Jaina Solo Fel (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
solo_sword) wrote2012-06-01 06:04 am
solo_sword) wrote2012-06-01 06:04 am
Ossus- Friday Fandom time
Jaina had only been awake for about ten minutes, and she'd already killed a man today.
The team had come to the Jedi Academy two weeks ago, and they'd been waiting for the moment when everything went to hell. That moment was this morning. Jaina had woken up to some warning in the Force from Ben, and found coma gas flooding her room. She was able to work through it thanks to Force techniques in order to stay conscious, and after having to snap one guard's neck right away she'd had to take stock of the situation. She didn't have much in the way of weapons; she had the spoon that she'd painstakingly made into a shiv, but her lightsaber was still in the hands of the GAG. ...And then she had to Force-throw the shiv into the throat of a trooper that had been coming after her, so there went that.
She hadn't known at the time exactly where she'd directed it, but the building was small enough that she had no problem finding the man with all the noise he was making. She couldn't see or sense any of the kids around, and she peeked into rooms as she passed. In several of them she could see overturned beds and lockers emptied on the floor. In one, red spatter marks ran up the far wall. She was alone, except for the two dead guards.
Or rather, one that was dead and one who was about to be. The man was holding his throat, blood gushing out from between his fingers. She'd hit his jugular, or close to it. Not bad for a blind throw, she guessed. She knelt beside him, pulling the hypo from the medpac on his belt. "A quiet goodbye is more than you deserve," she murmured. "But Uncle Luke keeps telling me I shouldn't hold a grudge."
As her words registered, the man's eyes widened, and he clutched at Jaina's arm, silently begging her to save him. It wasn't his fault, she decided. He was just doing his job and following orders.
That wasn't much of an argument to someone who'd lost her career by following her conscience instead of orders, though.
"Sorry," she said, and touched the tip of the hypo to his arm before injecting it. "I've got kids to look after."
She didn't stick around and wait for him to die. She didn't have time and she wasn't nearly that morbid. She crushed his comlink beneath her boot, then stole his blaster and ammunition before going to the viewport to look out at the scene. The students, ranging from about five to fifteen, were being led to the central exercise pavilion outside, where Major Serpa stood under bright lights with a squad of bodyguards as the kids were arranged in lines before him, sometimes rearranging the groups of kids in ways that he liked better.
She hated that guy.
Another moment had her trying to get a sense for where everyone else was. She didn't see the Masters Solusar, but could sense them, and decided they were probably doing the same thing she was. She felt Zekk in the jungle behind the complex, and Jag seemed to be moving towards Jaina. They were five against far more GAG soldiers, one of them clearly unstable. Not great odds, but it wasn't like the kids were exactly defenseless, so that helped. The problem was that they were dealing with someone like Serpa, who was now selecting one boy and one girl from each age group to stand in a circle around him. And that Jaina didn't like. It reminded her of the Capitol in Panem, using the children to shield the guards and Snow. That had to be what he was doing.
When he was done, Jaina saw Tionne Solusar crossing the courtyard towards him. It wasn't clear if this was part of a plan or if she'd just had it. "You had better have a good reason for this, Major," she said, stepping onto the pavilion. "And for the trooper who died trying to gas me in my sleep."
Serpa looked at her over the young ones separating them. "You killed him? That doesn't seem very fair, does it? He was only trying to keep you out of the way."
Tionne stepped through the circle of children and stopped close to Serpa. "Out of the way of what?"
"Nothing to be concerned about," Serpa replied. "Unless you Jedi fear truth as much as you do battle."
"Fear has no control over Jedi- and neither does anger, which is a good thing for you right now," Tionne said.
"Are you threatening me, Master Solusar?"
"I'm making a suggestion for your own good. Return these children to their beds immediately, and your unfortunate timing will be forgiven."
Serpa studied Tionne for a long moment. "That's a threat," he decided with a nod. He turned to the children and addressed them. "It might even frighten me, if I hadn't heard how Luke Skywalker and his bunch of cowards ran at the Battle of Kuat."
While they'd been here, there had been things going on elsewhere in the galaxy. With Zekk in hiding they'd been able to get some information, such as the Jedi desertion of the GAG at Kuat- apparently Luke had had it- but the adults hadn't shared this information with the students. It was too risky to let that get out and have some GAG soldier discover that they had someone on the outside, especially when they didn't have all the information. Even now even the youngest of the children might be outraged or shocked at this news, but not enough to show that outwardly.
