Epilogue

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One by One

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They waited into the early hours of the morning, local time. Coruscant never slept, and so: neither did they. From the moment the coded transmission arrived, there was a nervous energy that filled the secure room. Borsk wondered if this was what it was like to be a Jedi - even with his eyes closed, his chin resting on interlaced fingers, he could sense Sien Sovv pacing, he could perfectly picture A'baht fiddling with the clasps of his tunic and Nylykerka smoothing the front of his uniform over and over again.

Everyone seemed to be on edge, waiting with bated breath; only Dif Scaur, dozing with his legs crossed at the ankle, projected a sense of calm. But Borsk, to his mild surprise, felt utterly calm. Perfectly centered; not even tired as the hours creaked past. His hand was played. He'd staked everything on this. He'd overridden heel-draggers in the Senate, shouted down alarmists in Daysong, and burned favors to muster his fracturing coalition. It was already paying off: his favorability was up three points locally, just from the silhouettes of First Fleet in the sky.

That favorability would plummet if - if! - it was learned that so many of those ships would never come back.

And when favorability dropped, the scavengers would nibble. Bite. Gnaw at him, because the political animals would want to claim his chair and declare themselves Chief of State even while Coruscant burned down around them. Some of them would even welcome the Vong themselves to the floor if it meant pushing out Borsk's dynasty, for even a little while. Not many were that bankrupt.

But they were there.

Borsk didn't fear them. He pitied them for their stupidity, but he didn't fear them.

It was those like Viqi Shesh, though - the ones who adopted any veneer, any angle, that suited them. That played to the crowd, that turned every which way with the wind, to ever stand a little higher. For now, Viqi was on his side, cleaving hard to the hawks that demanded unflagging resistance to the invaders. Borsk wasn't a fool. He knew that the Shesh was no longer the Shesh, save in name. He knew that Viqi's dealings and speeches and admirable youthful energy was engineered to polish her star.

It was those like Viqi that Borsk feared, because there was always a price for them. And if Tsavong Lah offered peace in exchange for half the galaxy, it would be ones like her that asked where to sign.

So he'd played his cards. He'd cast his die, and now waited with curious detachment as it teetered on one edge.

Sien Sovv sucked in a gasp. Borsk opened his eyes. The Sullustan Admiral, Supreme Commander of the New Republic Defense Force, stood agog with his joweled jaws slack. His dark, black eyes bulged wide.

"Cracked asteroids; no krakana." Sovv pronounced.

Borsk Fey'lya blinked, he unwove his fingers, he shut off his datapad and rose to his feet. All eyes followed him.

"Congratulations, gentlebeings," he said. "Now, we just need to do this another hundred times."

He left the room as an excited susurrus moved through it, the senior officers perhaps too stunned by their success to cheer. The aftermath was for them to marshal. Reeling back in the First Battlegroup from Hutt Space along the same secret ways, deploying out whatever other task forces were necessary to nail down the lines…he didn't care. Sovv still had his full confidence and Kre'fey kept proving his worth.

His gut told him the Vong wouldn't take this laying down, and he'd just very, very visibly spit in the eye of the Warmaster. Borsk had his victory; now, to keep it.

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The sacrifice trembled, synapses misfiring. Malik Carr extracted his fang from its skull, flicking the long limb once to scatter brain matter into the hungry flames. The sacrifice, some species he had never bothered to learn the name of, slumped forward. He kicked the corpse, toppling it fully into the pit. Flames roared and pulled sweat from his body. Around the wide, hand-dug pit other warriors did similarly. Dozens of slaves, naked and purified by sonics and incense, tumbled down onto the charring corpses of those who came before. Priests chanted guttural hymns and squeezed bitter, wafting incense out of shrieking, bulbous sple'tur. Chazrach chivvied along shuffling, wailing lines of slaves.

Beyond the site of the ritual, ugly, artificial constructions burned and collapsed, gnawed upon by bond-mates Tu-scart and Sgauru. Miid ro'ik loomed low, scraping thicker atmosphere to glow cherry-red and scorch meaningful marks into the coral. Yorik-et smote thunderclaps overhead as they ripped through the barrier of sound. Yorik-trema nosed through suburbs and outskirts, flashing plasma down to incinerate lingering pockets of resistance. The world had broken easily, even without the blessed touch of a war coordinator.

A fine sight, a fine scent, a fine song of victory and cleansing. Another world, taken. Another population, humbled. Another field of fertile soil for conversion.

Spoiled by ill news compounded on ill news.

Harmae: dead. Mezhan Kwaad: dead. The Jeedai: escaped. Open battle between his own Domain and Domain Rapuung. Condemnations flew thick and came to roost like karlig-set. The Warmaster frowned on him, he knew. The Warmaster frowned on Nas Choka too, for the humiliating loss of half of an entire reserve fleet. The Warmaster frowned on much, and so Malik Carr cast to the gods a hundred and a hundred more slaves to sate their appetites. To implore them to intercede on his behalf.

So fast had been his rise; so swift could be his fall. Harrar cautioned him to remember teachings of Yu'ka and others. To remember his successes, to balance his failures.

Tak-tak-tak. His claw flicked against chunks of duracrete. He breathed smoke and aerosolized blood.

He was being recalled from his nibbling along the edges of the Imperial Remnant. Nas Choka was to quit Hutt space. Entrust operations within his theater to a Warleader, then attend the Warmaster upon Domain Lah at Duro. The summons came from the sneering, supercilious mouth of one of Potent Lah's underlings. A snub. An insult. A warning.

Malik Carr gripped the skull of a whimpering, cringing slave, digging talons into its scalp. To you, oh Slayer, he thought, separating skull from body with a flick of his claw. At least he could bear a gift to the Warmaster, a gift he would petition for Qesud Qesh to be granted. The gift of a dead Aistarteez. What was left of one, but more than the Shapers had yet examined. The Exiled Imperium was moving. Their battleships ranged afar and rumor among the snivelling cowards of the Peez Brigade told of more Aistarteez nipping at the heels of smaller raiding strikes. In time, more Aistarteez would die where they might be examined and picked over. That time was not yet.

Praise be to the Slayer. He would not be empty handed, not like Nas Choka, who would come with naught to show but the bloated corpses of forgettable purveyors of intoxicants. Delicately, he licked blood from his talons. In his bones, he could feel it. Coruscant was in the Warmaster's sights. Malik Carr would be in the van. It was the only fate he deserved.

Tak-tak-tak clicked his claw and he relished the tremble in his sinews.

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All the younglings were safely aboard Errant Venture with Streen and Cilghal minding them. Kyle hated not accompanying Wild Karrde out, but took solace that Corran and Jacen were going with Talon Karrde. There wouldn't be much he could do anyway, if Jacen's premonition were accurate. Better to stay here, to take one of Booster's shuttles down to the surface of the tempestuous world below.

Eboracum was still reeling from the destruction of its moon. Kyle could almost sense the pain of the stricken world, clinging to life. Tidal forces had yanked and tugged on its plates, touching off quakes and volcanic eruptions as the moon swung ever closer in its death spiral. Then, when it was blown apart, the sudden scattering of its concentrated mass relaxed pull on Eboracum, letting tides sweep out across the oceans away from beneath the spreading smear of lunar debris.

And that debris came down, despite the best efforts of the Exiles. On the way down, escorted by six chunky Imperial starfighters, the Jedi could see flickers of crimson light, like inverted lightning, whickering up here and there from beneath the storm clouds of the world. The largest chunks that could've killed the world were intercepted, but no power in the universe could catch everything. Only a full planetary shield like Coruscant's might have, and even then, a large enough moon rock would've overwhelmed it too.

Eboracum was still alive, but the sky almost constantly bore witness to creases of contrails and distant rolling thunder as landspeeder and shuttle-sized meteoroids tumbled down. The fighter escort wasn't there as an honor; they were there as a practicality, just in case the haphazard chaos of the forming ring around the planet hurled a poorly timed rock their way. The idea was darkly ironic - if the Exiles went out of their way to save the Praxeum, only for three of the five Masters to die because their shuttle was clobbered on the way down.

Kam was tense, always growing a little anxious around reminders of his past. The Exiles weren't the Imperials that this galaxy knew best, but there was enough similarity to keep Solusar's teeth on edge. Tionne, though, joined Kam in the cockpit, peering over the shoulder of one of Booster's in-house pilots who expertly handled the shuttle.

"Sir, ma'am," the pilot said, the Chadra-Fan utterly focused on the task. "We'll be landing in ten. I've got the flightpath locked in."

"Thank you. We really do appreciate the service." Tionne said.

