Of course, with that station left roughly a kilometer up the mountain, Korsin had no idea how useful his old ally would be. But Gloyd still had fifty kilos on most of the crew. No one would move against them while they stood together.

No one would move alone, anyway.

Korsin looked back across the clearing at the mob.

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Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith:Precipice 19

Ravilan was there now, huddled with Devore and Seelah and a couple of junior officers. Devore spotted his brother watching and averted his gaze; Seelah simply stared back at the commander, unabashed. Korsin spat an epi-thet. “Gloyd, we’re dyinghere. I don’t understand them!”

“Yeah, you do,” Gloyd said. “You know what we say: You and me, we’re about the job. Other Sith are about what’s next.” The Houk plucked a scaly root from the ground and sniffed it. “Trouble is, this whole placeis about what’s next. You’re trying to keep ’em together—when you’ve really got to show ’em there’s something after this rock. There’s no time to win people over. You pick a path. Anybody won’t walk it . . . ”

“Push ’em off?” Korsin grinned. It really wasn’t his style. Gloyd returned the smile and sank his teeth into the root. Wincing comically, the gunnery chief excused himself. They wouldn’t be living off the land—not thisland, anyway.

Looking back at the teeming crowd, Korsin found his eyes drifting up toward the dwindling tendril of smoke drifting from the heights above.

Above. Gloyd was right. It was the only way.

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Chapter Three

The Massassi had died on the mountain. Korsin had left at dawn with three bearers: the healthiest of the Massassi, each passing around the remaining air canister. It hadn’t lasted, and neither had they. Whatever it was on this planet that didn’t like Massassi existed up above as well as below.

It was just as well, Korsin thought, leaving the blood-colored corpses where they fell. He couldn’t run Massassi.

They were pliant and obedient warriors, but they answered to force, not words. A good Sith captain needed to use both, but Korsin leaned more on the latter. It had made for a good career.

Not down the mountain, though. Things were going to get worse. They already had. It had been cold in the night—chillier than he had expected from what seemed like an oceanic climate. Some of the heavily injured had failed from exposure or from lack of medical care.

Later, some kind of animal—Gloyd described it to him as a six-legged mammal, half mouth—vaulted from a burrow and tore into one of the injured. It took five exhausted sentries to slay the beast. One of Devore’s mining specialists cast a chunk of the creature’s body into the campfire and sampled a piece. She mill_9780345519382_3p_all_r1.qxp:8p insert template 4/28/09

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vomited blood and died within heartbeats. He was glad he hadn’t been awake for that.

Whatever relief there was in knowing there was life on the planet ended right there. Omen’s crew didn’t number enough to sort out what was safe and what wasn’t. They had to go home, regardless of the state of things with the ship.

Korsin looked up into the morning sky, now streaked more by cirrus clouds than smoke. He hadn’t told the others about the thing that had struck the viewport during the descent. What had he seen? Another preda-tor, probably. There was no point in bringing it up.

Everyone was scared enough, and fear led to anger. The Sith understood this—they made use of it—but uncon-trolled, it wasn’t doing them any good. The sun hadn’t even set before lightsabers came out again in a dispute over a foodpak. One less Red Sith. Not twenty standard hours since the crash and things were starting to get basic. Tribal.

Time hadrun out.

Omenhad come to rest in a small indentation down a short ways on the other side of a crest. Sky and ocean spread out ahead. The ship had stopped on the incline just in time, and there wasn’t a flat plane left on the vehicle. The sight of his ship, shattered on the alien rocks, moved Korsin only a little. He had known opponents—mainly captains in the Republic—who were sentimental about their commands. It wasn’t the Sith way. Omenwas a tool like any other, a blaster or lightsaber, to be used and discarded. And while the ship’s resilience had saved his life, it had betrayed him first. Not a thing to be forgiven.

Still, it had a purpose. Flying again was out of the question, but the sight of the metal tower just above the bridge gave him hope. The receiver would find the Republic’s hyperspace beacons in an instant, telling mill_9780345519382_3p_all_r1.qxp:8p insert template 4/28/09

22

John Jackson Miller

Korsin his location. And the ship’s transmitter would tell the Sith where to find Omen—and, more impor-tant, the Lignan. Maybe not in time for the engagement at Kirrek, but Sadow would want it nonetheless.

Walking carefully over loose stones to the airlock, Korsin tried not to think of the other possibility. If the Battle of Kirrek was lost because Omenwas lost, he would die.

But he would die having completed his mission.

A vial lay empty in Devore’s open, quaking palm.

Devore had somehow gotten to Omenfirst—and was sitting in the commander’s chair. Well, slouching was more like it. “I see your cabin’s intact,” Korsin said. He remembered Seelah returning to the living quarters for little Jariad. In a fire, you go for the thing you love.

“I didn’t go there first,” Devore said, limply letting the vial drop to the deck beside the command chair.

There was another container there, particles of glistening spice still beside it. He’s been here awhile,Korsin guessed. He had a sneaking suspicion spice was why Devore had gone into mining in the first place; it had certainly shortened his naval career. “I didn’t go there—

I mean, it wasn’t first,” Devore said, pointing vaguely to the ceiling. “I went to look at the transmitter array.”

“Structure looked sound.”

“From outside, maybe.” Slouched in the command chair, Devore watched blankly as his brother clambered over fallen beams to reach the ladder. Above the ceiling panels, Korsin saw what Devore must have seen: a melted mass of electronics, fried when a seam opened in the hull during the descent. The external transmitter stood, all right—but as a monument to its former purpose, nothing more.

Climbing down, Korsin made his way to the comm control panel and pressed the button several times.

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Nothing. He sighed. The story was the same everywhere on the bridge. He switched the transmitter on one last time and stepped back over the debris. Omenwas dead.

But Sith had survived death before, and the guts of Omenstill held enough spare parts to allow a transplant. His eyes darted to the hallway. Surely, in the workshop—

“Gone, with the armory!” The explosion had vented most of the stores into space. Devore buried his face in his hands, finished.

Korsin wasn’t. “The landing bay. The Blades.” The fighters had been in flight when Omenmade its sudden departure, but something in the landing bay might be serviceable.

“Forget it, Yaru. The deck was crushed when we hit.

I couldn’t even get in there.”

“Then we will cut the ship down deck by deck and fabricate the parts we need!”

“With what? Our lightsabers?” Devore rose, steadying himself against the armrest. “We’re done!” His cough became a laugh. The Lignan crystals offered the Sith power—just not the kind to operate a distress beacon, a receiver, or even the celestial atlas. “We are here,Yaru. We are here and we are out of action. Out of the war. Out of everything. We are out of it!”