Chapter 8

Jacen sensed that Ariela was waking up as they were leaving the atmosphere. "In here," Jacen called, giving Ariela a voice to guide her into the cockpit. Ariela nearly tripped into the cockpit and slumped into the copilot's chair. "Headache?" Jacen asked, knowing the answer. Ariela nodded. "May I?" Jacen asked as he reached a hand out for her head. She nodded again. He gently clamped into the top of her head with his thumb and middle fingers massaging her temples. He let the Force flow through his hand and clear Ariela's cluttered mind. He could feel her mood brighten as he pulled his hand away.

Ariela looked at him with the sparkle back in her eyes. "I'm going to have to start calling you Dr. Jacen." She looked out the forward viewscreen as the dark blue of the atmosphere faded to black. Slowly the stars showed themselves against the darkening background. "It's beautiful."

Jacen paused with his hands over the controls to take in the view. He had known way too many people who had died in the awful vacuum of space to think of it as beautiful. Still, Jacen had to agree, sitting next to Ariela, as they left their troubles behind; the view did kind of hold some peaceful solitude the two of them could now enjoy together. "Where are we going?" Jacen asked, already having his mind made up that they would return to Coruscant. "You've never been out of this system, have you?" Ariela shook her head. "I think you'll like Coruscant."

Ariela nodded at the idea, but her eyes fell before she spoke. "Yes, but I think we better go to Trinxon."

Jacen struggled with what to say next. She obviously had a strong connection with her home planet that she wasn't ready to sever, no matter how much it would cost her to stay. "Ariela, you have to realize that you will never be safe from these people until you go far away from them."

"Jacen," she said, her voice very neutral, "I'd love to come with you back to Coruscant, but you stole a Planet Hopper."

"So?" Jacen asked, not seeing her point. Ariela kept her mouth closed, letting Jacen figure it out for himself. "All I have to do is program the coordinates of Coruscant into the nav computer, and it will plot us a course and give us an estimated time of the trip." Jacen did this and blinked several times at the output. "Seven thousand years is a little longer than had I expected."

Ariela put her hand on Jacen's arm. "Dear," she said as calmly as she could, "you stole a Planet Hopper. They don't have hyperdrives."

A million curses raced through Jacen's mind as he realized his carelessness. The curses repeated themselves as he saw a red light come to life on the control panel. "We've got company," he said to Ariela. "It looks like Borgan still isn't ready to let us leave. Which way to Trinxon?" Ariela pointed to a small blue and green planet in the distance. As Jacen looked at it, he saw several small brownish lumps floating between him and the planet. Scanning his equipment and several maps available to him via the flight computer, he defined the unknown objects. "An asteroid field! We have to fly through an asteroid field to get there. Can we go over or under it?"

Ariela shook her head. "It's a semi-spherical field. They call it the boulder belt. You didn't notice it when you came into the system because all hyperspace traffic is routed through the holes in the top and bottom of the field. Unfortunately for inter-planetary travel, the orbits of Estassia and Trinxon are very nearly parallel, so you have to go through the belt. They have constructed several electromagnetic tunnels through the belt to make travel easier."

As they got nearer to the belt, Jacen could see what she was talking about. The tunnels themselves were invisible, but Jacen watched as the small asteroids, or boulders, as Ariela had called them, flowed over the electromagnetic field like water flowing perpendicular to a pipe. Jacen looked at his sensors and saw that whoever was chasing them was gaining quickly, and Jacen was pushing the Planet Hopper to its limit. From what Jacen could see, they were going to reach the belt right about the same time that their pursuer was going to catch them. "We're going to cut this close, sweetie," Jacen said as he made sure to keep the ship moving side to side so that whoever was chasing them couldn't get a long-range weapon's lock on them. The endearments that the two of them were throwing at each other seemed to come more easily during these times of tension.

As they drew near the tunnel, Jacen had a sudden insight. "I don't like this at all."

"What?" Ariela asked as Jacen avoided yet another potential missile lock.

"We're supposed to go through that tunnel, and whoever's chasing us knows it. That tunnel is a couple of thousand kilometers long, and while we'll be through it in a minute or so, he's going to know exactly where we are during that minute. He won't even need to get a weapon's lock. If he just fires a MIRV into the tunnel, he's bound to hit us."

"So, what do you want to do about it?" Ariela asked, fearful that she knew what he was thinking.

