فصل 38

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Deep Space. The Kur Nebula.

Kassav looked at the battle display, frowning. Almost simultaneously with his order to his Tempest to move into an offensive position, to go on the attack, the Republic Cruisers had disgorged an unending stream of those arrowhead-shaped fighters they used— Skywings—along with a good number of the bigger workhorse ships, the Longbeams.

His people were fighting back, and mostly giving as good as they got in the small skirmishes, but the big guns on the Republic heavy cruiser and its five smaller companions were lashing out, almost every shot finding a Cloudship. The shields on the New Elite and some of the bigger Nihil ships could withstand those shots—for a while, at least— but the Cloudships? No way. They flashed into a cloud of flame and vaporized durasteel every time a shot found its target.

The numbers were still on their side, but it couldn’t last—and the ships from Eriadu were getting closer with every second, creeping up on them, implacable. Either his Nihil punched a hole through the Republic fleet and made it to the hyperlane access point, or they might all die right there.

There was another ship out there, too—the Jedi cruiser. So far, it hadn’t done anything, but there was no way it didn’t have some of those Vectors aboard. That was the last thing he needed.

“Anything from the Eye?” he called out.

“Nothing yet, boss,” Wet Bub answered.

Kassav hadn’t expected anything. He was pretty damn certain no miraculous escape route was going to be uploaded to their Path engine. If he wanted to get back to Marchion Ro and bury his blade in the smug bastard’s creepy eye, he’d have to do it himself.

He looked at the tactical display, trying to figure out what orders to give. The Republic was chewing his people apart, their disciplined, coordinated attacks incredibly effective against his Tempest, where each pilot was their own master and fought however the hell they wanted. Most of his Nihil were engaging in dogfights, each trying to shoot down a Republic ship, make a big name for themselves, a good story to tell back at the Great Hall. But against trained military, they just couldn’t—

That’s it, he thought.

He keyed open a fleet-wide comm channel.

“My Nihil—this is the Tempest Runner. You’re teaching these Republic fools one hell of a lesson. I’m impressed. But I want them to leave this battle knowing better than to go up against us again. Stop fighting them on their terms. They won’t learn a thing.

“Fight like the Nihil,” he said. “Fight free. Fight dirty.”

He grinned.

“Show them who we are. That’s an order.”

It took a moment or two for that instruction to sink in, but then one of the larger ships, a repurposed freighter only a little smaller than the New Elite, opened its cargo bay doors. Its engines kicked on and something spilled out, propelled by the momentum, a gelatinous gray goo. Kassav remembered that this particular ship was a hijack.

Evidently the new Nihil owners had never emptied the cargo containers, and evidently the ship was originally some kind of waste carrier.

The sludge oozed out in a noxious flood, coating the Republic fighters pursuing the freighter. Two Skywings spun out and collided, causing an explosion…which ignited the whole load. Flame rippled out in a surging wave, catching every Republic ship that had been coated with the gunk when the Nihil freighter let fly. They all blew up, every one, in a chain reaction of explosions that was one of the most beautiful things Kassav had ever seen.

Fight dirty, indeed.

The rest of the Nihil saw it, too, and they got the message. Suddenly it wasn’t about dogfights or head-on battles with your opponents.

Kassav watched one of his ships land on one of the bigger Republic craft, then do a high-intensity engine burn right into the bridge viewport. He saw another crew use the harpoon trick that had worked so well in Ab Dalis, ripping apart one of the five cruisers.

It wasn’t all good news, though—one of his bigger vessels, a light corvette, was under heavy attack from a squadron of Longbeams. Its engines flared out, and the vessel began to drift.

That’s that, Kassav thought. Blast it. Could’ve used that ship down the road.

A number of escape pods jettisoned from the ailing Nihil corvette, and the Longbeams immediately broke off their attack and began collecting them with some sort of magnetic clamp apparatus. They towed them back to the nearest big Republic Cruiser, entering its docking bay with the pods trailing behind.

Kassav worried for a moment about what those prisoners might be able to tell the Republic about the Nihil and its operations, then realized it probably didn’t matter. Things couldn’t get much worse.

And then the Republic Cruiser blew up, in a massive explosion that also took out a number of smaller craft nearby. At the same time, the engines on the Nihil corvette, the one Kassav had written off, flared back into life, and the ship slewed around, its weapons firing at a nearby set of Skywings.

Kassav understood what had happened. The escape pods didn’t have his people aboard—they’d been packed with explosives, and when the Republic idiots got all noble and tried to rescue them because… “Heh,” he said to himself. “We are all the Republic.”

He keyed the comm back on.

“That’s it!” he cried. “Smash a hole right through them! I’m with you all!”

He keyed off the comm system and lifted his hand to chew the edge of his thumb—a nervous habit—until he realized he no longer had a thumb on that hand.

“Any word from Marchion Ro?” he called over to Wet Bub.

