THE REST OF THE SITH FORCE had returned to the fleet, but Malgus lingered. He stood alone among the ruins of the Jedi Temple. He powered off his comlink, putting him out of touch with Imperial forces, and communed in solitude with the Force. Walking the perimeter of the ruins, he loitered over the destruction, pleased at his victory but flat with the realization that he had defeated his enemy and no obvious replacement was apparent.
He longed for conflict. He knew this of himself. He needed conflict.
There would be more battles with the Jedi and the Republic, of course, but with the capture and razing of Coruscant, the fall of the Republic was a certainty, only a matter of time. Soon his Force vision would be realized, then … what?
He would have to trust that the Force would present him with another foe, another war worth fighting.
Scaling a mound of rubble, he found a perch that offered an excellent view of the surrounding urbanscape. The cracked face of the statue of Odan-Urr lay atop the mound beside him, eyeing him mournfully.
There, astride the ruins of his enemy, Malgus waited for the Imperial fleet to begin the incineration of the planet.
An hour passed by, then another, and as twilight gave way to night the number of Imperial ships prowling the sky over Coruscant began to thin rather than thicken. Bombers returned to their cruisers, and fighters took up not attack but patrol formations.
What was happening? The Imperial fleet did not have the resources to manage a long-term occupation of Coruscant. Imperial forces had to raze the planet and move on before Republic forces could gather for a counterattack.
And yet … nothing was happening. Malgus did not understand.
He activated his comlink and raised his cruiser, Valor.
“Darth Malgus,” said his second in command, Commander Jard. “We have been unable to raise you for hours. I was concerned for your well-being. I just dispatched a transport to search for you at the Temple.”
“What is happening, Jard? Where are the bombers? When will the planetary bombardment begin?”
Jard stumbled over his reply. “My lord … I … Darth Angral …”
Malgus’s hand squeezed the comlink as he surmised the meaning behind Jard’s stuttering response. “Speak clearly, Commander.”
“It seems the peace negotiations are continuing on Alderaan, my lord. Darth Angral has instructed all forces to stand down until matters there crystallize.”
Malgus watched a patrol of Mark VI interceptors fly over. “Peace negotiations?”
“That is my understanding, Darth Malgus.”
Malgus seethed, stared at a smoke plume thrown up by a burning skyrise. “Thank you, Jard.”
“Will you be returning to Valor, my lord?”
“No,” Malgus said. “But get that transport to me now. I require an audience with Darth Angral.”
THE TERMS OF THE NEGOTIATIONS prohibited either the Imperial or Republic delegations from posting external security around the High Council building and compound. Instead, both had their extended delegations posted in nearby cities.
Moving with Force-augmented speed, Aryn easily avoided the Alderaanian guards posted on the grounds of the compound. A canine with one of the guard teams must have caught her smell. It growled as she passed, but before the guards could turn on their infrared scanners, Aryn was already a hundred meters away. She did not exit through any of the checkpoints. Instead, she picked her way among the gardens until she reached the compound’s walls, veined in green creepers blooming with yellow and white flowers.
Without slowing, she drew on the Force, leapt into the air, and arced over the five-meter wall. She hit the ground on the other side, free.
To her surprise, she did not feel a pull to turn back. She took this as a sign that she had made the right decision.
The High Council building perched atop a wooded hill. Winding roads, streams, and scenic footpaths led down the hill to a small resort town nestled at its foot. Lights from the town’s buildings blinked through the trees and other foliage. The susurrus of traffic and city life carried up the hill.
It was late, but not so late that she couldn’t hail an aircar taxi and get to the spaceport before her absence was noted.
Without looking back, she sped off into the night.
When she reached town, she located a line of automated aircar taxis parked outside an open-air eatery filled with young people. A Rodian chef manned the central grill, his arms a whirl of cleavers and knives. The smell of roasted meat, smoke, and a spice she could not place filled the air. Music blared from speakers, the bass causing the ground to vibrate. She kept her hood drawn over her face and hopped into the first taxi in line. The anthropomorphic droid driver put an elbow on the seat and turned to face her. It wore a ridiculous cloth hat designed to make it look more human. Given her own fragile emotions, Aryn was pleased to have a droid driver. Droids were voids to her empathic sense.
