by James Luceno
Neither Jaden nor Relin said anything. Jaden understood Khedryn’s need to make light. That was how he coped.
“If this is work to you, Jaden,” Khedryn said, “I’d love to see what you do for excitement.” He activated his communicator. “Marr, you will not believe this.”
Saes hurried through Harbinger’s corridors, bays, and lifts. Damage-control teams saluted him as they hurried by.
The bone rings holding his hair in a long tail bounced against his back with each stride. He still felt a joyous light-headedness, an aftereffect from his use of the Lignan.
When he reached the secondary bridge, he found the night watch already taking their stations. The viewscreen remained dark. Harbinger was blind. All of them, males and females, human and nonhuman, stood and raised a fist in a salute. They smelled of stale fear.
“Captain on the bridge,” said Lieutenant Llerd, standing at attention and sticking out his barrel chest.
“As you were,” Saes said to the crew, and they returned to work. “You are acting executive officer, Colonel Llerd.”
“Thank you, sir,” said the human.
“Status?”
“Most of our instrumentation is down, so I’ve ordered a full stop,” Llerd said. “Repair teams are trying to repair blown bulkheads. The primary bridge has been sealed off.”
“Get our instrumentation operational and get a scan under way. I want to know where we are. And get the viewscreen up.”
“Copy, sir,” the human answered.
Someone activated the bridge’s communications system. Static crackled for a moment; then the damage reports started pouring in. Saes noted them absently, but his mind was on Relin. He recalled the mirth in Relin’s eyes in the moment before the charges on the hyperdrive had blown. The recollection summoned anger. He put a finger to the tip of the horn jutting from his jaw, pressed until the finger bled and he had his anger controlled.
His onetime Master had probably escaped before the jump, though Saes figured it was possible that he could still be aboard.
Saes reached out with the Force and tried to feel Relin’s presence, but picked up nothing. Of course, he knew Relin could mask his presence when he wished. Saes tapped his bleeding finger against his jaw horn. Llerd watched him, frozen, as if hypnotized by the motion.
“Colonel Llerd?”
Llerd came back to himself. “Sir?”
“Have security perform a room-by-room sweep of the ship. We may still have a Jedi aboard.”
“Yes, sir.”
Saes sat in the command chair, issuing orders and letting his surviving crew do the work of resurrecting Harbinger. One by one its systems came back online.
“Scanners operational,” said Llerd at last. His tone sharpened. “Picking up a ship, sir. Odd signature. Viewscreen coming online.”
A white line formed in the center of the screen, expanded to show the black of space and stars, a nearby ringed gas giant, and a small ship shimmering in the glow of the system’s orange sun.
“Magnify the ship,” Saes said.
The image centered on the ship and expanded. A flattened disk, with an ancillary vessel attached to it side. He saw no obvious weapons. Not a warship, then. Saes had never seen a ship of its make before.
“That is one of our escape pods,” Llerd said, pointing. “There, aft.”
Saes rose from his seat, understanding instantly what it meant. Relin had escaped Harbinger in a pod right after the jump and was now rendezvousing with his Jedi allies.
“Close on that ship and fire main batteries, Colonel. Bring it down.”
“Weapons are still offline, sir.”
Saes clutched the edge of his seat, unable to take his eyes from the ship and the pod. He would not let Relin escape again, not again.
“Scramble two squadrons of Blades. I want that ship on fire.”
* * *
As Khedryn, Relin, and Jaden hurried toward the bridge, Marr’s voice rang out from Khedryn’s comlink.
“Incoming, Captain. Sixteen fighters have launched from the cruiser.”
“You must be kidding me!” Khedryn said. He looked at Jaden and Relin as if it were their fault, and Jaden supposed it was. “This started as a kriffing sabacc game!”
“Saes must suspect I am here,” Relin said matter-of-factly.
“Then leave,” Khedryn said, but recovered himself almost instantly. “I do not mean that. Sorry. I’ve no love for Sith. Especially really old ones.” He spoke into his communicator. “Plot a jump, Marr. This is unsafe sky for rascals.”
