But no one was looking at the Dowutin. All the Nihil were looking at Ro. Pan didn’t yet realize his error in trying to usurp Ro with an audience, or at the least waiting before firing a shot. The only way he could’ve won was to shoot Ro in the back before Ro even knew that Pan was there, but, as always, the Dowutin was more concerned with showboating than actually seizing control. It would be his undoing, maybe not now, in this moment, but soon enough. One thing was certain: Ro had the Nihil and wasn’t about to let them go. Not to Pan. Not to anyone.

“You ask me where I’ve been? I’ve been out there,” Ro continued, pointing up into the gathering clouds above their heads, “in the very stars Pan wants to burn, the stars we all want to burn. And do you know what I’ve seen? The Republic … The Jedi … Her.”

Pan snorted, ready to shout Ro down, but instead Lourna spoke up, asking the question he had planted in all their heads.

“Who, Ro? Who is out there?”

The Twi’lek hadn’t drawn her blaster. Her hand still rested on its grip, but Ro knew where her loyalties lay. With whoever was stronger, and Ro was about to prove he was the strongest of all. His head high, the Eye of the Nihil uttered three powerful words.

“Chancellor Lina Soh. Everything that woman does is an affront to our way of life. She comes into our systems,” he said, thumping his chest to punctuate the words, “our territories, our space, tells us how to live, how to think. And so we strike back. We strike time and time again. We smash her hyper-lanes. Ravage her worlds. Kill her Jedi. And what does Lina Soh do? She laughs at us. She taunts us. We strike at her, and yet her Republic grows day by day.” Again, he pointed to the sky. “I’ve seen it for myself. Even now, Lina Soh is planning a spectacle to end all spectacles—the Republic Fair. Millions of her advocates, her followers … her sheep, arriving from every system to march beneath her colors. And not just the Republic. Their allies, even their enemies are invited. The Mon Calamari … the Togrutas … And why? So their numbers continue to swell. So their influence grows—but I say no! No more!”

Ro paused, letting his cry echo around the square, before making a solemn vow.

“They didn’t invite the Nihil, but by the stars we will be there. And we will crush the real enemy, the symbol of their hope and their resilience.

“Death to the Chancellor,” he cried out in conclusion, punching the air with a fist. “Death to Soh.”

The chant went up, the warband seizing on his words in an instant, Zeetar leading the chorus like the good little soldier he was.

Death to the Chancellor.

Death to Soh.