When Darkmeld went after Seff Hellin, Jaina had to miss most of it on account of being followed by a certain observer. Seff was intent on breaking out Valin Horn, so Darkmeld's plan was to use his own route in to ambush him and take him alive. Because of Dab, they were only supposed to call her if they absolutely needed her, or they risked him finding out about everything.

Of course, they absolutely needed her.

Seff had managed to get the jump on them, Tahiri had been hurt, and there'd been an explosion that had put a nice crater in the plaza that was going to get the authorities there, so in the middle of the night, Jaina called Dab, dragged him out, and sped through Coruscant's airlanes with a speed that alone should have distracted those authorities.

"What's the rush?" Dab asked, still rubbing sleep from his eyes.

"No hurry," Jaina lied. "This is just revenge."

"Revenge for what?" he asked, wincing at a close call from the passenger seat of her speeder.
"For waking me up three times in the dead of night during the last week during your spot checks."

"It's my job," Dab protested. "I take no pleasure in it."

"Well, I'm taking pleasure in this," she said, dropping the speeder and crossing across three lanes of traffic. Seriously, none of what she was doing was at all legal.

"So you're going to see Jagged Fel?" Dab guessed.

Jaina blinked. She hadn't considered how any of this must have looked. She was speeding off in the middle of the night, and he thought she was racing towards a booty call.

Because she'd never been taught to deal with anger in a healthy way, she stepped on the reverse thrusters, sending them both forward against their restraints, and then made an abrupt right turn that she'd missed. "I am not going to see Jag. And that's Head of State Fel to you," she said.

"Fine!"

"There's a little rooftop park up here I like."

"Of course," Dab said dryly. "At this hour."

Jaina pulled the speeder up so that they were almost entirely vertical until they got to the top of the building that they'd been using as Darkmeld headquarters. There really was a rooftop park up here, but the fact that they were renting a part of the building was the only reason she even knew it was there. She set the speeder down on the grass, and Dab sighed in relief. "I get it," he said.

Jaina eyed him. "You do?"

"You come to this run-down neighborhood in the middle of the night, dressed in anonymous brown clothes, and you walk around in the park, hoping someone will attack you so you can beat them up. That way you relieve stress and also get to take dangerous criminals in."

Huh. As covers went, that wasn't a bad one. "You're absolutely right."

"Well, it sounds like a good thing for a Jedi to be doing," Dab said.

"It does, doesn't it?" Jaina said, unstrapping herself and hopping out of the speeder. "I'm going to walk around on the path on the other side of those trees."

"I'll come with you," Dab said, also unbuckling himself.

"No, I'm less likely to be attacked if there are two of us," Jaina insisted.

"And I'm more likely to be attacked if there's only one of me," Dab pointed out.

"True." She pointed at another set of bushes, away from the trees she'd indicated. "Hide there and wait for me," she said, not waiting for him and running towards where she said she'd be.

It was just that once she got on the other side of the trees, she found the roof access to the turbolift and rode it down to the surface level, hoping she'd beat the sirens she heard approaching.

Once she got there, she patched in her disposable comlink. She had it keyed to their frequencies, and it should have been untraceable, but she had made it able to distort her voice anyway. The last thing she wanted was to leave evidence that could be used against her. She got a quick rundown from Winter, going by the name Hoth, and then had to give a call to the other person they were supposed to use only if she was absolutely needed. "Credcoin, this is Slicer. Do you read?"

"Slicer, Credcoin," came Mirax Terrik's distorted voice. She was their getaway driver. They'd been hoping to get out of here unnoticed, but if they had to grab and go, Mirax was their only way to be able to do that. "Go."

"Our target is probably coming out of a workers' access hole right in front of the prison. It is imperative, I say again imperative, that we grab him."

"Understood. How do I grab him?"

"No idea," Jaina admitted. "Maybe just harass him. He's armed and very, very dangerous."

"Oh, good. Who's my backup?"

"All of us, when we get there?"

"Who's my backup right now?" Mirax asked.

"No one."

Mirax stopped talking after that, and Jaina had to concern herself with actually getting to the correctional facility. She continued running and found there were reporters and gawkers all around the crater that had been caused in the attempted capture, and just as she got there she saw Mirax's large red civilian speeder race in towards Seff as he climbed out of the access hole, only to get sideswiped by a larger cargo hauler piloted by one of Daala's bounty hunters. With Mirax off course, the Quarren bounty hunter leaned over the side of the cargo hauler with the same kind of electrified net that he'd used on Jaina while they were trying to get Valin. He was able to drop the net onto Seff and catch him in it, hauling him behind the speeder as it fled.

