Chapter 6
True to Jacen's word Ariela found that their trip down through the compound was easier than expected. She knew everyone remained busy during the day, and very few people stayed in the fortress. Most of the henchmen had merchants to terrorize or spice deals to close. Ariela wondered what it would be like to leave this old warehouse whenever you wanted to and not have to be worried about being followed. If you didn't try to run away at every chance you got, she thought, you would be trusted more. If this escape attempt failed, she would definitely be in the vrelt house then. She looked up at Jacen's face as he led the couple down the hall, concentrating on hiding their location.
Ariela starred at the security cameras on the wall as they walked directly in front of them. She could see nothing wrong with them but trusted that Jacen was using his strange powers to keep them invisible to the electronic surveillance. They passed no one as Ariela directed them to an old elevator. "If we go down three levels in here, we'll be right next to the entrance to the underground tunnels."
Jacen paused in front of the old piece of equipment and reigned in on Ariela's wrist as she walked up to it. "Let's not," he said. "I don't like it."
"What do you mean you don't like it? Sure, it's not a turbo lift, but it'll get us there."
"That's not it," Jacen responded. "It will look very strange to the big boys upstairs when they see an elevator going down, but the security cameras register no one on board." Jacen looked around nervously, realizing they had been standing in one place for too long. It had been almost an hour since he had left Herink in the cell unconscious. He would wake up any time now. "There have to be stairs going down somewhere." Jacen led them down the hall until he stopped short in front of an odd-looking door with a keypad in the wall next to it. "This is it."
"Great," Ariela said, not happy that they hadn't taken the elevator, "we'll never break the code. We don't even know how many numbers long it is."
Jacen looked at her with mocked pain in his eyes. "Have a little faith, dear." Jacen tested the term of endearment and kept talking to keep her retort at bay. "I'm sure I'll figure it out." Jacen hovered his hand over the keypad, and his eyes were half-closed as he kept talking. "I'm sure that it is a simple five-digit code," he paused. "Something like 5-1-0-4-1," he said as he pressed each corresponding button on the keypad.
Ariela gasped at his apparent bold guess but was doubly surprised as the door slid open a few moments later. Jacen looked at her with a lopsided grin. "Nothing to it."
Ariela tried desperately to hide her shock. "You're my hero, honey," she responded in a monotone voice, adding the last word with a light dose of sarcasm.
Jacen bowed low in mocked thanks and waved his arm through the open doorway, gesturing for Ariela to enter first. "To absorb any laser defenses, no doubt," she mumbled at the gesture but walked through the temporary gap in the wall anyway. Jacen followed right behind, and the door closed behind them.
The two escapees found themselves standing atop a long stairway that led down into the ground, surrounded by bare rock. "Is this part of the compound still under construction?" Jacen asked. Ariela didn't answer the rhetorical question, and together they started down the dark stairwell. There were lights every twenty steps or so, but the darkness reminded Jacen that he didn't have either of his lightsabers with him. He wanted to go back for them but realized there were more important concerns now. If he were alone, he might have gone back for them, but he wanted to get Ariela away from here.
It wasn't long before they had descended the three levels that Ariela had said were necessary and found they were still in a natural tunnel that sloped down gradually. After a few dozen steps, they found themselves at the bottom of the elevator. Ariela gave Jacen a look that said it would have been faster if they had just taken the device, but neither said anything. The cave tunnel continued down, with the lights growing further apart. Jacen could sense they were far from the security net and was surprised at how easy the escape had been.
"Going somewhere." Jacen and Ariela rounded a corner and ran head-on into Borgan. "I think you two love birds are a little far from home."
Jacen launched himself into a flurry of punches and kicks so fast that Ariela couldn't even follow them. Borgan had no time to react either and simply let the blows bounce harmlessly off his body. Jacen finished his brutal attack with a spinning kick aimed high at Borgan's head. The monster managed to bat the kick aside with a free hand, and Jacen's momentum ceased suddenly, throwing him precariously off balance with both his feet off the ground. He fell hard on his shoulder blades on the rocky floor and barely rolled backward, avoiding a stomping foot that would have easily ended his life.
