"Daiman and Odion have been at each other's throats-well, since Chagras died."

Chagras. Kerra knew the name from the intel reports and Vannar's stories. The Chagras Hegemony had been a relatively stable period in Grumani sector politics, during which the Sith made inroads against the Republic. The invasion of her Aquilarian home had come during the Hegemony. Luckily for civilization, it hadn't lasted long. Eight years earlier, Chagras's death, under reportedly mysterious circumstances, had touched off a new round of internecine fighting. Not just within his own realm, but seemingly everywhere in Sith space.

Rusher confirmed that Odion and Daiman's war had broken out then-the creator of all things still in his late teens. But he had no idea what they were fighting over, or what had caused it all. Rusher knew of Chagras-he'd fought both for and against him in his younger days-but he'd never met him, and had no idea what had killed him. "What kills any of them?" He related the ends of Elcho and Mandragall. "I don't know where longevity comes from with these people, but it isn't lifestyle."

Kerra knelt and rested her head against the railing, stray ebon strands falling on either side. None of it made any sense. Why would Odion and Daiman team up, even briefly? She sensed an unseen hand at work. But she always sensed that, among the Sith. Exasperated, she moaned audibly. "Can't we just go to the Republic?"

"Who said anything about going to the Republic?" Rusher looked at the navigator. "Ishel, do you know how to go to the Republic?"

The Mon Calamari shrugged.

"I sure don't," the brigadier said. "Hey, how'd you you get here?" get here?"

"There was a lane to Daiman's transport center near Chelloa," Kerra said, rubbing her forehead against the cool railing. A headache was beginning. "I don't think it's an option."

"I'll buy that." In the weeks since Odion and Daiman tangled over Chelloa, traffic from the Daimanate military hub had doubled. "I might amble by there with a shipful of Jedi, but not just one. Next time, bring some friends."

Kerra opened her eyes and glared through the railing.

"What'd I say?"

"Nothing," she said. She stood, knee joints cracking. "Look, can you just get us closer closer to the Republic?" to the Republic?"

"What are you looking for-convenient connecting flights? I don't think you understand. The hyperspace lane options out here are pretty limited." Rusher called up a holographic display and pointed to the glowing lines. Avoiding Daiman's and Odion's space, they'd have to make another six jumps to get appreciably closer to the frontier with the Republic-and a couple of times they'd have to double back. "And you've got different Sith waiting in between each of those jumps. They're not going to wave as we go past."

Kerra scowled. It was the chief difficulty she'd experienced since her arrival here. In the Republic, one could count on ready access to databases including most of the known commercial hyperspace lanes. The military kept some private, and some corporations tried to keep newly discovered lanes secret when it benefited their trade.

But in Sith space, everything was different. In shutting down its subspace communications relays here, the Republic had created a breakwater of ignorance between Sith space and the inner systems. No longer able to draw upon the collected knowledge of Republic spacers, Sith starship drivers were reduced to using the information they already had stored, plus whatever was in libraries and data centers in their territory. Repeated fragmentation of Sith power had greatly degraded what was available in the latter; as Odion had just done against Daiman, statelets often targeted each other's knowledge centers for destruction.

Aboard one of Daiman's fighters in the Chelloa episode before Darkknell, she'd had access to exactly one hyperspace route: the intended route Daiman had planned for that vessel to take. Maps meant options. Possible escape. Cartography was power, and, increasingly, Sith Lords were hoarding it.

Rusher clapped his hands loudly. "Okay, I've got it here. Byllura Byllura."

Kerra looked up at the display. "Byllura isn't closer to the Republic. It's farther away," she said. "Farther away is not better."

"Sometimes it is, out here." Rusher touched a control, causing gridlines to appear in the air, delineating the latest territories known to the Diligence Diligence crew. "Byllura belongs to the kids." crew. "Byllura belongs to the kids."

"What kids?"

"I don't know," Rusher said, waving his hand through the display to move stars around. "I've never been back this far. But they say there's a Sith principality that's run by children."

"Children?" The idea sounded like a bad Republic holodrama. Kerra imagined playground kingdoms run by angry young Sith with tousled hair. "You don't mean that." The idea sounded like a bad Republic holodrama. Kerra imagined playground kingdoms run by angry young Sith with tousled hair. "You don't mean that."

"Well, I don't know much about it. I always imagined it was some kind of regency deal, with the power behind the creche and all of that."

Kerra stared at the pseudo-stars and breathed deeply. If there was was someone running the realm for them, she couldn't imagine the situation lasting very long-not where Sith were concerned. "How recent is what you know about the place?" someone running the realm for them, she couldn't imagine the situation lasting very long-not where Sith were concerned. "How recent is what you know about the place?"

