"Yeah, yeah. I'll see you, Wedge."

Better get home, see what Mom wants.

- The door to the interrogation room hisses open.

"Guardsman Windom Traducier."

The man looks up when his name is spoken. The shock of blond atop his head is mashed flat. He sneers in the half dark. "You."

Sinjir nods, then sits. "Me."

"The ex-Imperial loyalty officer has come to interrogate me," the traitorous guardsman says, lip still curled in a cold smirk. The man tries to lean back, but the cuffs bound to an eye-ring in the center of the table prevent him from moving too far. "Good luck."

Sinjir's nostrils flare with a long sigh.

A coldness has settled into his bones, his skin, his mind. When he and Jas learned the news of what had happened here in their absence, her response-as was the response of so many-was anger. Rage burning hot like a puddle of hyper-fuel spilled on the ground and set aflame. Sinjir's anger was not hot. It was cold. An icicle stuck into the meat of his heart. Perhaps what he felt could not even be best described as anger-rather, what he felt was disappointment. Disappointment that the galaxy confirmed for him its worst self. His deepest suspicions about how all things are broken and unfixable were suddenly given evidence.

But it clarified things for him, too.

Things about the galaxy. About the New Republic. And about where he really belongs and who he really is.

"I have not come to interrogate you," Sinjir says.

"Oh, really? The New Republic didn't send you?"

"They did not. I do not work for them. I paid the guard to let me in here. Interrogating you would do no one any good at this point. You've already given up what information you have. As I understand it, the New Republic security bureau did find your secret, second apartment, and that tells quite a story. They know that you distributed the weapons of assassination. They know that you planted a transponder on top of the Hanna City opera house, and that the transponder rebroadcast a scrambled Imperial signal to little inorganic bio-chips-undetectable slivers embedded in the brain stem of each of the Ashmead's Lock prisoners. They know that it was you who killed Jylia Shale and Arsin Crassus, and also that you helped Yupe Tashu escape." Sinjir leans forward and lowers his voice. "I'd ask you why, but I don't care. I don't care about any of this."

"Then why come at all? Why have me brought to this room? Don't you want to hear my reasons? Don't you want to hear how I believe the New Republic is a hobbling, crippled thing at the outset? How the Republic will allow chaos to take hold in the vacuum of control, how-"

"Shh," Sinjir says, thrusting a finger against his own lips. "You stupid little man. Let me tell you my reasons for being here. I no longer care about the state of the galaxy. I no longer give three damns about the Empire or the New Republic or whatever else comes rolling along when those both fade away. What I care about are the people I have in my life. I care about my friends." He shrugs and stands up. He moves to the corner of the room, where a cam remains fixed to the wall. As he speaks, he covers the cam with a small silken handkerchief. "I've never had friends before. I had no idea how that felt. It's rather...overwhelming. To feel for people like that? To care about them? It's almost disgusting, frankly. It's like I can't control it. But I don't want to control it. Not anymore. I'm all in."

"This is boring me. Would you get to the point?"

Sinjir sits back down. "Perhaps you're too insipid to understand what I'm getting at, so, let me lay it out for you, traitor." He enunciates the following words comically, as if he's speaking to a daft child whose brain is parasite-riddled: "You made my friends sad. And that makes me mad."

From behind, he pulls a vibroknife. Sinjir flicks it on. It hums.

The blade is small. But it is long enough.

The guardsman starts to protest- Sinjir cuts that protest short as he plunges the thrumming blade deep into the man's sternum. Any words the guardsman planned on uttering are lost underneath a gassy, throat-clogged hiss.

When Sinjir retracts the blade, the guardsman slumps forward, dead.

With that done, he leaves the room.

- Jas checks the board at the New Republic Security Bureau-everything here is in disarray, as it has been for weeks. The investigation into the assassination has taken priority, and that means the whole building is like a kicked-over redjacket hive. Doesn't help that the NRSB is completely nascent-hadn't been operating for a full month when the Liberation Day atrocity hit. They were unprepared. They remain unprepared.

The board is empty.

No jobs.

The officer behind the blast-glass tells her, "Focus has shifted. We're not looking for bounty hunters right now. Sorry, hon."

Jas gets it. She knew the day would come. Bounty hunters are thought to be scum. The Republic has a major public relations muck-up on its hands right now-already a number of systems on the verge of sending a senator to claim a Senate seat have withdrawn since Liberation Day. There's talk of moving the Senate from Chandrila to another, better-protected system. And already there's talk of an Independent Systems Alliance forming in the margins. Not Empire, but not Republic, either. Hiring bounty hunters will just make the New Republic look weak-even though Jas damn well knows that hiring bounty hunters is a very good way to get things done.

