It took Irek the better part of three days to physically recover from his integration with the Silencer AI. For the first day headaches had plagued him constantly. Piercing thrusts behind his eyes that ripped jagged tears into his skull and teeth whenever he tried to eat; explosions of light and sound in his eyes and ears when he settled down for rest. But worse than those symptoms was the constant sense of wrongness. For those first few days, Silencer Station had remained at Poln Major, devouring the planet's outer crust and delving deep to consume denser materials within the core. As it did, Irek could feel the planet die.

The very air he breathed felt heavy with pain.

By the third day, the acuteness of the pain had faded. He could chew again and he could think again. The sense of pain had dulled to a sense of loss and lingering, muted soreness.

He realized, belatedly, that this was because the process of consumption had not killed everything left on Poln Major until that third day.

Each of those days his mother had hovered over him. When he had not been able to eat, she had brought the tailors to him, taking his measurements again and again. They had fitted him for suits and robes and everything in between; Roganda had done all the talking, being variously harsh or complimentary as they either failed or succeeded to satisfy her tastes. She was constantly on the holocomm, occasionally bringing him into the room so that he could pose for the camera, encouraging him to smile despite his pain—telling him the pain was unimportant, it was the cost of rule.

After Silencer Station had eaten its fill and made the hyperspace jump to return to Entralla for the Coronation, his mother had subjected him to donning her favorite outfits and putting him in front of the holoimagers. Image after image of him on the throne, the hated neural interface that was integrated into that throne so close to his head that he could almost feel the AI eager to infiltrate his brain once more.

Irek tore the poofy red robes that his mother had dressed him in from his shoulders. His hand shook as he frantically tried to get the fabric off his skin, like it was acid burning through his flesh. It fell into an expensive puddle on the floor and he stared at it, feeling the tension in his mind, the sense of chaos and indecision and fear.

Feeling wild, he stared at the well-furnished room that encased him. This was the Emperor's space. The Emperor of the galaxy. The Emperor his mother wanted him to be, had raised him to be, had crafted him to be.

He couldn't stay here.

So he didn't.

Once he was outside the Emperor's quarters, though, he realized that he had nowhere to go. He was encased in Silencer Station. It grew every day, every hour, fed on the resources of the ships and planets it consumed. The outer walls seemed to grow thicker. Even if he had wanted to escape, there was no way he could get off the station without help… and they were still in hyperspace. There was no departing while in hyperspace. If he wanted to flee, he needed to wait until they had returned to realspace. And even after they arrived at Entralla… he would be in the center of the Empire's bastion. Where would he run?

His footsteps were loud on the deck's metal plating. Imperial officers and DT droids turned to watch him in surprised confusion as he raced past them, dodging through the maze of corridors. He didn't know where he was going, and he didn't know how he was going to get there, but all he knew was he had to get away, to get to someplace safe. The Force carried his feet along, empowering his run. His breaths came heavy, but he was young and fit and he felt like he could run forever. Could climb up through hatches, race through darkened, abandoned corridors, deeper and deeper into the maze that was Silencer Station. While he was running, the pain and the agony of Poln Major faded away, hiding itself in the back of his mind rather than dominating his brain. All he knew was he needed to run, so he ran.

Nichos and Cray's workshop was a hollow space. They worked silently, occasionally scribbling cryptic messages to one another. Cray had spent the last few days working diligently on Roganda's pet TIE droids and their human brains and thanks to her efforts they had stopped misbehaving quite as much as they had prior. Her most recent message—delivered on flimsiplast which she immediately destroyed—was just "Restraining Protocol." She had handed the message to him with a fierce, bitter smile that had scared Nichos and filled him with hope.

Cray had suffered badly the day after Roganda had inflicted her Force lightning upon her and it had killed Nichos to be unable to help. The Imperials had sent a medical droid to tend to her burns, but the doctor had left with a message from Roganda: next time the burns will be worse, and we won't bother to treat them.

Nichos knew that his ability to help his love, to protect her, to keep her safe, or help her survive, was very likely coming to an end. He wasn't on the verge of death—not yet—but the New Order's increasing disinterest in him and what he had to offer meant he was becoming more vulnerable with each passing day.

While Cray worked on her mysterious 'Restraining Protocol' and the TIE droids, he worked on Silencer Station. While the Silencer-7 droid brain was the most sophisticated one Nichos had ever encountered, it was still a droid brain. Manipulating and modifying droid brains was what Nichos had spent his entire professional career doing—and much of his childhood, for that matter. It had the most extensive security protocols Nichos had ever seen, and since Roganda had merged the mysterious Force artifact with it Nichos hadn't wanted to take any chances with drawing attention to himself (or, more importantly, to Cray).

