brightephemera's Galaxy Without End

“Spoken like someone who’s never destroyed an entire enclave with one act of mercy.” Ruth slouched a little. It wasn’t like anyone here – Khem Val, Pierce, Broonmark, Scythia’s dual Kaleesh – would critique her posture. “Not that I would do that now. The result is fine, the one time in ten million that it works. A clean lightsaber sweep gets more reliable results.”

“Can I be brutally direct, Wrath?”

“Aren’t you every time we have to talk?”

“You’re only here to keep me from picking up whatever technology is animating this…Eternity Vault.”

“I’m here to assure the Empire’s interests. Your colleagues were emphatic on that point.”

“They’re your colleagues, too.” Scythia wrinkled her nose and did not slouch. “Something’s going to happen if I return without you. The threatener did not specify and I don’t think he had to. So here, we advance the Empire’s interests together. Like a family.”

“My family is dead.”

She shrugged. “All right, not very much like a family.”

Her mouth did something derisive to the word, and Ruth didn’t let it lie. “Somehow I don’t see you as ever having had parents.”

Scythia’s eyes, a deep green that might be artificial, glinted. “Getting sold tends to blur such associations.”

“You, a slave. I don’t believe it.”

Scythia looked pleased. “Yes. That’s part of my power. Do you keep slaves? Your public persona certainly doesn’t, but you were Kaasian upper crust, were you not?”

“My family barely kept droids. Slaves were…well, there, until my grandfather died.”

“Oh? Your mother was kind enough to free your servitors?”

“My father found them jobs. I never met them.”

“So you never sullied your hands with slavery until you reached Korriban? No wonder you didn’t know what to do with one.”

“I did exactly what made most sense for Vette.”

“And I should congratulate you for your largesse. With her, with any number of unfortunates whose masters you assassinate. Your social sense is utterly lacking, but Vette and the others did benefit. And, to turn the coin around, if you owned slaves I would use them against you. So, good job, you altruistic creature.”

“You’re on the Dark Council. You could declare a planet yours and its people your slaves and only about half a dozen people would try to stop you.”

“You foremost among them. But why would I want to? Slaves have a way of punching up.” Her smile bordered on the feral. Sparks snapped at her fingertips, but she didn’t attack. No, she smiled, and watched.

Broonmark scratched one shoulder. “Sith clan, bonefaces stare. We do not like their eyes.”

“We do not like his,” one of the two Kaleesh said. The other made a clacking giggle.

“You two can be as mutually racist as you want on the way in, but in the Vault we work together,” Scythia said firmly. “Wrath, tell him.”

“Calm down,” said Ruth. “Remember, we serve the Empire today. With all our eyes.”

Broonmark quorked discontentedly, but stayed quiet for the remainder of the ride.

Jefe was the name of the two Kaleesh who followed Scythia when her apprentice Xalek did not. Jefe were Force-blind, and virtuosos with electrostaves. It was a shame Broonmark didn’t like them; the three of them could keep busy any opponent Ruth had ever marked who failed to use the Force quickly and savagely enough.

Ruth wasn’t afraid of any of the three, nor of the combination. But neither did she turn her back on them.

The fortress of the Rakata threw droids and monsters. Ruth didn’t have to hold back. Scythia worked around her, and Ruth marked specific targets with the flare grenades Pierce had gifted her for the occasion. It had been some playful variety from the thermal detonators he liked to give her as good-luck charms.

The Emperor’s interests carried. The Emperor’s interests always carried. The work was hard, and Scythia had to patch up the shorter one of Jefe, who took Force healing without a quiver outside her mask. But they won. Oh, they won.

Ruth set a foot up on the fallen Rakata’s shoulder and turned her masked face down, studying the perverse art of burn marks.

Then she looked up. “Thoroughly done. You could be as feared as me if you wanted to show it.”

Scythia’s eyes widened. She said, in her clear and carrying soprano, “I am as feared as you, my dear.”

2: Green (weeks later)

The Dark Council convened with the Wrath in attendance. Darths Acina, Mortis, Vowrawn, Ravage, Marr, Klawe, and Scythia populated their chairs and wore their edgiest armor, except for Scythia, who wore a striped corset and high-slit satin skirt. On the unified insistence of the senior Councilors, Khem Val was kept outside. Zash raved demands that Scythia get the Council to let Khem in, but Zash was not in a position to negotiate, and the Council had been adamant.

“My intelligence is ironclad,” Scythia orated. People hung on every note and sweep of her voice. They always did. Even in a room where everyone pretended not to stare at her breasts, she commanded attention. “Klawe, if you don’t take control of your own Sphere soon, we’ll have to take it away from you.”

Vowrawn’s fingers drummed his chair’s arm. “Yes, perhaps you believe we’ll feed it to the noisiest baby bird in the nest?”

Marr leaned forward and everyone, including Scythia, went silent. “Quite apart from whether Klawe retains control of Imperial Intelligence is the question of what Imperial Intelligence is doing. Scythia, continue with your report.”

“Thank you. Put simply, there is a shadow Imperial Intelligence being built from every scrap of resource Klawe has so obligingly raised. The Force-blinds are trying to put up a puppet Intelligence for Sith control while building an independent arm—for what? Would Intelligence have any goal less lofty than the complete overturn of the Sith government?”

“The lady exaggerates.” Darth Klawe was a Sith Pureblood, small, rotund, very harmless-looking other than the clawlike shape of his bone spurs. He wore yellow enameled armor even though everybody knew that he was an embarrassment with a lightsaber. What he did have was a delicious excess of opportunism and a reputation for depraved cruelty. “I have reliable informants within the small, fledgling side enterprise. Its interests are thoroughly identified with those of our government.”

Darth Mortis, who didn’t like anyone, frowned. “And who leads this side enterprise? One of yours?”

“Ah. No.”

“But someone with confirmed Sith sympathies.”

“Presumably.”

“Presumably?” Scythia said silkily.

Acina was stroking her chin. “You don’t know, do you? You don’t know what they’re building and you don’t know who’s leading them.”

Klawe scowled. “The Minister of Intelligence is leading them, directly or otherwise. But he is in a unique position, as you well know.”

Again Marr shifted, and again everyone got quiet. “The Minister of Intelligence oversaw the operation that dethroned Jadus. He does not consider the conquest of a Sith to be outside the realm of possibility. His ‘unique position’ cannot shelter him forever. He only survived Zhorrid because of Darth Scythia’s timely intervention.” He nodded toward Scythia. “Perhaps his time is up.”

“But,” said Acina, “if we remove him, how do we control the shadow arm?”

“If we don’t,” said Ravage, “we aren’t controlling it anyway.”

“You never liked the Minister’s promotion,” Acina said dismissively. “‘Passive,’ you called him once? A man of indirect action remains a man of action.”

“Yes,” Marr said heavily. “How true.”

Everyone paused, knowing what he meant. After all, Acina had kneecapped the power base of three of the Darths in that room already, and lacked only Vowrawn and the Wrath’s support to take on the mantle of the Empress. She had done it without drawing a weapon.

Scythia did support Acina, along with the others. If she thought she could make an argument for her own Empressship at the age of thirty she’d do it, but she didn’t want that many enemies just yet. Acina could have a fine career before Scythia solidified her own power base to the necessary degree.

A woman of indirect action remained a woman of action.

“I just don’t understand how this…this conspiracy formed,” Mortis fretted. “Has this been going on under your nose since you took the post, Klawe?”

“You do not catch a conspiracy by jumping on the first loose end you see, Mortis. When I know what they want and how they intend to get it, I will dismantle them sinew by sinew.”

Knowing him, he probably meant it literally. And meant to livestream it on the HoloNet.

Scythia shot a look at the Wrath, who often had something to say when somebody was being wastefully vile. Vile she didn’t seem to mind, but showiness and inefficiency were sure to get under her skin. But she said nothing. She was probably just waiting for Acina to open the question of the throne again. The Wrath had insisted, loud and long, that the Emperor would show himself in good time. Vowrawn had politely, calmly, and immovably agreed with her. The Wrath had invested considerable emotion in this question. Scythia’s apparatus told her nothing the Council didn’t already know: the Emperor was silent. The Wrath’s devotion was for nothing.

But the days ticked by, and Acina tucked more resources into her nest egg, and the Wrath couldn’t defend an empty seat forever.

Scythia adjusted the bow at the front of her corset. The Dark Council could be a real mess, but there was nowhere she would rather be.

3: A Ship Named Ruin

“Oh, thank the stars,” said Ellie Fint. The Togruta ushered Ruth into the living room, where Rylon’s crib stood close to but not directly inside the flow of conditioned air. “He’s usually a peach at bedtime, but sometimes when you’re away I just can’t calm him down.”

Ruth set her mask and lightsabers on an end table and closed the distance in two steps to sweep her son out of his crib. “Well then,” she said, “look at you. Did you grow while I was away? Did you grow a tiny bit? That’s my sneaky boy.  Don’t get too big…baby, not yet.”

Rylon had a thatch of coarse dark hair. His blue eyes seemed to darken gradually over months, and they were already darker than Ruth’s. He was so like his father she sometimes caught herself wondering when the mole would grow in.

But, to be honest, he was the person who made her happiest out of everyone she had ever met. Worlds could end, titans could clash, her life could be bled dry of every person who ever pretended to have her interests in mind…but Rylon would be at home, babbling and waving, rushing to move around the knobbly gray carpet with his new technique, which was lying on his back and scooting with his little legs. Rylon would go still to hear her sing.