They don't need her? Fine. Someone will.

Time to head offworld, then. But where? Buccaneer's Den? Kanata's castle? Ord Mantell might be her best bet. She has contacts there-contacts who won't sell her out for the debts she owes. Of course, she's also heard of several smaller pirate states out there in the Outer Rim, taking advantage of the Empire's absence to establish a foothold. Hm.

She leaves the office and considers her options when her comm crackles. A familiar voice reaches her ears: It's Norra. And she wants to see Jas.

Well, can't hurt.

- "Norra Wexley has been trying to get ahold of you," Conder says as Sinjir enters their apartment.

"Mm."

"You all right?"

It's a loaded question. Conder knows that Sinjir is most certainly not all right. Whatever bliss the two of them possessed prior to Liberation Day has dissolved like a sand castle under siege by the sea. Stress has throttled them both. Conder's been off working freelance for the NRSB, doing whatever investigatory slicer work they have around-the work is plenty thanks to a recommendation from Leia herself. It also means they have him as the slicer trying to hack the little controller chips they found in the brain stems of each of the Ashmead's Lock assassins. That in an effort to figure out who made them and how they work. As such, Conder's barely been around. And Sinjir has only been around. Sitting here with naught to do but pace. And ponder. And plot.

So, when Conder asks that question, Sinjir wonders if it's wise to give the real answer. But he's tired of pretending otherwise.

"I am both better now than I was and worse," he says. What he does not say is: I killed a man because he upset my friends. Which only confirms for him what he's long-suspected and irresponsibly denied: Sinjir is not a good person. He is a bad man with a talent for bad things.

Conder comes over and takes Sinjir's hand.

Conder's hands are warm.

Sinjir's are cold.

"It'll be okay," Conder promises, but it is a promise he cannot know. He's sweet and optimistic. Translated: nave as a wandering waif.

Sinjir decides in that moment. He leans forward and kisses Conder hard, and then tells him: "I am not the man for you, Conder Kyl. I am a moral weather vane spinning in this hurricane. You need a nicer breed of man than I." He thinks, I love you, but that doesn't matter, yet those words never make it to his lips. All he does is leave.

- It feels almost normal, them meeting like this inside the Moth. It's Sinjir and Jas, Temmin and Mister Bones. They share hugs and small words, and though it's only been a few weeks since they've seen one another, it feels like it's been forever. So much has happened. So much has changed.

Norra cuts right to the heart of it: "I regret dragging the rest of you away, too, and you're under no obligation to say yes to this-"

"Yes," Sinjir says rather abruptly.

Norra arches an eyebrow. "You don't even know what I'm asking."

"And I don't care. The answer is still yes."

Temmin claps Sinjir on the shoulder, grinning.

Jas hesitates. "I told you, Norra. I can't do this anymore. I have debts. It's time I deal with them before they deal with me."

"I know. And you can say no. But please understand: I'm only asking for one last mission."

"What is the mission?" Jas asks. "Who is our target? I assume that's what this is? Another hunt-and-find?"

Norra slides a small black disk across the table. She taps the side and a holoviz projects above it: the frozen image of Admiral Rae Sloane from the security cams on Liberation Day. The hologram rotates slowly.

All stare at it, wide-eyed.

"We've missed her twice now. That makes us responsible for what happened." Norra shuts her eyes and draws a deep breath. "No. It makes me responsible. But I don't think I can do this alone. I will if I have to-"

"You don't, so stop," Sinjir says.

Temmin adds: "If anybody knows where Dad is, it's her. I'm in."

"I ENJOY EVISCERATION," Bones offers ever-so-helpfully. "I TOO AM ALONG ON THIS FOOLISH ADVENTURE."

Jas rolls her eyes. "I'm guessing there's no money in this? A small ragtag crew of miscreants and deviants going after one of the highest-ranking Imperial figures cannot possibly be sanctioned by the New Republic, can it?"

"No," Norra says. "But..."

"You have my support," Leia says, stepping on board the ship. "Sorry I'm late, Norra." She steps up, hands unconsciously holding her growing belly. "The New Republic wouldn't touch this mission with a catch-pole. But I will. I have resources. I will use them to help you. Just the same, I cannot promise some grand payday, either. My actions at Kashyyyk have made me something of a political pariah. The New Republic is no longer offering bounties, and I don't have the political capital to make it so. But this is necessary work and I will do what I can to help you do it."

