Every Nihil was expected to contribute. Either you made the organization richer, or you made it stronger. And one way to make something stronger…was by removing what was weak.

A body drifted away into the void of No-Space, still moving. Not for long.

Pan Eyta turned back to the Nihil. He spread his arms, taking them all in, while gesturing simultaneously at the feast tables and fountains filled with various intoxicants, and death sticks and piles of uppowder and downfire.

“Now enjoy yourselves, my friends,” he said. “You’ve earned this.”

He stepped down from the table as the Nihil resumed their celebrations. If any of them harbored misgivings about what had just occurred, they kept it hidden, behind masks and fistfuls of food and sniffs of powder. Music kicked up—loud, with a sound like sheets of metal being hammered in complex polyrhythms.

“We need to talk,” Marchion Ro said, looking at the three Tempest Runners.

Kassav frowned. “It’s a party, Marchion. Didn’t you hear Pan? Lots to celebrate. Why don’t you just relax?”

Marchion Ro stared at the man for a full three seconds.

“There’s business to discuss,” he said. “It’s important, and I want to talk about it while we’re all in the same place, and before you three get too drunk to think.”

The Tempest Runners looked at one another, none of them happy.

Lourna Dee shrugged. “Fine, Marchion, fine. Let’s go on back.”

Marchion Ro stepped down off the raised platform and walked toward the far end of the platform, the Tempest Runners falling in at his side. Nihil at all levels reached out to them, offering hands in greeting, desperate to make some connection with the organization’s leadership.

The group reached a small structure built at the far end of the Great Hall; it housed the air lock and docking mechanisms, as well as a small complex of rooms that offered privacy, when required. Two droid sentries guarded its entrance, and bowed their heads as Marchion and the Tempest Runners passed. The droids were well over two meters tall, matte-black, and in lieu of even rudimentary features, the three lightning bolts of the Nihil glowed on their faceplates in sharp blue-white. They carried no weapons, and needed none. Their limbs and bodies were studded with sharp spikes, their hands set in fists made of heavy alloys that could smash bone and tissue into pulp.

Inside, once the entry portal had sealed, Marchion turned to face Kassav, Lourna Dee, and Pan Eyta, each solely responsible for and with complete authority over a Tempest, one of the three great divisions of the Nihil.

“Good party,” Kassav said.

Kassav was always the first to talk. Predictable as the sunrise. Either he hated silence, or he was pathologically focused on ensuring no one ever forgot he was there.