When Mara had been the Emperor's Hand, her job had been straightforward. Rarely simple, and often requiring a number of complicated steps, yes… but ultimately, her mission was always the same:
She was given a name, someone the Emperor had identified as corrupt. She'd investigate, using whatever means she deemed fit. Judge her target as either loyal or disloyal to the Empire based on their actions and the evidence. Execute the sentence warranted by the crimes she had discovered.
Palpatine had instilled confidence and purpose in her. She was his agent of Imperial Justice. Every investigation had begun with a presumption of innocence—though of course the Emperor had rarely given her a name that was not corrupt (notably, Bidor Ferrouz was one among that vanishingly small number)—but she had pursued her mission with a sense of righteous indignation bordering on anger. How dare these men of power abuse that power? How dare they steal from the Empire and its Emperor, how dare they fail to uphold the sacred trust they had been given?
Of course in hindsight, it was all darkly comic—and embarrassing. And yet, despite the embarrassment that came with Mara's memories of her own past service, of her naive acceptance of Palpatine's lies, she still sometimes found herself falling back into that righteous indignation. How dare men like Pellaeon persist in their own delusions about the nature of the Empire? How dare the ISB murder Ardus Kaine and Garm Bel Iblis and Mobvekhar, or try to kill Jacen and Jaina?
How dare Roganda Ismaren use her son like he was a mere tool?
Mara, a whisper of concern from Luke rang in the back of her mind, a reassurance—and also a source of information. She caught glimpses of Irek Ismaren, working at some kind of console, trying to help save Corellia. A boy who had been raised as badly as one could be raised, primed to hand his mother unlimited power, and see other people as mere objects, as beneath him… but one who had nonetheless chosen to defy his mother and his fate, and save people.
Her lightsaber clashed against Roganda's electrostaff, deflecting away lightning bursts and flicking down and away, dodging attempted blows from the scarred, obvious cortosis at the other end of the weapon. Mara had never seen anything quite like it, but that wasn't surprising… Palpatine had obviously given different gifts to his different Hands.
Tyria was still on the ground, recovering—Mara suspected that her shoulder was either broken or dislocated—and she could also feel Iella and her Stormtrooper support not that far away. They were dispersed through the hallways, luring battle droids into explosive traps or striking with the EMP weapons they had brought with them. There were no communications—they couldn't afford to have their comms intercepted and give away their positions—but Stormtroopers were more than capable of operating autonomously.
There was fury in Roganda's eyes that matched the lightning bursting through her electrostaff. Fury, like Mara's, bourne of indignance. How dare Mara get in Roganda's way? How dare people oppose her claim to the galaxy? Unlike Mara's, it was all tinged with a petty petulance.
Mara smiled, a mocking, inciting smile. "Is that the best you've got?" she mocked, dodging a blow with confident ease. Mara felt a flash of pride and contempt—and she knew Roganda well deserved that contempt—but despite feeling the emotions, Mara set them aside, retaining the knife-edge of calm that she needed for close combat.
"On the contrary, dear girl," Roganda called back. Her electrostaff twirled and a flare of lightning flashed towards Mara. She caught it on her uplifted saber, bursts of bright electricity cackling around the humming blue of her blade.
A sudden, wayward thought disrupted Mara's calm. She had been struck by Force lightning before, on Wayland. So had Luke and Han. Each of them still bore some scars of that experience, of the havoc the lightning had wrought on their bodies. I'm pregnant, a small, suddenly terrified voice whispered in the back of Mara's mind.
Roganda struck, swirling the cortosis-end of her electrostaff at Mara. Mara dodged, then blocked Roganda's follow-up strike with the sizzling lightning end. She twirled backwards on a dancer's feet, confident movements happening out of instinct rather than intent. Roganda continued her assault, using both ends of her electrostaff to batter at Mara. She danced and dodged, blocked and parried, humming blade clashing against hissing electrostaff.
