"I am confident in these calculations," the Cerean said.
Relin only nodded, his mind already moving to what he would do when his feet hit Harbinger's deck. He felt an unexpected exhilaration at the thought of destroying the ship and killing so many aboard, including Saes. He would turn Drev's grave into a burning pyre that would consume them all. He would- Marr's hand closed on his shoulder, and he flinched at the touch. His skin felt hypersensitive.
"Relin, you are unwell."
Relin knew he was sweating, breathing too rapidly. "I am all right."
He looked at the chrono: ten seconds.
He had traveled five thousand years into the future to have his life hang on the thread of the single moment they would spend in hyperspace. He flashed on the wild trajectory of the escape pod when it'd been caught in Harbinger's wake, the sickening twists and turns of the misjump.
Marr put his hand on the lever that would engage the hyperdrive.
"I will power us down the moment we emerge from hyperspace. Are you ready?"
Relin took a deep breath, feeling it against his broken ribs. "Yes."
They stared at the chrono as it counted down the final seconds.
"Prepare yourself for the Lignan," Relin said.
Marr engaged the hyperdrive.
Khedryn and Jaden popped the chewstim in their mouths as Jaden took Flotsam out to the edge of the rings. Open space beckoned before them, the moon bifurcated by the sun's light. Khedryn dared not scan for Harbinger lest the cruiser's passive scans pick up the probe.
Both of them watched the HUD chrono roll to zero.
"Mark," Khedryn said.
Jaden accelerated to full and blazed through space for the moon.
Kell lurked in the black between the moon and the gas giant's rings. He had positioned Predator as best he could to ensure that his scanners would pick up any ship exiting the rings in the direction of the moon.
Predator's cockpit had grown cold, but Kell modified his metabolism to maintain a comfortable body temperature. He sat in the darkness of his cockpit, staring into the void of space, wondering at its hidden meanings, seeking the truth of its many lines.
His mind drifted on clouds of memory. He thought of the other Anzati he had met through the centuries. They did not see the daen nosi. One had thought Kell mad. In return, Kell had slowly consumed his soup for a standard month, keeping him alive until the very end.
Kell was not mad. He was blessed, unique, chosen to see the truth of existence as written in the lines of the universe's fate. And soon he would have its cipher.
When he heard his sensor console beep to indicate a contact, he knew it was Jaden Korr. He knew, too, where Jaden was going and that he would kill him there.
He examined the scan signature of the small craft darting out of the rings. A Starhawk, moving fast, heading for the dark side of the moon. Not Junker; but its attached shuttle.
Where was Junker?
Kell pushed the thought from his mind, waited a ten count to give the Starhawk a nice lead, then brought Predator back online and fell in behind it.
The Imperial beacon indicated danger on the planet's surface, but given the age of the beacon and the extreme environmental conditions of the moon, Kell expected to find nothing but ice-choked ruins.
Still, he would prepare for any eventuality, as always.
Relin did not blink but felt as though he had. His visual senses registered only a blue afterimage rather than a hyperspace tunnel. One instant Junker floated at the edge of the rings, the next it floated under Harbinger and the cold metal and hard angles of the dreadnought filled his sight lines.
Power from the Lignan filled the space around the dreadnought like a fog. Relin felt it seep into him, feeding his seemingly boundless anger, his limitless need for revenge. He resisted at first, but it was half-hearted.
It was right that he feed his anger, feed it until it grew into a monster. Drev's fate merited anger. To feel something else would be to disgrace the memory of his Padawan.
"Do you feel it, Marr?"
Marr bared his teeth between clenched jaws, the chip in the incisor like a tunnel through which the Lignan's effects could leak.
"I feel it," Marr said, taking a moment to angle the ship properly and verify velocity. "Powering down. Diverting everything to the power crystal array."
He hit the emergency shutdown for almost every system on the ship, including life support, and repurposed the power to the crystal array. Junker's cockpit turned as dark as space and only their breathing broke the sudden silence, Relin's ragged with pain, guilt, and power, Marr's smooth but elevated. The ambient temperature dropped several degrees in a moment. The viewscreen remained active, though its clarity faltered and static clouded the image. A thick red beam from Junker's top split the screen, slammed into Harbinger's shields, and exploded into a spiral of red lines, an antique corkscrew boring into the Sith ship's deflectors.
"Is it supposed to look like that?" Relin asked.
Marr inhaled deeply and put a hand over his stomach. "I am nauseated. The ore does not affect you?"
"Not like it does you," Relin said, and left it at that. "I could screen you."
Marr shook his head, his face wrinkled with discomfort. "Do not waste your energy. I can bear it."
Relin recalled one of the first lessons taught to Force-sensitives by the Jedi. He remembered being taught it himself by Imar Deez, remembered teaching it to Drev. The words came out of his mouth without thought, a reflex, as Junker coasted through the cold of space toward Harbinger.
"Imagine in your mind a fortress of stone and steel, with crenellated walls. Within it stands a keep, itself walled."
Marr looked a question at him.
"Do as I say," Relin snapped. "It is a simple lesson and it will help."
"All right."
Relin mouthed the words spoken by generations of Jedi while his heart beat false in his chest, while the Lignan ate at his spirit. He was a liar and he did not care.
"Again, imagine a strong fortress, walled, unbreachable. Within it stands a keep, similarly fortified. Do you see it?"
"I have no training. I-"
"Do you see it?"
"I… can imagine it, yes."
"You are the keep, Marr. The Force is the fortress. Feel it."
"This-"
"Feel it. Open yourself to it." He had said the same words to Drev, once. Remembering his Padawan threw coal into the oven of his rage, but he kept it from his voice.
"Do not analyze it. Feel it."
Marr held Relin's eyes for a moment, then closed his eyes and steadied his breathing.
Relin walked him farther down the path, feeling each moment more of a hypocrite. "Imagine how you feel calculating a course through hyperspace. Focus on that feeling. Hold on to it."
It took almost no time, as Relin had known it would not. A Force-sensitive was usually habituated to drawing on the Force unconsciously. Marr did it every time he did mathematics. It usually took only a nudge to open up someone sensitive to simple uses of the Force. Through five thousand years it had remained just so.
Marr opened his eyes, the thickets of his eyebrows raised in wonder. "That is… surprising. This is what you do to keep it out?"
Relin hesitated, because he could not tell Marr that he no longer kept it out. Instead, he uttered another lie. "Yes."
Junker glided under the smooth metal of Harbinger's underside, past viewports, idle laser cannon turrets. Relin imagined that their sudden appearance under the ship had caused no small consternation among Harbinger's crew. They would be scrambling to respond.