"Just doing what the boss ordered. And it's not every day I get to meet a couple famous Jedi!" Stormclouds swirled and rolled around them as they plunged into the turbulent atmosphere. Visual was lost on their escorts. "Don't mind what other folks say. The Jedi are good in my books."

The shuttle punched out of the lower span of the storm, revealing the twinkling lights and reaching towers of Eboracum's new capital - Eboracum Civitas. Hard to believe it had been a sleepy backwater just a year ago; now thick, blocky towers many stories tall rose from a huge grid of orderly streets. Massive shapes of factories squatted in the distance, protruding thick smokestacks and vents. Kyle could even see huge, shifting shapes in the rain that were some kind of construction droid - no, no droids, walkers maybe - moving around the skeletal shape of yet another growing building. Rain slanted down, hard and drumming, pouring from the heavy clouds overhead. Their target wasn't the city itself, but beyond it, in the rising range of mountains that hemmed in the river and plain the city was filling up bit by bit. There, against the horizon, was one of the sources of the laserfire that flicked up toward space.

The Farisen Redoubt, the world-bound home of the Ultramarines.

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Tylos Rubio, Codicier of the XIIIth Legiones Astartes Ultramarine, met them on one of the Redoubt's many landing pads. Bright sodium lamps along the rim of the pad threw hard shadows, illuminating the heavy downpour. Kyle shaded his eyes, taking the lead down the ramp. Water ran along the dark duracrate of the landing pad, flowing in rippling waves toward sunken drains here and there, but surprisingly, not a single drop landed around them. He glanced up - there was a bubble around them, encompassing the shuttle entirely and the Ultramarine like an inverted glass dome. The rain drummed and slid off of it easily.

And again, Kyle Katarn felt the glint in the corner of his eye, of something just beyond his sight.

"Thanks," he said cheerfully, striding down and offering a hand to the looming Ultramarine. "We weren't looking forward to getting soaked."

The Astartes easily matched the local form of greeting, ceramite palm to Kyle's flesh-and-blood.

"I am Codicier Tylos Rubio. You must be Master Kyle Katarn. Master Tionne Solusar, and Master Kam Solusar. Welcome." He inclined his head, placing a fist over his heart.

The similarities to Alebmos began and ended at the intensity of Rubio's gaze and the hints of inner light in his eyes. Otherwise, the two could not be more different. Rubio was cleanshaven, his blocky jaw firmly set, and he wore only the slightest fuzz of hair on his scalp. His armor was as huge and colored as any other Ultramarine, but lacked all the fancy drapings, cords and ornaments of Alebmos. Only a book hung from Rubio's waist, chained closed, with a sword belted on the opposite hip.

"I've been briefed by Lexicanium Alebmos. Come along."

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"Looks like they work fast," Kyle said, voice pitched low. Kam, his head on the swivel, nodded. Tionne looked fascinated, her silver eyes wide to take everything in. Senator Shesh's whole crew said that the fortress was still deep in construction when the Exiles invited them to summit. Now, though, Rubio led them down tall halls with vaulted, towering ceilings. Banners in a variety of colors hung along the walls, all bearing repetitions of the same collections of symbols. The two-headed bird, the rounded peth shape - U - that was on every vehicle and armor. Alcoves held small plinths, most empty but a few bearing marble recreations of Ultramarine helmets. What they meant, Kyle didn't have a clue.

Plenty of humans bustled around, showing how used to the big Ultramarines they were as they strode right past without even a side-long glance to Rubio and his guests.

They took a lift, large enough for their shuttle. It clanked as it descended, bearing the four of them down, down into the depths under the fortress. Rubio kept his quiet, which bled into the Jedi Masters. The air grew cooler, closer, with a bit of dampness that felt almost clammy. The ornamentation vanished, leaving the walls polished but bare granite, braced by metal strutwork and arches at regular intervals.

"A little grim, down here isn't it?" Kyle finally observed. At least it wasn't dark - lume panels shone constant, steady light, almost clinical.

"Psykery is not often an art to be lightly practised, nor in easy view."

"We're realizing that," Kam said.

Rubio led them to a large durasteel door, inset into the granite wall with a thick, coarse, red-metal frame. One of the common skulls that Exiles favored in their designs was mounted in the center of the door, protruding from an orderly network of cabling and wires that sunk into gasketed apertures in the brushed metal plane.

A pane of flickering red laserlight snapped out, swept up Rubio's body and cut out. Several tones hummed and warbled, like a drunk astromech. Kyle almost expected some dark, ominous space behind the door; but pleasantly when it quietly slid aside it revealed a handful of broad, tall steps down into a slightly sunken chamber. Intricate, interwoven coppery mesh covered all the walls and ceiling, punched through in regular intervals by thick, cylindrical spars of dark metal. Cool air rushed out and Kyle saw Tionne shiver, leaning against Kam. Frost rimed the metal meshes and humming generators squatted along the outside of the round chamber. There was a simple table, covered in parchments, ink-filled quills and gently spinning gyroscopic devices made of thin, delicate wire.

Two other Ultramarines waited - one in deep, oceanic blue robes and a heavy cowl, hands tucked into opposite sleeves, the other in armor like Rubio, with dark hair pulled back into a high bun.

"This is Mitratos," Rubio indicated the cowled one, "and Hostilio." He gestured to the armored Ultramarine. "Both are of the Nine. I apologize for the chill. Step inside, so that threshold can be sealed."

The three Jedi followed Rubio down the short flight of stairs and behind them, the door slid closed with a sort of finality. Heavy clunks indicated hidden locks engaged.

"Hello," Tionne said, always putting her best foot forward. "I'm Tionne. This is Kam, and this is Kyle. We teach the next generation of the Jedi."

"Good evening," Kam said, inclining his head slightly.

Kyle wanted to offer a hand, but settled for a quick grin. "Nice to meet you both."

Hooded Mitratos inclined his head. Hostilio's eyes cut to Rubio, back to the three Jedi, and he raised a hand in welcome. Neither made a sound.

"Mitratos is mute. Hostilio is deaf. They volunteered to be present as examples." Rubio strode to the table, bending to examine a spinning gyroscope. He grunted, apparently pleased with what he saw in the rotating, concentric rings. "Captain Thiel has shared your interest in the Warp. Alebmos has tipped our hand, which was his right and decision to make. The Jedi have been exposed to the raw stuff of the Warp, conjured both by uncareful hands and trained ones."

Rubio planted himself on the far side of the table covered in arcane, archaic decoration. He leaned forward slightly, eyes glowing gently from within.

"Ask. I will answer in all ways that I can."

He decided to let Kam and Tionne lead - Kyle was more interested in listening for the moment, ready to jump in to comment on his sense of Alebmos during the fighting. He eyed the two silent Ultramarines flanking Rubio, noting how Hostilio returned his interest impassively.

"Why now?" Kam asked, looking over the arranged parchments and leatherbound books scattered on the metal table. His tone was a little confrontational and Kyle sensed Solusar's frustration. He could definitely share it - the Exiles had a proven track record at this point. Obtuse secrecy, until their hand was forced, followed by reluctant disclosure. Like hiding from the whole galaxy at first, until they were forced into contacting the New Republic. Like making vague warnings about the 'Warp', until Anakin and Tahiri uncovered the Sith temple, at which point they scrambled a specialist out with only more ominous pronouncements accompanying him. "Don't misunderstand me. The three of us - and Master Streen - spoke on the way from Yavin. This is important, but you've been tight-lipped until now. Even Alebmos wouldn't give more than generalities for Anakin and Tahiri."

Rubio gestured to his two compatriots.

"Mitratos was ambushed in the bilges of Macragge's Honour shortly before the conclusion of the engagement above Calth. Yes, Master Solusar, I am aware of what Captain Thiel shared. Until that confrontation, Mitratos spoke easily and freely; what he banished in the bilges stole his voice from him."

Unsure of the direction - or misdirection, maybe - Kyle figured he might as well see where Rubio was leading them.

"Throat injury?"

Rubio shook his head.

"No. Conceptual injury. The warpspawn Mitratos fought stole from him the concept of speech. As a metaphysical construct. He is otherwise healthy, but will never speak again. I do not mean merely with the flesh. An augmetic implant would fail. Were he to use a thought-tap, it too would fail. Even synthesized speech is beyond him. Hostilio is deafened. From him, the concept of hearing was hacked away. Again, no augmetic or surgery will ever restore his hearing. The warpspawn that preyed on good Hostilio devoured sound from him, and he will never experience it again."

Rubio clenched an armored fist and frost cracked between his fingers.

"These are the meanest dangers of the Warp. Both of my brothers were lucky to suffer so lightly. The Emperor, beloved by all, believed that the Warp was to be proscribed knowledge, held in trust only among those in which he placed his greatest faith. The Primarch has rescinded this diktat. The presence on the eighth moon of Yavin moves us to reveal more."