“Destination, please.”
“The Eeseen spaceport,” she answered.
“Very good, mistress,” it said.
The door of the taxi closed, the engine started, and the car climbed into the air. The town fell away underneath them.
The droid’s social programming kicked in, and it tried to make small talk designed to put a passenger at ease. “Are you from Alderaan, mistress?”
“No,” Aryn said.
“Ah, then may I recommend that you try—”
“I have no need for conversation,” she said. “Please drive in silence.”
“Yes, mistress.”
Once the taxi took position at commercial altitude and fell into a lane, the droid accelerated the taxi to a few hundred kilometers per hour. They’d make the spaceport in half an hour. She considered powering on the in-car vidscreen but decided against it. Instead, she looked out the window at other traffic, at the dark Alderaanian terrain.
“Spaceport ahead, mistress,” said the droid.
Below and ahead, the Eeseen spaceport—one of many on Alderaan—came into view. Aryn could not have missed it. Its lights glowed like a galaxy.
One of the larger structures on the planet, the spaceport was really a series of interconnected structures that straddled fifty square kilometers. The main hub of the port was a series of tiered, concentric arms that twisted around a core of mostly transparisteel, which locals called “the bubble.” It was very much a self-contained city, with its own hotels, restaurants, medical facilities, and security forces.
From above, Aryn knew, the spaceport looked similar to a spiral-armed galaxy. It could dock several hundred ships at a time, from large superfreighters on the lower-level cargo platforms to single-being craft on the upper platforms. A tower for planetary control stuck out of the top of the bubble like a fat antenna.
Due to the late hour, most of the upper docking platforms were dark, but the lower levels were bright and busy with activity. As Aryn watched, a large cargo freighter descended toward one of the lower platforms, while two others began their slow ascent out of dock and into the atmosphere. Shipping firms often did much of their work at night, when in-atmosphere traffic was reduced.
Watching it all, Aryn was once more struck with the oddity of the fact that life for everyone else in the galaxy went on as it had, while the Republic itself was in grave danger. She wanted desperately to scream at all of them: What do you think is going to happen next!
But instead she kept it inside, an emotional pressure that she thought must soon pop an artery.
Dozens of speeders, swoops, and loader droids flew, buzzed, crawled, and rolled along the port’s many docks and in the air around the landing platforms. Automated cranes lifted the huge shipping containers carried in the bays of freighters.
Even from half a kilometer out, Aryn could see the lines of people and droids riding the autowalks and lifts within the spaceport’s central bubble. The whole structure looked like an insect hive. A portion of the bubble near the top housed a luxury hotel. Each room featured a balcony that looked out on Alderaan’s natural beauty. Seeing them, Aryn thought of her exchange with Syo.
“A Jedi must sacrifice,” she said.
She was about to do exactly that.
“I’m sorry, mistress,” said the droid. “Did you say something?”
“No.”
“What entrance, mistress?”
“I need to get to level one, sublevel D.”
“Very good, mistress.”
The aircar descended from the traffic lane to stop at one of the entrances on level one of the spaceport. The droid offered his hand, which featured an integrated card scanner, and Aryn ran her credcard. The Order would be able to track her from its use, but she had no other way to pay. She stepped out of the aircar and hurried through the automated doors of the port.
Once inside, she moved rapidly, barely seeing the other sentients on the walkways and lifts. Conversation occurred around her, but, lost in her thoughts, she heard it only as a distant buzz. Music blared from a darkened cantina. A young couple—a human man and a Cerean woman—walked arm-and-arm out of a restaurant, heads close together, laughing at some shared secret. Droids whirred past Aryn, carting cargo and luggage.
“Pardon me,” they said as they whizzed past.
Vidscreens hung in strategic places throughout the facility. She eyed one, saw a view of Coruscant, which then cut to the High Council compound on Alderaan. She avoided looking at any other vids as she went.
She kept her eyes focused on nothing, hoping that the late hour would spare her any contact with other members of the Jedi delegation who might be stationed at the spaceport. She feared the sound of their voices would pop the bubble of her emotional control.
Hurrying along the corridors, lifts, and walks, she reached the level where she’d landed her Raven and let herself relax. She raised her wrist comlink to her mouth, thinking to hail T6, but a voice from behind called to her and shattered her calm.
