The bleeding crimson haze from the glitchy holo-ads reflects in my half-empty glass, casting a scarlet glow that dances like embers in the dim light. Krr'vath-Nor's underbelly joints always reek like this. Stale recirc air hangs thick with the stench of spent oil from shields on their last gasp. The distant grind of freighters scrapes the sky like nails on durasteel. The ceiling fans spin lazily, their blades crusted with grime that scatters dust into my lum with every sluggish turn. I hunch over the glass, my coat heavy with concealed steel, staring into the amber swirl that burns my throat going down. The bar's mostly empty at this hour, just a few regulars drowned in their own static, avoiding eyes and lost to the holonet's drone on the wall. The barkeep, some shadow with a rag, wipes mugs with mechanical indifference, tuned out to the galaxy's endless chatter. No one bothers me here, not the old Rodian slicers half-dozing in the corner, not the blue-skinned dealer hunched over her sabacc grid, not even the barkeep, who polishes glasses with the same mechanical patience as a maintenance droid clearing dust from a hyperdrive. But lately, the place feels less like sanctuary and more like a rut I'm wearing into the deckplates. Maybe I've repeated coming here one too many times. Maybe I've become part of the background noise myself. Not my usual routine. Regardless of the dive I find myself in the seat, the glass, the weight in my chest are the routine. I drink to every face I've sent out of the galaxy: one for each mark, every night. The bar's ambient chaos settles into my bones, every laugh and glass-clink weaving into the pulse behind my eyes. The noise fills the cracks until only the ache is left, each job lining up behind the next like ghosts at a bar tab. Maybe it's just the lum hitting an empty gut, softening what should be edges, but I know the order: the kill, the remembrance, then the silence. Always the silence.
The holo-net on the wall drones on, volume just high enough to be an irritant: "Ossus beacon restored, Jedi council's hope for the Rim, kyber-lit path to unity…" like they're selling salvation, one broadcast at a time. My thumb traces a circle around the rim of my glass, a nervous tic, or maybe the only prayer I have left. The bar's reflection in the drink is warped, light splitting around the edges, turning my own face into something fractured and unfamiliar. Each time I raise the glass, I catch a glimpse of her eyes etched into the surface by memory and guilt, refusing to fade with the taste of lum. The ice clinks, and suddenly the cold of the glass is the cold of the rifle against my cheekbone, a weight settling into my shoulder. The Ossus kill—her—comes back in fragments, not because I let it, but because ritual and muscle memory don't ask for permission. Every mark, every face, cycles through as I drink, the names stacking up in the silence. I don't need to close my eyes. The job finds me in the glass, and I let it play through because that's the deal: the drink, the memory, then the peace. Tomorrow, there'll be another.
I can taste the salt in the wind that night again, twin moons glaring down from an uncaring sky. I lay prone on a cliff's edge above the academy: Ossus, old bones of the Jedi reborn in kyber-lit halls and laughter I had no part in. Wind whipped secrets through the crags, clawed at my coat. My sniper blaster rifle was lined up steady in the chill, optics pinging softly off her signature below. She was cross-legged, deep in meditation, presence radiating like a faulty heater in the night; empathy that could've warmed the whole damn galaxy if the galaxy cared to be saved. The so-called "wild reforms" she'd help bring about, letting Jedi have families, real attachments, maybe even happiness. It sounded like a pipe dream, but seeing what they'd built on Ossus… it almost got through to me. For a second, I nearly wanted to lower the rifle. But the contract always wins. I lined the shot, chambered a toxin-tipped dart: the kind of venom assassins favor for the silent work. She never saw me. Or maybe she did, in the way Jedi sometimes sense the end before it arrives. That warmth seeped through my scope, unsettling, like she could almost see the closing circle. One last exhale as I squeezed my index finger. The dart whispered out: a soft thwip, barely audible over the wind; piercing her cheek as she breathed in. Her body jerked once, a wet gasp escaping as the toxin bloomed in her bloodstream. She fell limp, head lolling, the light in her eyes dimming but not gone. Even at the end, those eyes found my lens, full of unfinished questions: no hate, just disappointment. As if I'd snuffed a spark that might've mended something in this fractured mess of a galaxy. The kyber lights of the academy flickered below, oblivious. Her last breath was stolen by the wind, and all that lingered was the faint hum, the soul-sting of something unfinished.
