She rolls her eyes. "You don't say. Idiot."

The man seems personally upset by that. Thin-skinned, this one. "You haven't even touched the medkit under your seat."

"Medkit...what? Under the..." Her hand brutishly paws the space beneath her chair. Sure enough, she feels something. "Oh."

"Who's the idiot, now?" he chides.

"Pfft. Still can't save me. Got shot."

The stranger grumbles, then tucks the blaster in his waist before hunkering down and pulling out the kit. He pops it open with both thumbs and draws out something that looks like a wide-mouthed scatterblaster. Still grousing, he pulls out a wad of what looks like gray hull putty, shoving it unceremoniously into the mouth of the weapon.

"Hold still," he says. "This may hurt."

"What are you-"

He grabs her hard, crams the device right into her wound. The gun shudders-and then the pain hits like a comet. Hot and terrible, it burns her up from the inside and she can't breathe. All she can manage is a howling gasp as she doubles over, trying hard not to weep.

Unconsciousness takes her with its teeth.

Eventually, it lets her go again, and when she awakens, she's on the floor of the ship, on her side. A puddle of drool pools underneath her.

"Wha..."

"Bacta patch gun," the man says, sitting in the copilot's chair. "Healing web-epoxy. The Rebellion used it from time to time. We got covert training on how to stay alive to fight longer. The stuff is inside, mending what can be mended. Eventually you'll have to get to a real doctor. It isn't a perfect fix."

She feels like someone punched all her insides.

But she also feels clearer. And when she takes a breath...

It doesn't feel like needles stuck in her lung meat.

Well. That's something.

"Thank you. I suppose."

He points the blaster at her.

"Now take me to this...Rax."

"If only it were that easy. I can't just push one of these buttons and make him appear. He's not a hologram." Though really, he might as well be. "Getting to him will be a long con."

"Let's get started."

She shrugs. "It's not that easy. I'm waiting for information."

"I know. I heard you make the call. Who is Mercurial Swift?"

"Bounty hunter I work with sometimes. Tell me, though. What's your name?"

"It's..." The rebel hesitates. "Brentin."

"I'm Sloane."

They wait like that for a while. Talking here and there. Mostly just sitting in silence. Comes a point when she starts to fade out, and then when she startles awake, Brentin is right next to her. Damn near face-to-face.

She's about to grab for him, but he says: "Incoming comm."

It's him. Mercurial. He appears above the dash, a blue ghost rising from nowhere. A cocky tilt to his stance.

"Sloane."

"Tell me," she hisses.

"You're pushy."

"I'm paying to be pushy."

"You know Imperial credits are damn near worthless, right? Might as well be plastochits traded during a game of pazaak."

Through her teeth she says, "Then I'll pay you back in favors. Ten favors. A hundred. A whole Star Destroyer packed to the walls with favors." And here she almost loses it, almost starts coughing, but she bites it back and holds her tongue. This stranger on board her ship has already seen her be weak. Mercurial will not be afforded the same luxury. "Now, did you get to Quantxi? Did you find the ship?"

The hologram hesitates. "I did."

"And?"

"Amedda was right. He had droids. I had a slicer take a look."

"Did you find anything on Rax? Anything at all?"

Mercurial nods. "I did."

"Tell me!"

"Infinite favors, you say?" He doesn't give her a chance to confirm. "Your friend is from a world in the Western Reaches. Right at the edge of Unknown Space. Jakku. I'll uplink the coordinates."

The drive console dings. A map shows on the screen charting the hyperspace path through to Jakku. It's all she needs, so she finishes up with, "Good. I owe you." Then she ends the transmission.

She sets a course for Jakku.

- The Ravager launches through hyperspace.

Those gathered around the table with Gallius Rax at its head know where the Super Star Destroyer is headed, and as yet, none of them are quite sure why. They give each other furtive looks: Obdur looks to Hux, Hux looks to Borrum. Only Randd keeps his eyes forward; a sign of civility, loyalty, and fear.

