Crash and Burn

Jaina Solo walked back and forth in front of the opening of a large cavern, on the side of a tall purple mountain. There was nothing new to do or look at, unless she wanted to climb down many meters and explore the next network of caverns. But she was not in the mood to go on a meaningless exploration mission; the galaxy was in the middle of a real war, a war that required military action, and she was still stuck on Yavin 8 with orders not to leave the planet unless she was specifically called for. So far, there had been no calls at all, only a supply ship that came by two weeks earlier with another package of food and clothes for the hiding Jedi. And now that little Jysella Horn was in the care of her grandfather, Booster Terrik, she felt even more wasted and useless. The remaining Jedi trainees were not much younger than she was and could take care of themselves, especially with Zekk watching over them. She was pulled out of the war because of who she was, not what she could or could not do. Luke didn't want to take responsibility for putting her into danger.

She stuck her hands in two of her bright orange pockets; she was dressed in her flight suit, as always, and ready to go on very short notice, even though she probably wouldn't get any notice to leave. She had the idea that she would take her X-wing, currently stashed under a hanging ledge a hundred meters up and two hundred meters away, and fly back to Coruscant to join the other Jedi fighter pilots. The only thing stopping her was that she didn't have a plan for hiding her identity and no squadron, Jedi or New Republic military, would let her join.

Two stars twinkled in the chilly twilight sky, and she stopped pacing. It wasn't time for the next supply ship to come, and the fact that it was coming early could mean any of a number of things. Perhaps the pilots were being recalled, which could signify that she would be called back also. Although she wanted her gifts to be used and not wasted, she didn't want a situation so dire that her uncle had no choice but to let her fly. It could also be someone friendly, or another refugee.

She ducked back into the cave and blinked a few times while her eyes adjusted to the change in lighting; there were enough glowtorches on the walls to make it much brighter inside than outside. Jaina shook Zekk's shoulder until he twisted and sat up, rubbing his eyes. "Someone's coming," she said.

Zekk yawned and climbed to his feet. "Who is it?"

"I don't know, but it's only one small ship. I didn't see anything else orbiting."

"I'll go check it out."

"Oh, no, you don't. I'm going with you."

"Then who's going to stay back and guard the cave?"

"Guard the cave? This is Sannah's home planet and she's right inside! Why do we have to stand watch? She has Tahiri and Valin with her, and you know we're just here because Luke doesn't want to lose any more Jedi." She scowled and crossed her arms over her chest. Anger was more comfortable than sadness. Anger carried with it energy, motivation, the ability to do something about the situation; sadness was just a lack of hope.

Zekk reluctantly let Jaina follow, and they scaled down the side of the mountain to stretch of rock large enough for a ship to land on. The incoming ship came closer, and blinked its front lights twice; they waved their orange and violet lightsabers, and Jaina heard a buzzing noice in her earpiece.

A staticky, scratchy male voice called: "Jedi Solo, this is Jedi Thul. Do you copy?"

"I copy, Raynar. What are you doing here?"

"I'd rather not explain it over the comm, Jaina, because I can't come down to the surface. I'm going to drop a holodisk for you to look at and that will explain everything. You still have your player, right? You didn't lose it?"

"Of course I didn't lose it. What's going on?"

"Everything's on the disk. I'm sorry, Jaina. Dropping the disk in a repulsor case now. May the Force be with you."

Jaina tried to steady her expression as she saw a small glowing package drop down from the sky, near the ship's lights, and slowly descend. "Come on," she said grimly. "Raynar just dropped a holodisk and we need to watch whatever's on it."

Zekk frowned and narrowed his eyes. "What did he say?"

"He apologized, Zekk. Without even being caught doing anything wrong. There's something bad on that disk."

A half-hour later, she had the round black disk in her hands, and was pushing it slowly into the slot of their holo player. Sannah and Valin leaned forward, wide-eyed, their faces otherwise unreadable; Tahiri sat down and hugged her knees, and the only real evidence of her nervousness was the twitching and bouncing of her bare toes on the rocky cave floor.

An image of Luke, in his Jedi robes, appeared a few centimeters above the reader. His hands were folded behind him, and he stood stiffly and formally.

