Sap's resinous warmth washed over me, moss and loam drowning whatever had come before. I blinked, and I stood beneath a wroshyr tree, its bark rough and warm under my scarred palms, Kashyyyk's canopy weaving emerald light through leaves that rustled like whispered prayers. Sera's laughter rang sharp and bright.
I was home.
She was barely five, dark curls bouncing as she gripped a training saber, its green blade humming softly, casting flickers across the roots. Juno's eyes in a child's face, fierce but unsteady, her stance too eager, too wide. I knelt, my gaunt frame creaking, bones heavy with years I'd tried to drown, and adjusted her small fingers on the hilt.
"Feet apart, little star."
My voice came rough but gentle, Starkiller's growl buried somewhere I couldn't reach.
"Feel the Force, not just your hand on the hilt."
She pouted. Then a grin split her face and she swung in a wild arc that would've clipped my ear if I hadn't leaned back.
"Like this, Papa?"
I chuckled, a sound I'd thought I'd lost. My chest warmed despite a faint burn beneath my ribs that didn't belong here.
"Close. Watch me."
I rose and ignited one white-blue saber, then flowed through Juyo slow for her, the blade cutting through the resin-sweet air. Sera mimicked me, her training saber wobbling, earnest and fearless. A kath hound roared somewhere in the canopy. Too sharp. More like a crack than a beast's growl. My fingers twitched. A chill threaded through the warmth for a single breath, then the leaves settled, the sap returned, and Sera giggled again. PROXY stepped to the clearing's edge, his silver frame catching the dappled light, his photoreceptors glowing blue with that insufferable smugness.
"Your progeny's form is… promising, Master. Shall I elevate the challenge?"
Sera hopped, her training saber bouncing.
"Yes! Make a Jedi, PROXY!"
The droid's projectors flickered. Obi-Wan Kenobi shimmered into being, blue-tinted, his saber raised in Soresu's patient guard.
"Hello there, young one."
PROXY's mimicry came warm and precise.
"Test your skill."
Sera squealed and lunged, her green blade clashing against the projection's, sparks dancing across the roots. I watched, pride swelling so thick it ached, but the ache tightened, something hot in my chest that didn't match the sunlight. Her blade flickered. Red for half a heartbeat. Then green again.
The light shifted, and I stood by the Rogue Shadow, its scorched hull a relic of rebellions and running. Juno knelt on the ramp, her tan coat clean, her hands deft as she guided Sera through a holo-projector's open wiring. Sera poked at it, tongue out, focused, the projector sputtering to life under her small fingers.
"Almost, little star, but it's this relay."
Juno's voice warm enough to melt durasteel.
"Too much power, and the whole ship fries. It needs to be gentle, like you're holding a Pix."
Sera nodded, twisting a wire. The projector flickered. A shaky Death Star bloomed above her palm, rotating, imperfect.
"Like Papa's lightning?"
Juno laughed and ruffled her curls.
"Sort of, less chaotic, I hope."
I leaned against a trunk, arms crossed, love cutting deeper than any saber I'd ever held. Juno's smile was sunlight itself. But as I watched, a stain crept across her coat. Dark. Spreading from the center of her chest like a bloom of something I wouldn't name. My hands trembled. A taste rose in my throat, copper and heat, not sap, not Kashyyyk. The projector's Death Star image fractured, its light stuttering, and for one instant it sounded like a voice shouting through static.
Juno's eyes locked with mine.
"Galen, come grab that hydrospanner and help."
"I'm here."
I knelt beside them, my chest a furnace I still couldn't explain. Juno's touch was warm on my arm, fleeting, and the stain on her coat vanished when I blinked. The sap in the air thickened as I closed my eyes to breathe in relief.
We sat beneath the canopy, legs crossed, hands on knees. The Force wove us together, the three of us, a meditation I'd taught Sera and Juno had made her own. Sera's joy burned through me like a star, bright and uncontainable. Juno's calm anchored me, her presence a steadiness I'd die for. My own power, raw and broken, bound us, the light side singing through Kashyyyk's living breath.
"Breathe, Sera."
My words slow, deliberate.
"Feel us, not just you."
Her eyes closed.
"I feel… nothing."
Juno's lips curved.
"Focus on the silence."
"There's… a warmth."
"That's it. Know your family is always here with us."