Jaina grabbed her lightsaber and thumbed on her comlink. "Credcoin, Slicer here. Your package is in the net. Follow the package."

"Understood," Mirax said, sounding annoyed.

The cargo hauler passed almost overhead, and Jaina ignited her lightsaber and threw it, aiming it with the Force so that it cut through the cable that was pulling the net. She was able to guide Seff's descent, but let him hit the permacrete just hard enough that he wouldn't jump up and start running right away. She heard him grunt when he landed, so he was probably conscious, no matter how bad the electrific shocks from the net had been. She caught her lightsaber and switched it off, running towards Seff and crushing the net's power pack. That net was terrible, the Quarren was awful, and Jaina didn't think there was any point in torturing Seff.

He looked up at her, dazed. "Oh, not you, too," he said.

"Sorry," Jaina said, knocking him in the head with the hilt of her lightsaber, hard enough to knock him out. She ddin't want to, but it had to be done.

Mirax's speeder landed beside her, and Jaina used the Force to help her lift Seff's dead weight and toss him into the backseat. She leapt into the speeder, noticing the police vehicles starting their way. "Is this thing fast?" she asked.

"I only steal the best," Mirax said, and they sped off. "You're Slicer?"

"What else would the Sword of the Jedi do but slice?" Jaina said, watching the vehicles. They had five security speeders after them, and the bounty hunters had turned around and were also engaging in pursuit. "Don't give them a clear line of fire at you. There's no telling what the Quarren's weapon can do."

"Right," Mirax said, actually turning the speeder right into a narrow accessway that barely saw any traffic.

Jaina couldn't see what was happening behind them, exactly, except that one of the security vehicles dropped and then crashed, and then there was some sort of explosion before the cargo hauler dropped back and stopped following, probably because they were too damaged to go on. Even if she couldn't sense who was there, she knew whoever was doing this was on their side. "Two pursuers down," Mirax shouted to be heard over the wind.

"The next to last one is ours," Jaina shouted back. "Tahiri and Jag are in it."

She was trying to use the sedative pack she was carrying, injecting Seff with the contents so he'd stay out until they could get him where they needed him. It was not easy to do with the way Mirax was having to drive, but she managed it, and then pulled her garment hood up so her face would be hidden when she turned back towards their other pursuers. Concentrating, she was able to grab the speeder, knocking it sideways so it scraped against the wall, sparking and smoking. The speeder began decelerating and dropping, and hopefully the pilot would be able to land safely. And then Jaina had to do that for one more, until Jag and Tahiri's stolen security vehicle was the only one left following.

Jaina navigated Mirax to an area off a major thoroughfare, where both vehicles could land safely in the dark. Jag, dressed in the beskar armor he'd designed back in the days when they were hunting Alema Rar, pulled the security speeder's recording device and crushed it, and then they met.

"All right," Jaina said, looking them over. They all looked okay; Winter looked a little groggy, but she was awake and alert and walking. "We're almost done. Mirax, you'll come with me. We need to steal another speeder, then pick up the rest. Then you'll drop me on a specific rooftop not far from where all that mess took place. Jag, do you need to get back to the Imperial Remnant Embassy?"

"Galactic Empire," he corrected. "And yes."

"All right, drop Jag off near there. Then, Tahiri, I need you to guide Mirax to the Masters' speeder hangar access at the Temple. Tekli will get you in."

Jaina and Mirax both really had more practice stealing speeders than either one of them should have, and so it wasn't hard to quickly find a large speeder with enough room for them and their supplies and return to the group. They'd unloaded all the incriminating evidence, including the Quarren's net and Jag's armor, and hid it.

"Not too many non-Mandos have beskar breastplates and crushgaunts," Jaina said, worried. "The fact that you do isn't well-known, but-"

Jag put a finger to her lips to stop her. "There's nothing to worry about. I have an alibi. Like all sensible Heads of State, I have a double, hard at work pretending to be me in my quarters."

Jaina moved his finger aside. "My mother didn't use a double."

"Well, she was clearly crazy."

Winter, who'd been Leia's childhood best friend, laughed. "That sounds like a toast for all our families. Here's to crazy women, and the pilots that pursue them."

Jag raised an imaginary glass in her direction.

[Whee action scenes! NFB, NFI, OOC okay, Dialogue and a sentence or two from Outcast by Aaron Allston.]