Extraction was premeditated, not desperate. No panic: just the right disguise, a forged credentials chip, and the patience to move when everyone else was staring the wrong way. I stashed the rifle in a collapsible supply case, swapped jackets with a field technician I'd incapacitated earlier, and let the wind do half the work of erasing my tracks. Council sentries swept the ridge, but all they saw was a laborer loading gear into a hauler marked for the midmorning supply run. Rey Skywalker's voice blared on the comms, but I was already in the crowd, jaw clenched, face down, holopad flickering fake maintenance logs. By the time security doubled back, I'd tapped a code cylinder, signed myself out as "R. Sunrider," and strolled through the city's main checkpoint, head low beneath a battered hardhat. Every routine is a blind spot if you know where to look. In the lower canyons, my speeder was hidden beneath a tarp and a dead power droid, engine cold. Once the coast was clear, I keyed in a remote and set the droid's backup generator to overload, sending a cascade of alerts to draw the last of the sentries upslope. When the explosion echoed, I rolled the speeder silent down the gravel wash, hit the ignition in the shadow of the cliffs, and vanished into a maintenance lane. Not a soul gave me a second glance. By morning, the Council was already closing in on the scene. By nightfall, half the Rim was in mourning. I watched on in silence as the holo-net mumbled on about thoughts and prayers for the Jedi cut down.
The lum burns down my throat, tracing fire across scars that never quite closed. Chasing the pang, maybe, but it clings like a bad vice. These new Jedi, the so-called New Jedi Council, shine with a warmth that should be impossible out here. They turn old wounds into strength, courtships blooming where dogma once starved hope. Seven equal leaders, council decisions by consensus, a coalition with the New Galactic Coalition's ragtag fleet. They're mending scars, forging bonds where the old Order built walls. But blindness creeps in, soft spots ignoring knives in the dark: knives like mine. Their debates drag on; every threat is a test of principle, and yet, hurt one of them and you rile the entire nest. The contracts on them feel tainted, like snuffing a hope that might've actually lit a better path. It sits heavy in my chest, the ache settling in as I swirl the glass, condensation mirroring sweat on my brow. Their light magnifies every mistake, and in the corners, shadows fester, growing teeth. You can't ignore them, not in the margins, sooner or later, everyone mourns something. Some call them naïve. Others say they're the last hope. Me? I just wonder how long you can patch up a galaxy that keeps ripping apart at the seams.
A patron's laugh cuts through high as she sweeps past in a swirl of blue silk: the kind of Chandrilan finery you only see in senate halls, not dives like this. Just for a second, her perfume catches in my throat, a ghost of blossoms and politics. Another unsettled hit that demands its due. the kill, the memory, then the silence. Chandrila, jewel of the New Galactic Coalition, but tonight it was all velvet and deception: polished floors, chandeliers raining false radiance, banners heavy with planetary crests. Politics here wasn't war: it was theater, and every actor deadly.
I took the role of serving staff, white tunic crisp, toxin vial slipped in a false seam above my wrist, courtesy of a Corellian slicer who owed me favors. The target: Baron-Administrator Lorn Vex of Bespin, coalition financier, the kind who built his fortune on cheap air and broken promises. He was the spine behind the senate's new trade bill: his signature funneled credits from rim to core, fattening syndicates in Coruscant's shadows while outer systems starved. The New Galactic Coalition called it unity. Vex called it business. I moved through the crowd, tray balanced, keeping my gaze downcast and steps measured. The banquet was alive with color: diplomats in flowing silks, senators gesturing over their glasses, Jedi advisors posted at the doors but never interfering. Chandrila's air was sweet with overripe blossoms, laced with the rot of ambition. Relics lined the walls: ornate masks from Naboo, Mon Cala coral, battered blasters once wielded by heroes now gone. Every piece a trophy, every eye on everyone else.
