PART EIGHT: PIECES IN PLACE

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Setting the Stage

Dammit dammit dammit gods damn it.

This had been the constant refrain running through Padmé's mind since the moment she'd said yes to her husband. Sometimes the intensity would increase, sometimes it would fall beneath a louder set of thoughts, but it hadn't paused in the days that followed.

From the time she'd learned to talk, the one thing she'd been good at was speaking her mind, damn the consequences. Whether it earned her beatings from her parents or pained looks from all manner of friends and partners, she'd made it a point of honor: if you can't do anything else, don't shut up. Let them know you're here.

But she'd gone to the apartment knowing she had to surprise Anakin. Wait for his guard to go down. Talk to him like she used to, like someone who loved her husband would. Only then, once he'd bared his soul, could she do the same. Obi-Wan is in trouble. I'm in trouble. You work for the most powerful man in the Republic. We need your help. Will you or won't you, plain and simple.

She'd been managing the first part just fine. Then he'd asked what he'd asked, and the road to getting back into his good graces had gotten a lot harder.

Obi-Wan, she thought for the umpteenth time, I promise you, I am working on this. It's just a little wrinkle in the plan, is all.

"Yeah, little wrinkle in the plan," she muttered to herself as she let out a long breath and laid her forehead against the door to the ship's head. "Two Sith Lords. No Force. No lightsabers. Little."

Rubbing furiously at the snippet of wood that hung from her neck, she swallowed, and shoved open the hatch.

Beyond her—for the first time in months—lay the rest of the Spice Dancer.

"You okay?" Anakin asked as she pushed into the armory, concern furrowing his brow. He pulled a heavy black glove over his mechanical hand, then the other onto his flesh hand—blastweave, as was the rest of his clothing.

Not for the first time this trip, Padmé found herself questioning what that concern could mean. Does he suspect something? Does he somehow know about the gods-damned kid?

Or is he just . . . worried. For me.

Aloud, she gave a noncommittal grunt and grabbed her pistol from the weapons bench, shoved it into her holster. "I guess the air disagrees with me. We did leave her in storage a longass time."

"I hadn't noticed." He bit down on his lip quickly enough that she knew he thought she couldn't see, then said, "Take anything you want. Courtesy of the Grand Army."

She snorted. "Is that what they call the spoils of treason these days." Quickly, before he could get jumpy: "Hey, I'm just being a jerk. Thanks."

Touching the arms and armaments before her was simple. Mechanical. Something she could do without consciously thinking about it, without hesitating to weigh her response. Laying her hands on cold metal, things felt almost normal.

Just another job, Amidala. Make him happy, then get his help.

One, two, three flashbang grenades clipped to her belt, snapping into place with a satisfying click. Combat knife to her free hip—wait, no, she thought, before stripping off the duraplast sheath. She hunted around for a moment or two, then spotted it—her old leather sheath, right where she'd left it. Slid the knife inside, strapped it to her belt.

At her side, Anakin wordlessly performed a mirror of her own actions. Blaster hanging low on his hip—he'd switched to favoring a newer Westar model, she noticed—and a stun baton strapped tight to the other. Incendiaries in an array along his chest, underneath the blastweave coat. He stopped to consider a sawed-off she'd swiped from a mark back on Dantooine, decided against it—settled on what looked like a machine pistol in its place.

How easy this part was. How little it had changed.

At random, Padmé plucked from the table a few Grand Army gadgets Anakin had brought, tossed them in her pack. Then, the preliminaries finished, she considered the main event.

A rectangular case—matte black, lightweight, impossible to notice against the dark of their clothes. Within lay three pieces of a rifle that, when assembled, would also be matte black and lightweight, and hopefully also very hard to notice.

"You sure you don't wanna take this?" she asked, running her hand over the smooth surface of the case. "This whole thing was your idea."

"You helped," Anakin replied, a waver of his old smirk flitting across his face. "You're the brains of the operation, remember?"

