Perks of Anarchy

9 ABY

Nubia

The galaxy is good, its people pure.

The galaxy is evil, its people corrupt.

Only one of those sayings could be true and recent experiences had Nym leaning towards the latter. Faith in the universe wasn't a simple thing to restore, least of all for a pirate. His youth had been spent as a pickpocket, his adulthood in the midst of war. Retirement, blissfully enough, would be spent in the pub.

The Feeorin took a seat barside, his massive frame leaning against the countertop. On a world known for its humans and near-humans his 'type' didn't seem to set well with the populace. Mottled skin was far from a common sight, not with the shade of blue he had been tanned, not with the scars freshly carved. The flight jacket he donned covered the worst of the damage, but there was no hiding the limp in his step, the sag of his shoulders.

All the same, there were enough distractions to pull the public's attention back away. Viewscreens lined the walls, broadcasts ranging from Grav-ball to Podracing. Overhead, a feed of violet lamps trailed from interior out to the surrounding boulevards. In shining the light from one bar to the next they had inadvertently created the planet's most intricate pub crawl. For all of Nubia's pretenses as an industrial mecca the entertainment district had done its part to repurpose as a jazzy tourist's trap.

It was time for the bartender to play her role. Approaching with a glass in hand she opted to say what everyone in the room had at one point already thought. "You sure do look like hell."

"Just came back, actually," Nym acknowledged with a weak smile, placing metal hand over flesh in an effort to prove his point.

"Place is pretty big," she offered, diverting her gaze from the prosthetic. "Which area code we talking about?"

"Lok." The single word just gruff enough to convey its hellscape. "My base of operations... former, anyways."

"Former?"

"Aye," he confirmed with a reluctant sigh, pointing to a bottle of whiskey on the back wall.

"I take it there's a story to tell there?"

"More a lesson than a story..." he trailed off again with a shake of his head. "If you had told me it would be more dangerous around these parts after the Empire folded than before I probably would have laughed in your face."

"Always told people that sovereign rule had its perks," the bartender murmured back, finally placing glass against countertop. "Better than the wildlands we've got now, anyhow."

"Oh, things are good for business," Nym admitted. "What's good for business isn't always good for living, though. Not in my line of work."

"Which line was that again?" The bartender prodded, never one to let an interesting note of conversation die.

"The kind that's taken me from the hollows of Centerpoint to the moons of Iego," the pirate regaled, pride overtaking pain for the briefest of moments. "All that time I still have never seen anything quite like the licking those scabs put on my base."

"And what did these 'scabs' want your base for?"

Now Nym tensed, grip tightening over his glass. "Stygium."

"Styga-... Isn't that the stuff ships use for their cloaking devices?"

"That, and a whole lot more. We were kind of in the business of making things 'disappear'."

She played him off with a roll of her eyes. "You got a side gig as a magician?"

"Put it this way, the only thing more valuable than making it big is making sure nobody knows you got there. I had enough of this Stygium stuff lying around to sneak a Rancor through a Hutt's palace."

"And these guys knew of the Styg because..."

"Kayos," Nym stated rigidly. "He's their leader, anyways."

"Kayos?" the bartender laughed in turn. "Where'd he rip that name from, the script of some B-list Holodrama?"

"Wouldn't be surprised. Kid always did have a thing for theatrics."

She quirked an eyebrow. "Are you saying you knew him?"

"Of course I knew him. He was my first mate up until a week ago. Probably shouldn't have been so surprised with the backstab, 'a pirate's life' and all that."

"He was a part of your crew? Of course you ought to be surprised."

The Feeorin conceded the point with another shrug of his shoulders. "Guess acknowledging that just makes it harder to accept. He took my base, took my planet... my son."

"Sure sounds like you're one of those 'nothing left to lose' types," she replied, pouring him another glass.

"Oh no, I haven't lost everything, not yet. As well as that scab knew me he forgot to take away the most important thing. The only thing I need."

"And what would that be?" She asked playfully, leaning in close.

