MALGUS LET HIS ANGER BUILD with each step he took toward the Temple’s entrance. The Force responded to his emotional state, caught him up in its power until he was awash in it. He sensed the seed of fear growing in the soldiers’ guts.
“I said stop,” the lead soldier said again.
“Do nothing,” Malgus said to Eleena over his shoulder. “These are mine.”
She let her hands fall slack to her sides and fell in behind him.
The three guards spread out into an arc as they approached him, their movements cautious, blaster rifles ready. The entrance to the Temple, a fifteen-meter-tall opening in the edifice’s façade, loomed behind them.
“Who are you?” the guard asked.
The last word hung in the air, frozen in time, as Malgus drew on the Force and augmented his speed. The hilt of his lightsaber filled his hand and its red line split the air. He crosscut the guard before him, putting a black canyon in his chest, continued the swing through the guard on his left, and with his left hand used a blast of power to drive the third guard into the Temple wall hard enough to crush bones and kill him.
Malgus felt the sudden surge of terror in the two soldiers up on the ledge to his left, felt them take aim in sweaty hands, start to squeeze triggers. He flung his lightsaber at them, guided it with the Force in a flickering red arc that cut both of them down, then recalled the blade to his hand. He deactivated it and hung it from his belt.
The roar of a rocket pack drew his attention. On a ledge above the Temple’s entrance, the Mandalorian rode the fire on her back to a high window on one of the Temple’s upper tiers and disappeared within. He trusted that she would join him for the combat inside.
He checked his chrono, watched the numbers evaporate. Twenty-nine seconds.
Eleena took the station to his right, and they entered the Temple.
The setting sun at their back reached through the huge doorway and extended their shadows before them, giant, dark heralds marking the path ahead. Within the Temple was a stillness, a peace soon to be shattered.
Malgus’s boots rapped against the polished stone floor. The hall extended before them for several hundred meters. Two rows of elegant columns reached from floor to ceiling on either side, framing a processional down the hall’s center. Ledges and balconies, too, lined both sides.
Malgus felt the presence of more guards and Jedi to his right, his left, and before him.
He checked his chrono. Twelve seconds.
Motion above and to his right, then to the left, drew his eyes. Curious Padawans looked down from the ledges above.
Ahead, half a dozen robed and hooded Jedi dropped from the balconies and took station in the hall. Another Jedi descended the grand staircase at the end of the hall. His Force signature radiated power, confidence—a Master.
As one, the seven Jedi moved toward Malgus and Eleena, and Malgus and Eleena moved toward them.
More and more Padawans gathered on the balconies and walkways above, sparks of light-side blasphemy flickering in Malgus’s perception.
The more powerful Force signatures of the approaching Jedi pressed against Malgus, and his against theirs, the power of each distorting the other by its presence.
In his mind, the countdown continued.
The space between him and the Jedi diminished.
The power within him grew.
They stopped at two meters. The Jedi Master threw back his hood to reveal blond hair graying at the temples, a handsome, ruddy face. Malgus knew his name from his intelligence briefings—Master Ven Zallow.
In appearance, Zallow was everything Malgus—with his pale skin, scars, and hairless pate—was not. With respect to the Force, Malgus was everything Zallow was not.
The six Jedi Knights accompanying Zallow spaced themselves around Malgus and Eleena, to minimize maneuvering room. The Jedi eyed him cautiously, the way they might a trapped predator.
Eleena put her back to Malgus’s. Malgus felt her breathing, deep and regular.
Silence ruled the hall.
Somewhere, a Padawan cleared his throat. Another coughed.
Zallow and Malgus stared into each other’s eyes but exchanged no words. None were necessary. Both knew what would unfold next, what must unfold.
The chrono on Malgus’s wrist began to beep. The slight sound rang out like an explosion in the silent vastness of the hall.
The sound seemed to free the Jedi to act. Half a dozen green and blue lines pierced the dimness as all of the Jedi Knights ignited their lightsabers, backed off a step, and assumed a fighting stance.
All except Zallow, who held his ground before Malgus. Malgus credited him for it and inclined his head in a show of respect.
Perhaps the Jedi Knights thought the beeping chrono indicated a bomb of some kind. In a way, Malgus supposed, it did.
From behind, another sound broke the silence. The whine of the hijacked drop ship’s approaching engines.
