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Fox lies beside Riyo with one arm across her waist and a battlefield open above the nightstand.
The hologram turns their bedroom blue.
Lola Sayu hangs in the air like a diseased heart, all volcanic stone, molten rivers, and a fortress constructed by someone who looked at ordinary prisons and decided they lacked sufficient hatred.
Riyo studies the Citadel’s towers while Fox studies the tactical overlays reflected across the ceiling.
“You’re supposed to be sleeping,” she says.
“I am in bed.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“It’s close.”
“It isn’t remotely close.”
Fox shifts against the pillows. The movement pulls at the healing skin across his ribs, and his mouth tightens before he can hide it.
Riyo notices.
She always notices now.
The latest electrical burns cross his back and sides in branching lines, fresh red fading toward bruised violet beneath the older scars. Scalper has sealed the worst of them, but his skin remains tender enough that Riyo has to be careful where she rests her hand.
Palpatine had wanted a Jedi-led mission.
Fox had refused.
The Chancellor wanted a spectacle, something heroic enough for the Senate feeds. A team of famous Jedi attacking an impossible fortress while clone troopers died around them would make excellent propaganda.
Fox had read the complete Citadel dossier and shut the proposal down before the Chancellor finished describing it.
Then Palpatine had summoned him privately.
Riyo knows what happened afterward.
Fox no longer lies to her about the burns.
He simply avoids discussing them.
She reaches up and traces one of the golden lines across his cheek instead. The Pantoran marriage markings have healed cleanly, sweeping over his face in precise arches that mirror her own. Against his warm brown skin, the gold catches the light of the Citadel hologram.
Riyo had worried the damaged tissue beneath one arch might reject the pigment.
It didn’t.
The markings belong there now.
She prays she’ll see them again after this mission.
The thought feels dangerous enough that she immediately pushes it beneath a quieter one.
Fox isn’t entering the Citadel.
He will be aboard the Sentinel, coordinating the operation and waiting to extract the team.
That should make this easier.
It doesn’t.
“Who is going?” she asks.
Fox is silent for several seconds.
Riyo turns her head on the pillow. “You already told me the mission is classified.”
“It is.”
“I’m your wife.”
“That doesn’t grant military clearance.”
“I’m also a senator with military clearance.”
“Not this much.”
She raises an eyebrow.
Fox’s gold eyes flick toward her.
“Phantom Squad,” he says.
Riyo’s stomach drops.
“All five?”
“Yes.”
Mugs. Rhys. Jek. Quill. Splice.
The five most dangerous members of Guard SpecOps.
The five sweetest ARCs Riyo has ever met.
Mugs once spent half an hour repairing the clasp on one of her ceremonial necklaces because Riyo mentioned that it belonged to her grandmother. Rhys carries enough heavy weaponry to turn a transport into vapor, but cries whenever massiff pups fall asleep on him. Jek tried to make her traditional Pantoran honey cakes and accidentally created something classified by Hound as an incendiary device.
Quill keeps sweets in her medical bag for frightened children.
Splice speaks so quietly that Riyo once spent an entire dinner believing he hadn’t said a word, only to discover later that he had been making dry comments under his breath until Fox nearly choked.
Off duty, they are warm, funny, and capable of arguing for hours about card games.
In armor, they become ghosts.
Black and red. No bright Guard markings. No visible lights. No names transmitted over open comms.
“They’re your best,” Riyo says.
“Yes.”
“That’s why you’re sending them.”
“Yes.”
Fox says it without hesitation.
He doesn’t sound cold. Riyo knows him too well to mistake control for indifference.
He is sending them because they are the most likely to survive.
He also knows that likelihood isn’t certainty.
Riyo looks back at the fortress.
“The Senate wanted Jedi.”
“The Citadel was designed to kill Jedi.”
“They argued that Jedi were necessary because Master Piell is the prisoner.”
“They argued that Jedi would make the rescue politically useful.”
Fox reaches past her and rotates the hologram. Defensive grids appear around the prison in layered red fields.
“Standard infiltration routes are monitored. The landing platforms are trapped. The walls contain life-form scanners, pressure sensors, automated turrets, and magnetic fields calibrated to detect lightsabers.”
Riyo watches the overlays multiply.
“It was built for this.”
“It was built to make rescue impossible.”
“And you think five Guardsmen can do what a Jedi team can’t?”
“I think five ARCs trained to operate without recognition, reinforcement, or rescue have a better chance than twelve famous generals arriving with a fleet.”
There is no arrogance in his voice.
Only assessment.
Fox touches the controls again. A narrow route appears through the fortress’s lower infrastructure.
