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himself, mere flesh, mere limited comprehension.
    He looked down at the cooling body at his feet, understanding that only in murder did he transcend.
    He retracted his feeders, slick with blood, mucus, and brains, and they sat quiescent in their sacs.
    Sighing, he collected the human’s corpse, bore it to the air lock, and set the controls to eject it. Through the centuries, he had left such litter on hundreds of planets.
    As he watched the automated ejection sequence vacate the air lock, he consoled himself with the knowledge that one day he would feed on stronger soup that would reveal to him the whole truth of Fate.
    Reasonably sated, he returned to the cockpit of
Predator
and linked his comm receiver to the navicomp, as he had been instructed. In moments the autopilot indicator winked out—reminding Kell of the way the Corellian’s eyes had winked out, how the human had transformed from sentience to meat in the span of a moment—and another force took control of
Predator
. Kell settled into his chair as the ship sped through the malaise of Korriban’s atmosphere toward the dark side of the planet.
    A short time later
Predator
set down in the midst of ancient structures. Lightning illuminated weathered pyramids, towers of pitted stone, crystalline domes, all of them the temples and tombs of the Sith, all of themthe geometry of the dark side. Black clouds roiled and jagged runs of lightning formed a glowing net in the sky.
    Kell rose, slid into his mimetic suit, checked the twin cortosis-coated vibroblades sheathed at his belt, and headed for
Predator
’s landing ramp. Before lowering it, he took a blaster and holster from a small-arms locker and strapped them to his thigh. He considered blasters inelegant weapons, but preferred to be overarmed rather than under.
    He pressed the release button on the ramp. Hydraulics hummed and the door lowered. Wind and rain hissed into
Predator
. Korriban’s air, pungent with the reek of past ages, filled his nostrils. Thunder boomed.
    Kell stared out into the darkness, noted the clustered pinpoints of red light that floated in the pitch. He shifted on his feet as the lights drew closer—a silver protocol droid. He attuned his vision to Fate, saw no
daen nosi
. Droids were programming, nothing more. They made no real choices and so had no lines. The false sentience of the droid unnerved Kell and he cut off the perception.
    The anthropomorphic droid strode through the wind and rain to the base of the landing ramp and bowed its head in a hum of servos.
    “Master Anzat,” the droid said in Basic. “I am Deefourfive. Please follow me. The Master awaits you.”
    The droid’s words rooted Kell to the deck. Despite himself, Kell’s twin hearts doubled their beating rate. Adrenaline flowed into his blood. The feeders in his cheeks spasmed. He inhaled, focused for a moment, and returned his body to calmness, his hormone level to normal.
    “
The
Master? Krayt himself?”
    “Please follow,” the droid said, turned, and began walking.
    Kell pulled up the hood of his suit but did not lower the mask; he strode down the ramp and stepped into the storm. Korriban drenched him. With a minor effort of will, he adjusted his core body temperature to compensate for the chill.
    The droid led him along long-dead avenues lined with the ancient stone and steel monuments of the Sith Order. Kell saw no duracrete, no transparisteel, nothing modern. On much of Korriban, he knew, new layers had been built on the old over the millennia, creating a kind of archaeological stratification of the Sith ages.
    Not here. Here, the most ancient of Sith tombs and temples sat undisturbed. Here, Krayt wandered in his dreams of conquest.
    A flash of lightning veined the sky, painting shadows across the necropolis. Kell’s mimetic suit adjusted to account for the temporary change in lighting. As he walked, he felt a growing regard fix on him, a consciousness.
    Ahead, he saw a squat tower of aged stone—Krayt’s