Questioning prisoners was not a duty that Stellan enjoyed. While some Jedi—such as the famed investigator Emerick Caphtor—had particularly strong gifts that allowed them to sense subtle layers of deception, Stellan possessed no exceptional instincts in that area.
(And do you only enjoy doing that which you do exceptionally well? he could imagine Elzar saying to him teasingly, lopsided smile broadening as he spoke.)
At least, in this case, Stellan didn’t have to pry for time-sensitive information. He hoped only to determine whether or not these two women were currently affiliated with the Nihil. If so, they could provide valuable information on the group’s disintegration—in particular, what these scattered raids and attacks might indicate about the state of the Nihil. If not—their information wouldn’t be as current, but they’d be a lot quicker to speak up.
Stellan paused in front of the holding cell door, straightened his robes, and nodded. The sentry droid obediently opened the doors, revealing the prisoners inside.
Chancey Yarrow lounged on her bunk as though it were a sofa in a luxury hotel. (Which wasn’t that far off the mark—the cells aboard Starlight were meant as temporary custodial facilities, not for imprisoning hardened criminals, and as such were comfortably outfitted.) She was a tall woman with dark skin and a regal crown of braids, and her gaze took him in as though he were a temporary amusement, nothing more.
This one, Stellan thought, won’t reveal a single thing until she’s certain it’s in her best interest to do so.
The other woman, however—the young one, known only as Nan—was more difficult to read. She looked younger than her years thanks to her diminutive stature and soft features; Stellan might even have thought her an innocent, had he not read Reath Silas’s reports on their confrontation with the Nihil at the abandoned Amaxine space station many months prior. Her dark eyes revealed tension and uncertainty. She was already near a breaking point, but what that break might look like—what direction Nan might turn—was a mystery to Stellan. He suspected it was a mystery to Nan herself.
“Ms. Yarrow,” he began. “And Ms….”
“I’m Nan.” She folded her arms across her chest.
“Yes, I’d heard that,” he said pleasantly. “But I was wondering if you had a surname, any kind of second name.”
“I share it with those who mean something to me,” Nan said. “Which isn’t you.”
Fair enough, Stellan supposed. “Ms. Nan. I am Master Stellan Gios, the Jedi in charge here at Starlight.”
Nan cocked her head. “The marshal of Starlight is Avar Kriss.”
“Was,” Stellan said. “You have solid intel—but apparently it’s a little out of date.”
When Nan’s cheeks flushed, he silently noted, She takes pride in having good information. This one likes to know things others don’t. That could prove useful.
“You’re right,” said Chancey Yarrow, slowly stretching into an upright position. “Our intel’s old. Because neither of us has had anything to do with the Nihil for some months now. Which means you can’t prove we’ve done a thing wrong, and you won’t get anything out of us you can use. Might as well let us go, right?”
“I’d rather be the judge of what information I can and can’t use,” Stellan said. Though he faced Chancey, he paid attention to Nan at the periphery of his vision. Would she begin wondering what she did and didn’t have to trade? If he got anything out of either of them, it would be Nan who broke. Chancey Yarrow’s polished exterior might as well have been an impenetrable shell. This woman knew who and what she was, and she trusted fate to deliver her where she needed to be. Nan didn’t have that kind of confidence. He added, “And if you’re no longer affiliated with the Nihil, I’d be very interested to learn who you are working for.”
“Working with,” Chancey clarified. Her smile, thin as a blade, indicated that this was as far as she was willing to go.
“Why should we trust you?” Nan retorted. “You arrested us.”
“That seems more like a reason for me not to trust you,” Stellan said. “As former members of the Nihil, you are responsible for crimes against persons, animals, and property—so many that they’re almost without number.”
Chancey’s lazy smile spread wide across her face. “And you’re trying to recruit us? Sounds like a bad plan to me.”
“I’m not recruiting anyone. Just—hoping to talk.” Stellan judged that he’d pushed as far as he needed to for now. Best to give Nan a while to consider the possibilities before he spoke to her again.
Should he separate Chancey and Nan, put them in different cells? Normally that was a wise move, as prisoners tended to lose their loyalties to their comrades once there was some space between them. However, Stellan sensed that the bonds that tied Chancey and Nan together might be tested more by proximity than by distance. Nan might be quicker to realize that her priorities weren’t the same as her mentor’s if she was forced to face that difference head-on.
The young girl seemed more tense than before, which Stellan didn’t understand until she said, “I know what that means, ‘hoping to talk.’ What are you going to do to us? Drowning tubes? Electro-stim? Mind probes? If you think we’ll crack that easily—”
“Nothing like that is going to happen to you here,” Stellan said, rising to his feet. “I don’t know how the Nihil handle such things, but that is not the Jedi way.”
“You sound so sincere,” Nan replied. “I almost believe you.” She didn’t, yet. But she might in time.
He said only, “Take some time. Think things through. Ask yourself what you’d need to start over, to build anew.”
