I’ll take the Jade Shadow in, so that the Venture can pull up and get back into hyperspace, wait for me in the Sacorran System. If I’m not there a day after you, move on. I’ll either find you later or I’ll be dead. Kam, I need you and Tionne to take care of Ben and the students for me.”

“Master, let me go-”

Luke holds up his hand. “No Kam, I need you to stay with the students, they are the future of the Jedi. I just hope that we can still count Anakin among them.”

Kam nods his head, realizing that there is no point in arguing with Luke over this.

“Fifteen minutes until reversion.”

Luke glances once more out at the swirls of hyperspace. “May the Force be with you.”

With a swirl of his robes, he has turned and is taking long strides from the bridge. A weight pressing against him, as he calmly walks forward. He rides the turbolift down towards the Jade Shadow; this will be the first time he has set foot on the craft since Ben was born. Since she died. He wonders what ghosts will haunt him there.

He wonders if he will be able to see through his grief, to help Anakin see through his.

Inhale, exhale. The simple mechanics of being alive have suddenly become a chore to him.

The doors slide open, and he steps out onto the bustling hanger. Lubricant and fuel, the smells of a lifetime ago, when he was just some farm kid from nowhere, pulled into events to large for him to comprehend. As he breathes deeply of those smells, he wonders if life would have been better if he had stayed on that ball of dust all those years ago.

He shakes his head, dispelling the wanderings of his mind and looks for the Jade Shadow. He sees her in her usual landing place, having been pulled up from deep storage moments ago. She is a beautiful craft, sleek, graceful, and deadly. Like her owner.

He sighs as he trips the hatch, walking up the ramp, with a confidence on his face that he doesn’t feel. He settles into the pilot’s station, a glance behind him shows him that Artoo has appeared as if from nowhere, and is happily plugged into the astromech station.

The faithful droid tootles a greeting, and Luke turns back to the pilot console, activating the ship. He closes his eyes and exhales as he can feel the craft waking up around him, powering up. A slight shake from the main generators coming online. The whine from the repulsers and ion engines warming up. Sounds he used to love, but which remind him now of her.

A deeper, subtler shake and Luke looks out the magfield, his eyes once more seeing the cold pinpricks of stars. The comunit crackles to life. “Master Skywalker, you are green for launch.”

He gives a double-click in reply, and smoothly lifts the craft from the deck using the repulsers. The slight resistance of the magfield, and then he is through, once more surrounded by space. He punches the ion engines, and the Shadow jumps forward, speeding towards the ever looming Centerpoint.

A crackle from the comunit again, this time it is Booster’s voice saying, “We’ll be waiting for you at the rendezvous Luke, hurry up and join us.”

Luke can’t help but smile, a memory of another sad time flickering through his head, as he unconsciously balls his artificial hand into a fist. “I expect to see you there, with our lost bird in tow.”

“Copy that Luke.” Then the Errant Venture, shifts course slightly, and her engines flare into life, driving her forward. Then she seems to stretch into infinity, and is gone, disappearing once more into the safety of hyperspace.

Luke turns his attention from where she disappeared, back to Centerpoint. Back to the coming confrontation with Anakin.

As he watches, the center sphere glows brighter, and a flash of energy flies out of the station, heading to deep space. Horror rushes into Luke, as he realizes that the Centerpoint weapon had fired. “Anakin, what have you done?”

He slips the craft into the hanger, and calmly walks down the ramp. He turns to the side, and sees the freighter which Anakin came in on, and beyond that another freighter which Luke recognizes, the Lucre, the ship which Anakin, Corran and Tahiri left on so many months ago.

Luke closes his eyes, and reaches out, brushing Anakin’s Force presence.

His probe slams against the durasteel walls of Anakin’s shields.

Sighing, Luke enters the giant space station, using the Force to guide his steps. He steps into a corridor, and feels a surge of pain and grief, one so powerful and unexpected, it causes him to stumble. He turns right, and continues walking down the corridor, following the path which Anakin took. He arrives at a doorway leading towards a medcenter, and steps through. Hoping his youngest nephew is uninjured.

Without troubles he finds the medcenter, and enters, a solid tone sounds throughout the room. Within the medcenter is a bacta tank, one which is activated with a green light shining through the bubbles. Floating in the bacta is a young girl, around Anakin’s age, a deep cut on her cheek, and shoulders. He walks around the tank, and see the wounds on her back. Long jagged slices ripped into her flesh. He finishes the circuit and checks the life signs monitor. A frown comes to his face, as his hand hovers over the power button.

He checks the motion, and instead deactivates the alarm. Then he turns from the room, going back to the corridor he was in. He once more follows Anakin’s presence, searching for him.

“Go away Uncle Luke.”

Luke spins around, searching for Anakin.

“Just get off the station, and leave. We don’t need you here.”

Luke laughs at himself, as he looks up at the security cam. “Well I’m here now, and I’m not going anywhere.”

A door opens somewhere ahead of him. “Please Uncle Luke? I didn’t want to do this.”

Luke hears the shuffle of metallic feet against steel floors. “Then don’t Anakin. Come back with me.”

“I can’t. Not until I’ve had my revenge.”

The stomp of metallic feet draws closer, and Luke turns back the way he was heading. A frown appears on his face at the sight of the twenty Phase II Dark Troopers stretched across the corridor. He ignites his saber, a green beacon in the dim corridor.

Luke laughs. “Do you really think that they’ll stop me?”

The troopers lift their carbines, the click of twenty safeties being removed is almost deafening. Luke cocks his arm back, holding his saber at the ready.

“Just leave Uncle Luke. Let me finish what I’ve started.”

“I can’t do that.”

A sigh sounds on the intercom, and the click of it being shut off. The troopers begin firing, a rain of deadly red bolts which Luke starts sending back towards the droids. The whoosh of a missile sounds and Luke sees it flying towards him. He grabs it with the Force and twists it around, sending it back towards the Dark Troopers.

It lands amidst them, the explosion shaking the corridor they are in.

More of the red darts fly out of the smoke and fire, and Luke bats them back towards the droids. The smoke starts to settle, and a thump shakes the ground.

Standing in the hallway is a Phase III Dark Trooper, Luke recognizing the bulky battle armor from a debriefing of Kyle Katarn. He raises his saber back up into a guard, and jumps forward. The Dark Trooper jumps as well, his jetpack bursting quickly, sending him hurtling towards the Jedi Master.

As they pass one another, Luke slams his saber into the Dark Trooper. At the same time the droid slams his fist into Luke. Luke slams into the wall at the same second which he realizes that his saber had died.

A puff of the jetpack, and the droid lands in front of Luke, its assault cannon pointed pressed against Luke’s head.

Luke lifts his saber, pointing it towards the droid’s chest, and then activates it. To his horror the beam comes out until it connects with the armor, at which time it sputters and dies.

“Cortosis?”

There is no reply, and he sighs. Luke hears the droid’s assault cannon whirling up to begin firing, and he presses a Force wall to the muzzle. Then he pushes back against the droid, sending it tumbling.

The droid fires, the explosion ripping apart the assault cannon, sending shrapnel slicing through the droid’s armor. Luke jumps up, and ignites his saber, slamming the blade into one of those cuts, wiggling it around, vaporizing the droid’s innards.

The explosion when his saber pierces the power supply lifts him and throws him further down the hall. Luke lands and rolls to a stop against a closed door. He lifts himself off the ground, gingerly touching his head, pulling the hand away and sees blood.