“No!” Jaden and Relin said as one.
That stopped Khedryn in his steps, and he turned to face them. “No?”
“I have to get down to that moon, Khedryn,” Jaden said.
“And I need to stop Harbinger,” Relin said.
Kheydrn looked at them as if they were crazed. “You heard sixteen, yes?” To Relin he said, “The Battle of Kirrek already happened.” To Jaden he added, “And that moon isn’t going anywhere.”
“Cruiser’s on the move, too,” Marr said.
“You hear?” Khedryn asked, eyebrows raised.
Jaden heard desperation in his own voice and made no effort to hide it. “The Force directed me here. I cannot leave until I see what’s on that moon.”
“Maybe you were sent here just to find Relin,” Khedryn said, obviously hoping that would convince him. “Maybe you’ve both already done what you’re supposed to do.”
Jaden shook his head. Relin joined him.
“This is incidental,” Jaden said.
“Incidental?” Khedryn responded. “That’s what you call this? You are both madmen. Worse than fanatics. Those haunted eyes.” He shook his head, paced a few steps, snapped into his comlink. “Marr, can we outrun them without jumping?”
“Outrun them to where, Captain?”
“Good question,” Khedryn mumbled to himself. He looked to Jaden and Relin. “Ideas?”
Jaden did not hesitate. “We use the rings for cover. Scanners will never find us and the fighters will not follow.”
“That’s because we’ll be space dust,” Khedryn said. “Last time I tried, I wasn’t able to walk between raindrops. So unless you can—”
“I can,” Jaden said. “And I’ll pilot Junker.” Seeing Khedryn’s hesitation, he said, “I can do it, Captain.”
“Force-piloting?” Relin asked, one eyebrow raised.
Jaden nodded.
“Stang, man,” Khedryn said, shifting on his feet. “Stang.”
“Still closing,” Marr said, his voice somehow staying placid. “Orders, Captain? Sitting still seems unwise.”
“You think?” Khedryn snapped. He stared at Jaden. Finally he said, “Head into the rings, Marr. Ahead full until we hit them, then Jaden gets the stick.”
A long hesitation. “Flying into the rings is madness, Captain.”
“Yes. It seems to be going around. Just do it.”
Jaden thumped Khedryn on the shoulder. “I appreciate the trust.”
Relin said, “You said you have no weapons, but what do you have?”
“Nothing. A tractor beam mount on the rear. We use it for towing derelicts.”
“Take me to it.”
“What do you have in mind?” Jaden asked him.
“Perhaps nothing. But perhaps something. Jaden … Harbinger’s captain and I have a personal connection. The fighters will follow you into the rings.”
“Understood.”
“Nearing the rings,” Marr said. “The fighters are fast, Captain.”
“They’re kriffin’ antiques! How can they be fast?”
“Antiques? I don’t under—”
“Never mind, Marr. Jaden is on his way up.”
Jaden thumped Khedryn on the shoulder again. “I’ll be sure to get a piece of Marr’s chewstim.”
“Get two.”
The Blades poured out of Harbinger’s belly and swooped into view on the viewscreen, streaking toward the Jedi ship. The ship turne
d, its engines flared blue, and it accelerated toward the gas giant’s rings.
“Where is he running to? The rings?” Llerd asked. “There’s not much room to fly in there.”
Saes watched the Blades bear down on the ship. “If he goes into the rings, order the Blades to pursue. I want that ship destroyed. He will try to jump if we allow him to clear the planet’s gravity well. The Blades are not to allow that.”
Llerd did not hesitate. “Yes, sir.”
Saes turned to 8L6, the replacement science droid. “I want a course back to Primus Goluud as soon as possible. And I want a subspace transmission on the ship-to-ship frequency. See if you can raise Omen.”
He doubted he was anywhere near Omen, but he needed to confirm.
“Captain, I am getting very odd readings,” said 8L6.
Saes leaned forward in his chair. “Specify.”
“Astronavigation is unconnected to Harbinger’s base chrono.”
