Chapter Fifteen: Take a Hit and Leave
Before Tenel Ka could start to recover from the shock of Jacen's loss, there was a loud pounding at the double doors of her bedroom. Tenel Ka rose, expecting the worst, but she didn't take two steps when the person gave up waiting and barged in.
It was Moneeq, her blond hair loose but neat and her outfit as immaculate as always, looking very scared, but determined. She closed the door and crossed the room to Tenel Ka. In her hand she held a small satchel, with it's contents unknown, and she held it out to Tenel Ka.
"Here," Moneeq said, "It has the two lightsabers, an access card to the nearest hangar and a datapad with codes to get out of the building. The guard droids are still waiting outside this door.
Had it been a different person than Tenel Ka, surprise or shock might have registered on her face, but it was not in Tenel Ka's nature to be expressive, so the warrior girl only nodded and took the bag. She looked straight into Moneeq's eyes and addressed her bluntly.
"Why?" she asked the fashion assistant.
Moneeq's face dissolved into sadness and her voice quavered when she next spoke.
"There was a fiancé of mine… He wanted to win the prize money for the races… I told him not to do it, but I guess the temptation was too strong. He died in the swoop bike race around this time last year," Moneeq's crystal blue eyes started to fill with tears, and she sniffed loudly, then looked back to Tenel Ka with brave face, "I just didn't want anyone else to lose someone they care about..."
Tenel Ka's normally grim demeanor was overcome with sympathy, she reached out and put her hand on Moneeq's shoulder.
"Thank-you my friend, I wish you the best," Tenel Ka said quietly, and then took her rancor tooth lightsaber out of the black bag.
"Good-bye Princess," Moneeq said with a bow.
Tenel Ka nodded and then walked swiftly towards the set of doors.
They opened into her room, so kicking them open was not an option, she'd have to be more subtle than that. Tenel Ka hated subtlety. She was tired of sulking around, waiting while Jacen risked his life and did all the dangerous work. She was tired of being caged up, dressed up like a doll and shown about without any dignity. Most of she hated not being active.
It was time to seriously kick some ass.
Tenel Ka opened the door and ignited her lightsaber, bringing it to bear. The light in the hallway was bright and the trappings were elegant. The guard droids, who had been stand with their backs against the walls on either side of the door, swiveled their blaster barrels to face her.
Tenel Ka just smiled.
Then the guard droids opened fire and she somersaulted forward, avoiding the blaster bolts and landing neatly in the middle of the hallway. She summoned the Force and with a flick of her wrist, she crashed the two droids into each other and ran in the opposite direction of the resulting blast. She knew her way down to the landspeeder hangar from her excursions out into the city and to the races with Kanortine and she had a good sense of direction.
Tenel Ka stretched out her senses a bit and discovered that Kanortine had posted guards at every corner and intersection of hallways. She smiled again because she knew this wouldn't be a problem. As she rounded the first turn, the bored and slightly sleepy guard sprang to attention, his mouth open in shock.
He started to reach for his comlink to alert the rest of the building.
Tenel Ka couldn't let that happen now, could she?
His hand was stopped halfway to the communications device as Tenel Ka aimed a sharp side kick directly into his stomach. It was obviously unexpected, because he doubled over in pain, but to his credit and training, he straightened up again and started to advance towards her, his hand in the combat stance.
Not wanting to spill blood with her lightsaber, Tenel Ka made a quick decision and brought her leg up in another deft kick. The sword of her foot slammed into his head and the man dropped to the ground like a stone, unconscious.
Tenel Ka quickly took her leave of the place and raced down the length of the hallway. The guard at the next corner was more devoted to duty and must have heard her coming for he was already bringing forward a blaster and taking aim when she sprinted into sight.
Tenel Ka's arm moved in a graceful, practiced motion as her lightsaber deflected the load of bolts aimed accurately at her head and chest. The fire rebounded off her lightsaber and hit the aggressor, making him hit the wall as he fell backward.
Tenel Ka walked to the turbo lift and entered in the basement number, then stepped in calmly but did not turn of her lightsaber. She checked the satchel holding Jacen's and the access card now attached to her utility belt. She wished for two arms just so that she could put both Jedi weapons to use right now. Maybe she would be able to anyway. By now she was sure that security holocams or the noise of blasters had alerted Kanortine's guards to her escape and as the turbo lift descended sixty stories, she prepared to meet resistance when she stopped.