Malgus did not turn. Instead, he watched the events behind him by watching the events before him.
The Jedi Knights stepped back another step, looking past Malgus, uncertainty in their expressions. Eleena pressed her back against Malgus. No doubt she could see the drop ship by now as it roared downward, toward the Temple.
Zallow did not step back and his eyes stayed on Malgus.
The sound of the drop ship’s engines grew louder, more acute, a prolonged, mechanical scream.
Malgus watched the eyes of the Jedi Knights widen, heard the shouts of alarm from throughout the hall, then the screams, all of them soon overwhelmed by the roar of the reinforced drop ship slamming at speed into the front of the Temple.
Stone shattered and the Temple’s floor vibrated under the impact. Metal bent, twisted, and shrieked. People, too, bent, twisted, and shrieked. The explosion colored the hall in orange—Malgus could see it reflected in Zallow’s eyes—and the sudden flame drew the oxygen toward it in a powerful wind, as if the conflagration were a great pair of lungs drawing breath.
Malgus did not turn. He had seen the attack thousands of times on computer models and knew exactly what was happening from the sounds he heard.
The drop ship’s enormous speed and mass allowed it to retain momentum and it skidded along the Temple floor, gouging stone, trailing fire, toppling columns, collapsing balconies, crushing bodies.
Still Malgus did not move, nor Zallow.
The drop ship skidded closer, closer, the sound of metal grinding over stone ever louder in Malgus’s ears. More columns collapsed. Eleena pressed against him as the flaming, shredded vessel slid toward them. But it was already losing speed and soon came to a halt.
Dust, heat, and smoke filled the hall. Flames crackled. Shouts of pain and surprise penetrated the sudden silence.
“What have they done?” someone called.
“Medic!” screamed someone else.
Malgus heard the explosive bolts on the specially reinforced passenger compartment of the drop ship blow outward and hit the floor like metal rain, heard the hatch clang to the floor.
For the first time, Zallow looked past Malgus, his head cocked in a question. Uncertainty entered his expression. Malgus savored it.
A prolonged, irregular hum sounded as the fifty Sith warriors within the drop ship’s compartment activated their lightsabers. The sound heralded the fall of the Temple, the fall of Coruscant, the fall of the Republic.
Malgus flashed on the vision he’d seen on Korriban, of a galaxy in flames. He threw back his hood, smiled, and activated his lightsaber.
ZEERID LET FATMAN FLY free and blazed away from Ord Mantell’s surface. He kept his scanners sweeping the area, concerned that the pirates might have allies in another ship somewhere, but he saw no signs of pursuit. In time, he let himself relax.
The pink of Ord Mantell’s clouds and upper stratosphere soon gave way to the black of space. Planetary control did not ping him for identification, and he would not have responded anyway. He did not answer to them. He answered to The Exchange, though he’d never met any serious player in the syndicate face-to-face.
Receiving his instructions through a handler he knew only as Oren, he flew blind most of the time. He got his assignments remotely, picked up cargo where he was told, then dropped it off where he was told. He preferred it that way. It made it feel less personal, which made him feel less dirty.
He took care to return the emphasis on privacy, ensuring that The Exchange knew little about him other than his past as a soldier and pilot. As far as they knew, he had no friends and no family. He knew that if they learned of Arra, they would use her as leverage against him. He could not allow that. And were any harm to ever come to her …
Once again, he realized that he was holding the stick too tightly. He relaxed, breathed deeply, and composed his thoughts. When he felt ready, he plugged in the code for the secure subspace channel he used to communicate with Oren. He waited until he heard the hollow sound of an open connection.
Oren did not waste time with a greeting. “The drop went well, I presume?”
From his voice, Zeerid made Oren as a human male, probably in his forties or early fifties, though he could have been using voice-disguising technology.
“No,” Zeerid said, and exhaled a cloud of smoke. “The drop was an ambush.”
A moment of silence, then, “The purchaser’s agents ambushed you?”
Zeerid shook his head. “I don’t think so. These were men I hadn’t seen before. Pirates, I think. Maybe mercs. I think they killed the purchaser’s men and commandeered the ship.”
“Are you certain?”
Anger bled into Zeerid’s tone. “No, I’m not certain. What’s certain in this work? Ever?”
Oren did not respond. Zeerid lassoed his emotions and continued.