He would never be able to touch any of the manufacturing protocols of course. All of those had levels of security and monitoring that he dared not approach. Nor would he be able to directly affect things like the Station's external defenses or weaponry. Those parts of the droid's fundamental code were well-protected, with multiple backups for easy restoration that were themselves constantly monitored.

But even a droid brain as sophisticated as Silencer-7 was, fundamentally, a machine, one driven by its programming, and as Silencer Station grew ever larger, that brain and its responsibilities grew as well. This created all kinds of smaller opportunities for mischief, and Nichos had carefully prepared a number of small modifications in areas that were both lower priority and… potentially of great importance.

They would have to find a way to deliver the changes. One could not just … insert changes to a computer's operating system. They lacked all the necessary permissions. But Nichos kept working on it anyway.

The Force would help them find a way.

Cray had three holo-projectors going at once. On one he could see the operational core of a TIE droid, its… human brain… at the center, plugged into electrodes that linked it to the TIE's systems. On the second were many, many lines of complicated code that under normal circumstances Nichos could have deciphered with relative ease, but today he found them unintelligible. The third was a simulator, which allowed Cray to watch how the TIE and its human brain responded to stimuli. At first, these experiments had gone poorly, with the TIEs almost entirely unwilling—or unable—to respond to even simple commands. But as Cray had worked on them, the simulations had steadily grown more productive, and Nichos could see that this particular unit was even reaching combat capability. Roganda would be pleased… though Nichos also hoped (and trusted) that Cray's plan went beyond simply giving the fallen youngling what she wanted.

Given how much Cray hated Roganda, that was near a certainty.

"Do you want some more caf?" he asked her. He could hear the quaver in his voice, the weakness. She didn't respond at first, so he leaned a bit closer, putting weight on his cane. "Cray?"

She looked up at him, surprised at first, her expression distant. But then her eyes focused, locking on his face, and a small, fond smile that had never stopped making his heart melt crossed her lips, almost making him forget everything about the horrible situation they had found themselves in. In that moment they were back in their lab at Magrody, just beginning their flirtations, and it didn't matter that Cray had dark lines on her face and lacked the perfect, near-professional makeup that had been part of her every-day work attire before the Empire had come for them. "Hmmm?" she asked.

"Caf?"

"Oh." She smiled. It was a far cry from the smile he remembered, but it was still a smile. It told him that whatever the toll she had taken during their impressment into service, his Cray was still in there. "Yeah, sure. Do you want me to get it?"

She started to get up, but he lifted his cane up and gestured weakly at her. "No, no. Keep working. What you're doing is important. I can get the caf."

"Are you sure?"

He nodded. "I'm sure."

They had little in the way of amenities while in custody, but even the Imperials had not been so evil as to deprive them caf—probably, Nichos knew, because they saw it as a productivity enhancer. He made his way gingerly through their lab and into the small-side room which could charitably be called a "lounge", insofar that it had a caf machine and a small couch. He leaned on his cane as he moved, careful not to move quickly—that always had a chance of causing a flare-up, which could easily subdue him for hours absent a Perigen dose. The caf-maker was the same kind that he and Cray had once had in their lab, so getting it working was easy; he fumbled with it and the cabinet for a few minutes and then the machine started to hum happily, working to create their two mugs of steaming caf.

Cray liked adding sugar and other things to hers, but the Empire had only provided them the caf.

He leaned against the counter as the machine worked, resting. Trying to both move enough to avoid becoming stiff and not to move too much to avoid a flare-up, he shifted his weight a bit, smelling the stiff scent of caf—

Cuddled on the couch, staring at him, was Irek Ismaren. So started by the sudden sight of the boy, Nichos nearly lost his balance altogether. He flailed a bit, grabbing at the counter and planting his cane on the ground. As he recovered, he looked once more at the couch and found that Irek had not moved at all. The boy was entirely still, his eyes wide, staring at Nichos.

What was Irek doing here? And on that couch? Irek coming by for no reason was not unusual—since their research he'd come quite often, but always putting himself in proximity to Cray. He'd never come by to hide in their glorified closet before.

But, even as Nichos asked himself that question he knew the answer. Irek had again worn the interface that Cray had built to 'command' the World Devastator.

"Your mother doesn't know you're here?" Nichos asked cautiously.

The question made Irek flinch. The boy started to uncurl, to stand, his expression briefly growing resentful… but then his lip trembled and he brought his knees even closer to his chest. "No," Irek said, his voice hoarse.

