Crash and Burn

CHAPTER THREE

Jacen pulled himself out of the tar-laden quicksand inside his mind - the thick darkness that washed over him and tried to suck him under. He breathed deeply, drawing in as much of the sticky, sour air as the stabbing arrows of pain in his left side would allow. Slowly, his eyes focused; a gray blur separated into smears of lighter gray and brown, then to a fuzzy lump between nondescript geometric patterns.

He coughed, then winced as he felt something cut into his side. He reached under his jacket and touched the center of the sore area, even though that made it hurt even more. Broken rib, he thought. At least that was all that he'd broken, and it was possible that it was merely bruised.

The rest of the scene came into view, lit by flickering and sparking lights overhead, and like an ancient picture reel running backwards, scenes of the past several minutes came snapping towards him. He was inside an escape pod, one ejected from the Silent Runner minutes before its detonation. The detonation that took the lives of two fellow Jedi, and could just as easily have taken him.

Them.

Jacen reached over a tumbled box, which had broken loose of its leather bindings when the pod struck ground. He carefully lifted Anakin's chin and placed his other hand over the younger man's nose and mouth. Anakin was still breathing, and Jacen felt his muscles relax just a little bit.

"Come on," he said. "We need to get out and take a look at the pod."

Anakin twitched and is eyes flutered open. Both were bloodshot, and he squeezed them close again, with his face twisting, as he tried to stand.

"Anakin? Can you hear me?"

Anakin mumbled something slurred and leaned back against the pod wall. Jacen grabbed his wrist and checked his pulse; weak, rapid, but steady. There were no obvious signs of grievous injury, like limbs bent oddly or blood-soaked clothing. Jacen pushed the bedroll under Anakin's arm, to help prop him up, and then tried to open he door.

He wasn't entirely surprised when it didn't slide open, even after he yanked the handle and then kicked at the stuck hinges. His heart, though, started to race as he climbed up on top of the box to reach the six latched holding the emergency top hatch closed. If that didn't open either, then the only way out would be to cut their way through with a lightsaber, and that would irreparably damage the pod. Unless someone happened to be around with the necessary equipment to make those repairs, and that seemed extremely unlikely.

Jacen's what-ifs were for naught, though, because he managed to pop open the latches and open the hatch. He climbed out and extended a hand to Anakin, who stumbled as he climbed up and out, but with Jacen's help was able to reach the top.

Jacen took a long look at the pod's exterior and sighed. "It's not going to fly again," he said, waving one arm at the crumpled base. Part of a crushed light cover lay shattered on the grayish white soil.

"There's hardly any fuel in an escape pod anyway," Anakin said.

That got a nod of agreement out of Jacen. It was likely that they were stuck where they were until someone came to get them, and those people might well be the crew of the Stellar Imperial Star Destroyer that they encountered in the Marstill system. "Blaster bolts," he muttered.

"Where?" Anakin reached for his lightsaber.

"Nowhere, with any luck. I was just talking about the situation we're in. Well... maybe we're fortunate. The air is breathable and it's only a little bit chilly. Plus, we're each in one piece." That was all they had going for them, really, but even those few things were needed.

"So, what now?" Anakin asked. He peeled off his rancid flight suit in as dignified a manner as possible, leaving him in a pair of soft black trousers and a light blue undershirt. "How do we make sure that our signals get intercepted by the right people and not the wrong ones?"

"I don't know." Jacen was still reeling inside from their narrow escape from worse danger, and the deaths of their teammates. He had never gotten along well with Tiera, despite his best efforts, and Vurif's harshness at times put both the Solo boys on the defensive. But deep down, they were good people. Tiera, an outcast among her own fairly reclusive people and never really fitting into mainstream galactic society either, had still done her best every day to deal with being a square peg from a triangular world now crammed into a round hole. Vurif cast aside 20 years of military background and success to pursue a life of greater peace, only to lose that life when others' actions forced peaceful people into yet another war.

Jedi aren't supposed to fight. Now we did, and look what happened. He shook his head slowly.

"Jacen?" Anakin took a step towards him and raised his eyebrows.

"Sorry. I was thinking."

"Maybe we should think less and do more. Can you contact Uncle Luke?"

The gnawing anxiety in Jacen's gut suddenly turned into a snapping bite. "The portable comm system was in the other pod," he managed to say.

"What? We don't have anything?"

"Nothing but the comlinks, and Solo luck."

Anakin scowled and looked up at Jacen - not such a long way up anymore, now that Anakin was almost as tall as he was. "This isn't funny! We're now stranded on... on Sith-knows-where, with no way off. And the Stellar Empire probably does know where we are, and they're just as bad!"

"Anakin, calm down. We've been in tighter spots than this."

"Name one from the last five years."

Jacen drew a blank. "Look, you're the one who said to think less and do more. So help me unload the pod, and then we can take a look around and find out what we have to work with."

"You unload the pod." Anakin folded his arms. "It's your fault we're here. If you hadn't shot those TIE fighters like a drunk shooting clay hawkbats, then we could have made the jump to Kalla Tora and we'd already have gone from there to Dantooine and home again! But no, you can't use the Force to help you shoot at living things. Even when those people are trying to kill you and three others, one of whom is your own brother. Now the other two are dead and we might be soon." His voice rose in volume and pitch as he spoke. "Is that what you wanted, Jacen? Do you feel good abou yourself now because you stuck to your pacifist morals? Mother grew up on a plane with no weapons systems and even she is willing to use force and the Force to defend others. Pat yourself on the back, because I won't." Anakin crumpled his flight suit, threw it at Jacen, and stormed off.

