“What need does he have when there hasn’t been a proper war for a century?”
Everyone turned to look at Avon and J-6 as they entered, Avon’s words making just as much of an impact as her tardiness. “Sorry to be late. I seem to have grown a few centimeters since my last fitting. Avon Starros, daughter of Senator Ghirra Starros. Ambassadors, please let me extend the warmest greetings of the Republic and welcome you aboard this fine vessel sent by my mother.”
“This ship was sent by the Chancellor,” said Ambassador Janex with an arch of her brow.
Avon smiled politely. “And who do you think it was that convinced the government to part with the funds? As I am sure you know, my mother is adamant that the Republic should double in size in her lifetime. We are, as the saying goes, stronger together. If Dalna joins the Republic everyone wins. Hopefully you will be able to see that during this trip.”
The Dalnan delegation murmured, but Avon said nothing else, just bobbed an answering curtsy.
Vernestra tried not to gape at the young girl. This was an Avon whom Vernestra had never met. The girl’s unruly curls had been swept back on each side and she wore so many ruffles that she looked to be half coniferous tree and half confection. Her dress was formed from layers of cream and peach gnostra fiber, an homage to the gnostra bush, the ever-useful natural resource of Dalna. Even though Avon looked like a completely different girl, she still plopped down into her chair, the only empty seat, right next to Honesty Weft, a brown-haired boy with pale freckled skin. He was the spitting image of Ambassador Weft, only their hair color setting them apart.
“We have had battles on our planet in the last century,” the boy said, his voice quiet and barely intelligible. “The peace of the Republic does not always extend to her planets.”
“Or her hyperspace lanes,” chimed in Ambassador Janex, taking a long drink of her scarlet gnostra berry wine before she continued. “I have heard the most recent disaster in hyperspace has been thought to be an act of sabotage.”
“Of the hyperspace lanes?” Avon asked, reaching for a glass of the same wine. J-6 quickly interfered and poured a tall glass of the pink gnostra berry juice instead, and Avon’s scowl was fleeting as she smiled across the table at the delegation.
So the quarrelsome child was still there under all those frills. That somehow made Vernestra glad.
“Yes,” Ambassador Janex said, warming to the topic. Her blue cheeks flushed prettily. “The initial destruction of the Legacy Run set off a series of cataclysms people are calling Emergences, an eruption of remnants of the wreckage appearing randomly across the galaxy.”
“The most notable was in the Hetzal system,” Imri said, speaking to the group for the first time. “Master Douglas helped to save a lot of lives.”
“Imri is correct. As a Jedi who was called in to deal with the disaster, I can tell you that the tragedy has been handled,” Douglas said with his usual good cheer. “A heartbreaking catastrophe, to be sure, but the Jedi and the Republic came together to handle not just the initial disaster, but the subsequent Emergences, as well. There is nothing to fear now.”
Ambassador Janex tapped her lips. “Do we know this for certain? The chatter across the news feeds seems to indicate that even though the Jedi response was quick and efficient, the reason we are still seeing these . . . Emergences . . . is not because the original ship is still breaking up in the hyperspace lanes but because the saboteurs are still on the job.”
Master Douglas shook his head. “Trust me, esteemed ambassador. There is nothing to fear. Hyperspace is safe as it always has been, even safer since the Republic undertook the mapping project a century ago.”
“So, we will be traveling through hyperspace, then,” said Avon.
Douglas nodded. “Eventually. I spoke to the pilot, and most of the in-system access points to the hyperspace lanes are still closed, so we’re going to have a slight detour before we jump. It’ll add an extra day of travel time, but that just gives everyone an excuse to tour the gorgeous Pantoran-style hanging gardens on deck three instead of working.”
The adults around the table laughed, and Vernestra frowned. She didn’t like that they would be going into hyperspace, but she couldn’t tell if it was her own misgivings about traveling the lanes or the nervousness of the Dalnan delegation. They all looked a bit unsettled after the hyperspace conversation. Douglas had told her that the Dalnans rarely left their home planet and disliked space travel as a whole, so maybe that was where the feeling came from.