In response, just a shake of the head, long, dangling ears flopping against Bub’s skull.

Not that he had expected anything. It was Kassav against the galaxy. Just like always.

Admiral Kronara couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He didn’t expect a bunch of criminals to fight with anything resembling honor, but this was…despicable.

One of the larger Nihil vessels had just released a huge swath of reactor by-products from its engines, creating a tail of invisible, deeply toxic radiation that not only snarled sensors, but poisoned any pilot that happened to fly through it. They’d be condemning them to a slow, agonizing death unless they reached medical facilities immediately.

That will catch some of their own ships, too, he thought. It has to.

They’re killing their own people.

The Nihil didn’t seem to care. About that, about anything, beyond causing as much damage as they possibly could.

That strategy was succeeding. He was down two of his Pacifierclass patrol cruisers, the Marillion of Alderaan and the Yekkabird from Corellia, along with their crews and a good number of the Longbeam attack ships and Skywing fighters.

He wouldn’t say the Nihil were winning, exactly—their tactics were all offense, no defense, and they were taking hits, their numbers decreasing…but they weren’t exactly losing, either. This had to end, and soon. It was time to escalate his response.

Admiral Kronara checked the displays again, looking at the position of the small Eriaduan flotilla moving inexorably toward the battle.

Not close enough yet, he thought.

“Get me the Ataraxia,” he said, calling over to his communications officer.

Master Jora Malli’s voice came over the comm a few moments later.

“Admiral,” she said. “How can I help?”

“The Nihil are using unorthodox tactics, ugly moves. We can beat them, but RDC pilots don’t train for things like this. It’ll take time, and it’ll cost lives. If you and your people are willing—”

The Jedi agreed before he finished the sentence. “We’ll see what we can do, Admiral. The Force provides quite an edge in battle.” “We’d be grateful for the assist,” he said.

“Of course,” she said, and ended the transmission.

Jora Malli strode into the Ataraxia’s primary hangar, Sskeer at her side. She held a comlink in one hand.

“Avar, we’re going to take out the Vector squadron. The Republic pilots need our help shutting the Nihil down before things get any worse out there. Can you establish your link to all of us, to help to make that task simpler?”

“I can,” Avar Kriss responded. “I’m already hearing the song.” Jora knew that Avar interpreted the Force as music. She didn’t see it that way. To her, the Force was…a force. But you couldn’t deny the effectiveness of what Master Kriss could do.

All around her, Jedi ran toward waiting Vectors, the Ataraxia’s non-Jedi crew fueling and prepping the delicate ships for flight. She saw Elzar Mann and his friend Stellan Gios, Nib Assek and her Wookiee Padawan Burryaga, the Ithorian Mikkel Sutmani who had been part of the ill-fated mission during which the Order lost Te’Ami… all strong pilots. They’d need to be. She had reviewed the tactical data from the battle, and the Nihil ships seemed willing to go to any lengths to hurt or destroy their enemies.

“You ready, old friend?” she said to Sskeer as they approached their own Vectors.

“You should be on the Starlight Beacon,” the Trandoshan Jedi hissed back. “You’re supposed to be dealing with supply requisitions and unruly younglings, not leading an assault on a bunch of pirates.

Let me go by myself—there’s no need for you to fly.”

“You can die in bed just as easily as in battle, Sskeer,” she said, climbing into her ship’s cockpit.

“That is certainly untrue,” Sskeer called over, putting an oxygen mask over his broad snout and settling into his pilot’s seat. “What if we both just agree not to die?”

“Deal,” she said as the canopy closed.

Jora took her lightsaber—a golden cylinder with curved platinum guards swooping back down toward the hilt like wings—and placed it against the weapons activation panel on her Vector’s console. The targeting systems lit up bright white, the color of her saber blade. She had retrieved its kyber crystal, then a bright blood-red, from an ancient Sith lightspear and healed it, purging the rage and pain instilled in it by its original owner. She performed the ritual mainly as an intellectual exercise, to see how it was done, but once the process was complete she found herself tightly bound to the crystal, and now used it as the core of her primary weapon.

She pushed her control sticks forward and shot out of the hangar into open space.

All around her, Vectors materialized, flashing out from the

Ataraxia.

“On me, Jedi,” Jora Malli said, and the ships came up around her, creating the tight formation that only the Jedi ships could achieve.

It was a Drift, perfectly composed, and the only thing more beautiful than seeing one was being part of one.

The battle lay ahead, and they would turn the tide.

The Eriaduan ships had advanced slow and steady, and were now in visual range, which meant they were in weapons range as well, but they hadn’t started firing. Kassav thought he knew why. The hunters wanted to terrify their prey before they killed it.

A battle was one thing, but this waiting. It was agonizing.

The ships were all long, thin, bladelike craft. They looked like swords, edge-on, and they were headed straight for him.

