“So—so you could go home—to your queen.” Cassel smiled weakly. “Invite the—the next monarch—to…”

His voice trailed off. His eyes went blank. Cassel was dead.

The queen leaned down, resting her forehead against Cassel’s shoulder, and surrendered to tears. “He gave his life for mine.”

“Then he died nobly,” said Master Laret, putting one hand on Queen Thandeka’s back. “He will be remembered.”

Orla’s instincts had told her to go after Isamer immediately. Why hadn’t she listened to them?

Because that’s not what the Jedi Order says to do, she reminded herself. It would be many years before she fully reckoned with that moment, and realized that if the Order was telling her to ignore the Force…it wasn’t the Force that was wrong.

Cohmac watched Queen Thandeka with an emotion so strange it took him a few seconds to recognize it as envy.

She could cry for her loss. He could not even acknowledge his.

Master Simmix would’ve told me to bury the grief, Cohmac told himself. There’s no place for it in the Jedi. No place for it within you.

So he buried it as deeply as a mine.

One that could wait years before exploding.

A few days later, and half a galaxy away, word of the Directorate’s failure reached the Hutts. Reports indicated that not only had Lord Isamer been killed, but the information gathered at the kidnappers’ lair had allowed the authorities to track down and arrest nearly every top official in the entire organization. The Directorate was gone.

Which was just what the Hutts had hoped for.

They’d set up a fool’s errand. Laid a snare. The Directorate had been fool enough to step in it gladly. Now the only major criminal syndicate in that area of space was no more.

So whenever the Hutts decided to move in—be that one year later, or twenty-five—nothing would stand in their way.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Reath had to buy the others time. But how? Desperately he looked around the chaotic scene surrounding him in the station’s central globe. It took only a moment for him to find a possibility.

As he’d noted earlier, one larger, irregularly shaped airlock to the side opened directly onto the arboretum area. He could see the controls only a few meters away. He crawled over to check them out. All signs suggested they were fully operational.

What he was about to do might kill him. But it was the only way to eliminate both the Drengir and Nihil threats to the Vessel at once.

Besides, maybe he could make it. Exhale, he reminded himself. Exhale and hang on with all your strength. That’s your only chance.

With that, Reath eliminated the time delay, clutched a nearby service ladder, breathed out hard, and hit VENT.