Nym cracked a loose smile. "My ship."

. . .

Havoc, Audio Log

"You ever wonder what you'll do when it's over?" A boy asks, his voice timid.

The pirate turns to face him. "When what's over?"

"When... When you want to do something else. When the fighting's not enough anymore."

"The fighting's always been enough. I've been alive 140 years and that's yet to change."

"But don't you want it to be enough? Don't you want it to be over?"

The pirate grows distant, his face dipping out of view.

"Dad? Dad...?"

. . .

Hyperspace

Violets and azures and bouts of nausea. The novelty of lightspeed was never lost on Nym. He respected how delicate a balance it truly was, how often one would bounce between stars and supernovas.

Quakes in his ship's hull were keeping him more intimate with that reality than he would have liked. His pride and joy would keep intact despite it all, though. It always had. At one point in time his vessel had been a prototype bomber, top of the line. Now prototype was just a thin veil for hunk of junk. Long ago its Nubian architects had dubbed it the 'H-6 Scuurg'. The rumor was its designer had forgotten how to write scourge and winged it. When Nym got his hands on it he opted for a simpler moniker - the 'Havoc'.

It was a name that it had been living up to until recently. Until Kayos came to town. The traitor's ensuing dogfight had dealt more punishment than the bomber's namesake could cope with. Having his vessel finally beaten like a gunmetal drum might have been more disappointing than the hostile takeover that followed.

Still licking their wounds, the stop on Nubia had been as much for his ship's tender loving care as it was for him to locate a new copilot.

"Hey boss, this is the 'bass cannon', yeah?"

Nubia had been running lower than usual on new copilots.

"No, that's the inferno cannons," Nym responded through gritted teeth, voice echoing through the grimy interior of the ship. "You know, the ones I told you to stay far away from until we were back in realspace and safely past the point of self-immolation?"

Silus offered a sheepish grin, blond locks draping over his face. "Sorry, sir. Wouldn't get work as a gunner if I wasn't at least a little trigger-happy."

"Won't get work at all with the way you keep fidgeting around. Ain't you ever hyper jumped before, kid?"

The human teenager smeared a hand across his nose. "Never this far, and never aboard anything as high profile as this, sir."

"Well, we'll try and keep it low key for your sake," Nym said with a shake of his head, cranking the ship's hyperdrive back to sublight levels. Immediately the duo found themselves engulfed in a crimson hue, specks of starlight gleaming off the Havoc's aging hull.

Enter the Ruby Nebula. Because nothing said 'low key' like concealing ones ship in a cloud of ionized gas.

"Sir, radiation levels skyrocketing!"

"It'll stabilize," Nym responded absent-mindedly. "Believe me, I wouldn't put half as much work into setting coordinates if I was actually looking to get us vaporized."

"Yahaha... Yeah," Silus murmured, still eyeing his instrumentation. "Guess you're used to this sort of thing. Seem pretty experienced, anyhow."

"More than most."

The teenager raised an eyebrow. "How old we talking?"

"Let's just say that adage about fine wine goes double for Feeorins - we only get better with age."

"That's... a very humble opinion to have of ones self."

"No, seriously," Nym said, swiveling his chair to face the gunner. "I had a speeder shatter my entire face in when I was six. Haven't broken another bone since I turned eighty. My species' bones harden with time, no blue milk necessary. At this point my ship might actually be more liable to break down again than I am."

Silus offered another glance around the interior. "You know, sir, that's really not saying much."

"... Why did I hire you again?"

"Mostly because your last gunner was 'a damn traitor'," the teenager answered with a shrug. "But also because you said I was the deadliest shot you'd seen this side of the first Death Star."

"Right," Nym acknowledged, mostly in an effort to convince himself. "I did say that, didn't I? Probably after one too many drinks."

"There was also the bit where you promised me that this'll be worth my weight in Stygium."

Nym's scowl grew more determined. "Because it will be."

