Dark Journey (34 page)

“I am a warrior, a daughter of warrior women. Teneniel Djo foresaw the Yuuzhan Vong threat and prepared. Shipyards hidden in the Transitory Mists have rebuilt much of the fleet lost at Fondor. These ships are on their way. Go, and fight, and know that Hapes is strong.”

She strode back toward Jaina, her pace quickening as she went. Jaina fell into step, and together the two Jedi women ran toward battle. The applause began again, with a fervor that swept them along like a gathering storm.

Jaina noted a familiar group of pilots at the back of the room, a disparate group—Hapans, Chiss, Republic, and rogue—who all chose to fly under Jag Fel’s command. She nodded to Jag and Kyp as she passed. “See you up there.”

Jag gave her a formal bow and then glanced to Shawnkyr. The Chiss pilots set off for the docking bay at a run, and Kyp fell into pace beside them.

Impulse struck, and Kyp acted on it at once. “Jaina never intended to marry the prince.”

Jag looked politely interested. “I see. He is not a Jedi.”

“True, but that’s not the issue,” Kyp said. “I’m guessing that the only man Jaina would ever take seriously is one who can outfly her.”

Jag ran along for several moments before answering. “There are not many who fit that description,” he observed neutrally.

“Yeah, I’ve noticed that,” Kyp responded in kind.

They skidded to a stop beside their docked ships. Jag extended his hand to Kyp. They clasped hands briefly.

“Watch her back,” the Chiss commander said softly, and then he swung up into his clawcraft.

   Kyp took his promise very seriously. He stormed over to the Yuuzhan Vong frigate and raced up the deck.

“Whatever you’re planning, forget it,” he said bluntly.

Jaina pulled off the cognition hood and stared at him.

“I get the feeling you’re about to toss your life away, sacrificing it as Anakin did. Not long ago, you told me that Anakin might have had the answers. We can’t let them just disappear into mist along with you.”

“Don’t put that on me,” Jaina said slowly. “You really think that I’m on a journey to discover what the Jedi should be?”

“It makes sense,” Kyp said. “You’ve got the talent, the heritage. Maybe there’s something to all this talk of destiny.”

Jaina picked up the hood again. “Get out.”

“Not until you tell me what you’ve got in mind.”

She rose suddenly, in a fluid blur, one hand thrown toward the older Jedi. Dark lightning crackled from her fingers and surrounded him in a shining nimbus. He flew back and struck the wall hard. His eyes narrowed, and the deadly aura disappeared. Jaina’s eyes widened in surprise.

“If I can summon it, I can dispel it,” he told her. “You’re not the only one who took that path.”

Jaina drew her lightsaber. “Outside,” she snarled.

Kyp gave her a mockingly courtly bow and motioned for her to go first. She shook her head. He shrugged and walked down the ramp, Jaina close behind him. As his feet touched the dock, she leapt into a backward flip and landed in the doorway. She shut off her lightsaber and took a step back. The living portal slammed shut behind her.

“Stang,” Kyp muttered as he watched the alien ship rise swiftly into the air.

   Jaina reached up to touch the cognition hood. Information flowed from every part of the ship, as it had from the first time she donned the hood. Before, she had always listened to the ship with detachment and distaste, as she might endure the necessary but loathsome companionship of a Hutt informer. Before, she’d had other Jedi aboard helping her interact with the ship. Without Tahiri’s hard-won connection to the Yuuzhan Vong, without Lowbacca’s skill with the organic navicomputer, Jaina could not afford the luxury of detachment. For the first time she opened herself fully to the living ship.

A strangely familiar sensation swept through her as the link between ship and pilot deepened. She’d experienced something like this twice before—once when she’d built her lightsaber and learned to use it as an extension of herself and her powers, and once again when she attuned the young villips Lowbacca had found in the ship’s hydroponic vats. Now that Jaina considered it, the two experiences had more in common than she would have thought possible.

She glanced at the two villips resting on the
Trickster
’s console. She reached for the villip that she had painstakingly attuned and stroked it to life. After a moment, the scarred face of Warmaster Tsavong Lah appeared. He recoiled in astonishment at the face his villip revealed.