“Much appreciated,” Chancey answered as though this were a casual chat between friends wondering where to go to lunch. “We’ll be thinking.”
Stellan studied Nan for a moment longer, nodded at them both, and left the cell—trusting time, and their own differences, to do the rest of the work for him.
Regald Coll had thought nothing could be more exhausting than teaching younglings, no matter how dangerous a mission on the frontier might prove. After a few hours of working with stranded pilots and damaged ships, providing aid and assistance, with new arrivals showing up without warning…
Well, he still thought nothing was more exhausting than teaching younglings. The Nihil were bad, sure, but try managing a roomful of toddlers who’ve missed their nap and just figured out they can basically do magic. It was not a task for the weak.
Cleaning up after scattered Nihil raids came close on the exhaustion scale, though. Regald was glad to take a few moments in the mess to sit down, stretch, and summon the strength to decide what to eat.
“Bilbringi?” Indeera Stokes suggested as she took the place opposite his, carrying a tray of spicy food that looked delicious and smelled even better.
Regald found himself sitting upright. “Only Bilbringi food could wake me up like this. Nothing else could even make me move, except maybe a rancor prod.”
Indeera gave him a crooked smile. She seemed wearied, too, but her tone was cheerful as she took the place opposite him. “You’ll note I brought enough for two.”
“That’s the kind of sterling character you are.” Regald took a meat pie and grinned. “Remind me to nominate you for Jedi Council someday.”
“Please, no!” Indeera held up her hands. “A fate worse than death—at least, to me. I don’t see how Stellan and the others do it.”
“Me either.” Regald had never been ambitious in that way. The crèche had been enough for him, until he decided that he should expand his boundaries, take on new responsibilities. But that was only a quest to learn and experience more, not to climb any sort of ladder.
They ate together in companionable silence—or what Regald took to be companionable silence, until he glanced up from his meal to see that Indeera hadn’t even touched hers. He ventured, “Are you feeling all right?”
“No. I mean, yes.” She winced and rubbed at her temples. “Nothing is physically wrong with me. Tired, but that is of no consequence.” Indeera was stoic about such things. Yet even her impassive countenance couldn’t fully hide her disquiet.
Regald said, “Nothing’s physically wrong, you said. So what’s going on is—mental? Emotional? Spiritual?”
“Perhaps all of those, and yet…” Indeera shook her head. “It is difficult to speak of such things. But do you not feel it, Regald? At the very edges of your consciousness?”
He nearly asked her, What do you mean? Before he could pose the question, however, he understood the answer.
The weariness he was experiencing went deeper than aching muscles or a throbbing head. Bone-deep…no. Soul-deep. As though the vibrant colors of the Force had all faded to gray. Regald shivered, a fear response he thought he’d left behind as a youngling.
Still, there had to be a sensible explanation. “We’re all going through this together,” he suggested. “Every Jedi on this station is helping those who’ve come here for help, dealing with the last remnants of the Nihil. We’re each witnessing a lot of anger and fear. Of course that would be a psychic drain on us all.”
“Of course,” Indeera repeated, yet her eyes narrowed with suspicion. “But we have all been in situations like that before, and in none of those situations did I feel this terrible emptiness.”
Truth be told, Regald hadn’t ever felt anything like this, either. It wasn’t so much the presence of something awful as it was the absence of something else that should’ve been there. Something so basic and fundamental to the proper workings of the universe that he’d never recognized it and couldn’t even get a grasp on it while he was sitting here attempting to come up with a picture…
“Is that Bilbringi?” Nib Assek’s wrinkled face lit up with a tired smile as she came nearer. “Don’t mind if I do.”
Regald handed her one of the meat pies as she took a seat between him and Indeera. “Nib, how are you feeling right now?”
“Tired as all get-out,” she said, and though Nib still had a smile on her face, he could hear the weariness concealed within her good cheer. “Like my brain’s already taking a nap and my body’s eager to join it.”
“Are you sensing this strangeness?” Indeera said. “The…opacity of the Force?”
Nib’s valiant smile finally faded. “You, too?”
“We’re talking ourselves into it,” Regald said. His tone was firm; he’d let himself get sidetracked too easily. “We’re worn out, we’re emotionally compromised, and now we’re convincing ourselves to believe in ghosts.”
“Do you really think so?” Indeera kept staring into the middle distance, focusing on nothing.
“Yeah, I do. We like to think we’re wiser, we’re the Jedi, we’re in control of our minds and bodies—but in the end, we can be just as superstitious and suggestible as most people, if we let down our guard.” He punctuated this with an emphatic gesture with his meat pie. “Once we eat and give ourselves a breather for a few minutes, the feeling will vanish and we’ll hardly even notice.”
“You’re right,” Nib said, with determination. “Of course. Should’ve thought of it myself.” Indeera didn’t seem equally ready to believe him, but she started eating her meal, so Regald counted it as a win.
He ate. He tried to relax. And he succeeded.
Mostly.
