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Jaina was still slumped on her table seven hours after the verdict had been made. Luke had tried to contact her several times, but Jaina had shot off her mind. Her brother was going to be killed in five hours, and right now Jaina wanted to go with him. Two more empty glasses sat in front of her, and Imboyan had refused any further orders.
Though visiting hours for Jacen had been made available, only Luke had taken advantage of them thus far. Han could not face his son. He was not as sure of Jacen's deeds as were the rest, but he definitely had not refused the idea as Jaina had. He was going to resign from his post and probably never recover from this incident.
Leia was busy trying to persuade Senator Belsiphvin of her son's innocence. The fellow senator had been given the power to stay the execution, but she had no intention of doing so. Leia's pleading for her son's innocence had not lasted that long, for Leia had come to the same realization as Luke and Tionne that Jacen had indeed killed the senator. Instead, Leia began to simply beg for mercy.
She would not be able to retain her position in the senate either after this, and Senator Belsiphvin would be one of the people capable of replacing her. Belsiphvin did not want her first action to be pardoning a guilty man who had killed a fellow senator.
Imboyan was greatly disturbed by Jaina's behavior. He had taken a liking to this young girl, for she reminded him a lot of Caylin. She was good-natured and honest. She did not back down from her beliefs and always did what was right. Now, though, she was not acting as she should.
"Have you said good-bye to him?"
Jaina picked her head up slightly.
"Have you said good-bye?" Imboyan repeated. "Your brother is going to be executed tonight. Have you said good-bye? Have you told him that you love him?"
Jaina slowly sat up, thinking about what this man was saying.
"You will never see him again after this night. Though I know right now you think that you will spend the rest of your life slumped on my table, that will not be the case. You will go on to live a rich full life. What do you want the last memory of your brother to be?"
Jaina got up slowly, ridding herself of inebriation with the Force. She looked at Imboyan. "Thank-you for everything." With that, Jaina left the tavern.
Though she had intended on going straight to her brother, as she stepped into the palace, the building in which the twins had grown up, she lost the nerve. Sadness overcame her again, and she instead went to her old room. The twins' rooms had been side-by-side, sharing the same centralized rec room. Jaina sat down in that rec room now, looking at the boxes of toys that lined the walls.
She remembered fondly the days that she and Jacen would play Jedi warriors down here for hours at a time. Jaina got up slowly, and opened one of the toy chests. Inside, the figurines and stuffed animals were well preserved despite the years of neglect. She slowly pulled out the action figures that had served as their Jedi warriors.
Each twin had had their favorite; Jaina's was named Serina. She was a young Jedi who enjoyed showing the boys that girls could kick butt too. Jaina could not remember what Jacen's character had been called. She had probably forgotten on purpose.
They competed with each other as to which figurine would kill the evil Sith Lord or which would vanquish the horrible beast. Jaina smiled as she remembered how Jacen always had to one up her, bringing the enemies back to life after Serina had killed them so his character could totally obliterate them.
As they had gotten older, the figurines became less important and they began to play the roles themselves. With harmless wooden poles, they would adventure through the vast palace, pretending the guards were really stormtroopers and the maids and cooks were Sith. They had barged into more than a few private meetings pretending to invade the Sith stronghold.
Jaina would hold onto those memories for the rest of her life, and she knew that even after tonight, Jacen would always be with her.
Jaina closed the toy chest and moved to Jacen's room instead. This had been sacred ground when they had been growing up, as had been her room. Neither wanted the other in their stuff, and arguments had erupted quite regularly when one of them thought the other had been going through their room.
Despite Jacen's current condition, Jaina still could not help but feel a little guilty as she began to look through his stuff. She found several costumes that they had donned during their playful excursions. Jacen had moved all of his pets to the Academy, but several cages and animal care equipment had been left behind. In the chest beside Jacen's bed, Jaina struck pay dirt.
Jaina had often caught Jacen working hard on a data pad. When she asked him what he was doing, he had always told her to mind her own business and left the room. After a while, Jaina realized that Jacen was writing stories. He must have been too embarrassed by his work to show it to others, and Jaina felt a little guilty about looking at it now, but she wanted to immerse herself in the past.