“Divert a third of our ships to the Eriaduan cruisers,” he ordered, shouting at Wet Bub. “We need them gone.”

“You got it, boss,” Bub said.

He sounded dubious. Not surprising. Kassav was dubious, too.

They had killed their fair share of Longbeams and Skywings, but the Jedi had finally joined the fight, sending out those blasted little Vectors. Still, whatever. Jedi could die, just like anyone. No one ever said they were immortal.

But the Nihil were running out of tricks to play, and the Republic was getting smarter, letting the big guns on their cruisers do more of the work. It was time to go. What Kassav really needed was a Path, but the odds of that were—

“Kassav!” it was Wet Bub, a new note in his voice—hope. “I’ve got Marchion Ro on the comm!”

“Put him through!” Kassav yelled. “Private channel!”

Marchion Ro’s voice sounded in Kassav’s mask.

“Hey, Kassav,” he said. “You ran into some trouble out there?” I think you know we did, Kassav thought.

“Yeah,” he said. “Republic task force, a bunch of Jedi, even some ships from Eriadu. Like some sort of ambush. I know you want to get rid of that flight recorder, but we could really use a Path to get us out of here. We’re getting hit pretty bad, Marchion. My whole Tempest is at risk.”

“It was just supposed to be a few transports,” Marchion Ro replied.

“I don’t know what happened. I’ll get you a Path. Just keep fighting. I’ll say something to your Tempest, too. As the Eye.”

“Okay, great, but how long do you think it’ll be until you can send a Path, because—”

The link went dead. Kassav wished he could race back along the transmission line, not to escape, but for the sole purpose of finding Marchion Ro and murdering him in the most savage manner he could dream up.

Wet Bub spoke again.

“Another transmission from the Eye,” he said. “Every ship’s getting it.”

“Put it through,” Kassav said.

The wreckpunk, still blaring through the bridge speakers, automatically reduced in volume as Marchion Ro’s voice echoed out across the New Elite and all the other ships in the Nihil fleet.

“I am the Eye of the Nihil, and I see the battle you’re fighting. I see the Republic, trying to take away your freedom, trying to take your hard-won credits, trying to take away your way of life…they want you dead. Just for living. Just for being. Just for walking a path they don’t own.

“Who are they to tell us how to live? Who are they to come to our territory and try to kill us? The Republic. The Jedi. What gives them the right?”

Kassav looked across the bridge. Dellex, Gravhan, Wet Bub, and all the rest—all had stopped what they were doing and were very still, just listening to Marchion Ro’s words.

He suddenly had a bad feeling. A very bad feeling.

“I will not allow this to happen,” Marchion Ro said. “I have a responsibility to the Nihil, and the freedom we all believe in so deeply.

I am the Eye, and I will give you what you need to defeat our enemies.

These are the Battle Paths, my friends, and with them…”

A pause, a held breath, and Kassav knew every single one of his people was ready, waiting, desperate to hear what Marchion would say next.

“…you cannot lose.”

The New Elite thrummed, all its surfaces vibrating with a strange new energy, down to its very core. Dellex shouted, looking at her screens.

“Kassav…the Path engine…something’s happening!”

Sskeer flew as part of the Drift, the connection to the Jedi all around him strengthened by whatever Avar Kriss was doing back on the Ataraxia. And the strongest connection of all was to Jora Malli, her ship just off to starboard, so close that their wingtips almost touched.

The Vectors had not yet engaged the enemy. The Nihil were still ahead, embroiled in battles with Longbeams and Skywings. He sensed anticipation, all around him, Jedi preparing themselves for the test of combat.

His own cockpit was bathed in green light, the color of his lightsaber blade. Everything was ready. He would defend, he would protect, he would bring justice. He was a Jedi, and he—

Something happened.

The Nihil ships…moved. Shifted. All of them, at once, were in one place, and then they were in another. They didn’t move as one, but in separate jolts and lunges, disappearing and reappearing in varying distances from their original positions.

It happened again, and there was no reason to it, no pattern. The Nihil just dropped from one place and then—

A momentary impression of something large, solid, too close to avoid, appearing right in the middle of the Drift, and then an impact so gigantic he could not truly comprehend it. A huge flash of light, and his sense of many of the Jedi around him vanished. Then something slammed into the canopy of his cockpit, and through it, some sharp chunk of metal that speared directly into his shoulder, through his body and well into his pilot’s seat, severing his arm at the joint.

Through the shock, Sskeer thought he understood what had happened. Somehow, the Nihil were entering hyperspace, then dropping back out of it, impossibly short distances away. One had appeared from hyperspace directly in the middle of the Drift, and the ensuing collision had caused a spreading wave of destruction and chaos.

Sskeer howled, not so much at the pain or even the loss of his limb —he was Trandoshan, and so his arm would regrow in time—but at something worse.

One of the Jedi he could no longer sense…was Jora Malli.