She was not disappointed.
When the door opened on the basement floor, she emerged to find herself surrounded by twenty armed guards.
Tenel Ka smiled again.
Jacen frantically pushed at the buttons and controls of the A-wing, knowing a way to get the vehicle started again, a way that Jaina had showed him a long time ago and he barely remembered. He channeled Force energy to aid his task, increasing his focus and heightening his awareness of the craft, down to the last rivet.
He was rewarded with a sick puff of the thrusters and the lighting up of his control board. He didn't have much time, but maybe if he was lucky he could breach the atmosphere of the planet and then go EV.
He rolled to the right side and sped downward towards the surface of the planet, the gravity pulling him in, but the atmosphere resisting and unimaginable friction turning the outside of his ship molten red and bringing the temperature in the cockpit somewhere between sweltering and life-threatening. Sweat streamed down the sides of his face and into his eyes, hot and salty, making Jacen desperate to open the canopy for need of a cool breeze.
Just as he cleared the most minimally safe level, the thrusters quit and Jacen felt himself lose any previous control over the craft. He tried his best to even it out a bit, but without much success, even with the Force as his guide. At last he just gave in and punched the evacuation button, punching him out of the A-wing and into a dangerous free fall that was only slightly remedied by the EV chair's steering boosters.
As the security forces with the quickest reflexes fired the first shots, Tenel Ka catapulted into action. She flipped high into the air and landed by pushing her feet into the chest of the slowest reacting armed guard, stamping him into the duracrete. She whirled around to face the blaster shots that had rapidly changed direction and her hand and lightsaber was a blur as she extended it to deflect every shot that came marginally close. Two opponents that were closest to her threw down their blasters and charged towards her, one from the left and one from the right. Tenel Ka jumped straight upwards and executed the splits in midair, so that each foot hit their heads at precisely the same time. Meanwhile, she kept deflecting the blaster fire towards her. Tenel Ka advanced to the right, cut the blaster of the nearest person right in half and then swung and connected her elbow to the woman's chin with a bone-cracking force.
The woman crumpled at Tenel Ka's feet.
A loud Dathomiri warrior curse erupted from her throat as she swung her lightsaber quickly six times in succession as she ran forward, slicing off the ends of the blasters in her way and using the Force to knock the people to the ground.
One man, an angry wild look in his eyes, appeared in front of her, his blaster nowhere to be seen and his arms stretched out for her neck, intending to chock her to death. Tenel threw her lightsaber up into the air, then slammed her fist right into the center of the man's face. He fell to the ground with blood streaming out of his nose and Tenel Ka deftly caught her lightsaber as the weapon came back down to her.
Before she could implement the sudden idea that had occurred to her with this action, the remainder of the security was in her face, blocking her way, throwing punches and kicks and looking as enraged as a pack of neks. Abandoning her quest not to spill blood, Tenel Ka sparred a few well-timed kicks in the gut, then swung her lightsaber in a circular motion, causing varying degrees of injury and probably some deaths.
Tenel Ka then ran towards one of the speeders nearby, and didn't even bother opening the door, but hopped in and gunned the engines, then sped towards the exit of the hangar. She grabbed the datapad Moneeq had supplied in the bag then punched the codes it offered into the access pad. The door opened and Tenel Ka revved the engines again, preparing to make full use of the plentiful fuel cells.
Jacen fell towards Simileon, occasionally using the thrusters on the chair to steer himself or keep the chair steady. It was a relief to be out of the cockpit, but it was kind of a "out of the frying-pan into the fire" situation, because he found himself hurting towards the ground at a tremendous speed.
Jacen recognized the Tuwan mountain range that he had been spending so much time around to the east of him, and Ruswin was up ahead. It didn't look like he would be able to drift towards the city, it was too far away, but maybe he could land in the forest.
Fast, much too fast, the tops of the trees came hurtling towards him. He braced himself, and used the Force to slow down his speed. The branches of green foliage slapped at his face and whipped at his arms and legs, stinging painfully but so far there weren't any huge limbs that he might break his neck on. Jacen used the final bit of energy left in the thrusters, then unstrapped himself and jumped out of the chair, falling a few meters to a soft bed of fallen leaves. He looked around at the quiet woods, recognizing the giant trees he'd drove a pod-racer through not too long ago.
