Чарльз Соул: Star Wars: Light of the Jedi (The High Republic)

The Eye and the Tempest Runners wore their masks, but Marchion’s was new. Ornate, with the suggestion of a crown, and the superstorm engraving subsumed within a circle of glowing red—the baleful gaze of a beast. Ro’s clothing, too, had changed. He now wore a heavy fur cloak, worn and ragged in spots. But the wear conveyed a sense of history, of battles survived and won. As it should—it was the cloak of Asgar Ro.

“Kassav believed he was taking his crews to save us all, to protect us, to keep the Republic from learning our secrets,” said the Eye of the Nihil. “It was a trap, a lie. You see how they came for him. The Republic and the Jedi hunted down Kassav’s Tempest like vermin.”

Murmurs through the crowd as the Nihil watched ship after ship destroyed by Republic attackers, all flying under the same banner they wore on their masks, their clothes, their bodies.

“But look,” Marchion Ro said, pointing up at the battle raging above them. “Look what Kassav and his people did.”

“Show them who we are!” came Kassav’s voice again, and the next phase of the fight began as the Nihil began to use the new, aggressive tactics—radiation bombs and waste sludge and explosive escape pods.

“Our brothers and sisters refused to fight the way the Republic wanted them to,” Marchion Ro said. “They fought like the Nihil. ”

A roar of approval from the crowd. Not enough to shake the Great Hall, there was still too much uncertainty for that…but a start.

The Jedi entered the fight, and once again the tide began to turn against the Nihil, as the Vectors whipped through the battlespace, darting and firing their cannons.

Another voice echoed above the Great Hall, this time Marchion Ro’s.

“I am the Eye, and I will give you what you need to defeat our enemies. These are the Battle Paths, my friends, and with them…you cannot lose.”

The fight changed again. The ships of Kassav’s Tempest began to leap from place to place, impossible to hit, taking down Skywings and Longbeams and Vectors. Excitement rippled through the watching Nihil. This was something new. Something powerful .

“Yes,” Marchion Ro said. “The Paths make us strong—but Kassav’s numbers were too few, and there was only so much he could do, even with the gifts I gave him. But look what he did. Look what he and his people did. ”

The Nihil ships began to smash into the Republic vessels, exploding, causing horrendous damage even at the cost of their own lives. Now a sense of alarm from the watchers.

“I did not expect this,” Marchion Ro said. “I don’t know if Kassav ordered this, or our fellows just decided they had enough of their freedom being taken, enough of the Republic telling us what to do, thinking they can control our planets and kill our people and…well.”

He gestured up at the display.

“There is a point where every being breaks, and chooses freedom over tyranny. Kassav’s people did this for themselves. For each other. And for us.”

The crowd had gone completely silent. Marchion gestured again and the battle froze.

“We are the Nihil,” Marchion Ro said.

A few weak cheers, quickly fading into silence.

“I am the Eye, Marchion Ro,” he continued. “I am the Nihil.

“And so…” he said, holding out his hands to his people, “…are all of you.”

This is the moment, Marchion Ro thought. Another step on the path.

“Kassav and his people died, so we could stay free. But that fight isn’t over. The Republic will come for us. And the Jedi. We are no longer Tempests, Storms, Clouds, Strikes. We are one thing.”

Marchion Ro lifted his hands to his head and removed his mask. He stood there, looking out at the thousands of faces. His tool. His weapon. His army.

“We are all the Nihil,” he said.

Throughout the hall, more masks came off, only a few at first, but then a flood, the heavy things dropping to the floor with rattling thud s.

Marchion Ro let his gaze wash across all of them, seeing the eagerness, the understanding.

He turned to look at Pan Eyta and Lourna Dee. Their masks were still on.

“Now,” he said, quietly.

They glanced at each other. Marchion wondered if it would be knives, or if these two would get to live. He hoped for the latter. There was a great deal of work to do.

Slowly, the two remaining Tempest Runners took off their masks. Pan Eyta stood stiffly, his huge, tusked head expressionless—not that Marchion was very good at reading Dowutini emotions. Lourna Dee feigned nonchalance, shaking out her lekku.

Marchion Ro turned back to the waiting Nihil. With a flourish, he lifted his mask into the air.

“For Kassav!” he shouted, and this time there was an answering cheer, a torrent of sound, a release of tension and anxiety. They thought everything was going to be all right.

None of them had ever seen his face before. It didn’t matter that they did now. None of them knew who he was. He wasn’t Marchion Ro, either. His name was…it didn’t matter. Where he came from was gone, other than the lessons it had taught him, and a few tools he had stolen from it when he left.

Marchion Ro lowered his mask, and as he did, a set of small servitor droids hovered up from behind the stage, each holding a metal bowl in its actuator arms.

They floated out above the assemblage, all but one, which stopped near Marchion.

“Kassav sacrificed himself to preserve the Nihil way of life, as did his Tempest,” Marchion said. “He showed us the way. Whatever we have been, our wealth, our power…it’s just beginning . Do you know why? Let me show you.”

Another tap of a control on his belt, and the display being projected by the comms droids changed. No longer a frozen shot of the final moments of the Battle of Kur, it was now a beautiful, complex image of the galaxy in all its breadth and splendor, a slowly rotating spiral filled with countless worlds, countless riches, countless opportunities.

“The galaxy. But when I look at it, I do not see only stars and planets. I see…a storm.”

The image began to spin faster, and now it did look like an enormous weather system, a hurricane rotating around a central eye.

“We are all the Nihil…we don’t just ride the storm. We are the storm.”

Understanding was beginning to dawn on their faces. Awe, even.

“Now we will own the storm,” Marchion cried. “We’ve kept ourselves to the Outer Rim—didn’t want to attract too much attention, didn’t want to spoil a good thing. That is over. We are going to go as hard and as far as we can, and we are going to take what we want. ”

Marchion gestured up toward the storm spinning above them all.

“The Nihil are going galaxy-wide. ”

Now another cheer, no hesitation.

Marchion Ro began to pace back and forth across the stage, pointing at individual Nihil as he spoke, singling them out, watching them grin as he did, the looks of jealousy on their colleagues’ faces.

“I have an archive of Paths that will take us all across the galaxy,” Marchion said. “We can go anywhere we want, take anything we want. Lina Soh and her Republic and the Jedi tried to destroy us, but Kassav’s sacrifice bought us time. Time to build, time to plan, time to grow our numbers. A day will come when we will teach the Republic that we cannot be destroyed. They will fear the Nihil. And if they try to take our freedom again, we will tear them apart.”

Marchion reached out to the servitor droid hovering nearby and dipped his fingers in the bowl it was holding. They came out red.

“By the blood of the one who gave everything for us…Kassav.”