The words pulled Saes away from his chair to 8L6’s side. He made sure Llerd was occupied before continuing the conversation. “How can that be?”
“Unknown, but standard astronavigational markers are not where they should be given the time.”
Saes studied the readings for himself. Everything was out of place. “Something fouled the ship’s chrono. Double-check it.”
“I ran several diagnostics before bringing this to your attention. The chrono is functioning correctly.”
A nervous tingle moved up Saes’s spine. “Then you have mislocated us in space. Astronavigation was damaged.”
“I have located our new position with ninety-nine point nine nine percent confidence. I know where we are.”
The implication of the words hung in the space between them, unmarked on 8L6’s expressionless face. Saes’s yellow eyes reflected off the droid’s surface, stared back at him.
Saes spoke in a low tone and asked the question, though he already knew the answer. “What are you saying, Elsix?”
The droid, too, spoke in a quiet tone. “I am saying that given our position, my long-range astronavigation scans strongly suggest that significant time has passed since we entered hyperspace.”
Saes glanced around to ensure that no one was listening. “How significant?”
“More than five thousand years.”
The words settled like weights on Saes’s mind, heavy with meaning. He put a hand on a nearby chair and locked his knees. The tingle creeping up his spine spread to his entire body. His legs felt weak under him but the chair kept him up. He turned and stared at the viewscreen, at the stars that looked the same to him as those he had left behind but were five millennia out of position.
“How?” he said.
“The most likely explanation is that the misjump resulted in Harbinger’s never quite entering hyperspace. We had a hyperspace tunnel in front of us but never entered it. Instead, the ship accelerated to near lightspeed only. For us, only a short time passed. For the rest of the galaxy, five thousand years passed.”
Five thousand years.
Thoughts bounced around in his mind, unconnected, inchoate. His mind felt unmoored.
Five thousand years.
He struggled to focus, to analyze the situation, but he knew nothing. He had no information with which to perform an analysis. He had no knowledge of the state of the galaxy. What of the Sith Empire? The war with the Jedi? His homeworld?
It occurred to him that he and his crew were artifacts, living fossils heaved from the strata of a misjump.
“Anything could have happened in five thousand years.”
The droid said nothing, merely cocked its head as if intrigued by Saes’s reaction.
Saes’s connection to the Force began to ground him. Five thousand years had passed, but the Force remained constant. He fought down the panic.
“Say nothing of this to anyone,” he said to 8L6. “I must think.”
The droid nodded, its servos whirring, and turned back to its station.
“Blades are entering the rings in pursuit,” Llerd said, the eagerness in his voice betraying a desire to see something die.
Saes realized that Relin would be as lost as he, two men of purpose suddenly left purposeless. Neither had an Order to which to report. The Battle of Kirrek was long over. Yet it suddenly seemed more important than ever that he kill Relin.
In the need for that act he found his purpose.
Meanwhile, he had a damaged but functioning dreadnought, a hold filled with Lignan, and a full crew of soldiers. He had little doubt he could make his presence felt. Once he understood the state of the galaxy, he could make contact with the current Sith Order, if it existed. He could use the Lignan as a way either to secure a place in the hierarchy or seize control of the Sith himself.
And if an Order no longer existed, he would remake it.
Finding his mental footing, he said to Llerd, “Do not monitor or scan local subspace channels. Understood?”
Llerd looked puzzled but acknowledged the order.
Saes did not want local comm chatter, should there be any, to prematurely indicate to the crew what had happened to Harbinger.
He turned his eyes back to the viewscreen, watching his Blades hunt his former Master through a storm of stone and ice.
He wondered, in passing, who else was aboard the ship with which Relin had docked. Not other Jedi, surely.
Kell had watched, his spirit aflame, as the damaged cruiser streaked out of the darkness toward Junker, as fighters of a kind Kell had never before seen launched from the belly of the cruiser and pursued Junker into the thick bands of rock and ice that caged the blue gas giant.
“Lines intersect and grow tangled here,” he said. His heart was racing.
