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nonelikemesinceLast Sunday night in Fandom, Anakin had been in his dorm room, on the comm with Tahiri -- as much as they might have wished otherwise, it wasn't a nice, light conversation, not with Jedi around the galaxy being hunted down by voxyn. The acid-spitting, armor-scaled hybrid creatures, capable of emitting debilitating sonic screeches, were the Yuuzhan Vong shapers' latest creation, bred for the express purpose of tracking and killing Jedi. They were hard to detect in the Force, and even killing one didn't guarantee survival; exposure to the air converted their blood into a neurotoxin. The list kept growing: Numa Rar killed by a pack of voxyn and her sister Alema seriously wounded by them; Saba Sebatyne's Master Eelysa dead; now Tahiri was telling him that right after he'd left to head back to Fandom, his mother and Jacen had a run-in with one, but were both all right now.
There was also the matter of what to do about Talfaglio, where the Yuuzhan Vong were holding hundreds of thousands of refugees, maybe even a million, hostage against the New Republic divulging the location of the Jedi's current base here on Eclipse, and that was complicated further by Chief of State Borsk Fey'lya's unwillingness to take action -- clearly, according to Leia, a sign that he fully intended to use the Jedi as bargaining chips. Both Anakin and Tahiri had argued vehemently in favor of mounting a rescue, while Jacen insisted that they couldn't do nothing, but charging in to rescue the refugees was a bad idea. Anakin wasn't surprised by that; he and his brother never saw eye to eye any more. They hadn't since Centerpoint Station, and especially lately with tension mounting it was a miracle that they ever managed to be civil with each other at all.
On Tuesday night he'd been meaning to finally have that talk with her about what, exactly, was going on between the two of them, even if he had to abruptly blurt something out at a lull in the conversation, but he felt it as clearly as she did when their friend Lusa's Force presence blinked out, and didn't hesitate for a second before he was running straight back for his X-Wing. He wasn't going to cool his heels in Fandom while more and more of them fell victim. Master Cilghal was in the lab practically nonstop in hopes of finding the voxyn's weakness, but all she knew, other than that they were a cross between vornskrs and some Yuuzhan Vong creature, was that every single tissue sample she'd collected so far had the exact same genetic sequence. There was a good chance that meant they were cloning the voxyn, which meant they only had one, which meant -- they had a chance.
If they could confirm that hypothesis, which meant trying to kill or capture another voxyn for more tissue samples, and there couldn't have been a better-timed or more welcome means of channeling their grief.
Their, because while it went without saying that Tahiri would go along with whatever he did, every one of the young Jedi on Eclipse who'd known Lusa from the Academy -- Jaina, Jacen, Tenel Ka, Raynar, Zekk, and Lowbacca -- wanted in on it too, along with a Bith tactical analyst named Ulaha Kore and three young Barabel, Saba's son Tesar and his two hatchmates Bela and Krasov. Anakin honestly didn't care that Luke insisted that while he was in charge of the mission overall he had to defer to Jaina on all strategic matters. (He knew how good the older Jaina was at it, and he'd trust her absolutely.) It was something they could do.
The more voxyn they successfully captured for Cilghal to study, the more Jedi started to attach themselves to Anakin's group, including Alema Rar now that she had recovered from her own voxyn attack. (Alema seemed to find as many excuses as possible to stay near him, which Tahiri didn't like at all.)
Uncle Luke wasn't so fond of this development, either, and Anakin got a long lecture about being too driven by grief and, possibly, the need for revenge. Of course, because it always came down to someone worrying that he'd fall to the Dark Side. But Cilghal had enough samples to work with now, thanks to his team's efforts, and that undermined his argument that they needed to keep going.
"The nanosecond we have something more concrete to work with, I'll call you back here, but in the meantime --" Uncle Luke gave him one of the sternest looks Anakin could ever remember getting from him. "I think it's best if you head back to school for a little while."
It was only the unexpectedly strong 'push' he felt in the Force that made Anakin bite back his argument and tell his astromech to plot them a course back to Fandom. He had the feeling he'd be back soon enough, anyway.
