He pushed away his awareness of Loden’s Vector shooting back up into the sky, continuing the chase alongside Indeera in her own ship. He forgot about the ground, the sky, everything but the Force, and searched for a tiny spot of light within it, the sense of a lost child who needed to be saved.

There.

Bell could barely open his eyes against the rushing wind. He wished he had a pair of goggles…but truthfully, he didn’t need them, or his eyes, either. He had the Force.

He wrapped his arms and legs tight to himself and angled his body down, feeling himself shoot forward as he became more aerodynamic.

Bell reached out to the Force, asking it to push him even faster. The little girl was flailing, and that surely created some wind resistance, but they would both reach terminal velocity soon enough, and then he wouldn’t be able to catch her. The second or so of fall before Bell had leapt from the Vector had undoubtedly given her a significant lead.

But the Force answered, and perhaps the sleekness of his Jedi leathers let him shoot forward more quickly than he otherwise might. All he knew was that he was getting closer. The Blythe child’s terror was looming in his senses, rising, her fear overwhelming.

He put it aside.

As he approached, he reached out and used the Force to pull the little girl to him. He enfolded her in his arms. She struggled—of course she did—who wouldn’t?

He pulled part of his tunic over their heads, enough to block some of the wind, then looked at the child. He didn’t know that he’d ever seen someone so frightened.

Bell pointed to the Jedi insignia on his chest. Miraculously, she calmed. She knew what he was, and she thought she was saved.

Not yet, Bell thought.

He pulled her close, cupped his hand over her ear to block the wind, and spoke.

“Close your eyes,” he said. “I’m with you now. You’re not alone.”

He had no idea if she had heard, but he’d done what he could to calm her. Now he had to focus.

Bell glanced down, squinting against the wind. He was looking for a soft spot—water, maybe, even a slow slope they might be able to roll down—anything to ease their landing.

There was nothing. Just the rough landscape of the planet—the swirls of the magnetic mountain ranges, and rust plains between. Elphrona was not a soft world.

They were falling, from a height a hundred times higher than anything he’d ever tried in training, and even then he’d never landed successfully. For a moment, he hoped against hope that perhaps Porter Engle could miraculously appear at the last minute—but the Ikkrukki was far away by then, and in any case, he had his own Blythe to save.