She raised her eyebrow in her best impression of feisty Padmé. "I'm the only one who has brains, but unfortunately you're the mastermind on this one."

The smirk grew a bit more genuine. "I am, thanks very much. Besides, you were always the better shot." He nodded at the rifle. "Take it."

"Flattery will get you nowhere, Skywalker." But she picked up the case.

"Boy, I wish we could have contacted Typhoon for this," her husband said, shuffling from foot to foot in that absurdly boyish way he still had sometimes. "Too much to ask when they're still bouncing back from what happened at Kuat, but . . . we could use them."

Her stomach, which had attained something like equilibrium, plummeted again. Bringing up Obi-Wan's former division that casually, their old comrades from the Coelacanth . . . would Anakin have done that if he already knew about what had happened? Was it just an honest sentiment? Or was it bait?

No time to think, she thought, snapping the case to her back. "Yeah, well, our plans always go best when they're stupid."

At that, he visibly relaxed. He looked at her with very sudden, very genuine love in his eyes. "Hey, we haven't made a stupid plan in a while, have we?"

Padmé felt sick.

But on the outside, she smiled back. Reached upward, put a hand on his shoulder. Held his gaze.

"Hey," she made herself say. "Let's go end the war."

In an unprecedented situation, the Spice Dancer was the cleanest ship in eyeshot. Its hull—starting to go to rust again after the years in storage—nevertheless looked almost pristine against the backdrop of weathered husks that were littered across the ship graveyard whose outskirts they'd touched down on. Useful cover, but Anakin's face wrinkled in disgust as he breathed deeply. The air here was dry, sapped of life despite its proximity to the coast. Flecks of something abrasive needled at his face as they floated through the air—when he rubbed a gloved hand across the skin, it came away stained with dull brown. More rust.

As she emerged from the Dancer, Padmé grimaced, her tongue running across her lips as if she could taste the stuff. "This much metal supposed to be in the air?"

"Seems like this place is a bit of a hellhole," Anakin replied, pulling his hood further down in an attempt to stave off some contact with oxidized flakes. "Figures the two of them would wind up here." When she continued to stand there, brow furrowed, he asked, "You okay?"

Her hand ran across her midriff, leaving rust streaks. "Sure I am. Let's go."

As she fell into step with him, Anakin felt something at his side. When he looked down, her gloved hand was grasping his, arm swinging lightly back and forth with his as they strode toward the city.

Resisting the urge to grin, he squeezed her fingers.

The towers before them weren't much, but compared to the relative flatness of the vicinity they still felt like a metropolis. "They've got a pretty good setup," Anakin murmured to his wife as they walked, eyes briefly wandering to follow a corsair ship lifting off. "Sure, their backs are to the sea, but that means they only have to defend on one front from the ground. And that's basically blocked off by the ship graveyard, it'd take ages to clear out any pirates shored up there."

"Pretty weak from the air, though," Padmé replied, casting her own eyes skyward as if she could see out into space. "Good thing for them they have that big fleet up top."

That brought him back down to the ground a little—as they'd drifted toward the atmosphere, all systems powered down to avoid detection, they'd had ample time to admire the view of the city's orbiting protectors. It was the entirety of the fleet that had fled Coruscant, with new additions—old Confederate deathboxes mixed with motley frigates and corvettes, and even some commandeered Republic starfighters buzzing between them. Executor Vader's welcoming party, looking none too friendly.

Still, he told himself, they'd faced down worse. And now that they were together again, it had to work.

The Force gave her back to you for a reason.

It still didn't feel real that she was here, right alongside him, nothing changed at all. More than that, he could touch her in a way he hadn't been able to in years, feel the warmth of her aura—reserved for now, jumpy, but he couldn't blame her for that. Feeling the triumph and relief within her when they made this work—that would be worth celebrating.

"Hey," he said aloud as the outskirts of the city grew larger, the din of its inhabitants starting to lap at his ears, "when was the last time we did this? The two of us, new planet, ready for an adventure."

Padmé snorted. "Adventure isn't the word I'd use."

