The words were getting away from Dez. He couldn’t focus for more than a few moments at a time, on more than one or two things at once. He was with his friends again; he was in danger. That much he understood. The rest would be up to his fellow Jedi.

Aboard the Vessel, Geode was the lone element of calm as Leox paced around the bridge.

“There’s about eighty other ways we can stop Scover Byne from sending indentures to this station,” Leox said. His beads swayed across the bared expanse of his chest as he walked. “But no. Little Bit’s gotta perform cryptanalysis—and yeah, I know, she’s outgrown that nickname, it no longer describes her myriad complexities as an individual, so spare me, all right?”

Geode spared him, which was about the only break Leox figured he’d get all day.

“We now have only a very roundabout pathway from the center of the station to the ship, and I suspect Affie is unaware of this important fact.” Leox breathed out in frustration. By then the Nihil knew another ship had docked, but they either hadn’t found the Vessel yet or were distracted by other concerns. For the moment—for a very brief moment—this ship remained the one safe place around, and it was the one place Affie couldn’t get to. “She’s not going to be able to come back to us. Which means we’re gonna have to be the ones who get to her.”

Leox Gyasi was not a warlike man, but he was one who believed in the power of preparation. He went to the painted, carved trunk he kept on one side of the bridge, opened it up, and dug around beneath the shirts and incense for a second before he pulled out a blaster. It had been a long while since he’d shot anyone, but he remembered how it was done. If anyone got between Affie and safety, pulling that trigger wouldn’t be hard.

He turned to face Geode, who looked on in solemn silence. “Guard the ship,” Leox said. “Stay at the controls. And don’t even think about coming after us unless the situation gets a hell of a lot worse. Not sure exactly how that would even be possible—but fate has a way of showing us how, doesn’t it?”

Which was when the readings on the console began to spike in ominous ways. Solar flares—coming in hard, and soon—extreme enough that they might cause damage even to ships hidden behind the station. Which would mean penetrating the Vessel, and everyone within it, and vaporizing them instantly.

And there wasn’t a damned thing Leox could do about it.

He refused to worry about things he couldn’t change. Time to concentrate on what he could.

With a final nod of farewell, Leox headed for the airlock, toward Affie.