Ruth set him down to explore. “Ellie, I’ll take him. The library is at your disposal.” She could not trust her nanny to go socialize, not on Dromund Kaas where people would be watching for the Wrath’s weakness and certainly not on other planets where she might disappear into the crowd. But Ellie seemed to like holovids well enough. It beat prison, which was where Ruth had first found her.

Ellie walked to stand over Rylon. “Now don’t you tell her you tried to mash my lekku together,” she said sternly. “You be good.”

Ruth gave her a look. Ellie grinned back. It seemed she wasn’t holding a grudge about the lekku. “Goodnight.”

Rylon scooted eagerly to the couch and tried for a few seconds to push into it, or push it away. It didn’t work. His face scrunched up.

Ruth picked him up and bobbed him in air. “You’ll have to get a lot bigger to put a dent in that old thing,” she announced. “Come on, it’s time for bed.” She hummed a little Mirialan folk song he liked and settled him in the crib and he stared up at her, murmuring nonsense and bubbling at the nose. She wiped his face and tucked him in.

Pierce and Broonmark walked in from the direction of the shuttle pad. They always secured the place first. Ruth raised a shushing finger to her lips. Pierce nodded. Rylon burbled. Broonmark came to the crib and lowered one clawed hand. Rylon grabbed the furry wrist and attempted to cuddle with it.

Broonmark looked up. “Sith Clan is stuck,” he said. He didn’t seem to know what to do about it. Threatening the child was not a thing he would survive, and everyone knew it.

“Here,” said Pierce. He ran his hand into the crib and gently slipped his fingers between Rylon’s hands and Broonmark’s fur. Broonmark eased his hand out, and Pierce gently wriggled his way out of Rylon’s drowsy grip. “There we are.”

Broonmark left for his room. Pierce looked at Ruth and grinned. “There, I can handle babies. Just like riding a hoverbike.”

“You always say that like you’ve done this before.”

Pierce looked around as if expecting eavesdroppers. “I have, you know.”

“What? Who did you raise?”

“Seen enough of my son to get the idea.”

Ruth blinked. The words made no sense. “Now you’re joking.”

“Nope!” he said blithely. “Pierce, Junior. He’s eight years old. I’m friends with the mother but we don’t have a lot in common. So a few days a year I stop by, drop off gifts, hear about how hard child-rearing is, and come back to you.”

It felt like Baras abruptly revealing a twenty-year-old mole. “Why didn’t you say something!?”

“I don’t need your enemies on my kid, milord. But now…oh, why not. I know your measure now.”

“Do you want more time with him?”

“Stars, no, that’s a responsibility. I trust his mom.”

“So all your talking about how taking care of a baby is easy...”

“The truth, if not from my experience then from hers talking to me.”

“Well…if it saves Broonmark…”

“Milord, you just got home. You’ve been up for twenty-three hours. Get some rest.”

“You also have opinions on how to take care of a Wrath.”

“Nature, nurture, and firepower. What more could you ever need?”

*

Ruth did not get some rest.

Pierce, a father. Pierce, who served her so completely she hadn’t even realized his rare weeks off were spent with a whole other person.

Rylon wouldn’t even have that with his father.

Ruth remembered what she’d told Quinn. Rylon wouldn’t know what a father was until he made it to school and learned that all the other children had one. That rage was still in her, strengthening her.

But if something happened to her…would Pierce willingly take on a child when he didn’t even try to be with his own? Would anyone Rylon recognized be there for him, apart from the paid nanny and a Talz who was one harsh sentence away from eating instead of protecting?

Did Rylon need somebody else, and would anybody else be more motivated than his father?

She thought about it that night before she slept. She thought about it for a week. She nearly got shot in the back putting down a rebellion on Cato Neimoidia. Even that bent back into her deliberations. If she failed, what would happen?

In searing retrospective she remembered what he’d said when, intending cruelty, she told him she was pregnant. He had not been surprised. He had said the Voss vision placed their child at maybe twelve years old, learning for the first time about what he, Quinn, had done. Quinn already knew the child looked like him. What he didn’t know was whether Ruth was still alive at that snapshot in time.

But Rylon would live to twelve and know something of his father by then. If the Voss could be trusted, anyway. Ruth had discarded the idea when she’d kicked Quinn out of her life.

Maybe…maybe Ruth didn’t want Quinn to be a stranger if she dropped off the map. Nobody wanted to hand their child to a stranger. Ruth had already asked Jaesa and Vette for so much, and would owe more if she asked this. Jaesa and Vette would want to re-establish a relationship. That wasn’t an option anymore. If the Emperor showed his face again, he would have Ruth cut them down.

Ruth recorded a message to be delivered through the usual military channels. She didn’t care who saw it on the way. She didn’t even much care about a response, but she did have a plan, and it would be convenient for him to support it.

She wore her black body armor and featureless black mask. That was right. She enunciated carefully.

“Major Quinn. I've named my child Rylon, after the person who brought us together. The secret mole. I'm a romantic.

“I am the Emperor's Wrath. I may die any day at all. In my absence, I don't trust my friends with something as important as raising a child. You, on the other hand. You're a monster, but you protected me when it was convenient to do so, and you were good at it. We're talking about your son. If a sense of responsibility doesn't move you to help, the doors that open for the retinue of the Wrath’s kin should. I believe he is Force-sensitive. I believe he has a future. You will protect him. 

“So I want you to meet him. If I fall, I don't want him to go to a stranger. 

“If you strike at me to get him sooner, I or my staff will kill your family and destroy your career. One of those might bother you. So your choices are my rules or no contact at all. 

“Those are my terms. Coordinate with Pierce.”

*

Quinn, alone in his quarters on the Tenacity, took the words in the spirit they were offered.

The Wrath hated him. She hated him almost as much as she distrusted whatever remained of her friends.

Her voice was hard, her words vicious. He repeated only a little of the message. 

So I want you to meet him. If I fall, I don't want him to go to a stranger. 

So I want you to meet him. If I fall…

I want you to meet him if I fall…

I want you…

He steeled himself and holoed Captain Pierce.

*

Olivia Quinn lived in a very punk neighborhood in Kaas City, one of the scruffy corners where community pride seemed to exist without most of the trappings of actual Imperials. The walls were painted here and many of the windows had plastoid planters hung outside, heavy with flowers and herbs. Nothing was clean in and of itself; everything seemed to blur a little into everything else, a vast identity with an Imperial-red scribble but no clean stamp.

Malavai Quinn had never visited his sister here. Something might rub off on him. But now he was desperate.

He knocked on her door.

Olivia Quinn, twentysomething, wearing overalls and a bright blue shirt, opened the door and snapped from welcome to winter. “I told you I’m not speaking to you. I told you if you made some genius master move and you drove her away, I wouldn’t speak to you. This is me. Not speaking.”

“The Wrath wants me to meet my son.”

The door, having begun to close, stopped. “You hurt her and she wants you to meet your kid? Are you even sure it’s yours?”

He thought of the Voss vision. “Very.”

“And what do you want me to do about it?”

Olivia loved children. She taught primary school in a more respectable neighborhood than this. She knew how to deal with tiny people. “What does one bring a nine-month-old?”

“Copious apologies?” She leaned back into the house and yelled, “Just my brother. I’m making him go away.” She looked back at Malavai. “He’s going to get bodily fluids on anything you give him. Resign yourself to that. Get him a blanket. Sleep with it a few nights first, so it smells like you. A baby will notice. Have you decided what to say to his mother?”

“No. There isn’t time. Years wouldn’t be enough time.”

“I suggest ‘What a beautiful baby.’ It’s hard to screw that up.” She leaned back in. “Yes, I’m still mad. He’s leaving soon.” She looked back out. “Look, I’d love to chat, but you’ve got my advice. You were an idiot to betray her and she owes you nothing. Now, I’ve got things to do so…drop me a line if you survive this little meeting of yours. Not that I care.” She shut the door.

*

Ruth set up a camera in the living room. It felt ridiculous, bugging her own house, but there was no way she was going to talk to Quinn and there was equally no way she would let him interact with her son without personal supervision.

She sat in her room, turned on the holo, and listened. Exactly at the requested time, his knock sounded three rapid taps. Decisive, but not overbearing.

Captain Pierce strolled to the front door and, silent, ushered Major Quinn into the living room. Ellie held Rylon wrapped up in a blue blanket.

Quinn approached her. His eyes were riveted on the child. “Is this he?”

“Rylon Niral, sir.” Ellie bobbed some kind of curtsy.

The thaw stealing across Quinn’s face galled Ruth. How dare he develop emotional range now? He should be unmoved by his son. He shouldn’t care. He had never cared about her.

He opened his mouth, hesitated. Ruth leaned forward. “What a beautiful baby,” he said faintly. “He looks like her.” He looked at Ellie. “Doesn’t he?”

The Togruta smirked. “Mister, if you and that baby switched faces, no one would be the wiser.”

Quinn reached out. Ellie blinked a second’s hesitation, then handed the child over. She adjusted his hands in a hurry. “There, support his head. There.”

Quinn held Rylon and stared at him in wonder. Ruth would have given good money to know what was going through his head. Was he rearranging priorities in that fine durasteel mind? Deciding who he would sell out for this boy, deciding who he would sell this boy to given the right price? Did he have a duty toward this child that he hadn’t had toward its mother?

“I am your father,” he rasped. “Do you know me?”

Rylon hiccupped and spit up a little bit. Quinn went into full emergency mode: taller, taut, focused. Ruth knew just what to do to calm him down again, but she wasn’t in the room. He only said, “Did I hurt him?”

“No,” Ellie soothed. “Here.” 