Kam looked pained, pinched, cutting in.

"We're not unfamiliar with…metaphysical wounds. The dark side can twist and injure in long-lasting, haunting ways."

"That is part of why I counseled the Primarch to allow me to speak with you. Whatever your Force is, there are parallels between it and the Warp; at least ones that ring conceptually similar. Alebmos' estimation of the immaculate nature of the Jedi youths was considered as well." Rubio tapped the heavy tome at his waist idly. "I warn you: consider twice whomsoever you intend to share what I will tell you now. And then: think on it a third time."

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They drifted in the dense, ringing bands of Yavin's radiation belts. All of the gas giant's moons were far distant points of light, nothing more than overly large stars. Sol brought the Thunderhawk close, its wingtip nearly touching the rocky shell of the corvette. And then… they drifted. If there was a way to extrude some kind of airlock or boarding tube, Tahiri hadn't a clue. The Thunderhawk wasn't designed to have any sort of universal connection either.

Sol and Sannah could leave. 55901/a was hyperspace capable and the servitor had access to a navicomputer.

Anakin had told Sol to leave them and get help three times. Sol denied it each time, his voice flat through the combead.

Tahiri hid herself away inside one of a few dozen small cabins. Somewhere between the flight from Yavin 4 and realizing there was no possible way she could manage to figure out a hyperspace course, she'd discovered that she had been speaking the Yuuzhan Vong language the whole time. That led to a sudden breakdown as Tahiri tried and failed, tried and failed, to say anything in Basic. Anakin didn't know what to say. How to comfort her.

And so they drifted. They drifted as hours turned into a day, and no ideas, no brilliant thoughts came to him. Anakin wandered the corvette, mapping out what passed for decks. It had a lot more internal space than he figured it would. The first time he almost stepped on a small, scuttling bug he'd started and gone for his lightsaber, but all it did was click mandibles at him and scurry along. He followed it, tense and thinking about grutchin hives or some kind of thud bug hatchery, only to realize it was some kind of living mouse droid when it started chewing on a discolored patch of wall in one corridor. It gnawed, taking crunchy little bites, and then turned around and excreted fresh 'spackle'.

The whole ship was like that. Some areas smelled like brine and blood, one space was basically filled entirely with what looked like heavy, hanging capillaries that pulsed and writhed slightly. The deck had spring to it, the walls breathed and there were little biot things all over the place, doing who knew what.

Tahiri didn't withdraw from their bond.

She was here, but she was so, so far away.

Anakin slid into the fleshy 'pilot' seat of the corvette, slouching and glaring at the stars visible through the asymmetrical viewports.

Like had happened every hour, his thoughts, never calm, never still, ran back to Zalthis. His nails dug into the leathery texture of the couch. His throat burned, his eyelids scraped over dry, red eyes, and Zalthis etched an Ultima into his lightsaber. Little brother.

He wanted to break something. He wanted to break everything.

He wanted the universe to feel as broken as he did inside.

Instead, Anakin tapped his combead before he could second-guess.

Sol answered, as quickly as he had the last five times.

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Strange, that he had worn the robes of a Jedi longer than the cuirass and decoration of a Captain. So swift had been his ascension through the ranks, so tumultuous the compliance of Eboracum and reorganization of the XIIIth, that for those who had accelerated to fill gaps in the command structure, the usual ritual and rites were often skipped or curtailed. Aeonid kept the battered plate that had survived the purging of Macragge's Honour through his handful of months as a Lieutenant. Certainly, it had been restored and repainted, but he had not drawn replacements as was his right.

Now, Aeonid paused to peer over a Captain he did not recognize. In the perfect reflection of the armorium's mirror, he took in his new shape. The colors were off, the shape of the armor wrong - the lone stabilizing point was his electromagnetic longsword, strapped to his back. His cape in deep blue - rarely worn - draped from his shoulders. His new plate was a blend: Veridian designed Mark IV variant, along with Konorite III and Martian Maximus. Some pieces had even been forged here, aboard Macragge's Honour, in the foundries since translation to this new galaxy. His left pauldron bore an Ultima in relief that encircled the cerulean field, marked by the badge of the Adaptive Company. Sweeping wings in gold gilt his right pauldron and a segmented skirt of ceramite hung from his waist.

He studied his reflection; the officer he never expected to be. It was a fine sight.

'I'll not need aid again,' Aeonid said gently, dismissing the elderly arming adjutant. The grey-haired man bowed low, retreating from the arming chamber, servitors at his heels. His stint among the Jedi was over, ended at the same moment the Praxeum on Yavin had. Where the Masters and youths of the next generation would go was still uncertain. Eboracum was on offer. They could rest easily beneath the great shield of the 4711th - but Aeonid had no great expectations for interest in that offer. For Aeonid, duty called once more, duty to his Company.

He raised his helm to eye level, peering into the darkened lenses. The transverse crest, white and black, stood stiff and tall and broad atop the crimson-daubed helm. He would need to consult with Optarch, with Quintus, liaise with his 'fellow' Centurions. Managing the formation of the First Adaptive from afar, via holocom, had been an ordeal. Now, he itched to get his hands into the meat of the matter.

Passing through Macragge's Honour felt as though striding through a dream-space version. The flagship he had grown to know well, grown familiar with - and now, it was upended. The halls were the same, the slowly vanishing marks of daemon still here, there. The workers, in knots and throngs, working diligently to replace facades and decking and ceiling. Servitors and automats did finishing work; cleaning, buffing, polishing. The flagship was regaining its luster, day by day, but now it lived.

Minds gabbled. Chattered. Whispered and moaned and groaned and filled his mind with susurrus. That menial, there, stepping back with chisel in one hand and hammer in the other - pride in the fine strokes that picked out the Ultima in marble below directional markers. Here - a tired knot of crew chuckled and passed illicit beverages back-and-forth, hidden as canteens. He felt the loose, tired edge of their minds, finished with a long shift and ready to unwind. An officer, head down and striding swiftly, frown creasing her face, frustrated by incompetents that delayed essential personnel filings. Two Legion auxilia, who glanced to Aeonid with dipped heads and buried-deep knots of jealousy and sorrow at what they could never be.

It took but a glance, a brush of his intent, a moment of attention. He felt the crew alive and living and feeling, a web-work tangle of lives and emotion. Aligned, in most ways. Splintered, in some. Driven by independent thought, and cooperative purpose.

The Force gaily played to the tune of Aeonid's newfound control. The ease with which the power cleaved to him still unsettled him, but equally as unsettling was how comfortable he was, day by day, with such things. Alebmos' was adamant after Yavin, and the request of the Masters to confer with Codicier Rubio firmed his judgement that the Warp and this newfound Force were different, and different enough to ease the clench about his heart.

The Primarch wished to hear of what Aeonid learned, and Aeonid was keen to inform his sire. He already had a growing codex of applications to the Force that he was sure Guilliman would be interested in. Knight Solo's bond alone featured in most of his concepts. The verisimilitude and clarity of communication, shared senses and proprioception of each participating Jedi and Astartes boggled him. Only the Thousand Sons likely could match the act; but this was accomplished by a youth, a youth who had pioneered the very technique not even a year prior. Fighting alongside Alebmos, at times, only further emphasized the differences between the Warp and Force and hinted at potentials that, when they occurred to him later, were in a word, astounding.

He should have recognized from Knight Solo and Veila's description of the daemon of Yavin 8. The contrasting influences of the Warp and the Force, which being party to conjurings of Alebmos only proved all the clearer. The Force had answers for psykery. Telekinesis to match telekinesis. Workings to counter workings. Supranatural senses to contend with supranatural senses.

Aeonid found himself amused; he'd begrudged the command to train with the Jedi, and now that his time with them seemed at end, he'd found the reason he had gone among them. The weapon, the tool, that might prove the most potent, hidden weapon… when the 4711th returned. When the Legiones Ultramarine brought the righteous retribution long withheld back to the Five Hundred worlds and that bastard Lorgar.

He put aside the thoughts; there would be time aplenty to review with Guilliman. The Primarch, as it so happened, was training. In the very same chambers that Aeonid once awaited censure in, before the world tumbled apart and all the pillars of reality were shaken. The same chamber from which he claimed his sword.

Doors were thrown open; it was an exhibition. Local dignitaries, from Eboracum, attended, observing the training of not only the Primarch - their Primarch, their Lord Consul - but also Centurion Foltrus, the High Suzerain of Eboracum. Select other Ultramarines sparred and demonstrated as well, selected as honors. This was why Aeonid had been summoned here, and now. The returning Captain, savior of the Jedi, trained by Master Skywalker's own students. A bridge, a span, to connect the stolid citizens of Ultramar to their new neighbors.

