No one was coming to save him, or the girl. He had to do it all, and he had to do it alone.

Bell opened himself to the Force. He did not think about the ground. He thought about the child in his arms, and how unfair it was that these things had happened to her.

He knew he had the power to save her, to let her continue living in the light. Why would the cosmic Force have given him his abilities, if not for this very purpose?

The wind was not his enemy, nor gravity itself. They were both part of the Force, just as he was, just as the child was. If he fought them, he was fighting himself.

He should not try to fight. He should try to understand.

Bell Zettifar relaxed.

He came to know something profound—perhaps something about the Force. Perhaps something about himself, something he would try to understand more clearly later. He thought it was the reason that he had been so bad at saving himself from falls, despite his master’s best efforts to teach him.

Being a Jedi was not about saving oneself.

It was about saving others.

The roar of the wind past Bell’s ears lessened, becoming no stronger than a powerful breeze. He could hear the little Blythe. She was praying, or chanting. He couldn’t understand the words, but it was the same short phrase, over and over.

The wind quieted further, to silence. Bell opened his eyes. They were barely ten meters from the ground, and they drifted downward, slow as a leaf, to land gently on the slate-colored ground. He could understand what the girl was saying now.

“I’m not alone.”

He sat up. The girl clung to him.

“We’re okay now,” he said. “What’s your name?”

She looked at him, eyes wide.

“I’m Bee,” she said. “But that’s just what people call me. My big name is Bailen.”

“That’s a little like mine,” he said. “I’m Bell. We’re safe now, Bailen. Everything’s going to be all right.”

The child gave him a dubious look, the look of a kid who knew she was being told something untrue by an adult, no matter how much she wanted to believe it. Her face cracked, and she burst into tears.

Bell just held her. He looked up at the sky, searching for the Vectors or the Nihil ship. Nothing. Not even an exhaust trail.

Everything’s going to be all right, he thought.

He didn’t believe it, either.

Interlude

Jora Malli positioned herself before the comms droid that would transmit her image to Coruscant, to the Chamber at the very top of the Order’s great Temple where the Jedi Council met to deliberate. At that moment, she was aboard the Ataraxia, the Jedi’s beautiful, elegant starship, almost a temple in and of itself.