Chapter 27: Broken Shards

Trilla allowed her gaze to slide past the two panting children and through the enormous glass window behind them, to fall eventually upon the turbulent ocean beyond Scarparus Port. The ocean was Arkanis's only redeeming feature. Trilla liked its anger and its endless movement stopped her from becoming too restless in the new home that her Master had mandated for her. When she finally spoke, her voice was cold and lazy in the manner she had learned from the Emperor.

"Again."

The taller of the two younglings looked at Trilla with wounded disbelief. Her nose dripped blood onto the floor but her opponent was in far worse shape, collapsed to his knees and clutching his abdomen.

"What's the point?" the young Mirialan demanded.

Trilla did not flinch at the fine spray of blood.

"I've already beaten him. What more do you want?"

"The path to true power, young one," Trilla advised, "is through pain. You are not done with him yet."

"You're crazy."

Such gall. Trilla snickered. It was a welcome reprieve, really, from children collapsing in pieces at her feet all the time.

"And you will learn quickly to do as you're told," she advised. "You performed for Grakkus, no?"

There was fear bright in the young Mirialan's eyes. Her determined countenance was broken by a flinch as Trilla raised her voice.

"Stand!"

The wounded Nautolan dragged himself to his feet, shaking with pain.

"As I said. Again. There will be no rest until the intervention of the surgical droid is required."

The Nautolan boy, captured from a village outside of Glee Anselm where he his ignorant kinfolk had honoured him as a healer, as a bringer of miracles, was broken already; he lifted his fists in weary resignation. The Mirialan was frozen in her indecision. The Jedi Temple had not prepared her for this.

"If you do not wish to fight him," Trilla offered lazily. "Then I will teach you both myself."

In truth, she had every intention of directly teaching the Mirialan the great many facets of physical pain no matter whether she cooperated. But she would allow the girl's spirit to break first, allow her to deal out violence to this untrained youngling she so obviously pitied.

"Fight. Now."

And with a great wave of self-loathing in the Force the Mirialan advanced upon her opponent. Trilla might have been impressed with the agile kick she landed against the side of the Nautolan's skull – right where the bone was thinnest – but she never saw it. The lights in the training room were suddenly extinguished and only the silver forks of lightning striking the ocean illuminated the silhouette of the girl standing over her unconscious opponent.

But it would be naïve to blame the power outage upon the electrical storm. The building's protective shields, too, had ceased to hum.

"Okay. That's the barrier shields, the internal doors, the lights and the cameras."

Boil withdrew his unconscious captive's finger from the scanner and the control panel in the compound's security office powered down.

"Good job, brothers. We can't ask for any better than that."

Kix frowned at a set of surveillance monitors.

"I think you've killed the power on the external elevator too."

Boil grimaced.

"Worth the time to fix it?"

"No way," Cody advised. "Let them use their cable-lines or their Force or something. We've got to keep moving."

"And let them switch the building's shields back on as soon as they get in here?" Trapper challenged.

He swiped his unrecognised fingerprint repeatedly into the scanner and tapped some nonsense into the keypad. There were heavy footsteps outside the door and the wailing of an overhead alarm.

"Trapper…"

But the clone gave a jubilant laugh as the keypad flashed red.

"Ha! Locked out. The Emperor hasn't updated his basic programming since he ran the Grand Army of the Republic."

"Very good," Cody grumbled. "Now let's move. We've got a distraction to make. We fight as many as we can for as long as we can and we give the others the time that they need."

There was a bang and rising smoke from the heavy door they had sealed shut behind them and muffled shouts of victory from the pressing stormtroopers. A few blaster bolts flew in through the tight gap that had opened up in the warped metal, injuring only the control panels.

"Cheap knockoffs," Boil muttered.

"To the main power unit, brothers," Cody ordered. "Move now!"

They shouldered their blasters and advanced towards the succumbing door. Cody had been here a thousand times before. But stars, he felt old today.

He hadn't wanted to tell Korkie but he had a bad feeling too.

"Rogue stormtroopers, Second Sister."

Trilla beheld the panting officer with disdain. She was exactly sure how these idiots kept qualifying for promotions. If she'd had her way, she'd have employed none of them and stuck to droids. But men, in a time of near galaxy-wide recession and crippling sentient unemployment, were apparently cheaper.

"A mutiny, perhaps. They've shut down most of the electronic security measures and damaged the system to prevent re-activation."

The officer flicked on a map, indicating at the projected grid reference points.

