Force Exile V: Warrior/Part 9

18

 * Socorro

The setting sun illuminated the sand-colored buildings predominant in Socorran architecture in a golden bronze. The streets were choked with people, many of them festive and jubilant. The air reeked of cheap intoxicants and food while loud music mingled with the cacophony of a thousand simultaneous conversations. The capital city of Vakeyya was caught in the throes of a planetary holiday and even the somber specter of the Yuuzhan Vong War had been unable to dampen the mood of the inhabitants. In fact, the present galactic turmoil had seemed to only encourage a large percentage of the Socorrans to drown their concerns in a wide variety of stimulants or other licentious activities. Every cantina was inundated with patrons seeking whatever vices were available and probably a few that weren’t.

On the outskirts of the city, hapless laborers toiled in a dusty chromite mine. Trapped inside the confines of their occupation by relentless taskmasters, they could listen to the faint sounds of reverie from the city. While mining was guaranteed employment and wages were decent, the mine was far from a safe place and the backbreaking labor was divided into grueling ten hour shifts, much of it far beneath the surface in tunnels where workers strained to extract metal from the rock layers. Accidents were common and safety was not high on the mining bosses’ priority list until it interfered with profitability. The mine itself was a giant sinkhole delved two hundred meters deep and a hundred meters around with numerous winding shafts linked to it. It was an ugly blight on the surface of Socorro, with outbuildings and large lifts for ferrying ore and workers rimming the edge of the sinkhole.

The stark contrast between the festivity in the city streets and the abject gray misery evident in the mine even from a distance was not lost on Cassi. She and her companions had journeyed here on the advice of Mithunir, who had told her that his father had claimed a clue to Atlaradis was buried in the black sands. A search of galactic databases had revealed that Socorro was known for the black sand of its deserts and so now they were here, following Mithunir.

“I can’t believe the mine operators force their workers to slave away like that, especially when they’re out partying,” Cassi said with a disapproving frown.

“Life earns little respect out here unless you have money,” Milya remarked. “Socorro is known for its lawlessness and reckless lifestyle.”

Cassi glanced over at her companion, who was playing the part she had assigned herself—that of a private bodyguard. Her snug black jumpsuit and jacket were utilitarian and nondescript and she wore sunglasses with an attached earpiece comlink as well as a utility belt. Ostensibly, Milya was the protection hired by a wealthy businessman to protect his wife and two attendants as they went on some religious pilgrimage with her personal sage. Since the likelihood of getting Mithunir to change his appearance or mannerisms had seemed low, Milya had structured their disguises around him. Cassi, Jorge and Annita were playing their parts, dressed in the flowing attire of Core World nobility for Cassi and muted versions in similar fashion for Jorge and Annita. When Cassi had questioned the necessity for disguise, Milya had pointed out that offworlders attracted attention on worlds like this and there was always the possibility that Yuuzhan Vong sympathizers, pirates, or criminals were out looking for them. Cassi had begrudgingly agreed and gone along with the arrangements to avoid an argument, although Jorge and Annita had seemed to sympathize with Milya’s desire to travel as incognito as possible.

“It’s sad and disgusting,” Cassi said. “Both the mine and the city, just in different ways.”

“It is foreign to me as well,” Mithunir put in. “Such a waste.”

“When you live the life of a spacer, you enjoy what moments like this that you have and spend your creds freely,” Jorge said. “Because you’re rarely assured of many more of them.”

“Except for the poor people stuck in the mines,” Cassi reminded them as they passed by the security fence that ran around the perimeter of the mine primarily to keep workers inside.

Jorge nodded and they continued forward, pushing their way through the revelers that were clogging the streets.

“We should be able to find a speeder rental place soon,” Milya said. “That will let us get out of the city and look for this sign you said was here.”

The last phrase was directed at Mithunir, who merely gave a curt dip of his head to indicate acknowledgment.

“Actually, I might have an idea on that,” Jorge said, “but it’s a slim chance. Old folk story I remember from when I came here as a smuggler about something called the min min lights.”

“What is that?” Cassi asked.

“It’s a series of strange flashes of light that you see near the edges of the Doaba Badlands. They show up during dawn and dusk,” Jorge explained. “Legend has them that they come from spirits of the past.”

“How do we get to the source of the lights?” Cassi inquired.

Jorge laughed.

“Nobody’s ever gotten there as far as I can tell,” he told her. “Nobody knows. That desert can be pretty dangerous.”

“We need to get a speeder and find those lights if they might be a clue,” Cassi said. “What do you think?”

“It might be,” Jorge answered skeptically. “But it might also be a natural phenomenon. Believe me, people have come up with all sorts of strange stories to explain them over the years.”

“We must not overlook this possibility though,” Mithunir cautioned them. “It might be that this is just the thing we are looking for.”

“Fine, let’s go,” Milya urged them. “I want to get away from this carousing mess of a city.”


 * Thisspias

The door to the small unadorned chamber hissed open quietly. Ariada looked up from where she had been lying on the featureless bed that was the room’s sole piece of furniture to see who had come to visit her. She had been kept here, in quarters unsettlingly reminiscent of a prison cell for two weeks now, attended solely by a servant whose job had been to treat her wounds, both new and old. For the second test, though not as painful, had also left marks on her body. Embedded on the back of her hands near the knuckles, at the nape of her neck, under her shoulder blades, and along her spine near the kidneys were slivers of Qixoni crystal, a rare and powerful mineral said to infuse and enhance dark side abilities. Ariada had accepted their implantation as a means to harness more Force power, confident she could control the crystals rather than them influence her—after all, she possessed extensive influence and knowledge of her own physiology. However, the procedures had left her sore long after the wounds had closed and the scars had yet to fade completely away. In time, she suspected they would, but the dark red outline of the crystal remained barely evident underneath the newly-healed epidermis and always would, as long as she bore them.

After a prolonged wait, the three Dark Jedi entered. The two humans, Krakadas, the cruel one who had subjected her to the electrocution, and Therior, the leader and most enigmatic of the three, filed in first, followed by Aspra Serpaddis, the Thispiassian mystic who had supervised her implantation.

“Greetings Ariada,” Therior told her.

Still in pain, weak, and impatient with lying here, Ariada was in no mood for small talk.

“Since you’re the only one who hasn’t tested me yet, I suspect you’ve got something just wonderful in mind,” Ariada replied. “Get it over with.”

Rather than take offense at her words, Therior simply smirked.

“Very well,” he said. “You must deliver proof, substantive proof that confirms the veracity of your claim about this refuge on Yanibar. You shall take us to Yanibar.”

Ariada shook her head.

“That’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard,” she said bluntly.

Therior’s features froze into an angered mask. One black-gloved hand whipped out to clamp itself around her neck, threatening to crush her trachea.

“Then I think that means you fail the test,” he hissed at her. “Which means you’re of no further use to us.”

Though she was struggling to breathe, Ariada remained defiant.

“If I take you to Yanibar, you could all be killed along with me, and then where would we be?” she said. “I’m not about to throw away so much potential because you want to sightsee.”

“Your next words had better convince me that your insolence shouldn’t have a lethal punishment,” Therior told her evenly while he continued to squeeze.

“There are many guardians on Yanibar, powerful Force-sensitives,” she told them. “They are constantly sensing space around the system for Force-sensitives and they have plenty of technological sensors as well. It’s impossible to get there undetected.”

Therior considered her words and released his grip slightly.

“Then you will tell us of this Yanibar refuge as best you can and then come up with some creative way to verify your story. And if I’m not satisfied. . .”

“You’ll kill me, I understand,” Ariada told him, rubbing at her throat.

Therior and his two companions glowered at her in reply. Slowly, she sat up, flexing her fingers and wincing at the soreness behind her knuckles the motion elicited.

“I accept,” she said, offering her hand to Therior.

The human took it in a crushing grip.

“Good,” he said, a greedy glint in his eyes. “Don’t disappoint me, Ariada.”


 * Socorro

The black sand of Socorro’s Doaba Badlands formed a bleak landscape, stretching in every direction as the rented speeder tore across its barren expanse, leaving a murky cloud of black sand stretching out from its rear. Inside the enclosed compartment, Cassi, Jorge, Annita, Milya, and Mithunir stared out across the rough flats. In the distance, Socorro’s sun kissed the horizon as it sank, scattering golden rays across the black sands to glint and dazzle on shiny particles, backlighting the mountains farther off.

“What are we looking for exactly?” Annita asked, shading her eyes with one hand while looking in the direction of the sunset.

“Min min lights are a strange natural phenomenon in the Doaba Badlands,” Jorge told her. “Nobody knows why they pop up or exactly where, but they look like sparks of light at the edge of the desert.”

“Are you sure that’s not just something from the sun’s reflection on the crystalline grains of sand?” she asked skeptically.

“Pretty sure,” Jorge told her, knowing that unlike himself, his wife hadn’t had the benefit of witnessing the min min lights first hand.

As the sun dipped lower into the horizon until less than half of the ochre orb was visible, the speeder made its way into the rocky, broken mesas of the badlands. The ground was as desolate as ever and the stone, likely a hardened sedimentary form of the black sands, was mingled with harder igneous formations. Jorge switched on the lights as he drove to help guide them and slowed their speed as night fell.

“Are you sure this is a good idea to be out here this late?” Annita asked. “Desert planets can be just as harsh at night as during the day—particularly if the predators are nocturnal.”

“The Force will be with us, Annita Daowot,” Mithunir told her smoothly.

“That’s Knrr,” she corrected him mildly. “And I’m still not convinced we’re going to find anything out here.”

“That is because you cannot sense the Force,” Mithunir replied, inhaling deeply. “I sense it, mingled with the sand. I feel its power rippling through the ground we traverse.”

Cassi frowned, closing her eyes in concentration.

“I think. . . I feel something too,” she said. “It’s subtle, but definitely a sensation in the Force.”

“Which way do you want me to go?” Jorge asked.

“Keep going for now,” Cassi told him. “Milya, do you sense anything?”

“A little,” Milya said doubtfully. “Not well enough to call it a clue or even something significant. I might not have even noticed it if you two hadn’t mentioned it.”

“I’ve got something,” Jorge called. “Min min light, about eight degrees right of our current heading.”

Five sets of eyes immediately swept the rocky landscape in the direction he had indicated and soon saw what Jorge had drawn their attention to: there was a twinkling in the desert in the distance, like a star that had been embedded in the ground. There was no question about the source being luminescent—the light was amidst a long shadow cast by a mesa and could not have been a reflection from the sun.

“Take us that way,” Cassi told him.

Jorge complied and they started approaching the source. However, as they drew within a kilometer of the flickering light, it vanished into nothingness. Jorge did his best to pilot the speeder near where they had seen it, guided by Milya, but no trace of the light remained.

“I think this is close enough,” Cassi told him. “Stop here and we’ll take a look.”

