Chancey Yarrow wondered which would fall to pieces first—the remainder of Starlight Beacon, or this girl Nan.
She still wants to believe in Marchion Ro so fiercely, Chancey thought as the two of them continued the search for escape pods. She may have even convinced herself that she does believe.
But a doubter could also see the doubt in others, even when they couldn’t see it for themselves. Chancey had used the Nihil for her own purposes, the same way she was using the Grafs, but she hadn’t needed to believe in some charismatic leader or any higher, greater purpose in a very long time. It was a much more efficient way to live, and a lot less disappointing.
Nan, on the other hand, still searched for validation in someone or something outside of herself. Chancey had hoped that setting out on her own would spark some independence within Nan, but that adulation she had for the Nihil still glowed brightly within the girl’s heart.
Will we actually have to catch fire and burn up with this thing before she realizes Ro doesn’t give a damn about anyone in his path? Chancey wondered. If we don’t find some escape pods soon, I guess I’ll find out.
Weirdly, Chancey found herself reminded of her daughter, Sylvestri. In some ways, Nan and Sylvestri were very much alike—more, she suspected, than either one would ever care to admit. But they each had an idealistic streak that wouldn’t serve them well in the long run. Probably the reason she’d taken Nan on was so she could teach some young woman the things her own daughter had refused to learn. So Chancey could then figure out how to get through to Sylvestri, and they might be together again—the way she’d always intended, even if Sylvestri couldn’t see that yet—
Well, the years would probably take care of Sylvestri’s idealism. Nan’s hero worship, too, assuming she had years left.
Chancey’s glow rod beam swept back and forth across the curving corridor they followed, until finally light landed upon something interesting. “There.” Chancey nudged Nan with an elbow.
“A pod!” Nan lit up. “All we have to do now is detonate the explosive launchers, and we’re out of here!”
Chancey wasn’t as sure. “Let’s take a look.”
Most escape pods worked exactly as Nan had suggested, outfitted with chemical explosives that would launch them clear of the mother ship or station, so that they could be used even when no power was available. They should have been able to get these going no matter what.
But they couldn’t.
“Republic arrogance,” Nan said, her face darkening into a scowl. “They thought nothing could go wrong on their station, so they didn’t worry about having escape pods that work—”
“Or, just maybe, the same team that sabotaged the rest of this station took out the pods, too,” Chancey pointed out. “Which of these possibilities seems more likely to you? At any rate, we’d better hope these things were sabotaged, since then maybe we can slice them.”
Nan began rolling up the sleeves of her coverall. “I can slice anything.”
Chancey, a scientist almost without peer, scarcely needed help with a little slicing, but there was no need to say so. Besides, who knew? Maybe Nan’s time with the Nihil had taught her exactly what she’d need to undo Nihil sabotage. There were two pods—one for each of them to work on—so as long as either of them could get the job done, they’d both survive…
There it was again. A faint shuffling sound behind them. Chancey hadn’t been imagining it.
Her eyes met Nan’s. They both realized they were no longer alone.
Auxiliary life support turned out to actually be easier to fix with the top of the station almost entirely gone—strange, but true. Bell had been able to “tie off” different areas of the bottom half of the station, separating the backup life support into separate, independent pods, each of which was stable enough to last for a while.
At least until we crash into the ground, he thought, dark humor he didn’t speak aloud.
He kept at his task, setting duplicate and triplicate reinforcements on each system, even restoring a few intership communications systems, until Burryaga whined inquisitively.
“What’s that?” Bell poked his head out of the lower compartment he was working in; Burryaga, naturally enough, had taken over with some junctures located higher up.
Burryaga pointed out that Master Nib had been gone for a while now.
“She’s looking for Orla Jareni, right?” Once they’d completed the primary work on the auxiliary life support, Nib had undertaken her secondary task. “It could take a while, given the state of Starlight.”
Although Burryaga realized this was reasonable, he also couldn’t help remembering that they had lost Regald Coll, and nearly lost Indeera Stokes, to the strange disturbance in the Force—and while that disturbance had waxed and waned, particularly since the explosion, it had not vanished.
