Star Wars

by Charles Soule

  Pan Eyta and Lourna Dee didn’t move. They seemed stunned. This was not something the Eye did. The Eye didn’t fight, especially not the Runners. He didn’t have a Tempest to back him up. The Eye got a third of the take and was happy with it.

  Change can be challenging, my friends, Marchion thought.

  Kassav staggered back, his eyes gone wide, blood gushing from his nose—but only for a second. The man was no stranger to pain, and Marchion supposed he was no stranger to surprise punches in the face, either. Kassav’s eyes narrowed and his hand ducked inside his fur cape, where he kept a secret blaster in violation of the Great Hall’s rules. Marchion had known about it for years.

  Marchion whipped up his arm, and one of the vibro-stars he kept in a sheath along his wrist whickered out. It sheared through half of Kassav’s hand along with the butt of his blaster, and chunks of metal and flesh fell to the floor.

  Kassav, to his credit, tried to keep fighting. Blood spurted from his nose and sprayed from what was left of his right hand, and yet he lunged forward, swinging a pretty credible punch with his left.

  Marchion caught it, spun, and threw Kassav to the platform. He landed with a hollow, wet sound in a pool of his own blood.

  “Nngh!” Kassav said, the first sound he’d made since the fight began—the man was tough, there was no doubt about it.

  Marchion put his boot on the Tempest Runner’s chest. Not lightly, either. He pressed hard, like he wanted to shove the man right through the blasted deck, into the empty space on the other side.

  “I am the Eye of the Nihil, as was my father before me,” he said. “We made this organization what it is, and I will not watch you destroy it with your selfishness, fear, and weakness. You made a mistake at Eriadu, Kassav, and it showed us your belly. You need to remember how this works, Chief. The Nihil need to stay strong. And one way that happens…”

  He bent at the waist, his eyes narrowed, his teeth bared.

  “…is by cutting out the weak.”

  Marchion pressed harder with his boot.

  “I have a plan to fix this,” he said. “Fix all of it. Do you want to hear it?”

  Marchion Ro put a little more weight on Kassav’s chest, and the man groaned. He nodded. Marchion stepped back and watched as Kassav pulled himself to his feet.

  “I understand why you’re all worried. This isn’t a good situation, and it’s on the verge of getting worse. But listen to what I have to say,” Marchion said.

  The Tempest Runners looked at him, wary but interested.

  “This will solve everything,” Marchion said. “Get the Republic off our backs, maybe even kill some Jedi. It’ll be back to business as usual. No more Emergences. Just the Paths, and the plunder. We can start bringing in new Strikes again. The good times will keep on rolling.”

  The wariness dialed back, and the interest dialed up, even from Kassav. Marchion knew it would. None of them wanted to go it alone, without the Paths. They’d all made piles of credits from the Nihil, but they spent it as fast as it came in, on fancy ships and fancy clothes and elaborate banquets. Their greed would make the decision for them.

  “Look—we’re smarter, and faster, and we’ve got the Paths,” he went on. “We’re ten steps ahead of the Republic. I’m telling you, we can fix this whole thing. The Nihil are my whole life. I’m not walking away without a fight.”

  “We’re listening,” Pan Eyta said.

  “Okay,” Marchion said. “We can get the flight recorder back, and without that, the Republic won’t be able to find us. We can lie low for a bit, reorganize, even move to the Mid Rim…the Paths let us work anywhere in the galaxy.”

  He pointed at Kassav and Lourna Dee, one with each hand.

  “You both made big mistakes, and your crews saw you do it. People are talking. You look weak. Your Storms have to be thinking maybe this is their chance for a hostile takeover. You can fix all that. Do it right, you’ll be heroes to your Tempests.”

  He smiled at them, a big, encouraging smile. They didn’t seem reassured.