If only he had had a chance to construct a lightsaber. That, Aeonid considered, would have been demonstrative.

Two Invictarii stood in gleaming plate to either side of the training chamber's entrance, tall power-glaives planted and quiescent lighting claws curled at their side. Aeonid observed them with amusement - sensing calm resolve in the leftward brother, and restrained energy in the rightward. Drakus Gorod, no doubt, was lurking somewhere within, as if he could hide his incredible bulk in Terminator plate.

The ring of blade against blade, the spit of power-field against power-field, the sound of thudding fists on flesh, spilled from the chamber, alongside mortal calls of surprise or encouragement. In the center of the space, clad only in a loincloth and the ideal of an ancient pankrator, Roboute Guilliman contended with six Ultramarines clad similarly. Sweat and oil shone.

Casting an Ultramarine into the air with a clear and loud boom of laughter, Aeonid's father met his eye. Across the space of the chamber, the connection was lightning, was electric: wry amusement, buried sorrow, proud acknowledgement. A snapshot moment; a Primarch in their element, elemental, the human form idealized, perfected, expounded.

Roboute Guilliman became the vanishing point. All perspective bent in toward him. His eyes were windows, blue and indigo and violet. Blond curls glowed as coils of engine-plasma. White teeth that split lightly tanned cheeks were pillars, towering architecture that supported the fasciae of his lip, beneath the frieze of his face, the raking of his eyes and spanning pediment of his brow.

Light haloed him, limned him. Golden light, azure light, light that broke from one color to all, prismatising, shattering, a rainbow that melded into his skin, was of him and in him, around him - a blessing, a caress, a shroud. Behind the Primarch, beyond touch and space and time; close enough to place gentle hand on shoulder, two great white eyes devoured the color, ate the rainbow and bred it forth again, multiplied, the source and drain. The Force rang - as song, in voices multitude - filling Aeonid's mind until his ears rang and his nose bled to his lip.

He remembered, with eidetic clarity, with kinesthetic accuracy, the encircling, warm arms of his mother.

Aeonid stumbled.

Guilliman was Guilliman. A man, among men. A primarch, among transhumans. The vision slipped away, as sand through fingers.

'Captain!' the Primarch called, drawing all eyes. 'Welcome back.'

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"Hey, Sol," Anakin said.

"Jedi Solo."

Not Anakin. With the Thunderhawk nestled next to the corvette, there was almost no interference in the transmission. It sounded like Sol was sitting next to him. The Ultramarine still hadn't reacted to the loss. Only a moment of painful silence when Anakin first told him, and then it was business as usual. Anakin could feel him, though. Feel the writhing rage and fury in the man, that waxed and waned over the hours. He'd feel it slip away, replaced by numb shock, and then flare back to life. Sannah had to feel it. Tahiri too.

"If you…want to talk…" Unspoken was the plea: talk to me. He didn't know Sol even half as well as he knew - as he had known Zalthis. What they shared was the same friendship. Zalthis was the tie between them. Anakin had no one to talk to. And he needed to, he needed to talk in a way he never had before. He wouldn't burden Tahiri with it. Not on top of everything else she had to handle, and not in a way that would just remind her that a good man died to save her life. He couldn't talk to Sannah, couldn't remind her of her role in all this. Her rash decision that led to all this, to all this.

He had Sol, and Sol was a durasteel wall.

"I haven't thought of any further plans since last we spoke."

"Not about ways out of this, Sol, I meant…" He took a deep breath. "I mean about Zal. Zalthis."

Silence.

"I'm sorry. Sithspawn, Sol, I'm so sorry. I should have done more, I shouldn't have stayed with Tahiri-" she would have gone insane, with the Vong ship shouting in her mind "I should have been there with him-" to die too "I'm so sorry-" and the words weren't enough, they were just sounds and shapes, 'sorry' like he was sorry that Chewie saved him and burned, sorry like he could make it mean something when his father's best friend, his father's first real friend was torn away like that, sorry that Sol's brother was gone and dead and left behind, sorry that he wasn't enough of a Jedi, that he wasn't fast enough or strong enough, sorry that everyone who followed him ended up dead -

"Shut up." Sol snarled. Hot anger pulsed from the Ultramarine, just a dozen meters of vacuum and thin barriers of ceramite and yorik coral away. "Just be silent. Don't talk about him, don't speak his name. Not now, not to me and - do not apologize. You insult him with that."

Anger was okay. Anger meant something. He could take anger.

"What am I supposed to say? What, should I be proud that he's dead? Tell me what I should say, Sol, what I should feel."

"I do not know and I do not care. Feel whatever you wish. If you must feel sorry, keep it to yourself. I don't need it."

The combead would have clicked if Sol disconnected. It didn't. After a minute of silence:

"Don't hate Sannah," Anakin whispered. "Hate me. It's my fault."

"There is a lot of blame to pass around."

"Don't hate her."

"I don't care enough to hate. There is still a duty to be finished."

This time, there was a click of disconnect. Anakin pressed tears back into his eyes with the heels of his hands. Alone again, he racked his brains about how to go forward. Try and land on Yavin 8? Thirteen? It wouldn't take long at all to all hop onto the Thunderhawk, but if Anakin was the Vong, he'd be watching Four, Eight and Thirteen like a hawkbat. Sol, in terse terms, had mentioned trying to do a 'breaching' action on the corvette. The Ultramarine would cut or blow his way in, but Anakin knocked that down. If they were going to do anything radical like trying to do a space jump, they might as well just lower the ramp-tongue-thing rather than go through that hassle.

Maybe using the Force, they could hold air around them…or there were biots on board. He'd have to ask Tahiri.

Which…he'd spent days, weeks worrying about her, spending almost every waking minute thinking about her, and now she was about twenty meters aft in one of the cabins and a million lightyears away. Where did he start? Ignore the scabbed over gashes in her forehead like she was? Talk to her, needing to keep the tizowyrm in his ear just to understand her? Ignore that she'd kissed him, and he'd kissed her - and where in the hell did that come from, either time anyway, and what was wrong with him that he kept thinking about it when she was hurt, and probably hungry and thirsty and bleeding and exhausted and tortured but he still kept thinking about how somehow, Anakin Solo and Tahiri Veila had kissed each other.

People weren't meant to be full of this many conflicting feelings.

There is no emotion, there is peace, there is no passion, there is serenity -

And that was all kinds of bantha crap. He was exhausted; he was jittering with energy, he was relieved at a bone-deep level, he was horrified, he wanted to hug Tahiri and never see her again, he wanted to mourn Zal but he didn't even want to think of his friend as dead. No easy, simple little mantra was going to put the tiniest dent into that whirlwind.

He thumped his head against the leathery back of the pilot's couch once, twice.

What do I do? He grabbed up everything, balled it up, and hurled it into space, into the Force, plaintive and demanding.

And a new star bloomed in his mind. And a second, then a third, and he knew them.

"Jacen?" he exclaimed.

His combead crackled in his ear.

"Anakin? That ugly thing you?"

Something glinted through the viewports. Something glinted in a way that metal glinted, that things that were made the normal way, with droids and assembly lines glinted. He saw ion exhaust, he saw durasteel plates and he knew what he was looking at, as it crept closer. A shape detached from the side, and darted off out of sight. Wild Karrde, a battered old Action V transport, and the best looking thing in all the universe right about then.

"Anakin, if that's you, and I'm betting it is with that Imperial ship there-"

"Who is this?"

"Oh, that's definitely an Ultramarine. Hi! Are you Solidian or Zalthis? It's me, Mei."

"Mei? Mei Taral? You'd lost an arm."

"I made a new one. Corran's here too, in his X-Wing, and Jacen's heading down to the airlock. Is Anakin there?"

He got his mouth working.

"Mei? And Master Horn, and Jacen? How did you find us? How did you know?"

"Your brother is scary. He spent like two weeks in meditation finding Errant Venture and he knew exactly when you were about to blast off. Which - well, remind me to never bet against Jacen."

Wild Karrde moved closer, looming larger and larger until it blocked out part of the sky. Mei filled him in - Booster and Corran picking up the Jensaarai from their homeworld after the whole 'Jedi hunt' started. Then Jacen, popping up out of nowhere in his X-Wing and surprising everyone on Errant Venture. How he'd gone off on his own, guided by notions and feelings from the Force. Booster, wanting to fly the Star Destroyer right to Yavin to protect his grandkids, but being argued down by Mirax and Corran and the Saarai'kaar. Talon Karrde stepping in when Errant Venture reached Eboracum - the smuggler already conveniently there, for other matters - offering to run the Vong lines in his own ship; one much smaller and way more suited to blockade breaking.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"Tahiri doesn't think there's an airlock," Anakin said, dashing through the corvette for Tahiri's cabin. She was already stepping out when he reached it, and she'd cleaned up somewhere, somehow. Still in the robeskin, but the blood was gone from her face and neck, making her look both more and less like herself. It was shocking to see her bare scalp, marked with bruises and little red scabs where that thing had dug in.

