Crash and Burn

"Here we are," Jacen said, and his gaze followed upwards along an almost vertical path. He was staring at the side of a mountain, if it could really be called a mountain; those usually had slopes. This one rose up from the dirt in front of them, with only about a hundred meters before the rocky ground began to tilt towards the sky, and another hundred before it shot straight to it.

"How close are we to the equator?" Anakin asked. He dropped his backpack and shook out his arms and legs. "We've been walking for more than two weeks."

"Two weeks isn't much and the first three days were slow. I think we've got another thousand kilometers to go."

Anakin groaned and sat down on their dwindling sack of food. "Can't we take a day to rest? If we're going to have to be climbing up that steep of a slope for a week, we shouldn't do it tired."

"We'd have to be crazy and suicidal to try to climb over the mountain here. The stream ends and runs underground, and I don't see any other water for us to collect."

"Well, maybe it will rain or snow."

"We haven't seen rain or snow even once since we landed."

"Has to rain somewhere." Anakin shrugged.

"No, it doesn't, and even if you're right, we need it now. Come on, let's find a place to walk over that's easier to climb and has some kind of a river or a spring nearby."

They left their sacks behind and spent the rest of the day exploring, each in an opposite direction. Jacen expanded his senses as well as he could. He followed the minds of tiny jumping insects and a few birds, all that he could find that hadn't already settled in for the winter. The birds hastened over the mountain range at speeds a human could not possibly match without an airspeeder, as though they tried to make the journey in only a few days. The insects were hopping slowly and finding small shreds of plant life or smaller insects, sucking out all the water and nutrients as they built their hard exoskeletons to seal them in. Jacen didn't think either of those methods were going to help him.

Jedi don't give up.

Still, Jacen returned to the hollow cave, where the stream met the mountains and disappeared beneath them, with nothing. He arrived before Anakin; his thoughts were first shame for failure to find a solution, then worry that something had delayed his brother and kept him from returning before dark. "Anakin?" he called out. There was no answer. "Anakin?!"

He grabbed his lightsaber, heart pounding, and he took off running. I shouldn't have left him alone. Not without a weapon. I-

"Jacen, what's the matter?" Anakin appeared at Jacen's side, panting from a long sprint. "I heard you yelling and thought something was trying to tear your leg off."

"Well, I thought you fell and hit your head or got lost. The sun's down and you don't have a light source."

Anakin sighed and shook his head at Jacen. "You worry too much. I know what I'm doing. What did you find?"

"Nothing," Jacen admitted. "It's a long way over the mountains and there's no good path to the west, unless it's a lot further out than I went. You?"

"Well, not a lot more. There's one spot where we can walk without too many vertical climbs and the ones that are there are short. I think it's where two mountains are separating, but the rocks aren't any more jagged than anywhere else, so there haven't been any really recent earthquakes."

"Earthquakes," Jacen muttered. "Just what we need. Any streams that way?"

"No, but if we can get over the mountain in less than four days, we'll be all right."

"Four days? Four days? It's going to be weeks. A fast overhead flight, without stopping to sleep, is at least two or three days. Do you have wings?"

Anakin held out his arms to show that he didn't. "What are we supposed to do, then?"

Jacen sighed. It always came back to him, and if his decision had a bad ending, then it was his fault more than anyone else's. "I guess we'll go as far as we can, and if we don't think we'll make it over the whole way, we turn around and try to think of something else."

Their travels were slow, even when they were fully rested and had eaten the rest of their food. Jacen felt weighed down by the massive quantity of water he drank, and he had the filled keg strapped to his back. They walked a winding path around and over jutting chunks of gray rock, then up a twenty-meter rock face. His fingers dug desperately into tiny crevices and he pulled himself up with both his own strength and the Force. He couldn't hold back here; it wasn't just his own self-preservation kicking in, but knowing that they had better chances of survival together than apart, and his death or injury would make things far worse for Anakin.

They kept on going. Twice, Jacen relieved himself into an empty leather sack in case they were in such need as to distill urine for drinking water over a fire with the pure-water condensation collected in the hollow tent tubing (although he sincerely hoped that it wouldn't reach that point), His stomach growled, he shivered, and several times stumbled and nearly fell, but he never stopped until it was too dark to see where they were going without the light of his green lightsaber.

By the end of the second day, their water was almost gone and they had nothing else to substitute, not even leaves or blades of grass big enough for them to pull up and chew on. "We could try to cross one at a time," Anakin said. "You go first, and I'll hide near the cave. It's not so windy there, and I might be able to put together some more water skins and follow you."

