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

Marchion took three fingers and drew them down his face in jagged lines. Lightning. Blood.

The servitor droids swooped down into the crowd, and he saw the Nihil repeating his gesture, taking the blood and swooping it down their faces, three jagged lines.

Marchion Ro didn’t know if any of them were curious as to how one person could hold this much blood, or where he had gotten it if Kassav had died somewhere out in space…but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that they would never ask those questions, because doubt could be perceived as weakness, and the Nihil stayed strong by removing what was weak.

Round and round it goes, he thought, looking up at the galaxy, gazing into the storm.

“Go,” Marchion Ro said. “Bring me more Nihil, as many as you can…”

He grinned.

“…and I will give you everything.”

Mari San Tekka was asleep. She looked peaceful, wrapped in a cocoon of wires and actuator arms and monitoring systems—all the equipment her medical pod required to keep the ancient woman alive.

“Get your rest, my dear,” Marchion Ro said, placing his palm flat on the pod, feeling the warmth emanating from the machine. “You have so much work to do.”

She looked fetal—tiny and wizened, on her side, her hands curled up against her chest. The whole pod was like a womb in reverse—though he wasn’t sure there was another human in the galaxy further from the womb than this woman.

Marchion had told the Nihil the truth. He did have an archive of Paths, thousands of them. Mari had spent the decades charting hidden routes all across the galaxy, and they were all stored in a database, able to be called upon at will. The Nihil could appear anywhere he wanted, even atop Chancellor Soh’s palace, if he chose.

He wondered how long Mari would last. Long enough, he thought. He had found a supplier for the new miracle drug, bacta, which would probably help. It came from a world in the Hetzal system, which made Marchion laugh. He’d almost destroyed that planet.

Marchion Ro turned away from the sleeping Mari San Tekka. He left the chamber and descended three decks in his flagship. He walked through beautiful arched passageways, through large galleries, where once sermons were preached and dreams were built, and families worked and planned and considered a better way to live.

Until they didn’t.

Now, the Gaze Electric was empty. Haunted.

At last, after a long trek through the huge vessel, Marchion Ro arrived in an area with a very different feel from the tranquil, subtly lit room where Mari San Tekka whiled away her endless years.

Here the lights were bright. The edges were sharp. Everything was reflective. There was nowhere to look to gain peace, and even closing your eyes could only do so much against the glare.

The walls were metal, as were the floors. Eight cells. Seven held prisoners delivered to him by Pan Eyta—nobodies, snatched from a passenger transport headed to Travnin. Ordinary people who certainly did not deserve imprisonment on the Eye of the Nihil’s flagship.

Too bad. Life was rarely about what you deserved.

Seven of the occupied cells were wired to the ship’s electrical system, and programmed to shock their prisoners at random intervals and intensity levels. Between the shocks and the lights, sleep was impossible. Being placed in a cell on the prison deck of the Gaze Electric meant anger, pain, fear, and, eventually, madness.

And all of it designed specifically for the man in the eighth cell.

The Jedi.

Marchion Ro walked down the hall, passing the poor wretches in the torture cells, coming to the last. The Jedi looked up, his face calm—but his eyes were tired. He could act as serene as he liked, but the emotional turmoil he must be sensing from the other prisoners was clearly achieving the intended effect. He had to be in pain, too—he had a badly broken leg, and Marchion had made exactly none of the high-tech medical facilities just a few decks up available to the man.

The Twi’lek moved quickly, lifting a hand with two fingers extended and speaking a single sentence.

“You will release us all,” he said.

Marchion felt the pressure of the Jedi’s intention washing across his mind. He wanted to do what the Twi’lek asked. Why wouldn’t he?

Because he was Marchion Ro.

He smiled.

“It’s not going to happen, Jedi,” he said. “My family knew all about you people. They told me what you could do, and how to resist it.”

He gestured vaguely toward the other cells.

“They’re not getting out, either. If they die, I’ll just bring in more. Their job is to fill this entire deck with pain and anger and fear. Makes it hard for you to think, doesn’t it? Hard for you to call on the Force.”

He leaned back against a nearby wall and crossed his arms.

“My grandmother told me how to do it; she learned from hers. You don’t imprison Jedi behind bars. You do it with pain. I never had a chance to try it—but it seems like it works well enough.”

One of the other prisoners moaned—not even enough energy left to scream, Marchion thought. The Jedi did not look. His eyes never left Marchion Ro’s face.

“What’s your name?” he asked. “I don’t want to just keep calling you Jedi.”

“Loden Greatstorm,” the Jedi answered.

Marchion’s eyes went wide. He pushed himself off the wall.

“Loden… Greatstorm ?” he said. “By the Path, that’s too perfect. It’s truly a great pleasure to meet you, my friend. I think we will accomplish wonderful things together.”

“What things?” Loden said. “Why are you doing this?”

Marchion laughed.

“You want my grand plan, Jedi? I don’t do that. Plans can fail, at any step along the way. I have a goal , and goals can be achieved in any number of ways. As long as you get where you want to in the end, the roads you took don’t matter. It’s all the same path.”

“Your goal, then,” the Jedi said.

Marchion thought for a moment, considered his words.

“When my father died, I inherited a disorganized, broken organization. The Nihil had power, but it spent most of its time fighting within itself. It could never reach its full potential, and it had to, if it would ever become the weapon I need. My father tried to change things, but he failed, and then he was murdered.”

Another moan from one of the torture cells. Marchion supposed the shock cycle had just triggered again.

“I almost didn’t want to try at all. For a long time, I just carried on the same role he had—the Eye of the Nihil, keeper of the Paths. I got rich doing it. It was fine. And then…you came.”

The Jedi’s eyes narrowed. Marchion chuckled.

“Oh, not you specifically, Loden Greatstorm. I mean the Republic, building its Starlight Beacon out in my territory. Invading, taking over, with all its rules and laws and particular brand of freedom that isn’t free at all. And you Jedi always just behind, absolutely convinced that every action you take is right and good. My family learned that to its cost, long ago.”

“But we have met before,” the Jedi said. “In a way.”

His face was very, very cold, his dark-green skin seeming to absorb the bright lights of the prison deck.

“I recognize your voice,” Loden said.

Marchion grinned. “There’s a homesteader family, about thirty kilometers to the southwest of town,” he said, his voice suddenly anxious, affected. “Two parents, two kids. You gotta go rescue them, Jedi, you just gotta!”

Marchion Ro slammed backward, hitting the bulkhead, hard. His head cracked against the durasteel. Nothing had touched him…but he knew it was the Jedi.

Loden slumped back—the effort to use the Force had clearly exhausted him.