Oren’s voice never lost its calm, but the edge on it could have gouged armor. “The understanding has changed, contingent, as it was, on your successful completion of assignments. You owe us a large sum of credits and you owe me a large sum of face. You will make up both with a few spiceruns. That’s where the credits are. So that’s where you will be.”

Zeerid said nothing, could say nothing.

“Are we clear, Z-man?”

Zeerid scowled but said, “Clear.”

“Return to Vulta. I will be in touch soon. I have something in mind already.”

I’ll bet you do, Zeerid thought but didn’t say.

The channel closed and Zeerid let fly with a sleet storm of expletives. When he had finally vented, he cleared Ord Mantell’s gravity well and its moons, set a course for Vulta, and engaged the hyperdrive.

“I’m a spicerunner, now,” he said, as the black of space turned to the blue of hyperspace.

The treadmill under his feet had just picked up speed.

ARYN FELT DIZZY. A rush of emotion flooded her. She could not name it, categorize it. It was just a wash of inchoate, raw feeling. She was swimming in it, sinking.

“Something is happening, Syo,” she said, her voice tight. “I don’t know what it is, but it is not good.”

MASTER ZALLOW and the six Jedi Knights near Malgus leapt back and up, flipping at the top of the arc of their leaps, and landed in a crouch twenty meters away.

“May the Force be with you all,” Zallow shouted to his fellow Jedi, and lit his blade.

Dozens more Jedi poured out of the hallway behind him and flowed down the staircase, the blades of their lightsabers visible through the smoke and dust, a forest of green and blue oriflammes. The Jedi did not shout as they charged, but the rumble of their boots and sandals on the floor sounded like rolling thunder.

“Stay near me,” Malgus said over his shoulder to Eleena.

“Yes,” she said, her blasters already in hand.

Malgus’s Sith charged out of the carcass of the drop ship, their collective roar the sound of a hungry, rage-filled beast. The red lines of their blades cut the dust-covered air. Lord Adraas, a political favorite of Darth Angral and constant irritant to Malgus, led them. Like all of the Sith warriors save Malgus, a dark mask obscured his face entirely.

Malgus used his distaste for Adraas to further feed his anger. He had requested that Darth Angral allow him to lead the attack alone, but Angral had insisted that Adraas lead the drop ship team.

Discarding his cloak, discarding the remaining restraints on his rage, Malgus joined the Sith charge, taking position before Adraas. Emotion fed his power, and its swell fairly lifted him from his feet. He felt the power of the dark side around him, within him.