Чарльз Соул: Star Wars: Light of the Jedi (The High Republic)

Bright tapped one of his tentacles with a fingertip.

“I’m Nautolan, a fact of which I’m sure you’re both aware. Green skin, big black eyes, what else would I be? What you might not know is that these tentacles of mine let me pick up pheromones from other beings, which I translate into an understanding of their emotional states. That’s how I know you two…are terrified.”

Peeples opened his mouth, then, somehow, miraculously, thought better of making a joke and closed it again.

“I get that you’re scared,” Bright went on, “but we have a duty. I know it, and you both know it, too. We need to do this.”

Innamin and Peeples looked at each other, then back at their captain.

“We’re all the Republic, right?” Innamin said.

Bright nodded. He smiled, showing his teeth.

“Indeed we are, Petty Officer.”

He pointed at Peeples.

“Ensign, take us in.”

Three Jedi Vectors and a Republic Longbeam whipped through space, slingshotting around the orange-and-green sphere that was the Fruited Moon of Hetzal, legendary throughout the galaxy for its bounty. Four billion people resided there, farming and growing and living their lives. All would be dead in less than thirty minutes if the four Jedi and two Republic officers could not destroy or somehow divert the object headed directly for the moon.

The anomaly was on the larger side, bigger than the Longbeam, and on a collision course with the moon’s primary landmass. Due to its velocity, a significant portion of the moon’s outer layer would be instantly vaporized on impact, surging into the atmosphere. Then would come the heat, the flames, scouring the surface clean of all life, plant and animal and sentient alike.

That’s assuming the whole blasted moon doesn’t just shatter when the anomaly hits, Te’Ami thought as she banked her ship smoothly, following a precise curve with the other two Vectors piloted by her Jedi colleagues, performing the maneuver as much through her connection to the Force as her hands on the control sticks.

Total destruction of the Fruited Moon wasn’t impossible. The amount of energy transferred upon the object’s impact would fall like a hammerblow on the little planetoid. Worlds seemed unbreakable when you were standing on them, but Te’Ami had seen things in her day…the galaxy didn’t care what you thought couldn’t be broken. It would break things just to show you it could.

The little fleet was moving at incredible velocity, headed directly for the anomaly. Master Kriss back on the Third Horizon had designated this as a high-priority mission, which Te’Ami understood. Four billion people—a high priority indeed.

She could feel Avar at the back of her mind—not in words, more of a sense of the woman’s presence. Master Kriss had a skill set rare among the Jedi: She could detect the natural bonds between Force-users and strengthen them, use them as almost a sort of communications network. It was inexact, best for transmitting sensations, locations, but it was still a useful ability, particularly in a scenario when a hundred Jedi were all trying to save a system at once.

Not just useful, though. It was comforting. She was not alone. None of them were. Fail or succeed, the Jedi were in this together.

But we will not fail, Te’Ami thought. She reached out a long, green finger and flipped one of the finely wrought switches on her console. Her comm toggled open.

“Republic Longbeam, it’s time. I need you to transfer your weapons systems to my control,” she said.

“Acknowledged,” came the reply from the Longbeam, spoken by its pilot, Joss Adren. His wife, Pikka, was in the copilot’s seat. Te’Ami didn’t know them personally—only that they weren’t part of the Third Horizon ’s crew, and had volunteered their help immediately when the cruiser dropped into the system and the scale of the disaster became clear. Admiral Kronara assigned them a Longbeam—better to put another ship out there to help instead of leaving it sitting idle in its hangar. The little bit of non-task-oriented chatter on the way out to the Fruited Moon had suggested Joss and Pikka were contractors of some kind—workers on the Starlight Beacon hitching a ride back to the Core now that their job was done.

They seemed like good people. Te’Ami hoped they were skilled as well. This would not be easy.

An amber light flashed on Te’Ami’s display, then went steady.

“Weapons are under your control,” Joss said.

“Thank you,” she said, then flipped another few switches before quickly moving her hands back to the sticks. Vectors could be tricky craft—the fluid responsiveness of the controls meant they could accomplish incredible maneuvers, but only if significant focus could be maintained.

“All right, my friends,” she said. “Are we ready?”

The replies came in across the Jedi-only channel.

The low voice of Mikkel Sutmani rumbled from her speakers, immediately translated into Basic via the onboard systems. “Good to go,” he said. Mikkel. The steadiest Ithorian she had ever met. He never said much, but the job always got done.

“We’re ready as well,” said Nib Assek, the third and final Jedi Knight in their little squadron. Her Padawan, Burryaga Agaburry, didn’t say anything. No surprise there. He was a young Wookiee, and spoke only Shyriiwook, though he understood Basic. Nib spoke his language well—she had learned it specifically to take him on as her apprentice. It wasn’t easy for a human throat to re-create the warbling growls and whines that composed Wookiee speech, but she had made the effort. Te’Ami and Mikkel, though, could not understand a word Burryaga said.

Regardless, if Nib Assek said she and her Padawan were ready, they were.

“Reach out,” Te’Ami said. “We’ll do it together. As one.”

She stretched out her senses through the Force, seeking the deadly meteor—or whatever it was, the scans remained inconclusive—hurtling through space toward them. There. She could feel it, distorting gravity along its path. She considered, thinking about where the object had been, where it was, where it would be.

More specifically, where it would be when the full power of the weapons systems on the Vectors and the Longbeam hit it all at once.

This shot could not be calculated using computers. It had to be done by feel, with the Force, by all the Jedi at once in a single moment.

“I have the target,” she said. “Are we good?”

No answer from the other Jedi, but she didn’t need one. She could feel their assent through the link Master Kriss maintained back on the surface of Hetzal Prime. It was faster than speaking, more effective.

“Let us become spears,” she said, speaking a ritual phrase from her own people, the Duros.

Not wanting to take her hands off her control sticks at such a crucial moment, Te’Ami spared a tendril of the Force and used it to lift her lightsaber from its holster on her belt. Its hilt was dark cerakote with a heavily tarnished copper crosspiece. The blade, when lit, shone blue. The thing was scratched and gouged with use, and had an unsightly blob of solder up near the business end where she’d welded one of the components back on when it fell off. If there was an uglier lightsaber in the Order, she hadn’t seen it.

But it turned on when she wanted it to, and the kyber crystal that powered it remained as pure and resonant as the day she found it on Ilum so long ago.

Could Te’Ami have refreshed the blade, if she wanted to? Absolutely. Many Jedi changed their hilts regularly, whether due to adjustments to fighting techniques, technological innovations, or even, on occasion, just…style. Aesthetics. Fashion, you could call it.

Te’Ami had no interest in any of that. Her lightsaber, ugly as it was, served as a perfect reflection of the great truth of the Force: no matter what a person was on the outside…