“I’m only certain that the pilot I expected, a fellow named Arigo, was not there. But his ship was. I’m only certain that eight men with blasters and hostile attitudes tried to burn holes through me.”
“Eight men.” Oren’s voice was tight. Not a good sign. “What happened to them?”
Zeerid had the impression that Oren was noting everything he said, filing it away in memory so he could sift it for any inconsistencies later.
“They’re dead. I sniffed out the attack before they sprang it.”
“That seems … convenient, Z-man.”
Zeerid stared out the canopy at Ord Mantell’s star and controlled the flash of temper. He knew that if Oren suspected him of double dealing, or just didn’t believe his story, a word from the man would turn Arra into an orphan.
“Convenient? Let me tell you what’s convenient, Oren. Word is that lots of deals have been going sour because The Exchange won’t play nice with the other syndicates, including the Hutts. And nothing explains lots of deals going sour except a leak. That tells me The Exchange is venting Oh-two.”
Oren did not miss a beat. Zeerid almost admired him. “If one of my fliers thought there might be a leak, he might also think it an ideal time to make a play for some goods himself. Especially if he had heavy debts. Make it look like an ambush of, say, eight men. After all, there’s a ready excuse at hand—this strife with the other syndicates you mentioned.”
“He might,” Zeerid said. “But only if he was stupid. And stupid I am not. Listen, you gave me the drop coordinates on Ord Mantell. Send someone there, a surveillance droid. You’ll see what I left there. But do it quick. Someone is going to clean up that mess before long, I’d wager.”
“So … how did you manage to kill eight men?”
The discussion was about to take a turn for the worse. “They were too close to one of the shipping containers full of grenades when it blew up.”
Oren paused. “One of our shipping containers blew up?”
Zeerid swallowed hard. “I lost it in the escape. The rest of the cargo is intact.”
A long silence followed, an abyss of quiet. Zeerid imagined Oren flipping through the file cabinet of his mind, cross-referencing Zeerid’s story with whatever other pertinent facts Oren already knew or thought he knew.
“This wasn’t my fault,” Zeerid said. “You find your leak, you’ll find who’s at fault.”
“You lost cargo.”
“I saved cargo. If I hadn’t sussed this out, the whole shipment would have been lost to pirates.”
“It would have been recovered. It is difficult to recover exploded grenades. Do you agree?”
“I would have been dead.”
“You are replaceable. I ask again: Do you agree?”
Zeerid could not bring himself to respond.
“I choose to interpret your silence as agreement, Z-man.”
Zeerid glared at the speaker while Oren continued: “At best, you will get paid only half for the job. The amount of the lost cargo will be set against that and added to your marker. It was already in excess of two million credits, if I remember correctly. The note on the ship and some loans against your gambling.”
Oren always remembered correctly. The job would net negative for Zeerid. He wanted to punch something, someone, but there was no one in the cockpit but him.
“This makes me look bad, Z-man,” Oren said. “And I very much dislike looking bad. You will make this up to me.”
Zeerid did not like the sound of that. “How?”
A pause, then, “By doing a spicerun.”
Zeerid shook his head. “I don’t run spice. That was our understanding—”
Oren’s voice never lost its calm, but the edge on it could have gouged armor. “The understanding has changed, contingent, as it was, on your successful completion of assignments. You owe us a large sum of credits and you owe me a large sum of face. You will make up both with a few spiceruns. That’s where the credits are. So that’s where you will be.”
Zeerid said nothing, could say nothing.
“Are we clear, Z-man?”
Zeerid scowled but said, “Clear.”
“Return to Vulta. I will be in touch soon. I have something in mind already.”
I’ll bet you do, Zeerid thought but didn’t say.
The channel closed and Zeerid let fly with a sleet storm of expletives. When he had finally vented, he cleared Ord Mantell’s gravity well and its moons, set a course for Vulta, and engaged the hyperdrive.
“I’m a spicerunner, now,” he said, as the black of space turned to the blue of hyperspace.
The treadmill under his feet had just picked up speed.
ARYN FELT DIZZY. A rush of emotion flooded her. She could not name it, categorize it. It was just a wash of inchoate, raw feeling. She was swimming in it, sinking.
“Something is happening, Syo,” she said, her voice tight. “I don’t know what it is, but it is not good.”