"Aww, c'mon, get into the spirit."

She rolled her eyes, but when she looked over at him he could see she was struggling not to smirk. "Okay, fine. That fire salt planet."

"Nah, that wasn't us, that was . . . you tagged along on that one."

"Hey, we were alone some of the time." The smile broke out in full as she stared past the city and into the past, remembering. "Remember that nest we had nights in by ourselves?"

Yeah, he did—remembered stroking her hair as they'd gazed out from the tree toward a distant horizon, the torches flickering in the distance, feeling the breeze wash over his face til they fell asleep.

Remembered descending from the nest in the mornings to have breakfast with the other Jedi on the mission. Cracking jokes with Barris. Practicing his lightsaber technique with Obi-Wan.

"Doesn't count," he said, shaking his head, doing his best to quickly restore his smile. "Forget it."

Wind howled at their backs—fortunately, facing this way the rust was no longer blowing at their faces, but the blast of hot air still wasn't exactly comfortable. Besides that, they were no longer alone—pirates swaggered by in ones and twos, glancing at the pair of them, occasionally giving a curt nod. Anakin found himself wondering if the disguises would do the trick—were the black cloaks a little too new compared to everything else?

"So," Padmé murmured as an Ishi Tib with an eyepatch perched above its beak passed them, "you're sure this isn't gonna land you in hot water with Palpatine?"

Another unwanted face swimming into his thoughts, drawn with anger as it ordered him out of the executive office. "It'll be fine," Anakin told her. "We're giving him Maul and Valis on a silver platter, he's not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth."

"Just as long as you're sure we're not going to end up in a jail cell."

"I said it'll be fine," he snapped, turning to look at her. His eyes strayed down to the fragment of wood hanging from his wife's neck, and for some reason he couldn't specify, his irritation grew just a bit hotter.

She stood still, just for a second, and then kept walking, pulling slightly ahead of him. "I just want it on the record that this was your idea, is all."

Seeing her retreating back, Anakin felt a sudden spike of alarm. Jogging a few steps til they were even, he reached out and laid his flesh hand on her shoulder. "Hey."

Meeting his gaze, she raised an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

"I promise, nobody'll touch you. Even if they're angry at me. I won't let them."

The relief he suddenly felt was, he realized, not entirely his own. It had broken through Padmé's nervousness, just for a split second, but he could still perceive it radiating through the air.

She didn't say anything, but when he removed his hand from her shoulder she slipped her fingers between his once more.

I won't let them, he repeated to himself, rolling the assurance through his mind. On the surface, he largely believed what he'd told her. Once he'd laid Maul and Valis's lightsabers on the Chancellor's desk, turned over the keys to San Sestina to the Grand Army, there was no way he'd be welcomed as anything but a favorite son.

A return to your mission as Executor? Of course, my boy. And I will be more than happy to discuss any details of any investigations you like—just say the word.

And if Palpatine was ungrateful?

The dark side had given Executor Vader more power than he'd ever felt even as it was. And if he were to destroy the last remaining Sith Lords—the ones in whom that power had concentrated itself—

If Plagueis was right, he thought, the scales will rebalance.

More than enough power to tell Palpatine to do whatever you want.

Sparks sputtered uselessly from the tip of her lighter as Valis thumbed the ignition switch. With each flick, there came nothing but embers. A cigarette dangled limply from between her lips; she sucked air through it, desperately hoping its tip would finally meet fire.

Nothing.

Then, in the corner of her vision, a flame bloomed to life—no larger than the tip of her finger, hovering just above the emitter of another lighter. It rested in the grip of a proffered hand, The hand's owner, a man in pirate armor, gazed at her over a cloth mask coated in flakes of rust which covered the lower half of his face.

She touched the cigarette's end to the flame and drew her breath inward, nodding in appreciation as she stepped away from her fellow pirate and turned her eyes toward the crashing waves below.