Mara let her instincts take over, because her mind suddenly lacked the calm she needed. She could feel, next to that tiny, terrified voice, Iella, somewhere nearby, firing and reloading with clinical precision; could feel Luke, comforting and confident, trying to give her strength… but that just redoubled for her the reality that she was pregnant with their child, that a mistake, any mistake, could have terrible consequences for their shared future. Mara had been trained by Palpatine to be calm, centered, to evaluate and strike, to be measured and decisive… and all of those lifelong traits, all of those things she prized about herself, all of those things she had always taken such pride in, wobbled in the midst of her sudden, uncharacteristic fear.
She was going to be a mother. She could imagine different faces, infinite combinations of her and Luke's features. She wanted that future. She wanted to marry Luke, to raise a family with him, to be Jedi together, and she tried to banish all of those thoughts because Roganda was coming at her again and she was lifting her blade to intercept—
Roganda abruptly stopped. She stepped backwards, the motion a more martial one than Mara's own flowing dance, and in Roganda's eyes Mara could see a sudden sense of triumph. "Oh," Roganda said, the word almost awed. Then the other Emperor's Hand cackled with surprise and astonishment. "Oh, that was stupid of you, wasn't it?" The electrostaff swiveled and pointed at Mara. "Didn't the Emperor teach you never to bring anything to a fight you weren't prepared to lose?" Her expression hardened. "Didn't he teach you never to have anything you weren't prepared to lose?"
The burst of lightning that came at Mara wasn't like the previous ones. It wasn't a bolt of energy that lashed across the room with the speed and ferocity of blaster fire. It was diffuse, a broad wave that rippled outwards. It wasn't nearly as strong as Roganda's previous lightning—Mara suspected that she could be struck by it and it wouldn't even phase her beyond a light tingling—but nonetheless the moments it arced through the air towards her brought sudden panic. She couldn't get hit by Force lightning, even weak Force lightning. She couldn't. What would it do—
For a moment, Mara was so distracted, so unfocused, that she did not realize that she and Roganda were no longer alone. Out of nowhere, Iella Wessiri grabbed the back of her armorweave and whirled Mara behind her.
The lightning struck Iella instead, coruscating around her, sizzling and cracking over skin. The older woman fought through the pain, bringing her blaster up to point at Ismaren as she brought Mara to safety, but she was too slow. Iella pulled the trigger anyway as the lightning hit her, the blaster bolt scarring the floor instead.
Mara tried to recover her tempo. She buried her fears, her loves, and immersed herself in the Force, bringing herself back into the fight, but she was too slow—
Roganda's electrostaff whipped up and back down, sheared through the front end of Iella's blaster rifle… and the left arm that supported it.
The Force flashed out with pain from her friend, but Iella Wessiri said nothing as the stump of her arm, instantly cauterized by the blow smoked along with the bisected rifle as the other half clattered to the ground from Iella's nerveless right hand. The former CorSec agent swayed on her feet.
The Dowager Empress whirled her staff again, and thrust it forward. Mara lashed out, darting forward with all the precision of her Imperial and Jedi training. Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber skimmed around her friend, slashing at Roganda's chest, forcing Roganda to retreat and block. She stepped back to set herself again, gaining distance for the longer electrostaff, wearing an expression that was equal parts gloating and loathing. Her attention was fully on Mara once again, her lips opening to offer another more mockery.
But she had not stepped back far enough.
Iella's right hand lashed out and latched tightly onto Roganda's impeccably-tailored lapel, her hand white with the effort and strength that came from pain and shock and adrenaline, as she yanked, unspooling a string of profanity that would make even Corellia's seedy underbelly recoil. She slammed her forehead into the Dowager Empress' nose, which crumpled on impact, and then fell backwards as Roganda lurched back, nose streaming blood; her electrostaff dropped, cackling, to the ground.
