“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.