He straightens, and continues walking down the hallway once more.

The purple glow in the distance tells him that his journey to find Anakin is nearly at an end.

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

Kyp and his Dozen flash into existence above Coruscant’s ecliptic. With a feral grin, he orients his X-Wing towards the thousands of yorik coral vessels that are attacking the planet. He flicks on his com to the squadron channel.

“All right Dozen, we’re here to take care of Coruscant and kill some Vong. Any questions?”

He gets a couple nervous chitters of laughter, but no responses beyond that. With a grin still on his face, he clicks off the com.

“Zero-one?”

His astromech tootles sound over the starcraft’s speakers, even as words appear on a monitor. “Yes Kyp?”

“Get me a course to the nearest furball.”

A jagged line appears on a screen, as a directional arrow appears on the head’s up display. The line flows downwards, and heads into a mass of flickering lights in the distance. Kyp pushes his X-wing down, following the direction the arrow indicates, even as he flicks a switch, prepping his fighter for battle.

His craft arrives in the mass of coralskippers and New Republic fighters, and he aims the fighter towards a group of three skips. His engines flare into life, and his craft jumps forward, his Dozen spreading out behind him. He glances to starboard, and sees the blonde that pilots that craft watching him. Her name is Lora Tiff, and she is one of the survivors of the Dantooine massacre. He tosses her a salute as she waves at him, and he can’t help but smile.

A chime sounds over the speakers, and Kyp turns back to the front, just in time to see a trio of skips flash past his canopy. He growls low in his throat, and twists his ship back around to follow them. He falls in behind them, a glance at his monitor shows that Lora is tucked in close beside him. He squeezes the secondary trigger for his laser cannons and watches as the ruby darts flicker out towards the skip.

The low energy darts pepper the hull of the skip he’s aiming for, causing little puffs of coral to vaporize out into space. With a grin, he pulls the primary trigger sending a full powered blast towards the skip.

And nothing happens.

Kyp’s eyes widen, as he checks his monitor again, and it shows what he knows already. The skip placed a void in front of his full energy blast.

An explosion on his starboard aft, slews his craft around, he glances back just in time to see an orange flightsuit flash past his canopy. He looks down, and sees the icon which represents Lora is gone.

“Zero-one, peg me the skip who got Lora.”

His lips tighten, and anger flashes in his eyes, as he fires a few more full powered blasts at the skip he was originally aiming for. As that skip explodes, an icon blinks on his HUD and a circle appears around one of the moving rocks that dot his view.

The skip dives, and Kyp follows, firing the stutter bolts at the skip in question.

“This is for Lora.”

After a moment more he sends the full powered blasts, and snarls as they are once more absorbed by a void. He sends more full powered blasts until they rip through the clear canopy vaporizing the Vong who sits within it.

Zero-One flashes a warning, and a look of horror crosses his face as a cruiser analog suddenly decelerates, coming to a near stop, and sending bursts of plasma out towards Kyp and his Dozen. Kyp’s warning sense screams, as he dodges the balls of superheated matter, and arms his proton torpedoes.

He flips on his com, as he targets the cruiser. “All right Dozen, I’m sending coordinates now.”

He doesn’t hear any com-clicks in reply.

He only hears static.

He looks down at the monitor and sees all the icons which represent the Dozen are gone except his. His mouth drops open in shock.

“They’re all dead.”

His hand convulses and sends two torpedoes flying towards the cruiser. Kyp grits his teeth, and slams his fist against the console. “They’re all dead, and I lead them to their deaths.”

Zero-One sounds an alarm, just as the X-Wing rocks from an impact. Kyp turns towards the coral vessel, and his eyes flash yellow for a second.

“Enough!”

He stutter-fires at the cruiser, and with the Force grabs the Void which absorbs the bolts. With a snarl, he exerts pressure in the Force, moving the void back until it touches the hull of the coral vessel. As he releases his control, he watches as the cruiser rips itself apart as it is pulled into singularity.

Exhausted, he leans back in his crash couch, and pulls his starfighter up, and away from the battle, even as the first of his tears start to flow.

A Life Not His Own: Chapter 20

General Ba’tra stares up at the ceiling of the Orbital Defense Headquarters. Allowing the view from the optical ceiling there calm his nerves, ease his tension. This is what he was trained for.

Defense. Attack. To destroy the enemy

His lips pull back from his teeth, revealing the sharpened fangs. Parts of him love this. Seeing the enemy spread above him, the thousands upon thousands of vessels as they revert from wherever the Vong go for faster than light travel. The sharpened tang in the air from the fear and excitement pheromones of a half dozen other species.

Lowering his eyes from the optical ceiling he turns his attention back to the holographic display of the system, the expanse of red which represents the Vong flotilla, the slowly circling ball which represents Coruscant, and the mass of blue arrayed between the planet and the Vong which represents the Republic fleets.

Of most concern to Ba’tra is the green though. The green represents the mine field and orbital platforms which are directly beneath his command.

Finally the red stops amassing, and Ba’tra’s ears twitch as he stares at the hologram, wondering what the Vong are planning. From beneath their flotilla a mass of the red starts flying out, heading towards Coruscant, their colors flickering from red to yellow.

Ba’tra’s ears flatten against the back of his head as he turns to his aid, a serious looking young human girl. “Why did they switch colors?”

The aid types something on her pad, then looks to Ba’tra. “Because their IFF transponders just came on, sir.” She hesitates, and then pulls the ear piece out, a look of horror on her face, as the fear pheromones start to pour off her, causing Ba’tra’s nose to twitch.

“They’re broadcasting.”

Ba’tra taps his ear piece twice, setting it to the general communication channel, and hears the mass of noise, a babble of voices which he can’t distinguish. Frowning he hits his ear piece again and then deftly touches one of the moving yellow lights.

“…currently holding five thousands refugees. I repeat this is the Dawn’s Light from Ornos and we are…”

He touches a different light.

“Jumping Shark and we currently hold seventeen hundred refugees. Rep-”

Yet another light.

“-five hundred ref-”

“-acks and curr-”

He snarls and taps his ear piece, putting it back on the command channel. He looks around at the crew. “I don’t care what you’re hearing on the com channels. We stay at our posts, do our jobs and try our best to ensure that Coruscant does not fall. Is that understood?”

He gets a chorus of affirmatives, and turns back to the hologram, anger smoldering in his eyes as he watches hundreds, if not thousands of yellow dots swarm towards them.

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

Danni Quee keeps her hand grasped against one edge of her console, as the blast boat which makes up the primary firepower of the Wild Knights squadron twists into a dangerous spiral. Her eyes scan the controls, and she grins as she sees the readings indicative of a yammosk.

She presses the ear piece to break into the command channel. “We’ve got the yammosk carrier, I’m sending out the IFF information on it now.”

She hears Saba’s hissing voice in reply. “Thiz iz good Danni. Knightz prepare for package drop.”

Danni flicks another few switches, focusing a sensor array on the vessel carrying the yammosk.

A light starts to flicker into existence around the blastboat, one created by the Jedi Knight Izal Waz. The sphere of golden light covers the blastboat as well as the x-wings of the Wild Knightz as Saba hisses lightly with laughter.

“Dropz the package”

As usual, the Vong cruiser they were aiming for had gotten nervous and aimed a singularity at the ball of light, dragging everything within it towards the singularity.