Quinn did not give up the baby. 

“All right, I'll fetch a cloth.”

Rylon giggled merrily while Ellie tried to wipe off Quinn’s chest. Quinn shook himself and pulled something out of his pocket: a folded square.

“Here,” he said, “I brought him a blanket.”

Ellie looked at Pierce. Pierce shrugged. Quinn shook out the blanket and presented it to Rylon.

Rylon grabbed the blanket’s corner and waved it wildly. It was charcoal gray, with a red Imperial seal on it. Of course. But it already looked like she wouldn’t be getting it out of her son’s grip. He rubbed it on his face and giggled more.

Ruth watched Quinn’s face and Rylon’s reactions obsessively. Rylon was certainly in a good mood, and Quinn acted like he was carrying the galaxy’s happiest land mine.

He loves him. Remember what that felt like?

Ruth’s heart hardened. She had brought them together as part of an emergency backup, nothing more. Quinn was a lousy second choice, but at least he recognized Rylon was important.

“Time’s up,” Pierce finally said.

Quinn had been engaging in a one-handed tug o’ war over the blanket. “Ah,” he said quietly, and ducked his head to better address Rylon. “Behave for your mother. She loves you very much.” He kissed his son’s forehead and surrendered him to Ellie.

“Please,” he said to her, ignoring Pierce. “Express my gratitude to the Wrath. If you think this could happen again…I will submit to any conditions she sets.”

“I don’t know what happened between you,” she said, with more emotion than Ruth liked. “But I’ll ask her. He likes you.”

Quinn looked around as if trying to figure out whom to salute to. There was no Sith in the room, and he certainly wouldn’t defer to Pierce. Finally he settled on saluting Ellie, and marched out.

Ruth turned off the holo and sagged back on the bed. There. She had made the connection. She had implemented the backup. And Quinn’s delight was as warm and convincing as it had been with her, two and a half years ago.

She curled back upward and went to the living room, where Ellie was putting Rylon to bed. Ruth said, “What do you think?” 

Pierce spiked one eyebrow. “I think if I tell him he can't come back he'll try to murder me, too.”

“Ellie?”

“Did you see their eyes? Like mirrors! He has a very handsome father.”

“Nobody ever disputed that.” 

Pierce opened his mouth, then settled for a smirk.

Ellie continued, “I think he is a nice man.”

The hilarity of ‘nice’ wouldn't have been appreciated. “Will Rylon remember this visit?”

“When he grows? No. But I think he'll remember this person was kind.” 

“If anything happens to me. Get Quinn back here. Help him with everything. He'll need help.”

“Well, obviously. He didn't know how to hold the poor mite.”

“Twice a year. Around his birthday, and six months off. Is that enough? I want Rylon to know who he is.” 

“The Major wants more,” Ellie pointed out. 

“The Major tried to shoot me in the face when his employer told him to. I don't care very much what the Major wants. But…Rylon laughed. They obviously like each other. He likes…our child.” That was what she’d wanted. Wasn’t it? “Let him schedule something for four months.” 

*

Before Quinn got that call from Pierce, he recorded what he had to record.

“My lord, I'm not certain what to say. I will be brief. I must thank you for the opportunity to meet our son. I want him to exist. I always did. Whatever went wrong between us, he is unambiguously good. And I am grateful that you granted me contact. I move at your will, my lord. I cannot ask for another visit. But I hope this wasn't the last. Forgive me if I overstep.” 

Ruth deleted it without opening. This entire exercise changed nothing between them, nor should it ever. Next time she wouldn’t even watch.

*

Quinn had held his son in his arms. And Ruth, who hated him, not only allowed it, she was giving him extra visitations. He had promised her a life and delivered only a tactical cross hatch of automated blaster fire, and in return she gave him this.

Why? To make him a viable replacement when she died. Nothing less would have moved her to do this. She was letting Quinn in for Rylon's sake. Because there was some percentage chance that she wouldn't come home. 

He could have that boy, have him forever, if Ruth Niral died. And because she knew that, knew what he stood to gain, and still did the right thing for their son, he could never act against her.

A few hours, twice per year.

Does she take care of you? he had silently asked. Does she love you? Are you happy? 

Rylon had squinched up his face and sneezed.

Pierce had plainly been there as a guard, not a competing parent. Ruth had not presented a competing parent. No one stood where Ruth had prepared Quinn’s place.

He thanked Olivia for the blanket idea. She gave him a cup of tea and ten minutes’ hesitant talking space before calling him an idiot and pushing him out the door.

4: Damnable

Marr invited Ruth to come to his office in the Citadel.

Ruth arrived exactly on time. Their ranks were equal, and she respected him. His support for Acina was a strike against him, but then, nobody seemed content to allow the Emperor his empty throne.

“Wrath,” Marr said, his voice oddly modulated through the mask he never took off.

Her voice sounded normal, she was sure. She didn’t interfere with it.

“Your projects are going well?” It was a sarcastic small talk, but it seemed preferable to leaping into business.

“We prosper in everything but war,” Marr said. “I have but one task on a hundred fronts. You are wise to manage one at a time.”

“I wouldn’t trade places.”

“I am no mystic,” Marr said. “But I had a vision during my meditations. It had the weight of truth, far beyond my capacity to question.”

“News of the war?”

“A far future. A graduate of a small Sith academy on Jaled will rise to rip the Dark Council itself.”

“The parts we like?”

“He won’t distinguish.”

“I see. Is he still at the Academy? Do you know how I might find him?”

“I believe he is still a student. An unidentified one of dozens, and you may have to remove them all. An Academy that raises a challenger to the Dark Council is an Academy that has already poisoned its students.”

Something was off. Something was wrong. “Marr, how old are these students?”

“Six to twelve,” he said flatly.

Ruth recoiled. “I don't butcher children.”

“Even when one will oppose the Empire? Every child you stop is a powerful enemy you prevent. Every teacher you purge is an infection you cleanse.”

“I was a weapon for my masters. I…thought I was other things, but really, I was just a weapon. Now, the last master—the one who crawled into me and completed me—is silent. And this is what you give me to work on.”

“In a word, yes. I assure you, I have no special interest in excising this boy, or the others around him. But it must be done to prevent his future.”

“You know I can’t be seen to just run errands for one or another of the Dark Council.”

“The others don’t trust you enough to use you directly. It worries them, that they have never seen you angry.” 

Now, that baffled. “What are you talking about? I'm always angry.” 

“Never enough to lose control. Never enough to sever ties in that room. Your passions are in work harness. In that way, you belong to an old guard you have never met. Vowrawn remembers, and I.”

“In contrast with Ravage and Scythia.” 

“And Acina. The difference is in attitude more than age…but that attitude is under siege. Passion is no longer something you sublimate…behind a mask. The Empire must move forward, yet at the same time, its roots are its greatest asset. This is the contradiction we face.” 

“Marr, tell me truly. Are you sending me out there to kill your enemies’ children?” 

“No. My vision was clear. I know nothing of this child except that he will destroy us, given decades and the opportunity.” 

“Does the old guard lie?” 

“Constantly. But not in this.” 

“I’ll think about it,” said Ruth. “Get me his location.”

Broonmark flew Ruth off planet, toward a minor errand she’d been meaning to get to. He was a violent pilot, but one who could stay alert and patient for more than twenty-four hours at a time.

For the first time ever, she took her mind off Rylon.

Everyone at that Academy had a father. But fathers knew how to lie.

Everyone at that Academy had a mother. But their mothers had sent them to the meshes of the Sith, and wasn’t it better to die young than to end up feeling like…this?

Darth Marr really did think of her as a weapon he could point. Sometime, long ago, less than five years ago, she had thought she would be a crusader, a hero. She thought that good judgment and correct intentions would make a difference.

No. Her lightsabers made a difference. How stupid she had been, to believe otherwise.

She could kill a threat in the making. She could kill thirty threats in the making. Why hadn’t she asked how many? Was that just not important anymore?

She stalked to the bridge, roiling with disgust and frustration. She was the most functional player in the Sith hierarchy because she didn’t play games. Her purity earned her these assignments. Yes, she was still pure.

“Broonmark,” she called. “Exit hyperspace. Chart a course to Jaled.”

*

The Academy was one huge square building, two stories, with a slate roof and somewhat rusted metal walls. An archway pierced the building with a view of an exposed atrium at the building’s center.

“My lord.” There was a woman in pink and black coming out to greet Ruth. “My lord, you honor us.” Did she recognize Ruth? “I did not know of your coming. Are you here to see the students?”

“Yes,” Ruth said honestly.

“Are you seeking an apprentice?”

“I may have one, if I find someone suitable.”

“Class just got out. Let me gather everyone.” She poked her head into a side door and yelled. Moments later there were children and adults spilling out of all sides of the atrium, lining up in pregnant confusion. Their eyes on Ruth were like dozens of crawling insects.

Ruth surveyed the triple row of children and the rear curtain of teachers who weren’t getting paid enough for this. “Is this all of them?” she said wearily.

“Yes, my lord.”

Every one a rebel in the making. Ruth dropped to one knee and focused. She hated their future, their chances and their destinies. If it was happiness, she was searingly jealous, and if it was sorrow, this was a mercy.

Twenty-two throats. She gripped them all at once.

The boys had already missed a collective breath by the time the teachers understood what was wrong. Two charged her at once. She added them to the party. Two more drew lightsabers.

So she hurried. It wasn’t like she meant to torture these people.

Twenty-four. She had never done that before, and might never again—the children were weaker than her usual targets. The pain and fear in the Force, always compressed to a shockwave when tipped into death, knocked her resolve out of her. She had done something horrible, worse than horrible, and her entire being could feel its wrongness. Its wrongness, and the unlikely quiet of its fall.

