Pan didn’t know that Ro could move so quickly. The Eye’s arm shot up and a yellow lightsaber appeared at Pan’s throat, the blade so close he felt his skin burn. Big mistake. Huge mistake. Pan struck, grabbing Ro’s arm and slamming it into the table, the glass cracking with the impact. That would have been the end of it, should have been the end of it, if Ro hadn’t swung up with his other hand and jabbed … what … a needle into Pan’s neck? Pan staggered back, his hand pressed tight over the puncture wound. He looked down, seeing some kind of device sliding back beneath Ro’s sleeve, an injector on a tiny mechanical arm.

Pan tried to speak, to demand to know what the crik Ro had just stuck him with, but no words came. His throat was too tight, his vision blurred. He sagged, his weight suddenly too much for his legs to bear. His head bounced off the side of the table as he collapsed, but he hardly felt the pain against the fire that burned through his veins. All the time Ro was speaking, his words echoing as Pan’s muscles started to shake.

“You see, this is your problem, Pan,” Ro said, pointing at him with the lightsaber. “You’re so quick to respond that you never see the real attack coming. We started a war today, and you can be sure that there’ll be a response. But the Republic doesn’t know where we are. The Tempests need to scatter, to rebuild, while fear and paranoia spread like a plague from one end of the galaxy to the other.” Ro extinguished the weapon and returned it to his belt. “The Republic will tear itself apart and then—when I say—we will reap the harvest, but you, Pan with your ambition and your thirst for glory …”

Ro’s fist came down across Pan’s face, a hit for every word.

“You … will … not … see … it.”

Pan tried to gasp as the onslaught ended but couldn’t draw breath. The voices he heard seemed a million kilometers away, but he clung to them, even though he could barely tell them apart.

“Go start the revels. I will be on the Gaze.”

Pan didn’t hear Ro leave. He was already blind. He knew what this would look like, when his body was eventually found. They’d say he overindulged, took one too many stims. It’s what he would do. Ro had taken it all from him … Pan’s victory … his victory … and there was no way to make the bastard pay.

Was there?