"Address your remarks to me," Tionne said, using the Force to spin Serpa back toward her. "Whatever you think you know about what-"
That was a mistake. He came around with his blaster as if to either hit her or shoot her. Tionne tried to Force-slap the weapon aside but was a hair too slow, and the blaster discharged, sending a bolt into her leg. She fell to her good knee, and if Jaina could feel her pain, she was sure Tionne's husband Kam could, too. It didn't draw him out, though. She could sense his rage, but he kept it under control, because acting out against Serpa more would just make things worse.
Jaina, however, had had enough. Some of the little ones were crying now, and she didn't want to see this escalate further. She turned from the viewport, and caught a shadow coming from the front door-
She almost shot Jag before she realized who it was. She was glad she didn't. "Watch it!" he hissed, raising his hands. "Don't you know better than to point a live blaster at your commanding officer?"
"I know better than a lot of things," she said, lowering the blaster as he lowered his hands. "What are you doing sneaking up on me, anyway?"
"You're a Jedi. How can anyone sneak up on you?"
Jaina waved vaguely in the direction of the bodies she'd left behind her. "People have been managing. And I'm a little distracted by what Serpa's doing out there. He just blasted Tionne's knee apart."
Jag nodded as though he had been expecting this. "He's trying to draw you out. There's a sniper team on your roof, probably other places, too."
"How did they get past Vis'l and Loli?" Jaina asked of the two young Jedi Knights who had been on guard duty.
"It's easy to miss things when you're dead."
She went cold. They were brand new Jedi Knights, as young as the came. "How?"
"Snipers, I think. I found them behind different dorms, both with scorch holes in the sides of their heads," he explained solemnly. "It looked like they'd been lured outside and blasted simultaneously. My guess is that Serpa is after all of you."
Jaina shook her head. "If he wanted us dead, a thermal detonator would be a lot more effective. Why bother putting us under with coma gas?"
"Because he knows Jedi," Jag said. "It's pretty hard for an assassin to sneak up on you guys in your sleep. Your danger sense kicks in and wakes you." He'd had to wake her up from field naps on missions enough to speak from experience.
"I still don't see why he thinks coma gas is better."
"Because then it looks like he's only trying to keep you out of the way. You'll misinterpret his intentions, and then he can kill you."
Serpa had said something like that to Tionne, hadn't he? She had to assume that Jag was right. Really, he usually was, even if she'd never tell him that. "Okay, so maybe he's as smart as he is crazy," she said, slipping past Jag through the door. "The first thing we need to do is take out those snipers. Quietly."
"Don't forget quickly," Jag added. "Serpa doesn't strike me as the patient type."
It was still dark when they made it to the back door of the dorm, so Jaina reached out with the Force to sense two presences in the shrubs off to the right, behind the adjacent building. "It's times like this when I really miss my lightsaber," she whispered. "Did you notice the two over by the wodobo bushes?"
"The two what?" Jag asked.
"That's what I was afraid of." Jaina passed her blaster to Jag. "Cover me, but don't shoot unless they do."
"Jaina, if those are snipers, they've got longblasters," Jag pointed out. "A blaster pistol isn't going to be much help."
"Just make lots of noise," she told him. "And trust me."
It took only a small use of the Force to snap a branch behind the two in the bushes, and then she took the opportunity to sprint across the yard into the hedge. Since there'd been no firing, she could only assume they'd fallen for it, and made her way carefully through the underbrush to circle around them. They were lying on their stomachs under the branches of the bush, one checking in the direction of the snapped branch, the other keeping his weapon trained on the dorm Jaina had just come from.
She didn't have time to try and capture them. She dropped a knee into the small of the sharpshooter's back, then, as he started to twist around, grabbed his chin and helmet and snapped his neck with a violent twist. The spotter spun toward the sound- and caught a Force-enhanced knife-hand strike across the gullet. Like the one inside the dorm, she made it quick and snapped this soldier's neck to at least make his death more merciful.
Another blaster bolt rang out from the direction of the dorms, and the children screamed. She could feel more pain from Tionne, though she didn't hear any cries from her. So Serpa had to be torturing her. Tionne wouldn't try anything more in front of the students if she'd already had a bolt rip into her knee. Jaina poured reassurance and wariness into the Force, trying to get that across to Kam and the other Jedi, but it wasn't really working.