“Aryn? Aryn Leneer?”
Her heart lurched as she turned to see Vollen Sor, a fellow Jedi Knight, emerging from a nearby lift and hurrying to catch up with her. Vollen’s Padawan, a Rodian named Keevo, trailed behind him, a satellite in orbit around the planet of his Master. Both wore their traditional robes. They wore their lightsabers openly, outside their robes, as they would in a combat environment.
She tensed. Perhaps Master Dar’nala had noticed her absence and deduced her intent. Perhaps Vollen and Keevo had come to stop her.
She let her hand hover near the hilt of her lightsaber.
BY THE TIME the transport set down near the Temple, Malgus had followed enough communication chatter to understand what had occurred. And what he had learned only incensed him further.
He bounded onto the transport and stood in the small, rear cargo bay.
“Leave the bay open as you fly,” he ordered the pilot over the transport’s intercom.
“My lord?”
“Go to a hundred meters up and circle. I want to see the surface.”
“Yes, Darth Malgus.”
As the transport lifted him away from the ruins of the Jedi Temple, wind whipped around the bay and pawed at his cloak. He stood at the edge of the ramp and used the Force to anchor himself in place. From there, he surveyed Coruscant, the planet that should have been destroyed.
Most of the urbanscape was lit, so night did not hide the destruction. A haze of smoke hung like a funeral shroud over the still smoldering ruins. The air carried the faint, sickly sweet tang of burned bodies and melted plastoid. He tried to guess the number of the dead: in the tens of thousands, certainly. A hundred thousand? He could not know. He did know that it should have been billions.
Shafts of steel stuck like bones out of piles of shattered duracrete. Here and there droid-assisted excavation teams sifted through the rubble, seeking survivors or bodies. Frightened faces turned up to watch the transport pass.
“You should be dead,” Malgus said to them. “Not merely frightened.”
Quadrant after quadrant of Coruscant had been reduced to rubble.
But not enough of it.
Most buildings still stood and most of the planet’s people still lived. The Republic had been wounded, but not killed.
And there was nothing more dangerous than a wounded animal.
Malgus had difficulty containing the anger he felt. His fist reflexively clenched and unclenched.
He had been misled. Worse, he had been betrayed. A score of his warriors had died for no reason other than to strengthen the Empire’s negotiating posture.
Sirens screamed in the distance, barely audible over the wind. Far off, unarmed Republic medical ships whirred through the sky. Speeders and swoops dotted the air here and there, the traffic light and haphazard.
Malgus had learned that Darth Angral had dissolved the Senate and declared martial law. But with the planet pacified, Angral had allowed rescuers to save whom they could. Malgus imagined that Angral would soon allow free civilian movement. Life would start again on Coruscant. Malgus did not understand Angral’s thinking.
No. He did not understand the Emperor’s thinking, for it must have been the Emperor who had decided to spare Coruscant.
Nothing was as it should be. Malgus had intended, had expected, to turn Coruscant into a cinder. He knew the Force intended him to topple the Republic and the corrupt Jedi who led it. His vision had shown him as much.
Instead, the Emperor had given the Republic a slight burn and begun to negotiate.
To negotiate.
A squad of ten Imperial fighters sped past, their wings reflecting the red glow of a nearby medical ship’s sirens. Smoke plumes from several ongoing fires snaked into the sky.
Malgus might have hoped that the Emperor planned to force the Republic to surrender Coruscant to the Empire, but he knew better. The fleet had temporarily secured the planet, but they did not have the forces to hold it for long. The planet was too big, the population too numerous, for the Imperial fleet to occupy it indefinitely. Even a formal surrender would not end the resistance of Coruscant’s population, and an insurgency among a population so large would devour Imperial resources.
No, they had to destroy it or return it. And it looked as if the Emperor had decided on the latter, using the threat of the former as leverage in negotiations.
The pilot’s voice sounded over the intercom. “Shall I continue the flyover, my lord?”
“No. Take me to the Senate Building. Notify Darth Angral of our imminent arrival.”
He had seen all he needed to see. Now he needed to hear an explanation.
“Peace,” he said, the word a curse.
