Pikka Adren spoke. “We can suit up and go over there, see if there’s some way to extract the passengers. If not, we can tow it to a station, dock it there. At the very least, we can get them some medical attention. I’m sure they’re banged up.”

“All right,” Te’Ami replied. “Thank you. We’ll pass along how we achieved this—I’m sure other rescue teams will find the information useful.”

She maneuvered her Vector up and alongside the passenger compartment, moving close. The module had portholes along its length, and in them, she could see faces. Beings of all types, all ages, all alive. She sensed their fear beginning to lessen, replaced with—

A huge flash of alarm shot through the system-wide net of awareness being maintained by Avar Kriss. Again, no words, but if the sensation could be translated, it would be just these words: “Jedi. You are needed. Now.”

Something was very, very wrong.

Chapter Sixteen

The station heaved, throwing Captain Bright off his feet and into a wall. He hit hard, barely catching himself on a stanchion before an impact that would surely have cracked his skull.

The pill droid floating just a few meters ahead of him in the burning corridor didn’t seem to notice the jolt at all—but then it wasn’t in contact with the deck. It was floating, serene as ever, its stretcher attachment unfolded from its carapace, currently occupied by an unconscious, tiny Anzellan, purple drops of blood leaving a trail behind the droid.

They weren’t far from the Aurora IX, and the Anzellan made seven rescued crewmembers from the solar array—the full complement. The job was done, and so far, they’d all survived, miracle of miracles. It was just a matter of whether they could get far enough away from the station before it blew. Which was imminent, as the series of increasingly urgent messages he’d received from the engineering deck suggested.

Bright lifted his comlink.

“Petty Officer Innamin,” he growled. “What in blazes was that? I thought you told me you could keep this station stabilized?”

“What I told you, Captain, is that I explicitly could not do that,” Innamin replied, his voice wavering between annoyance and utter panic. “The reactor will blow. There is nothing I can do about it. We just need to be gone when it does.”

“All right,” Bright said. “I have the last crewmember. We’ll be at the Longbeam in about thirty seconds. Get up here, and we’ll decouple and get gone.”

The pill droid had reached the air lock, where Ensign Peeples was waiting; he had been tasked with stabilizing the other injured crewmembers of the solar array in the Aurora IX’s medical bay. His needlelike snout buzzed as he saw the Anzellan.

“Aww,” he cooed. “Who’s the cute little baby?”