"My dad keeps bragging to me about how quickly he can do the famed Kessel Run, which involves skirting the Maw and then navigating a sparse asteroid field for about four hours straight. I've never even tried it. I thought I should get a little practice with asteroid fields before I did."

"Please," Ariela said, "you don't need to do this to impress me, dear."

"Hey, honey, I'm doing this to save our lives."

Behind them, Herink was smiling as they approached the tunnel. He no longer wasted time trying to get a solid lock on the ship. In a few moments, he would be in range for beam weapons; besides, once they were in the tunnel, it would be like shooting moncril in a fuel drum. As Herink flexed his fingers around the turbolaser firing levers, he watched as right before the tunnel, the not-so-nimble Planet Hopper veered to the right and into the asteroid field. "Blast them!" Herink swore as his fingers played out the curse and fired toward the desperate ship. The energy rays sprang out from the black ship but found only space rocks to hit as there were already several of the large asteroids blocking Herink's view. Herink paused only briefly at the edge of the field, remembering Borgan's parting warning, and plunged in after them.

"He followed us in," Jacen said, not sure if he should be happy for his pursuer's stupidity or frustrated at their inability to lose this dreadful gang. "Now, let's see what this piece of junk can do." Jacen wasn't a quarter the pilot his dad was, or a third the pilot his uncle was, or even half the pilot his sister was, but hey, those were the three best pilots he knew, and after them, he was pretty darn good.

The Planet Hopper he had stolen was a bulbous craft, to say the least. It was built for no more than a 24-hour flight through standard space. It had two bedrooms, a refresher unit, a lounge, and a cockpit. There was a small engineering department that was more like a cramped crawl space, but since it was never away from the surface for long and was never more than 12 hours from any port, it hadn't been designed for in-flight repairs. What Jacen was missing the most right now was the fact that this ship had no weapons to speak of.

Jacen turned into the flight of the asteroids and tried to match speeds with them so he would be flying into as little disturbance as possible. As he flew, he scanned the controls in front of him. He was very thankful there were shields. He figured that any ship that had to pass near an asteroid field, whether they flew through a tunnel or not, needed a little debris protection. There was a tractor beam, an automated pilot, and a good sensor array. Jacen soon found that the controls were sluggish compared to the fighters he was used to flying.

The ship suddenly rocked, and Ariela let out a startled yip. "Jacen," she scolded as she looked for the small asteroid that had hit them, "watch it."

Jacen checked his readings. "That wasn't an asteroid, dear. We just got shot. Time for a few evasive maneuvers." Jacen sent the ship downward and barrel-rolled away from the large rock that had been beneath him. As Jacen pulled the maneuver, he saw two more bolts of energy fly over the top of him and crash into a giant asteroid.

Herink followed suit and made the move more easily, halving the distance between the two ships. Jacen saw this and realized that textbook moves could easily be mimicked, and if the ship got any closer, the pilot would be able to pop the cockpit and hit them with a blaster. Jacen turned the ship into a hard right turn, paused briefly at 90 degrees, and then cut even harder, turning all the way around and having to dip under another asteroid halfway through the turn. Herink made the turn as well, but when Jacen had paused after half of it, he assumed that the Jedi was going to make a run for the outside of the belt. Herink had punched his throttle to cut Jacen off, only to find that the skillful pilot had completed the 180 and was now flying into the flowing rocks. Herink slowed down and completed the turn himself, but now Jacen had regained his original lead and placed a few more boulders between the two ships.

It was all Jacen could do now to try and avoid the oncoming rocks and didn't have time for any fancy maneuvers to put distance between the ships. Herink soon got his ship behind the Planet Hopper again and began firing methodically. Jacen saw the shots fly past him before he felt the first one hit. The ship rocked hard as one, two, and then three shots hit home. The first two were glancing blows, but the third one hit them square in the backside. Jacen thought he heard an explosion from the ship, but he couldn't see anything on the systems check.

"Ariela," he said, drawing her away from flinching every time an asteroid came close, "do you know how to maintain shield strength?" She shook her head. "Look right here," he said and tapped on the shield indicator, which showed that the rear shields were well past red. Jacen quickly returned his free hand to the controls as a spinning asteroid came a little too close. Jacen hugged it, using it as a shield to change directions slightly without his follower seeing him. "You can see on the picture that there are six different shield areas: top, bottom, front, back, right, and left." He paused as he concentrated on jumping up a few levels in the flow pattern of the deadly rocks. "Use these controls," he tapped another section of the panel, " to try and keep only the sections of the shield that are between him and us powered." Jacen looked at the sensor and saw that his laser-happy buddy hadn't yet made a move up. "For example, he is back and below us, so try and focus all of the shield strength into those two areas."

