Rax helps him carry the lance and the banner. He carefully puts the mask upon the man’s head, tightening it with black leather straps and a buckle of old tarnished chromatite. Tashu owns many masks, all of which he believes contain some fragment of the dark side. But never before has he worn one like this: It is a vicious, bestial thing with tusks of coiling black steel and eyes of blood-red kyber crystals. As it snaps against his face, Tashu tightens up, a hungry moan ill contained behind his clenching jaw.
“The final piece,” Rax says, handing Tashu the holocron. Even as the man takes it, it seems to leach the light from all around. Tashu goes even paler as he touches it. The veins in his hand stand dark in contrast.
“Yes,” Tashu says. One word, short, clipped, ecstatic. His arms stretch out by his sides. His hands shake. “Yes. I can feel it. I am a locus of dark energies. All the death and despair of the world is filtering through me. I can feel it on the back of my tongue. Captured there like a struggling moth—”
“Then come, let us pray.” He interrupts Tashu because if he does not, the man will continue to gabble for minutes, hours, perhaps until both of them have died of old age and gone to dust. Gallius Rax leads Tashu the way a parent leads a child, by the hand. Together they go to the well.
As they approach, a narrow platform extends out, as if sensing their presence. It drifts out over the well: a plank they must walk.
They go out together. Out here, the air is somehow both hot and cold. Warm breath interspersed with wisps of ice.
“Palpatine will be pleased by you,” Rax says.
“Yes. He will. And by you, too. We have done it. We have punished the undeservers. We have activated the Contingency. Let us speak a prayer to the darkness, a prayer to all the things that wait—”
“First, my brother, I’d like to ask you something.”
“Yes, little Galli?”
“What will you say to him when you see our Master again?”
“I—”
Rax gives him no chance to answer. He pushes Tashu.
The man cartwheels through the mist and the light, spinning, screaming—his body hits the side and slams against the rock, silencing his cries. The body goes and goes until Rax cannot see it anymore.
A few beats of quiet and stillness. One. Two. Three…
The world shudders. A fierce growl grumbles up through the bore, and the orange light glows suddenly red—the blue threads of mist turn black. Palpatine was right. The artifacts contain a great deal of energy.
And now they have dropped into the core of this world. With the well open, that energy will vent. So begins the chain reaction that will destroy everything. The planet will soon begin to crack. It shall break apart. It’ll swallow the Empire and the New Republic fleets and soldiers whole. When it does, it will leave this galaxy to the scavengers and the scum, rotting like a fruit lying forgotten in the dirt. Though an idle thought troubles him: All fruit, no matter how rotten, can leave behind seeds…
It’s time to leave. The Imperialis awaits. His destiny calls like a seductive whisper. But then he realizes, he’s hearing voices. Real voices. He is not alone in here, not anymore. And one of those voices, he recognizes.
Hello, Sloane, he thinks.
—
The ground shudders suddenly beneath them, moving hard to the right—Norra nearly loses her footing. Brentin helps to steady her, and she pulls out of his grip, casting him a suspicious look.
“You don’t trust me,” he says.
“I don’t,” she says under her breath. I don’t know what’s in your head. I don’t know if the chip is still controlling you. I don’t know why you were with her of all people. He’s about to say more, but Sloane interrupts—
“Look,” Sloane says, pointing to a bank of octagonal computers. Above them, holoscreens flash red. A diagram shows what looks like a mining bore down through layers of mantle and schist. It’s pulsing white. A number sits above it—a percentage, slowly dwindling.
“What am I seeing?” Norra asks.
“I don’t know,” Sloane answers.
Brentin hurries over to the machine, looking down at a keyboard with a quizzical glance—the keys are triangular, most gold, some silver. He ignores those and instead moves his hand to the holoscreen itself, and when his fingers touch it, it swipes away and fills with scrolling data. “I…oh, no.”
“What is it?” Norra and Sloane say in unison before giving each other a dirty, dubious look.
“The integrity of the planet has been compromised. Something…something is affecting the mantle. A system of tremors causing a cascading failure from the core up. This shaft, this…borehole, it’s the key to it, a channel focusing the seismic wave. There are baffles here—telescoping vents to close the shaft, but they’re on lockdown.”
“What does that all mean?” Sloane asks.
“It means this world doesn’t have long.”
Norra’s knees nearly buckle. Temmin…he’s here. Jas, too. Wedge. The whole damn Republic fleet. If Jakku goes, they all go.
“Can you close it?” Norra asks.
“I can try.”
“Do that,” Sloane barks. “I’m finding Rax. He has to be here somewhere.” Her voice sounds threadbare and desperate.
Norra points her blaster at the other woman. “No.”
Sloane stares down the barrel of the pistol. “I’m not the enemy here.”