The Essential Novels Read online

  Vrath’s words made Zeerid’s breath hitch. Hearing them changed everything. His knuckles turned white on the stick as options played out in his mind. Adrenaline filled him to his eyes. He stared straight out the cockpit window.

  “They don’t know I have a family.”

  “Not yet,” Vrath said. “But they will. They always do—”

  Too late Vrath seemed to realize he’d stepped on a mine. He tried to chuckle it away but Zeerid heard the fear behind the laughter.

  “Or maybe they won’t. I’m just talking here.”

  “You talk too much,” Zeerid said while he hardened his expression, hardened his mind. The alchemy of necessity distilled his list of options down to one.

  He put himself on autopilot and stood.

  “On your feet, Vrath.”

  When the man did not stand right off, Zeerid pulled him roughly to his feet. Vrath groaned with pain.

  “Easy there, marine. Pain meds now, yeah?”

  He sounded doubtful.

  “Walk,” Zeerid said.

  “To where?”

  Zeerid stuck the GH-22 in his back. “Move.”

  Reluctantly, Vrath let Zeerid push him through the corridors of the ship. The man moved slowly, as if he knew Zeerid’s intent, and Zeerid had to push him along. A few turns, a few corridors, and Zeerid saw an air lock door. He steered Vrath to it, stopped before it.

  “Turn around.”

  Vrath did. His face was blotchy, but whether from the beating or from fear Zeerid could not tell.

  “This is about your daughter, yeah? Well, I already told my people, Korr. They already know.”

  Zeerid heard the high pitch of a lie in Vrath’s tone. “A lie. You already told me you didn’t. You said, ‘Not yet.’ ”

  He moved Vrath out of the way with the blaster and activated the internal doors on the air lock. They unsealed and slid open with a hiss. A red light set into the ceiling lit up and began to spin.

  Zeerid showed him the blaster. “You want this?” He nodded at the air lock. “Or that?”

  Vrath looked at the weapon, the air lock, swallowed hard.

  “It doesn’t have to go this way, Korr. I won’t tell anyone about you or your family. You can even keep the ship.”

  “I can’t take that chance.”

  Vrath tried to smile, but it looked like a death grimace. “Come on, Korr. If I say I won’t talk, I won’t talk. I’m nothing if not a man of my word.”

  Zeerid thought of the promise he’d made to Nat, that he’d take no unnecessary chances. “Yeah. Me, too.”

  Desperation crept into Vrath’s voice. He shifted on his feet. “You’ll have to bear this, Korr. This will make you a murderer. Kill a man with his own weapon. You want that weight?”

  Zeerid knew what he was doing. Or at least he thought so. “I can carry it. And I don’t need a lecture about murder from a skulker.”

  Fear made Vrath’s eyes water. “That was war, Korr. Think about it. Think hard.”

  “I have. Pick, or I pick for you. Just another number, right?”

  Vrath stared into Zeerid’s face. Maybe he saw the blankness, the resolve. “To hell with you, Korr. To hell with you.”

  Zeerid pushed him into the air lock.

  “I could have killed her, Korr. Both of them. Back at the park on Vulta. You know I could have. But I didn’t.”

  “No,” Zeerid said. “You didn’t.”

  He activated the seal and the door started to close.

  “I wish I had killed them now! I wish I had!”

  Zeerid stopped the door, a sudden flash of anger rekindling his strength. He reached into the air lock and grabbed Vrath by the shirt, shook him. “If you had harmed her, this would be coming to you with a sharp blade and a slow touch. You hear me, skulker? Do you?”

  He kicked Vrath in the stomach, doubling the man over with the blow. While Vrath gasped for breath, Zeerid reactivated the door and it sealed shut. Vrath stared at him through the tiny transparisteel window, all wild eyes, snarls, and teeth.

  Zeerid hit the button to evacuate the air lock. The warning alarm wailed.

  He gave one more glance at Vrath, saw the fear there, then he turned and walked back toward the cockpit.

  Murderer.

  That’s what he was.

  The siren stopped and he felt a soft rumble as the external air lock door opened.

  A pit opened in his stomach.

