Crash and Burn

This is going to be easier than I had assumed it would be, thought Welk. There was nowhere for the Jedi brats to run to, and no one to come to their aid - their uncle would not run to their rescue this time. He felt the determination coming from Lieutenant Odact, who was still a bit green, and eager to prove himself through perfect execution of a task that, on paper, looked difficult: chase down Anakin and Jacen Solo and bring them to the Eternity, bound, where they would be tortured until they gave up information pertaining to where their partners had gone to. On the other hand, General Baclaw was barely keeping her bloodthirst in check; she had some minimal training in using the Force to enhance her senses and power, but only the barest essentials in keeping her desire for that power from getting in the way. Only the idea that the Solo boys would be chained and in white-hot agony, should they survive, calmed her enough that she agreed to command her troops to stun them instead of reducing their bodies to piles of burned meat for carrion birds.

Those creatures behind the Jedi might be a problem, he mused. But not much. I don't think they can handle military explosives. He raised one of his arms and cried out, "Fire!"

Anakin jumped forward with his lightsaber held out. It swished back and forth in a violet blur, and the weak blaster shots bounced harmlessly away. Jacen leaped in the opposite direction and deflected blaster fire as he ran.

"Targets are separating!" General Baclaw shouted. "My company, after Target Violet!"

---

Jacen dove behind a tree and stood there, with nothing but a few dozen meters and one thin trunk, not much bigger around than he was, separating him from twelve troopers. He wanted to leave his post and run to his brother's side, but he couldn't; even if he would make it to Anakin's clearing without getting shot, that would just concentrate all the fire in one place. Where he stood, he at least was drawing off half of it.

He heard the sizzling of bolts streaking into the dry wood. Smoke billowed up from the holes and washed over him, stinging his eyes and nose. Jacen took a few deep breaths and forced himself not to respond to the pain in his eyes, not to let them water to wash away the irritants. He needed to see, to use his waning Force sense as well as his eyes, to find where the worst of the danger was.

The sound of plodding hooves was barely audible over the zings and pews.

Jacen turned his head and saw Anakin, his face frozen with resolve, inching toward a tree of his own. But as the younger man backed up, he was putting himself directly in the path of the walker queen, who had crossed half the former distance between her grove and the troopers. Her mouth was open, with sharp, thick teeth ready to sink into their morsel.

Anakin glanced back and saw the walker queen, then looked frantically for another way to escape the troopers. There was none; their decision to go into the thicker part of the forest was going to be the thing that defeated them, with no clear paths anywhere. Death by devouring was on one side, capture and death by Sith torture on the other. He caught Jacen's eye, desperation melting his firm expression: Help me! Help me fight them off! Please!

Jacen deactivated his lightsaber before he had a chance to change his mind. He drew in his breath, once, slowly, and nodded. Then he threw it the saber at the troopers and came out with both hands over his head, palms facing the men. "Stop! I surrender! Let Anakin go and you can take me."

The blaster fire stopped. Jacen breathed a sigh of relief and sank to the ground on his knees. He refused to think about what would happen to him, beyond that he was a Jedi Knight, and he could withstand whatever he had to. Even though his arms shook and his stomach was knotted tightly, he felt, in his heart, that he had done the right thing. The hard thing, but the one that would end the battle and save everyone's lives, except possibly his own. Run, Anakin!

"Almost predictable," the robed man said. His gaze flicked up towards the advancing walkers. "Stun him and bring him in."

"We only need one to torture," the woman said. Her voice was crisp, simultaneously a crackling fire and brittle icicles, nothing in between. Jacen willed his trembling knees to still, and he braced himself for the blast.

"Take care of Anakin, then," the leader replied.

"You heard Lord Welk, boys!" Her alto voice rose to excited mid-pitched trills. "Shoot to kill! Aim for his head!"

No! Jacen scrambled to his feet and frantically scanned the dirt, looking for his lightsaber. He saw it four meters away, and called it back to his hand. The split second of lag time between his exertion of his will on the object and the Force answering his call almost put him out of the battle again, but he was able to block the two stun bolts that came for him, and get ready for a barrage of more. His heart pounded and he heard someone breathing in ragged gasps, only to realize that it was him.

Crunches sounded behind them, and then around them. The walker king and queen had reached the crowd and continued to advance - toward the troopers. Jacen ran through the moving tangle of legs and almost fell when one of the adult walkers planted a heavy foot in the place where he was about to step. The clearing shook with the rapidly thundering steps of a hundred starving walkers and it was lit by a wash of energy bolts in blue and green.