As the vehicle’s repulsorlifts whined down, the five disembarked. Milya distributed hiking packs to Jorge, Cassi, and Annita while shouldering one herself. Mithunir had claimed to need no such assistance, so he went unencumbered. Fanning out to cover approximately ten meters between the five of them, they advanced with glowrods ready. The night was quiet and even with only a faint breeze, the temperature was dropping rapidly with the falling sun. The ground was mostly a rocky shelf, but here and there were little stretches of the familiar black sand.

“This is weird,” Jorge said as he moved over one of the sandy beds. “This sand feels a bit warmer—and it’s got a weird pattern to it.”

“Wait!” Milya called to him, suddenly alert, but it was too late.

The sand swirled and gave way under Jorge. He plunged into the suddenly porous sand and was submerged in a cloud of black sand almost instantly, with little trace left behind.

“Jorge!” Annita screamed, running forward.

“Stand back,” Milya ordered her curtly with a brusque wave of her hand.

Closing her eyes and clenching her fists at her side, she summoned the Force to herself, summoning its power. She first tracked Jorge, sensing him several meters underground, falling fast. Concentrating, she wrapped him in a bubble of Force energy and tried to haul him back up. However, he had significant momentum already and arresting that was a heavy strain, let alone reversing it. Milya felt Cassi sense her actions and join her, adding her strength, and then Mithunir was helping as well. Together, the three managed to slowly, incrementally haul him back up.

“Get ready at the edge of the sand pit,” Milya told Annita. “Whatever you do, don’t go into the sand.”

Annita waited for another agonizing thirty seconds at the edge of the pit, her gaze shifting between the sand and the three Force-users exerting all their power to save her husband. Finally, a hand shot up from the sand, extending upward desperately. Annita grabbed it and pulled with all her might, dragging Jorge out of the sand as the other three raced over to help. Jorge was completely covered in sand, coughing and gagging up the black sand as he gasped for air. As soon as he was clear of the sand pit, Annita knelt by his side, holding him up and clearing the sand from his face.

“I’m. . . okay,” he wheezed. “I’m sorry about that. . . happened so fast.”

“Don’t try to talk,” Cassi advised him as he continued to spit up sand.

She offered him a water bottle to wash off the worst of the grime and rinse out his mouth and eyes.

“That’s no ordinary sand pit,” he said once he had recovered his breath and cleaned off his face. “As I fell through it, it got hotter.”

“Hotter?” Cassi asked, surprised. “Shouldn’t the sand be cooler in layers that don’t receive exposure to the sunlight?”

“You would think so,” Milya said.

“If you’ll allow me,” Mithunir told them, walking up to the edge of the sand pit.

He began chanting in a slow, sonorous language, arms raised outstretched to his sides all the while. Cassi and Annita continued to attend to a weakened Jorge while Milya looked on, keeping a careful eye on Mithunir. To her surprise, the ground began to rumble and shake. Immediately, the Jorge and the two other women rose to their feet, wary of further danger. Mithunir continued chanting, and then suddenly, the sand swirled again into a whirlpool, revealing a dark passage that disappeared into the murky depths. The slope, while too steep for walking, seemed descendible. Milya shone a glowrod down into the pit, straining to see how far it descended.

“It’s a straight drop for about twenty meters, then it seems to angle away into a cave or shaft of some kind. Seems navigable.”

Mithunir turned to face them, an elated expression on his face.

“My people know many spells for influencing the elements,” he told him. “Stone, sand, and dirt are things we can manipulate.”

“And now I suppose you want us to go down there,” Jorge commented, brushing sand off his arms. “Aw man, I got sand everywhere.”

“The last time we went down a passage like that, some pretty strange things happened,” Cassi reminisced.

“It was also dangerous,” Milya reminded her. “And Selu’s not here this time to watch out for us.”

“We’ll be careful,” Cassi assured her.

“In any rate, I am going down there,” Mithunir told them. “The Force tells me that what I seek lies underneath this stone.”

“Two of us should stay behind to keep an eye on the speeder,” Jorge suggested. “And look out for trouble.”

“Are you volunteering?” Milya asked.

“Well, I’m not a huge fan of the underground and that little dip in the sand was pretty exhausting,” Jorge told her. “So yes, kind of.”

“I’ll stay with him,” Annita added immediately.

Milya pursed her lips and frowned. It was risky to leave both non-Force-sensitives on the surface—they would not be able to sense approaching trouble or sense any harm happening to the subterranean explorers. On the other hand, she did not want to leave Mithunir unattended, as Milya was fairly sure she was the only one who could defeat him if he attempted a betrayal. Knowing that Cassi would insist on going with Mithunir, that forced her to accompany the underground excursion as well. So she nodded curtly.

“Sounds good,” she said. “Comlinks probably won’t work if we go too far underground, so don’t count on regular updates. If we’re not back in a day, return to the Silent Surprise and go seek help.”

Annita started to argue, but Milya silenced her with a single look.

“If we’re in that much trouble that we can’t get out ourselves, better to play it safe. If you come in after us or keep waiting, there’s a chance something could happen to all of us. Getting help in the event of a serious mishap is the safest and smartest thing to do.”

“You’re right,” Annita admitted. “Just be careful.”

“We will,” Milya replied. “All right, let’s go.”

Uncoiling a fibra-rope, she slung it down the passage.

“Mithunir, this is your quest, so I suppose you should go first,” she told him. “I’ll go next. Cassi, follow me closely.”

One by one, they disappeared into darkness, making their way down the rope. As night fell, it seemed to Jorge and Annita that the black sands had swallowed their friends up just as surely as the sand had threatened to consume Jorge moments ago. They returned to the speeder, leaving a portable lamp by the passage, knowing they could be in for a long and lonely wait.


 * Yanibar

“Well, that should just about fix you up,” Sarth said.

Setting the hydrospanner back down on the workbench, he replaced the metal covering back onto J7’s leg and secured it in place.

“How does that feel?” he asked the droid.

J7 lowered the newly-repaired limb to the ground and tested his weight on it.

“It seems fully functional, Master Sarth, though I’ll need to either test it or simply walk on it, depending on your preferred method of evaluation.”

“Be my guest either way,” Sarth told him, gesturing at both the open area of his workshop and the tray of tools. “My diagnostics on your leg all checked out, but I don’t blame you for wanting to check it yourself.”

The droid unlatched himself from the workstation and took a few experimental steps around the cluttered workshop, avoiding the pieces of equipment that were scattered across the floor. The droid ambled over to the one of the many computer terminals in the shop; this one was placed between two shelves heavily-laden with tools and spare parts. Retrieving a probe, he ran it down his leg, staring intently at the screen.

“All systems appear to be fully repaired. I owe you gratitude, Master Sarth.”

Sarth waved him off.

“Think nothing of it. If anything, it’s me who owes you. By all accounts, you were a big help to Cassi when she was offworld—even fighting off a Yuuzhan Vong attack.”

“It was my duty and I am pleased that you find my performance satisfactory,” J7 replied.

“Much more than satisfactory,” Sarth assured him.

The droid inclined slightly in a bow.

“Again, my thanks,” he said, then stopped. “Master Sarth, what is my next task?”

“Pardon me?” Sarth replied, confused.

“My last assignment was to care for Mistress Cassi, but she is not here at the moment. What would you like me to do in lieu of that assignment?”

“Ah, about that,” Sarth told him.

Walking over to another desk littered with tools and datapads, he retrieved one from the top of the stack and handed it to J7.

“Cassi and I discussed it and we think this is long overdue; Selu and Milya agreed as well. You’ve belonged to our family since the day you were made and have rendered nothing less than exemplary service over the last thirty-plus years. Now we think it’s high time you decided where to best put your programming and skills to use.”

The droid scanned the datapad he was handed.

“Sir, if I understand you correctly, this is a certificate of manumission.”

Sarth leaned back against the workbench and nodded.

“That’s right. There’s also two thousand credits in there as a little starting fund. That’ll buy you passage offworld if you want it, or set you up with some money to start a business.”

“I. . . am at a loss for words,” the droid told him. “This is most unexpected.”

“You’ve earned it, J7,” Sarth said. “You’ve been a good friend—we should have done this years ago.”

“So this means I am free to do as I please?” J7 asked. “To supervise my own maintenance and programming?”

“Yes,” Sarth replied. “If there’s anything you want done that you don’t feel capable of doing, you can hire me to implement it—I promise very reasonable rates, though scheduling might be tricky with everything on my plate right now. Otherwise, you are a free droid with citizenship in the Yanibar refuge—along with a slightly modified set of the rights that come with that status.”

“Again, I am not sure of the proper words for the occasion,” J7 said. “Other than thank you, Master Sarth.”

The droid bowed again.

“You’re welcome,” Sarth answered simply. “And you can remove ‘Master Sarth’ from your proper-address protocol. It’s just Sarth from now on.”

“Very well then. . . Sarth,” J7 said. “Might I ask what you are doing next?”

“First, I’m going to clean off all the grime I’ve accumulated from the workshop and then eat something,” Sarth said. “And then?”

“I have a briefing to attend about an offworld mission that I’ll be doing on a Yanibar Guard warship,” Sarth told him. “Why? Do you need something?”

“Well, sir,” J7 explained. “It occurred to me that since you no longer have a personal assistance droid, you might have an opening for an assistant. If so, I was contemplating an application.”

Sarth grinned broadly and slapped J7 on the arm.

“That I might,” he said. “Glad to have you along.”


 * Rishi

The Hawk-bat’s repulsorlifts whined as it set down on the makeshift landing pad next to the gray modular prefabricated building that had quickly been erected to serve as a field medcenter. The aged ship’s ports hissed and puffed jets of gases out as it stabilized. Then, with a mechanical creak, the ramp lowered as its occupants debarked. Eight Elite Guardians filed out first, replete in battle armor and traditional weapons. Following behind them were Selu and Hasla, who strode quickly, forcing their honor guard to double-time to keep up.

Selu was still wearing his bloodied and stained battle armor from his fight aboard the Vigilant Refuge, while Hasla was wearing her sweat-stained admiral’s uniform, with safety vest still strapped tightly around her torso. Both were visibly troubled from the losses of the battle before and neither sought to mask the hurt that was written on their faces and scored on their hearts.

“Stay at the door,” Selu instructed the guards, who had been obliged to accompany them out of protocol, not because Selu and Hasla had any particular need of escort.

They strode into the medcenter, where a YGA duty officer was busy directing traffic at the atrium. He saw the ranks on the new arrivals and quickly snapped to a salute.

“Do you have a VIP ward set up?” Selu asked him.

“Begging your pardon, sir, but it’s not much of a ward. We’ve been swamped with casualties and setting up. . .”

“No worries, Captain,” Selu said. “I understand you’re doing the best you can given the circumstances. If you’ll just tell me where they are. . .”

The captain waved to the left.

“Third door on the left is where we have the Elites and the civilians rescued from the governor’s palace,” he answered. “It’s not exactly pretty, though, sir.”

“Thank you,” Selu told him, brushing past with Hasla in his wake to reach the indicated room as quickly as possible.