"They've been engaged on level one, Second Sister, here at H3. Moving south. It's possible they're targeting the main power unit."

"Hmm."

Stormtroopers were the only sentients less intelligent than officers. It would not even have dawned on them to mutiny against her.

"Thank you for your report, Officer. I will handle matters."

Trilla gave a dismissive wave of her hand that sent the officer stumbling backwards. She turned on her heel to leave. The Grand Inquisitor and the Tenth Brother at the nearby Officer's Academy would have been automatically notified of the security breach and be on their way to provide assistance. And Trilla really wasn't interested in accepting their help. It would be best if she had matters well under control by the time of their arrival.

"Second Sister!" the officer yelped behind her. "You're going the wrong way. They're on level one, I said."

Trilla groaned and turned back.

"By the stars, Officer. Four rogue stormtroopers? You don't need me to engage them, do you?"

Her informant gaped at her, dumbstruck.

"They won't make it to the main power unit," Trilla drawled. "I'm going to where I'm needed. To ensure the safety of our precious children."

For the only possible reason for foul play at the Inquisitor's Academy could be to gain access to the children. No bleeding-hearted rebel nor rogue stormtrooper would satisfy themselves with blowing the building to pieces. These children were the last of a dying breed and while Trilla spent a great deal of time wondering whether it was truly necessary to keep so many of them alive – at this rate, there would be more Inquisitors than Jedi in a decade's time – she understood that they were precious assets of the Empire. There was far more to this breach, she suspected, than four rogue stormtroopers.

There was a feeling in the Force like there was no glass separating her from the elements anymore. Like the electrical static in the air outside that cast lighting into the ocean surrounded Trilla, filled her lungs. There was the feeling of the world holding its breath before an enormous clap of thunder.

Trilla ignited her blade as she stalked upstairs to the building's highest level where her fourteen young charges slept – tried to sleep – on the cold floors of adjacent single cells. The young Mirialan, Trilla sensed, was awake still, wrestling with guilt as it gave way to anger and hatred. Her Nautolan opponent was more unconscious than asleep, the surgical droid a softly-bleeping sentinel by his side, performing its serial scans. Their newest infant, a human they had acquired from Ralltiir, was crying. It had not yet learned that its cries would garner no comfort. Trilla walked with delicate footfall, slowly inspecting cell after cell. The darkness around her was deep and comforting.

The crying stopped as Trilla approached the final cell. There was a hum and the glow of a blue 'saber. The illumination of a familiar and yet alien face.

"You've aged, Master."

Cere Junda's face was all skin and bone. She had strapped the infant at her chest.

"Losing you nearly killed me, Trilla."

Trilla sneered.

"I hope you don't expect me to feel sorry for you."

And there was only deep, welling sadness in her Master's eyes.

"I don't."

Trilla lunged forward, their 'sabers meeting in a shower of sparks. The infant began to cry again.

"It's ironic, no? That you come here to rescue these children from the care of the Padawan you ruined."

And Cere Junda must have known that it was true, for she said nothing in return. Instead she allowed her face to harden into an expressionless mask and with the spinning of blades, their battle began in earnest.

Someone had come to rescue them. Someone stupid, someone surely incredibly stupid, had decided that she was going to waltz in and fight them out of there. But who was Anara to criticise? It wasn't like she had come up with any sort of plan herself, in however long she had been on Arkanis. She'd been placed in a tiny cell constructed of some strange alloy where she had been unable, in all her fitful attempts at meditation, to connect to the Force at all and left in the darkness, in the silence, for what felt like an eternity. It had been a few weeks, perhaps. Anara had tried to keep track of time based on how often they gave her water but had quickly lost her bearings. In any case, they'd left her there for long enough until they were satisfied that she had gone completely mad and deemed her ready to begin her training. The flood of the Force back into her body as they pulled her from the coffin-like cell had been almost overpowering. And what had she achieved since then? She'd hurt some poor youngling then simply laid here on her back, trying and failing not to think about the torture chamber that the Second Sister had promised her before the lights had gone out and she'd forced them all into their rooms instead.

You will have to look forward to coming to know true pain tomorrow, young one.

Anara didn't know who she was behind that helmet and she didn't want to. Word was that the Inquisitors were all lost Jedi. And there was nothing that frightened Anara more than that. For if others had fallen, who was to say that she would not fall too?