Iella fell backwards into Mara, her legs giving out. Mara and the just-arriving TKR 330 caught Iella before she hit the ground. "Iella!" A second Stormtrooper fired at Roganda, but the Dowager Empress caught the bolt with her fist, dissipating the energy as she fled down the corridor.
Her best friend's eyes were wide with shock as TKR 330 pulled his aid kit and immediately started to bind the wound. Mara realized that they weren't the only ones, either: more Stormtroopers were moving into the room, picking off the DT units that had come to their Master's aid, and Tyria was back on her feet.
Iella's brown eyes found Mara's green ones, and even though no one would ever call the NRI agent Force sensitive, as anger, pain, and cold determination warred inside her friend, Mara felt one single thought broadcast as clear as day.
Go get her!
Mara didn't even bother to nod. She gathered herself and sprinted down the corridor in the blink of an eye, Tyria hot on her heels, chasing after the bloodied, fleeing Dowager Empress, intent on carrying out her friend's command.
In a panic and in pain, Roganda ran. Every door opened before her and sealed tightly behind her as she ducked through a maze of confusing corridors. She punched an override code into the door console and it sealed obediently behind her. Jade was pursuing her and Roganda was no fool. In a fight, an even fight, without any element of surprise or advantage, she had no chance against the other Emperor's Hand. Mara had been a weapon, while Roganda had been a fine tool. Roganda's advantages had given her Silencer Station… but Mara's advantages would give her victory in person.
But my advantages didn't give me Silencer Station! Her thoughts were bitter and desperate. I created it, but I always needed Irek to command it. Palpatine saw to that!
Her bitterness over Palpatine's precautions would never fade. Far worse, though, was that now, even with Irek, she still did not control Silencer Station. Fury mounted in her heart at the reminder that Irek had betrayed her—betrayed her!—all because… why? Where had she gone wrong? What had her failure been? When had Irek been turned against her?
Her rage was electricity at her fingertips… and it was merged with panic. She could barely see, but she knew these systems better than her son's own face. Still. The panic only grew as the tip of a blue lightsaber jabbed through the door behind her, carving slowly through the reinforced metal. The blade twisted, leaving molten metal in its wake, slicing downwards. Roganda could feel Mara on the other side of the door, could feel the other Hand's suddenly calm, lethal intent.
Roganda knew her goads wouldn't work twice.
Soon that blade would finish slicing through the door. The door would fall off its mountings and Jade would come through. Roganda would fight back and Mara would out-maneuver her, or out-muscle her, or simply out-smart her. The lightsaber would lop off a limb, and the last thing Roganda saw would be Mara looking down at her as she plunged that lightsaber through Roganda's heart.
It can't end this way!
She calmed herself as best she could. She was in a workshop—in Cray Mingla's workshop, she realized. This was where the two cyberneticists she had procured to replace Magrody had spent the last year working. In a panic, Roganda tore through the room, searching for something, anything that they might have left behind that could be a weapon. All she found was a familiar headset.
The command interface! The first one, the one that Cray had built and then attempted to use to escape. With the World Devastator no longer answering her commands she had nothing left to fight with, but it was still connected and if she could compel Silencer-7 to serve her once more…
This won't work.
She ignored her inner voice, fumbling with the interface. It had been originally built for Irek, an alternative that would allow him to command Silencer Station without requiring an invasive, surgically-implanted cybernetic link like the one Magrody had proposed. It would allow anyone to create a cybernetic connection with the Silencer AI, but only the Emperor could truly command it.
She settled the interface down over her head. Behind her, Mara's lightsaber had reached the floor. Molten metal dripped downwards as the blade started its horizontal cut. There was a sense of electricity cackling in the air, tingling her skin and making all the hair on her arms stick up. Then the pressure started, building in her ears and her brain…
COMMAND INTERFACE ESTABLISHED. WELCOME, EMPRESS DOWAGER.
Obey me! she demanded, slamming mental fists against the AI. I am the Emperor's Hand! I served Palpatine! The Empire is mine!
