فصل 33

Chapter Thirty-Three

The Outer Rim. The Third Horizon.

“So that’s what caused so much pain,” said Chancellor Lina Soh, from her offices on Coruscant.

She was looking at a hi-res holo projected by one of her comms droids, while Avar Kriss and others from the Emergences task force were watching a vidscreen in the Third Horizon’s briefing chamber— but the images were the same: the last thing the Legacy Run’s scanners saw before the ship tore itself apart.

That thing was a ship, blocky and ugly, with three bright, jagged stripes across its hull—exactly as described by Serj Ukkarian on the Panacea. Three lightning bolts, which Senator Noor’s people had confirmed as the insignia used by the Outer Rim marauders known as the Nihil. The vessel was moving through hyperspace, but not along the path of the swirling hyperspace tunnel, as had been the case with every ship Avar had ever seen. The Nihil ship was moving across hyperspace, at a right angle to the Legacy Run’s direction of travel, with strange red-and-gold turbulence rippling in its wake.

“I was given to understand something like this was impossible,” Lina Soh said, her left hand idly stroking the head of one of her two giant pet cats—Avar knew their names, Matari and Voru, they were famous throughout the Republic, but she didn’t know which was which.

The chancellor’s words were slightly delayed, a factor of the distance between Coruscant and the Outer Rim Territories. Senatelevel comms were given the highest priority over the relays, but parsecs were parsecs. That would change, hopefully—improving the galactic communications network was one of Lina Soh’s planned Great Works—but not if they didn’t solve the issue at hand.

“It should be impossible, Chancellor,” Vellis San Tekka said, sitting at the table next to his partner, Marlowe, who nodded in agreement.

Avar sensed something there. Some unspoken communication between the San Tekkas. A careful choice of words.

Maybe Elzar was right, she thought. Maybe we should have pushed them a little harder.

Clearly he thought so. He was sitting across the table from her, and caught her eye. Nothing more than the tiniest glance, but she knew exactly what he was thinking, even without Force-related assistance.

She offered Elzar a tiny shrug. Whatever the San Tekkas knew, their help had been genuine and invaluable. Keven Tarr had told her there was no way he could have completed his navidroid array without their assistance. She didn’t know whether that was true—the Hetzalian engineer was clearly a genius—but the San Tekkas had certainly helped Keven finish the array more quickly, and speed was of the essence here.

The genius in question was on another screen, a comms droid projecting his holo against one of the briefing chamber’s other blank walls. Tarr had stayed on the Rooted Moon in Hetzal, and was using his array to process the data retrieved from the Legacy Run’s flight recorder. The massive, stitched-together computer brain had been completely repaired from the damage suffered when it first activated.

In fact, not just repaired, but enhanced. Chancellor Soh had ordered Transportation Secretary Lorillia to provide Keven Tarr with as many navidroids as he needed. If he wanted a million, he was to get them, no matter the cost.

“Can someone summarize our conclusions thus far, please?” Lina Soh said.

Everyone looked at Avar. Somehow she had become the leader of the task force, despite sharing the room with an admiral, a senator, and various other high-level luminaries.

“We have learned that a group calling themselves the Nihil was directly connected to the catastrophe in Hetzal and the subsequent Emergences. They’re a low-level marauder operation working in the Outer Rim—raiders, basically. They’ve done some terrible things, but they’re a regional problem, handled by defense forces and security teams on a case-by-case basis. As bad as they are, they’re small time.

“It seems—though this is informed speculation—that whatever happened in Hetzal gave them the ability to predict Emergences, much like Keven Tarr’s navidroid array. They’ve used that ability twice that we’re aware of. First, in Eriadu, as part of a botched extortion attempt.

And second, at the fortieth Emergence, where they attempted to prevent our teams from retrieving the Legacy Run’s flight recorder, as they knew it would tie all of this directly back to them.”

“That’s where we lost one of your colleagues, the Jedi Knight

Te’Ami, and two brave pilots in a Longbeam—Marcus Augur and Beth Petters, correct?”

