فصل 24

Chapter Twenty-Four

Hyperspace. The Gaze Electric.

Marchion Ro’s flagship traveled through hyperspace—but in a way no other ship in the galaxy could. Its course was not set, moving from one access zone to another, through a well-defined hyperlane.

No…the Gaze Electric didn’t move, it maneuvered. The massive ship plunged and rose, making impossibly tight turns, diving into tiny offshoots of the main road and finding itself in an entirely new urspace.

It followed routes that could not be seen and could not be repeated.

Its path was charted by Mari San Tekka, and Marchion Ro let her have her head—she had complete control over the ship’s navigation systems, and if the ride got a little bumpy sometimes, even terrifying, so what? These rides made Mari feel happy and good—they let her test her theories, work out new ideas.

Piloting the Gaze Electric calmed her down, made her feel like she was in a good place, so that when Marchion asked her for specific Paths, she was able to provide them without exhausting herself or getting frustrated.

He looked through a viewport at the strange, unreal landscapes through which she was taking the ship. Like flying through a

snowstorm made of flowers built of bright-green light. Beautiful and horrifying all at once.

Traveling through hyperspace under ordinary circumstances was an entirely different experience. You entered the lane, you flew through the unchanging, swirling nothing for some set period, and then you exited back to realspace.

But Mari’s flight was like that of a fast-winged insect, zipping from blossom to blossom, changing direction without bowing to considerations of inertia, acceleration, or deceleration.

These abilities came at a cost, both in wear and tear and fuel, though the Gaze Electric was specially equipped to handle them via a Path engine of unique design. The very first, in fact, similar in appearance to those on all the other Nihil ships but greatly enhanced in capabilities. The engines allowed the Nihil to translate the Paths into actual navigational data that would be rejected by any

conventional system as being impossible—they were the key to everything, now and in the future.

Marchion had owned the huge vessel for a very long time, and his father before him, both of them haunting its empty spaces designed for thousands, now through time and treachery inhabited by only a few. The Ros, father and son, had no homeworld; they left it behind long ago. The ship was as close as Marchion got, just as Mari San Tekka was the nearest thing to family he had left.

Marchion Ro peered in at Mari, who lay in a sealed oblong pod with a clear front panel. Wires ran from it to power sources in the deck, and large tanks of various medical chemicals bubbled nearby, their contents dripping into tubes running into the pod. The machine was essentially one large medical capsule designed to keep Mari as healthy and comfortable as could be managed for a human who had been alive for well over a century.

Mari had dialed in to the particular focus she found while doing these runs, her eyes flickering, charting routes through the swirl of hyperspace that her mind was uniquely capable of seeing. No other being seemed able to do it, and no navidroid came close. Droid brains could chart routes along already established paths, but what Mari did was nothing like that. Mari found the roads between the roads, via some mix of instinct and unconscious mathematical analysis that operated on a level she couldn’t explain.

Marchion had asked her, of course—many times—as had his father, and his grandmother. If Mari San Tekka’s gift could be replicated, then there truly was no limit to what could be accomplished. Mari had tried, but it was like explaining why there were always more stars the farther you traveled, the deeper you looked. Some things just were, and could not be explained.

Or duplicated.

When Mari San Tekka died—and that day could not be far off,

despite the best medical technology in the galaxy being applied to extending her life span—the Paths would die with her. And at that point, the thing that made the Nihil more than just another marauder gang carving out territory in the Outer Rim would vanish.

Marchion pressed a control on the exterior of Mari’s medical pod, and spoke.

“Can you bring us back, Mari?” Marchion Ro said.

The old woman ignored him, and the Gaze leapt again. Marchion braced himself against the shock without thinking. Some people could barely keep their feet when Mari San Tekka took the ship on one of her little voyages, but he had been experiencing it since he was a child.

“Mari?” he said again.

No response. Hyperspace swirled outside the viewports, and Mari’s eyes tracked it, seeing paths visible only to her.

Marchion Ro frowned. He pressed another control on the medical pod’s console, and Mari’s entire body tensed as a mild electric shock coursed through it.

He wished she weren’t making him do it. The woman was not robust, and he didn’t know how many jolts she could take. Her doctor, a rotund Chadra-Fan named Uttersond, had once described Mari San Tekka’s heart as a paper lantern.

