“Get your rest, my dear,” Marchion Ro said, placing his palm flat on the pod, feeling the warmth emanating from the machine. “You have so much work to do.”

She looked fetal—tiny and wizened, on her side, her hands curled up against her chest. The whole pod was like a womb in reverse—though he wasn’t sure there was another human in the galaxy further from the womb than this woman.

Marchion had told the Nihil the truth. He did have an archive of Paths, thousands of them. Mari had spent the decades charting hidden routes all across the galaxy, and they were all stored in a database, able to be called upon at will. The Nihil could appear anywhere he wanted, even atop Chancellor Soh’s palace, if he chose.

He wondered how long Mari would last. Long enough, he thought. He had found a supplier for the new miracle drug, bacta, which would probably help. It came from a world in the Hetzal system, which made Marchion laugh. He’d almost destroyed that planet.

Marchion Ro turned away from the sleeping Mari San Tekka. He left the chamber and descended three decks in his flagship. He walked through beautiful arched passageways, through large galleries, where once sermons were preached and dreams were built, and families worked and planned and considered a better way to live.

Until they didn’t.

Now, the Gaze Electric was empty. Haunted.

At last, after a long trek through the huge vessel, Marchion Ro arrived in an area with a very different feel from the tranquil, subtly lit room where Mari San Tekka whiled away her endless years.

Here the lights were bright. The edges were sharp. Everything was reflective. There was nowhere to look to gain peace, and even closing your eyes could only do so much against the glare.

The walls were metal, as were the floors. Eight cells. Seven held prisoners delivered to him by Pan Eyta—nobodies, snatched from a passenger transport headed to Travnin. Ordinary people who certainly did not deserve imprisonment on the Eye of the Nihil’s flagship.

Too bad. Life was rarely about what you deserved.

Seven of the occupied cells were wired to the ship’s electrical system, and programmed to shock their prisoners at random intervals and intensity levels. Between the shocks and the lights, sleep was impossible. Being placed in a cell on the prison deck of the Gaze Electric meant anger, pain, fear, and, eventually, madness.

And all of it designed specifically for the man in the eighth cell.

The Jedi.