"I'm going insane," Tahiri said, tizowyrm translating. "Right? That's not Master Horn out there, and Jacen too?"

"It is," Anakin said breathlessly. "It's the Wild Karrde! You said this lump doesn't have an airlock or anything, right?"

Tahiri frowned, which was an alien motion without eyebrows.

"I didn't think so. Maybe? I don't know. I'm sorry…"

"No, it's fine." He tried a smile and hoped it didn't look as forced as it felt. "Mei? There isn't one."

"We can cut through the hull, the Karrde's got one of those universal docking clamps. Says it's for salvage recovery, so he can get into any model of ship."

And they did. As simple as that. Tahiri directed them to the best place, where the cutters would open up a way into the lower cargo spaces. Wild Karrde took on Sannah first, since it was a lot easier to mate up to the Thunderhawk's waist hatches first. Sol said he'd stay on the gunship and slave it to jump out with them, rather than leave it up to the servitor. After securing Sannah, the smuggler freighter moved into place and Anakin felt the corvette shudder as grapnels fired into the coral to hold it fast. Another minute or two, and an oval chunk of the bulkhead slid down, edges hot and steaming, smelling like boiled seaweed and burnt hair.

And there, in the opening, was Jacen. His big brother. Anakin didn't notice the sterile white, flexible tunnel of the boarding tube. He didn't notice the med team right behind Jacen or how Tahiri recoiled from them, baring her teeth and hissing in her throat. He didn't notice Mei at the far end of the tube, peering through from Wild Karrde's hatch. He was hugging his brother, clinging onto Jacen like he was the only thing in the world.

Something in Anakin's chest broke and he sobbed onto his brother's shoulder, because he was taller than him now, because he wasn't a kid anymore, even though he felt five years old just then.

"I can't do it, Jace," Anakin cried, clutching at his brother. "I just can't do it anymore."

----------------------------------------

Tionne, more than her husband or Kyle, kept pace with Rubio. Way, way too quickly, the discussion went from the simple stuff of 'Warp is strange, and does dangerous things', into complicated matters of intention and will and choice.

"You'd call what the children discovered a daemon."

"Yes. It is a crude term and one that reeks of idolatry, but it suits the matter." Kyle could see the tightness in Rubio's face - and he could only rely on what he could see, since like Alebmos, the psyker was nearly silent in the Force. Not missing, like a Vong, but like a door sealed shut. "Captain Thiel supported using the term, and as much as my training makes me loathe to give the predators further weight, he has proven incisive in combating the creatures. There is something primal to the 'daemon'. Before Calth, I would have simply called them 'warpspawn', or perhaps 'extradimensional xeno'. Calth was not the first time the Legiones faced creatures of the warp. But, perhaps, I think it was the first time to see them so unified. So singularly hostile and directed. Psykery is rife in our home galaxy, but it is…or was…deeply uncommon to encounter empyreal breaches on such a scale."

Tionne studied the arrayed parchments; even though the dense symbols filling them were as foreign and alien as the Ultramarines.

"And they aren't spirits of any beings that were once alive."

"No. Another word that within the Librarius is 'Neverborn'. It is apt. They are intelligences without an origin. Without a source."

"Not like a Sith ghost, then." Kam concluded. "Not like Palpatine."

"I'm not comfortable with that," Tionne announced. "There aren't any species that are all just evil. It doesn't work that way."

"They are not alive, Master Solusar. To think of Neverborn as a species is incorrect." Rubio's lips thinned and his eyes darkened. "I once thought of them as merely intruders from some other dimension. A reality that followed rules that lay athwart our own. One that had rules and physics of its own, but based on mechanics that our minds cannot grasp. Something…concrete. Scientifically explicable. I fear, now, that was naivete. Calth has made me reconsider many truths I held to, and in the months here, in your galaxy, I have had further time to consider."

"Monsters under the bed," Kyle muttered.

"There is some consensus that folklore may indeed refer to 'daemons'," Rubio said. "In some ways, this unexpected exile in your galaxy has produced strange fruits. The Navis Nobilite hoard thousands of years of knowledge of the Warp miserly, not even sharing it with the Emperor. Mamzel Likentrix, though, has been free with her lore and I have had the rare opportunity to conference with not only the Navigatrix, but with experienced astropaths. We have…shared notes, so to speak."

"Whatever they are, these daemons are hostile." Kam spoke up, grim and severe. "I could sense Alebmos' sincerity. Anakin was unsettled by what he and the girls saw on Yavin 8. I know Sith magic, and so does Anakin. Not a lot bothers the boy, but that…lingered."

"It would indeed. The Warp is not something easily put aside." Rubio pursed his lips. "Master Skywalker intimated that the 'dark side' of the Force is an internal act. He says that corruption is driven by one's own will and whim, rarely impressed from beyond."

Kam, the expert on these matters, Kyle thought not unkindly, fielded the unspoken question.

"Luke is right. Mostly right. There's always temptation. Or even force. But neither are unbreakable, and the latter has flaws." Tionne reached out, taking her husband's hand.

"Redemption is a cornerstone of what it is to be Jedi," she added. "Kam served the Emperor, that is, our galaxy's Emperor, because he had his memories stolen and endured horrible torture."

"Luke pulled me from that pit and gave me back my life. Just like he turned his father back from the brink when they fought the Emperor together."

Rubio studied both Solusars.

"It is still strange, in a cosmic sense, to hear you speak of 'the Emperor'. There have been many emperors overthrown in the Great Crusade, but rare is it that the title itself is used alone. I digress. My Primarch already said similar to Master Skywalker, but I will repeat it to you three now. What you describe is impossible, with the taint of the Warp. A being who has been touched by the corruptive influences that exist within the empyreal cannot return from it. That is the whole of it. Temptation, too, is a vehicle for the denizens of the warp to find prey."

The Ultramarine gestured to the peculiar decoration of the chamber, the woven threads of copper and anchor rods of dark iron. At arcane-looking generators humming and hissing.

"This chamber is warded against Warp predators." In his hands, he produced a flickering silver light, like flame, like quicksilver. "Even a small expression of power, such as this, can draw them in time. You would hear whispers. Hisses, at the edge of hearing. A daemon would speak to you, in ways that you might find palatable. It would make offerings. It would make promises."

----------------------------------------

She skimmed the text a final time before thumbing off the datapad. From one socket, she extracted a small datacube, tossing it gently into the air once and catching it. The document existed in one place, here, and here it would still remain for a little longer. She tucked it into a hidden pocket of her robe, waving off the holograms around her expansive desk. The wood was literally priceless, a petrified import from Kuat, taken from the slopes of an ancient volcano. The swirling pinks and greys were striking indeed, as was the raw natural shape of the desk; an irregular cross-sectional slab of that ancient tree.

Rising from her gelpacked seat, Viqi clicked her fingers and all the transparisteel viewports darkened instantly, cutting off Coruscant's nighttime traffic bands and endless glow.

She froze, her heart in her throat.

Her office was small; only about half a hectare, and aside from the central location of her desk, there was a corner set aside near the turbolifts for more casual reception of guests. One couch, two lounges, and a wide reclining chair. Against the wall was a small cart of drinks, usually attended to and served by 4F, who even now was silent on a charging pad. The droid's optics were off, leaving the tiny, versatile digi-weapon concealed in its hand utterly useless.

Someone was sitting in that reclining chair. Someone who was not there seconds ago when she darkened the viewports.

They were a silhouette, a sketch of a shape, a klecksographic suggestion dripping pareidolia. She would have noticed them not at all, but for the soft, cherry-red glow of a lit cigarra that deepened the shadow of their slouched form.

She made to speak, but found her throat stilled, her tongue leaden and mouth dry.

Not even Victor's betrayal had caught her so off-guard, or froze her so utterly.

"It's better you didn't submit that anyway."

She shivered, a full body tremble from head to toe, the ripple chased by prickling gooseflesh. She spoke, thickly.

"Who are you?"

"A friend. An ally. A…convenience. A…sounding board." Each pronouncement separate from the last by a longer and longer pause, heartbeats stretching into breathless moments. "I'm…" The cigarra's lit end brightened with a low crackle, dulled; casting no light. "…whoever you want me to be.". A thin trail of gossamer smoke exhaled from hidden lips. Their voice was smooth, smoother than aged Greyside 804, a rolling baritone that trembled her diaphragm, a hint of bass, a touch of tenor. A roll through the registers, balanced in a way she's never heard a being speak before. The hairs on her neck stood on end and she shivered again.