A man cried out, and his gray helmet roll away, torn off the head of its wearer. Troopers were trampled and bitten, and one was torn to shreds, lifted in the walker king's mouth before being thrown back down in a tangled, blood-soaked mess. Another was crushed from the waist down when a dead walker fell on top of him, and he struggled to get out for several seconds; his fingers stilled in their tight grip on handfuls of rock and dirt.

Something exploded. Chunks of wet, grayish flesh blew in every direction, and the sound of the detonation made Jacen's ears ring. He shook his head vigorously and caught up to Anakin, who was shaken but unhurt, except for a dirty scrape on his elbow. Jacen quickly tossed his arms around him and said, "There's enough of a diversion that we can get away now. Let's go!"

"Where to?"

"Anywhere! Doesn't matter, but the time to move is now." He looked back at the walkers, half of which were now lying on their sides, motionless, either ripped open or scored with long, deep burn marks. It hurt him to see them falling, as their increasing terror and pain entered his own mind with every draw of the Force. He wished that he could help - but they would only have devoured him and Anakin, too, and in their own pitched battle, they were in a way protecting his brother from the troopers. Jacen pulled Anakin for the first few steps and then they both broke into a run.

---

Welk retreated ten meters and watched from the relative safety between and behind two closely growing trees. He pressed his back against one tree and stared up at the darkening treetops, a hundred meters overhead. How could this have happened? They had Jacen disarmed and Anakin struggling with a dozen dark troopers... and now, two minutes later, all but seven of his warriors were killed, and those seven ran amok, thoughts not of the battle but how to avoid the frantic steps of the giant gray blobs-on-legs that had come to the Jedi's aid. Or perhaps the beasts were only attracted by the lights and sounds, but in either case the Jedi boys were running and he was stuck here with wild animals tearing up his men...

Another explosive charge rocked the forest and sent up a cloud of smoke and dust with the heavy scent of old, partially charred and partially raw meat. He wrinkled his nose in disgust and stabbed out through the Force into the animals' minds. Two can play this game, Jedi scum. He tried to flood the few remaining walkers with images of catching and eating the Solo boys, with feelings of complete satiation and health.

"Lord Welk!" General Baclaw shouted over the snorts of the walkers and the screams of the dying troopers. "Twenty-two men down!"

The last Special Ops trooper was pinned back against a rock. His hands were in front of him, as though to push away something advancing on him - and in two seconds he was missing a large part of his torso, torn away and in the mouth of one of the largest walkers. He groaned and slumped over.

"Twenty-three men down!"

Welk had no other choice. He took a very small stick of hard explosive and stuck it into a small hollow in the nearest tree. Then he lit the fuse and raced towards the blood-soaked battlefield. "We'll burn the herd out," he said. "The fire should at least spread far enough to distract them. Don't let the brats get away!"

---

Jacen heard the last blast, one that sounded a little bit different from the others. The forest behind them was suddenly alight before darkening again, and two shadows danced in front of the short-lived ball of flame. "Lord Welk and a company leader," Jacen panted. "They're still coming after us!"

Something hit him in the side and knocked him to the ground. Anakin had thrown himself over Jacen, and they tumbled in a tangled heap. Three streaking yellow bolts, high-power shots meant to destroy and vaporize whatever they touched, sank deep into a tree - through the place where they had been standing - and the tree toppled. "Thanks," Jacen said.

"Least I could do." They got to their feet and didn't even stop to brush themselves off before continuing on. The sun was almost completely set now, and a chill wind whistled through the trees. Jacen was hot from running and he had sweat running down his forehead, but as it rolled down his face it chilled.

Their pursuers weren't giving up. And they were gaining on Jacen and Anakin. Both Jedi starting to tire, but there was no sign that either of the Imperial officers would slow down.

Anakin shouted and jerked away from a blast of light. The lightsaber in his hand began to spark, and he threw it toward the robed man. "What are you doing?" Jacen cried.

"She shot my hand!" Anakin grimaced and bent over, holding his right hand in his left. At that moment, the damaged lightsaber flared into a ball of ions. "Well, that ought to take care of them... I hope..."

Lord Welk and the woman were still coming. She was covered in dirt and soot, and her shoulder-length brown hair was singed, but they advanced through the flame as though it was nothing more than an effect for a holodrama.

Something glowed red, then - Lord Welk's lightsaber. It illuminated his scarred face, and revealed him as a rather young man, probably not much older than Jacen. "We can take him," Anakin said. He straightened up and shook out his injured hand, which had a line of blistering burns across his knuckles. "We'll take them both."

"But your lightsaber..."