Jaina slipped a card into the data pad, and several dozen pages of text came up. Jaina looked again in the chest at the dozen or so cards inside, never before realizing how much her brother had written. She closed the chest and took the data pad back into the rec room to read.
Jaina sat down in a comfortable chair, but did not stay seated long. "No!" she shouted, standing back up after she read the first bit of the story. "It can't be!"
Five minutes later Jaina was standing in front of Jacen's new cell. It was twice as big as the previous one, with a chair and a cot. A high strength energy shield shimmered as the fourth wall of the cell, and two guards flanked the transparent barrier.
Luke was no longer there but had left to drag Han and Leia back to see their son. Jacen sensed Jaina approach long before she arrived. "Jaina," Jacen called weakly, though from the look on her face, he understood this was not going to be a very pleasant visit.
"I found the real killer," Jaina said stiffly. "I did a lot of investigation yesterday and I came up with a name: Caylin."
Jacen became very alert at this.
"At first I did not think him capable of the act, especially since his description did not fit that of the killer. Also, he had not been seen in about three years. Do you know what happened three years ago, Jacen?"
"We went to the Academy," he replied quietly.
"That's right. And you know what I found just a few minutes ago?" She held up the data pad she had found in Jacen's room. Across the top of the screen read, "The Adventures of Caylin Skylo."
Jacen took one look at the familiar data pad, not needing to read the screen. "You were in my room," he said, but Jaina did not respond. "I was tired of 'playing' Jedi," he continued after a long pause. "Those people really liked me and considered me their protector. I was doing good things."
"But we had no training," Jaina responded. "We were just kids. You could have been killed."
"Apparently you did not investigate that well," he replied. "The hardest enemy I ever faced was a rowdy drunk or a half-witted thief. I ran across a few scary predators, but you know how I am with animals. There were a few witnesses to my actions, and by the forth retelling of it, you'd think was fighting Imperial Stormtroopers."
"Where'd you get the lightsaber?" Jaina asked, though she thought she already knew the answer.
"Mom. She never used it anyway. I always made sure I returned it so she wouldn't miss it."
"Imboyan doesn't believe that this new Caylin is the same person. It seems he does not understand how boys can grow taller rather quickly in their early teens."
Jacen just nodded.
"What were you doing down there?"
"Reliving my childhood," Jacen responded. "I had just been a kid, but I had been a superhero to them. Now I really can do super things, and I was just trying to find an enemy to defeat for them."
"Well you found one alright."
Jacen stood quickly. "I did not kill him." He looked hard at his sister.
Jaina looked back, her eyes unblinking and her stare unrelenting.
"At least I don't remember killing him," Jacen folded under Jaina's look. "Have you ever done something that you can't explain? You don't know why you did it and you can't remember exactly what you did. That's what those two nights were like." Jacen was also talking about the night before the murder. Luke had been in earlier asking about that too. "I know I did something, but I honestly can't remember what it was."
Jaina remembered vividly her actions in the old bathroom when she had found the syringe and vial. Something had taken control of her and forced her to hurl the items into the toilet. She also remembered the questions she had asked during the tour of the research center. They had come from her without any conscious effort on her own.
Had it been the Force? Was it the same thing that had affected Jacen? Jacen had been snooping around the research center, asking questions and digging into criminal activity. Had he found something that the Force recognized as a threat and had forced him into action? Was Senator Keld really planning to make a move against the Jedi?
Jacen could see that his sister was lost in thought. "What is it, Sis? What are you thinking about? You're not going to let them kill me are you?"
Jaina was not paying attention to her brother now, but was slowly walking away from the cell. "You can't let them kill me! I did not do it!"
***
A little more than an hour later, Jaina stood outside the lower entrance to the Krakun Hematological Research Center. She was wearing a black cloak that she had unsurprisingly found in her brother's closet. Her lightsaber was also within easy reach on her hip.
When Markis Keld had founded the research center, he had done so by renovating a much older building. This building had been around for a long time, and Jaina was now standing in front of what had been the main entrance a century ago. Now the door did not even look like an entry, as it was covered with a heavy iron grate and blanketed in security shields.