The Force surged, but something cracked beneath it. Static, sharp, like a comm channel tearing open, and Sera's warmth flickered for a heartbeat, then steadied. Something wet and heavy settled in my lungs. I pushed it down. Held the moment. Held them.
The light changed again. Softer. I carved a wroshyr charm, the wood smooth under my knife, etched with a Wookiee rune for protection. Sera perched on a root beside me, training saber at her hip, watching my hands with those fierce dark eyes. I handed her the charm.
"For you, my Star."
Her smile was every sunrise I'd ever missed.
"Thanks, Papa!"
She tied the charm to her belt and skipped toward Juno. The knife slipped. Blood welled from my palm, hot, too real, and my chest screamed louder, ribs grinding against something I couldn't see. The trees shuddered. The golden light bled wrong, a color that strobed, harsh and artificial, through the canopy. Juno's voice broke apart, distant, a plea.
"Stay with us, Galen."
I reached for Sera. Her fingers found mine. A warm embrace. Then cold. Cold as metal. Her giggle thinned into something that wasn't laughter anymore, a whine, mechanical, and rising.
"I'm here!"
My voice barely there. Her hand slipped through. Juno's touch was gone. The wroshyr's bark turned to something flat and hard beneath my palms. The sap became copper. The canopy shattered, towers and spires and screaming light tearing through the peaceful green foliage, and I was nowhere, drowning in noise, in heat, in a pain that took everything, my chest a ruin, the Force fractured, I gasp awake, and the world is screaming by in a blur.
Wind tears past. My chest burning with a cold fire stitching itself shut beneath something wet and blue. Vren's swoop bike rattles my bones, the throttle's growl a beast beneath us, and his face swims into focus, a haze of skylane glare and speed. He's shouting something I can't hear over the skylanes' roar. The blue gel on my chest stings like acid, almost alien as I watch it stich my flesh back to anew before my eyes. Shepard's gift before he disappeared, and I'm alive because of it, ribs grinding but lungs filling with air where blood and death should have been.
The skyline, skylanes alive with airspeeders and Hutt freighters, the Spire a distant lance of durasteel punching through the smog.
My hand drops to my belt.
Nothing.
My sabers are gone. Left on the penthouse floor when Fett's vibroblade bit my chest, when his boot sent me through transparisteel and the city swallowed me whole. Rage ignites, a furnace in my gut, hotter than seventeen years of rotgut ever burned.
I draw Juno's WESTAR-34 from its back holster, the silver grip fitting my hand, steady as her voice had once been. Her gun. My dead wife come to take her own revenge.
"Fall in, follow my lead."
I grip Vren's shoulder. My voice a snarl torn from somewhere deeper than thought. He nods, sharp, his DC-15x slung across his back, two lightdaggers glinting at his belt. Zevra and Sylis ride the second bike flanking us, Zevra's lekku twitching beneath her hood, Sylis's lean frame coiled, rifle and daggers ready. My Shades. My blade and my burden. Eight Pyke swoop bikes dart in from the skylane's edge, vibroblades sparking, comms crackling with tactics.
"Eliminate the Starkiller!"
A rider barks the order. His helmet catches the passing lights, his eyes bloodshot under the visor.
I aim. The Force gathers in my hand, steadying, sharpening. Time slows. His sweat streaks his face, his blaster bolt sizzling past my ear, red plasma glowing. The WESTAR barks, the bolt searing his forehead, flesh sizzling, cauterized, his bike spiraling into a freighter's hull, sparks raining down. Time snaps back as I shift and fire again, the next bolt punching through a second rider's throat, his swoop pitching into the dark. Vren banked hard, dodging another Pyke's blaster, bolts grazing our bike, metal screeching, the skylane's flow disrupted as airspeeders swerved. Another Pyke dives in, blaster spitting red.
I'm done riding passenger.
"Close the gap!"
I stand, boots gripping the bike's frame, wind tearing my shroud. Vren swerves, giving me the angle, and I leap, Force Push launching me across the gap. The Pyke's blaster bolt streaks past, his head tipped back under the passing lights. The WESTAR barks again and takes him under the chin and punches up through the helmet, flesh smoking, his eyes frozen wide. His body lolling, lifeless. My boot drives him free and I land hard onto the seat mounting his bike, the throttle slick under my grip.
"Form up!"
