While Jaina was sure the sheer ferocity with which she trained sometimes raised eyebrows, she would have loved to point out that occasionally she had to do things like try to make her way through an unfamiliar Vongformed planet in the dark in what was brewing up to be a major storm as fast as possible while keeping up with Page's Commandos and the greatest Jedi ever, and that in itself she thought should give her reason to defend her training to her death.

Shimrra's Citadel was a mountain, standing where the Imperial Palace once had. As the group of Jedi made their way across the bridge toward it, a menacing voice began speaking in Yuuzhan Vong over what could only be called the Vong PA system. Being the only one who knew the language, it was Tahiri who got to translate: "Perish. Perish, all of you who would stand between me an exaltation, who would seek to profane me in our finest moment."

"Shimrra?" Luke guessed.

"Could be," said Jacen, though he didn't seem certain.

The Vong speaker continued, and Tahiri went on with her translation. "I battle the gods on your behalf, and you repay me with rebellion. Perish then. Go to your deaths and your gods, while I remake the world.'"

Shimrra was planning on simply destroying Coruscant, and this was very obvious by now. Jaina didn't see how he would remake anything from it. She tried to tell herself that the planet had to survive- she knew that Fandom's Ben had spoken of it- but she realized now that she had no details of what it was like.

"Too bad we can't answer him," Mara said.

"We will soon enough," Luke replied.

When they got to closer, the group split. Near the entrance to the Citadel, they were stopped by groups of starved, wounded Yuuzhan Vong, Shamed Ones who'd been fighting in the lower levels. Page sent some of his troops ahead to help them, and when it was requested for some of the Jedi to go along, Kenth and Tahiri volunteered immediately to go. Mara only went along because Luke asked her to. It wasn't a conversation Jaina was privy to, but she knew it couldn't have been a fun one, but she ended up going, leaving the twins to storm the citadel with Luke. And here Jaina thought she wouldn't be doing anything.

Getting instead wasn't easy. They had to slash their way through attack bugs and fight their way through while creatures ate their way through the walkway the Jedi needed to cross, in the dar and the pouring rain. Jacen took care of the animals while Luke and Jaina did the dirty work, separating themselves from the commandos because the situation dictated they couldn't all go one way to reach Shimrra's bunker. Even once inside, it meant having to cut through part of the structure, formed with yorik coral that prevented them from reaching each higher level, right up until they sliced their own opening. On the eighth level they started having to fight off Vong and thud bugs. Luke was definitely the one in control here, absolutely amazing in how he fought them off, leaving Jacen and Jaina to pick up the very few he left behind

On the fourteenth level they reached a fork in the corridor, and Luke turned to Jacen to ask, "Which way?"

Jacen closed his eyes, able to sense his way through the Citadel in the way the others couldn't. "The left passage leads to living quarters on the next level. The other, to some sort of dovin basal lift that accesses the summit. Shimrra is there. He has guards with him-"

"Not enough." Way to be awesome, Luke.

"-and another."

So it was up towards the summit and Shimrra, and then into an empty antechamber sealed off from another room. The seal was taken care of by three lightsabers cutting right through it, and the thud bugs that followed were taken care of much the same way. Luke was the first through the opening, with Jaina coming through last and stepping into the lair. It was a circular room with high walls, and a throne sat atop a raised dais, encircled by a moat filled with some dark liquid that it was probably best not to think of. And in front of that throne were fifteen Vong warriors and their amphistaffs.

Behind them was Shimrra.

"The Master and the twins," he greeted them from the throne. "How long we have anticipated this meeting."

"As we have," Luke returned.

Shimrra extended his hand to make a sort of 'come here' gesture. "Then come forward and show your respect, Master Jeedai."

Surprisingly, Luke stepped forward. And then kept stepping forward. As Supreme Overlord, Shimrra had powers they didn't really understand, and apparently that was enough power to make Luke Skywalker do something he didn't want to do. And then mid-bow, something changed, something Jaina could tell through the meld that Jacen was doing, Luke stood upright.

Which shocked the hell out of Shimrra, and knowing they were about to get into it, Jacen and Jaina simultaneously moved away from Luke in order to cover more ground. And then, just like that, Luke beckoned the warriors to attack.