They stood at one edge of San Sestina's port town—the end open to the oily ocean, to its jagged coast of rocks and wreckage. Tainted water smashed against the cliffs, sending a slimy mist into the air—Valis turned away from the ocean spray, bringing San Sestina's main square into view. The square's central attraction rose into the air like a beacon—an ancient space vessel, wedged into the ground at a sharp angle. Pirates buzzed about the base of it like anxious insects orbiting a hive—weapons slung on their backs, supply crates cradled in their arms.

Taking a drag of the cigarette, she glanced sideways at the man beside her.

Dorran Treskov pulled his face covering aside with a clenched hand, revealing skin untouched by the oxidized air—the upper half of his face, which had been open to the elements since the first hints of the rust storm, was stained a dull orange. In an echo of Valis's actions, he placed a cigarette between his lips and lit the end of it, inhaling deeply before breathing smoke back into the already tainted atmosphere.

"Will this weather be a problem?" Valis scanned the horizon until her eyes fell upon the worst of the rust storm—a thick orange haze a few miles off the port, hovering above the tarnished ocean waters. The wind would soon carry it in their direction, she knew—the residents of San Sestina were no stranger to the clouds of corrosion.

"Not for us," Dorran answered—the words were muffled, said out of one half of his mouth. Then, with an indifferent shrug: "Perhaps for our visitor."

The dark side shrieked in Valis' ear; the base of her neck ached with an intense pain. A warning. Danger. Something was wrong.

It flared like an intense fire for several moments. And then, as quickly as it had appeared, the warning was gone.

Somehow, its absence only served to make her more nervous.

This tension in the Force had come and gone in waves ever since she'd learned Vader was coming. He'd seen fit to alert them, to send a message to San Sestina detailing the exact date and time of his planned arrival. Even now, she could still see his flickering visage, obscured by the scanlines of a hologram and shrouded by a hood. She'd watched the message countless times, hoping for some hint as to exactly what kind of man she'd be facing once Vader arrived on San Sestina—

The sound of Dorran's voice brought her back to the present. "Everything's in place," he said, keeping the cigarette pinched between his lips. With one hand, he drew a pair of electrobinoculars from a leather pouch slung across his shoulder. "We've got starfighters in a holding pattern ready to bring his ship to the spaceport. Once he's groundside, an armed escort will lead him to the meeting point." He raised the binoculars to his face, turning them skyward to scan the air above the city.

At the same time, Valis' own gaze remained groundside, sweeping across the plaza. Parked ships and stacked crates covered every entrance and exit into the square, save one. He'll come through there, she thought, her eyes following the path they'd created for their guest. Then he'll stop there and hold steady until I'm in position here—

Valis found her mind wandering away from the plan, to her trembling hand that hung at her side. Raising the cigarette to her lips, she inhaled deeply and willed the shaking to stop.

You aren't ready.

This voice was not her own, though she knew it well—and she knew that the best way to deal with Maul's taunting from afar was simply to ignore it.

Beside her, Dorran cleared his throat. "Once Vader's here, we'll make sure you're covered. I've got pirates standing by to move in behind him and guard the exit out of the plaza. And of course, there are the sharpshooters." Gesturing upwards, Dorran indicated a nearby rooftop. "Four of 'em. We'll have total coverage of the plaza, no blind spots. If our guest tries anything, I'll make sure they take him out."

"Wait," Valis said, jabbing a finger in Dorran's direction. "Tell them not to shoot unless I signal them." Sighing, she gazed upward at the crashed ship, taking another drag of her cigarette. "I want to talk to him first."

Dorran's head moved downward in a slow nod. "Of course. You'll have a chance to speak. The snipers are standing by, just in case he tries something."

Her gaze moved from one of the rooftops, back to the plaza's only open entrance. "Good."

Coward.

The Zabrak's voice was at once distant and hauntingly present, a far-off echo that seemed to tickle the inside of her ear.

You would destroy him the easy way? From afar, with a rifle fired by another?

"Shut up!" she hissed, grateful that Dorran had moved too far away to hear her.

