Shigar steadied his lightsaber in a tight, two-handed grip.
Darth Chratis’s deep-set eyes glittered. The tip of his lightsaber didn’t move a millimeter.
Shigar watched it closely, waiting for the first blow to fall.
The Sith Lord laughed, a dreadful cackling sound all at odds with their circumstances.
“Do you think I intend to kill you now, boy? You forget: we have a truce. Unless you plan to attack me, and I am forced to defend myself—”
“I ought to attack you. Any kind of alliance with the Sith is flawed at its heart. Master Shan should never have agreed to it.”
“It was her suggestion, remember—and see how it has trapped you? Obey me and the truce holds. Attack me and the truce is broken.” Darth Chratis chuckled. “Which is it to be?”
Shigar wavered on the verge of acting. He could feel the need for it simmering in every muscle, every nerve. The Force was ready. It filled his veins like lava, burning hot.
He thought of Larin saying, You’re thinking too much.
His lightsaber moved as though of its own accord, sweeping forward into Darth Chratis’s reach with an almost delighted hum. Their blades clashed together once, twice, three times, and the Sith edged back a step.
“Yes, excellent—”
Shigar didn’t let him talk, pressing him with another combination of moves, staying light on his feet for the inevitable responses, feeling with every instinct, every breath, what must be done. They danced together along the lip of the crater, in full view of the surviving members of the attack force. No signals went up; no word to disband the alliance; comms were down, so the joint assault of Sebaddon went on.
Darth Chratis rallied with a series of bold, vicious strikes that cost Shigar the ground he had made, and more. He struck back only with his blade, knowing that he would lose if the duel descended into a free-for-all of telekinesis and other Force powers. That was inevitable. His only hope lay in Darth Chratis making an early mistake, giving Shigar an edge. Even then, it was going to be hard. Sith didn’t die easily.
Neither do Jedi, he told himself, even as sweat trickled into his eyes and he tossed his helmet away, the better to fight unhindered.
“You are growing weary,” said the Sith Lord. “Your resolve is weakening. I can feel it. You know that you will never beat me this way. Your only hope is to reach into your heart for the anger that we both know is there.”
“Anger will never rule me.”
“Think of the Grand Master. Think of your homeworld and all who died there. Tell yourself that I killed them, and seek the strength that knowledge brings.”
“You had nothing to do with Kiffu.”
“Didn’t I?”
Shigar fought on, matching Darth Chratis blow for blow. The red blade took three centimeters off his braid. He scored a line across the Sith’s right shoulder.
“You cannot fight without the dark side.”
Shigar silenced his thoughts and feelings. He was only the blade. He was only the Force.
“You cannot win without the dark side.”
Darth Chratis sent a wave of lightning across the gap between them. Shigar tried to catch it with his lightsaber. The shock coursed up the blade, into the hilt, and from there into his right arm. It burned like acid, much more powerful and insidious than the blast Eldon Ax had hit him with on Hutta. It didn’t just hurt. It ate at his resolve, telling him to fight fire with fire, to use the Sith Lord’s own weapons against him in defiance of his own Master’s advice. If he didn’t, he would surely die.
Shigar fell to his knees, the beginnings of a scream whistling through his clenched teeth.
Why didn’t she warn you? The whisper of doubt in his mind had a voice now. Your Master is famous for seeing the future, so why didn’t she tell you this lay ahead of you?
Because there was nothing she could do about it. That’s why. Her teachings are weaker than those of the Sith, and she knows it. She knows that the Jedi will lose the war that’s inevitably coming. She knows the Emperor will win. By keeping this secret from you, she has killed you.
She lied to you, just as the High Council has lied to you. They don’t care about justice. They are corrupt and weak.
All you have to do is turn your back on them, and you will live.
Darth Chratis’s lightning passed through Shigar’s body and down to his left hand. There it concentrated into a ball, blindingly bright. Waiting to be set free.
