"We have one," Norra answers. "Leia sent over the Falcon's movements. Solo was trying to single-handedly liberate Kashyyyk, but something went wrong and his copilot, Chewbacca the Wookiee, went missing. We have a pattern representing his search." Norra pulls up a holomap. It fills the air around them with orbs representing glittering systems, each linked by a shining, shimmering hyperspace route. Norra focuses in on a region near Wild Space. "He could be in one of a dozen systems."

"It's a start," Jom says.

Sinjir thrusts a long, pointy finger down on the table. He hops it from card to card. "Maybe some of our erstwhile Imperial guests have some information. I'll canvass our captives."

"I can check with some of my contacts in the underworld," Jas says. "If Solo's truly desperate, he may have been clumsy enough to have drawn attention to himself."

"Good," Norra says. "I'll dust off the Moth and fly it out to where Chewbacca was taken by the Empire. Maybe if we can find a clue there as to where Solo's copilot ended up, it'll help us narrow down our options."

Jom nods. "Let's get to work, then."

- They each know their job. Jas heads out-willfully getting ahead of Jom to make sure that he and the rest of the crew know she's no heart-swollen star-calf, no moon-eyed waif, no lust-struck fool. But again, that war of thoughts within her: Why do you care what they think? Aren't you protesting overmuch? Admit it, right now you'd climb him like a ladder.

It makes her grouchy.

Outside, Sinjir awaits to make her even grouchier.

He's grinning big and broad with the puckishness of a boy who hid his mother's creditspurse.

"What?" she asks, defensive.

"You," he says.

"Me what?"

"You never once asked."

"Never once asked what? Speak plainly, Sin, or I'll boot you off this platform. I'm in no mood for your brand of devilry."

"What it paid."

"I said, speak plainly-"

He rolls his eyes, obviously impatient with her lack of getting-it. "You never asked what it would pay to go find the missing Solo, Jas. You didn't ask about a bounty. Or a reward. Not any of it."

"I..." Her breath catches in her chest. A very real and very cold panic rises inside her like a cyclone of sleet. He's right. She didn't. Worse, she didn't even give a thought to it. "I knew there'd be a reward," she lies to him (and really, to herself, as well). "Leia's accounts run deep. Of course rescuing Solo would be a particularly big payout. And! And even if not, having an Alderaanian princess owe you a favor is not insignificant." She tells herself that all these things are so true that she must've just taken them on as assumed-of course it would be worth her while.

"Look at you. Such precious backpedaling."

"Eat sleem, Rath Velus."

He chortles and winks. She stomps off.

I'm not here to make friends. She repeats this in her head again and again, over and over, until it's all just gabbling noise.

Mas Amedda is troubled. He has not slept in days. He has hardly eaten. He is a creature who is trapped by the architecture of a government he helped create, a government that no longer wants him or needs him. For a time, Amedda hoped he had it figured out-he would give himself up. He would hand himself over to the New Republic and they could do with him as they chose. It was, he believed, a foolproof plan. And it was a plan that left him eerily comforted-at least it felt like he had agency. At least it felt like the choice to give up was his. Because everything else is out of his hands. Everything but minor administrative details.

It is lonely being the head of a dying Empire.

He is a figurehead. Or worse than one. They don't even trot him out for appearances. His office and his chambers make up his prison. It's here he mostly stays. Taking in his meals. Watching the HoloNet. Thinking about his future, or rather, the lack of his future.

It wasn't supposed to be like this.

Palpatine was supposed to remain. The Emperor was as certain a fixture in the galaxy as the Core itself. As fundamental as the Imperial Palace. Timeless and immortal.

But he wasn't.

He is dead. And Mas Amedda is alive.

Mas wishes he was dead, too.

And that is his plan when he returns to his office in the tallest spire of the palace. The office has a balcony over which one can regard the width and breadth of the Empire's throne room. It has a deflector shield, of course; the whole palace does. But that shield only stops energy blasts-it won't stop a physical being such as himself from passing through it.

He will go to his office. He will step out onto the balcony.

And he will jump.

None will care. Why would they? The illusion of a united, cohesive Galactic Empire won't last much longer. Already the schisms have begun. It's breaking apart like a delicate pastry in his fingers.

You're an administrator, Mon Mothma said. So administrate.

The only thing he intends to administer tonight is his own demise.

He steps into his office, distracted. It takes him a moment to notice the blue glow coming from the far side of the room, flickering before the massive bulging window that overlooks the Federal District like a great eye. It's a holographic image. An unmoving one: a static image captured. Amedda approaches the desk cautiously.