"Heard from someone who went near there once. They've been in power for five years, at least," he said. "Sounds odd to me, too. None of these Sith underlings is very patient. I would think 'old uncle' would have done them in by now-or 'old aunt,' or the palace pastry chef."

Seeing Rusher smile, Kerra gave in. If he was pleased with his solution, moving him might take another week. "I don't see we have any choice," she said. "I guess, whatever happens, they can't be as hateful as the adults."

"There were other kids at that Jedi school, weren't there?" Rusher asked. "You have have met some before." He glanced back toward the exit. "I mean, before this week." met some before." He glanced back toward the exit. "I mean, before this week."

Ignoring him, Kerra started toward the exit. There would be a lot to do, presuming the place was remotely satisfactory. Which she wasn't at all sure it would be. "None of them sets foot off this ship until I check the place out-mercenary."

Sounding amused at the label, Rusher called after her, "This is Sith space, Jedi. We're not going to find our way out-and we're not going to find the paradise you're looking for." Scaling the steps from the command pit, he found her in the doorway, glaring back at him. He shrugged and raised his hands. "You're just going to have to settle for the best we can find-and the best is the least-worst."

Kerra stared back at him, icily.

Rusher turned to his crew and smiled, again the jolly drunkard. "You know, I'm glad I got that out. I nearly said least-beast least-beast."

"No," she said. "That would have fit."

"Regent-aspect," the girl called.

It wasn't a command, this time. Calician woke from his daze and looked toward the pile of orange pillows at the center of the room. It was happening again. The boy atop the plush mountain was shaking, droplets of sweat streaming from his pale forehead.

The fever had returned. Quillan was seeing the future. The future, or something so far outside his frame of reference that it tested his understanding. Black eyes searched the room, as the human searched for-what? Words? Fourteen years old, and Quillan had never spoken once in Calician's presence.

Kneeling beside him, his sister, Dromika, fought to follow the boy's trembling movements. Making small, frantic motions with her hands before her frail sibling's face, she fought to capture his attention.

Calician stepped as close as he dared. Only the care droids were allowed to physically approach the twins, and he was only supposed to address them from his dais. Standing anywhere closer disoriented Quillan too much. The teenager's perceptions were too strong. Everything that made Saaj Calician an individual was already shining through the Force, blinding the boy. Additional visual stimuli only overwhelmed him. It was the reason, he now remembered, for his robe, colored to match the walls.

Her brother calmed, Dromika spoke for him, as she always did. "Regent-aspect," she said, tracing in the air with her fingers. "Regent will sense the approach of new aspects," she said, voice wavering.

"I will sense the approach of new aspects," Calician droned.

The Krevaaki closed his eyes and tried to focus his mind. Aspects Aspects. It was how Quillan and Dromika referred to all agencies outside themselves, organic or electronic. Twins, separated in body, but conjoined through the Force-one being, that no power in science or Sith alchemy could separate. They had been just five years old when he met them-very young, as humans went-and they had never, in Calician's memory, set foot outside their Loft.

And yet, Calician had realized on meeting them that they represented that which he most desired: power. True power, beyond the imaginings of any of the neighboring Sith pretenders. Power that would one day rule the galaxy.

Dromika clenched her long blond hair in her fists. "Regent will find the aspects, and include them."

Calician repeated the command. His audience over, he stepped back outside the siblings' lair. The nanny droid passed, ready again to help Dromika in her hours of grooming. He had his own job to do.

Include. There had been a time, long ago, when he hadn't understood that instruction. He hadn't really belonged, then. His ego had still stood in the way of enlightenment. He was still thinking of other Krevaaki, and what his outfit looked like, and how he might be the one Sith to put down the Republic once and for all. All trivia. Such information was useless to his masters. It need not exist.

And soon, none of their rivals would exist, either. Gliding down the spiral ramp to a lower floor, the regent spied the creature that would help make it happen.

The giant brain floated, asleep, in its cloud. Calician stared at it. Adrift in its cylinder of deadly cyanogen gas, the grotesque alien form paid him no mind.

The Celegian was old. It had been the first one that Calician had captured and brought to The Loft, years earlier. Already two centuries old by then, the monstrosity had been no match for its abductors. The alien still bore signs of being brought to heel; several of its hanging dendrites were no more than stumps, severed by the torturers.

Calician hated Celegians. One of his few lingering memories was of being mocked as a child: "Saaj Celegian," the other Krevaaki had called him, jealous of his piercing intelligence. During his Sith education, he had finally encountered real Celegians at one of their colonies on Tramanos. If he hadn't already disliked them, he would have started then. The creatures flew about in their self-propelled gas envelopes, trying to participate in the world's commerce as if they weren't colossal floating brains. By never acknowledging their own ugliness, they seemed to expect others to ignore it, as well-an uncomfortable burden for their counterparts, to say the least. And while the Celegians had inborn telepathic skills, enabling them to surmount all language barriers, they seemed to have little interest in using their special abilities for influence and power. Ludicrous! What was an advantage if one didn't press it?