But he didn’t have time for her to be lost in her mind. He had plans, and questions, and the Nihil needed Paths, and the Paths came from Marchion Ro, but truly from this old woman to whom he had tied his entire future, this woman he kept alive and pampered and she just wanted to fly his ship halfway across the galaxy instead of just— He pressed the button again, and Mari’s body went rigid.

—giving him—

Again.

—what he—

Again.

—needed.

Mari San Tekka collapsed back against the cradle in her medical pod, and then her body trembled and shook. Her mouth gaped open, spittle shining at its corners, and her eyes rolled back in her head.

An alarm began to sound, a low, insistent beep, which he knew would summon Dr. Uttersond. Marchion Ro tapped another control and the alarm ceased.

He leaned over the medical pod, watching Mari San Tekka endure her seizure. The pod went through its emergency procedures; needles extended on actuator arms from its sides and slipped into the protruding veins on the woman’s stick-thin arms, as flat metal paddles slid beneath her robes to stimulate her heart.

Maybe this is the end, he thought. Everything I’ve done, all those years of planning…it could be over, right here, today.

The idea had a perverse appeal. Fascinated, he watched Mari San Tekka’s trembling, tiny body, wondering if his life was about to embark on…well, an entirely new path.

His finger hovered over the alarm for Uttersond, and he didn’t know what the idiot doctor could do, but perhaps something, and was pressing it even as Mari San Tekka coughed, a sharp barking sound, and her seizures ended.

Her eyes opened, and she looked around her in wonderment. They locked on Marchion, and she smiled, broad and kind and open as a child.

“Why, Marchion, hello,” she said. “Did I lose myself again? I’m sorry. You know how I get when I take us traveling. There’s just so much to see, you know.”

Her index finger twitched on the control panel beneath her hand, and Marchion felt the Gaze drop from hyperspace.

“It’s all right, Mari, everything’s just fine.”

Mari swiveled the medical pod, taking it vertical, so instead of looking up at him she could stare him right in the eye. Her mind was clouded by age, but her gaze was not—her eyes were clear and focused, and she never seemed perturbed in the least by his own black orbs.

“Well, that was a good one, in any case. Found a new path between Pasaana and Urber. Should reduce travel time by a third, maybe more.

It’ll make you a bundle!”

Mari San Tekka had been a hyperspace prospector since she was six years old. Something had happened to her as she traveled out in the interstellar wilderness with her family, and it had changed her.

Changed her mind. Opened her up so she could see things no one else could—the Paths. For some years, she had used that ability on behalf of her people, and brought them wealth and renown…but that fame brought with it a price.

Marchion Ro’s own family had taken Mari San Tekka…stolen her, no reason to call it anything other than what it was. They had used her skill to find things they believed they needed back then, and then they had just…kept her. Told her whatever stories were required to keep her happy and working. Handed her down from generation to

generation, until eventually she took up residence on the Gaze Electric.

Mari San Tekka seemed to believe she was still working as a prospector. Sometimes she thought Marchion Ro was her father (or his, or his grandmother), sometimes her son, sometimes her jailer, sometimes her business partner. Her sense of time had gotten muddled over the decades—though her skill at finding new hyperlanes had not diminished, and not just the Paths Marchion requested for Nihil raids. Mari had charted new, secret routes all over the galaxy, from the Deep Core to Wild Space. She seemed to think Marchion Ro was selling them to the Republic, or whatever form of government she thought was currently running the galaxy. That belief was consistent no matter what identity she assigned to him.

In fact, Marchion didn’t use Mari’s new routes at all. He stored them on the Gaze Electric’s central database. There could be a time when they would be valuable to him…but many things had to fall into place before that day could come.

Still, it kept Mari San Tekka happy to believe she was making herself useful, and when she was happy, it was easier to get her to do what he actually needed.

“Thank you so much, Mari,” Marchion said. “You can input them to the computer, and we’ll reach out to buyers right away. You’re fantastic.”

Mari smiled, suddenly shy. She was so good, so ignorant. Marchion hated how much he needed her.

“How are things going with your work, Marchion?” she asked.

“That big fancy plan of yours. Are you making progress?”