"Anakin, wait! Where are you going?"

"To look and see if anybody else lives here. It's more than you're doing. Don't worry; I'll be fine. I still use the Force when I need to."

"Just like our grandfather, huh?" The moment the words left Jacen's mouth, he regretted saying them, but it was too late to take them back. "Anakin!"

Anakin didn't turn around. He disappeared, down a gently sloping hill, and Jacen only watched him go, wondering how much of what had been said was true. It wasn't really his fault they were stuck in the middle of nowhere, was it? No, of course not; they were victims of the Stellar Empire, and of a turn of fate. Lady Luck thought to save their lives, but her favor had not been total.

Jacen pulled out the box of rations, their camping supplies, and first aid kit. There were enough closed cans of the orange "space milk" to last them four days - maybe it could be stretched to a week, or even two, if they went hungry a lot, but no more than that. He couldn't even get a good guess on how long it would take for someone to find them, unless they could build a transmitter to send a distress signal to nearby systems. The question of how to keep their call away from Empress Shira's navy was moot if they couldn't make the call at all.

But Anakin was the one who was good with electronics. Jacen managed as well as he could, but he didn't have the same gift. He tried to call Anakin on his comlink, but got no reply. Jacen sighed and stood up, then went off in search of his brother.

The search was short. Anakin had only gone about two kilometers, and now stood over a narrow but deep crack in the ground where water was flowing. "Hey, Anakin," Jacen said.

That got no response for a few moments, but then Anakin replied without looking up: "What do you want?"

"I got our tent out. We could find a good spot to pitch it."

"You know how to do it."

Jacen counted to ten before speaking. "Let it go, all right? We have two very big problems right now. One, we have no way to get a message out to anyone who can help get us home. Two, we're going to run out of food very soon. Now you can stay in a snit and waste time and increase the chances that we're going to die, or you can grow up and come back to the campsite."

Anakin lifted his head and stared at Jacen for half a minute, his jaw set hard. Then he softened his expression and shrugged his shoulders. "All right. I found a bit of a stream, anyway. Don't know if the water is safe."

"We'll find out. Right now I think the biggest thing is to get ready for nightfall and try to figure out how long the days and nights are here. The sun is already starting to drop towards the horizon. In the morning, we'll come and check out your water supply."

"Okay." Anakin worked his mouth around, as though the apology was on the tip of his tongue, but he didn't say it. "So, uh, we can't talk to Uncle Luke. What about Jaina? You could reach her more easily than I could."

"Already tried it," Jacen said, and started to lead Anakin back towards the hill. "We're way too far away from each other. It's been getting harder and harder for us to communicate - telepathy is too much. I didn't even know when she broke her leg on her trip to Tatooine; I just had a vague feeling that something was wrong."

"The Dark Side is getting stronger and it's clouding the Force," Anakin said.

"Yes, and that's another reason we can't be relying on it. No, I'm not going to try to lecture you. It won't help anything. And I'm sorry I said you were acting like... acting like Grandfather Skywalker."

"Forgiven. Just don't do anything stupid, Jace. Please."

The begging tone made Jacen smile, and he said, "I promise."

They got back to the crash site and set up their large tent in only a few minutes. Anakin cheated a little when he lifted the long metal poles, offsetting their weight with telekinesis, but Jacen held his tongue and continued working his own way.

Then they set up the perimeter, a cordon around the tent and a few square meters around it, to keep predators out. It was soaked in slow-release chemicals that smelled, to Jacen, faintly like citrus, but repelled most predatory carnivores. Perhaps when they were more settled in, they could take the time to figure out what wildlife were around and what their habits were, but now they were surrounded by nothing but a few tall, thin-trunked trees and small insects that were effectively repelled by a light spraying of generic bug repellent. Nothing large was close enough to be a threat, but Jacen still thought it was wise to put up the cordon, just to be sure.

After they were done setting up their camp, they lit two lamps and had a few moments of silence for Tiera Aranta and Vurif Meg. "We'll make sure they aren't forgotten," Jacen said. "When we see Uncle Luke and Mom and Dad and Jaina and everybody else, we'll tell them all about what they did."

"Vurif didn't put up with anybody's shavit, and he was a hard-working man. Always got the job done. Or... at least gave it a hundred percent." Anakin nodded as though to emphasize the point. "And Tiera, she remembered everything. Like the time I poured ink on her blouse when I was five and she was just starting at the academy. And the iron ring puzzle I made for her when she was Knighted."

"How long did it take her to solve it?"

"One minute, ten seconds," Anakin said with a chuckle.

Jacen waited about that long, then deactivated the lamps and opened up a can of their nutrient drink. "It's cold, and we're going to have to share it," he said, and poured half of the can's contents into a cup.

"It's all right. Don't really care for the stuff anyway."

"Me, either."

Jacen and Anakin clinked the can and cup together. "To exploring new planets," Anakin said.

Jacen smiled and bravely swallowed his drink in two gulps.