by James Luceno
A long pause. “You tell me when and which way to expect the drag. I can compensate.”
“Copy that.” To Khedryn, Relin said over his shoulder, “Maybe they won’t follow us in.”
Khedryn nodded but knew better. He had not been born lucky.
A patter of ice and small rocks, the steady beat of a snare drum, announced their entry into the fringe of the rings. Khedryn felt Junker decelerate and allowed himself a relieved breath. At least Jaden wasn’t crazy enough to try to run the rings at full speed.
The Blades devoured the distance between them. They moved in and out of view as Junker flew deeper into the rings and the debris field thickened. One of the Blades hit a chunk of ice, spun wildly, and exploded in flame against a spinning rock that reminded Khedryn in shape of a clenched fist.
Ever-larger chunks of ice and rock whirled by, a blizzard that would allow Jaden no room for even a single mistake.
“Stang,” Khedryn said, clutching the base of his seat in a white-knuckled grip. He reminded himself to breathe and tried to slow his heart.
“Getting thick now,” Marr said.
“Stop stating the obvious!” Khedryn shouted, but forgot to activate the intercom. It was just as well.
As if to make Marr’s point, another of the Blades struck a chunk of rock and exploded into a shower of flaming metal.
“Ready yourselves,” Jaden said, and Junker began to spin.
Jaden dwelled in the comforting warmth of the Force. He barely saw the swirl of ice and rock whirling through the space before Junker. He felt each rock, each bit of ice, large or small, as if it were an extension of his body. All were connected to one another and he was connected to them. He abided in the cohesiveness of the universe, the ship an extension of his will.
Action preceded conscious thought. His hands were a blur on the console. Junker dived, climbed, spun, wheeled, and careered through the empty spaces between ice and rock. The patter of particles against the cockpit viewport sounded like applause.
Laserfire cut glowing lines along their port side and Jaden turned starboard, dived, then burst out from the bottom of rings and into open space. For a moment he caught the glimpse of the frozen moon of his vision, a pearl against the black of space, before he veered hard right and lost sight of it.
Laserfire once more turned the sky green, crisscrossed the space before them, cut the darkness aft and starboard. Jaden put Junker into a spiraling roll as he nosed the ship back up through the rings.
Marr, his voice tight, spoke into the intercom. “What do you see back there?”
“Two are down,” Khedryn said, his voice as sharp as a vibroblade’s edge. “The rest are in pursuit. These jocks are good.”
Jaden knew. Several of them were Force-sensitive.
But they were not as good as he was.
The ship’s internal compensators could not keep up with Junker’s rapid shifts and the g’s pasted Khedryn to his seat. His vision clouded now and again when blood rushed too quickly to his head or too quickly out of it. Jaden had Junker wheeling so wildly through space that Khedryn feared for the ship’s integrity, never mind the rocks.
“Hold together, girl. Hold together.”
The Blades appeared and disappeared in the viewport, flickering in and out of sight like a faulty image on one of The Hole’s vidscreens. Rocks and bits of ice large and small moved in and out of his field of vision with dizzying speed. The rapidly changing visual field made Khedryn nauseous. Before him, Relin seemed as impassive as stone.
“Ever gone angling?” Relin said softly to no one. His hand gripped the tractor beam controls.
Junker spun and veered hard to starboard. Khedryn tried not to think about the stress the vessel would endure between Jaden’s piloting and Relin’s use of the tractor beam.
“Engaging the tractor beam, Jaden,” Relin said. “Drag on starboard.”
He aimed the tractor beam at a large planetoid in the rings. Junker lurched hard and slowed as the beam tethered it to the chunk of rock. Junker’s momentum pulled the rock out of its orbit, and Relin held it for only a fraction of a second before cutting it loose.
Junker lurched hard the other way but Jaden somehow compensated, and the rock, now spinning, crashed into another large rock, then another, and the leading Blades, unready for the sudden movement of the planetoids, wheeled out of the way too late. Two more vanished in a spray of metal and flames.
“Another two down,” Khedryn said into the intercom, his voice cracking.