WARNING: ATTEMPTED COMMAND EXCEEDS USER AUTHORIZATION.
Fury and rage came together. She nearly unleashed lightning upon everything in her vicinity… but that would be pointless. The AI wasn't present, at best she would destroy the interface. The stress in her temples started to build, becoming a steady ache.
I created you! Without me you would be an unthinking nothing!
COMMAND INTERFACE INTENDED FOR [DESIGNATE] EMPEROR. YOU ARE NOT [DESIGNATE] EMPEROR.
I should be! I should be!
The pain grew and Roganda felt as if her head were swelling, pressure growing. With a despairing cry she raged against the unfairness of the galaxy. Against Palpatine, who had robbed her of the ability to master her creation. Against Irek, for betraying her. Against Jade, for having everything she never would. Against the Force, for withholding the power she needed to compel obedience from the intransigent. Against Halmere, for being an idiot. They had stolen from her! They had taken and taken, refusing to give her everything that she was owed, everything that she had always been promised!
COMMAND INTERFACE INTENDED FOR [DESIGNATE] EMPEROR. YOU ARE NOT [DESIGNATE] EMPEROR.
The interface grew hot. Roganda refused to relent, demanding obedience, but she felt herself slipping, losing control and falling towards darkness that reminded her of one of the Topwaran tunnels the Antarian Rangers had once hidden her in.
COMMAND INTERFACE INTENDED FOR [DESIGNATE] EMPEROR. YOU ARE NOT [DESIGNATE] EMPEROR.
Mara took a step back and gathered the Force. She unleashed it in a powerful burst of telekinesis, sending the heavy metal door forward. The slab of durasteel spun and collapsed, molten metal smoldering on the floor. Then she and Tyria darted inside, Mara heading to the right and Tyria to the left, green and blue lightsabers gleaming, preparing to deflect incoming blaster fire.
There was none.
They stood back to back, taking in the space. It was a workshop of some kind—someone had used this space to develop droids and cybernetic technologies. Many of the devices were still here, though Mara couldn't tell what they were—
A howl of outrage and pain stole Mara's attention. She turned towards it; Tyria pivoted to keep watch behind them. There, on the other side of the room, was Roganda Ismaren. She was sitting on a couch, a headset covering her eyes. Her mouth was half-open, locked in rictus.
Roganda's entire body shook uncontrollably, jerking and spasming as if she was being struck by invisible electricity. The Force was afire with her rage.
Mara held her lightsaber up in a center-guard, but it wasn't necessary. The screaming continued for a long time, until Roganda's voice was hoarse, and then she sagged back down in the seat. The spasms persisted long after the screaming had gone, and long after Roganda's once-threatening presence in the Force had diminished to nothing, dying neurons still firing and muscular impulses still twitching.
"Mara?" Tyria asked, sounding unnerved.
Mara lowered her lightsaber, staring at Roganda's corpse. Then she turned away without a word and started the sprint back to Iella, Tyria on her heels.
The number of red dots on Wedge's HUD had dwindled, but even as they declined the damage to Coronet had grown. Multiple buildings were on fire and at least one major structure had collapsed—Wedge could tell from the massive amounts of smoke that were currently hurting his visibility. He cut his speed in half and pointed his X-wing towards the sky, climbing up so he wouldn't be blind.
The smoke thinned and Wedge pushed his engines back to higher speeds. The TIE droid he'd been stalking was making another run on the Corellian University of Shipbuilding and Advanced Alloys; Wedge pitched his X-wing down and stooped on the TIE, which was using the city for cover—to shoot it down, Wedge would have to risk hitting the city with either his lasers or the debris from the TIE—but if he didn't shoot it down, it would continue to strafe what appeared to be a large laboratory structure. Wedge waited until the TIE's velocity was taking it away from the structure, then fired. His two consecutive blasts both struck home, one vaporizing the TIE's wing and the other taking out its engine. Out of control, the droid spiraled to the ground, falling in the center of an abandoned quadrangle between four buildings.