“Now!”

The ball of light fades away and the the x-wings jump away from the blastboat firing proton torpedoes at the cruiser analong. The dovin basil handlers on the Vong craft react accordingly, drawing the singularities away from the still dissipating ball of light to catch the explosions of the proton torpedoes.

They never even see the black two-ton slab of durasteel which their initial singularity had accelerated to a sizable fraction of the speed of light.

As the coral vessel disintegrates from the collision Saba begins hissing with laughter again, and Danni cannot help but grin as well.

She turns back to her sensors, and her breath catches in her throat. The experimental Gravity Amphilication Modulation Sensor is going haywire.

Her grin turns into a full-fledge smile as she yells in joy, startling Saba. The Jedi Master turns towards Danni.

“You scared this one Danni Quee. What iz wrong?”

Danni shakes her head, as she continues watching the data scroll across the mechanism. “Nothing Saba, nothing at all. In fact something wonderful is happening.”

She presses a few buttons, and then turns towards Saba. “I need a gravity well generator or a crystal grav trap.”

Saba turns in her seat to face the young scientist. “What?”

Danni stays focused on her panels. “I think I can jam them. The yammosks I mean. I need a gravity well generator though.”

Saba’s eyes narrow slightly. “Thiz one will make the request.”

Danni does not answer, her attention already taken up by her equipment.

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

Wedge Antilles stares at the generals and admirals around him.

“Why exactly does this Jedi need an interdictor?”

Wedge slowly focuses on the speaker. An Arconan general who name escapes Wedge at the moment. “Because she asked nicely.”

The general sputters in reply, and Wedge slowly grins. “Now, which of those interdictors sitting on the far side of Coruscant’s primary can we bring into Coruscan’t gravity well for that Jedi’s needs?”

Admiral Salmainth, the Noghri in charge of black ops, speaks in his gravely voice. “The Corusca Gem is probably best”

Wedge beckons over one of the aides. “Contact the Corusca Gem’s captain, and put her under the command of Jedi Sabatyne.”

As the aide salutes and walks away, Wedge activates the com system again. “Jedi Sabatyne?”

“This one iz here General Antillez.”

“Momentarily you will be contacted by the captain of the Corusca Gem, to provide you access to its gravity well generators.”

“Thank you, general.”

“Can you tell me why you need them? Some of the generals around me don’t seem to understand.” As he says this he looks pointedly at the Arconan general and smiles as she squirms slightly beneath his steely gaze and the Jedi’s hissing laughter.

After a moment, Saba speaks again. “This one waz assigned to work with a scientist by the Master. She believez it possible to jam the yammosk, and seeks access to the gravity well generator for thiz end.”

“Thank you Jedi Sabatyne, please keep us informed of your progress.”

“This one will, General Antillez.”

The com channel shuts off, and Wedge looks towards the Arconian again. Her name suddenly flashing into his mind. Yill Osool. “I trust that that is reason enough to lend the Jedi this interdictor General Osool?”

Osool does not reply, just tersely nods her head, and returns to coordinating her portion of the battle as Wedge turns the holographic display to show him the full battle. His eyes narrowing slightly as a swatch of the red dots turn yellow. He looks up at one of the battle coordinators.

“What is happening here?”

The coordinator looks up from her datapad, a look of concern on her face. “We just received IFF information for those. Apparently they’re slave transports.”

Wedge frowns slightly. “What are they doing?”

“Accelerating towards Coruscant.”

Wedge looks at her, horror dawning on his face as comprehension dawns. “Contact shield control, have them reinforce the power to the shields. Those shields can’t go down.” He looks at the mass of yellow advancing towards the Republic Forces and Coruscant.

Then he looks back towards the coordinator. “Also contact ODH and tell them that to not activate the mines on the prisoner transports. Save them for the Vong warships.”

“Yes sir” Ignoring the lieutenant’s salute, he turns his attention once more to the display as the yellow quickly closes.

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

Jaina sits in her cockpit, happy to once more be flying with Rogue Squadron. She looks out the canopy and sees the expanse of stars, knowing that some of those reflected dots of lights are in actuality Yuuzhan Vong warcraft.

She glances over at her wingmate, a human female named Illisa Tiv and smiles as the perky blonde waves at her. She wiggles her fingers in response, and then settles back into the crashseat waiting for the command to do something. She looks down at one of her displays, and frowns as it shows a mass of yellow dots flying towards their position.

She frowns at them for a second and then hears the click of the command channel being opened.

“Rogues, ignore the yellows and let them through.”

Slightly confused, Jaina clicks her com twice in quick succession and strains her eyes to see what is advancing. Within moments she is able to, as a CR90 cruiser comes hurtling towards her.

She pushes the stick down and away causing her x-wing to roll out of the path of the vessel. Frowning she allows her craft to come back to a rest so she can watch as the ship continues its path towards Coruscant.

Her frown deepens as she continues to watch as it is ignored by the Golan stations and the mine field. Confused, she aims a sensor sweep towards Coruscant and sees the normal dual layered shields as they flow in opposing directions over the planet.

And as the corvette explodes in a ball of orange and yellow, causing blue electrical discharge to flicker over the top shields - she understands.

As the Force screams from the death throes of hundreds of sentinents - she understands.

The refugees are a sacrifice for the Vong’s blood-thirsty gods.

She growls slight, and twists her X-wing back into position as an HT-2200 flies past her wingman. She winces minutes later as the Force howls once more.

Finally her displays lights up with targeting information and the command channel crackles to life once more.

“All right Rogues, light them up. We have some coral to break.”

She pushes forward on her throttle and her X-wing jumps forward, a quick glance at her display shows that her wingman is tucked in tight aft and starboard beneath her. She starts slowly rocking her craft side to side as the slews of balls of super-heated plasma flash past her canopy. She closes with the first flight of skips and starts peppering their lead with stutter shots.

A joy rises up inside her at the prospect of destroying the Vong culpable for the deaths of so many innocents this day.

She shudders as the death throes of another thousand sentients washes over her.

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

Alema and Numa Rar duck under the branches of the tree, Lu’ath following behind them quickly. Around and about them, a group of a hundred Nosuarians and other Shamed heretics rush away from the Yuuzhan Vong base.

Lu’ath spares another glance towards the two nubile Jedi, still wondering why they had hidden who they were from him and the Nosuarians for the weeks and months they worked to build up the resistance on New Plympto.

A leather flap of wings flickers past overhead, and Lu’ath lifts his blaster, and tracks the blast bug. He pauses for a stop, and pulls the trigger causing the blastbug to evaporate in an explosion that is half blaster bolt and half Vong weapon. Without another thought he starts running once more.

Finally, the group comes into view of the ancient freighter which has been supplied to the Resistance leadership to get them off the world. Alema, at least Lu’ath thinks it is Alema, stops at the ramp and quickly enters a code, causing a ramp to swiftly lower.

Lu’ath boards the craft, looking around the interior in half amazement. He had heard stories of flying in metal craft, but still has not been in one. But he can understand this; after all he is a Yuuzhan Vong.

Finally everyone is aboard, and the ship lifts off from the surface of New Plympto and rockets towards space. The ship takes up a stationary orbit around Karsten, and Lu’ath looks out towards New Plympto, noticing how the green of vegetation is slowly turning black.