The server droids moved closer and began placing the first course in front of everyone. The dishes had just been settled on the tabletop when there was a jolt and then another.
“Oh my,” the Pantoran ambassador exclaimed. “A bit of debris, perhaps?”
Douglas grinned, but his smile evaporated too quickly. “Stars,” he breathed. He threw out his hands and Vernestra felt like she was being pushed into her seat. That was when she felt the disturbance in the Force.
It was like a blade slicing through her, a sharp edge made of fear and panic. But it wasn’t coming from her companions; it was coming from every other living thing on the ship. There were several large crashes, and then alarms began to blare just as the roof of the dining room ripped away to reveal the stars beyond.
“Hold on!” Master Douglas yelled, reaching out with the Force to hold everyone at the table in place. The emergency bulkhead overhead, a metal curtain made of interlocking pieces, began to close before screeching to a halt, leaving several meters open. The doors to the dining room slammed shut at the same time, leaving them with only the air that was very quickly escaping into space.
“It’s stuck!” Avon yelled. J-6 stood behind the girl, holding her in place. The vacuum of space pulled all the available atmosphere out of the ship, creating a sucking motion that made Vernestra’s eyes water. Droids flew out into the black, as well as dishes and tablecloths, and Vernestra threw her own energy into keeping everyone at the table so they would not also be pulled out into the unforgiving void. But if they did not manage to close the bulkhead, it would not matter. They would very soon suffocate.
“Vern, you need to clear out that edge. Do you think you can do that?” Master Douglas had his eyes closed, and sweat beaded on his forehead from the effort of keeping everyone where they were.
A quick glance up and Vernestra’s heart sank. It looked impossible. How would she keep from being sucked out into space like everything else?
“I’m on it,” Vernestra said, pushing aside her doubts and releasing her hold on the people at the table, leaving that task to Master Douglas. She stood, only the Force keeping her from flying away. Debris from odd corners of the room still flew past every now and again.
Vernestra looked up toward the bulkhead again and saw what Master Douglas had meant. A chair had lodged in the bottom edge of the track, and in order for the bulkhead to close it would have to be removed.
She pulled out her lightsaber, took a deep breath, and released her hold on the Force, letting herself be sucked out toward space.
Vernestra could not catch her breath as she was pulled along by the current of air exiting the dining room. A plate flew past her head and she leaned back to avoid it, which sent her into an end-over-end tumble. A brief second of panic, and then Vernestra twisted and corrected her flight, only to slam into the edge of the bulkhead as she did, scrabbling for purchase as she tried to stand.
Flying was much, much easier in theory than practice.
“You’re doing great, Vern,” called Avon, and Vernestra glanced down at the people below. Avon looked so small and scared, and the boy Honesty was not much better. Vernestra felt a surge of motivation.
She was a Jedi, and the Jedi protected all life. She could do this.
Her faith in her abilities brought forth a fresh burst of energy, and the Force was there, all around her. It filled her and flowed through her as she ran across the bulkhead, lightsaber drawn, the lavender light as steady as her intent. There w
as not a shred of doubt in her now, and she slashed at the chair blocking the track, shaving off a bit of the bulkhead in the process.
As the metal began to move, Vernestra ran along the shutter, using her lightsaber to liberally slice through any other debris that threatened to jam up the shield. She remained a few centimeters above the metal, and when it finally slammed close, silencing the roaring wind and sealing the breach, she did a backflip and slowly lowered herself to the ground. By the time her boots hit the floor everyone was talking at once.
Master Douglas held up his hand, and the noise died down. “We need to evacuate.”
“What is happening?” demanded Ambassador Weft, his eyes bulging with panic.