"Two days ago the Senator of the Angwel Collective was arrested for bioterrorism after a quiet and calculated strike on Coruscant. As far as we know, no one is dead, but the virus is carried by any life form and copies itself inside midichlorians. That means that to contract the disease is to be stripped of abilities in the Force without dying. We don't know whether the effects are temporary or permanent."

Jaina and Zekk exchanged worried glances, and the younger Jedi scooted closer together. A few thoughts zipped through Jaina's mind, and she instantly understood that the tragedies at Chery and Dantooine and elsewhere were linked to the new plague; perhaps a first attempt gone wrong. "I never liked that Senator anyway," she hissed.

Zekk waved rapidly at her to make her be quiet.

"You must not leave Yavin 8 without orders - not to Coruscant, not to anywhere else. We don't know when we will know what areas are safe for travel and which ones aren't, and while we have a group of doctors looking into a cure or at least a vaccine, we don't have anything to tell yet. The Stellar Imperium probably has a vaccine but no representatives responded to a request for contact and Senator Quoll is resisting our non-invasive interrogation methods."

So start being invasive.

"We have evidence of at least three Dark Lords of the Sith inside the Stellar Imperium; the Senator being the first, Darth Inferna, and her aide being the second, Lord Welk."

"I told you he looked like that boy from the Shadow Academy," Zekk hissed. "Nobody listened to me, but-"

Now it was Jaina who waved him into silence.

"In an overheard transmission sent from Lord Welk to Lady Inferna, he let it slip that Empress Shira is also Lady Lumiya. The viral attack on the Jedi was clearly intentional, but it looks like the destruction of Dantooine wasn't."

There was a long silence, and Jaina watched Luke attempt to gather his composure. It was then that she realized he was unable to call upon the Force to help him, and for the first time that day, she began to feel real, gut-twisting fear.

His voice went down in pitch and volume as he went into the next part: "The party of Jedi sent to Dantooine to investigate was unsuccessful. All members of the party have been killed. Jaina, I'm sorry, and I wish I could be there to give you the news in person, but I've been infected and can't risk passing the virus to you or anyone else. Jacen and Anakin survived one attack from a Stellar Imperial fleet and were stranded on a planet under Stellar Imperial control. They were strong and brave and managed to stay alive for several weeks, but they've gone to be one with the Force now. Please, Jaina, don't do anything rash; the number of available Jedi is dropping and we all need you alive and healthy.

"May the Force be and remain with you all."

Jaina felt a ball of energy swell inside her and she jumped to her feet, ready to do anything necessary to get rid of it. She kicked the holo player off its makeshift rock stand and then kicked the stand. "They're all wrong! Jacen's alive and I would have felt it if he died. I'm not the one with Force sickness! They are and that's why they don't know he's all right!"

Zekk caught her by the arm and tried to hold her still, but she wrenched free, and only after he stumbled back and pressed his hand to his bleeding nose did she realized that she had punched him in the face. She burst out, "They only think he's gone because a Sith Lord said so! Why would anybody believe a Sith Lord?"

"They don't lie as much to each other as they do to everybody else," he said quietly.

"Well, I still don't believe it."

Tahiri sniffled, and Jaina felt something twist in her heart. The message did corroborate what had happened on the Millennium Falcon several weeks earlier, and it was likely that even if Jacen did escape the Sith and was still clinging to life somewhere, Anakin was gone.

Jaina couldn't stand to be there with so much concentrated grief. She had plenty of her own, having been in denial about Anakin's fate since their mother had felt his final call, and now she just had to move. Do something, anything. Sannah and Valin wore the faces of those who had lost a friend; Tahiri's feeling had apparently run much deeper, and it was too much for Jaina to handle.

She didn't know where she was going, exactly, except that she was going somewhere other than the community cavern. She started climbing up the rocks, pulling herself up with as much sweat and personal power and as little of the Force as possible. Her arms trembled as she went higher, and her muscles began to ache from the strain. It was enough to distract her mind from other pains.

"Jaina, what are you doing?" Zekk called.

Jaina looked down over her shoulder. She'd scaled more than half of the distance to the hanging ledge already. "I'm going for a climb," she shouted back. "Don't bother me and make me fall."

Zekk started to climb after her, so she went faster, and reached the ledge just before he caught up. She ran on the two-meter-wide surface, walking more slowly when it narrowed to just over half a meter, and then running again when she got past the jutting rock that almost blocked her path.