"There it is," Norra says. "We aim for the biggest star in all the sky. We capture her if possible."

"And if that's not possible?" Temmin asks.

Norra doesn't say. She doesn't have to say.

"Fine," Jas says. "I'm in, too. All right, crew. One last mission. Let's go catch ourselves an admiral."

No wonder Sloane had no idea what the planet Jakku was. It lies at the margins of the Western Reaches, flung so far into the galaxy she's not really sure if they're even in the galaxy anymore. The system is close to Unknown Space-the uncharted end of the galaxy, beyond which lurk terrible nebula storms and gravity wells. Those who have tried to traverse the space outside the galaxy have never returned, though distorted, half-missing communications have come back-messages warning of geomagnetic anomalies and slashing plasma winds.

They take the cargo ship down to the ground. The world that awaits is a desolate, dead place. Sand and stone and bleach-scour skies. They set down not far from a rust-pan outpost near a wide-open salt plain.

She and Brentin walk.

Sloane grimaces and feels at her side-her hand comes away damp with fresh red. Just a few dabs of it. I'll be fine, she thinks. She hopes.

The sun scorches them. The air is dry as bone dust.

They head into the outpost, and she nods toward...well, it's not a cantina. It's too primitive to deserve that name. It's mostly a bar cobbled together out of soldered scrap underneath some bent and pitted roof. An unshaven man with a grease streak across his forehead stands behind the bar, pouring something chunky into a glass for a skull-headed alien whose species is unknown to her. The man turns toward her. "I don't know you."

"I don't know you, either," she says.

"Na-tee wa-sha toh ja-lee ja-wah," the skull-head says.

The man behind the bar shakes his head. "Yeah, I know, I'm not really from around here, either. Job's a job, Gazwin." To Sloane and Brentin he says: "I got Knockback Nectar if you want some. That'll be ten credits apiece or one quarter-portion from the Orkoon Hub."

"I don't want a drink."

"Then we don't have anything to talk about," the bartender says.

"What's your name?"

"Don't see how that's any of your business. But it's Ballast. Corwin Ballast. And you are?"

Sloane hesitates. She summons a name like a ghost: "Adea. Adea Rite."

"Great to meet you," he says, clearly not meaning it. "Again, I sell drinks here, so if that's not what you want..."

"This is a bar. Bars are usually excellent places to get information."

"Oh. You want information? Here's some: The planet you are on is called Jakku. Nothing is here. Everyone on this world is a ghost. If you're here, you might be a ghost, too. Anything more detailed than that, you'll have to wait till Ergel's on shift. I'm new-ish, so. Sorry."

"We're looking for someone."

"They're probably not here."

"Gallius Rax. Or Galli, or Rax or..."

"Yeah, lady, I don't know-"

But then, his words drift off as his gaze turns to the space above her head. Up, up, up. Suddenly, a long shadow falls over them-like a sword-shaped cloud passing in front of the sun. "No," he whispers.

Brentin gasps.

Sloane turns and she, too, gasps.

Up above, a Super Star Destroyer has come out of hyperspace, tearing the sky open like a slicing blade. The Ravager, she thinks. All around it, other ships begin to jump in one by one. Star Destroyers, mostly, manifesting out of nothing. Dozens of them. More than she commanded. Which can only mean: These are the hidden fleets. The ones concealed across the nebulae.

She came to Jakku looking for Gallius Rax.

It looks like Rax has come home. And he has brought the whole Empire-her Empire, and her ship-with him.

The bartender's face goes white as he says rather solemnly: "War has come to Jakku."

Galli is cold and hungry. He has hidden on this ship for long, too long. It seems to be leaching the heat from him. And his stomach growls so loud he's sure the whole galaxy can hear it. He tries to summon spit to his mouth in order to force it down and stop his stomach from rumbling. When that fails, he pinches the skin of his sallow, thin belly and pushes it in, in, in, until finally it goes quiet once more.

Time passes. The ship moves until it doesn't. Up and around and then back down again. Galli is tough. He will not weep. Even though he is alone and he is frightened. He tucks himself between boxes, making himself small. Small like a skittermouse.

Soon, a sound. Footsteps. Fabric dragging. It's him, he thinks: the man in the purple robe and the strange hat.

A voice from somewhere close.

"Boy. Show yourself."

That is not the voice of the man in the strange hat.

This voice has a crisp accent, but is guttural, drawn out-in it is a grim vibration that chills the boy's blood.