“I believe something hit the Steady Wing. An Emergence, perhaps,” Douglas said. He reached his hand out toward the exit door, which had sealed itself when the bulkhead refused to close. He touched the emergency release next to the door, but nothing happened. When that did not work, he pulled out his lightsaber and cut through the door, using the Force to shove the pieces out into the hallway.
“We need to move,” Douglas said. “Vern, lead the way!”
Imri could swear his heart was about to pound right out of his chest. It is as the Force wills it, he thought, taking a deep breath and letting it out. If they survived this trial it would be because the Force wished it to be so, and that certainty gave Imri a measure of calm. He trusted the Force just like Master Douglas said he should. Imri could be confident as long as Master Douglas was by his side. Even if he had asked Vernestra to lead the way and not Imri, his trusted Padawan.
He took another deep breath and ran along with the rest of the group.
The once impressive hallway was crowded with droids and panicked passengers. Imri did not know who they were, but he figured they must be other important passengers invited to the reveal of Starlight Beacon by the Chancellor. Everyone ran down the hallway toward the escape pods, and the crowds were so thick that Imri had to press against the wall to get past the knot of people.
“This is no good,” Master Douglas said, turning back toward the group. “There’s no way to get to the escape pods this way.”
“The pods are gone,” croaked a beautifully dressed Mon Calamari man. “You have to get upstairs to the next deck. There are none left down here.”
“How can that be?” Ambassador Weft said with a frown. “This ship has less than half of the passengers it can accommodate.”
A cracking sound began to echo through the ship, along with far-off booms that caused everyone in the hallways to scream, duck, and scatter. Master Douglas frowned just as alarms began to wail an alert.
“Get back!” he yelled.
There was a push to the middle of Imri’s chest, and he went flying backward along with Honesty, Avon, and Vernestra. Imri fell into the droid, J-6, and groaned.
“Excuse you,” she said, a bit snippily for a droid.
Imri did not have a chance to respond. He stared in surprise as a bulkhead slammed shut, separating them from Master Douglas and the adults of the Dalnan delegation.
“Father!” Honesty said, jumping to his feet and running up to the barrier. He pounded his fists against the metal.
GO. SAVE YOURSELVES, Imri heard inside his head.
“Did you do that?” Avon demanded, eyes wide as she stared at Vernestra. The Mirialan shook her head, the motion causing her hair to come loose from the fastener holding it back.
“It was Master Douglas,” Imri said, climbing to his feet. “He pushed us backward so we wouldn’t be trapped by the bulkhead. We have to go back the way we came.”
Honesty rested his forehead against the barrier for a moment before straightening, dashing away tears as he did so. “Then let us go,” he said, his jaw clenched. His mop of brown hair had been tousled and his pale brown tunic was ripped along the high neckline, but that was the only sign that they had just been through a maelstrom. When Imri reached for him with his senses, a habit that helped him understand how other people were feeling, he felt nothing, just a tightly controlled set of emotions. Either the boy was still in shock, like Avon, whose feelings were in such disarray that she’d settled on annoyance, or he had locked down his terror so tightly that Imri could sense nothing through the Force.
Master Douglas had urged Imri to get better at talking to people, not just to suss out what was happening by way of the Force, but Imri couldn’t help it, most especially when everything but the Force felt chaotic and wrong.
If only Master Douglas were there to walk Imri through the confusion he was feeling. But he was on the other side of the barrier. The elder Jedi had given them all a chance to survive.
Their motley crew ran down the hallway, Avon in the lead. She stripped off her skirt as she ran, revealing leggings and boots underneath. Imri was not surprised, the girl always seemed to be prepared for anything.
Avon skidded to a stop in front of a badly damaged hatch, scowling.
“How about a little Force help?” Avon said, gesturing to the crumpled door. The metal had been pushed to one side so the door would be impossible to open without a welding torch or some sort of heavy gravity hammer.
Imri was closest, so he drew his lightsaber and slashed through the metal. He tried to use the Force to push the remaining bits out of the way, just as Master Douglas had earlier, but his control was slippery. It was hard to reach the Force when all you could think about was whether or not your master had made it out alive.