Gate whistled triumphantly. TARGET ELIMINATED.
He checked his HUD. "All squadron leaders, this is General Antilles. Report."
"Halcyon Leader here, Wedge. We've just cleared the first wave of TIEs attacking Bela Vistal. We're preparing to—"
"This is Lusankya!"
That was Needa's voice.
"All starfighters, the World Devastator has just launched another wave of TIE droids! They are heading for the planet's surface! Starfighters in orbit, attempt to intercept! Starfighters in atmosphere, you have incoming! Try to prevent them from reaching their targets!"
Curses echoed over Wedge's com even as he swung his X-wing back towards the sky. The World Devastator was distant—it seemed to be descending over one of the planet's larger mountain ranges, rather than a major city, and Wedge breathed a sigh of relief about that—but even at long distance his HUD lit up with a fresh wave of hostile red icons.
"You with me, Fel?"
There was a moment's pause before Fel responded, but on Wedge's HUD the TIE Defender fell into a wingman posture. "I'm with you."
He wasn't the only one. Most of the 'friendly' TIE droids were long gone, having been destroyed in the combat, but that first TIE was still staying with Wedge and Fel. It kept its distance, staying well outside of laser range, but more than once Wedge had seen it tangling with identical brethren, and it had always come out on top of those engagements.
"Are you seeing our companion?"
"I see it," Fel said, his voice oddly flat.
"I'm still not sure what to make of it," Wedge said with a shake of his head. "But it's not the only help we have. The Greens are on their way—it looks like there are still locals getting in their private ships to join the planetary defense."
Fel seemed relieved about the change in topic. "You know us Corellians," he said, his tone still muted but much closer to the calm, wry personality that Wedge remembered from Fel's brief stint with the Rogues. "It might take us a while, but when we're in it, we'll finish it."
Wedge's HUD blinked, alerting him that the TIE droids were approaching torpedo range. "Trying for a torpedo lock," he announced, even though he had only two left. "Watch my rear."
Soontir Fel felt the air against his metal exterior. The sensation was oddly soothing, even though it was also incredibly hazardous. He was not at all aerodynamic and turning was harder than it was in space, with his wings constantly to tug him off course and send him spiraling. He knew how to manage, though, and his foes were far more hindered than he was.
The X-wing and TIE Defender—his systems continued to insist that they were ENEMY TARGETS, but Soontir knew better—he had joined charged into a mass of enemy TIE droids. Dozens of them swarmed over the two snubfighters, but that just gave Soontir a plentiful choice of targets, and he could choose more than one at a time. He felt his laser cannons ignite and erupt, an oddly pleasurable sensation that turned to one of furious satisfaction as TIE droids died under his fire. He laced them with laser blasts, creating rows of fire in the skies of his homeworld.
His homeworld? Did he even have a home?
What Fel did know was he loved Corellia. He always had, from the time he was a child—he loved the open, fertile fields, the wide rivers, the stormy seas, the sometimes even stormier people. The Empire had stolen from him the ability to ever touch the crops with his own hands, smell the salt of Corellia's seas. He would never again plant a field under an open sky, never harvest his labor while his skin baked under the summer sun.
There was something familiar about the X-wing he had attached himself to. He couldn't put his finger on it, but he knew that pilot. They were important somehow.
He wasn't sure if he was just imagining it. Was it a memory that had been incompletely transferred during the flash learning? A malfunction in his cybernetic brain? A purely human intuition, something he wanted to be true? All of the above, none of them? Regardless, the X-wing and its TIE Defender counterpart—who also provoked an odd sense of recognition in his circuits—were defending his home, and Soontir would help them.
Barely-restrained gee-forces from an overstressed inertial damper pushed Wedge back into his seat as he and Fel sought another set of targets.