However, before he could make it all the way down the hallway, the sound of an angry commotion back at the atrium halted him. Selu wheeled back to see the captain being yelled at by an irate-looking man in a patchwork uniform. Hasla was caught by surprise and turned, but Selu waved her ahead to their original destination.

“What do you mean, your facilities aren’t available? Damn hell they aren’t!” bellowed the enraged newcomer. “The other medcenter is flooded with civilians and other casualties and you have the gall to tell me this one isn’t available after what we did for you in orbit! You gotta lot of. . .”

“What seems to be the problem?” Selu inquired smoothly, coming to the rescue of the beleaguered captain.

The man, his tirade interrupted, turned to glower viciously at Selu.

“Do you outrank him in whatever this outfit is called?” he demanded.

“Yes,” Selu replied simply. “Now, what’s the problem?”

“The problem is that this man right here is refusing to admit my volunteers for treatment. I have a lot of hurt folks and the other medcenter you people set up for civilians and anybody else not wearing one of your fancy uniforms is flooded. I’m not going to sit around and wait while my people suffer and die!”

“Perfectly understandable,” Selu said in the same even voice. “Colonel Klivian, I presume?”

“That’s right,” he said begrudgingly. “How’d you know that?”

“That’s not important right now,” Selu told him, then turned to the captain. “Captain, how many empty treatment wards do you have right now?”

“Two, sir, but we’re anticipating more YGA casualties from the city and our people are stretched thin as it is. We already have some other civvies in our VIP ward.”

“Captain, I’m hereby designating Colonel Klivian and his personnel as Category Aurek-3 allied combatants. Assign both of the wards to their wounded and see to it that they receive the care they need. We’ll have Colonel Klivian get you a list of the casualties so we can keep track of who’s where.”

Selu turned to Hobbie.

“I’m afraid our security protocols require that all non-YG personnel in this facility must be confined to a particular area and guarded. Is that acceptable?”

“As long as they’re properly taken care of, you can perform a sacred dance around them for all I care,” Hobbie blustered in return.

“Good,” Selu said. “Now, if you’ll come with me, your arrival here is most fortuitous.”

“Not until my people are off the ships and into the medcenter,” Hobbie insisted.

“Of course,” Selu said patiently, turning and walking with Hobbie back out to the landing field where several non-YGF ships had landed. Several volunteers were clustered around the ships, waiting expectantly for their commander. Selu turned to the honor guard standing outside the medcenter.

“Make yourselves useful and help get the wounded inside,” Selu told them. “Then stand guard at their wards until you’re called for or relieved.”

He set actions to words, walking over to one of the freighters with Klivian.

“This one,” Hobbie said, indicating one of the many stretchers inside the cramped cargo bay.

There had to be at least thirty casualties inside the freighter, many of them burned hideously. Moans of pain were evident throughout the transport’s hold and temporary bandages were evident in abundance.

The woman lying on it had some kind of oxygen mask over her face, which was a pale blue instead of the normal skin tones. Her boots and pants legs had been covered with makeshift bandages stained with blood. Selu quickly headed to the foot the stretcher and picked it up, leaving Hobbie to hoist the head, where he could talk to the injured woman.

“Hang with me, Anja, we’re going to get you help,” he said.

Anja gave no response other than to continue gasping for breath. Selu and Hobbie made their way from the freighter into the medcenter with their burden, passing off the stretcher to a pair of medics and then heading back out to the ships.

“That’s all of them!” one of Hobbie’s men told him as they reached the atrium, though.

“Sir, if I could have a moment,” a voice called to Selu out of the commotion of the medcenter.

It was the captain in charge of directing the flow of patients.

“What is it, Captain?” Selu asked.

“We don’t have enough qualified medical personnel here to see all the wounded, sir. Our surgeons are overtaxed as it is and we don’t have enough droids unpacked to close the gap.”

“How about the volunteers?” Selu asked. “I seem to recall Open Hands sent us a fair-sized group of medical professionals.”

“Half of them are at the other medcenter. The other half weren’t cleared to deal with YG casualties and there’s only so much space at the other one, so they’re helping set up supply caches.”

“Consider them cleared to treat any and all wounded in any medcenter on this planet,” Selu told him bluntly. “This isn’t a peacetime exercise, Captain, so you’ll find that there’s very little to be gained by strict adherence to protocol. Get them in here, stat.”

“Yes, sir!” the captain stammered, reaching for his comlink.

Selu finally turned back to Hobbie.

“Now, Colonel, your people are being taken care of,” Selu told him. “If you’ll please follow me, we have some things to discuss.”

“You know, from the way that captain was talking, you must outrank him by a good bit,” Hobbie told Selu as he allowed himself to be escorted to the VIP ward.

Selu gave him an arch look.

“After you,” he said, ushering him inside past the guard at the door.

As expected, there was a fairly large group of people inside the ward. Ryion, Zeyn, Qedai, Morgedh, Kyle Katarn, Jan Ors, the governor and his defense chief, the viceroy and his daughter, and then two Chalactan military officers were all present with Hasla inside the cramped ward. Selu noted that Ryion, Zeyn, Qedai, Morgedh, and Kyle bore evidence of hasty medical treatment. Qedai was seated, with a large boot cast wrapped around one leg. Ryion’s shirt was off, exposing the bandages swathing his torso, while Morgedh was similarly adorned. Zeyn and Kyle sported bacta patches for minor cuts and burns as well.

“Sorry for the delay,” Selu told them. “For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Selu Kraen. I’m the leader of the force you probably know as the Guard. This is my chief of naval operations, Hasla. . .”

“No. . .” Hobbie interrupted suddenly, noticing Hasla for the first time.

His voice was haunted, the look on his face befitting a man seeing a ghost.

“I know that face,” he bit out with considerable effort. “Seirla?”

Hasla started as he said the name, then winced.

“You once knew me by that name, yes,” she said.

“I thought. . . we all thought you died years ago?” Hobbie said in disbelief.

“So Wedge didn’t tell you,” she realized aloud. “He’s known for years—but he’s also known that my allegiance is to the Guard. That’s probably why he didn’t tell you.”

“You mean. . . you weren’t. . .” Hobbie struggled to get the words out, his surprise and shock turning to anger as his hands balled into fists at his side.

“Colonel Klivian, we can discuss history later,” Selu told him. “This isn’t the time or the place.”

“Oh, I think it is the time and place,” Hobbie started. “I think Hasla here has some serious explaining to do.”

Quick as a snake, Selu whirled on Hobbie. Selu’s eyes blazed as he leaned in close enough that their faces were only a dozen centimeters apart.

“Colonel, I want you to listen very carefully because I’m going to say this once,” Selu said. “You are on my base, as a guest of my people, and on my time. I have been very patient and accommodating towards you and your volunteers thus far. I have ensured that they are receiving the same medical treatment my own people receive. I have even put up with your demands thus far. But I will not let you throw a fit—or a fist—at one of my most trusted officers over something that happened twenty years ago on my direct orders. We do not have time to waste on settling ancient grudges. As far as you and Hasla are concerned you will call it even or I will have you escorted from my base. Do I make myself abundantly clear?”

“Yes,” Hobbie ground out through gritted teeth.

“Good,” Selu replied. “Now, stand there quietly until I’m ready for you. I’ve lost some dear friends today and I’m not in the mood to be interrupted again.”

The rest of the room watched him in stunned silence, in shock from his outburst. Hobbie was seething, but dared not provoke another response from Selu, who had decidedly asserted his authority. “As I was saying, this is my chief of naval operations, Hasla Cyrreso. The reasons why our ships and operatives first arrived at this world are both convoluted and irrelevant. The reason why our larger relief force has arrived is quite simple—we’re here to stop the Yuuzhan Vong. If you trust nothing else I say, believe that.”

Selu turned to the governor.

“Governor, ordinarily, I believe that our presence and landing here would constitute a breach of your planetary sovereignty and possibly an act of war against the New Republic. However, I also believe it’s in our best interests to work together—without us, you can’t possibly hope to survive against the Yuuzhan Vong force currently insystem.”

“I understand what you’re getting at,” the governor replied wearily. “Once I can speak with the rest of my staff, I’ll draw up an agreement that legitimizes your presence here—we can settle the details later.”

“Excellent, and thank you,” Selu said. “Now you know why we’re here, but do you know what brought the Yuuzhan Vong to Rishi?”

“We think they’re after the Chalactan refugees we sprang from Chalacta,” Hobbie offered.

“Our intelligence sources and agents agree,” Selu said, turning to the viceroy and Shara. “I’m very sorry to tell you this, but you and your people are likely being targeted for genocide. It’s a pattern we’ve seen the Yuuzhan Vong perpetrate on other worlds. Resistance is inevitably crushed and the entire populace suffers enslavement or extermination.”

All four Chalactans paled at Selu’s weighty words.

“I take it you aren’t just going to sit around and wait for that to happen?” Hobbie asked.

“No, we’re not,” Selu said. “We have some surprises for the Yuuzhan Vong that we don’t think they’re prepared for, and this is an opportunity to deal them a significant defeat that we may not see repeated.”

Hobbie snorted.

“Pardon my skepticism, but the last few military engagements that the galaxy has had with the Yuuzhan Vong haven’t generally ended in ‘significant defeat’ for them,” Hobbie said. “What makes you so special?”

“It’s fairly evident that the Yuuzhan Vong have been spying out the galaxy for years, given how quickly they’ve advanced and exploited the weaknesses of the New Republic,” Selu told him. “We’ve seen nothing to indicate they even knew we existed. In fact, I’m willing to bet you didn’t know we existed, Colonel. That, among many other things, makes us special.”

“Gentlemen, please, the condescension is unnecessary and wasteful,” the viceroy interrupted. “You are both competent warriors, so I ask you to show you the respect that two warriors should share for each other’s abilities.”

“A good suggestion, viceroy,” Hasla broke in. “I know tensions are high right now, but the Yuuzhan Vong are a very real threat, and even with the forces that the Guard has committed to Rishi, they will not be defeated easily. We all need to work together if we’re going to walk away from this one.”

“What do you have in mind?” Jan asked from the corner where she’d been sitting beside Kyle Katarn.

“To start with, a clear command setup,” Selu said, calming down substantially. “I’m not asking to place my people over yours, but we need to be unified and cohesive. That won’t happen if we’re leading by committee.”

“So you want to be calling the shots?” Hobbie asked.

“Given that I’ve brought the biggest force and key information for guiding strategic decisions, yes,” Selu admitted. “I don’t expect you to just take orders, but under the circumstances, I think it’s for the best if the Guard governs the direction of the defense on Rishi—with input from the appropriate parties of course.”

“I don’t know much about you, but I know that your forces are the biggest thing between us and the Vong right now,” the governor said. “Consider us at your disposal.”

At a nudge from the viceroy, General Undukjavi nodded as well.

“There’s only a few hundred of the Chalactan defense force left, but we’ll do our part—and under your direction, if it comes to that.”

“Colonel Klivian?” Selu asked softly. “I know we got off on the wrong foot and I apologize, but the assistance of you and your volunteers would be invaluable. Can we count on you?”