Calician had harbored no compunctions about using what they wouldn't. Within days of being appointed guardian of the twins, he'd arranged to have this first specimen-never known by any name other than "One"-brought in. The results had been so positive that he had worked to lure entire Celegian communities to Byllura. Thousands of the creatures had settled in the capital city of Hestobyll. But while One was old, it had proven itself unmatched at its job.

It was time for it to prove itself again. Calician raised his hand before the cylinder. "You will contact the defensive stations," he said, hammering at One through the Force.

For a moment, the mass of gray and crimson sat, unresponsive, in the foggy soup. But then the Celegian's chilly response echoed through the regent's mind: I will contact the defensive stations I will contact the defensive stations.

"You will report the appearance of any strangers immediately."

I will report the appearance of any strangers immediately.

Calician shivered as he watched the tendrils beneath the creature beginning to stir. Violet blood pulsated through thin membranes on the creature's pate. The being was coming to life, contacting the other minds in the facility. Its telepathy had a limited range-less than a kilometer-but that would reach all the intended parties on the island. And more.

The regent stared at the transparisteel container. Years earlier, he would have flinched, moving quickly to avoid seeing the repulsive thing in action. Now he couldn't remember what it was he had once found so nauseating.

He watched idly for a minute-until, moving, he caught a reflection of someone he didn't recognize in the glass. He looked about for several seconds before realizing the image reflected was his own.

Facial tendrils drooping, he trudged back upstairs to his assigned place near the twins.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

Rusher had said she wouldn't find paradise. The brigadier had clearly never been to Byllura.

The capital city, Hestobyll, was constructed on a waterfall. No-it had been constructed as as a waterfall, or more precisely, a river delta carved into a steep diagonal slope. Kerra had seen the remarkable formation on their approach from orbit. Byllura's largest landform was a high plateau, separated from the sea by towering escarpments all around-everywhere but near the southern bay, where the drop-off to the ocean had been sculpted into terraces. A grid of canals cut in a hexagonal pattern broke each terrace up into hundreds of six-sided city blocks, with water cascading pleasantly down from one level to the next through dams. Raindrops from the tropical forests at the continent's center, high above, thus completed their long journey into a rippling blue sound, lapping at the edge of the geometrical shore. a waterfall, or more precisely, a river delta carved into a steep diagonal slope. Kerra had seen the remarkable formation on their approach from orbit. Byllura's largest landform was a high plateau, separated from the sea by towering escarpments all around-everywhere but near the southern bay, where the drop-off to the ocean had been sculpted into terraces. A grid of canals cut in a hexagonal pattern broke each terrace up into hundreds of six-sided city blocks, with water cascading pleasantly down from one level to the next through dams. Raindrops from the tropical forests at the continent's center, high above, thus completed their long journey into a rippling blue sound, lapping at the edge of the geometrical shore.

Kerra turned toward the pinkish sun and inhaled deeply. Fresh ocean air filled her lungs, reminding her of her Aquilarian home, years earlier. Avian creatures drifted lazily across the sea. There were no ships in the harbor-that seemed strange-but quite a few landing pads, like theirs, constructed on platforms above the gentle surf and connected to the city, behind, by bridges.

At this distance, she couldn't see much detail to the terraced city; Dackett had been called away before she could ask for a pair of macrobinoculars. Even as obviously engineered as the metropolis was, though, the shapes seemed in harmony with the surroundings. Low, featureless structures squatted on the hexagonal steps running up the embankment, with bridges running across the canals. Nowhere to be seen were the smokestacks of Darkknell or the mining pits of Chelloa.

The Sith didn't build this, she thought. This was a Republic world This was a Republic world. She put it on her mental list of places to visit when they finally took it back.

The only thing marring the beauty of the scene was the mesa. A flattened mountain the same height as the mainland plateau perched in the middle of the bay, several kilometers from the shore. Kerra imagined it to be some granite remnant of erosion, or perhaps a chunk separated from the continent by whatever seismic event created the bay. There was something constructed atop it, she saw; almost a squashed dome, overhanging the mesa on all sides and making the formation resemble a giant balo mushroom. Occasional airspeeders buzzed back and forth from the mesa to the city. And there was something else, in the bay: buoys the size of starfighters, bobbing in concentric rings radiating from the mesa to the mainland.

Odd. And odder still, no one had come to meet them.