MASTER ZALLOW and the six Jedi Knights near Malgus leapt back and up, flipping at the top of the arc of their leaps, and landed in a crouch twenty meters away.
“May the Force be with you all,” Zallow shouted to his fellow Jedi, and lit his blade.
Dozens more Jedi poured out of the hallway behind him and flowed down the staircase, the blades of their lightsabers visible through the smoke and dust, a forest of green and blue oriflammes. The Jedi did not shout as they charged, but the rumble of their boots and sandals on the floor sounded like rolling thunder.
“Stay near me,” Malgus said over his shoulder to Eleena.
“Yes,” she said, her blasters already in hand.
Malgus’s Sith charged out of the carcass of the drop ship, their collective roar the sound of a hungry, rage-filled beast. The red lines of their blades cut the dust-covered air. Lord Adraas, a political favorite of Darth Angral and constant irritant to Malgus, led them. Like all of the Sith warriors save Malgus, a dark mask obscured his face entirely.
Malgus used his distaste for Adraas to further feed his anger. He had requested that Darth Angral allow him to lead the attack alone, but Angral had insisted that Adraas lead the drop ship team.
Discarding his cloak, discarding the remaining restraints on his rage, Malgus joined the Sith charge, taking position before Adraas. Emotion fed his power, and its swell fairly lifted him from his feet. He felt the power of the dark side around him, within him.
Blaster bolts crisscrossed the battlefield from left and right as two platoons of Republic soldiers emerged from somewhere above and to the side and fired into the Sith ranks.
Malgus, nested deeply in the Force, perceived the dozens of bolts and their trajectory with perfect clarity. Without breaking stride he whipped his blade left, right, angled it ten degrees, and turned three bolts back on the soldiers who’d fired them, killing all three. A soldier had exploded a grenade in his face in the Battle of Alderaan, so he enjoyed killing soldiers when he could. Behind him, Eleena’s twin blasters answered to the left and right with bolts of their own, picking off two more soldiers.
The Sith and Jedi forces closed, Sith battle lust facing the calm of the Jedi, the floor of the Temple the arena where centuries of indeterminate strife would at last reach a conclusion. Those strong in the Force would survive and their understanding of the Force would evolve. Those weak in the Force would die.
Malgus sought Master Zallow but could not make him out from the crowd of faces, dust, flames, and glowing blades. So he chose a Jedi at random from the crowd, a human male with a blue blade and a short beard, and targeted him.
Waves of power distorted the air and dopplered sound as the Jedi and Sith forces crashed into one another and intermixed in a chaotic, roaring tangle of bodies, lightsabers, and shouts.
Malgus augmented his strength with the Force, took a two-handed grip on his blade, and unleashed an overhand slash designed to split the Jedi in half. The Jedi sidestepped the blow and crosscut with his blue blade at Malgus’s throat. Malgus got his blade up in time, parried, and slammed a kick into the Jedi’s mid-section. The blow folded the Jedi in half, sent him reeling backward five paces. Malgus leapt into the air, flipped, landed behind him, and drove his blade through the Jedi. Roaring with battle lust, Malgus sought another opponent.
A flash of lavender skin drew his gaze—Eleena. She ducked under a saber slash and dived to her side, firing half a dozen blaster shots as she did so. The Padawan who’d tried to kill her, a female Zabrak, the horns of her head gilt with colored pigments, deflected the shots as she closed in for another blow. Eleena flipped to her feet, still firing, but the Padawan deflected every shot and drew nearer.
Malgus drew on the Force and with a blast of power drove the Padawan across the hall and into one of the towering columns of stone, where she collapsed, blood leaking from her nose. Eleena continued firing, her eyes darting here and there over the battlefield as she sought targets.
The battle turned ever more chaotic. Jedi and Sith leapt, bounded, rolled, and flipped as red lines intersected with those of blue and green. Blasts of power sent bodies flying through the air, against walls, pulled loose rocks from the ceiling and sent them crashing into flesh. The hall was a cacophony of sound: shouts, screams, the hum of lightsabers, the intermittent sound of weapons-fire. Malgus walked in its midst, reveled in it.
He watched Lord Adraas leap into the middle of a squad of Republic soldiers and punctuate his landing with an explosion of Force energy that cast the soldiers away like dry leaves.
