Hours later, after a meal and some time in the sonic shower, Tenel Ka lay clean and clothed in her Jedi robes on a bed in a room Kanortine had provided. Tenel Ka had expected a prison cell, but she'd been given one of the rooms in the palace, though there were guard droids outside the door and cameras watching his every move.
Tenel Ka got up and opened one of the room's windows. She stood in front of it with her hands on the sill, feeling the soft night breeze whisper through her hair and stroke her face. She gazed out on the surrounding lands for a speculative moment, observing the stillness and the quiet. It was one of those beautiful nights, where not a cloud obstructed the dazzling stars and the entire galaxy seemed quiet, and at rest. It wasn't, of course, especially on a pirate's planet, but it was the kind of night that gave the illusion that everything was peaceful.
With a sigh, Tenel Ka turned from the window and flopped back onto the bed. She had already considered whether or not she could escape. Doubtless she could, even with the weapons and security, but she didn't know if she could get Jacen out as well, whether he was in a real prison cell or if Kanortine would execute him if she disappeared and either way, she wasn't leaving without him. Maybe they should have used the time they'd had together to plan a coordinated escape.
Tenel Ka blushed. He had certainly made interesting use of that time, and he didn't seem to regret it one bit. Well, neither did she. Besides, they couldn't have planned an escape with the surveillance cameras observing them. Tenel Ka figured that Kanortine had probably watched what had happened and now guessed more about the nature of her and Jacen's relationship than before that meeting. Kanortine knew he had Jacen neatly trapped, he wouldn't back down from the races because of the loyalty and righteousness he possessed, and he couldn't escape because he wouldn't leave without her.
Tenel Ka sighed, partly out of frustration with her captivity and partly because she was remembering all the raw feeling she had sensed in Jacen when he had kissed her. Oh, she knew that probably hadn't been the wisest of moves, but somehow it didn't matter. She loved the way it had felt, and it was something entirely different to her. Tenel Ka was a person who hid her emotions, not giving anything away, and Jacen had just bared his feelings with unrestrained action. It gave her an entirely new perspective.
She gave another sigh, this time softly and with more contemplation, as she rolled back the covers on the bed and snuggled underneath, then rested her head on the pillow. Different night clothes would have been optimal, but hers were on the Rancor Tooth and she wasn't about to accept the ones Kanortine offered, which were considerably less conservative. She relaxed herself with a Jedi calming technique and in a few minutes, was sound asleep.
Jacen was dressed in full body titanium armor. It covered his shins, calves, thighs, pelvis area, stomach, chest and arms. He even had a helmet, which at the moment was interfering with his vision somewhat. At both hips, he carried a wide, thick vibro-blade, and on the right side he carried a blastsword. There was a primitive double-sided axe strapped to his back. He'd been given a bowcaster, with directions not to shoot it at human opponents, or he would be disqualified. Whatever that meant. Jacen didn't think rules would count for much once he'd gotten into… whatever it was he was getting into.
The door in front of Jacen was made of huge wooden timbers, held with chains the thickness of his body, set into a hard wall of gray stone cemented together with duracrete. Jacen could hear the sound of people shouting and stomping their feet on wood, an eerie, menacing noise, and he could feel the anticipation, the greediness of the crowd. People were still wagering, last minute statistics were coming in, and there was a cruel anxiousness for blood and fighting.
It all struck Jacen as being very barbaric.
The weather had changed from the past night. Whereas yesterday the sky had been clear, without a trace or a wisp of cloud, today was overcast and gray, with a slight drizzle that came whenever the wind blew north. The sound of thunder rumbled not so far in the distance, where lightning danced across the sky. Jacen knew that the storm would be upon him in only a matter of minutes.
The chains holding the doors closed started clanking and groaning, telling him the doors would be opening soon, and he would have to face whatever was in there. The fact that he'd been given a blastsword was encouraging. Racing wasn't a strong point, but he was talented with swords.
The enormous wooden double-doors creaked heavily open and a pirate standing behind Jacen nudged him, none too gently, with a spiked club, signalling him to enter the arena.
Cautious and wary, Jacen did so, taking time to note the details of his surroundings. The disgusting dirt floor, the largeness of the oval-shaped arena, the lack of any cover or pillars to hide behind, and most of all, the gigantic doors positioned strategically all around the twenty meter high wall.
Jacen crossed a third of the distance of the arena, ignoring the swell of booing and cheering from the ecstatic crowd, and the foul smell which seemed to dominate the edifice.
