Chapter 14: Event Horizon
Something like a message cylinder, a maybe meter-long tube with one blinking light and a tiny rocket engine, cruised out of the color of the Maw. Sidi Driss slid from his station in the ship clamped beneath Maw Installation to Kell's gunner's position, watching the blinking beacon. It was a respite from boredom for Sidi; there had been stillness outside the ship and in the back of his head where Sidi shakily sensed Master Kell and Master Horn through the Force, since the rest of the team had left.
Sidi quickly got a sensor mark on the little thing and watched as its trajectory became a simple drop into a small bay on the side of one of the larger asteroids. Just a message cylinder, Sidi thought with some disappointment, though that was all he had expected it to be.
From where Master Kell was came a flash of excitement, a calling through the Force loud and unspecified as if she was afraid he would not hear it. Immediately Sidi made for the top hatch. Suddenly something shook the ship hard, then a laser beam sounded fore and the young Jedi dashed back to the cockpit.
The ships outside, gray metal shapes that flashed by splashing lasers, were of a model that Sidi had never seen before, probably most like a Hornet Interceptor. The body was sleek and long and ridged with metal, the cockpit two bulbous eyes with lasers above and below. The wings were flat with miniature versions of a TIE fighter's wing plates vertical at each of the four tips, and became two separate parts about half a meter from the body. The sound was like a lightsaber drone with a laser-whine to it, or reminiscent of an insect.
Sidi immediately dropped into the pilot seat, cursing himself for not familiarizing himself with the single-crew controls during hyperspace. He punched in the startup sequence while trying to bring the manual controls up on the display screen. Another insectoid ship flashed past, and from the sound sliced at the hull plates, until the shields came up strong and it veered away.
Sidi eased De'shar's Pheahia away from the docking node though keeping his back to the station-those little ships were much faster than De'shar's-and simultaneously hit a button for a wide-band distress signal, switched a switch to arm the guns, and cast about in the Force.
His horizons widened. There were five of the little ships, pilots with clear, sharp intent to kill, the black holes at the edge of perception pulling on them all.
Sidi waited a moment as they waited for him, then two flashed past in a showy maneuver of one coming from the left and another from the right.. The Pheahia's laser swivelled and spurt and the right ship took a hit and sparked, then the Force pushed them together. Metal collided and screamed, shields sprayed electric flak. The ships exploded in red fire and Sidi grinned behind the darkening viewport.
The three remaining seemed to learn from that. They stayed at a distance and shot at him, steadily weakening his shields. He knew that his ship had not half their capabilities, but he had the Force! Don't get cocky, he could hear Master Kell say. Bravado is a talent of the lesser animals.
Sidi moved the ship out just slightly and sprayed lasers around to make the three move. No word from his team's commlink, though they must have gotten the signal.
The foe were good, but as Sidi returned to the gunner's position and fell into the Force it could be seen that they were matched well. The little ships came no closer and Sidi's shields held, but he knew that all to soon one of those ships would grow brave and come into range, and the shields wouldn't take it. He almost considered retreating, running, but the other members of the team needed him to defend their ship now.
It's moving to there-his lasers took out the closest of the three. He turned for a shot and another one, a clear blip in the Force, when something rocked the ship and a blue light reflected off the edges of the viewport. An alarm, he didn't know at first what it meant, blared. The second ship was behind him, the first had darted out of his sights. He tried to turn after it and found that he was caught in a tractor beam.
Sidi cursed, had a moment of sitting there restraining anger, then turned the Force on the tractor's source, the bug ship behind him. It was turning and therefore turning Sidi's ship, like they were dancing. It could now be seen that the tractor beam emanated from near the ship's "eyes." There was no visible exact place the beam came from. What sort of organization had the technology to mount a strong tractor beam on a ship the size of a snubfighter? It tantalized the part of Sidi's mind that enjoyed technical details.
But with the sight of mute, swirling color his thoughts changed from wonderment to fear, a quick fear of a death both slow and instant, unknown and ancient--
The tiny ship and its tractor beam were going to move him into the gravity well, the point of no return, of the nearest black hole, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Sidi took a deep breath of the stale air, sat perfectly still though his body was tensing more with each imagined millimeter, and reached out with his mind to the bug's pilot. There was the lifelessness of vacuum, there the being of the pilot, thankfully malleable and human. He whispered as he thought the words; you want to release me. You want to leave, just to go to someplace safe... A laser scream, and Sidi was thrown foreword. The other ship...!
He knew when the point of no return was passed; he knew it with the innate connection his kind had with the universe since birth. It filled him with a longing for life, for the open air, for a future imagined with Kell as his Master and him traveling the galaxy and seeing wonders. The tractor beam faded. Sidi waited until his tears began to stretch into long strips like sparkling pools, and then the Force destroyed and filled him.