“Be calm,” she said, and he was. He felt better, just having her there.
“What’s happening?” Avar asked.
“The array’s producing too much heat, but I can’t stop the simulation now. Either it runs to the end, or there was no point to any of this. We haven’t learned anything new yet, either. If we stop now, it’s all a waste.”
Another rain of sparks—Node Eleven. Three hundred and eighty-two droids gone, all at once. Fifty-seven thousand, two hundred and eighty-five left.
Keven sent the rest of his pill droids to cool down that section, which would work for a bit, but a glance at the datapad showed him at least four more nodes in serious trouble.
Nodes Three and Eight blew. Fifty-three thousand, four hundred and twelve. If they got below fifty thousand, it was over. No amount of reshuffling and load balancing would create processing power where it didn’t exist.
The breeze died, and that little bit of additional cooling it provided vanished. There was nothing more he could do. It was over.
* * *
Avar Kriss continued to use the Force to help the young man hold back his panic. It wasn’t easy. Keven Tarr wanted to spiral out of control. He felt guilt, shame, frustration…none of which were fair or earned, probably, but emotions were rarely logical.
She looked at Elzar. “Any ideas?”
“He needs to cool everything down?”
“That’s what he said.”
“Okay,” Elzar said, his tone thoughtful. “I might have an idea. I’ve never tried it, but the theory is sound. You’ll be able to sense what I’m doing. Anything you can do to help would be appreciated. I can’t imagine I’ll be able to do this alone.”
Elzar seated himself on the ground, folding his legs together, then lifted his arms and closed his eyes. Avar reached out, trying to follow what he was doing. He was calling on the Force…but to do what?
She suspected this was one of his…refinements. Ideas were constantly popping into his head, ways the Force might be used to do new things, new ways the light side might answer his call. He failed, all the time, but she found his commitment to bringing new ideas to the Jedi inspiring. To Elzar Mann, what the Jedi were was nowhere near as interesting as what they could be.
Avar listened to the song of the Force…and suddenly she understood what Elzar was trying to do.
Impossible, she sent to him, a concept basic enough to be conveyed through the very loose emotional linkage the Force could give them.
He smiled, not opening his eyes.
Help me, he sent back.
* * *
Elzar Mann was talking to the air. It was hot here at the surface, above the furiously working droids, but much cooler high above. The hot air was rising, as it liked to do, but slowly. Not fast enough.
He asked the Force to help with that, and it responded, though sluggishly. Air was heavier than it looked.
Then, an easing, and he knew Avar was with him. That was good. Everything was easier when she was at his side. Literally, in fact—he opened his eyes briefly to see that she had knelt next to him, her forearms resting loosely on her thighs, her palms facing upward and her eyes closed, her face tilted up toward the sky.
The small patch of heated air rose higher, both Jedi creating currents to waft it into the sky above the plateau. This did very little to cool the navidroid array, though that was not really the idea here.
As the hot air rose, it reached cooler zones higher in the atmosphere. The heated air carried moisture with it, evaporated from the surface. Those tiny molecules of water found one another, touched, connected.
Elzar and Avar did it together, nudging the air, helping it do what it wanted to do anyway, helping the individual bits of water become one. Elzar felt something like exultation. Not pride—that was not the Jedi way—but joy in a difficult job being done well, by two people connecting on a deep level, without any need to explain to each other what they were doing.
They had always been this way, ever since their Padawan days. Their connection made many things better—but if he was being honest with himself…it also made some things worse.
The two Jedi worked. Elzar felt exhaustion creeping over him. He and Avar were only working with a small region of the atmosphere, a relatively tiny volume of air. Shaping it, molding it, trying to bring it to a critical mass that would let the moon’s weather systems do the rest of the work—essentially creating a seed—but it was still grueling.Sweat poured from his body, and he knew that was only partially due to the heat rising off the array. Every breath became an effort, and his chest felt like it was being pressed in a vise, as if the air moving above was being sucked directly from his lungs.
But Elzar Mann did not stop, nor did Avar Kriss, and slowly, something began to appear in the sky above the plateau. Huge, gradually darkening as the moments passed.
A cloud.
* * *
Fifty-one thousand and eighteen navidroids remained, and while Keven had managed to keep the simulation intact—the vidscreen was now playing out the thirty-first Emergence, which meant they were just minutes away from being able to move past modeling things that had happened to projecting things that would happen—but there was no way the array would last that long. Every single remaining droid was in the red, even the most advanced models. Keven was maneuvering the pill droids above the entire array in big, sweeping arcs, trying to chill the whole thing at once. It was working, to some extent, buying them additional seconds—but his datapad also displayed their coolant reserves, and most were down to single digits.
At this point, all he could hope for was that they might be able to predict an Emergence or two…even a few might help prevent a future tragedy. They almost certainly wouldn’t be able to find the Legacy Run’s flight recorder system, which was obviously the secondary goal of all this—it would help them understand what had happened here and, hopefully, prevent it from ever occurring again.
But you took the good where you found it, and so Keven kept using the systems he had left, pushing them as far as he could, even as another few hundred navidroids burned out and died.
