Марта Уэллс - From a Certain Point of View

Plus, the navy isn’t always scrupulous at picking everybody up after the action is over. There’s always somewhere else to be, some other rebellion to crush. Stay with your ship, eventually a salvage crew will come along. You may be asphyxiated by then, but at least someone will find your body! That’s something!

It’s not. But still. Never eject.

—

I’m not going to put too much blame on Dawn, though, given the state of her fighter, and the fact that giant space worms aren’t exactly in the handbook.

“What in the name of the Emperor is that?” Clipper said.

“Giant space worm,” I snap, “obviously. Now shut up and let me get a location fix.”

“It’s gonna eat me it’s gonna eat me it’s gonna eat me—” Dawn moans.

“What happened to Theta Twenty-Two?” Howl says.

“He turned the other way,” Flameskull says. “Lost track of him.”

Probably halfway home by now. Smart kid. My scanners finally pinpoint Dawn, floating in her ejector seat near the surface of the rock. Spectacular.

“Right,” I say, dropping protocol. “Howl, you and me will make a firing run, get its attention. Clipper, you and Flameskull go for Dawn, tag her with a utility line, get out of here. Got it?”

“Got it,” Clipper says, and the others echo it.

“On my mark—”

But Clipper is already powering in, so I just shout “Go!” and throttle up. The worm twists toward us and shifts ponderously in our direction. But it’s not agile enough to catch a TIE, not by half. Howl skates by above it, her stuttering laser cannons leaving a line of scorched craters across the thing’s skin. I go for the base, guns tracking a spray of shattered rock and space-worm hide. As it swings toward me, I cut to the left, ready to make my escape—

—and find Clipper coming right at me, about to commit an egregious violation of rule two, subsection one: Don’t run into each other.

In the quarter second before we pancake, I yank the stick the other way and stand on the thrusters. Acceleration shoves me sideways, the TIE slews, and I go into a spin, missing Clipper by the space of a fingernail. Unfortunately, that leaves me whirling the wrong way, and I fight the suddenly overloaded stick to get the spin under control.

Not fast enough. One panel tip slams right into the space worm with a crunch I can hear through the hull, shearing entirely away. The engine on that side screams, and I slam the control for a hard shutdown before feedback blows the reactor. And that leaves me dead in space, no weapons, drifting slowly in front of a giant space worm, which opens its jaws wide as a cavern.

Why? I wonder. How much of a mouthful could I make for it?

(The giant exogorth, it turns out, is a silicon-based life-form that tunnels through the asteroids eating ore. It doesn’t give a damn about squishy organics, but our fighters, dense with refined alloys and radioisotopes, must look like candy)

I close my eyes and try to draw an appropriate lesson.

Rule six. Don’t go chasing after your girlfriend no matter how much you like her.

Rule six. Asteroid fields are bad news.

Rule six. Don’t get eaten by a giant space worm.

Rule—

“Shadow! Hang tight!”

Howl’s fighter screams past me, into the worm’s gaping maw, cannons spitting green fire. The thing rears up as her lasers scorch its insides, and its mouth starts to close. Howl, halfway down its throat, spins her TIE in a neat pirouette and punches forward at full power. The ship is fast, but not that fast, nothing is, and the last I see of her is a glimpse between the interlocking teeth of the worm as its jaw closes—

“Howl!” No no no no no, not her. I taught her rule number one, not for me—

A stutter of green light. The worm’s tooth shatters, fragments blowing outward, and Howl’s TIE sneaks through the gap in the thing’s smile, the fit so tight it scrapes the paint on her side panels. Then she’s free, drive flaring, and the giant worm has had enough for one day, slipping back down into its tunnels.

There’s a clunk as a utility line hits my hull, magnetic grapple catching.

“You all right, Shadow?”

“I’m still here.” I gasp for breath, tears beading inside my helmet where I can’t wipe them away. “Palpatine’s withered nuts, Howl—”

“Let’s get you back to the Avenger. ” The cable goes taut, and the rocks slide gently around us.

“You’re supposed to finish your route,” I say when I can trust my voice. “Otherwise Captain Needa might throw you out an air lock.”

“Let me worry about Captain Needa,” Howl says, and I can hear her grin.

—

Rule number six: If you are going to get attached to somebody, make sure it’s to a girl who flies like an ash angel hopped up on death sticks.

—

Clipper, I later learned, had grabbed Dawn, and Shockwave wandered in eventually. Even cloudflies sometimes get lucky.

And we didn’t even get in trouble! Turns out Vader had strangled Needa just before we finally got back. All’s well that end’s well, Imperial Navy style.

THE FIRST LESSONJim Zub

Harmony, we seek.

The swaying stream of existence brings shifting tides of chaos and order in measures that can never be fully understood, only recognized and confirmed.

Reality, we accept.

A patient agreement with existence does not mean one cannot influence or improve one’s position in the universe. Acknowledgment does not equal passivity.

The future, we behold.

Meditation is not a body at rest or a stagnant state of selfishness. It is the diffusion of self, a desire to reach further than the physical bounds that anchor us so we may attempt to experience the wider patterns at play.

This moment of oneness paints itself upon an infinite canvas. It is a fleeting concordance between the physical world and spiritual senses that look beyond.

These thoughts and many others echoed through the energy that surrounds and binds the being known as Yoda.

A name. An identity. A shell of crude matter housing a form set upon this sharpened point of time and all the points preceding it.

The nine-hundred-year-old Jedi Master had come to Dagobah for rest and reflection. Living here was a way to carry out the fleeting time he had left before joining the spirits of his enlightened predecessors in the Force.

In the past Yoda may have occasionally used his cane to trick students into believing he was frail, but now it had become a necessary tool to keep his footing in weaker moments. His fighting form, long behind him, replaced with even greater inner strength, enlightenment, and acceptance.

Acceptance of his past mistakes and foolish assumptions. An acknowledgment of the swaying stream and his place within it.

Yet there would always be more to learn.

Feel the Force and go beyond.

Sitting outside his meager hut, introspective and silent, Yoda let his awareness swirl out in all directions, connecting him to the diverse biome that was Dagobah. He had carried out this mental exercise countless times throughout his years spent in exile, yet each time experiencing it felt engaging and new.

The ground was soft and damp. The air thick and hazy.

The seasons were in transition on this planet of marshy mist. In this moment he felt each new sprout and rotting root.

A cacophony of sounds near and far signaled a menagerie of creatures carrying out the delicate arrangement of their unfettered instincts.

A spade-headed smooka dragged its snout through mud in search of food. Yoda smelled the thick soil as it shifted to and fro beneath his nose.

A skittering nharpira built a loamy nest to keep its impending young well hidden. Yoda felt soft clumps of cool soil in his hands.