Vex stood at the podium, voice amplified, toasting a "new era of prosperity": every syllable a blade in the ribs of worlds he'd never seen. The crowd drank it in, all smiles and angled glances, but I was already setting the stage. I drifted behind him during the toast, timing my move with the music's crescendo. When I brushed past, I palmed a thin neurotoxin patch: no color, no scent, just a trace left on the stem of his wineglass, blending in with a hundred other fingerprints. Minutes passed. Vex's hand lingered on his chalice as he finished another empty platitude. The poison's work was subtle: a minor muscle spasm, a stutter in his next line, then nothing as he crumpled against the dais. No spectacle, no scream. Just a dignitary swaying, then sliding boneless to the floor, eyes wide with confusion as his own body betrayed him. The room's hush thickened with calculation. Some faces froze in shock, others flickered: who's next, what's the angle? A ripple of Jedi movement, but by then I was halfway across the hall, ducking behind a protocol droid, staff jacket stashed in a random locker. Fire alarms wailed as if on cue: a stray spark from the kitchen, orchestrated hours ago. Smoke choked the air, guests stampeded for exits. In the chaos, I slipped into the upper hallways, climbed into a laundry chute, dropping down into the alley where my SoroSuub speeder waited, plates hot, navcomp already plotting the trip to my ship to get off world. The last thing I saw before accelerating into the traffic spiral was Chandrila's towers blinking above the smoke: bright, indifferent, untroubled by one more corpse at their feet.
The red ads sputters and pulses with more intensity as their shadows twitch like banquet ghosts. Or it could be the lum. The New Galactic Coalition likes to paint itself as a beacon with senate seats rotating, every planet a voice, unity by design. But the cracks run deep. Corruption seeps from core to rim; Pykes and Hutts run rackets in the lower levels while the Chandrilan senate debates trade tariffs and commemorates the dead. Jedi walk the halls as advisors, not rulers, and the Coalition hails itself as the future, but every speech echoes off brittle walls. Justice and autonomy only platitudes on the air, sabacc chips on the table. Patrols tighten their grip for show, but the underground adapts. Bribes flow like spice, ops twist through city layers, and honest work withers under the squeeze. Even the beggars watch for bounty droids; the price of citizenship rises with each new decree. Checkpoints fracture destinies and sometimes literally. Halls echo with justice, but every bill is a battlefield. Alliances last as long as the next vote. My glass is empty again. The barkeep's wipe of the unused glasses is slow, eyes catching on mine in the mirror. There's no accident here: just another job finished, another system still pretending not to rot.
The indifferent rag drags across the mug: worn threads creaking over ancient duraplast, syncing with the itch in my skull, that twitch behind the eyes that always hits when the ritual's almost done. There's a rhythm to these endings once my glass empties, a body cooling somewhere. Outwardly, nothing changes. Fan blades grind above, spinning lazy circles that push more dust into the air than they ever clear. The bar's lighting is low, jaundiced with a greasy haze, and the holo-ads outside continue to flood scarlet across the countertop, painting my empty glass with blood that isn't mine. I wave over the bartender and motion for another round to drink. It's a reflex as his slides the glass back over to me only to lift it to my lips, the cheap lum burns its way down, hot enough to almost matter. As the bite hits my throat, I notice there's a shape across the bar: hood drawn low, shoulders slouched, a silhouette more suggestion than substance. Not a regular, not a drunk. When my gaze drifts his way, his eyes dart away quick, like he's not supposed to notice me, or like maybe he already knows too much. It's nothing: just another stranger; except every instinct says he's been there a while, watching. But he goes back to his drink, and the moment passes. The silence inside isn't relief: it's the aftermath, the price of keeping score. When you're left alone with your glass and the ghosts that always show up to watch the ink dry, you feel the anticipation, the way the memories claw up from underneath. Not some forced flashback or convenient narrative trick: just the cost of the ritual, bleeding through. That's always the real enemy.
Tonight the ritual's sharper, the memory more insistent. Maybe because of the stranger's stare, maybe because the tally's running long. Then a hiss of steam erupts from behind the bar, a pipe venting sudden heat and chemical bite into the air. The scent is pure undercity with burnt oil, and the metallic tang of too many bodies packed in too tight. It stings the back of my throat, and just like that, I'm back in the crawlspaces of Coruscant, far below the skylanes, where everything sacred's been chewed up and spit out. The crawl through the underbelly's vents tight around my frame, back screaming from hours pressed against durasteel grates crusted in decades of city filth. Sweat pooled in the hollows of my eyes as I lay there, silent, muscles knotting into steel wire. Their propaganda seeped through the walls: fractured sigils, scratched in by desperate hands, manifestos whispering 'purity' over and over. I watched them move: discipline sharp as durasteel, but something rotten underneath. They'd crawl through the city's guts for a chance to strike, surgical and efficient, but always looking over their shoulders. Fanaticism does that, turns purpose into obsession. I'd seen it too many times: reformers exploited, every compromise weaponized. And through it all, the holocron's pulse: warped light illuminating the fanatic below, his voice a snarl, warping some old Jedi's code into a death sentence for anyone not pure enough. He ranted about the Order's glory, about restoring the galaxy's soul, but all I could see was a man hollowed out by his own gospel, fingers twitching on his saber as if even his hands doubted him. The crawl turned to stakeout, then became the ritual. Vibro-garrote wire in my gloved palm: its hum a cruel parody of his beloved sabers. I waited, measured breaths, counting each second by the flicker of that warped holocron. When I finally moved, it was surgical: a silent slip through the vent, boots landing in the shadows behind him. He never looked up: too deep in doctrine, chanting about purity, oblivious to the executioner closing in. I ghosted up, one hand bracing his shoulder, the other looping the wire clean around his throat.
