The torch was utilitarian. It looked like an oversized ancient flashlight. Heavy-duty. A piece of equipment some sanitation worker might carry on his belt. There was nothing elegant, or beautiful, about it.
But its flame had always mesmerized him.
Reminded him of the past when men fought and captured empires with swords.
Empires.
The black giant had given him an empire with this torch. And then given the common torch to his emperor as a gift.
“It is the way of my people,” Bombassa had told Goth Sullus in his deep basso rumble. “Every gift must be answered with a gift.”
Sullus had accepted, and placed it here, unconsidered in the time since. Left it right here, on this pedestal, when he’d returned to his sanctum. And now he could sense the violent destructive power within its ungainly utilitarian nature, and it felt good. As though that pure destruction was a kind of peace. A symbol. Himself.
Because, he answered, even though he’d asked nothing, no question, because you’ve come to destroy the Republic so it can be made ready for what is coming.
If it must be an empire that rises from the ashes, then let it be one taken with a sword. Like it always ever was.
He closed his eyes and understood the entire meditation his mind had been caressing now. Understood what must be done next.
With that same mind he reached out and lightly switched on the comm that connected him to Admiral Crodus.
“Yes, my lord,” came the reply.
Sullus’s eyes fell to the torch once more. Then: “I have a special mission. Send Command Sergeant Major Rodriguez and Sergeant Bombassa along with a hand-picked team of your best operators. Tell them to hunt down the girl. Capture her. Bring her back to me at once.”
Crodus would know exactly who he meant. Captain Mordo’s reports had been clear. Kael Maydoon’s daughter had been captured on all the shock trooper image capture feeds broadcast from their buckets, as well as all the comm node station footage recorded internally. Before they’d blown the base to smithereens. Sending large chunks of burning debris out into the pristine snowfield.
That was standard operating procedure. The empire would scorch the galaxy until it surrendered.
Crodus paused. As though waiting for more. Or composing his response on how he might best proceed. And in that briefest of moments of in between, staring at the torch tool, the pain that wracked the emperor’s ancient, yet seemingly only middle-aged body… suddenly cleared.
He pushed the cowl of his hooded robe back, revealing a large, bald head. Coal-dark eyes. A lantern jaw. Lines that fell back from those burning eyes that were closed as he saw the figure of Rechs. No, not Rechs. But a man in armor all the same. A gunfighter of old—which was what Rechs had really been and never knew it.
A man torn between two worlds. The living and the dying.
Young and tall and fast. Very fast. Like summer lightning.
But like some ghost of something that once was.
Like a wraith living between the worlds of light and dark.
“I shall see to it personally, my lord,” promised Admiral Crodus.
“There will be another looking for her. He is very dangerous.”
And then Goth Sullus cut the comm link before Crodus could ask for more. As his pain returned once more like a bright storm. He stared at the torch and felt forces gathering all about him. All against him.
The times were dangerous indeed.
There was a storm gathering.
A storm that would ruin the galaxy.
***
It has been a long time, weeks even, maybe more, and Prisma has been isolated in a room inside the great ship. Occasionally she is allowed to be visited by Leenah. But most days she spends alone.
One wall of her cell turns into a screen, and a bot, beautifully metallic and alien, appears. Its voice is calm and pleasing. It talks to her. Asks her questions. Some night she dreams about it.
And some night she dreams about an alien world beyond the galaxy. A harsh alien desert planet of lizard-like statues and lost temples. Strange, lonely birds call to her as she wanders through its night. She is never afraid. And she hears the distant drums of some great gathering.
She thinks, strangely, that it is for the burial of a king. Though she has never been to a burial. Nor known a king.
And then she is awake.
And the endless days pass.
She knows she is in hyperspace.
And so she takes out the blue world marble and stares at it. Thinks at it. Wills it to move.
It does not.
She tries a little every day.
Some days more than others.
“Who is… Goth Sullus?” the strange and beautiful yet terrible bot on the screen asks her one day.
She never answers its questions.
She knows it is bad.
There are bad bots.
She saw one once on an entertainment holo. It scared her. It murdered a family.
And even though this one looks beautiful, she knows it too is bad. Very, very bad.
“Who is Goth Sullus?” repeats the bot, watching her. And when Prisma doesn’t answer, staring back at the screen and not blinking, the emotionless bot, in time, goes away.
It has told her that it calls itself CRONUS.
Later that day she pulls the marble from her pocket and places it on the deck before her.
And she thinks of Goth Sullus.
And revenge.
And the marble shifts. Moving… ever so slightly.
Available December 2017…
Galaxy’s Edge: Prisoners of Darkness
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