My voice tears across the wind, and the Shades obey, bikes surging into a wedge. Vren on my left. Zevra and Sylis on my right. Vren unslings his DC-15x and a red bolt cracks through a Pyke's chest, the rider slumping, bike crashing through a billboard in a shower of sparks. Zevra's lightdagger ignites and flies forward, a silver arc that takes a rider's arm off at the shoulder, his bike pitching out from under him, the body tumbling into the abyss below. Sylis's blade flashes, carving through a Pyke's engine, his scream torn away by the skylanes' thunder as he plummeted. The last two break formation, desperate. Zevra's second throw catches one through the spine. Sylis rushes the other, his blade splitting the rider open hip to ribs before the bike can bank.
The skylanes quiet. The Spire grows closer. I slam the throttle into the Spire's airspace and more Pykes swarm in, a full-frontal assault, swoop bikes and airspeeders, scattered and furious. The WESTAR barks twice more, one bolt splitting a rider's skull, the next blowing a knee apart leaving the Pyke folding over his own handlebars. Lightning arcs from my free hand and sends another crashing into a pleasure yacht's hull, his armor smoking. The Shades carve through the rest, lightdaggers and rifles, a precision the Pykes could never match. Through the penthouse's shattered transparisteel, I see him. Fett. Beskar glinting. Visor locked on the chaos taking place in the sky. My heart hammers.
I throttled up, the bike soaring above the penthouse, neon and smog blurring below, Nar Shaddaa's lawless skylanes a maze of airspeeders and freighters, repulsors keeping them aloft. I rise on the bike, one foot on the seat, then leap into a backflip in the air. The Force roars through me, reaching down through durasteel and glass, and calling for my sabers to answer.
They answered.
Two hilts tear up through the penthouse roof to meet me, twin fractures racing across the durasteel, the sound of the world splitting open. I hang at the top of the arc. The Force gathers, dense and shaking, every pound of it drawn into my chest.
Then I let go.
The Repulse blasts outward, massive and unbound, and the roof gives all at once. Durasteel buckles inward. Glass blows apart. The whole crown of the Spire caves down in a cataclysmic roar, debris burying the Pykes below, their screams gone under the avalanche. Crates rupture in the fall, glitterstim vials bursting in clouds of cobalt dust, death-stick ampoules weeping red across the rubble, the whole ruin choking on a fog of spilled spice.
My sabers snap to my hands. White-blue plasma ignites in a reverse grip, crackling, unstable as the storm in my chest.
I land. One knee down. One hand braced. Sabers angled behind me, their song filling the silence.
The penthouse is a slaughterhouse. Crates shattered. Wires sparking and dying. The air chokes with ryll's bitter burn and the sharper stench of burned flesh. Pyke bodies sprawl across the wreckage, some charred from the collapse, others still clawing desperate for life. I rise to my feet. A Pyke lunges and I catch him with the Force, slamming him spine-first into a support strut hard enough to fold him backward. Another swings and I shear both legs out from under him, the cauterized stumps smoking as he pitches into the rubble. Three more fire from behind a wrecked holo-table being used as cover, and the Force hurls them back into the durasteel wall. Bones crack against the metal, and my sabers burn through their hearts before they can react, their eyes guttering out like snuffed stars.
Then he rises from the filth.
Fett. Dusting off his beskar. Cybernetics whirring, servos grinding, his frame a horror of implants and scarred armor, more machine than the man who murdered my family. Red eyes glow behind a pitted visor.
"You just don't know when to die, Starkiller."
Venom drips from every syllable.
"Guess this time I'll have to make it stick."
I say nothing. Rage boils, white and total, but beneath it, threading through me like sunlight through wroshyr leaves, Juno's voice. Soft. Steady. "You're stronger than rage, Galen." The warmth floods my chest, not the wound's fire but something older, something that smells like sap and sounds like Sera's laugh. My grip steadies. The sabers' symphony deepens. The rage doesn't leave. It sharpens its focus. And for the first time in seventeen years, it has a center.
Fett's jetpack flares and his missile is already loose, the whipcord uncoiling out of the same motion. I drag the rocket wide with the Force, but the cord finds my forearm before the shrapnel has finished scattering, monofilament burning through my sleeve and hauling me a step into the knee-darts. I sever the cord through brute force. The darts skate off a push I throw without aiming, needles sparking away into the dark behind me. He never lets me set my feet, inside my guard already. The vibroblade opens my thigh while I am still turning out of the burn, and the lightning I answer with comes late, bolts catching beskar more from instinct than aim. Blood runs hot to my boot. I stop trying to land a clean hit and start trying to stay alive, reading servo-whine and jet-wash and the lean of his weight, breathing through the steadiness Juno left me, giving up nothing I can keep. Then the flamethrower roars over everything and I give ground, because the napalm has no other answer.
