Star Wars: The Jedi Reborn ✓

Chapter 89 - Dead in Space

Playlist:

❶ "On the Inside"—The Force Awakens OST

Jedi Tandolleau Duwamba checked his console one more time, satisfied that the Y-wing operated properly. A few more minutes, and we'll be dropping out of hyperspace. The sooner we get Master Luke's fighter on the Freedom, the better.

"Hey, Dolly! How much longer until we reach Freedom? My legs are cramping," Jannah asked as she tried to pull her legs up to her chest to stretch out her taut muscles. She rested her boots on the canopy glass in front of her on either side of her gun controls, dancing across the viewport.

Tandolleau snorted and readjusted himself in the cockpit, trying to catch a few more minutes of sleep.

"Hey, Dolly, I asked you a question."

"I heard you," he muttered with a tinge of annoyance in his voice.

Jannah lowered her legs and turned the best she could, poking Tandolleau in the shoulder. "Then answer me."

"Not if you keep calling me 'Dolly.'" Tandolleau pushed her back around to face her gun controls.

"Fine, be that way. Only trying to have fun." Jannah crossed her arms and sulked, hoping to get a response from her partner.

After a few minutes, Tandolleau broke his self-imposed vow of silence. When he flicked the switches to bring the craft out of hyperspace, he fired up the short-range communicator. "Rogue Leader, this is Rogue Two. Come in, copy?"

Only static returned.

"Rogue Leader, come in. Repeat, Rogue Leader. Are you there?"

Jannah rotated in her seat and peered out the canopy with her hands pressed against the glass as she searched with both her eyes and the Force. "Tandolleau, I think I've found him. Follow trajectory 120 mark 50."

❶ Tandolleau pulled up his scope. "My scopes don't read any—wait a minute. Yeah. That's him. Wow! He's really far out."

"Hush! I'm trying to reach him."

At that moment, the flight controller from the Freedom sounded across their helmets. "Rogue Leader and Rogue Two, this is Freedom flight control. We have you on our scopes. You are cleared for landing in the secondary bay."

Tandolleau said, "Negative, Freedom. Rogue Leader is not responding. I'm going to go check him out." Tandolleau activated his sub-light engines at top speed, racing to Master Skywalker's position.

"Copy that, Rogue Two. We're sending the patrol squadron to assist."

Jannah continued trying to reach Master Luke through the Force. "Hurry, Tandolleau. I can't feel him in the Force. Something's not right."

"I've got the sub-lights maxed, Jannah."

Within a minute Tandolleau had edged beside the drifting Y-wing. Master Skywalker's neck was bent at a weird angle, and drool had frozen to his face. "He has no power, no life-support, Tandolleau," Jannah asked as she peered through the canopy. Her smooth contralto voice strained to the upper registers as she squeezed her eyes together feeling through the Force. "Even Artoo is out."

"Freedom, this is Rogue Two. We need an emergency tow for Rogue Leader and a medteam. Craft is disabled. Rogue Leader unconscious. No power. No life-support," Tandolleau transmitted over the comm, his voice cracking with concern. Behind him Jannah muffled a sob.

"Rogue Two, this is the CAG. We're right behind you. Drop down ten degrees. We're going to send out the harpoons and tow cables," a female voice broke up with static over their helmets.

"Copy, CAG. Dropping ten degrees. The target is yours."

With one craft positioned above the disabled Y-wing and one below, the X-wing fighters shot out their tow cables like a Sivorian wood spider spinning a web. When the electromagnets attached to the nose, the small fighters pulled in front of the Y-wing, dragging it toward the cruiser Freedom.

The other two X-wing fighters escorted the group to the ship. As soon as they were within range of the Freedom's tractor beam, the X-wings released their tow cables and let the ship suck Luke's Y-wing into the main docking bay.

Tandolleau followed the crew's directions, landing his craft among the docked X-wings about fifty meters away from Master Skywalker's fighter. He let his astromech droid complete the shut-down procedures while he and Jannah propelled themselves with the Force out of the fighter. A medteam swarmed around the derelict fighter. Even Captain Antilles had come down from the bridge.

Tandolleau watched as they pulled a blue, lifeless body from the cockpit to a hover stretcher that floated beside the fuselage. After strapping an oxygen mask to Master Skywalker's face, the team stripped him from his flightsuit and ripped open his Jedi tunic with deft hands. Holding defibrillator paddles, the lead medtech yelled, "Clear!"

As soon as the rest of the team removed their hands, the medtech pressed the paddles to Luke's chest. His entire body spasmed in response, but the monitor signal remained flat. They tried it again, to no avail. "Deep hypothermia. I want a bacta tank at ten degrees ready. Prep a blood warming unit and saline solution, too."

The hover stretcher set off down the bay at a clipped pace while the med team jogged behind it, leaving Tandolleau and Jannah in their wake. When Tandolleau heard Jannah whimper and saw her lip tremble, he wrapped his arms around his friend and held her against his chest.

Heartbroken for their master, they wondered about their mission, the Order ... but mostly how they were going to break the news to Jedi Fau.

Did you know ...

● Jannah and Tandolleau are just friends, as close as siblings. Nothing more. Jannah loves to tease him, though.

● I researched the incident of Baby Jessica in the well and other cases of extreme hypothermia before writing this chapter.

Tell me what you think ... 

● What do you think is going to happen to Luke?

● What will happen to the mission? Will Jannah and Tandolleau continue it without Luke?