ZEERID FINALLY NOTICED the ping from Vulta’s planetary control. He watched it blink, half dazed, having no idea how long they had been signaling him. He shook his head to clear up his thinking, called up the fake freighter registry Oren had told him to use, ran it through Fatman’s comp, and used it to auto-respond to the ping. In moments he received approval to land and docking instructions.
“Welcome to Vulta, Red Dwarf,” said the controller. “Set down on Yinta Lake landing pad one-eleven B.”
Zeerid tried to let the heat of atmospheric entry burn away thoughts of Oren, of The Exchange, of engspice. He tried instead to focus only on the one hundred thousand credits that should be awaiting him, and what he could do with them.
By the time the ship cleared the stratosphere and entered Vulta’s sky traffic, he had once more begun to distance himself from work and the persona that it necessitated.
But stripping away the vice-runner was getting harder to do all the time. The hole was getting too deep, the costume too sticky. He would be ashamed if his daughter ever learned how he earned a living.
He gave Fatman to the autopilot and went to the small room below the cockpit that he’d converted to his quarters.
His time in the army had taught him the value of organization, and his room reflected it. His rack was neatly made, though no one ever saw it but him. His clothes hung neatly from a wall locker beside the viewport. He kept extra blasters of various makes stowed about the room, and a lockbox held enough extra charger packs to keep him firing for a standard year. The top of his small metal work desk was clear, with nothing atop it but a portcomp and a stack of fraudulent invoices. Integrated into the floor beside it was a hidden safe. He exposed it, input the combination, and opened it. Inside was a bearer payment card with the mere handful of spare credits he’d been able to stash, and, more important, a small holo of his daughter.
Seeing the holo summoned a smile.
He picked it up. He always noticed the same three things about the image: Arra’s long curly hair, her smile, as bright as a nova despite her handicap, and the wheelchair in which she sat.
He could have chosen a holo that didn’t include the chair, but he hadn’t. It pained him to see her in it and it would continue to pain him until he got her out of it.
And that was the point.
The holo reminded him of his purpose. He looked at the holo before he went to sleep in his quarters and he looked at it when he awakened.
He hated the wheelchair. It was the sin he needed to expiate.
Val and Arra had been coming to see him on planetside leave. He’d still been in the army then. Val had been suffering dizzy spells but she had insisted on coming anyway and he, desperate to see his wife and daughter, had done nothing to discourage her. She’d had an episode while driving and careered into another aircar.
The accident had killed Val and left Arra near death. Her legs had been crushed from the impact, and the doctors had been forced to remove them.
He’d mustered out of the army to grieve for Val and take care of Arra, not thinking much beyond just getting through one day and then the next. He’d had no pension, no property, and soon learned that even with his piloting skills he could not find legit work that paid anywhere near what he needed and was going to need. Not only had Arra’s immediate post-crash care resulted in enormous medical bills, but ongoing rehab cost just as much.
Desperate, despondent, he’d taken a leap, jumping into the atmosphere and hoping he hit deep water. He called on some old acquaintances he’d known before his tour in the army, and they’d put him in contact with The Exchange. When he’d heard their offer, he’d hopped on the treadmill, thinking he could make it work.
His debts had only grown since. He’d gone into debt to an Exchange-owned holding company for Fatman, and he pretended to have a gambling problem against which he sometimes took additional loans. In truth, the credits from the loans went to Arra’s ongoing care.
But he was treading water there, too. He could barely make interest payments and while he tried to keep his head above water, Arra remained in a prehistoric, unpowered wheelchair. Zeerid did not make enough to purchase her even a basic hoverchair, much less the prosthetic legs she deserved.
He’d once heard tell of technology in the Empire that could actually regrow limbs, but he refused to think much about it. If it existed somewhere, the cost would put it well beyond his means.
He just wanted to get her a hoverchair, or legs if he could hit a big job. She deserved at least that and he planned to see to it.
The engspice run to Coruscant was the start, the turning point. The front-end money alone could get her a hoverchair, and with his slate wiped clean afterward, he could actually start making real credits without all of it going to paying down debt.
Credits for prosthetics. Credits for regrown legs, maybe.
He’d see her run again, play grav-ball.
