Light of the Jedi(101)

All right, Nova, time to live up to your name, Loden thought.

With his hands, he flew his ship, and with the Force, he triggered its weapons and moved through the battlespace in a way none of the Nihil had ever seen or could anticipate or, if Loden chose to go for kill-shots, could survive.

The Nova was a blossom of flame and laserfire, spiraling through the battle, every shot finding a target, every motion either an evasion or a retargeting.

The Nihil attackers moved from an attacking stance to something like a panicked retreat, the sphere of ships surrounding him expanding and becoming more diffuse, both from the increased distance between the vessels and from his own steady reduction of their numbers. Only the flagship didn’t move, his lasers reflecting off its shields.



Dimly, his senses told him Indeera’s Vector had taken the opportunity to move out of the shadow of the kidnappers’ ship and speed through a gap in the enemy cordon. As he had suspected, the rest of the Nihil did not give chase. They undoubtedly were monitoring the communications between Loden and Indeera, or had access to cam feeds from inside their damaged vessel. Either way, they knew who Indeera had taken—the boy.

They didn’t want him, though. They wanted the father, for some reason.

It was Loden’s job to make sure they didn’t get him.

He knew how he could get aboard the kidnappers’ ship—but he didn’t quite know what he would do after that. Getting through all of this intact seemed…improbable. At best.

But then, so was fighting off a massive marauder armada in a single Vector long enough for his colleague to escape, and he’d pulled that off. He’d figure it out.

Loden angled his ship to head straight for the damaged Nihil vessel containing the last Blythe.

He approached, then pulled back sharply on the control sticks, slowing his ship to almost zero velocity, feeling g-forces tug him forward.

In a series of rapid Force-assisted movements, he pulled his lightsaber hilt from the console—it was hot in his hand, almost burning—popped the emergency release on the Vector’s canopy, released his safety harness, and shot forward, out of the ship and into open space.

Loden had aimed himself perfectly. Almost perfectly. He did indeed make it to the open air lock of the damaged Nihil ship, but one leg nicked the edge of the hatch as he passed, and at the speed he was traveling it was like taking a durasteel hammer to the limb. The bones of his lower leg snapped, and for a moment Loden felt nothing. But only a moment.



Then pain, white-hot.

He hit the inner air lock hatch, hard, though at least this he had been anticipating and was able to turn to soften the impact a bit. Loden slapped the control panel to one side of the hatch and the outer door slammed closed. The atmosphere began to cycle, oxygen rushing into the tiny chamber.

Loden took the moment to examine his broken leg—it was twisted at a bizarre angle, and it seemed like the bone had snapped clean through. Not good.

Outside the ship, through the air lock, he saw a flash of flame that he knew was his Vector being destroyed by Nihil laserfire.



Goodbye, Nova, he thought. You were a wonderful ship.

None of this was unexpected—well, perhaps the leg. That was not ideal.

Loden brought the pain-management exercises he knew to mind, and while he realized on some level that he was in agony, he was able to bottle it up and put it aside. The trick wouldn’t last forever. You couldn’t fool the body indefinitely. But hopefully, it would see him through whatever came next.

A soft chime as the air lock atmosphere equalized with that inside the ship, and the hatch opened. Loden pushed himself to his feet, favoring his good leg—no Jedi exercises were so powerful that he could put even a bit of weight on the other one—and pulled himself inside.

The first thing he saw were the corpses. Several, all Nihil, bearing telltale marks of death-by-lightsaber. All had blasters in their hands. Indeera had been forced to defend herself and the hostages, and these people had brought their deaths upon themselves. The pilot’s body was here too, the unmasked woman Loden had influenced with the mind touch.

The second thing he saw was a man, his eyes wide, a blaster pistol in his hand. He did not look like a Nihil. He looked like a miner. The last Blythe.

“You’re the other Jedi,” the man said.



“You’re the father,” Loden said, his voice a little shaky.

“Ottoh Blythe,” the man replied. “Before anything else, thank you for saving my family. If there is ever anything I can do for you, just—”

“I wouldn’t mind a little help with this, now that you mention it,” Loden said, gesturing to his leg.

Ottoh looked at the injured limb, realized what had happened, and nodded. He shoved the pistol in his belt and moved to a bulkhead, where a square metal container was bolted to the wall. He pulled it down, then opened it, revealing an emergency medpac.

From the kit, he pulled an injector and held it up. “This won’t fix a broken leg, but it might let you forget it’s broken. For a little while, at least.”



“Yes please,” Loden said.

Ottoh handed the injector to Loden, who promptly stuck it in his thigh and depressed the activator. A slight whoosh, and immediately the pain eased. He released the Force, saving his reserves for the challenges to come.

“Better?” Ottoh said.