Strike me, said the voice, and rise up again, stronger than ever before.
“Die,” said Shigar in a voice that didn’t sound like his own. “Die!”
When he raised his hand, Darth Chratis wasn’t even looking at him. The Sith Lord’s attention had been captured by a shadow that had fallen across them. The thing that had cast it was enormous and bulbous, like a fist as big as a city rising slowly out of the lake. Lava dripped from it like water.
Such was his shock that the Sith lightning concentrated in Shigar’s left hand fizzled out. The rest went with it, along with the pain. Shigar understood then, with piercing clarity, that he had been the source of all of it, ever since Darth Chratis’s initial lightning strike. The voice whispering in his mind—and the doubts it had expressed—had been none other than his own.
His lightsaber lay in blackened pieces at his feet. His suit stank of smoke.
He stood up. The thing from the lake towered over them, no longer rising, just looming, blocking out the sky. The noise it made was deep and resonant, like the song of a deep-sea mammal. It sounded like a summons, offered in the language of worlds.
A small silver dot moved across the sky: Stryver’s scout. Beyond that hung the brilliant constellations of the combined fleets. Flashes of light danced among them, indicating that they were returning fire. Shigar couldn’t tell if they were firing at the hexes or one another.
He looked down at his hands. His gloves were burned right through, but his fingers and palms were undamaged.
This is the path laid down for you, said Master Satele into his mind. They were the same words she had used on Coruscant.
Shigar almost wept with commingled triumph and despair. She was alive, but where did that leave him? Was he tainted by the dark side even though he hadn’t actually struck out at Darth Chratis? Had Master Satele truly known all along that it would come to this, and never warned him?
Again he thought of Larin, telling him that he was lucky for being lifted out of obscurity to train for the Jedi Order. He had even believed her, and found strength in the knowledge that his Master and the High Council would endure. Whatever happens today, you’ll go back to the life you know.
Not anymore.
The galaxy is painted in black and white, he realized, feeling the truth and certainty of it deep in every bone. But from far enough away, it all looks gray.
THICK RED CURRENTS pulled Ax irresistibly downward, tumbling her like a red blood cell in a heart attack. Master Satele gripped her wrist so tightly she feared her bones might break, and she gripped the Jedi back just as hard. She could see nothing but her heads-up display and hear nothing but alarms. The precise specifications of the Republic armored environment suit were unknown to her, but she imagined its cooling systems screaming as they tried to radiate the excess heat, only to be overwhelmed and fail.
She waited, but that didn’t happen. They were tumbling just as violently as before, but she wasn’t getting any hotter.
Instead, a strange feeling came over her, a feeling that was neither entirely physical nor entirely psychic. For all the battering and pummeling going on, she wasn’t in any immediate danger of being crushed or burned. The fluid just looked like lava. She wasn’t being drowned. Tasted, perhaps? Or embraced …?
A powerful urge to swim overcame her, but not to reach the surface. There was something in the lake with them, something that wanted her to come closer. She began to kick and struggle against the current. Master Satele was a deadweight until she divined Ax’s intention and joined in the
effort. They wriggled through the thick, red mass, body length by painful body length, occasionally striking solid objects being swept along with the flow. Some clutched at her, but Ax couldn’t tell if they were people or hexes, or an entirely new manifestation of the Sebaddon phenomenon. Instead of stopping, she swam on, following the only compass she had: her gut.
Her questing fingers found something hard and stable submerged in the lava-like liquid. It was smooth and slightly curved, like the side of a submarine. She and Master Shan explored it, looking for a way in. They found extrusions that might have been antennas, cannons, and sublight drives.
A ship. That was where she was supposed to go. Something inside had brought her here.
Satele Shan pulled her closer, touched faceplates. The red liquid parted just enough for Ax to glimpse the Grand Master’s private universe. Her face was drawn but composed.
“Air lock,” she said. “This way.”
“Do you think it’ll work in this stuff?”
