Chapter 9

"Ship's log twenty-one-hundred hours. We are approaching the derelict spacecraft that has been sending a distress signal for the past four hours. The signal was weak and was reflected off several asteroids before it left the belt and was received back on Estassia. It took over three hours to track down the source, but it appears to be coming from a heavily damaged spaceship embedded in a huge asteroid. Using a heavy tractor beam, we have removed the asteroid from the belt and are proceeding to enter the ship. Preliminary scans indicated no life forms and only tiny power fluctuations that appear to be coming from the backup battery powering the distress signal. Scans also indicate an inside temperature of minus 20 degrees and no oxygen. There is, however, positive pressure inside the craft. The mission status has been changed from 'rescue' to 'recovery.'"

The small mating pod left the large rescue vessel and crept slowly toward the asteroid. The crew consisted of three men. "Bring her in gently, Stevens. I don't want you dislodging this thing from its final resting place, so we have to go chasing it all over the sector."

"Yes, sir," Stevens said.

Jarret looked at the pilot, surprised he had gotten the 'sir' out of him. Jarret looked over his shoulder at the third group member, Kern, and shrugged. These three men had been on numerous missions together, most of them turning out just like this one. You always had these kids that dared themselves to try and fly through the boulder belt without using the tunnel, and nine times out of ten, this is how they ended up. The three men still felt remorse, but it was only because of their moral nature and not any special dispensation toward the deceased. And while they were always serious during the 'recovery,' they tried to lighten the mood around the mission as much as possible.

"I can't seem to find the port, sir," Steven's said as he had circled the small lump on the side of the asteroid twice now.

"What about that door?" Kern said from the back seat, pointing through the forward view.

"That was not originally a door to the outside," Steven's said upon closer examination. "That looks like it was the door down to the control room, or engineering or whatever part of this ship got blown off. It looks kind of like a Planet Hopper. That door sealed itself automatically when the breach occurred."

"That's some breach," Jarret said. "The whole back of the ship was blown off."

"That bugs me," Steven's said as he pulled in closer to the exposed innards of the ship. "How do you blow up half a ship while leaving the other half intact?" Stevens flashed the light of the rescue pod across the charred remains of the ship. "There," he said, "see that charred tank with the hole in the bottom? That's the fuel storage container. In a normal explosion, that thing would have been blown to bits. As it is, it is only charred with a slight hole in the bottom. They got lucky. They must have been hit twice, once draining the tank and taking out the reactor the second time. Without any fuel to ignite on the second collision, the asteroid just took off the back off the ship without totally destroying the ship."

"Yea," Kern agreed sarcastically, "really lucky for them. Instead of dying in a split second from an unseen asteroid, they get hit twice and then die of asphyxiation while they freeze to death."

"You guys are assuming that they got hit by an asteroid," Jarret piped in. "If you look at the carbon scoring on the side of the ship, it doesn't look too much like an asteroid to me." The others pondered this for a while. "Anyway, that door looks like our only way in, short of making a new door. Stevens, do you think that you can get a solid seal around that door?"

"I don't know. I think so."

"What do you mean, 'I think so?' I don't want the inside of that ship venting into space."

"I'm sorry, sir. I WILL get a solid seal around that door."

"That's better. If we can restore some heat and air to the inside, we'll be able to take our suits off." Jarret turned to Kern. "What kind of systems do we have to work with over there?"

"Everything's down except for that distress signal, and it's fading fast."

"Okay, I want you to restore the lights and life support as fast as you can. Please do not restore the artificial gravity if you can help it. I don't want bodies falling from high places. Let's try and show a little respect for the dead."

Stevens brought the pod right next to the wounded ship and extended the airlock sleeve. "Attempting a pressure seal," Stevens said. "Surface is too rough. Pressure seal has failed."

"Take your time, Stevens. If whoever is in there has survived this long in those conditions, a few more seconds won't hurt them."

