A phalanx of pill droids floated off to one side of the array, all equipped with cooling units able to send out blasts of wintry air wherever they might be needed. Keven had kept them in reserve until now, but it was clear that the time had come.

He tapped his datapad, and several of the pill droids zoomed over to Node Five, shooting out cold air from their vent attachments that immediately brought the temperature down. Fine. It was fine.

As long as the pill droids’ coolant held out, and as long as he didn’t lose too many more navidroids. Fifty-seven thousand, seven hundred and twelve, now—and he really shouldn’t have even tried this with less than seventy-five thousand.

Node Seven was starting to run hot, and Keven had learned his lesson. He sent another few pill droids in that direction to cool it down before anything went wrong.

This can work, he thought. I can do this.

Node Fourteen came online, modeling the nineteenth Emergence, and it overloaded immediately, hard, fifty droids at once shooting the same set of sparks Node Five had just produced. Maybe an error in the linkage, maybe that was just a particularly complex part of the simulation.

“No!” Keven shouted.

He was dimly aware of voices in his vicinity, asking questions, offering advice, concern…he couldn’t spare time for them, not even a moment. The array was on the verge of a cascading failure.

Twenty pill droids whipped over to Node Fourteen—half of what he had left, and they were barely two-thirds of the way through the simulation.

They’re going to blame me, he thought. They’re going to say it was my fault. I was just trying to help. I did my best. I did my—

A hand touched his arm, and Keven jumped. He looked—it was the Jedi, Avar Kriss. A few steps behind her, the other one, Elzar Mann—they always seemed to be together.

“Be calm,” she said, and he was. He felt better, just having her there.

“What’s happening?” Avar asked.

“The array’s producing too much heat, but I can’t stop the simulation now. Either it runs to the end, or there was no point to any of this. We haven’t learned anything new yet, either. If we stop now, it’s all a waste.”

Another rain of sparks—Node Eleven. Three hundred and eighty-two droids gone, all at once. Fifty-seven thousand, two hundred and eighty-five left.

Keven sent the rest of his pill droids to cool down that section, which would work for a bit, but a glance at the datapad showed him at least four more nodes in serious trouble.

Nodes Three and Eight blew. Fifty-three thousand, four hundred and twelve. If they got below fifty thousand, it was over. No amount of reshuffling and load balancing would create processing power where it didn’t exist.