"That's what I'm banking on, sir," Silus said, leaning back in his gunner's chair. His gaze settled on the checkered starfield before them, dust tinning against the glass. "Where's this friend of yours anyways?"

"Oh Velker's no friend, he's a-"

Just then the Havoc's scanners came flashing to life. Red blips wafting in at such a pace that the vessel's readout systems nearly shut down in protest. Drones, drones everywhere.

"He's a no-good, double-crossing, Deathstick dealin', clump of poodoo!"

As the scanners came awash with data, their viewport billowed in correspondence. Hive after hive of metallic deathbots, the likes of which had been used to silence out a thousand pirates before him. Nym was already pulling out evasive maneuvers in anticipation of the fracas. He had the Havoc churning exhaust trails long before the alphas of the attack party had time to close the distance.

Silus poked at his instrumentation in turn, watching in amused disillusion as the stars pivoted all around them. "Wow, you really do have terrible taste in friends."

"Less chatter more batter, consider this part of the hiring process," Nym ordered, doing his best to lead by example. With a jerk of the controls he swiveled the Havoc's rotary cannons around, launching chunks of plasma at their foe's like they were splatters of paint.

As the first scraps of metal punctured the gas cloud there was an alarmed note of disapproval over the comm, sleazy in tone. "Whoa, whoa, easy with the merchandise, pal."

"Selling me off for dead's gonna be a lot more expensive than you had in mind, Velker," the pirate growled back.

"You're right, bad investment. Figured that out two attempts and a few decades ago. Hopefully it doesn't take you half as long to realize that we're not actually firing."

Nym halted the ship then, allowing the horizons to realign as the threat of cannonfire remained at zero.

"Oh."

An X-wing poured past the hive of now-friendly drones. It proceeded to buddy up alongside them, wings clamped down in a show of peace. "You wanted an army, I got you an army."

Nym caught an obscene hand gesture from the snubfighter's cockpit. It was all he could do to stop Silus from shooting one back. The newest arrival happened to be his oldest companion - Velker, a Balosaran, human as they came if it weren't for the twin antenna-palps gracing his head. He was one of the last of 'Lok's Revenants'. Perhaps the least deserving of the title, but the only crew member Nym officially had left.

With the fact in mind he gave a shake of his head. "I told you to bring the calvary not raise my blood pressure."

"Two for one deal," Velker offered, swinging his vessel around to face their purchase.

The Havoc did the same, glaring down the robotic fleet against its crimson backdrop. It took Nym a moment to come to a conclusion, half-amused. "Droids."

"They'll serve us well, cap'n," Velker answered proudly. "Half as good as men, but twice as plentiful."

"Oh, I'm well aware. We blew our fair share of 'em up back in the day. Never thought it'd get to the point where I'd have to fight alongside them."

"Well, Deokth's got 'em hooked up to this hive brain. Neat gadget, practically got the entire fleet connected to his tablet-"

"Wait, Deokth?"

"Utinni!" The Jawa finally acknowledged, a bulkier drone chassis pulling away from the rest of the pack. His craft barrel-rolled in a sign of solidarity.

Nym's teeth clenched. "I tell you to bring me an army, and all you scrounge up is some rustbuckets led by a kriffing Jawa?"

"This one happens to work part time as a masseuse," Velker countered. "That and, as you've probably already noticed, he has the largest stock of Separatist war relics this side of Hypori."

"There's a reason their relics," Nym murmured back.

"And there's a reason we might not be not far off. You and I both know we've got one shot at this, Nym. Wait any longer and Kayos will already be off Lok with the last of the Stygium. That, and Deokth charges by the hour... and it took us six to lightspeed over."

The Feeorin took a moment to respond, determinedly pouring his gaze past the drones, through the blanket of dust, and out, to the heavenly body nestled among the stars. To the home that had so recently been taken away from him. "Well then, we'd better hurry."

. . .

