“I’m Ty Yorrik,” she said. “That’s all I am.”
“You’re not a Jedi?” Ram asked.
Ty smiled. “Not today, no.”
“Ty works for me,” Mantessa said with a huff. “Her one mandate is to keep me safe. She’s doing an abysmal job of it so far.”
He waved. “I’m Ram. I’m a Padawan here on Valo.”
“Looks like you had quite a night,” Ty said, eyeing his grease-stained robes.
“Oh, no—I mean, yes, but I always look like this. Er, not for important events and stuff, but I mostly work in the garage, so.” This was another reason why Ram didn’t like being around people: he had to explain himself and try to make things make sense, and it was, quite frankly, exhausting and a waste of time.
“Well, you’ll be disappointed to learn they’ve really upped their security here because of the fair,” Ty said. “It’s surprisingly well locked down for such a rinky-dink little holding area.”
“Thank you!” the droid chortled obnoxiously from his control panel. “I am Five-Triad, security protocol droid in charge of this facility. Welcome! And yes, we have upgraded everything to the most cutting-edge security technology! Can’t have anything go wrong, you know!”
“See?” Ty snorted.
Ram walked to the edge of his cell and grabbed the bars. “That’s the thing though! We’re about to be attacked! You gotta let me—us—out!”
The droid threw his long head back in an awkward mockery of laughter. “Ha! Attacked! Okay, ‘Padawan.’ I’m so sure.”
“It’s true! Raiders sabotaged the comms tower last night before the welcome event! I think they were Nihil.”
Mantessa shot him a sharp glare. “Don’t be ridiculous, child. Everyone knows the Nihil were all but destroyed months ago. The ones left wouldn’t dare attack such a—”
“How do you know this, kid?” Ty interrupted, striding past her patron to face Ram from the edge of her cell.
“Because I stopped them! Well, me and Vee-Eighteen and the Bonbraks. They had ventilator masks, and their ship jumped to hyperspace before they cleared atmo! I swear!”
“This is a fairy tale,” Mantessa spat. “Jedi aren’t supposed to lie, you know.”
“I’m not lying!” Ram insisted. “And if they attacked the comms tower, it’s probably part of a larger plan! We gotta—”
“Well, whether he’s lying or not,” Ty said in that quiet growl, “we all want the same thing, no?”
“Why don’t you two do your little Jedi mind tricks on that droid and let’s be on our way then, hm?”
“I’m right here, you know,” 5-Triad pointed out.
“Our mind tricks don’t work on droids,” Ram said, trying not to sound too irritated. “Which is probably why they left one to guard us.”
“Exactly!” 5-Triad agreed.
“It’s true Jedi mind tricks don’t work on them,” Ty said. “But this does.” With a squeal the droid shot up into the air and smashed into a light fixture. Ram ducked as sparks and smoke poured out of the droid’s crumpled head.
“Ow!” 5-Triad moaned, still dangling from the light. “That wasn’t very Jedi-like!”
“Fortunately, I’m not a Jedi.”
“Is that going to get us out of here?” Mantessa sputtered.
Ty shrugged. “Probably not, no.”
“Then—”
“He was irritating me.”
The droid finally came crashing back down and landed in a sparking heap. “I will personally see to it that they add five years to each of your sentences, you barbarians.”
“Would you stop messing around and get us out of here?” Mantessa roared.
A dull boom sounded from somewhere nearby. Then another, so close that the whole building shook. Ram looked around. He heard people screaming outside, and then he heard the sudden shriek of blaster fire.
The attack on Lonisa City had begun.
The stars streamed past, the galaxy a blur once again.
Would things ever slow down? Lula wondered. They’d jumped to hyperspace, and the Star Hopper was probably right behind them. They would emerge into some kind of mess about to unfold; that seemed sure enough. And Zeen and Master Sy would be thrust into danger, and who knew what was going on with Farzala and Qort and the others.
Lula knew she wasn’t supposed to form attachments, and she understood why—she could feel it jangling up her flow, twisting her connection to the Force into unintelligible knots. But what else was she supposed to do? She cared about her friends and didn’t want them to get hurt.