He returned the holo to the safe and stripped out of his “work” clothes, sloughing away Z-man the spicerunner to reveal Zeerid the father, and dropped them into a hamper. After he landed, he’d activate the small maintenance droid he kept aboard; it would clean and sweep the ship and launder his clothing.
He threw on a pair of trousers, an undershirt, and his ablative armor vest, then took a collared shirt from its hanger and sniffed it. Smelled reasonably clean.
He swapped out his hip holsters with their GH-44s for a single sling holster he’d wear under his jacket and fill with an E-11, then secured two E-9 blasters, one in an ankle holster, one in the small of his back.
Arra had never seen him holding a blaster since he had mustered out, and, fates willing, she never would. But Zeerid never went anywhere unarmed.
Before leaving his quarters, he sat at the portcomp, logged in, and checked the balance in the dummy account he used with The Exchange.
And there it was—one hundred thousand credits, newly deposited.
“Thank you, Oren.”
He transferred the credits to an untraceable bearer card. It was more than he’d ever held in his hand before.
VRATH SAT on one of the many metal benches found in Yinta Lake’s spaceport on Vulta. Droids sped past. Sentients went by in groups of two and three and four. Someone’s voice blared over a loudspeaker.
Like every spaceport on every planet in the galaxy, the place was abuzz with activity: droids, holovids, vehicles, conversations. Vrath tuned it all out.
A large vidscreen hanging from the ceiling showed the latest news on the right side, and the latest ship arrivals and departures on the left. He watched only the arrivals. The board tracked every ship to which planetary control gave docking instructions, the scroll moving as rapidly as the activity in the port. Vrath was waiting for one name in particular.
An exercise of will, the firing of certain neurons, caused his artificial eyes to go to three-times magnification. The words on the screen grew clearer.
The Hutts’ mole in The Exchange had given Vrath a ship’s name, which meant he had a pilot, which meant he could find the engspice and keep it from ever getting to Coruscant.
The Hutts wanted the addicts on Coruscant freed of their reliance on their competitor’s engspice so they could be hooked on Hutt engspice, a new market for the Hutts, as Vrath understood matters.
In truth he found it surprising that The Exchange had been able to find a pilot crazy enough to make a run to Coruscant, a world on Imperial lockdown. The Exchange must have had a flier with uncommon skill.
Or uncommon stupidity.
The overhead vidscreen showed the same news footage that every vidscreen and holovid in the galaxy must have been showing: another story on the peace negotiations on Alderaan. A Togruta female—Vrath knew she was a Jedi Master but could not recall her name—was giving an interview. She looked stern, unbowed as she spoke. Vrath could not make out her words. The sound of engines and people made it impossible to hear. He could have activated the auditory implant in his right ear to pick up the vid’s sound, even through the noise, but he really did not care what the Jedi had to say. He did not care how the war between the Republic and Empire went, so long as he could thread the needle between them and make his credits.
He hoped to retire soon, maybe to Alderaan. If he could take out the engspice, the Hutts would compensate him well. Who knew? Maybe this would be his last job, after which he’d get drunk, fat, and old, in that order.
He alternated his attention between the news and the arrivals board until he saw the name he was waiting for—Red Dwarf.
He slung the satchel that held his equipment over his shoulder, stood, and walked to the Red Dwarf’s landing pad. Lingering among the bustle, he watched unobtrusively as the beat-up freighter set down on the landing pad. He noted the modified engine housings. He suspected Fatman was fast.
He reached into his pack and took the nanodroid dispenser in hand. He ordinarily preferred to use an aerosolized version of the tracking nanos, but the port was too crowded for it.
Ready, he waited.
THE SENATE BUILDING CAME INTO VIEW, a dome of transparisteel with a tower atop its center aimed like a knife blade at the sky. Most of the windows were dark. The transport headed for the landing pad atop the building. Halogens washed the roof in light. Malgus saw a squad of Imperial guards, gray as shadows in their full armor, and a single, uniformed naval officer near the landing pad. The officer held his hand over his hat to keep the wind from blowing it off.
Malgus did not wait for the ship to touch down. When the transport was still two meters up, he leapt out of the open cargo bay and landed before the officer, whose eyes went wide at the sight of Malgus’s method of debarkation.
