A squeal from the comm system, loud and insistent. A scream, or a yell—forceful, almost panicked. It startled Te’Ami, and if she were not a Jedi Knight, she might have inadvertently fired her weapons. But she was indeed a Jedi Knight, and did not fire.

It took Te’Ami a moment to understand what she was hearing—not a scream, but words. In Shyriiwook. Burryaga, saying something she could not understand. Loud, insistent, desperate. His emotions strong again through the Force, that same mixture of fear edging on panic.

“Burryaga, I’m sorry, I don’t understand Shyriiwook. Are you all right? We’re running out of time. We have to fire.”

“No,” Nib Assek said, her voice sharp, insistent. In the background, the whines and growls of Burryaga’s voice, coming over her comm. “We can’t attack.”

“What are you talking about?” Mikkel said. “We don’t have a choice.”

“Burryaga is explaining it to me. The emotions we were getting from him—they weren’t his. He was sensing them. He had to tune in a bit, overcome his own fear before he could understand.”

“Please, Nib, just tell us what he means,” Te’Ami said.

A long, whistling, mournful bit of Shyriiwook, and then a pause.

“The object,” Nib said. “The one we have to destroy, to save the moon. It’s not just an object. It’s debris, part of a ship.”

Te’Ami let her hands fall from the control sticks.

“It’s full of people,” Nib finished. “And they’re alive.”


Star Wars The High Republic Light of The Jedi Chapter 7