She needed to get out. And if this stupid-brave soldier was going to get them out of there, they'd need Anara's help. She pressed her hands against the door of her cell and tried to find peace in her breath. There must have been some way out.

Hair plastered to his forehead, clothes clinging and heavy about his frame, Korkie was almost glad for the battle that awaited him in the lower levels of the Inquisitor's Academy – an opportunity to warm up, at least, after being exposed on the cliffside in the lashing rain. Korkie liked fighting alongside the Faulties; they were cohesive and disciplined and he never had to worry about his back. But with the arrival of a Pau'an that Korkie recognised as the Grand Inquisitor and a Miralukan who must have been some sort of numbered Brother, the battle intensified and the warmth gave way to the beginnings of pain.

"Korkie!"

Mace Windu, who had managed to draw both Inquisitors his way, gestured with a jerk of his head to the comm at his wrist.

"Cere's called for back-up. Top floor. You go ahead. I'll be up soon."

"Got it."

With a wave of his hand and a tug in the Force, Korkie brought down an overhead light to break up the crush of stormtroopers blocking his path. He leapt upwards through the inadvertent hole he had created in the ceiling and jogged through a mercifully quiet hallway, deflecting stray blaster bolts as they came his way. He probed the Force as he moved; he felt Cere Junda's steely focus and the scrambled emotions of the children – fear, hope, confusion. He thought he could hear the high-pitched cry of a newborn infant and hoped he was imagining it.

It looked like the Faulties had inadvertently taken out every last elevator in the complex; Korkie instead climbed a staircase so narrow it was really more of a ladder. When he finally made it to the top floor he was greeted by almost total darkness, illuminated by rapidly swinging beams of blue and red light at the far end of the hallway. He felt Cere in the Force as he had never felt her; cold and guarded, exquisitely focused. She had likely not even perceived he was here.

The former Jedi Master was holding her own against the Second Sister in a fast-paced battle, an infant strapped close against her chest. The cells that must have belonged to the other children were still closed. Korkie felt the panic of the bewildered children but above them all rose some clarity, perhaps of an older child in meditation. He followed this Force signature and sliced his lightsaber through the lock unit. The Mirialan teenager, her face frighteningly pale, pulled open the door before Korkie had the chance. She looked at him with expectant amber gaze.

"I'm Anara. What's the plan?"

Korkie wished he knew.

"Out of the building and down the cliffs. Our ship's on the water."

"Out of the building?" Anara repeated. "How?"

Korkie grimaced. That had been up to Cere.

"Honestly, that window looks like our best option."

They eyed the enormous panel of glass at the end of the hallway and the shifting darkness of the ocean. Anara was kind enough not to convey her disappointment.

"Right. I don't know how many of us there are. They keep us apart. But I think your friend has only got the baby out so far."

"Okay."

Korkie took a steadying breath.

"I think Cere's got the Second Sister handled and we've got help coming. We'll start to get the others out and towards the window. We'll have to keep everyone calm."

Anara's eyes widened.

"Cere? That's Master Junda?"

"Yes. You're from the Temple?"

Anara nodded.

"Good. You'll have better training than me. Take this."

He handed her his lightsaber.

"What will you fight with?"

Korkie brandished the Darksaber.

"Not my favourite. But it'll do."

If Anara recognised the weapon she did not let on.

"I'll take this side; you take that one?"

There was a cry of pain and hissing breath; Cere had wounded the Second Sister but they fought ferociously still.

"They're going to notice us," Anara pointed out.

"That's why I gave you the lightsaber," Korkie countered calmly.

He grasped Anara by the arm as she moved to embark down the hallway.

"We really, really, cannot let anyone panic, okay?" he emphasised. "It's the worst thing that could happen. Don't let anyone out of their room unless you know you can calm them. If not, just leave them for me."

Anara raised a brow.

"I thought you said you were untrained."

"Formally speaking. But mind tricks are my specialty."

There was the rumbling of footsteps beneath them. The Second Sister, too, must have called for back-up. The battle that Mace and the Faulties were trying to keep downstairs was rapidly approaching them.

"Let's go. We've just got to get the doors unlocked and have the kids calm and ready to move when it's safe. Don't engage the battle. Cere will handle it."

After Cere dodged yet another furious swipe, the Second Sister gave a cry of rage and flung her blade against the window. The shattering of glass was swallowed by the rushing noise of the ever-closer storm. She hurled the broken shards through the Force towards her opponent but Cere, with equal power, directed them aside.