As Valis gripped her cigarette between two fingers of one hand, her free hand fell to her hip. To the lightsaber hilt that hung there. Fingertips brushed against it, coming away stained with flecks of rust. The scar across her face tingled in the rusty breeze, a stark reminder of the last true duel she'd gotten herself into.

Perhaps having Vader shot was not just the easy way out. Perhaps it was the most ruthless, the most efficient, the most treacherous way of dealing with him.

Or perhaps Maul was right. Perhaps she was just a coward.

The hand that hung beside her lightsaber began to shake again.

Padmé fought to keep from swiping flakes of rust away from her face. Inhaling just a little bit of the stuff couldn't hurt her that badly, she told herself. Or the baby. Right?

Besides which, she very much needed both hands right now.

Letting out a steadying breath, she ground her feet deeper into the holds they'd found along the side of the tower. "This gods-damned storm couldn't have picked a better time to blow in?"

Above her, Anakin stretched his mechanical hand upward to grasp at a decaying duracrete window ledge—fortunately, the transparisteel above it seemed to have been boarded up. "Hey, it gives us a distraction. Less eyes to catch us climbing this thing."

Risking a glance downward, Padmé comforted herself with a reminder that their destination wasn't that high up. The port city may have been the busiest spot on this dump, but it was hardly a metropolis—their perch, one of the taller spots in the area, was no more than seven stories off the ground. The side they were climbing, currently in shadow, lay against a narrow alley—they were more likely to be spotted once they got to the top than they were scaling its walls.

A particularly sharp gust of wind pelted rust against her cheeks. Swearing, Padmé looked back up—another two stories to go. "We've gotta hurry or we're not going to make it on time. If I'm gonna be taking potshots at Valis, I want to be able to get a look at the lay of this place first."

Above, Anakin nodded. "Right."

He didn't reach for a handhold so much as rocket upward, his feet propelling his body into the air. Padmé inhaled sharply—I swear to the gods if he gets himself killed before I can get him to bail out Kenobi—but then his gloved hands had latched onto the next ledge, and a moment later he was hauling himself up to the top of the tower and over, out of sight.

Almost immediately, there was a muffled thud, like a large fruit connecting with pavement.

"Anakin," Padmé hissed—

"I'm fine," he shot back with a grunt. "Just a sec."

As he rummaged around up top, Padmé played the last few seconds back in her mind. She was paranoid, on edge, she knew that—and whatever hidden scuffle had just taken place hadn't eased her mind. But that jump had been . . . weird.

Sure, Anakin was strong, and he liked taking risks. But if she'd tried the same thing, she'd have wound up spattered on the pavement. She hadn't seen anyone try that sort of leap since . . . a long time.

Then the tail of a rope smacked her in the face as her husband tossed it from the roof, and she snapped out of thought, gripping it and hauling herself upward. You don't have time for this.

As soon as her feet touched the roof's solid surface, she dropped down to her stomach. Glancing to her right, she swore—it seemed the two of them had a companion up here, the sprawled-out corpse of a human pirate. Blood leaked from the spot where Anakin had smashed the merc's head into the roof; cradled limply in the body's arms was a sniper rifle of similar make to the one at Padmé's back.

A rasp of static scratched at her ears—for a moment, she thought it was the wind, then realized the body also had an earpiece comm. Without thinking, she snatched at it and blindly pressed the receive button. "Say again? Sorry, signal up here is dicey."

"Just checking that everyone is in place," a male voice of indeterminate species shot back. "Can't afford for this storm to knock any spotters off their perches."

"Copy that," Padmé replied mechanically. "I'll make sure not to get blown anywhere."

With a click, the line went dead. Anakin whistled. "Nice work."

Hearing the compliment at the same time as she tugged the earpiece from the bloody skull of the pirate felt vaguely revolting. Instead of replying, Padmé slipped it into her own ear, then reached for the case at her back. Snapping it open, she pulled out the rifle's components and started assembly. "What're we looking at?" she asked, sliding the scope into place.