He needed only to unknot them and revelation awaited. This he knew. And he knew Jaden Korr to be the key.
He used a nose cam to take pictures of Junker, of the cruiser, of the fighters, and stored them in a holocrystal. He watched Junker dart toward the rings, watched the sleek fighters follow. He did not fear that Jaden would die in the rings. Jaden’s destiny was to die while Kell fed on his soup.
He scanned all frequencies until he picked up the signal from the moon that had started it all, the signal that would, in the end, summon Kell to the altar of understanding.
He amplified it, let the heartbeat of its repeating cadence fill the cockpit. Having performed services for the Empire decades earlier, he recognized the signal as Imperial in origin. Predator possessed an advanced decryption package, and Kell loosed it upon the message. In moments he had it decrypted.
“Extreme danger,” said a female voice. “Do not approach. Extreme danger. Do not approach.”
Pelting through Junker’s corridors, Khedryn led Relin to the tractor beam control compartment at the rear of the ship. A small, rectangular viewport provided a view outside the ship. They could see the fighters from Harbinger gaining on them, narrow slivers of black and silver metal hurtling through space toward Junker with ill intent. Khedryn noted the laser cannons mounted on each wing. The cruiser loomed behind the fighters, huge and dark.
“Lose the escape pod, Marr,” Khedryn ordered over his comlink. “I don’t want Jaden flying my girl with a sack on her back.”
“Copy that,” said Marr.
Seconds later they saw Relin’s escape pod spinning through space in Junker’s wake. One of the Blades fired its wing-mounted laser cannons, and green lines turned the pod into flame and scrap.
“Stang, those things are fast,” said Khedryn.
“Blades are flying cannons,” Relin said. “They have low-powered deflectors. One hit is all it takes.”
“TIE fighters,” Khedryn said. “Sith designs are the same no matter the time.”
“Do you have deflectors?” Relin asked, strapping himself in at the console.
“Didn’t I already say that this is a salvage ship?” Khedryn said, watching the Blades grow larger. “I have nothing that can even slow that kind of firepower.”
&n
bsp; Relin examined the controls. “Can the tractor beam be aimed with any precision?”
“Aimed, yes.” Khedryn showed the Jedi the scan and lock display, the fire controls. “But precision? I use it for towing. It’s not a weapon.”
“It will be today. How do I communicate with the cockpit?”
Khedryn thought he knew what Relin intended. “Tell me you’re not planning to do what I think you’re planning to do? We’ll be in the midst of the rings. The mass shifts alone—”
“If they follow us into the thick of the rings, we’ll need to try something. The communicator, Captain.”
Khedryn swallowed his protest. He activated the onboard intercom.
“Cockpit, do you read?”
“Clear, Captain,” Marr answered. “Fighters are closing. We are in the outskirts of the rings.”
In his mind’s eye, Khedryn imagined the rings around the gas giant. Taken together, they were a storm of enormous size—five kilometers thick, more than a thousand kilometers wide, and riddled with chunks of rock and ice that varied in size from pieces less than a meter to mammoth hulks 150 meters in diameter. Junker’s deflectors could handle the tiny particles, but if Jaden hit anything of size …
“Don’t let that Jedi ruin my ship, Marr,” Khedryn said. “Increase power to the forward deflector—for whatever good it will do.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“You don’t ruin my ship, either,” Khedryn said to Relin.
Relin ignored him, inhaled, closed his eyes, and seemed to lose himself in meditation for a moment.
Through the viewport, Khedryn watched the Blades swoop in behind Junker. The slits of their cockpit covers looked like a cyclopean eye squinting to aim.
Laser cannons fired and green lines cut the space between the two ships. Jaden dived Junker so hard and fast that Khedryn’s stomach waved a greeting to his throat.
“I told you not to ruin my ship!” he said into the intercom. He scrambled into a seat and strapped himself in as Jaden pulled hard on the stick and put Junker’s nose up.
Relin snapped open his eyes.
“Jaden, when we get into the rings, I plan to use the tractor beam against the Blades. Can you compensate?”