And Vernestra looked so calm there in the tech seat, like they weren’t rushing into yet another disaster. No wonder she’d already been knighted at such a young age. How did she do it?
“What is it?” Vernestra asked over the quiet hum of the engine.
“What’s what?”
“Come on, Lula. We’re both Jedi. Don’t make me explain what I already know you know. Your heavy thoughts are taking up more room in this little ship than you are.”
Lula scrunched up her face. She should’ve known her own thoughts would betray her, especially around such an on-point Jedi Knight. “How did you do it?”
“Ah, you know we don’t get into details of our final trials, Lula. I’m sorry. But also…that’s not really what it is you want to know, is it?”
For a few moments, Lula just let the stars whoosh past. “As Jedi,” she finally said, “we’re not supposed to be attached to anything, right?”
“That’s the idea, sure.”
“But…” Lula suddenly felt like a dam was about to break. She realized she’d never had anyone more advanced than her to talk about this with. And even with the other Padawans, no one wanted to admit what they struggled with, deep down inside. “I’m like…just a big huge ball of attachments!” she moaned. “I’m attached to being alive! And to my friends being alive, too! And to Master Sy! Every day I go somewhere new in this galaxy and feel attached to it, meet more wonderful people that I don’t want to be hurt or killed! The attachments just keep coming! If I live to grow old, I’ll have thousands and thousands of them! I’m even attached to the Star Hopper, and that’s just a silly ship! Ugh!” She wasn’t sure if her voice was wavering with laughter or tears by the time she was finished—it felt so good and terrible to get it all off her conscience, finally!
But it didn’t change the fact that she couldn’t manage the most basic thing about being a Jedi. “I’m such a failure,” she said, rubbing her eyes.
Vernestra’s small, strong hand slid along Lula’s shoulders and squeezed. “Ah, Lula. Not at all. You’re so strong.”
“I am?”
The Jedi leaned forward so her head was beside Lula’s. She was smiling. “Of course! Being a Jedi isn’t about not having feelings or caring about anything. You know that.”
“I do?”
Vernestra laughed. “If Jedi weren’t supposed to feel anything, we might as well be droids. And even they feel things, if you think about it. The fact that we feel, that we care, is what makes the Jedi great.”
“But—”
“Balance,” Vernestra said. “Being a Jedi is about balance. Balance of the Force within you, the Force in the wider world. Balance of the Force as it flows through us.” Her voice was calm; she seemed so sure of what she said.
Would Lula ever feel that certain about anything? “Balance,” she repeated, trying to sound confident.
Vernestra smiled. “Take Master Sy, or your friend Zeen. You would try to save them, if their lives were in danger, yes?”
“Of course!” Lula said. Master Sy was one of the people Lula loved most in the whole world. And Zeen…Zeen seemed to understand Lula better than anyone else, even though they’d led entirely different lives up to this point. Opposite lives. She would do anything for her friend.
“But a stranger, or an enemy even,” Vernestra countered. “You would save their lives, too, or no?”
Lula felt like she was walking into a trap,
but she tried to answer as honestly as possible. “I would, yes…especially if they weren’t trying to kill me at the time.”
Vernestra let loose a sly smile. “Ha. Smart answer. But you don’t care about them, right? And yet you’d save them anyway. Why?”
“Because I care about life. And the light. I’d save them because it’s the right thing to do.”
“And that is also why you’d save Master Sy or Zeen. Let me ask you this: If saving Master Sy or Zeen meant that you’d never see them again but you’d have the knowledge they’d be safe, would you still do it?”
Lula almost yelled, “Of course!” but something inside made her hesitate. She wanted to be sure it was true. She’d be heartbroken never to see Master Sy again, but she knew it’d be a thousand times worse if it was because they were dead and she’d let it happen! The same was true of Zeen, although the ache at the idea of not seeing her friend felt momentarily like it would overwhelm her, an emotion so big she didn’t have room for it in her body.
