Being sent away from a fight was hard enough, but having to sit here, close to the battle going on outside and completely unable to do anything about it was so much worse. Especially with Prann looking out the viewport and making comments like, "Wow. "Look at that. And you wanted us to help them."

"What? "Jaina said, not sure she wanted to know.

"Come here," Prann said.

Getting to the viewport wasn't easy. For some reason thinking a Jedi might be a threat to them, she'd had stun cuffs slapped around her hands and feet, and there was a slave collar around her neck. As if that wasn't enough, Vel was staying close, in case she needed to be stunned again. When she got to the viewport, her heart sank. "The rest of the Vong fleet came back."

"Yep," Prann nodded. "In a few hours your fleet's going to be scrap metal, and even if we were inclined to lend a hand, I don't think we could do much good against that many."

He was talking about it like it was nothing, but those were her friends, her comrades out there, and they were going to lose. Badly. "Don't try to justify your cowardice to me," Jaina snapped. "They're all going to die, and you're just going to watch."

"Watch? No, I'm going to run. The hyperdrive is ready to go, thanks to your spare parts. Why do you think I dropped the cloak? But it looks like they've forgotten us out here, so we're going to finish running computer simulations. Our cobbled-together drive is a little quirky, and we don't want to end up in a star."

"Please. If you'll just listen to me-"

"Solo, I said no. Hey, look at it this way: you're going to live to tell the uppity-ups what happened here, which no one else is likely to be able to do. You're going to live, Colonel- and it's not even your fault."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Jaina asked, frown deepening.

"It means, I've done a little fighting myself, in my time, and I know your type. Getting dead is your goal in life, and you'll keep throwing yourself into the fray until it happens. In the meantime, you live in constant disappointment."

Being called on something was one thing. Being called on something when it was no longer true was just going to piss her off more. She didn't want to die, she wanted to help. "You don't know me," Jaina said. "Don't pretend you do."

"Whatever, kid. I'm not going to make an argument out of it. It's not worth it."

His lack of caring was maybe the worst part. He just didn't give a damn if everyone out there died, as long as he got away. Half unaware she was even doing it, she demanded, "Take this station into battle, now!"

And there was his blink, the moment where he realized she'd nudged him with the Force, and he shook it of. "Well," he said. "Nice try."

Despite her outward appearance, Jaina wasn't disappointed.

This was because she waited for him to be ready, and when Prann notified the rest of his group that he was laying in the calculations, Jaina reached out to just barely touch his mind. She wasn't trying to control him, just to slip him some suggestions. He'd put in one coordinate and she'd just change one digit. Suggestions through the Force she could do. Mindwipes she could do. Winding up people's memories she could do. Specifics were new, and this wasn't how she'd been planning on learning.

Vel must have noticed the look of concentration on her face. "What are you doing?" he demanded. "Stop it, or I shoot your hand off."

And now she had to see if she could teach herself to do this while talking. "I'm not doing anything. What could I be doing?"

"Doesn't matter anyway," Prann said, drawing back from the controls. "Here we go."

All Jaina was left to do now was hope that it worked, and when he pulled the jump lever...

"What- what happened?"

Not bad for her first day. "You tried to jump through an interdictor. It didn't work," she said.

"I did not! I set the jump in exactly the opposite direction."

"Yes, well, obviously you didn't." Said with no small amount of satisfaction.

Prann jumped from his seat, blaster in hand, and Jaina knew she might be in a lot of trouble here. She didn't care. She'd gone this far, she would see it through. "You did this," he accused. "Somehow you got in my head..."

"Listen to me, Prann," Jaina snapped. "You're interdicted. They have a solid read on you by now, so if you put the cloak up you'll not only be a sitting target, you'll be a blind sitting target. You've got just one choice now: take out that interdictor, or die. What's it going to be?"

For a long moment he kept his blaster trained on her, until his human friend finally said, "She's right, Erli. We have to fight our way out now."

It almost looked like he was going to fire. Jaina could see his finger twitch on the firing stud, but he didn't. He holstered his weapon and got to work. "To the guns, then. But so help me, Jedi, you're going to pay for this."

Yeah, probably. Jaina knew she might have crossed a line here; she'd forced these people to fight when all they wanted to do was get away, but they'd taken her and her pilots captive and were going to leave a lot of others to die, so she didn't feel that badly. Part of her wished she could fight even now, assist in any way possible from captivity on the battle station, but between all the restraints and the fact that Prann would probably shoot her dead, she'd have to wait for her moment.

