He found it difficult to maintain a passive screen against the Lignan's ambient energy. It leaked through his defenses in dribs and drabs, though it no longer caused him the same degree of discomfort it had previously. He had become inured to its worst effects. The radiation had polluted his body. The Lignan had polluted his spirit. He was failing all over.
Marr had Junker's controls. Even if Relin had not lost a hand, the unfamiliar instrumentation would have made it difficult for him to fly. The chrono in the HUD counted down the time line as they moved into position.
He flashed back to the past, his past, recalled sitting beside Drev in the Infiltrator, countless times, recalled his Padawan's laughter, his joy. It seemed long ago, yet to Relin it had been only a day. The wound of his grief still bled freely, unscabbed, unscarred.
"You are thoughtful," Marr said, adjusting course.
"I was thinking of my Padawan."
"I see," Marr said.
Hunks of rock and ice floated past the cockpit window. Marr did a fine job of steering them through the debris. No doubt he was an excellent pilot.
Just like Drev.
"Before our assault on Harbinger, Drev piloted our ship through an asteroid belt not unlike this."
"At speed?"
"Yes, using the Force." Relin remembered Drev's smile and tried to answer it with one of his own, but he simply could not summon it. His lips twisted into something he imagined looked more like a bared snarl than a smile.
"He must have been an extraordinary pilot," Marr said. "I have never seen anything like what Jaden Korr did with Junker. You must have been an exemplary teacher."
Relin appreciated what Marr was trying to do but it brought him no comfort. He shook his head. He had lost one Padawan to the dark side and another to battle. "I was a poor teacher, I fear."
To that, Marr said nothing.
"You have not consulted the navigation computer," Relin said. "You do all of the computations in your head?"
Marr nodded.
"I have never seen so narrowly focused a gift from the Force. I suspect it has a purpose you do not yet see."
Marr smiled, Relin noticing his chipped tooth. "Perhaps this moment is its purpose."
"Perhaps," Relin said, liking Marr despite himself.
Moving at one-eighth power while watching the HUD chrono, Marr maneuvered them through the rings until they neared the edge.
"Far enough," Relin said. He did not want them hanging out there too far, visible to Harbinger's passive scans. The debris in the rings would give them cover until Flotsam got into position. Meanwhile, they could gather some situational intelligence.
Through the debris field they could see the milky glow of the gas giant's moon.
"I will magnify on the HUD," Marr said.
The moon, filling a section of the cockpit window, grew larger with each press of a button-larger, larger, until it filled about half the window. Rock and ice floated before them and blocked a clear view, but Marr could see it well enough to note the long, dark form silhouetted against the moon's glow.
"The cruiser has moved into orbit around the moon," he said.
"That is more distance that we'll need to close," Relin said. "Harbinger will have more time to respond to our approach."
Marr tapped a few keys on his console. "Two hundred eighty-one thousand three hundred two kilometers from here to there."
Relin estimated the math in his head. "How fast does Junker fly at sublight?"
"We can cover that distance in about a minute."
"A minute," Relin said, thinking. "Too long. The high-alert Blades will scramble."
Marr licked his lips. "Alternatively, we can attempt to jump right under Harbinger."
Relin's thoughts collided with Marr's suggestion. "Jump? We are still in the planet's gravity well, as is Harbinger. And there's the moon's well, too."
"We are at the outside of the gas giant's well, and the moon's is weak. I can account for all of that in such a short jump." He paused, cocked his head. "Maybe."
"Maybe?" Relin looked at the HUD. Debris from the rings blocked the moon and Harbinger from view. "You are talking about using the hyperdrive to jump between a planet and its moon. A second in hyperspace, maybe less."
"I do not see an alternative. Do you?"
Relin did not. "I have never heard of this being done."
"Nor I," said Marr. "But maybe now we see the actual purpose to which my talent is to be put."
Relin decided that he would have to trust in Marr's gift, have to trust in the Force. Hypocrisy stabbed at him.
"Do it," he said. He looked at the chrono, counting down the time. "You have less than an hour to get the calculations done."
Marr leaned forward in his seat and started to turn off the magnified HUD display. Junker had shifted some, and he could once more see the moon and Harbinger.
"Leave it up," Relin said.
As Marr began his work, Relin sat in his seat and gazed at Saes's ship, letting memories put a spark to the kindling of his anger. Staring at the dreadnought, he recalled the black scar of twisted metal, all that remained of its primary bridge, all that remained of Drev.
The pain in his ribs and arm faded in the flames from the pain in his heart. The ambient energy from the Lignan stoked his quiet rage and he let the flames grow, heedless of what they were consuming.
He magnified the HUD further, growing Harbinger in his sight as anger grew in his core. And the alchemy of that anger transformed the pain of loss into the power of hate. He held it in and gave no outward sign of his feelings, though he thought he must soon burst.
"Hurry, Marr," he said, his voice choked by the emotional turmoil within him.
Marr said nothing, simply continued his calculations. Even with his mathematical gifts, he relied heavily on assistance from the navigation computer. Relin could not follow all of the formulae, but he could see that Marr was making remarkable progress.
Jaden glided through the rings at one-half power, Flotsam twisting and turning to avoid rocks and ice as necessary.
Khedryn eased back in his chair, hands crossed behind his head. "A bit more controlled than your previous piloting, Jaden."
Jaden smiled distantly as he stared out of the slit of the cockpit window, his mind on something else altogether. Khedryn wondered if the Jedi regretted confessing to him.
Khedryn said nothing more as they circumnavigated the gas giant, using its rings for cover. Eventually they caught up with the blue superstorm that looked like the planet's eye, half of it lost in the night side, the other half still in light and staring. Jaden watched it as if hypnotized.
"You all right?" Khedryn asked, concerned that Jaden might drift Flotsam into a rock.
"Fine," Jaden said, his voice soft.
They planned to come around the gas giant and put the moon more or less between them and Harbinger, hoping that their small size would allow them to hide in the moon's scanner signature.
A HUD in the cockpit window showed the countdown. If all went as planned, Flotsam and Junker would break from the rings at the same time.
Khedryn took out the chewstim Marr had given him, ripped it in half. He held a piece out.
"Jaden?"
"Yes, thanks."
"Hold it until we actually go," Khedryn said.
Jaden nodded. Together they watched the chrono and waited.
Marr completed the calculations with ample time to spare, then double-checked them.