There, in its center, an image reader. On it, a crystal.

Amedda stares at himself. Because there he is, in that image. Like a ghost of himself standing there, with Palpatine and four others. Screed and Rancit, he recognizes, and Yularen, too.

The final, though-just a boy. It takes him a moment to recognize...

"Do you remember it?" comes a voice from the far corner of the room. He startles, though he tries not to show it. Amedda turns, attempting to demonstrate his implacable demeanor. As his eyes adjust, he sees someone sitting there in the far lounger, leaning forward. Hands clasped over his- No, her knees.

"Grand Admiral Sloane," he says.

She stands up.

Here, before him, is the leader of one of those Imperial fragments-a rather considerable one. Perhaps the fragment of note. She controls what remains of the Imperial Navy, and their navy is dominant, so it is clear that whoever controls the navy controls the Empire. More or less. Still, it leaves her without the bulk of the ground forces, but rumor already has it that she's begun to bridge that gap and complete the deficit in her military presence.

Another rumor is that she has been cleaning house. Those who are not faithful to the navy find themselves at the wrong end of a blaster.

That's what this is, he realizes.

She's come to kill him.

And here, an ironic twist, because now Amedda is thinking: I could kill her first. He has a blaster holstered under the desk. If he could just skirt around, he could get it. He could defeat her before she defeats him. What a coup that would be-rather than the coup she intends it to be.

He begins to back toward his desk even as she advances.

"That image," she says. "That is you in it."

"Obviously." He's at the edge of his desk, now. His nails tick and tack against its hard metal surface even as he slides around the edge. Now the holographic image separates him from her-her image is warped by the hologram. Stretched and mutilated, at least until he eases around to his chair and begins to sit. "Let me take a seat and we can talk."

"Yes. Let's talk."

His hand eases to his knee, then in toward the blaster- "Why do you bring me this image?" he asks.

"I want to know about it."

"I can't imagine why it interests you. It's archival. Meaningless."

His finger teases along the edge of the holster and he realizes-he's leaning into it too far. His movement is surely telegraphed. She's no fool. She'll see what he's doing. You have to move fast. And he does.

He reaches in- And finds no blaster.

"I have your weapon," she says. She pulls it from behind her, letting it dangle like a tantalizing piece of fruit hanging from a branch too high to reach. "I'm not here to have a conversation with blasters. I'm here to have a conversation between two equals."

That last bit she says like she doesn't believe it, though Amedda supposes he appreciates the thought just the same.

Resigned, he sighs and eases back into his chair. He slouches. "Fine. I don't know what help I could possibly give you."

"It's the boy in that picture. Who is he?"

"I don't know." She can tell he's lying, can't she?

"You know something."

"Haven't you heard? I know nothing."

She leans in, hands planted on the desk. "I have had a hard night, so spare me your appetite for self-pity." He notes, suddenly, that she does look rough. She's not even wearing her uniform. Sloane appears in the guise of a common pilot. What fresh mystery is this? "Tell me something."

Amedda chews on it. Why help her? She holds his fate in her hands. Mon Mothma's words revisit him: so administrate. If he wants to bring the Empire back into his grip, then maybe this is the way. An alliance with her. Or at least a favor done, which means a favor owed.

He hems and haws as he thinks. "I remember something. He would send his ship out. Always with proxies. Droids or advisers or, once upon a time, his Inquisitors. One time the ship returned with a stowaway. It was that boy, I believe. The one in the picture."

"And who is that boy?"

"You already know who."

"Gallius Rax."

A strange tremble presents itself in his many stomachs. An acid tingle, eager and excited despite the insanity of it. Since the destruction of the second Death Star, rumor has dogged every step of the Empire and come at him from every angle. Nearly all of these rumors could be discarded-Vader was surely not alive, despite what some insisted. Nor could Palpatine be giving commands after his death through coded droid messengers-how absurd a story was that! But one of them was that Rax had survived and was manning the Ravager, the Empire's last Super Star Destroyer. Then the truth came out that he was dead and Sloane had control.

"He's not dead," Amedda whispers.

Sloane says nothing. "Where did Rax come from?"

But he doesn't answer that. Instead he says, "If he's not dead, are you really in control, Admiral Sloane?"

She points his own blaster toward him. "I'm in control of this conversation. Of that you must be assured."

