With a primal roar, Elzar lit his lightsaber and plunged deeper into the nightmare the Nihil had created. His eyes streamed from the smoke, and his skin burned, but he didn’t care; in fact he welcomed it. He deserved it. Every scar the smog inflicted was a reminder that he needed to make amends. He needed to put things right.

A scream sounded ahead, followed by the growl of a chainsword. Elzar felt the pain of a victim and the perverse joy of their attacker and pushed himself to run faster, his lightsaber gripped tight.

He would bring justice.

High above the war-cloud, Indeera Stokes didn’t hear Mann’s lightsaber slice through a Nihil chainsword before driving deep into its wielder’s thick body. She was too busy trying not to get blown out of the sky.

The fight above Cyclor had been bad enough, but this was so much worse. The Nihil marauders were everywhere at once, strafing the ground, strafing the sky-islands, strafing the Republic Skyhawks. There was no rhyme or reason to their attack. They followed no pattern of formation that she could recognize. Their only tactic seemed to be killing as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time.

Indeera homed in on a stubby fighter that was hanging off the tail of a Republic flier. The Skyhawk was weaving back and forth, trying to present a moving target, but had already taken a hit, black smoke billowing from its starboard wing. The marauder was moving in for the kill. The last thing Indeera wanted was to end a life, but if she showed mercy then the Nihil pilot would go on to kill over and over. Even if she could get them to bail out, they would only continue their reign of terror on the ground.

Indeera jabbed her trigger, and the marauder erupted into flame. She took no pleasure in the moment. Every death was a failure, not a victory, even as the rescued Skyhawk waggled its damaged wings in thanks.

She brought her Vector around and looked for another regret to add to her tally.

Elzar Mann didn’t think of the souls he was sending to the Force. He cut through the Nihil like a clinical instrument. He’d started by remaining true to his teaching, disarming instead of killing as a good Jedi should, but the Nihil didn’t know when to give up. He ripped the masks from their faces, taking their weapons first and then their arms, but still the brutes kept coming, fueled by bloodlust or drugs or most probably both. Elzar didn’t know, and for one terrible moment he didn’t care. The Nihil were acting like animals, and like animals they’d be put down.