As Jacen scrambled to his feet, Ariela tried to engage Borgan in conversation to distract him. "How did you know we were coming down here?"
"The same reason you came down here," the big man replied as he swung a fist a Jacen. Apparently, the giant could fight and converse at the same time. Jacen yanked his head back and watched the colossal fist slam into the stone wall. Borgan didn't even grunt as his fist reduced the section to rubble. "This was the best place to go, so I got here first."
Jacen dodged a few more blows and landed a few of his own. In reality, the punches that the young Jedi landed hurt his fists more than they could ever hurt Borgan. After dodging a particularly close blow, Jacen sprung backward three meters to better surmise the situation. They were in a narrow tunnel three meters wide and two and a half meters high. The incredibly tall Borgan had, at times, less than ten centimeters of clearance above his head. Jacen could tell the terrain favored him tremendously, but that was the only thing he had going in his favor. Something felt odd about the giant man, and it took Jacen a few moments to figure it out. Not only did the monster's arms look like they were corded with durasteel cables, they actually were. Jacen could sense an incredible amount of metal in his adversary's body. The person in front of him was more machine than man. Jacen remembered how the Master had perfected his body with technology, and apparently, the old man had done the same for Borgan.
Jacen knew that he could beat this monster under normal conditions and with weapons, but neither was present. Although he was quicker and stronger with the Force, those qualities were diminished in this cavern. Jacen could produce an incredible amount of strength with the Force, but he needed time and concentration to do it. He had neither. A master in the Force could produce power in a split second. Jacen did not have that kind of experience yet. The Master's words back in the cell rang in his ears. -You are dependent. You are weak.- Jacen had shrugged those comments off, paying them little notice, but now he saw what the Master had been saying. The Master and Borgan could produce results immediately because the power came from within them, easily accessible. Jacen had to depend on his ability to draw power from around him, a task that was not always easily accomplished and was never as simple as just using something you already had. Jacen tried to strengthen his position in his mind by saying that his lightsabers were part of him, and with them, he was as powerful as anyone else in the galaxy. This was true, and few people, if any, could beat Jacen one on one dueling, but he didn't have those weapons now, and they only reminded him once again how dependent he really was.
Borgan approached the contemplating Jedi slowly, respecting Jacen's prowess. Ariela was a few meters behind Jacen, making sure to stay clear and ready to bolt from the scene if Jacen should falter. Jacen decided that brute strength would not work against this mechanical monster, and he picked out three pressure points on Borgan's body and attacked. The Jedi jumped straight into the big man's chest, and as Borgan tried to hug Jacen to him, the younger fighter punched hard into the bottom of the big man's chin. While the blow did little and wasn't Jacen's goal, it thrust him to the ground and under the giant's grasp. As Jacen fell between the taller man's legs, he did the splits, sending both of his heels into the inside of Borgan's knees. At the same time, Jacen thrust a fist the man's groin. Jacen used his last appendage to brace his fall, absorbing the hit as he rolled onto his shoulder blades and somersaulted to his feet. Borgan stood in front of him, no worse for the wear. The move would have likely broken anyone else's knees and left them doubled over. It had only made Borgan angrier.
Jacen tried a new tactic, reaching out with the Force; he put out the lights before and aft that had illuminated the immediate tunnel. Ariela shrieked in fright, but Jacen could sense that Borgan hadn't flinched. Jacen had believed he would gain some kind of advantage in the dark but felt a fist whiz over his head and another clip him in the side as he realized that with this small area to fight in, Borgan could just swing wildly and be pretty sure of hitting something. Jacen was now more positive he could avoid the unaimed blows and set himself to slip in between the punches, delivering Force aided blows that finally stunned Borgan a little but didn't hurt him much.
