Storm clouds gathered over the Judges of the Dead. Four 20-meter monoliths marked the boundaries of the smuggler's graveyard. The sandblasted stones were millennia old and resembled veiled women in the act of mourning. No bodies were buried in the consecrated ground, only relics of the deceased's life. Bodies were cremated in the deep desert according to strict doctrine, the ashes left to the wind for dispersal.

Tabraile knelt at the edge of the graveyard, where countless mementos were buried beneath the sand. He stared down at Anayera's lightsaber, but was unable to bring himself to bury it as he had buried his brother's saber and his own, keeping his father's blaster to claim by birthright.

He absently rolled the mojle beads between his fingers. Though the obsidian beads were smooth and always cool to the touch, they did little to soothe the darkness rising within him. Desperately seeking solace, Tabraile whispered the wayfarer's prayer for a safe journey under his breath.

"She was a bitter, broken thing until she found you. Paquor mea," Elba whispered. Standing near one of the larger monoliths, he stared into the menacing clouds above them. "You were no different. Being together made you both whole again."

"Are you saying I have to accept this?"

"You have no choice in the matter. What is done is done, but bad blood has been given. Petchuk!" he swore and spat into the sand. "She was family, and this offense must be answered. Ut anir Nharqis!"

"Eat his ashes?" Tabraile asked. "Are you telling me to fight him?"

"You're Socorran, born of Jyalma—the black desert and its winds. Your survival has always been dependent on your willingness to fight."

"How am I supposed to even find him."

Elba threw a githrosphere on the ground beside him. "He's not leaving the planet without that. It's very difficult to manage a fighter when you don't know which way is up and which is down. I punctured the hydraulic line, not enough to disable the device, but enough to leave a trail. You won't need to find him. He'll come to you."

Tabraile sat back on his legs and shook his head. "Elba, he'll just call for someone to pick him up."

"Not if the starport refuses to allow them entry, which they have," the Bronwen countered. "Your father's name still has power here, and the Black Bha'lir don't like being told what to do, especially by Imperials. The Empire knows not to test Socorran temperament."

"Do I have any more of a chance than she did?"

"If you die, you will be reunited with her. If you live, you will have honored your heritage and avenged her death. Either way, you will have your happily ever after. Trust your heart, Marric. There is a reason why you were better than most at ibhidi katoi taranau."

"Why is that, old man?"

"The foolish say, 'Be the lightning before the thunder.' They are wrong. It is the lightning that creates the thunder. Without it, the thunder would have no voice." The Bronwen took a long, deep breath and pulled a heavy cowl over his hoary head. "I think I will go for a long walk. I have missed the desert and her voice."

Tabraile knew the old man would be gone for at least a year, if he came back at all. "Doaba ol'val tru, grandfather."

"Sahsahlah, my boy. May you find the peace you've been seeking. Doaba ol'val tru."

Tabraile picked up Anayera's lightsaber and the githrosphere and got to his feet. RK-O9 anxiously whistled at his feet. "You stay out of this." He settled the droid on the racing swoop and strapped it into the pilot's seat, then covered him with his flight jacket. "I'm setting this swoop on autopilot. If things go sideways, Soco-Jarel is that way." Tabraile pointed in the direction of the starport. "Look for Karl Ancher. Tell him what happened. He'll take good care of you."

RK-O9 peeked from beneath the jacket with its antenna and beeped sadly.

"Message?" Tabraile sighed. "Do you still have those Parlak chits?" When the droid answered affirmatively, he nodded. "It'll cost you, but Ancher can get you to the Alliance." He touched the droid's scuffed chassis as it warbled in defeat. "Not true, buddy. No matter what happens, you'll always be a pirate."

Taking the githrosphere with him, Tabraile climbed to the top of the ridge above the graveyard. With the mojle wound between his fingers, he sat down into the sand to mediate and pray.

                                            ~ ~ ~

A numbing chill announced Jyaard's presence. A cold wind swept across the Judges of the Dead, and for moment, Tabraile thought he heard the voices of the dead calling to him in warning. Glaring down at the haughty Imperial, he got to his feet.

"The wayward fighter pilot," Jyaard said, annunciating each syllable through his nose. "I should have known. Anayera was not capable of such leadership."

"That's what happens when you break a person's will. It makes them a slave, not only to the system, but themselves."

