A swivel-mounted command chair sat on the center of the bridge on a raised platform. Commander Jard stood beside it, one hand on its armrest, conferring with the man who sat in it. Jard glanced at Vrath and spoke to the man, whom Vrath assumed to be Darth Malgus. He activated his audial implant to hear the exchange.

“My lord,” Jard said. “The prisoner I spoke of is here.”

Malgus turned his eyes to Vrath and whatever smugness Vrath had felt over showing up some troopers sank under the weight of that gaze. Malgus rose and strode across the bridge toward Vrath. He stood well over two meters, and the black cape he wore looked like a pavilion tent.

He never took his eyes from Vrath’s face as he approached. Scars lined his face, and a network of blue veins made a patchwork of his bald pate. He was so pale he could have been a corpse, the walking dead. The small respirator he wore hid his mouth and lips. But it was his eyes that cowed Vrath. Malgus was all eyes. The sum of him, of his power, radiated outward from his bloodshot gaze.

He dismissed the guards who flanked Vrath and, with a gesture, used the Force to pry open the binders on Vrath’s wrists. They fell to the floor of the bridge with a dull clang.

“You mentioned a Jedi to Commander Jard.” His voice, deep and rough, sounded like stones grinding together.

“I did … my lord.” Malgus’s mere presence pulled the last words out of him.

“Explain.”

Vrath found it more difficult than he would have imagined to compose his thoughts. “A freighter is en route to Coruscant. A Jedi is aboard.”

“Just one?”

“As far as I know just one, yes,” Vrath said, nodding. “A woman. Human, mid-thirties, I’d say. Long, light brown hair. She is flying with a man named Zeerid Korr. As far as I know, they are the only crew.”

“How do you know this woman is a Jedi?”

Vrath was starting to feel cold. He had to work to keep his voice steady. “I saw her using a green lightsaber. I saw her do things with the Force.” He held up his hands to show Malgus his wrists, still red from the binders Malgus had unlocked. “Things like this.”

Malgus eased half a step closer to Vrath and Vrath felt decidedly overwhelmed. “Tell me then, Vrath Xizor, what else is aboard this ship and why and when it is coming to Coruscant?”

Vrath bumped up against the doors behind him. He considered lying but did not think he could pull it off.

“Engspice, my lord. The ship is carrying engspice.”

He saw connections being made, conclusions being drawn, and more questions forming in the deep wells of Malgus’s eyes.

“This Zeerid Korr is a spicerunner?”

“He is.”

“Why would a Jedi associate with a spicerunner, Vrath Xizor?”

“I … don’t know, my lord.”