Rax appreciates that.

"By now you know that our precious Grand Admiral is lost to us," Rax says. He shakes his head and clucks his tongue. "We will of course make every effort to get her back from the clutches of the New Republic, should we discover that she is alive. Thankfully, she is well-trained in resisting interrogation. We have no expectation that she will give up the location of the fleet. She will be true to us."

It's Hux that speaks. He's agitated when he says: "She knew? She knew what would happen? Are you saying Grand Admiral Sloane was in on it all?"

"Of course. I only advised her on this plan, but the plan was hers all along. Hers is an incisive mind. And the loss of that mind leaves us in the lurch, doesn't it?"

Together, the men nod.

"As such, it is vital we preserve her vision of the Empire. And we need to preserve her leadership and the vision that directed her leadership." Rax pauses, letting his words hang in the air.

"Are you claiming the mantle of Emperor?" Borrum asks.

Rax hms. "I think not. I am not worthy."

"Grand Admiral, then."

"No. I am far too humble for such mighty titles. As I am the adviser to this group and to the Empire at large, I shall take for myself the title of Counselor to the Empire, serving as an interstitial leader only until Grand Admiral Sloane returns to us."

"This is unprecedented," Borrum blusters. Of course the old man would be the one to protest. Age brings stubbornness. Age diminishes vision. "Counselor is not a title in our record and it leaves us effectively leaderless-"

"Our record must evolve, much as the Empire must evolve," Rax says sharply-too sharply, he fears. He must maintain the illusion. He must lead his men to the conclusion he seeks, not the conclusion they want or expect. "Again, I expect this to be a temporary title."

Borrum again: "As temporary as the Emperor's title when he ceased to be Chancellor of a lost Republic?"

At that, Rax smirks. "Perhaps."

"And why Jakku?" The general is pressing his luck. "Jakku is a wasteland. It has no strategic value to us. No resources, no populace to enslave, it has-"

"It will be our proving ground," Rax says. "We will test ourselves on Jakku. And we will do so far from the eyes of the galaxy, far from the eyes of Mon Mothma and her sycophants. And when the time is right, when we have whetted ourselves to a vicious point, we will strike once again. The Senate is injured. The Republic is wounded. We will go in for the kill, but it is too soon and we are too weak."

In their eyes, the firelight of uncertainty and fear. That is fine. He needs them only so long. All of them but Hux. Hux will be necessary.

The aftermath of Liberation Day is like a slow concussive wave. It ripples through the New Republic in the weeks after the assassinations.

It has only been a few days, but this is what they know: Grand Admiral Sloane is gone. She fell off the skybridge, but then landed on another-all that they found of her was a streak of blood and, later, her jacket all the way down on the shoreline, caught in some fisher-droid's net.

The theory on Sloane is that she escaped in a small cargo ship-a Chandrilan HHG-42 Bulkstar docked close to where she fell. It took off not long after Norra and the Imperial finished their fight. The final clue is that the ship never made it to any of the Chandrilan colonies. It escaped through the blockade above the planet, seizing the chaos and its cleared colony codes as a likely opportunity.

Brentin is gone, too. Where, none can say. They have not found him. Not alive. Not dead. He is a ghost, once more banished to the void.

Many are dead.

Those liberated from Ashmead's Lock had weapons-small concealable graphene blasters that remained shielded from detection. Those pistols held only a handful of shots, but each was lethal. It seems that the dissemination of the pistols comes down to the efforts of a single guardsman: a man with blond hair and a little scar, a Chandrilan man named Windom Traducier.

With those weapons, the turned captives fired into the crowd. Citizens were injured and murdered.

They killed members of the New Republic government, too. Madine is rumored to be dead. So is Hostis Ij. As are senators, diplomats, and military higher-ups. Agate is alive, but her face requires reconstructive surgery. The chancellor is alive, too-her injury is serious, but she's awake and aware. The doctors expect her to make a full recovery, though every day she's injured is another day the New Republic looks weak and its future uncertain.