Something hit the back of his neck, startling him. It was soft, maybe an insect, or—
Another impact, this time on the back of his hand as it moved rapidly across his datapad’s surface, and he realized what was happening.
“It’s…it’s raining,” he heard Senator Noor say.
And suddenly, with a rumble of thunder, it was. Rain, pouring down over the array. Steam hissed up from the overstressed navidroids, and Keven had to swipe the side of his hand across his datapad to clear the water so he could read it. Temperatures were dropping rapidly, across every node. The navidroids were hardened for operation in vacuum—a bit of water wouldn’t hurt them.
Clouds of steam drifted up from the array, and Keven turned to look—first at the Jedi, Avar Kriss and Elzar Mann, who knelt side by side, arms lifted, eyes closed, trembling with sustained effort as the rain soaked their tunics. The Jedi looked as if they were trying to lift a starship with their bare hands. The sun was still bright off the plateau, and the light shone through the rain, causing a glinting spectrum to surround them both.
Beyond the straining Jedi, the vidscreen finally displayed something new: a zone of uninhabited space where the thirty-fourth Emergence would occur.
There had only been thirty-three Emergences to date.
The system worked. It was predicting the location of future Emergences, and as long as the rain held up, it would remain stable.
Keven realized that he hadn’t failed after all. He, Keven Tarr, a farmer’s son from Hetzal Prime, had sliced hyperspace.
What a strange galaxy this was.
Porter Engle bent low over the neck of his steelee, whispering to it, even as he calmed its shaking muscles with the Force.
“You are a luminous b
eing,” he said. “There is no pain, there is no fatigue, there is no fear. You are light and speed and there is nothing in this world more beautiful. I am here with you. We are together. We will do great things. We will save this family.”
The blade of his lightsaber hummed as he rode, chasing the bastards who had kidnapped four innocent people from their very home. What had Loden called them? The Nihil.
Porter Engle was not angry. He had been a Jedi for almost three centuries. He knew all too well where anger could lead. He had found a better way to express his emotions when faced with situations like this. He was not angry.
He was certain.
Certain that a great injustice had been done.
Certain that he could set it right.
And, most of all…
…he was utterly certain these…Nihil…would never do anything like it again.
One way or another.
He had taken the point position, riding a little ahead of Loden Greatstorm and Bell Zettifar. He liked them both. Loden had a sense of humor about things that was very welcome among the Jedi. Porter had met many in their Order who took things far too seriously. Life was long, and they had the gift of the Force. Why be stoic? The vows didn’t mean they were dead.
And Bell…Bell was a wonderful young man. Still figuring himself out, but he was only eighteen years old. He shouldn’t know very much about himself at that age anyway. But someday, he would be the kind of Jedi held up as an example to future generations.
Assuming Loden didn’t kill him in training first.
Porter brought his focus back to the task at hand. Jagged ironstone slopes scraped up to either side, and the way ahead narrowed. The Jedi didn’t slow, but they brought their steelees into line, moving through the canyon single-file.
The Nihil with their captives were still some distance ahead, but the Jedi were gaining. Wouldn’t be long now. He recalled battles long past, pulled up strategies for hostage situations. The Nihil clearly thought the family was valuable, and wouldn’t want to hurt them unnecessarily. That gave Porter and his team an advantage. Still, they would need to move fast. The best would be for one of them—Loden, probably—to use the Force to yank the family free of the Nihil, while he and Bell moved on the kidnappers.
Odds were these Nihil had never fought Jedi before—most people hadn’t, and even if they’d heard stories, mere words couldn’t do the experience justice. So they might not know how foolish it would be to try to fight using blasterfire. A blaster bolt fired at a Jedi was essentially the same as shooting at yoursel—
The tiniest whiff of danger, whether some signal from the Force or just long instincts honed from many other rides through many other narrow canyons with enemies on the horizon. The sound of a blaster rifle firing. Porter Engle whipped up his lightsaber, moving to deflect the attack—but it was not aimed at him.
His steelee reared up, pain filling its mind and heart and echoing through Porter. He pulled back his link to the animal and leapt free as it crumpled to the ground, digging up furrows in the hard dirt with its metallic hooves. He somersaulted in midair, using his lightsaber to knock back a few more shots. The Nihil had clearly hidden themselves up in the hills, waiting to ambush the Jedi.
Porter landed.
“Cowards,” he spat.
More blasts rained down, from either side, but now he had the angles figured, and the angles and pace of blasterfire told him the story. Only two shooters.
“Keep going!” he called to Loden, who had slowed his mount slightly. “Don’t let the other Nihil get that family to their ship! I’ll take care of these monsters and join you as soon as I can.”
Loden nodded without a word, and he and Bell raced ahead, deflecting a few errant shots as they went.
Porter Engle stood alone in the canyon, the body of his dead mount not far away, a noble animal who had only done her best.
“You think you’re smart, eh?” he called up. “Shot my steelee right out from under me.”
Silence from up in the hills. No shots, no movement. Perhaps they were, in fact, smarter than he gave them credit for. They were undoubtedly circling around, trying to get a bead on him from a new spot. Let them.