“Pre-Rusaan special infiltration doctrine,” he says. “Small unit. Independent command. Minimal signature. No unnecessary personnel.”
“Your S.E.A.L.s.”
His mouth shifts faintly.
Riyo had heard the term in one of his historical lectures, an old designation from before the Republic military was dismantled. Sea, air, land. Warriors trained to enter through whatever environment an enemy considered impossible.
Fox had rebuilt the concept with the Guard.
The Senate thinks the Coruscant Guard consists of escorts, prison officers, and riot squads.
The Separatists know better.
“Does Ghost know you chose Mugs’s squad?” Riyo asks.
“She recommended them.”
“That doesn’t mean she likes it.”
“No.”
“Does Thorn?”
“He objected for nineteen minutes.”
“Only nineteen?”
“I threatened to make him attend the Senate strategy committee in my place.”
Riyo smiles despite herself.
“That’s cruel.”
“It was effective.”
The smile fades as she studies his face.
“You want to go with them.”
Fox doesn’t answer.
He doesn’t need to.
The Citadel is exactly the kind of mission he was trained for. ARC infiltration, hostile extraction, impossible odds. Every part of him built before the Guard existed must be demanding that he put on his armor and descend with the squad.
Instead, he will remain aboard the Sentinel.
Because he is still healing.
Because the mission needs a commander with the authority to override every fleet between Lola Sayu and Coruscant.
Because Umbara is waiting.
“You’re leaving for the Shadow Planet as soon as Master Piell is recovered,” Riyo says.
“If he has the coordinates.”
“The nexus route.”
“Yes.”
Umbara has become the latest critical battlefield, a planet hidden beneath darkness and storms. Republic forces need the nexus coordinates inside Piell’s head before the campaign can begin properly.
Fox will extract Phantom Squad, secure Piell’s intelligence, and redirect the Sentinel toward another war.
He might not return to Coruscant between them.
“How long?” Riyo asks.
“For the Citadel?”
“For all of it.”
“I don’t know.”
Riyo hates that answer because she trusts it.
Fox doesn’t offer false promises. He won’t tell her he will be home in a week when a battle may trap him for months.
She moves closer and rests her forehead against his.
His hand slides up her back.
“You’re afraid,” he says.
“So are you.”
Fox’s silence confirms it.
Riyo touches the gold arch over his brow.
“My mother says fear before departure is the Moon Goddess reminding us that love has weight.”
“That sounds inconvenient.”
“Most religion is inconvenient.”
“I thought religion was supposed to provide comfort.”
“It also provides guilt, fasting, family arguments, and very long ceremonies.”
Fox’s eyes soften.
Riyo continues, “The comfort comes from knowing someone hears you when there’s nothing else you can do.”
Fox’s thumb moves slowly against her spine.
“Will you pray?”
“Yes.”
“For me?”
“For you. For Phantom Squad. For Master Piell.”
Fox looks toward the Citadel hologram.
“Pray for Quill twice.”
“Why?”
“She’ll be responsible for keeping the others functional.”
“That bad?”
“Mugs and Rhys started a fight during their last medical assessment because Jek claimed heavy weapons compensates for poor aim.”
Riyo closes her eyes.
“What did Splice do?”
“Recorded it.”
“And Quill?”
“Stitched Mugs afterward.”
There they are again.
Not ghosts.
People.
Fox has spent months proving that those are the same thing.
Riyo runs her fingers through his hair, careful not to pull at the healing tattoo near his temple.
“You need rest before you leave.”
“I need to review the extraction contingencies.”
“You’ve reviewed them.”
“I can review them again.”
“You can close the hologram.”
Fox looks offended.
Riyo reaches across him and shuts it off herself.
The room falls dark except for the city glow beyond the curtains.
“Riyo.”
“You married a politician.”
“I’m aware.”
“We confiscate things when necessary.”
“That explains the Senate budget.”
“Sleep.”
Fox exhales, but he doesn’t reopen the map.
After a moment, his body begins to loosen against hers. The hand on her back grows heavier. His breathing slowly evens out.
Riyo remains awake.
She watches the gold tattoos across his face glimmer faintly beneath Coruscant’s distant lights. Beneath them, the exhaustion and pain are impossible to miss.
She presses her lips against his forehead.
Then she begins the old Pantoran prayer her mother taught her as a child.
Moon Goddess, keeper of travelers beneath the winter sky, watch over those who leave the warmth of home. Guide their steps through darkness. Turn the eyes of death away from them. Return them beneath the light that knows their names.
Fox’s fingers tighten faintly against her.
Riyo keeps praying until he sleeps.