The announcer, the same one from the pod-race the day before, was seated on Jacen's right-side in the center of the bleachers and benches.
"Now pay your respects, though I know you have little, to his majesty, King Kanortine!" the Ryn was shouting.
The mob was on their feet now, craning their necks and holding their fists up in veneration as Kanortine entered from a violet carpeted staircase on the top of the left side of the arena. He looked exceedingly handsome and dashing, as always, in a red cape with a tight-fitting black shirt, black pants, and jewels adorning his features. Then Jacen gasped as he saw the person that came stalking angrily behind him. Her face was impassive as usual, but Jacen could tell by her body-language, and the anger rolling off her in the Force, that she was not pleased with this arrangement. Yet it wasn't her anger that Jacen noticed first.
"And to Tenel Ka Chume Ta' Djo, guest of the King and heir to the Hapan throne," the Ryn continued.
Tenel Ka was dressed in an incredible gown of a shimmering red, gold, orange and yellow fabric that, combined with the magnificent shade of her hair, made her look like she was on fire. Rubies glinted from around her neck, all over the gown and even in her hair, which had been loosed from its regular style to cascade down to her mid-back, glossy and smooth like a liquid sunset. Small diamonds and bits of gold were worked into the make-up around her eyes, and everything about her spoke of royalty and exceptional lineage. She was stunning, heart-stopping, beautiful beyond belief.
Then her eyes met Jacen and he saw her pride, her defiance at being paraded about like Kanortine's little toy, and he saw the anxiousness for him.
"I love you Princess," he whispered solemnly under his breath, his lips barely moving.
A small, barely perceptible smile touched her mouth. She slowly raised two fingers to her lips and then pointed them towards him. Jacen winked at her then bowed stiffly to Kanortine, as he, Tenel Ka and a few of his bodyguards and cronies seated themselves under a pavillion.
"Today," began the announcer, Jacen thought his name was Romany, "we bring the gory, bloody, ancient gladiator battles of Genosia! The arenas on Genosia were later used for executions, but we'll probably see some of both here today!"
This looks better every minute, thought Jacen sarcastically and braced himself.
"I give you… Jedi Jacen Solo!" the words rolled off Romany's tongue in a rising crescendo to be heard over the roaring crowd.
Jacen raised both his arms up in the air, his fists clenched tightly and the crowd screamed louder.
Despite himself, he smiled. Adoration was such an ego booster. Then he remembered that half of them were probably cheering for him to die.
Now that's a pleasant thought.
As he lowered his arms, two of the gates in front of him, one slightly to the right and the other to the left, slowly clanked open.. The moment was upon him and he was nervous. He didn't want to die.
He closed his eyes instead, and remembered the look on Tenel Ka's face when she had beat him in a swimming contest with only one arm. The gates were open now, but all he could see was a yawning blackness. With the Force, he could sense ravenous hunger, aggression, and a deep violence. He heard a sound that sent a chill up his spine and made his blood run cold.
Battle-dogs. Nek battle dogs. Starving, savage, vicious nek battle dogs that were bred on Cyborrea and sold only on the black market. There most have been twenty-five of them.
Like a torrent of vile water, the predators streamed out of the gates, each of them fifty pounds of pure sinew, claws and teeth. Jacen grabbed the bowcaster and started firing, shooting ten of them in a row as them came out of the right gate.
That should slow the ones behind them down a bit.
But while Jacen had been busy on the right, the dogs from the left gate had been running full-speed towards him, and were fast closing the distance.
"Sithspit," he cursed, dropping the bowcaster and reaching for the double-sided axe. He had used one of these once at a heritage fair. It wasn't to heavy, but it wasn't light either, and for a split-second, Jacen wished he had reached for the vibro-blades instead.
But there was no time for second guesses. The neks were on him, and they would die by either one.
The armor protected Jacen from the first round of attacks, but then the dogs realized that he was protected there and tried to go for the unprotected neck and collarbone area.
Jacen was like a madman and everything took on a red haze. The axe in his hand was a blur of twirling motion. Jacen was spinning it around his hand like a baton, and each time it made a rotation, one of the blades cut through the neck of a battle-dog that had leaped toward him. And every time, a spray of bright red blood flew in all directions, getting on his hands, splattering in droplets on his face, and soaking the dirt a dark, gruesome colour.
Sweat was running down his neck and from his forehead into his eyes, as Jacen spun backwards and forewards, trying to stop the assaults coming from every direction. His legs would begin to ache soon from the quick, tiny steps that were adjusting his direction, giving him the right speed, the correctly timed thrust, the most precise aim.
