With a lazy motion, he unzipped her jacket and lowered her shirt ever so slightly, exposing a scarab amulet hanging on a cord from her neck.
“You are the one, then,” he told her. “Jared thinks you will change the universe.” He hadn’t moved his helmeted head, but I practically felt the heavy gaze under his mask fall on Jared. “Jared is a fool.”
I saw the flash from Jane’s pistol before I heard the sound. The masked man moved away, flashing to the side, but his grip on us was lost. Jane fell back into the mud; I managed not to collapse to the ground, but this was not my fight: a blast from my rifle would’ve shredded everyone in sight. Before I could finish the thought, Jared already crossed the gap separating him and the man in the mask, his light sword arcing through the air in a savage cut.
A ray of orange so bright it looked like an evil shade of red met his silver energy blade half-way and sparks exploded from where the two energy swords crossed their blades.
“Run!” I shouted.
And so we did.
The two duelists ignored us as we ran for the trees. We heard the fight behind us, swords sizzling in violent blows, the air electrified with the feeling of hatred, pure, unadulterated hate.
We ran. And then we ran some more.
At some point I’d grabbed Jane’s hand, my heart racing. With how the events and circumstances around us were recently unfoldeding, it looked like it was high time for me to start getting used to the feeling. We must have made it half a mile through the murky swamp forest before deciding to slow down the pace; we didn’t know where we were running, or from whom, but it was safe to assume we’d bought ourselves a few moments to rationalize. I stopped.
“What?” Jane asked, panting.
“Where are we running?”
“We need to stop the world from disappearing, Adam. Or did you forget?”
“We’re in a swamp! How are we going to save the world from disappearing from a swamp?”
She looked around. “Yeah, hardly looks like the place to decide the fate of the universe from, does it? We need to find out why The Doctor made his time machine bring us here… and why us.”
“That masked guy seemed to know you. Or your amulet, at least.”
Jane held out the silver scarab on the palm of her hand. “It was the only thing my father left me besides his name and fortune,” she said. “I thought it was just a trinket.”
“But you wore it ever since.”
“Only ever since I’d met you,” she said with an inquisitive look. Words failed me: words were often too complicated, especially when beauty was so simple it required actions instead. I took a step closer.
“Jane, if we solve this problem, save the world from disappearing, like The Doctor said, what would happen to you? Remember how he’d mentioned you were only born because Sherlock Holmes didn’t die? If he dies… if this gap in the universe is fixed… what happens to you?”
She looked at the tips of her boots. “I guess we’ll find out. What’s the world without a little mystery, right?”
I brushed my hand against her wrist. She didn’t pull away, so I took her hand in mine as she stood there, head lowered. This was no time for romance… but time was ticking away. I lowered my head, and pressed my forehead against hers.
Jared came running from the trees and grabbed us by our sleeves, barely slowing down. “Run, run, run,” he said; a hideous cut, cauterized by fire, scarred him eye to lip.
And so we ran… again. We ran in silence. When I had no breath left and when Jane was about to collapse, we reached a clearing. A gigantic construction towered above us on three support columns, its walls painted brown, the mud it stood on cooked to stone. Jared ran past the support columns, dragging us behind, until we reached the center of the massive construction.
Jane looked up. “Beneath a metal sky,” she said quietly.
A trap door lowered from the ceiling, leading up into the building (if that’s what it was).
“This is my ship,” Jared said. “Come with me if you want to live.”
Neither of us had much to say to that, so we followed him up.
The trap door closed behind us as soon as we got onboard, blending back into the floor.
“Get us off this rock, R2D5,” Jared said. The walls shook as we followed him into a room with a long table surrounded by oblong leather couches. “We’ve already breached atmosphere,” he added. “Never underestimate the value of a good astromech droid.”
I wasn’t sure if I should’ve been happy or terrified. Events were unfolding so fast I had a hard time keeping track. I decided to concentrate on the important things first and sat on one of the couches. It felt great. “What did that… that guy in the scary mask want Jane for?”
My boss looked at me like I was a human ant, then back at Jared. “Thank you for saving our lives,” she said. “Your wound, does it hurt? We have to do something about it.”
He smiled, although I could tell it was forced. Of course it hurt, I thought, silently thankful that nobody had tried to cut my face off yet.
“I’ll be all right,” Jared said. “I’ve got a medical droid onboard. Get yourselves comfortable. This is going to be a long trip.”
“Where are we going?” Jane asked.
“The Jedi Academy on Dantooine. This is much more serious than I’d originally anticipated. I might have joined Revan’s war, and they might’ve exiled me from the Jedi Order… but they need to hear this. It was foretold.”
“Foretold?” I asked. “What, like you’ve had some sort of prophecy about Smith & Wesson Detective Agency crashing your party?”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer.
“Yes. Something like that. The being you know as The Doctor had once hinted the location of a Sith Holocron to Darth Revan, a recording of ancient knowledge; a key to power unfathomable to mortals. Darth Revan found it and assigned a research team to study it. I was one of the researchers… and I’d learnt there was more than mere knowledge of the past stored inside; the holocron spoke of the future. A prophecy, if you will.”
“Such things aren’t possible,” I said.
“Anything is possible through The Force. All living things in every galaxy are connected through it. We are all one. And when we learn how to reach into the fabric of this energy field that surrounds and binds us, only then do truly understand what is possible… and what is not. ”
The Force? This sounded too much like useless blabber. I wondered what destiny, fate, and actions of brave men and women held for us next. Some answers, I hoped.
“This prophecy,” Jane said. “What exactly did it say?”
Jared looked at her scarab necklace. “It spoke of many things. About power. About wisdom. About truth, and about the banality of evil. But each story told to those willing to learn always mentioned a girl. One girl. Sometimes in passing, sometimes in more detail, but the girl was always the same. Texts recorded in long-forgotten languages refer to her as The Impossible Girl… a girl who shouldn’t exist, but does. She is said to wear a scarab necklace… and destined to change the fate of the universe.”
“Me?” Jane asked.
Beeping erupted around us. Jared looked away from Jane’s necklace and straightened up. “Are you sure, R2D5?” he said. Then, quietly, “Looks like we’ve got trouble.”
I wasn’t even surprised.
He went past the table and we followed him into the control chamber of what he called his ship (although it hardly looked like any ship I’d ever seen). The chamber ended in a circular viewscreen with white dots of stars glowing beyond the glass. A pair of empty comfortable-looking chairs sat in front of the viewscreen, surrounded with knobs, buttons and flashing displays. “R2D5, what’s going on? Why are we slowing down? Thrusters are at full capacity, report.” Only beeps came in reply, but Jared frowned, and I knew it couldn’t be good.