Still no reply. His head lolled forward and he snapped it back up, wincing at the pain. Ember’s yelps filled the cockpit, cutting through the ringing in his ears.

“That’s it, girl,” he gasped. “Keep barking. Bark at the Nihil.”

Ember did as she was told, jumping up onto the back of his chair, a paw on his shoulder, warm through his robes. Good. He needed warmth. He had never felt so cold.

“Indeera?”

There was no response. He reached out, searching for her presence. Yes, there she was, in her Vector, unable to reply. She wasn’t hurt, not yet, but it was only a matter of time. Scav droids were crawling over her hull, slicing through the plating. Bell could feel them, feel Indeera spinning and diving, trying to dislodge them, all the time concentrating on the cracks in Bell’s own fighter. More scav droids joined the assault, slicing, cutting, scrabbling. Indeera was using the Force to keep their ships together, but it was a fight she was doomed to lose.

She couldn’t save them. She couldn’t save them, and it was all his fault. He had been so sure when he had corkscrewed into the scav droids, so pleased with himself. Bell Zettifar, Padawan. Bell Zettifar, student of the legendary Loden Greatstorm. Bell Zettifar … idiot. He was no different from that wet-behind-the-ears apprentice who fantasized that he would teach his Master a lesson by crushing a training remote using the Force alone. Arrogant. Naïve … and potentially brilliant.

It couldn’t work. Could it? There was no way … except if he took the line the Nihil had quite literally thrown him.

Bell grabbed hold of the harpoon, concentrating on the vibrations that rumbled through the woven metal as his Vector was reeled in. He followed them in his mind, out of the Vector, along the cable, into the Nihil cruiser.

“That’s it,” he said to himself, imagining the cable winding around a huge oiled spindle, hearing the creak, creak, creak of the mechanism. The Vector was almost in range now, but he would only have one shot. He needed to know where to hit, when to hit. He conjured up an image of the walls of the cruiser, of the ceilings. Cables. Power relays. Capacitors. All coming from the same source, at the rear of the ugly brute of a ship. The power core, throbbing, pulsating, transforming fuel into raw energy, powering every stolen weapon, every laser bank, and every ion discharger. A bomb waiting to happen.

A Jedi didn’t kill unless there was no other option. A Jedi protected. A Jedi defended. But no matter how well the Cyclorrians were faring against the raiders, this ship would be waiting, ready to launch the next attack and the next and the next. How many ships had it already attacked? How many settlements had it ravaged?

No more.