Malgus, not to be outdone, picked a Jedi Knight at random, a human female ten meters away, held forth his left hand, and discharged veins of blue lightning from his fingertips. The jagged lines of energy cut a swath through the battle, harvesting two Padawans as they went, until they caught up to the Jedi Knight and lifted her off her feet.
She screamed as the lightning ripped into her, her flesh made temporarily translucent from the dark power coursing through her. Malgus savored her pain as she died.
He caught Adraas eyeing him and gave him a mocking salute with his lightsaber.
The high-pitched sound of Eleena’s blasters drew his attention. She bounded past him and over the slain female Jedi Knight’s corpse, a lavender blur firing rapidly. Putting her back to a column, she crouched and sought targets for her blasters. She met his eyes, winked, and signaled behind him. He whirled to see a score or more Republic soldiers rushing into the hall from a side room, blaster rifles tracing hot lines through the battlefield. Eleena answered with shots of her own.
Before Malgus could dispatch the soldiers, the Mandalorian rose from somewhere behind them, her jetpack spitting fire, her head-to-toe silver-and-orange armor gleaming in the fire of the hall. Hovering in the air like an avenging spirit, she discharged two small missiles from wrist mounts. They struck the floor near the Republic soldiers and blossomed into flame. Bodies, shouts, and loose rock flew in all directions. Still hovering, she spun a circle in the air while flamethrowers mounted on her forearm engulfed another group of soldiers.
Malgus knew the battle had turned, that it soon would be over. He glanced around, still seeking Zallow, the only opponent in the field worthy of his attention.
Before he could locate the Jedi Master, three more Jedi swarmed him. He parried the chop of a human male, leapt over the low slash of an orange-skinned Togruta female, severed the hand of the third, a female human, disarming her, then grabbed her by the throat with his free hand and slammed her into the floor with his Force-enhanced strength.
“Alara!” said the human male.
Leaping high over the male’s cross-slash, Malgus landed behind the Togruta, who parried his lightsaber strike but could not defend herself against a Force blast that sent her skidding across the hall and into a pile of rubble.
Malgus roared, the lust for battle so pronounced that he would have killed his own warriors were there no Jedi left to slay. He wanted, needed, to kill another and to do so with his hands.
He ducked under a slash from the male, lunged forward, and took the Jedi by the throat. He lifted him from his feet and held him suspended in the air, gagging. The Jedi’s brown eyes showed no fear, but did show pain. Malgus roared, squeezed hard, then dropped the body and stood over it, blade at his side, breath coming hard. The battle still swirled around him and he stood in its center, the eye of the Sith storm.
Malgus finally spotted Master Zallow ten paces away, whirling, spinning, his green blade a blur of precision and speed. One Sith warrior fell to him, another. Lord Adraas landed before him, trying to take Malgus’s kill for himself. Adraas ducked low and slashed at Zallow’s knees. Zallow leapt over the blow and unleashed a blast of energy that sent Adraas skidding on his backside across the hall.
“He is mine!” Malgus shouted, charging through the battlefield. He repeated himself as he passed Adraas. “Zallow is mine!”
Zallow must have heard Malgus, for he turned, met his eyes. Eleena, too, must have heard Malgus’s shouting. She emerged from behind the column, deduced Malgus’s intent, and fired several shots at Zallow.
Zallow, his eyes on Malgus throughout, deflected the bolts with his blade and sent them back at Eleena. Two struck her, and as she collapsed Zallow used a Force blast to drive her body against a column.
Malgus halted in mid-stride, his rage temporarily abated. He turned and stared at Eleena’s fallen form for a long moment, her lavender body crumpled on the floor, her eyes closed, two black circles marring the smooth purple field of her flesh. She looked like a wilted flower.
Anger refilled him, overcame him. A shout of hate, raw and jagged, burst from his throat. Power went with it, shattering a nearby column and sending a rain of stone shards through the room.
He returned his gaze to Zallow and stalked toward him, his rage and power surging before him in a palpable wave. Another Jedi stepped in front of him, blue blade held high. Malgus barely saw him. He simply extended a hand, pushed through the Jedi’s insufficient defenses, seized his throat with the Force, and choked him to death. Tossing the body aside, he moved toward Zallow.
Zallow, for his part, moved toward Malgus. A Sith warrior bounded at Zallow from his left, but Zallow leapt over the Sith’s blade, spun, slashed, and cut down the Sith.
Zallow and Malgus closed. They halted at one meter, studied each other for a moment.
