The Fallen Star (Star Wars: The High Republic)

by Claudia Gray

Although he racked his brain for any meaningful memory of it, he retained merely a few indistinct flickers of a large creature moving toward him. He knew only two things for certain: This was the creature, or one of the creatures, that had been attacking the Jedi aboard Starlight Beacon—attacking them through the Force; and If Elzar’s pod had moved any slower, he’d probably already be dead.

In moments such as this one—when Elzar could see himself as the Jedi he’d always truly hoped to be—it was easier to feel courage. To feel confident of a good result ahead.

Besides, she had finally glimpsed the solution. Just reroute a little power here, angle the thrusters like so—and within minutes, Starlight Beacon would be aloft again.

Elzar leapt into the room, igniting his lightsaber mid-flip, until he landed directly in front of the woman who stood deep in the workings of the positional thrusters. Her large eyes widened, and already she was going for a weapon, ready and willing to kill him if that was the only way she got to kill others— Before she could reach it, Elzar swung his lightsaber, the blade splitting her in two. Instantly she fell, dead. —

There was no point in undertaking such an action if the consequences of that action were not fully understood and accepted from the start. This sort of behavior—regretting what one had done, when one had fully succeeded—was the sort of thing Ro held in depthless contempt. Ghirra had already served her most critical purpose. Ro briefly considered eliminating her on the spot; someone this weak would be more liability than ally in the days to come.

—and then the wind caught him, yanked him backward, away from the station. For one moment it seemed as though Leox hung in the sky, before the gales tore him away, flinging him down toward the ground, and death.

Seconds before, Elzar Mann had been a Jedi, a hero, a man on a mission to save lives. Now he stood there a murderer. He looked down at the bisected corpse lying near his feet and thought he might be sick. “Evacuate immediately,” the computer voice repeated, over and over. “Warning. Collision imminent.”

All the work he’d done with Orla Jareni on Ledalau. All his good intentions. All the progress he’d arrogantly believed he’d made. Every bit of it had vanished in one spark of rage. That was all it had taken to tear down Elzar Mann.

What if you took a break from your self-pity and did something productive for a change?

Truly, she thought, we are all the Republic—and never more so than in this moment of shared tragedy. Sorrows could bind people even more closely together. The natural bloodlust for revenge that would follow: That could be shaped, tamed, turned into common purpose.

The crash sent enormous plumes of water spewing in every direction, all of them several stories high, scattering waterships and shore debris. Everyone aboard Nihil ships grew frenzied with celebration, more like the midnight fireworks at Canto Bight than anything generally engaged in by the Nihil. His face safely hidden by his helmet, Ro allowed himself to smile broadly. “Glorious,” he whispered. Alone among all those watching, Ro felt a moment’s pang—not for Starlight or those who’d been aboard it, nor for what it represented, but for the creatures he had sent there and had done his work so well. They weren’t easy to replace. But he knew where to get more.

Worse than any of that was the psychic blow—the sudden awareness that at least a few others had been alive and trapped elsewhere on the station, because their deaths ripped through Elzar’s consciousness, a terrible call of anguish that could never be answered, could never be healed. And worst of all was the inner silence that followed.

Only one gathering would ever be grander: the one Marchion Ro intended to hold as soon as the Jedi had been crushed forever. He smiled to himself, beneath his mask, secure in the knowledge he wouldn’t have to wait very long.

You would be proud of this, he thought, imagining Stellan’s face. Even without Starlight, the Jedi have much to give the galaxy. I will learn how to give the best of myself, how to constrain the worst part of myself. My actions deprived the galaxy of one of its greatest Jedi. For the rest of my life, I will be trying to create some small fraction of the goodness he still had to give.

It still matters that they came, he reminded himself. It will always matter. That unity, that compassion, that courage…this is what the Nihil lack. We will not win by stooping to their level, but by rising so far above it that even the Nihil cannot reach.

“Our entire galaxy has watched Starlight Beacon splinter, crash, and burn. By now most understand that the Nihil are responsible. Until this hour, however, very few have understood who is responsible for the Nihil. In other words—it’s high time I introduced myself. I am Marchion Ro. I am the Eye of the Storm. I am the Eye of the Nihil.”

“Much was made of the idea that Starlight Beacon was a symbol of hope,” he continued. “But there is no hope in this part of the galaxy. There is only despair. There is only the Nihil. It was the Nihil who created the Great Hyperspace Disaster—and we can do so again. It was the Nihil who attacked the Republic Fair at Valo and left your high and mighty chancellor bleeding at our feet. And today it is the Nihil who have burned Starlight from the sky. The Republic can’t protect you. The Jedi can’t protect you. We have proved they can’t even protect themselves. We go where we want. We strike where we want. Our will is the only authority in this part of the galaxy, and the only one there ever will be.”

“I do not wish to rule the galaxy,” he said. “If I did, you would be under my boot even now. But I will take what I wish, when I wish it, and no one will stand in my way—Republic, Jedi, or anyone else. They cannot stand in my way. The Nihil have proven our power, and we will use that power however we choose. This galaxy—” He knew he should say is ours. He should reference all the Nihil in his statement, unify them in this ultimate statement of purpose. Instead, Ro said what he truly believed: “This galaxy is mine.”