Hobbie glared at Selu.

“You know, after what you just pulled and what I suspect you pulled twenty years ago, I can’t say that I think too highly of you. I definitely don’t like you. In fact, you’re probably the biggest pool of Hutt slime I’ve met in a while who wasn’t Vong or Peace Brigade.”

“Pray continue,” Selu said, seemingly oblivious to the derision and anticipating the unspoken ‘but.’

“But you took care of my people and right now, it looks like you and your Guard, whatever it is, are the only chance of not being quickly ending up on a sacrificial altar. How does that saying go? We hang together or we all hang separately?”

“An apt epithet,” Selu agreed in the same placid voice.

“In any case, we’ll work with you, at least until you do something completely insane,” Hobbie told him. “But I’m not asking how high on the way up if you say jump.”

“That should more than suffice,” Selu assured him. “And now that you’re onboard, there is something very valuable that you can do for us immediately.”

“What’s that?” Hobbie asked suspiciously.

“I understand that Wedge Antilles has recently retaken Borleias from the Yuuzhan Vong,” Selu said. “I’d like you to arrange a meeting with him to see if we can’t work out some kind of data-sharing agreement. I’m sure there are things about the Yuuzhan Vong that the New Republic knows that we don’t and vice versa.”

“You know that’s a lot to ask given that I’m not even in the military,” Hobbie pointed out.

“It is,” Selu admitted. “But I also know that Wedge Antilles would never leave his friends hanging and I know that you’re one of his very good friends.”

“You know far too much about me and Wedge than is healthy,” Hobbie said, squinting dubiously at Selu. “I’ll see what I can do, but I’ll need two things. I need a secure holocomm transmitter that didn’t come from you and I want Hasla over there to settle some unanswered questions when I have that chat with Wedge.”

Selu looked over at Hasla, who nodded curtly.

“Deal,” he said. “And as for your transmitter. . .”

He looked over at Jan Ors.

“Far be it from me to presume, but I’d be willing to guess that Agent Ors has the equipment you need on her vessel. She might be willing to assist you.”

“I can hook you up,” she told Hobbie, then looked back at Selu. “You’ve been awfully quiet about what you want me and Kyle to do in this scheme of yours. Out with it.”

“To be honest, it’s one thing to recruit volunteers and planetary defense forces,” Selu said. “It’s quite another to assume command over an NRI agent and a Jedi.”

“Spare me the formality,” Kyle broke in. “I’ve already fought and bled by your people once without being asked to. You can count on us.”

“I’ll need someone who can liaison with our intelligence staff and the New Republic, assuming Colonel Klivian can get through to Antilles,” Selu said. “And as for you, Jedi Katarn, Colonel Klivian’s volunteers don’t have any Force-sensitives among them. The Guard has. . . well, some for sure, and we often employ Force-based coordination and tactics. If you could assist them however you see best, I believe it would augment them significantly.”

“I can do that,” Kyle said. “Just remember, I charge extra for babysitting.”

“Then it’s settled,” Selu said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like a few minutes with my people.”

“We’ll wait outside,” the viceroy said.

He and the rest of the occupants save the Yanibar Guard personnel exited the ward. Selu quickly knelt by Ryion’s bed and embraced him about the shoulders so as not to aggravate his chest wound. “I’m so glad to see you again, son,” he said. “Your mother and I have been very worried about you.”

“Good to see you again, too, Dad,” Ryion answered brokenly. “But. . .”

“I know,” Selu said simply. “I know.”

He released Ryion and walked over to where Qedai was sitting, her face tear-streaked from relentless crying. Selu knelt in front of her and took her hand in his.

“Qedai, I am so sorry about your mother,” Selu told her. “She was very dear to me as well. All of Yanibar will mourn her loss.”

Qedai bobbed her head in a vague imitation of a nod, then threw herself forward to cry on Selu’s shoulders. Selu held her as she sobbed.

“I’m truly sorry,” he said several minutes later, knowing that the Twi’lek’s tears were outward expressions of the pain racing through both of them. Slowly, she straightened up and brushed away the tears.

“You must be strong,” Selu told her. “That is what Daara would have wanted. That is what your team needs now.”

She nodded and Selu stood to address Ryion, Morgedh, and Zeyn as well.

“All of you have done very well. Under less trying circumstances, I’d send you back to Yanibar for medals and recuperation. We don’t have that luxury now. If you don’t feel you can still participate in the defense of Rishi, let me know privately, but I sense that all of you have pivotal parts to play in this battle. We will need every Elite Guardian who is able to help.”

“This was my idea. I’ll see it through to the end,” Ryion told him resolutely.

“Thank you,” Selu told him.

“You know my mind,” Morgedh answered simply.

“And I know I can count on you,” Selu said. “Zeyn? Qedai?”

“Right now, I don’t think I could fight a pittin,” Zeyn told him. “We’re all pretty torn up right now. But as beaten up and hurting as we are, I don’t think we could just turn our back on people who need us, on people who died so we could hold the line. We’re all in, as soon as we’re in fighting shape again.”

“I appreciate that,” Selu said. “And whether you know it or not, the entire Yanibar Guard does as well. Get some rest—we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.”

“What about you?” Ryion asked.

“I am tired,” Selu said. “But I have plenty to do as well. There are many wounded here who are maimed and injured because of my orders—the least I can do is visit them and give them what solace I can. But first, I’m going to say goodbye to an old friend.”

With that, Selu’s shoulders slumped. All the weariness and care that he’d hidden from Hobbie and the other foreigners suddenly asserted itself on his features. The transition made him look older than his sixty-seven years and he tottered unsteadily for a minute. Hasla steadied him as Selu struggled to compose himself.

“All right,” he said. “I’m fine. I can do this now.”

With that, he and Hasla departed to pay their final respects to a devoted Zeison Sha, loving mother, and close friend of more than thirty years.

19
“I’ve found something,” Mithunir reported from his position at the head of the column.

The narrow passage sculpted out of the sand that they had been descending through had forced them to journey in a single file line, such that only Mithunir had a good idea of what was ahead.

“What is it?” Milya asked.

“A cave of some kind,” Mithunir told them. “And there is a light.”

Scrambling down the sandy slope of the passage, Milya soon made her way into the cave that Mithunir had spoken of. It was about the size of a decent conference room, with numerous passages honeycombing its walls, all apparently leading upward. The ebony-colored sandy walls were otherwise nondescript, sparkling faintly in the eerie illumination. In the center of the cavern, a glowing golden crystal helix floated about a meter off the ground.

“That must be the source of the min min lights,” Cassi surmised.

“It’s not emitting any kind of pulse that would be visible from the surface,” Milya pointed out.

“Not at the moment,” Cassi told her. “It could be cyclical or irregular. The min min lights aren’t always visible at a given point.”

They slowly walked around the crystal, surveying the unexpected object.

“Whatever it is, it’s beautiful,” Cassi observed, pulling out a holocam to capture footage of it.

“The question is, is it natural or artificial? And does it have any bearing on our search?” Milya asked.

“The answers we seek are in this cavern. I am sure of it,” Mithunir stated, as he stepped forward to approach the crystal.

“Wait,” Milya cautioned him. “Don’t touch it, that could be dangerous.”

“The Force will guide me, Milya Kraen,” Mithunir replied.

Suddenly, the crystal began to pulsate, its radiance intensifying considerably. It shone and began spinning with rapidly accelerating velocity. In seconds, it was rotating so fast that it appeared only as a coruscating blur. The light that shone from it was enough to cause the walls to dazzle and sparkle, and suddenly floating symbols and markings that hadn’t previously been visible shimmered faintly into existence. Milya threw up her hands to shield her eyes as the brilliant mass continued to rotate.

Then, as its brightness made it resemble a piece of molten metal, a streak of light shot out from it, arcing between them to shoot up one of the passages towards the surface. Milya squinted, avoiding direct eye contact with the spinning crystal and the streak of light that the crystal was channeling between her and Mithunir, and noted that Mithunir had already lowered his hands to stare at the crystal. Surprised that he would risk ocular damage, Milya refrained from doing the same. Eventually, though, the beam dissipated and the crystal decelerated back to its stable, static form.

As the beam vanished, Milya suddenly saw Mithunir’s arms flash back up to shield his eyes even though the channeled streak of light was gone, and then he lowered them in exactly the same manner as he had done before. Milya carefully followed suit, a perplexed look on her face.

“I saw you lower your arms before the crystal stopped spinning and the light disappeared, but you just now lowered them,” she said.

“I did not lower them until now,” Mithunir told her. “The light was too strong to look at directly, even for me.”

“It must be a hyperwave diffraction wave,” Cassi guessed, still holding the holocam.

“A what?” Milya asked. “Not all of us have read Sarth’s technical docs.”

Cassi blushed.

“Basically, it means when you’re looking through a medium traveling significantly faster than the speed of light, your time frame is different from theirs, so you see things at one speed, when they happen in another. You must have been looking at an accelerated time frame where the streak of light vanished faster than it did in ours.”

“So that channeled light display was going faster than the speed of light,” Milya concluded.

“More than likely, it was sending and receiving,” Cassi said. “I noticed an oscillation pattern. Must be what causes the min min lights.”

“That is probably the most scientific I’ve ever heard you be in many years,” Milya told her.

“Well, I guess being married to Sarth for thirty years, some things have rubbed off,” she said abashedly.

“All of this talk is pointless,” Mithunir said. “The crystal contains the answers we seek.”

Before Milya could stop him again, he stepped forward and placed his hands on it. Immediately, it began to glow again.

“The crystal is alive and warm in the Force,” Mithunir told them. “It is speaking to me, telling me that it is part of a key.”

“A key to what?” Milya asked.

“A key to the greatest prize for a Force-user,” he said, an enraptured look on his face. “It leads to Atlaradis.”

Sparks of light began to coruscate and sparkle into existence in the cavern, assuming the form of a spiral disk around Mithunir, with the bright glowing of the crystal in the center.

“That looks like the galaxy,” Milya said. “Cassi, are you getting this?”

“Every second,” Cassi confirmed, sweeping the holocam around the cavern. “But if it looks like a galaxy, it’s not this one. There’s not nearly enough stars.”

Even as Mithunir stood there, the black sand began to seep out from under his feet, pouring away. He continued to cling to the crystal, oblivious to all else, even as he sank into the sand.

“Mithunir!” Cassi called. “Get away from that!”

There was no response; he was still enthralled by the double helix.

Cassi darted forward to try and pull him back, but the sand had begun pouring away too fast, and she was pulled into it as well. Milya reacted quickly, grabbing both of them, but it was too late. The sand consumed all three of them, plunging them into a crushing black cloud of sand that bore them deep into the depths of the desert. Unable to see or breathe or feel anything but the sensation of falling endlessly, they plummeted in inky blackness. The sand penned them in, made it impossible to move or catch hold of each other and so they fell.