"You're not welcome here. Leave."

"I'm only here because I am welcome." The cigarra brightened, dimmed. Viqi took one tiny step forward. A second. There - in the darkness - was that a tilt of the head? An adjustment of the hand in their lap? They were just a shape. A formless form, an outline against greater darkness. But she needed to see. See who it was…

"Borsk is too well liked. Even now. Even if he'd sent all of First Fleet…and lost it too. He has allies. You're seen as his successor by some. If you cast doubt on him, you cast doubt on yourself."

Her knuckles whitened, her fists balled tight enough to dimple half-moons in her palm from her nails. No one else knew what was on that datacube. Even her allies in the Senate only had suspicions. Implications.

"I activated my panic code," Viqi said tremulously. The air felt cold, puckering her skin.

"You didn't. I'll be going soon enough. I won't overstay my welcome."

She stepped closer.

"I'll be back. It never hurts to have another perspective. Different advice."

He - for that voice was male - had the shape of a man. A human man, or close enough, relaxed with legs crossed. Or outstretched, relaxed in repose? One hand lifted, holding cigarra to unseen lips. Or maybe both hands on the armrests of the reclined chair. It was so hard to tell. The only light came from the lamps at her desk. So far away. The cigarra brightened, faded. It shone not a hint of light on the being that savored it.

"Who are you?" Viqi asked again.

She took another step.

The shape resolved itself. She blinked, in surprise. She had left her overcoat tossed over the back of the chair. There it was. Half-folded, draped, and in the dim, distant light of her desk's lamps, it could - she could see it - it could look a little like someone in that chair. The dark coat, against the lighter fabric. She could have laughed. Tired, and her mind was playing tricks on her. That voice - like something out of her fantasies. The kind of voice that would make her swoon, sweep her off her steadied feet with a honeyed word. Voicing just her inner thoughts - she was still unsure about the audacity of a vote of No Confidence in furry little Borsk, especially after the good word from First Fleet arrived. She was tired; it was a long day, and her mind was playing tricks.

She could have laughed. She did laugh. Rubbed her dry eyes, shook her head in chagrin. A nap, then a meal, then perhaps a long, drowsy massage before she retired - yes, that would do. Preparations, in case of calling that vote had kept her on edge for a week. The Advisory Council was meeting almost daily as well, and wrangling the old loyalists to her great-aunt was an ongoing task.

Viqi approached, to reclaim her coat, to pull it on over her robe. Her mind was already on other things.

On the side, beside the reclining chair, was a low table. It was for the placement of drinks, or perhaps a datapad. There was a small stone dish set aside, because among Shesh, among Kuati, the smoking of substances was not uncommon.

Frission clenched her stomach and prodded new prickles down her spine, for leaning on the edge of that dish was a recently extinguished cigarra, still sending gossamer trails of smoke silkily into the air.

----------------------------------------

Shadows seemed to slink into the chamber, from corners that could not exist in the circular shape of it. Frost spread across tomes and parchments. Rubio stood impassive; Hostilio tilted his head slightly and Mitratos' cowl grew darker.

"What would they want? Sith spirits - it always goes back to serving them, somehow. Same as a living Sith, really, though: Exar Kun wanted a body to return to. Marka Ragnos too. 'Help me, and I'll help you'. That kind of thing. 'Let me teach you these powers', and then next thing you know…" Jerec, at least, never really bothered with the usual song-and-dance; he'd just wanted Kyle dead.

"In a strange twist of coincidence, the daemon would offer similar. Power, secrets - or things like wealth, better health. Anything that might tempt, they will offer easily and freely. Their desire is not unlike what you describe the Sith as seeking, yet from a different position. Your Sith seek to return to life. A daemon…seeks a chance at life it never had."

----------------------------------------

Lucid dreaming was a strange thing. He would know, on a deep and visceral level, that he was dreaming. It was as if his closed eyes were distant windows, drawn closed and shrouded. At any moment, the bright light of day could glare through the blinds and tear him from the bleary world of his dreams back to reality. But he could ride the line, thoughts conscious and actions cognizant, exerting just enough pressure in his dream to shape it more to his liking. Never to craft it, really, but to act, like he acted in the waking world.

It was a little secret pleasure that Randa enjoyed, away from the stresses and demands of his life, from the constant reminders that he never lived up to his esteemed progenitor. In his slumber, Randa Besadii Diori had control for a little while.

Sleep came easily for the first time in many, many weeks. Warm and comfortable, curled with the tip of his tail before his face, Randa drifted off with a smile curving his wide mouth. His mother was still throwing fits over how the New Republic could possibly have known of the ancient routes into the Taldik Suggaja, obsessed over details that didn't matter while Nas Choka's fleet hammering Kor Besadii's planetary shields like a tribal drum. The Vong seemed to be pulling back, now, but his mother still fretted as if the lucky turn was a bitter one, all for being due to the 'backstabbing' New Republic.

Once, he dreamed of living up to Borga's lofty designs for him. Once, he worshipped the ground his noble mother never deigned to touch. Once, he dreamed of being the clan leader, the Besadii himself.

Now, he dreamed of other things.

He wandered the corridors of old Durga the Hutt's ruined Darksaber. Tiny asteroids bumped and tumbled against dented walls and torn-out ceilings wept snarls of sparking conduits. It was a cartoon representation of the superweapon's end, drawn and dreamy and strange. Randa did not so much slither through the halls as appear here, there, where, visual smearing and blurring around him in his lucid slumber. He had been here before; it was not an uncommon dream of his. Durga's Folly was the rope that dragged down the Besadii clan, one that his mother Borga lamented at length. Sometimes Randa dreamt he was curled on Durga's throne, sometimes he wore the New Republic uniform of General Madine; sometimes Randa found himself as one of the Taurill.

Tonight, he was just Randa, and the Darksaber was dead and echoing. Another monument to the folly of his people, another tomb filled only with echoes of grandiose, pointless boasting lost on the stellar winds. Just like Jabba's Palace on Tatooine, just like the lifeless husk of Varl; just like Nal Hutta and Nar Shadaa, which burned now under the tender mercies of the Vong.

In the end, everything his people built fell.

"THEN WHY BOTHER BUILDING AT ALL?"

Randa blinked wide, yellow eyes at the booming voice - so loud he wondered if it was shouted in his real ears. If someone had entered his sleeping chambers uninvited, but he felt no struggle back toward the conscious world.

From a slim gap in a partially-shut hatch, sudden golden light flared and Randa winced.

"COME IN! COME IN AND KNOW ME WELL, MY FRIEND!"

Randa would not know, later, if his dream self acted by the law and nature of the dream, or if it was his lucid will that drove him forward with curiosity, reaching for the sparking, dead control panel. The hatch yielded, irising open - for of course it would, since damage and lack of power was no impediment in the unreality of Randa's imaginations - and for a moment he was overwhelmed by the bright light.

And then Randa's wide, lipless mouth grew slack in shock.

Beyond was a vision of plenty, a feast worthy of the richest Hutt lords, with dishes delectable and morsels marvellous, laid on trays of moonsilver and spilling from horns encrusted in corusca gems. Voices chattered and the chamber was filled to the brim with beings of every kind that filled the halls of Hutt holdings: Rodians and Twi'lek, Gamorrean and Weequay, more and more - but these were not servants, these did not scuttle with eyes downcast to bear more platters of plenty; they were guests, all of them, feasting and drinking and laughing, eyes merry and alight. Lekku switched in delight, tusks glinted with rings of gold.

Everyone was a friend here. Everyone was brother and sister, equal and indulging in the wealth that spilled - from him.

Not at the focus of the chamber, not on some elevated platform, not removed by distance or stature, but among the crowd, within the crowd, so surrounded that his tail was trod upon, he lifted his arms to allow diminutive beings to dash beneath; he boomed with laughter each and every time and Randa drank in the merry, majestic sight.

He was a Hutt - but a Hutt that Randa could never before have imagined. His body was not corpulent or bloated, it did not drink with slime or cause those around him to recoil - no, this Hutt was lithe and grand, handsome and beautiful, with darkly shining eyes and leathery skin glistening with fragrant oil. Muscles tensed subtly beneath his flesh as he turned to beckon to Randa. A great wreath of twisted branches, heavy with berries and green leaves, wrapped around his enormous brow.

"WELCOME, YOUNG RANDA! COME IN! EAT, BE MERRY, BE AT EASE!"

At the call of the Hutt, the founder of the feast and lord of plenty, all guests turned to raise cups and horns to Randa, calling out in cheering, many-throated welcome.