“Greetings, Warmaster,” Jaina said in mocking tones. “Remember me? Jacen Solo’s twin sister?”

“You will be sacrificed to the gods,” the warmaster gritted out, “and then I will tear out your heart with my own hands.”

“If you still have your own hands, you’re probably not as far up the ladder as you wanted us to think. Put
someone else on—someone with real authority and a few more replacement parts.”

Tsavong Lah growled in fury. “With those words, you have earned yourself much pain.”

“I take it the Vong don’t get promoted for their conversational skills,” she said. “Let’s see if the priest’s commander can do better.”

She awakened the second villip, that which formed a link between this ship and the priest’s villip. When a second scarred face came into view, Jaina brushed back her bangs to reveal the mark she’d drawn there—the symbol of Yun-Harla.

Two voices lifted in outraged howls. “I will bring you in, human,” the younger warrior said, snarling. “This I swear, by all the gods, by my domain and my sacred honor.”

Jaina passed a hand over the villips. Both inverted at once.

A Yuuzhan Vong fighter streamed toward her, and all others moved aside to let it pass.

Jaina reached for the energy that she had found within, that which hurled the dark lightning. She allowed it to flood her and direct her battle.

She sank deeper into the consciousness of the alien ship, losing herself in flight as she had always done. For what seemed like hours she and her challenger darted and spun, trading bolts of plasma, dodging and blocking like swordmasters. Jaina did not think—she acted.

For a while this seemed to be an effective strategy, but her identification with the living ship was too powerful. A plasma bolt slipped back the dovin basal shields and scorched along the side of the ship. Jaina jolted, screaming, as an unexpected searing pain raced down her left arm. She was surprised to see no physical damage there.

Barely conscious, she began to slide completely into
the darkness. Again she fell back in time, into the terrifying duel at the Shadow Academy. Again she fought Darth Vader, but this time she could not prevail.

Her opponent stepped back and ripped off the black helmet, revealing Kyp Durron’s face. Light seemed to fill him as they continued to fight, pushing aside the remnants of his dark disguise and then tentatively reaching out to her.

Jaina felt the mingled joy and pain of Kyp’s long, slow redemption, the isolation of his long years of restitution. She felt his regret for selfishly endangering the one person who could become all that he himself would never achieve.

And with absolute certainty, she knew that Kyp was wrong—she was not the one. The path to a different understanding of the Force was not her journey to take.

Another truth came to her, and she could no longer deny the nature of the path she had taken. It seemed strange, ironic, that Kyp Durron would be the one to try to save her.

An answer came to her, along with the image of Kyp’s wry smile.
Did you ever think that you might be the one who’s saving me? Come on back. We’ll figure this out together
.

Slowly, she began to battle her way back toward the light. Kyp faded away, and her opponent took on Khalee Lah’s face and form. Jaina fought fiercely, but every blow she landed took a toll on her own body.

Gradually she became aware of an array of lights taking focus before her. An insistent voice droned through her comm, dragging her into awareness. The ship’s console blinked frantically as luminous creatures warned of massive system failure.

“Jaina, fall back. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

The voice, and the power it held, jolted her back to consciousness. Jaina’s hands were still on the controls,
still firing the weapons—her connection with the ship remained. After a startled moment, she realized that Kyp had been talking to her through the comm system Lowbacca had installed.

Or perhaps he had been speaking through her vision.

Jaina glanced at the warrior’s ship, which was circling around for another attack. The
Trickster
jolted as her opponent’s dovin basal got a lock on her ship.

An X-wing streaked between them, sending a steady barrage at the Yuuzhan Vong fighter—and heading directly into the gravitic pull.

Suddenly freed, Jaina swept around to back up her rescuer. But the X-wing had taken a hit. It spiraled off, a comet followed by a tail of burning fuel. The ship exploded in a sharp white flare.

She reached out and felt the familiar presence—Kyp had gone EV in time. She wheeled around, leaving her vengeance unfinished, her questions unanswered.

She set course for her Jedi Master, and the shared path before them.

The night skies over Hapes’s royal city still bled and strobed as Jaina set the
Trickster
down on the docks. She looked up, feeling no regret at being forced out of the battle before its conclusion.