"No." Jacen grabbed Anakin's arm. "We don't separate for that long, and it wouldn't help anyway; we can't get over the mountains fast enough. We'll go back now, together, and if we have to stop where we are, we stop."

The way down was a faster journey than the way up, but if Jacen had been any thirstier, he would have opened up their reserve sack and drained it without even waiting to build a fire. He knelt by the cold stream instead and grabbed slushy handfuls of ice chunks and filled his mouth with them. The cold hurt his teeth and the tiny ice particles scratched his throat on the way down, but he didn't care.

It was settled, then, that they couldn't get over the mountains, without hitching a ride on the few birds that still raced over the peaks. They were too small to carry the boys unless there were many of them, and he didn't have the Force power needed to call enough dozens of them down and hold their minds for the whole way. They had to stay where they were, which was some progress, at least, and hope that they could protect themselves against the winter weather.

"Jacen?"

"What?"

"The cave is big enough for us to climb into, and it's warmer in there. Let's check it out."

Grateful for something to do, some small chance of a new option, Jacen crouched by the two-meter opening and waded through the waters. It reached almost to the tops of his boots, but didn't seep into them, and he felt only slightly chilled the further into the cave he went. He saw faintly glowing rock walls in the cavern, four times wider than the opening; the walls were covered in a thin layer of multi-colored fungus that emitted enough light to see easily once his eyes adjusted to the difference in intensity. No ice survived more than the first ten meters, except for a few very large pieces that were rapidly melting.

"So this is how the fish manage not to freeze," Jacen said, and he clapped Anakin on the shoulder. "Good job. Let's see where the cave leads to."

So they couldn't go over the mountains; they were still planning on getting through. Compared to the overland route, the underground way was a virtual paradise. It was dark, damp, and smelled musty, but warm enough, and there was no shortage of drinking water. They ate fish and red mushrooms - the orange and blue were probably poisonous, and Anakin was violently ill after sampling the green ones, but fortunately it passed quickly and he fully recovered within an hour.

Jacen reluctantly had to drop some of their supplies when they came to the first of several narrow passages. The keg was first to go, then the remains of their tent. Eventually they had only their weapons and clothing, but didn't stop, traveling until they were exhausted and could find a safe place to climb up and nap. He lost all sense of day and night and relied on Welk's watch to tell the time and day. They had been swimming and wading for twelve days, and there was still no signs to indicate that they were coming close to an opening in the mountain range.

Many times there was no clear path to follow, and the small river appeared to terminate. In each place, though, an underwater conduit led them to the next stretch of river. Then they swam through, one at a time, holding their breath as long as they could and swimming fast to get to the other side before their trembling chests spasmed and forced them to breathe.

On the seventeenth day, they couldn't find the tunnel.

"We're not going back," Anakin said stubbornly.

"We couldn't even if we wanted to; some of those tunnels are too long to swim through against the current."

Anakin shrugged and climbed up one of the sloping ledges and picked off a handful of red fungus. "There's an outlet. There has to be, because if there wasn't, the water couldn't get out and would back up to the ceiling."

"Small holes, maybe," said Jacen. He stood waist-high in the warm water at the edge of a rock shelf; a meter beyond him, the floor sloped steeply down and there the water was much too deep to stand in.

"Then how did the stormfins get through? A few of those were as big around as I am, and I don't see any stormfins now. They got out somehow and the water isn't all that deep." His mouth stayed open, as though he was about to say something else, but he looked down at his ledge and didn't say it. "I think we should find the hole, and fast. The water's rising."

Jacen took a drink of water to wet his suddenly dry mouth and nodded. He swam the perimeter of the cave and found nothing, so he and Anakin dove under the surface, looking for the hole. They didn't find it, but after twenty minutes, the water began to recede and finally rested a half-meter below the western ledge.

The waterline continued to cycle, rising slightly and then falling. Jacen timed the cycles, and saw that it reached its highest point every forty-six minutes. Anakin then burst from the surface of the water, his dark hair clinging to his neck and face. "I found the hole in the cave wall," he said. "Actually, there are two of them, and even the bigger one is small, but big enough for a stormfin, so it should be big enough for us. I think I saw the other end. We'll make it."

"Wait for the waterline to start dropping," said Jacen. "That will increase the water pressure behind us and the flow should be faster."

"All right. You're not claustrophobic, are you?"

"Who, me? No. Are you?"

"No," said Anakin.

Jacen nodded, and as soon as they saw the river creep up over the ledge and start to go down, Anakin swam down towards the tunnel. Jacen waited tensely for another five minutes, then took a deep breath and dove.

