Light of the Jedi(82)
Pan Eyta and Lourna Dee had wanted to throw Kassav out of the hall right then and there—the hard way—but Marchion Ro had voted to keep him around, to give him a chance to fix his mess. Said something about how his experience might be useful, since he was an old-timer, and how his Tempest was so loyal to him…maybe it wasn’t a good time for unrest in the crews. Mostly, though, since Kassav didn’t get a vote it was her and Pan against Marchion’s two votes, and since by Nihil tradition ties went to the Eye…Kassav was still around.
The second reason this mission was so important was because of something Marchion Ro had learned from one of his Republic spies—the primary aide to that blowhard Outer Rim senator you always heard blathering on the HoloNet, Noor. According to the spy, the Republic investigation had turned up some pretty strong clues that the reason the Legacy Run blew up in Hetzal was because it encountered a Nihil ship in the hyperlane, traveling along a Path. Marchion had run some data, and it all seemed plausible. Pretty unwelcome surprise, that.
And now the Republic had built some kind of super-droid that could run high-level hyperspace analyses. It gave them the time and location of all the upcoming Emergences, including some where the Legacy Run’s flight recorder might show up. If the Republic investigators found it, they could probably use it to get definitive proof that the Nihil were connected to everything—not just Kassav’s botched job in Eriadu, which you could argue would have happened whether he was there or not, but also every death in Hetzal, the deaths in Ab Dalis, and the rest. Jedi had died in Hetzal. If they knew the Nihil were the reason…well, Marchion Ro seemed pretty wary of the Order, and Lourna Dee didn’t much like the idea of them coming after her, either.
The whole Nihil operation could be at stake. The Republic could not be allowed to find that flight recorder. They had to destroy it, and there was really only one Tempest Runner for the job…Lourna Dee with her stealth-equipped battle corvette.
So here she was, lurking in the system Marchion Ro had sent her to via a Path, staying hidden, waiting to see if this Emergence would give her a target, or if she would need to move on to the next spot on the Eye’s list.
“It’s not the recorder,” Belial said, looking at his screens.
The Devaronian was just a Cloud, not yet a Storm, but Lourna Dee thought he’d level up pretty soon. The guy was smart, capable. Cool in a crisis. Unemotional. People like that fit right into her organization.
“Looks like one of the passenger compartments.”
“Huh,” one of her other lieutenants said, a human named Attaman. “You think they’re still alive in there? They must have been traveling through hyperspace for weeks.”
Lourna Dee didn’t answer. She watched the little flares of light in the distance as the Republic team went into action, doing their heroic thing, working on a no-doubt heroic rescue.
She almost gave the order to fire. She wanted to.
A spread of missiles could maybe take out all six ships and the Legacy Run passenger compartment, too, so fast they wouldn’t even have time to realize they were dead.
But as satisfying as that would be, it might go wrong, and they already had enough heat on them. Marchion had been extremely clear, on the verge of actually trying to give her an order. “Don’t let them know you’re there unless you have to. Unless the flight recorder shows up, you just move on,” he’d said.
She’d need to put him in his place sometime soon. There was a hierarchy to be observed. Honestly, she wished she could just take him out of the picture entirely, and if there wasn’t such a good chance she’d just end up fighting Kassav and Pan Eyta, too, she’d probably take her chance. Win or lose, she doubted Marchion would blame her for it. That was the Nihil way.
Maybe later, once all this heat from the Legacy Run situation died down.
“Set coordinates and get us out of here,” Lourna Dee said.
Marchion Ro had provided Paths for the whole operation, routes through hyperspace that ensured they’d get to the next location well ahead of the Republic team. And if that Emergence happened to be the flight recorder, well.
Maybe she’d get to kill someone today after all.
* * *
“That’s it,” came Joss Adren’s voice over the comm. “Scans confirm this fortieth Emergence is the bridge section that had the Legacy Run’s flight recorder built into it. I’ll be damned—I don’t know the Republic’s megadroid figured it out, but they nailed it. Everyone, get into position. We’re down a Longbeam, but we planned for this. We’ll run retrieval plan four—based on the fragment’s trajectory, that should work best. Just stay cool and do your part.”
Mikkel Sutmani pushed his control sticks forward, and his Vector surged ahead. He sensed Te’Ami doing the same off his starboard wing, somewhere out of range. He could see the three remaining Longbeams up ahead, moving into position.
The fourth Longbeam in their original party had stayed behind at the last Emergence point to assist the Legacy Run survivors on the fragment. The traumatized settlers required medical and therapeutic assistance—a few of their number had died on their unimaginable journey, and the horror of that experience would not be easily resolved. They would be taken to the Panacea, relocated from Hetzal to a collection point near the Starlight Beacon site, where they could connect with other survivors and work with personnel now well trained in dealing with their particular issues. The situation was awful—but at least they were alive, and no longer hurtling through space toward a slow, excruciating death.