Джон Миллер: Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith: Pantheon

«Gloyd’s blood, girl! I’m twice your age, at least,» Hilts said. He looked at her with incredulity. «You are a Sister of Seelah.»

Glaring, she shrank back. «And you’re a festering old wart!»

« That’s more like it. Can we get down to facts now? Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t be able to doctor the message on here. And I don’t want to!» He turned away from her and gestured to the paintings on the atrium walls, depicting the arrival of the travelers from the skies. «This gadget is our only functioning link to that past, to how we came to be. I wouldn’t tamper with it if my life depended on it.»

«How about someone else’s?»

Hilts heard the sharp hiss of Iliana’s lightsaber being activated. Turning cautiously, he saw that her companions had taken Jaye by the arms. «Now, there’s no need for that.»

«I think there is. Start taking apart the device, Caretaker. And while you do,» Iliana said, «we’re going to take this Keshiri apart. There might be something of him left, if you work fast enough.»

Hilts’s eyes alternated between his writhing, panicked assistant and the gleaming widget. He didn’t even know where to begin, but he had to do something. Reluctantly, he took the small pyramid in hand — and nearly dropped it when several figures crashed through the glass windows above, plummeting into the atrium. Dressed in the ancient uvak- leather garb of the Skyborn Rangers, the new arrivals hit the marble surface behind Jaye’s captors and ignited their lightsabers. At the same time, several of Iliana’s warriors from outside entered, retreating from the charge of a grisly- looking mob of misanthropes. Her weapon already drawn, Iliana sprang to her allies’ defense, releasing Jaye, who dived for the floor near Hilts’s feet.

«Now, boy!» Holding his aide’s tunic in one hand and the recorder in the other, Hilts tumbled toward the Sandpipes, away from the fray. Behind them, crimson energy crackled, tearing into Sith flesh. There were two groups of assailants after Iliana, he realized.

Recognizing who they were, Hilts realized what he had to do.

«Human trash!» Iliana screamed with fury as she locked lightsabers with a scarred behemoth of a woman. «Traitorous wench!» yelled a bald mountain of male anger, one of the leather-armored arrivals from above. Clashing, the combatants seemed as interested in insulting their enemies as striking them. So much so that in between blows, they chanced to hear—

«Hey! Up here!»

Heads turned to the glass contraption towering near the north wall. The rumpled Hilts clung to the maintenance ladder by the Sandpipes, with a terrified Jaye on the rungs just beneath. Holding the recording device in one hand, the Caretaker swallowed hard and spoke.

«Factions of Kesh— invited guests —welcome. Um… you’re all early.»

They just had to knock out the windows, Hilts thought. Thirty years he’d spent trying to keep his portion of the capital building from falling apart. The war- ring oafs had just set him and his staff back another thirty years — provided he survived the afternoon.

«I have to say I’m surprised to see you all here,» Hilts said, stepping over shards to the center of the room. The warriors had stepped back from one another but still held their lightsabers before them, leaving a wedge of space in between for him and Jaye. «It’s eight days until Testament Day. But this is a palace. I guess we have some extra rooms here for you—»

«Shut up, old man!» The beefy black-haired woman with all the scars took a step forward and pointed at Iliana. «We want to know why she’s here!»

Hilts looked to see Iliana and her companions, some bloodied from the battle, backed up against the Sandpipes, ready for their last stand. Iliana’s face flashed with defiance. «Don’t answer that cretin, Hilts!»

«Don’t you raise your voice in this place, woman!» The hulking bald man with a black mustache stepped forth from his leather-clad coterie and made an unkind gesture to Iliana. «The house of Korsin was no place for Seelah — and no place for you!»

Seeing the line of warriors behind Iliana poised to move, Hilts quickly stepped between them and the giant. «You — you’re Korsinite League, right?»

«I am Korsin Bentado,» the shiny-headed man said, his deep voice thundering in the chamber. He gestured to either side. «This is Korsin Vandoz, and you know Korsin Immera from the last Testament reading. We’ve come, Caretaker, to celebrate the lives of Yaru and Nida Korsin at this grand and celestial time. We hope that all is ready—»

«Well, it will—»

«— and we hope that you can show the misled among us the truth of the Testament. That the leader came from beyond, that the Tribe is the body of the leader, and that those who would imperil the body deserve neither mercy nor life,» Bentado said. He gazed reverentially at the statue Iliana had once mocked and bowed his head. «One becomes all, and all one. Korsin now, Korsin forever.»

«Whatever you say,» Hilts said. Turning, he shot a surreptitious look at Jaye and shook his head. Hilts knew these people well. A former slave had founded the Korsinite League a century earlier, taking Korsin as a title for himself, separate from the hierarchy of Lords. Emancipated, he patterned his life after those led by the first Grand Lord and his successor daughter; as he declared, any worthy could aspire to Korsinness, just as he had. His followers took it to heart — and, being Sith, decided they could just as easily adopt the title for themselves. Which they all did, over the movement founder’s complaints — and, eventually, his dead body. Now there were hundreds of self-named Korsins of either sex running about, chanting mantras and declaring their empires of one to the crowd at large. To strike up a conversation with a Korsinite was to risk death by cognitive dissonance.

«I still want to know why that — that woman has been allowed in here!» The scar-faced female slapped a bare hand on Hilts’s shoulder and twirled him around. Hilts realized with a start that the hand had only three webbed fingers.

«You’re Force Fifty-seven, I take it.»

«Obviously!» Her companions jostled behind her, growling ferally. The woman Neera was in fact the least gruesome of the bunch, Hilts saw. No one knew much about the original 57; Seelah Korsin had evidently taken steps to erase that faction’s existence from memory. But the Keshiri tales spoke of those early Omen crew members as deformed in some way, the opposite of Seelah’s perfect human specimens.

The modern Force 57 was far more than fifty-seven in number; looking at Neera’s allies, Hilts wondered if every misshapen human living on Kesh had found his or her way into the ranks. They were easy to pick out when they ventured near the capital; even those least blemished by birth had dozens of self-inflicted scars. Fifty-seven, Hilts imagined, although he had never had the opportunity or desire to count.

«Seelah banished our kind, so she could have her blissful perfection,» Neera yelled, gesturing to the walls. «This place is digusting! You see who’s missing from these paintings, don’t you? Where’s Ravilan, the leader of the Different Ones? Why, they don’t even bother to show Gloyd — the one the Korsins let live, like a pet!» She spat on the marble. «Your precious Pantheon is missing members!»

«You are, too!» Iliana shot back. «Seelah was right to purge the defectives! And we’re going to do it again!» The Sisters surged forward — only to be blocked by Hilts.

«People, people!» Looking back, Hilts saw that his triangle of neutral ground had shrunk. «This isn’t the place for this!»