Orla murmured, “What’s happening?”
That was when Leox Gyasi’s voice came over the ship’s comms: “Everybody who wants to stay alive, strap yourselves in now!”
Reath ran for the jump seats, reaching them just as all the other Jedi scrambled in. As they hurriedly fastened their safety harness straps, Orla called out, “What’s happening?”
Leox answered, “Near as I can figure, hyperspace is broken.”
“What?” Dez looked as bewildered as Reath felt. “How is that possible?”
“Tons of debris, the kind of thing you usually never find in hyperspace? It’s all over hyperspace.” The spice stick gripped between Leox’s teeth was getting a grinding. “As in, littering every route out there.”
Reath could barely put the thought into words. “But that would mean a disaster on—on a galactic scale.”
“That’s pretty much the size of it,” Leox said. “Now everybody hang on.”
Affie had seen a lot more than most seventeen-year-olds. Had boarded and served as crew on ships traveling the length of the sector, now across the galaxy, all the way from Kennerla to Coruscant. Had helped steer a ship through a hyperspace vortex once.
But she’d never seen Leox Gyasi so close to losing his nerve.
His hands remained fixed on the controls as he attempted to hold steady. “So,” she said, “what do we do now?”
“We try to check whether our path is clear.” Leox would’ve looked almost relaxed to anyone who didn’t know him as well as Affie did. Only she and Geode could detect the tension coiled inside. “If we get hit by so much as a splinter of metal, we’re looking at explosive ejection from hyperspace, followed by your favorite and mine, a hull breach.”
Hull breach. Every space traveler’s worst nightmare. A breach meant being blown out into the frigid void of space—which would kill you within two or three minutes. Within only seconds if you had any breath in your lungs, which would immediately expand and burst.
Even worse: the electric blue of hyperspace was changing color. Shifting more violet, all the way to red. Affie had no idea why that was happening, but it couldn’t be good.
The navicomputer began blinking fast, sending staccato crimson light across the bridge. “We’re picking up debris,” she managed to report. “Something huge.”
Leox said what she was really thinking: “That thing’s got a bull’s-eye on us.”
“Can we evade?”
“We’re gonna find out.”
Steering in hyperspace was no mean feat. Generally, there was no need to do so, since the navicomputer calculated and modified the jump at inhuman speeds. Today was an exception. Experienced pilots formed a kind of intuition about hyperspace—an instinct—that worked better than any droid or machinery. Leox had better instincts than any other pilot Affie had ever encountered. He could save them if anyone could.
She just wished she didn’t know how big an if that was.
“Hang on!” Leox’s voice rang through the shuddering Vessel. Reath, who was already hanging on as tightly as possible, felt his gut drop. The other Jedi maintained their calm, or seemed to, but Reath could only manage the appearance of it. Not the reality. His jittery mind kept talking: We should’ve held out for a better ship or a bigger ship or a ship with a more credible crew or basically any other ship except this one—
WHAM! A bone-shaking jolt struck the ship, jarring Reath so hard he jerked against his safety straps and bit his tongue. Strange vibrations began rippling through the Vessel, more ominous than the crash had been. Was their ship about to fall apart?
Over the intercom came Leox’s voice, lazy as ever. “Okay, so, there’s good news and bad news.”
Master Cohmac and Orla shared a glance, which Reath caught out of the corner of his eye. He wasn’t the only one having doubts.
“The good news is that instead of space debris smashing us into so much scrap metal, it only winged us,” Leox continued. “The bad news, as the astute among you have already perceived, is that we’ve taken some damage. Affie’s gonna check that out.”
Already Affie was dashing past the jump seats, catching herself against the wall every time the ship lurched in a new direction, as it did constantly. Dez said, “Does anyone here have any expertise in starcraft repairs?”
“I just finished the basic course,” Reath said, then waited for the other Jedi to chime in with their superior knowledge.
Nobody did. “Your experience is more recent than any of ours, then,” Master Cohmac said. “See if you can help.” He winced, as if in pain, but said nothing more.
Thinking that he might be the repair expert on board was almost as unnerving to Reath as the collision had been. But he immediately unfastened his straps and followed Affie.
The ship lurched from side to side; Reath stumbled into one wall, then another, but managed to stay on his feet until he finally got to the ladder that led belowdecks. He grabbed the rungs firmly before venturing a foot down.
“What are you waiting for?” Affie called. “Hurry!”
Reath let go of caution, and of the ladder, dropping down into the inner workings of the ship. Affie was already hip-deep in machinery, tools in hand. He asked, “What’s going on?”
Then he saw for himself what was going on—which was that the coaxium regulator had come completely unhitched from its station. Affie had grabbed the regulator with her bare hands, which were already turning blue with the severe cold. Shaking, trembling, she was managing to hold the regulator in place, directing its cool green beam of energy into the engines where it belonged.
If she lost her grip, the beam would slide sideways and tear the Vessel in two.
Affie didn’t look up. “We also need someone to reset the regulator station, if you think you can manage it.”
Reath grabbed a tool packet and jumped down into the workings beside her. “I can do it. But if you’d rather I held the regulator while you did the repairs—”
“No. If the ship lurches during handoff, we’re done for.” Affie shivered from the cold but kept hanging on. “Just be quick about it, okay?”
He worked as fast as he could, welding the station frame firmly enough that the worst turbulence shouldn’t shake it. The ship continued bucking and shaking, and once Affie seemed on the verge of losing her balance. Reath reached out with the Force to steady her as best he could. He didn’t have the finesse necessary to hold the regulator exactly in place, but he could keep her upright.
“Whoa,” Affie said. “What is that? Do you—is that a third hand or something?”
“It’s the Force.”
“Seriously? You can feel it!” She laughed out loud with surprise, and maybe even delight. “You’re not a monk. You’re a wizard.”
“Yes! Monk-wizards. That’s us.” Reath checked what he’d done; it looked right, but a more experienced eye was called for. “Are you able to see my work? Do we have it?”
Affie glanced over her shoulder. “Yeah. That should do it. Help me lift this.”
Reath put his hands on the regulator, too, and nearly cried out. It was freezing, so much so he could feel stabbing pain in every bone of his arms. Affie had to be in agony. But she did no more than wince as they carefully, carefully pushed it upward. The metallic click of the regulator snapping back into position was one of the best sounds he’d ever heard.