Vernestra holstered her lightsaber before gesturing toward the door without a word, and the pieces folded inward, creating space for Avon and J-6, who wasted no time making their way through the door. Honesty followed at a jog, and when Imri made to go next, the pressure of a hand on his shoulder stopped him. “Imri,” Vernestra said. “It’s going to be all right. All is as the Force wills it.”
Imri nodded, but her words did nothing to chip away at the numb feeling that was growing in his heart. But there was no time for worry; they still had to escape the ship.
They ran down the hallway, past game rooms and a jewelry shop, searching for a way up or down, anything to get to another deck with escape pods. This deck was full of entertainments for passengers, but it was short on pods, and Imri was beginning to think that they would never find a lift or a staircase to the other floors when they came upon an entrance to a hangar.
“We should try there,” Vernestra said, pointing to the sealed door.
“How is it all of these doors have been destroyed?” Avon asked, frowning. “It’s almost like someone doesn’t want us to make it off of this ship.”
Vernestra did not wait for Imri to try to open the door this time. She reached out and crumpled the metal like a giant dinner napkin. Avon was the first one through, as usual, but this time Vernestra was right behind her.
“Avon, quit rushing into places without checking first,” she said.
Imri waited for Honesty and J-6 to go through the door before he followed. When he entered the hangar, a cramped area with only a single maintenance shuttle, his eyes widened.
“Whoa,” he said. Someone had hacked the service droids to pieces. There looked to be a trio of them that had been dismantled, their components left strewn about.
“I don’t think this was an Emergence,” Vernestra said, drawing her lightsaber and holding it out before her. “Someone wanted to make sure no one could leave.”
“So, we’re doomed,” Honesty said, his voice flat. “We should’ve known better than to travel amongst the stars. We should have welcomed our ends in the dining room.”
Avon gave the boy a look somewhere between disbelief and disgust. “There’s always hope. The maintenance shuttle is better than nothing. But we need to hurry up. Look.” She pointed to where the wall had begun to open up, revealing the darkness of space just outside, beyond a shimmering barrier. The emergency hull breach protocol that protected ships in case of an emergency was beginning to fail. “That is a secondary layer and only meant to last long eno
ugh to secure passengers in bulwarked parts of the ship.”
“And with the damage we saw in the dining room, even the bulwark areas are compromised,” Vernestra finished. “We don’t have time to be picky. I can feel Master Douglas . . . fading.”
“Me too,” said Imri, voice quiet. It was a terrible feeling, and he wanted to cut himself off from the Force to avoid knowing that somewhere on the ship his mentor was fighting for his life, and losing.
“What does that mean?” Honesty asked.
No one answered him.
“This shuttle seems to be mostly operational,” J-6 called. Avon dashed over to the droid, and the rest of the group followed her. As luxurious as the Steady Wing had been, the maintenance shuttle was the opposite. White interior with gray seats positioned along each wall, and pilot and copilot seats up front. There were cabinets full of tools and hopefully a few supplies, foodstuffs and water to last until they could make it to a way station. It was a tight fit once inside, and Imri stood near the back, uncertain what to do. Vernestra moved toward the pilot’s seat, but Avon was already there, flipping switches and turning knobs.
“You know how to fly?” Imri said, skeptical. As a Padawan he had not started pilot’s training yet, and Avon was at least two years younger than him. It made him feel uncertain and a little envious that the girl knew what to do, even without the Force to guide her.
“I stole my first escape pod when I was six, while with my mom on a diplomatic trip to Mon Cala. Trust me, I know how to fly.” Avon grinned. The smile did not erase the way her hands shook or the perspiration sparkling along her hairline. Imri could sense her fear but admired that it did not stop her from doing what needed to be done. They were all scared—watching a ship break apart and leave only the stars beyond was not normal—but they were all dealing with it in their own ways.
A Test of Courage Page 3