فصل 37

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Space. Elphrona System.

Loden Greatstorm pushed his Vector a bit harder, accelerating toward the wounded Nihil ship through the vacuum, the iron- and rust-colored orb of Elphrona receding behind them. He sensed Indeera doing the same in her own ship.

Not far now. He knew that a safe jump to lightspeed required a significant amount of distance from Elphrona. Like the world’s surface, the space around the planet was a roiling mass of magnetic fields and gravity distortions. There was no way the Nihil would be able to escape before he and Indeera caught them.

And then…well, the Force would be his guide. He did not want the Nihil kidnappers to die. He did not want anyone to die, ever—but sometimes, he had found, people chose their own ends, and there was nothing he or even the Force seemed to be able to do about it.

Well, that was fatalistic. He’d do everything he could to save every life on that ship. But the innocents would have priority, and the line between innocent and guilty had been drawn very clearly when the Nihil chose to throw a young child out the air lock.

He keyed on his comm. “Bell, do you read me?”

“Master!” came the immediate response.

“Did you…”

“I did,” Bell said. “I caught her, and we came down safely. Her name is Bee. She’s afraid for her brother and father, but she’s all right.”

Loden grinned.

“I knew you could do it, kid,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, nothing the Council could come up with for your trials would beat what you just pulled off. I’m going to put you in for elevation to Jedi Knight as soon as this all gets wrapped up.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. You heard me, right, Indeera?”

“Absolutely, Loden,” came Indeera Stokes across the comm.

“See, Bell? All set,” Loden said. “But you need to get Bee back to the outpost. Her mother’s there, with Porter Engle. Tell her we’ll have the rest of her family with her before she knows it. Have Porter give her some stew.”

“I thought I’d introduce her to Ember, too,” Bell said.

“Perfect. I’m going to sign off, Bell. Indeera and I have some work to do. I look forward to celebrating your elevation, Jedi Knight Zettifar.”

“Master…thank you.”

“I’m not your master anymore, Bell. You’re a Jedi Knight.”

“Not until the Council declares it, and I want you there when it happens. May the Force be with you.”

“It is, Bell. Don’t worry. See you soon.”

Loden flipped off his comm and brought his focus back to the Nihil ship. They were within laser range, and sure enough a few bolts whipped back at them from the vessel’s aft cannon.

He and Indeera each dodged to the side, their Vectors moving as one, easily avoiding the blasts. His comm crackled to life.

“How do we do this, Loden?” Indeera said.

“We both have room for one passenger, and there are two Blythes left on that ship. I’ll slow them down, then you’ll get the first one, and I’ll get the second.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. I don’t want to overthink this.”

“Fair enough. I’ll follow your lead.”

Loden accelerated, pushing his Vector to a speed that rapidly overtook the Nihil ship.

“Get ready,” he said—both to Indeera and, at least to some extent, to himself.

He shoved his control sticks forward and to the side, simultaneously reaching out with the Force and taking the Vector’s reactive control surfaces and boosting them, allowing him to perform a maneuver impossible for any pilot but a Jedi to pull off. Over the comm, he heard Indeera gasp, and despite himself, he found himself smiling.

The Vector spiraled up and over the Nihil ship, spinning like a drill, avoiding desperate shots from the vessel’s cannons, and ending in a position where his own craft was nose-to-nose with the Nihil’s but flying backward, matching the much larger ship’s speed perfectly. He was close enough to the other ship that he was inside the effective range of its cannons, and as long as he stayed there, it couldn’t hit him.

But more important, he had a clear view inside its cockpit, where a rather alarmed woman was flying the ship. She was a Nihil, the first he’d seen with her mask off, and she looked like…a person. A youngish human woman with ragged hair cut short, reddish dirt on her face from the sprint across the surface of Elphrona, and two jagged stripes painted down one cheek in blue. A child of the Force, like any other.

But the Force did not make your decisions for you, and this particular person had done many terrible things, whether by necessity or choice.

Her reckoning had come due.

Loden lifted a hand from his control sticks. He moved it gently to one side, locking eyes with the Nihil woman, and spoke.

“You will slow your ship and open your outer air lock hatch.” Through the transparisteel of the cockpit, he saw the woman mouth the words. Loden reserved the mind touch for times of extraordinary necessity—but this was that, if anything ever was. She didn’t need to hear what he had said, either—the technique was aptly named. Mindto mind, that’s all you needed.

Loden kept his eyes focused on the pilot, maintaining the connection in case he had to offer new instructions. He sensed the Nihil ship slowing, and then Indeera, pulling up and alongside it in her Vector. He knew she would have to leap through vacuum to get into the air lock—but it would be a matter of mere seconds, and the Jedi Order trained its members in techniques to withstand the harsh environment of space. These tricks only worked for a few moments— space was space, after all—but he knew Indeera could do what needed to be done.

In fact, his connection to the Force told him she had already begun.

A sense of great alarm from inside the ship, quickly quieted. He didn’t know if Indeera had also used the mind touch, or had been forced to kill the other Nihil inside—he knew several had survived the events on Elphrona.

This will be over soon, he thought.

Once Indeera finished her work and had retrieved the first Blythe, Loden could infiltrate the Nihil ship the same way. He would disable it, to allow any survivors from the raider crew to be collected by either Elphrona’s security squads or perhaps a Republic vessel. And then he could bring his newly rescued passenger down to the surface to be reunited with their family. Not a bad day’s work, all things— From nowhere, appearing all around him—ships, many ships, leaping in from hyperspace, surrounding him and the Nihil vessel and Indeera’s Vector. That should be all but impossible—so many vessels making such a coordinated jump, and so close to a planet—but the ships were there. Too many for him to count, of all different types. One large craft at the center, sleek and menacing, and around it, a swarm of others—but every last one had three glowing, jagged stripes painted on its hull. Once again, the lightning.

Once again, the Nihil.

The entire fore bulkhead of the Lourna Dee’s bridge was one large viewport, made of triple-hardened transparisteel inside a diamondcore matrix.

Through it, Lourna Dee could see what she had been sent to this forsaken planet to retrieve—a damaged Nihil Cloudship, which had brought Dent Margrona’s crew to Elphrona so they could kidnap a family and ransom them off to their rich relatives on Alderaan. Near it, two of those annoying little Jedi vessels—Vectors.

One was right in front of the Cloudship, so close it was shocking the two ships hadn’t collided—but she had heard Jedi pilots could do amazing things.

Much good it would do them now. It was two Vectors against an entire Nihil Tempest.

The first ship pulled away from the Cloudship’s nose, trying either to flee or to get into some sort of attack position.

Lourna Dee snorted.

Good luck with that, she thought.