TWENTY-SIX
After the ceremony, Ta’a Chume called Jaina aside for a private meeting.
“You’ve done extremely well, but the Yuuzhan Vong will be back. It’s time that you knew my mind. I want Teneniel Djo off the throne, and Isolder to marry a queen capable of ruling during war.”
Jaina shrugged. “Unless you want me to help Teneniel Djo pack, I have no idea why you’re telling me this.”
The old queen sent her an arch, sidelong look. “I’ve often thought of how frustrating it must have been to always labor in the shadow of a famous mother.”
“A torpedo is launched, but no target is in sight,” Jaina observed.
“The target is very obvious. This is a common concern for young women in your position.”
“It’s the sort of thing that crosses your mind, sure, but war has a way of making adolescent angst seem petty.”
“But pettiness does not end with adolescence,” Ta’a Chume went on. “No doubt you’ve noticed Tenel Ka’s recent hostility toward you.”
“We’ve had our differences. There’s a lot of that going around among the Jedi.”
“When did my granddaughter become concerned with philosophy? No, Tenel Ka is prompted by a fear of being displaced by someone more worthy.”
Jaina massaged her temples with both hands, feeling a bit dazed by this surreal conversation. “Someone like my mother, I suppose. Is that what you’re preparing me for? If so, I don’t follow the logic. Instead of Princess Leia’s daughter, I’d be Queen Leia’s heir. Not exactly coming out of the shadows, if that’s what you’re concerned about.”
The queen smiled like a sabacc player about to place a winning hand on the table. “You misunderstand, my dear. In these brutal times, Hapes needs a warrior queen—not Teneniel, not Tenel Ka, not Princess Leia. A queen who seeks to understand the enemy, and attack boldly.”
Her meaning hit Jaina like a Yuuzhan Vong thud bug. Unaccountably, she began to giggle. “I can just picture my father’s reaction to this idea. We’re talking about Han Solo here—I’m surprised your ambassadors didn’t have to kill him in self-defense!”
“This is quite serious,” Ta’a Chume insisted.
With difficulty, Jaina composed her expression. “I can see that. I didn’t mean to offend—really, even the suggestion is an enormous honor. But I’m just not interested.”
“Why not?”
“Why not?” she echoed. “For starters, I’m too young.”
“Nonsense. You’re eighteen, about the age your mother was when she set her heart on an older man.”
“Speaking of my father, how many days did your ambassadors spend in a bacta tank?” she said pointedly.
“I’m sure he’ll come around to the idea. He is a reasonable man.”
“He’s never been accused of that before,” Jaina retorted. “But that’s neither here nor there. I don’t know about Hapan customs, but no one tells me who to marry. Not my parents, not my friends.”
“And not me,” Ta’a Chume concluded with a faint smile. “At least consider it.”
Jaina promised she would and went to look for Jag Fel, intending to question him about the fight he’d interrupted.
Her initial certainty had faded. She hoped that her father had just been acting predictably, but her danger senses prickled. What if he did not “respond reasonably”? What if Teneniel Djo did not step aside? How far would Ta’a Chume go to get her way?
Since landing on Hapes, Jaina had been convinced that Ta’a Chume had a plan in mind for her. She didn’t want to believe this of Ta’a Chume, despite all she knew and sensed of the older woman.
She couldn’t find Jag anywhere, though she eventually tracked his ship to an extremely inconspicuous corner of the city docks. Nor could she find anyone who had seen him recently.
She considered, briefly, reaching out with the Force to find him. Jacen had gone into deep meditation to find Corran Horn after the attack on Yavin 4, but this had never been her strong suit, and even those Jedi gifted with perception had difficulty finding specific people—unless, of course, they had some deep connection.
She decided instead to seek answers in a Jedi trance, and made her way to the quiet of her palace room.
As she sank deep into thought and out into the current of the Force, an image began to emerge as if from a dark mist. Jaina saw a small, slim girl in a brown flight suit. The girl’s shoulders were hunched in tense anticipation, and she clasped an unfamiliar lightsaber in both hands.
Jaina’s heart jolted as she recognized herself, and understood the context of this vision. And then she was swept deeper, leaving the detachment of the spectator behind as she entered fully into the Force-inspired memory.