Stevens nodded. "Attempting magnetic seal. Again, the surface is too rough and scarred to secure. Magnetic seal has failed. Attempting fusion seal." Stevens waited as the fusion material worked its way around the door. "Welding complete. Testing for pressure stability. The seal is secure." Stevens turned away from his controls. "Ready when you are."

The three men were already dressed in their environment suits and merely had to attach oxygen tanks to their backs and put on their helmets. Stevens was the first one through the sleeve. He paused while trying to locate the manual override that would open the door. Once found, he mentally steeled himself for what he was about to see and opened the door.

It was incredibly dark, and Stevens activated his glow lamp to shed some light into the ghost ship. He walked through the door and looked briefly around, his magnetic boots securing him to the floor. "Yep, this is what is left of what used to be a Planet Hopper. Fairly new design too. The cockpit will be the first door on your left, Kern."

"Thanks," the engineer responded. Kern was the last one in line and pulled a power cord connected back in the pod to the power supply. While Kern went into the cockpit, Jarret and Stevens ventured into the bedroom.

"Four bunk beds," Stevens observed for the record, "none of them made." He opened some of the drawers. "It appears that some blankets are missing, but I can't be sure. I don't know exactly how these new Planet Hoppers are equipped, and if it is a privately owned one, they could have anything on board."

"Let's move into the lounge area," Jarret suggested, obviously seeing nothing in the bedroom.

Stevens led the way into the lounge and walked right into a pair of black pants. Stevens pulled them out of the air and looked at them briefly. "It appears that whoever is on this ship decided to go out with a bang." Jarret frowned at the young pilot severely. "Although I would think that they would be able to stay warmer if they had kept them on."

Jarret yanked the pants out of Stevens' grasp. "I thought you were smarter than that," the captain of the group said as he rolled the thin material between his gloved thumb and forefinger. "This material wouldn't do squat against the likes of 20 below. Besides, the best way to conduct heat between two people is skin to skin."

Stevens turned away from Jarret and sprayed the rest of the room with light. The beam of light cast eerie shadows amongst all the floating furniture and clothes. "I count two chairs, two couches, one small table, several articles of clothing, some definitely feminine, two blankets, and one sleeping bag," Stevens paused as he mentioned this last article. "I think I see some hair coming out of the sleeping bag, sir," Stevens added, turning suddenly professional now that they had found the reason for their presence.

"Give me readings on their status," Jarret order calmly.

Stevens tossed his glow lamp to Jarret, whipped out his handheld scanner, and approached the sleeping bag all in a smooth, practiced motion. "There are two people inside, sir, one male, one female. They appear to be somewhere in their mid-twenties, standard years." Stevens looked intently at his hand-held instrument, making sure he was reading it correctly. "Sir, I am recording life signs here."

"What!"

"Sir, I am recording a respiratory rate and a heartbeat."

"How many?"

"Unknown sir, they are both too faint to tell if they are solitary or in unison."

"How are they breathing? There is no air in this blasted ship."

Just then, the lights flickered on. "Correction, sir," Kern said as he walked in, "there is an oxygen content in the air of one point two seven percent and rising."

"Kern," Jarret ordered, "we have potentially two survivors. I need heat and air, and I need it now!"

Kern ran back into the pod and returned with two thermal blankets and an oxygen tank with two masks. Jarret was over by Stevens and the sleeping bag. "What kind of rates are you talking about?"

"I'd say the respiratory rate is about once every three minutes, and the heart rate is maybe twice a minute, but as I said, they are incredibly faint." Stevens moved to remove the bodies from the sleeping bag, but Jarret stopped him.

"Leave them in there. I don't want to disturb whatever coma they have apparently induced upon themselves."

Kern came up to them with the blankets and masks. Stevens and Jarret carefully secured the masks around the couple's faces while Kern wrapped the thermal blankets around the outside of the sleeping bag. After the provisions were in place, the three stood back and waited. After about 90 seconds, the male inhaled almost imperceptibly. Thirty seconds later, he did it, again and again, ten seconds later.

"Sir, this is incredible," Stevens said, "his pulse is stabilizing incredibly fast. His core temperature is actually rising faster than the thermal blanket!" They watched for a few more minutes while the coma victim came back to life. Soon he was breathing normally with a safe, stable heart rate.

