Planet-Eater 89 (Patreon)

With no time to indulge in the delicious taste of non-recycled air, she hurried back to the cockpit, wishing in her heart that she could still use Force speed. 

Back in the cockpit, she let herself take one look outside. The creature still wasn’t moving. Fine by her. 

She knelt down in the middle of the room next to Ruckle. “Sorry,” she muttered as she forced both his legs into the pants of the suit, ignoring how he began to jerk and hiss spastically at the pain of his crooked leg. Thankfully, his vigorous twisting did make it slightly easier to zip up the suit all the way to his head, though putting his helmet on was a completely different story. It took using her full body’s weight pushing down on him to ensure he didn’t fight back, and even then, she felt fairly certain that a bit of unwanted influence might have slipped out as she did. With the flip of a switch on the side of his head, the environment-suit powered on, hissing as it filled up with air, the previously loose suit becoming puffy in only a minute at most.

With that done, she moved on to Yoric, who was a much easier story. When she switched his suit on, it took about five seconds before the alarm suddenly ceased and the red light shut off completely. 

She let out a breath. 

But she couldn’t relax yet. With limited time to act, she began by checking how much time she would have until her oxygen ran out. A little light blinked in the corner of her visor, telling her that she had less than thirty standard minutes to find a safe place. Stupid emergency suits and their tiny, portable tanks. If she had thirty minutes, then Ruckle and Yoric most likely had less than fifteen minutes each. It would have to be enough.

She chanced another look out of the shuttle. The creature remained a motionless heap of entangled tentacles. Useless, useless. 

Her feet carried her out of the cockpit and into the hallway. They seemed to know where to go, so she let them bring her to the airlock, and then outside. The snow was still settling from the creature’s episode, but she could see plenty well in spite of it. 

Once she was in front of the great entrance to the temple, she knew what her plan was. If she could open the gate and bring both Ruckle and Yoric inside, then she could engage the air filtration systems, which would let them stay in there until they had figured out how to go about things. If she remembered correctly, there should still have been a few proper suits in the storage rooms. If they switched to those, they would be able to fix up the ship, and then they would be fine. She’d figure out how the Force wanted her to use the creature, and then they could return to headquarters, share their knowledge, and plan a counterattack. Maybe rescue Garney while they were at it. That would’ve been nice. 

She arched her neck, the stiffness of the suit forcing her to arch her back as well. The door was massive. Over a hundred standard tonnes of rock, expertly carved and shaped and covered with a fun colourful painting of how one was supposed to open it. Simply lift the nearby boulder, a mere ten standard tonnes, and place it into the allotted slot. If the Force willed it, it would be done. Easily, too. She had seen Jedi Knight Junaia lift the rock with the sweep of her hand. And she had only been a knight. Sure, Force push and pull had never been Byrea’s strong suit, but she could do it. A mere boulder would be trifling for her. That she was sure of. 

Especially considering that failure could not be tolerated. Not now, not ever. 

So, she turned to the boulder, and stretched out her hand. She tried to remember what Master Plo Koon had taught her, so many years ago. About how the Force was like a river, not to be fought against or stopped, but merely to be diverted. The greatest Jedi was not one who made the Force succumb to her will, but one who allowed her intentions to align with the Force. To be brought by the Force to wherever the Force wished to be.

Some old part of her wanted to scoff at the ridiculousness of it. Right now, no matter how much she tried to imagine that the Force wanted that boulder to move, it sure wasn’t moving. Not even a tremble. 

She imagined herself reaching out, taking a hold of the boulder. Nothing. 

She thought of a stream, gentle yet powerful, running throughout the galaxy, going right here and pushing the boulder towards the dimple in the ground. Nothing.

She closed her eyes, and willed the image of a rock exploding into her mind. It brought her great joy, but when she opened her eyes… Nothing.

Nothing, nothing, nothing.

