The genius in question was on another screen, a comms droid projecting his holo against one of the briefing chamber’s other blank walls. Tarr had stayed on the Rooted Moon in Hetzal, and was using his array to process the data retrieved from the Legacy Run’s flight recorder. The massive, stitched-together computer brain had been completely repaired from the damage suffered when it first activated. In fact, not just repaired, but enhanced. Chancellor Soh had ordered Transportation Secretary Lorillia to provide Keven Tarr with as many navidroids as he needed. If he wanted a million, he was to get them, no matter the cost.

“Can someone summarize our conclusions thus far, please?” Lina Soh said.

Everyone looked at Avar. Somehow she had become the leader of the task force, despite sharing the room with an admiral, a senator, and various other high-level luminaries.

“We have learned that a group calling themselves the Nihil was directly connected to the catastrophe in Hetzal and the subsequent Emergences. They’re a low-level marauder operation working in the Outer Rim—raiders, basically. They’ve done some terrible things, but they’re a regional problem, handled by defense forces and security teams on a case-by-case basis. As bad as they are, they’re small time.

“It seems—though this is informed speculation—that whatever happened in Hetzal gave them the ability to predict Emergences, much like Keven Tarr’s navidroid array. They’ve used that ability twice that we’re aware of. First, in Eriadu, as part of a botched extortion attempt. And second, at the fortieth Emergence, where they attempted to prevent our teams from retrieving the Legacy Run’s flight recorder, as they knew it would tie all of this directly back to them.”

“That’s where we lost one of your colleagues, the Jedi Knight Te’Ami, and two brave pilots in a Longbeam—Marcus Augur and Beth Petters, correct?”

Avar inclined her head slightly in silent agreement. The chancellor considered for a moment, scratching behind her targon’s ear and getting an appreciative purr in response.

“Do we think these Nihil caused the Legacy Run disaster on purpose?”

“It doesn’t seem like it,” Elzar Mann said.

He gestured to the main vidscreen, which was still displaying the Nihil ship crossing through hyperspace, running on a loop.

“This is clearly a ship, and armed. If they wanted to destroy the Legacy Run, they could have fired their weapons. They didn’t. The Legacy Run just tore itself apart trying to evade this thing. Besides, as Master Kriss pointed out, this is a bunch of Outer Rim raiders. Opportunists, not planners. This all seems like a horrible accident.”

“An accident that they promptly tried to profit from at Eriadu,” Senator Noor said, pounding his fist on the table. “An accident that has cost the Outer Rim Territories dearly in lives, opportunity, and treasure. They must be held responsible.”