A human male Jedi Knight separated from the swirl of battle and stabbed at Malgus. Malgus sidestepped the blue line of the blade, punched the man in the stomach, doubling him over, and raised his own blade for a killing blow.
Zallow bounded forward and intercepted the downstroke. Zallow and Malgus stared into each other’s faces and the rest of the battle fell away.
There was only Malgus and his rage, and Zallow and his calm.
Their blades sizzling in opposition, each used the Force to press against the strength of the other, but neither had an obvious advantage. Malgus shouted rage into Zallow’s face. Only a furrowed brow and the tight line of his mouth betrayed the tension behind Zallow’s otherwise tranquil expression.
Feeding off the anger from Eleena, Malgus shoved Zallow away and unleashed an onslaught of overhand slashes and crosscuts. Zallow backed off, parrying, unable to respond with blows of his own. Malgus tried to split Zallow’s head but Zallow blocked again and again.
Malgus spun into a high, Force-augmented kick that hit Zallow in the chest and sent him flying backward ten meters. Zallow flipped and landed upright in a crouch near two of Malgus’s Sith warriors.
They lunged for him and Zallow parried one blow, leapt over the second, and spun a rapid circle, cutting down both Sith.
Malgus, burning with hate, flung his lightsaber at Zallow. He guided its trajectory with the Force, and it spun a sizzling path through the air at Zallow’s neck. But Zallow, riding the momentum of his attack on the second Sith, leapt into the air and over the blade.
While Zallow was still in the air, Malgus unleashed a blast of energy that caught the Jedi unprepared and sent him crashing downward into a pile of rubble. He lay there, prone.
Malgus did not hesitate. He mounted the column of his anger, shouting with hate, and leapt twenty meters into the air toward Zallow. Mid-jump, he used the Force to recall his blade to his hand, took a reverse two-handed grip, and prepared to pin Zallow to the Temple floor.
But Zallow rolled out of the way at the last moment and Malgus’s blade sank to the hilt in the stone of the Temple’s floor. Zallow leapt up and over Malgus, landed in a crouch, reactivated his lightsaber, and pelted across the floor back at Malgus.
Eschewing speed and grace for power, Zallow loosed a flurry of rapid strikes, slashes, and lunges. Malgus parried one blow after another but could not find an opening to mount his own counterattack. Lunging forward, Zallow slashed crosswise, Malgus parried, and Zallow slammed the hilt of his saber into the side of Malgus’s jaw.
A tooth dislodged and his respirator was knocked askew. Malgus tasted blood, but he was too deep in the Force for the blow to do real damage. He staggered backward a step, as if the blow had stunned him.
Seeing an opening, Zallow stepped forward and crosscut for Malgus’s throat.
As Malgus knew he would do.
Malgus turned his blade vertical to parry the blow and spun out of the blade lock. Reversing his lightsaber during the spin, he rode it into a stab that pierced Zallow’s abdomen and came out the other side.
Zallow’s expression fell. He hung there, impaled by the red line. He held Malgus’s eyes, and Malgus saw the flames of the burning Temple reflected in Zallow’s green irises.
“It is all going to burn,” Malgus said.
Zallow’s brow furrowed, perhaps with pain, perhaps with despair. Either way, Malgus enjoyed it. He waited for the light to disappear from Zallow’s eyes before jerking his blade free and allowing the body to fall to the floor.
THE SHOCK HIT ARYN with little warning, the sensation as sudden and powerful as a blaster shot. Her body spasmed. The tranquillity bracelet in her hand, the bracelet given her by Master Zallow, snapped in her clenched fist and the tear-shaped bits of coral rained to the floor.
She doubled over, moaned. Her stomach sank. Her vision blurred. The room spun. Her legs dissolved under her and she felt herself slipping, falling, sinking. A fist formed in her throat, throttling the cry that wanted release and allowing it loose only as an aborted, grief-ridden wail.
Through their connection in the Force, she felt the sharp stab of agony that Master Zallow experienced, felt her own breath hitch in sympathy as he took his final breath and died. The line of his life, usually so bright in her mind’s eye when she felt the Force, usually so close to her own line, vanished from her perception.
Beside her, Syo’s sharp, surprised intake of breath told her that he had felt something, too.
Despite her pain, the rising despair, the reality settled on her immediately. She had seen it in the eyes of the Sith male.