At least they did fight their way through, and the weaponry meant that they were able to split the interdictor right in two, lights flashing through the viewport like it was part of a show. Some of Prann's people actually cheered. You'd have thought they signed up for this.

"Status?" Prann asked immediately. He was still beyond furious.

"We've sustained major damage to the southwestern deflector grid," reported the Barabel. "Other than that, we're in pretty good shape."

"Good." Then he turned his attention to Jaina, taking a few steps towards her. "Well, Jedi. You got your wish. Now I get mine."

As soon as he'd aimed the blaster at her head, one of the humans spoke up. "Hey, wait, Prann. None of us signed on for murder, especially the murder of a Jedi. The station is still in good shape, we're no longer interdicted. Let's just blast jets out of here, stick to the original plan."

"Nobody gets inside my mind like that. It ain't right," Prann argued. "And if we try to jump, she'll just do it again, drop us by the other interdictor. Once she's dead, then we jump."

"Just let me stun her," Vel said. "She can't do anything then."

"No, not until she wakes up. Then who knows what kind of mind tricks she'll pull? Better this way."

Jaina kept her eye on the blaster, but it didn't worry her. He might shoot her, sure. And she was pretty sure she wasn't going to survive a head shot, but at least she'd won this one. "Right now you guys look like heroes," she said calmly. "Nobody knows you weren't planning to help. Nobody has to. Kill me, and all that changes."

"Hey, she's right," the Rodian said. The fact that the crew was arguing against her getting shot was a big point in why she didn't worry.

"No, don't be a fool," Prann retorted. "We've got all those other pilots on board. Somebody will talk."

"Good point. Are you going to kill them, too?" Jaina asked.

"Prann, come on," Vel pleaded.

"I'd take his advice," said a new voice.

Jaina turned her head as Prann jerked the gun to aim above her head and fired. For once Jaina wouldn't complain about her height. The blaster bolt was deflected by a familiar bronze lightsaber wielded by an equally familiar Lowbacca. Even though the shock of everything that was suddenly happening, Jaina thought that a Wookiee putting himself between her father and a blaster bolt was somehow just right.

She had no idea what was going on besides the obvious "My parents set my pilots loose," but there seemed to be blaster fire everywhere. Jaina was still unable to do any defending herself, but between Lowie, Alema and Leia there were three Jedi taking care of the shots being fired at them, along with the rest of Twin Suns firing back. For insisting they didn't sign up for murder, Prann's crew really wasted no time firing. It ended about the time Lowie sliced through Prann's weapon and knocked him to the ground, and soon after that the rest of his crew figured out that they were better off giving up.

For as calm as she'd been, when it was over Jaina was left letting out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. "Hi, Dad, hi, Mom. I was wondering how long you were going to take."

"We stopped to pick up reinforcements," Han said, nodding towards his backup.

Since Anakin died, Leia had not shied from showing her concern over her kids in situations like this, and now was no different. She came over to Jaina, checking her over, asking, "Are you okay?"

"Never better," Jaina said. She might freak out later. Right now she was going to hold it together and not think twice about it.

And while Leia was playing concerned mother, Prann was left facing the very reason he hadn't wanted to have to kill Han Solo's daughter. Namely, Han Solo. "Look," Prann was saying. "I don't want any trouble from you."

"You were holding a blaster on my daughter," Han reminded him. "What do you expect from me, a kiss and flowers?"

"Oh. Yeah. I was just angry, you know. I wouldn't have really done anything," Prann lied.

Han ignored him. "The rest of you," he shouted. "I want you back at your posts, because this crate isn't going anywhere until every last Alliance ship has made it out, understand?"

Despite the fact that his crew surrendered their weapons to Twin Suns on those orders, Prann was still trying. "This is our station. We earned it."

"Hey," Han said, "what's your name?"

"Erli Prann."

"Erli Prann. Can't say as I've ever heard of you. But Prann?"

"Yeah?"

Rather than use anything like, say, words, Han's fist shot out, smacking the blaster against Prann's head, knocking him right back onto the ground. "If you ever touch my daughter again, I'll kill you."

Jaina was so giving her dad a hug after this. Once she had all these cuffs off.


[NFB, NFI, OOC okay. Dialogue from The Final Prophecy by Greg Keyes. Sometimes I like it when my girl is not in a book a lot. It means fewer posts.]