All three of those Storms were on the bridge of the New Elite, and they’d all blown smash right when he did. He didn’t know if they’d all taken the rounder, or if the Clouds and Strikes in their crews had, either…but that was all right. A little edge wasn’t such a bad thing. The Nihil were all about edge. It wouldn’t be a problem, as long as everyone did what they were told.

And everyone would. That was the other thing that made the Nihil such a great system, even if this particular truth was hidden down deep, making it hard to see unless you were near the top of the organization. On the surface, the Nihil were all about freedom, about breaking away from the galaxy’s systems of control. Forget the Republic, forget the Hutts, forget anything but doing what you wanted when you wanted. That was the sales pitch, how they got people to join up. Ride the storm, baby, ride that storm.

But once you were a Nihil, you still had a boot on your chest, even if you didn’t always feel it because of all of the burn parties and smash and the thrill of taking what you wanted, when you wanted. You still had to do exactly what your bosses above you said, and the bosses above them. If you didn’t, at best you didn’t get your share of the Rule of Three. At worst, you got a vibroblade in your neck, or you got thrown out of the Great Hall the hard way. Everyone had to stay in line, everyone paid their price. Well, everyone but Marchion Ro and the Tempest Runners—him, Lourna Dee, and that flashy brute Pan Eyta, did he even realize how stupid he looked, a Dowutin trying to be fashionable? Anyway.

The Nihil was just another form of control, an engine designed to roll credits up to the people at the top of the organization.

Yeah, good little system.

Kassav surveyed his crew, the upper echelons of his Tempest. Gravhan, Wet Bub, and there was Dellex right up front, her one organic eye gleaming from the smash—oh yeah, she definitely hadn’t taken that rounder—and their crews arranged behind them.

“Here’s what we’re gonna do,” Kassav said. “We’re gonna string these jerks along, make them pay us so much money there won’t be more than two credits left in the whole blasted system. We’re gonna take ’em for everything they’ve got, and they’ll be happy we did.”

Everyone liked that—lots of savage grins and appreciative words from the crew.