In the depths of Starlight Beacon, Werrera and Leyel continued their work on the station’s communications relays. The central system remained oblivious to their attack—taking each node out, one by one, gave Cale time to provide compensating input for the system, blank energy that would create the illusion of all being well.
This particular relay, however, was of particular importance. When the time came, it would need to be fully functional—the better to send the Nihil’s message to the Galactic Core.
Carefully, slowly, Werrera wove his long fingers through the intricate wiring, closing off link after link. Cale routed the signals into the slim silvery box that had previously been programmed by Marchion Ro himself.
It appeared the Jedi remained oblivious to their actions. The only other person aboard Starlight who knew what they were doing was Ghirra Starros—their monitor, the one who would report their deeds to the Eye—and she had already signaled her last. After this, everything they did, they did alone. None would know the individual acts of cunning or courage that lay ahead, not until their work bore its true fruit.
Each of them, at different moments, thought back to the people they’d left behind on the Gaze Electric. Not one of them suspected that none of those people remained on Ro’s flagship anymore, that instead they had been transferred to Nihil ships that were likely to be used as cannon fodder relatively soon. They might’ve realized it had they doubted Marchion Ro at all—they knew he erased every trace of his actions—but they were without doubt. Their eyes were blinded by their shining faith.
“I’ve been thinking,” Leyel said. Cale nearly startled; she hadn’t spoken loudly, but they’d been tense and silent for so long that any noise jolted his entire nervous system. “Those things back on the ship—don’t they have to be fed?”
“None of them will live much longer,” Cale reminded her. “But it doesn’t matter.” A smile spread across his face as he thought of Ro’s explanation of what the beasts were, what they were capable of. “I imagine they’re feeding already.”
Unbeknownst to the Nihil team, one of their “passengers” had already gone in search of heartier fare.
A small astromech droid, whirring about while checking sensors in the cargo bay, heard a loud metal bang—as though plating had fallen off a hull, or a hatch had been forced open. It wheeled toward the sound to find a cargo ship, small and nondescript, with its hatch open. Within, the astromech could see shadowy movement.
Swiftly it checked the cargo manifest, then whistled with alarm. Rathtars? Those were life-forms that required immediate containment.
The astromech rolled forward, connected with the ship’s hatch controls, and was rewarded with the almost instant closing of the door. It then turned and scanned its immediate vicinity for rathtars, found none, and went contentedly on its way after a job well done.
Any sentient would’ve known that rathtars didn’t hesitate to burst out of any containment, would’ve searched for anyone or anything else that might have escaped that cargo ship instead.
But cargo bays were run by droids, and droids were more easily satisfied.
The first scheduled departure from Starlight fell to a small passenger craft that had originally been meant to leave almost a day prior. Most of its few passengers were impatient to go.
One of them had known from the beginning that they would be delayed.
Ghirra Starros checked the full schematic of Starlight. She’d been monitoring it all day—more closely than the Jedi did themselves, since she had the necessary filters to screen the false, planted readouts and retrieve the true data—which was why she’d seen comm relay after comm relay fall under Nihil control. On her screen, what ought to have been an array of bright lights instead lay gray and almost dull, like a night sky shrouded by clouds.
Her personal alarm beeped. Time to go. This was one transport she didn’t want to miss.
Ghirra slung a heavy bag over one shoulder; it was stuffed to its fullest capacity, and her shoulder strained beneath the weight. Running to the transport might arouse unwelcome interest, so she walked quickly. If it didn’t look particularly senatorial, well, at the moment, Ghirra didn’t care. It turned out to be better that way; she didn’t have to look too long at the people in the corridors who weren’t about to leave. The ones who would be here when—
“Senator Starros?” She turned to see Bell Zettifar, the Jedi Padawan, who’d fallen in beside her. “If you’re in a hurry, I can help you—we’ve got a few minutes—”
“No, no, I’m fine.” Ghirra smiled and hoped her expression was convincing. They said the Jedi could read minds. That was the last thing she needed.
But this one was only an apprentice, young enough to make her think of her daughter, Avon. Rarely had she been gladder that she was away at boarding school—safe, and far from all of this.
Bell hadn’t picked up on her uneasiness, it seemed. He simply nodded as he headed toward a side corridor. “See you again soon,” he called.
“Of course,” Ghirra said, and that was the only part that stung. The thought of that young man unknowingly walking away would stay with her far longer than she realized, longer even than the memory of Marchion Ro’s joy when she had come to his side.
Something’s up with her, Bell thought as he continued on his way. The energy coming off Ghirra Starros had been unsettled in the extreme—and besides, that was one of the fakest smiles he’d ever seen.
But maybe he was reading too much into it. The weird energy that had been clawing at the edges of his consciousness made everything feel strange and wrong. Bell kept telling himself that it was only his doubt, his guilt, the uncertainty that had tugged at him for months. If he kept his mind on where he was, what he was doing, the sensation would stop any time now.
And yet it was always still there…