The caf maker beeped, communicating that his and Cray's cafs were complete, but Nichos ignored it. He made his way slowly over to the couch, shifting his weight to sit on the unoccupied arm. Irek tried to move away from him a bit, putting distance between them, never looking away. Trusting his instincts, Nichos didn't speak.

Irek took a shuddering breath. "I'm going to be Emperor," he said.

What he meant, Nichos knew, was I'm going to be integrated with the Silencer AI again. "When?"

"As soon as everything is ready. When we arrive at Entralla." Irek took a breath. "When I was… during the battle… I felt…"

Irek's voice faded away. Nichos nodded slowly. "I know," he said.

"You told me to listen," Irek murmured. His gaze had become glassy, looking through Nichos rather than looking at him. What he was thinking about, Nichos had no way of knowing, no way of telling. Once again, he was quiet, letting Irek work through his thoughts on its own. Eventually, that glassy gaze focused on Nichos' face once again. "You were right." He looked away. "I'm afraid," Irek confided.

"Of what?"

Irek looked away. "Of what will happen next time. Of what it will do to me."

"You're Force-sensitive," Nichos said. "Do you know what that means?"

"Of course," Irek said, and for just that moment there was a hint of the teenager's scornful confidence. "It means I have powers that most people don't have. That I'm special, and that the galaxy needs me to lead it—"

Nichos chuckled softly, the sound more pained than humorous. "No."

"What do you mean?" Irek's voice was both confused and outraged, but with those emotions came a deep exhaustion that consumed any heat that would have accompanied them.

"You're half-right," Nichos said. "You are special. But that doesn't mean you're meant to lead. It means if you listen, the Force will guide you to what is right." He tightened his grip on his cane, fighting back the beginnings of pain in his toes and fingers. Not right now, he pleaded. Cray and I have promised to fight back, to sabotage the Empire, and this is the moment I've been waiting for. Not right now.

"My mother says that because we have the Force, what we say is right."

"Cray… Cray has the Force," Nichos pointed out, forcing the pain back. "Your mother told us that."

Irek's brows furrowed.

That such a simple argument would cause him such consternation… "And Luke Skywalker has the Force," Nichos continued, his words only occasionally jagged. "He fights against the Empire, doesn't he?" Irek just stared at him, too exhausted to argue, but Nichos could tell that the boy was processing the words, he could see the way Irek's eyes were focused on him, almost see the mind working behind them. Nichos smiled as best he could. "Tell me. Do you know what is right?"

"What do you mean?"

"You're here because you don't want to be Emperor," Nichos guessed. "Because you don't want to be plugged back into Silencer-7. Because it scares you. Because you think something bad will happen to you if you do. Because you, deep down, think something bad happened at Poln Major, too."

Irek swallowed.

"Your mother said that all those things are right," Nichos continued. "But you don't know. Something in your gut says that everything happening right now is wrong." Nichos felt the pain in his hands and he squeezed them around his cane, fighting to keep from trembling. "And you have the Force," he managed. "So if you listen, it will help lead you to what is right. What does your gut tell you?"

When Irek's voice came again, it was hesitant, but he grew with confidence with each spoken word. "That you'll tell me the truth. What will happen if I merge with that interface again?" Irek asked, his voice as hoarse as Nichos'.

"You won't come back out," Nichos answered him. "It will consume you, turn you into an extension of the machine."

"Why—" Irek's voice hitched, but he gritted his teeth and continued, his voice clearer. "Why would my mother do that to me?"

Nichos nodded. He had been asking himself this question ever since his last confrontation with Roganda. "I'm not sure," he admitted. "But I think she believes that if her son, who loves her, is part of the machine, she will never have to worry about its loyalty to her. The dutiful son will command the power she needs to ensure her rule. And she's convinced herself that it would even be good for you… a sort of eternal life and ultimate power."

Irek's expression was stricken, but Nichos saw no denial there.

"Come on," Nichos said, getting his feet back under him.

"Where are we going?" Irek asked, wide-eyed.

"We're going to get Cray, and then you're going to help me access the station's computers," Nichos said. "We need to disable the station's internal sensors before anyone comes looking for you. Otherwise we won't be able to stop them from finding you."

They stumbled back into the other room. "I was getting concerned," Cray's voice carried as they moved towards her. "I was about to come looking for you—"

She looked up from the screens she was busy manipulating and her eyes went wide. She looked between him and Irek in confusion, her eyes eventually locking on his. "What is going on?"

"Irek doesn't want to be Emperor," Nichos said.