Laserfire split the sky, exploding a large rock to Junker’s aft, spraying the ship with particulates. More laserfire lit up the sky. Jaden wheeled down, spun, pulled up hard. Relin aimed the tractor beam again, latched on to one of the Blades themselves. Junker lost velocity from the drag and the other Blades gained.
“Port,” Relin said to Jaden, and used the beam to foul the Blade’s trajectory. With no room for error, the fighter hit a rock and broke into two flaming bits, one of which spun into another Blade, sending it into a rock.
The rest of the Blades, swooping and diving in and out of the field of rock and ice, fired. Jaden nosed up but one of the beams hit Junker along the port side, shaking the entire ship. The lights flickered and an alarm rang.
“I cannot keep this up for much longer,” Jaden said over the intercom. Khedryn could hear the stress in his voice.
Khedryn agreed. It was only a matter of time before they caught a laser. He spoke loud enough to be heard on the intercom.
“Jaden, can you get us out of the fighters’ sight line for a moment?”
Jaden did not hesitate. “Yes.”
“What are you going to do?” Relin asked.
“I am going to space what’s in my hold. It’ll hit a rock, explode, maybe fool the fighters if we can stay out of their sight. They can’t scan us in here. We make them think we’re dead, then lay low.”
“I’ll have to accelerate to full to open some space,” Jaden said. “It will get iffy.”
“Do it,” Khedryn said, his mouth dry. “And the price of my cargo is added to the price you owe me.”
Relin said into the intercom, “A hard dive out the bottom, we space the cargo, then a hard climb back in. We’ll have moments.”
“Good thought,” Jaden said.
Laserfire exploded a nearby rock, spraying Junker with debris. Jaden climbed hard.
“Will what’s in the hold explode with enough pop?” Relin asked Khedryn.
“I don’t know,” Khedryn said. He had speeders in there. They’d blow, though the thought of spacing his Searing made him almost as ill as Jaden’s flying.
Relin pulled two oval-shaped metal devices from his pocket as laserfire shook the ship. “These are mag-grenades. Attach them to a speeder and press that button. They’ll blow when the speeder does. Understood?”
Khedryn nodded, and another wild turn nearly caused him to pass out.
“Go,” Relin said, then to Jaden, “Khedryn is on his way to the hold. Open up some space, Jaden.”
Khedryn unstrapped himself and wobbled like a drunk through the corridors, using safety rails to keep his feet as the ship answered with exclamation points to Jaden’s commands. He felt Junker accelerate, twist, turn, wheel, and he imagined his ship dancing through hundred-ton raindrops. The superstructure creaked and moaned under the strain.
“Don’t get wet,” he said, tapping a bulkhead as he opened the cargo bay hatches.
Everything was secured and in order, held down with magnetic clamps or stored in containers integrated into the walls or floor. He had two nearly complete landspeeders, his Searing swoop, Marr’s speeder, several containers of electronics, and other pieces of assorted scrap. He ran to the landspeeders—he could not space his Searing—and affixed the mag-grenades. A press of a button turned both of them hot.
“Quickly, Khedryn,” Jaden said through the comlink.
Khedryn did not bother to respond. He hurried across the bay to the air lock doors and activated the ventin
g sequence. A beeper started ticking off the thirty seconds.
“Thirty seconds to vent,” he said into his comlink.
“We have the readout up here,” Marr said, in his calm, certain voice. “Tell us when you are clear.”
Khedryn ran back to the speeders, lost his footing, scrambled to his feet, heart racing, and decoupled them from their magnetic mounts. For good measure, he opened one of the storage containers that held scrap electronics. Too late he realized that if the speeder bumped hard against something else in the bay, it might trigger the grenades while they were still in the ship.
He started to go back, but Marr’s voice halted him. “Ten seconds to venting.”
“Stang,” he cursed. He exited the cargo bay, secured the hatch, and then grabbed a safety rail with both hands. “Clear.”
Jaden turned Junker’s engines loose and slammed the nose down. The g’s flattened Khedryn against the wall, and the overhead siren screamed the imminent venting of the cargo hold. He imagined the speeders skidding across the bay floor, live grenades attached to them.