She found the spot where there was a second ledge underneath hers, and she saw the tip of a fighter wing sticking out. But Zekk reached her just as she got down on her belly to swing down onto the wing and crawl over to the cockpit.

"Funny how 'going for a climb' brought you straight to your fighter," he said.

"Leave me alone, all right? Didn't you hear what my uncle said? My little brother is dead. Somebody killed him and the people who did it are trying to kill a lot more people than just Anakin. Maybe you don't care so much because you don't have any other family but my parents are on Coruscant, while Jacen is missing and I'm light-years away and not allowed to send any transmissions home! I'm going to see them and I'm going now."

"Jaina." Zekk looked hurt. "I do care, and that's why I came after you. There's a reason you can't send any messages home or go back to Coruscant. Because there's a plague out there, unleashed by the Sith, and it can make you even closer to powerless against them. We're safer here."

"I'm kriffing sick of being safe. Now get back, because I'm leaving, whether you want me to or not."

"I'm not letting you do this. There isn't anything you can do at the capital."

I'll find something, she thought, but held her tongue. She didn't want to lash out at Zekk, not when he was one of the few friends she still felt that she could trust. Misdirected violence wasn't the answer; that should be reserved for the ones who deserved it and against whom it could be helpful. Like the Sith, and others helping them within the Stellar Imperium. She was searching for some words that would make him understand at least enough to step back and let her do what she needed to do when she felt something in the Force - the presence of another one strong in it. It wasn't Raynar; she hadn't been able to feel him at all and assumed that he had also come upon the plague. As bad as that was, it may have offered a small advantage in that if the Jedi had more trouble sensing them, the Sith wouldn't have any special ability to do so, either. Whoever was coming in either was another Jedi fleeing the virus or was an agent of their enemies.

A few lights shone in the sky, brighter than the others before dimming again. "Explosion," she said. "We're about to get company. Now if you let go of me, I might be able to go up and handle it."

"This is why you're here, Jaina, not just to hide away from the Sith, but to protect the trainees. If that's not a friendly fighter coming in, then we need to get back down and stand our ground."

"Or I could blow them up before they reach us."

"Too late," Zekk said, almost apologetically. They saw a small ship rapidly descend and then disappear on the other side of the mountain. "Let's get back down, where we know the terrain better. It'll give us an advantage."

"I would have had more of an advantage in the air, and I might have gotten up in time if you hadn't stopped me."

"Really?" His tone suggested that she was mistaken.

"Maybe not." Jaina sighed and checked to make sure her lightsaber was still clipped to her belt, and she made her way back down the cliffside.

The infiltrator reached the front of the cave only a few moments after Jaina and Zekk did. He was dressed in black leggings and a black tunic, and was most visible by a small cylinder in his left hand and a large cylinder in his mechanical right hand. Lights bounced off the surfaces and off his metal limb. "Welk," Zekk spat. "I thought it might have been you."

"Reject from the Shadow Academy," Welk sneered. "Look how far you've fallen."

"I'm not the one who has fallen," retorted Zekk.

Can't we just kill him now? Jaina thought, but then she realized that Zekk was trying to stall for time, so that the others could sneak away. He and Jaina, together, could easily take out a Sith Apprentice who was about their own age and hadn't been a particularly apt student the last time they met. Of course, that was four years ago...

"That's to be debated, but not here. I've already taken care of your friend Jedi Thul, and now it's your turn."

"You've lost an eye and an arm," Jaina pointed out, pushing aside the new knowledge that Raynar had in fact been killed. Maybe Welk was lying - but probably not, since Raynar had not been the best pilot by far and without the Force would be at an extreme disadvantage against Welk. "Which part do you want cut off this time? I could make a few suggestions." She raised her lightsaber and pointed it just below his midsection, but didn't activate it. Yet.

"Such anger. You would make a good Sith. But to be honest, I'd rather you were dead. Perhaps you know that it's only a matter of time before the Jedi are extinct."

"Palpatine tried that already, and it didn't work," Zekk pointed out.

Jaina didn't hear any more rustlings behind her, and when she reached out through the Force, she knew that the other Jedi had retreated far into the cavern towards an escape tunnel. Sannah would know which way to go to give them the best chances and stay far from where Welk might find them.