Jacen was fatigued but couldn't detect so much as a breath coming from Borgan. The giant was relentless, and Jacen soon found that he was back-pedaling. Wary of where Ariela was located, Jacen knew that she couldn't see what was happening and had no way of dodging a blow if Borgan's frantic efforts came too close to her. Jacen rushed the monster, hoping to slow his brutal charge somehow. A massive fist slammed down on Jacen's shoulder, and his legs could not stand up under the blow. He went down hard on his back and rolled over on instinct as a mammoth boot crushed the floor next to him, just missing his relatively slight frame. The Jedi scrambled back to his feet but didn't rise. Instead, he grabbed both of Borgan's huge knees, one in each arm, and with a great Force heave, lifted him off the ground. The move was swift and strong, and Jacen could feel the violent collision throughout Borgan's body as his head struck the rock ceiling. The knees in Jacen's grasp went slightly limp, and the Jedi sprang back as the giant swung his huge wrecking-ball-fists down as he slumped on his failing legs.
Jacen didn't waste time when he realized that Borgan was stunned, knowing it wouldn't last more than a few moments. He reached back into the darkness to where he could sense Ariela was standing. His hand clamped onto her wrist, and he yanked her off her feet as he pulled her past the human obstruction in the narrow passageway. Ariela screamed as Jacen pulled her, not knowing who it was. She beat on his iron grip and tripped clumsily over unseen rocks and protrusions. Jacen lifted her into the air in one smooth motion and draped her over his shoulder as he kept running as fast as the Force allowed him.
Ariela had figured out that this was Jacen and not Borgan by now, but it didn't improve her mood at all. "Put me down!" she screamed repeatedly. She pounded on Jacen's back relentlessly. Jacen wondered if she thought this was making him run faster or if she really cared whether or not she escaped.
Up ahead, Jacen sensed a significant drop-off, and he braced himself for the jump. "Hold on!" he warned as he leaped off into open space. Ariela screamed wildly as they fell about 20 meters before Jacen brought them to a fluttering stop at the bottom of the gorge. Jacen unceremoniously dumped the shaken Ariela onto the floor and walked back to the cliff face he had just descended. Jacen sensed a small electrical circuit in the area, prodded it with the Force, and a light went on. There was a platform and pulley system rigged for a normal descent down the cliff, and Jacen went to work making sure that it wouldn't work for a very long time.
He walked back over to where he had left Ariela and saw that she was struggling to rise. He bent over to help her up and received a vicious slap across the face. Jacen pulled back quickly and stood at a distance, watching Ariela get to her feet after much effort. "You're welcome," Jacen said as he rubbed his red cheek.
"Thanks for nothing," she spat back. She tried to walk away, and her knee almost gave out as she braced herself against the wall. Jacen turned his vision down to her left leg and saw that she had a few nasty rips in her pants, and a little bit of blood was showing through. She must have bumped her legs against the cave wall, something awful when I was running, he thought to himself. He rushed over to help her. "What do you want?"
"I can help," he said and reached down to examine her upper left leg. As he reached out to touch her wounds, he fell backward suddenly as Ariela's right leg snapped off a hard kick into his side.
"Don't touch me. You don't have permission, remember?"
Jacen didn't even bother apologizing, realizing that nothing he could say right now would help. He also noticed she had lost her bag in the trip down the tunnel, probably adding a little to her sour mood. The two walked as far apart as the narrow tunnel allowed them, repelling each other like opposing magnets. They could see the slight glow of the sub-rail ahead, and they didn't speak as they walked toward it. Jacen tried to take his mind off the tension present and examined the rail ahead of them. It consisted of four cylinders ninety degrees apart from each other around a circle and were girded every ten or so meters by a large ring. The tube diameter the four cylinders created was about four meters, allowing a three-meter-wide train to travel the rails easily with a half-meter magnetic cushion all-around.
The pair entered the sub-rail tunnel at a right angle and had to pick a direction to walk. Jacen knew in which direction he wanted to go and knew that if Ariela wanted to walk in the other direction, her present mood would make it next to impossible to change her mind. For that reason, Jacen set off quickly in the appropriate direction before Ariela could make her decision. Ariela paused only briefly, wanting to question his judgment, but didn't.