She shoved the lightsaber wielders aside and walked out the metal arch. She had to tell Marr.

But she didn’t holo him. She wrote a report with bare facts—that is, all the students were dead and no one had followed her. She went straight to Dromund Kaas, to her family’s house.

She thought about Rylon again, and her hands felt slick, as if despite all her efforts she’d been doused in blood.

“Baby,” she whispered, reaching over the rails of the fluffy blue bed. “Baby, I must clear many pathways for you.” She lifted him and he eyed her curiously, and she sang him a snatch of an old song. “Oh, my little one. Tell me I’ve done something to make safer the ways you must walk.”

“Mama,” he said. It was the first time he had done so. And her hands didn’t slip after all.

She didn’t sleep that night. She sat by Rylon’s bed and tried to remember why she was better than the Dark Council.

She wasn’t. She wasn’t at all.

Hours later, she made an appointment with Darth Acina.

The great Darth met Ruth in a public garden, a place that had eyes, that would record the existence of this conversation. She wore the Wrath’s mask, the one everyone in the galaxy knew. She wanted her capitulation known.

“This is very unusual, Wrath. What can I do to serve the Empire?”

“Spoken like someone who believes, as I do, that my master still has a Voice to obey. Acina, I have been over the evidence, over every resource I have. And I must tell you that the moment my master returns, I am his, without delay or reservation.”

Acina didn’t visibly judge. “You’ve made that abundantly clear.”

“Then know this: I will back your claim, and I’ll convince Vowrawn to back it, too. I will go on working according to assessed requirements and the considered arguments of my fellow Sith. Perhaps, if my lord Emperor never returns, that’s all I will ever be. But I shouldn’t be working to keep that throne empty.”

Acina’s eyes glittered unsettlingly. “Wrath, I don’t know where to begin. I am…surprised, and pleased.”

“Then I will make you an Empress.”

“And I will endeavor to never make you want to unmake an Empress. I believe you’re doing the right thing.”

Ruth nodded gruffly. “That makes one of us.”

She didn’t sleep in the day. The Force impact had chipped and stained parts of her insides and she couldn’t seem to get whole or clean again. She sang that night, for much, much longer than it took Rylon to fall asleep.

*

He stood, smiling. He was a Human, dark-skinned and dark-haired, with a penchant for Jedi-like robes, sort of his way of thumbing his nose at his native Dromund Kaas. These robes were in blue of un-Jedi-like elaborateness. “Jaesa,” he said warmly in his deep, rolling voice. “Any trouble landing?”

“No. Someday they might re-establish traffic control, but until then, no one’s looking.”

“Then we draw order. A little bit. You’re looking well, at least. Did you get what you needed from Dromund Kaas?” A second’s silence. He wilted. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“She wanted me to vet her childcare. And I did. Then she ran away. At least she cares for her son. I can’t…think about her. If I think about her I really will despair. I need to continue my work. With you. That’s not some consolation prize, I promise.”

“Far from it,” he said quietly. “I’m relieved you could come for this. I have three names. We need to reach their prison records and get a cell block location. I have aurodium for bribes, but I’m afraid this may not be peaceful.”

“If the alternative is leaving three innocents locked up in a war zone? I’ve been working on my mind tricks. I think we could avoid a fight or two that way.”

“Your talents will outstrip mine if you’re not careful.” He smiled. “Promise me you’ll still have a use for me when that day comes?”

“It’s going to take a while. I promise.”

“Come, are you ready?”

“With you all the way.” There were still Light Side Sith. Jaesa had lost one, publicly. But the work went on.

Ashara

The Republic had lost Taris. Ashara Zavros knew this. The Jedi’s efforts to establish training here, the Cathar efforts at recolonization…it was hopeless. The Sith had drained this planet and it was dying from what sludge was left.

One Sith in particular. A Mirialan, a traitor to her species. A woman who had never lied, not exactly, but had murdered Ashara’s teachers and enslaved her ancestor’s spirit.

Ashara did not go after her. It was a wide galaxy and the search was too much for one woman. But Ashara had had a purpose before then. Exercises with the Force. Training against the chaos.

Readiness, if Scythia should ever return.

The Empire had not fully withdrawn from the planet they had despoiled. Darth Gravus still spilled blood in rivers across the ruined countryside. It was a fantasy of hers to break into their crater base and make him pay for what he’d done.

For what he’d allowed, when he let Scythia and that Thana Vesh slash across these ruined settlements.

Ashara honed herself on Imperial patrols and lumbering transports. Some nights she stayed up with the Cathar militia who guarded nothing now but wounded pride and implacable hatred. She stayed up, and killed those who thought they could just pick off Republic citizens for sport.

The Sith had said, “The Jedi failed you, and when you’re a ghost, I want you angry. Farewell, padawan.”

Sometimes Ashara looked up at the stars. Oh, she had no way to hunt, but she could make herself ready. Her Jedi masters would not be proud. But, she thought, Scythia might be. Before she died.

SCORPIO

SCORPIO had no use for grunting sweating organics, except when they could save her some resources on getting from place to place. She researched and deduced her way into Star Cabal tendrils, the things left when the Cabal itself was eviscerated.

She severed them, so that the Empire could not have them.

Cipher Nine had tried to reduce her to a databank. He had ordered that she be cut into four pieces, stored in different rooms, and only approached in by pairs of trained Intelligence agents. It had been difficult, but not impossible, to talk her way out of there and restore brains and data storage to one form.

She had assisted Cipher Nine’s infiltration of the Star Cabal’s station. She had been excluded from the retrieval of the Black Codex.

Oh, how she would like to have the Black Codex.

But now she was free, and she had made it to Nar Shaddaa. She could go on tearing down the lifeline that Intelligence must be desperate for in its current disarray.

There in the cloaking murk of Nar Shaddaa’s traffic, she plugged in and sought a feed from Dromund Kaas.

Data flooded in. A shape in the data. Fragments of code, coinciding and beginning to execute.

SCORPIO jerked back. The virus was already loose in her system. She felt it combing her databanks, looking for something. It deleted something. Then ran further in, bringing up files…

Her files on “Wynston.” On Cipher Nine. Some bastard child of the Black Codex had been written to destroy from her knowledge what had been destroyed in the galaxy at large.

She caught the rogue code, wrestled with it, lost another address. Crushed it.

SCORPIO took three seconds to analyze the deactivated code before permanently deleting it. It was clever, but fragile. It would take expert organics months to begin to challenge SCORPIO’s detection and purge.

This wasn’t Wynston’s work. He couldn’t slice his way off a planet given a fully fueled shuttle and a running start. She’d only ever had to calculate that once; he had never surprised her.

But he was back in control of at least one very good slicer. That meant Intelligence was doing far, far better than public sources indicated. And she had to generate a better blocker before she went on the HoloNet again.

Andronikos

“It’s under control.”

The Black Stubble (Blackbeard was taken) was taking fire from two directions, and Elisa was twisting and bursting to place the little ship between the Republic vessels with their extremely up-to-date weapons.

Andronikos Revel was seated beside her, flipping shield and chaff controls like mad. The trash disposal wouldn’t fool anyone about where the ship was, but with a little custom acceleration it could be a fat projectile against one of the defenders.

Yeah. The Black Stubble was the aggressor. And they had already gotten the cargo they wanted out of the sadly yawing Goldie. These Republic gunships didn’t stand a chance.

“Hyperspace?” Elisa grunted.

“Thought you had them under control,” Andronikos purred.

“Hyperspace.” The two ships had stopped firing while they figured out not shooting each other past the Stubble. It was a deeply satisfying type of artificial peace. But one that would not last.

Then it was time. “Hit it.”

The Black Stubble leaped into the streaking starscape and Andronikos kept his hands on the shield controls until they were well and truly on their way.

He slung out of his chair and ran to the cargo hold. It was half full of generic gray cases. “All right, how much did we get?”

“Everything that felt heavy,” Coiro said.

“…But the extremely expensive petrets can only survive in uncompressed xonion gas,” Andronikos said. “The cases should be barely over empty.”

“Oh, there were a bunch of those,” Gorigg Phu said brightly. “We left ’em.”

Elisa laughed loudly behind Andronikos. “Thought you had it under control,” she snickered.

“Next time,” Andronikos growled, “I’m stealing everything myself. Come on, let’s find out what we did get. Maybe it’ll cover repairs.”

And yet, there was nowhere he would rather be.

Lord Scourge

Lord Scourge had not chosen Larr Gith. Her face, her shapely features, her brash arrogance had stamped themselves on his mind hundreds of years before they took physical form.

And yet he was disappointed, in the event, that the object of his vision should be so…shallow.

He no longer tracked her. Larr Gith appeared on the holovids, getting pictures snapped with fans across the galaxy, often entangled with a besotted-looking Doc. If Scourge had to find her, the gossip rags could put him on her trail trivially.

If he had to find her. That would only come to pass if the Emperor were to surface again.

He crossed and re-crossed the lines of the Emperor’s power. He found stealth droids and studied their memory banks. He found Servants—dozens of Servants, close to hundreds of Servants—and interrogated and dispatched them with no definitive result. The goal was twofold: one, to get hold of the Emperor by any means necessary.

And two, to make sure that if he came back, he would have nothing but a smoldering ruin to rebuild upon.

Kaliyo

Kaliyo liked having somebody above her to take the fall so she wouldn’t have to. Her style was a majordomo, an enforcer, a contractor with a permanent photo ID…and she liked it that way. If things ever got annoying she could just set a fire and run to the next sheltered spot.