“There’s only one way to find out.”
They pulled apart, and Master Satele guided her hand to the panel she had found. The controls were instantly recognizable. Ax had seen them on thousands of ships. Thousands of Imperial ships.
She pushed the top button: OPEN. A sudden current swept them closer as the empty chamber sucked in fluid. When the door was completely open, they swam inside and fumbled for the interior controls.
The door slid silently shut, leaving the unceasing turbulence of the fluid outside behind them. Ax floated in silence for a moment, grateful for the respite, the chance to think. Where were they? What was she doing? What had brought her here? She should be swimming for the surface, not exploring sunken artifacts while the rest of the mission fought around her.
“Are you going to open the inner door?” asked Master Satele, pressing close again.
Of course she was. She’d come too far to turn back. Her instincts tugged her on, despite her misgivings.
When she touched the CYCLE button, pumps in the walls strained to drain the fluid away. Weight returned, along with light and air. They finally let each other go. Ax wiped her faceplate clear, and she saw Master Satele doing the same. In the midst of such strangeness, she looked as small as Ax herself. She was glad she wasn’t alone.
The inner door opened, revealing a stock-standard ship’s corridor, scuffed and dusty with age. Ax stepped out of the puddle left in the air lock and put her dripping feet gratefully on a dry surface. She checked her HUD. The air was fine. Cracking the seal on her helmet, she swung the faceplate open.
All she smelled was blood.
Master Satele stepped up beside her with her faceplate open, too. “Any idea whose ship this is?”
Ax kept her thoughts to herself for the moment. She walked along the corridor to the first intersection, mentally plotting the layout. If this was a light cruiser, she decided, the command deck would be to the right, holds to the left, crew quarters down the first ladder, and engineering ahead. She chose to go right, and was rewarded with success. The command deck was small, but felt spacious for being so empty. No instrument panels glowed. No holoprojectors projected. The only signs of life were the lights shining down from above.
“Generator’s clearly functional,” said Master Satele, “but the control systems have been disconnected. If you’re thinking of getting off Sebaddon in this thing, you can forget about it.”
The floor shook beneath them, and Ax was reminded that, although the fluid that had engulfed them hadn’t been lava, they were still standing on top of a giant geothermal drilling site, on a world whose skin was about as stable as a water balloon’s.
The ship rattled and creaked around them. The echoing of its many complaints sounded like a voice, gradually fading into silence.
“Comms are blocked by the hull,” Master Satele went on. “That wouldn’t have been part of the ship’s original design.”
“They never intended to go anywhere,” Ax said, “or to talk to anyone. I bet this is Lema Xandret’s ship.”
Master Satele looked around. “No artwork, no personalized touches, no signs of home. How can you tell?”
“There’s a freight air lock aft,” Ax said, avoiding the question. They headed back the way they had come. “Let’s see what’s through there.”
On the way they passed row after row of empty rooms, confirming Ax’s feeling that the ship had been abandoned. Xandret and the other fugitives had stripped everything useful or personal and moved it elsewhere. Maybe the ship reminded them too much of what they had left behind; maybe they had built more comfortable quarters elsewhere. Perhaps they had kept it as a memento mori, as a symbol of their isolation and abandonment, and never intended to use it again. When they had returned to the galaxy, they had used a different ship entirely, one they had built themselves.
Nowhere in Imperial records, Ax realized, was the name of this ship recorded. Unless she found a survivor, or some kind of record, she might never learn it. That hole in her mother’s history bothered her as they walked and climbed through the ship. She knew it meant nothing, really, and that sticking on this point was a kind of self-defense against the much wider holes that might soon be filled in. But she couldn’t help wondering what it had been like to live with the rocksolid reminder of your betrayal constantly at hand. Maddening, probably.
The aft freight air lock was twice as large as the one they had come through on the port side. It was open, a tubular umbilical leading to spaces unknown. The tube swayed and rocked uncertainly under the influence of the fluid around it.