It didn’t matter. The answer was the same, and she was already beginning to see the truth Vernestra had been trying to light up for her: that her actions, her choices, revealed the deeper balance that being a Jedi required. It didn’t mean cutting yourself off from love or not having emotions. It meant finding balance within those emotions to be able to still seek out the light, to do the right thing.
She nodded. “I would.”
Vernestra looked pleased, and Lula felt a swell of pride. “Then you are saving them for them, Padawan, not for yourself. It is not attachment.
“Speaking of not being attached to things, switch spots with me. We’re about to come out of hyperspace, and I need you on guns, just in case.”
Lula stood and let Vernestra slide past her into the pilot’s chair. Then she plopped down in the gunner’s seat and started checking the equipment.
The ship was definitely a clunker. The scanner screen had to be a few decades old—chunky blips danced gracelessly across it, leaving behind little phantom versions each time they moved—and the laser-cannon turrets, visible on either side of the spherical cockpit window, swiveled on rust-covered rotary hinges, never quite catching up to where they should be.
“We’ll let Starlight know what the situation is once we know what we’re dealing with,” Vernestra said. With a blip and a rattle, they jolted out of hyperspace, the whole ship jiggling and creaking, and zoomed closer to the green-blue planet below.
Lula had to breathe through a wave of nausea as the stars shifted and slowed around them. “Ay, ay, ay, ay,” she moaned with the starboard engine’s grunts. “Whew!”
As soon as everything came to a gradual rest, lights erupted across Lula’s target screen.
“There is an attack!” Vernestra yelped, tilting them forward. “And it’s already begun! Alert Starlight!”
Up ahead, hundreds of ion trails roared to life as Nihil fighters streamed in reckless, chaotic swooping dives toward Lonisa City. Down below, blaster fire ripped across building tops, floating pavilions, and crowded streets, and bursts of smoke plumed into the sky.
Only static came over the comms when Lula tried to raise Starlight. “Comms aren’t working!” She tried the Hopper and got the same result. “And I don’t see any Republic ships. Is it possible they don’t—”
“No time to work out why. Do your best to get a distress signal to Starlight,” Vernestra said. “We’re going in.”
Lula tried, but the system kept sending back an automated message in a language she didn’t know. “I thought that Padawan said he’d fixed the comms tower. It doesn’t seem like—whoa!” She almost choked on her own tongue as Vernestra hit the boosters, rocketing them toward the swarm.
“All weapons live!” Vernestra yelled. “We need to punch a hole in this pack to throw off their attack pattern!”
Lula opened her mouth to object, or plead for a moment to catch her breath, but they didn’t have that luxury. Innocent people were being massacred on Valo, casualties piling up with every passing second. And already they were roaring up behind the attacking horde.
“Fire!” Vernestra called, her face scrunched with concentration.
Lula brought the control grips to rest on the two crafts closest to them, then pulled both triggers. Blaster fire splattered out from the turrets in an angry blitz of light, shredding the hyperdrive of one ship and lancing through the rear cannons of the other.
Vernestra dipped the Varonchagger slightly to one side, clipping two smaller crafts with its bulky wingspan. They spun into a cluster of three more ships, and the lot of them burst into flames, spiraling out of the sky.
But the other Nihil had realized there was an attack from their rear, and several swung their ships out of formation, whipping upward and back around with laser cannons blazing.
“Hold on!” Vernestra hit the thrusters hard and spun skyward, past the attacking raiders, then cut off all the thrusters. The Varonchagger, convulsing angrily with one hit after another, sank suddenly.
Lula met the goggled stare of a Nihil raider in a single-pilot craft bearing down on them, the swirl of space behind him. He lurched forward, blasting his wing cannons. She swung the turrets in a diagonal swath across the sky and released a barrage of laser blasts that carved through four Nihil ships. Then she concentrated both cannons on the approaching raider. Smoke and flames burst from his cockpit first; seconds later his whole ship disappeared in a fiery explosion that sent shards cracking against their front viewports.
The man was dead, Lula realized, blinking. She’d killed him. She’d been in battle before, had taken other lives, but it never got easier.