There was no hesitation. I pulled with steady, practiced strength, leaning into the kill. The vibration buzzed against his arteries, his sermon stuttering out on a strangled gasp. He clawed at the wire, eyes bulging with the realization that this wasn't some rebel infiltration: this was justice, clean and professional. His spine arched, then the pressure did its work: a single, efficient jerk, vertebrae shattering with a muffled snap. No thrashing, no struggle. Just a trembling hand reaching for a saber he'd never draw again. His head lolled forward, mouth twitching as if to finish the code; then nothing. The last thing in his eyes was disbelief, and then nothing at all. I let the body sag gently, arranging his robes to look as if he'd simply slumped from exhaustion, the wire retracted and wiped. Not a drop of blood out of place. On my way out, I triggered the holocron's power core to overload, sending a pulse through the console: a fire waiting to erase the evidence. My exit was a ghost's: back through the vent, gloves never touching the floor. By the time I reached the street, the alley was empty. No alarms. No one saw a thing. A speeder waited in shadow, engine barely ticking. I slipped into the flow of midnight traffic, visor low, vanishing into the neon-lit underbelly as chaos bloomed in the district behind me. Another job, flawless. The kind you only talk about if you want to die in your sleep: like maybe you crossed a line and the galaxy would never quite let you forget it.
Another sip of lum scorches a path down my throat. I grip the glass, thumb pressed white, red neon flickering off the rim. Out here, the grind keeps tightening: every face at the bar a tangle of past jobs and broken promises. Blacklists get longer, contracts get rarer, and the ones that do come through are always stained with the echo of the past. You start to feel it: your name spreading in the wrong kind of whispers, friends vanishing, the city's ghosts piling up until you're just another shadow ducking doctrine. Even the freelance work goes bad, dried up by suspicion, turning desperate or ugly. Neighbors trade more glares than creds; the desperate watch each other's backs, not out of loyalty but mutual paranoia.
Sometimes I wonder if that's all this galaxy ever was: a spiral of desperate ghosts, every one of us ducking from shadows cast by half-remembered dogmas, always waiting to see whose crosshairs we'll land in next. The work turns predatory: you're hunter one day, hunted the next. The price of survival? More than just creds, but you pay it anyway, because the alternative is being the body cooling in the gutter, forgotten before your boots stop twitching. The bar's hum gets louder, and I realize I've lost track of how long I've been sitting here. The rag still drags over mugs, barkeep's silhouette blurred by the low haze. And somewhere under all of it, maybe just in the scuffed mirror behind the bottles, I catch a glimpse of my own eyes, rimmed with fatigue and old regret, searching for something softer than the grind. But out here, softness gets you killed. Out here, the grind never stops, and the ghosts are always hungry.
The freighter's roar rattles the viewport, shaking loose a layer of caked grime that drifts through the air before dusting my fresh lum like volcanic fallout. The taste is always there: iron, ash, the faintest tang of ozone; no matter how many lightyears separate me from that scorched world. Even here, in the bowels of some nameless rimport bar, the sound burrows in, prying up the job on Mustafar's molten horizon, the way heat bends vision and every drawn breath tastes like a warning. I steady my grip on the glass, watching the red haze from the holo-ads fracture across the amber surface again, and let myself slip, just for a moment, back into the only kind of clarity that ever seems to stick: reliving the contract, ritual by ritual, before the silence can take hold.
