Light of the Jedi(29)

This time the droid did not respond, which Bright decided to take as a sort of resigned agreement. He turned and raced out of the room, following the path Innamin had taken. He reached the ladder and put his boot on the first rung.



This will work, he thought, more wish than belief.

And then he sensed it—or rather, his tentacles did, with their ability to pull out pheromones from even the most polluted environment. There was another being here, someone alive. Alive and hurt, if his receptors didn’t steer him wrong.

Bright followed the scent trail, and there, behind a panel, was a Twi’lek, male, heavy, bruised, bleeding, and unconscious. He was dressed in the uniform of the station, and Bright didn’t know if Innamin hadn’t thoroughly searched this deck because he was distracted by the damaged reactor, or because the injured man was mostly hidden, or…well, it didn’t matter, did it?

Just to see, Bright crouched down and attempted to lift the Twi’lek. His muscles strained, but the unconscious man was deadweight. He barely moved.

No, he thought. No way.

Bright gave himself a moment, just one, to think about his life, the things he’d done and the things he thought he might do. He thought about the Republic, and what it meant, and his own oaths to serve it and all its people.

And then he ran back to the reactor.

“I’ve got this,” he said, pushing the pill droid out of the way and taking its position at the control console. He pointed his thumb back over his shoulder.



“You’ve got a patient, about nine meters past the deck ladder. Get him back to the ship. Now.”

The droid rotated, swooshing quickly away.

Bright tapped in the command sequence, and the gauge slipped back a little—but less than it had the last time.

He spoke into his comlink.



“Innamin,” he said. “You make it?”

“Yes, Captain,” came the reply. “But where are you? You were supposed to be right behind me.”

“Change in plans,” Bright said. “I’m sending the pill droid up with one more evacuee.”

“But we already got all seven crewmembers.”

“Guess there were eight,” Bright said.

“But the reactor,” Innamin said, trailing off. Bright could almost hear the kid’s mind working, coming to understand the reality of what was about to happen.

“Take off the minute you have the droid aboard. Don’t wait. Get out of the system’s gravity wells and jump away. Rendezvous with the Third Horizon, if you can. If not, get back to Coruscant. It seems like things are falling apart all over the system, not just here.”

“But Captain, maybe—”

“No. Look. I’ve been easy on you as long as we’ve flown together, Innamin. The insubordination, the joking around…life’s too short, and the ship’s too small, I always figured. But all that ends now. Life is short, Petty Officer, pretty damn short indeed. I gave you an order, and if you do not follow it, I will see you court-martialed.”

A long silence from the comm. They both knew how empty that threat was. Not the point. At last, Innamin spoke, his voice subdued.

“I can see the droid. It has the crewman. A Twi’lek?”

“That’s right.”

Bright entered the sequence again. The gauge slipped back. A little less.

The tremors on the station had risen to the level of a seismic event. The array was tearing itself apart.

“Go, Innamin!”

“We’ve…already undocked, Captain. Reversing thrusters now. Getting to minimum safe distance. Shouldn’t be long.”

“Good,” Bright said.



The gauge was in the red again. Bright entered the sequence. This time, the needle didn’t move. It just stayed in the red.

Bright sighed.

“Captain, we are away,” Innamin said. “We are all the Republic.”

“Damn right,” Bright said. “We are all the—”

Heat and light and nothing more.





“Master Jedi, are you certain this is the correct choice?” Admiral Kronara asked.

Avar Kriss could sense his concern. He was a good commander, and although she was not technically part of his crew, she knew he felt responsible for her safety. Especially considering that if he did what she was asking him to do, he was probably condemning her to death.

“I am certain, Admiral,” she said. “We’ve loaded as many refugees as we can hold, and more besides.”

She glanced around the hangar. It was true. This room alone held hundreds of beings, with nothing other than the clothes on their backs. No one had been allowed to bring anything else. Every bit of available space on the huge cruiser had been allocated toward saving lives. And even then, people were still trapped on the planet’s surface. Admiral Kronara and his crew had done their best, but the Third Horizon was just a machine, and there was a point where taking on additional mass would mean the ship could not take off, and no one would be saved at all.



“These people are afraid,” Avar said. “I can sense it. You need to get them to safety.”

“But if you fail, you will die,” Kronara said, making one last attempt.

“I know that, Admiral, but there are billions of people down there who couldn’t find a way off Hetzal Prime.” Here she pointed, at the open sky visible outside the hangar’s exit ramp.