Then there was another sensation, one of wind sweeping across them from one side. It was a gale-force, battering them with sand. The sand was blown violently away from it, the tiny pieces of grit cutting and stinging as they were forced away from the three humans. Milya lit her glowrod again to reveal they were in a giant cavern, being whirled around as if in a funnel cloud of some kind that was rotating around a silver ring floating in the middle of the cavern. The furious winds swept her and her companions around and around, battering them even as the sand was splattered into the walls of the cavern, a fate they were no doubt soon to share.

Finally able to see the walls, she fought against the overpowering force of the wind to withdraw a cable launcher. Using the Force to guide her, she fired it into the wall where it anchored securely. Milya clipped the launcher to her belt and summoned all of her Force strength to suddenly pull Mithunir and Cassi into reach. Grabbing hold of them securely, she used telekinesis to flip the retract on her cable launcher, hauling all three of them to impact into the wall with bruising force, the air driven out of them. They hung there, reliant on Milya’s strength to hold them in place while the winds battered them.

Can you two catch hold of something? Milya asked, using the Force to communicate. Can’t hold on much longer.

''You need not do so. Do not fight the winds.'' Mithunir sent in reply.

What? Came Milya’s startled mental answer.

The answers we seek are in the middle of the cavern, in the ring.

Mithunir gestured towards the faintly glowing silver ring suspended in midair which the winds seemed to rotate around.

''The winds are caused by manifestations of the Force. Let them guide you—do not fight against them.''

With that, he let go of Milya and was instantly swept away by the winds. Milya bit out a scream, but it was swallowed up by the pounding and whirling of the subterranean cyclone’s gusts. Her arms heaved from the effort of holding Cassi and she gasped for breath despite of the whirlwind.

He’s right, she sensed Cassi send simply. And then she was gone too, releasing her arm to disappear into the darkness of the maelstrom, leaving Milya hanging there alone.

A series of mental curses issued through Milya’s mind, followed by a sad resignation that she was left with little other recourse but to follow. Still gasping for breath, she retracted the cable’s dart and was instantly swept into the windstream again. Around and around the cavern she was spun, slowly funneling inward with each revolution. Finally, she caught sight of the silver ring floating in the middle of the cavern even as she tumbled and spun helplessly in the grasp of the winds. Using the Force, Milya guided herself gradually towards it, timing her motions so that the currents of air propelled her toward her goal. Finally, she made it to the glowing silver toroid, catching hold of it alongside Cassi and Mithunir. To her surprise, the vicinity immediately around the toroid was completely tranquil, absent of any winds whatsoever. Milya inhaled deeply, finally able to catch her breath, though her arms trembled from having to hold onto the ring to prevent from falling.

“Wow,” Cassi said. “An underground windstorm. I think that’s a first for me.”

“Whatever this ring is generates it,” Milya said, sensing the same violent currents in the ring that she had sensed from the windstorm. “It uses the Force to perpetually manipulate the air in this chamber.”

“But we’re safe here,” Cassi pointed out. “It’s like the eye of the storm.”

“And now that you mention it, this ring does rather look like an eye,” Milya observed.

“And it also the clue we came to seek,” Mithunir said, clamping onto it firmly.

The silver toroid began to glow more fiercely and suddenly thousands of tiny opalescent dots coalesced into existence, assuming the pattern of a vague spiral-armed disk. Cassi immediately brought out her holocam, which she’d managed to retain by virtue of a well-secured strap attached around her neck at the cost of considerable friction burn. Panning the device around, she captured the footage even as the wave of Force energy emanating from the device washed over them.

“Whatever these are, they react when touched by a Force-sensitive,” Milya noted.

“Yes, but what do you sense when it activates?” Cassi asked. “To me, it feels like. . . like home, somehow.”

“I guess I hadn’t been paying attention,” Milya replied uncertainly. “I’ve been worried about opening my mind too much to strange Force artifacts.”

“They’re harmless,” Cassi assured her. “Like part of a map leading to home.”

Then, as swiftly as they had come, the sparks disappeared and the glow began to subside.

“Another clue found,” Mithunir exulted triumphantly.

“Look sharp. It got pretty hairy last time we touched one of these,” Milya warned.

Just as Milya predicted, suddenly, the winds became concentrated around the ring, snatching them away from it effortlessly. They were whirled around and around, helpless in the grasp of the mighty funnel cloud, which now bore them down. Milya’s vision blurred from the tremendous velocity, which spiraled them down towards the inky black floor of the cavern. Milya tried to slow her descent to prevent from smashing into the rock, but it was to no avail. The winds were too strong, even for one familiar with the severe weather of Yanibar. In comparison, the fiercest windstorm there was like a breeze compared to the raw power unleashed into the funnel cloud she and her companions were entrapped within. Milya braced for being dashed into the rocks, but somehow, the winds spiraled them through a dark shaft bored straight down through the rock, until the pale silver ring above them was but a tiny speck.

Then, Milya hit one of the last things she would have expected: water. She crashed in feet first, both of her ankles immediately wrenched in exquisite pain from the shock of entry, and then she was immediately plunged into the depths. No longer at the mercy of the winds, she fumbled around, feeling for a rebreather that wasn’t there—carrying one on a desert planet had seemed rather pointless after all. Lighting her glowrod, she looked around and was relieved to still see Cassi and Mithunir alive and moving, swimming for the surface. Milya followed suit, but managed to catch a glimpse of a glowing cerulean orb farther down in the depths.

Fighting against the pain in her ankles, she broke the surface, greedily gasping for air. Cassi and Mithunir followed suit seconds later.

“Everyone okay?” Milya asked, coughing up water.

“I’m okay,” Cassi said once she’d recovered from her own fit of coughing to clear the water she’d ingested on accident. “Bruised and sore, but I think I’ll make it.”

“I am without serious injury,” Mithunir told them.

“I saw an object down there, sensed it,” Milya said while they were treading water. “It looked about fifty meters down.”

“Let’s get to it then,” Cassi said.

“Careful,” Milya warned. “That deep, pressure effects will get to you, not to mention lack of air. Also, that’s a long way to swim with all this equipment we’re wearing.”

Admittedly, that was an understatement. The desert robes, packs, and equipment they had strapped to them were making difficult to tread water, much less swim fifty meters straight down and back again.

“So we leave them here,” Cassi suggested.

Milya gave her a sharp look.

“You can’t be serious.”

“We take only what we need,” Cassi said. “We need to get to these clues and we can’t do it with all this stuff on. I think I saw a bank or a shoreline over there. If we can get to it, we can leave our gear there and get it afterward.”

Milya was too tired to disagree, so nodded her assent and the three swam the eighty meters to a rocky shelf protruding about half a meter above the waterline. Heaving their aching bodies out of the water, they rested gratefully on the shelf for several minutes. Milya gingerly probed her ankles with one hand.

“I think they’re sprained,” she said, “but nothing feels broken.”

“You could stay here while Mithunir and I investigate,” Cassi suggested.

Milya shot Cassi a warning look.

“Out of the question,” she said. “I’ve done a lot more in a lot worse state.”

“Thirty years ago, maybe,” Cassi reminded her, rubbing at the burn on her neck. “We’re not as young as we used to be.”

Milya glowered at Cassi, a glare that stifled further argument. The essential meaning that Cassi understood from it was I’m coming, like it or not, so deal with it.

Having little desire to pursue an argument, Cassi heaved off her soaking pack, cumbersome robe, loose outer tunic and, most importantly, her sturdy hiking boots, which had more than anything, weighed her down in the deep water. She retained only her trousers, sleeveless undertunic, utility belt and its contents and her holocam. Milya sighed and followed her example, shedding the equipment which until now she had seen as vital until she was similarly attired as Cassi. Mithunir had already ditched his pack, boots, robe, and tunic, standing bare-chested and ready to dive back in once they were ready. Before she stood, though, Milya wrapped both of her ankles with compression bandages to stabilize them. Gritting slowly as she rose to her feet painfully, she took a few tentative steps to assure herself that she could still walk and run if need be—at least for a short distance.

“Okay,” she said, brushing her soaked hair out of her face. “I think we’re ready. We swim down there, get whatever information we need from the glowing thing, and swim back up.”

Cassi and Mithunir nodded. Milya knelt down by the water’s edge and scooped up a handful, tasting it.

“It’s fresh at least, doesn’t taste contaminated, so don’t worry about swallowing any by accident.”

“I think it’d be a little late for that anyway,” Cassi pointed out.

“Worth testing anyway. Make sure to use the Force to equalize the pressure in your body and conserve your air. If you start feeling light-headed, make for the surface.”

“The Force will be with us, we have nothing to fear,” Mithunir told her.

“Sure, and next you’ll be telling me there was no need to worry about spraining my ankles on this little expedition,” Milya said sarcastically. “All right, here goes nothing.”

Scooting off the edge of the rocky shelf, she slipped into the water. A pair of splashes reverberating through the water behind her told her that Cassi and Mithunir had followed her in. Despite the pain shooting along her ankles, she swam steadily towards the blue object she had seen earlier. The pressure as she descended intensified, but Milya’s control over her own physiology was sufficient that she was able to equalize it sufficiently to prevent injury even with the rapid descent. Her Jedi and Matukai training also allowed her to hold her breath for far longer than the average Human’s, a useful trait in many situations. She lengthened her stroke, using her glowrod to light the way for the other two even as she led them downward.

In fairly short order, they reached the object of their pursuit, a deep blue object shaped like a teardrop. Milya silently nodded to Mithunir, the motion accentuated by her hair fanning out around her, and he placed his hands on it, with the two women following suit. Again, the radiance increased, brightening up the waters considerably around them. And again, just like with the other two objects, speckles and spangles of light shimmered into existence in that same disk-like distribution that vaguely resembled a galaxy. This time, befitting the color of the object, they were blue rather than silver or golden. Cassi made sure to capture the footage on her holocam as Milya braced herself to push off back towards the surface.

It is finished, Mithunir sent them mentally.

Got it, let’s go, Cassi said, pushing off the object and swimming upward.

Her own lungs beginning to ache, Milya followed suit, with Mithunir a couple strokes behind. Suddenly, a mighty current slammed into them, bearing all three away from the rocky shelf where they had left their packs, shoes, and outer garments.

Not again! Milya realized frightfully that she had failed to account for this possibility in her calculations of pressure and air for their swim. Mentally kicking herself for an error of this magnitude, she was nevertheless just as helpless as before to fight against the forces propelling her inexorably towards a new destination. She tried briefly to fight against it, but had no more chance of resisting the tremendous current than she did of plucking a moon from orbit. Her glowrod was torn from her hands and soon was carried out of sight, plunging her into the darkness of the deep waters. Her last glimpse was of Mithunir streamlining his body ahead of her into a sleek shape, arms down at his sides, and then she was blind, deaf, and unable to breathe, immersed in water with no sense of direction or depth.

