Relin stood amid the Massassi he had slaughtered. "Jump out of the system. With their ships clear, the cannons may fire."

"They're preparing for a jump, Master. They won't risk firing."

"They may. Jump out, Drev."

"I am not leaving you."

"Jump, Drev. That is an order."

"No."

Relin cocked his head. "No?"

"I'm not leaving, Master. Both ships are in jump prep. Neither will risk firing."

Relin shook his head, incredulous at his Padawan's stand. "You are leaving. Harbinger will not be able to jump, but Omen will. There's nothing we can do about that now. But we can warn Odan-Urr and Mernit Nadill about the ore and what it can do. That is your task."

"No, I won't. We go together or not at all."

Relin lost his calm for the first time since coming aboard the dreadnought.

"You will do it and do it now. That is a direct order."

"You're breaking up, Master."

"Blast it, Drev! You heard-"

"Understood, Master. I will get in close, scrape the surface of the ship. The laser cannons from Omen will not be able to engage me there, and for Harbinger it will be like using a club to swat a fly. Get to an escape pod and we'll dock. Out. And they won't fire anyway. Out, again."

The link went quiet. "Drev? Drev?"

His Padawan did not respond.

"Blast!"

"You have a way of losing your Padawans," said a coarse voice behind him, a voice that Relin still heard in the quiet, solitary moments of his life when he had only his failures for company.

"Saes." The word came out a curse, and Relin accompanied its pronunciation with the sizzling sound that came with activation of his lightsaber.

The Sith entered from the same corridor Relin had used. He wore the loose browns and blacks favored by dark side users. The red blade of his lightsaber filled the space between them. His scaly, reddish brown skin was the color of blood. He strode among the scattered Massassi parts that littered the bloody floor of the chamber, his eye ridge cocked, a sneer curling his lip over one of the small horns that jutted from the side of his jaw. His long hair, bound into a rope with bone circlets, hung to his waist.

"I should have known it was you on my ship. Who else but a Jedi? Who else but Relin Druur? I learned such things from you." He shook his head, poked a Massassi corpse with a toe. "It seems long ago now."

"You destroyed every life-form on that moon. You learned nothing from me."

Saes laughed, the sound fat with contempt. "I learned much from you, but it was not what you sought to teach. You should not have come here, Relin. But then you always were the fool."

"There are many things I should not have done."

Saes's eyes narrowed at that.

Shouts carried from three of the corridors that opened onto the chamber.

Relin said, "Your servants will arrive soon."

Saes raised a clawed hand and the blast doors closed, one after another, blocking the corridors from which Relin had heard the sounds of pursuit.

"This is between us, and is long overdue. Do you agree?"

They approached each other, circled at four paces, lightsabers blazing. Saes was the taller between them, the physically stronger, but Relin was faster.

"I do."

Relin's chrono continued its countdown. Thirty-three seconds.

"I have missed your company from time to time," Saes said, and Relin heard sincerity in the words.

"You have chosen a lonely path, Saes. It is never too late to turn away."

Saes smiled around his horns, an expression that did not reach his eyes, and the hollowness of the expression reminded Relin of the gulf between the natures of his first Padawan and his second.

"You have chosen the lonely path. The Jedi teach denial of self. That is their weakness. No sentient can long abide that. The Sith embrace the self, and therein lies their strength."

"You understand so little," Relin said. "The Jedi teach the interdependence of life. The understanding that all is connected."

A flash of anger animated Saes's eyes, and he spit at Relin's feet. "A lie. You tried to steal what is best in me, to make me as empty as you."

Relin sneered, but Saes bored deeper.

"When is the last time you felt anything with passion? When is the last time you laughed, Relin? Felt a woman's touch? When?"

The words cut close to bone, echoing, as they did, Relin's own thoughts about his training of Drev.

Saes must have seen it in Relin's expression. "Ah, I see you've thought of these matters yourself. And you were right to think them. It is never too late for you to learn wisdom. Join me, Relin. I will present you to Master Sadow myself."

"I think not," Relin said.

"Very well," Saes answered. He reached down to a pouch at his belt. "May I?"

Relin knew what he would draw forth and nodded.

Saes removed a white memory mask from the pouch, placed it before his face. It adhered, shaping itself into a likeness of the skull of an erkush, one of the largest predators on Kalee.

"You used to wear a mask of real bone," Relin said.

"I reserve that now for only special prey," Saes said, and attacked.

THE PRESENT: 41.5 YEARS AFTER THE BATTLE OF YAVIN

Jaden's ship emerged from hyperspace and the navicomp automatically removed the tint of his cockpit window while R6 confirmed coordinates. Jaden checked the readout. They'd had a good jump and re-entered realspace at the edge of the Unknown Regions.

"Well done, Arsix."

Ahead, Fhost spun through space, night side facing out. He saw only an old weathersat and commsat in orbit. Like many planets so far out on the Rim, Fhost had no orbital dock and processing station, no planetary defenses, no sign of Galactic Alliance bureaucracy at all. The population of Fhost was on its own.

He felt a sudden, overwhelming impulse to throw away everything and start anew on some wild, independent backworld like Fhost, free of rules and obligations, but he had enough self-awareness to recognize the feeling for what it was: a desire to run away from his old life, not a desire to run to a new one.

He engaged the ion engines on his customized Z-95 and sped around the planet, outpacing its spin, chasing the day, until he saw the system's star crest the horizon line.

"Put us in geosynchronous orbit, Arsix," he said, and the droid complied.

Jaden stared out the cockpit's window as the planet rotated into day. Light filled his cockpit and washed over the planet's surface by increments, unveiling a quilt of clouds floating over the red, orange, and tan of vast deserts, the blue smear of an ocean, the spine of a mountain range that ran the length of the main continent. To Jaden, it was like watching the slow reveal of a masterful work of art, a sculpture of land and water, wondrous in its lonely, whirling trek through the emptiness of space. He always tried to see a starcrest from orbit before setting foot on a planet. He wasn't sure why-maybe he wanted to see every world in its best light before putting down on its surface.

Unbidden, he recalled a starcrest over Corellia that he'd seen from a viewport aboard Centerpoint Station as he and his strike force had moved through the metal maze of its corridors.

He dismissed the memory quickly, pained by the realization that his actions on Centerpoint had polluted even this, one of the small pleasures he had long enjoyed.

Frowning, he looked out of the cockpit, past Fhost, and into the field of stars that dotted the Unknown Regions.

"There be dragons," he said, smiling.

R6 beeped a question.

"Something Kyle once said to me," Jaden explained.

What you seek can be found in the black hole on Fhost.

Fhost's largest population center was Farpoint. He would start there, keep an ear to ground, and try to figure out how something could start in the lightlessness of a black hole. He'd pose as a salvager with old Imperial-era hulks to sell for scrap. The fact that he piloted a Z-95 would add credibility to the claim.