Norra was told she will receive another medal for saving Mon Mothma's life. They said that her action against her own husband helped divert the blast meant for the chancellor. Norra ensured the blast only struck the New Republic leader in the shoulder, not in the chest or the head.

Norra does not want the medal.

No, she wants something else.

- Temmin crashes the X-wing. It skims along the Silver Sea, going low to avoid sensor arrays-but he goes too low, and he's not paying attention to his proximity alarms. The tip of one of the S-foil wings dips into the sea, hissing and sending up a wave of spray-that spray cools the engines just as he's coming in way too fast. The starfighter's nose dips and twists, and next thing Temmin knows the ship is tumbling end-over-end, pieces breaking off, the cockpit cracking above him as the ship rolls into the water and sinks.

Everything goes dark.

Wedge drags him out of the simulator.

"Another ship down," Wedge says. The disappointment in his voice is as plain as it is on his face.

"Not like it's a real ship, since you'll only let me in the simulator," Temmin says, popping his knuckles nervously. He stomps off and sits down on the bench against the wall. The other line of simulators sits unused.

"I told you, Snap, we can't put you in a fighter right now."

"Because of who I am."

"It's not just that. Things are locked down right now, kid. The bureaucratic belt just got a little tighter, is all. If you score well on the simulator-and maybe don't crash your fighters every time-we can get you back in a ship before the next moon alignment."

"Great. My father tries to kill the chancellor and suddenly nobody trusts me." Temmin pauses. "Actually, when I say it out loud like that, it kinda makes sense?" He sighs. "Whatever."

"Things okay with your mother?"

The way Wedge is asking-the way he asks every day, in fact-makes Temmin think there's something going on he doesn't understand. It's now, right now, that he considers the possibility: Does Wedge Antilles have a thing for his mom? What the hell? That can't be right. He makes a face like he just licked a leaky battery. That's gross. So gross.

And yet...

At least Wedge isn't an Imperial assassin. So that's something.

Dad...

A familiar rage roars inside of Temmin like a firing engine. It won't stop. It won't leave him alone. He closes his eyes at night and there it is: anger at his father, a bottomless well. Brentin Wexley: supposed rebel hero turned, what, Imperial sympathizer? Drone and soldier for the evil Empire? They've been questioning the former prisoners-the ones turned into assassins-and it's like they're lost, confused, or stonewalling. Almost like they don't realize what they did. Temmin tries to hang on to that, clinging to the thought that maybe Brentin didn't know what he was doing...

Temmin's knuckles are already scabbed over from where he punched a locker a week ago. He wants to do it again and he almost hauls back and slams his fist into the wall. But with Wedge here, he has to restrain himself. So he does. Instead, he thinks about something else, something better. "I, uh, never said it, but good job with Kashyyyk."

"That wasn't me. That was Leia."

"I dunno. I heard you coming in there with Phantom Squadron was pretty slaggin' amazing. Wish I could've seen it." Instead of being here and seeing my father up on that stage pointing a blaster at Mon Mothma.

Wedge putting together Phantom Squadron like that-out of a bunch of washouts and weirdos-was a thing of genius. That's why Temmin wants to join.

"I did what Leia needed me to do. She led the way." And from what Temmin hears, it cost her political capital, too. Whatever political capital means. Wedge adds: "And hey, watch your mouth, will you? I don't want your mom thinking you're picking up that kind of language from me."

"Sure, Dad, whatever you say." He sighs. "I'll get the next flight right. Put me back in the sim. Right now. Let's do this." He's itching to do something. Get his mind off everything.

"You sure?"

Temmin is about to answer hell yes, but next to him on the bench, Wedge's holoscreen lights up. Temmin can see what it says: It's a message from Norra.

His mother wants him to come home. ASAP. He arches an eyebrow to Wedge: "Do I have to?"

"Sorry, Snap. You'd better. Like I said, I don't want your mother mad at me. You can try the sim tomorrow. And hey, miracle of miracles, maybe you won't crash the fighter next time?"