Another blast fired from the lightninglike weapon, emanating from the largest vessel in the Nihil force, the warship at its center. It hit one of the other freighters, which went cold and dead, as had the Maree’s Diligence. Everyone left in the convoy assumed that this ship, too, would shortly be ripped apart and plundered by the Nihil corpse-flies.

Indeed, enemy ships surrounded the disabled freighter, and the cables shot out again…but this time something different happened. Perhaps the freighter’s reactor was not completely inert, or some other error was made, but the cargo ship exploded. A ball of white light enveloped the Garello Technologies vessel as well as many of the swarm of Nihil surrounding it, and while Larence Garello’s heart ached at more of his people lost, he felt a beat of savage triumph at the thought that at least they had taken some of the bastards with them.

“We’re being boarded,” Captain Odabba said, his voice grim, staring at the alerts and threat indicators rippling across his screens. “I’ll open the weapons locker. We don’t have enough blasters for everyone. Anyone with military experience gets priority. Everyone else…find something to fight with.”

He moved away from the command console toward the bridge annex, where the freighter’s limited complement of weaponry was stored.

But before he could take two steps, the bridge hatch smashed open, as if kicked inward by a giant. It skidded across the deck, smashing into and presumably killing a member of Captain Odabba’s crew. The Klatooinian woman died without making a sound.

Three white canisters shot into the room from the exterior corridor. Before they hit the deck, they exploded, and the bridge was filled with thick, dense, blue-gray gas. It was instantaneous. One moment the air was breathable, the next it was like being lost in a fog…or a storm cloud, perhaps.

Larence Garello tried to hold his breath, but the shock of the events had left his heart racing, and he was not as young as he once was. He took in a gasp of air—but it was not air, and his system reacted near instantaneously to the poison.

He looked up to the hatchway, where the Nihil were entering the bridge. He saw them through swimming, fading vision, saw the masks they wore, and knew that whatever they were beneath, they wanted the galaxy to see them as monsters.

Larence Garello sucked in one final, burning breath, and knew he would not be one of those rare few to survive an encounter with the Nihil.

Part Two

Chapter Nineteen