There were better ways to come out of a bacta tank than with dreams/Force visions, but there were probably worse ways too. Probably. In the dream, she was watching Ben and Vestara fight across a stone courtyard while she stood at the rim of a gorge. Any attempts by her to grab her own lightsaber and jump in to help ended with her in the exact same place from which she'd started, unable to do more than watch. So she had to see Vestara's shikkar headed for Ben's eye, and no matter what she wanted to do to drive it off course, she knew she wasn't allowed to do that. At the last second, Ben leaned away just enough to avoid most of the shikkar, except for the tip of his ear...

And then Jaina was lifting up to the top of the bacta tank, and when she opened her eyes she was looking out on the Galactic Justice Center infirmary. She could identify a lot of infirmaries by now, thank you. She didn't know how long she'd been in there, but her arm and ribs still felt a little weak, so she'd probably been pulled from the tank early. But when she looked at the infirmary, which had been set up as a field hospital, and saw all the soldiers on exam tables or gurneys or curled up on the floor because there wasn't any room, she figured she was lucky. Apparently the battle for the Temple was still going on, and it wasn't going great.

She was lowered out of the cylinder, and when she reached the floor, a weary-looking Duros female in blood-smeared scrubs held clean clothing, along with Jaina's lightsaber and equipment belt. Jaina reached for the clothes, having lost all sense of modesty in this sort of situation three wars ago. "You look busy. I can handle this myself."

The Duros pulled her arm away. “You were supposed to be in the tank for another twelve hours.” She offered Jaina some underclothes. “So I need to stay to make sure you’re not going to faint.”

"Jedi don't faint," Jaina said, pulling the clothes on. "And you have a lot of other patients who really need you."

"And the sooner you stop arguing with me and finish dressing, the sooner I can tend to them," the Duros countered. "Besides, I have a message, Master Solo. You’re to join the rest of the Jedi Council as soon as possible. They’re meeting in Senator Wuul’s office in the Senate Building."

Wow. Someone really called her that. She didn't even really have a chance to be excited about being called "Master" because she apparently had to get right to work. "I understand. And I’m not going to faint. How long ago did Masters Skywalker and Horn leave?" she asked, not spotting either of them in the tanks.

"After his knee surgery was finished, Master Horn only needed the tank for a few hours," the Duros replied. “But Master Skywalker extracted himself early, less than an hour ago."

"Early?" Jaina grabbed her chrono and saw that she and the others had been recuperating almost four days. "That must have been some concussion he had."

"The concussion was not the problem. The burn on his chest has been slow to heal. Very slow. He’s still not a hundred percent."

Jaina frowned, thinking something didn't sound right about that. "Could it be the Force lightning."

"You would know better than I," the Duros said.

A sudden shudder shook the entire room hard enough that Jaina heard the bacta slosh in the tanks.

"What was that?" she asked, closing her robe.

“I was hoping you could tell me,” the Duros said. “The shaking seems to be growing stronger and more frequent. It must be something to do with the battle, yes?”

“That would make sense,” Jaina agreed. “But I’m not sure what it is. Maybe they’re using baradium bombs down in the sub-basements or something.”

The Duros looked very worried at hearing that. "It had better be ‘or something.’ There aren’t enough medcenters on Coruscant to handle that much baradium poisoning.” She handed over her lightsaber and equipment belt. “You might want to check your comlink. Someone has been trying to raise you all morning.”

The Duros turned to leave, so Jaina donned her belt and lightsaber and then checked her comlink to see all the missed calls from Tahiri. Immediately Jaina became worried that something had happened to Jag while she'd been in here, she quickly left the infirmary and headed for the nearest turbolift. When she reached the ground floor, she finally dared to listen to the last message, which happened to be from Jag. He sounded worried, and maybe a little irritated, and frankly he'd probably have to get used to this sort of thing.

"Where are you? I’m starting to worry," he said in the message, and paused. "Listen, we’re about to jump. We should be coming in system at eleven seventeen Galactic Standard. If you get this message before then, leave one on Tahiri’s comlink letting me know how you are. We’ve heard that the Temple was breached and that you were taken to a medcenter, but not much else... See you soon- and you had better be well.”

By her chorono she had enough time to check the rest of her messages while she waited for him to enter the system, and yeah, the messages were all from Jag and Tahiri, and there wasn't any explanation for why they were back on Coruscant. She wasn't even sure what they'd been off doing, just that they were working on something and would tell her later. She was riding in the tubes to get to the Senate building when she was finally able to try calling Jag back.

"Jaina?"

Just hearing his voice made her feel better. It'd only been about five days since she'd talked to him, and she'd been unconscious for apparently four of them, but it felt like forever. "Yes, Jag. It's me."

There was a pause as he got his own moment of relief. "How are you? I've been worried."

“I know. Sorry about that,” Jaina said. “I’ve been in a bacta tank, and the medics have too much going on right now to take messages.”

“But you’re all right?” Jag pressed.

“I got a little beat up during the assault, but I’m fine now," she assured him, honestly thinking that a bunch of broken bones was 'a little beat up'. She'd had way worse. “Listen Jag, we don’t have much time. I’m on my way to a Council meeting.”

“In that case, I need to pass you over to Tahiri,” Jag replied. “I have big news, but she has intelligence the Masters will need to hear when you see them.”

“Jag, what news?”

“It can wait. I love you, Jaina.”