Crushing pressure applied its merciless laws to her body, threatening to collapse her ribs. She exhaled as quickly as she could but the pressure continued to partially crush her. Her head throbbed as her skull was buffeted from the pressure and her lungs burned for lack of air. Black spots began to swim before her eyes and she wondered idly which would claim her vision first, hypoxia or being crushed by the water pressure. Milya drew on the Force, trying to endure the physical extremes being imposed on her, but it was to no avail. They had been under water at least five minutes now and her strength was being sapped. She fought to maintain consciousness, but at last she could endure it no more. With one last kick that reminded her of the injury to her ankle, she blacked out, tumbling helplessly through the dark waters.


 * Rishi

Of course it was raining, Akleyn figured as he looked out through a viewport in the aged Wan Shen transport that the Open Hands medical volunteers were currently turning into a neatly sorted storehouse with neatly-categorized and easily-accessible stacks of medical supplies that could be swiftly allocated to the medcenters. In fact, it was pouring and Akleyn was grateful he wasn’t out in it. From what he’d seen of Rishi thus far, it was humid and hot enough and he hadn’t even left the ship yet.

Not that his attention had been fully on the work he was doing either. It was certainly helpful to stockpile and sort the lots of supplies, but it was far from interesting and did little to occupy his time. The more tech-savvy doctors and medical professionals had already created a program sent to each lead doctor’s datapad informing them what was where and aside from actually moving the supplies, there was little to do. Akleyn contemplated assisting further with the supply transfer, but the combination of volunteers and loadlifters seemed to have the situation well under control. No sense exerting himself unnecessarily.

He withdrew a flask from his pocket and idly took a long pull, the brandy leaving a satisfying burning feeling as it flowed down his throat. Akleyn really wasn’t sure why he’d agreed to come to this place anyway, but it was better than having his father give him the alternately stern and pitying looks. For now at least.

He overheard a commotion at the far end of the transport. Glancing over, he saw three Yanibar Guard Army soldiers moving in, obviously support troops due to the fact that they weren’t armored at all and wore only sidearms.

“I need thirty-two volunteers with medical training and experience. The more the better,” their leader, a burly Zabrak sergeant was bellowing. “What’s the matter?” asked one of the volunteers.

“War’s the matter, Doc,” the Zabrak answered. “We’ve got more casualties at the south medcenter and not enough hands to treat them.”

“That’s the YG medcenter,” Akleyn said with a frown as he pushed off from the wall and advanced on the trio. “Is it not fully staffed?”

The sergeant fixed him with a steely glare.

“You want to sit there and ask questions about our staffing, son, or do you want to put those soft hands to work? Seems to me you were brought here to cure people, not make remarks on our personnel management, or am I mistaken?”

Akleyn bridled at the condescension evident in the sergeant’s voice.

“Well, if your people were any good at it, we’d have already been doing real work instead of stacking crates,” Akleyn retorted. “So I think a little questioning is in order.”

“Oh do you now? I’ll keep that in mind,” the sergeant replied, sarcasm dripping off every word. “What do you do that we brought you here?”

“I’m a doctor, a surgeon,” Akleyn said hotly. “And a damn good one, too.”

“Well, Mr. Damn Good Doctor Surgeon, you and your friends are coming with me to the south medcenter so we can give you something more pressing to work on then how to properly run a military operation.”

Akleyn opened his mouth to respond, but the sergeant cut him off.

“I thought you said you were a doctor and wanted to do doctor’s work? You can keep running your mouth, or you can do your job.”

Akleyn closed his mouth again, giving the sergeant a hostile glare. While part of him wanted to berate the Zabrak for his obvious rudeness and obstinacy, he also knew he would be wasting his breath. The other doctors and volunteers were looking at him for his response, so he swallowed his pride and took charge of the situation.

“Well, it’s about time,” he told the guardsman, then turned to address his peers. “You heard him, let’s go. Form into eight four-man teams, just like at Yanibar General, surgeon, assistant, nurse, and chemtech. Come on, move it! Todreyn, Sarkas, Aserov, you’re with me.”

Within minutes, the medical volunteers were scampering down the ramp of the transport into the downpour, led across the makeshift base through the mud to the south medcenter, followed by several loadlifters bearing additional medical supplies.

They were hastily escorted into the newly-erected building, issued temporary identification badges, and ushered into a dressing room where they scrubbed down. Akleyn remembered working a disaster site on Naos after an earthquake had devastated the populace—it had been a madhouse in the temporary medcenter, with surgery done quick-and-dirty, with few amenities or proper medical implements to deal with a massive influx of patients. This would be better, he hoped, as he slipped a gray surgeon’s gown over his clothes and washed his hands. To complete his attire, he added liquid-proof overboots and surgical gloves.

Once he was gloved, Akleyn turned to address his hand-picked team. They were all good medical professionals he’d worked with on Yanibar before, but he also knew none of them had experience in a situation like this. His surliness was now banished and in its place was a placid, professionally neutral facial expression that he wore whenever he was at work. His mind was calm, at ease, in touch with the Force enough to be able to tap into its power but not so interlaced that he was completely exposed to the disturbances reverberating through it from the myriad wounded.

“All right people, listen up,” he said. “You’re all very good at your jobs, but this is going to be challenging in a whole new way. It’s going to be chaotic and hectic and messy. There will be far too many people to help. We will not be able to treat every casualty, much less every wound on every patient. Your priorities are to save lives first and then limbs and eyesight. It’s going to sound harsh, but they can probably live without an arm as long as we stop the bleeding. Don’t waste time on those who are beyond your help. Remember your triage rules and above all, stay calm. They need it as much as you do.”

He turned to the door that led from the prep area into the treatment wards and slid a wheeled cart loaded with surgical tools in front of him, grabbing a mask and a surgeon’s headset from the cart and loading his pockets with a few tools he was sure to need at hand.

“Let’s do this.”

Immediately as he entered the ward, his senses were affronted with the fetid stench of blood, burned flesh, and bodily fluids. The moans of the wounded mingled with the whirring and beeping of the four medical droids attempting to process and treat the wounded. Injured beings were strewn chaotically throughout the ward, sporting hideous wounds to limb and torso. A YGA medic was busily sorting the patients into triage categories and Akleyn immediately approached him.

“I’ve got a four-man surgical team. Where are the immediate cases?”

The medic gestured to one corner of the room where a group of stretchers had been laid, each bearing the worst of the wounded. They were grievously injured, gashed and cut and bloodied and burned almost to the point of disfigurement. For every arm or leg shattered or shredded, there was another sentient with a hideous abdominal or head wound. A stab of anguish ran through Akleyn for an instant, as he knew some of these poor beings would not survive the hour, and he would be the one determining who was treated first. Then he swallowed hard, accepting the burden and knowing that if that choice had to be made, it might as well be him, a qualified and experienced medical professional, making it. At least he didn’t know any of them.

Akleyn moved over to the surgical table and pointed to a woman with one leg reduced to a bloody pulverized stump at mid-thigh and multiple stab wounds to the abdomen that were leaking blood and intestinal seepage. Only the hasty bandages applied to the stab wounds and the crude tourniquet had stopped the bleeding.

Numbers and anatomy diagrams and physiological facts that he would need flew through his head in an instant, easily recollected through constant use. One reason why he had chosen this victim first was because she was human, and he had had the most practice treating humans. They were easier than a species with a less familiar anatomy and physiology.

As the chemtech and the nurse hoisted the stretcher, Akleyn went into his operating theater vernacular—short, concise, and bereft of unnecessary parts of speech.

“Get her on the table,” he said. “Get me heartbeat and respiration monitors. Need a laser scalpel, a scope, vessel grafts, and flexclamps—arterial bypasses and bowel resectioning likely. Plasma line and oxygen stat.”

The assistant handed him the specified instruments while the nurse peeled off the bandages and cut the victim’s clothing off. Akleyn found himself staring at a bloody, oozing mess. He flipped down his headset’s visor to use its imaging sensors and saw massive internal damage, with multiple perforations that stabbed completely through the woman’s gut.

“More flexclamps,” he said, his voice faltering for just a second before it resumed that flat, professional voice. “Lots more.”

Within seconds, his hands were at work, wielding laser scalpel while the chemtech secured an oxygen mask over the woman’s mouth and, after quickly analyzing her blood for any potentially fatal irregularities, inserted an intravenous line pumping plasma into her arm to keep her from bleeding out.

Akleyn worked swiftly, his laser scalpel opening an incision into her abdominal cavity so he could get to the damaged organs as quickly as possible. The Force guided him, helped him focus as long as he maintained his concentration on the patient he was working on and not on the dozens of other hideously wounded beings in the ward. His fingers stayed steady as he worked to pinch off and splint damaged blood vessels and resection perforated intestines to remove portions that had been too pierced to try and clamp back together. His assistant Todreyn kept him supplied with the tools he needed and aided him when he needed more than two hands, communicating in terse statements.

Twenty messy minutes later, Akleyn had closed the abdominal incision, hastily sealed the stab wounds, and cauterized all the blood vessels in the severed leg stump. Were she a civilian at Yanibar General, there was much more he could have done to improve her chances of recovery, survival, and general quality of life, but Akleyn had no time for them. He was impressed that his team was disciplined enough not to question his decision to finish surgery in such an unfinished manner.

He laid one gloved hand on the woman’s stomach and closed his eyes, channeling healing Force energy into the wounds to try and hasten their closing while the nurse bandaged the leg he’d just finished working on. Her body had been severely traumatized, but Akleyn gave her fifty-fifty odds at survival. Then once the nurse was done, the patient was moved to a clean cot, hooked up to a different IV line and set of monitors to be attended to by the meddroids while the surgical table was quickly cleaned, and it was time to begin again.

“That one,” Akleyn said, pointing to a Twi’lek with his back severely burned from neck to tailbone.

And so he and his team continued doing their desperate work, racing against physiology and clock to try and save as many lives as they could. The Twi’lek survived the operations to stabilize him—he would probably live, and so would the Rodian with a hemorrhaging skull wound they treated next. Then the fourth patient, a human male whose chest had been crushed by some high-speed blunt object, died on the table when a bone splinter pierced his aorta and he bled out. Akleyn had known it was inevitable that he would lose patients that way—but while his rational mind had known that, he had not wanted to accept the possibility. Yet with the man flatlined and every second spent trying to revive him costing other people a chance at life, he couldn’t stubbornly try when the man was clearly dead.

“Kriff. All right, he’s gone,” Akleyn said, reverting to clinical detachment to keep himself from screaming in frustration. “Get the table cleared for the next one.”

After that, he lost count of how many patients he and his team treated. They all blurred together. Some lived. Many didn’t. The distinction grew less and less to Akleyn with each one that passed, because he couldn’t afford to do anything but ignore the results. To Akleyn, separating himself from the suffering occurring around him and cutting his emotions off was the only way to stay sane in those circumstances. So that’s what he did for the next eleven hours, performing surgery after surgery because that was all he could do.


 * Socorro 

The sound of rushing water, mixed with a dull rumbling, filled her mind, blotting out all other senses. She was floating, floating on an endless, sunless sea, and nothing else existed in her reality. Strangely, though, the crushing pressure seemed to be gone. And then there was the feeling of being probed, an uncomfortable sensation that seemed to pierce her very body and mind, pushing and poking at her, pressing at her as if to provoke a reaction.