He presses his hand against the smooth transparisteel of the viewport, as New Plympto is slowly turned into a barren wasteland, as lifeless as the moon they currently orbit.

His voice is soft, a eulogy for an entire world. “There is no death, there is the Force.”

A Life Not His Own: Chapter 19

Anakin awakens to the sound of the doorway slurping open, a comforting weight and warmth pressed tightly against his side, wrapped inside his arms. He opens his eyes and looks down, seeing Nelani nestled in his arms, her own wrapped tightly around him.

He looks up at the warriors standing there, waiting.

A shaper walks in, a crazed look in his eyes as his headdress wriggles slightly. Nelani makes a noise of disgust at his appearance.

“Ah, my two Jeedai specimen are awake” The shaper bends down, and touches Nelani’s chin. “I do think it would be interesting to attempt the protocols from that heretic Meezhan Kwaad upon her, but the trials are more important. You two should feel honored; you get to test the voxyn.”

“Voxyn?”

“You will see.” He turns and leaves the cell. “Bring them.”

Anakin’s joints and muscles groan as he stands, he turns and offers his hand to Nelani who uses it to help herself up. Then rather than dropping her hand, he laces his fingers with hers, and side-by-side they walk through the door.

They exit into a shaper’s laboratory. In a cage along one wall is a six-legged creature, which is drooling and straining against the restraints placed around it. The shaper’s face twists into enjoyment at the sight of the creature. Then he turns to face Anakin and Nelani.

“This is a voxyn.” Again, the half-crazed chuckle comes from him. “She hunts Jeedai.”

He nods his head, and a door opens, revealing a wide expanse of grassland. Nelani gasps and the shaper looks at her oddly. “What? Did you expect our worldships to be all corridors and cells? No, we modeled them after our worlds, and then grow buildings upon them.”

Two warriors step away from the wall, a flash of metal attracting Anakin’s attention. He focuses on their hands and sees his and Nelani’s sabers. As the warriors arrive at the portal, they cock back their arms and throw the sabers out into the grassland.

The shaper’s face twists once more into the grin. “Just so the experiment is more like real conditions, you have the chance of weapons. You have a two minute head start. The voxyn will continue to be released until you are captured or killed. Their release will occur in random numbers and increments after the initial voxyn have been released.”

The flat nonchalant way which the shaper says that catches Anakin off-guard and it takes him a second to process it. But as soon as he understands, he pulls on Nelani’s hand dragging her out through the portal and into the field.

They get twenty meters from the shaper’s laboratory, and the Force floods back to them, Anakin grins, as he stretches out his hand, calling to the lambent in his saber, calling to his saber. A flash of metal and the weapon is once more in his hand, a thump beside him, and he looks down and sees Nelani has her own saber as well.

Having a weapon in his hand makes him feel better, and he touches the Force. He can feel it coursing through him, revitalizing him, strengthening his abused muscles and body. Beside him, he can feel Nelani doing the same; he wraps her within a Force embrace, somewhat surprised at his actions.

Even more surprising is when he feels her gently caress him in return.

A roar, unlike anything either of them has heard before sounds from behind them, an ear-splitting sound which almost qualifies as a physical punch. The two grasp onto the Force, pulling it to them and run faster.

Anakin looks around, trying to get an idea on how they can survive. He sees a copse of stunted, twisted trees and runs that way. As they arrive, he tosses a glance behind him, and notices a rustling movement in the grass.

He looks at Nelani. “Into the trees.”

She uses a Force powered jump to get near the top, and as soon as he is certain that she’s settled he jumps into a neighboring tree. His eyes narrow as he watches the rustling movement come closer. Then the voxyn’s spiked head pokes out of the grass, swaying slightly from side to side. It stops its movements, and looks up into the tree, staring directly at Nelani.

The voxyn jumps forward, slamming hard against the tree, and Nelani lets out a gasp of surprise and grips the tree tighter. As it falls towards the ground, Anakin makes his move. Using the Force, he propels himself towards the voxyn, igniting his blade as he nears. As he moves past the animal, his blade cuts through it, removing the creature’s head. He lands and rolls to a stop, noticing a cloud of green smoke coming from the remains of the creature.

He looks up the tree, a twist of a smile on his lips. “Come on down, and let’s keep going, see if we can find a ship off this rock.”

A flash of movement and she drops beside him. She straightens, her smile matches his. He takes her hand, and they once more start running. His eyes start scanning around them, and he reaches out through the Force trying to find any threats.

To the left, the ground drops away into what appears to be another copse of trees. Anakin leads them that way, and they soon find themselves in a swamp, slowly wading through thigh deep water. They keep their movements slow, cautious, stilling the water displaced by their passage as much as possible with the Force.

“Reach out with the Force, search for danger, and try to feel things through the lambent in your saber.”

She gives a quick bob of the head. “Yes, Master.”

Anakin winces. “Don’t call me master. If I was good enough to be a master, we wouldn’t be here.”

Nelani stops and turns towards him. Anakin follows suit. She reaches out her hand and touches his face. “Don’t say that. I know, we both know, why we’re here. I was too weak; I was not able to defend myself, so you surrendered so that I might have that much more life.”

Anakin reaches up and touches the tear, as it slowly makes it way down the side of her face. “It might have been weak of me, but I couldn’t watch while someone else I knew died.”

Nelani turns away, and once more heads forward. “We all die sometime, Anakin. That’s just a fact of life.”

He shakes his head, as he begins following her. “You’re too young to be so bitter.”

“And you’re not, Lord Vader?”

Anakin suddenly stops, coldness seeping into the Force. He turns in a circle, ignoring the ripples his movements cause. His voice is a hiss. “Into the trees. Now.”

Nelani jumps, using the Force to push herself higher, and grasps a branch. She leverages herself up, her saber held at the ready, as she watches the swamp around them.

Anakin lowers himself, and backs up against the roots of the trees; his muddy head barely visible against the bark, his ice-blue eyes the only giveaway of his position.

Be still! His Force command calms Nelani, a sign that he has a plan and a purpose. She presses her body tighter against the tree, bracing herself into a position where she doesn’t need to move.
The rustle of waves lapping against her tree, and she glances down. She almost has a panic attack when she can’t see Anakin, but he opens his eyes for a briefest second, a quick glance up at her, then he closes them, and he is once more just part of the scenery. She finds herself smiling that he would be so attuned to her feelings, that he would take that second to reassure her, that he had not abandoned her.

The sound of rustling waves comes again, this time closer. She hears the guttural bark of the Yuuzhan Vong language. The warriors advancing upon them are making no attempt at hiding their presence. She seems them now, four warriors, their amphistaffs wrapped around their arms, as they stalk through the swamp.

A fifth rustle of water and Nelani focuses on it. As she watches, a snout pokes out, mean eyes, bristling head spines and sharpened teeth. A voxyn. Then the snout disappears back into the water. The only sign it is there the whisper rustle of water.

She opens herself to the Force, showing Anakin what she sees. The snout pops up out of the water again, staring straight at her. Her heart drops, as that fang-filled mouth opens. A forked-tongue flicks out of its mouth, and then it lets loose with a screeching roar.

The wave of sound slams into Nelani, and it is all she can do to remain lodged in her spot in the tree. Her ears ring, and dizziness assails her, and she can feel the sharp alarm from Anakin.

The warriors gather around the voxyn, looking up at her. The animal rushes over, and reaches up with its front two paws, pushing against her tree. The warriors advance forward, and all stand with their back towards Anakin. One pulls something from a bandolier, and throws it into the tree.