The question for him now was, how was he supposed to get out of this forest and to the city to rescue Tenel Ka? He reached out for her in the Force and found a maelstrom of excitement and energy and he surmised that somehow, she didn't need to be rescued. He tried to reach out to her further, to tell her where he was. Words were hard, sometimes he took telepathy for granted because it was so easy with Jaina or even Anakin. He often forgot that Jedi couldn't always just speak mind to mind. Encountering this obstacle, he painted images of the forest and his chair rushing towards them, and the position in relation to Ruswin. An outpouring of trust and relief flowed into him and he knew she'd understood. With that in mind, he checked the sun to get his bearings straight, then started walking in the direction of Ruswin. He might as well give her a head start.
Tenel Ka was driving the speeder along without any resistance when she felt Jacen contact her through the Force. Her first feeling was satisfaction that Jacen wasn't hurt, followed by concern as to where he could be. Now she had a pretty good idea where he was and if she was careful, she could reach him in time. She sped through the city, expecting a garrison at any moment but encountering no armed forces. Tenel Ka had a good memory of how to get to the ship hangar was, remembering the route from when she and Jacen were escorted from the Rancor Tooth to Kanortine's palace.
She reached the building and jumped lightly from the landspeeder, then walked calmly over to the doors. To open them she grabbed her access card and swiped it along keypad, then stuffed the card back and took out her lightsaber. As the doors swished open, she ignited the turquoise blade.
What she found waiting for her was thirty blaster weapons leveled in her direction.
With a smirk Tenel Ka stretched out with the Force, the power coming easily with practice and skill. A tendril of invisible energy yanked the weapons out of her opponents' hands and all thirty weapons crashed against a hangar wall. Most were smashed on contact, so now she could fight the cronies fist to fist.
Ten of them stepped forward, preparing to make a ring around her, and Tenel Ka swung her lightsaber in front of her much like a person waves a fan to keep off a swarm of insects. She took a deep breath, allowing the Force to course through her body, then she sprang into motion.
Her feet were a blur as she somersaulted through the air, her lightsaber twirling in perfect synchronization. She took out the closest two with a snap kick to the head and a jab in the heart from her blade. There were four people coming in from different directions and Tenel Ka threw her lightsaber up into the air above her, then grabbed Jacen's from the open sack. She ignited his, and thrust it out behind her, at the same time arching backwards with her leg, making the top half of her body bend forward and producing the effect of a horizontal plane. Her foot caught one enemy in the ribs while Jacen's lightsaber cut another man's wind pipe. Tenel Ka planted her foot on the ground again, swinging her arm forward and throwing Jacen's lightsaber up in the air and catching her own, which was coming down at her precisely planned second. She cut the arm off the man that reached her first and kicked with her left leg, connecting her foot to the fourth man's chin and snapping his head backwards.
She twirled around to face the next opponents, juggling the two lightsabers with her one hand, punching, kicking, spinning and all so quickly that you could scarcely see her move. Tenel Ka had been trained by the best unarmed combat experts as well as the best armed combat experts her wealthy parents could afford. Her fighting technique mixed Hapan kick-boxing, Dathomiri warrior arts, Jedi lightsaber skill and the grace of a natural athlete. Without weapons, none of the guards stood a chance and within minutes, most of them lay groaning, bleeding, dismembered or dead on the duracrete. With a satisfied sigh, she caught Jacen's lightsaber from it's rotation in midair, clicked it off, stuffed it in the bag, then reached up and grabbed hers from it's cycle and stowed it along side Jacen's.
She surveyed the docking bay unhurriedly, then picked a ship with the least scorch marks on its hull. Using the access card again, she let down the ramp then ran to the cockpit. It only took a minute to get the ship ready for take-off and when she was sure everything was ready she turned on the repulsor-lifts, making the ship smoothly rise up from the hangar.
All of her focus was on finding Jacen and getting off the planet, but she wasn't too absorbed to miss the bleeps symbolizing other ships that suddenly appeared on her sensors. There weren't any alarms, of course, because they were marked as friendly ships, but Tenel Ka knew they were coming after her. She coaxed all the speed she could out of the ship, flying out of Ruswin and towards the forest. At the same time she was extending her perception of the Force, trying to pinpoint Jacen in the mess of trees and plant growth. He must have felt her, because he suddenly flared into her awareness. His position might as well have been marked with neon signs and she knew exactly where he was.