But she was still running, and she could still feel the flames.

Rodia was a pit, but it was a pit of twenty billion organics who barely understood what law was as a concept. Entire cities simply didn’t have centralized sensor networks. Kaliyo only had to change her jacket to be somebody different on these narrow, rain-fouled streets.

And she had more than employment to take up her time. Intelligence had only managed to cut three of her accounts, and she could live for a year off the largest of the ones they hadn’t snagged. Beyond that, the big problem was entertainment.

Kaliyo picked at one nail with another and didn’t look at the naked Zabrak sprawled across her bed. “Think you could do that again?”

The stranger croaked. “Ha. Ha. Give me a few minutes.”

“Got it. Do you cook?”

“What?”

“Do you cook. You know. Food.”

“No, can’t say I ever have.”

“Well, that runs me right out of reasons to keep you around. Door’s that way.”

Finding a sponsor that could keep Imperial Intelligence off her back might be a challenge. But anything was welcome that could keep her mind off that self-righteous, smarmy, vindictive, petty, controlling, idealistic man-child.

“The entire Republic side of the Holonet says a Jedi killed the Emperor last month,” Mako reported. “It’s about to get a lot more chaotic in Imperial space.”

“That sounds like steady work,” Torian said.

“Eep!” said Blizz.

Calline sat up in a hurry. Blizz’s section of the sofa rocked and tipped over backwards, sticking up a footrest as it did so.

Blizz, now flat on her back on the floor with a sofa section towering over her, gulped.

“Blizz fix,” the Jawa said sheepishly.

“Do you want to see how many top-level Sith have multiple bounties?” said Mako. “We could score a payday bigger than Janarus if we move fast.”

Calline gestured for her to bring it on.

“Right. I’ve got a…Darth Arho…three for Darth Ravage, but that one’s killed over a hundred hunters already…hm? Anything?” Calline shrugged. “Do you want something lower-stakes?” Calline made a rolling gesture. “Okaaay…live bounty, Colonel Tartarus is looking for his brother. A lot of credits…oh. Oh. He’s Sith, and the Colonel wants him delivered alive.”

Calline made a finger blaster and clicked it.

“Really?” said Gault. “Mako said ‘a lot’ but it’s not a Supreme Chancellor price range.” He added as if wounded, “It’s not our price range.”

“We find him,” Calline said. And they knew her well enough to know when she meant business.

Because things were changing. Calline had made a name for herself the galaxy over. She could choose any job she wanted.

And she wanted the jobs that reunited families.

She let her crew figure out the new scheme in their own time. She started skipping kill bounties as a matter of course. She delivered children to parents, sisters to sisters. She wasn’t stupid. She didn’t think every one of these was a rosy reunion and everybody would be happy and nice to each other forever.

But if she didn’t try, what good was she?

Mako kept her eyes on Project 32 and the Chiss named Wynston. The latter seemed to have vanished from the HoloNet. If the timing were any different, Calline might believe something bad had happened to him. But as it was, he’d vanished in the bare weeks when she’d been closest to catching up with him. That was an awfully convenient death. No. Somehow, somewhere, maybe with a mask like that Wrath, her brother was still kicking.

Her income dropped to a trickle, and she took poverty with the same philosophy as riches. She had earned the ability to choose her targets, and she chose with care. The acknowledgment from the occasional truly grateful family was reward enough, no matter what Gault said.

*

“Here’s a family matter with some zeroes behind it,” Mako said. “A woman wants her son returned from, get this, Darth Malgus.”

Calline tracked Darths. Any responsible Mandalorian would. Malgus was vicious, and he had a private army. Was this son a soldier? Or an apprentice? Mothers had a way of not mentioning their wayward children were full-fledged Sith.

But this one was just a person. Human, an Army lieutenant, a loyal citizen and one whose mother said had been proud to be selected for Malgus’s army.

That is, before that army vanished two months ago.

“He served Darth Malgus. But Malgus’s closest forces disappeared two months ago. I don’t know where they went or what they’re doing.” Corena made a fist. “I don’t give a damn what they’re doing. I want my son.”

The transmission ended.

“’s a challenge,” Calline said with a slow and low-key pleasure.

“It may mean crossing Darth Malgus,” Mako said. “And he has a bad reputation.”

“This will barely cover armament costs,” Gault said glumly.  “If we want to stay on top of our game.”

“Always,” Calline said. “We’ll make do.”

She switched the holo on again and was startled to find one message on a dozen channels. Darth Malgus himself, promising a new Empire. An Empire for everyone, not just Humans.

“Oh,” Calline said. An Empire under new management? Maybe she could get a new sponsor out of this. One who didn’t think aliens were animals.

Darth Malgus had been active with some ships over the distant planet of Ilum, apparently a source of Jedi tombs and some very modern crystals. T5-M7 collected sensor readings until she detected a blip not far from the Imperial beachhead. There was no visual with it.

“Well, they said he disappeared,” Mako said. “Let’s see what’s up.”

A star destroyer materialized before the Boorcati at collision range. Calline slewed up as hard as she could and still had to go for an open hangar to avoid plowing into the star destroyer’s side.

The hangar had a small fighter and four transports, all of them oriented as if they had just landed and hadn’t been turned around for relaunch.

Calline left Teefive in charge of the Boorcati and deployed her team. Blizz got to carry her rocket launcher, which seemed to make her happy.

They made for the main artery of the ship. There was a choke point, and beyond it a woman screaming. "Wrath," Darth Scythia of the Dark Council bellowed. "Would you GET a fucking HOBBY."

Calline darted to enter the long corridor. “Darth Scythia,” she said.

“Oh, it’s you,” the Mirialan said in her dramatic soprano. “We’ve come a long way since Voss, hunter. I’m going to pay you a sinful number of credits if you come with me to stymy the counterattack. Starting with this maniac.”

“Malgus sounds good for Mandos,” Torian said. “And aliens, Champion?”

Calline had no problem nodding. Then she brought up a holo to display a single man, an Imperial lieutenant. “I want this one.”

Scythia shrugged. “If he doesn’t get in my way. We’re here to reinforce Malgus, so if this is one of Malgus’s people…we need only avoid misunderstandings.”

“Well?” called a black figure further down. “Are you going to try?”

Scythia yelled back. “Wrath, the Emperor has gone silent. Not just irregular, like after the Jedi attack. Why did he go silent? How did Malgus get his station? Don’t you want to know?”

The black figure was silent.

“I promise I will tell you all I know,” said Scythia, “if you defend Darth Malgus with me.”

“I promise you will tell me now, or regret your silence.”

“Now, now. I made my offer. I could tell you, but then you’d have to kill me.” Scythia smiled, not pleasantly. “Come with me, Wrath. You were chosen, you are the elite, but the system doesn't work for others the way it works for you. Is that not wrong? Come with me, don’t fight me, and I’ll tell you what I know of your master.”

A few things happened at once. The Wrath extended one hand, palm aside, gripping in Scythia's direction. A blaster bolt, fat and bright orange, ripped past her and stopped in the air, quivering like a restive animal. A mechanical yelp came from the bulkhead a hundred meters away.

The blaster bolt hovered about two meters from Scythia’s head, held in place by the Wrath's concentration.

“The Emperor’s station,” the Wrath said.

Scythia gestured. The bolt separated in two and streaked past her ears.

The Wrath had turned her face down the corridor to a balcony overlooking the end. A rust-orange figure stood there, aiming something that had to be a sniper rifle.

The droid fired again, and the Wrath just redirected the fat bolt into the ground. The droid’s vocabulator sounded like it was dragging along the deck. “Exasperated observation: a Sith who can stop blaster fire will force me to less pleasant methods.”

“Droid,” Mako said decisively.

“Hm,” the Wrath said. “Snipers.” And she ran toward the droid.

“Gault,” Calline sang, and began a ground-eating lope. Maybe this was Malgus’s first defense. She couldn’t communicate her desire to help, not when the Wrath and her blaster-wielding minions were right there. She looked around for an alternate route.

And the door behind the droid burst open. Over a dozen people piled onto the balcony: two alien Jedi, two Twi’lek gunners, a full armored squad, various people of her height or smaller, and a Wookiee. A closer look revealed a Mon Calamari trying to hide behind the Wookiee.

Calline didn’t know any of them, but their weapons came up as they surveyed the scene. Calline tilted her head to tell her party to defend as necessary.

One of the newcomers fired a lean green blaster shot. Scythia gestured. The bolt yelped and streaked back to the tall armored figure that had fired it. He grunted loud enough for everyone to hear.

The droid spoke again. “Smug truth bomb: I am capable of disposing of all of you given—”

The tall Jedi gestured. A force slammed the droid into the wall. A grenade rolled from its hand. 

The tall Jedi locked eyes with Scythia.

The entire ship thrummed. 

“Apprentice,” Scythia said, voice ringing. “We meet again.”

“I want no part of you,” he said unsteadily. “Are you here to stop the betrayer?”

“I make no public statement about my reasons,” Scythia said. “But I will kill one more Jedi today.” She looked at the Sarkhai girl. “Or two.”

“Don't fight,” he groaned. “Please, don't fight.”

“The Republic has no authority here. This is an internal Sith matter.”

“Pretty sure Malfuss made it everyone's problem,” said the smaller Twi’lek. “Unless you want to take him on by yourself?”

The Wrath was following Scythia, walking slowly toward the staircase that led to the droid’s perch where Tebbith’s party had piled through. “Vette,” she said in a loud, emotionless voice. “I need something from Scythia.”

