“This is no good,” Master Douglas said, turning back toward the group. “There’s no way to get to the escape pods this way.”
“The pods are gone,” croaked a beautifully dressed Mon Calamari man. “You have to get upstairs to the next deck. There are none left down here.”
“How can that be?” Ambassador Weft said with a frown. “This ship has less than half of the passengers it can accommodate.”
A cracking sound began to echo through the ship, along with far-off booms that caused everyone in the hallways to scream, duck, and scatter. Master Douglas frowned just as alarms began to wail an alert.
“Get back!” he yelled.
There was a push to the middle of Imri’s chest, and he went flying backward along with Honesty, Avon, and Vernestra. Imri fell into the droid, J-6, and groaned.
“Excuse you,” she said, a bit snippily for a droid.
Imri did not have a chance to respond. He stared in surprise as a bulkhead slammed shut, separating them from Master Douglas and the adults of the Dalnan delegation.
“Father!” Honesty said, jumping to his feet and running up to the barrier. He pounded his fists against the metal.
GO. SAVE YOURSELVES, Imri heard inside his head.
“Did you do that?” Avon demanded, eyes wide as she stared at Vernestra. The Mirialan shook her head, the motion causing her hair to come loose from the fastener holding it back.
“It was Master Douglas,” Imri said, climbing to his feet. “He pushed us backward so we wouldn’t be trapped by the bulkhead. We have to go back the way we came.”
Honesty rested his forehead against the barrier for a moment before straightening, dashing away tears as he did so. “Then let us go,” he said, his jaw clenched. His mop of brown hair had been tousled and his pale brown tunic was ripped along the high neckline, but that was the only sign that they had just been through a maelstrom. When Imri reached for him with his senses, a habit that helped him understand how other people were feeling, he felt nothing, just a tightly controlled set of emotions. Either the boy was still in shock, like Avon, whose feelings were in such disarray that she’d settled on annoyance, or he had locked down his terror so tightly that Imri could sense nothing through the Force.
Master Douglas had urged Imri to get better at talking to people, not just to suss out what was happening by way of the Force, but Imri couldn’t help it, most especially when everything but the Force felt chaotic and wrong.
If only Master Douglas were there to walk Imri through the confusion he was feeling. But he was on the other side of the barrier. The elder Jedi had given them all a chance to survive.
Their motley crew ran down the hallway, Avon in the lead. She stripped off her skirt as she ran, revealing leggings and boots underneath. Imri was not surprised, the girl always seemed to be prepared for anything.
Avon skidded to a stop in front of a badly damaged hatch, scowling.
“How about a little Force help?” Avon said, gesturing to the crumpled door. The metal had been pushed to one side so the door would be impossible to open without a welding torch or some sort of heavy gravity hammer.
Imri was closest, so he drew his lightsaber and slashed through the metal. He tried to use the Force to push the remaining bits out of the way, just as Master Douglas had earlier, but his control was slippery. It was hard to reach the Force when all you could think about was whether or not your master had made it out alive.
Vernestra holstered her lightsaber before gesturing toward the door without a word, and the pieces folded inward, creating space for Avon and J-6, who wasted no time making their way through the door. Honesty followed at a jog, and when Imri made to go next, the pressure of a hand on his shoulder stopped him. “Imri,” Vernestra said. “It’s going to be all right. All is as the Force wills it.”
Imri nodded, but her words did nothing to chip away at the numb feeling that was growing in his heart. But there was no time for worry; they still had to escape the ship.
They ran down the hallway, past game rooms and a jewelry shop, searching for a way up or down, anything to get to another deck with escape pods. This deck was full of entertainments for passengers, but it was short on pods, and Imri was beginning to think that they would never find a lift or a staircase to the other floors when they came upon an entrance to a hangar.
“We should try there,” Vernestra said, pointing to the sealed door.
“How is it all of these doors have been destroyed?” Avon asked, frowning. “It’s almost like someone doesn’t want us to make it off of this ship.”
Vernestra did not wait for Imri to try to open the door this time. She reached out and crumpled the metal like a giant dinner napkin. Avon was the first one through, as usual, but this time Vernestra was right behind her.
“Avon, quit rushing into places without checking first,” she said.
Imri waited for Honesty and J-6 to go through the door before he followed. When he entered the hangar, a cramped area with only a single maintenance shuttle, his eyes widened.
“Whoa,” he said. Someone had hacked the service droids to pieces. There looked to be a trio of them that had been dismantled, their components left strewn about.
“I don’t think this was an Emergence,” Vernestra said, drawing her lightsaber and holding it out before her. “Someone wanted to make sure no one could leave.”
“So, we’re doomed,” Honesty said, his voice flat. “We should’ve known better than to travel amongst the stars. We should have welcomed our ends in the dining room.”
Avon gave the boy a look somewhere between disbelief and disgust. “There’s always hope. The maintenance shuttle is better than nothing. But we need to hurry up. Look.” She pointed to where the wall had begun to open up, revealing the darkness of space just outside, beyond a shimmering barrier. The emergency hull breach protocol that protected ships in case of an emergency was beginning to fail. “That is a secondary layer and only meant to last long enough to secure passengers in bulwarked parts of the ship.”
“And with the damage we saw in the dining room, even the bulwark areas are compromised,” Vernestra finished. “We don’t have time to be picky. I can feel Master Douglas . . . fading.”
“Me too,” said Imri, voice quiet. It was a terrible feeling, and he wanted to cut himself off from the Force to avoid knowing that somewhere on the ship his mentor was fighting for his life, and losing.
“What does that mean?” Honesty asked.
No one answered him.
“This shuttle seems to be mostly operational,” J-6 called. Avon dashed over to the droid, and the rest of the group followed her. As luxurious as the Steady Wing had been, the maintenance shuttle was the opposite. White interior with gray seats positioned along each wall, and pilot and copilot seats up front. There were cabinets full of tools and hopefully a few supplies, foodstuffs and water to last until they could make it to a way station. It was a tight fit once inside, and Imri stood near the back, uncertain what to do. Vernestra moved toward the pilot’s seat, but Avon was already there, flipping switches and turning knobs.
“You know how to fly?” Imri said, skeptical. As a Padawan he had not started pilot’s training yet, and Avon was at least two years younger than him. It made him feel uncertain and a little envious that the girl knew what to do, even without the Force to guide her.