  Emotion, nameless and raw, caused his eyes to water. He wiped them clear.

  He was a murderer, and he felt heavy already.

  But he would carry it—for Nat, for Arra. He expected he’d carry it the rest of his life and the weight would never diminish. He’d killed men before, but not like that, not like he’d killed Vrath.

  For the first time, he understood, really understood, why Aryn had returned to Coruscant.

  He prayed to gods he did not believe in that she reconsidered what she had come to do. She felt things too keenly to feel what he felt. She could never carry it. It would destroy her. Better she should die.

  All of a sudden, he just wanted to sleep.

  He overrode the navicomp’s random course and plugged in the coordinates to Vulta. His hands shook the whole time.

  In moments, Razor jumped into hyperspace.

  He had always flown alone, but he’d never felt alone in the cockpit, not until that moment.

  Sitting back in the chair, he tried to sleep.

  And tried not to dream.

  Malgus watched the shuttle piloted by Aryn Leneer rise on its thrusters. He raised Jard on the comm.

  “A shuttle is lifting off from Liston,” he said. “It is also clear to leave Coruscant’s space.”

  “Yes, my lord,” Jard answered.

  Malgus could have broken his word to the Jedi, could have shot Aryn Leneer from the sky. But he would not. He kept his promises.

  But he realized, more than ever, that the Jedi were too dangerous for him to allow them to exist. They were to the Sith what Eleena was to him—an example of peace, of comfort, and therefore a temptation to weakness. Angral did not see it. The Emperor did not see it. But Malgus saw it. And he knew what he must do. He must destroy the Jedi utterly.

  He knelt beside Eleena, cradled her head in his left arm. He studied her face, its symmetry, the line of her jaw, the deep-set eyes, the perfectly formed nose. He remembered the first time he had seen her, a cowed, beaten slave barely out of her teens. He’d killed her owner for his brutality, taken her into his house, trained her in combat. She had been his companion, his lover, his conscience ever since.

  Her eyes fluttered open, focused. She smiled. “Veradun, you are my rescuer.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Where is the woman?” Eleena asked. “The Jedi?”

  “She is gone. She will never hurt you again.”

  She leaned her head back into his arm, closed her eyes, and sighed contentedly. “I knew you loved me.”

  “I do,” he acknowledged, and her smile widened. He felt tears forming in his eyes, his weakness made manifest.

  She opened her eyes, saw the tears, reached up an arm to put a hand on his cheek. “What is wrong, my love?”

  “That I love you is what is wrong, Eleena.”

  “Veradun—”

  He steeled himself, stood, ignited his lightsaber, and drove it through her heart.

  Her eyes widened, never left his face, pierced him. Her mouth opened in a surprised gasp. She seemed as if she wanted to say something, but no sound emerged from her mouth.

  And then it was over and she was gone.

  He deactivated his blade.

  He could no longer afford a conscience, or a weakness, not if he was to do what must be done. He could serve only one master.

  He stood over her body until his tears dried.

  He resolved that he’d never shed another. He’d had to destroy what he loved. And he knew he would have to do it again. First the Jedi, then …

  Behind him, Kers
e and his soldiers were worrying at the landing bay doors, trying to cut their way in.

  Malgus knelt and picked up her limp body. She felt as light as gauze in his arms. He would give her a funeral with honor, and then he would begin.

  His vision on Korriban had shown him a galaxy in flames. But it was not just the Republic that required cleansing by fire.

  Night, and controlled rage, wrapped Malgus. His anger smoldered always now, and his thoughts mirrored the caliginous air. He had taken a ship in secret from the Unknown Regions, where he was currently stationed, and made his way to the planet. No one knew he had come.

  He focused on keeping his Force signature suppressed. He did not want anyone to learn of his presence prematurely.

  A sliver of moon cut a narrow slit in the dark sky, painted everything in grays and blacks.

  The stone wall of the compound, eight meters tall, rose before him, its surface as rough and pitted as Malgus’s mien. Drawing on the Force, he augmented a leap that carried him up and over the wall. He landed in a well-tended garden courtyard. Sculpted dwarf trees and bushes cast strange, malformed shadows in the moonlight. The gentle sound of a fountain mixed with the night hum of insects.