“What was that?” Syo asked, his voice seemingly far away, but his question fat with ugly possibilities.
She lifted her head, her long hair dangling before her face, and stared across the room. Both Sith were standing, their bodies tensed, knowledge in their eyes.
“We are betrayed,” she answered, her voice a hiss.
She left it unsaid that her Master, the man who had been a father to her, was dead.
She was surprised to find her legs sturdy under her as she stood up straight. A group of people stood near her. No, not people. They were statues, Alderaanian statues. She was on Alderaan for peace negotiations with the Sith.
And the Sith had betrayed them. She had fought the Sith on Alderaan before, during the battle for the planet. She would do so again. Now.
“How do you know this, Aryn?”
But Syo’s voice, his doubt, did not erode her certainty.
“I know,” she spat.
The Sith knew, too. They had known all along. She could see it in their faces.
Her view distilled down until it consisted entirely of the two Sith and nothing else. A roar filled her ears, the crashing surf of grief and burgeoning rage. She heard a voice calling her name from some distant place, repeating it as if it were an invocation, but she paid it no heed.
Both Sith eyed her, their stances ready for combat. The man wore the same contemptuous sneer, the curve of his thin lips uglier than the scars that lined his face.
“Aryn!” It was Syo calling her name. “Aryn! Aryn!”
They knew. The Sith knew.
“They knew all along,” she said, speaking as much to herself as Syo.
“What? Knew what? What has happened?”
She did not bother to answer. She fell into the Force, drawing on its power.
Time seemed to slow. She felt as if she existed outside herself, watching. Her body moved across the antechamber, her boots scattering the coral of her bracelet. Violence filled her mind as she moved among the statues of men and women of peace.
“Aryn!” Syo called. “Do not.”
She did not reach for her lightsaber. Her need would not allow for such antiseptic justice. She would avenge Master Zallow’s death with her bare hands.
“No clean death for you,” she said through the wall of her gritted teeth.
Some distant part of her recognized her emotional slippage, recognized in passing that Master Zallow would not have approved. She did not care. The pain was too deep, too fierce. It wanted expression in violence and the two Sith in the room became the focus of its need.
The male Sith reached for his lightsaber. Before he could activate it, Aryn unleashed a blast of power that lifted both Sith from their feet and blew them into the wall. Two Alderaanian statues, caught in the effect of her power, slammed into the wall to either side of the Sith and shattered into chunks.
The Sith must have used the Force to cushion their impact, for neither appeared hurt. Both leapt to their feet and spaced themselves apart for combat. Hilts came to hands and their lightsabers made red lines in the air. The male held his blade high over his head in an unusual style, awaiting her charge, light on the balls of his feet. The female held hers low, in a variant on the medium style.
Behind her, Aryn heard the hum of Syo activating his blade. She did not slow her advance. Using the Force, she jerked the male’s hilt from his hand and brought it flying into her own grasp. Then she tossed it aside, and his sneer melted in the heat of his surprise.
She advanced on him, heedless of the woman, imagining the feel of her hands on his throat. He answered her approach with a blast of power, but she made a V with her hands, formed a wedge with her will, and deflected the blast to either side of her. More statues toppled, shattered. The female Sith, caught in the deflected blast, was thrown backward ten paces.
She closed to five paces, four. The male Sith took a fighting stance. They would fight not with lightsabers but with their hands—close, bloody work.
Aryn used the Force to augment her strength, her speed. She felt it flowing within and around her, turning her body into a weapon—
“Aryn Leneer!” a commanding voice said, Master Dar’nala’s voice. “Jedi Knight Aryn Leneer!”
Syo, too, called to her. “Aryn! Stop!”
The combination of Dar’nala’s and Syo’s voices penetrated the haze of her emotional state. She faltered, slowed, stopped. Reason elbowed its way past her emotional turmoil, and she gave voice to her thoughts. Without taking her eyes from the male Sith, she said, “The Sith have betrayed us, Master Dar’nala. The negotiations were a ploy.”
Dar’nala did not speak for a moment. Then, “You … felt this?”
Tears fought to fall from Aryn’s eyes but she forced them back. She nodded, unable to speak.
Master Dar’nala’s next words hit Aryn like a punch in the stomach.
“Listen to me, Aryn. I know. I know. But hear me now—Coruscant is in Imperial hands.”