Jacen thought desperately for a plan. The neks were coming too many, too quickly now, and if he didn't work his way out of it soon, he would falter, and then die.
He was only using his right hand for the axe, and Jacen rapidly surmised that not using the left-hand was a waste that would get him killed. He grabbed a vibro-blade, swinging it in a smooth circle, cutting away some more opposition.
Without warning, there was a suddenly release of weight on his left shoulder, then a hideous, wrenching pain.
A nek had pulled off the piece of armor covering that shoulder, and another had dug a hateful, wickedly curved claw down his unprotected skin, slicing the skin.
Jacen cried out in pain, but his kept his grip on the vibro-blade. He couldn't afford to lose a weapon. Spinning around, he caught the nek who had wounded him with a short, powerful jab to the heart, pulled it out, spun and sliced the head off another as he swung the blade around with him. At the same time, the axe cut down onto the back off a nek, chopping the spinal cord in half.
There were none left.
He had killed them, or seriously wounded them enough that they wouldn't be getting up anytime soon. He had survived. He wanted to collapse in the middle of the arena and just lay there. The rain and storm that had been building for the past half hour finally let loose, pouring water down around him, soaking his hair, and the long-sleeved white shirt he wore underneath the armor.
Jacen raised his arms again, but the crowd was deathly silent. No one seemed to breathe, and only the thunder and lightning offered any applause.
Jacen's face twisted in a grimace of pain. His shoulder was bleeding profusely, and he could barely hold the weight of the vibroblade. He staggered toward the center of the arena.
He hated himself. The neks had wanted to kill him, he knew that. But they had been beaten and starved and bred into violence. They harboured no evil intentions towards him, they had only been trying to survive, trying to feed themselves. And he had slaughtered them all.
Throwing down the weapons he held in disgust and self-loathing, Jacen turned his back on the gates the neks had come out of, not giving a thought to the silence of the crowd. Here was his mistake. Had he reached out in the Force he would have sensed that the crowd was not in a state of shock, but anticipation.
As he walked slowly towards the gate by which he'd entered, the sound of clanking chains from behind him stopped him dead. A sickening feeling washed through him, and his stomach twisted inside of him. Slowly, fearfully, Jacen turned around again.
A gate at the very opposite end of the arena from where he had entered was three-quarters of the way open. Then it was all the way open, and six pairs of glowing yellow eyes blinked in the gloom, predatory and cat-like.
A low growl escape from the throat of one, and five others joined in the call, a sound that reverberated in and around Jacen, filling his mind, making the sound of his blood seemed to beat, "doom, doom, doom, doom…" The rain coursing down his body, face, and hair and the boom of thunder seemed to echo the growl of the creatures as they walked out of the den. They stood nearly a meter high at the shoulder, burly quardruped cat-like mammals, with skin that looked like nerf hide that had gone old and wrinkled, large jaw filled with dagger-like teeth and even larger claws on all four feet. There was a line of hard spikes on their backs.
Swallowing, Jacen reached out with the Force, about to call his weapons back to him, when a wild animal cry screeched through the air and the earth beneath him quaked perceptibly.
Out of the two gates where the neks had been came two creatures Jacen knew very well.
Rontos were from Tatooine, a four-legged beast of burden, used for transportation or hauling goods. Most were only twice the size a grown man, about 12 to 13feet, but these creatures, coming out like some prehistoric monster were unlike any ronto Jacen had ever seen. They stood twenty feet high, and were encased by body armour, the same as Jacen was. It covered their chest, sides, head and neck, except the difference here was that the armour was spiked.
Jacen was paralyzed. How was he ever going to win this?
The ways and the will of the Force are strange, but one thing was for certain, that day, the Force was with Jacen. As one of the ronto came powering out of the left gate, the body armour it was wearing proved a convenient conductor for electricity.
CRASH!!!
The lightning flashed out of the sky, striking the ronto, the electricity streaming through it's body into the ground.
Jacen watched in horror as the creature fell to the ground, lifeless.
As bad as he felt, he quickly saw a way to take advantage of the situation. Calling the Force to him and gathering all his remaining strength, Jacen projected one thought to the massiffs.
The ronto makes more food than I do, the ronto makes more food than I do, he bombarded their thoughts, giving them images of them feasting on the dead ronto and then curling up for a contented nap.