Anakin looked up at Jacen, uncertainty in his eyes, and Jacen shoved him towards the sickly trees. "Keep running, and don't look back," he said. "You'll find your way back to the pod."

"Jacen?!"

"GO!"

Anakin ducked and darted away, with his hands covering the side of his head, as if that would protect it from another shot. A line of blue streaks slammed into the dirt all around him as he danced out of the way. The uniformed woman followed after him, shouting, "For the Empire! For the crimes of your father!"

Jacen and Welk clashed in the small clearing, then. Welk shed his robe and stood in body-hugging black pants and a loose, short-sleeved shirt that matched it and was belted tightly at his trim waist. With his gnarled face shining red, he still appeared no less intimidating for not having his cloak.

His attacks were sharp and precise, borne of total focus and reined-in rage. Jacen parried one swing, then another, and then a third. Welk seemed to instinctively know how to keep Jacen reacting, instead of acting, and put him in positions that made him scramble to block the next shot with nary a fraction of a second to spare. Jacen tried to clear his mind and forget about the shots that still lit up the forest with blue sparks. Anakin was on his own. If Jacen fell, then Welk would surely go after Anakin - who didn't even have a lightsaber and probably wouldn't be able to retrieve Jacen's in time.

Welk took advantage of Jacen's brief lapse to make a clean strike towards his head. Jacen ducked and brought up his own green lightsaber, aiming for Welk's wrist. To disarm without killing, and force a surrender; I am still a Jedi Knight.

They were locked in position, both saber beams pressing against the other. Welk leaned forward towards Jacen and hissed, "You can't even kill me, Jedi."

Jacen answered the challenge by jumping back, then screaming and charging forward. Everything narrowed in his mind; no forest, no trees, no Anakin (Anakin who?). There was only him and Welk, and Welk had to be taken down and neutralized. Not killed, but without his fighting arm, he couldn't fight.

He came closer, whirling his saber around with a burst of power. He made a feint, as though to swing towards Welk's chest, and then he pulled back and flicked his wrist to the left. The green blade sliced neatly through Welk's arm, just below his elbow.

Lord Welk screeched and fell to his knees. Jacen brought his blade up near Welk's neck, just close enough for him to feel the heat uncomfortably. "You're my prisoner now," Jacen said. "You're alone, and you're injured."

Then Jacen heard a desperate cry from about a hundred yards away. Welk chuckled, while still panting, and said, "You'd better find out what's happening to your brother."

Anakin cried out again. Jacen backed up a few steps, glaring at Welk, and then he made his decision; then took off in a sprint in the direction of the noise. He saw a red beam behind him again, for a few moments before it migrated out of his line of sight.

---

General Baclaw's blaster rifle had run out of charges, and her power packs were dropped in the initial battle with the gray walkers. That was no matter; she was going to kill Han Solo's son, even if she had to bash his traitorous head in.

She caught up with the boy and grabbed the back of his shirt. Anakin pulled away and tried to twist out of her grip, but she brought up her leg and slammed the bottom of her iron-toed and cleated boot into his back before he could escape her hold.

Anakin tumbled to the ground, but rolled over quickly and jumped to his feet. He faced General Melany Baclaw, with both fists up in front of him, ready to punch and deflect. Her left boot struck his crossed arms, shoving them to his right, and her fist connected solidly with his jaw. He stumbled and fell, striking a few firm roots poking up from the soil, which left scratches and scuffs over the skin of his arm and the side of his face.

Two shadowy figures appeared before his dizzy eyes, and by the time they resolved into one image, a burst of pain in his groin forced all the breath out of him in one agonized scream. He tumbled into a heap on the ground, whimpering, as a pain half like fire and half like crushing radiated out from his bruised crotch. He barely noticed that the cleats of her boot had dug into his thigh and left dozens of tiny moon-shaped cuts.

Then he felt like his side was slammed with a metal bar. She'd kicked him where his side met his back, just underneath his ribcage, and he felt a shattered rib slice through his flesh. Anakin lay on the pebbles, writhing in pain, anchored in place by a spiked weight on the side of his skull. He saw something from a nightmare - no, from that nightmarish day; a walker, coming up behind them. The weight suddenly released, and he tried to crawl, but his shaking legs and arms wouldn't obey his command for them to move. He felt as though invisible chains had been laid over him, pinning him to the dirt, and he squeezed his eyes closed, waiting for the final blow. No, not like this! don't make me go out like this... A sob shook his bruised and broken chest, and he choked on it, spitting blood.

---

Jacen felt like his world was unraveling, before his very eyes. Anakin was on the ground, curled up and quivering; the woman, somewhat worse for wear but not seriously injured, was halfway standing on his head. The remaining walkers had followed them, also, and one was coming up behind Anakin and the general.