Jacen had been able to defeat the security measures on two occasions before, and Jaina was twice as good with such devices. A few short minutes later, Jaina was standing inside the dark hallways of the old building. This level was not used for anything relating to the research center itself, and only served as a back door for the former senator when he did not want to be seen entering or exiting the building.
Jaina began her trip up and took careful notice of each security camera she came upon, eluding detection. As she neared the private lab that she had visited once before, the frequency of the security cameras increased. The sense of the Force came upon Jaina again, but it was not as sudden or insistent this time. It told her to be prepared and ready, for she was now entering a very dangerous environment.
If Jaina had not been ready for this, she might have succumbed to the urges that came upon her, but she fought back and remained in control. The Force knew something that she did not, and it was deathly afraid of it.
Jaina was about to move up another staircase, but she recognized it as the same one she had descended almost a week ago when she had taken the tour, and Martin Keld had led her down to the private lab. Jaina continued down the hallway and found the door to the lab.
After disabling any security measures that might be attached to it, Jaina opened the door. The urging of the Force was very insistent now. The room seemed empty, and Jaina quickly scanned it. She had been here before, but she had not felt anything even close to what she felt now.
Jaina's eyes drifted over the equipment in the dark room, wondering what could be different about it. Then it hit her. Her eyes fell on a rack of test tubes sitting on one of the tables. Inside of them was the grayish serum she had found trace amounts of in the vial she had destroyed earlier. That same destructive urge attacked her again, but she was ready for it.
Even though she could resist it, Jaina was amazed by how strong it was. Luke had never mentioned this type of Force domination before, and Jaina began to wonder if a Sith was nearby. The feeling did not dissipate at all, but as Jaina slowly began to learn how to push it aside, she knew that it was not of the Dark Side. It was not the Light Side either. It was just an incredibly strong urging to call her into action and destroy everything in the room, especially those test tubes.
Jaina took her first step into the room and let out a startled yip as the holoprojector in the center of the room suddenly came to life. Jaina's lightsaber leaped into her hand and ignited as she tried to figure out what had happened. The projector cast a very clear image in the dark room directly in front of the huge white screen that hung over the weapon cabinet.
"Calcitrons are micro-organisms that live in the bloodstreams of Verpine, Kelsto, and a few other insectoid races. These microscopic creatures feed off the nutrients and vitamins ingested by their host. In exchange, they excrete a high calcium supplement that bolsters the host's exoskeleton."
Jaina remembered this information from the tour, but now she had images to go along with the data. She saw highly magnified pictures of Verpine arteries as the tiny calcitrons swam about inside the blood.
"The Center had difficulty at first keeping the calcitrons alive and then even more difficulty in extracting the calcium from the blood samples. Now both can be done efficiently and the extracted calcium is used to combat osteoporosis in aging members of the insectoid races. This calcium is far too concentrated to be useful to humanoids."
Jaina watched only briefly as the image of an old Verpine receiving an injection of calcium concentrate flashed in front of the screen. She was far more interested in the motion detectors that were pointed toward the door she had just passed through. With the Force, she could trace a circuit back to the holoprojector. Someone had set this up for her.
"Taliaconts are also micro-organisms that live inside the blood, but they serve a much different purpose. Twi'leks are the only known race to have taliaconts in their blood naturally, and are the only ones who can survive these deadly creatures. They are very destructive organisms and serve to fight off any infection that afflicts their host. Efforts have been made to make these micro-organisms less hostile to non-Twi'leks, but each attempt has been met with drastic failure."
Jaina paid the documentary very little attention as it went on about the deadly consequences of injecting taliaconts into a human's blood stream. She was more interested in the test tubes. She walked slowly over to the counter on which they stood, fighting off the Force urges to race over and destroy them.
Jaina was just about to pick up the rack when the documentary changed topics.
"Midichlorians are very unique among micro-organisms that live in blood. They are not specific to any one race but reside only in Force adepts. It is unknown exactly what function they serve in a Jedi's life, as most of the information regarding midichlorians was destroyed during the Jedi purge."
Jaina was staring at zoomed in pictures of the organisms swimming around, as she knew they were doing right now in her own blood. She turned back to look at the test tubes as the documentary continued. "By themselves, midichlorians are very fragile life forms, but within the blood of a Jedi, they are nearly indestructible. If they were to be removed from the blood of a Jedi, the results on that person's Force ability might very well be affected."
