Nihil
Yareth
One moment the cruise liner was a bright sliver of glass and gilt in deep space, engines humming and ballrooms still lit.
The next moment, a Path-scar tore open off her port bow and the Squall-Fang came through it. There was no warning ping, there was no polite hail. There should have been no way for a ship to ambush here, but the nihil path engine had carved a route.
Yareth stood on her own bridge with one hand on the rail and watched the liner swell in the viewport. It was all white plating and gold filagree. A thousand little windows full of people who had paid to feel safe between stars. It was a beacon of decadence.
“Ion the engines,” she said, pleasantly. “I would prefer they remain intact enough to steal from. I am not in the mood to chase lifepods across the dark."
The torpedo left the Squall-Fang in a hard blue streak and kissed the liner’s drive section. Lights along the cruise ship’s spine flickered, died, then came back in ugly emergency amber. The great engines went quiet. She drifted helplessy, a jewel box with the lid already half off.
Boarding was quick after that. Her people knew the work. Yareth did not hurry. She came last today, stepping onto the liner’s bridge with the curved blade already wet. Someone in a pressed uniform had tried to be brave. Only the floor remembered him. The bridge crew huddled in a corner.
Standing over them, Yareth licked fresh blood from the edge of the wickedly curved blade.
"The intercom?" she asked sweetly. A shaking hand pointed.
She crossed to the captain’s chair and sat in it as if it had been reserved for her. She keyed the shipwide intercom with two fingers. When she spoke, it was the same voice one might have heard ordering from a fine wine selection at any of the liners restaurants.
“Good evening. This is Yareth of the Squall-Fang. Do forgive the interruption.”
She left a pause, just long enough to let the fear settle into the corridors.
“Your engines are no longer your concern. Your valuables, however, remain very much mine. You will place them outside your cabin doors. Jewellery. Credit chips. Anything pretty enough to keep. Do it now, and we shall pass through like... Some bad weather.”
The blade rested across her knee, still shining.
“If I am required to come and fetch them myself, I shall be disappointed. I am quite tedious when I am disappointed.”
She released the comm and glanced at the frozen officers still standing against the far bulkhead.
“Do be dears and keep the lights on. I so dislike rummaging in the dark.”
What Yareth did not know, was that a powerful sith had been enjoying a pleasant weekend of pampering after a bad week.
Quinn Varanin