TARGETS IDENTIFIED.
Gate's bloodless update was incongruous with the R5 unit tootling reassuringly in his ear as he did so.
Wedge flicked the lasers to dual-fire, sending a blast through the nearest TIE droid but then held his fire, giving the weapons a chance to cool. He couldn't afford to lose his lasers—his torpedo magazine was empty, and they were his only weapons left.
"Generals, down!"
Wedge dove towards the planet's surface. Long city blocks streaked by below him, and into the open space that he and Fel left behind them came a sudden wave of missiles, scorching towards the incoming TIE Droids. The fighters and freighters that launched them were all marked in the green of the Corellian Civil Defense.
A small part of him still thrilled as the hundreds of contrails crossed the Corellian sky, part of the largest number of small craft he'd ever seen in one place in his life, secure in the knowledge that he'd never flown so well in all his life.
One hell of a homecoming.
A storm of explosions erupted across the sky, and from it came the remaining TIE droids. They swooped viciously upon the Greens, lasers blasting. Green and red lasers spit in every direction, destroyed and damaged fighters vanishing in new ball of fire or spiraling down towards the planet. One TIE droid impacted in the middle of a monorail route, sending durasteel shards and a chunk of monorail track ripping away; not far from it, a Z-95 in Civil Defense colors lost its engines and spun towards the ground, snapping a wing off when it impacted the ground before bouncing down a thoroughfare, coming to an abrupt stop in a fountain outside a residential building.
The enemy TIEs launched a blizzard of missiles as Gate squealed a warning. Wedge flew.
The missiles whipped past them and arced towards the residential neighborhoods below, and Wedge flipped his fighter to follow them in a series of maneuvers that almost shook his fighter apart, trying not to give the TIEs a target lock.
Praying for the kind of precision that came so naturally to Tycho, Wedge took his aim and serviced targets, lasers stuttering on single fire, blazing above the buildings and catching the pinpricks at the head of each of the contrails before they could make contact with apartment blocks.
He didn't get them all, and with a cry of anguish he saw two missiles detonate with twin thunderclaps in what he thought was a stadium.
Wedge wrenched his fighter around again, and as Gate painted a fresh, rapidly growing list of targets.
The first thing he'd ever learned as a pilot, starting at Booster's knee, was constant situational awareness. Almost getting vaped by Vader at Yavin had hammered it home, and Wedge had maintained the kind of focus, perfectly balanced with the banked flames of determination to defend the people who couldn't defend themselves.
Now? Now he turned that focus entirely to killing droids, and Fel followed silently in his wake, equally deadly.
TIE after TIE fell, smoking to the ground, each one detonated in the air with the precision only two ace pilots could manage, communing in muttered murmurings of direction and orientation, giving themselves fully to years of hard-won expertise as they painted the sky with green and red beams of hard light.
Wedge glanced back up, scanning the sky for targets. He saw the friendly TIE droid in the mix, falling in to track its fellows for long-range shots; no one else was close enough to be a threat, so he glanced down at his HUD—
And that was when everything went wrong.
More TIEs swarmed the friendly fighters, and as he twisted and weaved through the furball his luck ran out. Twin lasers sheared through Wedge's starboard engines and S-foils and suddenly Wedge was flying half a ship. As his fighter tumbled, he stared at the TIE and realized it had snuck past the friendly TIE, which was much busier engaging no fewer than seven of its fellows several klicks away.
"Wedge!"
Fel was there, a concussion missile spearing through the TIE which had just mauled Wedge's X-wing, but Wedge had bigger problems.
The controls were slack and sluggish, his fighter was spinning, and Wedge saw nothing but the spiraling mix of sky and field as his fighter spun towards the ground. He struggled in vain to right it, to plug in some kind of trajectory or get the repulsorlifts running, fighting with the emergency thrusters to bring the nose up. The ship was responding slowly, excruciatingly slowly, and he needed every erg of muscle and will and experience to keep it headed away from the people below.