There was about a meter between the rail and the tunnel's edge - sometimes more, sometimes less. Refusing to let Jacen lead, Ariela squeezed her narrow shoulders between Jacen and the rocky wall, forcing them to walk abreast of each other and forcing Jacen to expertly dodge each support ring they passed to keep his left shoulder connected. Jacen knew the above-ground grav-rail made a sharp turn about a kilometer away from the complex, and he was hoping that this underground transit system made that same sharp turn. He hadn't told Ariela yet, but he hoped to board the next train that came by.
The silence was now over five minutes long and thick enough to cut with a vibro-blade. "I'm sorry," they both said, and the tension dissolved in an instant. The two escapees turned to face each other as they spoke and tried to suppress grins.
Jacen spoke first. "I'm sorry. I should have been more careful back there in the tunnel, it being pitch black and all."
"No," Ariela rebuked him, "you did fine. If it weren't for you, Borgan would have tortured me for sure."
They both looked into each other's eyes and saw that all had been forgiven and said no more for a while as they continued walking. Jacen noticed that Ariela was suppressing a slight limp to the best of her ability but didn't say anything, wanting her to bring up the topic, so he didn't have to force himself upon her. He didn't have to wait long. "Can you really do something for my leg?"
They were approaching the beginning of the turn, and there was a small alcove next to the rail where there was about one hundred square feet of free space. "Yes, I can," Jacen said as he walked into the small cave, "if you give me permission."
Ariela tried to frown at him but couldn't. "You have permission," she said, "for now," she quickly added. There were lights about every 15 meters allowing Ariela to pick out a small stone to sit on as she stretched her bad left leg forward. Jacen knelt next to her and examined the wounds. Through the cut pants, he could see she had a few shallow cuts right above her knee that made it painful to bend. There were also some deep bruises on her thigh.
"Wow," Jacen said, throwing bedside etiquette to the wind, "I'm really sorry."
"Forget it," she replied through clenched teeth as Jacen touched the wounds above her knee. "I'm sure Borgan could have done much worse." Ariela tried not to look as Jacen worked and stared up at the ceiling. Soon she felt a hot sensation working its way up her leg, and curiosity got the best of her. She looked down to see Jacen, with his eyes closed, holding his hand a few inches above her leg. The air between his hand and her leg was glowing red. She watched in amazement as the cuts got shorter, the ends fusing together. Soon her wounds looked more like minor scrapes than cuts. Ariela also noticed that the throbbing in her thigh had receded considerably.
Jacen opened his eyes and saw the gratitude in Ariela's face. "Feel better?"
"Much," she answered and tried to rise, but Jacen held her down gently.
"Not just yet. Let's rest for a while."
"But they'll be following us for sure."
Jacen shook his head slowly. "I don't think so, at least not right away. They know we're down here, and there is nowhere we can go for now. Besides, you shouldn't walk on that leg for a while."
They lapsed into silence until Ariela popped the question for which Jacen had been waiting for some time now. "What is a Jedi?"
"Do you know how a solar panel works?"
Ariela looked confused. "I know what one is, but that's not quite the answer I was expecting."
"It's an analogy," he responded. "A star is a collection of superheated gasses combusting and undergoing fusion. You could say that that is how a star stays alive. This life produces an incredible amount of energy. Normally this energy simply radiates through the universe, occasionally heating a small world. A solar panel is an effort to harness this energy and turn it into useful work. The panel absorbs the solar radiation like a sponge, and through different methods, you can use that energy for a wide variety of tasks. Jedi are, in a sense, life energy panels. We absorb the energy that living things produce and use it to perform special tasks. It is a lot more complicated than that, but that's it in a nutshell."
Ariela shrank back from Jacen a little. "You mean you are stealing life energy from me right now?"
