He flew straight at the largest Nihil ship, briefly evading fire from the nine or ten smaller craft on his tail while opening himself up to laser blasts from the cruiser. But better one attacker than ten.

“I’m running out of time, Indeera. We need to mix this up. You ready?”

“Ready,” she said.

“Go!” Loden shouted.

Loden slowed his breathing, reaching out to the Force. He pulled his hands back from his control sticks, leaving just his fingertips touching their surfaces. Vectors were responsive craft as a rule—and this particular one was more attentive to its pilot’s commands than most. He had once heard his Padawan—no, his former Padawan, Bell would soon be a fellow Jedi Knight—tell Ember the ship’s name, when he thought no one was listening.

The Nova. Perhaps Bell kept it secret because he thought it was silly or childish. Loden thought it was beautiful. He wished he’d told Bell that. Next time they saw each other.

All right, Nova, time to live up to your name, Loden thought.

With his hands, he flew his ship, and with the Force, he triggered its weapons and moved through the battlespace in a way none of the Nihil had ever seen or could anticipate or, if Loden chose to go for kill-shots, could survive.

The Nova was a blossom of flame and laserfire, spiraling through the battle, every shot finding a target, every motion either an evasion or a retargeting.

The Nihil attackers moved from an attacking stance to something like a panicked retreat, the sphere of ships surrounding him expanding and becoming more diffuse, both from the increased distance between the vessels and from his own steady reduction of their numbers. Only the flagship didn’t move, his lasers reflecting off its shields.

Dimly, his senses told him Indeera’s Vector had taken the opportunity to move out of the shadow of the kidnappers’ ship and speed through a gap in the enemy cordon. As he had suspected, the rest of the Nihil did not give chase. They undoubtedly were monitoring the communications between Loden and Indeera, or had access to cam feeds from inside their damaged vessel. Either way, they knew who Indeera had taken—the boy.

They didn’t want him, though. They wanted the father, for some reason.

It was Loden’s job to make sure they didn’t get him.

He knew how he could get aboard the kidnappers’ ship—but he didn’t quite know what he would do after that. Getting through all of this intact seemed…improbable. At best.

But then, so was fighting off a massive marauder armada in a single Vector long enough for his colleague to escape, and he’d pulled that off. He’d figure it out.

Loden angled his ship to head straight for the damaged Nihil vessel containing the last Blythe.