Ariela nodded. "But what if an asteroid hits us in the front?"

Jacen shook his head as he yanked the controls to the side, just avoiding answering Ariela's question with a real-life answer. "Honey, we don't have the power luxury to repel both, and his firepower is aimed at us, while the asteroids are purely random. I like my chances of avoiding them better than avoiding beam weapons that travel at near the speed of light."

Ariela nodded and, looking at the sensors, saw that Herink was once again directly behind them. She adjusted the shields accordingly. The ship rocked twice more as two more shots found their mark. The next two shots sailed past the Planet Hopper and exploded against a small asteroid directly in front of them. The rock blew apart, and Jacen flew right through it, small stones raining down against the cockpit view screen like hail on a tin roof.

Jacen paused briefly as he smelled the air. "Do you smell smoke?" Ariela sniffed the air and nodded. "Fires are not good in space," Jacen muttered. Looking at the panel's temperature readings, he saw that there was indeed a fire in the engineering section around the main reactor. Jacen pressed another button and prayed that the automatic extinguisher worked. Two more shots hit them, and Jacen found that he had suddenly lost most of his mobility. "No!" Jacen screamed at the now nearly useless controls.

Jacen looked down at the panels and saw only two things operational: the life support and the tractor beam. No shields. No forward propulsion. Very little mobility. Jacen closed his eyes and filled himself with the Force. He felt a colossal asteroid almost three kilometers wide straight ahead. Jacen could also sense an enormous lump half the size of the massive rock on the opposite side of the asteroid. The giant boulder was rotating slowly and flying in formation with another large asteroid half a kilometer below it. Jacen aimed for the gap and hovered his hand over the tractor beam controls.

Herink's sensors told him that Jacen's ship was now totally defenseless, and he moved in for the kill. The uncoordinated craft limped about in front of him, and Herink couldn't get a decent bead on it, but he stayed with it as the ship moved between two gigantic asteroids flying parallel to each other.

As Jacen entered the gap, he locked the tractor beam onto the upper asteroid and pulled the ship into a steep climb around the curvature of the massive boulder, praying that the momentum of the ship was enough to rotate the rock. As the craft slowed down during the transfer of momentum, Jacen pulled even harder with the Force, pulling the big rock to come around, and it did.

As Herink saw the ship ahead of him come to a dead stop, he locked onto the rear of the wounded craft and fired. He enjoyed the sight as the back of the ship exploded in a subdued fireball. Herink was so proud of himself he didn't notice that the giant asteroid above him was turning. The lump had rotated all the way around the top and was now moving towards the gap. Herink's black ship coasted into the gap seconds before the lump turned in. The small distance between the asteroids was not big enough to hold the lump, and the black ship's proximity sensors went crazy as the two asteroids rolled together like meshing gears. Herink's laugh died in his throat as he and the ship around him had their atoms spread across the cosmos.

Jacen had felt the shot coming through the Force, but there was little he could do. The ship rocked and convulsed violently when it hit home. The entire rear of the ship was torn from the front half, and the explosion sent the remaining section hurtling toward the asteroid that Jacen had been skimming. The huge rock was still spinning gently, which was a significant factor in absorbing the shock as the front half of the ship hit the asteroid tangentially. The ship rocked hard as it skipped once, twice, and then skidded to a halt, the nose of the vessel embedded into a soft section of the rock.

It was when they were finally stopped that Jacen heard the noise. It wasn't a familiar noise that you heard every day, and if you were lucky, you could go through life without ever hearing it. It was the deadliest sound in space. A very sharp, hissing sound. "We're losing air!" Jacen said, unstrapped himself from his chair, and found there was no gravity. He propelled himself with the Force through the open cockpit door to see no lights in the rest of the ship. The cockpit lights ran off a separate battery in the front of the ship for this very reason. Jacen guided himself through the darkened hallway, homing in on the dreadful sound. Jacen moved as quickly as he could, pushing off open doorways until he came to the door to the engineering section. When the ship had been hit the last time, it had breached the engineering section, and this door had closed automatically, but before it was able to seal itself completely, the power had been cut. The crack in the door was not visible to the eye, but Jacen could feel the air current flowing out. There was no handle on the door for Jacen to push on, so he put his hands flat against the door and pushed inward and sideways, willing the door closed. He felt it slip a little, and the hissing subdued somewhat. With a tremendous heave, he felt the door click, and the hissing stopped altogether. How much air had been lost, though? Without the life support operational, there would be no way to replace the lost oxygen.