Bell pushed a heavy industrial toggle into place, then scooted back to look up at Burryaga’s worried face. “We’ve done as much here as we’re going to be able to do. Should we task some droids to look for Master Nib?”
They could, Burryaga gruffly conceded, but he wished to search for his Master himself.
That feeling was one Bell understood all too well. “Okay, we have a few minutes. Let’s go.”
Nib would have started her search in the last place Orla was known to be headed: in the area of the cargo bay, the same area that appeared to be the center of the disturbances in the Force. This was also the last place on Starlight that Bell wanted to visit. But Burryaga wouldn’t rest until he’d found his Master safe and sound, and Bell wouldn’t deny any other Padawan the kind of joyful reunion he had been denied with Loden Greatstorm.
When they approached the cargo bay, the corridors branched off in a dozen different directions. Burryaga suggested they split up to cover more ground.
“Oh no, we’re not,” Bell said. “Haven’t you ever watched a fright holo? Splitting up is the worst thing we could do.”
Burryaga pointed out that he’d been watching fright holos since long before Bell was born, and not one of them had ever borne much resemblance to real life.
It was a valid point. Within minutes, Bell was making his way along the left corridor alone. He walked as quickly as he could while still being careful to look for any hint of Orla’s presence. In truth, he mostly wanted to return to the medical tower as soon as possible. Master Indeera needed him. Ember needed him.
And he needed them, too.
Bell stopped as his glow rod swept across an unfamiliar gray shape on the floor. The texture of it was peculiar—cobwebby? Not many arachnids on a space station. He took another few steps forward, trying to make out the details.
Are those…feet?
And then it hit him that this was the shape of a human body lying on its side in the fetal position. Its back was to him, but Bell had no doubt that he’d just found what remained of Orla Jareni.
Affie winced the moment her foot scraped against a fallen ceiling tile—it only made the smallest sound, but both of the women she was stalking heard it. They tensed and looked at each other, which was Affie’s cue to take the initiative.
“Back it up,” she said, striding forward with the metal rod in her hands, projecting the kind of confidence she imagined from official station security. “Step away from those pods.”
They each stood, apparently obeying—but then recognition flickered in Nan’s eyes. “I know you. You’re no Jedi. You’re that girl from the Vessel, Addie.”
Affie nearly corrected her but caught herself. No point in giving saboteurs any more information than they already had. “And you’re Nan, one of the Nihil.”
“You can’t sneer at the Nihil any longer,” Nan retorted as she stepped forward. “Not after this.”
“You were stupid enough to blow up a space station while you’re still on it,” Affie said. “So I’m not impressed.”
The other woman acted as though none of this were any big deal. “Listen, Addie,” she said, “I’m called Chancey, and I know only three things about you: your name, that you don’t have any actual authority on this station, and that you’re in as much danger as we are. Or did the Jedi give you special permission to take an escape pod?”
Make that two things, Affie thought. “I just came here to check the pods out, not to steal one.”
“But you want one pretty badly, don’t you?” Chancey’s smile seemed almost natural. “Listen, you two were on opposite sides at one point. Don’t let it blind you to the fact that you’re on the same side now. There’s enough escape pods here for all of us, plus a couple friends of yours. Help us get these things ready to launch, call your buddies, and let’s all get the hell off this thing.”
For one second, it made so much sense. Affie sympathized with the Jedi and with everyone else on board, but getting the chance to save her friends…
If Geode would’ve fit into an escape pod, she might’ve gone for it.
Instead she said, “I’ll never be on the same side as Nihil intruders.” Affie raised her pole the instant Nan rushed her.
“We’re not intruders!” Nan shouted, She’d nabbed some random bit of pipe from the floor and kept hacking at Affie, striking the pole so hard it jarred every bone in her arms. “We were brought here as prisoners!”
“I’m not sure—unh—” Affie shoved Nan backward as forcefully as she could, but it barely budged her. The girl knew how to fight. “Not sure that helps your case.”
Nan’s eyes blazed with a near-feverish light. “If the Jedi couldn’t contain us—if they underestimated the Nihil—that’s their problem.”
Chancey cut in, shouting, “Nan!” Her voice was loud enough that Nan actually stopped for a second, long enough at least for Affie to catch her breath. Chancey continued, “This is a distraction, and a dangerous one. Let it go and come with me.”