Jaina slowly picked up one of the test tubes, staring at its contents with a horrifying idea running through her mind. The urge to destroy this serum was incredibly strong now, and Jaina willingly gave into it. She hurled it into a sink that stood nearby. She then picked up the rest of the rack and dumped the other test tubes out. She ran the water, watching with panting breath as the last of the gray serum spun down the drain.
"I thought you might do that."
Jaina spun her attention toward the voice as the lights came on and the holoprojector shut off. Martin Keld walked into the room through a side door. "What do you think of our holovid?" He asked as he hit a switch on the wall, sending the screen up into the ceiling. "After tonight, I'll be able to add a little more information to that last entry."
"What are you talking about?" Jaina asked as she watched the man open the weapon cabinet. "What was in those test tubes? What was that serum?"
"You mean this serum?" Martin asked as he produced a familiar looking vial from his vest pocket. He put it back in his vest as Jaina raised her lightsaber. "Don't worry," he chuckled, "there is a lot more where this came from. My dad did not keep the best notes, but we eventually pieced together the formula. If your stupid brother had left more of my father's blood in tact, we would have cracked the code a little earlier."
Jaina understood that Markis had injected himself with serum, and they had recovered it from his corpse. "What is it?" Jaina repeated through gritted teeth, the urges inside her begging to be released.
"Look for yourself," he replied, motioning to the now empty rack that sat on the counter next to Jaina. She pulled her attention from Martin and looked at the test tube holder. She saw the same hand-written letters that had appeared on the vial she had destroyed: AMCV. She flipped the rack upside-down and read the full version. "Anti-MidiChlorian Virus." She tossed the rack aside.
When she turned back to Martin, she saw that he now held Biter, the vornskr blade he had shown her earlier. To Jaina, it looked like the red ruby in the center of the hilt was throbbing with energy, looking forward to killing another Jedi. "You remember Biter, don't you?"
Jaina realized that he had always known who she was when she had posed as the reporter. The memory of him standing over her with this horrific blade came back to her now, and she readied her own weapon. As deadly as Biter looked, its vornskr jawbones curling up around the razor-sharp blade, Jaina's lightsaber was twice as long, and far more powerful.
Martin took a moment to appreciate her battle ready stance. "My father stupidly tried to fight your brother. He failed. I will not."
Jaina did not buy into his bravado. "You are a better fighter?" she asked.
"No," he replied. "I'm not as stupid." His free hand dove into his vest and pulled a blaster. Jaina quickly readied to block the shots, but the gun did not shoot out a bolt of energy, but a ring. The stun gun hit her hard and she stumbled to the ground, dropping her lightsaber. The Force was desperately trying to keep Jaina conscious, but Martin fired twice more, and darkness consumed her.
***
Jaina came to slowly. She was lying on an angled table, almost completely vertical. Her arms were outstretched and secured. Her legs were also tied down in some way. She took a brief moment to analyze her bonds. They were not traditional shackles, for if they were, she would have had no problem deactivating them. Instead, she could feel the harsh fibers of thick rope against her bare wrists. Without being able to see the knots, she had no way to pick at them, as they produced no presence in the Force.
This man had studied Jedi and how to defeat them his entire life. She would not be able to free herself. She also felt very groggy. Martin must have injected her with something while she was unconscious. The idea that she might have been injected with the anti-midichlorian virus already frightened her, and she picked her head up and looked desperately around the room.
One of the computer terminals began beeping, and Martin moved into view. As he turned off the alarm, Jaina picked out another motion detector mounted on the wall pointed at her. She cursed her carelessness.
"I was getting worried I was going to have to wake you," Martin said. "I wouldn't want you to sleep through the big event."
Jaina's eyes darted about the room for a chronometer and saw that it was still twenty minutes until midnight. She sighed. Jacen was still alive, for now.
"Yes," Martin said, " your brother isn't dead yet. In twenty minutes he will be executed for killing my father. I hear they are going to use lethal injection." Martin produced the infamous vial and a syringe. "Ironic, isn't it."
Jaina breathed another sigh as she realized she had not yet been injected with the virus. "What does it do?" she asked, a bit of a slur in her voice.