Mustafar: no other planet like it, not for the living, not for the dead. The air is never still. Forges howl all day and night, spitting rivers of orange light that carve shadows from stone and memory alike. Fortress Vader juts from the lava fields, black and wounded, a monument to power repurposed for the Je'daii's vision of balance. There's never equilibrium here, only the endless sway of forces testing each other's limits: every law of nature, every scrap of doctrine fighting for the upper hand. Even the ground feels brittle, ready to shatter under the wrong step. I'd crept low through the ashen drifts beyond the ramparts, visor set to filter out the glare from smoldering obsidian. The Je'daii Order, Revan's reborn soldiers of balance: trained in plain view, but the real lessons were carved in sweat and blood, far from the council's gaze. I watched my target: a Sentinel of the Je'daii, his saber a metronome of focused fury, moving through the Je'daii Code like a living glyph, passion, yet peace; chaos, yet order; all the contradictory mantras wound tight into his every strike. His breath steamed in the sulfurous air, feet grinding through burnt glass, and for a moment I wondered if any Force in the galaxy could pull him off that razor's edge.
Hiding behind a slag outcrop, I watched his movements: measured, ceremonial, oblivious to the danger threading closer with every breath. This kill demanded a personal touch: quiet, up close, a death spoken with hands and conviction, not just a squeeze of a trigger. Timing was everything. The Sentinel's meditation brought him to the edge of the lava field, eyes shut, saber hilt set aside, exposed in the heart of ritual. I moved like a wraith, feet silent on glassy stone. No ripples in the Force, no breath wasted. The only warning was a shadow passing over his closed eyes as I slipped behind him: one hand clamped his mouth, the other pressed a monomolecular vibroblade beneath his jaw. My voice, quiet as memory: "Forgive this necessity."
He jerked once, struggling: too late. The blade slid up, severing spine and artery in a single fluid motion, fast and precise, the kind the old assassins called a mercy. His body sagged; I lowered him gently, laying him across the cooling obsidian, the posture almost prayerful. In that moment, I let my own breath stutter, the adrenaline's aftermath trembling in my hands. A clean exit, no time for drama or a lingering death. Just silence, ash, and the echo of the Je'daii Code dissolving into Mustafar's heat. I stayed kneeling beside him, long enough to confirm there'd be no second chances, no late retribution. Eyes open, yes; but the fire behind them was gone, snuffed out before the code could whisper for help. Up close, there's nothing mystical about it: death shrinks the myth, boils every legendary figure down to meat and muscle, bones cooling in the dust and obsidian. I wiped my blade clean on the hem of his robe, left his saber untouched: some lines aren't worth crossing, not even for a professional. Time to disappear. The Je'daii run with wildcards, enforcers who hunt for Revan's balance like it's a bounty no one's ever collected. My escape was already mapped: a weaving path across crusted lava, every step calculated to avoid thermal sensors, Force-trained sentries, the inevitable shiver of being watched by something older than resurrected legends.
A shuttle waited past the ridge, low signature and running cold. Before boarding, I tossed a micro-EMP charge toward the Sentinel's gear: fried any tracker, wiped holorecords, scrambled comms. You learn quick that with the Je'daii, even the dead might report you if you're sloppy. The shuttle's engine was a quiet promise. I left the world behind in a streak of contrail and static, Fortress Vader a jagged scar receding into clouded orange. The contract was done. The story would drift, distorted, through the Order's ranks: maybe a lesson, maybe a warning, more likely just another memory that Mustafar devours before dawn.
I swirl the lum, and feel the burn against my tongue, the flavor of molten regret. The Je'daii, for all their discipline, are a paradox you can't ignore. Ashla and Bogan, light and dark, purpose and temptation, bound up in code and custom. The Order forges its warriors in the fire: the Oath of Duality and the Vigil of the Flame, culling anyone unable to walk the knife's edge. They collect relics from Tython, fuse ancient Je'daii rites with Zakuulan sensors and Rakatan force-conduits, every mission a gamble between enlightenment and oblivion. Mustafar is more than a home; it's an anvil, and the hammer never stops. I've seen what their trials leave behind. Survivors are hard, sharp-edged, half-believer, half-animal, eyes haunted by glimpses of past incarnations and futures that never arrive. Revan's vision rallies their order to a capital on Tython, alliances with Jedi as brittle as obsidian, opposition from Sith Remnants and Veiled Covenant sorcerers who'd burn the galaxy to keep the old darkness alive. Even their friends are temporary: underworld relic hunters, the occasional Force-sensitive criminal who trades faith for a chance at redemption. Balance, to the Je'daii, is a war fought every sunrise. Lean too far toward Ashla, and the Order risks becoming just another pack of zealots: justice burning whole worlds to purify the few. Tip the scales toward Bogan, and darkness slips in under every council debate and ritual offering, corrupting the line between keeper and conqueror. If you survive, you carry the scars: some visible, others deep, all reminders that faith isn't comfort, only proof you're not dead yet. And for the rest of us? The ones who haunt the edges, sipping lum in the hope the ghosts will quiet? The Je'daii's legacy is a warning: don't tempt balance unless you're ready to pay. Stay out of their way, or become another whisper on the molten wind, another name scratched into the archive, erased as soon as the next ritual begins. In the end, Mustafar always takes what it's owed: ashes, stories, the names of fools who thought they could balance a world forever on the edge of ruin.