With the next bolt she knew Kam was about to snap, and she could sense a rising determination from the students to do something, and that meant Serpa was winning. If any of them tried to overtake him, it would be a massacre.
She took the longblaster- the sharpshooter wasn't going to be needing it- and stepped out of the bush, noticing that Jag had climbed onto a porch railing and was pulling himself up over the eaves. That was fine for him, but she had a faster way to do things, taking two running steps before launching herself halfway up the roof in a Force leap. She landed just in time to see the shadows of the snipers on the roof firing into the courtyard, and she crossed the duracrete in two Force bounds, coming down between the two. Before they could turn, she had pressed the muzzle of her longblaster against the sharpshooter's helmet and planted one boot in the middle of his spotter's back.
The spotter tried to turn around with his blaster on her, but her quick shot to the sharpshooter's temple ended that move right there. Then she slapped the weapon's barrel across the other's face, sending him over the side of the roof. By the sickening sound of him hitting the ground, Jaina realized that this was now six dead guys before breakfast for her.
When she looked into the courtyard, she was horrified to see that Kam had not only been drawn out, but he was laying on the ground with smoke rising from three wounds. He wasn't dead, but he wasn't moving. Two Mon Calamarian students hadn't fared as well.
Jag scrambled up behind Jaina, then grabbed her arm and pulled her down. "Are you trying to get blasted?"
Jaina dropped behind the roof ridge and finally saw what had drawn Kam and the others into the open. Tionne lay curled at Serpa's feet, the lower parts of a leg and an arm lying a meter from their smoking stumps.
For the most part, the students were staying as controlled as they could in this situation. They'd practiced this ever since Jag had first brought up his plan to Jaina and the Solusars. All they needed was to hear the word that would activate the escape plan. They were waiting for it, but Jaina couldn't give it until she was in a better position to help.
Serpa's voice came over the comlink in Jaina's belt. "Do we have them all?"
The troopers responded with the names of all the people they'd had standing guard. "That's everyone," Jaina whispered.
Jag nodded and eased the second longblaster out of the hands of the dead sharpshooter. "Except us and..."
"What about that Solo smooka?" Serpa demanded over the comlink. "And Fel?"
There was no answer, and Jaina could faintly hear a voice from inside the sharpshooter's helmet calling for him. "That would be our guy," Jaina said, looking to Jag. "Did you get a fix on the other snipers?"
"Of course."
The second voice sounded from inside the dead sharpshooter's helmet again, but then Serpa's voice came, "He's dead, you Gungan," before addressing Jaina. "Well, Jedi Solo, I see that you're as big a coward as your uncle."
She could see him where he stood. She'd trained with the longblaster, she knew she could make the shot if it was clear, but there was a young girl who was too close for her to risk it. That happened when you used children to shield you. Serpa pressed his blaster to Tionne's head. "Are you just going to hide while I kill a Jedi Master?"
"Ignore him," Tionne managed, raising the stump of her arm to turn the blaster aside. "Look after-"
She didn't get the chance to finish the sentence, because a GAG trooper fired over the children to take off another ten centimeters from what was left of her arm.
"It's time we gave that braintick what he's asking for," Jaina decided, and sprang over the ridge of the roof and started to slide down the other side. "Cover me!"
Jag was already firing across the courtyard toward the sniper with the best angle of attack. She didn't question whether he'd be able to do any good or not, because really. Jaina fired at the closest team, trusting her aim to the Force, then barrel-rolling, firing again, and dropping off the roof into the courtyard.
Two bolts landed on the wall behind her, and she dived into a somersault and came up shooting. It was only a matter of time before she was pivoting sideways to avoid being hit by a trio of blaster bolts that nearly hit her.
Jaina really missed her lightsaber.
Jag's longblaster sounded behind her, and that attacker fell silent. Jaina turned her attention to the young ones, who remained in their groups, craning their necks to watch her, still awaiting their orders.
"Enough!" she yelled. "We've had-"
The kids took the word as their cue to finally turn on the guards en masse. The GAG soldiers hadn't been expecting it, so any surprised cries or blaster fire was because the troopers had no idea that they might have the students they'd been guarding disarming or trying to injure them to get away. A Jedi was never defenseless, not even when they were five.
