He was lucky it hadn’t exploded.
The men who had ambushed him were gathered around the crate, probably wondering what was inside. A quick head count put their number at six, so he figured none had gotten on board Fatman. And none of them seemed to be making for Arigo’s ship, so Zeerid assumed they had no intention of pursuing him in the air. Maybe they were happy enough with the one container.
Amateurs, then. Pirates, maybe.
Zeerid knew he would have to answer to Oren, his handler, not only for the deal going sour but also for the lost grenades.
Kriffing treadmill just kept going faster and faster.
He considered throwing Fatman’s ion engines on full, clearing Ord Mantell’s gravity well, and heading into hyperspace, but changed his mind. He was annoyed and thought he had a better idea.
He wheeled the freighter around and accelerated.
“Weapons going live,” he said, and activated the over-and-under plasma cannons mounted on Fatman’s sides.
The men on the ground, having assumed he would flee, did not notice him coming until he had closed to five hundred meters. Faces stared up at him, hands pointed, and the men started to scramble. A few blaster shots from one of the men traced red lines through the sky, but a blaster could not harm the ship.
Zeerid took aim. The targeting computer centered on the crate.
“LZ is hot,” he said, and lit them up. For an instant pulsing orange lines connected the ship to the island, the ship to the crate of grenades. Then, as the grenades exploded, the lines blossomed into an orange cloud of heat, light, and smoke that engulfed the area. Shrapnel pattered against the canopy, metal this time, not ice, and the shock wave rocked Fatman slightly as Zeerid peeled the ship off and headed skyward.
He glanced back, saw six, motionless, smoking forms scattered around the blast radius.
“That was for you, Arigo.”
He would still have some explaining to do, but at least he’d taken care of the ambushers. That had to be worth something to The Exchange.
Or so he hoped.
Darth Malgus strode the autowalk, the steady rap of his boots on the pavement the tick of a chrono counting down the limited time remaining to the Republic.
Speeders, swoops, and aircars roared above him in unending streams, the motorized circulatory system of the Republic’s heart. Skyrises, bridges, lifts, and plazas covered the entire surface of Coruscant to a height of kilometers, all of it the trappings of a wealthy, decadent civilization, a sheath that sought to hide the rot in a cocoon of duracrete and transparisteel.
But Malgus smelled the decay under the veneer, and he would show them the price of weakness, of complacency.
Soon it would all burn.
He would lay waste to Coruscant. He knew this. He had known it for decades.
Memories floated up from the depths of his mind. He recalled his first pilgrimage to Korriban, remembered the profound sense of holiness he had felt as he walked in isolation through its rocky deserts, through the dusty canyons lined with the tombs of his ancient Sith forebears. He had felt the Force everywhere, had exulted in it, and in his isolation it had showed him a vision. He had seen systems in flames, the fall of a galaxy-spanning government.
He had believed then, had known then and ever since, that the destruction of the Jedi and their Republic would fall to him.
“What are you thinking of, Veradun?” Eleena asked him.
Only Eleena called him by his given name, and only when they were alone. He enjoyed the smooth way the syllables rolled off her tongue and lips, but he tolerated it from no others.
“I am thinking of fire,” he said, the hated respirator partially muffling his voice.
She walked beside him, as beautiful and dangerous as an elegantly crafted lanvarok. She clucked her tongue at his words, eyed him sidelong, but said nothing. Her lavender skin looked luminescent in the setting sun.
Crowds thronged the plaza in which they walked, laughing, scowling, chatting. A human child, a young girl, caught Malgus’s eye when she squealed with delight and ran to the waiting arms of a dark-haired woman, presumably her mother. The girl must have felt his gaze. She looked at him from over her mother’s shoulder, her small face pinched in a question. He stared at her as he walked and she looked away, burying her face in her mother’s neck.
Other than the girl, no one else marked his passage. The citizens of the Republic felt safe so deep in the Core, and the sheer number of beings on Coruscant granted him anonymity. He walked among his prey, cowled, armored under his cloak, unnoticed and unknown, but heavy with purpose.
“This is a beautiful world,” Eleena said.
“Not for very much longer.”
His words seemed to startle her, though he could not imagine why. “Veradun …”
He saw her swallow, look away. Whatever words she intended after his name seemed stuck on the scar that marred her throat.
“You may speak your mind, Eleena.”
Still she looked away, taking in the scenery around them, as if memorizing Coruscant before Malgus and the Empire lit it aflame.
“When will the fighting end?”
The premise of the question confounded him. “What do you mean?”
“Your life is war, Veradun. Our life. When will it end? It cannot always be so.”
He nodded then, understanding the flavor of the conversation to come. She would try to disguise self-perceived wisdom behind questions. As usual, he was of two minds about it. On the one hand, she was but a servant, a woman who provided him companionship when he wished it. On the other hand, she was Eleena. His Eleena.
“You choose to fight beside me, Eleena. You have killed many in the name of the Empire.”
The lavender skin of her cheeks darkened to purple. “I have not killed for the Empire. I fight, and kill, for you. You know this. But you … you fight for the Empire? Only for the Empire?”
“No. I fight because that is what I was made to do and the Empire is the instrument through which I realize my purpose. The Empire is war made manifest. That is why it is perfect.”
She shook her head. “Perfect? Millions die in its wars. Billions.”
“Beings die in war. That is the price that must be paid.”
She stared at a group of children following an adult, perhaps a teacher. “The price for what? Why constant war? Why constant expansion? What is it the Empire wants? What is it you want?”
Behind his respirator, he smiled as he might when entertaining the questions of a precocious child.
“Want is not the point. I serve the Force. The Force is conflict. The Empire is conflict. The two are congruent.”
“You speak as if it were mathematics.”
“It is.”
“The Jedi do not think so.”
He fought down a flash of anger. “The Jedi understand the Force only partially. Some of them are even powerful in its use. But they fail to comprehend the fundamental nature of the Force, that it is conflict. That a light side and a dark side exist is proof of this.”
He thought the conversation over, but she did not relent.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why conflict? Why would the Force exist to foment conflict and death?”
He sighed, becoming agitated. “Because the survivors of the conflict come to understand the Force more deeply. Their understanding evolves. That is purpose enough.”
Her expression showed that she still did not understand. His tone sharpened as his exasperation grew.
“Conflict drives a more perfect understanding of the Force. The Empire expands and creates conflict. In that regard, the Empire is an instrument of the Force. You see? The Jedi do not understand this. They use the Force to repress themselves and others, to enforce their version of tolerance, harmony. They are fools. And they will see that after today.”