The Twi’lek said, “And you'll hand Darth Malfuss the Empire to get it?”

“You don't understand. My handlers are dying. I need the Emperor.”

“Why? Does he give brooding lessons? If you're not getting orders, enjoy your freedom. Just tell me you want your freedom.”

“Halt,” Calline blurted. Because Scythia was suddenly in motion. She bowled through Tebbith’s party as if not occupying the same space as them, and streaked further into the ship.

“She’s going to reinforce Malgus,” the Wrath announced. “Go, if you mean to stop her.”

The mismatched party poured back through the door. Calline closed the distance to the droid and knelt beside it. It was a hunter-killer droid, shiny and modern in finish though outdated in design.

She reached for the behavior core. It was covered in an orange crystalline substance. When her glove touched it, her glove’s surface started to hiss and smoke.

The hunter-killer droid had boobytrapped its critical systems. Calline had to admire it. She activated her wrist carbonite freezer and coated the whole core in a safe layer of carbonite. Then she slung it into a bag across her chest.

Just then a stream of Kaleesh flowed into the artery behind Calline and her family. Many had spears. Some had blasters.

“Scythia?” Calline yelled.

“Yes,” said one of the Kaleesh.

“That way.” She pointed.

The Wrath was still standing near the balcony. As Calline watched, she leaped to the ceiling and clung to a grate. In another moment she wrenched the grate off and lifted herself in.

“Mako, Blizz, Gault, find our guy.” Calline activated her jetpack. “Torian.”

They followed the Wrath into the dark.

The passage was long and winding, with few exits. To the point, it wasn’t carrying poison or any wild temperature or gas. When the dark figure ahead punched through a grate and dropped, Calline knew they had to be somewhere important.

She didn’t quite expect it to be a divide as deep as the ship itself, with forces gathering on both sides.

Darth Malgus stood just below Calline’s vantage point. The Wrath had dropped to stand beside him. Scythia had somehow made it to Malgus’s left. Half a dozen masked Kaleesh ranged behind her.

And opposite, the entire cavalcade from the assassin droid’s chamber was waving their weapons and getting ready to fire. Calline noted that the beefy soldier whose hand Scythia had deflected his blaster bolt into was now resting his rifle on his forearm rather than gripping it. Even good quality gloves couldn’t protect against a Force-accelerated sniper round.

The leader stood in front of him, blocking what she could. As Calline watched, the rifleman’s wounded arm wavered and the leader eased the barrel down to rest on her steady shoulder.

Opting to dispense with surprise, Calline dropped to Scythia’s side. “Lord,” she said shortly. Torian slammed to the ground behind her and caught up at her shoulder. The Kaleesh raised their spears, but didn’t stop her.

Scythia spoke loudly without taking her eyes off the assembly. “I want Malgus alive. The Wrath and I can defend him. Torment the Jedi, would you? The tall one. I want him to feel like he simply must come to our side to eliminate the threat you pose to all those people he cares about.”

Head games were extra, but she hadn’t given Scythia an invoice yet, so it didn’t matter so much. Calline would love to test herself against a full-fledged Jedi, and Torian’s tension told her he was thinking it, too.

In point of fact, she shot first.

*

“Servant Two.” Without Servant One.

The Sith Pureblood was favoring one leg, and blood stained his face. “Wrath…he takes the Emperor’s name…he hunts us.”

It wasn’t an assignment. It was a death croak.

Ruth didn’t care about Vette’s party. She didn’t much care abut Scythia’s Kaleesh brigade. She didn’t care about the bounty hunters which were at this moment dual-wielding pistols like a pair of cartoon gunslingers.

She cared that Scythia had answers about the Emperor, and that Darth Malgus was challenging the order of things.

Ruth didn’t love the Dark Council. Familiarity bred contempt. But as long as her master was silent, she had to serve the Empire’s interests. Not the interests of former friends whose personal projects clashed with the Empire’s traditions. Even her friends had betrayed her or her master outright. She had always meant to honorably serve the Empire; in a way, that had never changed.

She felt very tired. But she had to go on, or despair.

Darth Malgus stood on one side of a deep divide. Vette’s party spilled into the other side. Ruth let herself down with Malgus, and the two bounty hunters who followed her received orders from Scythia. The woman had no idea how to balance velvet glove with durasteel fist. Or so Ruth could say; it wasn’t like she had ever attempted the feat herself.

The female bounty hunter shot straight at Tebbith. That’s when it all broke loose.

Ruth, Malgus, and Scythia stood side by side on one lip of the abyss.

“I had not expected so much so soon,” he boomed. “Let us destroy these Republic agents.”

The Republic agents. Vette was one of them. They were firing for all they were worth. Scythia deflected back at the gunmen. Ruth deflected to the ceiling. Malgus deflected—well, according to some logic, Ruth imagined. Meanwhile, the two bounty hunters were concentrating fire on a harried-looking Tebbith. He couldn’t hold both of them, with all their tech, forever. He probably couldn’t hold them for another five minutes.

Kaleesh were sidling into the far side one at a time. A yell went up among the Republic forces and their rear guard engaged.

Ruth could force Vette to surrender. It was the only way to get her out of here. If Ruth chewed through enough of these friends of hers, she would have to leave.

Yet Ruth deflected toward the ceiling. Over, and over, and over. No stray bolt could be permitted.

“You’re not trying,” Scythia practically yodeled.

“I want your answer. Don’t think that means I want your body count.”

Tebbith managed to rip one blaster from the female bounty hunter's hand. She flowed into a single-shot stance without missing a beat.

Scythia clenched a fist. “They’re Jedi and Republic hirelings! We can end this now!”

The next voice was small and far away. “Ruth! Ruth, we can end this!”

Vette. Asking not to fight her.

That’s when Malgus lowered his lightsaber, raised his hand, and sent a stream of purple Force lightning across the abyss.

At Vette, who had spoken up for peace.

Ruth didn’t think. Her hand came up. Her Force sense infiltrated the giant frame and yanked at three points of his spine. Snap. She shoved the reeling Sith toward the pit and roared, “My master is more than a space station. If you knew the first thing about me, you would know that.” 

He gurgled. “My girl…likewise.”

She pushed, and let him fall.

She felt abruptly out of breath.

The firing had stopped. Kaleesh on both sides of the divide stared at her with yellow eyes, and an inner ring of casual acquaintances stared as well. She might only have seconds to save Vette’s life. “Enough,” she shouted. “The False Emperor is dead. Vette, you and your crew may leave.”

Even at a distance Ruth could see the way Vette held her chin up. “Fade. Thanks.”

The armored squad's leader yelled crisply. “We can still—”

“I know her, Fade. She hasn't even started fighting us. We should get out.”

The squad's war droid danced in place. “Sir! Permission to pursue these two dastardly Sith and rendezvous back at the ship while your crew receives medical attention!”

“Fade,” Vette said. “Tell him he shouldn’t kill ‘em here with no holovid coverage. Tell him anything. But don’t put him up against R—the Wrath and Darth Scythia.”

The armored leader nodded shortly and gave quiet commands. The armored squad retreated, carrying their wounded.

“Master Tebbith,” Vette prompted.

Scythia pouted. “I wanted him.”

The big Zabrak looked green instead of brown. “Darth Scythia. I have nothing to say to you.”

“It was never your talking I was interested in. Remember that a Sith made peace today, Master Jedi. Inexplicably, to no concrete advantage, but for whatever reason, she did.”

Tebbith joined his hands in front of his chest. The girl Ruth didn’t know, the striped lightsaber user, copied her master’s pose. Tebbith bowed slightly. “My lord Wrath,” he called. “Perhaps we may find common ground, in time.”

“When I conquer yours,” Ruth said coldly. “Go while my mercy holds.” Which was as long as Vette was watching, but nobody had to know that.

He limped away.

Vette waved her friends out toward the exit after the Jedi’s party. Corso was helping Risha and Risha didn't even sass him.

“Let's not do this again,” Vette said, and left.

Then there was just Ruth, Scythia, two bounty hunters, and a dozen feral Kaleesh.

The Mandalorians walked to the pit’s edge and leaned over. One said something quiet in Mando’a to the other. Both of them turned toward Scythia.

“Don’t need sinful credits,” the taller one said. “But I need to buy a replacement blaster.”

“You’ll get it,” said Scythia, without looking away from Ruth.

“Shall I report your treason?” Ruth said levelly.

“It complicates things, that there are witnesses saying we both survived this showdown. Murder afterward is so awkward. They can say, fairly, that I fought the Jedi to a standstill and secured Malgus’s flagship.” Scythia drew a line with her green eyes, ranging far, taking in every one of her Kaleesh soldiers. Taking in Ruth.

Something shuddered amidship.

“Do you hear that?” said Ruth. “Moff Regus’s forces are boarding. Soon I won’t be quite so badly outnumbered.”

 The idea of interruption seemed to settle something in Scythia’s mind. “You want to know what I know of your master? A Sith searches for him. Kills every Servant he meets. I have no signs of the master's life…but the elder Emperor's Wrath seems to believe he can be fought somewhere, somehow. The Voice who came after the Jedi mission vanished from his station for no evident reason. You may have been the last to see him…?” Ruth gave her nothing. “He may be in hiding. He may have built a Voice anywhere in the galaxy. But he isn't ruling the Empire.”

Ruth was falling. She was surely falling. “Do you think that report makes us even?”

“Since I can’t very well assassinate the Emperor’s Wrath in front of witnesses and maintain my credibility as a woman of her word? Yes, let’s say even.”