  “Kassav, I’ve gotten word from my Republic sources that the flight recorder was damaged when the Legacy Run blew up. They got some data from it, but not the full set, not enough to find us. It’s being sent to a special facility to extract the rest. You can intercept the transport and destroy it.

  “Lourna Dee, go to Elphrona and help your crew there finish that kidnapping job. We might need funds, and since that operation’s already in progress, we might as well bring in some credits, show the crews we’re still taking their needs into account. This is a time for unity. We have to come together.

  “I’ll give you both the Paths you need to get it done.”

  Lourna Dee nodded. Then, after a moment, so did Kassav.

  “Do you…need me to do anything?” Pan Eyta said.

  That was unusual. A Tempest Runner asking the Eye for orders was just…not the way it was done. The dynamic had shifted. They could all feel it. The moment for them to leave had come and gone. They had acknowledged that if they were going to stay with the Nihil and reap all its benefits, then they needed the Eye to save them from themselves.

  “No, Pan,” Marchion said. “You’re fine for now.”

  “Should we vote?” Lourna Dee asked.

  “Absolutely,” Marchion Ro said.

  They did. It was unanimous.

  “Go,” Marchion said. “We don’t have a lot of time. Save the Nihil.”

  The Tempest Runners left, heading for the air lock.

  Marchion let them get a few steps away, then spoke.

  “Kassav,” he said.

  The man turned back.

  Marchion pointed.

  “Don’t forget your hand.”

  Bell couldn’t believe what he was seeing—a hatch along the hull of the Nihil ship had opened…and a small figure had been tossed out. Just…thrown, like nothing.

  He gasped. Loden, ahead of him in the pilot’s seat, put the Vector into a steep dive.

  “Padawan,” his master said. “You will save the child. I will continue on and save the others. Do not fear. I am so proud to have been your teacher.

  “I believe in you.”

  The Vector’s cockpit levered open, the wind rushing past, so loud that speech was impossible.

  But what more was there to say?

  Bell unclipped his safety harness and leapt out.

  Immediately gravity took him, and he fell into a spin. That didn’t matter. They were kilometers above the surface of Elphrona, which meant he had some time, but not much. If he was going to save the little girl—and he was sure it was the little girl, a child, tossed away by the Nihil like garbage—he needed to focus.

  He pushed away his awareness of Loden’s Vector shooting back up into the sky, continuing the chase alongside Indeera in her own ship. He forgot about the ground, the sky, everything but the Force, and searched for a tiny spot of light within it, the sense of a lost child who needed to be saved.

  There.

  Bell could barely open his eyes against the rushing wind. He wished he had a pair of goggles…but truthfully, he didn’t need them, or his eyes, either. He had the Force.

  He wrapped his arms and legs tight to himself and angled his body down, feeling himself shoot forward as he became more aerodynamic.

  Bell reached out to the Force, asking it to push him even faster. The little girl was flailing, and that surely created some wind resistance, but they would both reach terminal velocity soon enough, and then he wouldn’t be able to catch her. The second or so of fall before Bell had leapt from the Vector had undoubtedly given her a significant lead.

  But the Force answered, and perhaps the sleekness of his Jedi leathers let him shoot forward more quickly than he otherwise might. All he knew was that he was getting closer. The Blythe child’s terror was looming in his s
enses, rising, her fear overwhelming.

  He put it aside.

  As he approached, he reached out and used the Force to pull the little girl to him. He enfolded her in his arms. She struggled—of course she did—who wouldn’t?

  He pulled part of his tunic over their heads, enough to block some of the wind, then looked at the child. He didn’t know that he’d ever seen someone so frightened.

  Bell pointed to the Jedi insignia on his chest. Miraculously, she calmed. She knew what he was, and she thought she was saved.

  Not yet, Bell thought.

  He pulled her close, cupped his hand over her ear to block the wind, and spoke.

  “Close your eyes,” he said. “I’m with you now. You’re not alone.”

  He had no idea if she had heard, but he’d done what he could to calm her. Now he had to focus.

