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He pushed the memory from his mind, the pain still too acute.

The conflict between Jedi and Sith had reached a turning point. Kirrek would be a fulcrum, tilting the war toward one side or the other. Relin knew the Jedi under Memit Nadill and Odan-Urr had fortified the planet well, but he knew, too, that Sadow’s fleets would come in overwhelming force. He suspected they would also strike Coruscant, and had so notified Nadill.

Still typing in coordinates, Drev asked, “We will be able to pick up the beacon’s pulse once we enter hyperspace?”

“Yes,” Relin said.

At least that was the theory. If they were right about the hyperspace lane Harbinger and Omen had taken; if Saes had not diverted his ship to another hyperspace lane; and if Harbinger and Omen remained near enough the hyperspace lane for the beacon’s signal to reach them.

“And if the agents did not place the hyperspace beacon? Or if Saes located it and disabled it?”

Relin stared out at the nebula. “Peace, Drev. There are many ifs. Things are what they are.”

Matters had moved so rapidly of late that Relin had not had time to report back to his superiors as regularly as he should, just the occasional missive sent in a subspace burst as time and conditions allowed.

He had picked up Saes’s trail near Primus Goluud. There, he’d seen the armada of Sith forces marshaling for an assault; he’d seen Saes’s ship leave the armada with a sister ship, Omen, falling in behind.

After sending a short, subspace report back to the Order on Coruscant and Kirrek, Relin had received orders to follow Saes and try to determine the Sith’s purpose. He had learned little as Harbinger and Omen moved rapidly from one backrocket system to another, dispatching recon droids, scanning, then moving on.

“He is searching for something,” Relin said, more to himself than Drev.

Drev chuckled, and his double chin shook. “Saes? His conscience, no doubt. He seems to have misplaced it somewhere.”

Relin did not smile. The loss of Saes cut too sharply for jest.

“I worry over your casual attitude toward matters of import. Many will die in this war.”

Drev bowed his head, his shoulders drooping, trying to look contrite under his mass of thick brown hair. “Forgive me, Master. But I …” He paused, though his round face showed him struggling with a thought.

“What is it?” Relin asked.

Drev did not look at him as he said, “I sometimes think you laugh too little. Among my people, the shamans of the Moon Lady teach that tragedy is the best time for mirth. Laugh even when you die, they say. There is joy to be found in almost everything.”

“And there is also pain,” Relin said, thinking of Saes. “Are the coordinates ready?”

Drev stiffened in his chair and in his tone. “Ready, Master.”

“Then let us find out what it is that Saes is looking for.”

Relin maneuvered the Infiltrator out of the nebula and checked it against Drev’s coordinates. Stars dotted the viewscreen.

“We go,” Relin said.

Drev touched a button on his console, and the transparisteel cockpit window dimmed to spare them the hypnotic blue swirl of a hyperspace tunnel. Relin engaged the hyperdrive. Points of light turned to infinite lines.

THE PRESENT:

41.5 YEARS AFTER THE BATTLE OF YAVIN

Darkness plagued Jaden, the lightless ink of a singularity. He was falling, falling forever. His stomach crawled up his throat, crowding out whatever scream he might have uttered.

He still felt the Force around him, within him, but only thickly, only attenuated, as if his sensitivity were numbed.

He hit unseen ground with a grunt and fell to all fours. Snow crunched under his palms and boots. Gusts of freezing wind rifled his robes to stab at his skin. Ice borne by the wind peppered his face and rimed his beard. He still could see nothing in the pitch. He stood, shaky, shaking, freezing.

“Where is this place?” he called. The darkness was so deep he could not see his frozen breath. His voice sounded small in the void. “Arsix?”

No response.

“Arsix?”

Odd, he thought, that the first thing he called for in an uncertain