"Don't worry," Anara told him. "I'm not stupid. I do plan to survive the night."

And with Siri Tachi's lightsaber held so naturally by her side, she headed for the next cell door.

Mace had half kept his promise to Cere; he had arrived for support but had inadvertently brought with him the Grand Inquisitor and Tenth Brother who he'd hoped to take care of downstairs. The hallway was slippery with crushed glass and streaks of rain, blown in by a salty, biting wind. The two combatants appraised the new arrivals with heaving chests, taking a mutual moment's pause to reassess the dynamics of the battle.

"Brothers!"

The modulator of the Second Sister's helmet did not hide her panting breath.

"You may take Windu and the child of Kenobi as your prizes," she advised. "But the so-called Master Junda is my kill."

A few stray stormtroopers that the Faulties had not managed to engage emerged from the narrow staircase and began to fire as the chaos of battle commenced all over again. There would be more reinforcements to follow. In the darkness Mace made out Korkie's golden hair and the almost imperceptible arc of the Darksaber as it sliced through outstretched blasters. The son of the Duchess Kryze still avoided hurting his enemies when it could be helped. But Mace did not long have the luxury of admiring his young companion's compassion. The Grand Inquisitor and Tenth Brother had advanced again. And he needed to end this battle now.

Korkie's chest felt like something might explode within him. That horrible revelation. The stabbing sense of betrayal. And all at the wrong kriffing time, when he had the lives of fourteen children in his hands.

The so-called Master Junda is my kill.

Why had no one kriffing told him?

His head was filled with dizzying memories. The Second Sister on Dantooine and that torrential crash of hurt and rage.

My Master gave me up to the Emperor.

And here Cere Junda was, before him – the Jedi who had rescued him from that horrible vision on Tanalorr, who had seen exactly whose kriffing torture he was witnessing and said absolutely nothing about it. Cere was entangled in a vicious battle against the Second Sister now. Fighting her like she'd forgotten it all.

But there was no time. No kriffing time. He still had one door to break open. Korkie effortfully released the emotion and sliced through the lock system of the final door to reveal a baby zabrak.

Star's sakes.

He could not tell this child, as he had told the others, to wait behind the door until he told them it was safe to run. He lifted the baby into his arms and used the crib's singular blanket to fasten it to his chest in the way he once had carried Luke and Leia.

Be calm, young one.

He spoke as much to himself as to the baby. Another steadying breath, and back out into the hallway, where chaos enveloped him all over again.

Mace had slain the Miralukan Inquisitor and moved to engage the Second Sister while Cere hurried back down the corridor to assist Anara in mobilising the children. Korkie found a towering Pau'an in his own path – the Grand Inquisitor, wielding a spinning double-bladed 'saber.

The Darksaber was not so heavy in Korkie's hands as it once had been; he had grown into it, perhaps, with time and Mace's devoted training. He engaged the Grand Inquisitor and as a detonator thrown by an arriving stormtrooper whistled past his ear, he helped it along with the Force to fly out the shattered window where the damp ground kindled into reluctant flames. In the corner of his vision, he saw the flitting movements of the children as Anara shepherded them towards the window where Cere has fastened a cable-line.

They were going to make it, Korkie told himself, as he dodged a lunging blow. The Pau'an grunted in pain as a blaster bolt found his shoulder. The zabrak that Korkie had briefly persuaded into silence began to cry.

"You doing alright, Korkie?"

The Faulties were here.

"I'm okay, Cody. Thanks."

They were going to make it. Korkie repeated it to himself as he swung the Darksaber again and again and again. They were going to make it. Everything was going to be okay.

Trilla was near blind with rage. It was one matter for her former Master to face her, to offer her a pathetic non-apology, to engage her in battle. But it was a thousand times more unforgiveable to slip away from their duel, to flee like a coward, and to leave Mace Windu to slaughter the Padawan she had in her pathetic, twisted compassion been unable to kill.

For Mace, Trilla feared, would kill her. The second most powerful Jedi in the Order had engaged the Emperor on Ryloth long enough to allow the escape of his companions and Trilla knew she could not yet hope to do the same. He had already slaughtered the Tenth Brother. She had all the rage in the galaxy on her side but his Vaapad reflected it all back upon her. It would not be enough.

But if Mace was going to kill her then she would not allow Cere Junda the peace of walking away from her. She lifted a hand and eyed the flickering flames outside as they struggled beneath the still-falling rain. She reached deep within herself, reached for that twisted, pooling Darkness, and cast that power outwards. The flames burst into renewed life, rising to towering height and racing along the length of the cliffside.

