Lords of the Sith Read Online Free Page A

said, “Blasterfire in the main corridor off the bridge, sir.”
    For a moment no one spoke on either bridge. Long moments passed.Then there was some talk on Pok’s bridge in the background. Cham could not make it out.
    “Situation?” Pok asked someone in his bridge crew.
    “No one is answering the comm,” came the reply.
    “How can—There were eight men waiting for him! What is going on out there?”
    “Bridge lift is coming up!” another member of Pok’s crew said.
    Pok spoke into the comm, his breathing audible over the connection, as if he was leaning in close. “Cham, we’ll kill Vader and blow the ship. No one will get taken alive.”
    “Pok…,” Cham began.
    “It’s been an honor,” Pok said. “Keep up the fight. All of you.”
    Someone on Poks bridge shouted, “For a free Ryloth!” and the rest of the bridge crew echoed the cry.
    Isval was gripping Cham’s arm so hard his hand was growing numb. He stared at the open comm as if it held some secret meaning, some hidden thing he could discern that would save Pok and everyone else. But there was nothing.
    The rest of his crew sat in silence at their stations, heads down, listening.
    “It’s opening!” said someone on Pok’s bridge.
    A burst of blasterfire carried across the connection, but only for a moment before falling silent.
    “There’s no one,” said a voice. “The lift’s empty.”
    “Check it,” Pok ordered. “He’s still aboard somewhere—”
    A sizzle and hum sounded, shouts, a thump, repeated blasterfire, a prolonged thrum, rising and falling, a series of shouts and screams.
    “Pok!” Isval cried. “Pok!”
    Cham cursed.
    “What’s happening over there?” Isval asked. “What’s that sound?”
    The rising thrum dredged memories from the back of Cham’s mind.
    “It’s a lightsaber,” he said. The sound of the blade had been seared into his head during the Clone Wars, when Jedi had wielded them: Jedi doing things, like Vader, that no ordinary being could do. But therewere no more Jedi and there was no more Republic. There was only Vader, and the Empire.
    Another thump, then another. More alarmed shouts. Only two or three blasters were firing, and in the relative quiet another sound came over the comm: breathing, loud, as though amplified through a speaker or respirator. Vader’s breathing.
    “What is that? Is that Vader?” Isval asked, her own breath coming rapidly. Cham hurriedly muted the connection on his end.
    More shouts, the crash of something heavy, and still the hum of the lightsaber, rising and falling.
    “For Ryloth!” Pok shouted, and the sound of rapid blasterfire filled the comm.
    The hum of the lightsaber rose and fell, and Cham imagined Vader deflecting the blaster shots with the blade. He’d seen it before. Abruptly the shots stopped. A strangled gasp came over the comm: Pok, choking.
    “He’s strangling him!” Isval said.
    The choking went on for seconds that felt like hours, Vader’s amplified breathing the counterpoint to Pok’s dying gasps. Cham knew he should cut the connection, but he couldn’t. Cutting it would feel like abandoning Pok a second time.
    “Tell me what I want to know,” said a deep voice, Vader’s voice. “And your death will be easier.”
    They heard a pained gasp and a deep inhalation, followed by Pok cursing Vader in Twi’leki.
    “Very well,” Vader said.
    Pok gagged again, gasped, and went silent. Then a thump sounded, something heavy but soft falling to the deck.
    Isval screamed a curse. Cham’s heart was a hammer on his ribs, but he said nothing. There was nothing to be said. The only sound was Vader’s breathing carrying over the comm.
    “Cut if off, Cham!” Isval said.
    Cham stared at the comm, open but muted on Cham’s end. Vader’s breathing grew louder, as if he had picked up the comm to study it or hold it close to his face. The breathing. The breathing.
    “Cut it, Cham!” Isval said.
    Cham realized he was holding his breath. He seemed unable