Nelani’s eyes widen as the blastbug flies towards her, she stands up, and jumps, putting a Force wall between herself and the Vong. As the warriors start pointing and screaming, the blast bug hits the wall and explodes, knocking Nelani even higher.

Barely heard over the sound of the explosion is the sound of Anakin’s saber igniting. It takes him but a second to decapitate the first warrior, and another moemnt to stab the second warrior in the throat.

Nelani falls down, grabbing at a tree limb. Her hand catches hold, and pain flares in her wounded shoulder. Her body twists, slamming her chest into a lower branch. The shock of the second impact causes her muscles to spasm, and she loses her grip on the limb, falling down through the trees, slamming into the water.

Anakin’s next slice is caught by the amphistaff of the third warrior. He flicks his blade around, stabbing behind him, and hears the fourth warrior grunt from the impact. He ducks under the slash of the third warrior’s amphistaff, and turns on the ball of his feet so that he faces the fourth warrior. He brings his blade up from beneath slicing through the weak joint where the leg meets the hip. Anakin saws his saber, and feels it tug free, slicing the leg away. The fourth warrior plunges beneath the water with a gurgle.

Nelani’s opens her eyes, her lungs burning at the need to breathe. Her head breaks the surface of the water, water sputtering from her mouth. She gains her footing, and starts to stand, when she is struck from behind, the weight of the voxyn pushing her down. Before her head crashes beneath the water she can hear her scream.

Nelani’s scream distracts him, and the warrior uses his amphistaff as a whip, the tip wrapping around Anakin’s shoulder and cutting into his back. Anakin pushes with the Force, and a wave of water washes against the warrior, toppling him over. Anakin turns to where Nelani was, and sees the voxyn’s head submerge. He opens himself to the Force, pushing at the animal. The voxyn’s head lifts back up above the water, and a stream of green bile shoots out of its mouth.

Anakin dodges, the bile slamming into the tree behind him, eating away at the bark.

The voxyn leaps towards him, and Anakin throws up a Force wall, letting the voxyn land on it, then he tips the wall and pushes, throwing the voxyn against the tree behind him. Anakin moves against the voxyn, as it opens its mouth, a gurgling noise as it prepares to spit acid at him again.

He snarls and shoves his blade forward, stabbing it deep into the back of the voxyn’s throat. Then the Force tells him to move, and he pulls back his blade and dives to the side, the sound of an amphistaff hitting the water right behind him. He surfaces and sees the voxyn thrashing about, smoke pouring from his mouth and ears.

Nelani surfaces, gasping for breath, a shiver running through her, as her body spasms. She looks around, and sees Anakin stabbing the voxyn, and rolling away as a warrior slices at him. She pulls her saber back to her hand, and jump towards the warrior, shoving her blade into the warrior’s neck. The warrior collapses, and Nelani drops to her knees, the water lapping at her chin.

Anakin splashes over to her. “You all right?”

She looks up at him, a shiver running through her body again. “It scratched my back.”

Anakin walks around her, and sees the six long gashes on her shoulders, and frowns. He holds his hand out to her, helping her up. “Come on, we need to keep moving.”

Nelani nods her head, and they head off once more. They walk for an hour, and near a ridge. Anakin creeps up to the top of it, and looks down upon a small city. He frowns as he sees a dozen different species walking around. Then sighs as he realizes that each of the sentients wandering that city is sporting the white nodes of slavecoral.

He gazes around, and notices a small cave off to the side. He taps Nelani on the shoulder, and she looks up at him, her skin pale, and beads of sweat stand out on her forehead. He frowns, worried over the sudden onset of the fever. He gestures towards the small cave, and she nods her head.

The stand, and walk down to the city, him supporting Nelani most of the way. As they enter the streets the denizens ignore them, going about their business as if the two Jedi were a normal part of the routine.

They continue slowly, heading towards the small cave, sticking as close to the buildings as possible. Soon they come to the point where they will have to cross the main through way for the town. Anakin hesitates at the corner of the building, a frown settling on his features.

Nelani slumps against the wall, her body shivering uncontrollably. She looks at Anakin, and sees the frown. “Don’t be sad.”

Startled Anakin turns towards her. “What?”

She stretches out one of her hands, caressing his face. “Don’t be sad. Promise me?”

“I Promise. Why would I be sad?”

She lowers herself to the ground. “Because you already are.” Then she closes her eyes, as her breathing lessens.

“Nelani!”

He touches her forehead, growling at the fever she has. He reaches out with the Force, feeling the infection as it attacks her body. He pulses the Force through her, trying to expunge the virus.

He brushes the mud-caked dirt away from her face. “Don’t you dare die on me Nelani.”

Frowning as he looks around, he touches her forehead once more, submerging her into a healing trance. Then he picks up her body, cradling it against his chest, and heads towards the cave he had seen. As he nears it, he realizes that it is much bigger than he had originally guessed. With a quick glance behind him he walks into it, starting down the path into its darkened interior.

He walks down the cave, casting looks over his shoulder every few meters. Then he reaches the end and realizes that the cave is slowly being filled with the refuse of the slaves, all manner of mechanical devices.

But what attracts Anakin’s attention, what draws him, is the YV-888 light freighter, sitting there immediately before him. His face twisting into a smile for the first time since Nelani collapsed; he walks around the starship. He sees some writing on the side, and steps back to read it, Tachyon Flier. Still smiling he quickly boards the craft, laying Nelani on a blast couch in the common area.

As he walks towards the bridge, he depresses the close button for the ramp, suppressing a shout of joy as it works.

He flicks some switches, as the engines thrum to life. He glances at the consumables on board, frowning at the levels of air and fuel. Unsatisfied, he closes off the two additional decks, and pumps the air out, leaving air only in the areas where he and Nelani are.

He flicks a few switches, and pulls up the navicomputer. He inputs a course, checking to see if he would have enough fuel to get there, his smile becoming greater as he realizes he does.

He runs some diagnostics, getting clean reports for them all. Then he checks the weapons system, nodding his head happily. He turns on the main power, feeling the thrum of the main engines. He stands up, to activate the secondary generators and the air cyclers for the cockpit and common room where Nelani is. As he does so, the thrum fades, and the lights start to dim. He growls, and slams his fist against the panel, and the thrum comes back, and the lights brighten.

He returns to his seat, and activates the repulsers, slowly allowing the Flier to drift forward from the cave. He nears the edge, and hesitates a moment, unsure of what using the main sublights would do in the confines of the worldship. He looks out upon the small town, and decides it doesn’t matter, getting Nelani help is more important. He activates the main sublights, and pushes the thrust to maximum. With a roar, the Flier jumps forward, rocketing past the village. He pulls back on the flightstick, aiming the ship towards the roof. As he closes the distance, he activates the Merr-sonn torpedo array, and fires a salvo.

They detonate against the coral, and chunks rain down upon him. Anakin fires again, and more coral pings against the hull. He fires his third salvo, the explosion ripping a hole through the coral skin of the worldship, and the Flier slips through and into space.

He twists the craft around, and activates the shields. A glance at the tactical display shows a dozen skips coming up to meet him, and he heads towards deep space, waiting for the navicomputer to tell him it has a valid hyperspace jump.

The ship shakes as the lead skip opens fire, raining plasma upon the shields. With an explosion of sparks, the shields fail.