Finally, something in the core of her responded, and her eyes snapped open as consciousness flooded back into the mind of Milya Kraen. She awoke to see Cassi kneeling over her, her two fingers hastily withdrawing from where they’d been shoved down her throat just as she gagged and began coughing up water. For the next ten seconds, her attention was otherwise occupied with expelling the liquid violently from her lungs. While she coughed, she took stock of her injuries. Obviously, she was no longer in immediate danger of drowning, but her ribs and chest were incredibly sore and her head throbbed, adding to the pain already present in her ankles. Her lungs were still burning from lack of air and she greedily sucked in as much as possible once her coughing fit ceased.

“Easy now,” Cassi told her. “You don’t want to hyperventilate—I don’t think your body can handle that right now.”

Milya glared at Cassi.

“Oh, we can just leave the packs up there and get them later. Great idea,” she said with a scowl, injecting as much derision as possible into her voice. “How could I have been so stupid as to believe that we’d actually get a chance to do so?”

Cassi rolled her eyes.

“A pleasant response for someone whose heart stopped beating for a couple minutes. Glad to see there’s no brain damage to your sarcasm.”

“Wait,” Milya said, her head spinning suddenly again. “What did you just say?”

“I said your heart stopped beating,” Cassi told her.

Cassi and everything else spun around in Milya’s vision as she tried to process what she’d just heard.

“I think I’m going to pass out,” she mumbled.

And she did.

When she awoke this time, both Cassi and Mithunir were kneeling beside her. She took several seconds to assess her surroundings—she was in a cavern of some kind, lying on wet black stone. The air was warm and humid, but not unbearable. The sound of rushing water and a faint rumbling could be heard in the distance. The only illumination was from Cassi’s lightsaber, which was lit and propped into a nook in the rock to cast light down on them.

“Let’s try this again,” Cassi said concernedly. “Less sudden movements, less talking.”

“What happened?” Milya managed.

“We almost lost you—you came close to drowning. We all did. Mithunir was able to get out of the water first, then he dove back in and fished us both out. I think you were underwater a bit longer than me.”

“I think I remember now,” Milya said, turning to Mithunir. “What did you do to last longer than us?”

“I went with the current, Milya Kraen,” he said. “And my people have some skill in creating air bubbles around us for breathing and moving faster in current.”

“Supercavitation,” Cassi remarked. “I never thought of using the Force to do that.”

Milya shot Cassi a weary look.

“I hope Sarth realizes how good of a wife you are to not only put up with his technobabble, but acquire it as well.”

“Don’t talk so much,” Cassi told her. “Your heart and lungs were strained severely—from lack of oxygen and taking in too much water.”

Remembering what had happened before, Milya heeded her advice, resting for the better part of an hour before she stood up.

“How are you feeling?” Cassi asked.

“Better,” Milya said. “And much more grateful. Thank you. It’s been years since I last felt this close to drowning. . . but I remember it well.”

“Don’t mention it,” Cassi told her. “The Force healing was surprisingly effective. I think the water was empowered with Force energy—I felt its power as we were pulled through it.”

“I didn’t notice,” Milya said. “I was focusing my use of the Force on surviving, I guess.”

“Indeed, the water carries considerable Force energy inside it,” Mithunir confirmed it. “I was able to make good use of it, and we will likely need it for the next clue.”

“The next clue?” Milya asked. “It seems all we’re getting are faint images of holos that resemble the galaxy with a fraction of the stars that should be there.”

“It could be a map,” Cassi suggested. “With only certain stars highlighted.”

“Then we need a legend,” Milya said.

“Perhaps the next clue will have it,” Mithunir suggested.

“Or. . . perhaps we can make our own clue,” Milya said. “Cassi, have you tried superimposing the holos on top of each other?”

“No, but that’s a good idea,” she said. “I’ll need a datapad to do it, though—and mine is back through all that water.”

“Even still, that’s not all the stars in the galaxy, but there ought to be enough on there to get a decent representation of them and figure out where this thing points to.”

“I sense that we will need this next clue to pursue our search further,” Mithunir offered.

“You seem in a particular hurry to get to this clue. One more won’t be nearly enough to get a viewing of all the stars in the galaxy, so there could be a lot more clues,” Milya pointed out. “Do you know something about this one?”

Mithunir shrugged.

“We are deep underground with no supplies or visible means of escape, having been drawn here by the Force. We do not know how many clues there are or how long it would take, so proceeding sooner rather than later is to our advantage. I would prefer not to trust the Force down here for too long.”

“Good point,” Milya said after considering it.

“The cavern leads off that way,” Cassi informed her, gesturing down the fairly straight passageway where a faint red glow was visible.

“The next clue must be over that way then,” Milya replied.

Still sopping wet, barefoot, and without most of their gear, the three proceeded down the wide corridor, trying their best to avoid cutting their feet on the rough and jagged rocks—a feat Milya and Cassi mostly failed at, though Mithunir seemed to have few problems with the rough terrain. The air grew warmer and there was a faint breeze evident through the passageway. In less than a half hour of walking, they were completely dried. Then the pieces of several observations Milya had passively made about their surroundings kicked in.

“Hold on,” she said, reaching for her minibinoculars from her utility belt. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

She scanned ahead of them and as she did so, a worried expression creased her face. Milya whirled on Mithunir.

“What are you trying to pull here?” she demanded.

“I do not understand.”

“Don’t play dumb with me. This cavern leads to some kind of magma chamber.”

“What?” Cassi asked.

“That red glow you saw up ahead is from heat and lots of it. This far underground, that generally means magma.”

“I had suspected as much, but I did not know that would be the case,” Mithunir answered.

“Well, it’s over then,” Milya said. “If we keep going, we’re going to face temperatures that will cook us well before we actually get to the chamber. It’s already warm enough as it is.”

“Do you see an alternative?” Mithunir asked. “We are trapped here otherwise. Our only choice is to advance.”

“Into a pit of magma,” Milya answered in disbelief.

Mithunir stepped over to her and placed his hands on her shoulders.

“Milya Kraen, the Force has led us this far. We have passed through dangers that few could have expected much less survived, and here we are. Why would you want to give up now?”

“Because now I actually have a chance to stop and think about the possibility of impending, certain death,” Milya snapped.

“Think? This is no time for thinking, Milya Kraen. You must unlimit your mind from the shackles you have placed on it. Stop thinking outside the realm of the possible and the impossible. You have the Force.”

“I’m also aware of the limitations of both myself and the Force. Walking into a magma chamber is well outside of those limitations.”

“Limitations you have defined,” Mithunir said. “I am asking you to step out on faith and trust in a power greater than yourself, a power greater than your efforts to wield it.”

“I’m already pretty far out on the faith limb,” Milya countered. “We’re here, after all.”

“I will continue, alone if need be,” Mithunir told her resolutely.

“And how do you plan on getting through the heat and magma?” Milya asked. “It’s seems pretty clear to me that you expected this.”

“After the first two clues, yes,” Mithunir admitted. “My people consider four elements as means by which to use the Force. Earth, air, water, and fire. The first clue was achieved by traveling through sand—earth. The second clue was wrapped in a powerful windstorm—air. I believe that the connection to water is obvious enough, and so that left fire. It made sense within the legends my father told me and within the understanding that the Shapers of Kro Var have between the elements and the Force.”

“So how are you getting through?” Cassi inquired again.

“I have been walking on hot coals barefoot since I was a child,” Mithunir informed them. “I walked my first lava flow at twenty. It has been many years since that time. Many of my people know how to manipulate the heat, to create a cocoon around us to protect us from heat.”

“We’ve done similar things,” Cassi told him. “Just not over lava or for prolonged periods.”

“It’s very taxing, and I’m not exactly at full strength,” Milya told him.

“I judge it to be less than a kilometer to the magma chamber,” Mithunir said.

“Let’s say it takes us three minutes to run to the magma chamber, another five minutes to get the clue. And then let’s put at least another twelve minutes into escaping,” Cassi said. “I’m not sure I can shield myself for twenty minutes against that much heat.”

“I can assist,” Mithunir said. “I cannot fully shield you, but I can create a corridor that you can run along, but only if you move fast.”

Cassi now laid her arm on Milya’s shoulder.

“I know it’s risky, and if you think it’s too dangerous, I won’t do it, but I think right now, this is our only chance. There aren’t any other ways out of here and we need the clue.”

“I could go ahead,” Mithunir offered.

“Not a chance,” Milya replied. “If we’d done that at any of the last two places, we’d have been trapped there. No reason to think this one is any different. If we’re going to do this, let’s get it done.”

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, seeking clarity from the Force. Her foresight had rarely failed her and now she looked ahead on their path, hoping to catch some glimpse of the future. When she opened her eyes several minutes later, she seemed resigned to the path they had taken thus far.

“I hate this idea, but as much as I hate to admit it, Mithunir is right. The magma chamber is our only way out of here, but I’m not ready to tackle it quite yet. I thought I was pretty tough, but that experience with the water wore me out. I’m going to need some time to meditate and rest, and I suspect it would help you two as well.”

They nodded their assent. With that agreed, the three spent the next several hours alternately sleeping and meditating and ignoring their hunger as best as possible. Finally, Milya called them together once they were rested, passing around high-energy capsules from her utility belt.

“It’s only for a short-term energy fix, but it’ll keep you going,” she said, downing her two capsules. “Better stretch and get ready for some sprinting.”

As they finished stretching and loosening up, Cassi noticed that Milya still seemed to be haggard and tired, despite her more enthusiastic demeanor. Part of her wondered if Milya had even rested at all—she looked like she’d been otherwise distracted.

“Are you up for this?” Cassi asked. “We can wait a bit longer if you need to rest more.”

“No, I’m fine,” Milya said. “We can do this and there’s no sense waiting any longer. I’m ready.”

“Let us go then,” Mithunir affirmed.

Together, they strode down the passageway in the face of intensifying heat. Soon, sweat dripped down their bodies and soaked their light garments as they closed in on the magma chamber. The air became increasingly dry, sapped of moisture by the heat. However, they dared not attempt their shields until needed for one last, final dash, in order to conserve their energy and concentration.

“What I wouldn’t give for a pair of extravehicular suits and a zero-g repulsor sled,” Cassi commented, mopping sweat away from her brow. “And a fresh deodorizer.”

“That won’t be a problem soon,” Milya quipped wryly. “The sweat will be steaming right off us in another hundred meters.”

Finally, when the heat grew too much to bear without further protection, they stopped. Milya shaded her eyes, looking ahead to the faint red glow of the magma chamber still some four hundred meters away. “This is it,” she said. “One final last crazy dash into a lake of magma. Everyone ready?”

“I have been waiting for this moment for years,” Mithunir told her.

Cassi merely nodded.

“Reach out to each other for support,” Mithunir advised them. “We must link our minds together and aid one another. Cover each other’s weaknesses. This will be the most difficult trial.”

“If Selu was here, he would say it’s a trial by fire,” Milya said, shaking her head ruefully.

