فصل 5

Chapter Five

Hetzal Prime. In Orbit. 80 minutes to impact.

Bell Zettifar felt the first licks of atmosphere touch the craft. Their Vector didn’t have a name, not officially—all the ships were basically the same, and in theory interchangeable among their Jedi operators— but he and his master always used the same one, with the scoring along the wings from an ion storm they’d once flown through. The pattern looked like little starbursts, and so Bell—only in his mind, never spoken aloud—called their ship the Nova.

The Vectors were as minimally designed as a starship could be.

Little shielding, almost no weaponry, very little computer assistance.

Their capabilities were defined by their pilots. The Jedi were the shielding, the weaponry, the minds that calculated what the vessel could achieve and where it could go. Vectors were small, nimble. A fleet of them together was a sight to behold, the Jedi inside coordinating their movements via the Force, achieving a level of precision no droid or ordinary pilot could match.

They looked like a flock of birds, or perhaps fallen leaves swirling in a gust of wind, all drawn in the same direction, linked together by some invisible connection…some Force. Bell had seen an exhibition on Coruscant once, as part of the Temple’s outreach programs. Three hundred Vectors moving together, gold and silver darts shining in the sun above Senate Plaza. They split apart and wove into braids and whipped past one another at incredible, impossible speed. The most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. People called it a Drift. A Drift of Vectors.

But now the Nova was flying alone, with just two Jedi aboard. Him, Jedi apprentice Bell Zettifar, and up ahead in the pilot’s seat, his master, Loden Greatstorm. The Jedi contingent aboard the Third

Horizon had split up, Vectors heading to locations all over the system.

There were too many tasks to be accomplished, and too little time.

Their destination was the largest inhabited planetary body, Hetzal Prime. Their assignment, vague but crucial: help.

Bell glanced out the viewport to see the curve of the world below— green and gold and blue. A beautiful place, at least from this height.

Down on the surface, he suspected things might be different. Drive signatures from starships could be seen all the way to the horizon, a mass exodus of vessels heading offworld. The Nova and a few other Vectors and Republic Longbeams he could see here and there were the only ships heading inward to the planet.

“Entering the upper atmosphere, Bell,” Loden said, not turning.

“You ready?”

“You know I love this part, Master,” Bell said.

Greatstorm chuckled. The ship dived, or fell, it was hard to tell the difference. A roar filtered in from outside as space transitioned to atmosphere. The precision-manufactured leading edges of the Vector’s wings sliced the air as finely as any blade, but even they encountered some resistance.

The Nova tore its way through the highest levels of Hetzal Prime’s atmosphere—no, not tore. Loden Greatstorm was too fine a pilot for that. Some Jedi used their Vectors that way, but not him. He wove the craft, sliding through the air currents, riding them down, letting the ship become just another part of the interplay of gravity and wind above the planet’s surface. The ship wanted to fall, and Greatstorm let it. It was exhilarating, deadly, unsurvivable, and the Vector was designed to transmit every last vibration and shimmy to the Jedi inside, so they could let the Force guide them to the best response. Bell clenched his hands into fists. His face stretched into a grin.

“Spectacular,” he said, without thinking. His master laughed.

“Nothing to it, Bell,” Loden said. “I just pointed us at the planet.

Gravity’s handling the rest.”

A long, gliding curve, smooth like the bend of a river, and then the Nova straightened out, now close enough to the planet’s surface that Bell could make out buildings, vehicles, and other smaller features below. It looked so peaceful. No indication of the disaster-in-progress in the system. Nothing but the increasing number of ships launching from the surface.

“Where should we put down?” Bell said. “Did Master Kriss tell you?”

“It was left to our discretion,” Greatstorm replied, glancing to one side, his profile dark, craggy, mountainlike, his Twi’lek lekku sweeping back from his skull. His eyes tracked the drive trails from the ongoing planetary evacuation. “We help any way we can.”

“But it’s a whole planet. How will we know where to…”

“You tell me, kid,” Loden said. “Find me somewhere to go.”

“Training?” Bell asked.

“Training.”

Loden Greatstorm’s philosophy as a teacher was very simple: If Bell was theoretically capable of something, even if Loden could do it ten times as fast and a hundred times more skillfully, then Bell would end up doing that thing, not Loden. “If I do everything, no one learns anything,” his master was fond of saying.

Loden didn’t have to do everything, but Bell would have been fine if, occasionally, he did something. Being the apprentice to the great Greatstorm was an endless gauntlet of impossible tasks. He had been training at the Jedi Temple for fifteen of his eighteen years, and it had never been easy, but being Loden’s Padawan was on an entirely different level. Every day, without exception, pushed him to his limits.