Havoc, Audio Log

"What do you mean, 'business trip'?" The son blurts out in frustration. "You said you would take care of me. You promised Mom before she died that-"

"That I would look out for you," the pirate interrupts, stacking cargo containers. "Putting food on the table's part of that promise, boy."

"Maybe if you'd just let me go with you for once-"

"You know that can't happen."

"No, I know that you don't want it to happen. I know that-" The son falters then, his voice breaking. "I just... I don't get it."

The pirate hesitates then, turning back to face the boy. "Get what?"

"Why don't you want me?"

. . .

Lok

The air was a special kind of hostile. The kind that would fight harder, struggle longer, cling to the back of his throat like a lump of sludge.

Nym's surroundings were an embodiment of that struggle. A once vibrant mountain range had been melted to slag along the landscape, grimy in its formation. The sky above had tinted itself a muggish brown. The threat of acid rain felt ever present just off the horizon. Carcasses lined the pathway, bones colligating with the ground beneath his feet.

All that to say, Lok had seen better days.

But then, so had Nym. Hell, he had just left one of the best days of his life. The bartender back on Nubia had been more than just a friend, even if it was only for a night. He could have stayed there if he really wanted to, could walk back to it right now. He could pretend like he had all his life ahead of him, because, biologically, he very much did. He could give up piracy, give up the little slice of hell he had decided to carve out for himself as a teenager.

But that wasn't Nym.

Because this place was apart of him. Because this place belonged to him. Because this place was his. Every fallen mountain, sandy dune, and rotten carcass of it.

Out on the edge of the desert a faint silhouette was waiting. The causer of all his troubles, the bringer of all his pain. There was no motley crew to back him up this time, though. No firing squad lining him up for dead. There was only one.

"Kayos."

He was Feeorin, just like him. One of the last Feeorins in all of existence. He was heavier than last time, garbed in a 'king's' cape he had donned after claiming the base.

"You were supposed to stay dead, Nym," Kayos finally answered through a tired breath.

The pirate stopped short of retorting, kept his gaze trained straight ahead. "I'm here for my base. Here for my crew."

"You think they want you?" the traitor mocked. "The Revenants need you like prison needed me."

"This isn't about them. This is about taking back what's mine." Nym's gaze fell directly to Kayos. "All of it."

"Well, you can't have it. This isn't like all the other times, Nym. You can't just take what you want. You can't just leave the rest."

"I thought you'd say that."

Kayos conceded, taking a step back. "Yeah, me too."

In an instant, pirate ships were shooting from the canyon heads. Deokth's drones followed suit, surging from a parting in the clouds.

Nym nodded his head solemnly. "I'll see you on the other side, boy."

The Feeorins rushed away from each other then, back to their respective corners. The 'negotiations' had been a formality, a pawn's opening. It was tacky, a show of force as old as time, but it was also as traditional as one could expect two space pirates to behave. On cue, the Havoc came swerving down from the ensuing crossfire, claiming cover behind a bundle of bedrock.

Silus cranked open the craft's side entry door, allowing Nym to climb back aboard. "Guess settlement talks didn't go over so well!"

"Just shut up and fly, kid," he grunted back.

The teenager was quick to oblige, jetting upwards, into the fray. Wrestling his way back towards the driver's seat, Nym squinted at the fast-approaching skirmish. "What's it look like up there, Velk? I've got eyes on a dozen bogies down here, most of them too damn familiar."

"Make it three squads' worth," the Balosaran chimed between spurts of fire. "More uglies than I can count."

Nym's fists tightened over the flight controls. 'Uglies' were as much a reference to the pilots as it was their ships. They were conglomerates, a hodge-podge of X, Y, and Z-fighter parts, the bulk of which he had helped frankenstein himself. "Well, at least we know how to stab 'em where it bleeds. Aim for those cooling sleeves, kid."

"Aye, aye!" Silus chimed through his headset, swiveling the guns around to meet their adversaries' sweet spot.

