Light of the Jedi(42)

“THE NIHIL!” came the response, a thunderclap rolling back at him.

“What do we ride?” Lourna Dee cried, lifting a clenched fist on a thin, bare arm cabled with muscle. She was Twi’lek, of about forty years, whip-thin with green skin the color of swamp water, emaciated lekku with bone-white stripes dangling from the back of her head. She wore armored leather made from the hide of a kell dragon and a mask to match, with just the one arm bare and a single long-bladed knife sheathed on her thigh.



Lourna stood next to Pan Eyta on a raised platform at one end of the Great Hall of the Nihil, at a banquet table covered with rich food and potent liquor. Dozens more of these tables were placed throughout the hall, amid towers of flame pushing back the endless night. They were laden with indulgences for all to consume from as they chose. Food, drink, drugs. As much as they liked.

“THE STORM!” the Nihil shouted back.

The third and final of the Tempest Runners shouted out his own question. This was Kassav, an aged Weequay with skin like sun-dried meat, wearing only a fur cape, stained leather trousers, and his own mask—a thin plate of hammered metal with slits cut into it for eyes, nose, and mouth. A horrible parody of a face.

“Who guides us?” he bellowed.

“THE EYE!” came the answer, and at these words, the Nihil turned toward another platform, set lower than that of the Tempest Runners, where one person sat alone, at an empty table.

Marchion Ro.

He wore a mask, too, but not like the others. His was unique, even in the Great Hall of the Nihil. Smoked transparisteel with a single symbol slashed into it, a primitive, brutalist etching, swirls and lines that evoked a stylized planet-killing superstorm as seen from space, with its central eye centered roughly over his face. His clothes were simple—black pants and jacket over a sleeveless white tunic, and tight leather gloves with padding at each knuckle. His limbs were long, and what parts of his skin were visible were slate-gray. He wore no obvious weapons.

Marchion tilted his head back, gazing out into the void that surrounded them all. Strange lights flickered in the far distance, at the edge of vision, through the full spectrum. The Nihil called this place No-Space, and only they knew how to get there, via secret roads through tortuous hyperlanes unmapped in the galactic databases. Roads delivered by Marchion Ro, and his father before him.

The Great Hall of the Nihil had no walls or ceiling, just invisible vacuum shields creating a dome of breathable air above a broad durasteel platform hundreds of meters long. It looked and felt as if it were adrift in the great nothing.



The symbolism was obvious, and intentionally so. With the Nihil…all was light and life. Outside…cold, empty death.

“What do I see?” Marchion Ro said, his voice quiet, a breath, not a scream. The crowd hushed to hear it. “What does your eye see for the Nihil?”

“WHATEVER WE WANT!” came the answering roar, immediate, every voice lifted—hungry and certain and joyful.

Marchion looked at Pan Eyta and nodded. This was the Dowutin’s show. The gigantic being adjusted the lapels of his leather suit, stylishly cut, its pale turquoise color chosen to set off his yellow skin.

“That’s right,” Pan said. “Whatever we want. Just like in Ab Dalis. We killed that convoy dead. We ripped those ships down to the bones and took everything they had, and now everyone who fought alongside me there gets a share, through the Rule of Three. With the Nihil, everyone eats.”

Pan Eyta pointed out off the platform, into the strange wilderness of No-Space, where the emptiness was interrupted only by the fleet of ships that had carried the Nihil to this place. Marchion Ro cast his eyes across the vessels. No two exactly alike, and all reflecting the taste and cultures of their owners to some degree. They did all share a certain brutalist aesthetic, and the glowing, green half-spheres that were the Path engines, the navigational miracle provided to the organization by Marchion and his father.

The Nihil’s ships, large or small, looked like armored, spiked fists, coming to pound you into nothing and harvest your corpse. No curves where a straight line would do. Sharp edges, a lack of overall symmetry. The smaller, fighterlike Strikeships, larger Cloudships and Stormships, all the way up to the three corvette-sized vessels of the Tempest Runners. Kassav had the New Elite, Pan Eyta flew his Elegencia, and Lourna Dee…she called her ship the Lourna Dee.



Much larger, imposing, looming behind the rest of the Nihil fleet with a silhouette like a marine predator, was Marchion Ro’s flying palace and fortress, its empty, echoing corridors the only home he had—the Gaze Electric.

“That’s why we all came here today,” Pan Eyta said. “That’s why we’re celebrating. We fly together and we die together, and when we come back…we reap the rewards.”

Pan gestured toward Lourna Dee and Kassav.



“I also gotta give my gratitude to my fellow bosses here. Ab Dalis was a job that came through my Tempest, but both Lourna Dee and Kassav gave support with their crews. They’ll all get their piece, too.”

He reached to the table and lifted a massive goblet of spiced wine, showing it to the crowd, then turning to Marchion Ro.

“And here’s to the Eye of the Nihil, who gave us the Paths to make it all happen. Couldn’t have done it without him.”

Pan Eyta tilted his head back, lifted his mask, and drained the goblet, wine splashing to the floor. The crowd roared its approval, and Marchion Ro held up an acknowledging hand to the cheering Nihil.