Had he been surprised when Ro approached him about this mission? Of course he had. He had no idea the Eye even knew his name, let alone what he could do in the pilot’s seat. Dis had spent the last few years serving on the Cloudship of a saw-mouthed Crocin who went by the name of Scarspike, a thug who spent more time abusing his crew than planning raids. And it showed. Dis had killed Scarspike after a botched attack on Serenno’s funeral moon. They had lost three Nihil that day, but Scarspike had lost more, Dis opening his scrawny throat with a slash of a wingblade. Dis had no idea if the Cloud’s slaughter had first brought him to the Eye’s attention. Maybe, maybe not. All Dis knew was that he suddenly found himself elevated beyond the Strikes and the Clouds and all the Nihil’s ranks to join Ro’s personal retinue. His aggrandizement didn’t go unnoticed. The Nihil had a strict hierarchy. You started as a lowly Strike, working your way up to Cloud and eventually to Storm. The Nihil horde was organized into three Tempests, each commanded by a Tempest Runner. There was Pan Eyta, a towering Dowutin with ideas above his station, the cold and efficient Twi’lek Lourna Dee, and the latest appointment, a scheming Talpini known as Zeetar. It was fair to say that the Talpini’s promotion had put Pan’s squashed nose out of joint. Dis’s sudden promotion had only rankled him further. Pan and Dis had almost come to blows, the Dowutin claiming that Ro was undermining the Nihil’s Rule of Three. Unlike the Tempest Runners, the Eye was supposed to have no crew of his own. Yes, he had the casting vote when making plans, and yes, he provided the navigational Paths that the Nihil used to avoid Republic entanglement (well, most of the time, at least). Dis suspected that if it weren’t for the Paths, Pan would have sent Ro spinning out of an air lock long ago, but the navigational aids were too valuable. They gave the Nihil the edge, so Eyta’s concerns fell on deaf ears. Dis was welcomed aboard Ro’s vast flagship, the Gaze Electric, which was largely maintained by a crew of silent droids, its many chambers empty, like a palace with no occupants. It was here, in Ro’s inner sanctum, that Dis had learned they were heading to Rystan on a private mission—not that they could have taken the Gaze, of course. The ship rarely left the Nihil’s base on Grizal, and even then split itself into a smaller secondary craft that left the bulk of the Gaze behind, but even that would be too cumbersome to make it through the ice field in one piece. They needed something smaller. They needed the Squall Spider.