“And all those Storms and Clouds and Strikes in our Tempests? The ones who follow us, believe in us. What about them?” Lourna Dee said.

Kassav shrugged. “They can do whatever they want. They want to keep the Nihil going, keep riding the storm, that’s their business. Nothing saying we can’t ever retire. What, we gotta be Tempest Runners until the day we die? What about living off the spoils of a lifetime of hard work?”

Pan Eyta snorted. “You think they’ll see it that way? They’ll think we cut and run.”

Kassav shrugged again. “The Nihil are about freedom, right? Do what you want, when you want. Well, maybe I want to get the hell out of here before a Jedi pulls out their lightsaber and cuts off my head.”

“Didn’t you once say you wanted to fight a Jedi?” Marchion Ro said, his tone mild. “Get yourself a good story to tell?”

Kassav said nothing.

This is the moment, Marchion thought.

He punched Kassav right in his stupid, cunning, savage face. Marchion’s gloves were reinforced with armored plates and acceleration compensators; he could punch a hole in a durasteel wall and not feel a twinge of pain. He heard the sound as Kassav’s stupid, cunning, savage nose crumpled under his fist, and by the Path it felt good.

Pan Eyta and Lourna Dee didn’t move. They seemed stunned. This was not something the Eye did. The Eye didn’t fight, especially not the Runners. He didn’t have a Tempest to back him up. The Eye got a third of the take and was happy with it.

Change can be challenging, my friends, Marchion thought.

Kassav staggered back, his eyes gone wide, blood gushing from his nose—but only for a second. The man was no stranger to pain, and Marchion supposed he was no stranger to surprise punches in the face, either. Kassav’s eyes narrowed and his hand ducked inside his fur cape, where he kept a secret blaster in violation of the Great Hall’s rules. Marchion had known about it for years.

Marchion whipped up his arm, and one of the vibro-stars he kept in a sheath along his wrist whickered out. It sheared through half of Kassav’s hand along with the butt of his blaster, and chunks of metal and flesh fell to the floor.

Kassav, to his credit, tried to keep fighting. Blood spurted from his nose and sprayed from what was left of his right hand, and yet he lunged forward, swinging a pretty credible punch with his left.

Marchion caught it, spun, and threw Kassav to the platform. He landed with a hollow, wet sound in a pool of his own blood.

“Nngh!” Kassav said, the first sound he’d made since the fight began—the man was tough, there was no doubt about it.