"No, no, it's not like that," Jacen said, trying to quell her fears. He paused for a while, trying to explain it better. "When a solar panel isn't there, what happens? The light just hits the ground, right. When you operate a solar panel, do you make the sun any cooler? No. The sun is going to produce energy whether you use it or not. You can only use as much as the sun produces and can't 'steal' anything. We call the life energy the Force, and it exists everywhere. It's there whether we choose to use it or not. So don't worry, I'm not stealing any life energy from you."
Ariela looked visibly relieved but still confused. "So, what exactly can you do?"
Jacen shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. I mean, I know what I can do now, but as far as what I'm capable of doing - anything, I guess. But it all depends on my experience and strength with the Force. The gift to use the Force isn't given to everyone. It's hereditary. My uncle is a master and can do things easily that I can't even imagine. My younger brother is powerful with the Force, and while I have more experience with it, he can do everything better and with so much more ease than I can. It gets frustrating."
Ariela smiled at the small rivalry she could imagine between Jacen and his brother. Her smile disappeared as she contemplated her next question. "What do you do with your power? I mean, are you some kind of ruler or something? Borgan said that you were the son of the head of state of the New Republic."
Jacen smiled at her fear of him. "I have as much authority over people as you do. Yes, you would think that the people with power should be the ones to rule. Survival of the fittest and all that, but that's not the way we like to do it. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. As Jedi, we understand that we have a huge responsibility to the rest of the universe to use our gift wisely. Some flaunt their power through evil plots of conquest, and they usually throw the whole galaxy into war. Jedi try to use their strength to better the lives of others. I guess we are kind of like protectors of the peace."
"So, you weren't lying back in the alley," Ariela said with a suddenly downcast face. "It's your job to rescue me, and you're going to turn me over to the authorities once we're out of here."
Jacen felt like his heart had been torn out of his chest and stomped on. "No, not at all. I'm here because . . . I mean, I'm rescuing you because . . . No, I won't turn you over to the authorities," Jacen finally finished. "You're the victim here, not the criminal. I'm going to take you far away from here." Jacen paused as his statement brought to mind something he had been wondering. "Where are you from?"
Ariela smiled at the question. "What are you trying to say? You don't think a girl who can dance, fight, is an art expert and is the best thief this side of the boulder belt could come from Estassia? You're right. I come from another planet named Trinxon. I was born there and lived the first 15 years of my life there."
Jacen watched her pause in mid-thought, obviously reliving those memories. He knew that something traumatic had to have happened for her to have ended up here working for Borgan and the Master. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."
"No," she said, "I haven't talked about this with anyone except Borgan, and he doesn't have a heart, so he doesn't count. My family was impoverished by this planet's standards, but we didn't notice. My father wasn't rich, but he was brilliant and resourceful. His problem was that he had an accident when he was young that left his face very disfigured, thus eliminating him from any chance at a mainstream job." Jacen nodded, understanding the editorial on today's society. "He still managed to get by, doing odd jobs for the few people who realized that beneath his scarred face was a very bright man.
"Finally, someone approached him and promised him a decent paying job if he did some analyzing and decoding for him. He had said he was a member of the local intelligence agency and that they simply wanted him to check their codes and programs for bugs. My dad accepted immediately, glad that he would be able to support his family finally. Well, he cracked their codes, fixed their programs, and, if it had been an honest organization, made the company a lot of money. His first paycheck came in the form of three armed men. They shot my father on sight and killed my mother and younger brother. They would have killed me as well, but Borgan showed up. He says he was just passing by and decided to check out the commotion. He promised to take care of me so that I could take care of myself.
"I was a frightened 15-year-old kid who had just seen her entire family murdered, and I was confused. I agreed to go with him, and you can guess what the next ten years of my life have been like. I've never been able to prove that Borgan had a hand in my family's death, and he vehemently denies it every time it comes up, but I find it too coincidental."
Again, the two fell into silence, not knowing how to follow up Ariela's story. "So, what do you have planned?"
Jacen saw an excellent opportunity to change the mood of the conversation and did so with pleasure. "We're going to catch a ride on the next train."