She slowed the ship down and extended the landing ramp, then descended carefully between the trees. When she heard Jacen striding towards the cockpit, she closed the ramp and blasted as quickly as she could out of there, the proximity of the pirate fighters nagging at her.
Jacen came running into the cabin, breathless, but smiling and he sat down in the seat next to her, and quickly leaned over to kiss her on the cheek.
"Thanks for the save!" he exclaimed jokingly.
"Your gratefulness may expire when you see what is chasing us," Tenel Ka said with a smile.
Jacen glanced at the sensor boards and inhaled sharply.
"Sithspawn!" he cursed.
"We can out run them," Tenel Ka pointed out calmly.
They cleared the atmosphere in a matter of seconds and streaked out into space, seeking to leave the planet's gravity shadow behind and go to hyperspace.
Jacen fed the coordinates from the navi-computer and Tenel Ka prepared for the abrupt acceleration as his hand hit the hyperspace control and pushed it forward.
Nothing happened.
"It's not my fault!" Jacen exclaimed in surprise.
Tenel Ka looked at the control with wide eyes.
"Jacen," she said in a voice that finally betrayed some fear, "I do not think this ship has a hyperdrive."
"You took the only ship in the docking bay that didn't have a hyperdrive!" Jacen repeated incredulously, "Blast it!"
Tenel Ka's attention was turned away from this dire predicament at the sound of an enemy ship approaching. She quickly scanned the sensors and then gasped in surprise.
"Jacen!" she burst out, "They have the Rancor Tooth!"
"What!" he cried, leaning over to look at the screen, "They do! But how does that help us?"
Not bothering to answer, Tenel Ka gestured he take the controls then dropped to the floor and started pulling wires and reattaching them.
"Um, Tenel?" Jacen cleared his throat timidly, "What are you doing?"
"There's a shut down code for the Rancor Tooth," Tenel Ka explained impatiently, ripping open a wire and plugging it into a different hole, "Usually it's for emergencies where your hyperdrive or sublight engines are malfunctioning and are about to go critical, destroying the ship. As a precaution, this code shuts down all the engines and systems at once, but doesn't damage anything in the process."
"Yes, but what are you doing?" Jacen asked, still not understanding.
Tenel Ka seemed to finish what she was doing, and stood up, then rapidly typed a sequence into one of the keyboards. She gave a satisfied smirk as the blip that represented the Rancor Tooth rapidly began to slow down.
"You see, Jacen my friend, I am merely implementing the code externally," Tenel Ka said in a pleased tone, "Now hurry towards my ship, so we can board it."
Jacen complied, zooming back towards the enemy fighters, which immediately started firing on the ship. Using all the pilot skills he'd been honing the past few days and anticipating the fighters movements through the Force, Jacen deftly avoided the laser fire. They reached the Rancor Tooth and he slid easily into position next to it and latched on.
They raced through the corridors of their current ship and Tenel Ka handed Jacen his lightsaber as they reached the outer door.
Wordlessly, they both ignited their blades, hers a dazzling turquoise and his a magnificent emerald.
They heard the hiss of pressurized air as the door opened and they stepped through. The pirate pilot and co-pilot stood waiting with smug looks on their faces. Tenel Ka didn't spare them a second look, but kicked the closest one swiftly in the groin and batted his blaster out of his hands. She slammed the end of her elbow to his chin and gave a satisfied sound as the man collapsed. Jacen had merely punched his opponent in the head with a strong right hook, so he and Tenel Ka dragged the unconscious bodies into the pirate's ship, then sealed the hatch again. As they did so they heard loud thuds start to hit the hull of the Rancor Tooth and they hustled towards the cockpit. The pirates had probably figured out who was in each ship by now and were bombarding Jacen and Tenel Ka with laser cannon fire.
Tenel Ka strapped herself without fuss into the pilot seat, then reached under the control panel and pulled back on the metal conductor hidden there.
Jacen gave her a funny look as the ship suddenly started up again.
"Every code has a reversal," Tenel Ka shrugged, then brought the shields online. As soon as the engines were ready, she hits the thrusters and they rocketed away from the conflict. This time, when Jacen pulled the hyperspace control, the stars ran together in lines and white engulfed the window. They were free.