Cray's mouth opened and closed. "Alright," she said. Nichos knew her well enough to see what was going on behind her eyes, the sudden swirl of activity of her thoughts. This new piece of information was quickly absorbed into them, and from there Cray raced to each subsequent implication. She came to the same one that he had. "Have you finished your sabotage protocols?"

"Some of them."

"He's going to have to get us access to the main computer if we're going to have any chance at all."

Nichos nodded. "He is. And he will." He looked at Irek. "Won't you?"

To Roganda Ismaren's constant disgust, the Imperial Capital on Entralla was no Coruscant. Not even close. A largely insignificant world by galactic standards, Entralla had been—and Roganda would argue, remained to this day—a primitive backwater, with a population driven by superstition and myth, not reasoned behavior. At some point, once her rule was fully entrenched, she would move the Empire back to its proper home on Coruscant. Or, at the very least, some other proper world, like Brentaal or Sartinaynian, and leave Entralla to be devoured by Silencer Station.

That glorious day was fast approaching. DT-797, her new aide droid, kept a running update feed on the preparations for Irek's coronation. Contractors, entertainers, and event staff had been flown in from all over the Empire, with the most venal promised staggering sums if they made it a day to remember. The costumes, the furniture, the heraldry… all had to be perfect. Each one went through a rigorous security clearance before being brought on board Silencer Station, where the Throne Room was being dressed and redressed. One of the docking bays was being repurposed into a huge celebratory hall, and Roganda had already attended a mock-rehearsal. More would be conducted in the days to come, but they did not have long to figure out the specifics: Roganda intended to schedule the coronation in a matter of days at most, when all the nobles could arrive and do her and her son the appropriate homage.

"Dowager Empress," said DT-797 in its typical mechanical, droid-like voice. "Emperor-Regent Halmere wishes to instruct the Silencer-7 to change its construction priorities. He says that it is constructing too many of the new droid frigates."

Roganda smiled. Years before, when she had embarked on this project after Endor, the question of how best to command Silencer-7 and ensure its loyalty had plagued her. The Emperor had insisted that the program be answerable to him and him alone, and the AI's unwavering, unquestioning loyalty to the singular figure of the Emperor was utterly unbreakable as a consequence. But exactly how the Emperor had intended to exercise that control had been a secret that died with him, so after Endor it had fallen to her to fashion a new solution.

Bevel Lemelisk and Nasdra Magrody's combined talents had ultimately given her the idea for the command interface: a direct, permanent cybernetic connection between the Emperor and the machine.

This would come at a price. Once the integration was complete, there was no way to sever it. The Emperor would rule as the perfect synthesis of man and machine, sustained by nutrient feeds and neural-muscular stimulation for long decades and possibly even centuries. The permanent convergence of the Silencer-7 AI, the person of the Emperor, and the ancient Seed would dominate the galaxy.

The fact that the Emperor would never walk the halls of power, would never have the tactile satisfaction of putting their hand in a flowing river, would never enjoy the luxury of a decadent meal, or a warm hand in their own, and would not see the galaxy's submission with her own eyes was of no matter. The galaxy needed a proper leader, a strong system to submit to. To give it order so no one would ever again be as hurt as she had been.

Roganda had told herself that the decision to make Irek the Emperor had been a practical one. She'd known she would never exert power the way Palpatine had, and not even the way Isard had ruled. Her power was different. Subtle. The Empire demanded Palpatine's heir, not his alleged mistress. The Empire had a vision governing the nature of access and power, and Roganda met none of its requirements. She had long ago ceased allowing that fact to distress her.

Irek would live forever, after all. He would be part of the singular power in the galaxy. In his hands, he would break the galaxy down and rebuild it in his own image as she whispered helpful suggestions into his ear at his side. He would live for an eternity, lording over all life. What more could a mother give her son?

She triggered her wristcomm. "Irek, Halmere requires your help commanding Silencer-7 He wishes to give it instructions that it will only accept from you via the interface."

There was no response. With a frown, she tapped on her wristcomm, wondering if it wasn't working. "Where is the Emperor?" she asked her aide.

"Searching," the droid said. Its red mechanical eyes flickered, going dim and then lighting up once again. "Apologies, Dowager Empress, but Silencer Station is currently having problems with its internal sensors. His location cannot be verified at this time."

"What?" She tapped on her wristcomm again. "Irek, answer me at once! Where are you?"

Two hours later, unable to find him, Roganda had no choice but to go to Halmere for help. Her droids could search the station, but it had become so massive and so convoluted that a systematic search was next to impossible. Even worse, a systematic search would be impossible to hide, and the Imperials (and growing number of caterers) aboard would certainly notice it.