Ariela's mood changed, all right; it changed to one of utter disbelief. "Do you know how fast those trains travel?" she asked rhetorically. "And you just want to hop on?"
Jacen walked over to the rail system at the beginning of the curve. "No, I don't know how fast they travel, but I do know they have to slow down to go through this turn. It's a simple, dynamics slash electronics problem. In fact, it's a classic textbook example. If an underground train car weighing about five tons travels through a 90-degree turn with a radius of curvature of about," Jacen squinted down the track, judging the curve, "oh, a radius of curvature of about 60 meters, find the maximum velocity the train can maintain and still keep a distance of at least ten centimeters from the side of the tunnel. Assume that the magnetic suspension supports the train with a safety factor of about 1.75, and the gravitational constant is," Jacen took a few small jumps, "about 9.5 meters per second squared. The distance between the train and the side of the tunnel is initially and uniformly half a meter." Jacen looked over at Ariela and saw that he had just spoken way over her head. He had been through the finest school system on Coruscant while she said that she had grown up poor. Borgan had her trained since she had joined this gang, but not in advanced dynamics. Jacen hadn't enjoyed it much either, preferring his biology classes to the more technical studies he was put through, but the problem he had outlined was reasonably fundamental, and he had seen examples precisely like it in many of his textbooks. This problem was nothing compared to trying to calculate the flight path in hyperspace through a star system while trying to compensate for time distortion.
"It's really not that hard. The maximum velocity works out to be about 330 kph. So, we don't have anything to worry about."
"What!" Ariela screamed. "Over 300 kilometers an hour! Do you think you can just jump onto the thing when it's going that fast? Besides, what if it weighs less than five tons? What if you're wrong?"
Jacen walked over to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Listen, it doesn't matter how much it weighs. If you work out the equation, the weight cancels out. The magnetic field calibrates itself so that it is only strong enough to lift the train's weight. If the train is lighter, then the field is weaker. Just try and trust me." Ariela calmed visibly. Something in Jacen's voice seemed to comfort her. He was so gentle when he wanted to be that Ariela wondered how she could have ever been mad at him. "Do you trust me?" Ariela nodded mutely. "Good, now try to stand," Jacen said as he held her hand and pulled gently.
Ariela was a little shaky coming up off the rock but found that her left leg was much more stable than it had been a few minutes ago. Ariela jumped slightly and looked up at Jacen with a look of approval. Before Jacen could react, she kissed him quickly on the cheek. "Thanks."
Jacen tried to force the redness in his face down but failed miserably. "Do you think you can walk now?" Jacen asked, changing the subject. Ariela nodded. "Can you run?"
"Sure," she replied, "but I don't think I can quite hit 330 yet. You're not that good of a doctor." She paused in thought. "Why do you ask?"
"We have company coming. They must have found another way down that cliff." Ariela and Jacen moved back out into the tunnel and started jogging. Sure enough, Ariela could hear voices coming from a ways behind them. She looked over her shoulder and saw that they had lights with them as well.
"There they are!" came the voices behind them. "Stop!" Blaster bolts came whizzing over their heads.
Jacen glanced over his shoulder. They were still over fifty meters behind him. Much better aim than stormtroopers, he thought to himself. I don't need this. "Jacen, they're going to hit us."
"Not if I can help it." The next few shots veered into the tunnel's ceiling or angled into the wall beside them. The bolts splashed against the rock, spraying the fleeing couple. Jacen flinched as the small stones bit into his skin. Better than getting hit with the bolts, he thought.
Ariela had a better idea and slipped into the metal tunnel next to them. Jacen followed suit and saw now that they were in the turn, the support rings came more frequently and created an effective cage, protecting them from the firing of their enemies. The running turned into a hurdle race as they jumped over each ring support they came to. A few more shots were fired at them, but their pursuers didn't have a good angle, and the bolts sparked harmlessly off the rings.