"Kern," Jarret said, "get on the horn with the main ship. Tell them to have a bacta tank ready. This boy is going to have some serious frostbite."

Kern moved to go and then paused, turning back to the sleeping bag. "What about his girlfriend?" The three of them stared at what had once been a gorgeous face. Her skin was as white as snow now, and they all knew it was brittle to the touch. Small ice follicles decorated her closed eyelashes. Her lips were a ghastly blue, and her mouth hung slightly open inside the oxygen mask. She was facing her companion, who was breathing steadily with much of the color returning to his face. She hadn't breathed now for over five minutes, and likely, much longer than that.

Jarret turned to Stevens. "All I'm getting is the new strong signal, sir. The old, weak one is gone. I'm afraid that it was him all along."

Jarret turned to Kern. "Tell them that we have one survivor and one who didn't make it."

The large room became deathly still when Jacen walked in. The Master was sitting at a large table with a few minor electrical devices surrounding him. He was tinkering away, and although he saw Jacen come in, had even been told moments ago that Jacen had entered the complex through the front door and that no one had seemed to be able to get close to him, much less stop him, he didn't look up to regard the young man who was now standing fifteen meters away. Borgan was standing beside his much smaller father, looking as stone cold and emotionless as ever. The walls of the long narrow room were filled with some of the most beautiful and precious jewelry and art pieces that Jacen had ever laid his eyes on. On several of the shelves closer to the table at the far end of the room, Jacen could see numerous little electronic gizmos displayed with almost as much care as the invaluable art pieces preceding them. Among those last shelves lay his two lightsabers.

Jacen steeled himself against the two occupants in the room and stood there straight and tall, staring right past Borgan and boring a hole in the Master's head as it stayed down looking at the table. The old man seemed quite content to let Jacen stand there all day but was getting the feeling that, given the chance, Jacen would stand there all year.

"Please come in," the mechanical craftsman said, still without looking up. Jacen didn't move a muscle. The Master looked up, tiring of this game and Jacen's stone-cold resolution. "Oh, I see that you are already in. Please, have a seat," he gestured to the vast room where the only chair was already taken by himself. "Make yourself comfortable." Jacen didn't breathe. "You seem a little ill at ease, my young man." The Master knew exactly what had happened. He had played with the idea of sending someone to Jacen's bacta tank to finish the job Herink had started, as the young Jedi had stayed in the healing salve for over three days straight, but security around the medical facilities on Estassia was tight. Besides, the Master was patient and knew this day would come. "I can't begin to tell you how sorry I am to hear about your loss. She was a lovely girl and so full of life-"

"Power," Jacen interrupted with a voice like ice. "Knowledge is power. Fear is power. Isn't that right? Well then, know this: fear me." The Master opened his mouth to make some retort, but Jacen shut it with a snap of his fingers before the disillusioned old man could utter a sound. "It is my turn to speak now. I can't help it if you wasted your time spewing childish attempts at derogatory sarcasm." Borgan saw that Jacen was inflicting something on his master and father and made a tentative charge toward the young man. "Please," Jacen said as he sent the huge man hurtling back into the durasteel wall before he even took two steps. The big man slumped to the floor, leaving a large indentation in the wall behind him. "We've played that game before, and you're not good at it."

Jacen turned back to the Master, who was a little awestruck at Jacen's emphatic display. "Power," Jacen continued, totally in control of the situation, "is knowledge. Power is fear. Is that it? I don't think so. You think that through fear, you control lives and that control gives you power. You kill. You maim. You destroy. You instill fear. You think it gives you power. You are so wrong. I am strong. You are strong. But do we really have power? Four days ago, I held Ariela's freezing, suffocating body in my arms. I thought I was powerful, but I could not keep her alive. At any point, I could have withheld heat or not decelerated her breathing. She would have died in less than five minutes. Did that make me powerful? If she feared that I could let her die at any time, would that have given me power over her? Are you saying that I can have power through passive means? Life is fragile; anyone can threaten or destroy its existence. It doesn't take a man who can shoot electricity out of his fingers or someone who can levitate rocks to destroy human life. True power comes from creating life - the ability to understand why it is so important. I tried to save her life with my feeble powers, but I couldn't even sustain the simplest of activities in her, such as breathing or circulation, something you and I do without thinking."