He held his breath, but the massiffs did as he hoped and ran towards the ronto, mouths open and saliva running out.
They had already started on the poor thing's legs, as Jacen turned around to deal with the last ronto. Jacen didn't want to end up like it's brother, charred and burnt by lightning, so he removed the helmet and the chest armour. Jacen would take his chances with what he could control, and the weather wasn't one of those things.
Jacen looked wildly around for some tool to break through the creatures incredible armour, knowing that his vibro-blades, blastsword, and axe would be useless.
Near the pile of dead neks, Jacen saw his cast-off bowcaster, lying in workable condition.
That could definitely help.
Jacen called it to him and took careful aim. It he didn't flinch, he could get the weak point where the chest armour met the side armour.
The plan worked better than he thought it would.
The shot from the bowcaster hit the material that attached the two plates and when it hit, the chest plate came loose from it's strapping and swung out to the side.
Now he could use the vibro-blade. Clenching it, Jacen sprinted towards the panicking, skittish ronto, who reared, it's front feet coming up and kicking in the air, then hitting the ground with a force hard enough to shake the ground Jacen stood on.
With regret in his heart, Jacen stepped up and plunged the blade into the beast's heart, then jumped back out of the way as the great behemoth fell forward and hit the ground with a terrible THUMP!!
The crowd cheered in congratulations and appreciation of entertainment, Jacen lifted his right hand to them. His left shoulder was a deep throbbing pain.
Jacen's legs ached and his arms were even worse. Convincing the massiffs had taken a lot of effort through the Force, and he was so tired.
He stumbled towards the door, stopping to pick up the axe and his vibro-blade that he had flung down earlier.
Jacen was finished then, in his mind and in his body, but as he approached the exit, another door opened near it. From it strode three men, all looking equally tough and intimidating in their stylized armour with fearsome animals carved into it, curved vibro-blades, electro-jabbers, and neuronic whips. They arranged themselves in a loose triangle formation, with two standing closer to Jacen and the other slightly back.
Jacen groaned in frustration, wondering if he was ever going to get out of here.
He decided he didn't want this fight. He just wanted to end it quickly and easily. He hefted the vibro-blade with his good arm, then gave the weapon a mighty swing and then realeased it.
It spun rapidly through the air, making wide circles, a blur of metallic movement. It cut a circle infront of Jacen.
Using the Force, the blade moved to unbelievably fast for any of the men to move out of the way. It was like some psychotic boomerang with a life of it's own, and it spun through the air, slicing of the heads of all three men and landing at Jacen's feet,
The effort had been too much. As his opponents were all taken care of, Jacen dropped to the ground, too tired and exhausted to make his way to the door. The roaring and cheering of the crowd that had dominated his hearing for the past hour was fading into a numb background noise. The rain was still pouring down, turning the earth underneath him to mud.
As he stared up at the sky, lying on his back, a beautiful face suddenly appeared above him.
"Jacen? Jacen can you hear me?" she questioned in a worried voice, "Oh please Jacen say something! Are you okay?"
Jacen was delirious, or at least that's what the part of his brain that wasn't suffering from the trauma of what he'd just accomplished was telling him. He could feel a gash in his cheek from where a nek's claw had glanced off him.
But Tenel Ka's cheek was smooth and untouched. Her faced was close above his and her forehead was creased in worry. With an effort, Jacen raised his right hand up and touched her face, rubbing his thumb along her cheekbone. Her cool grey eyes were all that was keeping him anchored to consciousness.
He tried to raise his arm a little more, trying to bring it around the back of her neck and bring her closer, but as he did, he raised his shoulder too much. A stab of blinding pain racked his body and he cried out in pain and dropped his hand wincing.
"Jacen! Jacen, hold on! They're going to bring a medical team in, just hold on a few more seconds!" Tenel Ka urged, rubbing his chest in a circular motion her hand, bringing it up to rest underneath his neck. She gently kissed his cheek and forehead.
Jacen tried to tell her that he would be okay, that she shouldn't worry, but it only came out as an incomprehensible mumble, and that made her more worried. Jacen could feel her taking a deep breath to get herself under control.
"Come on, stay with me now," she said soothingly, stroking his cheek.
Jacen wanted to. He wanted nothing more than to merely look into her eyes for awhile longer, but he'd lost too much blood and he was sinking into blackness. The world around him seemed to be shifting and swirling before him, and he could no longer see Tenel Ka, just a haze of grays and reds and browns. He struggled to hold on, but his eyes closed and he lost consciousness.