The young officer, his gray uniform neatly pressed, his hair neatly combed under his hat, had probably not so much as fired a blaster in years. Malgus did not bother to disguise his contempt. He tolerated the officer and his ilk only because they provided necessary support to those who did the actual fighting for the Empire.
“Darth Malgus, welcome,” the attaché said. “My name is Roon Neele. Darth Angral—”
“Speak only if you must, Roon Neele. Pleasantries annoy me at the best of times. And this is not the best of times.”
Neele’s mouth hung open for a moment, then closed.
“Excellent,” Malgus said, as the transport put down and its weight vibrated the landing pad. “Now take me to Darth Angral.”
“Of course.”
They walked across the roof to the turbo lift. Armored Imperial troops flanked the door to either side of it. Both saluted Malgus. Neele and Malgus rode the lift down several floors in silence. The doors opened to reveal a long, wide hallway lined with office doors to the right and left, and ending in a large pair of double doors on which were engraved the words:
THE OFFICE OF THE CHANCELLOR OF THE REPUBLIC
Two more armed and armored Imperial soldiers stood guard at the doors.
The arc-shaped reception desk immediately before the lift—presumably the domain of the Chancellor’s secretary—sat empty, the secretary long gone.
Roon indicated the Chancellor’s office but did not move to exit.
“Darth Angral has commandeered the Chancellor’s office. He is expecting you.”
Malgus exited the lift and strode down the hall. The offices to either side of him stood empty, all of them showing signs of a hurried evacuation—spilled cups of caf, papers lying loose on the carpeted floor, an overturned chair. Malgus imagined the shock the occupants must have felt as they watched Imperial forces pour out of the sky. He wondered what Angral had done with the Senators and their staffs. Some, he knew, had been killed in the initial attack. Others had probably been executed afterward.
When he reached the end of the hall, the Imperial soldiers saluted, parted, and opened the doors for him. He stepped inside and the doors closed behind him.
Angral sat at the desk of the Republic’s Chancellor, on the far end of an expansive office. His dark hair, shot through with gray, was neatly combed, reminiscent of Roon Neele’s. Elaborate embroidery decorated the color of his cloak. His angular, smooth-shaven face reminded Malgus of a hatchet.
Art from various worlds hung on the walls or sat on display pillars—bone carvings from Mon Calamari, an oil landscape painting from Alderaan, a wood sculpture of a creature Malgus could not identify but that reminded him of one of the mythical zillo beasts of Malastare. An opened bottle of blossom wine sat on Angral’s desk in a crystal decanter. Two chalices sat beside it, both half full with the rare, pale yellow spirit. Angral knew that Malgus did not drink alcohol.
Two large, high-backed leather chairs sat before the desk, their backs to the doorway. Anyone could have been seated in them. Behind the desk, a floor-to-ceiling transparisteel window looked out on the urbanscape. Plumes of black smoke curled into a night sky mostly empty of ships and underlit by the many fires burning across the planet. To Malgus, the black lines of smoke looked like the scribbles of giants. A maze of duracrete buildings extended out to the horizon.
“Darth Malgus,” Angral said, and gestured at one of the chairs. “Please sit.”
Words burst from Malgus before he could stop them. “We hold Coruscant in our fist and need only squeeze. Yet I understand that peace negotiations are continuing.”
Angral did not look surprised at the outburst. He sipped his blossom wine, put the chalice back down. “Your understanding is correct.”
“Why?” Malgus put an accusation in the question. “The Republic is on its knees before us. If we stab it, it dies.”
“Using it as a lever in peace negotiations—”
“Peace is for bureaucrats!” Malgus blurted, too hard, too loud. “It is not for warriors.”
Still Angral’s face held its calm. “You question the wisdom of the Emperor?”
The words cooled Malgus’s heat. He took hold of his temper. “No. I do not question the Emperor.”
“I’m pleased to hear it. Now sit, Malgus.” Angral’s tone left no doubt that the words were not a suggestion.
Malgus picked his way through the artwork. Before he had gotten halfway across the office, Angral said, “Adraas has beaten you here.”
Malgus stopped. “What?”