"Exactly what you think it does. It will kill all of the midichlorians in your body. At least that's what we think it will do. We haven't had a chance to test it quite yet. Oh, we know it works on midichlorians outside of a Jedi. As it turns out, your mother is a frequent donor. But as you learned from our tour, we can only gather so much information from our circulatory simulators. We really needed to test it out on the real thing."
"Caylin," Jaina said, her foggy mind slowly putting together the pieces.
Martin nodded. "Unlike what the public thinks, most of our patients are pulled from the lower levels of this city. How else do you think we know about the destructive tendencies of taliaconts?" he asked, referring to the micro-organisms that lived inside Twi'leks that the holovid had mentioned. "You don't think we get willing volunteers for that kind of testing, do you?"
"You kill innocent people," Jaina said.
"They are worthless citizens who infest the lower levels. You've been down there. You've spoken to them. Killing them is no big loss to society. And think of what we've learned. Of course, none of them have midichlorians in their blood, so we had to dig a little deeper. Caylin surfaced quite easily. The stories of his deeds showed us that he was not a major Jedi, and we could probably handle him. Through word of mouth, we let him know we wanted to meet him."
"And Jacen showed up," Jaina concluded.
Martin shrugged. "It wasn't quite what we expected. I'm not sure how he figured out what we were up to, but he returned the next night and you know the rest."
Jaina knew more, actually. Jacen never figured it out; the Force did. Jacen had acted under its control the entire time. "Why?" Jaina asked.
Martin frowned. "Apparently I drugged you a bit too much. You aren't thinking straight. Your kind killed my mother and sister. You destroyed almost half a million of my people with your petty fighting. Your egos don't allow you to see us normals as worth anything. Our lives mean nothing to you."
Martin paced a bit. "The original serum was designed to not only kill the midichlorians, but to kill the hosts as well. My father was a bit more bitter than I am. Or maybe I just like to gloat more. I figure justice would be served better if the midichlorians were removed, stripping the galaxy of all Force users and bringing you down to our level. Then we'll see how important you are. Then we'll see how powerful you really are. Do you think you could stand up against me without your precious Force? Do you think your brother would have had a chance against my father if he didn't have the Force?"
Martin stopped pacing to stare at Jaina. "The beauty of this virus is that it is totally harmless to us inferiors. All we have to do is put this in the water supply and sit back and watch. It has mutation capability, and within a decade or so, it will become airborne. It is totally undetectable unless you know what to look for. One by one your kind would be rendered powerless. Then we could begin a purge of our own.
"It is true that my father did not want Jedi to rule, and he made that very clear, but in reality, we do not want them to exist at all. There is always the risk of one of you turning Dark and reeking havoc on the galaxy. Just look at what your brother did.
"After you had been removed from your vaunted power platform of the Force, we Krakuns would demand justice for what happened to us. That was the only reason we ever joined the Republic in the first place, to have access to your kind. Why do you think my father started a blood research center? We have been waiting for this moment for over three decades, and now justice will finally be done."
Martin looked at the chronometer on the wall. It was three minutes to midnight. Martin slowly pulled the contents of the vial into his syringe and approached Jaina. He tapped all the air out of it and pushed the plunger so a small spurt of the gray serum left the tip of the needle.
The reason for the archaic instrument went beyond the crude torture aspect of this procedure. If Martin had used a hypospray, Jaina would have been able to deactivate the device with the Force. Now the only way she could fight back was by trying to control Martin's hand with the Force, not an easy task, especially in her drugged state.
Jaina squirmed and struggled against her bonds, but she could not find the strength to break free. Martin had removed her cloak when she had been unconscious, and he braced his left hand against one of her bare arms. His strength held the appendage immobile. "For the record," he started, holding the needle above her arm, "I'm going to want to know exactly what this feels like."
Before he could insert the needle, a voice came over the room's intercom system. "Senator Keld," the voice sounded frantic, "we have a problem up here."
It was the secretary at the front desk. Martin stepped away from Jaina and tapped his chest to activate his personal communicator. "Marian," he scolded, "do not talk to me over the intercom. Use the room's private communicator."
"Sir," she replied, "I've been trying to, but it is busy."