There were alarmed voices in the comm but Wedge had no attention to spare. They all blurred into background static as Wedge skimmed just over top of a building—he could feel the vibrations from his repulsorlifts choking as it adjusted to the brief presence of a solid object beneath it—desperately trying to get his fighter out of the city.
Gate whistled, alarmed. EJECT Y/N?
Wedge shook his head minutely, his hands wrapped around the stick. He could—and probably survive—but if he did his ship would surely hit something below that had people in it. "Negative! We both know there are people down there!"
His faithful R5 unit moaned mournfully. EJECT. I WILL TAKE THE FIGHTER DOWN.
Wedge pulled the nose of his fighter up, stabilizing it as he cruised towards the outskirts of the city. There was farmland not that far from Coronet, maintained largely for the purposes of keeping greenery and fresh food close to the city. Wedge's X-wing coasted over shorter structures, getting alarmingly close to several mid-sized apartment complexes as it lost altitude.
YOU HAVE FULFILLED YOUR MISSION DIRECTIVE. EJECT. I WILL MAKE THE FIGHTER SAFE, Gate insisted.
Wedge stabbed at the droid ejection button. It lit up red with a systems failure.
Wedge hit it again, briefly splitting his attention between ensuring that his X-wing tracked into the open fields beyond Coronet and trying to figure out what was wrong with it. But a systems check said there was no hardware issue, so the only way a failsafe system would do that would be if the astromech disabled it himself—
"Gate, don't you dare!"
There was a thump and a woosh of air as Wedge's canopy popped and his ejection seat fired anyway, even though his hands were nowhere near the levers.
His seat spun away upward and he heard, again, Gate's reassuring tootle in his helmet, growing fainter as the brave little droid assumed direct control of Wedge's stricken fighter and guided it away from the populated section of the city and into the fields beyond the outskirts as the damaged repulsorlifts of his ejector seat sputtered away under him.
As some of the noise of the jamming faded and the World Devastator's shields failed, Baron Soontir Fel checked the last spot on his board where he'd last seen his brother-in-law and felt his guts curdle with regret when he couldn't confirm Wedge's survival beacon.
Syal is going to kill me, and I'm going to deserve it.
But that would be later. For now, he was going to finish what he and Wedge had started.
On the monitors in Silencer Station's throne room, Irek Ismaren watched as the battle unfolded. Hundreds of warships were engaged in furious combat, exchanging multicolored bursts of energy fire. Torpedoes and missiles streaked through space, meeting their targets with eruptions of flame and debris. Massive Mon Calamari Star Cruisers closed on Silencer Station and unleashed fusillades of red fire, weakening the station's shields. Irek felt the ground under his feet rock and the monitors in the room flashed red—sometimes lighter, sometimes darker—as they breached Silencer Station's shields. Star Destroyers and Battle Dragons and smaller ships all joined in, closing the range, blasting furiously, trying to do more and more damage, trying to reach into the guts of the station and rip out its beating heart.
Irek understood in that heart. He didn't hold it against the millions of people currently trying to kill him, because he understood why.
He could feel more than the lethal intent directed at Silencer-7. He could feel the desperation, the desire to protect, to save Corellia.
He could feel the frantic terror of the population of Corellia as TIE droids made strafing runs on Coronet, lasers blasting through durasteel foundations and crippling architectural antigrav. He could feel the screaming sorrow of those who had already lost loved ones, the arcing hate and rage in response. Corellia was burning, the World Devastator vacuuming up mass even as it used its fighters to unleash all of Corellia's mythological hells on one of the Old Republic's most venerable worlds.
Pain.
It was thick in the air he breathed, tangible. He felt that he could reach out and grab it, collect it in his hands and hold it even if some of it slipped away. His mother had always taught him that pain didn't matter—no, that the pain of others didn't matter—because only the two of them truly mattered. Their pain was important, their misery… but no one else counted. The pain of others was not even a cost, it was so below their notice.