I hurl one saber. The Force guides its spin, plasma edge striking his fuel canister square. Metal meets plasma. The canister ignites, consuming his arm in a blaze. His jetpack throws him to the ground and crashes him into the debris below, durasteel and shattered vials crunching beneath his weight.
I call the saber back. It snaps to my hand, crackling on return. I advance. Fett lunges, blade thrusting, implants grinding, but I parry, both blades scoring his armor, sparks flying as his servos fail one by one. His helmet tumbles free, revealing the ruin beneath, cybernetic scars webbing what's left of skin, optics flickering, barely human. The vibroblade clatters into the rubble. His Beskar now breached. He is nothing now. A husk of the man who took everything from me.
I extinguish my sabers. The Force carries them to my belt as I raise both hands, slow, and take his throat, lifting him until his boots clear the rubble.
His eyes go wide. Terror flashing through dying optics, the hunter who murdered my wife and daughter reduced to prey in the air.
The dark side pull comes. Vader's voice. Make it last. Let him feel every second, the way he made me feel seventeen years of them. My fingers tremble with how badly I want it.
I refuse.
The rage stays coiled, white and total. But the peace stays with it, Juno's warmth wound through the fury, and for one impossible breath I hold both at once. Calm and wrath in the same heartbeat. My eyes blaze with white-blue light, and the Force answers like it has waited my whole life for me to stop choosing between halves of myself.
I close both hands, fingers interlocking, into a single fist. Every ounce of will behind them.
His skull implodes in a spray of grey matter and sparking cybernetics, what's left of his beskar crumpling, his body thudding to the floor.
I lower my hands. The penthouse holds its breath.
"For them."
Juno and Sera's faces fade from behind my eyes and with them the white-blue light. Silence falls, heavy with glass dust and the reek of scorched circuitry. The sabers hang at my belt, quiet. My rage is spent, but the balance in me still holds, Juno's warmth wound through the carnage, the first ember of something I don't have a name for yet.
A quivering mumble breaks the quiet. Faint. Broken. Druun, pinned under a durasteel slab, his scar-faced despair wide-eyed, his voice too weak to beg. A red wrist comm blinks at his arm. Pyke backup, closing in fast.
I ignite one saber. Step to him. The white-blue hum is cold.
"Told you I'd be by for a visit."
Plunging the blade through his chest. His body slumps, lifeless.
The comm's beep cuts through. Outside, the Shades' blaster fire echoes, swoop bikes screeching through the Spire's airspace. I draw my second saber, white-blue plasma snarling, stance wide, the Spire's shattered penthouse my kingdom for as long as it takes. Death spat me out again. This time feels different.
The Spire's crown smokes beneath my boots. Wind howls through the shattered transparisteel, carrying the distant crack of lightdaggers and blaster fire, my Shades holding the perimeter. Fett's corpse cools behind me. Druun's beside it. Pyke airspeeders circle the Spire's mid-tier, their blasters flashing but not daring to close the distance. Vren's DC-15x cracks from a lower floor, precise, and a bike spirals into the smog trailing fire. Zevra's lightdagger arcs through the night somewhere to my left, a silver streak that ends in a scream. Sylis holds the stairwell, his rifle's bark steady as a heartbeat.
I stand at the Spire's broken edge, shroud torn, chest still burning beneath Shepard's blue gel, blood on my hands that belongs to people who deserved it. The city stretches below me, neon and filth, uncaring. Somewhere down in its guts, more Pykes are coming. My hands tighten on my sabers. Let them come.
I hold my Strato-Hauler 66's thrusters at full throttle, the wannabe skycar's engines snarling like a cornered varren as I tear through the Refugee Sector's skylanes. Nar Shaddaa's skyline burns crimson and biotic blue, a bruise across the night, the casino district's glitz a fading smear in my rear viewport. The two guards' chatter from the Twin Falls Palace still rattles in my skull. Some firefight tearing up the Black Nebula Spire. Worth a look. My N7 armor's kinetic barriers prime up, the M-3 Predator pistol heavy in the seat next to me. Months in this galaxy haven't dulled my Spectre edge, and my gut screams the fight is far from over.