Jacen drifted himself back through the darkness to the cockpit, where he found Ariela struggling with her weightlessness. It was probable that she had never experienced the unique phenomenon before, and it produced a bit of vertigo when someone felt it for the first time. She turned to Jacen when he entered. He tried to sound upbeat. "Well, I got that taken care of. Just a little leak. It's fixed now."

"Jacen, what are we going to do?" she asked, trying to sound brave.

"I'll tell you exactly what we're going to do now, honey. I'm going to send out a distress signal. Then a rescue team from Estassia is going to come and get us. They are going to take us back to Rencrin. They're going to drop us off right next to my ship, which is parked in the local spaceport, and we are going to go to Coruscant together, where you can meet my family and friends."

"And in the meantime, before they come and get us?" The look in Ariela's eyes told him that only the truth would be accepted.

"I'm afraid it's going to get a little cold and a little stuffy. How cold and stuffy, I really don't know, but it won't exactly be comfortable."

Ariela nodded, accepting his answer. "First, we have to rig up the distress signal. Now the best way to stay warm is to take your mind off it and keep busy, so why don't you help me." Ariela looked at him and nodded mutely. "First thing we have to do is find out where the power to the communications section is located so we can splice it to the battery that is running the lights." Jacen looked intently at the control panel, knowing that he would have to remove it. There were eight fasten screws holding the board down, one at each corner and one in the middle of each side. "What I wouldn't give for a hydro-spanner right now," Jacen said to Ariela, but as he spoke, Ariela watched all eight of the screws rotate on their own and come out of their sockets. Ariela watched Jacen concentrate slightly during the trick and then turned away from Ariela when he was finished. He looked at the eight bolts floating in zero gravity and shrugged his shoulders in feigned ignorance. "I guess the screws need gravity to keep them down."

Ariela frowned at Jacen's poor attempt at humor, but the frown didn't last long, as the good mood that Jacen was forcing on the situation was contagious. "Let me help you with that," she said, and together they maneuvered the clumsy panel out of the way.

"Thanks," Jacen said, "it was pretty heavy." Ariela elbowed him but laughed anyway. Jacen manually traced the wire from the cockpit lights down to a small battery tucked away in the corner of the small compartment beneath the control panel. Next, he traced the wire from the communications switch to the relay through the primary power source. Jacen looked briefly for something to cut the wire and plucked one of the screws still floating around out of the air. He placed the sharp threads against the wire and rubbed hard. After a few passes, he cut the wire, and within a minute or two, he had the communications circuit running through the auxiliary battery.

Jacen leaned back out from the lower compartment and pulled the control panel back down from the spot where it had been floating. Jacen was happy to see that the communications light was now operational. Jacen recorded a very brief message, stating the urgency of their situation but not mentioning their names, just in case. Jacen encoded the message inside the locator beacon, looped the two together, and played them.

"How long do you think it will take before someone responds to them?" Ariela asked when Jacen leaned back, telling her that he was done.

"Oh, I don't know. I'd guess about one hour tops," he lied. "I want to cut the cockpit lights, so there isn't any excess drain on the battery, okay?" Ariela nodded but still gasped slightly as they were plunged into total darkness by the flip of a switch. "Let's see if we can find a glow rod in the bedroom."

The two of them floated gently through the narrow hallways into the bedroom. Ariela couldn't see a thing and was of little use in looking, but Jacen soon found two glow rods. Jacen had been hoping to find some old electric lights. They at least produced some heat. They both floated over to the lounge. The lounge consisted of two chairs and two couches around a medium-sized table, all of which were now floating in the air. Jacen and Ariela tried to sit in the chairs with little success. They floated about for a few minutes before Ariela broke the silence. "What is your family like?"

