I Know Something About Pain You Don't

Whenever she got back to Fandom, Tahiri was going to have to thank Master Skywalker for the lesson in crash-landing half a Star Destroyer, because it had not been fun crash-landing their stolen Yuuzhan Vong ship into what used to be Coruscant's Western Sea to the tune of Corran's repeated and acerbic commentary. He'd been needling her the whole time with comments meant to constantly remind her that he didn't trust her, because he didn't know who she was any more. Granted, that Star Destroyer had had standard technological controls and not the living cognition hood she had to wear to fly this ship (and that hadn't been any more fun this time around either), but she felt like the principle was largely the same.

( By the time she'd steered the ship clear of the giant digestive system that the worldshapers had grown to replace the planet's sewage system and brought it to the surface of the liquid (whatever it was, it could digest yorik coral so it wasn't just water) and they were picking their way through the caverns of Coruscant's underlevels, she'd absolutely had enough. )

[OOC: The NFI/NFB/slightly-tl;dr/OOC-okay dance goes on, as does the dance of still-adapted-from The Final Prophecy by Greg Keyes. I swear, I really did cut this down. It's just there's all this great Tahiri and Corran banter and it's haaaaaaaaard.]

Tahiri had never been a fan of waiting, but she'd been doing just that for so long now it might have been days, and as she sat in the cockpit of her X-Wing (really, these boots could come off any time now), half listening to the comm chatter, she wondered how much time had passed in Fandom. She and her pilots -- who'd dubbed themselves Barefoot Squadron, much to her self-conscious amusement -- had trained and drilled for weeks on end both as a squadron and as part of the fleetwide Jedi Force-meld strategy. The past three months had been spent in a series of diversionary attacks against Yuuzhan Vong-held Core worlds, per Admiral Kre'fey's plan.

The concept was fairly simple: they'd hit a poorly defended planet and win by virtue of numbers, and in the process the novice pilots would gain experience, the fleet would build morale, and most importantly they'd cover up their ultimate destination of Ebaq 9. Jaina and Twin Suns Squadron had been on that hellish little asteroid for a while; although Admiral Ackbar hadn't outright said so, Tahiri knew the Yuuzhan Vong would do anything to capture one or both of the Solo twins and thus Jaina was bait in a trap. Tahiri was curious as to how she was doing. She worried about Jaina, maybe more so than she did about the one in Fandom, since her Jaina didn't have the same kind of support structure. She suspected the other Tahiri was in the same position.

( She was just extending her senses toward Ebaq 9 when a shockwave of horror lanced through the Force, and she knew where it was coming from. )

[OOC: NFB, NFI, OOC okay, pi to the fifteenth decimal point. Plot points of the Battle of Ebaq 9 taken from Destiny's Way by Walter Jon Williams, but guess who disappeared from this part of the narrative, forcing me to make stuff up? I shouldn't be allowed to make things up. One more later today and that's it.]

This, Tahiri reflected as she adjusted her uniform for the fifth time, could be considered absolutely ridiculous. There was a lot that was absurd, actually: that she was in a New Republic military uniform (though insignia-free, since she wasn't actually part of the military) to begin with, that they let her get away without wearing regulation boots, that she was at this meeting in her new capacity as a squadron commander.

The cherry topping on the ice cream sundae of absurdity here was the fact that here she was, sitting in one of the leather armchairs in the Ralroost's conference room waiting for the strategic planning meeting to start, and her feet didn't touch the floor.

Seriously. Under less strict circumstances this would be hilarious.

( Tahiri had to revise that opinion fairly quickly, though, when Jacen took the seat next to her and gave her a smile, and she had to remind herself not to freeze up or move away. )

[OOC: NFB, NFI, OOC okay, insert gratuitous acronyms here. Adapted from (and dialogue taken from) the short story Ylesia by Walter Jon Williams, and WTF canon, WHY DO YOU HAVE A SEPARATE SHORT STORY SET BETWEEN TWO CHAPTERS OF THE BOOK?!?]

Tahiri had been expecting this call for a while now; she just hadn't expected it to come now, and she supposed the timing could've been worse. It could've been better, granted, but she'd sort of given up on hoping for these things to ever happen at a good time.

Times like this, she wished packing involved more than just making sure she had her comlink, blaster, and lightsaber and throwing a couple of spare sets of clothing (including a certain too-big-for-her shirt) into a bag along with her datapad and oh yeah, those stupid boots. Which she'd need more than usual on this trip, she knew. She wasn't sure how ready she'd be for all this, although out of everything she was expecting, it was the prospect of seeing Jacen that had her the most worried, so it would've been nice to have to concentrate more on packing. Traveling light had its downsides.

It wasn't just for the sake of keeping herself busy between now and the time her shuttle arrived that she left messages for a few people, of course, although she felt bad about giving people more to worry about on the heels of the past week.

So. Packing as slowly as possible, and trying to stay calm. Force, she hoped she was ready for this, but seriously, she was sixteen years old and needed boots just to reach the foot yokes in an X-Wing, and who'd thought it was a good idea to give her a kriffing squadron, anyway?

[OOC: Establishy, but open -- it's canon catchup tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime again.]