They stood still for a few moments. “We’ve all felt it now,” Orla said. “I might have assumed it was no more than a rogue tree; plants can sometimes be strong in the dark side. But this…”

“Is different,” Cohmac finished for her.

“It feels deliberate.” Orla breathed in and out, tried to center herself in the Force, but such calm was elusive.

By then the darkness was more than a shiver, almost a presence. As if something, or someone, was slowly approaching them. Orla wondered if that could be true. Had a being hidden on this station? Was it not as abandoned as they had supposed?

“I’m checking the corridor,” Orla said, hurrying toward the door. From the corner of her eye she saw Cohmac nodding—he’d sensed the same thing—

And then Orla was alone in the howling dark.

She dropped into a crouch before the gale-force winds could knock her down. Cold chilled her to the marrow, and sharp flecks of debris scratched at her skin. Terror clawed at her belly, threatening to drag her into darkness, too. Orla called on the Force to sustain her. Even if she could no longer sense it, the Force was always there.

“Cohmac!” she shouted, not knowing why. “Cohmac, where are you?”

Shards of metal and mineral dug into her hands as she pushed herself up, trying to look around. In the distance, she could make out only collapsed beams of metal—and through them, an ominous glow. Though it was the brightest light she could see, it filled her with nothing but horror.…

No more cold. No more darkness. Orla opened her eyes (when had she closed them?) to find herself in the arboretum, near the door, just where she’d been a few seconds before, when the universe made sense.

“Cohmac?” she called, but heard no answer. Rising back to her feet, she saw him lying among the moss and vines on the floor, either unconscious or in trance, as though prostrate before an unknown god. Orla hurried to his side, and just as she knelt by Cohmac’s shoulder, his dark eyes flew open. But his breaths were coming short and shallow, and he stared upward at Orla without seeming to truly see.

“We have to get back to the ship,” Orla said gently, unsure whether Cohmac could even hear her. “Let me put my arm beneath your shoulders.”

“That wasn’t just a vision.” Cohmac blinked, then looked up at Orla with complete clarity. “It was a warning.”

Reath had thought they were getting to the easy part. Everybody was safe; everybody needed to share space for a while, so they’d all try to get along, right?

He’d been so wrong.