Jacen beckoned to a shelf near him, and an intricately carved crystal vase floated into his hands. "This is beautiful. Simply looking at this sculpture with its intricate floral design intertwining all the way around the vase is mesmerizing. You put this on a table in your home to admire it. A child just old enough to crawl bumps into the leg of the table, and what happens?" Jacen dropped the vase, and it shattered into a thousand pieces. "That child must have been so powerful, right? The power wasn't in the destruction. It wasn't in the fact that the parents now fear for the safety of all their other breakable valuables when the child is near. The power was in the creation of the vase. The artist holds the power. He allowed us to join in the power by observing and appreciating the wonderful creation he had made. But people like you go and destroy these beautiful creations," Jacen made an all-encompassing gesture at the shelves in the room, "by hoarding them to yourself.

"You go out into the world and find a beautiful young girl. She is glowing with life and potential, so you kill her parents and steal her for yourself, snuffing out the flame of life that burns so bright inside her. At least you tried to snuff it out, but it burns too brightly. Every time someone comes around and tries to fan the flame, you remove them. Then someone comes along, and you can't remove him. It becomes apparent that her flame will burn brightly regardless of your hostile intentions. So, what do you do? You snuff out the flame by destroying the candle. I was there as the flame flickered its last, quivering delicately in the fading heat and air, remaining beautiful to the end. That wasn't power. That was the childish, adolescent behavior of some stuck-up kid who decides that if it is beautiful and he can't have it, then no one can."

Jacen paused and saw his lightsabers sitting on the shelf near the table where the Master sat. Jacen walked forward slowly; each step measured and sure. Borgan stood again and watched Jacen apprehensively, wanting nothing to do with the dangerous young man. Jacen reached onto the shelf to take his weapons. As Jacen's hands started to close on the handles, they were yanked off the shelf by an unseen force. Jacen turned slowly to the Master who was holding the lightsabers, one in each hand, and waving them mischievously. To Jacen, the man looked like an immature kid playing with a baby and a piece of candy tied to a string, constantly pulling it away when the baby got too close. "You want these, don't you?"

The lightsabers were ripped from the old man's hands so violently that he was thrown forward into the edge of the table. The two weapons floated gently over to Jacen and went directly to the loops on his belt. "I don't believe these belong to you." Jacen took a few more steps forward until he stood two meters in front of the table. "I was thinking about what you said to me, about me being dependent on the Force, while you rely on no one but yourself. Frankly, I think being dependent on the all-powerful life source of the universe is a little more reassuring than depending on the electronic know-how of an aging man.

"You know I was going to ignore you. I was going to fly away from this planet with or without Ariela and tell my mother that I thought this planet had a lot of potential for a member of the New Republic, but they have two problems. They might be a little hesitant to accept aliens into their culture and society, and they have a deeply rooted organized crime system running through the major continent. What kind of scout would I be if I did nothing about this when I had the chance? I would be like a physician who was asked to set a broken bone and, during the analysis of the patient, found that he also had a deadly disease that would kill him in a few days. If the physician simply patched the bone and ignored the disease, he would be lynched for malpractice."

"Revenge does not become a Jedi."

"You're absolutely right, but justice does. Do you know that I haven't used lethal force against you once? People have died, but I was never the instigator. Even when I destroyed the ship chasing us, I wasn't attacking the pilot but rather the ship that kept spewing fire. But now that I've had time to think about it, what kind of protector of the peace would I be if I simply allowed you to continue your reign of terror on the land, allowing you to ruin more lives like you ruined Ariela's."

Borgan and the Master both realized that they were being threatened by this young man who stood before them, but they had no way to counter him until he made his move. So, they were quite surprised when Jacen simply turned his back to them and began walking away. When he was ten steps distant, the Master could stand it no longer. "So, what do you plan to do?"