“No time for that,” Vernestra said, sliding her hand over Lula’s. “Not right now. After the battle, we must process, heal, rebuild. Right now we have to give our time only to making sure we get out of this alive.”
Lula nodded. Already, more Nihil ships zoomed toward them, and Vernestra was angling the Varonchagger to meet them head-on. “You’re not scared?” Lula asked.
“Oh, I’m terrified,” Vernestra said with a nervous little laugh. “But this is what I mean….” She swung the ship suddenly sideways, then sent them in a spiral over a forested expanse outside the city—leading the raiders away from the populated areas, Lula realized. “Balance. If we’re not scared at all”—she grimaced as laser fire rattled across their rear and starboard shields—“we can’t be courageous, right? And we might make mistakes in our arrogance. But if we’re overcome by terror, we’ll be useless, too.”
“I guess,” Lula sighed. She switched to the side cannons, bringing up a static-laced image on her screen and swinging the sights into place on the swarming attackers. “I mean, I’m trying.” She let loose another barrage of fire, but the Nihil seemed infinite—four spun out of the sky in flames, and seven more took their place.
Vernestra swung them back around over a gorgeous lake that Lula thought would be a very peaceful sight in other circumstances. Fighters and puffs of smoke filled the sky over Lonisa City. From down below, thick green-yellow clouds of that nasty chemical gas the Nihil used rose over the buildings at various points around the city. An urgent alarm rang out. “Shields are about to—” Lula started, but another burst of fire shook the Varonchagger, and more beeps erupted.
“I know,” Vernestra said through gritted teeth.
A group of Jedi Vectors screamed up from the rooftops, the first sign of a counterattack. They must’ve been on the planet before the attack began. Lula exhaled, then squeezed the triggers on the rear cannons and shook her head. “There’s too many!”
“I’m bringing us down,” Vernestra said.
“On purpose?”
“Something like that.”
The sun-sparkled waves seemed to roar up to meet them. Ahead, a sandy embankment led up to a boardwalk, where riotous crowds ran every which way.
“Hold tight!” Vernestra yelled.
The Nihil who had been pursuing them must’ve realized they had bigger problems to
deal with—they shrieked off overhead toward the air fights erupting with the Vectors.
The Varonchagger skimmed the top of the lake, then bounced once, and again. Vernestra swung them into a hard turn, sending out a massive wave of water and sand. Finally, they slammed to a teeth-chattering stop along the embankment.
“Another one!” Vernestra was already out of her seat and heading for the exit. “Shipmaster Nubarron’s never gonna forgive me for this!”
Lula hurried after her. “Wait! What do we do?”
A purple glow lit the dim interior of the Varonchagger as the crisp sizzling growl of a lightsaber sounded. Lula’s wide eyes tracked a long, slender stream of pure power as it bristled and slid through the air around them. It was a lightsaber, but now it was also a whip. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” she whispered.
“Don’t tell anyone, okay?” Vernestra allowed herself a slight smile. “You have yours?”
“Of course, but—”
“It looked like that Padawan who sent the message was getting arrested, so he’ll probably still be in the local lockup. It should be one of the domed buildings in the center of town, Government District. Break him out and find out what else he knows.”
“What are—”
“I’m going to find the elder Jedi and make sure the Chancellor is safe. The comms might be down, but it could just be interference from everything going on. If not, you’ll need that kid to help you get them back up. Got it?”
Lula blinked, then steeled herself. Somewhere out there, Zeen and Master Sy were probably having a similar conversation. They were in danger, all of them, and the knowledge of that rippled through her with a shudder. But she had to stay focused. She had to do whatever she could to get everyone to safety. She nodded once as the blue light of her own saber blended with the purple glow of Vernestra’s. “Let’s go.”
“Look, kid,” Ty said as the sounds of fear and battle outside raged ever closer, “things are about to get messy.”
Ram nodded. Mantessa was fussing with some small bit of tech she’d stashed away, but whatever she was trying to do didn’t seem to be working. The droid, 5-Triad, bustled back and forth, pushing buttons and yelling nonsensical commands, oblivious to his crushed head.
Race to Crashpoint Tower Page 5
