Crash and Burn

DISCLAIMER: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I don't. No copyright infringement is intended here, and I make absolutely no money from this story. Only the plot and OCs are mine, except where they are dependent upon the Star Wars universe created by others.

Author's Note: Crossposted. This is a slightly edited version of the original, which appears on my fanfic LiveJournal, crack_empress. I decided that the original had a few minor continuity issues; those are being corrected in this version. There were also some typos that needed to be weeded out. Most of this fic is actually PG or PG-13, but there are three scenes that are R or NC-17 for sex towards the end, and some violence that might be borderline R. The violence is completely non-sexual and not directly related to the 'ship.

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When Jacen reached the gymnasium and found it empty, his first thought was that he had lost track of time in the menagerie and sparring practice was already over. Then he glanced at the squares of light on the floor, the few rays that could get through the skylight, and knew that he wasn't that late.

"Jacen?" A voice, somewhere in between that of a child and a young man, called out to him from the doors. He looked up to see a dark-haired boy, dressed in a tan robe and off-white tunic, standing in the open doorway. "Master Luke has called everyone to the auditorium."

That would explain the tension that he'd felt that afternoon, the low-grade anxiety that was coming from so many points that he couldn't tell which ones they were. Permeating the entire Temple and a wide area around it, so much that when he went out into the forest to fill up the yellow-bellied caw's food box, he still felt it. At the time, Jacen had passed this off as worry about the fate of Dantooine, which had been cut off from communications with the New Republic for more than four weeks, but perhaps it was something more immediate...

Jacen followed Valin down the hallway and into the open auditorium. It was only halfway filled, since there were more seats than people on Yavin IV at any usual time. Luke hadn't taken the podium yet, and a few people were still milling around, with more than a few clustered in the front left area.

He broke away from Valin and ran down to the cluster. Most of his friends, as well as his twin sister Jaina and brother Anakin, stood in a circle, and in the middle of the circle were the Twi'lek sisters, Alema and Numa Rar. Both were seated, and Alema, the younger of the two, had one blue arm around Numa's shoulders. Numa wiped her cheeks with a handkerchief and her lips trembled, as though she was trying valiantly to gain control of herself and only partially succeeding.

"Ryloth? Dantooine?" Jacen mouthed to Jaina.

She quietly excused herself and pulled Jacen out of the circle. He leaned down as she whispered, "The refuge asteroids in the Doldur sector were being guarded by cloaked ships. The Stellar Imperial fleet wiped out the entire Republic convoy that went to secure the asteroid belt. With almost no casualties on the Imperial side."

He frowned, from the news and from confusion, until he realized why this information had such an effect on Numa. "Sidour was with them," he said. Sidour Palan was a close friend of both of the Rar sisters, and especially Numa; the rumor was that they had been lovers in addition to being friends, and Jacen was inclined to believe it.

Jaina nodded. "He joined up with the Republic fighters at the final rendezvous point, and was killed with the rest of them."

Jacen's heard sank. They'd lost too many Jedi already in the last year, victims of the war that seemed to highlight what he thought was evidence of how far the Jedi were falling away from what they should be. Guardians of peace, only entering combat when there was no other choice except to let those who could not defend themselves die in their places. The Stellar Imperium was a military problem, a small collective of planets who had banded together under the charismatic Empress Shira, and sought to take over new territories. If her activities had been brought to the attention of the New Republic military intelligence agencies as soon as it was discovered, then perhaps the entire war could have been diverted through diplomacy backed up with military strength. Instead, some had extended themselves too far, assuring the government that the Jedi had the situation under control and that the problem was the Sith Lord, Darth Trefitz.

But Trefitz had been assassinated eight months earlier, and the Stellar Imperium plowed on through several star systems. Now they had a shipyard and a fleet almost ten times the size and strength of what it had been a year earlier, and there would be many more deaths before they were finally forced to surrender.

What Luke had to say, though, was a level worse than Jacen had thought. Now the Doldur asteroids were being guarded by even more Stellar Imperial ships, and a warning had come through that any attempt to get through the blockade would result in detonation of the asteroids - with over a million Republic civilians from occupied worlds crowded onto them.

"A few refugees were able to escape before the Doldur Belt was secured," Luke said. "It is unlikely that they went far, and they might have information on the Stellar Imperial fleet. For that reason as well as their safety, it is important that we find them before the Imperium does."

Then the other shoe dropped. The Academy was disbanding. Temporarily, Luke assured the Jedi. That it was to ensure that no harm would come to the younger students, especially since many of the others would be gone on various missions. But we're not the New Republic's special forces, Jacen wanted to say. We serve the Force, not any government! Isn't this a gross misuse of our powers - the kind of misuse that is of the Dark Side?

But he did not say that. He listened in silence, and tried to block himself off from the unsettled waves of emotion that rippled through the auditorium. Even when a list of assignments was called out - some of the Knights to escort students to their home planets, others to join the reconnaissance squadrons to the Doldur Asteroid Belt and Dantooine - he held his tongue. However, the moment that Luke adjourned the meeting, he sprang up from his seat and pushed through the small crowd towards his uncle.

"Uncle Luke," he began, but the older man put up his hand to stall him. Jacen fidgeted until Luke finished his brief conversation with Zekk regarding which ship to take to Yavin 8.

"What is it, Jacen?" Luke finally asked.

"I can't believe we're doing this," Jacen said. "When did the Jedi Order turn into a group of mercenaries?"

"We aren't mercenaries. We aren't getting paid for this." Luke looked straight into his nephew's eyes, not unkindly, but still with the firmness of a mind already made up. "Do not think that the decision to take a more aggressive stance with the Stellar Imperium was made lightly. All of the Masters have been discussing the situation for some time - seeking out answers, looking outside and inside for them. To sit back and allow the Imperium to continue terrorizing the citizens of the New Republic would be a worse act than stopping them, even if it takes force."

"The Jedi are to be guardians of the Force, and of peace," Jacen protested.

Luke smiled, a slight upturn of both corners of his mouth. "When you are a Jedi Master, then you will have a fuller perspective. For now, am I to take your words to mean that you don't want to go to Dantooine? If your heart tells you that you can't give it your full attention, then it would be better for someone else to go in your place. Tahiri Veila, perhaps?"

"She isn't even Knighted yet! How can a fifteen-year-old fly into a hazard zone?"

"Who else has been that I can send instead?" Luke leaned closer to Jacen and dropped his voice. "This is Anakin's first major mission as a Knight, without a specific Knight or Master to guide and watch over him. He's hasty and headstrong; you can balance that."

A subtle barb, well-placed, where it would sting the hardest. Even Jacen's little brother was willing to fly to Dantooine; it wouldn't do for him to refuse. "Very well," he said with a sigh. "I'll join the others in the hangar tomorrow morning."

"An hour before dawn," Luke reminded him, before Jacen had a chance to change his mind.