"Jedi, I think you made out better than you could have hoped."

Kerra turned to see Rusher at the bottom of one of the starboard ramps. Once it had become clear that no welcoming party was on the platform, she'd hit the surface first, followed by Novallo and her crews checking hull integrity. But Rusher had taken his time to emerge. "It's quiet," Kerra said.

"Nobody stopped us, anyway," Rusher said. Strange-looking fighters in orbit hadn't even moved when they exited hyperspace. Nobody had even hailed them until they were on final approach, when a guttural voice came on the comm system directing Diligence Diligence to one of the platforms ringing the bay. to one of the platforms ringing the bay.

"And we know we're not in Daiman's space," he said. The brigadier knelt and pointed to the tiled surface of the landing platform. Diligence Diligence was parked upon a colossal letter was parked upon a colossal letter aurek aurek, formed by chalk-colored hexagons. "No little flags. The alphabet's normal here."

"I don't know," Kerra said. "Maybe Daiman's 'revelation workers' haven't gotten around to stonework yet." But she likewise doubted that this was Daiman's territory. All those orderly rows of city blocks-and no holographic statues that she could see. Or real ones, for that matter.

And it definitely wasn't Odion's territory. There was still a city to see-even if she'd only seen a small number of figures moving about.

Rusher stretched, lifting his walking stick high into the air. "Well, it looks good to me," he said, turning to face the cargo ramp. He cupped his hand to his cheek and yelled, "Deploy!"

At once, the other seven cargo ramps clanked open. Metal plating rumbled, as the first batch of refugees came thundering down the ramp behind Rusher.

Kerra leapt toward the foot of the ramp, nearly knocking the brigadier over. "Wait! Wait!" She looked up. Dackett was leading the exodus, with Beadle Lubboon nearly lost in the stream of bodies.

The tromping continued over her voice until she ignited her lightsaber and yelled, "Nobody move!" "Nobody move!"

The puzzled crowd stopped in its tracks-although more students continued to descend the other ramps. Kerra shot an irritated look at Dackett. "So that's where you got called away to."

The master shrugged, nodding toward his superior's back.

Lightsaber shining, Kerra pointed it toward the brigadier's chest. "I told you, I needed to check the place out first!"

"I thought that's what you were doing, down here," Rusher said, looking down with annoyance at the glowing tip. "Were you just checking out the sea air?"

Kerra deactivated the lightsaber and stepped closer to him. "I need to do a proper recon, Brigadier Brigadier," she yelled. "Do you even know what that is?"

The man stared down at her, coolly. They'd played this game over the past couple of days on the way here, but he'd always chosen the battlefield. She could tell: bickering with the little Jedi girl was something that won him points with his soldiers. But he'd always had the upper hand, or been able to pretend what ever he was giving in about wasn't important. She wasn't going to let him get away with that now-even if she had to break him right here, in front of his top officers and all the refugees.

"I think," Rusher said, speaking slowly, "that there's shelter up in that city. Room for a lot more people than my ship has. And nobody's shot at us for being here." He counted on his fingers, ticking off the benefits of Byllura. "Shelter. Security. Sustenance. I win. Goodbye."

He began to move, but Kerra blocked him. "We don't know anything about the Sith that run this place! Why aren't they here yet?"

"Maybe they've gone swimming," Rusher said. "It's a nice day for it. Look, I've told you. On a datapad, this place has everything you need."

"These things are all theory to you!"

"Do I look like a theorist?" Rusher smirked.

Kerra saw he was playing to his crew again. She wasn't going to allow it. "I think you don't care. You haven't even come up to see the refugees the whole time we've been aboard." She gestured toward the crowd of students, listening on the ramp. "Is that why you're in artillery? So you never have to see who you're attacking?"

Rusher exploded. "Now, you wait a minute!" Abruptly grabbing her shoulders, he turned her behind one of the ramp hoists, out of sight of most of the crowd. Startled by his sudden movement, Kerra looked up at him.

"You think this isn't real to me?" The brigadier spoke quickly in Kerra's face, trying to keep his voice down. "I may not see who I'm shooting, little Jedi, but I always see who gets shot. I've got kids your Sullustan's age and younger that I've had to carry away from deployments in vials!"

Yanking a surprised Beadle from the line of escorts, he folded the kid's ear back to reveal an embedded chip. "I've got comm-frequency tags on all my people so I know who's where, and when," he said. "I don't leave anyone behind unless going after them is going to get more of my people killed than it saves. But when that's the case-like on Gazzari-I go!" He straightened and looked back at the ramp. "Carrying your people is going to get my people killed."

Kerra simmered. This was yet another side to Rusher-but it was clear he was serious this time.

Serious, she could deal with. "One hour," she said.