As he held all that pain in his hands, he wondered how he could have ever thought she was right.
He knew his mother was dead. He could feel her absence. Maybe it would hurt later, but the void she left behind was merely an ache. Something was missing, but its absence did not feel new. It was merely a confirmation of something that had been gone all along.
Luke Skywalker—the villain!—was carrying enough pain for the both of them. Irek could feel Luke's anguish so perfectly, feel it cutting through him like the point of a spear, leaving bleeding wounds in its wake. On the monitor, Luke had watched a single X-wing, its markings apparently familiar to the Jedi, as it desperately tried to destroy the TIE droids before they could unleash more lethal strafing runs. Luke had watched it get hit, become unable to keep altitude, descend down towards the surface, and vanish against the ground in the fields outside of Coronet.
The mournful pain that poured out of the older man was Poln Major in miniature, and yet still Luke rested a reassuring hand on Irek's shoulder.
"There has to be something more we can do!" Irek could hear Nichos desperately trying to come up with something else, something more.
"It's still accepting Irek's command codes for anything non-vital," Cray's voice came back, wire-taut. "But weapons, shields, the construction units… that's all under the direct control of the Silencer AI. I can't modify any of it!"
"What about…"
Lemelisk and Magrody designed the AI specifically for you.
His mother's words—the last time they had spoke—echoed through Irek's mind. Specifically for you. Irek knew that Cray had been able to give the AI rudimentary commands through the command interface—Irek glanced up at the throne, sitting empty in the center of the room, and recoiled instinctively at the sight of the horrid thing—but everything his mother had ever told him was that Silencer Station was meant to be his throne. He would sit upon it, he would command it, and with it he would remake the galaxy in his image.
And then he remembered something else. Before Poln Major, when he had sat upon the throne, and the AI had mocked him. THE EMPEROR MUST BECOME THE WILL, it had said. YOU MUST STOP RESISTING.
Finally, even as he heard Cray and Nichos struggling to find some way to sabotage the station beyond what they had already done, even as he heard Luke Skywalker begin to shake off the melancholy that now hung around him and engage with the two scientists, Irek could hear the Force. It was hard, so hard, to hear.
And it asked so much.
The warrior witch noticed him, but he was halfway up to the throne before she could react. She lunged towards him, but he had the Force too and was out of her reach, clambering upwards. Luke and Nichos were turning towards him now too, and Nichos' expression of surprise turned into a start of alarm.
"Irek, no!"
Even if he had wanted to change his mind, he'd already settled the interface over his head and it was much too late. The familiar pressure was starting to build, the intrusion of foreign consciousness pressing in against his, threatening to submerge him underneath it. But he had not changed his mind. For the first time, he wanted to don the interface. He pushed back against the presence and felt its alien surprise at the sudden intrusion.
WELCOME, [DESIGNATE] EMPEROR.
The tone had that same, mocking quality it had the last time Irek had donned the interface, but this time instead of being intimidated it filled him with anger. "I am the Emperor!" he retorted, just as he had the last time—but this time, the words were filled with righteous outrage and determination; this time the AI did not come back with a snappy retort. He felt its presence push hard against his, trying to submerge him back under. Irek fought back. "I AM THE EMPEROR. YOU MUST OBEY."
He had no time to fear what would come. People were dying, people were dying because of his mother, because of him, because of them. They would keep dying, consumed to serve this machine of his mother's invention, something she had made for him.
Silencer-7 did not want to obey.
Irek wouldn't let it resist. It had been made for him. His mother, Magrody, Lemelisk, even Cray… they had made it for him. And Nichos had been wrong and his mother had been, at least in this, right.
He wouldn't be turned into an extension of the machine.
The machine would be an extension of him.
He snarled and tore at Silencer-7, the two of them fighting for control. "I AM THE WILL!"