"And who would know better than a Socorran." Jyaard glanced around at the monoliths with a measure of appreciation. "So this is the smuggler's graveyard I've heard about. This planet is teeming with legends. I thought the Bronwen were myths, desert lore told to unsuspecting tourists. Never believed in them until one stole my githrosphere. I intended to teach the thief a thorough lesson, but it seems the trail was intended to lead to you." He leaned on his silver cane, extended his hand toward the graveyard, and chuckled. "Do you intend this to be my final resting place?"

"You don't deserve to be remembered," Tabraile said. "Filthy emwhulb."

"Now that is the fire Anayera lacked. We could do bold things together, you and I, Captain Tabraile."

"What was your plan after you set her up to fail with Mol'Jattu?" Tabraile ignited the lightsaber and started down the dune. He leaped into the air while holding the weapon in an underhand grip and drove the blade downward toward Jyaard's head.

The Imperial easily sidestepped him and laughed. "If it makes you feel any better, I had no intention of killing her. Anayera was, after all, my blood, my sister's only child. She couldn't help who her father was."

Gripping the elongated hilt in both hands, he ignited the double-bladed lightsaber and swung back in short, controlled strikes aimed at the ground and Tabraile's feet. Step by step, he forced Tabraile to retreat. "I intended to commit her as I did her mother. A slow death in perpetual madness is what she deserved."

"You bastard!" Ducking beneath the crimson glow of the blades, Tabraile threw himself at Jyaard with wide, reckless swings to close the distance between them.

"I'm going to enjoy this. Anayera was so clinical in her saber style. That comes from fighting inferior opponents." Jyaard grinned malevolently and cocked his head to the side. "Or against a master when you know you cannot win."

"If you hated her father so much, why not leave her with him. Why kidnap her and turn her into a monster?" Tabraile rushed him in a series of cross-cuts, but the Imperial was not intimidated.

Jyaard sidestepped the Socorran and elbowed him in the face. As the spray of blood shot between Tabraile's fingers, he stuck his foot out and tripped him. "She had too much of her father in her—an inferior Danerian savage. Not much different than Socorrans, I guess. How my sister could choose to love a barbarian over a proper man, I will never know."

Spitting blood from his mouth and wiping his nose, Tabraile scrambled to his feet. "You don't seem to mind when those savages went to war for you."

"Expendable losses." Jyaard swung the double-bladed hilt in his hands. "I made it my personal mission to ensure that Vannre lost everything. When I received my commission as an intelligence advisor to the Grand Moff, I brought the war where it needed to be and wiped out the entire planet. By then Vannre had fled the planet with the Rebel Alliance. So I took the prize that he inadvertently left behind in his haste. My sister and his daughter."

"Her mother tried to protect her from you."

"True. I had not counted on the bond between them. Nor had I counted on Anayera finding the asylum where I committed my sister. Without saying a word, Lacynda sowed the seeds of doubt in her daughter that could not be unplanted, which is why I had her killed."

Tabraile spun the lightsaber over the back of his hand and attacked again. He desperately tried to find an opening in the man's defenses, but found every angle blocked by the crimson blades. Feinting left, he hooked Jyaard's leg and knocked him to the ground with a punch to the face.

The Imperial flew backward to the ground and landed on his back, but he quickly kipped up to a standing position. Wiping his hand across his bloodied face, Jyaard's eyes narrowed in fury, but then a maniacal smile parted his lips. He waited until Tabraile leaped at him and swiftly extended his hand.

Tabraile wheezed as the air rushed from his lungs. Doubled over, he gasped as if struck by a landspeeder. Caught in the violent surge of Force energy, the Socorran was launched off of his feet, thrown through the air, and collided with the stone effigy of the wailing judge before dropping to the desert floor, where he gasped desperately for breath.

"I could use a man like you, Tabraile. Stop this foolishness and return with me to the Invictus."

"How in the hell can I trust what you say when I've seen what you do." Weakly waving the lightsaber in front of him, Tabraile crawled backwards across the desert floor as the Imperial stalked him.

"Another promotion? Your own fighter squadron. A ship designed and modified to your specifications. Name it, and I will make it yours."

"Derin will never let that happen," Tabraile said. "He'll never allow you to elevate me above him or his son."

"Then he'll be the first to die when you assassinate him for insubordination. You may kill his whelp, too, if it suits you."

Tabraile winced in pain and stumbled backward onto a knee. When Jyaard dropped down to make a spinning kick at his ankles, he caught him in the face with sand and his boot heel. Finally penetrating the Imperial's defenses, he reached over Jyaard's shoulder, but was quickly pinned beneath the elongated hilt of the lightsaber.

