Aryn did not bother to respond. She dwelled in the Force, floated in and on the warm network of lines that connected all things, one to another. Her consciousness expanded to see and feel everything near her. She focused on her perception of the passage of time, first on how it felt as she moved through it, then on spreading it, stretching it, until she could linger in a millisecond as if it were a moment, then a minute. To Zeerid it would appear that she were a blur of motion, existing simultaneously in multiple places. To her, it felt as if the universe around her had stilled. She smiled, seeing the moments that hung before her, each millisecond a long moment in which she could think, in which she could act. The effort taxed her, and she knew she could not maintain it for long.

“Watch the scanner,” Zeerid said, his words a lifetime in the utterance.

She did not watch the scanner. Her body could respond faster than any machine. Instead she watched the viewscreen. The Imperial ships had finished their hydrogen skim and now maneuvered into a formation suitable for a hyperspace jump, the supply ships within the ring of the frigate escort.

She tensed.

“They’re forming up,” Zeerid said. The waves of his tension crashed against her but she dammed them off, did not allow them to disrupt her focus.

She watched, waited, waited …

As one, the Imperial ships began to stretch in her perception. For a nanosecond, all of them seemed to stretch to infinity, their rear engines a hundred thousand kilometers off Fatman’s bow, their forms reaching across and through an incomprehensible distance. She knew it was illusion, that is was a trick of her perception caused by the moment they entered hyperspace seeming to freeze before her eyes.

She engaged Fatman’s hyperdrive and the black night of space turned blue.

“Now, Aryn! Now!” Zeerid said, but he was far too late.

They were already gone.

She remained immersed in the Force as Fatman surged through hyperspace. The ordinary maddening churn slowed to a crawl of spirals and whorls, the script of the universe writ large in characters of blue, turquoise, midnight, and lavender. She fancied there might be meaning in the lines, an important revelation that hung before her, just beyond the reach of her consciousness.

She lost track of the slow passage of time. Zeerid spoke to her from time to time but his words bounced off her perception, ricocheted without her comprehension. In time, something he said penetrated her understanding.

“Coming out, Aryn. Be ready.”

She watched Zeerid, moving in slow motion, pull back on the lever that engaged the hyperdrive.

She readied herself, and the moment the blue of hyperspace started to fade into black, she pushed a series of buttons and switches that turned Fatman cold except for life support, thrusters, and the small amount of power they’d need to create an electromagnetic bond.