A smile curved upon her lips even as Mace Windu overpowered her spinning blade and pressed her backwards. Trilla might die today. But Cere Junda had no way out.

The cliffside was alight with a wall of towering flames. They had erupted into a force more powerful even that the Second Sister's darkness; they had raced along to the base of the Academy and presumably struck a fuel-holding. It was far beyond the rain to extinguish these flames and seemingly beyond Cere's abilities too; surrounded by a trembling flock of children under the lashing rain, she wrestled with the flames through the Force, extinguishing the fire in segments that soon roared back to life. And there was no question of their successful escape overland. They needed Greez to bring the ship up and they needed him to do it fast.

But there was no sign of him.

The Second Sister leapt down onto the muddy ground and Mace followed. She had been fatiguing but there was a resurging darkness in her now, as though the flames that she had fed were igniting her in return. The Academy had begun to burn in earnest, with soldiers streaming down on cable-lines, firing haphazardly still. By the stars, they'd made a mess of this.

"Greez, we're ready for that ship!" Mace barked through his comms. "Everyone's out of the building."

"Mace, I'm in a-"

The sound of a distant explosion.

"-in a spot of trouble."

Mace kicked the advancing Second Sister in her chest and whipped his head around to survey the battle. Korkie had made it down, gripping the Darksaber with blanched knuckles as he combatted the spinning double-blade of the Grand Inquisitor. The Faulties, too, must have made it – two soldiers were firing upon the Second Sister, and two others hurrying to Korkie's aid. Cere had the children gathered behind her, defending them from blaster fire with her outstretched blade.

"What sort of trouble?"

"Imperial marine patrol. They've blown open the damn ignition compartment. I'm trying to fix it, the engine still works, but I can't get the kriffing ship started while we're sitting on the water. The fuses are all wet, I-"

Mace abandoned his comms and struck out at the Second Sister again.

"It is time to go!" he yelled, over the roar of the fire and the drumming of the cascading rain. "Korkie, Faulties, get to Cere. I'll take them all."

The Second Sister was rushing back at him with a barrage of 'saber strikes. He deflected them with deft footwork as he made his way around to Korkie.

"You heard me. Get to Cere."

Korkie grimaced as he ducked beneath the Grand Inquisitor's sweeping blade.

"We can't go anywhere until Greez has fixed the ship, Mace. We're better off sticking together."

"The ship will be fixed soon and you all need to be ready," Mace gritted out. "We won't have much time."

He reached his 'saber across and engaged the Grand Inquisitor. Korkie's face was drained of colour in the light of the flames.

"Whatever you're planning to do, Mace, it's going to be too much. I can't let you-"

"Get out of here, Korkie," Mace commanded. "Please. To Cere. Go."

He whirled around to block the Second Sister as she advanced upon his undefended side. Juggling both Inquisitors would make this difficult but it was for the best. With the wall of roaring flames and the fire of Imperial soldiers, they would have only a brief few precious moments to get the children onto the ship. He would fail them all if he could not keep the Inquisitors occupied at close range.

"Korkie, go!"

The boy knew, blast it. He might have had tears upon his face. It might have simply been the rain.

"You're going to follow us," Korkie demanded, with wavering voice.

"Yes, Korkie," Mace promised. "Now go."

In the din of the battle, something changed. Cere could not place it, at first. The fire roared onwards. The rain lashed down. The building crumbled. The last few surviving stormtroopers shot their wayward blaster bolts. But there was a great reverberation in the Force and a strange sucking sound from the ocean below.

"The ship! We're-"

Greez's voice crackled through their shared comms.

"I don't know what in the hells is going on but we're up. We're off the water. I'll get the engines up and running and-"

Cere looked and saw Mace, a beacon of light upon this miserable landscape, casting his strength well beyond the two Inquisitors who engaged him. Reaching with one arm as the other gripped his lightsaber, lifting with all the power he could summon. His body trembled with the effort. Korkie was splashing through the mud towards Cere, unfastening a zabrak infant from his chest.

"Engines are online!"

"It's time to go!" Korkie cried.

And Mace relinquished his effort with a great spasm in the Force. Above the wall of fire, there were new strange stars of green and yellow. Their ship, roaring back to life, extending its ramp.

"Everyone on board, now!" Korkie barked.