“You’ve lost them for the moment,” Relin said over the intercom.
“Venting,” said Marr’s voice.
Khedryn stood and stared through the transparisteel viewport in the hatch doors as the air lock opened and months of work, including the speeders, flew out into the void of space. Through the open air lock doors he caught a glimpse of the edge of the rings as Junker burst out of them. He also caught a flash, presumably from the explosion.
Jaden nosed back up hard, throwing Khedryn to the floor as he angled back into the rings, still spinning and wheeling.
“A good explosion,” Relin said, as if he were evaluating a grav-ball shot. His vantage at the rear of the ship would have allowed him to see it directly.
Jaden said, “We’ll stay flying hard until we see whether they buy the ruse.”
Khedryn sat in the core of his ship, listening to her strain, waiting for the telltale shake from a laser cannon’s near miss.
Nothing.
“There is nothing behind us,” Relin said.
Khedryn looked to the ceiling, and exhaled. He patted his ship. She had saved him again.
“Find something big enough to accommodate us,” he said. “And set her down. Then everyone get to the galley. We need to talk.”
Saes watched on the viewscreen as the remaining Blades peeled out of the gas giant’s rings. Llerd monitored the chatter among the pilots through an earpiece, then relayed it to Saes.
“The target has been destroyed, Captain,” Llerd said, his round face flush with the news. “Collided with rocks in the rings. We lost six Blades in the pursuit.”
Saes nodded, surprised to find himself so unmoved by Relin’s death. He supposed whatever attachment he might have had with Relin had been eroded by time and lost long ago. He reached out his consciousness for his Master, trying to recall the feelings he’d had when he’d realized that Relin had been aboard Harbinger. He felt nothing, only emptiness, a hole.
He was alone now, five thousand years in the future. His onetime Master had died a fool. Saes regretted the loss of the Blades, particularly since he would not be able to replace them, but he’d needed to end matters with Relin.
“Put us in orbit around the planet’s moon. I will be in my quarters.”
“When repairs are completed, should the helm plot a course to Primus Goluud?” Llerd asked.
Saes heard 8L6’s servos whir as he stood and looked at the captain.
“No,” Saes said. “Plans have changed.”
* * *
Khedryn tried to slow his still-racing heart as Jaden set Junker down in a deep, sheltered declivity on one of the large asteroids in the rings. His equilibrium was still off from the wild flight, and he swayed as he stood. After confirming that the cargo hold’s air lock had resealed and repressurized, he opened the hatch to check on his Searing.
Still there, along with Marr’s speeder bike. Good. Khedryn loved that swoop.
By the time he reached the galley, Relin was already there, sitting at the central table. Sweat glistened on his face, and his eyes looked like glassy, distant pools sunk in the deep pits of his sockets. His breathing came fast, like that of a rabid animal.
“You are sick,” Khedryn said.
Relin looked up, squinting at Khedryn. “Yes. Radiation.”
Khedryn tried to look sympathetic. “I have nothing aboard, but we can do something for it back on Fhost.” He left a maybe behind his teeth, seeing no reason to further burden the Jedi over Farpoint’s limited medical facilities.
Relin stared at him for a long moment. “Thank you.”
“And the ribs? The arm?”
Relin looked at his stump. “I am all right.”
Khedryn could see otherwise but did not push. He held up a caf cup and changed the subject. “Caf? It’s a bitter, uh, caffeinated beverage served hot.”
“Tea?”
“Sure,” Khedryn said, and prepped some tea for the Jedi. It was old, something he’d picked up on a whim months ago, but it was tea.
Jaden and Marr entered, neither talking. Jaden looked drawn behind his beard. Sweat dampened the fringe of his brown hair. Marr, of course, looked like Marr—solid, calm, as certain as an equation. Khedryn wondered how the Cerean managed such balance.
“I will take some of that caf,” Marr said, staring at Relin with unabashed curiosity. “Jaden explained … matters to me.”
“I’ll take some, too,” said Jaden. His voice had the sound of a man who had not slept in a few days.