Jaina dropped to a knee and spun back towards the dorms, but Jag had dispatched the snipers by now. She signaled him to continue covering her, then made her way through the mod of students. She tried not to let herself be bothered by seeing the young ones who'd caught blaster fire in the attack, the ones who lay still and motionless. She'd cry later. Right now she tried to offer what help she could now, be it a Force nudge here or knocking a soldier in the face with her blaster there, but she had to get to Serpa.
Jaina found him on the exercise pavilion. His bodyguards were lying on the floor, either dead or dying from an assortment of blaster wounds or well-placed slashes from makeshift weapons like her sharpened spoon. Go, kids. Unfortunately Serpa remained alive, holding a red-haired girl named Vekki in a choke hold, the muzzle of his blaster pressed against her temple for extra insurance.
"You call me a coward?" Jaina asked. Hoping to distract him enough to pull the blaster away from the girl's head, she continued to advance on Serpa.... then stopped when Zekk reached out to her from the other side of the pavilion, urging patience. "While you hide behind children?"
Serpa shrugged. "It's different. They're Jedi children."
"I'm sure the judges will take that into account at your trial." Jaina glimpsed Zekk's tall figure stepping into the light on the far side of the pavilion, but she was careful to keep her gaze locked on Serpa. "Assuming you make it to trial. Surrender now, and I'll be sure you do."
Serpa snorted. "There isn't going to be any trial." He swung his blaster toward Jaina. "I'm just following orders. Your brother's-"
Before Serpa could pull the trigger, Zekk's lightsaber snapped to life and came down on the major's weapon arm, severing it at the elbow.
Serpa's attention remained oddly fixed on Jaina, as though he could not at first understand why she was not dead, or how she had managed to cut off his arm without moving. Finally, he seemed to hear the lightsaber droning behind him, and his jaw dropped in disbelief. He whirled around, swinging Vekki with him, apparently oblivious to his pain.
"Where did you come from?" he demanded.
Zekk lashed out so fast that even Jaina did not see the attack, only Serpa's remaining arm swinging away from Vekki's neck and his body whirling to the floor.
"From now on, "Zekk said, "we'll be asking the questions."
[Warning for violence, omg the violence. TROY DENNING THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOU BUT TY FOR MAKING MY GIRL BADASS. NFB, NFI, OOC makes me happy. Dialogue and surprisingly few bits taken from Inferno by the aforementioned Denning.]
The team had come to the Jedi Academy two weeks ago, and they'd been waiting for the moment when everything went to hell. That moment was this morning. Jaina had woken up to some warning in the Force from Ben, and found coma gas flooding her room. She was able to work through it thanks to Force techniques in order to stay conscious, and after having to snap one guard's neck right away she'd had to take stock of the situation. She didn't have much in the way of weapons; she had the spoon that she'd painstakingly made into a shiv, but her lightsaber was still in the hands of the GAG. ...And then she had to Force-throw the shiv into the throat of a trooper that had been coming after her, so there went that.
She hadn't known at the time exactly where she'd directed it, but the building was small enough that she had no problem finding the man with all the noise he was making. She couldn't see or sense any of the kids around, and she peeked into rooms as she passed. In several of them she could see overturned beds and lockers emptied on the floor. In one, red spatter marks ran up the far wall. She was alone, except for the two dead guards.
Or rather, one that was dead and one who was about to be. The man was holding his throat, blood gushing out from between his fingers. She'd hit his jugular, or close to it. Not bad for a blind throw, she guessed. She knelt beside him, pulling the hypo from the medpac on his belt. "A quiet goodbye is more than you deserve," she murmured. "But Uncle Luke keeps telling me I shouldn't hold a grudge."
As her words registered, the man's eyes widened, and he clutched at Jaina's arm, silently begging her to save him. It wasn't his fault, she decided. He was just doing his job and following orders.
That wasn't much of an argument to someone who'd lost her career by following her conscience instead of orders, though.
"Sorry," she said, and touched the tip of the hypo to his arm before injecting it. "I've got kids to look after."
She didn't stick around and wait for him to die. She didn't have time and she wasn't nearly that morbid. She crushed his comlink beneath her boot, then stole his blaster and ammunition before going to the viewport to look out at the scene. The students, ranging from about five to fifteen, were being led to the central exercise pavilion outside, where Major Serpa stood under bright lights with a squad of bodyguards as the kids were arranged in lines before him, sometimes rearranging the groups of kids in ways that he liked better.
