Shryne sprawled in the wroshyr’s cavernous opening, the wind tugging at his clothing, blood trickling from the corners of his mouth, clearly struggling with the revelation he had been granted.

Vader stood over him, his right hand resting on the hilt of the lightsaber, though he had no intention of drawing it from his belt again. One strong gust could topple Shryne to his final resting place.

It is enough to let him die knowing that the order was betrayed by one of its own.

More important, Vader’s bloodlust had been appeased; replaced by self-possession of a sort he had never before experienced. It was as if he had crossed some invisible threshold to a new world. He could feel the power of the dark side surging through him like an icy torrent. He felt invulnerable in a way that had nothing to do with his durasteel prostheses, his suit of armor and gadgets, which now seemed little more than an outfit. And it had taken a Jedi—yet another Jedi—to usher him over that threshold.

He gazed down at Shryne, emblematic of the defeated Jedi order, as Obi-Wan should have been. He recalled the way Dooku had gazed down at him on Geonosis, and the way Anakin had gazed down at Dooku in the General’s quarters aboard the Invisible Hand.

Someday he would gaze down at Sidious in the same way.

After he took an apprentice, perhaps. Someone with the same rebellious spirit that Shryne demonstrated.

Shryne coughed weakly. “What are you waiting for, Skywalker? Strike me down. You’re only killing a Jedi.”

Vader planted his fists on his hips. “Then you do accept the truth.”

“I accept that you and Palpatine are a perfect match—” Shryne began, when without warning an immense explosion turned a small region of the western sky bright as day. Eclipsing stars, a roiling ball of fire blossomed high over Kashyyyk, expanding and expanding until the vacuum of space suffocated it.

When Vader looked at Shryne again, the Jedi appeared to be grinning.

“Would that be one of your ships? Your Interdictor cruiser, maybe?” He coughed blood and a laugh. “They’ve escaped you again, haven’t they?”

“If so, they will be found, and killed.”

Shryne’s expression suddenly changed, from smug to almost rapturous.

“I’ve seen this,” he uttered, mostly to himself. “I envisioned this …”

Vader pressed closer to hear him. “Your death, you mean.”

“An explosion bright as a star,” Shryne said. “A forest world, intrepid defenders, escaping ships, and … you, I think, somehow at the center of it all.” His bloodstained lips formed themselves into a sublime smile, and a tear ran from his right eye. “Skywalker, it won’t matter if you find them. It won’t matter if you find and kill every Jedi who survived Order Sixty-Six. I understand now … the Force will never die.”

Vader was still gazing down at Shryne’s inert body when several stormtroopers emerged from one of the Wookiees’ ingenious turbolifts and hurried over to him.

“Lord Vader,” the officer among them said. “The Interdictor positioned over Kachirho has been destroyed. As a result, hundreds of evacuation ships succeeded in jumping to hyperspace.”

Vader nodded. “Inform the group commanders that they are to continue their orbital bombardment,” he said angrily. “I want every Wookiee flushed out of hiding, even if that means burning these forests to the ground!”