He handed the wailing zabrak baby to the oldest of the children – a Mirialan who wrapped the infant stoically at her own chest – and turned to deflect the blaster bolts and detonators cast by the remaining stormtroopers. Cere lifted her own lightsaber but could not seem to focus on the onslaught of projectiles. She could not wrench her gaze from the battle by the burning Academy. Mace Windu, who had lifted their freighter from the water and suspended it until the fuses had finally sparked, was stooped between two swarming Inquisitors.

"Cere!"

Korkie gripped her by the wrist.

"Get the kids into the kriffing ship. I'll go get him."

"Korkie, let me-"

"No."

There was anger beneath the desperation in the young man's voice.

"You can't fight her. I'll do it."

He knew. And in the face of his crushing disappointment Cere could say nothing. She nodded her head and joined the Faulties in shepherding the children up and into the waiting ship.

There was something wrong with the way Mace was moving. Korkie ran as fast as he ever had, his mud-caked boots slipping helplessly beneath him, and intercepted the Second Sister's flashing strike.

"Come on, Mace."

"You need to go, Korkie."

Mace's voice strained as he absorbed a strike from the Grand Inquisitor with his wavering 'saber.

"I told you before that you need to go."

"We need to go, Mace."

Korkie swept the Darksaber in a sweeping arc that bought them a few metres' space from their circling opponents and deflected an approaching blaster bolt. He saw, then, with downcast eyes, Mace's blood-slicked hand clutching at his abdomen.

"Oh kriff, Mace-"

"Go, Korkie."

"No karking way."

Korkie deflected the next blaster bolt directly into the offending stormtrooper and locked blades once more with the Grand Inquisitor, who he repelled with a kick to the stomach before rounding on the Second Sister.

"Do not fight in anger, Korkie."

"And don't you give up on yourself," Korkie gritted out.

They had successfully retreated a few steps back towards the burning cliffside now, where Greez hovered the freighter, swaying side-to-side as it dodged detonator blasts. Korkie knocked the lightsaber from the Second Sister's grip and struck her with an elbow that did little damage against her armoured skull; she quickly summoned the blade back into her possession.

Another few metres.

"I will hold them as you board, Korkie. Otherwise we've no chance of getting aboard safely."

And Mace might have been right but Korkie simply could not believe it. He caught Mace's cloak in one hand and brandished the Darksaber in the other, deflecting their opponents again and again and again – the blades getting ever closer to him, singeing the skin of his knuckles – as he dragged Mace, whose gait was unsteady now, within range of the dangling ramp.

"We can't come down any closer, Korkie," Greez commed. "We're going to get blown out of the kriffing sky. Can you-"

"I can jump," Korkie answered. "Just give me a few seconds more."

He steadied himself. Steadied his breath. Felt the great tides of the ocean and the electricity in the sky. Thought of Tanalorr, where he'd sworn he could move a mountain.

Mace's voice was panting and unsteady.

"You can't jump, Korkie. Not with me. Let me go. You'll need all your strength-"

"No chance, Mace."

He severed the sword arm of the Grand Inquisitor with one last sweep of the Darksaber, bundled Mace into his arms, and leapt.

Trilla screamed her rage but she could not pull them back. The freighter sealed shut its ramp, climbed through the storm clouds, and with a flare of light blazed into the distant stars.

"We will mobilise the airforce from the Officer's Academy."

The Grand Inquisitor's jaw was set and his countenance grim. All of the spacecraft at the Inquisitor's Academy had been consumed by the brutal flames.

"They will not save him," Trilla stated. "I know what I did. That wound was fatal. I-"

"What good is Windu when all of our children are lost?"

Trilla flinched but held her ground.

"Windu was more powerful than any of them."

"I do not think the Emperor will share your optimism."

At this, Trilla dropped her chin. In another life she would have cried. But all she felt now was a profound emptiness in her chest. The Emperor would not be pleased. The Emperor would not be merciful. She swallowed firmly against the rising memories.

The path to true power was through pain.

Ooft. It came out more brutal than I planned. Apologies for the cliff-hanger.

Action scenes are not my strong suit - hope it's all readable.

Got locked out of two-factor authentication recently and couldn't resist Boil wreaking some havoc with his denied fingerprint. Even the Empire has to have some IT failings, no? Seemingly ubiquitous amongst large, well-funded corporations.

Next chapter, our brave survivors travel onwards to their new home. I PROMISE to put something happy in there for you. Korkie has a precious gift to deliver an old friend.

xx - S.