Lancelets of fire greeted trails of exhaust and the battle was truly off. Soon the desert became a painting, brushed in by strokes of emerald and crimson. Nym wrenched the throttle upward, taking his ship through the eye of the maelstrom. Shards of durasteel rained like hail, battering the Havoc in all the wrong places. As he fed more power to the shield's integrity the craft began to sing a different tune, one that mocked at the debris that now came pummeling its way.

Two uglies broke flank, incendiary clusters howling their intention. A thrust of the control stick had them shooting past, zigging as the Havoc zagged. Another pair of drones helped the Havoc shave them clean, machine asserting dominance over man.

"Yeah!" Silus cheered, the ensuing explosion painting his gunport a red-orange.

"Nice shooting. We might have to keep this kid, Nym," Velker suggested, his X-Wing twirling into view with a trio of enemy interceptors in tow.

"'We' only means something if you're still around," the pirate reasoned, urging his craft forth to intercept the foes' flight path. No cannon salvo from Silus was necessary though, nor a flyby of the drones. The fighters resounded against the bulkhead of a Lancer-class frigate instead, the warship seemingly materializing out of nowhere. It was all Velker could do to flit his snubfighter away from its gargantuan form at the last second.

Two more Lancer frigates followed suit, their bladed bulkheads knifing through the evening skies. Enemy gun batteries fired, eating up entire chunks of their drone force. And then the warships had vanished, just as fast as they had blitzed their way through.

"They must've already harvested some of the Styg..." Nym murmured, watching in horror as their frameworks disappeared into thin air. "Split up! If they've already got that stuff hooked into their cloaking devices-"

A spray of cannonfire answered for him, coming from everywhere and nowhere. Like phantasms in the night. This was Nym's worst nightmare, a terror of his own design. His goal had once been to create a flotilla both large and completely invisible to the naked eye. It seemed Kayos had finished the job.

"Help me calculate those cannon trajectories, kid. They might be playing ghost but they're just slow enough that we can make sure it doesn't matter."

"I'll do you one better," Velker chimed again, carving a path away from the frigates' ever-elusive position. "Deokth's last gig was defacing Imperial monuments, he's got enough of these drones stocked with paint to dye blue milk green."

Silus quirked an eyebrow. "And this is relevant because...?"

"Because paint's the one thing that'll stick to the frigates and still show up. We can have the drones drop their load and put a literal target on their back."

"Bombs away, then," Nym growled, at a loss for alternatives. "Get it going quick before the rest of the fleet has time to scatter."

And so they were off, the Havoc and X-wing soaring one way as the drones came screaming the other, towards their ever-elusive target. As soon as the frigate's came materializing back into view the drones were on the case, loads of paint flailing for all the world to see.

"Utinni! Utinni!" Their Jawa overlord wailed over the comm, all but telling his pretties to fly.

"I take it back, Velk. I think I like this guy," Nym admitted, veering away from the ensuing splats of paint.

Whatever spray that didn't meet the frigates struck the desert grounds below, painting blood over the fallen pilot's charring corpses. No time was spent mourning them, they were already traitors in Nym's book. Instead he sent the Havoc's thrusters screaming southward, back towards the warcruiser's half-gratti'd mess.

The foolhardiness of this decision was not lost on Silus. "You want to go at the frigates? How much damage are you expecting to do?"

"They don't call this thing a bomber for nothing. Rev up the energy thermites, kid."

The Havoc sprawled through torrents of crossfire, weaving a path between gun batteries and turbolasers. In the next moment it sent explosives careening downward, tearing a line of death through the Lancer frigate's freshly painted belly, gutting it like a fish. It brought Nym no small pleasure to blow the vessels asunder, not with how long it had taken him to acquire them.

Even still, there were whoops and hollers all around. A lash of combustion sent one frigate spearheading into the next, metal giants cratering towards their final resting place. The drones continued on, cleaning through what remained of the fleet, all the skies becoming a little clearer. The battle was nearing its end, things were almost too good to be true, too easy.

