And there it was—Hague’s anger, no longer masked. In him it was not a sudden flame of temper but a deeply banked, volcanic heat that roiled on and on. Nor was his anger purely for himself; this was something he bore for his people. Cohmac wondered who the Nihil were—where they must have come from—to carry such wrath as their birthright.

He said only, “None of that answers the question. Why do you attack us?”

“We were the only ones stranded here—but misfortune fell on our entire Cloud.”

Hague spoke as though they should know what “Cloud” referred to. Probably a subset of the Nihil, Cohmac reasoned.

Meanwhile, Hague continued, “What should have been a moment of supreme triumph is instead indignity. When we are asked for our trawl, we will have almost nothing to offer, and they might cast us out.” A gleam came into his eyes. “But if we offer them the lives of the Jedi—and the secrets of this space station—those will make up for everything. Now that the rest of our Cloud is here, we can finally act.”

Hague lifted his blaster and fired—not at the Jedi but at the shield doors behind them. They slid shut with a heavy bang, sealing them in. Cohmac and Orla exchanged glances that revealed they’d each looked for an exit and found none.

“Your sorcery cannot save you,” Hague said. But he appeared somewhat shaken.

“We don’t need sorcery,” Orla shot back. She always did let herself be baited a little too quickly. “We have lightsabers.”

Hague no longer wanted to engage with them; Cohmac could not tell whether the man was intimidated or merely moving on. Hague’s head turned as he spoke into a small comlink pinned to the lapel of his jacket: “Intruders aboard the station are confirmed. Two Jedi. Possibly others, as movement in the transport areas of the station has also been detected.”

Transport areas? Cohmac filed that away for later reference—assuming there was a later.

From Hague’s comlink came a harsh voice: “Send a team to investigate the transport areas and clear them. Hold the Jedi. Another team will join for the extermination.”

Affie didn’t want to leave her mission unfinished. But the Jedi were already in trouble. That meant Leox and Geode might be, too. While she hadn’t been able to identify every strange sound ricocheting through the station in the past few hours, the last loud bangs had definitely been blaster fire striking metal. She wanted her friends to leave the station alive, which meant putting her mission aside for a while.

At least they’d rearmed themselves, as Leox had suggested. She put one hand on the lone thermal detonator in her bag, just to reassure herself it was there. It would be better not to fight at all, but if the Nihil had started a fight, Affie wanted to know she could end it.