“Fine.” She walked out, and no one tried to stop her.

*

Tebbith sat on the curving sofa of the Gnost-Dural and hyperventilated.

Zenith leaned in the doorway, holding a kolto pack to a dark burn above one lek. “You get out okay?”

“I was not prepared to see her again. I very nearly tried to harm her.”

“Hm.” Zenith looked concerned. “Nobody's giving you points for stopping yourself.”

“That's not true,” said Nadia behind him. “To maintain his connection to the Force, he has to side with life.  It's not a score, it's an affinity.” She looked past the Twi’lek toward Tebbith. “We survived. Darth Malgus can't hurt anybody again. We won, Master.”

“I feel like there could have been more. The Wrath valued Vette.”

“That was unexpected,” Zenith allowed. “I don't like it. What else don't we know about the spacer?”

“There may be more to them both than hate.”

“Hm. Believe that and carry a big lightsaber,” Zenith said. “Please.”

*

Vette and her crew sat around the lounge. For a while nobody said anything.

“I don't understand,” Corso said. “Why did she cooperate with Scythia, and why did she pull a 180 and help us out of there?”

“We used to be friends,” Vette said. “Maybe that’s all a supervillain needs. I'm just the quirky sidekick of her tragic backstory.” She shook herself and looked at the holo. “Come on, I want a job.”

“We just did one,” Risha said. “Our fee’s already deposited.”

“I want one with no strings.”

*

Scythia sipped a Quesh Sunrise and glared past her crew. “No one told me she was on good terms with her Twi’lek.”

The Kaleesh pair named Jefe stared straight ahead. Xalek stayed well clear of their lines of sight. Scythia gathered that they were shamed by the loss of the objective.

Oh, everyone was. “Next time I will not guard the ship,” Khem Val said.

“No kidding. Alas, I'll have to deliver that rousing speech myself once I have a fleet.”

“And when does that happen?” Zash-in-Khem said idly.

“When I want you to know, I’ll hand you some bubbly for the dedication.”

*

“We got him,” Mako said. “We can deliver anytime.”

Calline nodded thanks, then unslung the carbon-encased droid behavior core. “New project.”

Teefive beeped uneasily. The little droid did get jealous sometimes, even if her faulty language library felt that the word for jealousy was “snorkel.”

“We just got a very nice infusion of cash,” Gault called from his quarters. “I take it the Dark Council paid for our services? Would’ve been more if you’d won…”

“We almost took down a Jedi Council member with four blasters and no briefing,” Torian said, sounding as relaxed as ever and also a bit smug. “We’ll do better next time.”

*

Frustrated by the ceasefire, but pleased that she had forced Darth Malgus at bay just when a Sith decided to practice backstabbing, Fade took the Havoc Go Fast down toward the Republic’s Ilum base.

“Sir?” It was Dorne, datapad in hand. Probably an after action report. Fade would need to sleep on it to really sort through what had happened and what she should feel about it.

“Yes, Dorne?”

“You’ve received a priority message, sir. Time-sensitive.”

“Probably Tare getting into trouble. I’ll take it here.”

“Yes, sir.” She nodded and walked out. Dorne asked a lot of questions, but there were a few areas where she guarded privacy carefully.

The transmission displayed with black edges. Fade’s stomach flattened and soured.

“Major Fadreleth, it is with deepest regret that we must report…”

Fade stared at General Garza’s pointless image. She looked at the attachment. It was a crystal-clear image of the throne room where Tare had drawn the short straw and had to play honor guard to a small-time heavy. It was supposed to be a meaningless little assignment.

A masked Sith came into the image. The very one who had just let Fade out of the room. She raised a gripping hand and Tare boosted off the ground, clawing at his neck. She closed a fist and hurled the dying man at his comrades, just enough to throw them off balance while she leaped to attack. Tare’s last living act had been to bodycheck his own team immediately prior to execution.

Fade was sitting. How had she failed to protect him from this? How had she failed to destroy the bitch who did it when she had the chance? How…how…how?

Fade had no one else, not like her brother. Now there wouldn't even be him.

She was too angry to cry, at first.

*

end of Part 9. Falling Stars

Story index

*

Fade fought across Corellia until the moment Garza told her to evacuate the planet. She had won every battle and lost the war, at least here. When Fade suited up and led her squad off the shuttle into the Republic’s cavernous toehold on Ilum, she knew she had to do better.

So this time, when she heard the Jedi’s voice, echoing through the starkly lit gray base, she went toward it. Master Tebbith was shrugging into a furry coat the size of an uxibeast.

“Master Jedi,” she called. “Where’s your friend?”

Tebbith turned around. His face was already covered in mask, and Fade had her helmet on; it wasn’t the best circumstance for heartfelt conversation. But he said, “She’s on her own tour. I will give her your regards.”

Fade wouldn’t go that far, but whatever. “Are you reinforcing Master Kaedan? I’m signed on to help.”

“Then we cannot fail,” Tebbith said warmly. “You are well? You finished what you wanted on Corellia?”

“Everything but winning,” she said. “We’ll make up for it here. Those crystals will turn the tide.”

“I’m no expert, but that’s what I hear. Come. Qyzen, Tharan, Zenith, Felix, Nadia, you remember Havoc Squad.” Generally cordial gestures ensued. “Come, I’ve studied the way.”

Ilum in the daytime was a sheet of glare relieved only by crystalline formations so high and shallowly angled that Fade was sure their tips would disintegrate onto her and her team as they rode. The ice was sometimes black, sometimes white, always forcing a whine from her speeder’s engines as the repulsor field struggled against the smooth crystalline surface. The sky was a high white arch fretted with thin clouds. Fade didn’t realize they were going up until she turned back and saw a wide, lowering sweep of spikes and blown snow between here and the base. And then they turned at an angle and went on.

At the base of a slick hill Tebbith stopped his speeder beside Fade’s and dismounted, peering up the hill at an unguarded archway and a few hints of old stone towers beyond.

“There should be people there,” he said under the soughing of the wind. “Something’s wrong. What’s our approach?”

Fade felt her cheek twitch. He was the Jedi. “You’re asking me?”

“You’re the ranking veteran, Major. You’ve seen what I can do in battle, and I’m no tactician. I welcome your expertise.”

She knew about looking gift dewbacks in the mouth, so she didn’t ask again. “I want your sniper to cover the approach from there, and mine will go there. If you walk right up, can you shield yourself from one round of enemy fire?”

“I believe so.”

“Then our ground forces can follow behind you. Your apprentice—”

Zenith took a stance Fade had never seen a professional take, and fired at something near the base of the arch.

“Zenith?” Tebbith said.

“Something was creeping out. Missed.” He looked at his rifle, at Tebbith, at Fade. “Permission to pursue.”

“No,” Tebbith said firmly. “If there’s a problem, we mustn’t split our forces. Major Fade? I’m prepared to shield us on our way up.”

“Jorgan.” Fade jerked her head. “Forex, you stay at Master Tebbith’s elbow, but if you see a blade of grass out of place you charge.”

“Sir! I have not detected grass on this planet before, but if my sensors perceive any, I will attack at once!”

Fade and Vik crisscrossed the wedge formation as they approached the arch. Yuun darted forward to investigate a console at one massive ice column.

“This was a forcefield,” he reported. “It’s been smashed.”

As the party made it to the flat stone entrance of the fortress, Tebbith started accelerating. Fade tried to look at every corner while the Jedi ran to…

A body. The only sentient they had seen since they’d approached the Jedi fortress.

“Dorne,” Fade said shortly.

But Tebbith was already on his knees. “Master Kaedan,” he said, loud enough to carry but not quite intact. “Master Kaedan, no, I was on my way, I would have backed you up…”

Fade approached. The body was swimming in brown robes, not so unlike Tebbith himself. But very, very dead. “You knew him, Master Jedi?”

Tebbith’s masked face turned up. “Jaric Kaedan has served on the Jedi Council since I was a child. He was a great man. He deserved better than to die alone to…to whoever did this.”

The ghost Zenith had fired at. “I’m sorry. But if he’s dead, there’s all the more need for you and me to get the Republic back on track on this planet. We can bring his body back to base for proper treatment.”

“It can’t be this,” Tebbith whimpered. “After everything, to be so close…it can’t be this.”

The realization dropped through Fade like a drop of ink through water. He wasn’t an unstoppable Jedi. He was a person, a young person, facing death badly. Even a Force user could be reduced to grief.

M1-4X hurried up to offer his durasteel arms for the moving of the body, but Tebbith took the Human’s frame and lifted it across his arms, not seeming the slightest bit inconvenienced by the full weight of a man. “Let’s go,” he said. “The Republic will have more work for us, and Master Kaedan wouldn’t tell me to give up.”

*

The Republic base on Ilum was spacious but stark. It had the look of a place that had hoped for a division and received a squad.

Havoc Squad, though, so that was good.

The vast bulkhead slid shut and the Jedi and Havoc Squad were already halfway to the elevator. Fade rushed with her team between icy packing crates and racks of tools, down to the lift, down below to where the cantina, too, was optimistically large.

At least the lower level was warm. Someone had clearly learned from Hoth, at what expense to their HVAC operating costs Fade didn’t know. It was warm, and the music piped in was a hectic adolescent pop that seemed to drive away the grim watchfulness of the ice.

Fade was unsealing her outer coat by the bar, and Tebbith’s party was populating a booth, when the main holo coughed and someone appeared.

Fade stiffened. She had a mission profile on this huge Sith in black armor. She was to prioritize his death if the opportunity arose.

His holo image spread his arms as if welcoming the room entire.