Marchion had told this woman things…things he had told no other living being. He told himself it was because he needed her expertise, and not because he had no one else to tell.

He considered her question. The Paths, and Mari herself, were his legacy, passed down to him from his father. Asgar Ro hadn’t created the Nihil, nor had he ever ruled them. Neither did Marchion. Both served as the Eye, which sounded impressive, but in truth the Eye just provided a unique service—the Paths—for which the Nihil’s true bosses, the Tempest Runners, paid extremely well.

Asgar Ro did not bring the Paths to the Nihil just for the credits it would give him, though. He had a goal in mind—redemption and revenge, for his family and many others. He had not lived to see it come to fruition, and had passed the task to his son.

Completing that work would require transformation—the Nihil would need to become something entirely different than the selfish, ravaging, disorganized band of criminals they currently were. Until very recently, Marchion Ro had not been able to see any way to get it done…but now he had no choice. For centuries, the Republic had largely left the Outer Rim to govern itself, but now things were changing. They were building a huge station, the Starlight Beacon, and what they called galactic outreach he called force projection.

The Nihil had to evolve now, before it was too late and the Republic brought their law and order and control to the Outer Rim. And of course, the Jedi. Couldn’t forget about them.

“My plan is…ongoing,” he said, answering Mari’s question. “Some stumbling blocks along the way, and the next steps will require some serious subtlety. It’s a dangerous time for me, in some ways. Actually, I was hoping you might help me with something.”

Mari lifted a frail hand, and her smile faded.

“Oh, you want some Paths. Do I have to? I just did so much work finding that new route…it wore me out, it surely did. Can I do it later?

After a nap?”

Shock her, Marchion thought. Shock her again and again until she burns inside that blasted pod.

“No,” Marchion said. “It’s just a question. I just wanted you to think about something. The chef made your favorite for dinner—we can have it brought in, if that helps.”

Mari sighed.

“All right, Marchion,” she said. “If you really need it. You know, your father never worked me as hard as you do. I miss him.”

Marchion Ro’s finger twitched toward the button that would trigger another shock to the medical pod. His father was dead. Marchion did not and would not walk that man’s path. Mari San Tekka and the Tempest Runners could make as many little jabs as they wanted, suggest he could never measure up. It didn’t matter. His father was dead.

He took a deep breath and clenched his gloved hand into a fist.

“Thank you, Mari,” Marchion said. “Here’s what I’d like you to do.” He pulled a datachip from his belt and plugged it into a reader on Mari’s medical pod. Information displayed on the inside of the canopy in bright blue—rapidly scrolling lines of data that described the last moments of what was once the doomed Legacy Run as it scattered through the Hetzal system. Mari San Tekka’s eyes sharpened, scanning the information, missing nothing.

“Oh dear,” she said. “That poor ship. What a tragedy.”

“Mm,” said Marchion Ro. “It didn’t stop here, either. Pieces of that ship have been popping up out of hyperspace all over the Outer Rim.

They’re calling them Emergences. There’s one part in particular—a section of the bridge that contains the ship’s flight recorder. The Republic is looking for it, because they think it will tell them things they want to know about what happened to the Legacy Run.”

“Yes, I see,” Mari said, still tracking the data as it rolled along her medical pod’s canopy.

“They’re trying to build a huge sort of machine—lots of navigational droids linked together—and they hope they can use it to predict where the missing pieces of the Legacy Run will show up. I just want to know if that’s possible. Can something like that actually be done?” Mari did not hesitate. She laughed, a surprisingly rich sound.

Marchion had no idea where it came from. Her chest looked like you could collapse the whole apparatus with the flick of a finger.

“Of course, you silly. I could do it for you right now. I can tell you where every last piece of this ship will show up. Won’t take long at all.

Just…I’m very tired.”

Marchion froze. Everything was clear—in that single moment, every step he would need to take was revealed to him. There were options, branching routes, he would have to make choices, improvise…but it was all one path, and it led to what he’d been looking for all his life.

His comlink chimed, and he lifted it from his belt.

“Yes?” Marchion said.

“She had another seizure,” came Dr. Uttersond’s squeaky voice through the comlink. “I saw it on my monitors.”