Beside her, Anakin resumed scanning the view below them with his electrobinoculars. "Lucky we didn't pick a building a few blocks over or our view would've been shot. Looks like someone a few decades ago didn't do a great job of parking."

Rifle assembled, Padmé looked up and snorted. About a hundred meters hence, a passenger cruiser of some kind had plowed nose first into the ground, the engine nacelles higher than their perch by a good twenty feet. Time hadn't been kind to it—she could see birds' nests situated within holes eaten by salt and the wind. Fortunately, it was the tallest object between them and the rest of the port—the rest of the view was relatively unobstructed, especially with the aid of her rifle's optics.

Almost immediately, she moved the barrel upward, toward the edge of the square that opened up onto the coast. "It looks like there's a lot of bustle happening at the old sea docks." Some of that was weather-related—the same winds that were peppering the city with rust were colliding with the water, dredging up waves that exploded in sickly green foam—but a whole lot of mercenaries were roaming up and down the pitted duracrete platforms, weapons at their backs or in their hands.

"That doesn't make sense with this storm," Anakin said from beside her. "Not unless they're there for some other reason."

"Yeah, I bet I can guess what that is." She pulled her head away from the scope, looked at her husband. "We've got our meeting place. It's in the square, and they're keeping the coast side sealed off tight."

His jaw tightening, he gave a slow nod. "Keep Executor Vader corralled into a spot where he can't make a hasty getaway. Even then, if he breaks through, it won't work unless he's a real good swimmer."

Turning back to the scope, Padmé felt a few of her jitters go quiet. Looking down the length of a gun tended to reduce the world to a three-step puzzle: find, point, shoot. Of those, the first one required the most concentration. "Think they'll be all . . . Sith-looking? If I were them I'd dress up like a pirate, keep you guessing."

"Maul wouldn't do that," Anakin replied. "Valis . . . maybe."

If so, she was keeping pretty well hidden. None of the bodies she swept the scope across were even human—an assortment of aliens covered in fur, feathers, and scales, no pale woman with a scar across her face. Padmé swallowed, tightened her finger against the cool metal of the trigger guard. "This whole thing could be a diversion. Stage a big show to draw attention, then have the actual meeting somewhere else . . ."

"No." His voice was firm with certainty, though when she looked over at him he was moving his binoculars over the crowd, searching just as she was. "They're both there. We just haven't seen them yet."

She didn't like that firmness. At all.

For the third time, she put her eye against the scope. "Well, if we don't see them there's no point to this, so—"

Even as she said it, she was snapping the rifle a few degrees west. "Wait. Got her."

She'd guessed wrong—Valis was in full black-and-white, cape fluttering behind her as she strode out into the open. The pirates snapped to attention for a split second, then back to their previous courses. The former admiral just stood there, doing, Padmé supposed, much the same thing her watchers were. Sizing up the stage of play.

"I've got a clean shot," she whispered, the sights hovering right over Valis's oblivious head. "Could get her right now."

"You'll never get Maul if we do that," Anakin hissed. "Vader has to meet with her first. Draw them both out."

So we take our chances, she thought, finger slipping away from the guard to hover over the trigger. It felt almost like a dream—one of the two enemies who full-fledged Jedi had failed for years to take down, silently standing there, a crosshair branded across her forehead. Just one twitch of the finger, and bam. Dead on the stone.

Kill her, now. Take the opportunity while we have it. With any luck, we get Maul too when he bursts out to come look for us. If not, we get the hell out of here.

It would have worked. Worst-case scenario, they'd have to scramble away and call off the rest of the plan, and one Sith would be dead.

But an Anakin who'd been denied the chance to kill Darth Maul by his wife's hand was not likely to be doing her any favors. Even less likely to feel kindly toward her when she asked him to help her figure out what had happened to Obi-Wan Kenobi, who she'd neglected to mention she'd been spending a great deal of time with lately.

So she kept her finger off the trigger. Kept the crosshairs on Valis. And waited.