Jacen stopped and paused briefly before turning around. "You told me that you were completely self-sufficient. Well, I got to thinking, and I don't know too many people, any in fact, who can power a tractor beam or create electronic disturbances with their own muscles. That means that Mr. Independent has a secret power source that he doesn't want anyone to know about. I know of only one type of cheap, portable, small, clean power source. Unfortunately, if anything happens to it, it can become extremely unstable."

Jacen turned to continue walking. The Master thought he knew where Jacen was going with this, but he called out to him anyway. "So?"

Jacen had taken one more step and turned back to face him. "Do you know how a fusion bomb works?" The Master nodded mutely, the foul taste of bile rising in his throat. "So do I." Jacen turned to continue walking as the Master clutched his chest. "Knowledge IS power."

"You couldn't!"

"I did," Jacen responded coolly and then paused as something on the shelf caught his eye. "I don't think this belongs to you either," he said as he pocketed the diamond necklace that had started everything. Jacen walked calmly out of the room while the Master underwent a minor heart attack.

"What is it, Father?" Borgan asked as the Master was turning as white as a ghost.

"He knows," he muttered. "He knows." The older man looked up at his enormous son. "Call Dr. Wullim. He knows."

As Jacen walked out of the complex, the guards didn't bother attempting an attack. "I would leave if I were you," he said to a few of the guards he passed. None of them listened. Jacen walked out of the same door he had walked in, and his corporeal form shifted slightly as he passed through the strong energy shield surrounding the base. He made his way up the steep valley side until he was perched atop the grav-rail, looking down on the warehouse from a safe distance. Jacen looked up to the sky. "Forgive me." Then he snapped his fingers.

Inside one of the warehouse's medical rooms, Dr. Wullim was removing a small, semi-transparent sphere from the Master's chest. Borgan could see that it had a few power cable sockets outside. When the doctor had removed the globe, Borgan had seen that he had to disconnect several small cables that ran throughout his father's body. "What is it?"

The Master's voice was much weaker now. "Cold fusion. The reaction is electronically controlled and is maintained inside a magnetic containment field. We have to turn it off. If he knows how to alter the electrical controls, all he has to do is drop the magnetic containment field. . ."

"And then what?" Borgan asked as the Master reached for the power controls of the sphere.

From outside, Jacen watched as the warehouse glowed bright blue and then exploded. A uniform, spherical shock wave hit the energy shield around the building, and the two energy waves fizzled into nothing. Jacen had made sure the explosion wasn't too big, destroying only what needed to be destroyed. There were no aftershocks, and the energy field had contained the explosion enough that it was spent quickly. A few seconds later, all that was left was a smoking pile of rubble.

"I . . ."

Jacen stood over the open grave with a solemn look on his face.

"I . . . I . . ."

The sun was shining brightly on Trinxon today, and only a few white clouds dotted the sky. The wind was nonexistent.

"I . . . I just . . ."

Jacen was standing in a local graveyard that he had spent the better part of the day trying to locate. There was one gravestone nearby. It had three names: Thorin Juwel, Marta Juwel, and Thorin Juwel Jr. Jacen thought it best if he buried Ariela with her family.

The cemetery owner was standing thirty meters away, watching Jacen from a safe distance. Jacen had come to the graveyard carrying the huge coffin all by himself. The casket was made of fine wood and was built by the best wood craftsman on Estassia. When the cemetery owner had asked to see the body, he had offered a thousand credits to buy the necklace around Ariela's neck. The look Jacen had given him made the owner wonder if Jacen's brown eyes weren't actually red and if the green cloak he was wearing hid a red pointy tail. So, he had followed Jacen carefully, keeping a reasonable distance of at least fifteen meters, but when he watched Jacen dig a grave two meters by two meters by one meter with two glowing blue swords in a little less than two minutes, he doubled his observation distance.

"I . . . I really wanted to . . ."