The incoming tone chimes again at the same time as the navicomputer. Anakin reaches for the hyperspace levers and as the Flier shakes with another impact, yanks them toward him.

A Life Not His Own: Chapter 18

Anakin twists his head, looking around the small cell. Like everything else Vong, the room is a living thing, the walls pulsing slightly as if they are breathing. He struggles against the blorash Jelly which holds him tight against a bone spar which runs from floor to ceiling. Nestled on a small shelf by the door is an animal about the size of a hoojib, with short bristling fur and a glowing stomach.

The door puckers open and Anakin watches the warrior as he comes into the room. The humid air of the Vong vessel feels odd on his bare flesh after so many months of being locked behind the armor. The ice chips which are his eyes follow every movement the warrior makes.

The warrior snarls at him. “I am not allowed to kill you Jeedai. I find that a horrible restraint against my honor.”

“I’m sorry.” Anakin allows one side of his mouth to twitch in amusement, and gives an earnest bob of the head. “Really, I am.”

“You cannot mock me Infidel.”

Anakin barks a short laugh. “Yes I can, you can just be too stupid to understand when I’m mocking you.”

The warrior’s fist strikes out, catching Anakin on the side. The four spines on the warrior’s fist digs into the side of Anakin’s bare chest, and then the warrior rips his fist away. Anakin’s jaw clenches but he does not scream.

The warrior growls in frustration. “A worthy sacrifice and I’m unable to offer you to the Gods myself. What a despicable situation.”

The warrior’s other fist comes in fast, and the sound of a breaking rib echoes in the small cell, but Anakin still does not make a sound.

The warrior pulls out a small animal, and flicks his wrist. The animal unrolls itself, to a length of just over a meter, as it hardens into shape, Anakin looks at it, reminded of a baton. The warrior hefts it a few times, thumping one end into his other palm. He looks down at Anakin – towering over him – an appearance of happiness shining in his eyes. The thunk echoes in the small chamber as the warrior slaps the baton-animal onto his opened palm. “This is a louaton. Similar to the coufee, but it does not have a cutting edge.”

Then the warrior slams the louaton on the side of Anakin’s chest, just above the four gashes. As his body twists and sways with the blow, Anakin still refuses to make a sound.

The warrior snarls as he strikes again, the strike is accompanied by the crack of a breaking rib as it echoes throughout the room.

Fire flashes in the warrior’s eyes, as he puts the louaton back into a pouch on his belt. “If you will not make music for me, I will have to go visit the other Jeedai.”

Horror flashes in Anakin’s eyes, and he lets a low growl come from his throat. “Do not touch her you honorless worshiper of Yun Shuno.”

The warrior laughs as he backhands Anakin across the face. Then he strides from the room. Anakin strains to hear, to escape. He snarls in anger and frustration as he struggles against his bonds.

As the first scream reaches him, a low growl erupts in his throat, and he struggles harder against the borlash jelly which holds him fast to the bone spar.

The ship shudders, and there is no additional screams. Yet Anakin refuses to let go of his hate. He lets it burns there in his heart, the desire to make them pay for hurting Nelani a bright light within his chest. Still he struggles against his bonds, finally falling limp and exhausted.

He stares at the door for hours, waiting for the warrior to return.

And when he does, the warrior is not alone, Anakin watches as the five warriors enter his cell, and his eyes glitter darkly, a cold fire indicative of his rage. They are laughing to themselves, laughing at him. They pull him from the wall, and push him forward, one picking up the animal with a glowing stomach.

Anakin nods his head, understanding that that is what is keeping his Force powers at bay. He steps through the door, and sees another five warriors out there waiting for him. Before he can do anything, he is pushed from behind.

“Walk Jeedai.”

Anakin casts a glance behind him, and then strides forward, each step his hate and anger growing.

They lead him down a ramp-tongue and out onto the surface-port of a worldship. He looks up, and sees a planet hanging like a jewel above them. Anakin frowns as the warrior behind him pushes him again. He knows that he has seen that planet before, but cannot place it.

Then it comes to him. Mrykr.

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

Nelani raises her head, just that simple movement makes everything scream in pain once again. She tries to free her arms, but they are still stuck behind her in the blorash jelly. Across the room, she can see the small animal with a glowing stomach. A solzan one of the Vong called it. And it is the source of her current lack of powers.

She lowers her head, as the past once more flows over her.

She is lying on the ground, the Force suddenly gone from her and the wound on her shoulder tripling in pain. Through the pain and haze, she sees her Master assuming a fighting stance. Yet her heart despairs as multiple warriors and some bird-like creature emerge from the forest.

She hears the bird creature speaking, threatening her life. There is the simplicity of truth to the bird’s statements. If Lord Vader fights, there is no chance for her survival.

She wants to tell him to not worry about it. To save himself.

Yet he drops his saber, sacrificing his freedom to ensure that she lives just a little while longer. Part of her despairs over this, that they both are being captured.

Yet another, greater part of her soars. He values her that much.

The door yawns open, and Nelani is jolted out of her memories, pushed back into the present as the warrior strides in, his armor glistening sickly in the orange light from the Vong biots. She lowers her head, not wanting to see him.

Then there is a fire in her head, as he grabs her hair and yanks her head up; she grits her teeth biting back the pain which days ago would probably have been enough to incapacitate her. She wonders about this, could being exposed to pain immunize her to it? Make it more and more bearable?

Her eyes focus on the warrior, on his tattered lips, and missing nose. His exposed cheek muscles twitch, and amusement rolls over the warrior’s face.

“Jeedai, I must deliver you alive to Myrkr. But fortunately for me, that is the limits to my orders.”

He drops her head, and slams his fist into her cheek, the spiked implants on his knuckles drive through her skin, and she screams in pain as her head whips around from the force of the blow.

“What beautiful music we make together Jeedai.”

From the corner of her eye she can see him pull his fist back, and she winces, bracing herself for the impact. Then the ship shudders slightly, and the warrior drops his fist, looking towards the front of the ship. Growling he stalks from the room. The door closes behind him, and Nelani slumps against her restraints, blood from her cheek running down her face and dripping to the floor.

She lets out a little sob, wondering what is going to happen to her next, where her Master is. Ultimately she wonders if he is even still alive.

She hangs in the cell for hours, the blood on her face drying to a hardened scab even as her heart breaks more and more. Then the door opens and two warriors walk in. One picks up the solzan, the other releases her from her bonds. She collapses to the ground and the warrior who released her kicks her. She doubles over and around her stomach, her breath rushing from her, as she fights back the urge to vomit.

“Get up Jeedai!”

Nelani struggles to stand fighting back her tears, sniffling slightly. One reaches down and drags her into a standing position by her hair; once they get her to her feet they push her forward. She stumbles out of the door.

“Walk!”

She winces at the brighter light of the hallway and is pushed again from behind, ordered to not stop. She is eventually led out of the ship, and she gasps as she sees a planet hanging above them. Bright, shining and beautiful. She wonders which one it is.

Then she is pushed from behind again, and led inside the worldship, through a processing area and pushed into another, larger cell. In the corner is a human male, wearing black pants and nothing else. He is crumpled and lying in a ball curled up around himself, a wound oozing slightly on his side.

With a wet slurp the door closes behind her, and she spins that way, hearing the laughter of the guards.

