Light of the Jedi(28)

“All right,” Bright said. “I have the last crewmember. We’ll be at the Longbeam in about thirty seconds. Get up here, and we’ll decouple and get gone.”

The pill droid had reached the air lock, where Ensign Peeples was waiting; he had been tasked with stabilizing the other injured crewmembers of the solar array in the Aurora IX’s medical bay. His needlelike snout buzzed as he saw the Anzellan.

“Aww,” he cooed. “Who’s the cute little baby?”

Peeples picked up the injured crewmember and cuddled him against his chest. The pill droid’s stretcher attachment snapped together and refolded itself in some ingenious way before disappearing back inside its carapace.

“Blast it, Peeples, that’s not a baby. Get him to the medical bay, and make sure everyone’s strapped in and ready to go. We need to fly, and it might get rough.”

Peeples blinked his eyes, all nineteen of them, and Bright’s tentacles told him the ensign was frustrated, presumably at his fun being ruined. But he turned, taking the Anzellan with him.

Then he turned back.

“By the by, an order came through, from the Third Horizon,” Peeples said. “Full system evac. All rescue efforts are supposed to end, and all vessels are to head to hyperspace access zones and leave Hetzal immediately.”

“They say why? Lotta people gonna get left behind.”

Peeples shrugged, or performed the odd spasm that passed for a shrug with him, and walked away, crooning to the unconscious little being in his arms.



Another rumble from the station, and a blast of flame rushed down the corridor. Bright barely registered what was happening before the pill droid moved with a speed belying its usual languid grace. It inserted itself between the inferno and Bright. One of its side panels opened, and a nozzle emerged. Suppressor foam shot from it, intersecting with the flames, knocking them down, and only the merest wash of heat reached Bright.

He released the breath he’d been holding, then drew in another, realizing how close he’d just come to being cooked alive. He patted the top of the pill droid’s cylinder.

“Thanks, pal,” he said.

The pill droid emitted two short beeps. Bright couldn’t understand Binary without a translator, but he took the sound to convey a sort of “just doing my job, sir” type of stoicism, which he liked.

He lifted his comlink again. “Innamin! Where the hell are you? If you don’t get up here I’ll leave you behind!”

“About that,” came the reply. No longer annoyed, no longer panicked. Just…resigned.

That, Bright did not like. “What’s the problem, Petty Officer?”



“I can’t leave. I have to run a sequence on the reactor’s control console, injecting coolant every few seconds, and if I stop, it’ll blow right away. I was trying to set up some sort of automation, but the processors are damaged. I…” His voice cracked.

“No, we’ll get you out,” Bright said. “I’ll bring the pill droid. We can show it the sequence. It’ll run it for us while we get out and away.”

“Captain…you should go. Coming down to save me will take time, and—”

“Shut up, Innamin,” Bright said.

He gestured at the pill droid’s ocular sensor, giving it the command to follow, and then he started sprinting toward the nearest set of deck ladders.

He made his way down the decks as quickly as he could, finally arriving at the reactor level. Innamin looked up, his face covered with sweat, so relieved he looked like he was going to faint.



“Hold it together,” Bright said to the junior officer.

The station shook again, and didn’t stop.

“We have no time,” Innamin said.

“Clearly,” Bright said. “Show the droid the sequence.”

“It has to happen when this gauge goes into the red,” Innamin said, a scenario conveniently happening at exactly that moment. He tapped a quick run of five button-presses on the console, and the gauge slipped back a few notches. Not to green, but to orange, and that would have to do.

The sequence was not complicated. Bright got the order just from seeing it once. Evidently the droid had it memorized, too. It moved forward, taking Innamin’s place at the console, waiting for the next opportunity to enter the commands.

“Go, right now,” Bright told his subordinate. “Get to the Longbeam.”

“Aren’t you coming?”

“I want to make sure the droid can do this,” he said. “Just go. Help Peeples. The light only knows what he’s doing up there.”

“Thank you, Captain, it…it means a lot.”

“We’re all the Republic,” Bright said.

Innamin nodded and ran off, out of the reactor chamber, toward the nearest deck ladder.

“All right, you beautiful machine,” Bright said, turning back to the pill droid. “Show me you understood.”

The gauge slipped into the red, and the pill droid moved fast and sure, tapping the five buttons. The gauge fell back—less than it had the previous time, Bright noticed—and the station seemed just a bit less likely to shake itself apart.

“Okay, it’s all yours,” Bright said. “I gotta run. It’s been wonderful working with you.”