Jacen fought against his inability to talk as he looked down at her. The color had been medically restored to Ariela's face, and her hair had retained its glowing, blonde sheen. She was dressed in an identical black dress to the one he had first met her in, and she had the infamous diamond necklace around her neck. He stared at the stunning piece of jewelry as it captured the sun's energy and used it to light up Ariela's face.

"I . . ." he started slowly. "I . . . You know it's funny that whenever we were together, I was always joking around, making fun of you, and never taking our situation seriously. It was the same with you. But it was when we were apart that I really began to understand my feelings for you. It was when we were apart that I really missed you. It was when we were separated that I realized that I . . ." Jacen swallowed a lump, "And now that you're gone for good, I know it more than ever.

"Remember on the ship when you kept asking me how I was staying so warm?" Jacen tried to laugh, but it came out as jagged exhales between sobs. "Well, I just thought you'd like to know that it is a beautiful, sunny summer day, but I feel awful cold. I don't think all the Force strength in the universe could drive this chill from me.

"Remember our last minutes or hours together. I can't remember exactly how long it was. All I know is that it was too short - too short by decades. Well, during our last time together, I was trying so hard to keep you alive, but you were the one who saved me. You didn't have a fraction of the resources I did, but you strived to survive and refused to give up. If I had been alone on that ship, I wouldn't have felt the cold and wouldn't have noticed the shortage of oxygen. I would have just put myself in a simple Jedi trance and died a few hours later, freezing to death. But you were there with me, not only reminding me how fragile life is but how important it is. I wasn't strong enough to carry you, but you carried me, and I thank you for that.

"I remember your last words and always will, 'We will survive, together, always, together.' You were right. Even though I'm standing here and your body is lying down there, we're still together, you and I. I've heard people say that when they lose a loved one, they feel a void. Like somehow they are missing something. I know what they mean, but they have to look deeper. They feel empty in their five senses, but that's not the most essential part. Oh, don't doubt that I wouldn't give anything to hear your sweet voice or smell the breeze through your lovely hair or to see that sparkle in your deep blue eyes or to feel the touch of your soft skin or to taste your precious kisses, but those feelings pale next to the way you affect my sixth sense - my heart. There you will survive, always.

"It's funny, I'm probably the strongest warrior in this entire system, and here I am, tears running down my face like I'm on Calamari during the rainy season.

"We Jedi have this saying that we grow stronger in death. Honestly, I just think it's something we can throw at our enemies right before they kill us, so they'll think twice. I've never seen it work. But now I know that there is truth in that statement, no matter how it hurts to realize it. When you died in my arms, the Force became ten times stronger by adding your life spirit to the pool.

"You know my mother's going to hate you. Every time I meet a girl from here on out, I'm going to place them next to your standard, and they will all fall pathetically short.

"I keep expecting you to jump up and tell me that you were just kidding and that you just wanted to see how I would react. We could dance in this beautiful day like we did the first time we met." Jacen finally managed a chuckle. "Maybe we could even fight afterward."

Jacen unbuckled his lightsabers and ignited them, their blue blades glittering in the sunlight. "You never really saw me use these, but they so define who I am and what I am. Not just a warrior or a fighter, but a Jedi, a protector." Jacen deactivated them and placed one back on his belt, turning the other over in his hand. "You gave me so much to remember you by; I just wanted to leave something with you." Jacen bent down and gently lowered the weapon onto her chest.

"You know, I've been standing here for about fifteen minutes now trying to say 'I love you,' but I can't seem to do it. You know that it's not because I don't because I do. I guess it's just this curse we guys have. We can never express our true feelings. I always expected you to say it first, and then I could simply respond to it. I guess that won't happen now." Jacen hung his head with a feeling of inadequacy.

Around his feet, the grass began to sway as a slight breeze picked up. Jacen felt his brown hair rustle as the wind caressed his tear-stained cheeks. He lifted his head, and the leaves on the trees around him sang a sweet song of pure harmony. A large smile spread across Jacen's lips. "I love you too, Ariela."

The END

There is a sequel to this story:

The Game

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