She sinks to her knees, the tears she has been fighting since she was led from her other cell finally starting to fall. Through her sobs she is able to say four words, “Master where are you?”

“Nelani?”

His voice is weak, barely a whisper, but it cuts through her tears. She stands and spins in one fluid motion, dropping into a fighting stance over the screams of her battered body. She sees the man in the corner with his head lifted towards her, his ice-blue eyes staring at her, an almost smile on his lips. She cocks her head slightly, as she readjusts his age, putting him not as a man, but older than boy, a teenager about the same age as herself.

There is something familiar about him.

“Nelani.”

His whisper of her name is almost a prayer, a supplication, a reverent demand. He struggles to stand, wincing in pain from the wound to his side, and with worry she steps towards him, her natural compassion overriding her shyness. He gives up his struggle, and collapses back to the ground.

“Nelani.”

Then she recognizes him. She had been looking at his picture just a few months before Rodia. Anakin Solo.

She steps forward, closer to him. “Master?”

He barks a laugh, wincing again in pain. “Some Master I turned out to be.” He places his head back on the stone floor, and begins staring at the wall again. She moves to his side, and sits beside him, pulling his head onto her lap, and stroking his hair.

“It will be all right. We must have faith in the Force.” She hesitates for a moment, before speaking again in a low whisper. “Anakin.”

His body hitches, and she can feel tears as they start to soak into the legs of her pants. One of his arms snakes around her, clinging to her desperately. His reply is barely above a whisper. “I was so worried about you. I’m sorry I got you into this mess.”

She looks down at him, continuing to stroke his hair. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

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

The planet Coruscant, a giant ball of silver hanging in space. It is a planet covered almost exclusively with constructs of durasteel and duracrete. Millions of billions of sentients live on it.

It has the single greatest population in the galaxy, and has been the home of the galactic government for at least 25,000 years.

Throughout its long history it has changed hands between governments dozens of times. Most recently the New Republic wrested it from the hands of the Imperial Remnant. It is protected by dual layered shields, thousands of Golan II space platforms, and the Home Fleet, comprised of seven battlegroups, with each battlegroup containing an Imperial Mark II star destroyer, three Mon Calamari Dauntless-class cruisers, and a host of lesser capital ships.

The Advisory Council, in an effort to protect the heart of the New Republic, has ordered Fleet groups One, Two and Three to return to Coruscant and take up protective orbits. Each of these fleet groups is three times the size of Home Fleet.

It is the single greatest gathering of warships since the Battle of Coruscant during the Clone Wars.

And as the Yuuzhan Vong start arriving; it quickly becomes obvious that it is not enough.

Supreme Commander Sien Sovv stares at the holographic representation of the system, his chubby jowls tightened in concentration. He looks up at the humans and bothans and Mon Calamari who makes up his command staff.

“No matter what, we must keep the planetary shields up. That is our most powerful defense.”

He looks towards a communications technician. “Give me a fleet wide and planetary defense com channels.”

The technician nods her head, and punches a few keys. Then looks at him, and points a finger.

Sien nods his thanks. “Defenders of Coruscant and the New Republic, the Yuuzhan Vong are here. To those manning the planetary shields, I urge you to remain at your posts. Ensuring the shields stay up is the primary consideration, because the shields are the last, best hope for Coruscant. To all forces in orbit, if the shields go down, that is an Omega signal. Your Fleet commanders know the rendezvous point for that eventuality. Obey your commanders, and fight with everything you have. We can prevail against the Yuuzhan Vong. May the Force be with you.”

He shuts off the comlink, and looks around the group surrounding the holographic table. “May the Force be with us all.”

A Life Not His Own: Chapter 17

Jacen finds himself in the white of agony. It consumes him, devours his hopes and dreams.

It devours his self.

He has yet to see a single Yuuzhan Vong since his capture. He only has seen the White.

The White is all consuming, all knowing. When his voice has screamed itself ragged, until he can no longer hear it himself, when his skin feels like it is ready to flake away, and his bones rip from each socket, the White releases him.

It drops him back into the world of colors and memories, and an entirely different type of pain, as his body regains strength; his joints snap themselves back into place.

He has no idea how long he exists in the White. Be it hours, or days or years.

He doesn’t even care. All he knows is the White, and when he is within its grasp he is the White and it is him.

The first time he sees her, he has to wonder what she is doing. A bundle of feathers sitting in one corner, her fathomless eyes watching him, as his body twists back into shape as the White releases him from its agonizing embrace.

“Who, who are you?”

His voice is a bare whisper, hoarse, cracking. He does not recognize the sound of his own voice. Even though it is weak, and barely audible, she replies.

“I am Vergere. Who are you?”

Jacen runs his tongue over dry, chapped lips. “I’m Jacen.”

He struggles to sit up, and finally manages, his body screaming its protest. “What are you?”

Vergere’s head tilts to the side. “I am Vergere. What are you?”

“I am a Jedi.”

A blur of feathers. “No. To be a Jedi, you must be alive.”

“But I am alive.”

“No, no you’re not. You are dead. You’ve been dead since you landed on Yavin IV. And you are dead now.”

“No! No, that’s impossible! I’m not dead!”

Vergere shakes her head again. “My apologies, here I thought I was speaking with an adult who can see the truth of his situation. But it appears that I am merely speaking with a child, one which still wishes to cling to illusions and fallacy.”

Then Vergere jumps up, and hops towards the door. Without saying another word, she goes through, and it closes behind her, leaving Jacen alone.

“But I’m not dead.”

Then he can feel the tentacles which are wrapped around his arm begin retracting, pulling him back. The White calls for him once more. He fights it, tries to use the Force to push back the pain, but the White is inexorable, and inexhaustible.

The White comes regardless of how he fights.

Minutes pass or days. In the White it is all the same.

He is released, colors and sight assail him once more, and once more Vergere sits before him.

“Who are you?”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why am I in pain? They’re not even asking me any questions.”

“All life is pain, and pain is life. That is the belief of our Masters.”

Jacen shakes his head, even though the movement sends screams through his body. “No, pain is not life, life is joy and happiness.”

Vergere opens her mouth an issues a musical chiming, an almost whistle, and Jacen feels as if she is laughing at him. “What foolishness. No, life is born in pain and dies in pain. Joy and happiness are illusions grasped onto by those to weak to see life for what it truly is.”

“And it truly is pain.”

Her beak opens wide in an approximation of a smile. “Exactly!”

Of course he has to wonder if she really is smiling. It is merely the opening of a beak, slightly wider, for all he knows it could be the feathers on her head which signify amusement for her species. As he watches those feathers, they lift slightly and twist going from silvery-blue to a blood red.

“But why am I here?”

The White begins to call for him again; a tightening of the tentacles which grasp his arms and legs.

Her smile grows ever slightly wider, becoming somewhat carnivorous. “Why to learn of course. To learn the True Way.”

Then the White has him, and attacks his defenses, pushing away his attempts to keep himself from the pain. He has mere moments to consider her last words as the white once more devours him.

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

The Errant Venture slowly slides through real-space, her giant engines pulsing in an inaudible thrum.

A flicker of pseudo-motion and a starfighter drops from hyperspace; a large burn mark runs down one side, evidence of pursuit before she made it into hyperspace. The droid who pilots it, queries for a landing spot, and permission is granted.

As it lands, the starfighter is greeted by a mix of beings, Jedi Masters all. Standing in a half-circle around the landing spot are Kam and Tionne Solusar, Cilghal, and a changed Luke Skywalker.