Irritation reared itself in her chest. It’s Force push, she thought to herself. I’m supposed to be able to do this! It’s the simplest technique! And yet, and yet—

A light in her helmet bleeped, telling her that she was down to twenty minutes. Which meant that she had five minutes left to fix this, and the boulder wasn’t moving in the slightest.

Because she was weak. If she’d been strong, she could’ve easily chucked that boulder into the hole. No problem! Had it pleased her, she could even have torn the very gates open, bending the hundred tonnes of stone to her whim, crushing it within her grasp. But now? Now?

She grit her teeth. MOVE! she commanded the rock. Still, nothing. Not even a tremble. The muscles of her jaws were beginning to bulge into her skull, intensifying her headache as though pushing thousands of needles into her brain. Prickling, sticking, pain, pain, pain. Passion. Her body trembled, her mind ached, and as the light in her helmet began to flicker, telling her that only seventeen minutes remained, the earth began to tremble. 

The boulder trembled. 

“Yes! Yes!” she gasped to herself, bones creaking from exertion. Finally, she was doing it! It had all been worth it! She could! She really—

A shadow rose behind her. Arching her neck, she found the mouths and eyes of the creature dangling above her, shrouding her, the temple, the shuttle, and entire mountains in eternal darkness.

She blinked up at it. Ten thousand pink dots stared down at her, unblinking. 

Her mind moved quicker than her and she commanded, faster than she could think it, ‘FRIENDS INSIDE SHUTTLE OXYGEN ALMOST GONE BRING TO SAFE PLACE NOW OR THEY DIE PLEASE HELP’

It stared down at her. Endless eyes, endless mouths. One of the eyes turned towards the shuttle, the rest remaining on her.

‘...Bring them outside’

She nodded, and rushed to the shuttle, opening the airlock, throwing herself inside. Her whirling feet brought her to the cockpit, where they both laid, one in the middle and the other slumped against the wall. Now would have been a great time to learn to control her emotions enough to use the Force. Unfortunately, fate was not so kind. Cursing beneath her breath, she made a quick check of their oxygen levels, and since Yoric’s was unfortunately lower, she grabbed him, hoisted him onto her shoulder, and rushed him outside.

Before she could even put him on the snowy ground, an uncomfortably long tentacle had slipped around his waist, a dozen other tentacles fragmenting from it to clasp around every inch of his body, carrying him away as though he were completely weightless. She watched panting as another tentacle easily opened the humongous stone gate, not even bothering with the boulder, carrying Yoric inside. The Force must have been guiding it. There was no other explanation. 

Only once Yoric was out of her gaze did she remember Ruckle. She looked down at her body, hidden by the puffy environment-suit. Was she strong enough to carry him? She’d always been on the tougher end, but he was easily over a hundred standard units. But maybe if she…

She shook her head. This was no time for uncertainty.

‘RUCKLE TOO HEAVY FOR ME I SHOW WHERE HE IS YOU CARRY HIM’

The creature didn’t answer, but she could tell it wasn’t disagreeing with her. When she reentered the shuttle, a single snakelike tentacle came with her, slithering through the air, guided by marble-sized eyes at the very tip of it. Once she got to the cockpit, she merely pointed at Ruckle, and the tentacle handled the rest. It scooped up the massive man as though he were a mere babe, and with tenderness she wouldn’t have thought the massive creature capable of, it carried him out in almost a cradle of tendrils, ensuring to keep the twisted leg out of harm’s way. Once she exited the craft, she saw him carried off into the temple. 

For the first time in almost fifteen standard minutes, Byrea felt like she could breathe again. 

She took a few steps towards the temple, heavy and trembling. Before she could get anywhere close to the gate, her knees buckled under her, and she collapsed onto the snow. Far ahead, the tentacle that had carried Ruckle into the temple slipped out again. With a shove that seemed entirely too effortless, it pushed the door shut, the scraping of stone against stone echoing across the nearby mountains. 

She blinked up at it. ‘...Why?’