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In but a few seconds, he rushed up behind Kritkeen, found the man still standing with hands folded. As he watched the moons, he breathed in the sweet night air.

“It’s a nice night to die, isn’t it?” Dengar said softly, standing in the shadow thrown by one of the mansion’s pillars.

Kritkeen startled, turned, looking for him in the dark.

“Here I am,” Dengar said, taking a step into a shaft of light.

“Who are you?” Kritkeen said, shaken, demanding. He reached down to his hip, to press a portable alarm that would call more stormtroopers.

Before he could blink, Dengar crossed ten paces of ground, then reached down and snapped Kritkeen’s index finger. Dengar pulled the alarm from Kritkeen’s belt, placed it in his own pocket. Then Dengar pulled his blaster with one hand and shoved the barrel into Kritkeen’s mouth until it clicked against the enamel of his teeth. All of these actions took him less than a second, and Kritkeen stood with his mouth open, dumbfounded by Dengar’s speed.

“This is to be a routine assassination. By the book. You may already know the routine,” Dengar said, and he moved slowly now, a deliberate slowness that he’d acquired only after years of practice. He needed the rest, for it was easy to overtax his system if he moved too quickly. “Under Section 2127 of the Imperial Code, I am required to notify you that I have been hired to conduct a legal assassination in order to atone for crimes against humanity committed by you.”

“Wha—?” Kritkeen began to cry out.

“Don’t pretend that you don’t know what crimes. I have been recording your actions for the past twelve days. Now, the assassination will be carried out shortly. I have brought you a blaster, since you have the legal right to defend yourself. If I kill you, the injured parties will file documents with the Empire showing why they chose assassination as a recourse.

“But, if you kill me, …” Dengar breathed threateningly, “well, that’s not going to happen.”

Kritkeen backed up an inch, so that Dengar’s blaster wavered near his lips. “Wait a minute!”

Dengar shoved a blaster into Kritkeen’s hand, stepped back a pace. “I’ll wait for three minutes,” Dengar said. “That’s the law. I must give you opportunity to escape. You have three minutes to run, any direction you want—as long as you don’t go back to your precious stormtroopers. Then the hunt begins.”

Kritkeen stared at Dengar for a moment, then looked down to the gun in his own hand as if afraid to touch it. Dengar knew what he was thinking. He was wondering if he could draw on the assassin, but Kritkeen would remember Dengar’s speed, and he would opt to run instead.

Dengar stepped back two paces, lowered his own blaster so that the barrel pointed at his feet, and watched Kritkeen curiously for a long moment. “Go ahead. Shoot me. I’ve got nothing to lose.” Dengar said.

And it was true. He had no family, no home. He had no money, no honor. He had no friends, few emotions. Rage was one of them, one of the few feelings the Empire had left Dengar to remind him that he’d once been human.

He was what the Empire had made of him: an assassin without any ties. An assassin incapable of loyalty, who today for the first time, would be killing one of his own employers.

Dengar remembered emotions enough to know that it should have felt good. It should have felt right and sweet. But he felt only emptiness.

Kritkeen looked into Dengar’s dark eyes and asked, “Who are you?”

“My birth name was Dengar on Corellia. But in this sector, I go by another name. I’m called ‘Payback.’ ”

Kritkeen’s hand began shaking, and he stepped back in horror, shuddering at recognizing the name. He dropped the blaster to the ground. “I—I—I’ve heard of you!”

Dengar glanced meaningfully at the weapon. “You’ve lost twenty seconds. At the end of those three minutes, I’m going to kill you, whether you’re armed or not.”

“Wait, please—Payback. I—heard that you’re just a little crazy. I heard that you’re a little out of control. Dropping assignments … choosing odd jobs. You hit only those people you want to hit. So why me?”

Dengar looked