Nax Cirvan was having another terrible day.
Former Jedi.
Former general of the Confederacy of Independent Systems.
Former self-proclaimed baron.
Former Dark Side servant of Count Dooku.
Former inmate of a Jedi prison.
Former soldier of the Galactic Empire.
Officially, he had died several times already.
As a result, he now spent most of his life as Hydra, the Empire’s new Grand Inquisitor, personally restored by Emperor Palpatine after emerging from the artificial coma that had followed his failed attempt to destroy the Emperor’s shuttle.
Fortunately, the conspirators had all been killed by the stormtroopers of the 501st Legion.
No prisoners had survived, and their databases had perished in the explosion.
Officially, his predecessor’s life had ended in a tragic corvette accident.
Nax had never believed it.
Laddinare Torbin, former head of the Information Department within Judicial Intelligence during the Republic era, one of the many intelligence organizations serving the then-Chancellor, was not the sort of man who simply died by accident.
If Torbin had been executed for failure, Nax would have been informed.
That was an Imperial procedure.
This had been something else.
Officially, he was now the second Hydra, entirely unrelated to the first Hydra, who had disappeared on the very same day as the shuttle explosion.
Back then, everyone who mattered had understood that failure had been involved.
This time something was different.
To make matters worse, he had to wear an idiotic mask that concealed his face.
Hydra had to remain faceless.
An awful day.
Another fugitive Jedi had discovered another Sith inheritance belonging to yet another ancient Dark Lord, resulting in an entire continent within Sith Space being incinerated.
Some degenerate admiral appointed solely because he happened to be the third cousin of Ishin-Il-Ratz had managed to lose two Star Destroyers by crashing them into each other.
Worst of all, one of Vader’s brainless Dark Side butchers had gotten nearly the entire first generation of Inquisitorius students killed.
The first class trained entirely from scratch rather than recruited from former Jedi and younglings.
Then the butcher himself had died before the Grand Inquisitor could personally administer an appropriately unpleasant punishment.
Only one survivor remained truly useful.
The Zabrak.
Fa’Zoll.
Nax committed the name to memory.
This one had potential.
Someone worth promoting to a full Inquisitor.
Vader and the mysteriously deceased Torbin had purged nearly every competent field operative from the Inquisitorius.
At least the fugitive had been eliminated.
Whoever thought resurrecting Marka Ragnos would leave the resurrector unharmed deserved their fate.
Placing the ancient staff upon a shelf filled with trophies, items he personally cared nothing about but maintained to distract the various spies occasionally attempting to infiltrate his office, he returned to his desk.
“Vader found the Invincible Front’s base.” The voice came from a man standing within the shadows.
“Rancisis, Bulq, and nearly all the others are dead.
Only a small ship escaped with our agent.” The day somehow worsened.
So many resources wasted.
Another branch of his plans cut down at the root.
The fact that he was learning this only now meant his contact among Vader’s subordinates was dead as well.
Losses everywhere.
As though Xizor and the bottomless Alderaanian pit weren’t already enough trouble.
And that pit still needed to be concealed from the Empire’s other intelligence agencies.
At least the agent had escaped.
Perhaps the channels remained uncompromised.
Perhaps he wouldn’t need to burn every intermediary immediately.
“Sit down, Laurita,” he said, retrieving a bottle of Corellian whiskey and two glasses.
“How did it happen?” The former Imperial lieutenant who had briefly held the rank of admiral sat calmly across from the Grand Inquisitor, who allowed himself the rare luxury of displaying emotion.
Bald.
Covered in prosthetics from his left eye to both legs below the knees.
A man who had survived against all odds.
The officer responsible for crushing the Gentis rebellion was not Nax Cirvan’s friend.
Nax had never had friends.
Not in the Jedi Order.
Certainly not afterward.
But Laurita Tohm was a fellow believer.
A man with clear motivations.
More importantly, someone entirely unconnected to any Force cult despite possessing minor Force sensitivity.
The right hand in Nax’s most secret undertaking.
In different circumstances, Laurita Tohm would have made an excellent general or admiral.
“The Death Squadron was nearly wiped out,” Tohm began after accepting the glass.
“Delta-7 managed to extract the final messenger along with almost the entirety of Oppo Rancisis’s archive right under Vader’s Inquisitors’ noses.
The external agent network remains intact.
They were compromised by something simple, a tracking beacon aboard a ship returning from another mission.
After that came the invasion, the slaughter, and near-total mutual destruction.
Of the Inquisitors assigned to Vader, only two survived.
The Zabrak and the Miraluka.” “The Jedi project failed because of its own Jedi nature,” Cirvan said with reluctant honesty.
“Their approach to security never changed.
We’ll shift our focus to the Senate and the Moffs instead.
Clean up the loose ends carefully.” The former Jedi leaned back in his chair.
Laurita required no explanations.
Nax trusted both his competence and his loyalty.
A former Separatist general and a man who had joined the Empire solely to avenge a family murdered by Separatists.
Darth Vader had a remarkable talent for uniting people against himself.
“Are Shonn and your daughter safe?” the Grand Inquisitor asked casually.
Laurita responded with a silent nod.
He had no intention of discussing the matter further.
The existence of the former admiral’s family was a secret he guarded even more fiercely than his covert operations on Nax Cirvan’s behalf.
With that, the last trace of humanity the second Hydra could afford himself this month came to an end.
“Then back to business.
I’ll handle the Grand Moffs personally.
As for what must be done in the Senate…”
As promised, here’s your bonus chapter.
On to the next milestone!