Part 15 (1/2)

He permitted himself a very small smile.

”Are you all right, Yavid?” Devi demanded, breathless, as he returned to the monitoring station. ”I can't believe you did it. I can't believe you're not fried. That we're not fried, or blown into a million pieces. Yavid, are you sure you're all right?”

”Yes, ” Obi-Wan said, and was shocked to hear his croaky voice. He felt crisped head-to-toe, and the relative silence of the monitoring station made him dizzy all of a sudden.

”Oh, Teeb! ” said Devi. ”What a mercy you were here!”

To his surprise she threw her arms around him and held him tight. Not wanting to hurt her feelings he returned the gesture- and almost immediately she let go of him and retreated a step.

”Sorry. I don't usually do that. Fling myself on strange men, ” she said, fl.u.s.tered.

”That's quite all right. ” He grinned at her. ”I've experienced far less pleasant embraces. ”

She stared, uncertain. And then she laughed, in the midst of chaos and fear a delightfully uproarious sound. ”Oh, I do hope you stay in Torbel, Teeb Yavid. We could do a lot worse than you. ”

64.It hurt him to lie. ”I hope I can stay, too, Devi. My cousin and I...”

And then he was spinning to face the monitoring station's outer door, the rest of his lie abandoned.

Anakin. Oh, no.

The next storm-s.h.i.+eld generator overloaded just as Anakin reached it. He had a split second's warning, one hammer blow from the Force. The storm seemed to hold its breath...

...and then exhaled in renewed fury as the generator erupted in a burning light show of sparks. With a scream like a wounded animal the s.h.i.+eld directly overhead collapsed and a maelstrom of theta particles poured through the gap.

He acted on instinct-and out of sheer b.l.o.o.d.y-minded terror. Throwing up his hands he used the Force to hold back the stream of theta particles, and with a shout of rage became one with the storm s.h.i.+eld. Rejected the storm. He thought he could feel his blood bubbling.

He was losing himself, disappearing within the scarlet vortex of the Force as it consumed him and transformed him into fire.

And there was his mother, whispering again. He can help yon. He was meant to help yon. Furious, Anakin stood alone against the storm.

... On Coruscant, in the Temple, Taria Damsin and Ahsoka shadowdance with their lightsabers. Shadowdance within the Force. Open and trusting they swim its light tides-and as one are swept up in a tidal wave of fear. Shock twists them and they stumble, fingers loosening. Lightsabers fall. Shocked younglings whisper and wonder what to do...

... as Yoda, in meditation, is shocked out of his communing by a sense of danger sharp as pain. Hand pressed to his head be seeks for understanding, seeks to see what has happened. But the dark side is a jealous shroud. It keeps its secrets close. Yoda grits his teeth and fights it...

... as the Drivok psychic seeker lifts its head and scents the air and keens with triumph because above all things it is a hunter and no hunter likes to be eluded. But now it can see the missing Jedi so clearly, lighting up its mind, and on the map it can pinpoint them exactly...

... and Lok Durd laughs and laughs and laughs...

Every alarm in the monitoring station was sounding. Devi pushed her antigrav harness to its limits as she flung herself from station to station.

”No, no, don't do that!” she shouted, slamming switches, hitting b.u.t.tons. ”Don't you dare!”

”Devi!” Obi-Wan yelled. ”Tell me what I can do to...”

She flung out an arm, pointing toward the generator and storm-s.h.i.+eld status board. ”Glue your eyes to those gauges. We've got one s.h.i.+eld generator down. If another goes it's over. We're all dead. I don't even know how the rest of the s.h.i.+eld's still holding but I don't care. It's holding and that's all that matters!”

I know how. It's Anakin. May the Force protect him.

Sick with fear for him, Obi-Wan crossed to the status board and read off the gauges, even as his stomach churned and the bile rose in his throat.

Hold on, Anakin. I'll he there as soon as I can.

Because surely not even the Chosen One could hold back a theta storm on his own.

65.”It was the most awful thing I've ever seen, ” Qui-Gon had told him, so many years ago. ”Theta storms kill in two ways, you see. If you're contaminated from a distance, well, it takes a long time to die. But if you are in the storm's path it trill rip you to pieces and then melt your hones. I've seen it kill both ways, and both ways arc cruel. Better to be swallowed alive by a sarlacc. ”

”Well?” Devi demanded. ”Are they holding? The other generators? The s.h.i.+eld? Yavid?”

Obi-Wan wrenched his mind from the past and checked the status board again. ”Yes. So far, so good. ”

Devi was sweating, fat drops rolling down her fierce and unremarkable face. But instead of capitulating to the fear, she fought it.

”This is crazy, Yavid. Crazy,” she said, and banged her fist on another gauge. ”If these readings are right this is a Cla.s.s Four storm. I never thought I'd live to see one this bad. ”

”So I should feel honored? Look on it as a-a kind of welcome-home celebration?”

She snorted. ”Ha! Some welcome. ” And then even that tiny moment of humor was obliterated as yet another alarm began to sound.

”Oh, have mercy, ” she whispered. ”No. Please, no. ”

”What is it? What's happening?”

She staggered to another bank of monitors then turned, her face grayish white. ”We've got a power surge building, ” she said, her voice catching in her throat. ”And I can't stop it. Not without shutting down the entire second sector and that means collapsing the storm s.h.i.+eld. Yavid...”

Her terror was almost overwhelming. ”Devi, are you sure we can't stop it? Short-circuit it somehow? Where will the surge hit? Devi!”

Startled, she shook her head hard to regain focus and turned back to her monitors. One trembling finger traced the stuttering liquid-crystal display readout of Torbel's underground power grid.

”It'll blow the irrigation system for sure, ” she said, almost in tears. ”It might take out the artesian pump. Probably not the storm s.h.i.+eld.

And then-stang, the mine. Will it hit the mine? No. No, no, not the mine, the refinery. ” Spinning around, she nearly fell over. ”Unless there's a miracle it'll ground in the refinery. Yavid...”

”Devi, try to stop that surge, ” he ordered, already heading for the station's outer door. ”There has to be a way to divert it or decompress it. Something. Anything. Please, you must try. Raise Arrad in the refinery and Rikkard at the mine. Tell them to evacuate everyone to a safe distance. ”

The moment he set foot outside the power plant he turned toward Anakin-and felt his heart thud as he saw the gaping hole in the storm s.h.i.+eld. Felt the furious concentration of power, of the Force, in that one small place as Anakin held back the storm's might.

And then he felt the gathered villagers, their numbers growing, their fear and astonishment mounting, as they watched the stranger from Voteb do a thing that should not be humanly possible.

Hold on, Anakin. Hold on.

He turned and Force-sprinted for the endangered refinery.