"Busy?" Martin said as he walked over to the com-station in the corner of the room. Sure enough it was on and transmitting. The speaker was also activated so that it would pick up everything that was said in the room. Martin's face went ashen as he saw that it was transmitting to a frequency within the senate chambers. "Who ..." He spun on Jaina.
She was smiling. "It's over," she said.
"How long has this been on?!" He shouted, storming back across the room.
"Long enough," she replied, not caring what happened to her now. "Senator Belsiphvin heard everything you said."
"Sir," it was the secretary again, still on the intercom system, "Republic Guards have entered the building. Lots of them."
"You stupid bitch!" Martin hollered as he slapped Jaina viciously across the face. "You will rot in Hell!" He grabbed onto her arm and plunged the needle into her flesh.
Though Jaina had been told to pay attention so she could describe the feeling later, she knew she would never be able to properly explain the sensation that coursed through her. The millions of midichlorians inside her shrieked out in terror as they were incinerated one at a time by the potent virus. Martin backed away in fright himself as Jaina arched her back away from the table in pain, letting go a horrific scream.
It felt like hot lava was flowing through her veins and an awful darkness was left in its wake. As the serum spread throughout her body, Jaina went through violent spasms. The thick rope that held her down was no match for her Force enhanced convulsions and snapped under her new found strength. Her eyes saw only red and her ears hummed in anguish as her body was stripped of midichlorians.
Some remote awareness told here that Republic Guards were flooding into the room and that a brief firefight ensued, but that was all secondary right now. The pain only subsided as the last of the virus spread to the farthest reaches of her body, silencing the cries of terror that had filled her mind. The silence was nearly was awful as the violent spasms had been, and as darkness closed over her, Jaina lost consciousness again – right at the stroke of midnight.
***
Jaina awoke, lying among white sheets. Her upper body was elevated slightly, propped up with soft pillows. She quickly tried to reach out to the Force, and was happy to find a quiet whisper of a response. It was not as omnipresent as it had once been, but it was still there.
Jaina opened her eyes and looked at her uncle. Luke smiled at her. "How are you feeling?"
"Weak," she responded. "Weak and confused." Jaina turned to look beside her and was overjoyed to see Jacen lying the bed next to her. He looked to be asleep. There was a tube coming from his arm and entering her own. "The virus?"
"You defeated it," Luke replied.
"But I ..."
Luke raised his hand. "The Keld's underestimated the strength of the Force. We do not get our Force ability from the midichlorians. Through them we are able to commune with the Force, but they do not provide us with the ability to use it. That comes from something much deeper. Once your body had been bleached of midichlorians, the virus became dormant, and the Force defeated it. Your blood now contains the antivirus that will protect the rest of us if someone decides to take up the Keld's work."
"Will they?" Jaina asked.
Luke shook his head. "Martin is dead. The shake down is still going on, but it appears that more than just a few of the KHRC's staff were involved with the development of this virus with full knowledge of what they were doing. It's a shame. The Center has saved thousands of lives over the years with the discoveries they have made. It was a very effective cover. The senate is looking into a way to keep the Center operational. Your mother is heading up the committee to over see it.
Jaina looked back at her brother who was still sleeping. "And Jacen?"
"Senator Belsiphvin stopped the execution just in time. All charges have been dropped, and the stories of the heroic 'Caylin' are just starting to surface. If Jacen had not acted as he did, not only would the Jedi's future be in doubt, but the KHRC would have continued to test their deadly viruses on the innocent people of Coruscant. Caylin's fans have a lot of reasons to sing his praise."
"And my midichlorians?"
"You are getting a transfusion as we speak. Though the Keld's might not have been able to remove our Force ability as they wished, they could have very easily killed all midichlorians everywhere. You are both deserving of heroic praise."
Luke walked over to inspect the blood transfusion and pulled Jaina's sheets up over her arm. "Now get some sleep. It will be a while before you regain you proper midichlorian count, and until then, you will be weak."
Luke left the room and turned off the lights. Jaina looked over at her brother and smiled. Sleep came easily. She dreamed of Caylin, a young Jedi that protected the defenseless people of Coruscant, and of his sister, Serina Skylo. Together, they pushed back the evil that permeated from the lower levels of Coruscant. Many stories would be written about them.
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