"It's funny you should ask," Jacen said, although he really couldn't see too much humor in the question once he thought about it. "When it comes down to galactic history over the past 30 years, my parents and uncle ran the show." Jacen went into a detailed explanation of how the three of them had met and how they had defeated the Death Star at Yavin. Jacen spared few details, knowing that time was something they had a lot of. Every time he had a chance to exaggerate the details for the sake of humor, he did so.

Jacen had been talking for about forty minutes when Ariela interrupted him. "J-J-Jacen, I'm c-cold." Jacen had so thoroughly involved himself in his storytelling that he had lost track of everything else. When he looked for Ariela, he saw that she was no longer holding onto her glow rod and was floating aimlessly about the room, bumping into walls and furniture.

Jacen had been using a slight Jedi trance to slow his breathing, knowing that it was his responsibility to try and conserve the air. Now that he exhaled out of his trance, he could see his breath clearly. It must be close to 30 degrees in here, he thought. "Ariela, dear, we have to see if we can find you a blanket."

Jacen floated over to her, and she grabbed out for him. "J-Jacen, you're s-so warm." Jacen was thinking the opposite as her icy fingers clamped around his arm. She brought her arms around his chest and hugged him fiercely, trying to feel his inner warmth.

It wasn't fair, Jacen thought. What gives me the right to stay warm while she freezes to death? Jacen knew, though, that it would be foolish to stop using the Force to keep himself warm, just to be fair. "Give me your hands," he said gently, pulling her arms from around him. He held her hands in his and concentrated on sending his warmth into her. He could sense the tingling sensation through her body as the warmth spread into her limbs. "Is that better?" She nodded her head, not opening her mouth, too afraid to let any of the coveted heat out. "Good. I'm going to find you a blanket, okay?" Ariela nodded again, and Jacen left.

Jacen had seen several blankets in the room when they had looked for the glow rods, and he brought two of them back with him and a sleeping bag. When he returned to Ariela, she was shivering just as severely as before. He flew up next to her and wrapped one of the blankets around her. "C-can we b-build a f-fire?"

Jacen shook his head slowly, tears welling up in his eyes. This was the oxygen debt taking effect on her brain. She couldn't think clearly. "No, dear. The fire will eat up the oxygen. We can't afford that." Jacen hugged her, trying to ward off the cold.

"Why are y-you s-so warm?"

Jacen couldn't look her in the face as the tears came down his face. How could he tell her that someone had chosen at the beginning of time that he was to be given this special gift so that he could be warm while she had to suffer, even though she never did anything wrong to deserve it? This was the first time in Jacen's life that he thought of the Force strength he had as a burden. As foolish as the notion was, Jacen wished they could both be cold and die together. Luke had told him that there would be several times in his life when he would wish that he never had his Force potential. This was the first. "I have the Force," Jacen said, managing to keep his voice from cracking.

"C-can you g-give me some?"

Jacen's heart broke in two, and he hugged her as tight as he could. Life was simply not fair. How could he say no? Jacen began to feel the lack of oxygen in his system and knew he would have to go into a trance soon to stay alive. How would he be able to keep Ariela warm then? Jacen pulled out of the hug a little and looked deep into Ariela's deep blue eyes. Through the frost of her constant breathing, Jacen thought they looked like frozen blue water droplets from Hoth. "Do I have permission?" he asked solemnly. Ariela nodded her head. Jacen bent his face down to hers and their lips locked in a kiss more profound than either of them had ever felt before. Jacen literally stole her breath away as they joined through the Force. Their breathing became almost nonexistent as their pulses slowed down to a dozen beats per minute. Jacen filled her with the Force, as he had never used it before. The kiss lasted over 30 minutes.

Jacen slowly released his hold on her lips and was happy to see that they were no longer the color of her eyes. He could feel her warmth all the way through to her toes. Her trance was not totally comatose, and he could see slight puffs of frost from her nostrils every 20 seconds. He could also feel that the heat he had imputed into her was not stable and was fading even now. Jacen didn't know how to sustain a second-person trance in these extreme conditions.

Jacen looked around the room and laid eyes on the sleeping bag he had brought with him. He gently beckoned it to him with the Force, not daring to leave Ariela alone for even a second. "Jacen," Ariela said, as she began to slip out of the trance, "not alone in the sleeping bag. Never alone. You have complete and absolute permission. We will survive, together, always, together." Jacen silenced her with another kiss, and he unzipped the sleeping bag for the two of them. He needed to create a total union.