Numbly, boggled by the strangest dream he had ever plumbed, Randa passed through the outer edges of the feast, but even here, at the fringes, it was no meaner than at the very center. No - to be relegated far from the heart of joy and bounty was not an exile, but a moment of respite, and Randa saw that there was a flow to the guests, which circulated like blood. They wandered at will, from outskirts to center, to touch the great Hutt and relish closeness, to wander away to nap on silk-piled couches for a time and recuperate, to cluster in corners to chatter and laugh and be among friends. And then, they would fall inward again, like trojan orbits, plunging back toward the star, the source of heat and life and lively joy, only to repeat the process.

Randa passed through the feast, through the dense crowd, through the visions of endless plenty and as a dream, he never was waylaid nor stymied, never had to navigate nor pick around obstruction. He was at the entrance of the chamber, he was in motion, and then he peered up at the great Hutt, who was revealed to be greater, larger than any of Randa's kind, to soar so high that his wreath-topped head brushed the shadowy ceiling itself.

There was no fear in his presence; only the calmest belonging, the softest touch, like his youngest memories in the arms of Borga. The great Hutt boomed with mirth, reaching hands larger than a Rancor's, scooping up Randa like a wayward Huttlet.

"WHY BUILD, LITTLE RANDA? WHY HOARD, WHEN YOU MIGHT SHARE IN ALL YOUR WEALTH AND JOY? LOOK! SUCH DELIGHTS, SUCH PLEASURES - AND THEY ARE MORE, THEY ARE MULTIPLIED WHEN THEY ARE GIFTED!"

Randa saw what the great Hutt meant. He saw the dancers who cavorted and twirled not because they feared the lash, but because they loved the act, because they adored the approving stares, because they cherished the moment. And he saw it was good; better than what he knew, because Randa, like all Hutts, treasured good things, and pretty things, and he saw then, in the gentle hands of the great Hutt, that by hoarding what is good, and what is pretty, that the world was lessened then, and he was lessened, for when he showered his friends with plenty, then that plenty was reflected back upon him, and he could bask all the easier in the sights and sounds of wealth.

"YOU SEE WHAT BORGA HAS FORGOTTEN?" the Great Hutt threw back his mountainous head, her laughter thunderous, a deluge of warm rain in the summer, and so expansive was their mirth, so infectious, that every guest howled with accompanying joy, cheeks bright and mouths wide and Randa was moved to chuckle, to giggle, to squirm and let tears run down his cheeks and laugh, laugh, laugh, as he had not since he was a Huttlet, before worry bent his brow, before burden and expectation and judgement cracked his back.

"DO YOU NOT WISH A BETTER WAY, RANDA OF BESADII? YOUR NAME WILL NOT BE RANDA WHO FOLLOWED BORGA, WHO FOLLOWED DURGA, WHO FOLLOWED THE GRASPING, COVETOUS LINE OF HUTTS WITH DULL EYES." The Great Hutt lifted Randa higher, swung him whooping through the air, so that he could soar high above the feast and from Randa's vests shining coins tumbled, and behind him wafted perfumed air, and hands and tentacles and graspers raised in Randa's passage - as worship, as welcome, as thanks, as Randa spilled the coffers of Besadii wide.

"EAT! DRINK! BE MERRY! FOR ALL THAT IS BUILT TUMBLES DOWN AND ALL THAT IS GOLD GOES DULL IN GREAT TIME."

Randa was deposited at the side of the Great Hutt, who was still grand, but not so grand as to be overwhelming; just a greater presence, a warm presence, who patted Randa on the head and hugged him close and fed to him squirming fleek eels and rubbed sweet-smelling oil into his weary shoulders. A mother, a father, a friend, at his back and in his mind, and Randa sank into the welcome, the peace, the presence.

He could never live up to the reputations and expectations of his clan - but in the glow of green and blue eyes around him, Randa decided that might not be so grave a fate at all.

----------------------------------------

"I think what's confusing me is that you have all these grim warnings, like those two, but Alebmos threw around power like few Jedi or Sith every would. How do you square that; if the Warp is so dangerous and so corruptive, why do you use it at all?" It had bothered Kyle, as Rubio pronounced each greater peril, all while Mitratos and Hostilio stood by as constant, permanent reminders to reinforce the Ultramarine's words. He made it out like even the tiniest spark of power drawn from the 'Warp' would make any being into a ranting, raving lunatic, yet Rubio's eyes glowed with inner light and on Yavin, Alebmos-as-Khotta pulled typhoons across continental distances. Something didn't match up here.

Rubio drummed fingers on the broad spine of the book bound at his waist.

"Kyle has a point." Tionne agreed. "If the dark side seemed like the only possible outcome of wielding the Force, then I can't imagine the Jedi would have ever even come to be once the earliest Masters realized the danger."

"The Emperor, I think, thought similarly. For a time, He allowed the Legiones to explore psykery as a discipline no different to any other. Like we would study tactics and strategy and drill with bolt and blade, He allowed us to plumb the Warp and chart it. I believe that He used the Librarius as an experiment, to see if the guiding principles of empirical reason could master the Warp. When it could not, He realized, as you do, that the danger of the Warp was too great, and ordered it put aside."

Mitratos' hooded head twitched toward Rubio.

"The Ultramarines would have kept to that decree forever…but for Calth. Now, it is my fear that once released, the Warp can never be returned to its box. It is, and it will remain being, and we can either be ignorant…or we can gamble our lives to learn more about it." Rubio indicated the design of the chamber, pointing to the copper wiring and hissing generators. "These machines are arcane, based on designs shared by the Navis Nobilite and echoing the oubliettes of the astropaths aboard starships. They push back on the Warp and separate it, like oil and water, from the hostilities of the daemon and the rawer, simpler empyreal energies. Like a cage that keeps out radiation, this chamber keeps out the warp predators. And it works; it is proven to work. How is it known? Because the knowledge was earned in blood, and in death. The warp is a sword without a grip; but we are learning to tape over the bitter edge so that we can grasp it for a little longer."

Hostilio made sign again with his hands. Rubio watched, translated.

"All of us will succumb in time. That is the peril in the Warp. None who use it will ever escape that eventual fate, I fear. Only a fool believes themselves capable of mastering it."

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Every Moff had a private holocomm suite, and every Moff had a private holocomm suite. Flennic knew that Wellon Bemos used the latter most often, as the man's taste in paramours was as expansive as the open secret was. Flennic kept two spaces in his estate. Both were equipped with the best transceivers credits could buy - better, even, because these models were not even available on the market - and the rooms were swept and scanned by techniques that Ubiqtorate honed in their cesspool of constant, vicious backbiting. And then swept again, with scanners that would catch what the Ubiqtorate's protocols specifically avoided.

Conceivably, there were more private places in the galaxy. Ten lightyears away from any star, in the sheer vacuum of deep space was probably more private. But on Yaga Minor? Never.

One transceiver and set was for the tedious meetings of Pellaeon's Pets. The Moff Council, if you were feeling patriotic. Whenever the old windbag called for them to dance and perform for him, Flennic would settle in for another few hours of arguing until Gilad would not unsubtly dictate the true marching orders through one of his mouthpieces - usually Sarreti, with how used to Gilad's hand up his rear that young man was - and then after he'd get back to his actual job, which was running the Prefsbelt sector as it should be run.

The other…ah, that one he frequented far less, and only droids ran maintenance on that set. Flennic tapped a finger against the reader, the gentle prick of the hidden needle only a momentary pinch. Once, Thrawn - and a better leader Thrawn had been than Gilad, even though the Chiss was riddled with his own faults - used similar transceivers to squeak Delta Source and other highest priority blurts around the galaxy to his own secret ears. So much of that paranoid alien's wealth fell into hands that never really knew what they had, but Flennic always made it a point to understand.

He had to wait ten seconds before the hologram flickered to life, showing a pinch-faced man with painfully combed black hair.

"Where is my money going?" Flennic asked dryly. There was only ever one reason to use this particular holocom code. And it was not for small talk.

"There have been recent perturbations. The gravnet-resonators are showing that we're not getting full resolution. They can read micrometer swings; this is on a scale of nanometers. Angstroms, potentially."

"And you need better sensors." This was not phrased as a question.

"Yes. And you know it isn't cheap to source, or deliver."

Flennic sighed, running the tip of his tongue along his teeth. The requested budgetary increase wasn't minor, but it didn't quite push the boundaries of that area of the budget. It was doable, as long as there were results. Results, and Flennic could accept most anything. He prided himself on being goal-oriented.

"I don't need to ask if it's necessary," he said, asking anyway.

"The current manifestation has stayed coherent for thirty-nine hours," said the other man, a ghost of smug triumph crossing his severe features. Now that was a result. That was a result indeed.

