When he reached the base of the skyhook, he was momentarily given pause. How to bring about the ruin of six constructs several stories high? Their super-strong materials were designed to handle the stresses of holding the massive station directly above, against all the laws of physics. How would he overcome their resistance?

The answer, as always, lay in the Force. The Force was beyond physics. The Force could not be resisted, when wielded by confident hands. The Force would always be sufficient.

Turning his back on the body-strewn battlefield, he put both hands on the base of the nearest mooring. Closing his eyes and his mind to all forms of distraction, he imagined himself at one with the metal, permacrete, and stone. He felt the mooring's strengths and its weaknesses. He resonated with it, until it was hard to tell where his hands stopped and the mooring began.

When he could achieve no greater focus, he reached out for the dark side and let it guide him.

Energy came like a dam bursting, as wild as every predator on Kashyyyk combined but as pure as a laser. He tilted his head back and relished the wonder and terror of what he had brought into being. This was a power far greater than Sith lightning, designed for one single task. He lost himself utterly in that task. He became destruction.

The mooring shook. Its more delicate components-nanowires, sensitive self-regulating systems, microscopic hydraulic channels-fused almost immediately. Once the complex processes maintaining its stability were disrupted, a chain reaction began that could not be stopped. Pressures mounted in areas close to exceeding their maximum load; hairline cracks formed and spread; a deep vibration sprang up that could not be dampened. Even if left to its own devices, the mooring would shake itself to pieces in minutes.

The apprentice maintained his assault until hairline cracks became gaping rents and the vibration shook the world, howling material agony over the renewed firing of blaster cannons. When the first shower of boiling dust and pebble-sized fragments rained down on him, he decided it was time to step back and take stock- and to prevent some hapless stormtrooper creeping up on him and shooting him in the back.

He opened his eyes and looked up. The mooring was barely recognizable as the same structure. Electrical discharges danced across its conducting surfaces. Ultrastressed permacrete flowed like treacle. Larger fragments began to fall and he batted them away with the Force, feeling no more drained by his exertion than he would have from a light run. He almost smiled at his accomplishment, but one stark fact sobered him to the core.

One down. Five to go.

Chapter 22