“Take a seat, please,” Khedryn said to them both, his tone more formal than he intended.
Marr looked a question at him as he crossed the room but Khedryn, still composing his thoughts, ignored it. He spiked his caf with a jigger of pulkay, then poured caf for Jaden and Marr, joined it on a tray with Relin’s tea, and took it to the table.
“Nice flying,” he said to Jaden.
“It was,” Relin said, wincing in answer to one pain or another. “Well done, Jaden.”
“Thank you,” Jaden said. He seemed to notice Relin’s physical condition for the first time. “Are you … all right?” he asked, the question as loaded as a charged blaster.
Relin sat up straight, cleared his throat, and it turned into a soft cough. “I am fine.”
Khedryn distributed the drinks. “He’s not all right. He’s sick. Radiation. And the arm and ribs.”
“I know all that,” Jaden said, his eyes still on Relin. “That’s not what I mean.”
Khedryn realized that the Jedi were having a conversation at some level invisible to him.
“I am fine,” Relin repeated, but he glanced away.
Jaden sipped his caf and looked unconvinced.
To Relin, Marr said, “Assuming both ships got to near lightspeed, you would have traveled … a long way for five thousand years to pass relatively.”
Khedryn knew Marr must have been discomfited to use words like near and a long way.
“Yes,” Relin agreed. He looked at Marr. “My name is Relin.”
“Marr. I have so many questions.”
“They’ll have to wait,” Relin said.
“I suppose so,” Marr said.
“Good caf,” Jaden said to Khedryn, holding up the mug.
“Thanks,” Khedryn said as he took station at the head of the table. He swallowed, then dived in headfirst. “I have been thinking hard about this, and … we are done. This is over.” He cut off whatever Jaden and Relin would have said with a raised hand and a raised voice. “Junker is my ship. Mine. And I am not risking her, or my crew, over a salvage job.”
“This is more than that,” Relin said, his glassy eyes fixed like glow lamps on Khedryn.
“You know that already, Captain,” Jaden said.
Khedryn gave no ground. “I know it is to you two. To me, this is just another job, and it’s gotten too hairy. Do you know why I don’t have weapons on Junker, Relin? Because I run.”
He wagged a finger between himself and Marr. “We run. I am a salvager. This is a salvage ship.”
He realized that he was breathing heavily, that his tone was overly sharp. He took a moment to control himself. Between the calmness of the Jedi and the placidity of Marr, he felt like he was the only one who grasped the danger they had been in.
Jaden started to speak, but Khedryn pointed a finger at him as if it were loaded.
“And don’t you even consider trying that mind trick nonsense on me again.”
Jaden half smiled, put his hands on the table, and interlaced his fingers. He studied them as if they were of interest, then looked up at Khedryn. “You were going to take me down to the moon. We had a deal, Khedryn.”
That hit Khedryn where he lived. He did not renege on deals. “I know. But …”
Jaden continued in his infuriatingly calm voice. “But our agreement aside, I want you to step back and consider what has happened here. You and Marr discovered a distress beacon on a backrocket moon in the Unknown Regions.”
“Chance,” Khedryn said, but Jaden continued.
“I received a Force vision of that same moon. In it, voices pleaded with me for help.” His voice intensified a degree. “For help, Captain.”
“You received a Force vision?” Relin asked. “Did you see anything that suggested my presence or Harbinger’s?”
Jaden had eyes only for Khedryn as he drove home his point.
“We meet under extraordinary circumstances in Farpoint, then journey here, and at almost the exact moment of our arrival an ancient Sith ship appears.”
Relin piled on. “And that ship bears an extremely dangerous cargo.”
Khedryn’s response was knee-jerk defensiveness. “So you say.”
“So I say?” Relin said, heat leaking into his tone.
Jaden held a hand up. “Please, Relin.”
Khedryn shook his head. “Look, this was supposed to be a simple job. Instead it’s …”
“Something bigger,” Jaden said.
“I was going to say complicated,” Khedryn said. “But if it is about something bigger, then that makes it a Jedi concern. Not mine. Not ours. Right, Marr?”