Pelting through Junker's corridors, Khedryn led Relin to the tractor beam control compartment at the rear of the ship. A small, rectangular viewport provided a view outside the ship. They could see the fighters from Harbinger gaining on them, narrow slivers of black and silver metal hurtling through space toward Junker with ill intent. Khedryn noted the laser cannons mounted on each wing. The cruiser loomed behind the fighters, huge and dark.
"Lose the escape pod, Marr," Khedryn ordered over his comlink. "I don't want Jaden flying my girl with a sack on her back."
"Copy that," said Marr.
Seconds later they saw Relin's escape pod spinning through space in Junker's wake. One of the Blades fired its wing-mounted laser cannons, and green lines turned the pod into flame and scrap.
"Stang, those things are fast," said Khedryn.
"Blades are flying cannons," Relin said. "They have low-powered deflectors. One hit is all it takes."
"TIE fighters," Khedryn said. "Sith designs are the same no matter the time."
"Do you have deflectors?" Relin asked, strapping himself in at the console.
"Didn't I already say that this is a salvage ship?" Khedryn said, watching the Blades grow larger. "I have nothing that can even slow that kind of firepower."
Relin examined the controls. "Can the tractor beam be aimed with any precision?"
"Aimed, yes." Khedryn showed the Jedi the scan and lock display, the fire controls. "But precision? I use it for towing. It's not a weapon."
"It will be today. How do I communicate with the cockpit?"
Khedryn thought he knew what Relin intended. "Tell me you're not planning to do what I think you're planning to do? We'll be in the midst of the rings. The mass shifts alone-"
"If they follow us into the thick of the rings, we'll need to try something. The communicator, Captain."
Khedryn swallowed his protest. He activated the onboard intercom.
"Cockpit, do you read?"
"Clear, Captain," Marr answered. "Fighters are closing. We are in the outskirts of the rings."
In his mind's eye, Khedryn imagined the rings around the gas giant. Taken together, they were a storm of enormous size-five kilometers thick, more than a thousand kilometers wide, and riddled with chunks of rock and ice that varied in size from pieces less than a meter to mammoth hulks 150 meters in diameter. Junker's deflectors could handle the tiny particles, but if Jaden hit anything of size…
"Don't let that Jedi ruin my ship, Marr," Khedryn said. "Increase power to the forward deflector-for whatever good it will do."
"Yes, Captain."
"You don't ruin my ship, either," Khedryn said to Relin.
Relin ignored him, inhaled, closed his eyes, and seemed to lose himself in meditation for a moment.
Through the viewport, Khedryn watched the Blades swoop in behind Junker. The slits of their cockpit covers looked like a cyclopean eye squinting to aim.
Laser cannons fired and green lines cut the space between the two ships. Jaden dived Junker so hard and fast that Khedryn's stomach waved a greeting to his throat.
"I told you not to ruin my ship!" he said into the intercom. He scrambled into a seat and strapped himself in as Jaden pulled hard on the stick and put Junker's nose up.
Relin snapped open his eyes.
"Jaden, when we get into the rings, I plan to use the tractor beam against the Blades. Can you compensate?"
A long pause. "You tell me when and which way to expect the drag. I can compensate."
"Copy that." To Khedryn, Relin said over his shoulder, "Maybe they won't follow us in."
Khedryn nodded but knew better. He had not been born lucky.
A patter of ice and small rocks, the steady beat of a snare drum, announced their entry into the fringe of the rings. Khedryn felt Junker decelerate and allowed himself a relieved breath. At least Jaden wasn't crazy enough to try to run the rings at full speed.
The Blades devoured the distance between them. They moved in and out of view as Junker flew deeper into the rings and the debris field thickened. One of the Blades hit a chunk of ice, spun wildly, and exploded in flame against a spinning rock that reminded Khedryn in shape of a clenched fist.
Ever-larger chunks of ice and rock whirled by, a blizzard that would allow Jaden no room for even a single mistake.
"Stang," Khedryn said, clutching the base of his seat in a white-knuckled grip. He reminded himself to breathe and tried to slow his heart.
"Getting thick now," Marr said.
"Stop stating the obvious!" Khedryn shouted, but forgot to activate the intercom. It was just as well.
As if to make Marr's point, another of the Blades struck a chunk of rock and exploded into a shower of flaming metal.
"Ready yourselves," Jaden said, and Junker began to spin.
Jaden dwelled in the comforting warmth of the Force. He barely saw the swirl of ice and rock whirling through the space before Junker. He felt each rock, each bit of ice, large or small, as if it were an extension of his body. All were connected to one another and he was connected to them. He abided in the cohesiveness of the universe, the ship an extension of his will.
Action preceded conscious thought. His hands were a blur on the console. Junker dived, climbed, spun, wheeled, and careered through the empty spaces between ice and rock. The patter of particles against the cockpit viewport sounded like applause.
Laserfire cut glowing lines along their port side and Jaden turned starboard, dived, then burst out from the bottom of rings and into open space. For a moment he caught the glimpse of the frozen moon of his vision, a pearl against the black of space, before, he veered hard right and lost sight of it.
Laserfire once more turned the sky green, crisscrossed the space before them, cut the darkness aft and starboard. Jaden put Junker into a spiraling roll as he nosed the ship back up through the rings.
Marr, his voice tight, spoke into the intercom. "What do you see back there?"
"Two are down," Khedryn said, his voice as sharp as a vibroblade's edge. "The rest are in pursuit. These jocks are good."
Jaden knew. Several of them were Force-sensitive.
But they were not as good as he was.
The ship's internal compensators could not keep up with Junker's rapid shifts and the g's pasted Khedryn to his seat. His vision clouded now and again when blood rushed too quickly to his head or too quickly out of it. Jaden had Junker wheeling so wildly through space that Khedryn feared for the ship's integrity, never mind the rocks.
"Hold together, girl. Hold together."
The Blades appeared and disappeared in the viewport, flickering in and out of sight like a faulty image on one of The Hole's vidscreens. Rocks and bits of ice large and small moved in and out of his field of vision with dizzying speed. The rapidly changing visual field made Khedryn nauseous. Before him, Relin seemed as impassive as stone.
"Ever gone angling?" Relin said softly to no one. His hand gripped the tractor beam controls.
Junker spun and veered hard to starboard. Khedryn tried not to think about the stress the vessel would endure between Jaden's piloting and Relin's use of the tractor beam.
"Engaging the tractor beam, Jaden," Relin said. "Drag on starboard."
He aimed the tractor beam at a large planetoid in the rings. Junker lurched hard and slowed as the beam tethered it to the chunk of rock. Junker's momentum pulled the rock out of its orbit, and Relin held it for only a fraction of a second before cutting it loose.