  Bell glanced down, squinting against the wind. He was looking for a soft spot—water, maybe, even a slow slope they might be able to roll down—anything to ease their landing.

  There was nothing. Just the rough landscape of the planet—the swirls of the magnetic mountain ranges, and rust plains between. Elphrona was not a soft world.

  They were falling, from a height a hundred times higher than anything he’d ever tried in training, and even then he’d never landed successfully. For a moment, he hoped against hope that perhaps Porter Engle could miraculously appear at the last minute—but the Ikkrukki was far away by then, and in any case, he had his own Blythe to save.

  No one was coming to save him, or the girl. He had to do it all, and he had to do it alone.

  Bell opened himself to the Force. He did not think about the ground. He thought about the child in his arms, and how unfair it was that these things had happened to her.

  He knew he had the power to save her, to let her continue living in the light. Why would the cosmic Force have given him his abilities, if not for this very purpose?

  The wind was not his enemy, nor gravity itself. They were both part of the Force, just as he was, just as the child was. If he fought them, he was fighting himself.

  He should not try to fight. He should try to understand.

  Bell Zettifar relaxed.

  He came to know something profound—perhaps something about the Force. Perhaps something about himself, something he would try to understand more clearly later. He thought it was the reason that he had been so bad at saving himself from falls, despite his master’s best efforts to teach him.

  Being a Jedi was not about saving oneself.

  It was about saving others.

  The roar of the wind past Bell’s ears lessened, becoming no stronger than a powerful breeze. He could hear the little Blythe. She was praying, or chanting. He couldn’t understand the words, but it was the same short phrase, over and over.

  The wind quieted further, to silence. Bell opened his eyes. They were barely ten meters from the ground, and they drifted downward, slow as a leaf, to land gently on the slate-colored ground. He could understand what the girl was saying now.

  “I’m not alone.”

  He sat up. The girl clung to him.

  “We’re okay now,” he said. “What’s your name?”

  She looked at him, eyes wide.

  “I’m Bee,” she said. “But that’s just what people call me. My big name is Bailen.”

  “That’s a little like mine,” he said. “I’m Bell. We’re safe now, Bailen. Everything’s going to be all right.”

  The child gave him a dubious look, the look of a kid who knew she was being told something untrue by an adult, no matter how much she wanted to believe it. Her face cracked, and she burst into tears.

  Bell just held her. He looked up at the sky, searching for the Vectors or the Nihil ship. Nothing. Not even an exhaust trail.

  Everything’s going to be all right, he thought.

  He didn’t believe it, either.

  Jora Malli positioned herself before the comms droid that would transmit her image to Coruscant, to the Chamber at the very top of the Order’s great Temple where the Jedi Council met to deliberate. At that moment, she was aboard the Ataraxia, the Jedi’s beautiful, elegant starship, almost a temple in and of itself.

  The ship had dropped out of hyperspace near Felucia, expressly so Jora could attend this particular meeting with maximal stability and clarity of signal. It was, in all likelihood, the last vote she would ever take as a member of the Jedi Council. The Starlight Beacon would be brought online very soon, at which point Jora would officially step down from the Council and take on her new role running the Jedi quarter on the massive space station.

  Jora Malli had missed many votes in the past—while she took her role seriously, she generally believed she could serve the light more effectively out in the galaxy than sitting in the Jedi Temple. But this day’s deliberations were significant, and the entire Council had assembled, those not physically present on Coruscant sending their image via high-priority holotransmissions, as Jora was doing.

  The comms droid projected an image of the Council Chamber for Jora to see: the elegant circular room with huge windows in every wall providing uninterrupted views of the Coruscant cityscape. It was day at the Temple, and the sun shone in, illuminating the beautiful mosaic inlaid upon the floor. The windows were symbolically significant, as well—the High Council conducted its business in the open, with nothing to hide.