  Malgus moved through the garden, a deeper darkness among the shadows, his boots soft on the grass.

  A few lights lit the windows of the rectangular manse that sat in the center of the grounds. The manse, the garden, the fountain, all of it, looked similar to some soft world in the Republic, some decadent Jedi sanctuary where so-called Force scholars pondered peace and sought tranquillity.

  Malgus knew it was folly. Empires and the men who ruled empires could not stay sharp when surrounded by comfort, by peace.

  By love.

  Low voices sounded from ahead, barely audible in the stillness. Malgus did not slow and made no attempt to hide his approach as he emerged from the darkness of the garden.

  They saw him immediately, two Imperial troopers in half armor. They leveled their blaster rifles.

  “Who in the—”

  He drew on the Force, gestured as if he were shooing away insects, and sent both of the troopers flying against the wall of the manse hard enough to crack bone. Both sagged to the ground, unmoving. The black eyes of their helmets stared at Malgus.

  He walked between their bodies and through the sliding doors of the manse, reminded of his attack on the Jedi Temple back on Coruscant.

  Except then Eleena had accompanied him. It seemed a lifetime ago.

  Thinking of Eleena blew oxygen on the embers of his anger. In life, Eleena had been his weakness, a tool to be exploited by rivals. In death, she had become his strength, her memory the lens of his rage.

  He resided in the calm eye of a storm of hate. Power churned around him, within him. He did not feel as if he were drawing on the Force, using it. He felt as if he were the Force, as if he had merged with it.

  He had evolved. Nothing split his loyalties any longer. He served the Force and only the Force, and his understanding of it increased daily.

  The growing power whirling around him, leaking through the lid of his control, made the suppression of his Force signature impossible. All at once he lowered all of the mental barriers, let the full force of his power roil around him.

  “Adraas!” he shouted, putting enough power into his voice to cause the ceiling and walls to vibrate. “Adraas!”

  He strode through the rooms and hallways of Adraas’s retreat, toppling or destroying everything within reach—antique desks, the bizarre, erotic statuary favored by Adraas, everything. He left ruin in his wake, all while shouting for Adraas to show himself. His voice rang off the walls.

  He rounded a corner to see a squad of six Imperial troopers in full armor, blaster rifles ready, the front three on one knee before the other three.

  They had been waiting for him.

  His Force-enhanced reflexes moved faster than their trigger fingers. Without slowing his pace, he pulled his lightsaber into his hand and activated it as the blasters discharged. The red line of his weapon spun so fast in his hand it expanded into a shield.

  Two of the blaster shots ricocheted off his weapon and into the ceiling. He deflected the other four back at the troopers, putting black holes through two chests and two face masks. Another two strides and a lunge brought him upon the surviving two troopers before they could fire again. He crosscut, spun, and crosscut again, killing both.

  He deactivated his lightsaber and continued on through the manse until he reached a large central hall, perhaps fifteen meters wide and twenty-five long. Decorative wood columns that supported upper balconies lined its length at even intervals. A pair of double doors stood on the far side of the hall, opposite those Malgus had entered.

  Lord Adraas stood within the open doorway. He wore a black cloak over his elaborate armor.

  “Malgus,” Adraas said, his voice showing surprise, but his tone turning Malgus’s name into an insult. “You were in the Unknown Regions.”

  “I am in the Unknown Regions.”

  Adraas understood the implication. “I knew you would come one day.”

  “Then you know I am here for you.”

  Adraas ignited his lightsaber, shed his cloak. “For me, yes.” He chuckled. “I understand you, Malgus. Understand you quite well.”

  “You understand nothing,” Malgus said, and stepped into the room.

  Malgus felt the hate pouring off Adraas, the power, but it paled in comparison to the rage and hate roiling in Malgus. In his mind’s eye, he saw Eleena’s face as she died. It poured fuel on the flames of his rage.

  Adraas, too, stepped into the room. “Do you think that your presence here is a surprise? That I have not long foreseen this?”