Adraas rose from one of the chairs before the desk, revealing himself, and turned to face Malgus. He no longer wore his mask, and his face—unmarred and handsome, like Master Zallow’s, and with a neatly trimmed goatee—wore smugness with comfort.
Malgus recalled the look on Zallow’s face when the Jedi had died, and imagined replacing Adraas’s current expression with one that echoed Zallow’s death grimace.
“Darth Malgus,” Adraas said, his false smile more sneer than anything. “I am sorry I did not announce myself before your … outburst.”
Malgus ignored Adraas and addressed Angral directly. “Why is he here?”
Angral smiled, all innocence. “Lord Adraas was giving me his complete report of the attack on the Temple.”
“His report?”
“Yes. He spoke highly of you, Darth Malgus.”
Adraas took the other chalice on Angral’s desk, sipped.
“He? Spoke highly of me?”
Malgus did not play Sith politics well, but he suddenly felt as if he had walked into an ambush. He knew Adraas was a favorite of Angral’s. Were they setting Malgus up? They certainly could use his condemnation of the peace talks against him.
With effort, he got himself under control and sank into the seat beside Adraas. Adraas, too, sat. Malgus endeavored to choose his words with care.
“The attack on the Temple could not have gone better. The plan I developed worked perfectly. The Jedi were caught completely unawares.” He turned to face Adraas. “But your report should have been approved by me before it came to Darth Angral.” He turned back to Angral. “Apologies, my lord.”
Angral waved a hand dismissively. “No apologies are necessary. I solicited his report directly.”
Malgus did not know what to make of that and did not like that he did not know. “Directly? Why?”
“Do you believe that I owe you an explanation, Darth Malgus?”
Malgus had misstepped again. “No, my lord.”
“Nevertheless I will give you one,” Angral said. “The reason is simple. I was unable to locate you.”
“I had powered down my comlink while—”
Adraas interrupted him and Malgus had to restrain the impulse to backhand him across the face.
“We assumed you to be checking on the well-being of your woman,” Adraas said.
“We assumed?” Malgus said. “Do you presume to speak for Darth Angral, Adraas?”
“Of course not,” Adraas said, his tone infuriatingly unworried. “But when we could not locate you, Darth Angral asked me to speak for you.”
And there it was, unadulterated and out in the open. Not even Malgus could miss it. Adraas had essentially admitted that he wished Malgus’s spot in the hierarchy, and Angral’s participation suggested that he sanctioned the power grab.
Malgus’s voice went low and dangerous. “It will take more than words to speak for me, Adraas.”
“No doubt,” Adraas said, and answered Malgus’s stare with one of his own. His dark eyes did not quail before Malgus’s anger.
Angral watched the exchange, then leaned back in his chair.
“Where were you, Darth Malgus?” Angral asked.
Malgus did not take his eyes from Adraas. “Assessing the post-battle situation around the Temple, my lord. Trying to understand …”
He stopped himself. He’d almost said, Trying to understand why the Empire has not razed Coruscant.
“Trying to understand the planetside situation more clearly.”
“I see,” Angral said. “What of this woman Adraas mentioned? I understand from Adraas’s report that she was a liability to you during the attack on the Temple?”
Malgus glared at Adraas. Adraas smiled behind the rim of the chalice as he drank his wine.
“Adraas is mistaken.”
“Is he? Then this woman isn’t a liability to you? She is an alien, isn’t she? A Twi’lek?”
Adraas sniffed with contempt, turned away from Malgus, and sipped his wine, the gestures perfectly capturing the Empire’s view of aliens as—at best—second-class sentients. Angral shared that view and had just let Malgus know it.
“She is,” Malgus answered.
“I see,” Angral said.
Adraas placed his wine chalice on Angral’s desk. “An excellent vintage, Darth Angral. But right at the end of its cellar life.”
“I think so, too,” Angral said.
“Let things linger around overlong and they can turn rancid.”
“Agreed,” Angral said.
Malgus missed nothing, but could say nothing.
Adraas snapped his fingers as if he had just remembered something. “Oh! Darth Malgus, I do regret that I had to refuse your woman treatment aboard Steadfast.”
A tic caused Malgus’s left eye to spasm. His fingers sank into the arms of the chair and pierced the leather. “You did what?”