And a moment later, after hearing her passing over the ship to Jag, it was Tahiri talking in her ear. "Good to hear your voice, Jaina."

“Thanks, Tahiri- yours, too. You and Jag are flying your own ship?”

“Afraid so,” Tahiri replied. “The Pellaeon went with the Head of State’s job.”

Jaina wasn't sure she'd heard that right at first. "Jag lost the election?"

"Not exactly. He-"

“We only have two minutes,” Jag’s voice interrupted in the background. “Tell her what happened on Hagamoor Three.”

"Okay... what happened on Hagamoor Three?" Jaina asked, hoping Tahiri could talk fast so she could find out what happened with her fiance. "And where exactly is Hagamoor Three?"

“It orbits Antemeridias,” Tahiri said. “And it’s where Boba Fett and I killed Abeloth.”

Oh, what part of that did she go after first. "Really? You've been working with Boba Fett?"

"Long story. You did hear the part where I said we killed Abeloth, right?"

"I heard," Jaina said slowly. "But I'm having a little trouble with that part. Abeloth almost killed us inside the Jedi Temple.”

They both went quiet.

“Didn’t Master Skywalker have to kill her twice on Pydyr?” Tahiri asked.

“Right. In two different bodies," Jaina said with a sigh. "I had been assuming that Abeloth just moved from one dying body into a living one.”

“But if we were both fighting Abeloth, and we were thousands of light-years apart at the time...” Tahiri sighed, too. "So now we know. Force entities can be in two places at once.”

“Let’s hope it’s only two.” Jaina checked her chrono again, then said, “Why don’t you give me the highlights?”

Tahiri ran through the basics: powerful Force presences, her belief that Abeloth was behind the GA even having an election, how she'd tracked Abeloth to Hagamoor Three and happened to find Fett there on an unrelated matter and struck a deal to work together, how they'd found her in a secret lab inhabiting the decaying body of Lieutenant Pagorski, an Imperial officer.

“The only reason you’re talking to me now is that Abeloth didn’t kill me outright," Tahiri said. "She needed my body next, because Pagorski’s was burning out. Apparently, the bodies of Force-users last longer.”

“You’re sure you killed her?” Jaina asked as her ride slowed to a stop at the Senate building.

“That depends on how you define kill, I guess,” Tahiri said. “Pagorski’s body was destroyed by a thermal detonator; then an Imperial frigate blasted the entire lab until the only thing left was a glass crater. So, I’m pretty sure that Abeloth was destroyed. Until I heard about the one in the Jedi Temple, I thought we might have gotten her. Now I’m just scared.”

“Yeah, I’m not too happy about having more than one Abeloth-thing running around the galaxy, either," Jaina said, and frowned as an idea struck her. "You wouldn’t happen to know what time you killed the Pagorski avatar, would you?”

“As a matter of fact, I remember exactly,” Tahiri said. “It was two minutes before midday-"

“Four days ago,” Jaina finished. The capsule came to a stop, and the top half slid back to allow Jaina to exit. “Right?”

“How did you know?”

“I’ll tell you when I see you,” Jaina assured her. “The Masters will want to debrief you in person. We’re using the Senate Building as a temporary headquarters.”

“We’re still a few hours out. We’ll be in touch as soon as we land,” Tahiri told her.

"Good," Jaina said, stepping onto the platform and walking towards the turbolift. "Now let me talk to Jag."

There was a brief pause as Tahiri passed over the comlink. "Did I hear that right?" Jag asked. "You were hurt fighting Abeloth?"

“Later,” Jaina said. “It’s my turn to ask the questions. What happened with the election?”

“It’s a long story,” Jag said. “But basically, I had to withdraw.”

She couldn't imagine why he'd have to do that, but she supposed that story would have to wait till she saw him. “So Daala won?”

“Jaina, you should know me better than that,” Jag said, sounding surprised. “I withdrew so she would lose.”

...Huh. “Then who’s the Imperial Head of State?”

“An actual Imperial,” Jag replied. “Vitor Reige.”

“Pellaeon’s former adjutant?”

“Vitor was one of my best admirals,” Jag reminded her. “He’ll make an excellent Head of State.”

“I know that,” Jaina said. “It’s just that- well, I wasn’t expecting this. I’m very sorry, Jag.”

“What for?”

“That you had to withdraw, of course.”

Jag actually laughed. “Well, I’m not.”

“Really? You’re not going to miss running your own interstellar Empire?” She knew how much the job stressed him out, but at the end of the day, he was trying to do good, and he was actually much better at the job than he gave himself credit for. Though she couldn't say that she minded a lot of their problems suddenly not being so problematic.

“Dodging assassination attempts and analyzing tax-stream reports? Not as much fun as you might think.” For the first time in ages, Jag’s voice actually sounded happy. “Right now, my greatest fear is that once Reige realizes how simultaneously mind numbing and nerve-racking it is to be Head of State, he’ll find a way to drag me back.”

“In that case... congratulations,” Jaina said with a smile as the turbolift arrived. "Listen-"

“You’ve got to go,” Jag finished. “I love you, Jaina. We’ll be together soon- and we’re going to stay that way.”

“Count on it,” Jaina said. “And I love you, too, Jagged. Even if you can’t hold a job.”


[Welcome to the part of the series where the entire fandom looked at this, then looked at Legacy, and went "...but wait." NFB, NFI, I don't hate OOC. Dialogue and a couple bits from Apocalypse by Troy Denning.]