Was.
“You didn’t,” Sinjir seethes.
But Wartol simply weeps—not from grief, no, but what Sinjir sees is clearly relief.
Conder steps back and unrolls his sleeve—underneath is nothing so small as a comlink but rather, a whole tech gauntlet. With it, he can slice into doorways or program droids or any number of things, but he can also tap into various feeds: HoloNet, orbit control, NRN news, and of course local security bureau transmissions. He dials into the frequency—
The air fills with static, then resolves into a voice. “—code four-two-four, repeat, code four-two-four, reports of an explosion at the north tower of the Senate Building. Code four-two-four—”
Sinjir thinks, No, no, no, it’s not possible. He marches straight to the door, to the ramp, down to the landing bay. All of the landing bays here are up high, over the coast, and at this vantage point it’s easy to see to the center of Hanna City where the Senate Building sits.
Looming above that building is the tower where Mon Mothma’s office sits. Where Sinjir was only hours before.
A hole has been blown in the side of it. Even from here he can see how ash and debris are vacated out into open air, how the white permacrete side is charred with soot and tongues of flame. Smoke billows out like an escaping fiend.
The chancellor. She was in there—
He left her alone in there…
Sinjir turns, marches back inside. Pistol up. He storms through to the sitting area, past Conder, then drops to Wartol’s chest. He screws the barrel of the Kanji blaster so hard against the man’s forehead it nearly breaks the hard plating that covers the man’s head.
“You killed her.”
“I had it done,” Wartol croaks.
“You will pay for this.”
“Do it. End me. I have no career. But I have sacrificed myself to make a better galaxy. Chancellor Mon Mothma will no longer be able to spread her corrosive stain across the burgeoning New Republic.” Wartol lifts his head into the blaster. “Pull the trigger! Coward!”
Sinjir roars and draws the blaster back. His chest heaves as rage runs so hot inside him, it’s like a star burning itself up. But he resists. “You’ll not die today. You’ll go to trial. You’ll go to prison. You’ll see your name and your people dragged out in front of us all as craven traitors.”
He looks to Conder. The man gives him a small nod. It’s a small concession: a mote of light in a suddenly dark day. But it’s all he has, so he holds on to it as tightly as he can manage.
The dreadnought is no longer the Annihilator. It is no longer called that because that is no longer its function. Now it serves as the capital ship in a new galactic nation forming at the fringes of the galaxy, in Wild Space and beyond. The ship’s new name: Liberty’s Misrule. That name means whatever it means to whoever hears it, but Eleodie Marcavanya—pirate captain of this ship and leader of this new, unnamed nation of deviants and miscreants—chose the name first because, quite frankly, zhe likes the damn sound of it. But also because it means the ship is no longer used to destroy. Now it is used to create: a new government, a new nation, an armada of pirates who take equal spoils in an effort to make something lasting.
Most pirates, they take what they take to live and fight another day. They take the spoils to survive or to squirrel away.
But Eleodie wants something bigger. Better. Something forever. The Empire is dead and the New Republic can’t handle its business. That leaves room—air whistling between the bricks where Eleodie can slip in and out like a breath, hiding in the interstitial spaces, growing like an army of ghosts.
Right now, zhe stands at one of the many thousands of viewports here on the Liberty’s Misrule, looking out over zher ragtag nation of ships, a nation without a planet, but one that may never need one. The stars are our nation, zhe thinks. We glitter like a thousand suns, our hearts as black as the void in which we travel. Next to Eleodie stands the girl, Kartessa. The girl’s hair is shorn down to the scalp, her cheeks dirty from working in the engine room (her choice, for she claimed correctly to be good with machines).
Kartessa says, “Fleet is getting bigger.”