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Now, suddenly, everything was in doubt. The immen-sity of the war seemed far beyond the capabilities of the few remaining Jedi; certainly, even this small part of it was more than she could control.

Jos had managed to sit, leaning back against the wall of the transport as it limped along.

Tolk, who loved him, knelt beside him and ministered to his physical in-jury, which was nothing compared to the damage to his psyche. Doctors dealt in such things, they were trained for it, but they were not immune to personal feelings. Zan Yant had been a good person, a dedicated surgeon, a wonderful musician, and now all that had been cut short.

And for what? Barriss asked herself. Because two opposing factions wanted more power and control over the citizens of the galaxy. Was there ever an uglier activ-ity than war?

Organized slaughter of vast numbers for reasons that never seemed justified, or even sane?

She looked at the medics in the transport. Sometimes the price that had to be paid was dear, and she had sworn to pay it herself, if ever the need arose. But she was also a healer, one who could use the Force to repair those who were sick or hurt. Right now, however, she felt like a sin-gle grain of sand against the force of a massive, moon-driven tide. It was all so... senseless. So overwhelming. And there was nothing she could do to stop it. Nothing.

How could she ever become a Jedi Knight, feeling as she did?

I-Five said, "I understand the motivations of biologi-cals to a degree, but I cannot understand how they can shrug off the consequences of some of their actions."

"Welcome to the mystery," Barriss said.

"It does not appear as if I will be the one to solve it anytime soon. That last impact seemed to have scram-bled my recovering circuitry somewhat. My heuristic memory process has ceased functioning."

Barriss reached out with the Force, but the droid’s mind, as others like it, was untouchable. She could not help him, either.

Jedi Knighthood seemed no closer at that moment than far Coruscant, and the carefree days of her child-hood.

Den made a lot of notes, speaking into his recorder, capturing images. Once they finally came to a halt, the droids began to set the Rimsoo back up, even though it was the middle of the night. Under the harsh glare of artificial light being swarmed by clouds of mindless in-sectoids, the noises and sights of the construction en-croached on the warm and wet darkness.

The shock of Zan’s death had washed over him like an ocean breaker, a hard, sudden, and overpowering surf. Den retreated to the shell of his work, the same tactic used by soldiers and doctors and reporters galaxywide: keep moving, and don’t think about things better left alone for now.

People and droids did their work, and he did his job. He moved around, getting reactions, taking it all in and saving it.

He came across I-Five, who was directing orderly droids in the placement of patients inside a just-finished ward.

"Too bad about Zan," Den said.

"A great loss," the droid said. "If it is any consola-tion, his final sentient moment was a happy one. He saw you save his musical instrument. His expression of grat-itude seemed both genuine and deeply felt."

Den shrugged. "Small comfort, friend droid."

"Perhaps. But is that not better than no comfort? My emotional circuitry is not on the same order of depth and complexity as yours, but the sadness I feel is miti-gated by the knowledge that Zan Yant’s demise was both quick and essentially painless-plus his mental state was, for lack of a better term, one of grace. You had just saved his most precious possession. It seemed a peak moment of joy for him. I should think that, given a choice, most sentient beings would choose to leave life in that state than in one of fear or suffering."

Den could not repress the sigh. "Yeah. I suppose. Not much of a choice, the kind of death.

A being like Zan shouldn’t have had to make it."

A pair of droids went by, carrying a section of build-ing that Den recognized as belonging to the cantina. Good. Sooner that place was reassembled,