A remarkably close shot caught Jacen's attention. The bolt skimmed past one of the magnetic repulsion cylinders and hit the wall. Jacen paused briefly as he regarded the explosion against the wall. The rock didn't explode on impact. The bolt just kind of evaporated on contact. The bolt must have become depolarized as it skimmed over the magnetic repulsion cylinder, which means . . . Jacen ran over to one of the side cylinders and held out his hand to it. "We got more company," he said.
"The people behind us have reinforcements?"
"Not exactly. The train is coming."
Ariela made a move to jump out of the track, but Jacen grabbed her wrist. "No, stay in here. This is how I planned on getting on the train in the first place. I just didn't plan on doing it while being fired at. Let's try and get out of this curve first."
The end of the curve was just ahead, and Jacen stopped when they reached it. Ariela looked incredibly nervous. "Don't worry," Jacen said for the umpteenth time that afternoon, "the train is still a few kilometers away. The magnetic field isn't that strong yet."
"A couple of kilometers doesn't mean much at 330 kph. It could get here-"
"A kilometer every 10.9091 seconds. I know." Jacen closed his eyes and concentrated. "Get on my back."
"On your back?" Ariela asked, not sure if she should be appalled by the idea or not.
"I don't have time to argue. If you trust me, get on my back." She did as she was told, and within seconds they were floating half a meter above the bottom magnetic repulsion cylinder. Jacen reached out to the train and began to push. It was still a kilometer and a half away, and he couldn't feel it that strongly through the Force, but the floating pair began to drift backward slowly.
Ariela shrieked as the two pursuers came into view. "Hey, stop!" they yelled from about 50 meters away. Ariela ducked behind Jacen's head as the two men fired. They missed, but not by much. Jacen was coasting backward more swiftly now and couldn't break his concentration to worry about the blaster shots. With the train about ten seconds away, it left too much time for the two men to hit them, especially now that they were back on a straightaway. Still pushing with his mind, Jacen changed his focus slightly and pushed off the two thugs. The men were unprepared for the shove and tumbled backward. The two gunmen scrambled to their feet again and prepared to fire.
One of the major selling points for magnetic propulsion is the incredible sound reduction over regular transits. There are no motors, no moving parts, and no points of contact or friction. The only sound the high-speed trains produce is the incredible wind noise of near sonic travel. But that sound is left far behind the train, giving no warning of its coming. Ariela watched as the train came shooting around the corner like an incredible fast eel getting ready to strike. Jacen could feel the train closing fast and knew the two men were standing right in the middle of the track, utterly oblivious to their fatal position. "Don't watch!" Jacen screamed to the woman on his back. The one thug was just drawing a bead on the pair when the train hit them, not slowing in the least and blowing them both apart like a pile of leaves in a wind storm.
Ariela screamed and almost jumped off of Jacen's back, not wishing the same fate, but they were moving close to 100 kph now, and she held on. Like the magnetic repulsion that supported the train, Jacen's strength increased exponentially as the train got closer. From Ariela's point of view, it looked like the train was slowing down, while she knew that they were really speeding up. As the train came within a few meters, Ariela shuddered at the blood that had streaked the front of the train like racing stripes on a swoop.
Jacen pushed with all his might, and they collided with the train at a difference of about ten kilometers an hour. Jacen absorbed the brunt of the blow, and it broke his concentration. The nose of the train was slightly cone-shaped, like a giant missile. Jacen was straddling the nose and scrambling for a handhold on the top of the train. "Climb over me!" Jacen yelled over the howl of the wind. Ariela understood that he couldn't support both of them, and she was high on his back with a better angle to reach the top of the train. There was a lip, and her fingers wrapped around it. "Watch your head!" Jacen screamed as she let the wind flip her body around, so she was facing forward on the train with her body flailing behind her. The top magnetic cylinder was only half a meter above the top of the train and only a dozen centimeters above her head.
Jacen was just getting a grip when they both felt the train begin to accelerate dramatically. The train had just fully left the turn and was resuming its normal cruising velocity of 750 kph. The shock of the acceleration had caused Jacen to slip, and the nose of the train was now aimed at his chest. Ariela watched in horror as the majority of his weight now dangled below the middle of the train, and the wind drag on his body threatened to pull him under. Jacen fell further and further until Ariela could only see his forearms grasping desperately at the smooth surface of the train. She screamed as she watched Jacen's arms disappear.