Where once his face would have been open and happy, it is now lined with misery and grief. Even holding his two month old son cannot change the fact that his wife is in one of the freezers down in the morgue.

As the X-Wing lands, a technician runs to her side, and climbs up, opening the cockpit. The group of masters watch as the technician speaks into a comlink and begins pulling someone out from the ship. Worry flashes in Kam’s eyes as he jumps onto the ship, and helps get Ganner out.

By the time they get him off the ship, and down to the ground, a medical crew has arrived with a stretcher. Cilghal touches his shoulder briefly, her eyes closed. After a second, her eyes pops open. “Get him into a bacta tank.”

The medic nods her head, and pushes the stretcher out of the hanger. Luke continues to stare out the hanger as the other masters look at him. After a moment, Kam turns towards the technician. “Found out what you can about where that starfighter has been, and what happened to the one that was supposed be with it.”

The tech nods his head and Kam jumps down from the X-Wing, and steps closer to Luke. “Luke?”

Without a word, Luke turns away and leaves the hanger. A moment later Tionne comes up and slips her hand into Kam and lays her head on his shoulder. Kam looks down at her, for a moment, a frown pulling down on his features. Then he looks once more towards Luke’s back as the leader of the Jedi Order leaves the hanger, his head lowered, and shoulders slumped.

Tionne’s musical voice sounds from beside him. “Do you think he’s going to be all right?”

Kam gives a quick shake of the head. “I wish I knew.

A few minutes later, the technician comes over to Kam with a datapad. “Master Solusar?”

“Yes?” Kam turns to face the tech.

“Here’re the recordings from the X-Wing and the astromech.”

Kam takes the datapad from the young man. “Thank you, Timor.”

Then the technician leaves. Together Kam and Tionne go to a nearby conference room, and plug the datapad into the display system.

The faces slack, they watch the fight between Jacen and Ganner and the Vong. Tionne cringes back and into Kam as the creature lying on top of Jacen explodes. Then they watch as Jacen gets Ganner back into the X-Wing, and orders the astromech to take Ganner to the Errant Venture. The final scene before the X-Wing leaves atmosphere is of Jacen falling off his own craft, and two Yuuzhan Vong walking towards him.

The screen goes dark, and Tionne hitches a nearly silent sob. Kam gives her hand a gentle squeeze, then leans in and kisses the temple closest to him. “I must go see Master Skywalker about this.”

Tionne nods her head, and wipes away a tear with her hand. “I know, and I’ve got lessons to attend to.”

Kam spares a single glance for his wife before leaving the room, and heading towards Master Skywalker’s quarters.

He arrives, and his finger hesitates over pressing the buzzer for admittance. If Ben is sleeping, that would awaken him. Instead Kam probes Luke with the Force, letting the Master know that he wishes to speak with him.

A few moments later the door slides open, and Luke is standing there, his eyes bloodshot, more lines carved into his face, and it appears as if he had not shaved in three days.

“May I come in?”

Luke steps aside, and Kam enters the darkened quarters. In the corner he sees a deactivated nanny droid standing next to a crib. Luke motions for Kam to enter a secondary room which Luke uses as an office.

“What do you need Kam?”

Kam hands him the datapad. “I have more bad news Master.”

Luke looks up from the datapad, a haunted expression on his face. “HA!” A short bark of a laugh. “It appears that bad news is the only type for us these days. Anakin has fallen, Mara is dead, and a third of the Jedi I have no idea what they’re doing. And Kyp, well Kyp apparently used Jaina to destroy a civilian Vong facility. So tell me, what bad news do you bring?”

Kam glances at the wall, and squeezes the bridge of his nose between his fingers. He hesitates a moment, then finally looks up at Luke. “I’m sorry Master, but it appears that Jacen was captured.”

Luke slumps even further into his seat.

“Why?”

Kam shakes his head. “I don’t have an answer for that Luke. But we all know that Lah has been demanding that he be turned over since Duro.”

Luke turns away, placing his head on the desk, then he lifts his hand and quickly balls it into a fist and smashes it down up on the desk. Kam turns his attention to the far bulkhead.

“What about Anakin? Are we going to give up on him?”

Luke shakes his head. “I felt him trying to save Mara you know.”

Startled Kam turns from his inspection of the far bulkhead to once more look at Luke. “No, I didn’t know that.”

“I can only hope that means he’s coming back to us. It’s a large galaxy, I doubt we’d be able to find him if he doesn’t want to be found. His shields are too powerful; I can barely sense him out there. If Tahiri were alive, she might have been able to find him.”

Kam shakes his head. “If Tahiri were alive, I don’t think we’d have this problem.”

Luke lets out another short, sharp bitter laugh. “I wonder if this is why the Old Jedi Order forbad attachments. That the uncontrolled grief when the one we’re attached to dies is too easy to give into, to easy of a path to the Dark.”

Kam shrugs. “Maybe, but we don’t forbid attachments. And frankly, the love which these attachments bring is so much more important and necessary to us, than stopping the possibility of uncontrolled grief.”

“Is it Kam? Would you still feel this way if Tionne died?”

Kam’s face hardens as he considers the question. “Maybe not right at the time of her death, but right now, and probably after I have grieved I would. Attachments make us whole, they complete us as people. Could you imagine not having been married to Mara?”

Luke rubs his face. “I know you’re right. Intellectually. But right now it’s hard to find that emotionally.”

Kam smiles at the Jedi Master. “I can understand that perfectly Master.” He hesitates for a moment, and then changes the subject of conversation. “What do you think about the girl who has been seen around Anakin on a few of these reported sightings?”

Luke places his fist in front of his mouth as he thinks. Then he gives a brief shake of the head. “I don’t know Kam. We just have to wait to see if he comes home to us before we can find out about her. Now if you’ll excuse me I need to contact my sister. I need to tell her that Jacen has been captured.”

“I understand. If you need anything Luke, don’t hesitate to call me or Tionne. In fact, why not let Tionne and I take Ben off your hands for a few hours later today. Give you a few hours uninterrupted rest time.”

Luke looks up at Kam, the circles under his haunted eyes, deep and harsh, the pain in them unbanished by the shallow smile on his lips. “Thank you Kam, and I’ll call you for that when he wakes from his nap.”

Kam stands and gives the Master a short bow before leaving the room.

Luke watches the door for a moment, and then pulls the holonet transceiver closer to him.

Kam walks slowly and silently down the hall towards the infirmary. He arrives and goes to stand before the bacta tank where Ganner floats. Cilghal walks over and nods her head.

Kam turns to her and forces a smile to his face. “Can you tell me what happened to him?”

She shakes her head. “He was suffering from a dozen different retroviruses, each of which appeared designed to kill baseline humans. I recognized another seven dozen which were dormant, and were apparently designed to destroy Mon Calamari, Wookies, Duros, and a host of other races. Each of whom are represented within the Jedi. One of the wounds contained a flesh eating bacteria, and there was damage to his ear drums from some kind of sonic assault.”

Kam’s mouth tightens as he turns back to Ganner. “Will he survive?”

“I’m not sure. He is in a healing trance and we’ve got him in some of the purest bacta that the Vratix can produce.”

Kam bows slightly. “Thank you Cilghal. I guess we just have to trust in the Force.”

Cilgha’s barbels twitch. “Yes, that is all we can do.”