The walker queen's head shot out and she opened her mouth. Jacen rushed forward to meet her there, but was too slow; his saber instead swung downward, severing the woman's raised leg near her kneecap and the other just above her ankle. The queen she stretched her jaw wide and snapped it shut over the general's head. The woman's body jerked back and forth for a few moments before falling limp and headless.

Jacen ran to Anakin's side. They would have a minute, perhaps, before the queen finished her meal and moved on to the next course. "Are you all right?" he asked. "We've got to keep going; Welk got away and the walkers are here."

"I can't," Anakin choked, and a few drops of blood ran down his chin from the side of his mouth when he spoke. He shifted himself a little bit as Jacen picked him up, but was unable to climb to his feet. "Smashed ribs, Jacen. I'm hurt bad. She almost got me."

"She didn't 'get' you, though. There aren't any more troopers, and we're still alive. But we've got to keep moving before the walker queen decides to eat us, too, or Welk comes back."

The queen was happily rending the flesh from General Baclaw's bones and bringing it into her mouth. She devoured arms and torso, then spit a web of bloody ribs and vertebrae back onto the ground. Jacen backed away, and willed himself not to dry-heave. But then the walker queen gazed at him with her giant white eyes, and nudged a severed leg in his direction.

"Um, you can have it," Jacen said.

There was a minute of stillness, and then the queen stepped forward. She bent her red-smeared head over Anakin. Jacen fought panic, and thumbed his lightsaber on. He'd have to kill the walker queen, and that was that; he didn't want to, but she was about-

Then the queen lowered herself to the ground and flattened her body. Jacen touched her small mind, and almost didn't recognize it, the stark contrast between the ravenous hunger and ferocity that he'd sensed earlier. Now he picked up contentment, placidity, and something faintly maternal.

A smile washed over his face. "Anakin, she thinks that we brought the troopers to her herd. She wants to help us!"

The queen nuzzled Jacen's shoulder and pressed herself further to the dirt. Anakin stepped over to her, heavily leaning on Jacen, and when Jacen helped him to climb, he was able to pull himself onto the walker queen's back. The exertion pulled all the color out of his face, and he slumped there, breathing but unmoving. A thin red trail dripped down the walker's body, from a dark stain on Anakin's left side.

Jacen felt for his life signs; Anakin was weakened, and injured badly, but he'd survive the journey back to the campgrounds, if he could convince the walker to take them that far. He followed the walker queen and the other walkers that had survived - only about a dozen - and the queen carried Anakin. All the way, he wondered; what had he done wrong? Should he be happy that neither of them had been killed or captured, or was there a way out that wouldn't have left his brother beaten to within centimeters of his life?

There was a collective halt and then agitated stepping when a powerful blast sent a column of yellow fire up towards the sky. Jacen turned and tried to lead the walkers to his campsite, fearing what he would find but needing to know and to retrieve the water kegs, but they wouldn't follow him. He could only draw out one of the youngsters to take up his path, and the young walker took Anakin from the Queen and bore him in its mouth, gently suspended by his shirt and pants in the walker's teeth.

Jacen climbed up the last hill, breathing laboriously, and was momentarily cheered to see their tent. However, it was half-charred and twisted, as though it was a small toy thrown aside in the midst of a tantrum. And that was all that was left.

The escape pod was nothing more than a few pieces of blackened shell sitting in a circle of soot. Jacen felt the bottom fall out of his heart and drop to his feet. He fell to his knees and pounded the ground with his fists. There was no way they were going to get their transmitter built now; there were no components for it!

Jacen almost didn't notice when the troop carrier lights lit up again and disappeared into the night sky. He was shivering from the cold, and was both hungry and thirsty. He found one intact water keg, without the distiller, but it was empty. Welk had thought of almost everything, and although he had failed to kill them himself, he must have trusted in the planet to do the work for him.

Jacen left the tent where it lay and started a small fire inside a circle of stones. Then he took Anakin's unconscious form and laid out his own jacket over the man, placing both just far enough from the fire not to risk his jacket catching flame if Anakin thrashed. He knelt down and pushed some of Anakin's hairs away from his face, which revealed the sticky wounds underneath the matted brown locks. "I'll be back," Jacen whispered. "I've got to get some water for us. I won't be long. I promise."

Anakin, still unconscious and slowly weakening further, gave no response. Jacen placed his hand on the boy's cold, clammy cheek, then knelt down and touched his lips to Anakin's forehead before he broke into a sprint, with the empty keg in his hand.