As I approach, smoke coils from the Spire's crown, a firefight's glow stuttering through shattered transparisteel. Blaster bolts streak, red and white-hot. Hovercycles screech through the murk. Skycars roar. A war zone tearing itself apart. Pykes swarm, a horde of blades and blasters, their comms crackling with frantic curses, but figures in cloaked robes hold the line. I squint through the HUD, my visor cutting through the billboard glare. Those aren't Pyke thugs. Too disciplined. Too lethal. At the center, a lone figure spins, dual plasma blades crackling white-blue, carving Pykes like a thresher through chaff. Galen Marek. Alive, and raising hell.
I snap the Predator to life, thermal clips locked, and bank the Strato-Hauler into the chaos, the skycar's boxy frame groaning under the turn. A Pyke hovercycle dives, blaster spitting red bolts. I lean out the side and fire. The shot punches his forehead. His bike spirals into a Hutt billboard, Twi'lek dancers flickering in a shower of debris. Another Pyke swings in on his hovercycle, blade catching the light. I unleash a warp, the energy surge ripping its chassis apart like a reaper's armor buckling under a Cain blast. The wreck crashes into a skylane freighter, drive whining, and I weave through the debris, the Strato-Hauler's overtaxed thrusters shaking the hull.
The robed fighters glance my way as my ride comes starboard up to their hovercycle, wary as krogan in a blood rage. One, face half-hidden under his cowl, flashes a lightdagger, its edge bright and ready to gut me if I twitch wrong. I don't take it personal. An alien in sleek armor dropping into their fight isn't exactly a Nar Shaddaa welcome mat. But when I ram another Pyke with my ride, his eyes narrowing through the fumes as we watch the Pyke get obliterated by the oncoming skytraffic.
I aim the Strato-Hauler at the penthouse wreck, its metal skeleton gaping like a gutted frigate, glass shards and dust from debris clouding the air. The thrusters groan as I land hard, skidding through rubble, shattered holo-tables flashing, ryll powder stinging my lungs, death stick vials crunching under my boots. Galen stands at the center, dual sabers blazing white-blue, slashing through Pyke reinforcements. His eyes flick to me in shock. A subtle relief in the way his shoulders ease. He doesn't miss a beat. A saber lops a Pyke's arm off at the elbow, and the backstroke opens his belly, flesh steaming. I charge in, omni-blade flaring, its edge slashing a Pyke's arm, the cut a hiss of red mist.
"Heard rumors you were dead."
I snap off a shot with my pistol. Another Pyke drops, his chest a wreck.
"Knew they were bullshit."
Galen's lips twitch, dry as a Tuchanka dust storm.
"Half true."
He spins, his sabers deflecting a volley of blaster bolts. A Pyke's torso chars from the bounce back, the acrid stink of scorched flesh flooding the air.
We fight back-to-back, my barrier pulsing, its shield shrugging off a blade's swing like a batarian's cheap shot, his lightning crackling, frying a Pyke's armor into slag. Galen's robed warriors hold the perimeter, their lightdaggers and blaster shots flashing through the murk, but the Pykes keep coming. A relentless swarm flooding the Spire's airspace. Bolts ping off alloy plating. I duck a vibroblade's arc, my omni-blade parrying, severing the Pyke's head, his leftover gurgling lost in the chaos. A low growl cuts through the din, menacing. Two mechs roll from the penthouse's shattered core, their Pyke sigils bright, shields flaring blue, twin blaster cannons spitting red death. The air crackles, bolts chewing rubble, and I curse under my breath. Galen's sabers flare, deflecting a barrage, but the shields hold, cannons roaring. My HUD flashes red, kinetic barriers straining, and I know we're pinned.
"Galen, I'll be your chauffeur for the evening."
I dodge a cannon blast, my barrier flaring.
"…and your scheduled ride is about to leave."
He snorts. Lightning surges from his fists and shorts one mech's shield in a shower of light.
"Ready when you are, Shepard!"
I let another thermal bolt loose, its shot pinging the mech's armor, then unleash a massive warp, the energy surge buckling its frame. Galen's saber slashes the second, plasma melting its cannons into slag, but the Pykes press harder, blasters and blades closing the gap. We sprint for the Strato-Hauler. My omni-blade carves a Pyke's chest as I dodge his pursuit, his armor smoking. Galen's lightning fries another, cooked metal and glitterstim souring every breath.