Any personal time Bell ever got was spent desperately collapsing into the deepest sleep of his life until it all began again. But…he was learning. He was better now than he was even six months ago, at everything.

Bell knew what his master wanted him to do. Another impossible task—but he was a Jedi, or getting there, and through the Force all things were possible.

He closed his eyes and opened his spirit, and there it was, the small light within him that never stopped burning. Always at least a candle flame, and sometimes, if he concentrated, it could surge up into a blaze. A few times, he’d felt as bright as the sun, so much light pouring through him he was afraid he might go blind. Honestly, though, it didn’t matter. From spark to inferno—any connection to the Force chased away the shadows.

Bell delved into the light within himself, feeling for the connection points to other life, other repositories of the Force on the planet below.

Very near to him, he felt a source of great power and energy. It was currently banked, like coals in a fire, but enormous reservoirs of strength were clearly available if needed. This was his master, Loden.

Bell pushed on past him. He was looking for something else.

There. Like a long-distance holo coming into focus when the signal finally gained enough strength, the Force web connecting the minds and spirits of Hetzal Prime’s billions snapped into Bell’s mind. It wasn’t an entirely clear picture; more like impressions, a map of emotional zones, not so different from the patchwork of cropland flashing along far below the Nova.

Mostly, what he sensed was panic and fear—emotions the Jedi

worked very hard to purge from themselves. According to the teachings, a true Jedi’s only contact with fear was supposed to be sensing it in other beings; a common enough experience. Bell had felt those reflected emotions many times, but always alongside love and hope and surprise and many shades of joy; the spectrum of feelings inherent in all beings.

Well, usually. On Hetzal Prime, at this moment, it pretty much was just panic and fear.

Bell wasn’t surprised. He’d heard the evacuation order: “Systemscale disaster in progress. All beings are immediately ordered to depart the Hetzal system by any available means, and remain at a minimum safe distance.” No explanation, no warning, and the math had to be obvious to everyone. Billions of people, and clearly not enough starships to evacuate all of them. Who wouldn’t panic?

On a world seething with that sort of negative energy, it was hard to think of what two Jedi would be able to accomplish. But Loden

Greatstorm had set Bell a task, and so he continued to reach out, seeking a place they could help.

Something…a knot of tension, coiled, dense…a conflict, a question, a feeling of things not being as they should, a sense of injustice.

Bell opened his eyes.

“East,” he said.

If there was injustice out there, well…they would bring justice. The Jedi were justice.

The Nova banked, accelerating smoothly under Loden’s control.

Bell’s master did let him fly occasionally—the ship could be controlled from either seat—but the Vectors required almost as much skill to handle as a lightsaber. Under the circumstances, Bell was happy to let Loden take the lead.

Instead he served as navigator, using his still-strong connection to the Force to guide their Vector toward the area of intense conflict he had sensed, calling out directions to Loden, fine-tuning the ship’s path.

“We should be directly above it,” Bell said. “Whatever it is.”

“I see it,” Loden said, his voice clipped, tight. Ordinarily, his words carried a smile, even when delivering a brutal critique of Bell’s Jedi scholarship. Not now. Whatever Bell was sensing, he knew Master

Greatstorm could feel it, too, and probably on a more intense level.

Down on the surface, just below where the Vector circled, people were going to die. Maybe already had.

Loden banked the ship again as he flew in a tight circle, giving them both a clear look at the ground through the transparisteel of the Nova’s cockpit bubble.

A hundred meters below was a compound of some kind, walled.

Large, but not enormous—probably the home of a wealthy individual or family rather than a government facility. A huge crush of people surrounded the walls, focused around the gates. A single glance gave Bell the reason.

Docked inside the compound was a large starship. It looked like a pleasure yacht, big enough to comfortably hold twenty or thirty passengers plus crew. And if the passengers didn’t care about comfort, the yacht could probably cram in ten times that many people. The ship had to be visible from ground level—its hull protruded above the compound walls, and the people crowding the gates clearly thought it was their only way offworld.

Armed guards posted on the walls at all sides seemed to feel differently. As Bell watched, a blaster bolt shot into the air from near the gate—a warning shot, thankfully, but it was clear that the time for warnings was rapidly coming to an end. The tension in the crowd was mounting, and you didn’t need to be a Jedi to tell.

“Why aren’t they letting the people in?” Bell asked. “That ship could get plenty of them to safety.”

“Let’s find out,” Loden said.

He flipped a toggle switch on his control panel. The cockpit bubble slid smoothly back, vanishing into the Nova’s hull. Loden turned back, smiling, the wind whipping past them both, sending Loden’s lekku and Bell’s dreadlocks streaming out from their heads.

“See you down there,” he said. “Remember. Gravity does most of the work.”

Then he jumped out.