She hated that guy.
Another moment had her trying to get a sense for where everyone else was. She didn't see the Masters Solusar, but could sense them, and decided they were probably doing the same thing she was. She felt Zekk in the jungle behind the complex, and Jag seemed to be moving towards Jaina. They were five against far more GAG soldiers, one of them clearly unstable. Not great odds, but it wasn't like the kids were exactly defenseless, so that helped. The problem was that they were dealing with someone like Serpa, who was now selecting one boy and one girl from each age group to stand in a circle around him. And that Jaina didn't like. It reminded her of the Capitol in Panem, using the children to shield the guards and Snow. That had to be what he was doing.
When he was done, Jaina saw Tionne Solusar crossing the courtyard towards him. It wasn't clear if this was part of a plan or if she'd just had it. "You had better have a good reason for this, Major," she said, stepping onto the pavilion. "And for the trooper who died trying to gas me in my sleep."
Serpa looked at her over the young ones separating them. "You killed him? That doesn't seem very fair, does it? He was only trying to keep you out of the way."
Tionne stepped through the circle of children and stopped close to Serpa. "Out of the way of what?"
"Nothing to be concerned about," Serpa replied. "Unless you Jedi fear truth as much as you do battle."
"Fear has no control over Jedi- and neither does anger, which is a good thing for you right now," Tionne said.
"Are you threatening me, Master Solusar?"
"I'm making a suggestion for your own good. Return these children to their beds immediately, and your unfortunate timing will be forgiven."
Serpa studied Tionne for a long moment. "That's a threat," he decided with a nod. He turned to the children and addressed them. "It might even frighten me, if I hadn't heard how Luke Skywalker and his bunch of cowards ran at the Battle of Kuat."
While they'd been here, there had been things going on elsewhere in the galaxy. With Zekk in hiding they'd been able to get some information, such as the Jedi desertion of the GAG at Kuat- apparently Luke had had it- but the adults hadn't shared this information with the students. It was too risky to let that get out and have some GAG soldier discover that they had someone on the outside, especially when they didn't have all the information. Even now even the youngest of the children might be outraged or shocked at this news, but not enough to show that outwardly.
"Address your remarks to me," Tionne said, using the Force to spin Serpa back toward her. "Whatever you think you know about what-"
That was a mistake. He came around with his blaster as if to either hit her or shoot her. Tionne tried to Force-slap the weapon aside but was a hair too slow, and the blaster discharged, sending a bolt into her leg. She fell to her good knee, and if Jaina could feel her pain, she was sure Tionne's husband Kam could, too. It didn't draw him out, though. She could sense his rage, but he kept it under control, because acting out against Serpa more would just make things worse.
Jaina, however, had had enough. Some of the little ones were crying now, and she didn't want to see this escalate further. She turned from the viewport, and caught a shadow coming from the front door-
She almost shot Jag before she realized who it was. She was glad she didn't. "Watch it!" he hissed, raising his hands. "Don't you know better than to point a live blaster at your commanding officer?"
"I know better than a lot of things," she said, lowering the blaster as he lowered his hands. "What are you doing sneaking up on me, anyway?"
"You're a Jedi. How can anyone sneak up on you?"
Jaina waved vaguely in the direction of the bodies she'd left behind her. "People have been managing. And I'm a little distracted by what Serpa's doing out there. He just blasted Tionne's knee apart."
Jag nodded as though he had been expecting this. "He's trying to draw you out. There's a sniper team on your roof, probably other places, too."
"How did they get past Vis'l and Loli?" Jaina asked of the two young Jedi Knights who had been on guard duty.
"It's easy to miss things when you're dead."
She went cold. They were brand new Jedi Knights, as young as the came. "How?"
"Snipers, I think. I found them behind different dorms, both with scorch holes in the sides of their heads," he explained solemnly. "It looked like they'd been lured outside and blasted simultaneously. My guess is that Serpa is after all of you."
Jaina shook her head. "If he wanted us dead, a thermal detonator would be a lot more effective. Why bother putting us under with coma gas?"
"Because he knows Jedi," Jag said. "It's pretty hard for an assassin to sneak up on you guys in your sleep. Your danger sense kicks in and wakes you." He'd had to wake her up from field naps on missions enough to speak from experience.
"I still don't see why he thinks coma gas is better."
"Because then it looks like he's only trying to keep you out of the way. You'll misinterpret his intentions, and then he can kill you."