Aryn’s breath went out of her. The statement did not make sense. Coruscant, the heart of the Republic, had fallen to the Empire?
“What?” Syo asked. “How? I thought—”
“That cannot be,” Aryn said. She must have misheard. She turned from the male Sith, who had recaptured his sneer, to face the leader of the Jedi delegation
Master Dar’nala stood in the archway, her skin a deeper red than usual. Senator Am-ris and a senior Jedi Knight, Satele Shan, flanked her. The Senator, a Cerean whose ruff of white hair topped the cliff of his furrowed brow, towered over the other two. His worried eyes looked out from a wrinkled face but focused on nothing. He looked lost.
Satele, on the other hand, looked as tightly wound as an ion coil, her gaze fixed straight ahead, her auburn hair mussed, the veneer of her neutral expression unable to mask the emotion boiling beneath it.
Neither Am-ris nor Satele seemed to notice the destruction in the hall. Both looked dazed—blank-eyed refugees wandering through the ruins of events. Only Dar’nala seemed composed, her hands clasped before her, her eyes noting the details in the room—the broken sculptures, the position of Aryn relative to the two Sith.
Aryn wondered what had transpired in the negotiation room. For a fleeting moment, hope rose in her, hope that her fellow Jedi had perceived the Sith betrayal and arrested or killed the Sith negotiators, but that hope faded as the lead Sith negotiator, Lord Baras, emerged from the chamber and stood near Dar’nala.
His wrinkled face could not hold the smugness he felt. It leaked out around the raised corners of his mouth. His dark hair, combed back off a widow’s peak, matched his dark robes and eyes. In a haughty baritone, he said, “It can be, Jedi Knight. And it is. Coruscant has fallen.”
Satele visibly tensed; her left hand clenched into a fist. Am-ris sagged. Dar’nala closed her eyes for a moment, as if struggling to maintain her calm.
“As of now,” Lord Baras continued, “Coruscant belongs to the Empire.”
“How—?” Aryn began, but Dar’nala raised a hand.
“Say nothing more. Say nothing more.”
Aryn swallowed the question she wished to ask.
“Deactivate your lightsaber,” Dar’nala said to Syo, and he did. The female Sith did the same.
“What happened here?” Lord Baras asked, his eyes on the Sith brother and sister, the ruin in the room.
The male Sith bowed, used the Force to pull his lightsaber hilt to his hand, and hooked it to his belt. “A slight disagreement, Lord Baras. Nothing more. Please forgive the tumult.”
Baras stared at the male Sith for a time, then at the female. “It is well that the disagreement did not lead to bloodshed. We are, after all, here to discuss peace.”
He seemed almost about to burst out laughing. Am-ris whirled on him. Satele grabbed the Senator’s cloak, as she might a leash, to keep him from getting too close to Baras.
“Peace! This entire proceeding was a farce—”
“Senator,” Dar’nala said, and took Am-ris by the arm. But Am-ris would have none of it. His voice gained volume as he gave vent to his anger.
“You did not come here to discuss peace! You came here to mask a sneak attack against Coruscant. You are dishonorable liars, worthy of—”
“Senator!” Dar’nala said, and her tone must have reached Am-ris, for he fell silent, his breath coming fast and hard.
Lord Baras appeared untroubled by Am-ris’s outburst. “You are mistaken, Senator. The Empire is here to discuss peace. We simply wished to ensure that the Republic would be more amenable to our terms. Should I understand your outburst to mean that the Republic is no longer interested in negotiating?”
While Am-ris reddened and sputtered, Dar’nala broke in.
“Negotiations will continue, Lord Baras.”
“You are ever the voice of wisdom, Dar’nala,” Baras said. “The Empire will expect a return to the negotiation table at this time tomorrow. If not, matters will go … poorly for the people of Coruscant.”
Dar’nala’s skin darkened further but her voice remained placid. “Our delegation will discuss matters and contact you tomorrow.”
“I shall look forward to that. Rest well.”
Am-ris cursed Baras in Cerean and Baras pretended not to hear.
As the Republic entourage picked its way among the rubble in the hall, among the rubble in their hearts, Aryn felt the mocking eyes of the Sith male upon her and could barely contain a shout of rage. Before leaving the room, she knelt and picked up one of the coral beads from her shattered bracelet.