Ax pressed forward, telling herself there was nothing to fear. She agreed with Stryver. Lema Xandret is already dead. She has been for some time. There was no life in here. The colony had survived long enough to build the hexes, but then it had failed. Either the hexes had killed them, recognizing that the humans had outlived their usefulness, or they had killed themselves. All the evidence Ax expected to find of them was their bodies.
She wasn’t prepared, therefore, for the intimately decorated quarters they had left behind: the pictures, journals, clothes, mobiles, meals, and more that lay scattered throughout the winding corridors of the colony, perfectly preserved in the cool, dry air, as though they had been put aside only an hour ago. There had been children living here. There were memorials to the dead, and to those left behind. Likenesses of the colonists stared out at her from every angle. She recognized her mother’s face in some of the pictures. Lema Xandret had grown older here. Her face was lined, and her hair had turned gray. Her stare was sharp.
“You were right,” said Master Satele with something like admiration in her voice. Concern, too, if Ax’s ears didn’t deceive her.
She hurried on in determined silence. The empty colony was testimony to many things: hopes and fears, bravery and cowardice, the everyday and the profound. Ax wasn’t interested in any of that. She hadn’t come to Sebaddon in search of a museum. She had come because the Dark Council ordered her to, because fate demanded it, and because of Dao Stryver. Maudlin sentimentality was irrelevant to her.
Still, Ax’s pace increased until she was almost running from room to room, seeking something she couldn’t put a name to. Master Satele followed, moving lightly and silently in her wake. The corridors wound deeper and deeper, connecting to larger spaces and more business-like structures, including air and water purifiers and power plants. The pressure steadily increased around them. In several places they saw slow leaks, dripping red into growing puddles.
They came at last to a large, square room that looked more like a warehouse than a laboratory, although clearly it had once been the latter. Droid parts lay scattered in various states of repair alongside tools of all shapes and sizes and arcane instruments of measurement. Holoprojectors displayed rotating designs, revealing several hex variants that Ax hadn’t seen before: versions with ten legs or more, multiple bodies, specialist limbs, and agglomerated into larger machines capable of space travel or mass destruction. Some of them cha
nged as she walked toward them, indicating that the evolutionary algorithms responsible for them were still running. Thick cables ran everywhere through a centimeters-deep layer of red. Some of them led to a tubular glass tank, five times larger than a bacta tank, which stood in one corner of the room. It was full of opaque red fluid, apparently identical to the stuff outside.
Master Satele approached the tank, but Ax hung back. She sensed that this was what had drawn her here, but now that she was standing in front of it, she was nervous. Did she really want to know what her mother’s fate had been?
“It’s warm,” said Master Satele. She had taken off a glove and pressed it against the glass. “Body temperature, or thereabouts.”
“That red stuff,” said Ax. “It’s in all the hexes. It looks like lava, but it’s not. It’s the biological component the Hutts detected.”
“Is it blood?”
“I don’t know.” She shuddered. “I hope not.”
The Grand Master was still standing with her hand touching the glass. She watched Ax closely. “This is what I tap into when I subdue the hexes. It’s alive, but at the same time not alive. It’s incomplete, like a body without a mind.”
“Could the CI be its mind?”
“It could be, but we’ve seen no sign of the CI so far. If it’s in this section of the planet, it’s keeping a very low profile.”
The fluid in the tank stirred, and Master Satele pulled sharply away.
“There’s something else in there,” she said. “I felt it.”
Ax hugged herself without realizing. She wanted to run but couldn’t move. Her feet were frozen to the floor. Her eyes couldn’t look away.
Inside the tank, something white swept against the glass. It vanished almost instantly, back into the red murk, but then returned a moment later, pressing hard.
Ax gasped. It was a human hand. Another appeared beside it, with fingers splayed out wide. The red fluid stirred as the body the hands were attached to steadied itself in the fluid.
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