“I wish he was here too,” Cassi said, chuckling in spite of herself.

“I wouldn’t wish here on anyone in my family,” Milya corrected. “It’s not getting any cooler—we should go.”

Mithunir stood in an esoteric stance, his feet spread wide, arms spread wide as if gathering something.

“I have prepared the column of cool air we shall travel along,” he said. “It will not last long, though, and you should shield yourselves as best as you can.”

Milya nodded as she and Cassi readied themselves for a frenzied sprint.

“Go!” Mithunir shouted, unleashing a massive blast of air from behind them that tore along the tunnel.

As soon as the words escaped his mouth, Cassi and Milya were off, summoning the Force to augment their muscles and sprinting madly into the magma chamber. They surrounded themselves with cocoons of cool air, fashioning adiabatic shields to create a Force barrier that heat could not breach. The gust of wind added impetus to their running and they kept their focus on the trail ahead even as the heat closed in on them. Within seconds, Mithunir was among them, darting ahead to lead them by a few strides so as to set the pace.

Soon, Milya noted out of the corner of her eye that the rocks around them were glowing red from the heat, but she forced the thought of how high the temperature was from her mind, lest she lose concentration and her shield falter. All that mattered was continuing to run as fast as possible, trying to keep pace with the currents of air that Mithunir had sent caroming down the tunnel. She could feel the wisps of heat burning along her back as the superheated air rushed into the space recently vacated by the cooler gusts. Even inside her bubble, it was oppressively hot and she could feel her skin blister and scorch from the intense heat, heat the like of which she had never been so totally immersed before.

The rumbling she had heard before now roared in her eardrums, forewarning her of the chaotic, fiery hell she was racing towards. The intense molten glow now consumed her vision and she was careful not to look down to where her bare feet were racing along a dark path among the glowing red rocks, a dark path formed by rocks instantly cooled to tolerable temperatures by Mithunir’s Force powers. It was up to her and Cassi to make their way along that path before the effect wore off and the stone glowed redhot with the infernal heat once more.

I’m not nearly as young as I used to be, Milya thought with regret.

Mithunir kept racing ahead and Milya realized with horror that he showed no signs of slowing even as they approached the edge of the magma chamber, to where a vast cauldron of liquid molten rock roiled and splashed. She could see nothing now but the bright orange of magma all around her, save for the narrow streak of cooled black stone she ran along, urging her body forward with every ounce of speed she could muster even while she fought to keep from overheating.

Her body protested the demands she was making of it, her head pounding and muscles aching from the heat and exertion. She smelled the acrid stink of singed hair and skin, but pressed on; knowing that to slow or stop was to die. Beside her, Cassi stumbled, but Milya caught her with one arm and pulled her forward. The heat now licked at her back with renewed hellish fury and she sought to catch up the lost stride. Mithunir half-turned and Milya sensed his mental effort boosting their protective Force bubbles, easing the pain. She sent him a grateful thought, but had time for little else other than sprinting as quickly as possible down into the fiery hell their quest had led them.

Mithunir sped up as he reached the edge of the magma chamber, sprinting as fast as he could and then leaping high over the lake of molten rock. His leap carried him twenty meters to land on a small black island in the midst of the chamber. Milya saw him disappear into the intense haze caused by the molten rock, but sensed he had landed safely at the next clue. “We’re going to jump,” she yelled to Cassi, who nodded and tried to accelerate.

Her heart pounding in her head and her lungs screaming from trying to breathe the scorching air, Milya urged her body to one last final effort. She ignored the heat blisters on her skin, the burnt sensation in her throat and nose from contact between sensitive tissues and the heated air. She dismissed the thunderous roar of the magma expressing its fury like fiery whitewater up ahead. She blotted out the feeling of smoldering from her back and feet. She ignored the protestations of muscles that had been battered and taxed far too much already. She did not feel the aches from her sixty-year-old knees which were only holding up due to considerable Force-empowerment. All that mattered was reaching the safe harbor in the midst of the magma lake where Mithunir and the next clue were.

She could barely see through the burning vapor emanating from the lake, but she instinctively knew she would be jumping in ten steps. She lengthened her stride, calling forth one last burst of speed. And then she and Cassi were neck and neck, preparing to launch themselves over a molten expanse. With one last push-off from the final outcropping of solid rock, Milya launched herself as high and far as she could with the Force’s help. Cassi was in the air a half-second behind her. Milya looked down and saw nothing but a hellish lake below her, but up ahead, was a small black island of rock lit by a single glowing orange object, with Mithunir standing beside it.

Based on years of experience, she angled her body towards the island, knowing it was her only chance of survival. Even as she approached, Milya’s heart sank as she realized she wasn’t going to make it. She and Cassi were going to plunge into the lake of fire and be immolated. Their efforts had been in vain. She clawed forward, seeking desperately to reach the island, but to no avail. Milya watched the angry magma rush up at her to consume her and squeezed her eyes shut, preparing to be instantly burned to a crisp.

Then, she felt a Force grip wrap itself around her and jerk her violently forward. Her fall arrested, she slammed into the side of the island, bashing her shins viciously, but avoiding the magma. Instead, she crashed into Mithunir, with Cassi tumbling into them from behind and nearly sending all three flying off the island.

To her surprise, the island was protected from the heat. While far from comfortable, the air was breathable. Milya breathed a huge sigh of relief, letting her quivering limbs rest while she sucked as much oxygen as possible.

“Thank you,” Cassi told Mithunir. “You saved our lives.”

“You were close,” he answered. “But sometimes, we must look to things beyond our own power for help. I was glad to do what I could.”

“Well, we wouldn’t have made it without you,” Milya said. “My shins can forgive the bruises.”

“Thankfully, it appears that the artifact is protected by a Force shield to prevent the heat from melting it,” Mithunir said. “You will not need your own protections while we are on this island.” “We made it,” Cassi said after they had had a chance to rest for several minutes. “I suppose we should get what we came here for.”

She turned to the artifact, a glowing amber glossy object in the shape of a flame, then turned to Milya.

“Would you like to do the honors?”

A smile tugged at the corner of Milya’s mouth.

“After all that, I suppose it couldn’t hurt. We’ll do it together.”

The two women laid their hands on the artifact, with Mithunir following suit moments afterward. The artifact glowed, its temperature rising almost to the point of searing, but they held on. Cassi retrieved her holocam and activated it, capturing the instant as a fiery orange dot shimmered into existence. Instead of a galaxy-shaped smattering of dots, though, a burning arc traced its way from the first dot until it finally exploded into a second starburst some distance away. The arc pulsed for several seconds, then all the emanations disappeared in a flash. Milya looked at Cassi for confirmation.

“Got it,” she said.

The magma beneath them suddenly began rumbling. Cassi looked down and saw it was becoming increasingly agitated. Bubbles of magma rose to the surface and exploded, sending sprays of liquid rock flying through the chamber. The molten material began rising and boiling.

“Uh oh,” Cassi managed. “Remember what happened the last time we touched these things?”

The magma level rose rapidly as some influx or agitation incited it to boil up. Fiery red and orange liquid raced towards them, threatening to consume the island and them as well. It was like looking into a sea of fire in the midst of a violent, thunderous, hellish storm. Waves of magma crested and crashed, eliciting further splashes of molten material.

“Do you see an exit?” Cassi shouted.

“No way out but the top,” Milya said. “I hope you know what that means.”

“Oh. . .” was all Cassi could manage.

Mithunir looked puzzled, wondering why the Force would have led them this far only to plunge them into an imminent incineration. The magma roiled and rose between them—obviously intent on eruption. The earth around them groaned and rumbled like a creature in pain, the sides of the cavern raining down burning hot stones that plummeted into the magma with magnificent splashes. And yet, in the midst of all this, Milya was calm.

“Get ready to jump,” she said. “Jump as high as you can.”

She put action to words, crouching down with bent knees and gathering the Force around her. Cassi looked up and saw a gray blur amidst the infernal oranges of magma, black ash, and the glowing reds of superheated stones. A gray blur with two lights shining down on them. And then Milya was gone, launching herself upward fifteen meters. Cassi realized what was going on just as the magma level came dangerously close to the island. She leapt while she still could, with Mithunir following, jumping high into the superheated air while drawing the Force around her to protect her from spontaneously combusting in this natural blast furnace. She caught the bottom edge of the sizable hatch leading into the Silent Surprise’s airlock and then suddenly Mithunir caught hold of her ankles, nearly dragging her down. Milya was there in an instant though, pulling both of them up quickly and extending her own Force powers around them to protect them from the heat.

Once they were both inside the smoldering airlock, Milya immediately sealed it shut manually. The insides were scorched and seared from even just the temporary exposure to the intense heat and then suddenly the ship lurched, tumbling them all to the floor. The floor was incredibly hot, leaving burn marks where it impacted exposed skin and scorching through clothing, so the three scrambled off it as fast as possible. Milya opened the inner hatch and they raced into the confines of the ships. Annita was waiting for them, making sure all three were inside before closing the hatch behind them.

“I’ve got them,” she said over her comlink. “Punch it!”

The ship shuddered and pitched nose straight up, sending them staggering around as they fought to maintain their balance. The subsequent acceleration, performed with reduced power to the inertial compensator, was nauseating and sent them slamming uncomfortably into walls and bulkheads, but soon, they were clambering forward to reach the bridge.

Jorge was seated at the pilot’s chair, staring straight ahead as the Silent Surprise raced out of the volcano just ahead of a furious eruption exploding up through the conduit. The pilot fought against thermals and updrafts which buffeted the ship, threatening to slam it into the side of the rocky conduit. Giant boulders rained down around him as the ship’s shields, hastily raised after the explorers had boarded, sought to fight off the intense heat. He flew through a cloud of ash and fire, racing hundreds of meters up through the narrow conduit, with the impending wave of magma close behind. It was a race to see if the intrepid spaceship could outrun the inexorable wrath of Socorro being poured out in the form of liquid fire. The magma exploded beneath them, stirred into a fury by currents of Force energy that sent it gushing skyward.

And then finally, just as the viewscreen was wreathed in fire and cinders, the Silent Surprise shot into the sky, riding the crest of a tremendous explosion that sent streaks of fire, burning boulders, and splashes of lava hurtling dozens of meters into the air amidst a billowing column of smoke and ash that rose into the stratosphere. The space yacht rocketed above and away from the eruption, evading the last few fiery missiles to finally slow down outside the danger zone.

Once they were finally safe, Jorge set the ship on autopilot, climbing for orbit, while he went back to see to his passengers.

“Well, that was a hell of a ride,” he commented, mopping at the sweat on his forehead.

“Hell of a job piloting, but you should have been there for the first three quarters of it,” Milya said from where she was lying on the deck.

Jorge helped her up.

“You three look terrible,” he said.

Milya glowered at him, fully cognizant of her battered, burned, bruised condition as well as burned and scorched clothing. Jorge noted the look she was giving him and quickly amended his statement.

“And yet, all things considered, not as bad as might be expected. Let’s get you to the medbay.