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It’s so … dead. Something broke inside him then; his rage and terror fled, and he sagged to his knees. Nothing but stone and corpses. Everything dead. Dead within. Dead without. Dead forever.

“Not everything.” Though the small blond man had to step over corpses to reach Kar’s side, his expression of sympathy and compassion never flickered. “You’re alive, Kar. I’m alive.”

That means nothing. Kar’s eyes burned as if he’d dipped his face in sand. We mean nothing.

“We’re the only meaning there is.” The small blond man extended a hand. “Trust me or kill me, Kar. In the end, it’ll come out the same. I will not harm you.”

What are you? His snarl had gone plaintive. What do you want from me?

“I’m a Jedi. My name is Luke Skywalker,” the small blond man said. “And I want you to take my hand.”

DEEP IN HYPERSPACE, CRONAL REACHED UP FOR THE Shadow Crown. His life-support chamber was buried within an asteroid of meltmassif; with the Shadow Crown to focus and amplify his control, he could part the stone that shrouded his chamber’s viewports and so enjoy the infinite nothing of hyperspace.

He loved gazing into hyperspace, the nothing outside the universe. The place beyond even the concept of place … Ordinary mortals sometimes went mad, succumbing to the delirium of hyper-rapture, from gazing too long into the emptiness. Cronal found it soothing: a glimpse into the oblivion beyond the end of all things.

To him, it looked like the Dark.

It would be some consolation for the frustration he had faced these past days. How was it that everywhere he turned, there seemed to be a Skywalker waiting to bar his path?

Still, the Skywalker boy’s weakness had been a gift. How fortunate he was that Skywalker had lacked the strength of character to simply kill him.

Even in Cronal’s wandering through the trackless wastes of hope where he had lost his way, he still had managed to deliver a blow to the infant second Republic from which it would never recover. Not to mention that he still had the advanced gravitic technology made possible by the properties of meltmassif, and he had the Shadow Crown itself.

Yes, he had lost his best chance to acquire a young, powerful, and influential body to carry his consciousness, but he still had his original body with all his powers intact. In a few days—long enough to be certain that every Republic ship still in the Taspan system was crewed only by the dead—he could return, harvest the meltmassif from the asteroid clouds, and begin anew.

He would not repeat his mistake, however. Never again would he seek to build rather than destroy. Never again would he create anything but engines of ever-greater destruction.

Never again would he forsake the Way of the Dark.

His rule of the galaxy would be no mere Second Imperium, it would be the Reign of Death. He would preside over a universe of infinite suffering whose only end would be oblivion, meaningless as life itself.

He would author the final act in the saga of the galaxy.

With that dream to comfort him in his temporary exile, he lowered the Shadow Crown upon his head and sent his will into the Dark beyond darkness, to take control of the mind in the stone.

But where there should have been Dark, he found only light.

White light, brilliant, blinding, a young star born within his head. It seared his mind, blasting away even his memory of darkness. He recoiled convulsively, like a worm encountering red-hot stone. This was more than light; it was the Light.

It was the power to drive off the Dark.

This was inconceivable. What could heat his absolute zero? What could banish his infinite night?

You should know. The voice of the Light was not a voice. It spoke without speaking, communicating not with words, but with understanding. You invited me here.

Skywalker? This light was Skywalker?

In the instant he thought the name, Cronal saw him: a shape of light, absolute, uncompromising, kneeling within the Election Center in the darkest heart of the Shadow Base, his