"No! Come back!" Jacen couldn't hear her. The wind stung her eyes, but the blue orbs would have produced tears anyway.
Underneath the train, Jacen was in a very precarious position. He had managed to slip his fingers inside a crack between the nose cone and the main body of the front car, but his feet had no anchor point. His legs kept slipping down, straddling the center magnetic cylinder. He yanked them up, each time just barely avoiding the next ring brace as they sped by him with incredible frequency at 750 kph. Jacen took a deep breath and tried to attack this situation under the control of the Force. The Jedi felt himself grow weightless, and his legs no longer had any problem staying glued to the bottom. The crack in which he had his fingers encircled the entire train, and Jacen slowly worked his way sideways out from under the speeding transport. His body was now flat against the side of the train, very aware of the metal tunnel whizzing by him with dizzying speed.
Jacen passed a window on his trip up the side of the train and took a brief moment to look inside. There weren't very many people in the front car, but Jacen managed to lock eyes with a young boy mesmerized by streaks the few lights in the tunnel made. Jacen could tell that the boy didn't quite know what to make of this person clinging to the outside of the underground train, but it didn't take long before the boy was up out of his seat, yelling and pointing toward the window. As Jacen kept moving, he saw the flustered boy tugging at an older woman that must have been his mother. Jacen was out of view in a few seconds, and he could imagine the parent saying, "Of course, there was a man outside the train, dear. Now go sit back down and be quiet."
Jacen reached the top of the three-meter tall train and angled his arm over the edge, making contact with another person's arm. Ariela was so startled that she actually let go with that arm. Jacen quickly grabbed her wrist and hauled the wayward appendage back to its anchor point. Ariela slid over on the train and made room for Jacen as he worked his way on top.
"What happened?!" she cried above the wind.
"I decided to take the scenic route."
"I thought you were gone."
"I'm sorry to disappoint you."
Ariela kicked him and frowned, but the upside-down smile didn't last long, and it soon righted itself. "Do you know where this train goes?" Jacen asked.
Ariela shook her head. "Not a clue, but I hope it gets there soon. My arms are getting very tired."
"Let's see if we can't do something about this wind," Jacen said and began constructing a wind block with the Force. Soon, the screaming wind became no more than a stiff breeze. Ariela began to relax visibly, but Jacen gestured up. "Don't forget we have to stay low."
Ariela nodded and tried to make herself comfortable. "Do you think we can get inside?"
Jacen shook his head. "I doubt it. It shouldn't matter. At this speed, it shouldn't take too long to get anywhere."
The Master and Borgan watched as Herink walked into the room. "What did you find?"
Herink cleared his throat, knowing that he was the bearer of bad news. "Just pieces, sir."
The master leaned forward in his chair. "Pieces?" he asked for clarification, making sure that Herink knew that he wasn't happy to have to ask for it.
"Yes, just pieces of what I assume were once people. They were blown apart like nothing I've ever seen before."
"How much was there?" Borgan asked.
"I'd say at least two people but maybe more if they were minced so fine that we couldn't find them. It must have been the train, sir."
"Are you sure?" the Master asked, his voice dripping with hateful sarcasm. He turned to Borgan. "It had to be your men. They are the only ones incompetent enough to meet such a fate. No Jedi would be caught unaware by a huge, noisy train." Borgan swallowed the rebuke, thinking this was a bad time to mention how quiet the trains actually were. "Do you know where this train is heading?"
"It is going Forhienge, sir," Herink said, "500 kilometers away."
"I suggest you two get moving. Our young lady and her Jedi friend are moving away from us at a very high rate of speed." Borgan paused. Did he think they had jumped onto the train? But then, if Herink had said they weren't down there, where else could they be? "I'm not used to having the people I capture escape within an hour."
Borgan nodded and moved toward the door. "Yes, Father."