A thwump echoed through the air of San Sestina, and every pirate's gaze turned skyward.

He's here.

A lone ship—Vader's fabled Arbiter, if Valis wasn't mistaken—had appeared in the sky, its bladed shape slicing through the clouds and swirls of rust that danced above. Valis felt the tension rise around her; heart rates spiked and neck hairs raised as the ship rocketed toward their spaceport. Some pirates turned to look at their neighbors; others' hands wandered down to their holsters.

"Steady, men!" Valis called out above the growing noise of whispered worries. She held a hand outward, and with it sent a gentle wave of mental suggestion. "Everyone take your positions. No one draws a weapon unless I do." Whether it was her words or the Force, the pirates seemed to settle. Valis, too, breathed a small sigh of relief.

They had done everything in their capacity to prepare. The pirates had been warned of Vader's impending arrival; all had banded together to prepare the port for a potentially hostile guest. Ground forces were armed and at the ready, pilots had taken to the skies to ensure no ship could make an escape.

Maul was always ready to kill, should the need arise.

That left her.

She had studied Vader's tactics, researched his past assignments. Gotten to know her opponent—as well as anyone in her position could.

Did you do enough?

Valis gritted her teeth, trying desperately to raise a mental barrier against Maul's silent, distant taunting. She couldn't give him the satisfaction of sensing her mind—of knowing that she thought he had a point.

There was, after all, an element she'd never dealt with before. She'd faced pirates, Republic soldiers, Jedi Knights . . . but never a fellow Sith. Maul, of course, had his share of experience dealing with them. If things took a turn for the worse, he would be ready.

Will you?

As she watched the Arbiter hover above San Sestina's spaceport, she turned to look at Dorran Treskov. The pirate stood beside her, his eyes fixed on the newly arrived ship.

"And to think," he began, plucking the cigarette from between his lips and blowing a cloud of smoke into the air, "all it took was dropping a message capsule among the ruins of the Techno Union. Easy as that, this guy walks right through our front door." Pausing, he turned to stare at her—a twisted smile was plastered on his face. "I'm surprised it worked."

"Honestly," Valis said, "so am I."

In an instant, a low vibration seemed to surround her—as if the very air was objecting to her words. Her mind rattled inside her skull; it was a sensation she'd never felt from the Force before. A deep note of power coursing through her bones.

One glance at Dorran Treskov, who stood nearby, revealed the truth. He too was shaking in his boots, hands pressed against his ears to fight back an auditory onslaught. This was not from the Force. It was something else. Something physical. Something real.

With a rumble of thunder, the skies of San Sestina darkened—not from storm clouds, but from something far worse.

Three grey daggers loomed overhead, their sublight thrusters sending rolling notes of vibration through Valis' bones.

She tore the cigarette from her mouth and slammed it down onto the pavement, crushing it beneath her heel. At the same time, Dorran snapped the electrobinoculars up to his eyes and gazed skyward.

"Star Destroyers," her pirate companion said, his voice a hollow monotone of disbelief. "He brought Star Destroyers."

A phantom snarl echoed from within Valis' head. We must strike now, Maul's voice hissed from afar. He has come to fight.

"No!" Valis shouted, realizing too late that she'd spoken aloud. Dorran spun to stare at her, confusion painted on his face. Around him, pirates looked upward in awe and horror—the ones who had reached for their weapons before now brandished them.

"No!" Valis repeated, holding her hands high as she leapt up onto a nearby stack of cargo crates. "Pirates! Hold steady. Now is not the time to panic. Now is the time to stick to the plan!"

She had managed to tear their attention away from the sky—most of the people in the plaza now stared at her instead.

"This changes nothing." Valis continued, forcing herself to soften her voice and project an air of calm. "He is trying to intimidate you. To make you afraid. Do not let him! Vader has played his hand. We still have a chance to play ours." With that, she stepped down from the cargo crates—as her feet met pavement, pirates lowered their weapons.

Well done. You convinced them. If only you could convince yourself.