The warriors divided into three groups: two groups of four going for Luke and Jacen, one group of seven turning their attention on Jaina. They thought she was the weak link. And in truth, in comparison to her uncle and brother, she really was. That didn't mean she didn't think she could reasonably take seven of them.

As it was, she didn't need to. When the slayers attacked, the three Jedi were ready. No one was playing for glory here anymore, no slayer thought they could personally take out one of the Jedi while the others hung back and waited for their turn. Jaina dispatched the Vong that she could immediately, aware of what the others were doing through the meld. It was why she and Luke began moving towards each other, turning their combined force on their enemies. Eleven to two, was that more or less fair now?

A moment later Luke lent his assistance to Jacen, those same four slayers giving him a fair fight. Jaina had her end covered now, facing fewer Vong herself now thanks to Luke, and she wasn't even thinking about it, just acting. She'd take these, Jacen coming to help once he was no longer in danger, and Luke could go straight for Shimrra-

Jaina didn't know why it was exactly that the bunker began tilting. She understood it was to do with the world brain implanted deep into Coruscant, the one Jacen could communicate with, but she didn't know what it was exactly that was happening, and she didn't particularly care. She just didn't like it. Unhappy enough to be thrown into one wall across the antechamber, she was even unhappier when the tilting happened again, this time landing her not only into the opposite wall, but on the floor under the blood-smeared bodies of Vong slayers they'd killed.

It wasn't as easy as simply getting up, either. The amphistaffs, living weapons the Vong had carried, were still in play, and she had to worry about being bitten, or having venom spat at her, or being sliced open with other weapons she couldn't exactly see. Any of these things could be fatal, and she was not going out that way just trying to stand, thanks. Jaina reached out to use the Force to simply throw everyone off of her, but the bunker tilted again, and they all went sliding across the room into another wall, barely giving her time to brace for the impact. It also gave her the preparation time to somersault backward from the pile, noticing that with the warriors still scrambling, there was a direct line to Shimrra.

And to his companion, a seriously mutated Shamed One, who didn't seem to be having the problem adhering to gravity like the others. Interesting.

She didn't have time to get to him before the bunker canted again. Jaina used the Force to hold herself to the floor, several of the Vong sliding past her, some thrown, some simply slipping on whatever had filled the moat- blood, it looked like. She took a quick survey of what was happening, Luke fighting a warrior, while Jacen was fighting another somewhere behind her... and Shimrra had finally gotten up and was heading towards the moat, the Shamed One heading to the stairway that led even further upward.

It wasn't up to her to take out Shimrra. She knew this just to be fact. Luke and Jacen could handle him, and what was left of the slayers. She didn't know what the Shamed One was doing. If he was working with Shimrra, there might be something else going on that he'd been sent to take care of, and that she could stop. She was going where she was most needed.

She took off after him, feeling Luke and Jacen reaching out to her through the Force. She had this, though. When she got to the top of the staircase, she found herself in a ready room, filled with hatches. The way up was through a ladder hatch, and Jaina had just enough time to grab onto the ladder as the whole place tilted again. The Shamed One had to have gone up, anyway, and she could just climb up...

It wasn't so much her danger sense that went off, that tingling in the back of her head that alerted her to trouble, but rather she sensed the presence above her as the Shamed One dropped down on her. His feet slammed into her shoulders, knocking her off the ladder and driving her hard onto the deck. She still had a hold of her lightsaber, but he was able to get up before she was, and he wrenched it from her hand, tossing it away. Then he grabbed her by the ankle and shoved her across the floor, once again smacking her into a wall.

Jaina hit hard, body parts already beginning to ache, but she sprung to her feet immediately. It was still too late. She didn't even have the time to respond, and her reaction time was usually very good. He shoved her into the wall, hands keeping her pressed against it as he drove a fanglike tooth into her arm.

Whatever it was he'd just injected into her, it was fast-acting. He released her, probably because by the time he'd done that, her arm had gone numb, and there wouldn't be a way for her to fight back. She couldn't feel her arm, couldn't move it even when she tried, and then the numb feeling had begun to spread. It coursed through from arm into her chest, her other arm, her neck and head, and down to her legs, and she could feel herself losing consciousness, and getting stunned was a lot less panic-inducing than this...


[So TBC. Dear god I hate action, but at least it's better than the freezer book. Dialogue from The Unifying Force by James Luceno.]