Star Wars - Lost Tribe of the Sith 01 - Precipice

mightily—and mutely regarded the result: a handful of dripping scar tissue. Korsin looked at the quartermaster and asked drily, “Is that normal?”
    “You know it’s not,” Ravilan snarled.
    From across the clearing, Devore Korsin charged in, shoving his son into Seelah’s hands before she was done wiping them. He seized the brute’s massive wrist, looking for himself. His eyes flared at his brother. “But Massasi are tougher than anything!”
    “Anything they can punch, kick, or strangle,” Korsin said. An alien planet, however, was an alien planet. They hadn’t had time to do a bioscan. And all the equipment was high above. Devore followed Seelah, backing away from the sickly Massassi.
    Eighty of the creatures had survived the crash. Korsin learned that Ravilan’s assistants were burning a third of those survivors, even then, over the hillside. Whatever unseen thing it was on this planet that was killing the Massassi, it was doing it quickly. Ravilan showed him the stinking pyre.
    “They’re not far enough away,” Korsin said.
    “From whom?” Ravilan responded. “Is that depression a permanent camp? Should we remove to a different mountain?”
    “Enough, Rav.”
    “No witty comeback? I’m surprised. You at least plan
that
far ahead.”
    Korsin had fenced with Ravilan on earlier missions, but now wasn’t the time. “I said,
enough.
We’ve surveyed below. You saw it. There’s nowhere to go.” There were beaches at the bottom of the bluff, but they terminated against the oily cliffs that began the next mountain in the chain. And going farther along the chain meant trips through tangles of razor-sharp brambles. “We don’t need an expedition. We’re not staying.”
    “I should hope not,” Ravilan said, his own nose turned by the smell of the fires. “But your brother—I mean, Captain Korsin’s other son—feels we shouldn’t wait to return.”
    Yaru Korsin stopped. “I have the transmitter codes. It’s my call to make.” He looked up at the second, more distant smoky plume far above. “When it’s safe.”
    “Yes, by all means. When it’s safe.”
    The commander hadn’t wanted Devore on the mission. Years earlier, he had been relieved when his half brother had abandoned a naval career, drifting into the Sith’s mineralogical service. Power and riches were more easily had there, searching for gems and Force-imbued crystals. With their father’s sponsorship, Devore had become a specialist in using plasma weapons and scanning equipment. The recent conflict with the Jedi found him in high demand—and assigned, with his team, to
Omen
. Korsin wondered whom he’d played a joke on to deserve that. He’d been told Devore officially answered to him, but that would have been a first. Not even Sith Lords were that powerful.
    “You should have kept us in orbit!”
    “We were never
in
orbit!”
    Korsin recognized the voice of the navigator, Marcom, coming from over the dusty rise. He already knew the other one.
    The old man was trying to push his way out of the crowd when Korsin topped the hill at a full run. Devore’s miners weren’t letting Boyle go. “You don’t know my job!” he yelled. “I did all that I could! Oh, what’s the use talking to …”
    Just as Korsin reached the clearing, the crowd surged forward, as if pulled down a drain. One sickeningly familiar crackle followed another.
    “No!”
    Korsin saw the lightsaber first, rolling toward his feet when he breached the crowd. His father’s old helmsman lay ahead, gutted. Next to Seelah and Jariad stood Devore, his lightsaber glowing crimson in the lengthening shadows.
    “The navigator attacked first,” Seelah said.
    The commander gawked.
    “What
difference
does it make?” Korsin charged into the center, lifting the loose lightsaber into his hand with the Force. Devore stood his ground, smiling gently and keeping his lightsaber burning. His dark eyes had a wild look, a familiar one. He was shaking a little, but not from fear—not fear Yaru Korsin could feel. The commander knew it was something else, something more dangerous. He turned Marcom’s unlit weapon tip-down and shook it. “That was our navigator, Devore! What if the star charts don’t work?”
    “I can find our way back,” Devore said smartly.
    “You’ll have to!” Korsin grew conscious of the mix around him. Gold-uniformed miners in the circle, yes, but bridge crew, too. A red-faced Sith—not Ravilan, but one of his cronies. He was