This was not her fight, her path. Teneniel Djo’s legacy had arrived, and under the command of Jag Fel it was swiftly pushing back the Yuuzhan Vong. Jaina had seen that much as she maneuvered the wounded Jedi Master aboard her ship.

She saw Kyp safely off the ship and arranged for medical treatment. Then she turned to face what she had become.

Ta’a Chume was in the palace, under house arrest pending investigation into Teneniel Djo’s death. She rose quickly as Jaina entered the room, and her eyes swept the girl’s flight suit.

“The battle?”

“We’re winning.”

“You should be commanding it.”

Jaina shrugged. “Colonel Fel is doing just fine. Queen Mother Tenel Ka knows how to pick people.”

Ta’a Chume received this news in silence. “With my help, you could have been a great queen.”

Jaina sniffed and folded her arms. “I can’t tell you how much that means to me.”

“What about your vows of vengeance?”

“I’m not adding you to the list, if that’s your concern. It’s over,” she stated. “All of it. I know what I am—a fighter, the sister and the daughter of heroes.”

Something changed in the former queen’s face. “I am seldom mistaken, but now I see that you are a fool, like your mother before you.”

She continued in this vein, and was ranting still when Jaina left the palace.

Tenel Ka awaited her outside the secured rooms. “They say that anger is of the dark side,” she said somberly. “ ‘They,’ of course, have never met Ta’a Chume.”

Jaina smiled faintly, and then noticed the tentative humor in her friend’s eyes. On impulse, she folded her friend in an embrace. Tenel Ka’s strong arm came up to encircle her.

“It won’t be easy,” the new queen said. “Not for me, not for you. I suspect that your road may be more difficult than mine. At least you will not be alone.”

Jaina pulled away. “Neither will you.”

Tenel Ka’s only response was a faint smile. She lifted her hand, a somber, regal gesture, and then walked away. Her bearing was proud and her step quick. Her determination came through the Force, and with it, a sense of desolation so intense that it brought tears to Jaina’s eyes.

Jaina swiftly pulled her emotions back under control. It was this very thing—her empathy for her friends and brothers—that had gotten her into trouble in the first place. The way she saw it, she had a long road back from what she’d become, and she couldn’t afford any detours.

And as she strode back to her ship, she considered the road ahead. She’d have to face all the friends who had warned her, the family who had worried. At every turn, people would question her. She would have to make people believe that the dark side had no part in her actions, her decisions. The most difficult person to convince, she suspected, would be herself.

Kyp Durron was already at the docks, loading supplies into a Hapan light freighter. A bacta patch covered his forehead.

“Never thought you’d get here,” he said. “It’s almost time to go.”

“Go?” Jaina echoed.

“We’re taking some supplies to the Jedi base. Your mother asked me to bring you.”

A pang touched Jaina’s heart as she thought of what news of her slide would do to Leia. “Mom already lost two of her kids.”

“I’ll get you back.”

She turned her eyes to Kyp’s somber green gaze. With great effort, she lowered the shields that had kept her locked away. Perhaps there was one person who could understand, one person she wouldn’t have to lock out.

After a moment, he tossed her a box of rations. She tucked it into the hold and turned for another. They worked together, falling into an easy rhythm. Soon the ship was loaded, and the Jedi Master and his apprentice strapped into their seats.

“So what’s next?” she asked as they settled down.

“What do you want to do?”

Jaina considered this. She had always been confident—impulsive, even cocky. That was tempered now by deep humility in the power of the Force. “I’ll keep flying, of course, but I’m not sure the Rogues will have me.”

“Then why not continue the path you’ve started? There’s a place for a trickster in the resistance. You’re quick with a plan, you have a knack for strategy.”

She tried the idea on, and the fit felt about right. “Not bad,” she admitted. “And you?”

Kyp gave her a slightly sheepish smile. “I’m going to work toward the establishment of a Jedi Council, to building consensus instead of discord.”

She burst out laughing. “I’ve seen my mother struggle
with such things. Trust me, this might prove to be your biggest challenge yet!”

He shrugged. “Neither of us need things to be easy. And on that note, I hear that Jag Fel has arranged a meeting with your uncle Luke. If there’s a Jedi offensive on the horizon, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he’s at the heart of it.”