I dive into the driver's seat, fingers slamming the controls. Galen vaults in beside me, sabers clipped to his belt, his WESTAR blaster drawn. The engines scream as I gun it, the Strato-Hauler lurching into the skyline, its reinforced hull shuddering under blaster fire. Pyke hovercycles and skycars swarm. Bolts streak. One grazes our flank, a burst erupting along the hull. The robed riders' bikes surge in behind us, a wedge of cloaked fury, their lightdaggers flashing as they slash through Pyke stragglers. I weave through a casino's holographic ad, then bank hard, dodging a Hutt freighter's bulk, its drive shaking the air. The Pykes' pursuit falters all of a sudden. Bikes peeling off. Skycars banking away into the cloud. I don't question the breather, just keep the thrusters maxed, the skyline blurring into streaks of scarlet and cold azure.
I bank the Strato-Hauler 66 as we enter the Corellian Sector, its thrusters howling as the city blurs into ribbons of light. Galen leans forward, his breath ragged, his WESTAR-34 back in its holster.
"Skirt the smelter stacks. Third vent shaft on the left, then dive for the dock. Don't overshoot, or we'll miss it."
I nod, fingers tight on the controls. His hidey-hole, tucked away like a Cerberus black site I bet. Months in this galaxy, and I still haven't cracked how guys like Galen keep places like this off the grid, let alone how he finds them. The warehouse looms, a nondescript slab of duracrete scarred by blade gouges and carbon scoring, its facade a lie hiding a shipping container base within. Flickering holo-screens cast ghostly Twi'lek silhouettes across rusted coolant pipes, their leaks hissing, the air thick with coolant fumes and the sour smell of spilled ryll. Smuggled crates, some glowing faintly with kyber's hum, line the perimeter, half-covered by tarps marked with Hutt sigils. A concealed container door, camouflaged as a rusted panel, catches the screens' glow, its edges worn but unyielding. Galen raises his wrist, a coded holo-pulse flashing, three short bursts, one long, and one of his robed men steps from the shadows, heavy blaster rifle slung, a lightdagger at his belt. His shadowed eyes narrow, scanning me, then soften as Galen nods. The hooded figure lowers his rifle, stepping aside, the door grinding open with a low, mechanical groan.
I ease the Strato-Hauler inside, the drive hissing as I set it down on a metal platform. The container base unfolds. A labyrinth of stacked crates, blade racks, and holo-maps flickering with patrol routes from all over. Blaster scorch marks scar the walls, relics of past raids, and the faint charge of kyber vibrates through the humid air, prickling my skin like an overcharged eezo core. Two hovercycles roar in behind us, their engines kicking up dust. The solo rider dismounts first, his rifle slung across his back as he scans the warehouse, his face grim under his hood. Two other riders, paired on the second bike, move in sync. One sheathes her small glowstick with a flourish, her hood dipping with the motion. The other slings a rifle with practiced ease. They form up around us in the skycar, a tight wedge of shrouded menace, weapons at their hips, their silence louder than the city's chaos outside. The door seals with a thud, muffling the electric wail beyond, leaving only the warehouse's hum and the crackle of a distant holo-screen.
I lean back in the driver's seat, my hand shaking slightly, the Predator still hot from the Spire's firefight. Galen climbs out, his boots crunching on the platform, his face etched with exhaustion but a flicker of relief in his eyes. He turns, one hand on his saber hilt, the other brushing ash from his shroud, his smirk dry as a smuggler's lie.
"Where the kriff have you been, Shepard?"
His voice carries the weight of my disappearance.
"Revan and his Ren reject think you're stuck on some ancient rock halfway across the galaxy."
I grin and crack my neck.
"One hell of a tale for later. Let's just say I've been dodging all sorts of lovely folks looking to kill me while you played syndicate boss. Who the hell are all these people who follow you now?"
His laugh comes out half-growl. His eyes soften for a split second before hardening again.
"They are my Shades, Shepard, and I, their Shadow."
His followers shift, their formation tightening around him.
"A lot has happened since that Rakata teleporter grabbed you. Let's head to the Rogue and I'll let the Herald tell you himself."
Galen dismisses his Shades with a passing wave.
"Herald?"