"Approved. You'll have an increase by end of business." Just as there was no need for greetings, when business was concluded - Flennic flicked off the transceiver and it spun down with a low whine. Everything being done by Besh Source was better off where it was - half a galactic radius away. The less he knew of the harder specifics the better. They had his expectations, and the deliverables he wanted, and that was all Flennic wanted to ever think about.

On the other end of the terminated call, Foga Brill narrowed his eyes at the empty air Moff Flennic's smug, superior face had just occupied. He was not so removed from the greater galaxy that he didn't know what was going on. Gilad Pellaeon was cozying up to this new "Exiled Imperium," and that would likely lead to improved relations with the New Republic. Spackle over the embarrassment of Ithor, and that unified front against the Vong would, frustratingly, provide inroads of familiarity as combat bred trust. Brill kept his own projections, as a hobby. After Pellaeon decided to throw Thrawn's legacy at the Exiles, his numbers now showed the Remnant ceasing to be a Remnant in under a decade. There were gaps in those calculations, gaps shaped like 'Whatever the Vong would do', but Brill was sure Flennic knew the same. Thus - his petition for expanded funding.

He had not even lied.

His home for six years now was a research station, a tiny thing, just twenty decks total, irregular and ugly with modules slapped on as the years passed. Such a far cry from the resources he'd once had - but also far more than he'd had, after everything fell apart. Oh, but that was his lot in life, was it not? To claw, claw, claw his way back from the brink, every time.

He rode a trembling turbolift back up the slender neck of the station's lone spire. Gravity twitched at him. The main body of the station was a mangled disc, full of exposed rib-work and structural stanchions and each added module sprouted off at weird angles like parasitic fungus. The spire projected 'forwards', out from the center of mass. The peak of the spire had just enough space for cramped living quarters and a tiny, spartan observation deck. He deserved infinitely better, but at least he had privacy atop the spire, away from the menials slaving away on the station.

He waited for the turbolift doors to open with baited breath. Thirty-nine hours. Odds were, it had dispersed already. It never dissipated when it was observed, like some kind of quantum phenomena. Holocorders couldn't bypass this - they would short out unexpectedly. He'd had a subject with eyelids removed and ocular muscles cut set up in restraints to force them to stare at it. That had produced interesting results. The subject had sudden hemorrhages in the retinal blood supply around hour ten, which coincided exactly with when the secondary subject blinked naturally. And - poof. Away it went.

The doors rattled open.

His breath caught, the same revelatory awe sticking in his chest to see the black, hooded figure in the center of the chamber. Cowled and robed in black, perfect black, that devoured the light, their head was tilted back, evident by the cant of the cowl, to peer upwards. The entire apex of the spire was a transparisteel lens, magnifying and shortening space from thousands of kilometers to dozens.

The station orbited Byss.

What had once been Byss.

When the Galaxy Gun misfired, shattering the molecular bonds of the Emperor's hidden throneworld, it had left behind a wonderful, hidden little present. Deep in the shifting dust and rocks of Byss' bones, right where the core of the world would have been, Foga Brill had found a singularity. A knot of unmeasurable mass, an event horizon that was quite impossible: Byss was a planet, not a star. It did not even approach the mass threshold for singularity collapse. The Galaxy Gun was a molecular disintegrator - it didn't play with the substrate of space-time like some of Umak Leth's stranger, paper designs did. As far as he could tell, the singularity was quite impossible.

Yet it burned there, surrounded by a shimmering silver accretion disk all the same. The singularity was about the size of his fist. The disk: a kilometer and a half.

Oh, but the Lord Palpatine had many, many secrets. Without a doubt, this was one. Without a doubt.

And when the people of Prakith rejected divine teaching, it was here that Foga Brill found his sanctuary after that rank betrayal. His mission. His purpose. One day he would return to that world and show them their folly. One day, one glorious day, as the first step on his pilgrimage.

He joined the manifestation, keeping a respectful distance of a meter or so. Closer, the void-darkness of the robe was lit by tiny, brilliant white stars, shining from depths and distances impossible within the formless shape of the fabric.

"Flennic has increased funding," Brill spoke softly. He briefed the manifestation. It didn't react. It never did. He informed it of the changes observed in the singularity, of new equipment ordered, of breakthroughs among some of the most devoted scientists. He told it of new theories and ideas. Using tractor beams to clear the accretion disk and expose the singularity. Ways to pry at it, perhaps, like using forceps, to peel back the Lorrentian Manifolds, to tease like a lover and bare the expanse of what lay shadowed and hidden within the point-mass. The manifestation did not so much as twitch. It remained, peering upward, lost within voluminous robes. Brill peered up as well, into the heart of dead Byss, at the swirling silver knot that promised so, so much.

Some days, he wished it would speak. Some days he had ranted, screamed, begged the manifestation. He feared its attention; yearned for it. When it lasted, it never looked away from the heart of dead Byss and nothing ever rustled its concealing cloak.

Only the tips of fingers occasionally protruded, rarely, never imaged and seen only by living eyes.

Fingertips of cracked grey marble, veined in black with subtle gold.

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Kyle worked a hole in the floor, pacing back and forth with a frown. Arms crossed, he chewed and tried to digest what Rubio had been saying, the evidence of Mitratos and Hostilio. The warnings were brutal and absolute. Total corruption. Momentary lapses that led to an eternity of damnation. Spirits of pure malice, enough to make old withered Sith blanch. Hostility that was undirected and raw, something that was hungry for everything that was real.

"At least they sound obvious," he said. Tionne nodded slowly in agreement. "Hard to miss, right? Anakin's description of that one on Yavin 8 was like every bad dream combined, horns and all. We can look out for that."

Rubio managed to look regretful, which was a feat given his inhumanely exaggerated features.

"Not always. Not always. For each that comes in obvious, corruptive form, there are those that are, in some ways, the more destructive. The ones that wear the guise of an ally, a friend, and pretend kindness or understanding. Each Legion's Librarium has their own word for that kind. Lemurvae, we call them among the Ultramarines. Another unkind reminder that these powers have likely tormented and preyed upon mankind for millenia, in our long ignorance."

"Like Palpatine. Pretending to be a friend, hiding their evil away until it's too late." Kam agreed.

"No. Not like Palpatine. Like a brother. Like the man beside you, who you have known all your life. Lemurvae can speak in any tongue, including the most familiar. They will replace the person you trusted and loved and pull you into the darkness with them." Hostilio made sign again and Rubio inclined his head in response. "There are some who theorize this happened with the Word Bearers. It would…explain much."

"But you don't know." Tionne said - stated. Didn't ask. "How do you know these…Lemurvae…exist? Couldn't it be a misunderstanding, a way to explain why a person who fell to temptation doesn't seem the same?"

"We can know, Master Solusar, when a daemon speaks in the voice of a brother whose blood has been painted across the deck. We can know, when the daemon crawls out of the hollowed skin of their prey to claim their next victim. There are no means, we now know, that a daemon shy from. No treachery nor deception too rank."

"Wonderful. Really. Wonderful. And how exactly do we fight against that?"

"That is the correct question, Master Katarn. We don't yet know."

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There was a girl, and she sat in the corner. Simply because the cool solidity of durasteel hemming her in meant there was no part of her quarters she could not see. She stretched one long, thin leg out, the other tucked up to rest her chin on her bony knee. Her arms wrapped around her leg, and gold-green eyes were the only part of her in motion. Here, there, she looked around a place foreign and familiar. Instincts clashed, reflexive disgust warring with immeasurable relief. A bunk, primly made up with soft and comfortable blankets, extra pillows, waited, untouched. A change of clothes lay abandoned, tossed in disarray across the plain deck.

The barest peach fuzz prickled across her scalp, described two crescents above her wide eyes, fringed eyelids. Bruises, yellow and blue and mottled by pinpricks of red, curved across her cranium.

Through hell and back, and it had not left her unmarked.

Within a space in her mind, a place set aside for a boy, a young man, heroic and hurting and brave, shone warm and familiar and - now - quiet. The place for Anakin, where her friend, her best friend, whispered subtle encouragement through her captivity, now merely shining with his presence. Because he was here, he had come for her, he had given her the chance to break free. Hadn't stood in her way when she declared her emancipation, when she had struck a sneering, motherly head from their shoulders. Which still brought tears to her eyes - of relief, and sorrow.

Anakin was here now, physically and so he quieted in her thoughts, but she missed his murmured support.

All this will pass, he'd said. Whispered, like the hiss of an untuned comm, like the crackle of cosmic radiation. All this will pass, and you will sur-vive, he'd assured her. He hadn't been wrong.

The girl with twinned names, which rang with different sounds but meant the same thing, studied the alien, familiar space around her. She was free, and she was bound, and she held to that whispered promise.

All this will pass.