“Priority is to be given to Imperial forces,” Adraas continued. “Human forces. I’m sure you understand.”
Malgus had had enough. To Angral, he said, “What is this? What is happening here?”
“What do you mean?” Angral asked.
“The Twi’lek woman is planetside,” Adraas said, as if no one else had spoken. “I’m sure the care she receives will be … adequate.”
“I mean what is happening here, now, in this room,” Malgus said. “What is your purpose in this, Angral?”
Angral’s expression hardened, and he set down his glass with an audible clink. “My purpose?”
“Who is this woman to you, Darth Malgus?” Adraas pressed. “Her presence at the battle for the Jedi Temple caused you to make mistakes.”
“Passions can lead to mistakes,” Angral said.
“Passions are power,” Malgus said to Angral. “The Sith know this. Warriors know this.” He fixed his gaze on Adraas, and the words came out a snarl. “What mistakes do you mean, Adraas? Name them.”
Adraas ignored the question. “Do you care for her, Malgus? Love her?”
“She is a servant and you are a fool,” Malgus said, his anger rising. “She satisfies my needs when I require it. Nothing more.”
Adraas smiled as if he’d scored a point. “She is your slave, then? A mongrel harlot who satisfies you because she must?”
The smoldering heat of Malgus’s brewing anger ignited into open flame. Snarling, he leapt from his chair, activated his lightsaber, and unleashed an overhand strike to split Adraas’s head in two.
But Adraas, anticipating Malgus’s attack, bounded to his feet, activated his own lightsaber, and parried the blow. The two men pressed their blades against the other before Angral’s desk, energy sizzling, sparks flying.
Malgus tested Adraas’s strength.
“You have been hiding your power,” he said.
“No,” Adraas answered. “You are just too blind to see the things before your eyes.”
Malgus summoned a reserve of strength and pushed Adraas back a stride. They regarded each other with hate in their eyes.
“That will be all,” Angral said, standing.
Neither Malgus nor Adraas took his eyes from the other and neither deactivated his blade.
“That will be all,” Angral said.
As one, both men backed off another step. Adraas deactivated his lightsaber, then Malgus.
“You should have sent her to my ship for care,” Malgus said, aiming the comment at Adraas, but intending it for both of them.
Angral looked disappointed. “After all of this you still say such things? Very well, Malgus. The woman is in a Republic medical facility near here. I will have the information sent to your pilot.”
Malgus inclined his head in grudging thanks.
“As for you, Lord Adraas,” Angral said, “I accept your report of the battle.”
“Thank you, Darth Angral.”
Angral drew himself up to his full height. “You will, both of you, follow my commands without question or hesitation. I will deal harshly with any deviation from that order. Do you understand?”
Angral had directed the rebuke at both of them, but Malgus understood it to be intended for him.
“Yes, Darth Angral,” they said in unison.
“You are servants of the Empire.”
Malgus, stewing, said nothing.
“Both of you leave me, now,” Angral said.
Still seething, Malgus walked for the door. Adraas fell in a stride behind him.
“Darth Malgus,” Angral called.
Malgus stopped, turned. Adraas stopped as well, keeping some space between them.
“I know you believe that conflict perfects one’s understanding of the Force.” He made Malgus wait a beat before adding, “I will be curious to see if events validate your view.”
“What events?” Malgus asked, and then understood. Angral would let Adraas make his play for Malgus’s role in the hierarchy. He entended to see who would prevail in a conflict between Malgus and Adraas, a conflict conducted in the shadows, by proxy, according to all the ridiculous political rules of the Sith.
Subtle, backhanded conflict was not Malgus’s strength. He glared at Adraas, who glared back.
“That will be all, then,” Angral said, and Malgus walked toward the doors.
“Adraas, remain a moment,” Angral said, and Adraas lingered.
Malgus looked over his shoulder to see Adraas watching him.
Malgus walked out of the office alone, the same way he had walked in. He had been made a fool and was being played for Angral’s amusement.
Worse, the victory he had so dearly won would be for nothing, a mere lever for the Emperor to wield in peace negotiations. After negotiations were concluded, the Empire would leave Coruscant.
In the hall outside, he slammed a fist down on the secretary’s desk, putting a crack on the marble top.