He shouted up toward the tumbled rocks above.
“Before you killed my steelee, I will admit I had not decided how to deal with you. All possibilities were on the table. But that creature lived in the light, and you stole it away. You had no right. Thank you for showing me exactly what you are. Makes things much simpler for me.”
He rotated slowly, his lightsaber up, scanning the hills. He knew what was going to happen. Anyone who aimed for a man’s mount rather than shooting at him fair and square, anyone who attacked from ambush, was also the sort of man who would—
Blasterfire, three shots, right at his back. Of course.
Porter spun, blocking the first, the second, and sending the third right back from where it had come. Movement from up in the rocks, and he leapt, higher than he was sure these Nihil cowards would have thought possible. Straight up, and he saw the man who had shot at him. Porter threw his lightsaber, and it sliced out, a spinning disk, inescapable.
The Nihil sniper ducked behind an ironstone outcropping, thinking it would shelter him. It did not. The blade sliced through the rock, and then it sliced through the man, and Porter regretted that a living, thinking being, a child of the Force, had made choices that brought him to such an end.
The second ambusher shot at Porter before he had landed from his great leap, and before he could retrieve his lightsaber. He was in midair, without his primary form of protection, making the situation a bit complex to handle—but Jedi lost their weapons from time to time, and any Jedi Knight worth the title put in the hours developing strategies for unarmed defense.
Porter Engle reached out with both the Force and his hand, palm out, and deflected the bolt back, sending it caroming back off toward the hills. Not strictly necessary. He could have pushed it away with his mind, or frozen it in place. But flicking a blaster bolt away like an insect…it made a certain statement.
“I saw you, friend,” he shouted up, calling his lightsaber back to him. “Saw right where you’re hiding.”
The hilt smacked into his hand with a whap he always found utterly satisfying, his thick fingers slipping into grooves worn into the metal cylinder from tens of thousands of hours of practice and combat.
“And soon I’ll see you again,” he called.
Porter Engle sprinted toward the hill, moving faster than the Nihil could probably see, leaping up and over and from side to side. No more blaster bolts. He had a feeling the surviving Nihil had thought better of this whole ambush and was making a run for it.
When he made it to the top of the rise, he learned that he was right. The Nihil was sitting on another steelee, trying to get the beast to move, digging his heels into its sides. He wasn’t shouting at the poor creature, its head down and hooves dug in hard—he knew better than to make that kind of noise—but Porter knew that under ordinary circumstances he’d be cursing at it, using every horrible oath he could dream up.
“I bet you’re the one that shot my animal,” Porter said.
The Nihil whipped around, his blaster firing, and the conflict ended the only way it could.
Porter was utterly certain.
The Nihil toppled off the steelee, a smoking hole through his mask.
Porter Engle wasted no more time on him. He deactivated his lightsaber and slapped it into his holster, then approached the traumatized steelee, his hand outstretched.
“Hey there, fella…” he said. “You are a luminous being. Whaddya say you and me go do some good?”
The steelee looked at him, its eyes wide. He touched its flank, and it calmed. He wrapped his hands in its bridle, preparing to heave himself up into its saddle.
And then the Nihil with the
hole through his mask sat up. He lifted his blaster to fire—and Porter Engle realized the raider was probably of some species that kept its brain elsewhere in its body, meaning he could survive a headshot, meaning that Porter Engle, whose hands were occupied with the steelee, was about to die.
These thoughts ran through his head, along with an odd moment of sadness about a refinement to one of his pie recipes he would now never get to try, and he prepared his spirit to join the Force.
A black, gray, and red-orange blur leapt off the rocks, directly at the injured Nihil.
Ember, Porter Engle thought in astonishment. He’d forgotten all about her.
The charhound opened her jaws and a huge gout of yellow flame spat out, enveloping the Nihil before he could bring his blaster to bear. A strange, hollow scream emanated from the raider’s mask, and he rolled on the ground, trying to put out the fire that had consumed his body. Ember did not stop, just continued torching the Nihil until at first he stopped screaming, and then he stopped moving.
Then she closed her mouth and padded up to Porter Engle, who gingerly bent down and scratched her behind one ear. She felt hot, like his oven back at the outpost. He supposed that made perfect sense. She must have followed them all the way from the wrecked homestead, he and his fellow Jedi so focused on pursuing the Nihil they hadn’t thought to consider who might be pursuing them.
“Good girl,” he said. “Very good girl.”
Porter climbed aboard the steelee, and he was off, headed down the slope at a ready pace with Ember loping alongside, racing after Bell and Loden and the family they were trying to save.
* * *
Loden Greatstorm and Bell Zettifar had steadily gained ground on the Nihil they were chasing, but had not completely closed the distance. Now the kidnappers’ ships were visible, parked on the rust-colored sand just outside the no-fly zone. Two, looking like welded-together piles of cubes and spikes, and both marked with the three lines they’d seen on the door of the Blythe homestead. The Nihil had almost reached the vessels, along with their prisoners, still being pulled along in the little cart.
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