The Chadra-Fan’s voice was exceedingly irritating even when he wasn’t affecting the scolding tone he was currently using.

“She’s fine,” Marchion said.

“No, sir, respectfully, she’s not. She needs to rest. No more prospecting, no more Paths, nothing for at least a week. She is frail, and needs to rebuild her strength.”

“Thank you, Doctor. Understood.”

“Do you, sir? Because sometimes I wonder. I think—”

Marchion ended the transmission. He watched Mari San Tekka, the innocent smile on her face as she watched pieces of the Legacy Run kill and destroy throughout Hetzal.

“I would appreciate your help very much, Mari,” he said. “I need to go do a few things, but I’ll be back later. Can you get started right away? I’ll have the chef bring you your dinner. You can work while you eat.”

The old woman didn’t answer. She waved a hand vaguely, her medical pod slowly rotating back to a horizontal position. She was going deep again, her mind flickering along swirling roads only she understood, as she began to work the problem.

Marchion Ro left Mari’s chamber, heading for the ship’s bridge. The Gaze was almost entirely crewed by droids and hired personnel from outside the Nihil. He couldn’t trust the Clouds and Storms, and certainly not the Strikes. Not any one of them. Not even the Tempest Runners were allowed aboard his ship. None knew where the Paths came from, but if they ever found out, well…anyone could keep a medical pod running.

When he arrived on the bridge, a beautiful chamber carved entirely from the trunk of a single huge wroshyr tree, imported from Kashyyyk and shaped by artisans at breathtaking expense, Marchion moved to his captain’s chair without a word to his deck crew. He tapped the button that raised privacy screens around the seat, all of which doubled as comm displays.

Another button, and Kassav, Pan Eyta, and Lourna Dee appeared on the displays.

“Let me guess, you’re scared of the big bad Jedi and don’t want to give us any Paths,” Kassav said, as ever the first to speak and the last to shut up.

Pan Eyta and Lourna Dee remained silent.

“I am not afraid of the Jedi, Kassav. However, because I am not an idiot, I take them seriously as a threat. They could destroy everything we’ve built.”

Kassav looked like he was about to say something else, so Marchion just kept talking, not giving him the chance.

“I know you’ve all been frustrated that we’ve been lying low,” he said. “No raids. Well. You know that new initiative I mentioned? It’s on. We’re going to change things up. I’m going to get the three of you a list of the Emergences—the ones that haven’t happened yet. Go over them, see what opportunities you can find for us. Only catch is no Paths. You’ll have to plan your operations without them. Just standard tactics and techniques.”

Lourna and Pan said nothing, but he could see them calculating, thinking, trying to decide how much this would help or hurt them, what sort of game he was playing, how they could benefit or change his mind, or whether it was finally the time to actively embark upon the plans he was sure both had to murder him, steal everything he had, and take the Paths for their own.

For once, Kassav didn’t speak right away. He probably was thinking the same things as the other two.

“I’m actually impressed,” Kassav finally said. “This is pretty good.

But since we’ll be doing the jobs ourselves, and you aren’t actually giving us any Paths, the split should be different. I say the Eye doesn’t get a third for these. How about…ten percent? That seems fair.” Marchion gave him a smile that was not a smile at all.

“Here’s what I can do, Kassav—if you don’t want the Emergences, I can give them to Pan Eyta and Lourna Dee. Or none of you. Your choice. But if you take the Eye’s information, you pay for it like you usually do, or no more Paths, ever. Returns get divided up like usual.

The Rule of Three applies.”

Kassav didn’t like this. Marchion didn’t care.

“The Republic is trying to figure out where the Emergences will happen, too, and they’ll be there right away after they happen, so use your best people,” he said. “You’ll want to get in and get out. Maybe you find a disaster site and loot it. Maybe you ransom off the information about where an Emergence will happen…but do it anonymously, with the funds going to our dark accounts. My point is, be subtle. If the Republic figures out that someone knows where the Emergences are happening, it could lead them right back to us. We don’t need that kind of heat.”

He leaned forward.

“That all make sense?”

The Tempest Runners nodded, and Marchion Ro cut the connection. He thought for a moment. It was all so clear now. So clear.

He pressed a control on the armrest of his captain’s chair.

“Get the old lady her dinner,” he said.