“Come on, come on,” Zeerid said to the droid. To Aryn, he said, “You all right?”

She seemed oddly calm, or preoccupied.

“I’m fine,” she said.

The droid gave an excited series of whistles and whoops.

“He’s into the safety and fire suppression system,” Aryn said.

“Trigger it with a ten-second delay,” Zeerid said to the droid.

The droid beeped acquiescence.

MALGUS BOUNDED INTO THE SHUTTLE as it set down near the Temple.

“The Liston Spaceport,” he said to the pilot. “Quickly.”

“Yes, my lord.”

He tried again to raise Eleena on the comm but got no response. With each moment that passed his concern grew. He recognized that his emotions were driving him, controlling him, knew too the weakness it evidenced, but he could not let her come to harm, not by a Jedi.

Angral’s admonition bounced around his brain: Passions can lead to mistakes.

The pilot’s voice over the comm disrupted his train of thought.

“Have you heard the news from Alderaan, my lord?”

“What news?” Malgus said. His muscles bunched, as if in anticipation of a blow, or combat.

The blow came and hit him hard.

“There are rumors that an accord has been reached and that a peace treaty will be signed later today. In exchange for the turnover of certain outlying systems to Imperial control, Coruscant will be returned to the Republic.”

The pilot’s words pushed Angral’s words out of Malgus’s brain and ricocheted around in his head like blaster shots.

Outlying systems.

Coruscant returned to the Republic.

Peace.

The words applied heat to Malgus’s already bubbling emotions. He thought of Angral and Adraas sitting somewhere together, drinking wine and thinking that they had accomplished something by forcing the Republic to surrender some insignificant systems, when in fact they had poisoned the body of the Empire with the venom of peace.

“Peace!”

He paced the compartment, fists clenched, a wild animal tiring of its cage. His thoughts veered between Eleena on the one hand, Angral and Adraas on the other.

“Peace!”

He slammed his fist into the bulkhead, welcomed the pain.

They thought they could tame him, Angral and Adraas, thought they could use Eleena to domesticate him. And wasn’t that what she wanted, too? She, who sought to be his conscience. She, who asked him to put love before his duty to the Empire.

Malgus’s brewing anger boiled over into rage. He slammed his fists down on the worktable, denting it. He picked up a chair and threw it against the bulkhead, drove his fist through the small vidscreen built into the wall.

“Is everything all right, Darth Malgus?” the pilot called over the comm.

“Everything is fine,” Malgus said, though nothing was.

“Coming up on the spaceport now, my lord,” said the pilot.

ZEERID WATCHED T7 WORK, anxious. His internal clock was running. They needed to keep moving.