[OOC: NFB/NFI. So this was originally like four posts long and then I decided I was being overindulgent and I maybe over-condensed it and sigh, yeah. This is adapted (in heavily condensed form) from Star by Star by Troy Denning, AKA the Freezer Book, and is the beginning of the end of Anakin's story. He'll be back in Fandom for the next couple of days, for any last interactions.
. . .
*cries*]
There was also the matter of what to do about Talfaglio, where the Yuuzhan Vong were holding hundreds of thousands of refugees, maybe even a million, hostage against the New Republic divulging the location of the Jedi's current base here on Eclipse, and that was complicated further by Chief of State Borsk Fey'lya's unwillingness to take action -- clearly, according to Leia, a sign that he fully intended to use the Jedi as bargaining chips. Both Anakin and Tahiri had argued vehemently in favor of mounting a rescue, while Jacen insisted that they couldn't do nothing, but charging in to rescue the refugees was a bad idea. Anakin wasn't surprised by that; he and his brother never saw eye to eye any more. They hadn't since Centerpoint Station, and especially lately with tension mounting it was a miracle that they ever managed to be civil with each other at all.
On Tuesday night he'd been meaning to finally have that talk with her about what, exactly, was going on between the two of them, even if he had to abruptly blurt something out at a lull in the conversation, but he felt it as clearly as she did when their friend Lusa's Force presence blinked out, and didn't hesitate for a second before he was running straight back for his X-Wing. He wasn't going to cool his heels in Fandom while more and more of them fell victim. Master Cilghal was in the lab practically nonstop in hopes of finding the voxyn's weakness, but all she knew, other than that they were a cross between vornskrs and some Yuuzhan Vong creature, was that every single tissue sample she'd collected so far had the exact same genetic sequence. There was a good chance that meant they were cloning the voxyn, which meant they only had one, which meant -- they had a chance.
If they could confirm that hypothesis, which meant trying to kill or capture another voxyn for more tissue samples, and there couldn't have been a better-timed or more welcome means of channeling their grief.
Their, because while it went without saying that Tahiri would go along with whatever he did, every one of the young Jedi on Eclipse who'd known Lusa from the Academy -- Jaina, Jacen, Tenel Ka, Raynar, Zekk, and Lowbacca -- wanted in on it too, along with a Bith tactical analyst named Ulaha Kore and three young Barabel, Saba's son Tesar and his two hatchmates Bela and Krasov. Anakin honestly didn't care that Luke insisted that while he was in charge of the mission overall he had to defer to Jaina on all strategic matters. (He knew how good the older Jaina was at it, and he'd trust her absolutely.) It was something they could do.
The more voxyn they successfully captured for Cilghal to study, the more Jedi started to attach themselves to Anakin's group, including Alema Rar now that she had recovered from her own voxyn attack. (Alema seemed to find as many excuses as possible to stay near him, which Tahiri didn't like at all.)
Uncle Luke wasn't so fond of this development, either, and Anakin got a long lecture about being too driven by grief and, possibly, the need for revenge. Of course, because it always came down to someone worrying that he'd fall to the Dark Side. But Cilghal had enough samples to work with now, thanks to his team's efforts, and that undermined his argument that they needed to keep going.
"The nanosecond we have something more concrete to work with, I'll call you back here, but in the meantime --" Uncle Luke gave him one of the sternest looks Anakin could ever remember getting from him. "I think it's best if you head back to school for a little while."
It was only the unexpectedly strong 'push' he felt in the Force that made Anakin bite back his argument and tell his astromech to plot them a course back to Fandom. He had the feeling he'd be back soon enough, anyway.
[OOC: NFB/NFI. So this was originally like four posts long and then I decided I was being overindulgent and I maybe over-condensed it and sigh, yeah. This is adapted (in heavily condensed form) from Star by Star by Troy Denning, AKA the Freezer Book, and is the beginning of the end of Anakin's story. He'll be back in Fandom for the next couple of days, for any last interactions.
. . .
*cries*]
