“I saw you, friend,” he shouted up, calling his lightsaber back to him. “Saw right where you’re hiding.”

The hilt smacked into his hand with a whap he always found utterly satisfying, his thick fingers slipping into grooves worn into the metal cylinder from tens of thousands of hours of practice and combat.

“And soon I’ll see you again,” he called.

Porter Engle sprinted toward the hill, moving faster than the Nihil could probably see, leaping up and over and from side to side. No more blaster bolts. He had a feeling the surviving Nihil had thought better of this whole ambush and was making a run for it.

When he made it to the top of the rise, he learned that he was right. The Nihil was sitting on another steelee, trying to get the beast to move, digging his heels into its sides. He wasn’t shouting at the poor creature, its head down and hooves dug in hard—he knew better than to make that kind of noise—but Porter knew that under ordinary circumstances he’d be cursing at it, using every horrible oath he could dream up.

“I bet you’re the one that shot my animal,” Porter said.

The Nihil whipped around, his blaster firing, and the conflict ended the only way it could.

Porter was utterly certain.

The Nihil toppled off the steelee, a smoking hole through his mask.

Porter Engle wasted no more time on him. He deactivated his lightsaber and slapped it into his holster, then approached the traumatized steelee, his hand outstretched.

“Hey there, fella…” he said. “You are a luminous being. Whaddya say you and me go do some good?”

The steelee looked at him, its eyes wide. He touched its flank, and it calmed. He wrapped his hands in its bridle, preparing to heave himself up into its saddle.

And then the Nihil with the hole through his mask sat up. He lifted his blaster to fire—and Porter Engle realized the raider was probably of some species that kept its brain elsewhere in its body, meaning he could survive a headshot, meaning that Porter Engle, whose hands were occupied with the steelee, was about to die.

These thoughts ran through his head, along with an odd moment of sadness about a refinement to one of his pie recipes he would now never get to try, and he prepared his spirit to join the Force.

A black, gray, and red-orange blur leapt off the rocks, directly at the injured Nihil.

Ember, Porter Engle thought in astonishment. He’d forgotten all about her.