“I’m running out of ships, Aryn. We have to make a run for the atmosphere.”

Before them, the glowing orb of Coruscant’s night side hung in the deep night of space. The sun crested behind the planet, and Coruscant’s horizon line lit up like it was on fire.

“Do it,” she said. “No, wait. They’re hailing us. Holo.”

“You’re kidding?”

Aryn shook her head and Zeerid activated the small transmitter mounted in his instrument panel.

A hologram of an Imperial bridge took shape. Crew sat at their stations, their images clear in the holo’s resolution. Two human men stood in the foreground, one a thin redhead in the uniform of a naval officer, one a towering, bulky figure of a man who wore a heavy black cape and whose eyes seemed to glow in the light of the bridge’s instrumentation. The eyes studied Zeerid with such intensity that it made him uncomfortable even through the holo. A respirator clung to the man’s face, covering his mouth. His pale skin looked as gray as a corpse’s.

“Power down entirely,” said the tall man, his voice as raw as an open wound. “You have five seconds.”

Aryn leaned in close to see the hologram better. The man’s eyes moved from Zeerid to her and even across the distance he felt their power. She recognized him. He had fought in the Battle of Alderaan.

“He is Sith,” Aryn said. “Darth Malgus.”

Motion behind Malgus caught Aryn’s eye, a third man, short, arms crossed across his chest. She and Zeerid almost bumped heads as they eyed the holo. Aryn recognized him. So did Zeerid, it seemed.

“That’s the man that ambushed us in the spaceport,” Zeerid said. “Vrath Xizor.”

“He alerted them we were coming.”

Zeerid stared at the holo then leaned back, eyes wide. “Stang, Aryn. That’s the same man I saw in Karson’s Park on Vulta.”

“Where?”

“He knows I have a daughter.”

“You have two seconds,” Malgus said.

Zeerid hit the TRANSMIT button. “To hell with you, Sith.”

He cut off the transmission, unleashed a rain of expletives, and put Fatman into a rapid spin that turned Aryn light-headed and would make it as difficult as possible for targeting computers to lock on.

Chapter 9

MALGUS STARED at the holotransmitter, now dark, on which he had communicated with the freighter, the freighter that had a Jedi aboard.

Torn, he thought of Eleena, of Lord Adraas, of Angral, of the flawed Empire that was taking shape before his eyes and how it fell short of the Empire as it should be, an Empire congruent with the needs of the Force.

“They will be clear of the convoy shortly, Commander Jard,” said Lieutenant Makk, the bridge weapons officer.

Malgus watched the freighter dance among the now-separating ships of the convoy, trying to hug what vessels it could as it skipped toward Coruscant.