But they’re still here, and Nevil isn’t.
Caedus gestured to Inondrar to take over, and moved to a comm station where he wouldn’t be overheard.
“Did you finish the job yourself, Tahiri?”
“I… I shot him, sir.”
“You’ve probably saved the Galactic Alliance.”
“I didn’t feel much of a savior. He was just an old man.”
But Caedus noted that she had done it anyway, no sentimentality, no weakness. “How do we get you back on board in the middle of this, Tahiri?”
“It’s going to be difficult.”
“We’ll do it. You’re still in Bloodfin, yes? You’ll be safe there for the time being.”
“I’m stuck in Bloodfin. The crew mutinied and the commanders are trying to regain control. We’re on emergency power-environment control only.” Tahiri seemed to lose her detachment for a moment. “We were taking fire from other Imperial ships until the Moffs called it off-they’ve transferred the flag. But the senior Moff commanders are all stranded here.”
“I’ll come for you, Tahiri.”
“The crew can’t hold those sections forever. When the fighting’s over, they’ll be able to send any number of ships back to storm Bloodfin.”
And perhaps not be too careful who they blast when they try to get the Pellaeon loyalists out.
“I’ll still come for you-when I can extract myself from this.” He could feel her now that he focused. She was unhappy, not afraid; full of doubt, but not about getting out of Bloodfin in one piece. “Are you ashamed, Tahiri? Are you ashamed because you killed an old man?”
Tahiri didn’t answer for a moment. “It’s not quite the heroic role I had in mind.”
“But you did it.”
“Yes.”
“Tahiri, in the long term, it’s easier to kill a powerful enemy than it is an apparently weak one. If you bring down a giant, you’re a hero. If you kill something weak-even if it has to die-then you endure contempt. Being willing to be despised to serve the common good… that’s the mark of a true Sith. You’re going to make a fine apprentice forme, Tahiri.”
“Oh. I’m… official, then.”
Tahiri had a way with bathos that he’d thought was sim-pie banality, but she seemed to use it as to defuse situations she found too awkward. Then again, she might have been subtly mocking him. “You may call me Darth Caedus. I shall be known only by my true name from now on.”
“Yes…. my lord.”
“And I’ll come for you, Tahiri. I won’t abandon you.”
The tide had turned. Caedus sensed another cog turn, shifting every part of the whole machine of existence. The galaxy was an altered place. The majestic power of an Imperial fleet joining his loyal ships felt like the rush of energy in his veins from eating a sustaining meal after a long fast. There was something else, some other harbinger of great mechanical power and energy, but it was hard to pick it apart from the growing excitement of a fleet about to throw everything it had at the enemy.
“Sir, the senior Imperial commanders want your orders, “Inondrar said, as if he’d repeated it several times be-fore and got no response.
“Let’s give Niathal the fight she wants, then.”
Three Imperial cruisers moved in to open up a furious barrage on the frigates harassing the Anakin, catching one in a cross-stream of turbolaser fire that ripped through its top solar fin. Caedus thought he saw Ocean train her cannons on him, but it was a ship of the same class, and other Imperial warships attacked it with the same pack tactic, subjecting its shields to a punishing combined stream of firepower that overloaded the defenses. Caedus saw the moment that the shield failed; the hull was peppered simultaneously in twenty places at once as small cannon fire from Imperial assault fighters suddenly passed through and made devastating contact.
He had the GA on the back foot. It was numbers, always numbers. And now he had more.
‘Where are you now, Jedi? Don’t want to get the StealthXs scratched, do you?
“Ah…., “said Loccin, still at his post after all these hours. “Sir, more ships dropping out of hyperspace.”
Caedus turned, eager to see what else the Imperials had thrown into the battle.
“What’s that?” He didn’t recognize the vessel, and it didn’t carry the Imperial livery. “An auxiliary? A fleet tender?”
Ships began popping out of hyperspace in flares of white light, and as the transponders began kicking in and the sensors pinged others, Caedus knew the Jedi were back with one of their mind-games. He was on the receiving end of another elaborate Jedi mind-assault. Or at least his crew were, and now he hoped everyone understood how very real the Fallanassi illusions were in the hands of a master, how they registered with all the senses, and even sensors if the illusionist was powerful enough.