Valis held her eyes shut for a moment, drawing her anger at the Zabrak inward with a slow breath. "Dorran," she said, eyes flitting open as she spoke the pirate's name, "I need you to do something for me."

He said nothing, offering a slow nod in her direction.

She took it as license to continue. "Go to spaceport control and power up the surface-to-air cannons. If they do anything"—as she leaned into the word, her head tilted upward to the Star Destroyers looming in the sky—"you open fire. And make sure the fleet in orbit is targeting them with everything they have."

Dorran's eyes narrowed. "I thought you said we were sticking to the plan."

"We are," she said. "But Vader being down here is the only thing stopping those Star Destroyers from trying something. Once he's dead, all bets are off. I want the cannons ready. Think of it as an insurance policy."

"Of course," the pirate replied. With that, he turned on a heel and walked away, his stride one of momentum and haste.

'Once he's dead,' Maul's voice rang inside her head, repeating her own words back to her. So you do want to kill him.

Valis ignored the Zabrak, drawing another cigarette from her pocket. Cradling it between her lips, she moved toward the base of the plaza's crashed ship and thumbed her lighter's ignition switch yet again.

It produced no flame. She mashed her thumb frantically against the switch, the pace of her repeated attempts quickening along with her heart rate. Nervous energy drove her into a hurried walk—as she paced back and forth in front of the ancient starship, her hands became too shaky to hold the lighter steady any longer.

Cursing under her breath, she threw lighter and cigarette alike to her feet. The lighter clattered across the pavement while the cigarette, carried by rust and wind, drifted away toward the water.

She watched it roll away as a dark voice echoed in her head.

Do not hesitate. Strike first.

In an instant, she ground her feet to a halt, locking them in place atop the rust covered street. Turning her gaze skyward, she stared at the wrecked starship rising above her.

Stay out of my head, she thought back at Maul. Let me do my job. If you don't, when we're done with Vader I'll kill you too.

This, it seemed, was enough to shut him up. Blessed silence was all she felt within her mind now—with one exception. A lingering question.

Did you mean that?

She shoved the thought aside. She couldn't afford for Maul to sense it, not now. Nor could she afford for him to sense the thought deeper down, the one that had run through her mind ceaselessly in the last few days. The one possibility that she'd only dared to hope for when certain no one would be there to hear her.

Maybe it will work. Maybe Vader will join you. Maybe the three of you will kill Sidious, together.

And maybe then he'll kill Maul for you.

Slowly, she curled her hand around the lightsaber hilt that hung at her side. Inhaled, the sting of rust biting at her nostrils. Relished the sting, accepted it, let it back out.

San Sestina hurt. It was a backwater, not the capital of an empire, and living there without caution would kill you. But it was hers. Maul had done nothing to get it, just as he'd done nothing to drive the final wedge into the Confederacy, splinter it into territory ripe for reclamation.

He'd given her the dark side. She'd clawed for every other bit herself.

Let Vader take the keys to the Republic, once Sidious was dead. Let him have Maul's dream of a Sith Empire.

Darth Valis had made her own.

Republic Archives: Surface-to-Air Dual Payload Flechette Cannon

In the wake of the San Sestina incident, Republic disaster recovery personnel unearthed a surface-to-air weapon design evidently pioneered by the space pirates serving under Admiral Sephone Valis. These modified ion cannons fire a dual payload also consisting of serrated metal projectiles encased in aerodynamic shells.

Slightly before impact, these shells are designed to split open, spraying the serrated metal across the surface of the target. Combined with the shield disruption caused by the ionized gas portion of the payload, these cannons have the devastating effect of tearing through shields and the hull beneath them in a single shot.

Such weaponry has not seen wider use across the galaxy for two primary reasons. First, the metal projectiles are relatively easy to counter with strategic deployment of particle shields that are typically reserved for deflecting space debris. Second, using serrated metal as a projectile is specifically prohibited by Article Three of the Corellia Conventions—though as one might expect, space pirates do not consider themselves bound by such intergalactic laws.