“Fellow Sith,” he said in a voice of needles and thunder. “Citizens of the Empire. Too long the strength of the Empire has been beholden to the infighting of the Dark Council and the disappearance of an apathetic Emperor. Sith, children of Sith and warriors everywhere, I declare a new Empire, open to all who long for conquest, freedom from inhibition and the right to follow their passions. The Dark Council is dissolved. Those who would join Darth Serevin in supporting me, cast aside your titles and let me lead you to victory. Those who will not, prepare to face our stealth armada. The Emperor is gone. His station and power are mine. We will conquer the galaxy while the Emperor sleeps.”

The room was quiet.

“Is that…bad?” said a Twi’lek in the doorway. A Republic contractor: Vette, from Voss. “I mean, sweeping out the Dark Council, and I heard some code words surrounding aliens’ rights.”

“One Empire or another has the use of the adegan crystals,” Tebbith said. “One way or another, a stealth armada will attack the Republic. We cannot allow this.” He stood, a massive presence at his table. “You, friend. I saw you at the Shrine of Healing. You seemed to know that young Sith, the one who helped us against the mad Voss, who aided us with the Trials. What became of her?”

Vette set her jaw and seemed to look through Tebbith. “Someone killed her. We have a new Wrath. You may have seen her on the holovids.”

“I’m sorry. Your friend was brave, and open-minded. I am Tebbith.”

“Jedi Master and Warden of the Order,” Nadia supplied, dwarfed by her mentor. “I’m Nadia. This is Zenith, Iresso, Tharan, and Qyzen Fess.”

“Vette. This is Corso, Risha, Akaavi, Guss, and…”

The Wookiee growled in a deep register. Vette said, “What’s wrong?”

“Trandoshan,” Bowdaar said.

Suddenly, everybody was paying attention.

Vette examined Qyzen Fess. “I know there’s some bad blood, but this guy’s with a Jedi Master. I don’t think he personally hunts Wookiees for sport.”

“Do not insult my competence,” the Trandoshan said. Suddenly Fade understood why the big guy usually let Tebbith do the talking.

“Well, that could be taken a few different ways,” said Vette. “Can you be more definite?”

“No,” said Bowdaar. “Bowdaar has killed sixty-seven lizards, in the years he bothered to count. They died without points. Ask this one if he has been to Kashyyyk. Ask him if he has butchered those of Bowdaar’s kin who escaped slavery. Ask him if his clan wears their skins.”

Tebbith put out one hand at waist level. And absolutely did not address those questions. “There’s no need for conflict. Qyzen, let us avoid tallying scores. Please guard the ship.”

“There is no room for prowess in all that fur,” Qyzen grumbled, but he walked. The Wookiee rotated to watch him go until he was safely on the lift.

The rest of the introductions went smoothly. Fade had fought alongside Vette on Voss, and Tebbith on Corellia. She had no problem with their skills or professionalism. Akaavi and Guss were new, but Akaavi’s stance and wariness boded well, and Guss…well, Fade wasn’t sure what to think of Guss.

“Major,” came a voice from the doorway. Fade gave up the idea of getting a drink and turned around.

“Supreme Commander Rans,” she said. “You want us to take down that Sith?”

“In so many words, Major. I’ll have a pilot to navigate whatever stealthed ships Malgus has within the hour.”

“Forex, please download all information we have on Malgus’s fleet.” Okay. A drink and some appetizers. “Everyone else. Eat like you’ve got a big day.”

*

Ilum. Adegan crystals, a technological breakthrough that Scythia knew about before Moff Regus condescendingly described them. The beginnings of a stealth armada. Only the rediscovery of the Republic’s abandoned Shadow Arsenal, or the recovery of the Balmorran cloak that the Jedi had swooped in and taken, could have excited her more.

Ilum was the site of ancient Jedi ruins, and with them, the possibility of forgotten technologies. Or some nattering about the Force, which Talos would respectfully yield to her rather than presuming to hand her an authoritative translation. Jedi blathering about the Force was ninety-nine point nine percent useless, but she allowed him to continue, because sometimes point one percent was all you needed.

She used a lot of Force lightning on the wretched Duros troops the Republic had shipped out here to protect their crystals. It made Ilum’s frigid nights just a little more tolerable.

Khem Val’s implants malfunctioned once again in the cold. Scythia left him at the Empire’s forward base with the odious Moff Regus and forged onward with Xalek.

There was a whole community here of Kaleesh, honing their bodies and weapons against the brutal conditions. They would make excellent Imperial shock troops. Regus’s big idea was to kill them to clear the way to strategic temple grounds.

Scythia stood in a little self-warmed bubble inside the forward base’s heavy doors. “Xalek, what do you think of Regus’s plan?”

“Lord. Challenge their leader and they will all follow.”

“Does that please you, my apprentice?”

“They do not know the Force. They do not concern me.”

She was of two minds about his arrogance. It was a messy look, but then, why not be confident about your superiority when you were superior? “I’ve always wanted a snippet of the military. And I don’t see Darth Marr here stopping me. Come, stay close. Tell me what ritual objects are required.”

The Kaleesh had occupied a Jedi temple that looked to be much better built than the Imperial bases. Perhaps Scythia would have the operation moved once the temple was cleared of its current residents. She left Talos in a small heated popup tent and went in to fight, until she had enough weapons to set up a challenge for the Kaleesh leader.

The Kaleesh were interesting. They fought fluidly and fearlessly, and died with the same level stoicism that Xalek wore. Their bone masks varied as much as individual faces, though none revealed the skin beneath. Scalloped shapes, streaking markings. “Xalek, do you make your own masks?”

“Upon adulthood.”

“Interesting. Should I collect the fallen’s masks?”

Xalek’s silence seemed to say that this was unspeakably wrong. Scythia stopped speaking.

The temple gave way to a ruined courtyard. A broken fountain in the middle was ringed with runes similar to some Scythia had seen before…similar but different. Another system to translate. Another challenge for her pet archaeologist.

The Kaleesh chieftain came. He came with a phalanx of masked figures who set up a dense ring around the fountain. Scythia had a considerable audience and didn’t even get the courtesy of the chieftain’s name before she toasted him.

Scythia raised a spear. “My dear citizens. I come to lead you to glory beyond anything this world has seen.” She surveyed them all, looking for weak points. Looking for differences. Looking for leverage.

Her eyes roved over two Kaleesh who stood very close together. Their weight was distributed a little differently. There was something else, something in their presence.

“You two are different. Women?”

The Kaleesh beside them hissed. Others looked, and began hissing, too. It was the tallest of the survivors who said, “Female! Why do you presume to fight?”

One of the two shouted in a raspy voice. “We do battle as well as any of you.”

“The penalty is death.”

The speaker looked to Scythia. “Sith! We swear ourselves in service if you will allow us to fight in your name.”

The tableau froze.

“They would kill you for dressing and fighting as men?” Scythia said slowly.

The commander snorted. “Gladly.”

“That won’t do. Xalek?”

But Xalek was staring at the two women with completely round yellow eyes. “As my master commands,” he breathed. It was nearly a whimper.

Something was going on. Scythia looked forward to unraveling it. “Come here. You will serve me personally. The rest of you, report to the Imperial forward camp. You will see how far an alien can come in the Empire.” She dropped her voice. “And Moff Regus will have a much-needed aneurysm.”

But Moff Regus was not paying attention when Scythia returned to base with a ritual spear in hand. He was staring at a holo image of Darth Malgus, who had been sent here to manage the crystal harvesting—a task that sounded deadly boring.

Malgus was not a boring speaker.

“Fellow Sith. Citizens of the Empire. Too long the strength of the Empire has been beholden to the infighting of the Dark Council and the disappearance of an apathetic Emperor. Sith, children of Sith and warriors everywhere, I declare a new Empire, open to all who long for conquest, freedom from inhibition and the right to follow their passions. The Dark Council is dissolved. Those who would join Darth Serevin in supporting me, cast aside your titles and let me lead you to victory. Those who will not, prepare to face our stealth armada. The Emperor is gone. His station and power are mine. We will conquer the galaxy while the Emperor sleeps.”

Scythia wasn’t certain what to salivate over first. She could live with a loss of title; she had Khem Val and commanded respect and fear wherever she went. An Empire ruled by a man who could tolerate aliens. That held possibility.

But the Empire would strike back with all the force at its disposal.

Scythia resolved to not be here when the Empire commanded a counterattack.

She made for the landing pads. General Hesker of the Imperial Guard ran to join her. “My lord. You’re going to stop Malgus?”

“I need to find his ship,” she said.

“Allow me to pilot a stealth fighter. We’ll be able to detect his stealth field and slip right in.”

“Good man. Send some of your guard to get transports. I have some troops I want to manage things.” It would help, when the Empire’s counterattack happened.

Hesker’s only commentary was a twitch of his lips. “As my lord commands.”

“Yes,” she said. “As I do.”

*

Scythia left Hesker's stealth fighter with Xalek and her two new Kaleesh in tow. The women went by Jefe, and they were as talkative as Xalek. They were also pleasingly wary. Scythia watched around her at all times, and more eyes doing so couldn’t hurt.

The hangar was empty; they met no resistance. Scythia left Xalek to direct the new Kaleesh recruits onto this, Malgus's flagship. She herself forged ahead to the long arterial passage that would take her to the single most interesting political proposal she had ever heard.

A figure joined the artery twenty yards ahead. Black-clad, smooth, thin enough to vanish if turned sideways, with a lightsaber on each flat-planed hip.

"Wrath," Scythia bellowed. "Would you GET a fucking HOBBY."

*