Serpa had said something like that to Tionne, hadn't he? She had to assume that Jag was right. Really, he usually was, even if she'd never tell him that. "Okay, so maybe he's as smart as he is crazy," she said, slipping past Jag through the door. "The first thing we need to do is take out those snipers. Quietly."
"Don't forget quickly," Jag added. "Serpa doesn't strike me as the patient type."
It was still dark when they made it to the back door of the dorm, so Jaina reached out with the Force to sense two presences in the shrubs off to the right, behind the adjacent building. "It's times like this when I really miss my lightsaber," she whispered. "Did you notice the two over by the wodobo bushes?"
"The two what?" Jag asked.
"That's what I was afraid of." Jaina passed her blaster to Jag. "Cover me, but don't shoot unless they do."
"Jaina, if those are snipers, they've got longblasters," Jag pointed out. "A blaster pistol isn't going to be much help."
"Just make lots of noise," she told him. "And trust me."
It took only a small use of the Force to snap a branch behind the two in the bushes, and then she took the opportunity to sprint across the yard into the hedge. Since there'd been no firing, she could only assume they'd fallen for it, and made her way carefully through the underbrush to circle around them. They were lying on their stomachs under the branches of the bush, one checking in the direction of the snapped branch, the other keeping his weapon trained on the dorm Jaina had just come from.
She didn't have time to try and capture them. She dropped a knee into the small of the sharpshooter's back, then, as he started to twist around, grabbed his chin and helmet and snapped his neck with a violent twist. The spotter spun toward the sound- and caught a Force-enhanced knife-hand strike across the gullet. Like the one inside the dorm, she made it quick and snapped this soldier's neck to at least make his death more merciful.
Another blaster bolt rang out from the direction of the dorms, and the children screamed. She could feel more pain from Tionne, though she didn't hear any cries from her. So Serpa had to be torturing her. Tionne wouldn't try anything more in front of the students if she'd already had a bolt rip into her knee. Jaina poured reassurance and wariness into the Force, trying to get that across to Kam and the other Jedi, but it wasn't really working.
With the next bolt she knew Kam was about to snap, and she could sense a rising determination from the students to do something, and that meant Serpa was winning. If any of them tried to overtake him, it would be a massacre.
She took the longblaster- the sharpshooter wasn't going to be needing it- and stepped out of the bush, noticing that Jag had climbed onto a porch railing and was pulling himself up over the eaves. That was fine for him, but she had a faster way to do things, taking two running steps before launching herself halfway up the roof in a Force leap. She landed just in time to see the shadows of the snipers on the roof firing into the courtyard, and she crossed the duracrete in two Force bounds, coming down between the two. Before they could turn, she had pressed the muzzle of her longblaster against the sharpshooter's helmet and planted one boot in the middle of his spotter's back.
The spotter tried to turn around with his blaster on her, but her quick shot to the sharpshooter's temple ended that move right there. Then she slapped the weapon's barrel across the other's face, sending him over the side of the roof. By the sickening sound of him hitting the ground, Jaina realized that this was now six dead guys before breakfast for her.
When she looked into the courtyard, she was horrified to see that Kam had not only been drawn out, but he was laying on the ground with smoke rising from three wounds. He wasn't dead, but he wasn't moving. Two Mon Calamarian students hadn't fared as well.
Jag scrambled up behind Jaina, then grabbed her arm and pulled her down. "Are you trying to get blasted?"
Jaina dropped behind the roof ridge and finally saw what had drawn Kam and the others into the open. Tionne lay curled at Serpa's feet, the lower parts of a leg and an arm lying a meter from their smoking stumps.
For the most part, the students were staying as controlled as they could in this situation. They'd practiced this ever since Jag had first brought up his plan to Jaina and the Solusars. All they needed was to hear the word that would activate the escape plan. They were waiting for it, but Jaina couldn't give it until she was in a better position to help.
Serpa's voice came over the comlink in Jaina's belt. "Do we have them all?"
The troopers responded with the names of all the people they'd had standing guard. "That's everyone," Jaina whispered.
Jag nodded and eased the second longblaster out of the hands of the dead sharpshooter. "Except us and..."
"What about that Solo smooka?" Serpa demanded over the comlink. "And Fel?"