Nan stared back at Affie for a long second. They’d barely known each other on the Amaxine station—Nan had spent more time cozying up to Reath Silas, in order to pump him for more information about the Jedi—but from this she’d managed to kindle a blaze of hatred.
We weren’t enemies before, Affie thought, but we always will be from here on.
When Nan turned to run away with Chancey, there was no point in wasting time trying to chase them. Two on one equaled bad odds.
Better to get to the docking bay and let the Jedi know just who they were dealing with.
“Bell Zettifar to Master Stellan—”
“Good timing,” Master Stellan said before Bell could get out another word. “Both on restoring a few comms—saw that on scans, good work—and on your call itself. One of the civilian pilots encountered two prisoners, potentially the Nihil saboteurs, approximately seventy meters from the cargo bay. We need a team to investigate the surrounding area. Forfive says you were working not far from there, right?”
“Yes, sir, I am, but…I’ve just found Orla Jareni. I mean, what’s left of her.”
A long pause followed, during which Burryaga appeared at the end of the corridor; he had heard Bell’s shout moments before. Burryaga must have realized that Orla hadn’t been located alive and well, but he whined in dismay at the sight of her lying at Bell’s feet.
Finally Master Stellan said, his voice rough, “Is she in the—they’re calling it the husked state?”
As hollow and dead as “husked” sounded, Bell thought the term didn’t come close to the horror of the truth. The gray, papery, fragile shell before him was almost a mockery of the vibrant woman whose body this had once been. Worse, for Bell, it was a terrible reminder of the tragic end of Loden Greatstorm. “Yes,” he said. “She’s husked.”
“By the Force. And we can’t save her remains for study, even provide a pyre. Orla deserved a pyre.” But Master Stellan, shaken as he apparently was, quickly refocused on the task at hand. “Put up some kind of protective field around Orla’s—around Orla. I’m on my way to join you for the search. If the Nihil are behind what happened to Orla and Regald, too, it’s more important than ever that we find the saboteurs and get some answers.”
“Understood, sir.” But Master Stellan had already cut the connection. Bell looked up at Burryaga as he began fumbling in his equipment belt for a portable containment field. “What has the power to do something like this?”
Burryaga said he didn’t know, but they had a more immediate problem.
“I know, I know, the station’s crashing—”
More immediate even than that, Burryaga pointed out: They still hadn’t found his Master, Nib Assek.
“And this is the part of the station where she was headed.” Realization sank within Bell like a stone. “Oh no.”
Stellan Gios had never managed to get the last word with Orla Jareni, and now he never would.
Maybe you were right about me, Stellan thought. I wish I’d had a chance to say that to you. It felt so wrong that he’d never again be honored by her unflinching honesty. She had gone forth bravely, trying to solve one of the few problems on this station that had any chance of a permanent solution, and the cost had been her life.
Whatever’s causing this disturbance in the Force, he decided as he strode toward the cargo bay, must simply be avoided. Investigation, so important before, was all but futile; they’d already lost two fine Jedi to the search, with no further answers. Whatever or whoever was interfering with the Jedi’s connection to the Force was likely to perish along with this space station. If I can save Starlight, then it will be time to get to the heart of that mystery.
He thought again of Orla Jareni—first as the laughing young girl he’d met on Pamarthe all those years ago, then as she’d told him that he let himself be defined by the Order. How long ago had it been? A day? Three? More?
It seemed as though he should know that. But Stellan couldn’t find the answer anywhere within his thoughts. The memory of Orla wavered, shimmered, like a heat mirage. Was sorrow for his lost comrade undermining his ability to think straight?
No. It was the disturbance in the Force that had again clouded his thoughts. Stellan remembered it so clearly, that terrible piercing coldness that seeped through every pore of his skin…
He shivered.
No. No, I’m not even close yet—not that close—and yet—
He was not remembering his nightmare. It was happening to him all over again.
Stellan grabbed his lightsaber and ignited it. Even though it seemed this foe was one that could not be fought, he intended to go down fighting. Whatever had killed Regald and Orla had found Stellan Gios at last.