And as soon as the thought was made, its danger came to fruition. Nym could just spy his base's sand-battered outline off the horizon, escort carriers stretching out to the heavens.

"Hang on, they're trying to distract us - it's an evacuation!"

. . .

Havoc, Audio Log

"Your own crew?" The pirate snorts at the suggestion. "What do you want something like that for?"

The son doesn't answer, not at first. Not for a long time. "Because... Because I need it."

"Like hell you do."

"I need it... Because you won't listen. I need it, so you will."

. . .

Mid-Air

Dangling several hundred meters above ground, ships cycloning all around, Nym received the one question he could have done better without.

"You sure you want to jump?"

"Yeah, no... yeah," Nym stumbled, wind whipping against his flight jacket as he stared down the crossfire above his former base. "It's not like I gotta worry about breaking any bones or anything."

"There you go," Silus encouraged from the pilot's seat, doing his best to keep the Havoc steady. "That's a rock solid justification."

"Only one I need. We ain't getting any ships close enough to the base to try something else. Not with its turret defenses. And if we don't hurry the last of the Stygium will be long gone."

"How are you planning to get down there then?"

Nym shouldered his pack in response. "How do you think?"

"Whoa, you have a jetpack!?"

"I'm a space pirate, of course I have a jetpack."

Silus' gaze grew more determined. "Well, that should make getting down there simpler."

"Hijack the cruiser carrying the last of the Stygium and get the hell out," Nym reiterated, leaning a little closer to the open-air. "Keep the engine warm for when I make it back."

"Right," Silus acknowledged, nodding his head nervously. "Hey Nym, if you don't, y'know... 'make it back', just... I don't know, just save me a spot in hell, alright?"

Nym cracked a loose smile. "We've been in hell the whole time, kid."

Next moment he was taking a step forth, out from the Havoc's interior, away from solid footing. Gravity worked its magic, sending the Feeorin on a collision course with the ground. For a time he knifed in compliance, hands at his sides, heart in his throat. Clouds went scattering by, some of fluff, others of durasteel. Turret defenses cycled in response, incendiaries clapping in an effort to blow him out of the sky. But he was too small a target for too big a gun. Soon he was all of fifty meters from cratering against the base's rotund shield-encasing. Jets flared, whip lashed, and he found himself slamming against metal plating, all but tumble-rolling across the sprawl. Another second and he was fumbling with a latch, pulling himself in through a dimly-lit maintenance hatch.

Still hunched over, he was vaguely aware of Velker talking in his ear again, voice chiming over comm. "Nym, I don't think this is such a good-" the comm cut to static right on cue. Perhaps installing communication scramblers inside the base back in the day hadn't been such a good idea.

A quiet solitude overtook the thought. Nym supposed he shouldn't have been surprised, these tunnels were near endless. Due to the evacuation, perhaps near empty. They were pathways he had carved out for himself as a child. Back when he had been abandoned here, back when he was the only one to call this place home. It was for that reason that he still knew where to go, one sand-carved burrow after the next. The hangar bay didn't take long to find, that was where he had spent most of his time back in the day. Where all his crew had at one point. But now there was no one.

Not a soul.

One hand over the next, he pulled himself away from the makeshift tunnel, boots plodding with a soft echo. For a place once home to hundreds, the hangar appeared untouched, stripped bare. Alcoves lined its walls, nests for a dozen ships, a dozen crew members he no longer had.

But there was one thing that could justify it all, one prize worth the price of admission. It sat against the far wall, all but mocking him - the last escort carrier. Nym took a step closer. He knew its cargo hold was jam-packed with Stygium, knew it contained all his life's work. If he could just pry the vessel open, just move it away-

Then there was a shock of air, the crack of a laser burning through his flesh.

"You really are as dumb as I remember," Kayos called, stepping into view, smoke still billowing from his pistol.

Nym could feel himself reeling downwards in turn, hand clutching at his shoulder. A blaster wound, non-lethal. Non-lethal, didn't mean it couldn't still hurt like hell. He clawed forward with his functioning hand, blood surging down his arm. If he could just make it to the ship it wouldn't matter, he was so close, just a few more meters away-

Another sear of laser fire, this one to the leg.