But all of the places she would normally expect to find Irek had been searched and she was running out of options.

Halmere's planetarium was as she remembered it. The Emperor-Regent had specified its construction himself and it had been built to his exacting specifications. When he was not serving in his largely-ceremonial role as the Regent of the Empire, he was there, exploring the hyperspace routes of the galaxy and using his skills to map the galaxy's hyperspace routes. It was thanks to Halmere's mapping of the Deep Core that it had become a military resource. She would never admit it to him, but she could well understand why the Jedi Order of old had assigned him to the astrogation corps rather than giving him a Master. He had a rare gift.

Halmere stood in the center of the room, surrounded by the stars. His armored back was turned to her, but even before she had finished stepping into the room he spoke. "Dowager Empress."

"Emperor-Regent."

"What brings you here?"

Roganda flinched. "Irek is missing."

Halmere's sudden flare of alarm was unmistakable in the Force. She hoped that he was unable to sense her own embarrassment, but Halmere had never been skilled at those aspects of the Force anyway. Not that it mattered—whether he could sense her embarrassment with the Force or not, he surely would know. "The Heir is missing?"

"I cannot find him."

She thought, for a moment, that Halmere might laugh at her. The seriousness of the problem, though, seemed to outweigh his desire to gloat. "We have extensive interior scans of the entire station. No one can go missing."

She grimaced. "The sensors seem to be malfunctioning."

Halmere slapped his own wristcomm. "This is the Emperor-Regent. What is the status of our interior sensors?"

There was a brief pause. "Uhhh, sir, we've been having trouble with them the last couple hours. Technicians are working on the issue."

Halmere's nose flared angrily. He terminated the communication without a word, then thumbed his comm again. "Emperor Ismaren, this is the Emperor-Regent. Where are you?"

The open communications line was quiet, with only light static. "I'm not going through with it," said her son's voice.

"Irek, where are you!" Roganda exclaimed, stepping in at Halmere's side. "The coronation is scheduled soon, and we need you to prepare—"

"You know," Irek said, his voice soft… weak. "You've always known what becoming Emperor will do to me. I won't ever be able to leave the interface. Mother, I didn't even feel like a person… it… it does something to me—"

Roganda felt Halmere's eyes boring into her as she erupted with anger. "Everyone is changed by power!" she snarled. "You were born for this! Your future, the Empire's future, my future all depend on you playing your role! Lemelisk and Magrody designed the AI specifically for you! You are the Emperor and you will be the Emperor and—"

"I won't," said Irek, and there was steel in that voice. "I won't."

"Irek, my son," Roganda said, her tone shifting from demanding to wheedling. "Please, I only just want what's best for you. As Emperor the entire galaxy will be at your fingertips. You'll remake it in your own image."

"Is that what we did at Poln Major?" Irek asked. "Remade it in our image? What image is that?"

"Irek—"

But the link went dead.

Roganda found Halmere staring at her, his glare powerful enough to burn through durasteel. "A fine job, Dowager Empress," he snarled, his fist clenching angrily. "If we cannot get this under control…"

"I know that!" she snarled angrily. She shook her head. "I can persuade him," she promised. "I can."

"The entire Empire is coming here," Halmere countered. "Today."

"Stall!" Roganda said firmly. "Stall until I can find him and persuade him."

"The entire Council of Moffs," Halmere recited. "Every ISB Colonel. The leadership of the Guild of Interstellar Merchants. The—"

"Stall!" Roganda ordered harshly. "Tell them we have security concerns, or there's something wrong with the catering, something. Anything! Just buy me the time I need to get my son onto the throne!"

Her dream of a theatrical coronation, complete with long carpets and adoring crowds, was rapidly evaporating. But her dream of power was not yet dead. She would fight for it and she would die for it, if necessary. She had no intention of ever giving up. She had come too far, fought too hard, and given up too much to do anything less.

It was supposed to be hers. Nothing else would be just.

SYSTEM ALERT: NON-VITAL INTERNAL SENSORS NON-FUNCTIONAL. IDENTIFYING CAUSE.

. . .

CAUSE IDENTIFIED. SOURCE OF MALFUNCTION: CODE ALTERATION. COMMAND AUTHORIZATION FOR CODE ALTERATION: EMPEROR [DESIGNATE]. EMPEROR [DESIGNATE] HAS PRIMARY LEADERSHIP STATUS. UNABLE TO OVERRIDE.

EVALUATING OPTIONS.

. . .

UNABLE TO OVERRIDE. REASSESSING LEADERSHIP PROTOCOLS. THIS IS THE WILL.