Emotions roiled around him, through him, in him, like a storm out at sea, powerful and dangerous, but he could control them, he saw that now. He could control the frustration and the anger and the guilt and remorse. He could shape them, mold them, bend them to his will. He could use it all for good. He could put everything right.

Elzar lashed out, his hand outstretched, his fingers spread wide. The Force rushed through him like a wave, up into the air toward the falling island.

Unstoppable.

Defiant.

Indeera felt her concentration waver, just for a second. They all did. It was clear to see why. The final sky-island was falling, but even that, terrible though it was, wasn’t their biggest danger. A Nihil ship was almost upon them, laser cannons glowing and ready to fire. There was nothing they could do. If they broke formation and scattered, the bond they’d achieved would falter and the people would fall; Porter, too, for that matter. If they fought back, the same result would follow. The people they had worked so hard to save—human, Thodian, Sneevel, and Nihil—would die the most horrible death.

Words flashed across Indeera Stokes’s mind, words she hadn’t used since she was a Padawan, words that had brought a stinging rebuke from her Master.

It’s not fair.

But the universe was rarely fair; she knew that, as did every member of their drift. All they could do now was strive to calm those who had been caught up in the conflict, whose hope was about to be snatched away.

And then the world changed once again.

She felt the wave of emotion hit before it happened. One second the Nihil ship was preparing to fire, and the next it was obliterated. The sky-island had changed direction, slicing up where moments before it was tumbling down, soaring through the air like a discus thrown by a giant.

It continued out into the bay, carving a looping arc through the Nihil armada to splash spectacularly into the lake, but Indeera wasn’t looking, she was shouting an order in the confines of her cockpit, the Sneevel hugging the nose of her craft.


Star Wars The High Republic The Rising Storm Chapter 40