"Aw, look at you squirm," Kayos cooed, taking a step closer. "You never did know when to quit."

Nym fumbled for something to prop himself up on, anything to keep himself from reeling out of consciousness. "Why- why are you doing this?"

"Because you taught me how. Just like everything else, it became so easy for me to simply take it."

The pirate grit his teeth. "You were my son."

"Not anymore," Kayos responded with a shake of his head. "Not for a long time. Not since you left me for dead, Nym."

"This... this was your home."

"No," Kayos spat. "This was your prison for me." He grabbed Nym then, slumping his body up against the escort carrier. "As for the Stygium? I'm selling it off. The Black Sun, the Hutts, all the worst scum in the universe. It's going a thousand different directions, Nym. Anarchy to be delivered a million different ways."

The pirate could feel his senses teetering back. "Why? Why would you do that? We had it concentrated here, protected. Away from the Empire, from everyone. Maybe... maybe used for good."

"Good?" Kayos mocked. "You wouldn't know good if it bit you in the ass. You never have, Nym. That's what made you such a terrible father."

"You're right," Nym decided, fists growing tighter. "I wasn't around as much as I should have been. I was a terrible father. Probably the worst father in all the galaxy... And that's why I'm about to whoop your ass."

"With a blaster wound like that?" Kayos laughed. "Don't even try-"

He was answered by a punch hard enough to dislodge three teeth. Because there was only one thing hard enough to break Kayos' face, and it was Nym's fist. So the Feeorin punched, then punched harder. Then another. And another. He gave it all he had left.

Then the traitor had ducked, cutting up for a jab at the throat as Nym overextended.

Because Kayos was faster, stronger, superior to his father. Because age really did catch up to Feeorins. But they brawled all the same, brawled until the death. Slamming against the escort carrier then back again.

Soon a new variable was entering the brawl, the same one that had initiated it. Kayos swung his pistol back out from its holster, trained it threateningly at the half meter of space between them, directly at Nym's chest. "Your worst mistake was teaching me how to shoot, don't make me-"

But Nym wasn't listening, too enraged. He was already charging ahead, just enough adrenaline to take the high-powered blast directly to his ribcage. The old Feeorin bones did their part to keep him up right. Then survival instincts were kicking in, he wasn't just pushing the blaster away, he was pulling the trigger, driving it back towards its user until there was another flash of light.

"No Kayos, I, I-"

Now it was Nym's turn to prop Kayos up against the ship, clutch at the rush of blood gushing from his son's throat. Kayos struggled for a painful moment, still on the edge of life, still on the high of power. He couldn't help but laugh up a pool of blood. "You really were the worst father in the galaxy."

And then his son was no more. Twenty years of parenthood reduced to a puddle of blast and brain matter. Nym could feel his hands going numb, as much from regret as it was the blood loss. There was no fixing this, no punching harder or stealing it back. He was all alone.

But there was one last thing he could still do for himself. One last thing before all the Stygium was gone, before all his life's work was taken away. His eyes trailed to the line of escort carriers slowly ambling their way through the skies.

"Don't you want it to be enough? Don't you want it to be over?"

Somewhere deep inside Nym finally found an answer to that question. He stumbled towards the last escort cruiser, set its auto-pilot sequence, had it shoot straight for a collision course with all the others. One press of a button and it was drifting into the air, high above him. He wouldn't know if it reached the others, though. He couldn't see the explosion. The ignition of Stygium in its cargo hold made sure no one could. Not even as it flared into a pool of combustion far above them all.

Maybe the galaxy was good, Nym decided with his last gasps. Maybe it always had been. Maybe it was people like him that had started out corrupt, turned the galaxy bad.

He stumbled to the hangar floor at the thought, eyes closing gently. The wreckage cratering back down on all he spent his life building towards.

End