He had tied his lightsaber to his right wrist and had his knives sheathed and strapped to his stomach. The tunnel narrowed so much that Jacen had to pull himself through it; rocks caught on his belt loops and tried to hold him back. Seconds turned into a minute, and then into two. His lungs burned and he grasped desperately at the rough surfaces ahead of him; the end of the tunnel was in sight, and he just had to make it another ten meters... another five... two...

The end of the tunnel was a few centimeters narrower even than the rest, and Jacen squeezed himself through. He contorted his shoulders to push them out of the opening and then twisted back, with discomfort blossoming into pain as the rocks pinched his hips. He was lean, but still had a larger frame than Anakin, and could barely fit as he braced himself, hands on the rock wall, and pushed at them to bring his lower body out of the tunnel.

He couldn't do it.

Jacen reached up over his head, or at least in the direction he thought was up, and came up with nothing but more water. There was a gentle pressure behind him, but it wasn't enough to force him through, and although it occurred to him to leave his pants behind and save a little bit of space by crawling out of them, there wasn't enough room for him to reach back inside and unfasten them.

Jedi don't give up, and Jedi don't panic.

Jacen was still perilously close to panic. He fought off the reflexive gasp and kicked madly, trying to get out of the tunnel by any means necessary - even if it meant shredding his clothes and leaving a few scraps of skin behind. But he was weakening by the second, and finally all his concentration was taken by overcoming the urge to breathe. Blackness ate away at the edges of his vision and small bursts of yellow light appeared dancing before his eyes.

Something wrapped around him and pulled, but to no avail. It let go, and Jacen crept closer and closer to unconsciousness. The last bubbles of his breath leaked out of his mouth and nose. The lightsaber, Anakin. I'm going to drop it, he thought, and he felt the thin rope slide down his hand and over it. He didn't have the strength to grab the rope.

He felt his hair being grabbed and his head being pulled up. His mouth was covered with something strong and wet, and hot air filled his mouth and throat. Jacen watched a shadow float up and away from him, and he stayed as still as he could, disoriented but unwilling to cede his life to the river.

The shadow returned in less than two minutes and breathed into him again. He feebly reached toward it, but the shadow was stronger than he was, and left him to fight his burning chest alone until its third trip.

Jacen didn't know how long he was submerged; he couldn't see well enough to check the chrono and was focusing too much on just staying alive. Anakin passed by him once to retrieve the dropped lightsaber, but came back rapidly to keep Jacen from drowning, until the waters went through a full pressure cycle and started to push hard from behind again.

He was still too weak to yank himself out, but Anakin stood against the rock wall and wrapped his arms under Jacen's, then pulled as hard as he could. Jacen felt rock scraping against his hip and cut into it, but that meant he was moving, and with renewed energy he kicked and tried to find purchase with his boots. In thirty seconds he was free, and clung to Anakin as they swam up to the surface.

Hot, musty air.

That was what heaven must have felt like.

Jacen had one hand on the wall of the cavern and the other grasping Anakin's shoulder, and he took several deep, shuddering breaths before even trying to speak. "I - I thought I was going to drown," he said. "Thanks, Anakin. Thank you. You saved my life and that's not an exaggeration." He slid down from the wall and squeezed Anakin while they treaded water.

"We're even now," Anakin said, and squeezed back. "I'm not going to let you die like that. If we go out, we go out fighting the Sith, not stuck in a water tunnel."

The full gravity of the situation came crashing down on Jacen now that he was lucid enough to replay it in his head, and first he felt fear, then relief. He held onto Anakin like he never wanted to separate; it was too close a call for him to feel comfortable alone.

Anakin didn't say anything at first, but looked right into Jacen's eyes, and smoothed back his wet hair. "I didn't want to lose you," he finally whispered.

Jacen leaned his head forward, closer, and tilted it a little bit, then touched his lips to Anakin's. He just wanted to taste their slight saltiness again, and feel how soft they were - his lifeline for the most frightening half-hour he could remember. He pressed harder and felt the rusting buttons of Anakin's jacket digging into his chest. Don't let go of me, Anakin, he thought. Not now.

After a few moments Anakin pulled his head away and tipped Jacen's down, then kissed his forehead. "We need to find a spot to rest. I'm too tired to keep swimming."

Jacen nodded. "Me, too."

Their eyes met again, for a second. "Uh, Jacen?"

"Oh. Yeah."

He released Anakin and they paddled over to the side of the cave, where they climbed up onto a narrow surface and fell asleep, with Jacen's head on Anakin's shoulder.