  Twelve seats were set at equal intervals around the room, each sized and designed for its particular occupant. Yarael Poof, Rano Kant, Oppo Rancisis, Keaton Murag, and Ada-Li Carro were present in person. Six others, including herself, were appearing via hologram, with yet another droid in the Council Chamber projecting their images to the other attendees. Eleven Council members, all but Master Rosason, in the midst of a delicate diplomatic negotiation from which he could not step away.

  Jora thought about her Padawan, Reath Silas.

  She wished he were there with her. He could learn many things from observing a Council meeting. Truth be told, she just missed the young man.

  Reath was seventeen, a good student, but perhaps not entirely thrilled that he would soon follow his master to the Starlight Beacon instead of remaining on Coruscant. The frontier held little interest for him. Well, of course. Reath was, in fact, seventeen. No space station, no matter how exotic, could compare to the greatest city in the galaxy.

  She had left him behind to give him a bit more time on Coruscant before he joined her in the Outer Rim, a small kindness she had been happy to provide. But just as his time in the Core was done, Reath had been pulled into a mission alongside two more experienced Jedi, Cohmac Vitus and Orla Jareni, both Knights. She had questions about Orla, but Cohmac was steady. Reath would be fine, if perhaps a little frustrated at losing his last bit of time in the Core.

  Ah, well. Such was the life of a Jedi. Better to get used to it early.

  She glanced at Sskeer, sitting across the table from her, watching silently, his long, clawed arms folded across his chest. He looked imposing, as always, a slab of scaled muscle and sharp teeth in Jedi robes. Trandoshan Jedi were rare, because the planet’s culture was built around predation and supremacy, ideals that did not always mesh well with the precepts of the Order. Even when Trandoshan children did have an affinity for the Force, it was unusual for them to be brought to the Jedi Temple for training. But Sskeer had not only made it to Coruscant, but had also excelled, becoming a full-fledged Jedi Master. All things were possible.

  Jora didn’t imagine she would have direct need of him during this Council meeting, and she thought he knew that, too—but Sskeer was never far, and it was often when she’d thought she’d have no need for him at all that he’d come in most handy. Sskeer had personally saved her life four times.

  And counting, she assumed.

  The meeting began—and the matter to be discussed truly was im
portant. The chancellor of the Republic, Lina Soh, had asked the Jedi to participate directly in a mission she had authorized for the Republic Defense Coalition to hunt down and either imprison or eradicate a group of Outer Rim raiders who called themselves the Nihil.

  These people had interfered with the galactic hyperspace lanes in what appeared to be an effort to extort systems out of enormous sums of money. Bad enough, but their actions had also caused the deaths of billions of people and paralyzed a wide swath of the galaxy.

  The Nihil must be dealt with. The only question was the role of the Jedi in that action.

  Jora listened as the various Council members presented their arguments. Great emphasis was placed on interpreting the will of the Force, listening for the voice of the Force, taking direction from the Force, and so on. Jora found that a little tiresome. A philosophical vortex.

  For her, it was very simple. The Jedi were deeply connected to the light side of the Force. Whatever choice any Jedi made was, therefore, the will of the Force. Study and focus allowed the Jedi to become better instruments of that will, certainly, in much the way that a well-maintained lightsaber functioned better than one that had fallen into disrepair—but getting caught up in an endless debate about what the Force might want was paralyzing. A waste of time.

  “This is a military action,” Master Adampo said, stroking the long white whiskers dangling from her chin, her voice strong and direct. “The Jedi are not a military force. I believe it is that simple.”

  “But we have been a military force in the past,” said Oppo Rancisis. “In fact, our predecessors waged and won the Great Sith War. There is endless precedent in the chronicles for this sort of thing.”

  “True, but we are not at war now. We are the farthest thing from it,” said Rana Kant.

  “Not the farthest,” replied Yarael Poof. “There have been times in our history when the Order was reduced to but a handful of members.”