"Yes. Yes. Of course." He swallows hard. This is an opportunity. For a long time he felt himself sliding down the side of a mountain-a slow and unending slip down the scree. But here is a handhold. He doesn't understand it. He cannot say where it will take him should he avail himself of it. This isn't hope, not yet, but it's close. "I don't know where Rax came from. But I know how you could find out."

"Tell me."

"Those droids I spoke of. They might know the boy that Rax once was. Their memory banks might have data. If not the droids, then the databanks of the ship itself: the Imperialis."

"A slicer could access the data in those droids," she says. "If I knew where they were."

"I know where they are."

A cold silence stretches out between them. Finally she says, "Tell me where."

"And what will I get?"

"You will get not shot."

"Hardly good enough," he says. "My lust for life is a dead and withered thing, Admiral Sloane. I am a broken fixture on the wall of an empty palace. If you want my help, I want a place in your Empire. If it is your Empire. Well? Is it?"

She narrows her eyes, suspicious of him. As she should be. "It is. Or will be. I can give you a place. You know how to run an Empire, after all."

Yes, he thinks. I know how to run one. Even if I don't know how to lead one. "Rax is still alive, isn't he? You don't have to answer. I see the fear in your eyes. You're a prisoner of your own command, just like me. Perhaps we can plot our escape together. Perhaps we can take over the prison." He idly drags a nail against his teeth-click, click, click. "The droids are in storage. Along with the wreckage of the Imperialis itself."

"Where?"

"Where else? Quantxi, the Junk Moon of Ord Mantell."

Asteroids tumble through space. They drift and spiral, and when one hits the perimeter shield, it breaks. Bits drift, pulverized, as the rest of the rock pirouettes away to join the rest of its crumbling brethren.

Every time it happens, it hurts Teven Gale's heart. Because that asteroid is a piece of his world. Was a piece of his world, anyway. Out there waits an infinite black space horizon of Alderaan, now reduced to rock.

The flotilla is safe, at least. Seven ships belong to the flotilla, now, including the Alderaanian frigate Sunspire. Another gift from the nascent Republic. Or, rather, another gift from their princess.

The ships float near to one another, gathering in a circle and protected by the deflector shield to keep out both the asteroids and, hopefully, marauders. The galaxy is drifting toward lawlessness, he thinks. Better that, though, than choked in the black steel gauntlet of Darth Vader.

Out in the black, demo-droids drill and dig into the asteroids, one by one-they look like fireflies out there with their bright-orange light flickering from their cutting lasers. Those droids look for anything of note from the world the Alderaanians lost: artifacts, remains, fragments of precious stones or minerals or metals. Even a single brick would be a find. Accessing any of this wasn't even an option under Imperial rule; the Empire blockaded all access to the Alderaanian graveyard.

Behind him, the argument-the one he tries to tune out-continues.

Eglyn Valmor is up and pacing, as is her wont. "This is our home. This patch of sky is ours. Our world was here. And the diaspora has returned us to this place. We are home and I will not leave it." She tugs on the loose braid from her ice-blond hair. She's young, Gale thinks, unlike himself. But she's got a vital heart. He likes her. She and the others are not royals-there exists only one of those, now-but they are what the world has left. Alderaan has to be ruled by someone, and the commoners are what remains. Valmor is not queen, but rather, regent administrator.

"Bah," says Icar Orliss-once a teacher at a university. The man sits back in his chair, idly scratching at the peaky beard rising up off his jowls like mountains of chef's meringue. "This is no world, Regent Administrator, forgive me for saying. It's just rock. Blasted, wretched rock. The Empire turned our world into salt and dust and though I'm old, I for one don't want to be like some geriatric clutching to his chest the remnants of what once was. It's time to demand resettlement. I've prepared a list of worlds we could colonize-"

"That's not how it works," chimes in Argus Tanzer. Argus is a young bureaucrat, possessing a handsomeness that looks less cultivated and more like someone simply carved him out of quartzine. Argus thrusts up a finger, gesturing with it as he speaks. "The New Republic won't be keen on us just picking some planet and resettling there. There's a process." He lowers his voice when he adds: "Not that anyone quite knows what the process is."

Orliss barks: "All the more reason to seize the chance now. We can claim that the Republic simply did not have their bows tied and their knots cinched-we seize upon their ignorance."

"Besides," adds Janis Pol, an elder diplomat. A small woman, as sharp and as pale as a broken tooth, she steeples her fingers and stares over them. "We are not yet members of the Republic."