VIDIAN SAT AT the center of his web and watched it all.

His home, like everything else in Calcoraan Depot, had been built to his specifications. A hemispherical room at the center of the station’s hub, it was a place for him to contemplate his plans while he recuperated from the regular maintenance surgeries conducted by his medical droids. He had no need for grand windows looking outside, or giant stellar cartographic displays in the dome above him. He could make his cybernetic eyes display all the images he wanted.

Others were rarely allowed to enter, but when they did they saw only a neutral gray ceiling, dimly lit by a ring of lights. But when Vidian, chest now covered in a post-operative white robe, looked up, he saw the space station in action, as if he could see through its walls. He inhabited every corner of its durasteel frame, watching the supplies being brought in and sorted for redistribution. He saw the movements of the ships outside the station, and their destinations far beyond. The whole galaxy spread out before him, ready to be transformed by his force of will.

It hadn’t always been this way. He had been powerless, once, in ways no one knew about. Vidian’s official biography painted him as a heroic whistleblower for a military contractor, but in truth, he had been that most useless of creations: a safety inspector for an interstellar mining guild.

He had lived under another name, then. That was when he’d learned all he knew about the thorilide trade—and that was when he came to understand the hypocrisy practiced by those with money and power. Lives meant nothing to the manufacturers he visited, and so many of his superiors were bribed that the reports he filed were beyond pointless.

It was on an inspection trip to Gorse, of all places, that he’d finally been fed up. He decided to get in on the game, asking for and receiving bribes from several of the firms he’d visited. But before he could spend a credit, he fell ill in a mining company lobby. In the miners’ medcenter, he learned his travels had caught up with him. The toxins he’d inhaled, the biological agents he’d touched in countless filthy factories had unleashed a degenerative disease, destroying his flesh. It wasn’t a theatrical end, like falling into a vat of acid, but it took the same toll. Soon, all that remained of that once-energetic young man was a parched sack of organs, somehow coaxed into continued function by the efforts of the surgeons.

He’d never been much of a person, by his own admission, but now even that was gone. All that remained was a mind, trapped, with no way to reach out. He lay there lost, at the edge of madness, contemplating his existence—or lack of it. Seething with anger over the powerlessness of the life he’d led, and hatred for those who’d won while he had played by the rules. After two years steeping in the acid of his mind, he found a rudimentary way to communicate with one of the caretaker droids.

And the guild inspector’s deathbed became Denetrius Vidian’s birthplace.

From there, his life had progressed more closely according to the well-known legend—the only part of his biography that was remotely true. Avenging himself against the industry bigwigs required a new identity, a figure on the same level or higher. Vidian began as a cipher, a name on an electronic bank account. But soon he became the greatest corporate stalker the Republic had ever seen, all while still in the medcenter.

The Republic had protected the thorilide mining industry against corporate raiders during the Clone Wars, so instead he’d taken stakes in firms manufacturing comet-chaser harvesting vessels. He’d bought a secret stake in Minerax Consulting, pushing out reports that wiped out surface mining on Gorse and other worlds; many of the companies that he once inspected failed—including Moonglow’s predecessor firm.

Revenge, perhaps, but he didn’t really care. With his cybernetic prostheses, he had been mobile by then, having left Gorse and its bad memories for riches and financial fame. He had left it all behind. He’d become someone powerful, someone he had never been in his old identity—and if he did not have Palpatine’s ear, he at least had his respect. The Republic was full of ill-functioning industries. Vidian was seen as the man who could fix them all.

He wasn’t about to let a snotty upstart like Baron Danthe undermine him. The Emperor encouraged vigorous competition in his administration; it was a sensible strategy, forcing everyone to give his or her best. But Danthe could only tear down those more talented. The baron had desperately been searching for some weapon to use against Vidian; it was one reason the count had sought Imperial authority over Gorse. He’d managed to demolish the medcenter of his long-ago confinement—and any trace of his true past—with no one the wiser.

Still, the fool kept trying. The baron had contacted him again, earlier, fishing for information about his plans. Calcoraan Depot operators had even intercepted Danthe calling Captain Sloane, trying to get the same thing. To her credit, Sloane had told the man nothing.

There was no reason to wait any longer. Vidian stepped from the chair and sent it back down to the basement. He crossed to the secure terminal on the side of the chamber and entered his passkey. With the tap of a control, he sent the document he had prepared to Coruscant. It had been crafted with utmost care; the Emperor would support his action. Vidian was taking a risk with his present course, yes—but he’d also laid a trap, one that would take Danthe out of his nonexistent hair for good. Sloane was a part of his master plan, as were droids he’d shown her earlier.

When all was done, Vidian would remain in the Emperor’s favor, and the Empire would grow, uninterrupted, because of it. And who knew? There might even be a bonus. Vidian knew the Emperor was interested in projects to create giant weapons of intimidation. He didn’t know all that existed, but it was hard to hide much from someone involved in so many strategic supply networks. The destruction of Cynda, if it could be done, might be of military interest. Moons with its peculiar structure, orbit, and proximity to its parent planet were rare, but it paid to have a variety of tools in so large a galaxy.

Vidian closed out his connection with the Imperial throneworld and paused. The place was still, apart from the whirring and clacking of the FX-4, motoring between the operating table and the tall diagnostic console beside it. “I know you’re here,” the count said, his back to the rest of the room.

He heard nothing. And then, light footfalls heading to his left, behind the bank of computer equipment to the right of the sealed entryway. Vidian strolled casually away from the communications terminal and gave another silent order. A fresh operating table, this one with restraints, rose into view. “I’ve heard you since you entered, both of you. You rode up behind my chair.” He stepped past the medical droid. “There’s no surveillance in this room. It’s just me. I’ve heard your motions, your hearts beating. I’ve seen your breaths coloring the infrared. Don’t make me hunt you. It’s tiresome.”

Vidian whirled and leapt back toward the terminal on the wall to the right of the entrance. Looking over it, he beheld a crouching young green-skinned Twi’lek woman pointing a blaster in his face. “You’re new,” he said.

He heard someone move behind him. Vidian stood granite-still as the blow came: a metal surgical stand, smashed over the back of his head. The Twi’lek flinched as the stand’s attachments broke free, clattering off the top of the console. Vidian whipped around and lunged for his attacker in one blinding motion.

“You’re not new,” he said, clutching the dark-haired man by the neck. The broken shaft of the surgical stand was still in the man’s gloved hands. Vidian lifted him from the floor and looked keenly into his blue eyes. “The gunslinger from Cynda. I may have deleted your image, but I never forget a fool. I’m fascinated to learn what brings you here.”