Jyaard wrested him to the ground, twisted at the hips, and wrenched his shoulder out of its socket. Tabraile landed on the dislocated joint, which popped back into the socket from the impact of his body hitting the ground. However, the lightsaber went flying in the opposite direction and landed in the sand near his swoop.

"Pity. Ours could have been an excellent arrangement—" Jyaard cried out as he moved by the swoop. Startled by RK-O9, he flinched away from the vehicle. The droid had extended its mechanical arm from beneath Tabraile's jacket and sent electrical charges into his back. "There you are. I wondered when you would rear your little head." Jyaard raised his lightsaber to attack the droid.

Tabraile thumbed the restraint from the heavy blaster, drew it, and fired off three shots in rapid succession. Jyaard deflected the first bolt, but was forced to move away from the swoop to avoid being hit by the second. He blocked the third with a rapid twirling of the saber. On the move, Tabraile tucked, rolled, and fired a fourth time. This time he caught the Imperial in the ankle.

As he fell, Jyaard threw the double-bladed saber like a spear. Tabraile caught the hilt, but not before the saber's tip burned into his chest. While not fatal, the wound was as painful as 100 chiru stings, if it was possible to have 100 of the Socorran wasps sting him in the exact same place. Tabraile collapsed on his back and stared into the heavy cloud cover, which rolled upward into a massive anvil.

The double-bladed saber lurched from Tabraile's grip and returned to the hand of its master.

Hobbling on his injured leg, Jyaard climbed to his feet. "If I cannot persuade you, I must kill you. If only to prevent you from joining the other side. Last chance, Captain."

"I'd sooner die." Tabraile felt Anayera's breath, warm on his mouth, and ran a finger across his lips. He smelled the ionized build-up of the electrical charge in the air. Through his hands, he sensed tremors moving beneath the sand as the hairs on his neck and arms rose with the amassing current.

"The Force is with you, but you cannot prevail," Jyaard said. "I will not make the same mistake as I did with my niece. Better to kill you now and spare you the suffering." The Imperial ignited the lightsaber's dual blades. "Talents such as yours are rare, like bottled lightning, dangerous and difficult to control."

"Only if it strikes you," Tabraile said. "Near misses don't count." Rising to his feet, he drew upon the charge on the wind and summoned the Force to bring the lightning down from the cloud cover.

Bound by his will, the deadly bolt struck Jyaard in the top of his head. The intense shaft of electrical energy shredded his uniform. What tattered material that remained burst into flame. Jyaard's Imperial insignia was reduced to molten slag and burned through his sternum, where it left a smoking hole in his chest. He convulsed erratically, his veins exploding beneath his skin, which was burned away in layers, revealing charred bone.

In an exhalation of utter sorrow, Tabraile gave a shout, a roar that manifested as a clap of thunder so powerful it shook the desert floor and sent visible shockwaves across the graveyard. The reverberation of his voice died away to the low hissing of the mojle beads around his wrist. Glowing like coals in a fire, the obsidian sizzled against his skin.

Drenched in sweat, Tabraile shook his arm until the fierce orange hue died away, replaced by a dull, ashen gray. Rubbing the ashes from the mojle, he stared at the black prayer beads and then down at the smoldering remains of Lord Rainier Jyaard's face.

"So much for being the superior race," he whispered.

Tabraile snatched the elongated lightsaber from what remained of Jyaard's hands and threw it into the air. Swinging from the hip, he drew his blaster and fired once. The silver hilt detonated in a violent explosion that sent waves of crimson miasma vertically and horizontally across the Socorran sky like the blast of a supernova.

Stowing the githrosphere in the rear compartment, Tabraile crawled into the swoop's saddle behind RK-O9 and collapsed. He held his hand against the saber wound and groaned, struggling to remain conscious. "Just really, really tired, buddy," he replied to the droid's inquiry. "No, I'm not mad at you. You did good."

Arms trembling in shock, Tabraile opened a storage bay, took out a flask of Socorran raava, and drank deeply. He savored the sweet burn in the back of his throat and the numbness it brought to his limbs.

"Think you can trace this hydraulic leak back to Jyaard's ship?" Tabraile nodded to the affirmative. "Copy that, partner." He drove toward the lights of Vakeyya, briefly pausing to retrieve Anayera's lightsaber from the dune, and then sped away toward the droid's projected coordinates.