A tall, black-clad figure strode toward her, his red lightsaber ready for attack.
The image of Darth Vader did not inspire the fear her infamous grandfather had earned, but a very different sort of terror.
Once again she relived the moment of horrified realization that she’d fought Jacen, cloaked in a holographic disguise.
“Jacen?” she whispered.
The specter advanced. She rose to her feet, reluctantly, and switched on the blade the Shadow Academy Masters had given her. The battle swept over her on dark wings, fierce and fast and desperate. Jaina threw all her skill into parrying the blows and landing none. The nascent skill Jacen had possessed from an early age made this a difficult task.
In this vision, however, she was not a trained Jedi Knight, but a young girl torn from her home by a group of Dark Jedi, forced to fight untrained. Jaina fought not as she now was, but as she had been. In the end, she struck without intending to.
The Dark Lord staggered and went down, his gloved hands grasping at the smoking line Jaina’s lightsaber had seared across his throat.
She dropped her weapon and hurried to her opponent, tugging at his helm, praying that she would see Darth Vader’s face beneath, or even her own.
The holographic disguise faded away, and Jaina’s heart simply shattered. A lanky boy sprawled on the ground, his brown hair tousled and his sightless eyes looking faintly puzzled.
Jaina pushed herself to her feet and stumbled back. She hadn’t killed her brother. She had not.
Her own disguise did not fade away, so she wrenched off the helmet. The visor opened of its own accord. Startled, she dropped the helmet and watched it roll slowly toward Jacen. It stopped, and Kyp Durron’s face gazed out at her. His lips moved, but she could not hear his words.
Jaina awakened from the vision with a start, breathing as hard as if she’d just run a twenty-kilometer sprint with Tenel Ka. Slowly she became aware of an urgent voice, and turned dazedly to face it. She recoiled at the sight of Kyp Durron’s concerned face.
“You brought me out of the trance,” she repeated. “Why?”
He rocked back on his heels and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Maybe I have some sense of what you were going through.”
She shook him off, but she couldn’t dismiss the vision or its obvious symbolism. And there was something compelling in Kyp’s watchful green eyes that, for once, had nothing to do with the Force.
“I never had the problems that Jacen and Anakin had with the Force,” she said slowly. “They debated its true nature, and struggled to understand what it means to be a Jedi. I just did what needed to be done. Up to now, that has always been enough. Now I’m being forced to question, and to choose.”
She told Kyp about Ta’a Chume’s offer. “I’m not considering it, but it made me think. The queen mother operates behind a line I’m not willing to cross.”
“Which begs the question of what your parameters are.”
“Exactly. And I realized that I’ve unwittingly crossed a number of lines without paying attention.”
“I’ve crossed a few myself,” Kyp agreed. “It’s hard not to—the vapin’ things keep moving.”
She smiled faintly. “This is a decision point: I can back out now, or I can move forward and push this offensive as far as it will take me.”
Kyp studied her. “You’re going to continue, whatever it costs you.”
“I don’t see any other way,” she said with a helpless shrug. The way she saw it, a Jedi would willingly sacrifice her life in service against evil. Faced with the Yuuzhan Vong threat, how could she turn away from this darker, greater sacrifice?
“Did you find the answers you sought?” Kip asked.
Jaina started to say no, but a brief, vivid vision enveloped her—an image of a tiny Jag imprisoned in the tangle of an X-wing’s circuitry. The mental picture faded as quickly as it came, leaving Jaina with two startling realizations: first, the outer edges of the “maze” actually followed the pattern of the lower levels of the palace. But even more startling, Jaina realized that she could feel Jag’s presence through the Force.
That should have been impossible, given her particular talents. She couldn’t even connect to her own twin brother. She’d had to feel Jacen’s death through the collective pain of several Jedi. Whereas Tenel Ka—
Realization slammed into her. She could sense Jag Fel’s presence for the same reason that Tenel Ka had been so open to Jacen. The connection had grown unobserved. Or perhaps it had always been there.
Kyp took Jaina by both shoulders. “What now?” he demanded, giving her a little shake.
Without responding, she pulled away and raced off in the direction her vision had indicated.