The lum burns low, its amber glow dimming like a fading chant, casting long shadows that twist across the scarred counter. The glass grows slick with condensation, mirroring the sweat beading on my brow, and for a moment, the bar's hum drowns out everything else: the distant freighter rumbles fading into the ozone-thick air. But something shifts in the haze, a prickle at the back of my neck like a scope lining up cold. Sirens creep in from Krr'vath-Nor's streets, low and insistent, like patrols sweeping the rims for loose ends. The fan blades above spin their lazy grind, scattering dust that settles in my drink, and I sense him before I see him: a shadow detaching from the corner, step too measured for a regular drowning his night. He slides onto the stool two down from mine, coat tattered at the edges like it's seen too many rim-world dust-ups, his eyes hollow under the red haze, carved deep with the same burnout I feel in my bones. Another professional like me, chasing gigs through the underbelly, his lean frame coiled but weary, fingers drumming the counter with that telltale rhythm of a pro weighing his draw.
The barkeep glances up, rag pausing mid-wipe, but the hooded figure waves him off with a curt nod, signaling for a lum instead. The glass hits the counter with a clink that echoes like a wire snapping taut, and our eyes lock: hollow mirrors reflecting the same. "Zyn Theruun," he says, voice gravel-rough, like too many nights breathing recycled air. I don't flinch, just grip my glass tighter, the cool duraplast biting my palm as the hum swells in my temples. "Nyxor Kallith. Working tonight?" He takes his lum, sipping slow, the amber catching the haze in a scarlet flicker. "Contracts. You know how it goes." The words hang between us, thick as the dust settling in our drinks. I nod, the ache in my chest sharpening like a back strain from a long hide. "Yeah. Ever wonder if all the souls taken add up against fate's embrace?" Nyxor sets his glass down careful, the clink ringing hollow, his hand hovering near his coat like he's measuring the pull. "Nothing adds up in this mess. One drink for the road?" I raise mine, the liquid sloshing slight, and we clink: glass to glass, a ritual toast in the haze, the sound echoing like distant bolt fire. "To the unnoticed," I mutter, the burn sliding down my throat one last time. Nyxor's lips twitch, not quite a smile, his eyes narrowing as the fan hum spikes, blades whirring faster like a heartbeat racing. The sirens grow louder outside, creeping closer, but neither of us glances at the door. The red haze closing in like shadows in a back-alley deal gone sour.
We draw in unison, pivots fluid as a dancer's step, blasters clearing coats in a blur of motion. Bolts crack the air, crossing mid-haze like fates intertwined. His shot finds my throat, plasma burning through with a searing hiss, cauterizing flesh in a charred puncture that seals the wound tight but sends concussive shock rippling down my spine. The burn tangs copper-sharp, heat vaporizing my senses in a wet sizzle. My bolt punches his chest clean through, vaporizing his heart with a muffled pop, ribs cracking wet under the impact as the plasma chars a fist-sized hole, smoke curling from the burn. Nyxor staggers, eyes glazing mid-blink, his body collapsing like a rag doll: limbs folding limp, thudding to the floor in a heap of tattered coat and spent steel. The barkeep ducks behind the counter, but I don't see it; my knees buckle, the bar rushing up as I slump over it, blood's copper burn flooding my mouth, the haze narrowing to a tunnel of leaking neon and darkness. The hum drones on, indifferent, a mechanical dirge, the galaxy spins on, sirens wailing distant as the holo-ad's red haze flickers out.