"You won't have the Force to guide you, even if you do manage to survive... for a little while."

"Then you won't be able to find us, either."

"What makes you so sure of that?" Welk raised what was left of his scarred eyebrow and started to twist the lid off the large canister. As he did that, he dropped his lightsaber and let it hang free by a cord.

"Viruses don't work right away," Jaina said quickly. "Even if you let it go here, Zekk and I will still be able to kill you before we get sick."

"My mission will be complete." Welk's words carried his confidence, but his voice wavered. Jaina used that split second of hesitance to grab the canister from him, and when Welk reached for his lightsaber, Zekk hit him hard in the chest. Welk stumbled, and Jaina carried the metal can into the cave.

She put on a hazard mask and wrapped the container in a layer of thick cloth, and then a layer of plastic, freshly torn away from a box of ration bars. She didn't want to drop it anywhere on the planet, but there was a safe place for it - orbit. Eventually whatever was in the container would degrade, especially when exposed to radiation from the sun without the benefit of atmosphere to filter out the rays.

Zekk and Welk clashed just outside of the cavern. Jaina saw orange and red beams of light flying around, and she heard the shouts of battle. She then put another piece of plastic over the offending canister and sealed it all closed, and went back out to help her friend.

Three smallish figures appeared as dark spots on a less dark background, with a single glowrod to light their way. She couldn't help smiling when she noticed that the three trainees were heading towards the new starship; Welk was about to lose his way off-planet, even if he didn't lose his life.

When he saw Jaina re-appear with her lightsaber, though, he threw down his own weapon and fell to his knees. "Stop!" he cried. "I'm unarmed. You can't kill an unarmed foe."

"Why not?" Jaina asked.

"Because it's not the Jedi way."

"He's right," said Zekk.

"You're the one who killed my brother," Jaina accused. "I'm not just going to let you go! You slaughtered him and then you come here to weaken and kill me. You're a threat whether you have your lightsaber in your hand or not!"

"I didn't kill anyonr," Welk protested. "Jacen and Anakin were alive when I left them; they just weren't able to handle their surroundings. I was under orders not to retrieve them."

"I don't believe you." Jaina grabbed Welk by the throat. "You just admitted you killed Raynar!" Her fingers squeezed tighter. "If you left both of my brothers alive, then, where are they?"

"Nowhere on any map, and that's as much as I can say." Welk's voice came out squeaking and tried to pry Jaina's hand away, and when he couldn't, he looked pleadingly at Zekk for help. "You'll have to talk to my Master."

Another idea came to Jaina. "Maybe I will," she said, and let go.

She and Zekk dragged him into the cave. They frisked him and tied him up with ropes after divesting him of all of his weapons, from the vibroknife hidden under his belt to the sleeping gas capsule in his boot. "And if you even so much as try to untie yourself," she said, pointing close to his face, "we're going to think that means you're attacking us, and we'll cut your head off. Is that clear?"

"Very clear," Welk said, and he did his best to look dejected.

Valin, who had just returned from disabling both the hyperdrive and repulsors from Welk's ship, kept watch over the prisoner while Jaina pulled Zekk aside. "I don't trust him," she whispered.

"Neither do I. He's Sith. But what are we supposed to do?"

"We can't take him to Coruscant, I guess, and you won't kill him." Jaina sighed. "Keep an eye on him, and he'll eventually start trouble. Kill when he shows what a threat he still is."

"All right - hey, wait. Where are you going?"

"To throw away the virus can," Jaina said, and she picked it, as well as a hook and rope, on her way out.

"Jaina..." Zekk ran after her and put his arms around her. He was so tall, and she was so short, that her head rested against his breastbone. "Please come right back. I know you're mad and I know you're hurting. We all are. Jacen and Anakin were friends of all of us, and-"

"Jacen is alive," Jaina said, almost automatically.

"Maybe he is." Zekk's forced smile told her that he didn't believe her. "But just go up and return fast."

"I will." Jaina nodded stiffly, then returned his hug before running back to the rocky cliff.

It only took her a few minutes to pull the origination and destination data from Welk's ship, and she took it with her when she extracted her X-wing and rose through the atmosphere of Yavin 8. Soon, the plague seeds were on their way around the planet, heading for the purifying energy of the sun, and she was on her way to Cyalax.