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Only for a moment, though. She did not blindly trust the ship, but she knew what he was designed for, and she knew she had the will to direct him if she didn’t panic. She moved forward on the strange surface to where she could see out the viewport to the Temple that had receded, the faces of the Sith watching in the courtyard rapidly becoming tiny dots. She was as high as she had ever been on Tikk, and then suddenly she was higher still, and looking down on her home planet with eyes wide in astonishment.

It was beautiful, green and brown and blue with wisps of white clouds here and there, and Vestara suddenly wasn’t sure she wanted to leave it.

You wish to be a Sith Master, do you not?

You know I do.

Then leave this world behind, so that you may conquer others.

Slowly, her palms moist, Vestara had nodded. We will need more than you, Ship, if we are to conquer worlds in the name of the Sith.

I will teach you. I will teach all of you.

And so he had. Every apprentice, every Sith Knight, every Master and Lord learned how to navigate the vessel. He knew more about the Omen than they did, and they eagerly drank in the knowledge he shared. And then he took them to the stars.

They began with the conquest of a single vessel, alone and unprotected, no match for Ship. They harried it, dancing and fighting with weapons that Ship manifested into physical form with a thought, forcing the vessel to crash-land on an uninhabited world. What crew did not die in the accident met death by Sith lightsabers, shikkar, or glass parang—a bladed weapon originally used for clearing undergrowth that had new value as a weapon that could be thrown and then return to the thrower. The Sith aboard Ship scavenged this, their first kill, and with the vessel’s parts were able to make strides toward reconstructing Omen.

And they returned to space. Isolated and distant from the rest of the galaxy they might have been until now, but no longer. Ship knew where to take them, how to get there, and they would hunt and take their prizes and return with no one left to reveal the location of their hidden world. So they did, again and again, until Omen was completed and spaceworthy Five thousand years old it might be, but it was Sith, and with repairs, it again dominated the skies.

Two ships, now. One a Sith training vessel, the other a Sith battle cruiser. More vessels fell beneath the determined Sith attacks; more vessels that would be pressed into service to the dark side of the Force. Vestara was permitted to be part of the crew of one of the very first craft so commandeered. It had been given to Lady Rhea to command and renamed Eternal Crusader. Vestara learned as all of them had—by a few practice drills and by jumping with both feet into full-on space battles.

These new, spacefaring Tribe members had even adopted new garb for the purpose. Loose, flowing robes were a hindrance in scrambling aboard downed vessels and fighting in tight quarters. Instead, Vestara and the other crew members of the various vessels in the new Sith armada wore tight-fitting pants, shirts that permitted air to circulate and cool overheated bodies, comfortable boots for running and climbing, and weapons that were small, deadly, and clipped neatly to a belt, such as vibroblades, shotos, shikkars, and parangs, as well as the traditional lightsaber. Vestara’s light brown hair, which she still kept long, was almost always tightly braided now. She could not afford any distractions.

Two years had passed so, and they had been the fastest of Vestara’s young life. Sixteen now, she had transformed from a girl who yearned to become a Sith Master to a highly respected apprentice; from an innocent who had never taken a life or even dealt a severe injury to an accomplished killer who had slain dozens by all methods imaginable. She had once dreamed of being allowed even the most fleeting of glimpses inside Omen; now she served on a vessel even larger and more powerful than that ancient, respected warship.

They were returning home after a particularly satisfying