Avar inclined her head slightly in silent agreement. The chancellor considered for a moment, scratching behind her targon’s ear and getting an appreciative purr in response.

“Do we think these Nihil caused the Legacy Run disaster on purpose?”

“It doesn’t seem like it,” Elzar Mann said.

He gestured to the main vidscreen, which was still displaying the Nihil ship crossing through hyperspace, running on a loop.

“This is clearly a ship, and armed. If they wanted to destroy the Legacy Run, they could have fired their weapons. They didn’t. The Legacy Run just tore itself apart trying to evade this thing. Besides, as Master Kriss pointed out, this is a bunch of Outer Rim raiders.

Opportunists, not planners. This all seems like a horrible accident.” “An accident that they promptly tried to profit from at Eriadu,” Senator Noor said, pounding his fist on the table. “An accident that has cost the Outer Rim Territories dearly in lives, opportunity, and treasure. They must be held responsible.”

Behind him, his aide nodded, a blue-skinned Chagrian, slim, tall, and precise in dress and manner. Jeni Wataro, Avar recalled.

“They will,” Chancellor Soh said, holding up a hand. “First, we need to know whether it can happen again. San Tekkas…what is your view?” Marlowe and Vellis glanced at each other briefly before speaking.

“We believe this was a tragic fluke, Chancellor,” Marlowe said. “We do not think there is an overarching issue with hyperspace. However, this”—here he pointed at the vidscreen, still displaying the brutish ship looping across the Legacy Run’s path, over and over again, trailing its strange red-and-gold wake—“suggests the Nihil have an understanding of hyperspace that is at best unique and at worst hugely dangerous. That should be investigated, and quickly.”

“Well, perfect, then,” Senator Noor said. “You heard the man,

Chancellor. Hyperspace is fine. The Outer Rim is suffering—and I know you want the Starlight Beacon to come online. It’s time to reopen the lanes.”

“Not yet, Senator,” she said. “We know what happened, more or less—but just because it was an accident once doesn’t mean it couldn’t be done purposely in the future. It’s not such a leap for marauders to become terrorists. This threat has to be eliminated.”

Senator Noor began to sputter out a protest.

“Enough, Noor,” Chancellor Soh said. “I’ve made my decision. I know you’re concerned about the Rim. I am as well…but I’m responsible for the entire galaxy, and in case you’ve forgotten, hyperspace goes everywhere. If the Nihil can attack us in the lanes, nowhere is safe.”

She turned to look at Admiral Kronara, standing at the far end of the briefing room.

“Admiral, I want you to activate the defense provisions in the RDC agreements. Gather a fleet from the treaty worlds and hunt down the Nihil. I’ve read the reports—even if there really is no further danger to hyperspace, these are still dangerous criminals who should not be able to operate with impunity. Even if they confine their raids to the Outer Rim, we are all the Republic.”

“Very good, Chancellor,” he said, sounding pleased.

Then again, he was an admiral.

“Do you have any idea where the Nihil are based?” Chancellor Soh continued. “Their headquarters?”

“If I may, Chancellor,” Keven Tarr interjected, raising a hand. “I’ve already set my array to calculating the likely origin point of the Nihil vessel that caused the Legacy Run disaster. It originated in a spot near the Kur Nebula. I don’t know if that’s their base, but it’s a place to start.”

“Very good, Mr. Tarr,” she replied, then looked out across the Third Horizon’s briefing chamber.

“You have all done very well so far,” she said. “You discovered the cause of the Legacy Run tragedy. Now I give you a new assignment.

You are to make sure it never, ever happens again. Whatever it takes.” Chancellor Lina Soh leaned forward, and both of her giant cats lifted their heads, their ears flattening in a threat display as they sensed their master’s emotional intensity. Avar, despite herself, despite all her skill and training, found herself glad that half a galaxy separated her from this woman. She did not envy the Nihil, who now found themselves under the gaze of a person who had demonstrated the will to reshape an entire galaxy.

“I want these Nihil brought to justice,” the chancellor said. “Every last one.”