  Malgus chuckled, the sound loud off the high ceiling. “You have foreseen it but you cannot stop it. You are a child, Adraas. And tonight you pay. Angral is not here to protect you. No one is.”

  Adraas scoffed. “I have hidden my true power from you, Malgus. It is you who will not leave here.”

  “Then show me your power,” Malgus said, sneering.

  Adraas snarled and held forth his left hand. Force lightning crackled from his fingertips, filled the space between them.

  Malgus interposed his lightsaber, drew the lightning to it, and started walking toward Adraas. The power swirled around the red blade, sizzling, crackling, pushed against Malgus, but he strode through it. The skin of his hands blistered but Malgus endured the pain, paid it as the price of his cause.

  As he walked, he spun his blade in an arc above his head, gathering the lightning, then flung it back at Adraas. It slammed into his chest, lifted him bodily from the ground, and threw him hard against the far well.

  “Is that your power?” Malgus asked, still advancing, cloaked in rage. “That is what you wished to show me?”

  Adraas climbed to his feet, his armor charred and smoking. A snarl split his face.

  Malgus picked up his pace, turned the walk into a charge. His boots thumped off the wood floor of the hall. He did not bother with finesse. He vented his rage in a continuous roar as he unleashed a furious series of blows: an overhand slash that Adraas parried; a low stab that Adraas barely sidestepped; a side kick that connected to Adraas’s side, broke ribs, and flung Adraas fully across the narrow axis of the hall. He crashed into a column and the impact split it as would lightning a tree.

  Adraas growled as he climbed to his feet. Power gathered around him, a black storm of energy, and he leapt at Malgus, his blade held high.

  Malgus sneered, gestured, seized Adraas in his power, and pulled him from the air at the apex of his leap.

  Adraas hit the ground in a heap, his breath coming in wheezes. He climbed to all fours, then to his feet, favoring his side, his blade held limply before him.

  “You hid nothing from me,” Malgus said, and the power in his voice caused Adraas to wince. “You are a fool, Adraas. Your skill is in politics, in currying favor with your betters. Your understanding of the Force is noth
ing compared to mine.”

  Adraas snarled, started to charge toward Malgus, a last-ditch attempt to salvage his dignity if not his life.

  Malgus held forth his hand and the rage within him manifested in blue veins of lightning that discharged from his fingertips and slammed into Adraas. The power stopped Adraas’s charge cold, blew his lightsaber from his hand, caught him up in a cage of burning lightning. He screamed, squirming in frustration and pain.

  “End it, Malgus! End it!”

  Malgus unclenched his fingers and released the lightning. Adraas fell to the ground, his flesh smoking, the skin of his once handsome face blistered and peeling. Again he rose to all fours and looked up at Malgus.

  “Angral will avenge me.”

  “Angral will suspect what has happened here,” Malgus said, and strode toward him. “But he will never know, not for certain, not until it is too late.”

  “Too late for what?” Adraas asked.

  Malgus did not answer.

  “You are mad,” Adraas said, and leapt to his feet and charged. He pulled his lightsaber to his fist and activated it. The attack took Malgus momentarily by surprise.

  Adraas loosed a flurry of strikes, his blade a humming, red blur as he spun, stabbed, slashed, and cut. Malgus backed off a single step, another, then held his ground, his own blade an answer to all of Adraas’s attacks. Adraas shouted as he attacked, the sound that of desperation, filled with the knowledge that he was no match for Malgus.

  Finally Malgus answered with an attack of his own, forcing Adraas back with the power and speed of his blows. When he had Adraas backed up against the wall, he crosscut for his head. Adraas ducked under and Malgus cut a column in two. As the huge upper piece of the column crashed to the floor and the balcony lurched above them, Adraas fell to one knee and stabbed at Malgus’s chest. Malgus spun out of the way and rode the spin into a chop that severed Adraas’s arm at the elbow. Adraas screamed and clutched his arm at the bicep while his forearm fell to the floor along with the column.

  Malgus had taught the lesson he’d come to teach.

  He deactivated his lightsaber, held up his left hand, and made a pincer of his fingers.