There was no answer, and Jaina could faintly hear a voice from inside the sharpshooter's helmet calling for him. "That would be our guy," Jaina said, looking to Jag. "Did you get a fix on the other snipers?"
"Of course."
The second voice sounded from inside the dead sharpshooter's helmet again, but then Serpa's voice came, "He's dead, you Gungan," before addressing Jaina. "Well, Jedi Solo, I see that you're as big a coward as your uncle."
She could see him where he stood. She'd trained with the longblaster, she knew she could make the shot if it was clear, but there was a young girl who was too close for her to risk it. That happened when you used children to shield you. Serpa pressed his blaster to Tionne's head. "Are you just going to hide while I kill a Jedi Master?"
"Ignore him," Tionne managed, raising the stump of her arm to turn the blaster aside. "Look after-"
She didn't get the chance to finish the sentence, because a GAG trooper fired over the children to take off another ten centimeters from what was left of her arm.
"It's time we gave that braintick what he's asking for," Jaina decided, and sprang over the ridge of the roof and started to slide down the other side. "Cover me!"
Jag was already firing across the courtyard toward the sniper with the best angle of attack. She didn't question whether he'd be able to do any good or not, because really. Jaina fired at the closest team, trusting her aim to the Force, then barrel-rolling, firing again, and dropping off the roof into the courtyard.
Two bolts landed on the wall behind her, and she dived into a somersault and came up shooting. It was only a matter of time before she was pivoting sideways to avoid being hit by a trio of blaster bolts that nearly hit her.
Jaina really missed her lightsaber.
Jag's longblaster sounded behind her, and that attacker fell silent. Jaina turned her attention to the young ones, who remained in their groups, craning their necks to watch her, still awaiting their orders.
"Enough!" she yelled. "We've had-"
The kids took the word as their cue to finally turn on the guards en masse. The GAG soldiers hadn't been expecting it, so any surprised cries or blaster fire was because the troopers had no idea that they might have the students they'd been guarding disarming or trying to injure them to get away. A Jedi was never defenseless, not even when they were five.
Jaina dropped to a knee and spun back towards the dorms, but Jag had dispatched the snipers by now. She signaled him to continue covering her, then made her way through the mod of students. She tried not to let herself be bothered by seeing the young ones who'd caught blaster fire in the attack, the ones who lay still and motionless. She'd cry later. Right now she tried to offer what help she could now, be it a Force nudge here or knocking a soldier in the face with her blaster there, but she had to get to Serpa.
Jaina found him on the exercise pavilion. His bodyguards were lying on the floor, either dead or dying from an assortment of blaster wounds or well-placed slashes from makeshift weapons like her sharpened spoon. Go, kids. Unfortunately Serpa remained alive, holding a red-haired girl named Vekki in a choke hold, the muzzle of his blaster pressed against her temple for extra insurance.
"You call me a coward?" Jaina asked. Hoping to distract him enough to pull the blaster away from the girl's head, she continued to advance on Serpa.... then stopped when Zekk reached out to her from the other side of the pavilion, urging patience. "While you hide behind children?"
Serpa shrugged. "It's different. They're Jedi children."
"I'm sure the judges will take that into account at your trial." Jaina glimpsed Zekk's tall figure stepping into the light on the far side of the pavilion, but she was careful to keep her gaze locked on Serpa. "Assuming you make it to trial. Surrender now, and I'll be sure you do."
Serpa snorted. "There isn't going to be any trial." He swung his blaster toward Jaina. "I'm just following orders. Your brother's-"
Before Serpa could pull the trigger, Zekk's lightsaber snapped to life and came down on the major's weapon arm, severing it at the elbow.
Serpa's attention remained oddly fixed on Jaina, as though he could not at first understand why she was not dead, or how she had managed to cut off his arm without moving. Finally, he seemed to hear the lightsaber droning behind him, and his jaw dropped in disbelief. He whirled around, swinging Vekki with him, apparently oblivious to his pain.
"Where did you come from?" he demanded.
Zekk lashed out so fast that even Jaina did not see the attack, only Serpa's remaining arm swinging away from Vekki's neck and his body whirling to the floor.
"From now on, "Zekk said, "we'll be asking the questions."
[Warning for violence, omg the violence. TROY DENNING THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOU BUT TY FOR MAKING MY GIRL BADASS. NFB, NFI, OOC makes me happy. Dialogue and surprisingly few bits taken from Inferno by the aforementioned Denning.]
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